Quote Originally Posted by Woochifer
Daniel Dilger who blogs on roughlydrafted.com and is a contributor on Apple Insider wrote an interesting article about the underlying forces at work that led to the demise of HD-DVD. Dilger's very pro-Apple and anti-Microsoft, but compared to the Windows-centric pundits in the rest of the tech press, he has been correct more often than wrong. He argues that HD-DVD was primarily Microsoft's weapon to steer the media formats towards its proprietary Windows formats, but the pushback from open standards advocates was more persuasive and effective this time around.


http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/0...ath-of-hd-dvd/

Although the article gets a few facts wrong, the overall premise I think is spot on. HD-DVD was all about Microsoft trying to tie media standards into its proprietary model. The quote below is all too true to how Microsoft does business, and what they tried to do with HD-DVD.



The rest of the article has some interesting background about the different codecs, and how Blu-ray's usage of open formats like MPEG-4 H.264 and Java allow for scaling down media content to a wider range of applications.
Wooch,
Now do you see why I blame Microsoft for all of this. Alot of folks in Hollywood knew what was going on behind the scenes. Several times in my post to nightidiot in the general section I told him that Microsoft may be big in the computer industry, but they are dog dung in Hollywood. I also stated on this forum that Warner decision was more of a rebuff of Microsoft than of Toshiba. I also said right here that Microsoft did not accompany Toshiba to the Warner negotiations, now everyone can see why.

To show you how much love Hollywood has for Microsoft, one just has to see how Hollywood delivered Apple one of the best contracts for access to television programming and some movies for Itunes. Every studio is on board to deliver some content, XBOX live only has a few majors, and the contracts are only for selected programming and some movies.

In regards to the disinformation campaign by the HD DVD PG and Microsoft, Amir, Rdjam, Ben Waggoner, Kosty, Robert George all from AVS were paid shills to do this. David Vaughn was a late comer, but nevertheless a virolent liar on Bluray replication facilities. On too many occasions I have gone over to AVS to debate and counter their misinformation, just like alot of bluray insiders had to do. Amir constant mentions of Disney going HD DVD exclusive had to be countered with no way in hell too often. AVS turned from one of the best technical sites on the web, into misinformation headquarters for HD DVD. They basically ruined the forum, as many have left to get away from the fallout. Us bluray insider stop posting there because the mods were quite lose and free with the HD DVD folks, and constantly checking the bluray folks. When we noticed this trend, we decided to boycott the site. If you go there now, the insiders thread is gone because of the constant misinformation campaign, and the countering thereof.

Toshiba was used by Microsoft. They knew they were not going to win, and was ready to throw in the towel. They were foolish for listening to microsoft. They could have saved the $600 million in losses, and could have been producing a bluray player to profit from. I hope they have learned something. Too many companies will not partner with Microsoft to sweep a floor because of their tactics, and willingness to jetison a venture when it doesn't suit them. The ONLY reason they threw their support behind HD DVD is because they were angry at the BDA for chosing BD-java, and sticking with MPEG-2 until AVC was ready. One of the minor reason that Warner sided with bluray was they knew the consumer and infrastucture was not ready for downloads, and that is where Microsoft wanted to take the industry.

Nightliar, I hope you are reading this. Microsoft ain't what it used to be, and never will be. I hope you see that Microsoft backing something does not mean automatic success. I have pointed to many examples of their failure, I hope you are paying attention to the latest one.