Maybe monopoly is not inevitable yet and healthy competition will continue to drive prices down and quality up which is what most consumers want anyway.

I don't get this particular part. Why would it be a monopoly if the HD DVD camp decided to shut down the format? Is there a monopoly in DVD production? If so, who controls that monopoly? How did it contribute to the high prices of DVD players and DVD media?

Having two competing formats is rarely beneficial for the consumer. How will the consumer chose the appropriate format?

The continuation of the HD DVD format will lead to one thing, and one thing only, continued confusion on part of the consumer, and therefore more fence sitting. More fence sitting on part of the consumer means a slower up-take in the HDM market in general. This means slower sales of the Blu-Ray and HD DVD format. This means slower realization of economics of scale and therefore higher prices, despite the fact that Toshiba (who interestingly has a real monopoly currently on production of HD DVD players at the moment) is currently dumping HD DVD players on the market at below production cost.

Interestingly several studios now claim that they feel the war also in slower sales of regular DVDs. People are sitting on the fence waiting for the HD war to finish so that they can buy their new movies in HD, and they don't want to invest in already obsolote DVDs.

In other words, the continuation of this war, as now perpetrated by Universal and Paramount, hurts everybody. It keeps the prices high for the consumer and tt keeps the studios from selling both regular and HD movie content.

There is only one company that profits from this war, and that is the company that has been financing the war from the beginning. Microsoft. Microsoft wants this war to go on for long enough to have disk based HDM becoming irrelevant. Then it becomes an open market again for download-based HDM content. Microsoft is currently investing massively in that area with their Windows Media 9 format.

Oh, and if you think that the Blu-Ray DRM scheme is anti-consumer, wait until Microsoft forces you to upgrade your PC and your Home Theater system every two years to support their new virus distribution utility (currently called Windows Vista) with draconian DRM schemes just to watch your HD movies.

I cannot believe how gullible some are. Amazing!
What do you think this battle is really over?
For sure it's over DRM and who wanted all this draconian DRM, not M$ that's for certain. That's WHY they went to war. To try to stop Sony spreading more of their evil DRM schemes controlling what we get to watch. Who do you think speced the DRM requirements in Vista? Let me tell you, not M$. Why would M$ want to control content, they don't own content, duh.

Bob.

I disagree, Bob.
DRM and codecs are where the $$ are and M$ is heavily vested in both. They also have a heavy vestment in the the buckets in which the content is stored, pipes through which that content is distributed, and the tap from which the content spouts, not to mention the add-ons that might move along with the content ie; advertising.
M$ is vested at virtually every point in the process excluding production, and they're now playing in that game too.
The company that can assure the most secure DRM with the least amount of consumer inconvenience wins big, and M$ believes they are that solution.

The DRM issues don't really bother me because all the discs I make will be DRM free. I really don't care how secure "Blades of Glory" is protected.

"with the least amount of consumer inconvenience wins big" This sums up the problem, if its too inconvenience, the consumer will entertain a new product. This is one of theories about MS$$ marketing plans and about controlling media downloading. Ms, Apple ,etc.. know convenience is critical for media value, and that media owners will sell their product vs. not selling. There is a war on many fronts being waged, with MS and Apple being more serious about the end-game of revenue generation by being the all-powerful media broker.

A little OT in the OT - but does this count?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_Versatile_Disc

It is interesting. Music labels were the first ones to embrase DRM. They are also now the first ones to abandon DRM, Sony included.

One feature of DRM that not many people know of is stats. In an advertising world, DRM tells you who uses what, when and how. Satisfy both and DRM is not needed. Guess this is a little off topic, but anyway.

If the product "with the least amount of consumer inconvenience wins big" really was the case, HD DVD would have won.

If the product "with the least amount of consumer inconvenience wins big" really was the case, HD DVD would have won.

I can't see how.
Identical DRM
Identical content
Identical codecs
Identical connections
Smaller size (HD DVD)
No Java (HD DVD)
Fewer player options
Fewer movie options
Fewer extras options
Fewer forward looking-benefits
No burners (prosumer side)
Very short-term price benefit. If HD DVD were to continue to be a player in the market, eventually it has to pay its own freight. This was a hotly discussed topic at CES, proof that buying the market doesn't always work. Look at Toshiba's last two weeks vs Sony, Pioneer, Samsung.

I was thinking about the world zoning of Blu-ray which affects me because I am a fan of movies from around the World. It irks me not to be able to collect movies from the places I work and visit.

How about:
No DRM, just copy the disk to your media server and stream the content around your home. Or download the content?
No HDCP on HDMI so we're not getting tripped up playing our own unprotected content?
Not trying to have HD component outputs banned from STB receivers.
Building a VCR that records HDV from HD component and/or HD SDI?

In one way I don't care about DRM. Whoever owns content has the right to place whatever restrictions they like on it, that's a given. If we don't like it the answer is simple, don't buy it, that's our right. Or is it?

Since we all went HD crazy the requirements to provide DRM in content have escalated to the extent that it permeates everything. We have no choice but to buy it and pay for it. In OSs, in cameras, in our graphics cards, in our monitors, in restrictions on what our VCRs can do. It's a tax we are forced to pay and yet we get no benefit from it, in fact it hinders our business and if we actually did want some DRM on our content we're pretty well locked out.

As for how the adoption of HD is being hindered, I don't think Sony's struggle with the EBU did much to help. The confusion over HDCP hasn't done much to help the public either.

Bob.

You are right Bob,


Some people are gullible, especially those who defend monopoly as being "good" for the consumer.

It's not the high cost of the HD discs or the players, that are the reason for slow adoption by consumers. It's the "confusion" over formats for their "investment" in movies like "Blades of Glory" - Right Bob?

John

and this my friends is where piracy will ALWAYS win...

There are ways to circumvent and convert any format to any other format and re-author to whatever format one might need.
It already exists.
Its already vastly available

If anyone here thinks the "format war" will stop people from taking action to enforce their freedom of choice, then theyre sadly mistaken.
------

Edited to appease the whim of certain members who cant handle the reality of this situation.

You are right Bob,


Some people are gullible, especially those who defend monopoly as being "good" for the consumer.

It's not the high cost of the HD discs or the players, that are the reason for slow adoption by consumers. It's the "confusion" over formats for their "investment" in movies like "Blades of Glory" - Right Bob?

John
==================
Bob,

Perhaps that description requires further explanation on my part.

It goes something like this according to some of these posters:

Guy walks into a store knowing he can't bear the thought of doing without "Blades of Glory" another minute. He saw it in the movies and became attached to it knowing that the "second coming" of the movie would be released in a few months on disc and that day has finally arrived. Let's call it "judgement day". Soon he would own something second only in value to his home.

Having only a lowly SD DVD player or three he notices the SD version of the "Blades of Glory" DVD on sale for $13.95 from 10 meters away as he approaches. Running toward it with glee he sees two "other versions" of the movie in funny colored packages. One is Blue and one is Red and only cost $30 each.
Confused, he begins to sweat profusely. The joy turns to panic. He says to himself - "Now what"?

Running to the high school dropout covering the department for that hour he asks, "What are these"?
The high school dropout says: "Dude, they look better when you watch them, but you gotta buy one of those" pointed to two players on the shelf.

Walking over to the HD DVD player and the Blu-Ray player he sees that these two players are only a mere $200 - $600 more than he paid for his three SD DVD players collectively, but doesn't know which one to snap up to play the $30 HD version he can't wait to aquire.

The high school dropout runs over after hearing a loud thud in the other aisle, only to discover the man on the floor shaking in what appeared to him to be an epileptic seizure of the type induced by hip-hop.

"Are you okay Dude"?, the high school dropout asked.
The man replied, "No, I'm not. It has been over twenty minutes since I came into this store to buy Blades of Glory and because of this confusion over which version of the movie to buy and which player to buy the value of Blades of Glory has gone up 30 percent and I still don't own one." "I can't decide whether to buy one or both players for $800 and $60 for both discs or what". "What should I do". "I can't make these high level decisions on my own".

"Dude, I don't know" replied the high school dropout.

Knowing another seizure was iminent the man reluctantly went over and quickly purchased the SD version of "Blades of Glory" at least comfortable in knowing that his "investment" had begun.

John

DJPadre is now proudly boasting of his piracy of HD movies. He has continually violated the profanity provision of this forum's Terms of Service and now he is discussing his blantantly illegal activities, also a violation of the Terms of Service. DJ you're a real piece of work.

Get over yourself.. no seriously mate, if you cant handle reality then maybe you need to tke a long hard look at the facts....

Its not about downloading it for the sake of having it, its abot teh fact that the freedom of choice is not there.
THATS The point..

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=415

This is just the begining...

In any case to once again sooth the porr lil minds of those offended by my post, i will once again go back and edit it...

Im really REALLY sick and tired of the politically correct driven mentality here...

Yes, youre all saints and youve never done anything to make or prove a point...

And my point was precisely the fact that it does not matter what they try to do to monopolise a market, there are ways to circumvent it.

If you refuse to accept that fact, and you refuse to acknowledge that the possibilities already exist, then youre not only blind, but you prove that youre just another uneducated simpleton consumer who bows down to appease the whims of the big companies.
Much like your deadbeat uneducated and lost consumer metaphor, if you want to live like that, thats your prerogative.
If you want to educate yoruself to expand your options as a consumer, then thats your prerogative too

As for being a "piece of work", your entitled to your opinion

If youve ever downloaded an mp3, or youve ever ripped a cd into mp3 format, or youve ever used a commercial soundtrack without license in any of your projects, then you yourself are a hypocrite for having the audacity to judge me on my apparent actions when you yourself are doing the exact same thing.

Im not here to argue or judge John.
John if you want to suck up to the forum mods, youre welcome to do that.
As for my "profanities" i have never abused or disrespected anyone here. Its the wya i speak, tis the way i express myself. If you have an issue with expression then i seriously think you need to get over it.
Not everyone is out to impress or make friends. Some of us jstu want to share the facts.

It seems to me that some people in certain parts of the world just cant handle honest communication anymore

i take your point but I see another subtext to it.
While where all groping around trying to figure what to buy we don't stop to think about why we have to buy any of it. We're stuck on this seemingly endless treadmill of consumption, we think all will be rosy if there's competition but it's a con. Sure maybe they're competing but only to make us buy something.
What I find scarey is the number of SD DVD players, TVs, and shiny plastic disks that'll become landfill. The ony saving thing is we can fill in the holes we dug to make The Next Great Thing. If downloading movies saves resources I'm all for it, the economic/DRM/whatever issues are trivial by comparison. It shocks me the amount of DVDs and plastic cases I use up as part of my business. Sure it's trivial in the grand scheme of things but I'm sure you can see my point when you multiply my business by the number of people doing what I do, let alone the zillion pressed DVDs and CDs.

Bob.

If downloading movies saves resources I'm all for it, the economic/DRM/whatever issues are trivial by comparison. It shocks me the amount of DVDs and plastic cases I use up as part of my business.
==========
If this concern pertains to the environment and concern over depletion of natural resources understand that you are dealing with mostly Americans on this forum. As I have frequently pointed out with specific examples we are trained by our news media that represents a single party's agenda here. To well trained Americans, environmental concerns are overblown "distortions" by liberals that don't want to see businesses "succeed". Only in America can we see a Nobel Peace Prize winner smeared for his successes by his own nation's news media because he is of the opposite party and won it for something contrary to our training.

John

Well ,yeah, that is borne out of concern for spaceship earth.
Some of the predictions coming out of our CSIRO are very dire and they're a pretty conservative bunch. I get your point about the medias role but somehow the truth gets out and the harder you try to stop it the bigger the crunch when the population turns. Damn shame in this case it could cost both the USA and the rest of the planet dearly.
The good news is the forecasts show major changes hitting the USA, you might be able to hide a war overseas but cyclones and rising oceans are kind of hard to disguise.
Bob.

Hey Bob, my mum has a perfect use for old Cd's

With any of my coasters, or material and archives I no longer need, I give them to my mum and she makes reflective scarescrows out of them.
They work a treat and im sure many farmers would be gretul..

Aside from that one solution that actually works, I agree 100% in regard to the environamntal impact.
Of a year, i would clearly publich at least 5000 discs with covers.. and thats jstu wht we do HERE.. add another 20k units for pressed commercial jobs and its pretty bloody scary

As an aside, we're now dealing with disposable nappies simply becausae our work doesn allow us the time to manage reusable ones. Now if my wife and I are in this boat becuase were making ends meet by working at least 10 to 16hrs a day each, then I can only imagine how many others would be doing the exact same thing..

And this I guess is a good additional metaphor for my initial post.
Despite the outcome and end result, depsite the steps being taken by the companies, it wont matter.
The consumer will do whatever they can to make life easier for themselves. Cost and resorces can be argued.. be it disc based, through to online, through to disposable nappies versus reusable ones.
The arguemnt is the same.
Do you go with convenience and immediate results, or do you bide your time, use additional resources, energy, labour, materials such as water, detergent to attain the same results?
Which one is more convenient in this day and age?
in the end the product does the same thing.. how one attains it is based on teh consumer needs.

In any case, the consumer will do what they want.

No matter how much you try to polish it up with gloss and political correctness, nothing else matters except the consumer needs.

If you cant fulfil those needs of the consumer, then you will go bust.
Its that simple. Its Business 101

Sadly not many ppl see it this way. They dont see that this "war" wont make a difference in the end becuase people will find a way to make it work for them.

........but somehow the truth gets out and the harder you try to stop it the bigger the crunch when the population turns. The good news is the forecasts show major changes hitting the USA, you might be able to hide a war overseas but cyclones and rising oceans are kind of hard to disguise.
===========
Not so. The truth doesn't get out in the US. "Cyclones and rising oceans" are easy to disguise if the message is that these are all naturally occurring phenomenon that go in cycles and that the majority of scientists of the world are wrong about industry's contribution to it because, "Look, here are some so-called scientists who disagree". Despite the fact that many of them have been funded by the Energy Corporations the media won't tell the public that fact and will instead give either greater credibility or equal credibility to these "scientists". Then we are subjected to "in-depth analysis" of why the Nobel Peace Prize is now a "joke" and has become "politicized" because they picked Al Gore last year for no good reason.

You would have to come here to live, knowing what you know coming from a country with a free press and watch this stuff each day to understand. You can deal with evidence of media bias where you live by using the remote control, we cannot. The radio stations have been consolodated, the television stations consolodated, and through a new FCC rules change that wen't through in secrecy less than a month ago the television stations will be allowed to buy up all the local newspapers. The last leak is the Internet and that is next.
That will happen under the next media appointed Republican administration in 2008. The final "leak" will be sealed.

John

farss:

I am not sure why you would say this. Have you tried Vista? Have you ever lived in a world with Microsoft? MS is notorious for their DRM support, and not only that, they are notoriously bad when it comes to consumer friendly attitudes in this regard.

I am dead serious when I say that if MS wins the HD download war, we are all screwed. We are going to find our selves with equipment that becomes irrelevant, and unsupported, every 18 to 24 months. We will find our self calling 1.888.$$$TOTALK every time we want to add a new feature to our home theater system or our movie collection.

Sony is not good in this war, absolutely not, but they are, historically, many orders of magnitude more friendly towards their customers than is MS.

That's WHY they went to war. To try to stop Sony spreading more of their evil DRM schemes

No, it is not. When Toshiba was ready to pack it in some time ago, MS insisted on continuing the fight. The reason is simple, they don't want any of the two formats to succeed, they want them both to fail. If they both fail, enough time will pass (this is MS' bet) that physical delivery becomes irrelevant due to downloads. MS is, at this moment believe me, trying to lock in as many cable providers and the likes, to an MS-only download world.

Imagine how that will be. Only renting allowed, no buying. Want to watch the movie three times? Pay three times. Five? Pay five. Want to put the movie onto a portable device? Fine if you have Zune, but don't try it with an iPod please, you'll just end up with a lot less hair.

Why would M$ want to control content, they don't own content, duh.

They don't want to control the content, they want to control the distribution of content.

I don't care for, but neither do I mind terribly, strong DRM in products I have an amount of control over. Blu includes provisions for managed copy, so I am not particularly frightened by it. What do you think will happen when MS controls your home theater system and when and where you can watch movies?

MS hates open standards like H.264. Obviously. Open standards means open competition, and you know what, MS doesn't do all that well in open competition.