Warner Chooses Blu-ray
Many of us have been watching the development of the High-Def format wars in the parapets of the Castle through quite discerning gilded opera glasses and bated breath. Recently, there has been some serious ground covered along the front. Apple will be receiving Blu-ray drives for their Macs in February and now Warner Bros. Entertainment has decided to go Blu-ray exclusive later this year, in an effort to nip the High-Def format war in the bud.
The chairman and CEO of Warner, Barry Meyer noted the move is a "strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want." He believes that something has to happen quickly before both formats miss the window of opportunity for this generation. Warner will continue to produce HD-DVD and Blu-ray through May of this year, then they switch to Blu-ray exclusivity.
The question remains, 'What will HD-DVD have to do to recover the lost ground?' Whatever it is, it has to be big.
BOOST FOR BLU-RAY! Warner Bros Will Release Exclusively In That Format [Deadlinehollywooddaily.com]
[via: Engaget HD]
Toots
Posted to Movies-DVDs on 4 January 2008
· Comments (10)
Other stuff like this: blu-ray, hd-dvd, warner bros.
I went ahead and sold my Xbox 360 HD DVD drive on Ebay this evening.
With only two major studios supporting it...the format is dead in the water.
I knew BR would come out on top. It simply had too much support from too many studios, and now that 70% of all studio content is exclusive, HD-DVD is pretty much toast.
Don't let the rock lice bite you, guys, but there have been announcements of both hybrid discs as well as hybrid drives, both of which will work with either format. There are already plenty of HD-DVD consumers out there, abandoning them will get the few people who actually support HD discs (as opposed to the majority of people who are still oblivious to anything but DVD) pretty pissed off. And since the two formats aren't actually competing so much against each other as they are trying to gain a foothold in an already pretty saturated market (along with DVDs, their main competition is downloadable content), nobody will abandon anything, that would be just silly.
Also: "BluRay, I choose you!"
Well, the announcement stung the hell out of me, being a XBox HDDVD addon owner, I guess I shouldn't have been surprized. I've had a history of always picking up an underdog.. from the Sega CD-32X-Saturn all the way on up to the Dreamcast. The format may very well be "dead" but it doesn't mean that any of it will suddenly stop working. I enjoyed my collection of discs and don't plan on getting rid of them any time soon.
I just picked up an HD-DVD drive over the holiday. Now I say screw it and am more inclined to keep DVDs or the occasional digital download.
Somewhere, Michael Bay is having a conniption.
Hey, if nothing else, the Toshiba technology makes and EXCELLENT upconversion player for my standard DVD's - and will for quite some time. I have no intention of buying into Sony's overpriced collusion with the studios. Standard DVD's aren't going anywhere and I'm quite happy to wait three or four years for the next format.
BTW, more than 40% of Warner Bros. HD sales are in the HD-DVD format. I'm thinking between now and May (when they claim they'll stop producing HD-DVD discs) Toshiba-Universal-Paramount will be able to turn this around and Warner Bros. may change their tune.
It wouldn't matter to me personally that much, except that when I look at my 60+ collection of HD DVDs, slightly more than half of them are WB movies. Sigh.
To those of us deeply entrenched in this format war, it was like watching your capital city getting bombed and knowing for the first time you are definitely on the losing side.
I just recently purchased my 42" Sharp Aquos LCD TV specifically for movies. I don't really care much about games, they looked fine on my old 32". Bleh. I also recently got the first five Harry Potter movies on HD DVD, but after the announcement, the last two movies are gonna be Blu Ray exclusive. That's annoying.
Well folks, looks like I'll be getting a PS3 after all. It seems to be the most reliable Blu-Ray player right now, with the ability to upgrade firmware. But by GOD. Until they stop printing HD DVDs all together, there is no freakin way I will ever pick a blu-ray over an HD DVD.
Yes, whatever HD-DVD does it WILL have to be big. I hope it comes up with an extremely melodramatic farewell speech, delivers said speech with aplomb, pats itself on the back for giving it the old college try, and then walks away into the sunset, never to be seen or heard from again. Now THAT would be big...
Pretty huge news. I gotta say I don't see how HD-DVD is gonna survive this one. I already know a number of "non-gamer" friends who are asking about picking up a PS3 now. Sony's trojan horse actually seems to have worked. Who knew?
I have to say MS's lukewarm support for HD-DVD surprised me... I wonder if we'll be seeing a Blu-ray add-on for the 360 now?
Saying that the two aren't competing with each other is sheer folly. They ARE competing...or rather, they were before BluRay effectively won.
Face it, it's a superior format, with more data storage capacity and more studio support, which means more movies on the format.
HD-DVD is dead in the water at this point, I'll be amazed if it makes it to summer.