* Posts by Alphaman

5 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Oct 2007

Adobe heats up iPad Flash bash

Alphaman

Bassackwards

If Apple markets this product in any semblance of the success they've seen with the iPod and iPhone, my guess is Adobe has good reason to run scared and blog about "the end of pr0n" on their site. With Google and Vimeo going to HTML5 for video and dissing Flash, 75M iPhone/iPod users dissing Flash, competition coming from Silverlight, web browsers supporting HTML5's canvas element or SVG, this could be yet another nail in Adobe's coffin. This could be a big, hard, meaty nail in Adobe's a... uh, coffin.

No wonder they're squealing.

Christmas stockings attract a Touch or two

Alphaman

Hardware only?

Teens without credit cards isn't much of a problem. I'll bet a lot of those kids got iTunes gift cards along with their Touches, and will probably wind up getting a monthly iTunes Allowance (I know both my kids do). Cupertino doesn't just "care about" selling hardware -- their profit margins are probably much higher on stuff sold out of the iTunes store, and the recurring revenue is the real goldmine.

And of course, the Touches are a gateway drug; before you know it, the kids will be visiting switchtomac.com on their new pocket computers, laughing at the music video, and telling mum & dad they want a Mac... "I won't right click, I multitouch, muthafucka" -- yeah, it is pretty catchy...

Rest of the article, I got no beef with.

Paramount poised to drop HD DVD

Alphaman
Flame

Lies, I tell you!

Tim, you're spouting off the same old tired lies we've been hearing for way too long, and I for one am getting tired of them.

Tim said: 1. HD DVD has no region coding, Blu-Ray does (and with Sony at the helm, they'll use their lawyers to kill anyone offering imports or cracks).

And what, 10 or 15 discs have bothered to use region coding to this point? That's what, 2-3%? And of course, the region coding has already been cracked. And don't forget that both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD support DVD region locking. If HD-DVD had survived, how long do you think it would have been before the studios had convinced Toshiba to modify their spec to include some kind of region locking?

Tim said: 2. HD DVD is a complete spec, Blu-Ray still is not (and all but about one release is still profile 1.0, missing a lot of good features found on most HD DVD discs).

So why did the HD-DVD camp deem it necessary to revise their spec to allow for a 3 layer disc if their spec is "complete"? Is the BR spec not complete because the BR camp is working on a 4 layer 100GB disc? The BR spec IS complete and functional. Just because BR is being enhanced does not make it incomplete. If it were "incomplete", we'd see what we saw with the early wireless N devices -- incompatibilities and patches to make one device work with another. This might have been a useful argument 2 years ago, but give it a rest. The spec is final, published, and engineering is moving forward.

Tim said: 3. HD DVD is not propped up entirely by a games console that isn't fully featured, up to spec or even supports all the HD audio formats! (this is HD after all, you should get 'HD' in all aspects).

BR supports more video formats than HD-DVD, and it supports the most important of the audio formats, specifically UNCOMPRESSED audio. If you've got uncompressed, lossless audio, why would you want more choices in compressed audio? Oh, wait, could it be because HD-DVD needs it because they don't have the bandwidth that BR has?

And the PS3 DOES support v1.1, the latest released spec. I don't know where you get your misinformation from...

Tim said: 4. HD DVD is cheaper to produce, both in terms of discs and players, which is better for the studios, better for manufacturers, increases competition, and is better for the consumer.

Cheaper in the short term. More expensive due to lower capacity and more restrictive bandwidth, resulting in multi-disc shipments when BR will still only need to ship one disc. With 60% more content on a BR disc (today; 233% more with 4 layer BR), studios will be able to save money longterm.

Tim said: 5. HD DVD's interactive content is easier to develop than Blu-Ray's BD-J system. Again, better for everyone. Get releases quicker and cheaper for a start.

The Microsoft proprietary HDi software relies upon software licensed from Microsoft to build content. BR's Java technology has had a slow start due to its steeper learning curve, but as more open source (and proprietary) tools are developed, and as the studios are learning how to work with the tools they've got, that curve will change. It may have been easier a year ago, but which product offers the best future-proof option?

Player pricing is a debatable argument, especially if you're basing it on the bargain basement clearance sale that WalMart had in November, when they clearanced out last year's HD-A2 to make room for its replacement. Desperation sales of obsolete hardware shouldn't be used to form your argument. Low end hardware costs between the 2 lines are within 1/3rd of each other. Do you really think that small a difference is going to matter longterm? I would say that low volumes because of an infantile format war caused by Toshiba's recalcitrance in going with the rest of the world would have more bearing on longterm costs.

Give it up, Tim. HD-DVD is dead. Your specious arguments are demeaning to you.

Plunging player prices to reveal Blu-ray vs HD DVD winner?

Alphaman

Silliness

Downloads won't take off anytime soon. For example, I've got 35 BR discs. Figure an average of 25GB of data per disc (not max, obviously) and that works out to 875GB. Are you telling me that I have to download 875GB and store that long term? Or that every time I want to watch a movie I've got to stream 25 gig, then delete it? If someone else wants to pay for a DS3 or DS4 line into my house, I might consider it. This is nonsense for the remainder of this decade, and probably well into the next.

One of the prime reasons BetaMax failed was because there was one primary source. Sure, there were a couple of other vendors, but Sony was the driver.

Compare that with HD-DVD being sourced by one primary vendor, Toshiba. Versus BR players and recorders from Sony, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Mitsubishi, Funai, JVC, Loewe, Denon, and Daewoo.

And when a format-agnostic consumer goes into a store, they're going to look at relatively comparable players, and ask "which platform are my desired movies available on?" With a list of studios almost as long as the list of hardware manufacturers above, BR will get the sale in the majority of cases.

The war is over, HD-DVD is just going through death spasms.

Blu-ray outsells HD DVD 2:1 in US

Alphaman

You list one HD-DVD-only title

...in the upcoming holiday sales season, and that's Transformers.

However, there are numerous BD-only titles. Meet The Robinsons, Rent, Life of Brian, The Rock, Cars, I Know Who Killed Me, Ratatouille, SpiderMan 3, Hostel 1&2, and Pirates of the Caribbean/Worlds End just touch the top of the list.

Just trying to make sure both sides of the story are properly told.