By now, you may have already heard about Warner Bros studio going to the Sony’s Blu-Ray camp and going exclusive with their releases after May 2008. This strikes a blow to all HD-DVD owners, myself included. I just got my HD-DVD player a couple of days ago! There are some good discussions on the ‘net about this:
- EngadgetHD article on Digg with comments from people who are surprisingly optimistic and less adversarial. (Easy to do when one side is clearly winning.)
- EngadgetHD article itself.
- HiDef Digest forum talk in “Blu-ray vs HD-DVD Smackdown” category.
- AVSForum chat.
From the press release, WB said:
…said Tsujihara. “Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the right step in making this great home entertainment experience accessible to the widest possible audience…”
Consumers have clearly chosen blu-ray? For the past 2 months, people around here have been buying HD-DVD players (and movies). Walmart $99 HD-DVD “secret sale” was a big hit pushing HD-DVD players sale of 90,000 players on the first week of November 2007 alone.
Then there were reports that Blu-ray players were also selling well. But I still see stacks (and stacks) of PS3 on the floors of Costco and Best Buy stores. Also, I don’t think I’ll get a stand alone players when they are still updating the Blu-ray specs’ profiles. And how much are those Blu-ray players? I can’t find any below $200, which is what a regular consumer like me would pay for such electronics. The Blu-ray Discs are not that much cheaper either.
Anyway, it is actually good that 2008 will mark the real turning point of this format war. I don’t count the purchase of my HD-DVD player as a total loss because I can still play regular DVDs upconverted to 1080i resolution. I also chose HD-DVD because it was a set standard and had a good support base. Moves like Warner Bros studio are unpredictable, at best. But maybe it’s not over yet? As a person said in one of the comments (paraphrasing), “Sony still has time to screw this up.”
Maybe Sony just sacrificed another goat and cast a voodoo spell on WB top executives. All I can do now is just wait, and see what will happen next.
[Update] Edward at CampaignHD.com has a list of Warner Bros execs that you can email to. He even has a letter template. HD-DVD fans, voice your opinion now!
Tags: bluray, format war, hd-dvd, warner bros
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My take is WB did it because HD DVD was the easier and quicker kill. If they made the “logical” choice and went with the format with cheaper players and a complete set of specs, Blu-Ray would have kept on chugging along since Sony owns a movie studio and Sony is stubborn when it comes to their proprietary format (UMD?). With their decision, WB didn’t so much choose Blu-Ray as they chose to kill of HD DVD. WB saw the format war as hurting their bottom line with a lot of people still on the fence and waiting it out. They did what was in their best interest as a company.
The real rub, however, is how they kept denying that they were going Blu-Ray exclusive before the holidays despite some leaks. I’m sure some people read the articles that WB isn’t going anywhere and that both formats will be around for a while and decided to jump into HD DVD. WB really screwed those people in my mind, and that’s the real tragedy.
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The leak has been around for a while. The biggest one was by Bill Hunt from The Digital Bits when he said “sources” told him HD-DVD would be dead by Fall 2008. Of course, we all called him a quack for not disclosing the source and clarify the reason. Even until the Jan 4 announcement, he didn’t know what the move would be, but the sources knew something would happen.
Toshiba’s response was:
Disney decided on Blue-ray a while ago…
mcangeli’s last blog post..Its War!!
To say that Bill Hunt’s prediction in early 2070 is the “leak” is not accurate. He predicted the death of HD DVD as soon as Blu-Ray hit the market. His prediction that HD DVD would be dead by Fall 2007 was based on sales numbers and what he felt were compelling reasons, and he was proven quite wrong because of Paramount’s defection in August.
WB’s decision to go Blu-Ray exclusive came at the 11th hour and it appears it only happened because Fox pulled out of going to HD DVD at the 11th hour. From AVS Forums:
Toshiba had the rug pulled from underneath them and had to cancel a CES press conference because WB was supposed to present at the conference so I doubt very few people knew about this including Mr. Hunt back in early 2007.
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