Bay attacks MS and HD-DVD News

love how he tells it like it is :-P

Keen-eyed schmeen eyed. As if all BluRay discs are region encoded. ;) I bought the US version of Planet Earth from amazon.com, no problems there. Alledgedly, for some reason that version even looks better.

Will be interesting to hear whether another source can confirm Bay's comment.

I really wouldn't worry about Transformers not being on BD... I watched the DVD last night on my PS3 via HDMI upscaled to 1080p, using the Theatre mode on my Sony Bravia HDTV, and it looked fantastic. Obviously it isn't as sharp as the hi-def version but it will be more than good enough for most people I'd wager. The movie is dumb but supremely entertaining by the way; I really enjoyed it.

@Darren

Why bother with any of the hi def disc formats then?

i dont think i will be moving to high def DVD's for many a year. why?

1) i already own loads of DVD's, why buy the same movies all over again for more money?
2) Im happy with current video quality

Didn't gamesindustry.biz say the same thing months ago ?

michael bay is right. microsoft are good at business, i take my hat of to them.

Hollywood director Michael Bay has lashed out at Microsoft and its HD-DVD format

Since when did Microsoft own the HD-DVD format. I thought it was Toshibia's. They are a supporter yes, but own it they do not.

The situation with hddvd and blu-ray is stupid. I usually say two competing brands is good for the customer, but not when each gets tied to certain films/franchises. Id hate to commit to hddvd only to find 3 of my fave films are only coming out on blu-ray. The people getting shafted are the consumers yet again, what a surprise.

Not on Blu-ray? Well that explains why I rcevied the 1986 Transformers movie on Bluray from Amazon DVD Rental last week.

Tsk

Is he going to make a *good* movie about it?

I;m the same as bengray66. DVD is good enough for me for the foreseeable future. The difference from DVD to HD-DVD/Blu Ray is not worth buying new equipment and all new discs, imo. Got other things to spend my money on.

If a polished download system comes in about 5 years time then it will probably be time to reconsider.

I'm not re-buying my collection again in HD format, but I do buy new films if I can find them. I'm a HD-DVD-add-on owner so obviously I'd prefer HD-DVD to win but I don't really care either way. By the time the dust has settled it'll be digital downloads.

Blu-Ray is technically slightly superior (especially the data access rates), but there's no guarantee of what the content is. HD-DVDs *have* to be of a certain standard as more of their content is non-optional. The storage capacity difference isn't a problem at the moment if triple-layer HD-DVD gets out soon (50GB). I'm also wary of the BR regions which are being enforced as I've imported everything from the US.

Upsampled DVDs look mostly fine as far as I'm concerned so I don't think there'll be a mass rush for HD like there was for DVD replacing VHS and CD replacing cassette.

Yes, Microsoft are involved in this massive conspiracy to make Sony fail. They're certainly not just investing in a business to promote growth and make money, because that would be mundane and commonplace.

Also, Sony decided to develop Blu-ray rather than stick with the HD-DVD consortium because they were furious over Toshiba getting the lion's share of royalties for DVD. To get revenge they decided to sabotage the HD-DVD format - by competing with it!

Business is basically about mad plots for world domination, betrayal and revenge. I don't know where people get the idea that it's about making money, that's just crazy talk.

@Wash - Well BD has other advantages too like uncompressed audio, correct 24 fps playback and a scratch-resistance surface. ;)

Seriously though, I have Die Hard 4.0 on BD and the Ultimate Edition DVD (the one with the swearing and violence left in). I watched the BD first then the DVD but was surprised at the quality of the DVD picture. I mean obviously it wasn't as sharp as the BD but it was still very good, thanks to it being upscaled to 1080p and output via HDMI. I suspect the difference between a non-upscaled DVD and BD on a large 1080p HDTV would be greater though but I watch them on a 1080p-capable 32" Sony Bravia TV using the excellent Theatre mode feature, which is calibrated specifically for movies.

I suppose if you have an upscaling DVD player then there's less need to invest in the hi-def formats and maybe that's why it isn't taking off as quickly as the manufacturers hoped. Certainly the difference between DVD and HD-DVD/BD is far less than the gap between VHS and DVD.

GamesIndustry.biz had an article saying what Bay's talking about months ago, was very well written and totally convinced me that this is the truth. It makes a lot of sense too, especially with the fairly reasonable prices for rental on MS's video marketplace.

I personally don't really care about having a physical product for movies or games, but I'd want the ability to be able to lend said games or movies to my friends/family. The alternative is to make them relatively very cheap to buy digitally so that you're not spending too much money on something only you can use. This is why I've bought XBLA games but the only full games I've bought by download are from Steam because the Valve games are usually cheaper than retail that way.

Still, Gates does a lot of work for chariddy, though of course he doesn't like to talk about it.

I'm actually glad to see Mr Bay has an opinion on this matter and isn't just biting his tongue for the sake of political correctness. Blu-ray is undeniably ahead in terms of sales at the moment and the storage capacity can't be argued against either so it's incredibly frustrating when a studio such as Universal is bought off with a $100 million dollar check to not sell blu-ray discs. The consumer should always be given a choice.

this makes no sense. m$ want digital distribution. why tie us to poxy 20g/120g drives then!?!?!?!

give us a nice, fast, 1tb drive and i'll happily not buy any more bluray (as long as there are no mpeg remnants in the films *cough*sky*cough*)

I bought the DVD version of Transformers. While not as peachy as Blu-Ray it's peachy enough, and means that HD DVD can do one.

My Blu-Ray collection is growing though...Deja Vu, Spiderman 3, Die Hard4, FF4 2, Reign Over Me and Casino Royale. Blade Runner Spesh Edish soon, plus whatever I get for Xmas. I'm steadily making the move to hi-def discs...for new and select old films too.

Personally I believe that Bay would just as equally blast Sony if Transformers only on BR and his circle of friends all own HD DVD and that the HD DVD is leading the market.

He seem to see himself as the 'upstanding guy' type who fights the good fight!

Anyway he should just accept that it is more about the bigger picture and that both Sony and Toshiba and their consortiums are equally responsible for putting consumers in this situation.

Consumers rightly know that it is iffy and even BR the leading contender is weak compared to DVD AND digitial downloads.

Hand up you all who are downloading movies/clips left right and centre off PC?!

@ Arwin - Yep the US version of Planet Earth is 1080p, the EU version is 1080i. No idea why but this is why its slightly (very very marginally) better. So is this the only release on BluRay that's region free? lol..

I'm going to test the xbox live video store HD movies and see if the downloadable movies are comparable. I suspect not, but we'll see..

Hmmm, last time I checked, HD-DVD was Toshiba's format, not Microsoft's.

And the 100 million said to be paid to Paramount came from the HD-DVD consortium, not Microsoft.

The consortium is headed by Toshiba and includes Sanyo, NEC, Memory Tech, Intel, and yes Microsoft, amoungst it's members.

But hey, I guess it's much more fashionable to bash Microsoft. ;)

I suspect the difference between a non-upscaled DVD and BD on a large 1080p HDTV would be greater though but I watch them on a 1080p-capable 32" Sony Bravia TV

A 1080p 32"? I'm pretty sure there's no such thing.

It might be capable of accepting a 1080p signal, but it would be downscaled to 720p, whcih is the reason there's not that much difference for you between the DVD and the Blu-Ray.

"Universal is bought off with a $100 million dollar check to not sell blu-ray discs. The consumer should always be given a choice. "

ORLY? So what about Sony movies on HD-DVD?????

The battle between the two formats would certainly be a whole lot more interesting if all movies where available on them. However, Sony are very unlikely to ever allow, say, the Spider-Man trilogy to appear on HD-DVD as BD is their "baby". With that in mind and the fact that Universal and Paramount will likely eventually support BD anyway, especially if its movies continue to outsell HD-DVD ones by 2:1, it would seem to be that HD-DVD is the disadvantaged format really. BD already has more studio support and unless Microsoft intend paying off other movie studios, it's unlikely to change. BD is already the first format to achieve one million sales in Europe for example and my local WHSmith are now selling a selection of BD movies but oddly not HD-DVD. It seems to only be a matter of time before BD succeeds really...

He is right though. That is MS' plan.

Though why they are pushing so early.... no one bandwidth outside of Japan/S. Korea can deal with the traffic demands.

And how do you know Microsoft are writing $100 million cheques to studios?

I'm not saying they don't or anything, perhaps they do, perhaps Sony indulge in this practice too?

And with Michael Bay it all surely depends whichever advetrtisers messaging he is filling his films with at the time....when the Island came out i recalle MSN search all over it and Xbox featured too...maybe they were'nt interested in Transformers and he's doing a reverse Gerstmann maneuvre here

skillian - "A 1080p 32"? I'm pretty sure there's no such thing.

It might be capable of accepting a 1080p signal, but it would be downscaled to 720p, whcih is the reason there's not that much difference for you between the DVD and the Blu-Ray."

That's correct, that's why I said 1080p-capable not 1080p HDTV. And the image is downscaled to the TV's resolution of 1366x768 not 720p, which is 1280x720. ;)

P.S. Sony are planning on releasing a true 1080p 32" HDTV by the way, although at that size it's debatable whether you'd see any benefit from it.

Is funny seeing the blu-ray lot jump on the bandwagon, evil M$ and "their" format. Alot of your comments read like Sony has done nothing but good will with their blu-ray format, not like they own a monoply on a good lions share of all movie releases, because of their admittedly successful studio business.

On the flip side you have the same on the HD-DVD camp, both as bad as each other.

If digital downloads stopped this madness, then fudge it bring it on.

The blade runner spesh edition is one thing that made me think about getting the addon for my 360.

Oh shit, we're going to get perfect digital downloads. We are truly doomed.

I'm fairly sure Bay is right, but I think the main beneficiaries of Microsoft's efforts will be Apple. Of course, studios could wake up from their internet denial and revolt against Jobs, but they're far too stupid for that sort of thing. Steve will screw them all, and they'll end up thanking him for it.

umm all of the blu ray movies i have are region free too. yer point?

"Recently we heard Blu-ray films accounted for 73 per cent of the high definition market in Europe, although the keen-eyed among you attributed it to HD-DVD being region free."

A surprising number of BD movies are also region-free as I've imported at least ten over the past four months or so. Obviously HD-DVD is completely region-free but is this reflected in US sales, i.e. do HD-DVD movies typically outsell BD ones? I know Transformers has but that was reported as if it's the exception rather than the rule.

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD failing is a good thing! Bring on downloads. Go Microsoft, you evil capitalist pig dog you.

You don't have to buy the Hi def versions of movies you already own the idea is that any new movies you buy from now on are of the aformentioned formats otherwise the BD and HD-DVD would have been incapable of playing DVD's just like DVD players couldn't play VHS tapes.

This guy is telling it how it is, MS wants to be on the forefront of movie downloads like Apple is for music, they want this HD format war to canabalize each other not wanting either to succeed.

Why do so many people that are against upgrading to a HD format always use the argument ill have to rebuy all the films ive already got on DVD. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT, all HD players Blu-ray or HD-DVD still play DVD's, JUST buy NEW films on Hi def and if you have a good player like the PS3 you will get upscaling on your DVDs anyway, not as good as a proper Hi Def Disk but still why on earth do people think they have to buy all there old films again!!!

The only real reason not to upgrade is if you dont have a HD tele, if you do have a HD Tele and your not wathcing HD content on it, Why did you buy a HD tele in the first place? Because SD content on a HD tele looks fucking awful.

"umm all of the blu ray movies i have are region free too. yer point? "

umm they aren't. Try playing the north american Ratatouille in your UK blu-ray player and see what happens. Or Hairspray, or just about any other new US release. Most catalogue titles are region free, though.

P.S. Sony are planning on releasing a true 1080p 32" HDTV by the way, although at that size it's debatable whether you'd see any benefit from it.

I'd quite fancy one, as it would be more suitable for use as both a computer monitor and a TV.

Back at the start of the DVD format there were also two competing candidate formats. But Philips and Sony gave up and abandoned their MultiMedia Compact Disc, and agreed to go along with Toshiba's SuperDensity Disc. The result was DVD - a single unified format. Toshiba made millions off the patents for the DVD disc structure, which Sony lost out on. At an industry conference last year, Warren Lieberfarb (the so-called "father of DVD") revealed during a panel that, right after standard DVD launched, Sony approached him about the need to start working on the HD version (understandable given that HDTV broadcasting was already taking off in Japan and Europe), but the DVD Forum felt it was too early and wasn't interested. So Sony started working on their own HD format. You can't knock Sony for not wanting to miss out on the huge royalty profits a second time. After all, Toshiba had no interest in sharing some of the royalty fees during the attempts to negotiate a single HD standard.

Bay is quite right when he states that Microsoft has no interest in either format winning and wants them both to fail. They've made no secret of the fact that they see digital downloads as the future and they want to monopolise that service. The strategy doesn't seem to be working however and I expect when the time is up (because it's a time-limited deal) the rest of the studios will return to blu-ray.

As it happens a lot of the blu-ray releases aren't region locked anyway. Warners in particular don't use region locking.

@bivith
Try reading what urban actually wrote ...

I think he's spot on - thats why MS are supporting divx now.

@skillian - Good point, 24" PC TFT monitors have resolutions of 1920x1200 so it would make sense to have a 32" one with a 1920x1080 resolution that would double up as a PC display. Never considered that.

The problem with both formats is that neither offer enough in terms of what the public gets to justify the price difference. Why would I pay well over twice the costs of the DVD for something a bit sharper? Blu-ray and HD-DVD prices have to come down - maybe the only thing good about there being two formats is that competition will eventual cause this.

Meh. DVDs are fine.

Blu-bay

"i already own loads of DVD's, why buy the same movies all over again for more money?"

What a dumb argument. You just buy NEW films on BD OK?

Erm . . . . Microsofts HD-DVD????

I think the EU need to step in and pick a format that must be used for HD video disks. I'm really sick of all the bollocks about which is the best way to hold my cartoons on a bit of plastic.

Michael Bay is never right, Michael Bay is the devil and should be shot on site!