Is the upcoming hi-def DVD format war over?

Danny Tse

Warner to support Sony's Blu-ray....

Warner to Support Blu-ray
Warner Bros. plans to also release content in the Blu-ray DVD format after originally siding with the rival HD-DVD format.
October 20, 2005

In another setback for the HD-DVD format of next-generation optical disks, Warner Bros., one of the format’s early supporters, said Thursday it will also release its films in the rival Blu-ray format.

Warner Bros., a longstanding backer of HD-DVD, is the second major studio to split its loyalty. Earlier this month, Paramount Studios, an initial supporter of HD-DVD, said it would release its movies in both Blu-ray and HD-DVD (see Paramount Splits DVD Choice).

Sony-backed Blu-ray and Toshiba-backed HD-DVD have been in a three-year war over which one of the formats will prevail as the standard for the next generation of DVD technology. These formats promise better picture quality, sound, and storage capacities than the current generation of DVDs.

Warner Home Video will release titles in the Blu-ray format to support the launch of Blu-ray players in North America, Japan, and Europe that are expected to be unveiled in the spring of 2006. HD-DVD hardware and software will be released sometime before the launch of Blu-ray technology, a Toshiba spokesman confirmed.

“Consumers will be able to enjoy a large selection of catalogue favorites and contemporary hits from Warner’s vast library on the Blu-ray format,” said Jim Cardwell, president of Warner Home Video, in a statement.

At one point, both Blu-ray and HD-DVD had an equal share of studio support with three of the six major studios backing either side. While Blu-ray had support from Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, and 20th Century Fox, HD-DVD was backed by Universal Pictures, Paramount Studios, and Warner Bros. But two of the three on the HD-DVD side have also joined up with Blu-ray.

“This news further illustrates the potent combination of Blu-ray Disc’s superior consumer proposition and the undeniable market support demonstrated by the huge consortium of companies supporting Blu-ray,” said Bob Chapek, president of Buena Vista Home Entertainment, a division of Walt Disney Studios, which supports Blu-ray. “The continued dramatic momentum toward Blu-ray makes us more optimistic than ever that a ‘format war’ can be avoided.”

Efforts from both camps to unify the format into one single format to avoid confusion for consumers did not bear fruit earlier this year.

On top of this, I believe just about every hardware manufacturer out there is on the Blu-ray bandwagon as well.

sickicw

And I’m pretty sure that fox is only going to release to blue ray........ I've hard from some industry analysts that it is pretty much over (even though it really hasn’t started yet.) Most of the distributors that were once in the HD-DVD camp, have realized that there is really no advantage to hd-dvd. There original point was that hd-dvd was going to come out much earlier and going to be much cheaper, but or course it was delayed until 2006 and now with blue ray going into thousands or playstation 3s they have plenty of room to mass produce there units at a cheaper cost.

Fallen Kell

sickicw wrote:

...and now with blue ray going into thousands or playstation 3s they have plenty of room to mass produce there units at a cheaper cost.

That and the fact that the Xbox 360 will not have HD-DVD drives in them initially is another big blow to the HD-DVD format...

aaharvel

as long as we don't have another SACD/DVD-A disaster I could care less who wins.

I'm STILL in mourning.

polkatese

The announcement from Microsoft and Intel, backing HD-DVD, has clearly backfired on them. There is a long article on this on Business Week, and told the incident in which Gates was trying to strong-armed Sony, to revise the specs on Blue Ray.

PolkThug

Will a Blu-Ray player be able to play our standard DVD's?

Fallen Kell

We really don't know for sure. I believe with the Blu-Ray discs it will need a dual laser setup to be compatible. But that has been done in the past. It is all about what the electronics manufacturers decide to do.

mldennison

PolkThug wrote:

Will a Blu-Ray player be able to play our standard DVD's?

it will need 2 lasers to do so but i am sure most players will do both. gonna be tough to market a product that cant do regular dvd...

Danny Tse

List of companies supporting Blu-ray

Here're the big ones....

Apple
Dell
HP
Panasonic
Pioneer
Philips
Disney
20th Century Fox
Universal Music Group
TEAC
Yamaha
Kenwood
Dolby Labs
Electronic Arts
Meridian
JVC
Onkyo
Sanyo

Don't forget the upcoming PlayStation 3 will support both Blu-ray and SACD

bknauss

But will Joe Schmoe be ready for another video format? Or is it just not big enough of a difference? Or is it too soon? Will it die like SACD/DVD-A?

Either way, if something emerges as the next standard, I'll probably throw a drive in a new computer and call it a day.

AsSiMiLaTeD

I think this will market better than SACD, because most people can see better than they can hear...you get my point...

Look at how HDTV has taken off over the last couple of years...

schwarcw

I've read that Blu Ray disks has a larger storage capacity, but cost a lot more than the HD-DVD. Sony has a history of failing with new technology. BetaMax, Minidisk, etc. Toshiba will go to war with them. I'm not ready to put my money on either. A lot of consumers will probably want to take a wait and see position. This will be perilous to both Sony and Toshiba. It could be another DVD-A/SACD story. Sony supported/developed SACD and would make their players compatible with DVD-A. Hence, a war nobody won, the consumer loses.

tdeluce

Its going to be Blu-Ray all the way...

If there is only one format it will Blu-Ray and
if there two Blu-Ray will remain one of them...

Frank Z

It really does look like Blue-Ray is slightly ahead of HD-DVD at this point, but then again Beta-Max was a better format and look what happened to it.

bknauss

schwarcw wrote:

Sony has a history of failing with new technology. BetaMax, Minidisk, etc.

MD just was a huge bust in the US. It did pretty darn well in Asia and Europe.

Phil Dawson

I just attended a road show put on as a taste of the big National Association of Broadcasters show and was shown a new disc product that is being introduced I think by Maxell but I may be wrong on that. Any ways the disc uses holographic storage and the origanal would store up to 300 gig. They have made improvements and it will now store 800 gig. The theoretical storage capacity is 17 tetrabytes. The war is far from over and formats will change as long as storage capabilities increase.
Cheers, Phil

tdeluce

Phil Dawson wrote:

I just attended a road show put on as a taste of the big National Association of Broadcasters show and was shown a new disc product that is being introduced I think by Maxell but I may be wrong on that. Any ways the disc uses holographic storage and the origanal would store up to 300 gig. They have made improvements and it will now store 800 gig. The theoretical storage capacity is 17 tetrabytes. The war is far from over and formats will change as long as storage capabilities increase.
Cheers, Phil

Good points but we won't see this this round. Maybe
7 years or so from now when we have Super HD or
something this will come into play.

For now it is Blu-Ray all the way..

Phil Dawson

I think that you hope that you are right. How long do you think Blu-Ray will last? Will it do better than SACD and DVD-A? I'm not saying it's bad but that it wont last for long with far greater storage coming soon. I think that 7 years is quite optimistic.
Good Luck, Phil

tdeluce

Phil Dawson wrote:

I think that you hope that you are right. How long do you think Blu-Ray will last? Will it do better than SACD and DVD-A? I'm not saying it's bad but that it wont last for long with far greater storage coming soon. I think that 7 years is quite optimistic.
Good Luck, Phil

I don't know. You might be right. Wouldn't it
be cool to watch uncompressed 1080p?

The point was / is that Blu-Ray has won the war
for the current round of High Defintion DVD.

schwarcw

Betamax won the first war with video tapes. They has a better product, quality of picture, ease of use, availability of rental product,endorsement by the studios, etc. Because they wouldn't license their technology to other manufacturers. The competitors came up with an inferior product, but it was cheaper and accessible to all hardward manufacturers. Betamax fell like a lead ballon. The success of Blu-ray depends on Sony's marketing strategy. If the don't offer licenses to other manufactures or build playback capability of competing formats into their equpment, they will fail in the long term. Ever seen a Sony player that wil play DVD-A?

tdeluce

schwarcw wrote:

The success of Blu-ray depends on Sony's marketing strategy. If the don't offer licenses to other manufactures or build playback capability of competing formats into their equpment, they will fail in the long term.

Where have you been? What have you been smoking?

schwarcw

Where have you been? What have you been smoking?

Nothing my friend, I have seen Sony make some classic blunders over the past 25 years. I have nothng against blue-ray or any vested interest in either format. I was to have the next generation technology as much as anyone. I just think that having two formats will keep the majority of consumders on the sidelines for a wait and see atitude. I am going to take a wait and see position, I think may others will too. Time will tell.

Carl

tdeluce

schwarcw wrote:

Nothing my friend, I have seen Sony make some classic blunders over the past 25 years. I have nothng against blue-ray or any vested interest in either format. I was to have the next generation technology as much as anyone. I just think that having two formats will keep the majority of consumders on the sidelines for a wait and see atitude. I am going to take a wait and see position, I think may others will too. Time will tell.

Carl

What I mean is that Pioneer and others already are
developming Blu-Ray DVD players...

If there is one format it will by Blu-Ray and if there
are two Blue-Ray will be one of them...

schwarcw

I understand your point, but the fact the blu ray cost nearly twice what the HD-DVD cost, that leaves a price umbrella for competitors to launch their product. If DVD rentals cost say $5.00 and HD-DVD cost $2.50, and Sony players cost $500 and Toshiba players cost $250. The market place will decide the winner. As I mentioned with the failure of Betamax, quality is not always the deciding factor.

schwarcw

Good discussion buy the way. I have no vested interst in either of these. The market place does funny things. Especially when it comes to price and marketing strategy. Sony has not done a good job at eithe of these. Look at their market share of TVS. Going down every year. Price and marketing

tdeluce

schwarcw wrote:

I understand your point, but the fact the blu ray cost nearly twice what the HD-DVD cost, that leaves a price umbrella for competitors to launch their product. If DVD rentals cost say $5.00 and HD-DVD cost $2.50, and Sony players cost $500 and Toshiba players cost $250. The market place will decide the winner. As I mentioned with the failure of Betamax, quality is not always the deciding factor.

Not sure where you are getting this data?

Toshiba announced HD-DVD player for $999. PS3
pricing is not yet announced but expected to be
between $400 and $450.

Probably doesn't matter anyway - its is looking less and
less likley that HD-DVD will even come to market.

But even if it does, it has no chance of beating Blu-Ray...

tdeluce

schwarcw wrote:

Good discussion buy the way. I have no vested interst in either of these. The market place does funny things. Especially when it comes to price and marketing strategy. Sony has not done a good job at eithe of these. Look at their market share of TVS. Going down every year. Price and marketing

Due to bad decision. This is changing as we speak by the
way :-)

schwarcw

This will be a subject that will be talked about for some time to come. There are a lot of big players with deep pockets on both sides of this fence. Check out these articles. You can get the whole articles on the Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft, Intel Back HD-DVD As Next Format for Data Storage


By Robert A. Guth and Don Clark, The Wall Street Journal, 534 words
Sep 27, 2005


Personal-computer kingpins Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. are throwing their support to a next-generation data-storage format known as HD-DVD, countering the recent momentum of a rival format called Blu-ray. Intel and Microsoft were believed to be leaning toward the HD-DVD camp, which is backed by Toshiba Corp. and others, but hadn't formally stated their intentions.

Paramount Will Use Blu-ray But Still Plans HD-DVD Title


By Sarah McBride, The Wall Street Journal, 491 words
Oct 3, 2005


Paramount previously said it would release its movies in the rival format, called HD-DVD, and backed by a group including Toshiba Inc. Paramount's deal with Blu-ray is nonexclusive, meaning that Paramount for now plans to release titles in HD-DVD as well as Blu-ray.

Intel Corp.: Initiative Is Planned to Create HD-DVD Industry Standard


The Wall Street Journal, 162 words
Oct 5, 2005


Intel Corp. wants to take the initiative in bringing to the table two groups competing to set the technological standard for next- generation DVDs, an executive said.

China to Challenge Rival DVD Formats With Own Standard


The Wall Street Journal, 211 words
Oct 10, 2005


If successful, the move could add a new competitor to the battle between HD DVD and the competing Blu-ray disc format over which will become the dominant new DVD standard.


HD-DVD Rollout, Set for Holidays, Gets Scaled Back


By Sarah McBride, The Wall Street Journal, 652 words
Aug 10, 2005


It appears that both hardware and software deliveries of HD-DVD products will be lighter than expected, blunting HD-DVD's first-mover advantage. Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures, which had committed to releasing more than 20 titles on the HD-DVD brand starting in the fourth quarter, now won't release any in the quarter, according to a person familiar with the matter. General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal plans to release about a dozen HD-DVD titles in the fourth quarter, scaling back from the 16 titles it had announced in January.

schwarcw

This format will take a while to sort out. Microsift, Intel, Paramont Viacom are puting there money into the jont venture with Toshiba. This was is not over, it's not even started. Do a google search on blu-Ray or HD-DVD, lot of interesting info.

My only point is there are a lot of big companies building a war chest of money to invest in HD-DVD products. The consumer will not have a clear choice. You could buy Blu-Ray, good technology but you wouldn't have access to a ton of old and new release.

By the way, Sony has stopped manufacturing MDs in Japan. After a number of successful years. IPOD has ate it's lunch. Inventory is still out there, but the manufacturing has stopped. Go to Sony's home page in Japan.

This is going to be fun to watch. Consumers will be cautious with their bucks. I think this situation is a good parallel of what happened to DVD-A and SACD.

Danny Tse

schwarcw wrote:

China to Challenge Rival DVD Formats With Own Standard


The Wall Street Journal, 211 words
Oct 10, 2005


If successful, the move could add a new competitor to the battle between HD DVD and the competing Blu-ray disc format over which will become the dominant new DVD standard.

No Hollywood studio will support this. It's vaporware.

schwarcw

Viacon/Paramont is one of the investors