James Delahunty
4 Dec 2005 16:56
Fox Filmed Entertainment has already chosen its side in the ongoing battle between the yet unreleased next generation DVD formats, Blu-Ray Disc and HD-DVD. Fox has said that it wont release movies in both formats like some other studios have decided to. The company see PlayStation 3 support as enough to indicate Blu-ray as the clear winner already. Also, like other studios backing the Sony developed format, Fox is very interested in the copy protection technology that it provides.
"We believe that Blu-ray not only has the superior technology and backing in terms of strength to market but also the superior content protection," Fox Filmed Entertainment co-chairman James Gianopulos said. Blu-ray Disc allows movies studios to decide on Mandatory Managed Copy on a per title basis, which may be bad for consumers as it might leave them with no way to backup the movies they buy on Blu-ray Discs.
HP had demanded that Blu-ray adopt Mandatory Managed Copy completely, as well as iHD, which would provide new interface features for the format. The Blu-ray group however declined to use iHD, and are backing a Java-based menu system instead. iHD is slated to be part of Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows Vista, and it is already supported by HD DVD.
It seems now that the movie studios are going for Blu-ray Disc for its strong copy protection whereas many tech companies are leaning towards HD DVD because of the consumer friend features it supports. Bill Gates recently called Blu-ray's copy protection, anti-consumer. "The inconvenience is that the studios got too much protection at the expense of consumers and it won't work well on PCs," Gates explained.
Source:
Betanews