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Microsoft Longhorn To Support HD DVD Format 265

Posted by timothy from the filthy-rich-media dept.
MSDVD writes "Microsoft's Japanese Division reported that its upcoming operating system, code-named Longhorn, will support HD DVD format. HD DVD is an enhanced version of the standard DVD technology. According to online reports, Microsoft is pushing the next-generation blue-laser DVD technology like NEC and Toshiba. Blue-light technology can read and write data much faster and at higher densities, which is needed for high-definition content. Few Japanese companies said they will have HD DVD content based DVDs by next year to support the players."
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Microsoft Longhorn To Support HD DVD Format More

Microsoft Longhorn To Support HD DVD Format

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  • Blu-ray (Score:5, Insightful)

    by halo1982 ( 679554 ) * on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:01PM (#9806672) Homepage Journal
    So with Microsoft throwing its support behind HD-DVD, does this mean that Sony's Blu-ray will go the way of Betamax (and to a lesser extent Minidisc)?
    • maybe if Longhorn was due out in a reasonable amount of time.

      given its release is so far away and I expect linux etc. to support whatever is popular anyway, I read this as saying "our support will be limited to this", rather than "our support will include this". sounds like bad news.

      • NEWS FLASH (Score:3, Funny)

        by scum-e-bag ( 211846 )
        Today developers announced that the upcomming 3D Action game "Duke Nukem" will require a computer with blu-ray enabled technology. "Due to the size of bitmaps and the advancements made in technology lately gamers will need much more storage capacity for the product we are about to deliver" said one enthusiastic developer. The game is due to be released just after the long anticipated next-generation Microsoft operating system codename "Longhorn", which is expected to fully support Duke Nukem.
    • Good, Sony is by far the only mega corp that really compeetes with M$ in the evil DRM/vendor lockin space. If the 800 pound gorillas want to step all over each others best laid plans well thats about as good as us little guys can hope for these days.

      • Re:Blu-ray (Score:3, Interesting)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )
        I would like to add to my own coment. I would have perfered the blue-ray camp win this as at least the technical specs look more like they can be implemented in the OSS world more quickly as its still a form of mpeg 2, it would be just a matter of optimizing playback software for the new data rates and image sizes rather then knock-out a new codec implementation entirely even if it does borrow a great deal from Divix. Lets remember though long before blue-ray mpeg2 disks would have gotten out the door Son

    • Re:Blu-ray (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jordy ( 440 ) * <jordan.snocap@com> on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:32PM (#9806907) Homepage
      Not really. Blu-Ray has a rather large group of companies behind it including Hitachi, JVC, LG, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Dell, HP and Zenith.

      Microsoft likes HD-DVD because it uses their hacked up MPEG-4 CODEC. Microsoft "supporting" it in Longhorn doesn't mean much as both formats are supposed to start shipping years before Longhorn exists (2005). No doubt any PC drive manufacturers will have to write their own drivers.

      The rest of the industry likes Blu-Ray because it has a higher storage capacity (54 GB vs. 30 GB), uses MPEG-2 so movie/television companies don't need to re-encode their HDTV streams and has Sony behind it (movie studio/music label).
      • What exactly is the difference between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4? Presumably, one has better compression than the other, so perhaps there's a reason for the decreased space in HD-DVDs.

        Other than dislike for something that supports a Microsoft codec as well as the need to re-encode HDTV programs, what is the disadvantage to HD-DVD as opposed to Blu-Ray?

        Basically, I just want the LOTR trilogy in the best format possible for home theater entertainment.
        • What difference will the end user see? likely none. im guessing they both hold about the same as far as movie content(anyone want to bother with the math?). yeah the MPEG-4 has the better compression. not only that its my choice because most MPEG-4 codecs can play information that was encoded with another MPEG-4 codec, and I believe that HD-DVDs will have the same functionality. So finally all that anime I have downloaded can be watched on a TV, not just computer. though im not completly certain on this, an

        • Re:Question--anyone care to answer? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by DarkMan ( 32280 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @09:55PM (#9807819) Journal
          MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 both, at thier core, operate on the same principles as MPEG-1 (in the video layer).

          That is, store only the difference between frames. Do this by spliting it into a series of blocks, and examining each block.

          The devil is, as they say, in the details. I admit I'm fuzzy on a number of them, but this should be a respectable overview.

          MPEG-2 uses a straightforward system of frames and partial frames (I frames, or key frames in DivX terms), and B and P frames (the two types of partial frames).

          MPEG-4 adds a longer group of pictures (more P frames between I frames), additional encoding formats, and motion compensation. That last is the biggie - it means that if you're panning side to side, you just tell the codec to move the block a bit, and then give it the other bits. As compared to having to give it the scene shifted half a block.

          MPEG-4 is also much more complex. I belive that any MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 bitstream is a valid MPEG-4 bitstream (or at least, is with a simple header rewrite). MPEG-4 has various additional bits, such as motioncompensation allowed to go out of frame, 1/4 pixel motion comp, B frames, variable sized motion comp blocks, mutlipe frame motion comp and other goodies. I don't think there is an actual codec that supports all of that lot, never mind the rest of the optional parts of the spec yet. That's why there are multiple MPEG-4 codecs - each can use a differnt goodie bag to try to be better than the others.

          Other differences are the audio layers used. AAC is part of MPEG-4, in the same way that MP3 was part of MPEG-1.

          As far as the best format for a disc goes - neither. In principle, the additional flexability of MPEG-4 should result in better picture / sound for same disk space. In practice, it's all perceptual anyway, so they turn the quality down until someone notices artifacts, and then nudge it up a touch. Sometimes, one might be better, other times the other, but as there is a human tweaking knobs at the backend, you can't tell in advance.
      • The rest of the industry likes Blu-Ray because it has a higher storage capacity (54 GB vs. 30 GB), uses MPEG-2 so movie/television companies don't need to re-encode their HDTV streams and has Sony behind it (movie studio/music label).

        Being only MPEG2, the common player is not able to play DivX/XviD (MPEG4) content. How it may be preferable for the MPAA not to use an efficient compression, is left as an exercise to the reader. Hint: Security through bloat.

        Kjella

    • Re:Blu-ray (Score:3, Insightful)

      by eww ( 211414 )
      I think that Sony is going to loose this war.

      1. All PC's will support HD DVD
      2. Xbox2 will probably support HD DVD

      Sony will have PS3 using Blu-Ray

      Sony will have to sell their Blu-Ray really cheap to beat out MS. Prices fall fast when companies can sell lots of their products. If you can buy an HD DVD burner really cheap you can bet you can get a player for your TV for not much more....

      Considering Xbox is cheap the Xbox 2 is probably going to be cheap too. The PS3 might have to follow suit. Then th
      • Well, DVD-R, DVD+R, and DVDRAM are all still around, and there are readers and writers for all formats, that also read and write CDs.

        More likely is that drives will support all formats before too long.

    • I hope not (Score:3, Insightful)

      by swb ( 14022 )
      54GB, while a tad on the small side compared to hard disks, is a meaningful amount of data storage. Dual-layer DVD might have cut it 3 years ago, but not anymore -- it's just a bigger floppy and better movie copy medium.

      It'd be nice to see the better data storage medium win this time.
    • It's entirely possible. It's also possible that Microsoft's solution will turn out as successful as their poor excuse for a gaming platform.

  • No Unique Selling Point (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sad Loser ( 625938 ) * on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:01PM (#9806673)

    The take up of DVD and CD technologies has been driven by content. However, sales of "CD plus" technology (high resolution CD, DVD-audio) are going nowhere fast, despite the hype.
    While these technologies will be nice to have for storage, I can't see that joe average is suddenly going to go out and re-buy their DVD collection.
    I believe the average punter has a fairly good feel for what is 'good enough' and it won't take off.

    I suspect that this is driven by Hollywood with its hand up Microsoft's bottom pulling the strings, wanting to move away from the CD and DVD debacle as soon as it can. Unfortunately the genie is out of the bag.
    (mixed metaphors are the new black).

    • Re:No Unique Selling Point (Score:5, Insightful)

      by radixvir ( 659331 ) * on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:11PM (#9806755) Homepage

      Most average joes i know didnt even get a dvd player because of the additional features or the better picture quality. no it was just because video rental stores started carrying dvds instead of vhs tapes! the moral of the story: if they want to push HDDVD, get blockbuster to buy in.

      • Most average joes i know didnt even get a dvd player because of the additional features or the better picture quality.

        I think picture quality was a major one, as was the fact that DVDs don't wear out like tape, don't need to be rewound, etc. Then there's the fact that they can be easily copied thanks to computers.

        if they want to push HDDVD, get blockbuster to buy in.

        Wouldn't work.

        A video rental store can't develop critical mass on it's own. Blockbuster helped because many people were ALREADY buying D

        • The major distributors can kill an old format. That's what they did to the LP record when CDs were introduced and becoming popular. They stopped accepting returns for credit on unsold records. That was enough to kill the mass market for records.
    • This is especially true when you consider that most people who will use Longhorn for DVD playback will be playing back DVDs on a standard pc monitor/laptop. There are some nice high end HD monitors, but for the most part, the monitors today will waste the capability of an HD DVD. It will be hard to tell the difference between a normal DVD and an HD one.
      • Seems a hasty prediction, in that "monitors today" are not, in most instances, what will be used with Longhorn.

        New Windows OS's mostly grow from new PC sales, rather than upgrades. Assuming it's released on schedule, 16 months from now, what will be the typical monitor accompanying a new system?

        Is it entirely unlikely that MS may use the transition to HD TV to leverage the sale of Longhorn-based Media PC's? Seems that this is part of their intention, anyway. What sort of monitor will those systems have?

      • eh? i'm no expert on HD-DVD, but won't monitors be the only thing most people have that *is* capable of showing the full resolution of HD content? i'm confused. even an average monitor today can do 1280x1024, most people only have TVs with about 625 lines if you're lucky (here in England). If i'm right MS' decision makes perfect sense though.. they leverage their position and people need no extra hardware other than the drive (at pretty minimal extra cost).
      • Since I actually watch HDTV and current DVDs on my PC monitor I can accurately report that HD video is much more impressive. Project a year or more into the future and it can easily be maintained that just about anyone viewing HD DVD on a PC monitor will also be able to see the difference. If your monitor has resolution no more than 640 x 480 I might agree but how many are that limited?
      • 21" monitors are pretty cheap these days. They can easily display 1080i (1920x1080) resolution. They can typically display up to 2048x1536. They will also have much better dot pitch and color resolution than an HDTV.

        It should be easy to tell the difference between a normal 720x480 (NTSC) DVD and a 1920x1080 HD-DVD.
    • The big difference is that HD-DVD will be given away for free. Hollywood wants it out there, free DVD players are used to drive the sales of big TVs, the generation of consoles after this one will be blu-ray to fit more game content...

      None of this applies to DVD-A. Nobody is really buying the kinds of things you might give away DVD-A capability in. When people drop a huge wad of money on music, it's on playing MP3s. Music has moved beyond the disc.

      That's on the market side. On the sensory side, "good en

    • What about MS pull a Sony and bundle a 'free' HD-DVD player with their game console?

  • DVD going the way of Betamax? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SIGALRM ( 784769 ) * on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:01PM (#9806676) Journal
    Microsoft's Japanese Division reported that its upcoming operating system, code-named Longhorn, will support HD DVD format
    I'm not so sure the DVD format itself will still be around by the time Longhorn eventually ships--after all, we're still waiting for SP2 [microsoft.com]...

  • Avoid proprietary codecs, use Blu-ray (Score:5, Informative)

    by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) * on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:04PM (#9806700) Homepage Journal
    If we want a format that doesn't rely on a proprietary codec, we'd better pray that Sony and the rest of the Blu-ray [blu-ray.com] camp step up their efforts! Blu-ray does not require, or even support, MS proprietary codes; it uses good old MPEG 2 video.

    MPEG video is encumbered by patents for a few more years, but at least the details are publicly available.

    • Blu-ray not proprietary (Score:4, Insightful)

      by xswl0931 ( 562013 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:35PM (#9806928)
      And how exactly is Blu-ray not proprietary? Even if you use Mpeg2, you do realize that royalties is going somewhere, just not to Microsoft?
      • Geez, didn't anbody bother to carefully read what I said?

        Yes, MPEG-2 is patented, and there are royalties on it. But the documentation is publicly available (for less than $200), and there are existing free software and open source implementations. The patents will expire in a few years, leaving MPEG-2 unencumbered.

        WMA will *always* be proprietary. Even when the patents expire, the details will remain a trade secret of Microsoft.

        Surely you can see a qualitative difference between the two?

    • I don't understand what you are talking about. VC-9's details are already available. Take a look at http://www.mpegla.com/pid/vc9/ [mpegla.com].

  • Longhorn - Blue Light Special. (Score:3, Funny)

    by www.sorehands.com ( 142825 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:07PM (#9806717) Homepage
    I can see it now at K-Mart -- "Blue light special on LongHorn in the bed&bath^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hstereo department.

  • Or to paraphrase "Men in Black" (Score:5, Funny)

    by the_skywise ( 189793 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:08PM (#9806725)
    "Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again."

  • Wow (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:09PM (#9806737)
    Amazing isn't it? We have all these incredible new technologies for communications, literature and entertainment and our great cultural accomplishments are sequels to Cinderella and Scooby Doo.

    • Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)

      by fiannaFailMan ( 702447 )

      We have all these incredible new technologies for communications, literature and entertainment and our great cultural accomplishments are sequels to Cinderella and Scooby Doo.

      Cinderella wasn't written by Disney. It's a children's classic and certainly qualifies as 'literature.' It's a good point about sequels, but to say that these are our greatest cultural achievements is to overstate it a little. Look at Troy, for example, the Illiad for the masses. On the other hand, it was made for people who don'

      • Cinderella wasn't written by Disney.

        The sequel was.

        It's a good point about sequels, but to say that these are our greatest cultural achievements is to overstate it a little.

        We don't have cultural achievements any more. We have sequels to remakes of movies based on books that might have been cultural achievements.
        • I dunno. A lot of the great classics that we stand in awe of today were denounced when they were penned. Look at Ulysses for example, it was labelled a load of smut and banned in many countries, most notably in Ireland.
    • Yes, let's ignore all the good, classic films that come out every year just because there were some flash-in-the-pan sequels that got some press for about a month.

      It's cool to bitch about ourselves--it makes us enlightened!

    • Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)

      by evilviper ( 135110 )

      our great cultural accomplishments are sequels to Cinderella and Scooby Doo.

      I don't see your point... Who ever claimed that Scooby Doo was a great cultural accomplishment? Shall we claim that "The Tortis and the Hare" was a great cultural achievment as well?

      Sure, there's Disney fodder for the kids, but there's also plenty of serious movies as well...

      Gettysburg/Gods and Generals
      Fight Club
      Matrix
      Jurassic Park
      Pulp Fiction
      Shawshank Redemption

      Varying degrees of importance, but still, fine movies none-the-le

  • More importantly, will other Microsoft operating systems be updated to support HD-DVD?
    • More importantly, will any Microsoft operating system ever ship with a DVD player out of the box?
    • surely. it's just a piece of software for a hardware.

      why would they even bother announcing something like this.. well, maybe they are bored or something. longhorn is still ways to go and features to drop...

  • All Considered... (Score:5, Informative)

    by hunterx11 ( 778171 ) <hunterx11@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:12PM (#9806765) Homepage Journal
    I'm glad that Microsoft [apple.com] will support this :)
  • It's getting to the point where OSes will need DVD media because the installation routines are so large. XP is huge and Longhorn will make it look lean and mean by comparison. I would imagine by the time it's actually shipping, the service packs will be over a gig. ;-)

  • MS Longhorn also to support... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Eberlin ( 570874 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:14PM (#9806785) Homepage
    Time travel -- as the OS gets postponed further into the future, efforts are underway to have built in time-travel.

    Space travel -- care of Paul Allen. Everyone who can afford to purchase a copy of Longhorn will get vouchers for a free ride on SpaceShip-ME.

    OogaBoogle will be built in. This is Microsoft's next generation search engine. Incorporating Yukon into the filesystem, folks will be able to wade through all the metadata they could ever want, and more!

    Plug and Play support for the USB 5.0 matter transmogrifier. We don't have a prototype yet, but um...by the time Longhorn is stable, I'm sure we'll have the transmogrifier supported.

    IE will be fully xhtml 1.0 and CSS1 compliant.

    Lastly, each package will be bundled with Duke Nukem Forever.

  • See, this is what's wrong with Microsoft... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rewt66 ( 738525 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:15PM (#9806788)
    In a reasonable world, you wouldn't have to wait for a new OS release to support a new media format, because the video codecs wouldn't be part of the OS...

  • HD DVD format. (Score:3, Funny)

    by mikael ( 484 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:20PM (#9806827)
    Microsoft's Japanese Division reported that its upcoming operating system, code-named Longhorn, will support HD DVD format.

    How else would we be able to download and install all the new features and security patches?
  • Hm? [audioholics.com]

    If they wouldn't support HD-DVD in Longhorn it would be big news though.

    - Uhh, yes, we designed a video format that will be used on these discs, but Longhorn won't support them. :-)

  • I have a wacky idea! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by inkswamp ( 233692 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:22PM (#9806843)
    Here's a wacky idea: how about getting the friggin' product out the door?

    Why does MS do so much talking about what they're going to do instead of actually getting it done? What is the point of all these endless "sneak peeks" and feature announcements and blah blah blah. I'm not just asking this as someone who (admittedly) dislike MS and their products, but rather as someone who just doesn't get why so much blabbing is being done about a product that is supposedly years away from release? One could make the argument that this is potentially harmful to MS in the long-run. They're announcing support for feature X today, but given that feature X may be yesterday's news two years from now, the announcement may actually be harmful to perception of their products. I mean, really: how does this benefit anyone?

    • Why does MS do so much talking about what they're going to do...

      You're talking about a statement in Japanese that was put on a website halfway around the world. A better question might be, "why is /. bothering me with this?"

  • Apple's H.264? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rohan_leader ( 731431 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @07:23PM (#9806845)

    Any word on whether Microsoft will be incorporating the highly-touted H.264 video standard like Apple is doing for it's upcoming Tiger?

    After all, The Steve did imply that Redmond was going to start their photocopiers? Or, is H.264 integrated with this HD-DVD format?

  • ...does this mean they will actively disallow blu-ray drives & drivers from Longhorn somehow? I don't know anything about the technical stuff associated with either standard, but surely connecting the drive to an IDE/SCSI/SATA/whatever port and having a driver would be all you'd need?

    Can Microsoft stop blu-ray working on Longhorn completely? More lawsuits to follow if they do, I'm thinking...
  • I've waited as long as I can... but what's with an "IT" category on Slashdot? Is there *any* story here that doesn't have to do with Information Technology? Or will we soon have a category for the latest on J.Lo and Britney Spears?

    (Please don't mod me into oblivion before someone answers my question... thanks...)
  • Chances are that, by the time Longhorn comes out, Linux will have support for all of those DVD standards. I'ts pretty likely that somebody will write drivers for them for Linux (even if it's the manufacturers).

    The result is that consumers and manufacturers have a real choice with Linux, whereas Windows users and OEMs are completely at the mercy of Microsoft's business plan.

    Your move.

    • And manufacturers won't write drivers for Windows? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rd_syringe ( 793064 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @08:21PM (#9807269) Journal
      Seems Windows has the greater chance of driver and codec support here due to its much, much greater manufacturer support.

      This is the second post I've seen that assumes HD-DVD will be the only supported format on Longhorn, that it won't be available for previous versions of Windows, etc. People, they make these things called codecs and drivers. I hear tell you can even install them.

      All this news is saying is that HD-DVD will be supported out of the box. You know, how DVDs are supported out of the box for Windows XP? I fail to see the issue here, but I guess it allows a few Slashdotters to get up on a soapbox and bitch about nothing in the name of feeling important, so there you go.
  • "HD" & "BluRay": it seems to me that those are orthogonal categories.
    What makes a DVD an "HD" DVD, other than the fact that HD requires more bytes and BluRay's got 'em?
    After all, I could store an HD file on paper-tape, if I wanted to.

  • In other news... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Microsoft has announced that Longhorn will support Duke Nukem Forever (which will probably ship before Longhorn does).

    They just make me laugh. Every day it's something else that will be in Longhorn. Whoo-freakin'-hoo. They're all talk and no action-- this time next year I'll be enjoying Tiger on my Macs and Microsoft will still be talking about more stuff they're adding to Longhorn.

    No wonder Windows is such a buggy, insecure piece of shit-- how can anyone be expected to write good code when the feature se
  • T2 comes with "HD" media file in the form of WM9 with some extra DRM shit.

    Of course they support this type of "HD-DVD", since it would be a lock in to their proprietary format.
  • MIcrosoft's fulfillment department announced that a serious effort will be made to ship the Longhorn operating system before the emerging HD DVD standard becomes obsolete.

  • Longhorn will need the storage (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Monday July 26, 2004 @08:04PM (#9807148) Homepage Journal
    Expect it to require the HD DVD just to store the install files...

    Office, well that is another HD/DVD... and god help you if you want visual studio 20xx ....
  • "HD DVD is an enhanced version of the standard DVD technology."

    You know, in this day and age with all the crap DRM and copy protection the RIAA is pushing through on its CDs, I can't help but shudder when I see "enhanced" with a product like this. I've come to associate it as a term that either implies superflous marketing speak with no real meaning, or a dysfunctional disc that is crippled by protection.

    Any word yet on what kind of "enhancements" these HD DVDs will have?

  • With 'Longhorn' scheduled to ship no earlier than 2007, they've got plenty of time to work on it!
  • Bad stuff:
    8 individual DRM regions not enough any more.
    These fuckers are gonna nail it down - not just to your street, or your house, but to a room in your home on a particular day of the week!

    Good stuff:
    The proposed Sony extension: limiting the colour of pants you can wear whilst over-hearing somebodies brother talk about a work collegue who read an article in another country regarding the disc in question is not expected to make it to the final standard

    Phew!
  • I haven't been keeping up that closely on all things HD, but right now, isn't the only HD DVD the most recent edition of Terminator 2, and doesn't the HD part of it only play in WMP?

  • A rant about FPS when shooting (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DumbSwede ( 521261 ) <slashdotbin@hotmail.com> on Monday July 26, 2004 @09:55PM (#9807832) Homepage Journal
    It occurs to me that resolution is not the be all and end all for video. I have a NEC 1351 with Quad XGA resolution and it is sweet on DVD and HDTV. DVD is often better than our crappy multiplex theater as it is never out of focus or jittery. HDTV almost always exceeds a Theater going experience. BUT frame rate could be a LOT better. A high speed or medium speed pan sideways looks terrible on film in the theater and on DVD or HDTV. The HDTV standard doesn't support a full 1080x1920 60p (only 60i is specified). Call it a hunch, but I'd bet almost anything shot in true 720x1280 at 60p would look far better than any of the 1080x1920-modes. I dead serious here. Why the commission wimped out on the 1080x1920 format I can't figure, even if it won't fit in a 6meg bandwidth, why not define in it in the standard anyway for use later by satellite, HD-DVD or special 6+meg channels to be approved later. Why all current movies aren't shot at 60 fps I also don't get, it would be the next bump up in real perceived quality. Yes it would take 2.5 times more film, but far less than IMAX, and probably lots of existing equipment could be adapted, or new equipment purchased much cheaper from exiting manufacturing plants that need only a minor retool. Once the Cinemas all go digital the scan rate is at 60 or above, so why so stinging on the frame rates when filming. I just don't get it. Maybe give it some branding name like IMAX-B, since IMAX is already associated with high frame rates and quality.

    OK the whole point of my rant here is to alert anyone in the media arena that what will really give a better viewing experience now is to get the FPS rate up during filming. 60p doesn't help when you're just upconverting a 24 fps film source. DVD was a good compromise for resolution and frame rate at the number of bits we had. Now lets start pumping up the frame rate as well as the resolution, now that we have the headroom to do it.

  • I'm starting to smell a rat... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by EuropeanSwallow ( 662253 ) <joaoluispinto@@@gmail...com> on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @01:33AM (#9808736) Homepage
    Wrote this on my blog [homeip.net] a while ago...

    Although I'm not a particular "conspiracy theory" freak, I'm starting to smell a rat on the latest moves on the DVD arena. First, the industry tries to play good sport and announces [bbc.co.uk] (also here [cnn.com] and here [theregister.co.uk], and discussed on Slashdot [slashdot.org]) out of a sudden it's going to "tolerate" limited copy of DVD, allowing them to be backed up and to transfer content to portable devices. The "gift" is based on technology being developed by a consortium that includes IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Sony, Toshiba, Matsushita, Warner Bros. and Disney, and is being labeled Advanced Access Content System (AACS). Trying the usual PR stunt of passing a consumer right, upheld by most Worldwide copyright laws that for a long time have entitled consumers to private copy (something that has up to now, and as you will see, in the future, been denied), as their "gift" to society, they have just, as usual, forgot to mention some "little details".

    The same industry that brought us region encoding, supposedly to avoid the possibility of buying a movie in a given place before it premieres at the cinema, although it is available elsewhere, in practice a cover-up to allow regional pricing of DVD (what else justifies 20, 30, 40 year old movies being region encoded?), has "forgot" to stress that this "feature" will only be available on the upcoming new-generation DVD format, still being cooked up by the DVD Forum, former DVD Consortium. So, to keep it short, they want us to buy all over again our DVD collection, now in a neat DRM crippled format.

    After failing miserably with the CSS content encryption of current DVD, quickly cracked by the uber-reverse-engineer DVD Jon, and being at the present time little more than a nuisance, they want to have another go. But this time they are making their homework. Lets take the steps and see.

    A little more than one year ago, Microsoft unveiled [slashdot.org] its plans for a new DRM system, nicknamed Janus. One year later [com.com] it is confirmed and Microsoft lets out a few more details on the features, licensing and partners. A few weeks later, the DVD Forum announces [com.com] it is going to include Microsoft WM9 codec in its upcoming HD-DVD specification (as a mandatory requirement). Although it may seem they are going down the same road and bound again to be reverse-engineered and fail miserably all over again, things are now different: of course Microsoft is going to patent its DRM scheme. So, while CSS was qualified as a "trade secret", not allowing the ones who cracked it to be prosecuted, reverse-engineering Microsoft DRM scheme will be violating patent law, and the all-mighty DMCA, what makes it a completely different scenario.

    Microsoft has already shown it is very interested in the media turf. After developing its own audio and video codecs and using its dominating position to spread them to the web and hardware devices like portable players and even some standalone players, and after including its Media Player in all current Windows version (earning them the current EU law suit), that will of course support both the WM9 codec and the Janus DRM, we can already see they are trying to broaden their scope. This can be seen on their Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 [microsoft.com], and it would not surprise me to see it ported to standalone devices, either on its current packaging or by porting it to Windows CE.

    So what can we see as the outcome of this scenario?

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @04:09AM (#9809246)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Really? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by KlausBreuer ( 105581 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @05:45AM (#9809459) Homepage
    Look, I'm sorry, I really don't mean to troll... but why all this info about Longhorn?
    In the past, Microsoft has told us a lot about the next OS. What it'll do. How great it'll be. How safe. How good.

    And then, when you had the actual CD(s) in hand, it turned out to be less, to be announced, to be patched, to be in the next version...

    I don't care about Longhorn. It's years away. Many years.
    When it's promised to show up within the next three months, I'll be interested. And I'll try it out. And I'll look at a lot of reviews. And I'll read the hatred from Slashdot ;)

    But not now.

  • Pointless announcement? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IWannaBeAnAC ( 653701 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2004 @08:51AM (#9810098)
    Ok, so Longhorn, currently scheduled for 2007, but will probably still be vaporware by then, will include HD DVD support.

    Linux, on the other hand, will support HD DVD as soon as a kernel hacker gets enough of the spec to implement the driver. Any bets on when exactly that will be?

    What is the big news here?

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