damien stolarz blog

Related link: http://news.com.com/New high-definition DVDs to use old video technology/2100-10…

This is pretty sad - so they’re trying to get blu-ray vs. HD-DVD off the ground; we missed shipping it for xmas 2005 because of the argument.

Now, Warner is thinking of making 9GB blu-ray disks at first instead of 25GB, using Microsoft’s VC-1 competitive codec. (Existing DVD’s already hold 9GB, and some DVD players already play VC-1. But no DVD players natively support HD resolutions of VC-1 on DVD).

And, Sony has proposed to use MPEG-2 (instead of MPEG-4 AVC or Windows Media), since at the 25GB level, you don’t need to use a more efficient codec, you can do good-old MPEG-2 which the studios are all familar with, and the larger disks will hold HD.

On top of all this is the fear of what will happen when these incredibly high-resolution versions of movies hit the market, and consumers arguably never need to buy another version of the movie.

Like Vietnam or another recent war who’s name I forget, the HD DVD wars linger on with no timetable for conclusion…

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Related link: http://www.magnetictime.com/

This company uses the same voices (from a European company called Acapela) that I licensed for my in-car computer company. It’s a very good idea; i’ve seen a few implementations but usually they’re too annoying to listen to at length. A good trick is to use a UK English voice if you’re american, or vice versa - then, the roboticness of the voice fades even more and your email sounds like a BBC broadcast.

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