Sonic Solutions dropping support for HD DVD in thier Scenarist software (1 Viewer)

[Romier S]

A rather big of chunk of news that no one has bothered to post or give any attention. For those not in the know, Sonic’s Scenarist software pretty much dominates the professional DVD authoring market and is already becoming just as significant to major studios/authoring houses for HD media as well.

Sonic will still be offering support to existing customers but the HD DVD software will no longer be made available to new consumers. Sonic will be doing their best to get customers to upgrade via way of an HD DVD to Blu-ray authoring exchange scheme.

You can read the details here:

Sonic's Professional Products Group to Fuel Growth of Blu-ray Disc and Digital Distribution

 

[Justin Lott]

Well that will help dissipate the higher cost to produce bluray and then nullify whatever advantage HD DVD had in cost structure. I firmly believe that if they had taken advantage of the cost structure and priced their media accordingly lower they could have truly put up a good fight and perhaps even won.

 

[BrianB]

This is pretty big news, isn't it?

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

Yeah, considering the fact that major studios were using it, it's kind of like Pininfarina saying they won't design Ferrari exteriors anymore.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

This really isn't big news. None of the Hollywood studios use this for HD DVD (if at all), and it's too expensive (starting around $70K) for the smaller producers who use tools like netblender instead.

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

I'm seeing posts from (former) Scenarist users that seem to contradict that. Among other things:

• The tool is $20k, not $70k.
• It was only one of two HD DVD authoring tools available, the other is from Toshiba and is provided on case-by-case basis
• It was the cheaper of the two tools
• It was basically the go-to tool for the smaller houses
• It was (and may still be) used by at least one of the majors
• It was much easier to work with than Toshiba's tool (although apparently HDMV Blu-rays are easier still)

 

[Adam Gregorich]

I talked to someone on the HD DVD side who interfaces with the people doing the authoring (and assists as needed) at all the studios (major and independant). He said none of the majors use it for HD DVD (they may use it for DVD, I'm not sure about that). You say at least one, so which one? It was not one of only two tools. It was too expensive for the smaller houses. The go-to tool for them has been and still is Netblender (Netblender Inc.). I don't know about Toshiba's tool, but Netblender is just as easy (if not easier) than Scenarist. Scenarist didn't automate anything for HD DVD or BD. You had to paste your HDi or Java code into it and it would add it into the file as part of the authoring process.

As for pricing, well they don't list it so that should tell you something. I know there are multiple versions of the software, but starting with the basic one doesn't get you everything you need. To have what you need to use it to be able to have a workign system that allows you to author HD is around 70K, that's why the smaller houses use netblender.