» News
Warner Bros Deal Heavy Blow To HD DVD
I’ve belonged to the school of thought that the HD format war between HD DVD and Blu-Ray was not over. Yes, because of Playstation’s inclusion of Blu-Ray in their systems, the Blu-Ray format has held an advantage in overall market penetration… but those numbers can be deceiving and HD DVD stand alone players have outsold Blu-Ray stand alone players recently. I’ve never thought that HD DVD would win this war, but I’ve believed it wasn’t over yet. I’m not reconsidering that position.
It was announced recently that Warner Bros (I believe the only studio left that was releasing its movies on both HD and Blu-Ray formats) was making the switch to Blu-Ray only. This is nothing short of a devastating blow to HD DVD. Even the HD DVD consortium is pretty much admitting as much. On Friday they cancelled a press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vagas and gave the following statement:
Based on the timing of the Warner Home Video announcement today, we have decided to postpone our CES 2008 press conference scheduled for Sunday, January 6th at 8:30 p.m. in the Wynn Hotel. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We are currently discussing the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluating next steps.
Wow… that sounds just short of a concession speech. As of right now only Paramount and Universal are on HD DVD, and with the recent switch by Warner to further push things in Blu-Ray’s direction, I can’t imagine it will be too long before either Paramount or Universal either go both formats or Blu-Ray alone.
The count-down, it appears, is on. Looks like we’ll finally have a single HD format… sooner than I thought.
I think I heard that Paramount or Universal HD-DVD contract runs out sometime in 2009, so another 12 to 18 months and they are official done.
John, I think you’re right. Sure sounds like it to me, and that’s a GOOD thing!
Vic
Finally. Let’s end this as soon as possible. End the confusion for the public.
Also the fact I heard New Line is following Warner Brothers in this will not help either.
warners is new lines parent company….whatever warners goes with new line will go the same road….
so this means blu ray just got Lord of the Rings and they already have fox so that means they have star wars as well….
thats huge…..
Well im still saying both are useless and even if there is one winner that format will have to compete with original DVDs that holds more sales then both HD formats combined.
This is excellent news
Good point about LOTR and SW Alfie
About time… The last thing the public wants to do is become a guinea pig for another format war.
And the predictor, nay, perhaps the deciding factor, was the exact same one that decided Beta vs VHS.
Pornography went with VHS, and Beta died out.
Pornography has gone with Blu-Ray, guess which format’s going to die out?
[gruff voice]
T H E R E C A N B E O N L Y O N E
[/gruff voice]
Posted by Grave:
“Well im still saying both are useless and even if there is one winner that format will have to compete with original DVDs that holds more sales then both HD formats combined.”
Thats true but wait another two or three years until the studios slowly but surely phase out regular dvds and promote more and more HD/Bluray. The prices for the Bluray dvd’s have dropped significantly in the last year because of the war so whatever wins they will try and force you to purchase HD/Blurays by dropping the prices. I purchased a PS3 in the summer mostly for the bluray player and the prices for each Bluray dvd 6 mts ago was like $35-40 but, now you can get a brand new Bluray the day it comes out for like $20-25. In the next few years it will drop down to $15-20 just about what a regular dvd is now.
Er no evil mike, porn had no influence on this battle, and infact was if anything going to go against blu-ray, The porn industry sided with blu-ray back in the beginning, but sony said it wouldnt allow porn on blu-ray – so porn went to HD DVD, only recently has sony gone back on there original comments and allowed porn onto the blu-ray format.
In my opinion, this decision has everything to do with the installed base of blu-ray users and the forcast for a strong future for the PS3.
Fact is Blu-ray always had a future with the success of the PS3 as it games use blu-ray, so the format couldnt Die out. with 21 million Blu-ray discs sold (thats games and films) it was always looking like a Blu-ray win.
Another 1.2 million homes in the US gained Blu-ray capabilities over christmas from PS3’s, HD DVD cannot hope to keep ground with a system thats sales are going up week in and week out.
Posted by Grave:
“Well im still saying both are useless and even if there is one winner that format will have to compete with original DVDs that holds more sales then both HD formats combined.”
Thats true for now but wait another two or three years until the studios slowly but surely phase out regular dvds and promote more and more HD/Bluray. The prices for the Bluray dvd’s have dropped significantly in the last year because of the HD/Bluray war so whatever wins they will try and force you to purchase HD/Blurays by dropping the price.
I purchased a PS3 in the summer mostly for the bluray player and the prices for each Bluray dvd 6 months ago was like $35-40 each. But now you can get a brand new Bluray dvd the day it comes out for like $20-25. I just purchaed Die Hard 4 Bluray on Amazon last week for $22.95 and the regular dvd was $16.95. In the next few years it will drop down to $15-20 for a HD/Bluray movie just about what a regular dvd is now.
John,
Are you not reconsidering your position (that the format wars are over), or have you reconsidered your opinion? The first and last paragraphs of this article seem to conflict in that regard. Your readers want to know if you are reconsidering, or are not reconsidering. Thanks.
Personally, I think that HD-DVD and Blu-ray should just die. LONG LIVE REGULAR DVD!
For those of you urging HD media to die – what planet are you from? If you take the time to sit down and watch any of these discs on a display capable of handling them – or even watch an upconverted SD – you’ll never go back to regular DVDs.
Warner going BluRay is the end of HD DVD. By next Christmas all the studios will be releasing BluRay.
The HD war was great in the beginning because it drove hardware and software prices down. HD DVD also forced the BluRay camp to get their shit together and produce discs of higher video and audio quality.
However the time has come to move to one format. As HD TVs start to become commonplace a single HD format is needed.
My regular DVDs are peachy-keen with me.
The problem I have is that if you would ever want to avoid putting the future into a companies hand then it would be Sony. While they make fantastic products, their prices have historically ONLY been competetive when they have a competitor.
Prior to this announcement we’ve seen the HD war force hundreds of dollars off players, media price drops and a more affordable PS3. Kill of HD=DVD and who’s to say when (if ever) we’ll see $10 Blu-Ray movies or $30 players.
“My regular DVDs are peachy-keen with me.”
That’s what they use to say about Black and White TV, videotapes, and laser discs too Kristina.
Hey AjaxLou,
Man, I just don’t see it. I’ve seen side by side comparisons of HD and properly configured DVD systems with identical TV’s, and while the HD picture is certainly better…. the DEGREE of “better” isn’t all that much to write home about.
Yes, all other things being equal, an HD system is the one to have… but all things are NOT equal yet, and I still just don’t see the major upside of getting an HD system at the moment.
It’s been said a thousand times… but it’s true. The difference between HD and proper DVD is insignificant next to the difference between VHS and DVD. Better? Yes. THAT much better? I just don’t see it. But that’s just me.
Cheers!
And word has it that Apple will announce this week at Macworld that their new desktop Macs will come with Blu-Ray DVD players installed.
Make no mistake guys whether people want blu-ray as much as they wanted dvd or not once the studios get their stuff together they are going to push blu-ray hard they love the security(Disney anyone?) on it and for a little while anyway it will combat piracy.
I was going to ask what was so special about Blu-Ray. I think Jamie has it nailed.
Don’t what to say John but the difference is definitely there. Try an experiment. Watch several HD DVDs and then go back to DVD.
Other than that – it maybe time for an eye examination. ;)
@AjaxLou
Once they decide one sole format for HD, I’ll be more than happy to convert, but for now, I’m going to stick with my regular ones. As long as the picture is clear, I couldn’t care less.
Ricci,
It’s not so much of a deciding factor as a sign of which way things are going to go. :P Patterns man, history repeats itself.
Fair enough Kristina – when you do switch you will be very happy.
BTW – it should be noted that not only is the video quality improved but more so is the sound quality and that difference is easily discernible.