User talk:Petertorr

Welcome :-) - David Gerard 07:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello
Hi, just came across your blog (and from there this user page), and was wondering if you could help me with my quest. I wrote about it in a comment (signed as Soum) in this blog posting. Hope this is not too much of a botheration. Thanks and cheers. --soum talk 16:49, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

BD-Rom Mark and Volume ID
Is BD-Rom Mark for Blu-ray essentially the same thing as Volume ID for HD DVD? Can we rename / merge ROM-Mark into Advanced Access Content System (renaming that section to something like "Volume ID / ROM-Mark")? — Ksero 00:20, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I'm not an expert on the low-level details of BD topics, but I do know these things are different. I am also not sure how much of what I do know is public, so let's just leave it at that ;-). Sorry I can't be of more help. Peter Torr (MSFT) 01:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

HD Format Sourcing
Please try to source articles from the actual original source (especially when in its in the blog you are looking at) rather then a blog (which is not a source as any idiot can have a blog).. also please avoid posting walking billboard advertisements like "HD DVD avail every where $200 or at amazon for 167 w/credit" (even if it is the title of the BLOG)...as amazon for one updates prices several times a day and such statements are misleading and change over time. also as kmart generally sells low end items and this is more of a statement due to price rather then talking any sides in this matter. this belongs in HD DVD and the comparison article rather then in blu ray. has kmart ever even carried a blu ray player? ever? I just wouldn't want someone to think your work on an HD DVD specific program for microsoft might cause you to post advertisments for HD DVD on the blu ray article. as using the walking advertisemnt title as source in blu ray basically did. no disrespect intended. thanks -Tracer9999 02:00, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks Tracer9999; I'll try to get better sources in the future. The BD page tends to have more information about the war than the HD DVD page, and this is one of the reasons why I wanted to merge a lot of things into a common area. It's hard to know what's news and what isn't (your recent comment on the talk page, for example, saying people wanted to know everything by just going to one page). Why is it important to know that Target only sells BD players (except Xbox), but it's not important to know that K-Mart doesn't sell BD players at all (except PS3)? Clearly 5 years from now nobody will care (because 0, 1, or both of the formats will be established by then) but for the time being people seem interested.

Hi peter, good points. Ill explain my thoughts.. my understanding is target was format exclusive while kmart is price exclusive and doesn't rule out carrying Blu ray players if the price is more reasonable. as for the PS3. The PS3 comes with blu ray player built in.. on all units. the xbox is a purchasable "add-on" that some "may" buy and requires an xbox to work. I don't see anything wrong with saying target is exclusively carrying blu ray players with the exception of the xbox add on that may be added to an xbox system. I would have problem with someone saying you could get a HD DVD player for the price of the add-on of course because that would be untruthful as it is not a standalone unit like the PS3 is. But throwing KMART sells only HD DVD on the blu ray is not appropriate as kmart only sells low priced items and this is not a format specific choice... they were never carrying $1000 blu ray players in the first place.. thats not there target market. Its great they are carrying HD DVD but I think thats a HD DVD article issue. as if the samsung p1400 drops to $199 my guess is your likely to see shelf space. IF Im wrong on any of this please let me know. Im just trying to make sure there is no spin. for the record I was planning on getting a samsung duely so could care less about format..though at 97.00 and 5 free movies (as limited as the free choice is) I may be getting an HD DVD alot sooner then a blu ray.. -Tracer9999 18:29, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The funny thing is that directly below the K-Mart edit is an entire paragraph about how Paramount being exclusively HD DVD... so what's important, and what's not? :-) Peter Torr (MSFT) 01:40, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Product Manager of the Blu-ray Group?
Any chance we will see your title change soon to Peter Torr Microsoft's Product Manager of Blu-ray? :p --Kibbled bits (talk) 22:21, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Not that I am aware of :-). For a start, that would be a big promotion -- I am a Program Manager, which is very different from a Product Manager.
 * Well to that, Good Luck :-)  --Kibbled bits (talk) 04:43, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Why thank you!Peter Torr (MSFT) (talk) 03:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

My Issue with Microsoft and what they have you do
First let me say that I have much respect for you as a person Peter. Your contributions are well thought out and I feel genuine. That being said perhaps you need to reevaluate thing's that cloud your judgment of what is the truth, accurate or what is just a matter of timing.

Every person has layers just like in programming how we have APIs. Within the context of employment with a company the truth is relative to ones employment. It distorts and clouds one's judgment either negatively or positively. Very few people can avoid this. That being said if you trace back all of your contributions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Petertorr you have fought the inevitable every step of the way (i.e. HD DVD losing the format war). This war wasn't decided by 1080i vs 1080p or TrueHD being mandatory for players or not. This war was won primarily because of the support Blu-ray had of CE and the movie industry.

Their support (Blu-ray group) was both based on technology, intellectual rights and profitability. These same motives drive the HD DVD promotional group (Toshiba & Microsoft included). We all like to believe that we are above reproach and our judgement is always sound but that's not always the case with anyone. Specifically when a user who works for a company contributes to an information source (such as Wikipedia) then anything.

So this brings me to my criticism of Microsoft and other companies that edit Wikipedia. It's one thing to correct obvious errors (the sky is blue). But to the degree that we see with Microsoft monitoring pages and updating with either watering down any truth based negative information or completely denying some things that at the time were inevitable (timing) in addition to using weasel words. This leaves me to recommend you and many of your peer's judgment has been clouded and to ask you if you think Wikipedia is an appropriate place for your efforts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kibbled bits (talk • contribs) 06:12, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Kibbled bits, please keep in mind No personal attacks. I think saying that Peter has "fought the inevitable every step of the way" is a twisted perspective. An article on a controversial subject naturally evolves into a compromise between editors of different opinions. Without a balance of opinions, the article would suffer.


 * On one hand, you say that you think Peter's contributions are well thought out and genuine. On the other hand, you accuse him of biased edits ("monitoring pages and updating with either watering down any truth based negative information or completely denying some things that at the time were inevitable (timing) in addition to using weasel words"). If you bring up specific examples of edits you feel were unjustified, then we can discuss them. Without such "evidence", you've only posted empty accusations.


 * I think Wikipedia would be worse off without Peter's edits. — Ksero (talk | contribs) 10:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * My question was one of him for self reflection. Ksero are you implying that I made a personal attack?  If so please site (using your reference) which part of my question was 'offensive' based on the rules.  Secondly I agree with you that most of these 'things' work itself out.  I'm not accusing this user of intended bias but I ask him, as I would any employee who edits areas that there may be a conflict of interest to be careful with the volume of their authoring.  Are you not the least bit skeptical of employees of companies who as part of their employment monitors and updates Wikipedia?  --Kibbled bits (talk) 05:33, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Hey, sorry for the delay in replying; I haven't checked in for a few days. Firstly, thanks for taking the time to comment; I appreciate it. Secondly, just to clear things up, Microsoft has never "made" me do anything. If you check my on-line history, back to the late 1990s (before Microsoft hired me) I have been pretty active first in newsgroups, then blogs, and then Wikipedia. None of this is "my job" and all of it is my personal opinion; I do it because I like doing it, not because I will be fired if I don't.

That said, obviously I have a bias -- everyone has bias -- but I made the conscious decision early on to make that very open. We have absolutely no idea what the motivations are for anyone else editing the HD DVD and Blu-ray pages; are they just fans of the technology, or do they secretly work for HD or BD companies? I value transparency which is why I made it very clear who I was. Naturally, a lot of people saw that and instantly had a negative reaction, but funnily enough none of them ever deleted the edits I made.

There are many, MANY edits that I made to pages but never saved because I wanted to err on the side of neutrality as much as possible. There were also a lot of things I knew -- even things that were common knowledge "in the industry" -- but that couldn't be backed up with a reference if anyone asked, so they never got made either. (As an example, the "attach rate" page I started is flagged as being invalid because even though everyone in the industry knows what it means, it isn't a generally accepted term... sigh). If you look through my history, I primarily worked to "right the wrongs" about the formats. From time to time I would add pro-HD DVD edits, but much of it was simply correcting facts or reducing bias in the other direction. Some of those edits could even be seen as "pro Blu-ray", but I have a lot less knowledge about BD than I do about HD DVD so they were less prevalent.

Some of it was also based on principle, such as the back-and-forth about adding the 51Gb disc to HD DVD. If the BD page can list a non-existent-but-specified feature (BD-Live), then why can't the HD DVD page list a non-existent-but-specified feature (51Gb)? In the end my feeling (again, biased) is that some of the pro-BD editors were far more aggressive in their claims than I ever was. And in the end, life is too short to bicker about every little thing so a lot of that stuff stuck.


 * "This war wasn't decided by 1080i vs 1080p or TrueHD being mandatory for players or not."

Are you arguing that, since the war wasn't decided by these things, that it was OK for Wikipedia to publish incorrect information about them? That's a rhetorical question, of course, so the next question is "if it's not OK for Wikipedia to have incorrect information, why must a non-affiliated person make the change?" These two examples are clear facts. There is no bias or opinion around TrueHD support or 1080i/p, they are both verifiable facts.

I don't believe I ever denied anything that was a fact (if I did, I apologise). I suspect you are talking about Toshiba's withdrawal from HD DVD, but even though the rumours were surfacing the week before it actually happened, it was not a foregone conclusion. Was it likely? Yes. Was it guaranteed? No. The famous case of Dewey Defeats Truman comes to mind. There was no need to rush out the proclamations of HD DVD's death before any official announcement was made, and thus I removed those edits.

Again, thanks for taking the time to write and if you have any other thoughts please share them :-) Peter Torr (MSFT) (talk) 02:17, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I realize why you advertise your affiliation with Microsoft and also that there are others editing for yours and other companies who do not advertise this. It's honorable yes, but it's a double edged sword.  For instance if I contract for a certain company and I put out there something that they disagree or that offends a partner, then I could be fired, truth or not.


 * So in a way this 'transparency' can reduce one's overall transparency in written word. I find myself going back and forth on many issues overtime, but I think I generally settle on the side of right (don't we all).  I would love to put my name and employment out there and my whole profile, but in this politically and touchy world that we live in, the risk is too much.


 * Regarding attach rate, I have not read your article in specific, but in general it seemed like a last resort argument. First HD DVD argued that PS3s should not count in statistics then they wanted to count them in the statistics when it comes to attach rate.  Now you and I both know there are stand-alones and the PS3 is a gaming console, but these statistics can be deceiving to a layman.  Also given the fact  that attach rate figure can be manipulated based on date.  Leaving me to the famous quote: "There are three types of lies.  Lies, Damn Lies & Statistics."  --Kibbled bits (talk) 06:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, Wikipedia is about facts, not arguments, yes? ;-). The PS3 factor made things tricky, but attach rate is not some kind of last-ditch attempt to make it seem like HD DVD is more popular. If you talk to "industry people" (Hollywood, not CE) they really care about attach rates, and they know that set-top-boxes sell more movies than consoles (and a lot more than PC drives). It's the same with games consoles -- there is a lot of press about how Xbox 360 is getting more revenue than Wii (even though the Wii is selling more units) because the Xbox has a much higher attach rate for games. For a content company, it is certainly important to know how many players are out there (more is better) but if customers aren't buying much content for the device then it's not a very good business. The Blu-ray attach rate is significantly lower than HD DVD's, and that was including all the out-of-box bundles or BOGO give-aways. Maybe things will change now the "war" is over, but in 2007 it didn't look very good.


 * As to transparency, I hear you. At Microsoft we are very lucky that the company encourages people to be active in the community; I know that many other companies are not as open in this area.

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