Blu-Ray Still Blows

http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/2177

by blasdel • 17 years ago

71 82 17 years ago

ascii.textfiles.com

wyday3• 17 years ago

Besides saying "fuck" over and over again, was the whole point of that post to complain about licensing? If you don't want to deal with licensing issues don't use any proprietary technology. Release your work online in OGG format.

These types of whiny posts don't contribute much of anything. There's no real solution proposed. Other than "I want to use proprietary technology but I don't want to pay the fees".

windsurfer• 17 years ago

I think they raise awareness at least. By convincing more people not to use the product, you leave a larger gap for a better product to come along and fill the void. What else can a consumer or producer do, if not complain?

wyday3• 17 years ago

Ok, complaining is one solution. Many times it's the best option for consumers. However producers like this guy should work with the owners of the technology and negotiate a better deal.

Get support from other independent producers, get a following, get some press, and eventually get your way.

Instead he chooses to just complain. That's just lazy.

anigbrowl4• 17 years ago

What better product? This kind of thing costs a fortune to commercialize. YES, in a few years solid-state memory devices will become sufficiently cheap to make distribution a possibility...and people will find ways to complain SS-ROM. Network distribution will allow us to throw 40-50GB files around...eventually...at least in large urban areas.

Personally I like what Blu-ray does now and can live with the restrictions. It's preferable to me to both watch and potentially distribute that format than to sit around waiting a decade for the infrastructure to catch up with the leading solution for low-cost bulk media.

TheElder2• 17 years ago

I'm not sure why vulgar language is becoming so acceptable and commonly used . Am I just old school (even though I'm 30) when I find myself turned away from people who talk in such a manner or do others feel similar to me?

unalone5• 17 years ago

I'm new school (if 19 isn't too old to call myself that), and swearing's becoming such a huge trend because of how natural it feels. It's part of the huge trend towards the unprofessional.

That's a good thing. While it's got some irritating side effects, the overall idea is getting rid of bullshit attitudes towards one another. Swearing is a part of language. There's nothing wrong with its being used.

njharman• 17 years ago

It's always been acceptable and commonly used (by certain peoples). It's just now with communication revolution aka The Internet, everyone's speech is potentially seen by millions. So, what was hidden and obscure is now only a click away.

madair3• 17 years ago

I'm glad for any trend against the corporatism, homogenization and prudishness in American professional culture that dehumanizes and demeans people.

e40• 17 years ago

The web design offended me 1000x more than the swearing. (Looking around the site it appears to be his gimmic.)

ZeroGravitas• 17 years ago

You might be intersted in the Let's not get so feckin' hung up about swearing essay by David Mitchell:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/28/david-mi...

excerpt:

Is saying "fuck" offensive?

That's not the same as asking: "Is 'fuck' a rude word?" Everyone accepts it's a rude word - it would hardly be used if it weren't. The disagreement is about whether using it (and other swearing, but "fuck" is the Gaza Strip here) is an offensive act.

I don't think it is. I don't think it matters a shit, damn or piss if someone says "fuck" or how many times they say it. My friends and colleagues unthinkingly use it all the time and, as far as I can tell, it hasn't resulted in the poisoning of their souls or their becoming unable to express themselves because of the effect of linguistic inflation.

textfiles12• 17 years ago

Ignoring the grannies beneath this reply, the main reason I wrote this entry was because I'd written a previous entry about how Blu-Ray was not going to be used for my film, because the restrictions were so heinous that they overshadowed the power of the technology. A little while ago, the restrictions/costs were changed a bit, and people were starting to ask me "so, does this change things?" and I wanted to make it clear that they didn't change things and all.

While it's nice to talk about all sorts of OGG hippydippery and how it should be released online, the fact remains that many people who'd want to see someone's "film" will own or use blu-ray and wonder why the film isn't being released on a 'real' format that can be bought on a nice disc and put into the components in their home. And my bringing these subjects up the way I do is an attempt to explain why that is the case.

dasil0032• 17 years ago

The more I think about this the more I am determined to simply boycott Bluray in its entirety. I already watch most things on my laptop attached to a large monitor. Going forward I feel an obligation to throw my consumer support behind open (or at least reasonably-licensed) streaming formats. Devices like Boxee should be supported and nurtured to help do an end-around on these cartels. I can't stand the thought that future technology could be crippled by a few mega corps without the first intention of doing any innovation. All that's needed are the right devices and a critical mass of good content and the cartels will not be able to secure a monopoly.

rbanffy• 17 years ago

How about adding a "Why this title is not available in Blu-Ray" as an extra on every DVD published?

anigbrowl4• 17 years ago

Like anyone besides some code junkies here and young soul rebels will give much of a shit about your explanation - they'll just read it and think 'Hmm, he says he spent $x thousand making the film but he doesn't want to spend a grand or two on licensing for release? Whatever, more like he can't get a distributor to take it'. I accept the copy protection and so on is intolerable to you. It's totally your right to avoid patronising or promoting a distribution medium you dislike and the administration of which offends you. And I respect too your right to post about it online, although I don't think your 'fuck blu-ray' approach is going to convince people of anything more than the intensity of your feeling.

Look at it from the customer's point of view. They really don't care about you or your worldview in 99% of cases. To paraphrase Dov Simens, nobody says 'let's go see a Sony movie tonight, or would you prefer a Paramount film?'. People care about the distribution company even les than they care about the studio, which to say hardly at all. From a distributor's point of view the licensing requirements and costs to release on blu-ray are trivial operating costs, just like there has always been a fee to use the DVD logo on DVD cases and small fees for use of the MPEG codecs, h.264 codecs etc. OK, so the fee is more expensive with blu-ray. You object, I see your point - it doesn't make economic sense if you expect to sell under 3-5000 copies.

I know, you hate distributors. They take a chunk of your money and have overly cosy relationships with theaters and video rental businesses, and this is one reason among many that you market directly. On the other hand, distributors have the funds and expertise to advertise and otherwise promote a film to increase its chances of commercial success, and thus increase your future possibilities for obtaining production financing and having more negotiation power the next time you are looking at a distribution deal.

It seems to me that people who might be interested in your film won't be very exercised about the format (not least because 99% of text adventures employed graphics well below the resolution of DVD anyway), and the people who are merely curious rather than enthusiastic about IF etc. are going to read 1 paragraph of your rant and decide you're a computer geek with a chip on his shoulder.

Most indies will treat these expenses as just another line item. $3000 to buy a lifetime blu-ray reproduction license? OK, I've been on no-budget projects that racked up similar amounts of money just on beta duplication fees for an eventual release to DVD because the distributor didn't have a digital pipeline. Me, I'd rather pay it and have some chance of getting a review by submitting copies of the movie to every little film magazine/website in hopes that they'd work the 'anyone can release to blu-ray now' angle and promote the damn film...which might even get a wider audience for your (valid) thoughts about the licensing costs involved if you mentioned to an interviewer how filmmakers should be prepared for some sticker shock and it's holding them back.

tl;dr valid perspective, but ultimately you're choosing to limit your own distribution.

Tichy2• 17 years ago

I wonder if USB sticks will be cheaper than Blu-Ray disks in the long run? (And offer more capacity, too).

textfiles12• 17 years ago

You've lit a fire under me, Tichy. Thank you.

slyn• 17 years ago

I've begun wondering recently if we will end up going full circle and ending up with cartridges again as part of whatever next-gen or next-next-gen gaming consoles, this time based solely on generic flash memory. The cost of flash would have to start going down even more drastically than it already is to ever come close to matching the manufacturing cost of a DVD or even a Blu Ray disk, but I would think there would be a point where the value/$ would make it worth it to the consumer. Faster loading times, more durable games (ie no disk scratch errors), no real space limit on the games, extra room for game specific DLC, and I'm sure other advantages that I can't think of now that would be cool.

Street Fighter 2 super dooper HD remix might only need 5-10 gigs worth of memory, so they just throw in one 16 gig module (or two 8 / four 4 gig modules for data striping and faster loading times) and ship it. Metal Gear Solid 7 and its over 9000 hours of CGI might need 200+ gigs, so they just throw in as much flash memory as they can and go to town with their high res textures and lossless a/v.

Lets say Rock Band 5 ships with 80 songs at approximately a half gig a song, as well as 20 gigs of everything else, for a 60 gig total footprint. They then could ship the game on a 120 gig flash cartridge, mark half of it writable to the console, and boom. Now instead of having to carry around your xbox hard drive when visiting friends for RB parties, you just take the cartridge and it has the DLC on it.

baddox2• 17 years ago

I think prices for flash are just now getting to the point where it's entirely feasible to distribute most software on them.

potatolicious2• 17 years ago

I doubt it. A bought a 16GB SD card a little while back, and it cost maybe $30. A Blu-ray disc holds 25GB single-sided, and 50GB double-sided, and probably costs well less than a dollar to press.

Flash is a loooooong way from beating the disc.

Tichy2• 17 years ago

Just checked at Amazon.de, the price for a writable blu-ray disk seems to start from 5€, for a 25GB disc. 16GB USB sticks were around 23€. It does not seem that far away?

Also, I suppose Blu-Ray will be stuck at it's size because of the norms and patent hell, whereas sticks can just continue to grow. Flash drives are becoming popular, so the price of Flash in general might come down.

lallysingh• 17 years ago

By sided, you mean layered, right? I thought blu-rays could have multiple layers that you could see by doing different things to the laser involved.

alexandros• 17 years ago

not to mention writable (think of movies/series that can save where you left off and pick up from there).

tedunangst• 17 years ago

This is why blu-ray players include writable storage.

docmach• 17 years ago

I don't know if it would be cheaper or not, but since they don't need to be written to they could just use read-only solid state memory instead. I think it could easily more durable and convenient and I'm surprised this hasn't happened yet.

baddox2• 17 years ago

Without major changes to optical media (like the holographic stuff we've been hearing about for decades), I'm sure the lowering price of flash media will slowly kill optical.

sketerpot• 17 years ago

Wow, they've managed to make it more painful than BitTorrent. This is self-defeating.

GrandMasterBirt2• 17 years ago

This is one of two points:

a) proprietary formats hurt independents

b) this is yet another anti-piracy heal of crap which will hurt consumers.

So yea I would not be concerned with blue ray. If the porn industry does not embrace it it won't be the next big thing.

However being that this is sony you are garanteed that they will cater to destroying independents and growing sony's monopoly.

pyre7• 17 years ago

Sony is going to fight tooth and nail for this one. It's the first time that one of their proprietary formats became an industry standard. They rest are failures (ATRAC,BetaMax,MemoryStick,MiniDisc,etc). They still won't cater to independents though.

jcl• 17 years ago

Sony invented the 3.5-inch floppy disk, and the audio compact disc was invented together by Philips and Sony. Were these somehow not proprietary?

scblock• 17 years ago

I'm sorry but I can't even read this. It is hard to look at, textually awful and filled with needless coarse language. If you want to write a longish essay that people will read, learn to edit.

textfiles12• 17 years ago

I'm sorry to hear a 1,100 word essay cows you down into illiteracy.

kdw2• 17 years ago

Blu-Ray is a transition format anyway. Long-term, my money is on network-based digital distribution.

It sucks... but for a couple hundred bucks, I'm fine with my blu-ray player, my netflix subscription, and my purchased copy of Planet Earth.

pyre7• 17 years ago

If all you want is HiDef Planet Earth... it was released on HDDVD. You could probably get a copy and a player for cheap.

kdw2• 17 years ago

I actually had one. I switched to blu-ray because of netflix.

A netflix subscription and a blu-ray player is both cheaper and more interesting than subscribing to all the premium movie channels.

billybob3• 17 years ago

Agreed. We've got this great, robust network for shuttling data around the world and keeping redundant distributed copies, yet we buy spoonfuls of information on breakable discs with restrictions on how we can use them.

<sarcasm>I wonder if that will last?</sarcasm>

bitwize2• 17 years ago

Yes, you have to use DRM.

Yes, you have to pay for it.

This won't change. In fact, most independent authors and musicians I know would kill for a transparent, workable DRM system that effectively stopped casual piracy. Without it, 0-day piracy would become ubiquitous. For Hannah Montana that won't matter much because Hannah Montana's shit is going to be bought -- and pirated -- in massive volume anyway. For the local musician it could mean not getting the big break he was hoping for because he didn't cross the threshold of 50,000 or 100,000 albums sold necessary for the record company to heavily market him. In the worst case it means not being able to feed his family with the income from his music.

So no, DRM is necessary if you want small independent creators to succeed in the age of the Pirate Bay. And it's not going away anytime soon.

textfiles12• 17 years ago

Nah, we fundamentally disagree on this point and a lot of people disagree with you on this point. (But many do agree with you, too.)

BillRossum• 17 years ago

You know what else blows? That website. My eyes bleed. Learn how to put "text" on a "website".

textfiles12• 17 years ago

I wrote an entry about that. If you can handle it.

http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1765

bitwize2• 17 years ago

Yeah, but... smooth green antialiased text on a crisp LCD display? Shit's WEAK. It's like listening to Britney Spears cover "I Can't Get No Satisfaction". The soul is gone. I know you did the best you could with what you had, but I'm yearning for a CSS stylesheet option that changes the text into an 8x10 chunky pixely aliased monospaced font, rendered in fuzzy green phosphor dots that don't turn black immediately when the text is scrolled but rather fade to ghostly lingering afterimages.

As I've mentioned a couple times before, I always use chunky pixely fonts to code in, though the wheat-on-dark-slate-gray I used for my first Red Hat install gives me t3h warm fuzzies. It just feels namby-pamby typing your code in Lucida Console.

Blu-Ray Still Blows

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