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34 Comments
- deadapostle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8A Chipwich plays both? Man, is there anything ice cream can't do?
- wilf_brim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Good, but this misses the point. The laser pickup for Blu Ray is not compatible with HD-DVD and vice versa. You would need two separate lasers and pickups for each format. Which would be cost prohibitive.
Nope, there will be a format war. I want Sony to lose, but I'm playing Switzerland and waiting for somebody to win. I will not drop several thousand into hardware and software in a format that could be obsolete in 18 months. - EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1luke-- wrote:
>> yeah if you want no drm you want the discs to show up on torrent sites
>> IMMEDIATELY and to hit the streets immediately
Yeah, because copy protected CDs and DVDs have been successful in preventing that from happening. At BEST all DRM does is prevent casual copying of discs shared between friends. The cost for this phyrric victory is annoying the @#$% out of your PAYING customers and encouraging people to pirate because DRM-free pirated versions are actually BETTER than the commercial product.
I don't have a problem with the concept behind DRM if they can find a way to do it without limiting my rights. I want to be able to move my content from place to place and to portable devices--I want to be able to back up my content--I want to be able to sell content I've purchased to somebody else--I don't want content I've purchased to screw up my equipment (Sony, I'm looking at you).
Unfortunately even the most unobtrusive copy protection tends to cause problems for legitimate uses. When I got my first DVD player I hooked it up through my VCR which was using the only connections for my TV and Stereo system. Macrovision encoding on DVDs would ruin my viewing experience despite the fact I wasn't trying to copy anything.
I think if publishers would concentrate on adding value to the buying experience rather than focusing on piracy they would see sales go up. For instance if you purchase music online they should provide you with web access to those files in perpetuity. Let me listen to my files from anywhere like the old MP3.com music locker. Let me send songs and playlists to friends to stream once or twice--maybe they'll end up buying the music too. Provide me with song lyrics and karaoke versions. Provide me with high resolution cover art if I want to burn a CD. Just my two cents worth. - dotwaffle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To be honest, I don't want Blu-ray OR HD-DVD. I want a format that has no DRM on the disc (unlikely) that uses MPEG-4 (as MPEG-2 is just old hat these days) and is a completely open standard that anyone can duplicate.
Yes, I must live in Fairyland. - AttroPheed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Sounds good to me. Hopefully there's not some wacky patent or licensing or something that makes it impractical.
- xLiKx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0cool, let's see how much it'll cost in the actual marketplace
- kolop1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0 It will be better when there is 1 format.
- CowboyBebop, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It certainly would make things easier. It's a miracle we didn't have a format war with DVD- and DVD+. So this would certainly be a welcomed feature to consumers.
- atrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Well, there was no big format war with DVD-R and +R...
Then again, its lasers + stuff were compatible, it was just a matter of decoding...
Hopefully this will end up the same, or similar... - ImmortalSoldier, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I agree with Bebop I thought the same thing was gonna happen. It would be too convenient for anyone to make something like this though.
- sandymac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The compression methods used are the same between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. Other than some copy protection differences, which won't need gobs of CPU power, It's the lasers and physical disc properties that are different. This isn't news worthy.
- buddyfarr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0the company that wanted to develop this great chip just pressed their big red EASY button and poof the chip was there....lol...sorry had to do it...
- ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I still don't understand why Sony always has a huge woody for creating non-standard formats (I guess it helps them sell their crap).
Create a unified format and stop wasting everyone's time and money. - ahmerhussain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I hope this ends up in the nintendo revolution!
- cshepherd76, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0such a good idea...i hope it comes into play soon
digg+ - stylerm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0DVD royalties ~$20 (hence the cost of the XBOX DVD remote)
Blu-Ray and HD-DVD royalties? Probably too much - swaxhog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm still not clear whether these new players require a call home connection to work. I read that somewhere and if it is true there is no way I'll be getting either.
- KevinJ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think sony can shove Blu-ray up their arses b/c I don't like the color Blue!
- notkevin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Isn't it better to just let one format die instead of confusing people with duel formats? I don't care who wins.
- pmsyyz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Go draconian DRM and region codes!
- luke--, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yeah if you want no drm you want the discs to show up on torrent sites IMMEDIATELY and to hit the streets immediately. people make livings off of unpaid for copyrighted content and there's legal precedent to try and prevent that as much as they can instead of basically giving it to them.
- Dabellah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Normal DVDs will be out for years to come. I'll stick with them until there isa definite format that by itself will work the market
- JohnDGeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0What a terribly great idea. Now we have more to explain to consumers who want to know the difference.
- empty01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I think it is important to point out that we really do not need a new format right now. I know alot of people drool over the increased storage capacity and the High Definition possibilities but considering a good chunk of the market has yet to adopt HD televisions the whole format war looming on the horizon might just be a flop for both parties. I like pretty pictures as much as the next guy but paying some ungodly amount for a technology that will be replaced in 10 years after the copy protection is cracked does not sound like it is worth it.
- buzzmeister, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The headline is total bs. The article talks about a chip that can decode VC-1, H.264 and MPEG-2 on a single chip. This makes it easy for manufacturers of players but does nothing to ease the difficulty of incompatible *physical discs* between Blu-ray and HD DVD. Both formats always supported all three codecs. When someone announces a player that will play both Bllu-ray and HD DVD discs, then it's worth digging
nothing to see here, move along. - switchman401, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0All we neen is for Microsoft to switch to BluRay and the whole thing is solved. Basically.
- stokestack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"there's really not much reason to switch away from them until the majority of people have Hi-Def TVs"
Not necessarily. The far greater capacity of Blu-Ray should allow for higher data rates than DVD even for standard definition, and thus a better picture.
And the headline is a bunch of crap; a "chip" doesn't bridge the physical and optical differences between the two disc formats. - xelloss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Why dont they just put 2 Lasers in the Dvd player.
- lerch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Man, this would make life so much easier if it was put into play
- stumpadoodle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I agree with replica...dvds are not only convenient but there's really not much reason to switch away from them until the majority of people have Hi-Def TVs....and right now, those are pretty much just a novelty item.
I don't know about the rest of you, but when it comes to watching movies and episodes of stuff, DVD is good enough for me. I don't even see that much reason to go Hi-Def with regular content. Video Games are another story though....that's the only place where Hi-Def should count for something right now. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0kevinj: you do know that HD-DVD uses the same 405-nm laser, right? :P
- replica, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are not going to sell like DVD did.
DVDs offered a substantial increase in content and functionality over VHS – no rewinding, better quality, special features, small storage – Blue Ray and HD-DVD are not going to offer much improvement over DVD. Also, only 15% of TVs are HD.
Regular DVDs will dominate for at least 2-3 more years. - tokachu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0People don't want a chip that plays both. When people buy an MP3 player, they couldn't possibly care less whether or not it plays WMA, OGG, FLAC, or whatever overhyped, underpromoted audio format that's hardly every used in the real world (even by its creators). They buy it so they can PLAY MP3's -- hence, the name of the product. That's one of the reasons why there's hundreds of companies fighting for a miniscule 3% of the MP3 player market.
Does anyone remember the VHS/Betamax wars? How about the DVD/DIVX (not DivX) wars? Remember how Circuit City tried to sell more DIVX players with the claim that it could still play DVDs? Who in their right mind would pay more for a feature that could very well be worthless?
Also, Broadcom specializes in network devices, not media players. - OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Whichever one doesn't have any hidden RIAA/MPAA crap in it is the better one.
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