BD+ Blu-ray & Hollywood

...inside rumor and even in the news of late, BD+ adoption. Back when it started they showed us a cartridge BDM version that delivered movies and had another tech layer of copy / duplication defense.






Nobody (it seems) but me, liked the cartridge. I hate dust, gunk and scratches, over here we prefer a well protected media surface, but cost complexity is best handled by the simplest solutions For The Seller and Handling/Packaging.

SONY AND PHILLIPS et. al.
Well they did what they said they would, hardened the Blu-ray surface to many times what it was, and added a final on BD+ that convinced Warner to go Blu. Leaky confidential info holds that Paramount and Universal will switch sides and go to the BD+ for all subsequent releases in the near future. Since Disney and of course Sony were already there, and FOX and Lionsgate were pushing the envelopes for BD-live, that pretty much wraps it up for HD-DVD being the preferred platform at the high-end and mass market tunraround whenever this happens. Most likely that actual event is many months into the future, since Paramount took Millions from Toshiba to go exclusive for Transformers and more. ergo: Paramount has to deny this. But when that deal runs out, I would expect HD-DVD releases to be 3rd tier distribution deals. Doesnt kill HD-DVD but it does mean that most of us will be taking the blue pill before the red one is available.

Since Blu-ray supports VC-1 advanced profile codec, basically it has the best of all worlds, and the network infrastructure underway now for BD-Live is potentially the most massive ever seen. ( Sorry Misscrosoft but you have had years of Media Center and the like crap that has NOT gained foothold adoption, this market is ripe for something new and you are not it )

There are more reasons then we know but...
The exact point I made about Canadian and Asian knockoffs showing up in HD-DVD is happening stateside now ... is so rampant because your average consumer finds its really hard to tell a real HD-DVD release from a forgery copy that plays well in most all older Set-top machines. If it plays at all they are happy.


I Like HD-DVD
So ... I am bummed about this but it indicates that HD-DVD is now following a destiny to be the cheapo low-end marketspace and Blu-ray the high-end preferred Major Motion Picture release format for the 2008 season.

HD-DVD authoring is actually rather easy for single play movies, so in some ways the amateur HD user may well like it better, the preferred home-movie format.

The authoring tools for Blu-ray and HD-DVD are so dramatically different that Post Prod cost to master is rather high. Due to contracts and such stuff i would guess that after February 1, 2008 we may get a flurry of announcements that indicate named releases will only ship blu-ray. Replication to HD-DVD will happen way down the timeline like when the films is released to on-Demand cable or Broadcast HD... e.g. First Run Major releases will be BD+ until perhaps a year later when HD-DVD licensing is let out to distrubution.

Hmm. I am also told that entry-level blu-ray players at a $350 MSRP and $299 street are coming very soon, some may have BD-Live which is a slick feature-set that merits its own post, and is community and advertiser placement friendly. So lets say you see a car or fashion item in the flick and like it, you may well be able to click , find the vendor and buy it. Just Like That, click the flick and make the pick. Uhmm ok Gimme gimme, i am ordering a BD authoring package now and i guess i have to learn this new Java in there.

Whatever, this scenario with formats is playing out the way the Disney guy said it would, and frankly i dont mind at all.

ULTRA HD

SAMSUNG... ( trust me when i say 1080 at 2mpix kicks the crap out of 1366 at 1mpix when the source is there and the display does its job ) Everyone says the same thing, THIS DISPLAY IS SWEET Now lets see some 2k and 4k movie production for this stuff. 1440p and QUAD HD. OMFG. Great for landscapes but i would NOT want to see Hillary Clinton up close and QUAD HD.