Swanni: Microsoft Could Kill HD DVD
The president of TVPredictions.com says Microsoft's emphasis of HD DVD's Interactive TV features will turn off consumers.
By Allison Moore
HD Diva

Washington, D.C. (July 16, 2007) -- Phillip Swann, president of TVPredictions.com, says Microsoft could wind up killing the HD DVD high-def disc format "all by itself."

Microsoft is the biggest booster of HD DVD, other than Toshiba which launched the format.

However, in a new video posted at TVPredictions.com, Swanni says Microsoft is wrongly emphasizing HD DVD's Interactive TV features rather than its great picture and sound.

That message, Swanni says, will turn off consumers who have consistently rejected Interactive TV for the past decade.

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Poor call Swanni! First your facts are wrong about the picture and sound of HD. Is this laziness on your part or worse?
Secondly everyone has raved about the interactivity and usability of HD compared with BD. You criticism of HD/MS is way off base. HD is simply the first to push this innovation forward. Disney is very excited about this kind of interactivity and will be promoting it even tough it is, at the moment, nonexistent on BD and when it is available it will not be a usable option on a majority of the BD players in existence now.

I'd don't know if the "300"'s interactivity will prove itself or even if it will be done correctly or prove popular.
However it is a fascinating option, that if popular will drive the further development of similar features on new releases.Surly MS and Disney have conducted extensive surveys before developing this kind of tech.
As for you prediction I think history will find you either biased or ignorant.

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Are you for real? The first stupid comment made is teh picture quality of HDDVD vs BluRay. The slogan used by Toshiba is "Look and feel of perfect", does that say, "hey look interacativity". Secondly, you missed out on the fact that Disney is selling on the "interactivity feature" of their future BluRay releases. You are so biased. So when Bluray eventually gets the interactivity to work, will you say "Hey look Bluray can intercat with Internet, WOW!"

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congrats you got your 15 minuts of nothing now shut up

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I don't see any way that downloads/IPTV could kill HD DVD, far too few in the world have sufficient quality net connections to meet the high bandwidth requirements for this to be so.

In fact I'd say it's far more likely that one will compliament and stimulate the other.
XBox 360 owners getting a taste for HD via their downloads/IPTV may well move on to buy the XBox 360 HD DVD add-ons and HD DVD discs.

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You are right on. Nobody wants this interactive BS. HD-DVD needs to give it up and go off and die already.

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Right on Swanni. I want pristine picture and audio period. They can keep the other junk.

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Wow, there are some bitter people commenting on this article. I have to agree with Swanni. I could care less about the interactivity features. I just want one format and want it to be inexpensive. Focus on that.

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I like the video commentary.

However, get yourself a nice blue background and improve the lighting!

You do good stuff........look better as you do it..............

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Never thought I would say this, I agree with you on this one. The average person could care less if they can get interactivity. People keep trying to merge the net and the tv and it hasn't worked yet. A majority of people still can't hook up their pc to a network (or another pc in an ad hoc) and they think people will hook up their dvd player to one?

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I agree with you, Swanni. What really matters to me is which format is going to provide the most movie titles so I can simply watch and enjoy the best possible picture and sound on my 1080p LCD. All that other interactive stuff whether it's BluRay or HD DVD - not interested.

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I don't care about interactivity. but having interactivity kill it? Please!

Fot those who say they want the best quality at an inexpensive price, just remember that it means that you need both formats alive. Just think about it folks, if there wasn't a format war, Blu Ray players would still be: 1)$999 minimum, 2)still encoded at MPEG-2 at bad quality like their first releases, 3)it would likely be hard luck finding movies under $30, and 4)discs would still need to be placed into a caddy

For those who want HD DVD to die, why? I say let this battle continue!

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You hit the nail on the head with that one. As much of a gadget guy I am, I don't care about interactive TV or DVD's. I just want to be able to watch, pause and rewind shows, sports and DVD's. Of course I want it all in HD.

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And no one could ever need more than 640K memory.

Wake up! Its all about connectivity Good picture, good sound. Its a commodity.

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When I read the Microsoft announcement, I thought the same thing that Swanni expressed. Others (above) don't agree, but to me, who will win comes down to two things; price and video choices. Whoever wins that will survive.

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Interactivity is nothing new. So many DVDs had PC "extras" and nobody ever cared. I have about 300 DVDs and I couldn't name a single one that had interavtive features I checked out. I went back and looked at the cases and about 100 of them had interactive features. I think the HD DVD crowd are getting really desparate and it is starting to show in their comments. All the HD DVD pros they were touting 6 months ago as the most important factors (sales, number of players, cost of discs, etc) are all solidly in the BD column now.

I haven't made the jump to HiDef yet but anyone trying to push interactive features as a big plus is really getting desparate in my opinion.

I'm sure I'll be labeled a Sony Fan boy even though I don't a single sony product and have never advocated buying one; but then again desparate people who have realised they backed the loser can do little else but lash out.

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So, how much is the BDA paying you to promote this anti-HD DVD stuff?

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Swanni, Microsoft did not come up with the features for interactivity. Please refer to the URL below that was created by Warner Home Video and Disney as part of the DVD Forum. The studios came up with the features that you are seeing on HD DVD, not Microsoft.

http://www.dvdforum.org/images/Requirem ... ly2005.pdf

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Kevin,
The point is that Microsoft developed the software -- and is the leading booster of the ITV features on HD DVD.
Swanni

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You could also arguably say that Microsoft remains the world's leading proponent of Interactive TV, continuing with its support of ITV features on HD DVD.

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