Sony Executive Calls For Always-On Media Players

[Seracen]

Come on guys, learn your lesson already. I mean, many of the folks buying this might not be savvy enough to pick up on it. Certainly, nobody will likely create a conflagration over a glorified DVD player/Roku box, like gamers did for the consoles.

Having said that, when the device invariably starts screwing up, customers will be returning the products in droves. Consumers' opinions of the brand name will be tarnished.

Because let's face it, nobody wants to be in the wrong. People will think it was a defective product well before they consider it could be a bad net connection. If they realize it's a bad net connection, they won't care, and return it on the grounds that it's stupid to deal with.

Going even further, too many people use Redbox and still order disks from Netflix to institute DRM on something as simple as WATCHING A DAMN MOVIE! They'll riot and go apeshit...DON'T DO IT...STAHP!!!

 

[Dark Knifer]

Wait... don;t most people watch movies on netflix or lovefilm now?

Outside of the USA this is a bit difficult. I haven't found an Australian equivalent here, that's why we still have blockbuster around.

OT: Why would this help? Everyone pirates shit on their computer, not on a disc.

 

[Petromir]

Wait... don;t most people watch movies on netflix or lovefilm now?

Yup but their is no way they'll be watching 4K movies off of either of these services, the internet speed alone needed to get the films is way beyond most folk in most countries expect to need a bandwidth of at least 25 - 30Mbps.

The reality just now is that the shear time and bandwidth needed to download a full blown 4K movie just isn't worth the benefit so since it's just easier and quicker to download a Blu-Ray rip what's the point of sticking a whole bunch of copy protection on a format that by it's sheer size is going to force anyone looking for a cheap for free copy straight to the blu ray rip instead? Just for reference an uncompressed 4K video trailer for the last Spider Man movie (that's just the trailer) weighed in at a hefty 500Gb.

The sheer size of the 4K files themselves may be all the deterrent for most people downloading a pirated version of the film.

There are a number of new compression codecs that want a word. H265 is much more efficent than h264 (one of the most common ones, and used in bluray) combine this with the fact that the higher resolution something is the better most codec compression actually works (so you can compress it more with less effect on the picture quality), you can easily get something that looks 4 times as good as bluray into almost the same sized data package.

4k is a ***** for data at the working end but at the consumer end the data sizes aren't looking much higher than the blurays of today (and given bluray is so far ahead of the data rates of streamed HD or broadcast HD, you can also get 4k down to below bluray data rates and still look much better than what most people watch).

Quoting uncompressed sizes is largely meaningless for the home world. Most TV isnt even shot uncompressed (though still generally shot at much higher rates than bluray).

Don't go looking for data size to save from piracy, as there will be thse that don't care, and other's who just take a more heavily compressed and or downscaled version.

 

[Ken Sapp]

Universal already abused the ever loving hell out of online connected BD Players with that BD-LIVE shit (or was that sony?).

Basically, it would stream ads from a website (taking up my bandwidth) before you watched your movie. The problem was, you couldn't skip it. So if the ads hung, like they did on mine, you had to wait like 20 minutes to watch the movie as it slowly, slowly streamed like an unwatchable and choppy youtube video.

I would buy more blurays if it was as simple as put disc in -> play movie.
If I have to watch your bullshit adverts in front of a thing I've paid for I'd rather rip the movie off the disc and convert it. At least in the VHS days we could fast forward.

This is why I ripped all of my DVDs and BluRay discs to my NAS. I get to watch them much more conveniently on my TV using XBMC with zero forced ads, trailers, or anything else that can't be skipped using traditional players to watch the discs

 

[Canadamus Prime]

So Sony, what does foot taste like?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I'll be sticking to my computer then.

Honestly. If people haven't figured out that even were there no surface-visible problems with the service, it'll find some way to be inconvenient by now, they deserve to buy an unusable product.

 

[FoolKiller]

This Sony executive will soon be seen at a press conference retracting his comments, with several bruises on his face.

Or working for Zynga

Bazynga.

I guess this is what Yahtzee was talking about in Extra Punctuation.

 

[Fox12]

I think a slowpoke meme is in order. "Hey guys, I have a great idea! It's called always online entertainment! What could possibly go wrong?"

The digital age resulted in a massive shift in power to the consumer. Now the corporations are trying to bend the digital age to their will. The pirates will never stop though, so I'm not sure what they expect. I'm fine with digital, always online forms of entertainment, if they're similar to Netflix. Relatively cheap, simple to use, no hassle, no problem. I don't see that model ever being adopted in the same way by games though, and the sheer greed of companies like Microsoft, that wanted to take everything, and give nothing in return, was insulting. I, for one, will always prefer physical media, even if times are changing. I hope Sony doesn't make the same mistakes, even though I know they would if they could get away with it.

 

[Fox12]

Well look who's doing the one eighty now!

Meh, it's not the gaming division. As long as Sony game systems don't have always online DRM restrictions, I'll buy their products. If they attempt to do that I'll jump ship, simple as that. Sony has always done right by me before, so I'll continue to hold out hope. The only thing they ever did to make me angry is release an absurdly expensive PS3 console, something I consider more stupid than actively malevolent.

 

[Aggieknight]

Universal already abused the ever loving hell out of online connected BD Players with that BD-LIVE shit (or was that sony?).

Basically, it would stream ads from a website (taking up my bandwidth) before you watched your movie. The problem was, you couldn't skip it. So if the ads hung, like they did on mine, you had to wait like 20 minutes to watch the movie as it slowly, slowly streamed like an unwatchable and choppy youtube video.

THIS!

Beyond the normal "Are you stupid or are you using this as a Trojan horse to restrict lending or resale" BS, BD Live has already given us an alternative object lesson for this market segment.

My Blue Ray Players are almost the only electronic devices in my households that are not plugged in to my network exactly because of crap like this. What's funny is that one of the players actually has the ability to turn off BD-Live (so you could still stream Netflix, Hulu or Pandora), but some movies refused to play if they could sense that the player had a network connection and it couldn't go to www.universal.com or whatever.

 

[KoudelkaMorgan]

I'm a caveman so I don't use any of these at all, so it won't affect me much.

But my brow is already furrowed in suspicion.
I'm watchin' you sony.

I concur.

Also I agree with the sentiment that people who pirate don't need to use disc based media players, or ANY players at all to view content. All without being forced to watch about 7 minutes of unskippable commercials on the disc for "coming soon" products that may have been out of print for years, because thats how these companies roll.

Or products that ARE out of print/never made available through legitimate avenues in different countries.

Its funny that they need to ensure we have an internet connection in order to play legitimately purchased products, and force feed us ads for other products, when that same internet could just as easily be used to save yourself thousands of dollars.

I would start combatting the ability of my content to be uploaded and leaked in the first place, realize that it is impossible because people could just record via video recorder to bypass this, try to combat that, then realize all my money is gone and my company is bankrupt.

You can't stop people from recording and copying media, short of hired goons that roam around policing everyone with an internet connection/cellphone camera/etch-a-sketch. People share things, and as long as they can endlessly create more copies of their digital stuff, while still retaining their original, then you are always going to lose money.

I doubt their will be a sweeping change to analogue only media. i.e. movies that arrive at the theatre on film reels, with a security detail, and everyone's phones etc are confiscated upon entry. The theatre would be a dead zone of no internet or wi-fi access. Home video would consist of tamper proof tape cassettes that self destructed upon one viewing, and if you wanted to see it again, you bought another one.

THAT is what they would need to begin to move towards in order to end piracy, and all it would take is ONE company NOT doing that crap to get full market share so that won't happen. They can try to create laws enforcing it, but no one in their right mind would pass them.

So, by virtue of piracy still existing at all...I guess that means that we have sane lawmakers and haven't yet passed into some mad dystopia of corporate sponsored media tyranny?

Is that my point? Sure I'll go with that.

 

[infohippie]

I generally buy or rent my media, as a rule. But statements like this give me an irresistable urge to shout "Yo-ho-ho!" and get some rum.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

Your Old Fogey moment of the day:

Does anyone remember DIVX [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX]? Anyone?

You "rented" a film by buying the disc. When you played it, the box would phone home to authenticate the disc's unique serial, after which the same disc couldn't be replayed ever again (and you threw it away). If you particularly liked a film you could make the disc's license permanent, but it would still have to phone home every time.

Then in 1999, they shut it down, breaking even permanent disc licenses. Now discs and boxes all are landfill.

And so it will be once Sony decides that they don't want to authorize their old standard 4K Ultra HD players in order to encourage you to upgrade to their new ones. Landfill.

Think they won't quit supporting the old format? It happened many times with Microsoft and Zune. You just had to keep rebuying your music whenever the old DRM went out of fashion.

Observe: Zune also failed, and now iTunes provides DRM free (but watermarked) music.

If someone made Steam for movies, we'd all be good, but the movie industry really likes to keep selling you the same movie over and over again with each new medium iteration.

238U

 

[Jamous]

Ugh. I hate it when people try to do this. Yes; a lot of people have fairly reliable connections. Not everyone. And not everyone wants to stay connected all the time. We don't need to fucking prove ourselves to you each time we want to play a game or watch a film. It's fucking outrageous. Ugh.

 

[Akytalusia]

so. even sony now, huh? they're fools. but fine, i think they've had fair enough warning. bring it on, pioneers of the future.
let's get this party started.

 

[-Dragmire-]

Unless Sony turns around and brings out a bunch of media player-specific exclusive titles but I don't really think that's going to be an issue.

I agree, that only happened with bluray vs hd-dvd so I don't think video exclusives will happen till the next distribution method competition comes around.

OT: I have a portable dvd player for times when the power goes out, if this system were in place for dvds, that machine would be useless to me. Granted, a 4k resolution would be wasted on a small screen but that's besides the point.

 

[faefrost]

I'm guessing the right hand (majority of Sony) isn't talking to the left (Playstation division). Since this is targeted at a more mainstream audience, I don't really see an uprising happening with this like with the XB1. Just a lot of unsold units on fully-stocked shelves.

This is from the SONY Motion Picture division, which is for all intents and purposes a completely separate company from SOE. And apparently one that is run by really really stupid people.

Does anyone else wish we could see some of the internal Sony e-mails that must have been being sent out regarding this brilliant statement?

 

[lacktheknack]

Well, isn't it a SHAME that they're trying to jump on this now that we've reached high enough fidelity (Blu-Ray) that further improvements won't actually affect the viewing experience nearly as much as the last advances. It's like raising FPS from 80 to 100.

So, upon encountering a quality plateau, they... go and add a crap feature to it, making Blu-Ray a better choice.

...All while competing against Netflix.

Okie dokie!

 

[Snotnarok]

Problem, when microsoft tried this a few years back and their service failed, guess what happened to all those songs people purchased? Fuck you that's what, you lost it, paid for it and it's not yours.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

Well look who's doing the one eighty now!

Oh my gosh, the Xbone fanboys were right! Sony WAS going to pull out their own form of DRM!

Seriously though, you'd think that the different divisions of Sony would be paying at least a little attention to each other. Hopefully, these were just idiots talking about it and they won't try to actually pull it...

Come on you corporate thickheads, people don't pirate stuff JUST because they're cheap shits, they do because they're sick of this 'guilty until proven innocent' bullshit they have to go through to use something they paid good cash for.