What is happening at Fox?

In addition to the pulled release dates highlighted in the last two weeks, Fox has now pulled Mr & Mrs Smith from it's original release slot.

highdefdigest.com

What are Fox doing I wonder? This latest announcement leaves them with barely any releases upto Q3 '07.

This is bad news for Hi Def disc on the whole IMO and I would love to know what is happening in the background to cause this.

Are they going to pull out of the disc based market in favour of downloads through News Corporation's various broadcast interests?

[Pecker]

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

You'd think neither side actually wants to win this format war.

If I were Sony or Universal I'd be putting out as many HD films as I could at cost.

The financial benefits of 'winning' the 'war' are enormous, but no-one appears willing to spend a few bob on releasing titles in an attempt to get back some of the massive outlay they must have put into R&D.

Steve W

[steve0]

Greed

I think they are waiting for a bigger user base like with dvd, it was years before the commited to dvd and when they did it was a non anamorphic version with no extras and inflated price

What is odd though Steve is that this leaves Fox with only 2 releases up until July - "Eragon" and "Me Myself and Irene."

Something is happning within Mr Murdoch's empire and I would love to know what?

[bcopping]

maybe Murdocks gone a little nuts again, need Hannibal & BA to slap him back into line!

i love it when a plan comes together!

[Jim Morrison]

Apparantly it's something to do with copy protection...

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=4546

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.ph...&postcount=400

Jim, thanks for the links, bu I cannot help but think that it is a crock of "sh..". All of these films have been shown on Sky HD where copy is is let us say more than simple.


Despite the rumours, I am quite convinced that this has nothing to do with managed copy.

[lfletcher]

Originally Posted by jackal

Despite the rumours, I am quite convinced that this has nothing to do with managed cpy.

BD+ has nothing to do with managed copy, its Fox trying to stop people doing the unmanaged copy after people found the workaround for AACS.
I believe Fox have always been very protective of their property (if rumours are correct they are the ones that wanted BD+ implemented in Blu Ray to start with), particularly emphasised by the fact that they are the only company that always region codes their titles for BD.

[av addict]

Originally Posted by lfletcher

BD+ has nothing to do with managed copy, its Fox trying to stop people doing the unmanaged copy after people found the workaround for AACS.
I believe Fox have always been very protective of their property (if rumours are correct they are the ones that wanted BD+ implemented in Blu Ray to start with), particularly emphasised by the fact that they are the only company that always region codes their titles for BD.

so how close are they to have B+ implemented onto blu-ray discs?

Originally Posted by lfletcher

BD+ has nothing to do with managed copy, its Fox trying to stop people doing the unmanaged copy after people found the workaround for AACS.
I believe Fox have always been very protective of their property (if rumours are correct they are the ones that wanted BD+ implemented in Blu Ray to start with), particularly emphasised by the fact that they are the only company that always region codes their titles for BD.

So you don't think this is a big issue
for Blu ray/HD movies on the whole?

It is not something that can be brushed aside IMO. Let us say that they are waiting for the keys on current players to be revoked until BD 1.1,
. Where will that leave current owners of hardware.

[Pecker]

It's ridiculous.

Pirating will happen. I've already copied a HD film. I have several recorded on my SKY HD hard drive.

In the far east they've already released a hi-def disc recorder with analogue component inputs. It costs c.£1,000, but that's small beer to a pirate dealer.

When this format war started, what we all agreed (maybe the only thing we agreed on) was that Sony's BEETAMAX failed because VHS had stronger software support.

For Sony to release so few new titles is idiocy in the extreme.

Steve W

[Nic Rhodes]

I don't think this has anything to do with BD+ or AACS or managed copy.

If I were a betting man, which obvious I an not, but I would think Fox (and other comapanies) have prepared BD discs. These have gone off to the compatibility testing labs and have been given the okay. Unfortunately when they stick them in PS3 then all is not right. All IMHO

[peterweg]

Originally Posted by jackal

So you don't think this is a big issue
for Blu ray/HD movies on the whole?

It is not something that can be brushed aside IMO. Let us say that they are waiting for the keys on current players to be revoked until BD 1.1,
. Where will that leave current owners of hardware.

Individual players are revoked, they will have to be upgraded to play newer films.

However the compromised players are PC software players which won't affect 'Hardware' at all.

Revoking compromised players will happen on a regular basis, as they are hacked newer disks will exclude playback on those players.

[peterweg]

Originally Posted by Nic Rhodes

I don't think this has anything to do with BD+ or AACS or managed copy.

If I were a betting man, which obvious I an not, but I would think Fox (and other comapanies) have prepared BD discs. These have gone off to the compatibility testing labs and have been given the okay. Unfortunately when they stick them in PS3 then all is not right. All IMHO

So that is why there are so few HD-DVD releases? in your 'honest opinion' are you suggesting that playback of HD media formats is so complex that Sony and MS are incapable of doing. Surely if a MPEG2 can be decoded by a DVD player it could also be decoded by a Blu-ray player ?

[zz101]

Originally Posted by Nic Rhodes

I don't think this has anything to do with BD+ or AACS or managed copy.

If I were a betting man, which obvious I an not, but I would think Fox (and other comapanies) have prepared BD discs. These have gone off to the compatibility testing labs and have been given the okay. Unfortunately when they stick them in PS3 then all is not right. All IMHO

Whats that based on though - I've not heard of any titles refusing to playback on a PS3?

Are you thinking of the HD-DVD add on which has had problems?