Blu-ray to copy films to laptops News

So they really are filling it with ****? Makes sense to me :)

Great, bring on the writable Blu-Ray disks and players and let's make piracy even easier

I thought HD-DVD was Toshiba's technology? And MS were just backing it because it was the competition to Sony's tech?

*cough*minidisc*cough*

Regarding this article that failed to highlight the details:

Sony Pictures Entertainment will include portable files on Blu-Ray DVDs that can be transferred without a download, David Bishop, head of Sony's home entertainment unit, said in an interview this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Sony may add the feature this year, Bishop said. "It's not currently part of anything on our current release schedule, but we'll probably roll it out sometime this year," Bishop said on Jan. 8.

From that you can see it is only something Sony Pictures would do and they do not specifically mention that the portable version is iPod and PSP compatible.

OK...fair enough, you'll be able to copy movies to your hardisk.

But judging by the size of the BluRay disc (capacity-wise I mean) doesn't that mean you'll need a huge harddisk to be able to store any more than a couple of movies?!

Zomoniac is correct ... HD-DVD is not Microsoft technology, if anything is Toshiba (its not, its was jointly developed by a group of consumer electronics and PC companies with Toshiba spearheading).

Microsoft was smart in staying out of a format war were they have little to win.

"they do not specifically mention that the portabile is iPod and PSP compatible."

the files will be DRM'ed so there's no chance they would ever be playable on iPods, in fact unlikely they would work on anything other than Windows

@rotj

"This is sloppy and (purposefully inciteful?) 'journalism' at best."

Jesus, tenous conspiracy theory award goes to rotj.

Of course its not purposefully inciteful. Its just an honest mistake because EG is games focussed. You seem to be confusing the minds of professional writers with your own.

You seem to be confusing the minds of professional writers with your own.

:o)

Does it really matter whose technology it is? The article is about BluRay - not HD-DVD.

Oh great...

Isn't there the case that if Blu-Ray became the dominant format relatively quickly that MS could just bring out a Blu-Ray Drive add-on as they have already with HD.

Just write some new software to run it on the 360 and off you go?

EG are purposefully inciteful.

They make up quotations for their headlines.

Then people don't read the article and put a stupid comment in it.

GAh!!

X0 cannot handle Blu-ray movies. MS stated that HD-DVD uses all the juice the console got. Blu-ray bit rates can be up to 1.5x of HD-DVD. That means you'll need 1.5x more power.

I thought HD-DVD was Toshiba's technology? And MS were just backing it because it was the competition to Sony's tech?

Microsoft's main gripe with Blu-Ray is that BD players will run Java instead of .NET.

Is it worth asking - format wars aside - can you easily \ legally (? even) burn DVD content that's protected to a hard drive?

You can of course download a multitude of tools to allow you to get round things like Macrovision protection but I don't think burning regular DVD films is formaly supported by any studio is it?

X marks the spot gentlemen; fire at will...

@peterfll

I think the key word here is transfer not burn.

They may allow you to copy a version of the movie on to your PC (or other device) but presumably this version will be non-transferable to devices outside the individuals home network.

Just wait a few months and you'll be able to copy any HD or Blu-Ray disc. Work is already underway: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?...

*cough*minidisc*cough*

Minidisc never died. It replaced DAT and became a standard for professional recording. It's a shame it failed in the public sector as it was superior to CD in that you had a recordable, editable, portable digital music format. Whereas most of us decided that buying CD's and recording compilations on to analog tape was preferable for some unknown reason.

I digress...

As someone using a Net-MD player to listen to music, I find the idea of Minidisc being a massive failure funny. I've known quite a few owners, ta...

I note, however, the quote states "portable FILES". That's not necessarily film; a lot of DVDs have DVD-ROM content, and this is probably that self same idea.

Just a little tidbit: I work with MiniDisc's every day. My company handles a lot of digital recordings, and the ones taken "out in the field" use MD's. I mean, they can hold 1 GB (90+ minutes), they're smaller than floppy discs, they can be rewritten a bundle of times and they are low cost. It really is a good format.

"Minidisc never died. It replaced DAT and became a standard for professional recording. It's a shame it failed in the public sector as it was superior to CD in that you had a recordable, editable, portable digital music format."

Minidisc is generally only used in professional circles as a portable recording medium, DAT is still used in studios as the preferred choice as minidisc has several glaring issues compared to DAT and even CD, e.g. poor frequency range, heavily compressed format, etc. Minidisc was just gaining reasonable acceptance before MP3 players hit the market in force and they buried it before it became a true mainstream format. Minidisc in the end, was a failure and a niche product.

I also would say how many people were recording their own compliations to cd before we got mp3 players? Probably a larger number than minidisc owners..

oh and Editor correct this line:
Microsoft's HD-DVD technology.
make it
Microsoft backed HD-DVD technology.
:)

To all those saying mini disc did not die. I think we can agree that as a mass market format for the distribution of music it is not at the races if it exists at all, despite being a superior product compared to CD.

In the same way as betamax lived on and was adapted as a profesional format for recording video, that does not mean it was not a terrible and indeed abject failure.

Do you not all see it?

This is exactly that same thing they do EVERY TIME they start to loose market share or people start comparing competitors products favourably.

With the Dreamcast they came out and said "wait for the PS2 it can do Toy Story Graphics" - It never happened.

With the DS it was "Wait for the PSP it can do Gran Tourismo" - It never happened.

With the XBOX360 it was "Look at Killzone on the PS3" - It won't happen.

Now with HD-DVD we have "but with Bluray you will be able to copy films to your PC"

Classic Sony

slightly on/off topic. any portable MiniDisc with a digital "out" that anyone knows about? Want to stick some mixing on to my PC then to CD..... only way round i can do it.

Wow, just wow.

Yet ANOTHER case of turning positives into negatives. Well done internetz.

If you don't want free versions of movies with your Blu-ray discs go send an e-mail to Sony and tell them to reduce features for no reason. Give them a good laugh.

I for one will be very happy if this comes about.

This was part of the HD-DVD standard and one of the main reasons why MS didn't want to support Bluray. Welcome to 2003 Bluray.

Hmmm- I read it as a 'portable' version of the film. I'm thinking lower res, stereo sound, much smaller, maybe optimised to play back on a PSP? That would make sense, you still have the benefit of the big blu-ray film but there is a portable version for people who ocmplain about DRM preventing blu-ray 'backups' from being made...

They are filling it with ROOTKITS and nonsense PSP MARKETING!!

Portable (or smaller, standard definition perhaps?) version of the video on the same disc would be sweet. Who wouldn't want to have an XviD or MPEG2 version of the film they buy and be able to copy it to other platform as well, then watch it. Sounds reasonable, although a bit tricky and complex for the average consumer.

Please Kanga...

"Jesus, tenous conspiracy theory award goes to rotj.

Of course its not purposefully inciteful. Its just an honest mistake because EG is games focussed. You seem to be confusing the minds of professional writers with your own."

I mean, I like EG as much as the next guy, but you must see that they OFTEN use headlines and such that are a bit inciteful - often having little if anything to do with the real heart of a piece...

Even if that were the case who cares? Gets the kids going to the amusement of those of us that don't particularly care either way. Perhaps that's just me...

Are they still backing UMD? What happened to the DVD/UMD players Sony promised?

"Blu-ray is the next UMD"

Bollox. Blu-ray is backed by a huge consortium. If Sony disappeared rfom the earth, Blue-ray would still be going ahead.

@JediMasterMalik

"If you don't want free versions of movies with your Blu-ray discs go send an e-mail to Sony and tell them to reduce features for no reason. Give them a good laugh. "

+2

Sony the format champions.

Betamax, Minidisc, MemoryStick, UMD, BluRay...?

@cyber_nicco

I'm not concerned with whether EG are trying to create generally tension, rather with just the quote at hand.

Though for the record, I don't believe they are. Certain writers let their own views creep into their copy, others don't. That is a far cry from setting the editorial slant of the whole site. I certainly don't believe there is some "get everyone angry, we get more hits that way" plan that people persist in writing.

Does anyone with half a mind actually think there is business sense in making your readers critisise the integrity of your site? People keep saying "its to get more hits" seemingly without examining the words as they enter the keyboard to see if they actually make ANY sense at all.

In this instance, the piece of text rotj picked up on was "rival Microsoft's HD-DVD technology". Now some posters here took exception to that, which is fair enough. But to suggest the text was planted with the specific intention of stirring people up?! That is just the crazy talk of a fanboy.

I mean, could an attempt to wind people up GET any more obscure. Most readers wouldn't even spot the error. Is it supposed to be subliminal ffs?!

Now maybe I'm just some mainstream dogmatised Fox news watcher, sat here oblivious whilst armies of mars ants undermine my back garden, steal the honey out of my shed and reprogram my cat to hate me on their way to next door, but I'm happy to call "honest mistake" on this one.

@BigBadBeasty - you missed out CD - easy mistake, few people have ever heard of it.

@ NoCodeNed2

The CD is Philips's

well originally co-developed with Sony, I thought?

Just checked - wikipedia seems to think so, too.

"Microsoft was smart in staying out of a format war were they have little to win."

Come to think of it, Bill Gates actually made a speech where he said that BOTH formats were irrelevant as the future of video lay in downloads onto HDD or flash memory.


"To all those saying mini disc did not die. I think we can agree that as a mass market format for the distribution of music it is not at the races if it exists at all, despite being a superior product compared to CD. "

Yes, I mean I remember when it first came out they were releasing music albums on it, posters would read: "Available on CD, Cassette and Minidisc". Sony clearly hoped it would become a format that had original releases on it as well as being used for recording.

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