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Media Sony Hardware

Sony May Sell HD-DVDs 91

Posted by Zonk from the anything-is-possible dept.
MarkRH writes "Although many sites posted the Reuters story on Sony merging its optical storage operations with NEC, people forget that NEC is one of the four senior members of the HD-DVD Promotion Group. What this means is that by next year the merged unit could sell CD drives, DVD drives, Blu-Ray, and 'perhaps even that other format,' a Sony spokesman told eWEEK. A bit shocking, given the acrimonious nature of the rivalry so far."
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Sony May Sell HD-DVDs More

Sony May Sell HD-DVDs

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  • More goodies from Sony! (Score:5, Funny)

    by needacoolnickname ( 716083 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @06:47PM (#14067184)
    Is it possible to put a rootkit on on television?
  • Really though, you just know that they are going to put some kind of serious DRM crap on these. You'll be able to burn a disc of data (mp3's) but not copy your own data or play it in a different burner I imagine. What a crock. Sony sucks!

  • A Suggestion (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @06:48PM (#14067204) Journal
    Perhaps Sony could take this revenue and buy some ethics.
  • BUT, I'm not going to BUY them personally. I'm sticking to my no Sony policy.

  • Nothing to see here... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by guitaristx ( 791223 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @06:49PM (#14067210) Journal
    How appropriate, "Nothing to see here, please move along." This would be the caption for my mental associations with sony whenever I'm out shopping for Christmas gifts. Sony producing new technology isn't terribly interesting to me if I know they might be installing rootkits on my boxen.
    • You know, for a second the optimist in me hoped that because of all this sony might be forced to go the other way and denounce all attempts to restrict content through a customer's hardware.

      Then the pragmatist in me woke up, realized that the average customer has a 20 minute memory and even if they heard about the hubris of sony, they wouldn't understand/care. Nothing will change except that people on places like /. will avoid sony and inform their friends/relatives not to buy it.

      But I am pleased about the
      • Satan. Or really anybody from Hell's customer service desk could get that list to you if you'd like.

      • Then the pragmatist in me woke up, realized that the average customer has a 20 minute memory and even if they heard about the hubris of sony, they wouldn't understand/care. Nothing will change except that people on places like /. will avoid sony and inform their friends/relatives not to buy it.

        Lack of understanding might actually work against Sony. Their rootkit made national news; the average person might not understand what a rootkit is and why it's dangerous, but they can grasp "Sony discs do bad stu

      • Does anyone here care to promise that during the hype caused by the release of the PS3 that they will be reminding everyone of this event?

        I did so with the release of the Playstation, Windows 2000, Windows XP, the XBox, the Playstation 2, and the XBox 360. I promise to continue my embargo of discontent on Sony's PS3 as well.

  • DRM (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sefert ( 723060 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @06:53PM (#14067244)
    Given Sony's ethics lately, I think I can safely say that I won't be buying anything with the Sony brand name stamped on it for a long time to come, especially if the device stores any data. Frankly, I won't even buy any CD's with the Sony label any more. I really hope the class action lawsuit against them cripples them pretty seriously, though I suspect it'll be more of the slap-on-the-hand variety of justice. If only the courts could take a division of a company as punishment, sell it off, and prohibit them from playing ball in that field in the future.

    • Re:DRM (Score:3, Insightful)

      by VGR ( 467274 )
      Then they'll stop making things stamped with the Sony brand name.

      If Sears can call itself Kenmore, I'm sure Sony can manage to label its products Trustworthytronics or something.

      They may not fool you the first few times, but do you really have time to keep up with every front company they'll create? They'll sneak it in eventually.

    • Re:DRM (Score:2)

      by Phroggy ( 441 ) *
      Given Sony's ethics lately, I think I can safely say that I won't be buying anything with the Sony brand name stamped on it for a long time to come,

      Why do you think they do business under so many different brand names?
    • You do gotta remember Sony isn't 1 small company of 500 people. Really is a case of right hand doesn't know the left hand type of thing.
  • If ya can't beat 'em, join 'em. ;P I'm such a kidder.

  • Do I have a choice.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @06:53PM (#14067251)
    Decisions, decisions... Regular or extended version... Letter box or full screen... Rootkit or non-rootkit... I thought VHS vs. Beta was bad.

    • Blu-ray will fail.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tomcres ( 925786 )
      Sony is like King Midas, except that everything they touch turns to shit instead of gold...

      Come on, now. What has Sony done that wasn't a flop? The only thing I can think of is the compact disc. The CD did not have any real alternatives, so it was a safe bet. However, look at Beta... VHS killed it. MiniDisc? Couldn't overtake the CD. Memory stick.. this one's a real laugher.. :-) The point is, that Sony is an innovative company, you have to give them credit for that. The problem is that they aren't good a

      • What has Sony done that wasn't a flop?

        Playstation and Playstation 2? I'm not sure about the Playstation 3 yet. That one has plenty of potential to flip flop all over the place.
      • The only thing I can think of is the compact disc.

        The CD was a collaboration with Philips (which has its share of flops, like CD-i, DCC, and pretty much all of its home/personal computer outings), and Matshushita A.K.A. Panasonic. Also, the DVD is a joint Sony/Philips standard, as is S/PDIF.

        Sony's Walkman, HandyCam and PlayStation(s) were anything but a flop, though..
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • before I get flamed some more.. I can feel the heat rising.. I just wanted to point out that I was referring to emerging technologies, not to new consumer products. The point was that Sony's tech has done very well where there was no viable alternative product. Ultimately, what will probably decide Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD is which one the porn industry embraces. HD-DVD will be cheaper to mass produce. I see that as being an enticement for the porn industry and the consumer. Blu-ray will probably become a niche p

  • Yeah, good luck with that. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kris_J ( 10111 ) * on Friday November 18, 2005 @06:54PM (#14067256) Homepage Journal
    Anyone developing a new media format that doesn't have anything to do with Sony? DVDs are nice and all, but I no longer like the fact that a small part of every DVD and DVD player sale goes to Sony.

  • History repeats itself (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jason1729 ( 561790 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @06:55PM (#14067263)
    Sony caused a lot of the divide between DVD-R and DVD+R. The standard should have been -R but Sony backed +R. Then Sony was the first to market with drives that could do both.

    Now they're doing it all over.
    • Why should it have been - over +? Most drives will do either. It's true that - works better in legacy devices, but then you can burn faster on +, so there's benefits to both. I believe in implementing both, and letting the market decide.
      • If not for Sony, the industry would have settled on -.

        Sony made +, not because it was better but so they could say "see, our drives support both formats, they're better".

        That screwed over the customer by delaying adoption of any DVDR format, kept prices high much longer since it wasn't a commodity item for a long time. Even now when you buy DVD hardware, you're paying double royalties for both formats.
      • From a consumer perspective, there's *very* little technical difference between + and - DVDs in of themselves in terms of the media. One's a tiny bit faster when burning...ok, whatever...those few precious seconds aren't worth much to me. On the other hand, I've been *very* frustrated at the number of players that only support one versus the other.

        I know, I should only buy a player that supports everything, but the problem comes from making discs for *other* people..."Do you want a DVD+ or - R?"..."HUH?!?
        • In my experience pretty much anything that will play a DVD+R will play a -R. When I want compatibility, I always go -R. +R, on the other hand, is more convenient for people who like to noodle around with video editing, because they can [theoretically] make changes without rewriting the whole thing.
    • I've always been thinking, since we already have DVD drives that can play DVD+R, DVD-R, the RW versions of those, CD-R, CD-RW, what's the problem of adding 2 addition supports to these drives. Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are going to be the same sized discs as the current CD/DVDs are. The problem they had with BETA and VHS was the fact that they were 2 incompatible units. You could not stick one in the other. If they were the same size, I'm pretty sure a unit with both BETA and VHS heads would've been extremel

  • Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD (Score:2, Insightful)

    by SpinJaunt ( 847897 )
    hmmm.. didn't RTFA.. maybe a cheap, easy way to get out of the Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD mess??

  • Strange (Score:2, Insightful)

    by GotenXiao ( 863190 )
    ...that Microsoft are talking about adding a layer of complete vendor control and lock in to modern PCs, but Sony does one thing and suddenly everyone is up in arms about them.

    Somehow I doubt the top people at Sony had anything to do with the rootkit debacle. I find it more likely it was someone in Sony BMG being told to protect Sony's interests and they took it a step too far. That, or it was a rogue manager in Sony.
    • "that Microsoft are talking about adding a layer of complete vendor control and lock in to modern PCs, but Sony does one thing and suddenly everyone is up in arms about them."

      At least Microsoft did not do those things behind your back. That is why it is so upsetting what Sony did.

      "Somehow I doubt the top people at Sony had anything to do with the rootkit debacle. I find it more likely it was someone in Sony BMG being told to protect Sony's interests and they took it a step too far. That, or it was a r
      • Case study.

        A programmer in Microsoft codes in a hole to Windows. It escapes all checking processes.

        It lets said programmer download all your credit card information and passwords, etc etc.

        Bad management? How are you going to be able to manage people at such a level and still maintain productivity?

        In all likelihood, it was some titwank at Sony BMG, *NOT* Sony, who decided on the rootkit. To the best of my knowledge, Sony BMG and Sony are actually two separate companies with separate org structures.
    • Don't you see? All of Sony is run by one man intent on abusing your trust. It's not actually several dozen companies with different management structures and operational objectives and standards. [sony.net] Nooooo... Of course it isn't... It's one little guy. He lives at Sony HQ. Follow the path there and you can't miss him. He's behind the curtain with the big head floating over it.
    • the thing is, as universal as all computer type people think the microsoft evil empire is, it really isn't. there are still plenty of people who could care less about whatever strange things microsoft is doing to computers, and the people who run them. what it boils down to is that even though microsoft has a much higher cash value, sony has an obvious, and strong presence in just about every home in america. even the ones of people who don't kno how to boot up a computer.
    • but Sony does one thing and suddenly everyone is up in arms about them.

      Granted, Sony hasn't established themselves as much of an evil overlord in the past. It's just that when they decided to do a boffo maneuver, they did it in such a big way all at once. To put a malicious binary program on an audio CD is a step too far. To have their first-offered fix hose things up even worse is beyond that. To say it infected hundreds of thousands of computers (including the Department of Defense!!!) puts it on a leve

  • Blu ray and Rootkit (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mike_955 ( 932286 )
    Now since Sony has a rootkit on cds. How far are they going to go with the blu ray technology? Personally I am scared now and it makes me even more scared to buy a Sony product. Now I am also more scared of DRM. Microsoft had it right when they picked HD-DVD. Hopefully this will tip the scales towards HD-DVD.
  • Can anyone see where this is going?

    1. Make 2 incompatable formats
    2. Force people to buy equipment for both formats, so they can use whatever format they want
    3. Sell both formats and their hardware, thereby increasing profits.

    The dirty bastards.

  • I will buy Sony IF.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by canuck57 ( 662392 ) on Friday November 18, 2005 @08:55PM (#14068003)

    I will only buy a Sony product if it comes with a written guarantee of NO DRM, no root kit, no surprises and they can say this in less that 50 readable English words. I am not going to read line 1254 a EULA in 1/32nd of inch print on a common product like a PC, wireless card, USB (any), camera, CD, DVD, home video camera, HD-DVD, DVD player, cell phone, TV or anything for find out about rootkit privileges for the vendor.

    Yes, most if not all of the above devices and more can infect your computer.

    Maybe it is time to have an organization that will certify a product to be DRM rootkit free.

  • Surely that's a shocker of equal importance, and relevance, to "Sony May Sell HD-DVDs"? So why emphasize the latter?

    Spin, spin, spin.
  • So Sony is the new Microsoft now? I, for one, welcome our new /. corporate chew toy.

  • In Other News (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by merc ( 115854 )
    SCO announces the release of ScoLinux 2.7, buy now before the the post-Thanksgiving shopping spree begins.
  • Sony's bent towards the proverbial proprietary turd will ensure that whatever they sell, you'll need three special interfaces (all Sony) to view / hear / experience whatever media you have. Universality to Sony just means that they think the universe revolves around them.

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