Techno Geekiness and My Hate for Codecs

With the death of HD-DVD (Long live Blu-ray!!!!!!!!!!) I had been seriously considering getting an HD-DVD player. Am I insane? Probably... but can we say fire sale and cheap movies? I think we can. Besides up until the end of February you get 5 free movies for purchasing certain players. But spending $100 to get 2 movies that I really wanted and 5 that I didn't need (2 come in the box) just didn't seem worthwhile. So I had all but given up on the idea... unless the price dropped even further. The other day I was on Red Flag Deals and came across a deal for the XBox 360 HD-DVD player. Why I even decided to check out the thread is beyond me. I don't own an XBox and with the ability to stream multimedia files to the PS3 I am not about to get an XBox 360. Any ways.... while reading the thread I realized that you could connect it to the PC and play videos through it. Suddenly I had a reason to get it.... especially since it was $50. So then I was on the hunt for the drive. Managed to get one at Blockbuster which was nice since I still had some store credit left after the whole Resident Evil fiasco. It was the one time they weren't overcharging me.

Now my actual PC doesn't meet the system requirements to play HD-DVD. The display is not HDCP compliant and the video card doesn't support it. No surpise there.... My Mac really is the most versatile computer ever. Just one small problem though. There is no software for the Mac that will play HD-DVD. Well no HDCP compliant display there either... but that was only a minor issue. Fortunately I have Vista on that computer as well. Reboot into Vista and this is when the fun began. Norton wanted to update. Okay fine... So then I had to connect to the internet. And as soon as I did that Windows wanted to update. Both of those took a long time and then somehow Norton found 2 spyware and a virus. With no internet connection how did I manage that? So 2 hours into my ordeal I am having system issues and decide to wipe the system and start over. Boot to the disk and format... so far so good. Too bad I hadn't changed the start-up disk so it booted back into Mac OS X when it restarted. So back to the disk I go and time to try that one more time. Get Vista installed (again) and time to install Norton and do the Windows updates. After all I want to make sure that it's up to date... and has no viruses. Installed a couple of applications and then it was time to play. Disconnect the external drive since it was Mac formatted any ways and got the blue screen of death. It restarted on it's own and then I connected the HD-DVD player. Took a few minutes to install the drivers for it. That was by far the easiest part of my night. Insert the Kingdom on HD-DVD and it opens Power DVD. So far so good, right? You would think... all I get is black.... no menus.... no nothing.... so I was running through the scenarios... like compatibility (this is an XBox drive after all... and I am using a Mac). Try a different disk with no luck. Then I remembered that I had AnyDVD HD installed and running. Turn that off... and hey look I have video. So the hard part was getting my system set up in the first place.... My next question was whether or not I could use a remote with it. Now there is an IR receiver already but it wouldn't recognize the XBox remote that came with the drive. I do, however, have a remote for Windows Media Center edition. That one did work. Took pretty well my entire first day off just to get to the point where I could play HD-DVDs.

Most people would stop there.... After all I could now pick up some cheap HD-DVDs (like at Deep Discount) and play them on the computer. But why stop there? For one, I don't like being stuck in Windows. I want to be able to play videos on my Mac. I also want to be able to play it back on my TV which is not currently an option. Now I can buy the adapter and possibly play it on the TV (I did hear that it may not work in Windows) but that means more cables.... This is a portable computer.... that is looking more and more like a desktop these days.... but with a smaller screen. So.... at the end of day #1 my quest began. I wanted to find a way to convert the HD-DVD files into a compressed video file that I could play on the Mac... or the PS3.

3 days later I am not sure that I am any closer to the goal. As an interesting note I can use Visual Hub on the Mac and convert the video no problem. I find it interesting that the Mac will read an .evo file at all... but any ways. The problem is that there is no audio to go with it. HD-DVD uses DD+ audio (or even TrueHD) and there is no codec to read it.... at least not on the Mac platform. And, as far as Windows goes it's sketchy at best. WinDVD, Nero, and Power DVD all have the decoder so the audio plays fine.... But that doesn't really help me in my quest. Nero is the closest but it doesn't play nice with files ripped to the hard drive.... I don't think. Or should I say that while I might be able to strip the audio with it I don't think I can do it all in one... using that to convert the files. Not sure I want to spend the money on Nero 8 if it won't do what I want it to. I did look on Dolby's web site for the decoder.... For the entire Dolby Media Producer it's $11,000. And I thought Final Cut Studio was expensive. For just the decoder it's $1800. So how can DVD players afford to include it?

About the only option I have seen so far is to install like 6 different things and use them all for various portions of this process. I am the stereotypical Mac user. I want it to be simple... and just work. I want one application.... That would be nice. And for the video part of it that works.... It's all about encoding the audio. That's where the problem lies. All of the codecs involved... makes my head spin just trying to think about it. Right along with using command lines to convert the files and then put them back together. Why did I have to start this process?

Toshiba PR Might Be Looking for a New Job

Obviously with the recent news HD-DVD is now officially dead.... The format war lasted about 2 years and has now ended with Blu-ray being declared the winner. Now I can't help but wonder if Toshiba's head of PR is going to be seeking employment elsewhere. Most of their press releases about a company (Warner Brothers, Netflix, Best Buy, Wal-Mart) choosing Blu-ray exclusivity were virtually the same.... just a cut and paste job with the names replaced. "We are sad to see _________ go. We continue to maintain that we have the superior format and the customers will continue to choose us for their high definition format."

Last week I think was the best though... Reports came out on many major news sources that Toshiba was accepting defeat and conceding. Toshiba didn't deny those reports. However, they denied making any press statement. Now what kind of denial is that? They also said they had not made a decision yet. Oh yeah a day later there was an official press conference where Toshiba conceded and HD-DVD was pronounced dead.

Now back to my PS3 and those bright shiny blu cases.... And who ever said that gamers don't buy movies... Oh wait that was Universal Studios exec. Ken Graffeo. I saw a poll not long ago at the Blu-ray web site and about 80% of the people on there said they use their PS3 to watch movies on. Guess it's a bigger market then Graffeo thought. According to Graffeo, the PS3 is a gaming machine first, and studies have shown that "70% of gamers don’t even know that their console has a DVD playback option." Hmm... Guess that he was a little off on that statement. Oops.... perhaps they should've pushed Microsoft to include the HD-DVD player in the X-Box 360 instead of as an add-on. Might have made a difference in the format war.... But the end is here and the future is Blu.

HD-DVD: The look and sound of upconverted DVDs. :o)

Nails in the Coffin and the Final Burial

TOKYO, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Toshiba is quite surprised by Warner Bros.' decision to abandon HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray, despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning the support of HD DVD. As central members of the DVD Forum, we have long maintained a close partnership with Warner Bros. We worked closely together to help standardize the first-generation DVD format as well as to define and shape HD DVD as its next-generation successor.
We were particularly disappointed that this decision was made in spite of the significant momentum HD DVD has gained in the US market as well as other regions in 2007. HD DVD players and PCs have outsold Blu-ray in the US market in 2007.
We will assess the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluate potential next steps. We remain firm in our belief that HD DVD is the format best suited to the wants and needs of the consumer.

February 12, 2008 - "We have long held the belief that HD DVD is the best format for consumers based on quality and value, and with more than 1 million HD DVD players on the market, it's unfortunate to see Netflix make the decision to only stock Blu-ray titles going forward. While the Best Buy announcement says they will recommend Blu-ray, at least they will continue to carry HD DVD and offer consumers a choice at retail."

February 18, 2008 - "The media [has] reported that Toshiba will discontinue its HD DVD business. Toshiba has not made any announcement concerning this. Although Toshiba is currently assessing its business strategies, no decision has been made at this moment."

February 19, 2008 - "We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called 'next-generation format war' and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation. "While we are disappointed for the company and more importantly, for the consumer, the real mass market opportunity for high definition content remains untapped and Toshiba is both able and determined to use our talent, technology and intellectual property to make digital convergence a reality."

Entertainment War

It really does cost a lot of money to upgrade your movie collection to a whole new format.... at least it does when you have about 200 movies. The good news is that not all the titles are even currently available. How can that be a good thing you might ask? Well seeing as I can't afford to buy all the movies I am making my way through the collection. But now there is a new problem. Not only are the movies I had previously on DVD not available but some of the new releases are also not being released in the high-definition format. I can understand not being able to buy those made by Paramount or Universal since they are backing the HD format. However, those made by Blu-ray supporters is a little more mystifying. Rendition is one movie that will be released shortly but so far there has been no announcement on it being released in the Blu format. More importantly, Lions for Lambs will be coming out at the beginning of April and there is no word on it being released in Blu either. The dilemma is that I don't want to be paying for the movie twice. It's an understandable concern. But I really do like the movie. I do have credit at Blockbuster.... so maybe I'll pick it up previously viewed there while waiting for a high definition release. In other news, I really do wish that the format war would come to an end so we can all move forward and not have to pick sides.... It's not grade school... and it's only hurting the consumers.

The End is Near

The end just might be near... at least as far as the high-definition format war goes. Warner announced the other day that they were going blu... Blu-ray that is. Right now I am glad that I didn't buy an HD DVD player for Boxing Day like I was thinking of. After all that leaves Universal and Paramount as the ONLY HD supporters... Everyone else (Disney, Sony, Fox, Warner) all support Blu-ray. I hear the death knell already....