The Blu-ray Disc Assocation (BDA) has declared itself the winner of the HD wars, for some reason. Probably something to do with selling one million PS3's, although maybe they haven't read the general online consensus of the PS3 yet. No one wants one, and everyone who already has one isn't talking about it because of sheer embarrassment for having blown $600 (or more on eBay) on a system with no good games. Maybe they should try reading some online forums as well and see how negative the Blu-ray talk is. I hope both formats fail, but realistically there is no way for anyone to declare victory at this point.

Digital Trends presents this article, in which they declare HD-DVD the clear winner of the next gen battle. Even with far fewer studios currently supporting them, HD-DVD still has considerably more releases (see here) and is much more affordable. Digital Trends' original prediction was Blu-ray would win, partially because of what the PS3 would do for it. That was before both the price of the PS3, and the delays, were announced. Given the current circumstances of the PS3, e.g., it's a complete joke of a system that no one wants, it's understandable how things have changed.

October 3rd 2006 is Day Against DRM, a world wide public advocacy event meant to raise awareness of DRM. DefectiveByDesign.org is a campaign of the Free Software Foundation.

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When Sony announced the PS3 specs and prices a few months back, enough bricks were shit to build a house. After the dust settled, fingers stopped being pointed, and laughter was no longer travelling in Sony's general direction (although you can still hear it if you listen hard enough), there was one real sore spot that stood out: the "cheap" PS3 was not going to have an HDMI port. Yes, even though Sony loves bragging about how its PS3 is going to be 1080p for games AND movies, while the X360 is only 1080i, they forgot to mention that 20% of the units shipped would fail to have a connection that supported 1080p.

And now, in a shocking and dramatic movie, Sony has listened to the complaints and has decided to include HDMI on the "cheap" PS3. Of course, this doesn't mean that an HDMI cable will be included with the system. That would just be TOO nice!

Warner Bros has filed a patent for a new type of hybrid disc that would work in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD players. This is a simliar concept to the often-rumored but never-confirmed hybrid players from the likes of LG and other manufacturers, that would play both Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs.

Considering the current situation of the HD movie market, this may be considered "neat" and/or "cool" by some HD fanatics. But remember that the studios have dug this hole themselves, and I'm finding it very humorous to watch them scramble to get out of it. If they had been patient and reasonable (can you imagine? ha!), only one format would exist, and it would probably be selling a lot better than the dismal pathetic failures that we know as Blu-ray and HD-DVD. While I obviously advocate that you join me in giving the studios the finger, I won't deny that the HD movie market would be a LOT more tempting if there wasn't a 50% chance that you were throwing your money right down the toilet.

When was the last time you read something positive about Sony?

Thanks to severe shortages of the blue laser diodes needed for Blu-ray goodness, they have reduced their initial shipments of the PS3 from 2 million to 500K. Not that anyone was planning on buying one... BUT STILL!

Europe gets the finger as usual, they won't see the PS3 until sometime in 2007. That's a huge market that big companies seem to see as second class and completely ignore until they get Asia and USofA all stocked up. And when you consider that the cost of items over there is usually 50% higher than US equivalent, it seems like that'd be pure money.

Aeropause.com has posted a spoof interview with a Blu-ray disc. Humor is a great way to raise a lot of good points. :)

Those resourceful Europeans! Engadget writes

Both high definition optical disc formats have already seen their share of setbacks in the form of delays and hardware problems, and now they may be facing some nasty anti-trust allegations pending the results of a recently-launched EU probe. Having already flexed its authoritative muscle against Microsoft, the European Commission has now moved on to investigating the terms that the major backers of Blu-ray and HD DVD are exerting upon their respective licensees. Since the investigation is still "unofficial" at this point, the Commission refused to specify the particular companies being probed, although Sony publicly confirmed that it has received one of the letters in question and that it's cooperating with regulators.

If these same regulators decide that nothing fishy is going on, then the matter will be dropped; but if they're displeased with the responses they get, a full anti-trust probe is likely. Best case scenario: only one of the camps ends up being subjected to further scrutiny, leaving the other as clear-cut victor in the format war and saving us all the hassle of choosing sides.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/macworld/20060728/tc_macworld/eu20060728

A great article with more details about the additional security that Blu-ray employs over AACS. To clear things up, HD-DVD only uses AACS for content protection (AACS is just encryption). Blu-ray takes it to a whole new level, however, with their ROM-Mark and BD+ uber-technology. It's a great read as there has been very little information about these technologies at this point. It's pretty scary stuff, to be honest.

As previously reported, after the initial novelty wore off, Sony's UMD movie format has been a complete and total failure. While studios have been releasing less and less movies in the format, and stores have scaled back inventory, it has taken this long for one store to take a stance against Sony. That's right, Target has dropped UMD movies for good. Will other stores soon follow? I'd bet my bottom dollar on it.

PS: Sorry for the hiatus. Other than the launch of Blu-ray being delayed (along with Sony's official players) there hasn't been much to report. Coupled with the fact that I'm currently in the process of buying a house has resulted in very little free time.

Arguably one of the best features of HD-DVD is the fact that it lacks region encoding (more info at wikipedia). DVD's have had this since introduction, much to the dismay of all foreign film and anime fans. Blu-ray also will have it. But, HD-DVD currently lacks this "feature", leading some to believe that maybe HD-DVD actually "got it", that they understood region encoding does nothing but frustrate movie fans everywhere. Well, nevermind. In a DVD Forum meeting held earlier this week, it was decided to move forward with a region encoding scheme. Obviously this won't happen overnight, but it's yet another reason not to support this technology. With all players capable of being connected to the internet, it can probably be assumed that this will be downloaded to all existing players as a forced update. Thanks, DVD Forum! You're the best!

When it was discovered that Sony was installing a rootkit on its customers computers via certain audio CD's, I had never seen such an explosion of anger and disgust on the internet. There is absolutely no question that Sony did wrong, and that they deserved to pay heavily for it. Many lawsuits were filed, but were eventually combined into one class action lawsuit. A settlement was proposed, and today approved by a judge. Sony's punishment? Replace the infected CD's with either normal ones or via mp3 downloads, and to pay up to $7.50 to each person filing a claim.

WOW! What a punishment. Man, Sony must really be feeling the heat now! I mean, gee, they only completely destroyed thousands of computers and opened up tons of security holes left and right. And now they can offer you free replacements via download and pay you up to $7.50! For a company that pulls in over $60 billion per year, that's really hitting them where it hurts!!

All right, seriously, this is completely unacceptable. The punishment absolutely does not fit the crime. There should be billions of dollars coming out of this company to pay for what they did, and people should be in jail. Instead, they merely get a slap on the wrist and are told not to do it again. If anything, this only encourages other companies to pull this kind of stunt. Way to go everyone. We sure showed them.

I just came across this story on digg. Apparently Sony was holding some conference for something or other, and part of it was a laptop that supposedly had a Blu-ray drive in it, playing a Blu-ray copy of "House of Flying Daggers". This reporter wanted to see his first Blu-ray disc in person, but upon ejecting the disc (without Sony's knowledge of course), he found a burned DVD-R instead! HA. That is the funniest thing ever! No word if it was actually a Blu-ray drive or not, but it certainly makes you question just how well Blu-ray development is going for Sony... especially considering it's supposed to be released to the masses next month. :P

Last night, Sony released much needed details about the PlayStation 3 due later this year. There will be two versions, $499 w/20GB hard drive, and $599 with 60GB. The size of the hard drive is the only detail they mentioned as the difference, but there are many other important differences they chose not to share in their E3 presentation, one of them being huge: No HDMI output!

As has been mentioned, most first generation HD movies (both Blu-ray and HD-DVD) will not be incorporating the Image Constraint Token (ICT), which downsamples HD output to standard DVD quality unless video is being sent over a digital connection such as HDMI, and DVI in some cases. By excluding an HDMI port on the "cheap" version of the PS3, Sony is essentially making that version completely worthless for future generation HD movies since it will have to be connected via component (analog) cables. Now even if you aren't interested in Blu-ray HD movies, there's still another problem. Component is only capable of 1080i output, while HDMI can do full 1080p, the "gold standard" of HD video. So not only will you be royally screwed for movies, but your video games will also be crippled - not nearly as bad as HD movies of course, but still a slap in the face.

I think this is really just a way to set the price of the PS3 at $600, because only a fool would buy the "cheap" $499 version. Just like no one wants the Xbox 360 Core edition, no one will want this either. Besides all that, it makes the 360 sound incredibly cheap! Of course, the 360 doesn't have a next generation optical drive in it. Considering the cheapest Blu-ray drive will be $1000 when it launches later this month, $600 sounds like a good deal, not to mention the fact that your $600 will also be buying you a nice shiny video game console.

Regardless, Sony really dropped the ball on this one. Don't offer two versions of your console, because no one wants the shitty one. If you feel you must sell it at $600, then sell it at $600 instead of screwing your customers over.

CNET has posted an article about the many ways HD-DVD has failed to impress. A good read.