KaBewM.com

With the recent release of HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray around the corner, I’ve been asking myself what is this all about? I understand the need for higher quality video, as an owner of an HDTV I find myself asking where’s the content all the time. I just don’t see the need for a higher capacity optical medium.

Optical media (namely cd’s) took hold in the tech industry at a time when typical systems had 500 meg hard drives. Having a storage medium that could hold more than ones hard drive was an incredible prospect. The fact that a computers cd drive could also play high quality audio just made acceptance that much easier. As the technology became more widespread (read cheap) and writeable media rapidly became mainstream, it just took a big hold.

DVDs took hold in much the same way. People wanted dvd drives to be able to play the bigger games without swapping cd’s or to watch movies. At a time when 20 gig drives were still expensive, having a 4.7 gig disc (now 9.4 gig w/ Dual Layer) that could back up almost a quarter of your drive was an excellent way to store a lot of data.

Today 250 gig hard drives are sold for under a c-note. DVD’s are too small to be serious backup media. Most people save their data to usb sticks, which are basically the days floppy disk. Many archive a ton of data to dvd or cd, and some even buy a second large/cheap hard drive for full backups. Now we’re poised to receive two new optical media formats, let’s look at the capacity? A single layer HD-DVD is 15 gigs, while a single layer Blu-Ray DVD is 25 gigs. I ask myself, what is this really good for?

HD Video can be released on current DVD technology. DivX sells players that can do HD DivX at 720p/1080i on standard single layer DVD. I’m betting that could be made to do 1080p on a Dual Layer DVD without a problem. HD content does NOT warrant a new medium, it just needs a more efficient video format. So what then is the motivation for creating such a small (compared to hard drives) optical media?

I think that the producers of content and the consumer electronics industries have come to the conclusion that it’s time. The content producers are seeing their 9.4 gig DVD’s traded via BitTorrent without much trouble. The consumer electronics industry has gone from making a decent profit from dvd players to selling them for less than 40 bucks. They think it’s time to cash in again, and this is the way to do it.

They understand that if one sells a standard DVD player capable of doing HD using better compression, they’re not going to be able to charge a premium that they could if it were a new format. They know that WizzBang HD SuperDuper format is going to allow them to charge $500-1000 US for the player, while DivX HD DVD Players go for about half that. This whole thing is just a money grab, and who are the losers? The consumers are.

The latest news is that the DVD Consortium is now planning on adding region coding to the HD-DVD standard, and no one knows what that will mean for the current HD-DVD players. My advice to anyone looking to buy one of these new WhizzBang HD SuperDuper format DVD players is to wait.

I’m a frequent reader of various tech-related sites, such as Digg, Slashdot, and OSNews. Many of these sites carry stories about DRM (and related) technology. Inevitably there will be 2 types of users. The anti-DRM crowd, and the anti-piracy crowd. Many of the anti-DRM crowd appear to be anti-DRM over ideological ideas. Many of the anti-piracy crowd think believe that anyone who is anti-DRM is a pirate.

There are very few like me that appear to be in the anti-DRM crowd but not over ideological reasons. And contrary to the anti-piracy crowd, I am not anti-DRM because I am a pirate. I am anti-DRM because I’m not a pirate, and the media companies have hijacked my rights. If I buy a cd, I can rip it with iTunes and listen to it on my TiVo using the TiVo Desktop software. When I buy music from iTunes I don’t have this functionality.

Some will say that buying a cd is different than buying from from iTunes. But wait, what does Apple tell you if you lose your music and didn’t properly create a backup? Too bad! Buying from the Apple store is the same as buying a cd, lose it and you have to buy another. So where am I left? I lost a feature, and gained nothing. I don’t think this is good for the consumer.

Now that doesn’t bother me that much. What does bug me is that had I been a pirate, I would have my music in a higher bit-rate and would be able to listen to my music via the TiVo Desktop software. All the current system does is punish the consumer and reward the pirates.

Granted this example is only about the iTunes music store, but think about this. Everyone considers the iTunes music store to be one of the most liberal of DRM. I can only imagine what the world will be with the HD-DVD and BluRay systems that will phone home and render themselves inoperable.

In the recent years big media has done a fabulous job buying Congress (and in turn laws) that will take away every citizen’s rights. It’s time we send a message to Congress. IPac has been created to do just that. They are a group that targets Congress, much like EFF helps in the courts. If you are worried about how badly DRM is being crammed down every citizen in the US’s throat, please donate to the IPac