In what can equate to an “I told you so”, director Michael Bay has spoken out again about Blu-ray and its recent “victories” over the rival HD DVD format.
Earlier this week, both Netflix and Best Buy seemingly chose Blu-ray as their HD format of choice although Best Buy said it will continue to stock both. Bay, taking the time to knock HD DVD had this to say at the Visual Effects Society’s sixth annual award show, “Blu-ray’s better, and I told everyone … I was very vocal about it. I knew HD [DVD] was not going to make it.”
Ironically, despite his support for Blu-ray, his best selling HD Title is far and away Transformers which is available on HD DVD.
“Am I thrilled? It really wasn’t my fight, but remember what I said in the press? I was kind of saying HD [DVD]’s going to lose,” he added. “No one believed me.”
Despite the fact that both formats support the same video and audio codecs and each have excellent interactive layers, Bay says he simply prefers the way his movies appear on Blu-ray Discs. “It’s just sharper,” Bay added. “It’s just [that] the tools are better. I just think it’s closer to what it should look like.”
This is not the first time Bay has talked about his preference for Blu-ray. He first voiced his displeasure with HD DVD when Paramount decided to go HD DVD-exclusive, and taking Transformers with it. Bay even went as far as to say that he would not come back to direct Transformers 2 as a boycott to the decision.
“I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were Progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me,” said Bay back then.
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At the Adobe MAX developer’s conference yesterday, Adobe showed off their latest Flash player, one that works on both Windows Mobile phones as well as the new Android-based phone, the T-Mobile G1.
“We are excited to be working alongside Adobe to bring Flash technology to Android,” said Andy Rubin, director of mobile platforms at Google. “Adobe Flash is crucial to a rich Internet and content experience on mobile devices and we are thrilled that Google will be one of the first companies along with the Open Handset Alliance to bring Flash technology to the smartphone market.”
Notably absent from the presentation was the popular Apple smartphone, the iPhone. Although Adobe has said they have a Flash player that will work on the iPhone OS, Apple’s strict TOS will not allow it into the App Store. I mean, why would Apple let consumers play free Flash based games or watch movies from sites like Hulu when they can instead be locked into iTunes, the App Store and other Apple run platforms?
Adobe notes that 98 percent of computers have Flash installed, and it is becoming crucial to have it to enjoy the Internet. That is of course, unless you own an iPhone.
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According to Crunchgear, Apple has begun building HDCP (High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection) into their new MacBooks in order to protect iTunes Store purchased media.
Although most content are not protected, there are some newer videos that are and will not play at all unless you have connected an HDCP compliant TV or monitor.
Users trying to connect to a TV via HDMI or DVI should be fine, but users with VGA or component/composite ports only may have issues.
To understand more about what exactly HDCP is, please read our glossary entry here: High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection.
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