http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/ Engadget HD Comments for Michael Bay's format war conspiracy theory: it's a Microsoft fix http://www.engadgethd.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadgethd.com en-us Copyright 2008 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 8:26PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 8:27PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 8:28PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 8:39PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 8:53PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Philihp gave me this link on the lossless audio debate:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Joshua_Zyber/High-Def_FAQ:_Blu-ray_and_HD_DVD_Audio_Explained/1064

Not trying to change your mind on Red. I just sick of your sorry a** excuse of an argument!]]>Dec 4th 2007 10:26PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
I also might add that Apple is a supporter of Blu Ray yet never has publicly talked about it. They are the ones waiting on the sidelines for the winner/loser to push their digital downloads. Anyone who thinks their iTunes Store isn't the leader in the distribution of digital media is full of crap]]>Dec 4th 2007 8:55PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
You obviously haven't seen his movies then.]]>Dec 4th 2007 9:00PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Why shouldn't there be good honest competition Michael?

Or is this just you whoring around for some publicity?

Going to change your tune again......or does that just happen when a decent job is on the line?

He was, by his own admission, ill-informed before and he so clearly remains as ill-informed as ever.

Sadly those who love to deal out this 'Microsoft are trying to kill both formats to take all with downloads' are obviously just too stupid to realise that (even in the so-called 'developed world') we just don't have the connections that would allow such a future (never mind cap limits on amounts we can d/l etc et).

He must be after a job with Sony or Fox, hopefully Paramount have told him to go f*ck himself and someone else is doing Transformers 2, 3, 4 (etc etc as it becomes yet another threadbare tedious 'franchise') ]]>Dec 4th 2007 9:01PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Transformers got the (outstanding) audio track it got cos no-one could see the point of taking up room for the sake of it, they couldn't tell the difference (even on a professional sound stage), the quality was that high. ]]>Dec 4th 2007 9:05PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 9:10PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 9:22PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 9:23PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 9:25PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Many have. The problem is whenever the same movie is available on both formats, it's always using the same encode, one that has a low enough of a bitrate to work on HD-DVD. I'm not aware of any movie released on both formats getting the higher-bitrate encode that blu-ray is capable of. Of course, blu-ray exclusive titles get to enjoy higher bitrates, but then it's harder to compare.

It's no wonder they look the same, it is the same. Encode a movie twice, one at HD-DVD's highest bitrate, then another at blu-ray's highest bitrate, using the same codec and equipment, then we'll talk.

As for this article, MS trying to prolong the format war to promote digital downloads is a bit far-fetched, but not that much so. They've already started with the xbox 360's HD movie downloads, which are selling far better than the HD-DVD add-on. Mainly I'd think MS is pushing HD-DVD because HD-DVD uses MS's software for interactivity, and Blu-ray uses Sun's Java.

I still find it odd that there's so much effort being put into convincing people that HD-DVD looks almost as good or sounds almost as good (or you really can't tell the difference) when talking about a high definition move format. Why settle for second best? It's not really price, the only reason Toshiba's players are so cheap is they're taking a huge loss on them. If they won the format war, they'd have to raise their prices to blu-ray levels just so that other manufacturers would join in. Apart from slightly different optics and different firmware, the players from both sides are doing all the same things, normally they should cost the same. Even disc replication is within a few cents of each other, it's really all pointless.]]>Dec 4th 2007 10:22PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/

who knows what will be going on in the format war in 2009 but this will be a Paramount film, which means its likely to come out on HD DVD. it may be a dual format release if both exist who knows what they work into the contract.]]>Dec 4th 2007 9:44PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/And sony is such a princess in all of this mess, no match fixing, bribery and corruption going on with sony or the BDA, hell no, they should be able to tell the DVD forum to GGF'D, make their own format and create this format war, sell obsolete DRM infested DVD players to the unwary public for exorbitant prices, thats OK, but watch out for that low dog M$, their in this for themselves!
Doesn't matter anyway, BR won this war months ago, HD DVD is dead.....apparently.]]>Dec 4th 2007 10:11PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 10:14PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 10:15PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Let just hope the Chinese players don't have an excessive use of lead in their mfg. process.

...Better yet, PRAY!]]>Dec 4th 2007 10:40PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 10:21PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Ghods, this is tiring.

The reason those BD-exclusive disks needed a higher bitrate is becasue they are encoded in mpeg2, which is about 20 years old now. Using a modern compression system results in both better output image and a lower transfer bitrate.

You have the cart before the horse: the bitrate on HD DVD was set based on the efficiencies of modern compressers. The extra bandwidth on Blu-ray is largely used for uncompressed audio and poorly performing algorithms like mpeg2. In short, it is wasted, or used to keep manufacturer's costs down by not paying royalties for the good stuff.]]>Dec 5th 2007 1:21AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
1. Embrace: Development of software substantially compatible with a competing product, or implementing a public standard.
2. Extend: Addition and promotion of features not supported by the competing product or part of the standard, creating interoperability problems for customers who try to use the 'simple' standard.
3. Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions .

Microsoft has embraced. Microsoft has extended their HD-DVD systems to do more than movies. The more things change, the more they stay the same.]]>Dec 4th 2007 10:36PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/I'm fine if Bay prefers Blu, but the post sounds like troll whining -- kinda of like "Sybil".]]>Dec 4th 2007 10:38PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 4th 2007 10:48PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
]]>Dec 4th 2007 11:13PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
That, my friend, is the essence of second best.
]]>Dec 4th 2007 11:31PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 5th 2007 12:09AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
]]>Dec 5th 2007 12:43AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
People are going to have trouble using HDi features on a non windows machine and will need to use MS products to access them so essentially MS is promoting their main product. This is a much more realistic reason for MS to support HD-DVD than some crazy scenario about MS trying to ruin the Disk business]]>Dec 5th 2007 10:52AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
]]>Dec 5th 2007 12:55AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Ironically, around the time that Microsoft launches DRM laden movie downloads from the XBOX marketplace in Europe. Pay per view (once) movies? "This movie will self-destruct once you view it!"....No thanks!]]>Dec 5th 2007 5:57AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Once you get to a certain point with modern codecs 'more' (bit-rate) does not simply mean better.

.....but for those convinced it does matter then as far as that 'theoretical maximum' pi$$ing contest goes it's now HD DVD with the 1.5x spin speed TL disc that has the highest max raw bit-rate, actually. ]]>Dec 5th 2007 8:12AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
So much for space being everything.

See - www.blurayspecs.com]]>Dec 5th 2007 8:14AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 5th 2007 8:40AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 5th 2007 10:30AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Just a bit of me, I do own a PS3 and several HD DVD stand alone units. From my personal experience, BR films are of inferior Video and Audio Quality to those of the HD DVD format. Unlike some, i did originally purchase my PS3 as a game system but found the games to be crappy so I use it as my BR movie player now. ]]>Dec 5th 2007 10:38AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
1. The movies are often cheaper, and have just as good quality.
2. The picture-in-picture video commentary has been supported since the format's initial release, and I'm a big fan of video commentary.
3. The player I bought the first time around still works for all movies released now, and likely will work for all movies that ever are released on HD-DVD.

The problem with Blu-Ray is that it's changed 3 times so far... first it was just Blu-Ray, then it was Profile 1.1, now they're talking about Profile 2.0. I don't give a shit what features it offers. I give a shit when my father buys one that doesn't support whatever features are on the movie he buys next month. That's a LOT of money to flush down the drain. Hell, many players still don't have ethernet ports to upgrade the firmware IF a new Profile / firmware comes out! I consider Profile 2 to be the definitive Blu-Ray featureset, but since it's taken them 2 years to get around to this point, they've lost as much of my business as I can offer. I will still buy exclusive titles on BR, but I do so grudgingly.]]>Dec 5th 2007 12:01PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 5th 2007 1:02PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Bay has made THE movie that saved HD-DVD from forever being buried on the top ten list.

He is also an insider to the studio and MS dealing with for more direct knowledge than anyone here.

If anyone is part and party to high level studio dealing it would be him and people like him. I still don't like transformers but I don't doubt when it comes to distribution and money he has his stuff together.
]]>Dec 5th 2007 1:51PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/I'll take a pragmatism over naivety any day of the week.]]>Dec 5th 2007 2:19PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Consider TiVo's recent announcements, Rhapsody, PhotoBucket, , Google’s Picasa, Music Choice Video downloads, plus the older TiVo-to-Go, Amazon Unbox, TivoCasts, Live365, Yahoo Traffic, etc. They, like everyone else, are fighting for the living room computer. Of course TiVo has barely stayed alive, but don’t think MS & Sony haven’t tried that niche too. Mr. Bay may have been overly blunt in his comments, but I appreciate his concern for serving his customers on what he sees as preferred media. Until we all have some unlimited super Wi-Max where everything can be stored centrally and accessed quickly and easily from anywhere, we are going to have to deal with local storage, and Blu-Ray looks like a pretty good solution for a number of applications. Never compromise on bandwidth.
]]>Dec 5th 2007 3:10PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/
Huh? His comments indicate he has less knowledge than anybody here. He's a troll with a suit.]]>Dec 5th 2007 3:54PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 5th 2007 8:47PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/"Blu Ray just suits my movies better". Uh, okay, that's real technical. I guess he means the higher
potential bit rate, which proves he knows little about modern codecs like H.264(AVC) or VC-1, or
maybe he means his movies aren't suited for interactive features? Transformers on HD DVD has a
very rich interactive feature set and 80,000 disc
owners have gone online via their HD DVD web enabled players(something that ALL HD DVD players
offer).

He has every right to choose which format he prefers for his movies, but is it asking too much
for some technical basis for his preference?]]>Dec 5th 2007 9:24PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/12/04/michael-bays-format-war-conspiracy-theory-its-a-microsoft-fi/Dec 7th 2007 3:57AM