Richard Doherty, from the infamous Doherty family and Microsoft’s program manager for Media Entertainment Convergence, slung some proverbial poo at both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray loving manufacturers and studios. With one quick exhale of his M$ paid voice, he claimed that both formats, as well as any other optical format that is out or may come out in the future will become obsolete in five years.

I showed up just in time to scream “No Shit!” and then ran away into my troll house to wait for the next obvious statement to be spewed from someone’s mouth. Dick went on to say that at Microsoft, they would rather HD content was not on a disc at all, and also added that for the time being they are supporting HD-DVD because it has better interactive content (and Toshiba makes their XBOX 360 hardware, there is an HD-DVD add-on for the 360, the PS3 has a Blu-Ray drive, and Microsoft hates Sony- but they didn’t mention these parts).

Now that the future of disc formats is settled, and before I go back to my trollhouse for some trollhouse cookies and such, I will make another outlandish claim about the future of tech: In five years, today’s processors will be considered ancient and slow when compared to current micro computer processors.

Let’s see how that one turns out.

[Via about-electronics]

Please, someone get this. We’re all el oh eling over at my office.

[Via User Friendly dot Org]

Hewlett-Packard has decided to put the LG Super Multi Blue, otherwise known as the optical drive model GGW-H10N that can write on Blu-Ray discs as well as read both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, into some of their upcoming desktop models, most notably inside the Pavilion.

The other options that HP is considering as far as hardware changes go for their PC line-up include:

Other upgrade options that HP plans to add on Wednesday include a cable tuner, graphics cards, and machines with Intel Quad-core processors (Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600).

With an additional price of anywhere between two full companies and a full battalion ($500 -$1000 for those that don’t know military organization), the inclusion of a dual-format HD drive is not an easy choice. The best option is still probably patience, since the unfortunate demise of one format will mean the eventual solidarity of the other.

[Via ars technica]

Seriously, things we’re going nicely in land of tech: Joost went into overdrive allowing users to send out unlimited invites, something got blended and a decryption code was released that in turn caused what right now (9:00 PM on the west coast) appears to be a complete uprising on the front page of Digg.com. New stories are flooding in containing nothing but spam and a decryption key for hacking HD-DVD’s, each one scoring thousands of diggs all to show the site admins whose really in charge … for now. But I think overall Niero puts it best:

“Note to the HD-DVD legal council: don’t waste your time, stupid. The code is Chinese to 99% of the people involved in this Digg party. It’s the guy that chatted about it on mIRC four weeks ago with his legion of 7R0Z3NCR3W M3MB34Z that they have to worry about. Book a flight to Europe and get off Kevin’s back.”

Well I’m off to go illegally copy some HD-DVD’s I don’t have using my non-existent HD-DVD player, goodnight!

[UPDATE!]

Looks like Kevin couldn’t take it, Digg.com is officially offline, let’s see how this whole thing blows over in the morning.

It’s certainly a possibility. According to a thread over at the AVS forums, Wal-Mart recently placed an order for blue laser HD-DVD cores from a Chinese company worth close to $100 million dollars. With Wal-Mart buying 20 million of these cores that certainly have something in mind.

Running the Chinese websites through various translators people seem to be guessing at a $299 price point. We’re getting there but it’s still a little too pricey for the average consumer. It may not end the format war but like it or not Wal-Mart has the ability to tip the scales one way or the other all on it’s own.

[AVS]

Starting with the week of April 23, HD-DVD movies will begin shipping with new protection encryption that will only work on certain HD-DVD systems, forcing users of non-sanctioned HD-DVD (like the Xbox 360 HD-DVD player in use on a PC) players to find other methods of working around the new cryptography.

The original problem with this method of playing HD-DVDs came from InterVideoDVD:

Through sophisticated software probes, hackers found the device key in InterVideoDVD, a software program now owned by Corel Corp. On April 6, Corel issued an update for the InterVideo WinDVD playback software that refreshes and further obscures those device keys. New HD DVDs issued after April 23 will not work on players running the old software.

As always, the battle for cryptography against exploitation is never finished. Hackers will inevitably discover newer, more creative methods of cracking this updated protection, nullifying the improved security. In the end, pirates seem like they will always have more resources, causing companies to waste money in a near futile attempt at product control.

[Via Yahoo]

Hooray for continuing to format war! Just as we began to see one format (Blu-ray) begin to show signs of pulling ahead we get the news that another set-top player manufacturer is preparing to make a dual format player. Samsung has now decided the time is right to help keep 2 formats in the marketplace. Time will tell if it plays both formats natively or in some weird emulated way like the last dual-format player.

Samsung says they’ll have the player ready for the holidays, but no word yet on features or price.

The newly enhanced Nero, aptly named Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced debuted at this year’s NAB conference in Las Vegas and the newest addition adds a slew of HD extras, but they’re going to cost you … maybe.

“Nero users can now author their video content onto Blu-ray Discs (BD-R and BD-RE) featuring sophisticated menus, and can play the authored discs on their PCs, and via Blu-ray players.”

But Nero, what about HD-DVD?

“Because Nero is committed to supporting the full range of HD formats, the company has also released a new plug-in that enables HD DVD playback with the Nero ShowTime application.”

Ahh, I see and how much is this whole enchilada going to set consumers back?

Nero 7 Ultra Edition Enhanced is currently available at retail for $99.99, and via download from www.nero.com for $79.99. Current Nero 7 owners can download the update free of charge. The additional HD-DVD plug-in costs $24.99.

Well, you drive a hard bargain but if you don’t mind, I’ll just sit this one out, at least until the dust settles on this whole format war.

It’s not the 1st time we’ve seen the prices on the HD-DVD players drop. This time, they’re calling it a “strategic reduction” but we the consumers can think of it as “an increasingly better deal.” Looking to stave off the PS3 Blu-ray player, Toshiba is slashing the prices on all of their HD-DVD players. This means you can pick up their base model (the HD-A2) for $399 and their high-end model (the HD-A20) for $499.

Of course this still makes the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 the best deal if you’ve already bought the console and you’re looking to make the jump into HD.

[gamesindustry.biz]

Ugh, as a DVD author I can’t even explain what a huge pain in the ass it is with the one established format out there (DVD) and the 2 HD versions (HD-DVD and Blu-ray). Each is programmed completely differently, need different encodes, and they all have different specs on what they’re capable of. To release on all formats the disc is done 3 times, with no overlap.

So why did I bother telling you this? Because this week, with no end in the format war in sight, steps were taken to ensure both will succeed in the marketplace. Toshiba announced a 51GB, 3-layer disc, still in development. This follows up the January announcement of a disc with HD-DVD on one side and Blu-ray on the other. But wait, There’s more!

New Medium Enterprises announced a format that can handle true HD using standard red-laser technology. Versatile Multilayer Disc (VMD) can do dual-format so as to solve the newer blue-laser market but it also offers enough capacity for HD with a red-laser with a new VMD format.

NME has been working quietly and quickly to secure region deals around the globe and have partnered with a company called PC Rush to produce low-cost dvd compatible VMD players for around $200, significantly less than any of the current HD-DVD or Blu-ray players.

What we as consumers (and me as a programmer) need is a single format, not a 3rd. Adding another format adds a huge amount of expense into the creation and manufacturing of these DVD’s. And the movie studios aren’t going to eat that difference, they’re going to pass it onto the consumers.