News
Microsoft reiterates Blu-ray opposition
Andrew Wooden Jul 30 2008, 10:57am
Comments (3)
Top exec attacks physical disks, claiming downloads are what people want
Having backed the loosing side in the HD-DVD versus Blu-ray war, Microsoft is now attacking physical disks completely – claiming what people really want is high definition streaming and downloads.
Don Mattrick, senior vice president of interactive entertainment at Microsoft said: "I think that what people want is digital high-def content, I think that's what our box provides, and we've announced several movie partners - and one in particular, Netflix, for the streaming technology."
In what is thought to be a reference to the slight quality reduction in downloadable content over Blu-ray disks, Mattrick continued: "People love being able to download and interact instantaneously with high-def content.
I don't have to go somewhere, I don't have to buy a disc, I don't have to pay a 12-14 dollar or 6-7 pound premium to do that. I don't have to have my face be two feet in front of my TV to see the difference."
Link: HDTV UK
- mixx
- digg
- stumbleupon
- del.icio.us
- technorati
- yahoo
Comments
“Microsoft says we want to stream HD?”
Posted by: David Leon - Jul 30, 8:33pm
Well, it looks like Microsoft is backing another looser. As a 14 year veteran Microsoft developer it gives me no joy to say this. The HD revolution is about 1 thing and 1 thing only: Quality. Blu-ray delivers quality because they hit you with a video stream of about 20-35mbits per second and an audio stream of about 3.5 to 5.6 mbits per second. Taken together, lets call it 32 mbits. Who has a 32mbit brick-solid connection to the web? No consumer in the United States, that's who.
Of course, you can reduce the resolution and jack up the compression, but then you decimate the quality, and you are not really competing with Blu-ray at that point.
There is no workable business model for high-def streaming until the mode, mean, and median bandwidth in this country exceeds 30mbits. That will be a long time from now.
“Re: Microsoft says we want to stream HD?”
Posted by: kamal - Aug 1, 11:00am
David Leon has point.
“Re: Re: Microsoft says we want to stream HD?”
Posted by: scott - Aug 11, 6:04pm
and of course the idea of waiting 10 hours for it to download - crazy statement by a desperate company trying to catch up. MS is badly loosing the game software just isnt where its at anymore - vista is a marketing rip off - the likes are playstation/Apple/yahoo and google are the companies that understand the marketplace. MS is on the slipper path down.