Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

And Disney has Sleeping Beauty coming to Blu, this fall? That would be big.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

As a major 2.0 title. And I can tell you, having lived in a Disney Princess world for the past 11 years, all features will be important to families with young children (as will being able to play the title in multiple locations).

If the consensus is that most of the public does not care about the 1.1 and 2.0 features, I'd be glad to see Blu-ray drop them all together. My biggest concern in purchasing a standalone player right now is whether or not advanced features will be a problem for older players such as the problems being seen with the Samsung players.

Blu-ray should just announce that the consumer has spoken and they see no reason for advanced features. There's plenty of bandwidth and space to do some neat things without the secondary video decoder and nothing about internet connectivity on HD DVD has been all that compelling.

They'd get some of us off the fence with an announcement like that.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Welcome to the forum John. I own a Sony BDs300, and while it most likely will never be a profile 1.1, much less 2, i can still buy that disc knowing that when i upgrade to another player i would have those features waiting for me. If those features turn out to be so fantastic i have to have a new player, i will get one. If the web based stuff is lame, like i expect, all or most web stuff to be, i can wait. And i will be happy in the joy of Sleeping Beauty in Blu.

Oh yea, dont forget the scratch resistant coating. If you have young kids its a BIG plus!

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Deleted post.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Here is an interesting note. Amazon has posted this on every page of a Warner title for hd-dvd :

"Warner Bros. has announced plans to discontinue its support of the HD DVD format after May 31, 2008."

Amazon.com: Batman Begins [HD DVD]: DVD: Christian Bale,Katie Holmes,Michael Caine,Liam Neeson,Morgan Freeman,Cillian Murphy

ouch

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

The "consensus" is only amongst the Blu-ray supporters who had to dismiss the features since Blu has been unable to live up to their four year old promises.

As for hardware standards, I really don't know anyone who doesn't think mandated Ethernet would be a good thing if for nothing more than making firmware upgrades easy.

As for interactivity on Blu, my opinion is that the biggest technical issue that Blu is having has to do with Java. It was an extremely poor choice to go with Java since it is a resource hog that is inherently unstable the more it is used. A few years ago HP urged the Blu people to drop Java in favor of HDi but they went with the pig and now they have to live with it.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Interesting. They could lose some "less knowledgeable" (meaning with the format war) customers with this, but then again they just state the facts.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Another thing Amazon has done that I like is that they're breaking my pre-orders with Super Saver Shipping into multiple shipments where Warner's three-week delay is a factor.

There aren't enough HD consumers to say that the consumer has spoken. A vocal group on a message board more concerned about how the capacity of a disc is used than the general public has, but that's not exactly a mandate.

Besides, we're still seeing the first attempts at using it. These are powerful enough tools that it's worth seeing what develops.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Just so everyone understands my thinking. I developed interest in HD media about a year ago, with the intention of purchasing a Blu-ray player or PS3. As I learned more, I became convinced that the unfinished specs would hold back my satisfaction with whatever player I could purchase, so I decided to wait. In the meantime, HD DVD players, the A2 in particular, came down in price significantly, so I purchased one.

I have been very pleased with the A2 and with HD DVD in general. Over time, I had come to believe that HD DVD really was in better shape due to replication cost, finalized specs, HDi v. BD-J, hardware costs, and advanced features, which are basically the HD DVD talking points. When Paramount switched, I just saw that as justification for my thinking that HD DVD was easier for studios to work with. I also thought that there was interest in internet connectivity for improved community experience and possible revenue streams for studios.

I purchased Blood Diamond, Transformers, Shrek the 3rd, and Evan Almighty (for the kids). After checking out the online experience, I don't see it as being very useful. Navigation is hard and it's not very intuitive or informative. My current feeling is that it does not add a whole lot to the experience. Since it does not seem that many new discs are expanding their online features, I fail to see how it will take off. If Blu-ray doesn't standardize squarely on 2.0, I fail to see a reason for studios to pursue it very strongly.

With Warner's decision to go with Blu-ray, I see that the studio most intimate with producing titles on both formats went against everything I thought was preferable about HD DVD. Based on Warner's past affiliations, releases, and public comments, it has always seemed that they favored HD DVD. To choose to abandon this format tells me they see very little value in the possible advantages of HD DVD.

Taking this full circle, the point of my abandon-advanced-profiles comments toward Blu-ray was that since Blu-ray has garnered so much studio support without these features, and since these features are a potential area of confusion and incompatibility, then why bother?

Since I have the A2 connected to the internet, and since this led me to connect my wireless router behind the TV, when the time comes, my plan is to purchase a Blu-ray player with ethernet for firmware updates.

I understand and kind of agree the posts I have quoted above, but exactly when will further opportunity for the consumer to speak on these issues come? Once WB releases are gone from HD DVD the content disparity in new releases will be so great that I'd imagine it will become the only factory in choosing what HD media to support.

A realistic view of the landscape tells me that what I thought was important in this format war really might not be. Until I see studios act otherwise, I have to assume that advanced features are not as exciting to studios as their potential was when these formats launched.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Most of the extra features I have seen in the store on our demo players and discs and my friend's home on the hd-dvd player when connected to the internet were really not worth that much to make the format a must buy for me. I do feel that in the future, when they really start to know these features and use them more, they will probably develop content that is more useful and more attractive. As I stated in my prior post, working at Best Buy 6 days a week, I have found very few customers who find these features (1.1 and 2.0) on either format very important. First off, most customers didn't know they were available, and when we tell them, there usually isn't anything but "oh really." Rarely do I see someone say "well then since Blu-ray doesn't have them finalized, I am going with hd-dvd." The player prices are more of an attraction with hd-dvd and consumers than those extra features (only judging this from my everyday selling experience). But that price attraction becomes less attractive when they learn the studio support situation come June.

You mentioned the advantage of lower replication costs. I used to tell this to customers when selling hd-dvd but I stopped many months ago when I saw that releases ended up the same price at many blu-ray titles. I figured that this would surely be an advantage because the software prices would come down fast, but they are still in the same dollar range as blu-rays, so obviously no one is passing the lowered replication cost to the consumer. This was, in my opinion, a huge mistake. Movie prices for hd media are not attractive at all to the mainstream right now, where they can but dvd's on sales from $5.99 and up. You might say the consumer is spoiled. Oh, I know the quality is very different, but many of them do not see the 15.00 to 20.00 increase value for one movie, especially of the catalog titles. They can lower the player prices to $10.00, but if the media stays at suggested retail prices of $25-40.00, it doesn't help much (did you hear that Fox?).

For me personally, I have a Playstation 3, and I am very happy. They updated to 1.1, and 2.0 is due very soon, but it really doesn't excite me that much. What excites me more is the announcement of a great title in high def. I agree with you that these features are not as important as some people have claimed on these threads. Perhaps they are important to them, but from my sales experience, I think the interest so far has been very low. Had the interest been that high as claimed, then surely more people would have chosen hd-dvd because blu-ray is only starting to get them so they had exclusives on those features for a long time.... Toshiba had what I think was a huge opportunity. They knew Warner stated they would be watching the holiday sales when they hinted at going with one format only. This was before Thanksgiving and black Friday. That was the time to make these price cuts on the players, and things may have turned out differently for them.

The fact is that this year, starting in the spring (we have been notified of Panasonic's 2.0 player BD-50 due in early spring, Sony's shortly there-after and possibly a Sharp with 2.0 in the summer) players on blu-ray will be finalized. Most purchased already are early adopters who usually don't mind buying another player and they use the older player on another tv. Then the big portion that use the PS3 (and I have sold tons of these as movie machines) will be updated to final profile.

Interesting note, Sony told our stores that a new version of the PS3 will be released marketed to movie fans, and it will include a movie inside and a blu-ray remote.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

As was stated in an earlier post, if we agree (and I'm not sure posters in this thread agree on much! ) that it will be the average consumer that determine whether Blu-ray becomes the format-of-choice in the near future...price IS everything (both of players and software).

Personally, I thought when the HD-DVD forces started plummeting the price of players (Black Friday, etc.) that they had figured that out.

IF BD completely wins the war, it will then be interesting to see what happens with player/software prices.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I have never understood why from a consumer point of view, the lower cost of manufacturing HD-DVD discs is even brought up. After all pricing of software is never based on the manufacturing costs of the media. Any manufacturing cost advantage that HD-DVD has, is only for the benefit of the studios and not something that would ever be passed onto the consumer. More importantly, the cost of manufacturing of the disks is relatively small and thus even if the studios were to pass on the difference between manufacturing of Blu-Ray & HD-DVD discs, it would be no more than a dollar or two at the very most. Ofcourse, with time this difference will also diminish greatly if not dissapear altogether.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

IMO, it's not all about whether the costs are directly passed on to the consumer. I've considered it as a factor because I thought cost of replication and converting existing DVD lines would be an advantage as the number of discs needing to be manufactured increased.

More importantly from my perspective, I believe there is more chance to see smaller runs for a wider variety of titles if disc production is less expensive.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I do like PiP-video commentaries and such, but these "web based"-extras doesn´t interest me. It literally took an hour (give or take, since I gave up the first time) for me to gain access to these web based-extras in Shrek 3 HD DVD and the only reason I was being so stubborn with them was that I made a review of that title.

So, usually I´ll probably skip them. Never cared for them in SD DVD either..

These "web based extras" are more like a PR-hype from the companies (they sound great and "new" in the press releases) to me than anything that great for the fans. Don´t get me wrong, I´m open for a new things and I really like good extras, but include them to the actual disc, thank you very much.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I agree Jari.

At least you've given the web-based thing a try!

I've never connected my A2 to the internet because I just want to watch the film. Like yourself, I too also enjoy the PIP commentaries.

I am at a lost why Graffeo and the HD-DVD PRG worked so hard at pushing this as a HUGE advantage when a majority of consumers appear to be indifferent to what interactivity actually is. Not only that, but the HD-DVD PRG did little to promote this feature in any of their commercials!? I am really dumbstruck as to how the HD-DVD PRG ran such an inept campaign. One thing Blu-ray did do WELL was promote the hell out of their format with commercials of substance explaining what the consumer was getting and placing an emphasis on the titles. When I see that HD-DVD commercial with Michael Imperioli, it makes me cringe. What were they thinking? The one with the group of people popping in an HD-DVD to "watch movies in hi-def on their Toshiba HD-DVD player" after a football game is even worse. It's almost as if the HD-DVD PRG was running a cash-strapped campaign.

Truly unbelievable.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Considering that most of the extra stuff that end up on SD DVD are just promo fluff rather than actually interesting content, why would anyone think things would be all that different w/ the extra features functionalities of HDM?

FWIW, I briefly tried the PiP thing on Hairspray and gave up shortly into it. What I saw was rather boring indeed -- and unlike a standard feature-length commentary track, I can't even choose to turn on the PiP feature at random points in the movie just to see if there might be something interesting to check out (like I sometimes do w/ regular commentary tracks). I think they should just make solid quality documentaries as extras rather than some hack job PiP commentary than can't be turned on/off at will. I'd much rather watch those 15-min HBO fluff pieces than sit through all of Hairspray w/ that PiP thing turned on. Well, I suppose I could try skipping chapters until I find where I might check to see if something's interesting at all...

I think though that the web interactivity function might have some potential, *IF* the studios actually ever make good use of it, but I'm much less convinced of the PiP thing given how it's implemented now -- maybe they'll eventually figure out how to allow toggle on/off at will (just like audio/subtitle tracks), but otherwise, I'm not convinced. PiP was a fun novelty on my TV set, but I hardly ever cared to use it in practice.

_Man_

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

If Resident Evil: Extinction is any indication, a true Profile 1.1 PiP can be toggled off and on.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

FWIW, I was in a few stores tonight and saw further evidence of BD encroachment into HD-DVD territory.

At one FYE (TransWorld) store...a small HD media section that used to be 50-50 was now 75-25 in favor of BD. Also, in this store the number of HD titles had dropped dramatically. I don't think it was half-filled while the BD section was filled to the point it was difficult to check out the titles.

At another FYE store, a larger HD media section went from 50-50 to 60-40 in favor of BD.

And, finally, at my local Best Buy I cannot be sure what it was originally (but I think the HD-DVD section was bigger than the BD section). But, tonight the BD section was six racks/sections to HD-DVDs four.

I'm guessing that these are typical of what's happening around the country. Based on these type of examples and what I've seen at Wal-Mart, it looks as if retailers are going to make it difficult for HD-DVD to maintain visibility.

I remember how hard it became to find any DVD-A discs in any stores!

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Speak for yourself. Personally I want the advanced features because I have used them on HD DVD and I find them interesting and in some cases very compelling.

Doug

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

My local Best Buy in North Phoenix went from 50/50, Blu-ray/HD-DVD ratio. To about 75/25 or maybe even 80/20 in favor of Blu-ray. My local Fry's still has around a 50/50 ratio but I am exspecting them to start dropping HD-DVD titles sometime soon.

Speaking of SACD and DVD-A I think my Fry's still has a small selection of both.

I can not wait to see the release schedule for the rest of 2008 from WB. I just really want to see Lethal Weapon 3 & 4 on Blu-ray.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Dave have you noticed that Fry's has increased the base price of blu-ray from $19.95 to $22.95? I was there last night and bought Blazing Saddles. It was marked $19.95 but rang up as $22.95. The guy went and check on it and the manager told him that they are raising the price of all their blu-rays to $22.95 and up. It looks like HD DVDs will stay at $19.95.

Doug

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Of course I am speaking for myself, and I don't believe Blu-ray's special features will progress successfully without competition for HD DVD. There will be players with 3 different profiles, and backwards compatibility may be rough going, as we have seen with Samsung players.

Since most studios have chosen Blu-ray even though it's lacking in these features, I wonder what the motivation will be to pursue them. I threw my hat in with HD DVD largely because of the finalized specs and partially because of the advanced features. Based on the market to date, these issues don't seem to be that important. If stable 2.0 players don't become the norm, I'm skeptical that many releases will be authored to take advantage of them.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I did notice the Blu-rays where now going for $22.95 but I did not look through the HD-DVD's that day. I actually am not buying very many HD titles for the next few months. Just because I am trying to save as much money as possible to buy a new receiver. There are still a bunch of Blu-ray's I want to buy but not many HD-DVD's. The Blu-ray's being a few more dollars will not affect my buying media anytime soon.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

No the few extra dollars isn't a big deal. I just thought it was interesting. I wonder if they have decided that they have won and can start the price of the discs creeping back up now.

Doug

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I would doubt that this is coiming from the studios. I think this is up to the store. Perhaps the store is selling more blu-rays now and want to make more money. I have not seen any prices rising anywhere else. If anything changes, I think it will be lowered retail prices from the studios soon, as they have all stated they need to get the mainstream consumer to adopt to the format. They know the movie prices have to come down.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

The BDA created this problem by allowing the manufacturers to drag-out implimentation of each profile this long. With pressure, we could have had profile 1.1 (PIP) standard much longer ago, and IMO 2.0, which adds on only minimal cost compared to the now-required 1.1, should have been mandated and not left optional.

Part of the problem that the BDA created for blu was your very post: that now consumers have a myriad of products to buy with sporadic spec implimentation which then makes content providers axious about providing certain features.

However, as another poster already mentioned, those features you can't access on your old player will work on your future player.

Let's not dumb-down BD to reflect the poor requirements of the BDA for early hardware. Full-spec was something that HD DVD did right and Blu-ray needs to learn the lesson.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I suspect they're actually spreading out the upgrades on purpose, giving the hardware with older specs a full cycle before coming out with the new profile players to replace them. 1.1 came out a year after the first generation players, as will 2.0 a year after that.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I agree with you that the BDA should mandate 2.0 for all future players just as they had a cutoff for 1.0 players last fall. I see that as the only way to remove future consumer confusion (after all, we're not talking about too many non-PS3 Blu-ray owners right now compared to the overall potential market). This would also motivate studios to explore advanced content and leave us with a full-featured finalized standard for years to come.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

UK retailer drops HD DVD:

Woolworth Media Centre - Woolworths backs blu-ray format over HD-DVD


Circuit City drops HD DVD:

Lee Dye 1080living- Blu-Ray HD-DVD News Forums Hi Definition BluRay HDDVD - Circuit City dropping HD-DVD?

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

The Woolworth's news seems pretty solid given that the HD DVD PRG have already responded to it: HD DVD Group responds to Woolies Blu-ray only stance news

The Circuit City bit seems a little premature.

BTW, and this isn't directed at anyone in particular, but am I the only one who isn't expecting Press Release announcements from retailers indicating that they're dropping a HDM format? It would seem like rubbing salt in the wound of a manufacturer you would undoubtably be doing business with in the future.