Anyone who truly enjoys the design effort involved in realizing motion pictures, appreciates the six-fold increase in visual quality offered by high definition (HD) television. The HD disc quotient was fulfilled by Toshiba’s HD-DVD and Sony’s Blu-Ray, following protracted disagreements on a single unified format.
Late last year Viacom (Paramount/Dreamworks) became HD-DVD exclusive. A big boon for Toshiba’s burgeoning medium, but not overly damaging to the Blu-Ray consortium. Blu-Ray still held exclusive support by Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Disney and their myriad subsidiaries.
Then the rumblings and rumors surfaced in December. Journalists and bloggers indicated Warner Brothers would abandon their HD neutrality to support Blu-Ray exclusively. A potentially significant upheaval as Warner Brothers holds the largest share of the home video market. They also owns the world’s largest movie library and were the strongest proponent of DVD’s in their early days. Warner Brothers executives vehemently denied the claim, only indicating that they will reassess the market in 2008.
Conveniently timed toward the end of business today, Warner Brothers announced that they will cease to release films on HD-DVD commencing May 28th. Considering December sales reports are still likely a week away, it would appear that Warner Brothers decision had already been made. The rumors were only rebuked to avoid impacting sales of their HD-DVD titles over the holiday season.
To many it comes as no surprise. HD-DVD has always faced an uphill battle as Sony integrated Blu-Ray into their Playstation 3 console. While the PS3 has lagged in sales behind Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s XBox 360, the purchase rate of video game consoles far outpaces the standalone userbase where HD-DVD has dominated.
HD-DVD appealed to me for several reasons. In recent years Universal’s lineup has piqued my interest the most of all Hollywood Studios; Children of Men, American Gangster, Charlie Wilson’s War, Eastern Promises, The Kingdom, Breach, The Good Shepherd, Serenity, Miami Vice, Bourne Ultimatum, Battlestar Galactica, etc. Universal is HD-DVD exclusive.
HD-DVD players are far more affordable. At the time of purchase, a comparable progressive Blu-Ray player was twice the cost. Last year Toshiba sold 90 000 HD-DVD players in one weekend when select retailers dropped price of the entry level model to under $100.
Thirdly, the much vaunted technical superiority of Blu-Ray seemed dubious. Theoretically it’s superior, but bringing this technical superiority to market has been another matter. A problem already clear before Sony rushed Blu-Ray to market following HD-DVD’s release.
The biggest advantage of Blu-Ray, it stores 25GB on a single layer versus the 17GB of HD-DVD. Toshiba responded by adding layers faster than Sony has managed. HD-DVD now supports triple layer discs for a total of 51GB, Blu-Ray is currently limited to dual layers discs. Further storage capacity is arguably moot as 200GB holographic discs will be market viable by 2009.
Sony only finalized the Blu-Ray specification last quarter. The reason Blu-Ray’s interactive functionality has lagged behind. Ironically this was also Warner Brothers official explanation as to why the Matrix trilogy was HD-DVD exclusive.
Most dedicated Blu-Ray players lack internet accessibility, complicating critical firmware upgrades and nullifying internet based extras. Sony just now added Picture in Picture. One of many features lacking on Blu-Ray that have been standrd on HD-DVD since its inception.
Blu-Ray includes JAVA support, potentially offering more interactive possibilities, but its already proved far less practical than Microsoft’s easy to program HDi technology. HDi offers sufficient flexibility within a more cost effective framework that has put the HD-DVD interactive experience notably ahead of Blu-Ray’s. In every step of development Blu-Ray costs more than HD-DVD. Blu-Ray adopters are essentially paying for unnecessary potential that will in all likelihood go untapped.
Sony has also gone to greater extremes to prevent copy protection, appealing to numerous Hollywood studios. Inevitably futile as last year the Blu-Ray DRM was cracked, leading 20th Century Fox to temporarily stall its release of Blu-Ray titles. Furthermore Blu-Ray is not region free while an HD-DVD will play in any HD-DVD player worldwide. Considering the weak U.S. dollar, this is a major selling point for European and other international markets.
Despite my criticism of Blu-Ray, HD-DVD is not a better alternative. They were both good choices, though one would be short changed either way.
It was apparent if Warner Brothers ever dropped its neutrality, the opposing format would die almost overnight. Its now happened.
A shame really. Warner Brothers has screwed approximately a million customers in the United States. In addition, the competition was fueling a faster adoption rate of a media that is unlikely to ever rival its predecessor, as broadband capabilities gradually improve to where they can handle quality long format high definition.
So long and thanks for all the HD-DVD’s.
Warner Brothers Press Release
(January 4, 2008 - Burbank, CA) - In response to consumer demand, Warner Bros. Entertainment will release its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year, it was announced today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros. and Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.
“Warner Bros.’ move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want,” said Meyer. “The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers.”
Warner Home Video will continue to release its titles in standard DVD format and Blu-ray. After a short window following their standard DVD and Blu-ray releases, all new titles will continue to be released in HD DVD until the end of May 2008.
“Warner Bros. has produced in both high-definition formats in an effort to provide consumer choice, foster mainstream adoption and drive down hardware prices,” said Jeff Bewkes, President and Chief Executive Officer, Time Warner Inc., the parent company of Warner Bros. Entertainment. “Today?s decision by Warner Bros. to distribute in a single format comes at the right time and is the best decision both for consumers and Time Warner.”
“A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry,” 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. Warner Bros. has worked very closely with the Toshiba Corporation in promoting high definition media and we have enormous respect for their efforts. We look forward to working with them on other projects in the future.”
