Warner is looking.....

Sorry to post this here, but I don't post in the Blu section.

Does Harry Potter 5 on Blu-Ray feature a progress bar? I remember reading that Blu-Ray discs don't have that feature. However, that was awhile ago. I would think you would have it by now.

It's an obscenely pointless feature since most of us like the progress bar of our player just fine, but FYI, I'm pretty sure the latest menus Disney is using has the Java code to hijacks the progress bar for their own custom display similar to what Warner does on their HD DVDs.
 
WOW, alot of folks here concerned over Warner chosing one side over the other. Can anyone here answer this simple question for me:

Why would Warner chose to support one format only?

Please limit your response to the one main reason you think Warner would want to chose one format over the other.
 
Both of the formats a stuck between a rock and a hard place...

If one formats wins tomorrow, the price pressure in both, players and discs, disappears, they get stuck at current levels,
J6P doesn't see enough advantages to switch from DVD, stagnation, DVD-A/SACD all over again...

If no format wins for a while, J6P is sitting on the sidelines to avoid buying potentially obsolete gear, stagnation....

What can disrupt this vicious circle?

Diogen.

That was my point... I believe that they will both fail unless all studios press both formats.. and soon before someone releases yet another standard that everyone presses or downloadable HD movies becomes the standard.

and remember this is one's opinion not some finatic. the only reason i baught HD-dvd first is price of the player. and have not payed over $15 for a movie...
 
Joe, I would agree with you. Why would Warner choose one over the other. They are dominating the HD Disc format since they are neutral. Money is flowing in from both sides. I truely am surprised that more companies don't go neutral to increase the overall sales.

Shawn
 
I truely am surprised that more companies don't go neutral to increase the overall sales.
I think the primary reason is costs.
Warner has more movies (catalog), does authoring in-house,
has 35% and 25% share of the HD and BD releases, respectively
HD DVD Statistics
Blu-ray Disc Statistics

and is the only studio that is a member of both HD/BD patent pools...
First Meeting of HD DVD Patent Holders Held (16 companies) - AVS Forum

They get paid and treated like no other studio...

I believe all exclusive studios (except for Sony) stay exclusive only because of perks they get from the respective orgs...

Diogen.
 
I agree with Diogen. Yes, really.

I think most of us agree that it's in the best interests of all of the studios and the industry in general to have one format, and soon. Now if they can just agree on which one.....
 
I think the moment Warner models will show that cutting off one income stream (by going exclusive) will be more than compensated
by the increase in sales in the winning format (I have no doubts what Warner picks - wins), they will drop their neutral stance.

But since we don't know - and never will - the detailed financials, we'll most probably learn this after the fact...

Diogen.
 
I do not think it really costs Warner much at all to stay neutral. They can use the same encoded video stream for both formats. Most discs are probably nearly 100% the same, except for a small rewrite of the interactive code (HDi vs Java) which they probably have written once and just plug in each movie.

Just a few movies have to get the "special" treatment, ones they think would really benefit like Harry Potter.

I bet they essentially author discs with both formats in mind, encode once, plug it into their standard disc format skeletons and voila have a disc in each format without having to do much more than 1 format.

Replication costs on both sides are probably subsidised to the point that it is a minor difference in cost. The only real cost they have is having to carry extra inventory since they have to have enough on hand for 2 formats vs just one.
 
I do not think it really costs Warner much at all to stay neutral. They can use the same encoded video stream for both formats. Most discs are probably nearly 100% the same, except for a small rewrite of the interactive code (HDi vs Java) which they probably have written once and just plug in each movie.

Just a few movies have to get the "special" treatment, ones they think would really benefit like Harry Potter.

I bet they essentially author discs with both formats in mind, encode once, plug it into their standard disc format skeletons and voila have a disc in each format without having to do much more than 1 format.

Replication costs on both sides are probably subsidised to the point that it is a minor difference in cost. The only real cost they have is having to carry extra inventory since they have to have enough on hand for 2 formats vs just one.

That was part of the point, wasn't it? Why Warner is neutral and no one else is? They do all of this in-house so the cost is probably minimal for them... for other studios it would be more cost-prohibitive, and that's why they're not neutral.
 

Warner Potter Screw Up

LG PC Blu-ray/HD-DVD Combo Drive

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