CEO Steve Ballmer said his company is working on Windows device driver support for the Blu-ray high definition movie format. Microsoft is developing software that will add native support for devices that play Sony's Blu-ray high definition movie format to the Windows operating system, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said.
"We've already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like," said Ballmer, speaking at the Microsoft's Mix '08 conference. Ballmer also said that Microsoft is "going to support Blu-ray in ways that are important," according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the company's Web site. The Mix '08 conference was held last week in Las Vegas.
Microsoft until recently used Toshiba's HD DVD format to add HD movie playback to its Xbox 360 gaming console. That practice abruptly ended last month when Toshiba announced its decision to kill HD DVD after virtually all major Hollywood studios threw their weight behind Blu-ray.
Source: Information Week
"We've already been working on, for example, in Windows, device driver support for Blu-ray drives and the like," said Ballmer, speaking at the Microsoft's Mix '08 conference. Ballmer also said that Microsoft is "going to support Blu-ray in ways that are important," according to a transcript of his remarks posted on the company's Web site. The Mix '08 conference was held last week in Las Vegas.
Microsoft until recently used Toshiba's HD DVD format to add HD movie playback to its Xbox 360 gaming console. That practice abruptly ended last month when Toshiba announced its decision to kill HD DVD after virtually all major Hollywood studios threw their weight behind Blu-ray.
Source: Information Week
It still looks as though the author of this article is taking what ballmer said a bit out of context. I've seen this quote before and it was because someone asked him about Blu-ray on the 360.
The news implies media playback out-of-the-box, but basically is just "microsoft jumping on the blu-ray bandwagon" kind of news
The news implies media playback out-of-the-box, but basically is just "microsoft jumping on the blu-ray bandwagon" kind of news
Hopefully this means we'll get native playback in Vista Media Center. I've been wanting to purchase a blu-ray/dvd-rom drive, but the thought of having to use a crippled version of PowerDVD to playback discs turns me off to the thought.
The news implies media playback out-of-the-box, but basically is just "microsoft jumping on the blu-ray bandwagon" kind of news
Hopefully this means we'll get native playback in Vista Media Center. I've been wanting to purchase a blu-ray/dvd-rom drive, but the thought of having to use a crippled version of PowerDVD to playback discs turns me off to the thought.
you could use mediaportal instead, as it had plugins to use external progs that do HD-DVd/BD playback.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ca6017de-eba6-11...00779fd2ac.html
What a rip still on pricing... they are making probably $350+ per each $399 player sold.
Also who would even bother buying a $399 player when the PS3 base model is the same price.
Thats like buying a car that is the same price as all the other cars, but this car can only drive down 1 specified road you choose when you buy it.
HD-DVD was bound to lose anyway. 15-30 gig is nothing compared to 25-50 gig...which itself is nothing compared to the true-potential size of MGS4!!
lol
lol
I don't see any horses.. lol
I preferred Blu-ray over HD-DVD for data storage, I couldn't careless where it went for movies and gaming.
But, i'm glad it's one thing only
From what I've heard, there are already players that play both formats.
What important ways?... That it'll actually work maybe?
What important ways?... That it'll actually work maybe?
Im sure they will add more ways for you to stop ripping the movies
What important ways?... That it'll actually work maybe?
Im sure they will add more ways for you to stop ripping the movies
Blu-Ray has enough of that already
It's absolutely correct to call it Sony's Blu-ray because no other company involved with the BDA put more energy and money into Blu-Ray than Sony and at the same time no other company could potentially lose as much as Sony in case Blu-Ray would fail.
what Balmer meant was that Microsoft will make sure Sony gets an even chance in Windows (meaning the drive will be detected and drivers will be on Windows Update). It does NOT mean you can soon play Blu's on your MCE/WMP setup.
(Not without extra codecs/players)
native blu-ray support iether......
They will not add JAVA to the XBOX360...for those who don't know java is what the blu-ray disc use for it's interactive software....
and we all know
MS just did it with optimizations forwindows(Well it was faster) but they also added soem windows specific calls to their javaengine, makign apps developed using those calls not cross platform independent, and that breaks the license for java engines, So they where forced to stop making it.
I mean would I be Nostradamus saying "Microsoft will also add native support to the next big popular device/format"
I mean Stevie Wonder even seen this coming
Sony is also the main developer of Blu-ray. And Sony also started it.
Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!
Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.