A Blu-ray for the 360… again…
We had posted a previous article that there will be no Blu-ray for the 360, but being the stubborn dudes that we are, we searched for the reason, to satisfy our immensely stubborn ego.
The answer is this… via the Standard
Microsoft stepped up to deliver iHD (later renamed HDi), which was a trademarked implementation of HD DVD’s XML markup language. Toshiba liked it. They made HDi functionality a standard for HD DVD players, and eventually partnered with Microsoft to expand HDi’s reach by founding the Advanced Interactivity Consortium. The primary goal of this group was forging industry relationships to further promote HDi in emerging outlets like downloadable and streaming media.
The deal gave HD DVD its competitive next-gen features, but here’s the rub: Microsoft didn’t need physical media to implement HDi. All of HDi’s interactive bells and whistles could theoretically be applied to downloadable video content, as long as a runtime environment was available. Even as the disc format war raged on, elements of HDi’s runtime environment showed up in Microsoft products like the Xbox 360 and Vista.
HDi-on-a-disc may now be dead, but the technology certainly isn’t. A Microsoft developer told me that the company’s HDi crew hasn’t been disbanded. Microsoft was apparently quite pleased with HDi’s performance, and is currently exploring applications on other platforms.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has been expanding the HD video capabilities of both Vista Media Center and Xbox Live Marketplace. The Marketplace’s HD content library is modest today, but the software giant clearly has plans to change that.