Warner Goes Blu-ray Only: The Death of HD DVD?

Engadget has great coverage of news that Warner has suddenly dropped HD DVD and will exclusively support Blu-ray. The North American HD DVD Promotion Group has cancelled a scheduled press conference at CES, and Toshiba issued the following press release:

Toshiba's Comment on Announcement from Warner Bros. Entertainment of Its Exclusive Support for Blu-ray Disc Format

TOKYO, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Toshiba is quite surprised by Warner Bros.' decision to abandon HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray, despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning the support of HD DVD. As central members of the DVD Forum, we have long maintained a close partnership with Warner Bros. We worked closely together to help standardize the first-generation DVD format as well as to define and shape HD DVD as its next-generation successor.

We were particularly disappointed that this decision was made in spite of the significant momentum HD DVD has gained in the US market as well as other regions in 2007. HD DVD players and PCs have outsold Blu-ray in the US market in 2007.

We will assess the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluate potential next steps. We remain firm in our belief that HD DVD is the format best suited to the wants and needs of the consumer.
--end--

Anyone want to buy a slightly used HD DVD player and a few HD DVD titles?

Thanks to John, Rick, and Baff for sending this in.

Comments

[Elway]

Hopefully Netflix will put more support behind Blu now and get some of my newer movies off "SHORT WAIT".

[Baff]

Yeah, I currently have 12 Blu-Ray movies at the top of my queue (2 short wait, 5 long, 5 very long).

[iTarik]

You are telling me this after I already got my HD DVD player?

[eviltimes]

Don't freak out just yet. HD is out selling Blu Ray in the USA 3 to 2. Warners will just lose out on some sales is all.

[phildawg]

Selling? Na I highly doubt that. However those 200 dollars HD-DVD players with 10 free movies was a good move to make it seem so.

[macdude22]

I'm not freaking out just yet, and I didn't spend much on my HD-DVD drive for 360 but I've long felt the HD-DVD spec was the stronger spec. It's been solid from day one, network support, interactive features, things you knew would be on every player. Blu has gone through what, 3 revisions of the spec now? As I understand it the older players won't play much of the new content due to lack of features. At any rate I don't buy disks much anyway but Blue-ray seriously disappointed me with the way they went about things. I'm not about to drop money on a player and then have it not be able to play some disks. Far as I can tell the purveyors of this format war must want users to go pirate this stuff, the downloads all meet the "spec" of a variety of devices. They all need to get a clue.

[Why why why]

Do consumers strive so hard to defend their purchasing decisions. You bought an XBOX, it is a piece of junk, but for the fact that 25% of all gaming articles today are paid for adverts for Halo3, a dire, shallow vacant shell of a crap game.

But xbox owners bay like diseased asses at how great they are.

HD-DVD owners - for a few hundred bucks betray all their instincts to maintain they are right. I guess it is the anonymity of the webnets. People like scoble (lol, stupid fuck) have to admit to their mistakes.

But the knee jerk, omg say it isn't so, of the HD-DVD owners is just sad.

Bluray won. Now has won. Not will will. But won about 5 months ago.

HD-DVD is fuck ugly anyway

[CJ]

Everybody talks like HD-DVD is now dead. In my opinion, both formats will be around for at least the next 2 years. I've had 2 players, one for both format, now for 10 months, and enjoy being able to rent and play most anything. I figure these players (PS3 and Toshiba A20) probably on have a life of 3 years anyway, so 2 years from now, who cares what format prevails.

Bigger problem is renting Hi-Def titles. Used to be, 10 months ago, I could get most any new release from NF in either Hi Def format; now I get nothing - they're all Long Wait or Very Long Wait at release date. Fortunately, BB Total Access has come through solved that problem - every single BBTA current mail rental of mine is a Hi Def format new release. Sure wish NF would get their act together...

So I figure the Warner short time delay for the HD-DVD format over Blu-ray could work in my favor, that is if NF continues to stock HD-DVD format, since people are probably going to bail from the HD-DVD format in their misguided perception that format is now dead.

[danb]

This is why I won't buy a HD player until one of the following criteria is met:

1. A clear winner emerges. (As some astutely point out, that hasn't quite happened)
2. The dual format players become affordable.
3. The players of each format become cheap enough that I can afford to have multiple players.

I think that this format war has been a debacle for everyone involved. We can only hope that it will end soon before more money is wasted.

[elway]

"Don't freak out just yet. HD is out selling Blu Ray in the USA 3 to 2. Warners will just lose out on some sales is all."

Check your facts man, WRONG.

Universal is rumored to go neutral next, so lets face it. HD-DVD is on life support and you'll see this over by end of 2008. Every enjoy those $300 and lower 1.1 BD players. Great news!

[aussieguy]

IMO Blu Ray is the clear winner. If I had a HD DVD player I would be selling it now before they are worthless. Beta was the superior spec but VHS won....I jus't can't believe Sony finally won a format war but I guess they were due.

[Drinkmasta]

I bought an HD-DVD player for $200 and got 15 free movies. That turns out to be a little over $13 a movie with a free player, not a bad deal. HD-DVD is cheaper with no region coding unlike Blu-Ray. I hate Sony products, so my HD-DVD player was a steal.

[Leroy Vargas]

Drinkmasta, Blu-Ray is not a Sony product. Blu-ray was invented & patented by none other than the original creator of VHS, JVC, with help from Matsushita, mother of Panasonic. So next time, please check and double-check real facts before flaming Sony. Remember, Blu-ray is neither Betamax nor SACD.

[beamg5]

With all due respect to HD-DVD fans, the "war" is all but over. As a veteran store manager of the largest electronics outlets in the country, I can assure you that Holiday sales favored Blu-Ray (inc. PS3) by a fair margin. And of late, an overwhelming number of Toshiba HD-DVD stand-alone players are being returned for Blu-Ray based players.

Although Paramount has been "tight-lipped" publically about returning to Blu-Ray, our market insiders" are ~99% convinced that they too will be offering Blu-Ray again as soon as their 18-month committment to HD-DVD has elapsed.

By the way, I don't understand the "Sony hater" attitude. They've taken their lumps over the years with Beta, mini-disc, and so on - it's about time for a win. And....like it or not, Sony continues (as they have for years) to produce perhaps the finest line of consumer products available.

Note that although I, and the vast majority of my colleagues and staff are personally Blu-Ray advocates, I/we never allow any personal bias to affect customer preference.
After all, sales volume is our bottom line -as it should be in this low-margin, highly competitive market.

Thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts and experiences with each and everyone herein.

[Drinkmasta]

Even if Blu-Ray isn't a Sony only product, it was spearheaded by them and I don't trust them. I enjoy my HD-DVD player, and if HD-DVDs where discontinued tomorrow, I think I got a great deal. I will continue to distrust Sony until they show they trust it's customers. Does anybody remember the whole rootkit thing? Sony builds proprietary devices to control the price and rights of their media, but that's just my humble opinion.

[Super-Bat-Man]

eviltimes: "Don't freak out just yet. HD is out selling Blu Ray in the USA 3 to 2. Warners will just lose out on some sales is all."

I don't know about those numbers. I think you are forgetting to count the PS3's sold. Those are blu-ray players too. with those blu-ray is easily outselling HD-DVD players. plus I think Dell computers are now supporting blu-ray

[Super-Bat-Man]

It doesn't even matter at this point if bluray stopped releasing new movies. Because all of the coolest movies are already available on bluray...and that's all that matters.

commando, robocop, rambo, 300, blackhawk down, immortal beloved, stealth (yeah I liked that...so what? it had a talking plane. hilarious I say.), fifth element, reservior dogs, the departed... And now a bunch of tv shows are coming out like sopranos, weeds, lost, prison break.

blu-ray has already succeeded.

[MikeD85]

Am I one of the only ones here to not have either format of HD disc player? There's no way in hell I'm spending that kind of dough on one of them until this stupid format war is over. Case closed, in my book.

[user of things]

If Blu-Ray really does "win" here this is most likely the failure of the entire media form. Blu-Ray is a DRM-crippled product with regional coding and other "features" that doom it as a successful consumer product for the masses. High-Def physical media was dubious to consumers to begin with but HD DVD got the details right, giving it a chance to succeed.

Expect to see consumer adoption of blue-ray absolutely fail to take off, as it is few are interested other than playstation owners and early-adopter techies. The consumer market continues to prefer quality-upconverting, for good reason, they're flexible and usable in ways that the new formats don't provide.

It's a shame because i think, in principle, high-def physical media has potential and promise, being the only source of real HD quality other than OTA out there, due to massive compression on cable/satellite/online streaming/downloads.

HD DVD has gone about this the correct way and it sounds like Toshiba is going to change strategies.

People forget that the major hollywood movie studios are not the only game in town for a physical media format.

Most important, when has corporate hollywood done anything good for the consumer? Blu-Ray is something Sony Pictures wants for their own benefit and they're subsidizing other studios to use it and those studios are interested in the same greed-tactics behind the product.

Blu-Ray, in theory, could have worked with the excessive drm if they had a final standard and had non utterly mismanaged the roll-out. The name is even confusing to most people.

Sadly I think if HD DVD really folds, which is absolutely not certain, despite the hype, it'll bethe end of high-def physical media's run and attention will turn toward online/streaming as people come to see the limited benefit of what Sony/Blu-Ray is offering in terms of usage limitations.

[Baff]

It seems Paramount had a clause that allows them to ditch HD-DVD if Warner chose Blu-Ray. It is unknown if Dreamworks has the same clause, but they likely do since they are owned by the same parent company and they both signed contracts with HD-DVD at the same time.

This leaves only Universal in the HD-DVD camp. I don't see any way Toshiba can turn this around at this point.

[Wow]

What a horrible post by "user of things"!

Mass public does not care about DRM in movies. Heck people have problems playing regular dvd's in some players and pc's.

Yes upconverters make much money, but many of those buyers think their dvd's will instantly look hd. But it's no where near how good high def actually looks.

"People forget that the major hollywood movie studios are not the only game in town for a physical media format."
- True, but blu-ray is well ahead in that as well. Blu-ray burners and blank discs are easier to find than hd-dvd ones. Mini-blu-ray discs are also being developed mostly for future camcorder use.

"Most important, when has corporate hollywood done anything good for the consumer? Blu-Ray is something Sony Pictures wants for their own benefit and they're subsidizing other studios to use it and those studios are interested in the same greed-tactics behind the product."
- Blu-ray is making electronic manufacturers alot more profit percentage per box than Toshiba with hddvd and other normal dvd players are. It may be hard to believe, but companies are in business to make money. Not to give away products at little to no profit.

Also online/streaming high def video is years away from taking off. Sure places like free youtube are popular now, but how many people would actually pay for crap resolution like that? And don't even pretend to think that those future online videos will be drm free.

[CJ]

If the HD-DVD format does "lose" in the court of public opinion, then there is an upside for people like me who have a HD-DVD player (and also a PS3) - they'll be a fire sale of people, stores, whomever, dumping their HD-DVD titles, which I'll then pick up for pennies on the dollar. Another factor is you can put the HD-DVD player to use upconverting to 1080p - for some reason the Hi-Def players upconvert much better than the Standard-Def players upconvert. I still don't regret buying both H-Def players way back 10 months ago...

[user of things]

Dear wow:

You vastly overestimate the ability of the public at large to appreciate HD content. All surveys and information up to now show that most people don't even notice the difference. It'll be several more years before enough HD content exists to matter to most folks and by then streaming/etc will have caught up.

HD physical media is a fool's game unless it's extremely easy and straightforward. The marketing is really that simple. I highly doubt Sony will make its money back on these devices.

As for hardware manufacturers, yeah, they'd love to sell $500 dvd players. Good luck with that.

[Baff]

@CJ - Yes, that is quite the silver lining. In a couple months you will be able to pick up a couple hundred movies real cheap. I might have to grab an HD-DVD player when they drop low and do the same.

[Surt]

The studio exclusivity is the only thing preventing HD-DVD from winning this "war" in the short term. Just like VHS, HD-DVD is cheaper to purchase because it's cheaper to manufacture. Why is it cheaper to manufacture? Because it's not as far over-kill as BD currently is: do you really need 50GB of content on a disc? 100GB? For one movie? That won't really be required until we start sending out movies in 4k. However, in the long term, Blu-ray Disc will be the better format and be around longer, if only due to the fact that it's future-proofed.

For those who don't know, movies are most commonly recorded on 35mm film and digitally scanned at a resolution of 2048x1152 (2k), which, of course, is slightly over 1920x1080, so that's not too hard to match. Future higher-resolution display panels will work their way toward the 4k (4096x2304) mark, and, as such, we'll have players that will produce that resolution as well. Given the actual content in GB on each current (HD/BD) disc out there, BD's new 100GB proto disc won't suffice until we finally reach that 4k display mark--probably 2160p. If you assume 20+GB per movie at 1080p, it's obviously going to be quadruple that for something at 2160p (do the math), so a 100GB BD *could* actually survive the 10-year span that will elapse before we hit that point.

So yeah, while it makes perfect sense to hop on the HD-DVD bandwagon (or, rather, made until the WB announcement) for the next 3-5 years, the BD camp will still be around in 10 years, whereas HD-DVD will be long gone.

Although, if current BD practices are any inclination, there will be more than enough price-gouging and planned hardware obsolescence that they may just piss off enough people to drive themselves out of business. Keep in mind, while streaming internet content is the future, there's still a good 60% of America (let alone the rest of the world) who doesn't have or want Internet, and a fair 20-30% of those folks probably have HDTVs and will eventually hop on the BD bandwagon.

Wow, this turned into a mini-essay with plenty of run-ons and unnecessarily long-winded statements. :cool: