The HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drama

Robert Hallock (Thrax) Icrontic rolls on into the high-def party to analyze the aftermath of Warner Bros' move to Blu-Ray, and what that spells for HD-DVD.

January 7, 2008 2:50 AM ET in News,

On January 4th, right before the Consumer Electronics Expo (CES) began, Warner Brothers Pictures announced that their HD-DVD support would be canned entirely for Blu-Ray by March of 2008. This maneuver could not have come at a worse time for the HD-DVD consortium, which amongst other things, paid to have its logo stamped all over the bags being handed out to attendees at CES.

In the aftermath of Warner canceling its support at such an inopportune time, the HD-DVD group announced that it would be canceling its cocktail party on January 6th.

Based on the timing of the Warner Home Video announcement today, we have decided to postpone our CES 2008 press conference. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Fast-forward to the CES launch, and the HD-DVD group did indeed cancel its party, however it has decided to go forth with its showing on the floors of the expo. When asked about the longevity of the format, Jodi Sally, spokeswoman from Toshiba, had this to say:

Clearly, the events of the last few days have led many of you to that conclusion. We have been declared dead before. The reality is we ended 2007 with a majority of the year-to-date market share.

With the exception of New Line Cinema, there are no major studios in the United States which support both formats any longer. To break down the support:

Blu-Ray:
20th Century Fox,
Sony Pictures,
Buena Vista,
Lionsgate,
MGM,
Sony/Screen Gems,
Fox Searchlight,
Miramax

HD-DVD:
Universal,
Paramount Pictures,
Weinstein Co.,
Focus Features

HD-DVD will continue to fight tooth, claw and nail for scraps of market share, given the substantial investment its supporters have given towards the cause. However, the future does indeed look bleak. We’ll keep you apprised.

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29 Comments:

  1. Snarkasm
    7 Jan '08, 3:52 pm

    Pisses me off to no end. I have a BDP-1200 that still needs firmware updates, I've got a Live Free or Die Hard disc that refuses to play unless another playable disc is played before it, and I've got discs that don't seem to understand the concept that when I pause a disc, and it gets to the player's screensaver, that doesn't mean STOP THE DAMN DISC. It means SAVE MY POSITION so I can continue from where I was watching last time.

    And what is this all tied to? An awful unfinished standard. Thanks, Blu-Ray. Your format sucks, but thanks to paying off all the studios, you'll win the "war."

    Screwing consumers is fun!

  2. Leonardo
    7 Jan '08, 5:21 pm

    I won't even look at HD media and players until the standard is established and prices are reasonable. That was my approach to CDR(W), DVDR(W), and so it will be be whatever HD technology wins.

  3. Snarkasm
    7 Jan '08, 5:23 pm

    That's the thing. HD-DVD is all that. Players are at the $100-200 level, movies are 20-30, and the standard is FINISHED. I've never met an HD-DVD that I've needed a firmware update that I recall. Why couldn't Warner have just finished that double-disc like they were planning or combo players have gotten cheaper?

  4. Leonardo
    7 Jan '08, 5:30 pm
    That's the thing. HD-DVD is all that. Players are at the $100-200 level, movies are 20-30,

    It ain't ready in my book. Considering I rent movies or get them free at the library and that the most I ever paid for good quality DVD-CD-ROM-writer unit (Memorax brand, made by NEC) was $69, no, HD is not ready. 'But HD...is so much better'! Sure it is! And CD was so much better than its predecessor, too. But the winning standard won and the prices became good, as did DVD.

    Sorry folks, early adopters take a risk and sometimes get stung hard.

    I once purchased a memory assisted typewriter. It had cool (proprietary) cartridges for documents storage! This was right before PC prices started declining in the mid-90's.

  5. Snarkasm
    7 Jan '08, 5:36 pm

    I'm not feeling stung by anything, I'm just irked. I've got both, and I've had ample opportunity to compare both. I buy movies on both format. I watch them a lot. It is DUMB to me that any format as unpolished and unfinished as Blu-Ray not only ever GOT to market, but that the people behind it have the cash to buy off the major studios and force their (subjectively) inferior format. I understand the disc has more space and it's the future of storage and it's blue! but what the hell. When I can't play a movie without playing another one first or when I watch 40 minutes of a movie and pause for 6 and have to restart the movie and chapter through to roughly where I left off, that should never have made it to the public.

  6. Thrax
    7 Jan '08, 7:44 pm

    Leo, you're taking a very luddite approach to this.

    Let me put this another way. Say Intel had $100 quad core chips floating about, but VIA came along and paid all the distributors in the world so much money that they could lucratively sell single-core cyrix chips for 4x the price. Intel closes up shop. You can never get the superior, cheaper product again -- ever -- because some company paid their way to success. No one loses but you.

  7. Thelemech
    7 Jan '08, 9:09 pm
    Quoting Leonardo

    Sorry folks, early adopters take a risk and sometimes get stung hard

    Horridly factual.

  8. Thrax
    7 Jan '08, 9:29 pm

    This isn't about early adoption, this is about what those of us who are still waiting for a winner will receive when the dust does settle. If it's Blu-Ray, we will all be stuck with a more expensive, inferior product.

  9. Thelemech
    7 Jan '08, 9:37 pm
    Quoting Thrax

    This isn't about early adoption, this is about what those of us who are still waiting for a winner will receive when the dust does settle. If it's Blu-Ray, we will all be stuck with a more expensive, inferior product.

    And the "genius" over here thought that Blu Ray was the tech superior product!

    ...the "real"(Blu-Ray/HD-DVD/DVD) me is waiting for the next most awesomenest standard or it's bastard child to come out.

  10. Snarkasm
    7 Jan '08, 9:45 pm

    While technically its specs might be (and that's a big-ass technically; in practice, you can't see or hear any discernible difference), practically, it's definitely not.

  11. Thrax
    7 Jan '08, 9:47 pm

    Only the disc capacity is superior on Blu-Ray. Minimum required movie quality and audio quality on HD is higher than on BR, sigh.

  12. Thelemech
    7 Jan '08, 9:55 pm
    Quoting Thrax

    sigh.

    ...no intention to make you sigh, fine sir!

    I was just under the fawlty(sic) impression that Blu-Ray had significant technological advances over HD. My Bads

    Is not HD simply DVD enhanced ; while Blu Ray is some new wonderful "you must buy it to experience the best quality" technology?!

    .....never mind (sigh) .. I will just google my lazy a$$ towards the info ..

  13. Snarkasm
    7 Jan '08, 10:00 pm

    All either of them is is a different container for codecs for HD video. Blu-Ray uses a blue laser, HD uses a higher-power red laser, I think. The only appreciable difference between them is entry-level cost and user experience. Even the codecs are mostly the same.

  14. Snarkasm
    7 Jan '08, 10:09 pm

    The fuss is that, despite being generally the same, both formats aren't getting the same shake in the public, and in fact the worse format is getting better publicity, better options, and better exposure because people with money, and not consumers, made everybody's choices for them rather than letting the market determine its own direction.

  15. Thelemech
    7 Jan '08, 10:19 pm
    Quoting MJancaitis

    The fuss is that, despite being generally the same, both formats aren't getting the same shake in the public, and in fact the worse format is getting better publicity, better options, and better exposure because people with money, and not consumers, made everybody's choices for them rather than letting the market determine its own direction.

    ...so basically it is unfortunately a very familiar Same Old Song And Dance...
    Money/Marketing talks, Tech and Innovation walks?!

    Typical

    I am personally waiting for a usable/viable HD 3d Holographic TV.... then I will be technologically impressed.

  16. Qeldroma
    7 Jan '08, 11:09 pm

    I think shortly enough the point will be moot-

    Optical media is likely to go the way of the rotating teenage mutant frisbee ninjas in say ... two years?

    My bet is that we'll be looking at solid-state media and ditch the mechanical wheels in our PCs over the next 5 ....

    Meanwhile- I also think you'll see some decent deflation in the HD arena by this Christmas.

  17. Thrax
    7 Jan '08, 11:20 pm

    That's very, very, very optimistic.

    A DVD is approximately (This is being pessimistic) $00.60 for 4500 usable megabytes. That's 0.0001 cent per meg. At the moment, NAND flash is approximately $30 per 2GB on an average day, which .015 cents per megabyte.

    I can't accept the notion that the price of NAND is going to collapse by a factor of 100 in two years time. Yes, it'll be acceptably inexpensive, but with fluorescent optical discs coming in the same time span you suggest pushing terabyte capacities, optical media isn't going anywhere.

  18. Snarkasm
    7 Jan '08, 11:23 pm

    I do love a man with numbers.

  19. Leonardo
    8 Jan '08, 12:18 am
    Leo, you're taking a very luddite approach to this.

    Me? Never!

    I haven't kept up with it enough to vouch for one technology or another. As for prices: Once there is a standard, I don't foresee problems with lack of competition. There are so many manufacturers and brands that will jump on it that prices will take care of themselves. Not just any tech company can produce CPUs or GPUs. Adoption of BD or HD-DVD by twenty-something manufacturers will be no problem.

  20. Shorty
    8 Jan '08, 2:23 am

    I am so bored of this. Pick a format or dual format it. One way or t'other please. Then I will get around to buying the HD TV, the HD/BR player and all the appropriate shiny things to match. Bored, bored, bored.

  21. primesuspect
    8 Jan '08, 9:17 am

    Count me firmly in the "meh" camp. Like I give a crap which way the chemicals are lined up on the 12cm disc I put in the thing. Either way, it looks fantastic, it sounds great, and I push "play" and the thing plays. Mjancaitis, I don't think your issues are burned on to the disc in Blu Ray format - it sounds like you have a crappy player.

    I don't care. I fully believe that optical media is dead, and that this is the last gen of optical that will ever grace this earth with its plasticy diskness.

    This is such an esoteric thing to "care" about. Yet people are SO passionate about it. I don't understand.

  22. Thrax
    8 Jan '08, 9:46 am

    No, Mj is right. Blu-Ray has significant issues at both the disc and player level. The standard is broken as ****, just like HDCP is.

  23. primesuspect
    8 Jan '08, 9:55 am

    well, better get used to it

  24. Thrax
    8 Jan '08, 10:15 am

    Or just buy a used player and, er, borrow discs.

  25. primesuspect
    8 Jan '08, 11:26 am

    Okay, now this is exciting:

    Sony is going to be giving PS3 owners the ability to transfer a PSP-sized copy of any blu-ray movie to the psp. This rocks.

  26. Thrax
    8 Jan '08, 11:34 am

    Circumvention of DRM is okay, if it's a megacorp doing it! YEAH!

  27. primesuspect
    8 Jan '08, 11:46 am

    It's their own DRM... That means it's not "circumvention".

  28. Leonardo
    8 Jan '08, 12:27 pm
    Count me firmly in the "meh" camp. Like I give a crap which way the chemicals are lined up on the 12cm disc I put in the thing. Either way, it looks fantastic, it sounds great, and I push "play" and the thing plays. Mjancaitis, I don't think your issues are burned on to the disc in Blu Ray format - it sounds like you have a crappy player.

    I don't care. I fully believe that optical media is dead, and that this is the last gen of optical that will ever grace this earth with its plasticy diskness.

    This is such an esoteric thing to "care" about. Yet people are SO passionate about it. I don't understand.

    Sums it up for me.

    Blu-Ray has significant issues at both the disc and player level. The standard is broken as ****, just like HDCP is.

    I have no doubt your technical summary is correct. But I still don't care. I'll just wait another 12 months for the technical problems to be ironed out. So what! I still have a huge CRT television. I have no intention of replacing it until widescreen TVs are mainstream and the prices coincide. Waiting another year for high definition will not impact my life at all.

    My life was pleasant before CDs. My life was pleasant before DVDs and cell phones. I'll certainly take up HD when the time is right, but what's the rush?

  29. Snarkasm
    8 Jan '08, 2:32 pm

    But it's so PRETTY!

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