Michael Bay's format war conspiracy theory: it's a Microsoft fix
It's no secret that Michael "Transformers" Bay prefers his high definition optical discs in the Blu variety, but what we didn't know was how convinced the man is that the whole format war is nothing but a stalling tactic, with Microsoft pulling all the strings. Responding to a commenter angry over Paramount's decision to burn Optimus and friends onto HD DVD only, Bay claims to have the inside track on the "corporate politics" at play here, suggesting that "Microsoft wants both formats to fail so they can be heroes and make the world move to digital downloads." He goes on to claim that Redmond has only been financially backing HD DVD over "superior Blu-ray" to create "confusion in the market" until such time as high def digital downloading goes prime time. In other words, if you believe Bay, Microsoft is backing a known loser in order to prolong a war it doesn't want anyone to win. Pretty wild theory, if you ask us -- hey, this guy should make movies.[Thanks, Timothy and Kiwi616]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
TJ @ Dec 4th 2007 8:26PM
This theory's been out there since the format war began. Digitalbits.com's staffers have been saying the same thing for the last year. Who knows, it could be true, but I much prefer high def discs to downloads for now.
sensay @ Dec 4th 2007 8:27PM
He is not the first one to come out with that conspiracy...
James @ Dec 4th 2007 8:28PM
Yawn. Bay is a victim of BDA fud. I kind of feel sorry for somebody who is so ill informed.
RazorD @ Dec 4th 2007 8:39PM
Prick :(
h4ldol @ Dec 4th 2007 8:53PM
Guess he's still p!ssed that HD DVD can't fit some decent lossless audio onto HD DVDs of his movies, unlike blu-rays that frequently have PCM and TrueHD/DTS-HD MA audio tracks.
EEL @ Dec 4th 2007 10:26PM
@ "Sybil"
Philihp gave me this link on the lossless audio debate:
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Joshua_Zyber/High-Def_FAQ:_Blu-ray_and_HD_DVD_Audio_Explained/1064
Not trying to change your mind on Red. I just sick of your sorry a** excuse of an argument!
Steve Grenier @ Dec 4th 2007 8:55PM
I think Bay has been snorting the Kool-Aid this time around. Microsoft of all companies is the last one to be making the push for digital downloads. Apple is by far the leader in this and they have been doing it for years.
I also might add that Apple is a supporter of Blu Ray yet never has publicly talked about it. They are the ones waiting on the sidelines for the winner/loser to push their digital downloads. Anyone who thinks their iTunes Store isn't the leader in the distribution of digital media is full of crap
Mojo_Yugen @ Dec 4th 2007 9:00PM
"hey, this guy should make movies."
You obviously haven't seen his movies then.
Truth Teller @ Dec 4th 2007 9:01PM
Bay, what a narcissistic twit.
Why shouldn't there be good honest competition Michael?
Or is this just you whoring around for some publicity?
Going to change your tune again......or does that just happen when a decent job is on the line?
He was, by his own admission, ill-informed before and he so clearly remains as ill-informed as ever.
Sadly those who love to deal out this 'Microsoft are trying to kill both formats to take all with downloads' are obviously just too stupid to realise that (even in the so-called 'developed world') we just don't have the connections that would allow such a future (never mind cap limits on amounts we can d/l etc et).
He must be after a job with Sony or Fox, hopefully Paramount have told him to go f*ck himself and someone else is doing Transformers 2, 3, 4 (etc etc as it becomes yet another threadbare tedious 'franchise')
Truth Teller @ Dec 4th 2007 9:05PM
.....and just to remind those moronic enough to start up their 'no room for highest quality audio on HD DVD' comments, Transformers had plenty of room (just over 5gbs spare infact).
Transformers got the (outstanding) audio track it got cos no-one could see the point of taking up room for the sake of it, they couldn't tell the difference (even on a professional sound stage), the quality was that high.
Ron @ Dec 4th 2007 9:10PM
Could be true but like the others said, no real news here...
will @ Dec 4th 2007 9:23PM
i wonna be like mike
Cam @ Dec 4th 2007 9:22PM
Wow Michael Bay...did you come up with that theory ALL BY YOURSELF??? Gee, that's pretty ORIGINAL!
zik @ Dec 4th 2007 9:25PM
Michael Bay is so ill-informed in this rant that I'm really embarassed for him. It is shocking that someone in his position could be this careless in spouting off baseless conspiracy theories and clueless in pronouncing one HD format "superior" to another. Has this guy ever seen the same movie on both formats played on equally configured equipment?
apease @ Dec 4th 2007 10:22PM
zik: "Has this guy ever seen the same movie on both formats played on equally configured equipment?"
Many have. The problem is whenever the same movie is available on both formats, it's always using the same encode, one that has a low enough of a bitrate to work on HD-DVD. I'm not aware of any movie released on both formats getting the higher-bitrate encode that blu-ray is capable of. Of course, blu-ray exclusive titles get to enjoy higher bitrates, but then it's harder to compare.
It's no wonder they look the same, it is the same. Encode a movie twice, one at HD-DVD's highest bitrate, then another at blu-ray's highest bitrate, using the same codec and equipment, then we'll talk.
As for this article, MS trying to prolong the format war to promote digital downloads is a bit far-fetched, but not that much so. They've already started with the xbox 360's HD movie downloads, which are selling far better than the HD-DVD add-on. Mainly I'd think MS is pushing HD-DVD because HD-DVD uses MS's software for interactivity, and Blu-ray uses Sun's Java.
I still find it odd that there's so much effort being put into convincing people that HD-DVD looks almost as good or sounds almost as good (or you really can't tell the difference) when talking about a high definition move format. Why settle for second best? It's not really price, the only reason Toshiba's players are so cheap is they're taking a huge loss on them. If they won the format war, they'd have to raise their prices to blu-ray levels just so that other manufacturers would join in. Apart from slightly different optics and different firmware, the players from both sides are doing all the same things, normally they should cost the same. Even disc replication is within a few cents of each other, it's really all pointless.
Anthony Butler @ Dec 4th 2007 9:44PM
Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg will return as director and executive producer for Transformers 2, while Paramount has announced a June 26, 2009 release. Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox and Peter Cullen are signed on to return. Before Transformers was released, Bay expressed interest in an aircraft carrier character, while producer Tom DeSanto was interested in the Dinobots, Constructicons, and Soundwave. Ehren Kruger was hired to write the script, alongside the returning Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. The script was not completed because of the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike, but filming is expected to begin in June 2008.
who knows what will be going on in the format war in 2009 but this will be a Paramount film, which means its likely to come out on HD DVD. it may be a dual format release if both exist who knows what they work into the contract.
HD4ME @ Dec 4th 2007 10:11PM
Of course, M$ would have no interest in marketing and making money out of HDi, oh no.
And sony is such a princess in all of this mess, no match fixing, bribery and corruption going on with sony or the BDA, hell no, they should be able to tell the DVD forum to GGF'D, make their own format and create this format war, sell obsolete DRM infested DVD players to the unwary public for exorbitant prices, thats OK, but watch out for that low dog M$, their in this for themselves!
Doesn't matter anyway, BR won this war months ago, HD DVD is dead.....apparently.
Kevin Murphy @ Dec 4th 2007 10:14PM
So, a moonbat 3rd tier director thinks it's all a great conspiracy? Who cares what format he likes --he probably chose it to go with the yellow sky.
HD4ME @ Dec 4th 2007 10:15PM
Millions of mass produced , very cheap Chinese HD DVD players saturating the market and sweeping the floor with BR in 2008, and making DVD players obsolete in the process might change Bays idiotic mind.
EEL @ Dec 4th 2007 10:40PM
@ HD4ME
Let just hope the Chinese players don't have an excessive use of lead in their mfg. process.
...Better yet, PRAY!
JimC @ Dec 4th 2007 10:21PM
Microsoft never throws its cash around to break other companies, no never.....
Kevin Murphy @ Dec 5th 2007 1:21AM
"The problem is whenever the same movie is available on both formats, it's always using the same encode, one that has a low enough of a bitrate to work on HD-DVD. I'm not aware of any movie released on both formats getting the higher-bitrate encode that blu-ray is capable of. Of course, blu-ray exclusive titles get to enjoy higher bitrates, but then it's harder to compare."
Ghods, this is tiring.
The reason those BD-exclusive disks needed a higher bitrate is becasue they are encoded in mpeg2, which is about 20 years old now. Using a modern compression system results in both better output image and a lower transfer bitrate.
You have the cart before the horse: the bitrate on HD DVD was set based on the efficiencies of modern compressers. The extra bandwidth on Blu-ray is largely used for uncompressed audio and poorly performing algorithms like mpeg2. In short, it is wasted, or used to keep manufacturer's costs down by not paying royalties for the good stuff.
Mike Wex @ Dec 4th 2007 10:36PM
The strategy's three phases are:
1. Embrace: Development of software substantially compatible with a competing product, or implementing a public standard.
2. Extend: Addition and promotion of features not supported by the competing product or part of the standard, creating interoperability problems for customers who try to use the 'simple' standard.
3. Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions .
Microsoft has embraced. Microsoft has extended their HD-DVD systems to do more than movies. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
EEL @ Dec 4th 2007 10:38PM
Unless we can get a reputable 3rd party source to confirm these comments, I will continue to think this B.S., possible written by the site's webmaster, Nelson.
I'm fine if Bay prefers Blu, but the post sounds like troll whining -- kinda of like "Sybil".
HD4ME @ Dec 4th 2007 10:48PM
Just encourage your kid's not too lick them :0)
h0mi @ Dec 4th 2007 11:13PM
Sony announced its own movie download service. I guess bluray is just their attempt to torpedo HD-DVD and make money selling downloads just as MS is supposedly doing?
Asterra @ Dec 4th 2007 11:31PM
Settle for second best? Friend, you try, just _try_ to tell me that 300 is "second best" on HD-DVD, or that Harry Potter 5 is also going to be "second best" with its unique offerings, OR that most Blu-ray movies are on larger-capacity discs (you might be embarrassed by the reality here), OR that HD-DVD has a pitiful 50% library encoded in an outdated codec that can only make especially forgiving movies (Crank) look good.
That, my friend, is the essence of second best.
wysiwyg @ Dec 5th 2007 12:09AM
I can now declare that Bay is a total fanboy. He's just repeating what many had speculated before. Find me the proof, then I'll believe. Microsoft's download only apply those who have fast connection with 360s. What about all those millions of people who still watch DVD and do not download contents? Microsoft is powerful, but not that much to control non-gamers to give up any sort of physical media.
h0mi @ Dec 5th 2007 12:43AM
Bay is a fanboy troll. MS was format neutral and approached the BDA about using HDi (which Disney was involved in) in the blu-ray format. BDA went with Java instead... MS decided to support HD-DVD instead.
Yoshi @ Dec 5th 2007 10:52AM
Which would make sense. HDi is based on JScript a pure interpreted scripting language while Java ( while still an interpreted languate is still compiled and is much more secure ) JScript has a lot of security holes which hackers can exploit.
People are going to have trouble using HDi features on a non windows machine and will need to use MS products to access them so essentially MS is promoting their main product. This is a much more realistic reason for MS to support HD-DVD than some crazy scenario about MS trying to ruin the Disk business
Sean @ Dec 5th 2007 12:55AM
I wonder if Michael Bay supports FreeBSD or even knows what it is let alone knows how to use it :)
D@n @ Dec 5th 2007 5:57AM
LOL! Cue all the HD-DVD zealots burning copies of Transformers out in the streets chanting "Death to Bay! Death to Bay!"
Ironically, around the time that Microsoft launches DRM laden movie downloads from the XBOX marketplace in Europe. Pay per view (once) movies? "This movie will self-destruct once you view it!"....No thanks!
Truth Teller @ Dec 5th 2007 8:12AM
The bit-rate claims by the Blu-ray side in this rely on a total lack of understanding.
Once you get to a certain point with modern codecs 'more' (bit-rate) does not simply mean better.
.....but for those convinced it does matter then as far as that 'theoretical maximum' pi$$ing contest goes it's now HD DVD with the 1.5x spin speed TL disc that has the highest max raw bit-rate, actually.
Truth Teller @ Dec 5th 2007 8:14AM
Oh, and while we're at it the majority of Blu-ray releases are on 25gb single layer BD discs.
So much for space being everything.
See - www.blurayspecs.com
andyg8180 @ Dec 5th 2007 8:40AM
Please don't turn into Tom Cruise... I already hate that guy and refuse to see his POS movies... PLEASE michael bay, DONT TURN INTO HIM WITH YOUR WACKY BITCHING!!
Eddie @ Dec 5th 2007 10:30AM
Am I in time to catch his 180 degree apology for this statement?
joan151 @ Dec 5th 2007 10:38AM
This whole thing is a joke, Starting with Sony and Hollywoods greed, many would have to agree with that. Not to take credit away from them. Sony calls itself and innovator, but in the eyes of logical consumers, they are a huge deception. It all begins with the media control. As most know, Sony owns some of the movie studios and has close ties with the other ones. They have promised all of their so called buddies that a system (BLURAY format) has been created to control the media that is sold to consumers. Remember rootkit? Just like their Atrac system, Minidisc, BR is destined to fail, unless Sony and company reorganize their objectives and listen to consumers. Consumers do not want to purchase product and not have the ability to use it as intended. The BR organization as a whole is flawed. You have multiple manufacturers pumping out product that cant even handle the media adequately, specifications vary greatly from one manufacturer to the other with in the same generation, quality is still questionable and so on. On the other hand you have HD-DVD and company. The format is pretty solid, even for being so new. The quality is just a bit better than what the BR associates have to offer. All the the hardware offers the same basics and uniform specifications. The biggest drawback to HD DVD is M$'s greed, 20GB worth of space per disc which BR isn't using adequately, the lack of studio support which could eventually call the war off leaving BR and its unorganized and greedy non fair use format to win. M$ is crazy to think that the average consumer is computer savy enough to venture onto download media, and being able to manage such fragile medium. Maybe 10 years from now, but not yet.
Just a bit of me, I do own a PS3 and several HD DVD stand alone units. From my personal experience, BR films are of inferior Video and Audio Quality to those of the HD DVD format. Unlike some, i did originally purchase my PS3 as a game system but found the games to be crappy so I use it as my BR movie player now.
Omatsei @ Dec 5th 2007 12:01PM
I prefer HD-DVD for 3 reasons:
1. The movies are often cheaper, and have just as good quality.
2. The picture-in-picture video commentary has been supported since the format's initial release, and I'm a big fan of video commentary.
3. The player I bought the first time around still works for all movies released now, and likely will work for all movies that ever are released on HD-DVD.
The problem with Blu-Ray is that it's changed 3 times so far... first it was just Blu-Ray, then it was Profile 1.1, now they're talking about Profile 2.0. I don't give a shit what features it offers. I give a shit when my father buys one that doesn't support whatever features are on the movie he buys next month. That's a LOT of money to flush down the drain. Hell, many players still don't have ethernet ports to upgrade the firmware IF a new Profile / firmware comes out! I consider Profile 2 to be the definitive Blu-Ray featureset, but since it's taken them 2 years to get around to this point, they've lost as much of my business as I can offer. I will still buy exclusive titles on BR, but I do so grudgingly.
Juice @ Dec 5th 2007 1:02PM
Why is Michael Bay so dumb? I have the top of the line internet pacakage in my area about $65 bucks a month and by cap is 100GB a month up and down. Thats like 4-5 movies assuming I use the internet only for movies, plus even at a good download rate 25GB takes some time. Plus a 750GB hard drive would only hold 75 movies at 10GB, those big 25GB movies only 30, HD movies online suck compared to discs, plus its not really portable, most of us dont have thumb drives in the 10GB range. Audio is succesful because it doesnt take much room, plus most of it isnt even cd quality, people like it for their Ipods, at the moment HD video over the internet just isnt ready for the big time.
joe @ Dec 5th 2007 1:51PM
Amazing how quick the HD-DVD fanboy knife turns.
Bay has made THE movie that saved HD-DVD from forever being buried on the top ten list.
He is also an insider to the studio and MS dealing with for more direct knowledge than anyone here.
If anyone is part and party to high level studio dealing it would be him and people like him. I still don't like transformers but I don't doubt when it comes to distribution and money he has his stuff together.
John @ Dec 5th 2007 3:10PM
The "war" is really over the living room computing experience, not a piece of plastic. To a point, I agree with Mr. Bay. Microsoft is probably taking a long range view which focuses on a high-speed, always-connected, on-demand, computing environment. Disrupting the Sony driven PlayStation and Blu-Ray are natural competitive moves. Selling, and profiting on, HDi and XBox are just side benefits. If Blu-Ray ever really won, though I expect a stalemate, Microsoft would probably produce an external Blu-Ray drive for the 360. MS can't let Sony dominate because they fear loosing their foothold in the living room. At this point TiVo is a more user friendly device than media center PCs.
Consider TiVo's recent announcements, Rhapsody, PhotoBucket, , Googles Picasa, Music Choice Video downloads, plus the older TiVo-to-Go, Amazon Unbox, TivoCasts, Live365, Yahoo Traffic, etc. They, like everyone else, are fighting for the living room computer. Of course TiVo has barely stayed alive, but dont think MS & Sony havent tried that niche too. Mr. Bay may have been overly blunt in his comments, but I appreciate his concern for serving his customers on what he sees as preferred media. Until we all have some unlimited super Wi-Max where everything can be stored centrally and accessed quickly and easily from anywhere, we are going to have to deal with local storage, and Blu-Ray looks like a pretty good solution for a number of applications. Never compromise on bandwidth.
Nigel @ Dec 5th 2007 2:19PM
What's worse someone who looks at the track record of a company & makes a not unreasonable theory as to why they would actively encourage a format war, or someone so naive they probably actually thought Vista would introduce a new file system, or perhaps Cairo might exist, or Microsoft would never hype vaporware.
I'll take a pragmatism over naivety any day of the week.
James @ Dec 5th 2007 3:54PM
"He is also an insider to the studio and MS dealing with for more direct knowledge than anyone here."
Huh? His comments indicate he has less knowledge than anybody here. He's a troll with a suit.
Dave @ Dec 5th 2007 8:47PM
If they were backing HD-VMD, I might believe it.
Jeff Regan @ Dec 5th 2007 9:24PM
M. Bay's site has a response in the forum that says,
"Blu Ray just suits my movies better". Uh, okay, that's real technical. I guess he means the higher
potential bit rate, which proves he knows little about modern codecs like H.264(AVC) or VC-1, or
maybe he means his movies aren't suited for interactive features? Transformers on HD DVD has a
very rich interactive feature set and 80,000 disc
owners have gone online via their HD DVD web enabled players(something that ALL HD DVD players
offer).
He has every right to choose which format he prefers for his movies, but is it asking too much
for some technical basis for his preference?
gt350 @ Dec 7th 2007 3:57AM
Its going to happen its just when. and Sony the leader in making DRM such a pain, will have made another FORMAT blunder! U do have to laugh at so many CE company leaders cant seem to get tech has CHANGED, but they just blame,not understand, or just do nothing as a solution.