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Is Sony undermining Blu-ray?

Sony is introducing digital movie delivery to the Playstation 3 later this year. The video game console will be host to movies from most major studios. They also have a BRAVIA media link for their lauded line of LCD displays offering online video content. The same movie service will be provided to BRAVIA later this year as well.

I do not think that Blu-ray Disc and digital delivery are peers to be compared, but does this move undermine the retail strategy of the Blu-ray Disc Association?

Two separate marketing campaigns will be engaged at the same time. I don’t mean to bring in World War II analogies, but fighting multiple fronts isn’t always the best way to get things done. It contrasts high-quality optical media with convenient internet video. While Blu-ray is higher-quality and more fully-featured than DVD, it’s physical format does hint at “old technology” while the big tech hit is the iPhone. The new technology is lower-quality than even DVD, but it seems newer, fresher.

These campaigns will have to be targeted with focused scope. Blu-ray should be marketed at the home theater market, and digital delivery at the casual market.



Oddly enough, digital delivery would seem to appeal to the youth and college crowd, but so far it looks like the lion share of Blu-ray adoption is to the younger video game crowd. However 40% of the Blu-ray market is in the over 35 crowd.

What do you think? Is Sony latching onto Microsoft’s shtick by looking to digital delivery?

Mitsubishi promoting 3D video gaming

It’s been around for a while, but it’s now being pushed to retail with much more resources behind it. 3D gaming had originally been relegated to funky virtual reality booths at the country fair. More recently NVIDIA had developed the GeForce FX Go graphics processor to bring 3D gaming to PCs at home.

Unfortunately this hadn’t caught on with gamers. Very few monitors were compatible with the stereoscopic technology.

With the recent advent of Mitsubishi’s 3D capable DLP displays, there is now a newfound push for 3D gaming. Mitsubishi is teaming up with NVIDIA and Aspen Media Products to display 3D games at Fry’s Electronics and other A/V specialty retailers.

The display will feature a Mitsubishi DLP HDTV with an Aspen Media Products Windows Media Center with a 2.4GHz AMD dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 1.5TB hard drive storage, and the NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX video processor. This Media Center retails for about $1,999. It run on the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system to make use of DirectX 10 features.

Because every GeForce series 7 or higher video cards support NVIDIA’s stereophonic technology, Mitsubishi is aiming at the existing market to proliferate 3D gaming.

This may be a last-ditched effort to save DLP technology, or it may just be the future of home entertainment.

Read more at TWICE
Photo by Gizmodo

Digital movies in the cloud?

I’m looking for opinions on this topic. I have been discussing it around the office, but I want to open the dialog with the larger community.

Would you use a service that allows you to own the content but it is stored on a remote server for you to stream at will?

In the office, three of us use Blu-ray primarily, one uses DVD, and another uses Time Warner Cable’s video-on-demand (VOD) service. We were talking about the future of video delivery. I’ve heard a lot of people on-line talk about waiting for a service as described above, and the VOD user said the same thing.

It seems like people appreciate the idea of downloading content at will, but they also want ownership of this content. They don’t want to rent it out, but they’re also concerned about what kind of hard drive space they would need. These are all real concerns.

Personally, I like the idea of digital download, but I like the idea of high-quality content even more. A Blu-ray Disc could have over 40GB of audio/video content, and our broadband infrastructure in the USA is not up to the task currently. Netflix only offers 4:3 aspect video and stereo audio. Xbox Live high-def video might have 720p vertical resolution, but it’s compressed to a file size smaller than a 480i video on a standard DVD. Hulu looks fine on my laptop for casual viewing, but on a 50″ screen or larger the quality is worse than standard cable broadcasts.

Time Warner and Comcast are fighting to make VOD service the goto for rentals, and they high-def quality is better than other digital delivery services. But they also tend to broadcast 2.35:1 aspect films in open-matte format, and the audio is low-quality Dolby Digital.

Coming around to the opening question, if our broadband was robust enough to handle high-def, high-quality audio and video to every home in America, I don’t know if I would necessarily want to own the content on a remote server. I would rather have unlimited access to all movies and TV shows on a subscription basis much like Rhapsody offers for audio now.

What do you think?

Toshiba: SpursEngine Quad Core HD Processor laptops

Toshiba Japan just announced a new line up of notebook PC’s that contain their SpursEngine Cell Processor technology. Super Upconversion is finally on its’ way to the market.

The new notebooks are dubbed the Qosmio G50 series and Qosmio F40 series, both of which contain the new cell processor technology, which offloads video work from the main system CPU. These systems are scheduled to launch in Japan late July. Here are a few key excerpts from the Toshiba press release.

“Derived from the high performance multi-core technology of the Cell Broadband Engine™*2 (Cell/B.E.), and combined with Toshiba’s advanced image processing technology, the SpursEngine™ integrates four synergistic processing elements (S.P.E.s)*3 and functions as a dedicated co-processor*4 that supports the smooth handling of high definition video streams, image recognition and image processing.

This new processor is designed to remove the burden of processing high definition video data streams from CPU, and it significantly improves processing power and speeds up the handling of multiple, resource-intensive video processing tasks such as conversion of standard definition video content to high definition quality.”

“First among these is support for Toshiba’s breakthrough “High-resolution function” that upscales standard definition video sources and bring them to screen in high definition picture quality. This allows users to experience standard DVD video content with high definition quality.”

After looking at the features and specs for these new products, it looks like Toshiba really will be going head to head with Blu-ray again. The real question now is; when will Toshiba start integrating the cell processors into their standalone DVD players? And at what cost? If Toshiba is able to pump out inexpensive DVD players with “high definition quality” as they are advertising, it could cause some real trouble for the Blu-ray camp. We’ll certainly be keeping our eyes peeled for any future announcements.

Above: A picture of the Toshiba SpursEngine cell processor, via Impress. The full Toshiba press release can be found here. Thanks to Koba for sending this in.

Samsung offers new Blu-ray education website

Launched just yesterday, Samsung is now providing a website designed to educate would-be owners and existing Blu-ray Disc owners alike. The Blu-ray Resource Center is split in two: One side devoted to those looking to buy Blu-ray, and the other for current owners.

An example of what you might find on the site are articles titled, “Isn’t upconverted DVD just as good as Blu-ray?” and “How do I get the most out of my Blu-ray player?” Samsung promises to provide a new topic for both sections of the site on a weekly basis.

If you’re familiar with Blu-ray already, the “looking to buy” section doesn’t have any new information, but if you are new to the technology it does have the basics, like what the advantages of Blu-ray Disc are. Otherwise, it sort of describes the features of their own Blu-ray players.

The Blu-ray owner’s section provides information on installation and how to get the best out of the players (especially the Samsung ones, obviously), and has firmware downloads. It is here that Samsung proclaims “Profile 2.0 represents the final specifications for Blu-ray discs and players.” That’s good news to hear.

Overall, it’s well designed and provides quick answers.

One step forward, two steps back

Something is bugging me, so I thought I’d let you all in on it: People are idiots!

It seems like we’ve accomplished a lot in the last few years bringing a new high-definition format to the market that is well-supported and robust. Blu-ray Disc is finally offering a true cinema like experience in the home. But it seems like the lowest common denominator is the big news item lately.

Toshiba is attempting to promote DVD again with their Super Upconversion process to make near-HD quality images from normal DVDs. Apple TV, Xbox Live, Vudu, Netflix and other online digital delivery services are looking to be the future of home video. But it’s all a step back in quality.

While Super Upconversion may offer better picture quality, the audio is still the same Dolby Digital or DTS soundtrack we’ve known for over a decade. These just don’t compare to the new lossless compression technologies like Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio. Why settle for less than the best?

Digital delivery is really just a huge step backwards. It’s like a repeat of SACD all over again. A new high-quality format comes out that blows you away, and the market decides they would rather listen to the lowest quality audio possible on their iPods (through terrible ear buds on top of that). If the movies are actually in the right aspect ratio (most aren’t), they’re poor quality with stereo audio or highly compressed Dolby Digital. It’s not acceptable in a respectable home theater environment.

But what else is new? Convenience trumps quality every day. This is why McDonald’s is busy over the lunch hour while the French bistro sits empty. Or even worse, when time isn’t a factor people chose the Olive Garden over the local Cucina with far better food and service at comparable prices.

And it’s not for lack of trying, the industries spend millions putting out new technologies just for Joe Status Quo to watch movies on his iPod. This is why I’ve said the Blu-ray Disc Association needs to get Blu-ray in front of the consumer so they can experience the quality for themselves.

Maybe I sound like an elitist prick. Let me know what you think about my belief that you are a dolt.

DRM reaching TV broadcasts

Imagine paying your cable or satellite provider for DVR service and setting it up to record your favorite show. Now imagine flipping on your TV to watch this show and finding that it did not record. This has happened before with the hit CBS show Survivor. (It may be a stretch to imagine Survivor is your favorite show, but bear with me.)

This also happened with the slightly more popular American Idol, only this time it cut the recording off just as the winner was announced. Again, I won’t judge the quality of the content being cut off from viewers, but there is a principle at play here. Paying viewers should have a right to the content they’re paying for.

Where these errors, or is there a malevolent source behind this?

While it’s true that I’ve lost some recording simply because cable boxes aren’t terribly reliable (thank God for Hulu!), but it is now surfacing that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has worked a deal with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to implement the Selectable Output Control (SOC) to cut off signals to DVRs in the USA on certain content. Yes, the dreaded “DRM” is coming out of the dark, fetid land known as MPAA.



There is a trade off though, the agreement allows Hollywood movies to reach television before it is released in stores on DVD or Blu-ray Disc. The SOC will be removed once the film is provided at retail as well. This content may also be available via Video-on-Demand (VOD).

So maybe there is a second front. Maybe this is an anti-competitive move by the cable providers (CableLabs) to put the squeeze on video renters. Why not just make the content available day-and-date with retail? Mark Cuban and Magnolia Pictures have tried day-and-date with TV, Blu-ray and theaters even.