Shaf's Page

Let's get one thing straight: I don't like Sony.
So the recent news of the death of HD-DVD is something that I will personally be mourning for a while, since I strongly believed, as most other people did, that it was the stronger of the two formats and, logically, should have won. It seems, though, that logic does not win out a lot in the real world and Sony's influence on the major Hollywood studios has meant that Blu-Ray has won this war.

But this got me thinking. Now that HD-DVD is dead, will Microsoft release a Blu-Ray player for the 360? I personally hope they don't, because that would overshadow something they already have: Rentable movies from XBox LIVE Marketplace. But some people see no real reason in downloading something from the Marketplace when they could rent the full DVD/HD-DVD/BD-DVD from somewhere like Netflix in America, or LoveFilm here and get so much more content than they would get, for the same price and maybe cheaper than the rental cost of the save movie on LIVE.

Most people, the majority of the population, don't really see the difference between Hi-Def content and standard definition content. They'd be willing to take their £5 they would pay renting a Hi-Def LIVE title and spend that down Blockbusters on a standard def DVD and stick it in their upscaling DVD player. So that got me thinking: How do you entice people to download movie content, effectively making them paying more for less? This is an issue that Microsoft has to address if it is to change the field in terms of movie content on next-gen platforms. The PS3 has effectively won this war, but if Microsoft is able to pull off something amazing and wonderful for their Marketplace video content, then the whole game dynamic changes and Sony will seem like a lame duck, clinging on to a failing format (which would make me grin a bit).
I don't really have an answer for this question, but I guess something I would like to see is what has been happening with DVDs for a long time now: extras.
Things like alternative endings, director commentary and deleted scenes are some of the simple things that the studios and Microsoft can do to provide their users with more bang for their buck, but we need to go beyond this. Something that HD-DVD had was the ability to have interactive content, and connect to the internet to update and to download more content. This is something that can be built on since if you have a LIVE Marketplace movie, you obviously have an internet connection.

But one thing needs to change: The movies need to be bought and not rented and that is the clincher. When I had my LoveFilm subscription I was paying about £15 a month to rent out 3 DVDs at a time. I could give the DVDs back whenever I wanted which meant that I could either just watch the movie, or watch every single piece of extra content on the DVD before I gave it back. I could keep it for 1 day, or I could keep it for a month and that is the beauty of this type of service.
Saying to someone 'I'll take your £5, give you a movie, but you have to watch it within the next 2 weeks, oh and you have to finish watching it within 24 hours of starting.' That it itself is pretty complicated, but it's also highly restrictive. I know that Microsoft needs to seem cuddly to the studios so they'll continue to support the product, but if you're going to restrict people this much, shouldn't you at least reward them for it? Maybe give them some gamerpics or a theme, or maybe some behind-the-scenes video footage or something like that. Something that makes the service a bit more bearable but also makes them WANT to use the service.

I really want to see Microsoft win this one so I'm going to try my hardest to make sure they do. Even though my efforts might seem like a drop in the ocean, I'm not going to give up easily.

And if you're wondering why I hate Sony so much, there's a post back there all about it!

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Content: Digital Domain
Director: Joesph Kosinski
Check out other stuff by director Joseph Kosinski, and the crisp, clean Quicktime version of this commercial at www.josephkosinski.com
Joseph Kosinski is also lined up to direct the remake of the cult classic Logan's Run (2010).

UPDATE: Uploaded the video to MSN Soapbox so at least the quality's a bit better.

Well, that's a massive weight off my shoulders.
Even though my boss couldn't really have said no, seeing as I'm on a voluntary placement, I still had this feeling that he would say no.
But I'm free!

Canada, here I come.
Check out a rolling blog of our trip at sjetha.blogspot.com