Unlike the HD DVD camp, which seems to have slunk off with their tail between their legs thus far, there is a ton of Blu-ray news already coming out of CES. Lots of new players being announced. Samsung announced the BP-P1500 BD player and the BD-UP5500 BD/HD DVD combo player, which update the BD-P1400 and BD-UP5000 respectively. The P1500 will be a Profile 1.1 player with extensive audio codec support and an MSRP of $399 and the UP5500 will basically share the functionality of the P1500 but adds HD DVD playback (any point to that now?) for an MSRP of $599. That’s the lowest MSRP for a combo player to date. And you now that they’ll be available for less online. The P1500 is due in June, and the UP5500 in 2H08. While they both have Ethernet ports, neither is certified as a BD-Live player. Though there is a chance they could be upgraded in the future, as they have the hardware.

Philips announced the BDP7200 a Profile 1.1 player due in April with an MSRP of only $349. I’d expect to see it for less than $300 online. I think that’s the lowest MSRP for a Blu-ray player to date.

Sharp announced the BD-HP50U Profile 1.1 player with a $699.99 MSRP. The press release makes it sound like it may support BD-Live, which would help justify that high price, but I tend to doubt it:

In addition, the BD-HP50U supports BD-ROM Profile 1.1, or BD Live, the latest version of the Blu-ray format. BD-ROM Profile 1.1 provides secondary audio and video decoders for Picture in Picture (PIP) capability, as well as an external storage.

Profile 1.1 is ‘Bonus View’ or ‘Final Standard Profile’ and not BD-Live. BD-Live is also known as Profile 2.0. I tend to think this is a press release writer crossing their wires.

Sony is releasing a $200 BD-ROM drive for PCs, the BDU-X10S, making it easier for PC owners to add Blu-ray support to their machines. They also reportedly have two BD-Live players on display in their booth, and we’ve heard yet again that the PS3 will be receiving a BD-Live update this year.

And Panasonic had a lot to share. They announced a ‘home theater in a box’ with integrated Blu-ray support, the SC-BT100. It is Profile 1.1, of course, and will be available in May - but pricing isn’t available. They also announced what they claim is the first BD-Live player, the DMP-BD50. However, they haven’t revealed pricing or availability yet. Perhaps we’ll hear more once the show officially opens tomorrow.

Picked up from numerous press releases, vendor web sites, Engadget, EngadgetHD, Gizmodo, High-Def Digest, and Blu-ray.com.

Gamer Gal’s Insider is reporting that a ‘TiVo insider’ here at CES told her that TiVo and Sony are working together on a DVR add-on for the PS3 in the US. She reports than Sony and TiVo have extended their licensing agreement specifically for use on the PS3, but that the announcement won’t be made until E3 2008.

Now, we know that Sony is releasing a DVR add-on in territories that use DVB (which does not include the US) called the PlayTV. And leading up to that announcement there were rumors swirling that they would be using the TiVo software, of which I was highly skeptical. And Sony is a TiVo licensee. While they’ve long since stopped manufacturing DVRs that run the TiVo software, Sony does still build DVRs. And since TiVo has a number of fundamental patents on DVR technologies, Sony holds a license to use them.

I’m still skeptical about this, for all the reasons I posted before. Sony already has their own in-house DVR software and they’re very big on using their XMB (Cross Media Bar) interface across all of their product lines, so it seems unlikely that they would want to use the TiVo UI and disrupt that push. I can easily see Sony extending the license to allow them to use the patents and sell a DVR add-on, but actually using the TiVo interface seems more iffy.

But Gamer Gal specifically says:

An announcement is not forthcoming until E3 2008 but from what I heard SONY and TiVo will co-brand an add-on unit for approximately $100 that will bring TiVo functionality (DVR functionality) to your PS3.

If it will truly be co-branded then TiVo would certainly insist on TiVo specific features being included. TiVo has a working 3rd party guide data service that covers the US and Canada, which would certainly be required for Sony’s system. It could be anywhere on a spectrum from the XMB interface with some TiVo specific functions such as WishLists and Suggestions to the full TiVo UI on the PS3. If the latter then, as I said before, I think the most likely way that would happen is for the OCAP cable software to be ported to the PS3. The PS3 already runs Blu-ray Disc Java (BD-J) and both BD-J and OCAP are based on the MHP/GEM standards and have family commonality. And the hardware in the PS3 is vastly more powerful than that found in the OCAP cable boxes on the market running the software today, so that isn’t a problem.

I’m also skeptical because this is the first, and so far only, post in the blog - which appears to have just been created. So this could be a legitimate leak, or a made up troll.

This is firmly in the rumor category, but I’ll see if I can pick up any more info during the show. The show floor opens tomorrow.

Thanks to an anonymous tipster for the pointer.

It has been lamented by many over the past few years that there are no HD DVRs available which can record from external HD inputs. Most models, such as cable and satellite DVRs, and even HD TiVo, record the digital source directly. But this means, for example, that you can’t use TiVo with the current HD satellite services, and you can’t have an HD TiVo in Canada as they don’t use CableCARD. The primary reason for the lack of DVRs that can record from component input has been economics. Encoding 1080i HD video on the fly is like drinking from a fire hose compared to 480i SD video’s garden hose, with 6.75 times the pixels per frame. That jump in volume requires much more powerful hardware. That hardware has been available for a number of years, but it has been limited to professional level products, which were priced out of range for consumer products.

Well, the nice thing about technology is that it doesn’t rest. Each new generation of chips has been more capable and less expensive, and now we’re seeing HD-capable consumer products starting to appear. They’re still at the high-end of the consumer products, but it is inevitable that pricing will come down and we’ll see these capabilities in more products. I covered the Slingbox PRO-HD the other day. It isn’t a DVR, but it does accept HD component input at resolutions up to 1080i and it can encode and stream the signal in the same resolutions. Unlike previous generation products like the Slingbox PRO and Slingbox SOLO, which accept 1080i input but down-sample it to 640×480 for encoding, the Slingbox PRO-HD can stream up to 1080i. The same capabilities could just as easily be used to save the encoded video to media as to stream it - a DVR. The Slingbox PRO-HD will carry an MSRP of $399.99 when it ships in the third quarter.

But that’s not all, Gefen is releasing an HD DVR which can record from not only component input, but also HDMI. Now, details are thin, but I’d bet this unit has the same limitation as existing HDMI capture devices, namely that it can’t record content protected with HDCP. So don’t get too excited. Still, the unit can record HD video in resolutions of up to 1080i to SD cards (SecureDigital) or an internal 80GB hard drive. It is a fairly basic recorder, nothing fancy, and 80GB isn’t a lot of storage. The price? $999.00. Yeah, you’re not going to be picking one of these up instead of a TiVo HD, or even a Series3. But, unlike the TiVos, it could be used with HD cable or satellite STBs.

This isn’t what most people are looking for in a DVR - no scheduled recordings, let alone Season Passes - but the fact that the hardware exists is a good predictor for the future. Give it another year or two and another generation or two of hardware development, and the costs will come down. This is the kind of capability we might see in a future HD TiVo for applications where direct access to the digital stream is unavailable - like satellite or digital cable in other countries (Canada).

However, it is unlikely that you would want to use this kind of product when you have the direct option - it isn’t going to replace CableCARD. Why? Quality. As users of digital DVRs are probably already personally aware, SD digital cable channels look much better on a digital DVR than when recorded on an older STB-DVR pairing, like the TiVo Series2. And that is because the digital model records the native digital source as-is, while recording the same channel from a STB requires encoding it in real time in the DVR. Digital signals are normally encoded at the head end using powerful, multi-pass encoding systems which produce very high quality encodes with lower bandwidth requirements. When you can record that signal as-is, watching a recording is identical to watch live.

But when you use an STB that signal is received by the STB, decoded for output, output as an analog component video signal, then captured by the DVR and encoded. And the local encoding has to be done as a single-pass, real-time encoding, since the DVR doesn’t have the luxury of making multiple passes over the video to optimize the encoding. This produces a lower-quality encoding with higher bandwidth requirements. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Not to mention that it mens going back to all the mess we’ve gotten away from - connecting STBs to the DVR, using IR blasters, paying the box fees for the STB, etc. And doing dual-tuners would be complicated as you’d need two STBs and two IR blasters and would have to avoid cross-talk. That’s one of the main reasons the TiVo Series2DT only supports one STB. I think most users would rather deal with CableCARD than go back to that mess and accept lower quality. But when you don’t have another option, it doesn’t look so bad. The technological-economic barriers to a consumer level component DVR are falling.

Following their Blu-ray exclusivity announcement they later clarified that their announcement did not cover titles from New Line, HBO, or the BBC, and that they would be making their own decisions and announcements. Well, it didn’t take long, Variety is reporting: “Warner sister company New Line confirmed it will shift allegiance to Blu-ray only as well.”

That’s unsurprising, but it is nice to have it confirmed. Now they can get to work on the super-deluxe Lord of the Rings Blu-ray collection, right?

Via EngadgetHD.

A few nanoseconds after Warner announced their switch to Blu-ray, rumors started flying about a payoff. This is unsurprising, as Paramount and DreamWorks Animation have been widely reported as having been paid up to $180 million to switch to HD DVD. Not necessarily in direct payments, but in commitments for marketing funds, etc. As Warner is much larger than those studios combined, the rumored payoff amounts were similarly larger - in the $500 million range. But, according to High-Def Digest, in a post-announcement conference call this afternoon, Warner Home Entertainment President Kevin Tsujihara flatly denied that there was any payoff.

“The packaged media business is a $42 billion dollar business worldwide at the retail level, and we [Warner] have the largest market share of anybody,” said Tsujihara. “From our perspective, the most important piece of this whole puzzle is, “How do we get growth back into this category?” That far outweighed anything else.”

This [decision] was one hundred percent around what makes the most sense for the consumer, the retailer and the industry. This was not a bidding war. This was all about what was best, strategically, for us.”

Personally, even if there was a payoff, I don’t have a problem with it. That’s business. I don’t blame the HD DVD camp for buying loyalty either. That’s also business. It happens all the time, very few alliances happen in the business world without some financial compensation being involved.

In related news, Warner says their announcement does not cover New Line, HBO, or BBC titles, and that those studios will make their own decisions, likely soon.

This is even shorter than Toshiba’s comment:

Jan 4, 2008 20:30 ET

HD DVD Promotional Group Statement on Warner Home Video Decision to Back Blu-ray

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ — The companies of the HD DVD Promotional Group today issued a statement in response to the decision by Warner Home Video to exclusively back the Blu-ray format:

“While Warner’s decision is a setback for HD DVD, the consumer has benefited from HD DVD’s commitment to quality and affordability — a bar that is critical for the mainstream success of any format. We believe widespread adoption of a next generation format will ultimately be determined by the consumer.”

About HD DVD

HD DVD is the next generation, post-DVD standard for high capacity, high definition optical discs, approved by the DVD Forum, which develops and defines DVD formats. The North American HD DVD Promotional Group, Inc. is an organization established to promote the HD DVD format and educate consumers in North America. For more information and a complete listing of HD DVD titles please visit http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/.

Source: HD DVD Promotional Group

CONTACT: Lauren Mayer, lmayer@webershandwick.com, or John O’Brien,
jobrien@webershandwick.com, both of Weber Shandwick,
+1-425-452-5400, for HD DVD Promotional Group

Web site: http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/

Talk about weak. OK, they admit it is a setback for HD DVD - kind of hard not to. A vague statement about the consumer benefiting from HD DVD’s “commitment to quality and affordability” - translation “We helped drive HD prices down”, fair enough. But closing with adoption being determined by the consumer? In light of Warner’s shift in the market, and BD’s sustained sales lead, that almost sounds like an admission that this could be the death blow to HD DVD. This is the HD DVD Promotional Group, and even they don’t have any fighting words about ‘answering the challenge’ or touting their favorite ‘more standalone player sales’ or the like?

It really seems like the HD DVD camp is seriously stunned and shaken by this, and doesn’t really know what to say or do in response. I don’t think they have any strong cards left to play.

ETA: You know, it is kind of odd the Blu-ray Disc Association hasn’t issued their own press release yet to tout this and gloat.

According to Multichannel News, Cisco is retiring the Scientific Atlanta brand in favor of their own. At CES next week they will be unveiling their new line of STBs, which will carry the Cisco brand in place SciAtl. Cisco acquired SciAtl in 2006 for $6.9 billion, but, until now, hasn’t changed the consumer branded on their products. Existing SciAtl product lines will retain the SciAtl branding, but all new products will be branded as Cisco gear. So the SciAtl brand will fade with time as the older product lines are refreshed. Cisco has dropped a press release about what they’ll be exhibiting at CES.

Picked up via Network World.

Toshiba didn’t waste any time responding to Warner’s move to drop HD DVD.

My summary: “Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. Damn that hurts. How are we going to salvage this? Stall for time.”

It actually sounds a bit peevish in the first paragraph, almost “How dare you do this?! I thought we were friends!” kind of tone. And a hint of veiled threat with the mention of contracts between the companies for HD DVD support. And then a reference to the ’significant momentum’ HD DVD gained in 2007 - sure, which still significantly lags behind the even greater gains by BD.

I think Toshiba is really shaken by this, no matter what they end up with as their final stance. It will be hard not to gloat in person at their booth at CES. For the past several years I’ve had their booth reps pitch HD DVD to me and I kept telling them I wasn’t interested and that BD was going to win anyway.

EDIT: And now the HD DVD Promotional Group has chimed in too.

The full press release:
Read the rest of this entry »