We were pretty
surprised
last week when an unnamed Microsoft spokesperson declared that Windows Vista would include "a great HD DVD and
Blu-ray DVD experience." The statement, after all, seemed inconsistent with Microsoft's previous position that the
company would directly support only HD DVD. Now it turns out that this is still the case. Microsoft Corporate VP
Amir Majidimehr spoke to Chris Lanier, and confirmed that "Microsoft is hard at work in developing
native HD DVD playback in Windows Vista ... as we have mentioned time and time again, Microsoft has no plans to provide
native Blu-ray playback functionality in Windows Vista. Such functionality will be provided by third parties." We
assume the spokesperson who said otherwise is relieved that we don't know his/her name.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
wulff @ Mar 20th 2006 10:54AM
the linux kernel team should step in w/ corporate sponsorship from rh and novell to support both natively ... see what that does to ship the desktop and media center movement...
*sigh* i can dream can't i?
Regula Oblique @ Mar 20th 2006 10:57AM
That's grimmy.
Snarf @ Mar 20th 2006 11:17AM
just another example of Microsoft using its monopoly to its advantage
Jonathan Keim @ Mar 20th 2006 11:38AM
well this will really hurt bluray alot. But I thought that 4 days ago or so it was the other way around????? Why did it change? Maybe it was just an error here
Alex @ Mar 20th 2006 11:44AM
"just another example of Microsoft using its monopoly to its advantage" -snarf
A spokesperson giving incorrect specs is totally unrelated to any sort of monopoly Microsoft may have. Your comment is completely irrelevant to the story.
Anyhow...
It looks like they're doing what they did for Blu-Ray what they did for DVD in XP: have support, but only if you supply 3rd party codecs. I'm not surprised or disapointed. It's good to see that they are at least integrating HD-DVD into Vista.
Matt @ Mar 20th 2006 11:47AM
"just another example of Microsoft using its monopoly to its advantage"
---------------
Why should Microsoft encourage people to use competing hardware? That would be like Apple telling people to buy Dells and install OSx86.
nemi @ Mar 20th 2006 12:00PM
This won't be a huge impact.
If you buy a BR-ROM drive I'm sure it will come with bundled software.
If you buy a BR-RW drive I would be very sure it would come with Nero 7 or equivalent for BR burning and Movie playback.
Not many people playback movies on their PC Monitor. They would much prefer their HDTV. So this only effects the extremely small sub-set of MediaPC owners who want to use their MediaPC to playback BR discs on their main HDTV. And Most Media PC owners are not shy of hardware and software customisation so the lack of built in support will not slow them down for long.
Palmer Woodrow @ Mar 20th 2006 12:02PM
"Why should Microsoft encourage people to use competing hardware?"
What hardware? Microsoft doesn't make HD-DVD hardware.
This is just more stupid Microsoft posturing. They and Intel have no business "taking a stand" on this format war. That's like a manufacturer of mannequins "taking a stand" on what kind of jackets should be sold next fall.
Pratik @ Mar 20th 2006 12:19PM
Hey I have hear about that.
This system has max capacity of 200GB.
It is like CD/DVD Versetile disc.
But has smaller layer i.e 0.3micron in it which
a cd has 6 micron.
A Hi technlogy device upgraded by microsoft.
I would like that.
Matt @ Mar 20th 2006 12:40PM
"What hardware? Microsoft doesn't make HD-DVD hardware."
---------
They're not making the hardware, but they do have an interest in which hardware format wins.
glacia00 @ Mar 20th 2006 12:59PM
Clearly it's MS pile-on time again. Instead of either posturing or monopoly strong arming it's much more likely that outside bickering is driving MS as crazy as everyone else on this. You only have to do a search for one vs. the other to see how ridiculous the debate is.
Frankly all of the HD content I've seen is so boring that I've turned it off in the first 5 minutes. Great I can see the dirty pores on someone's face. What am I a dermatologist?
At any rate, at some point MS has to put a stick in the sand and say, "we're done with the current development phase for that module and it will ship this way."
When the dust clears and the war is over and the zealots carry their dead home Vista will natively support either the winner or both.
Karl Viklund @ Mar 20th 2006 1:21PM
#3
It's their system. They can do and does what they want.
Anyway. The problem is just that no one wants HD-DVD. The format war is already won by Blu-ray. The format most people will choose.
Jarmayn @ Mar 20th 2006 1:42PM
Again, this is like the race with Beta and VHS, which one is going to become the standard? Blu-ray is certainly going to be more expensive, espeically the actual harddrive, so when this happens, no 1 will buy it, and then Daul DVD is going to take the lead and eventually completely replace blu-ray. But yeah, Microsoft supporting only Daul DVD is certainly going to give Sony and other companies who are supporting blu-ray a big hit - we'll have to wait and see how this plays out!!
-http://www.e-fuze.com
Andrew @ Mar 20th 2006 1:52PM
#11 Heck, the problem is no one will want Blu-ray either. The only way either will be accepted is if it's all pre-installed. Most software is still being shipped on good 'ol CDs. USB drives are easier to back things up to.
That means the only possible use for HD-DVD / Blu-Ray is for HD movies, but the average consumer thinks that regular DVD is already "HD." The jump from DVD to HD isn't enough to make them want to spend extra money on the new format. Furthermore, even if they did, why would they want to watch HD movies on a PC?
Dazed and Confused @ Mar 20th 2006 1:58PM
Native Blu Ray versus HD-DVD support is probably as simple as patent royalty costs.
One of the things that Blu-Ray requires for full compliance is BD-J - which is an interactive TV environment based on Java. You can find the specs here: http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/downloadablefile/bdj_gem_application_definition_050307-12959.pdf
The BD-J environment is based on GEM - which is in turn based on DVB-MHP (see http://www.mhp.org/).
The license terms for the GEM technologies are described here: http://www.mhp.org/news_and_events/news/via_licensing_announces_t/index.xml
Hence, Blu-Ray requires technologies that must be licensed from 3rd parties - so MS can not distribute the Blu-Ray Java run time environment without paying the appropriate license fees ($2 per device).
In contrast, Microsoft developed something called iHD - which is part of the HD-DVD standards. Microsoft probably does not need to pay royalties to bundle this technology with Vista since they helped develop it.
I think this might explain why MS is looking to 3rd parties to provide Blu-Ray support. They did something similar for DVD support - which also required 3rd party royalties, etc.
So none of this should surprise anyone.
john @ Mar 20th 2006 2:26PM
Another example of Microsoft boring people to no end :(
What's next more upgrading just like all Microsoft products?
In that case I'll choose Blu-ray at least I'll get my moneys worth
Jon @ Mar 20th 2006 2:39PM
I would imagine that pretty soon anyone buying a blu-ray drive will find it bundled with some kind of blu-ray ready "power dvd" style software.
Hardly makes any difference to anyone, as far as I can see.
SuicideNinja @ Mar 20th 2006 5:00PM
Bluray uses Java...a very horrible language. It needs decent tools...and well...doesn't have them available. Nothing to get excited about there.
Bluray hasn't won anything yet, and neither has HD-DVD. Most likely, both formats will fail. There isn't a need for them yet. Consumers might as well stick with upscaling DVD players so they don't have to worry about HDCP this or HDMI that or "it won't work with my DVR unit" etc. Both formats are going about DRM the wrong way, or they could have been successful. Both are coming in at high prices, specific connection requirements, and a slight improvement in picture quality. DVD works for me, thanks.
evo @ Mar 20th 2006 5:26PM
#14: Terrific links, thanks for those. Some interesting nuggets from the BD-J spec:
- 1.5 billion DVDs were sold in 2004 in the U.S. Even at Chinese pirate prices (8 yuan, ~$1), this is a big chunk of change.
- Blu-Ray discs can contain either HDMV titles (similar to DVD-Video titles, non-interactive), BD-J titles (Java/J2ME-based, interactive), or some mix of both.
- BD-J titles must be signed in order to be run (while a disc is inserted). From what I can tell, this means it will not be possible for non-licensees to create interactive BD-J titles.
- Blu-Ray players must contain some form of persistent system storage (most likely implemented as flash) for storing basic information. They may also provide what is called local storage (most likely implemented as a hard drive), for storing large amounts of data. BD-J titles can read and write this information, but thankfully, can only read and write to portions of this storage allocated to each BD disc (i.e. barring any bugs, no data mining of information stored by other discs is possible).
- BD-J titles can download content (using S/HTTP) from any website the content provider wishes, provided it is authenticated and permitted to do so. This is dissimilar to the way Java applets work, which can only contact the website from which they were downloaded. What is not clear is whether the user will be prompted to permit these downloads, or if players will blindly allow these permissions without user consent.
Perhaps the scariest thing in the spec is the fact that your BD-J title can contact any website. While the idea of being able to download info to your player is interesting from a consumer's point of view, this can be easily abused. No version of the J2ME SDK that I've seen includes any way to obtain a unique ID for a player, but such APIs might be present in the org.bluray packages in the spec. If so, it would be possible to upload viewing habits across titles and discs to a central server. Note that there is no limit to which websites a BD-J title can contact except at the discretion of the content provider. This means that all it takes is one unique ID, then a cartel of content providers can decide to track viewer's habits by having their BD-J titles send information to a common server.
At the minimum, even without a unique ID, it will be possible for content providers to track viewing habits in general; for example, they will potentially know what discs are played, when, and which titles on a disc are most popular.
Note that one of the scenarios listed for BD-J titles is an online shopping application, allowing the user to shop for items related to a particular title. However, this would easily allow content providers to collect personally identifiable information, and then use that to tie together your viewing habits across discs (assuming you provided that info on multiple discs).
Finally, note that it's conceivable, but hopefully unlikely, that content providers would require some sort of login in order to view content stored on BD-J titles. This means that those extras you're dying to see might be protected and require you to sign up for some subscription in order to view them. Once you do that, the content provider could track your viewing habits on that disc, or across multiple discs.
Dazed and Confused @ Mar 20th 2006 9:36PM
#17 - "EVO" ... I think you make some excellent observations about privacy issues.
I would like to point out that many of the issues you raise already exist for the emerging interactive TV specifications - which are all based on the same Java foundations (much more so than you might realize).
It is pretty confusing - but hang in there ...
First there was DVB-MHP (see my links above). This is supposedly already widely used in Europe - although living in the US - I have not seen this first hand. The http://www.mhp.org site lists which countries have already adopted it and rolled it out.
CableLabs liked the iTV ideas developed by DVB-MHP - but it dod not work for the US cable market the way that the cable companies wanted it too.
So OCAP was developed - which is based on DVB's MHP spec (see link above). OCAP is at the heart of the Digital Cable Ready initiative by Cable Labs in the US - and is part of the CableCARD 2.0 compliance specifications for two-way cable (which MS won't support - probably for the same patent licensing and royalty issues).
To help keep these related standards from diverging too much - the "Globally Executable MHP" (or GEM) spec was developed and (1) BD-J (used in Blue-Ray), (2) OCAP (US cable TV standards for iTV), and ACAP (US terrestrial broadcast standards for iTV) are all based on this GEM spec. Furthermore, the existing MHP specs have been updated to conform to the GEM specs as well.
Actually reading these specs (GEM, MHP, OCAP, ACAP, etc.) is a bit of a nightmare as they are written in terms of each other, which make them very confusing to read. I would imagine that - given BD-J's basis on the GEM spec as well, much of this stuff is also really defined in the other specification documents. These documents are all available on line (see www.cablelabs.com for OCAP docs, for example).
The use of Java/J2ME is somewhat loose here - standard packages were dropped, modified in behavior, etc. and things might not work as you would expect a pure Java environment to work. For example, the notion of a "file system" in a digital broadcast is rather bizarre ... but it exists in some form.
So - while BD-J will present privacy issues - we are or soon will be facing similar issues with the iTV specs for cable, etc.
I suppose we should be able to watch our Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movies without actually connecting the players up to an Internet connection if we are concerned about privacy (and who isn't?).