Blu-ray and HD DVD Wars Round 2 - BD-Live versus Microsoft's HDi

[saprano]

Is this ever going to stop?

BD-Live versus Microsoft's HDi


If you thought the high-definition movie format wars were over then think again. The two camps, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, are reforming to fight for control of network distribution of interactive optical disk content. It's BD-Live vs HDi.

When Toshiba caved in and ceded defeat for its competing HD-DVD technology against Sony's all-conquering Blu-ray we thought that was it. One high-definition movie format for optical media and that's that - one ring to bind them kind of thing.

Only it might not be. Microsoft is stubbornly refusing to confirm it is adding a Blu-ray drive to its Xbox 360 games console, which has lost its HD-DVD drive, and Toshiba shows no signs of building Blu-ray players.

Instead both are involved in HDi, which started out as an interactive layer in the XBox HD-DVD area, whereby gamers could have interactive content added to HD-DVD playing and gaming experiences. The thought is that HDi could be added to DVD players. Such DVD-plus players could be used to add newer content to DVD movies, such as picture in a picture or sound track modification.

The Xbox 360 already has HDi capability. Through adding it to DVD players, content providers could use HDi technology to add interactivity to DVDs for movie previews and other things. The network could start making up for the limited capacity of DVDs.

Meanwhile Blu-ray generation 2 is largely BD-Live, the addition of interactivity via Internet access to Blu-ray players, The first BD-Live players, from Sony and Panasonic are available, and BD-Live movie titles from Disney are ready too. A BD-Live version of the Blu-ray player is given Internet access via an Ethernet cable. Presumably it is plugged into a broadband internet router - neither Sony nor Panasonic are clear on that point.

This could actually be problematical. If Blu-ray player is in the living room and the broadband router is in the den then who wants an orange cable snaking across the huse floors? WiFi would get rid of that clutter of course but it needs a whole new Blu-ray standard, so Ethernet it is.

Then, with BD-Java, the player can add interactivity via the TV screen to offer audio soundtrack modulation, picture-in-a-picture, and the downloading of ring tones or move sound track excerpts to mobile phones - all rather underwhelming and indicative of engineers producing solutions to problems no one realises they have yet.

Java has been present in Blu-ray players since 2005 and is reckoned to provide a more flexible, smoother and slicker interactive experience than Microsoft's HDi.

There is a chicken and egg problem. To have lots of BD-Live content (eggs) you need an installed base of lots of Blu-ray drives (chickens) but the drives are too expensive, being $300 or so for a basic drive now with BD-Live players being more expensive still. The tipping point to Blu-ray takeover of the global gaming couch-potato living room is reckoned to be a price of $200 or less, expected to be reached by the end of this year.

But - this Blu-ray saga is chock full of 'buts' - couch potatos still have to buy the things and there is a suspicion that they won't because they can't see any noticeable improvement over DVD movies. This doesn't affect gamers as the Sony PlayStation is a Blu-ray device but world-wide couch potato take-up isn't about gamers buying more PS IIIs, it's about the mass replacement of DVD players, currently costing less than a small bottle of perfume and available in the same super-market.

Without lots of Blu-ray players installed then interactive BD-Live services, which hardly sound compelling anyway, won't take off. BD-Live is the player end, the Internet feed, and then the vital bit - the content produced by movie companies and other unspecified content creators attracted by a vast installed base of Internet-accessing Blu-ray players - once there is a vast installed base.

But there is a vast base of DVD players and adding HDi to replacement DVD boxes might be quite cheap.

Sony won't put HDi into Blu-ray - global warming would need to metamorphose into an Ice Age first. Equally Microsoft may not actually - seriously, deeply, I mean really, really deeply - want anything to do with Blu-ray at all, preferring to dip its sensitive parts in acid before that happens, and not wanting to kow-tow to Sony and play a bit part in IT and the Net's great game.

All we need for truly historic fun and games to start is for Sony to get Google facilities added into BD-Live and have Microsoft looking askance at a Sony-Google combination that will make Ballmer's office chairs fear for their safety.

It ain't over yet

I would love for the insiders to comment on this....that is if theres anything to comment about.

http://blocksandfiles.com/article/5139

[SpikesBluBlooded]

There are a great many things wrong with that article (grammar aside, for starters). The biggest one is that the average consumer does not see a noticeable difference between Blu-ray and DVD. I have replaced some of my movies with their Blu-ray counterpart, and let me say, there is an extremely noticeable difference between DVD and Blu-ray when comparing the same movie side-by-side. And that's using my Blu-ray player as an up-converter for the DVD!

This leads me to believe that the OP of the article is a bitter HD DVD fanboi, and is just trying his damnedest to keep the war alive, in some way or another.

I personally can't wait to see the other responses that this gets, as I'm sure there are others who will take great joy in tearing it apart, one sentence at a time.

In the words of Montgomery Burns: Release the Hounds!

[Dynamo of Eternia]

I really don't see the big appeal of these kinds of interactive features.

They might be a nice little novelty, but I don't see them being a big draw one way or the other.

I think most anyone who is upgrading to Blu-Ray is doing it for the Hi-Def picture, not because of the "Live" features.

this Hdi thing still won't make the picture, itself, hi-def, so I don't see how it could be considered direct competition to Blu-Ray in that sense.

[saprano]

Originally Posted by SpikesBluBlooded

There are a great many things wrong with that article (grammar aside, for starters). The biggest one is that the average consumer does not see a noticeable difference between Blu-ray and DVD. I have replaced some of my movies with their Blu-ray counterpart, and let me say, there is an extremely noticeable difference between DVD and Blu-ray when comparing the same movie side-by-side. And that's using my Blu-ray player as an up-converter for the DVD!

This leads me to believe that the OP of the article is a bitter HD DVD fanboi, and is just trying his damnedest to keep the war alive, in some way or another. I personally can't wait to see the other responses that this gets, as I'm sure there are others who will take great joy in tearing it apart, one sentence at a time.

In the words of Montgomery Burns: Release the Hounds!

what? first of all check out the sig, and i think everybody on this forum would disagree with you. I post things that has to do with blu-ray, no matter how dumb or stupid it may be. if its about blu-ray, i feel people on this site must know about it. so you can go away now cause what you just said is an
http://youtube.com/watch?v=id3nik5Rldw

[owa]

I think this is old news. It looks like the same stuff that was brought up just after HD DVD went under (i.e. interactive features being added to the DVD standard), just a different site writing about it.

[aphex]

who cares. hdi features in dvd players? everybody has a damn dvd player. I think if people are going to upgrade the only choice is blu.

This is to try and hurt the eventual takeover of blu. They(ms and tosh) want to delay it long enough to get something else out. I'm guessin hd downloads. But I think we're gonna see blu tearing it up this xmas season.

[kx11]

he forgot that BD is supported by every smart and successfull entertainement/technonlogy company over the world ((namely apple,disney&warner bros + japan ,)) and who's supporting HDi?? M$ who still earn money from his latest attemp to failure the dying vista OS

talk about a pot of water filled with holes , the article is

[atomik kinder]

Originally Posted by saprano

what? first of all check out the sig, and i think everybody on this forum would disagree with you. I post things that has to do with blu-ray, no matter how dumb or stupid it may be. if its about blu-ray, i feel people on this site must know about it. so you can go away now cause what you just said is an
http://youtube.com/watch?v=id3nik5Rldw

I don't think he meant you. I think he meant the writer of the article.

[saprano]

Oh yea, i should have looked at his words closer....sorry, if he did mean the artical poster.

[Sean4000]

Wouldn't it be something if HD-DVD and its clones managed to lose twice in the same war? lol. Pathetic.

[han012]

Originally Posted by aphex

who cares. hdi features in dvd players? everybody has a damn dvd player. I think if people are going to upgrade the only choice is blu.

This is to try and hurt the eventual takeover of blu. They(ms and tosh) want to delay it long enough to get something else out. I'm guessin hd downloads. But I think we're gonna see blu tearing it up this xmas season.

+1. i don't buy a dvd/bd for it's special features. i buy it for content & pq/sq. who honestly buys a movie for the special features?

[Elandyll]

The article is literally riddled with errors and miscomprehension, or maybe deliberate deceitful elements.
If anyone want to send the following to the Author, feel free I won't devote the time to look for a way, given that you can't comment on the article on that website.

If you thought the high-definition movie format wars were over then think again. The two camps, Blu-ray and HD-DVD, are reforming to fight for control of network distribution of interactive optical disk content. It's BD-Live vs HDi.

Le HD DVD promotion group is reforming? That's big news!! Where's the Reuters press release?

When Toshiba caved in and ceded defeat for its competing HD-DVD technology against Sony's all-conquering Blu-ray we thought that was it. One high-definition movie format for optical media and that's that - one ring to bind them kind of thing.

That -was- it. Not that blu Ray has gained the mass market title status -yet-.
Oh and P.S: The Blu Ray is backed by the BDA, dozens of CE makers, not by Sony alone.

Only it might not be. Microsoft is stubbornly refusing to confirm it is adding a Blu-ray drive to its Xbox 360 games console, which has lost its HD-DVD drive, and Toshiba shows no signs of building Blu-ray players.

So, because Microsoft is refusing to acknowledge a stupid Blu Ray add on to their console (that would do little in regard of their games, due to current gen support obligations), then Blu Ray is in trouble? Toshiba is but one CE maker. -Every- single other has anounced players, including LG that just siwtched from combo drives to full on Blu Ray players.

Instead both are involved in HDi, which started out as an interactive layer in the XBox HD-DVD area, whereby gamers could have interactive content added to HD-DVD playing and gaming experiences.

HDi started as a Web page description language and script, in order to bring interactive and online support to HD DVD, Microsoft being in a neverending war with Sun (the creators of Java).

The thought is that HDi could be added to DVD players. Such DVD-plus players could be used to add newer content to DVD movies, such as picture in a picture or sound track modification.

FALSE. The additonal content would have to be present on the disc, it wouldn't appear magically on existing DVDs. So, additional authoring costs, and necessity of putting in support for both HDi capable players -and- non HDi capable players... The picture in picture is not linked to HDi, and requires a secondary video stream decoder.

The Xbox 360 already has HDi capability. Through adding it to DVD players, content providers could use HDi technology to add interactivity to DVDs for movie previews and other things. The network could start making up for the limited capacity of DVDs.

so, interactive games online would make up for lower image and sound quality? Where are you getting that?

Meanwhile Blu-ray generation 2 is largely BD-Live, the addition of interactivity via Internet access to Blu-ray players,

FALSE. The interactivity is BD-J (Java specific to Blu Ray). The ONLINE part is provided by the BD-Live profile (2.0).

The first BD-Live players, from Sony and Panasonic are available, and BD-Live movie titles from Disney are ready too. A BD-Live version of the Blu-ray player is given Internet access via an Ethernet cable. Presumably it is plugged into a broadband internet router - neither Sony nor Panasonic are clear on that point.

Really? To be online .. you .. have .. to be.. connected .. to .. internet? Really ?

This could actually be problematical. If Blu-ray player is in the living room and the broadband router is in the den then who wants an orange cable snaking across the huse floors? WiFi would get rid of that clutter of course but it needs a whole new Blu-ray standard, so Ethernet it is.

FALSE to the core.
First, HDi ALSO needs online connectivity .. to have online capacities.
Second, The PS3 -is- Wifi, and profile 2.0, and thus don't need an "orange cable" running on the floor.
Third, for other BR players with online capacity, you need Ethernet, but SO DID YOU FOR HD DVD or XBOX (without its Wifi -add on-).
Oh, and you might need to brush up on your technical facts. WiFi does not require a whole new BR profile, it is merely a way to connect online wirelessly.

Then, with BD-Java, the player can add interactivity via the TV screen to offer audio soundtrack modulation, picture-in-a-picture, and the downloading of ring tones or move sound track excerpts to mobile phones - all rather underwhelming and indicative of engineers producing solutions to problems no one realises they have yet.

Java is the interactive language layer, which does not require to be online.
The picture in picture is provided by a secondary video decoder (part of profile 1.1), and the online connectivity is part of profile 2.0.
To make it simple (visibly the author of the article needs things -very- simple), BD-Java is mandatory. On all Blu Ray players. That's interactivity, games, graphic interface, etc. Profile 1.1 adds the picture in picture. Profile 2.0 keeps eveything we already mentionned, and adds -online- capacity. How hard is that to understand ?
As per "underwhelming", one might note that HDi being technically less advanced than BD-Java, it is even more so underwhelming then.

Java has been present in Blu-ray players since 2005 and is reckoned to provide a more flexible, smoother and slicker interactive experience than Microsoft's HDi.

smoohter and slickier, given that it's a full on programming language, that depends on the programmer. Much more powerful though? CHECK!

There is a chicken and egg problem. To have lots of BD-Live content (eggs) you need an installed base of lots of Blu-ray drives (chickens) but the drives are too expensive, being $300 or so for a basic drive now with BD-Live players being more expensive still. The tipping point to Blu-ray takeover of the global gaming couch-potato living room is reckoned to be a price of $200 or less, expected to be reached by the end of this year.

Your pipe dream of DVD-plus, with DVD including interactive layer and online elements(which make HDi), is no less of a chicken and egg. worse in fact, because the news spec for DVDs for this result doesn't even exist yet, and given that Blu Ray is already in, why mess with something existing that is having a comfortable margin (DVDs)? Also, studies reveal that bonuses only are unlikely to make any difference in people buying DVDs, when you count that a mere 30% of people that had a HD DVD reported having -ever- tried the online features.

But - this Blu-ray saga is chock full of 'buts' - couch potatos still have to buy the things and there is a suspicion that they won't because they can't see any noticeable improvement over DVD movies.

FALSE. there is a clear and very visible difference in quality, both in picture and sound (new HD audio codecs), between SD (480i/p) and HD (720p/1080i/1080p). Blu Ray is full HD (1080p) and offers a much, much better movie experience than DVDs, even upscaled ones (which are perhaps the comparison you were trying ( but failed) to do.

This doesn't affect gamers as the Sony PlayStation is a Blu-ray device but world-wide couch potato take-up isn't about gamers buying more PS IIIs, it's about the mass replacement of DVD players, currently costing less than a small bottle of perfume and available in the same super-market.

Said DVD players are incapable of HDi performance, much less anything HD, as we speak.

Without lots of Blu-ray players installed then interactive BD-Live services, which hardly sound compelling anyway,

Given that BD Java can do -more- than HDi, you give no good props here my friend

won't take off. BD-Live is the player end, the Internet feed, and then the vital bit - the content produced by movie companies and other unspecified content creators attracted by a vast installed base of Internet-accessing Blu-ray players - once there is a vast installed base.

There are just more than 10 million PS3s already, and a growing base of Blu Ray standalone players. when BD-Live gets more use from studios, we could see a major integration the like we've never seen before. To just get a glimpse of an idea at what could happen, do some research on the project called "Home".

But there is a vast base of DVD players and adding HDi to replacement DVD boxes might be quite cheap.

FALSE
Oh, so we 'd have to have someone physically open the DVD boxes, add, somehow, a NIC board (the famous ethernet connection you make fun of earlier in your article), a chip to handle the Webpage-description language and some form of memory to store said pages/instructions. And that would be .. cheap?

Sony won't put HDi into Blu-ray - global warming would need to metamorphose into an Ice Age first.

Understandably, as Microsoft is their main competitor on the console market place, and that Blu Ray is based on BD-J. Oh, and Blu Ray won, haven't you heard? Since when do we give -LOSERS- a hand by adopting their standard?

Equally Microsoft may not actually - seriously, deeply, I mean really, really deeply - want anything to do with Blu-ray at all, preferring to dip its sensitive parts in acid before that happens,

[WISHFUL THINKING] I mean, -if- they had that project, you do not seriously expect they would reveal that an add on is coming, or a new generation of Xbox with BR drive, before it's actually ready to hit the shelves, right?
Do you know what would happen to their sales if they were anouncing -now- that in 6 months a Xbox, let's call it 380, will arrive with Blu Ray inside?
Come on, I know you're clever enough to figure it out!

and not wanting to kow-tow to Sony and play a bit part in IT and the Net's great game.

That's the neat part in this, blu Ray is not Sony, it's the BDA, a whole consortium. And you will notice that actually, Microsoft already backs up Blu Ray on its OS, a little thing you might have heard of, called Windows.

All we need for truly historic fun and games to start is for Sony to get Google facilities added into BD-Live and have Microsoft looking askance at a Sony-Google combination that will make Ballmer's office chairs fear for their safety.

-GASP- did you know you can open google on a PS3? MS should already be shaking in their boots !

It ain't over yet

For Blu Ray? No, it's only starting

For HDi on DVD? still on the wishful thinking drawing boards of some gourous that think that maybe, just maybe, it could restart the interest in DVDs.
Not gonna happen, it 's time to move on.

As per HD DVD? Dead and burried, with Napalm on it, and paved with concrete on top.

[UKTruBlu]

Originally Posted by SpikesBluBlooded

There are a great many things wrong with that article (grammar aside, for starters). The biggest one is that the average consumer does not see a noticeable difference between Blu-ray and DVD. I have replaced some of my movies with their Blu-ray counterpart, and let me say, there is an extremely noticeable difference between DVD and Blu-ray when comparing the same movie side-by-side. And that's using my Blu-ray player as an up-converter for the DVD!

This leads me to believe that the OP of the article is a bitter HD DVD fanboi, and is just trying his damnedest to keep the war alive, in some way or another.

I personally can't wait to see the other responses that this gets, as I'm sure there are others who will take great joy in tearing it apart, one sentence at a time.

In the words of Montgomery Burns: Release the Hounds!

don't piss off a guru dude, its just no the done thing.

[Mouse]

I think you are missing one really big point... DVD is not High-def. They are talking about adding HDi to regular DVDs. Not bringing HD-DVD back. They are wanting to use downloadable content (which is also rarely High-def quality and when it is it's only 480p or 720p and I seriously doubt it will have good audio) and downloadable stuff just won't take off for years. It's coming, sure... but not any time soon.

[sparksj]

Adding HDI to DVD is like adding a gold plated cigaret lighter to your 1980 Mercury station wagon. Sure it has given you a lot of good service over the years, but even with the new cigaret, you still have an old piece of Sh*t station wagon.