Here's part 2...
iHD less expensive than Blu-ray alternative, thanks to Vista, says HP
Fort Collins (CO) - The XML-based interactive functionality provision currently supported by HD DVD next-generation optical discs, will be an integral part of Windows Vista whether or not iHD-supportive optical discs come to market, an official of Hewlett-Packard told TG Daily. As a result, computer manufacturers will already be paying royalties on iHD, driving down their costs for adopting HD DVD over Blu-ray, the competing optical disc format that instead supports BD-J, an incompatible, Java-based alternative.
Josh Peterson, director of strategic alliances for the Optical Storage Solutions group of HP, is one of the company's two "point-people" making the unusual and, some would say, brave move of marshaling a complete U-turn in HP's stated position of just last month. As we reported on Friday, HP is taking a major gamble, and in so doing, perhaps spoiling the victory party that some analysts were preparing to throw for Blu-ray. Along with HP's general manager for personal storage, Maureen Weber, Peterson is saying that, for the good of the computer manufacturing industry, the Blu-ray Disc Association - of which HP is a founding member - should change its stance on iHD as well as mandatory managed copy, the guaranteed provision for users to make personal copies of licensed and legally-obtained content. Other Blu-ray members, including 20th Century-Fox and, as of last week, Warner Bros., are on record as opposing such guarantees in Blu-ray's AACS Internet-based copy protection system, saying studios should have the right to use tools that enable them to select not only which discs can be copied, but whose BD players can be used to copy them.
Peterson told us, as a direct result of our coverage last month of Microsoft's and Intel's joining the HD DVD Promotions Group, and his own subsequent defense of Blu-ray's stand on managed copy and BD-J, Microsoft and HP held face-to-face meetings on these topics for the first time.
HP's initial goal for those meetings, Peterson admitted to us, was to convince Microsoft to join the BDA. But Microsoft made very convincing arguments that persuaded the company to make its unprecedented change in stance. Now, HP is urging the BDA to make a similar shift, and soon, or else HP will be forced to join the HD DVD Promotions Group and, as an equal proponent of both sides, adopt a public position of neutrality. He revealed HP is currently negotiating with other prominent Blu-ray-supportive manufacturers, passing on Microsoft's arguments and urging them to make similar moves. He declined to provide names, but the two most prominent manufacturers in the Blu-ray camp besides HP are Dell and Apple.
The iHD "interactive layer," which Peterson says the most important point of contention now, was developed jointly by Microsoft and the Walt Disney Company, and offered at one point to the BDA. Last month, HP was among the supporters of BD-J, a Java-based alternative, which the BDA overwhelmingly selected for the interactive layer of Blu-ray Disc. At that time, Microsoft was publicly neutral with regard to iHD and BD-J.
Then after Microsoft's and Intel's joint announcement, Peterson said, HP learned that iHD was being built directly into Windows Vista, Microsoft's next-generation operating system, due to ship late next year. "Frankly, that gives a much more cost-effective implementation for us if iHD is the interactive application layer for the format," said Peterson. Whether an HP computer ends up containing an HD DVD or a Blu-ray disc component, he said, if that component supports iHD, it will be more cost-effective for HP to implement because Windows Vista will already support iHD. As an XML implementation, the iHD technology is not specific to optical discs; conceivably, iHD content can be delivered solely over the Internet. "Because we're already going to be paying for the operating system on all the PCs that we ship," remarked Peterson, "and that payment to the operating system includes support for the interactive layer, that saves us the royalty costs on that interactive layer. So we are certainly supportive of that, especially considering the millions and millions of systems that we ship every quarter."
HP had previously voiced support for BD-J, said Peterson, because of the overwhelming, perhaps unanimous (if you don't count multiple abstentions), support for BD-J among the BDA members. "When we made the side-by-side comparison of BD-J to iHD six months ago," he remarked, "it was apples and apples when it came to PC implementation, because Microsoft was neutral." But Microsoft's adoption of iHD as a part of Windows Vista changed the flavor of the fruit altogether. "It really gave us a much better picture, and things had changed since the last time we had evaluated the two technologies.
"Understanding the cost implications on our side of this choice by Microsoft," continued Peterson, "led to a revisit of our position when it comes to the interactive application layer...At the end of the day, it comes down to the cost of implementation, and the ultimate user experience. Whether it's a seamless experience within the operating system like iHD will be, or if it's a third-party add-in application, those are different user experiences and different costs of implementation. Certainly native support within the operating system is a huge benefit for us, and frankly, for the consumer."
The dispute over what the specifications don't say
In press statements, HP has said its goal in making these requests, or demands, of the BDA is to help bridge the two formats. At first, observers concluded that, with HP such a valued BDA member, it would adopt HP's suggestions, and that about wraps things up for HD DVD. But the issues on the table here are not matters of, to borrow a phrase, apples and apples. Microsoft plays a key role in the engineering and deployment of the two technologies key to this debate, iHD and Advanced Access Content System (AACS), both of which are still in their formative stages, and not yet ready for prime time. As Peterson told us, if Microsoft has any say about it, AACS will contain mandatory managed copy provisions; and while Blu-ray members may toss and turn over the context of "mandatory," they will inevitably stumble over its technological implications: AACS, Blu-ray's own copy protection mechanism, would contain provisions which BDA members openly oppose.
The point of contention for managed copy boils down to the omitted language from the following excerpt from the AACS Technical Overview document, which the document itself admits to not specifying: "In addition," the document states on its final page, "content owners can authorize uses of AACS content in other, unspecified ways as part of an online transaction. As a rule, if the transaction requires the use of AACS-defined keys such as device keys or media keys, the AACS specification applies, and the specification defines a minimum support level for that transaction in every AACS device." The "minimum support level" referred to here is a sort of contract that guarantees that the user of a licensed disc is offered some kind of backup service, as Warner Bros. SVP Steve Nickerson told us last Friday. But since the AACS specifications are not yet complete, specifications for this minimum level have not yet been written. Microsoft has told HP the minimum level is where the "mandatory" element is already being planned; Warner Bros., coinciding with other studios' position on the subject, disagrees.
For its part, Microsoft has not yet provided comment on this subject, though may do so soon. But as we were told by one of the authors of a blog that may have helped convince HP to seek a meeting with Microsoft, the BDA may be using two other copy protection technologies, called BD+ and ROM Mark, as a means of bypassing or even preventing AACS' "mandatory" guarantee from functioning properly. Chris Lanier is an independent member of the Microsoft technical community, and has served as one of Microsoft's "MVPs" - non-employees who provide technical and logistical support to Microsoft. (The company does have an oft-confused employee by the same name, but who works in another division.) Based on his understanding of the subject, which comes from Microsoft, Lanier told us AACS will have a mandatory copy provision. But depending on how BD+ and ROM Mark are implemented by the BDA, Lanier told us, "they have the potential to render the ability for the consumer to make a managed copy unusable."
BD+ is a technology which would enable content providers, such as studios, to determine the encryption scheme used on their discs, but also to change that scheme for future renditions, and even to flash the ROMs of BD players remotely with the new scheme, if it is determined that the old scheme has been cracked. ROM Mark is a digital watermarking technology that will help specify which discs can and cannot be copied, and whose watermarks cannot be copied themselves through conventional means. In an e-mail to TG Daily, Lanier wrote, "BDA members have been quick to note that HD DVD and Blu-ray both use AACS, and thus both will offer managed copies. However, until the BDA finishes the spec, or releases some public information about how BD+/ROM Mark are implemented with AACS, the ability for the consumer to actually make a managed copy is up in the air."
"HP's been one of the strongest proponents of Blu-ray Disc," HP's Josh Peterson told us. "We've been public spokespeople for the format...in the hopes that Blu-ray Disc would win this format war through the strong support and the industry support that we have. But as we get closer and closer to product introduction, and the other side is still very committed to the format, if there are going to be two products in the marketplace, at the end of the day, we have to support whatever one is most cost effective and user friendly. In some cases, that may be Blu-ray Disc; in some cases, that may be HD DVD, and it's not in our best interests to be exclusive to either format if one is more cost effective than the other. We can't be attached to the less cost effective one."
http://www.tgdaily.com/2005/10/31/ih...u-ray_says_hp/
