Studios unite to push for BD as standard in UK (including Warner & Paramount) (1 Viewer)

[Dave_P.]

Full story

 

[Zack Gibbs]

Excellent. I'm going to go get some popcorn ready before the HD-DVDies try to erase the writing on the wall.

 

[LarryH]

Maybe they're just concerned about the break in the region code hegemony they so desire.

 

[Dave H]

This is significant.

 

[Jim_K]

Great news! Looks like Warner and Paramounts neutrality is starting to waver.

 

[Edwin-S]

I don't see this as particularly significant. All it states is that Warner and Paramount are going to be taking part, with other BD supporting studios, in promoting BD. Warners and Paramount, as supporters of the format, should be expected to take part in any promotional activities surrounding the BD format. To me, this announcement has no bearing on their neutrality stance, because they would say the exact same thing if the HD DVD camp put out a similar press release.

 

[Rob Young]

Exactly.

All this says to me is they were saying bluray is better than DVD. Why would anyone think two studios who support blu ray wouldn't hype it up?

Somewhat sad this has taken off with the AV forums to somehow mean Warner and Paramount prefer bluray but that's the way it goes I guess.

I also don't see how people could find this "great news" (assuming they prefered blu ray) and be so happy...what does it matter? Why wouldn't you want studios to release on both and see what the people choose (I guess for the bluray diehards they know if all studios released on both that hd dvd would "win" so they must try and suport no-choice style tactics) rather than force a format on someone? To act like you don't want format neutrality to me comes off as a person being worried they made the wrong choice and that they need the other side to be crushed to put their mind at ease...that or the people who get so giddy and act like their format of choice is their child are well, 12 years old and haven't hit any form of maturity yet and feel the need to try and rag on others because they bought something different. Lame either way.

BTW I own both formats so if somehow they did prefer blu ray I couldn't care less. I also don't care about either format as long as I get good quality discs.

 

[ChristopherG]

Personally, I really don't care who wins (I have the HD DVD XBOX add on but seriously don't care either way, it's not like I think that is the last DVD player I'll ever buy ). That being said, I tend to believe Edwin has probably characterized this pretty accurately.

What is with all the format fanboydom though...? I find that amusing to no end..

 

[Fozziwig]

I think you are right in so far as I do not think they are saying we prefer Blu-ray because it's better than HD DVD (that's another debate).

What, I think, the neutrals do want is to be able to deal with one format. This makes promotion of Hi Def material less confusing for the consumer and will lead to a more rapid broadening of the HD disc market. Some studios have already said one format is enough and made their choice.

At the moment the dual-format studios are coming up with all sorts of compromises (THD, combi discs etc.) which, I believe, will only make matters worse.

IMHO one format = success for HiDef disc; Many formats = failure..

That press conference may be a sign that the format neutrals see the market moving towards Blu-ray and want to push matters swiftly to a conclusion.

Of course if there is evidence of a similar press conference backing the HD DVD side then that would indicate that WB, Paramount etc. are treating both sides equally.

 

[Dave_P.]

That's what I gathered from it.

 

[Ryan-G]

I find everything after the first question mark extremely interesting, given everything before it.

The major assumption here, that given perfectly equal libraries HD-DVD would win, is a significant reach.

It's a reach for 3 reasons.

1. The PS3.
2. The PC market.
3. The size difference.

The PS3 and PC markets will ensure that BR player and discs rapidly ramp up in production, with costs decreasing significantly faster than HD-DVD. The price advantage HD-DVD currently holds will be completely negated in a very fast amount of time.

The PC market will go BR simply because of the size difference. When you're trying to back up files, 50 gigabytes of space is far prefereable to 30 gigabytes of space. Especially if you're talking half-terra to terrabyte sized drives, the time/cost/space savings is significant. HD-DVD can't win the PC side over once everything's ramped up.

The size difference is equally important, because HD-DVD's going to need to spread stuff across many discs like DVD does, while BR can contain more per disc, meaning a BR title will end up cheaper than a HD-DVD title in time, due to fewer discs. It also means significantly more difference for enthusiats as it's less shelf space, and it means more extra features for enthusiats.

HD-DVD's only advantage is price, but that advantage exists only for the present time when the installed base of HDTV's remains low. By the time the HDTV installed base is at a significant number, PS3 and PC production will have ramped BR below HD-DVD's price. At that point, HD-DVD has no other feature that is superior to BR, and is on the downside of being the less familiar format due to BR penetration from PS3 and PC's.

Under the very, very, best of circumstances, HD-DVD still has an uphill battle because of the above. As such, proclaiming HD-DVD winning under the best of circumstances is still an extreme reach because HD-DVD can't ramp up as fast, nor does it have a prayer of capturing the PC market, and it's still gotta fight with space issues.

For the record, the only Player I own is an HD-DVD Player. But I can see the writing on the wall, and I've stopped buying HD-DVD's and am going to purchase a BR.

 

[Jim_K]

.

 

[Jim_K]

A huge portion of HT enthusiasts on this board won't even touch either format until this asinine war is over. Please tell me how this is a good thing for either format? I'd love to know. You really expect Joe 6-packs off the street are going to buy into a format war when so many HT enthusiasts are staying?

The argument that the choice of two formats is somehow beneficial to all of us is utter bullshit. What was the other format competing with DVD that made it such a success over the past decade? DIVX?

It's apparent that the only way a Hi-Def disc format is going to mass adopted (or maybe even just survive) is for the format war to end i.e. one format must die whether it be HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. Right now the studio support and release momentum is clearly with BR so yes I view that if the neutral studios go BR the closer we are to one format which is great news. If my opinion on this bothers you then too bad.

If it was the other way around and the majority of studios jumped ship and fully supported HD-DVD and my miniscule BR collection was in danger of becoming obsolete then fine by me, better sooner rather than later.

The longer this war drags on the worse for everyone (studios, manufacturers and customers) except maybe Microsoft with HD-downloads waiting in the wings. If you’re okay with that fine but I’m not. I want one Hi-Def disc based format to survive - period.

 

[Manus]

I dont see anything new in that article that they wouldnt have all said when they signed up with bluray. On other , (ahem ) more worldly-aware , forums people still do not like Region Coding ( even if that will come to Hd-Dvd eventually) , Drm ,and BD+ and combined with a far too high percentage of ropy or just old transfers means that Bluray still has a way to go to win over the doubters.

Regarding MS's downloadable HD movies , if it stops Sony,Fox,Pioneer and Lion's Gate execs from insulting their target audiences' intelligence on a regular basis , I may go that way eventually ( I dont have either yet ). A one
format winner is only a better solution , if it really is a BETTER format .

~M~

 

[Jim_K]

All things being equal both formats are pretty much on par A/V wise no matter what marketing spin you've read from either camp. The audio formats used might be different but they're both high quality.

The major advantage BR has is disc capacity.
The major advantage HD has is it's easier/cheaper to manufacture.

From what I've read both formats have their share of "ropey" transfers which has nothing to do with the format but rather the source material used.

Right now the "better format" is simply the one that survives.

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

Well said.

Blu-ray is definitely on an upswing right now, but I still maintain that HD DVD is not going anywhere anytime soon.