HDTV Format War: Studios Take Charge

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HD-DVD fails to pull support away from Blu-ray at the Consumer Electronics Show
By Robert Smith


Palo Alto, CA (January 13, 2007) -- Did the Consumer Electronics Show help us resolve the “format war” between HD-DVD and Blu-ray for the next generation disc format? Maybe.

Before the show, this observer wrote that CES might point out that the Blu-ray strategy was working. The show was certainly a big boost to Blu-ray, bigger than I had predicted. But the real story is that the movie studios have asserted their authority and their will to find a solution.

Studio support for the two formats remained basically unchanged. Before the show, 7 out of 8 of the major film studios supported Blu-ray, and 3 out of 8 supported HD-DVD. I predicted (50/50 chance) that Lionsgate might start supporting HD-DVD, but it did not. Some had thought that Disney might do likewise, but no change there either. ____________________________________________

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The five Blu-ray studios were enthusiastic and almost ebullient in their support of Blu-ray. Sony promised over 100 new titles and announced Casino Royale for March. Fox put forward their market research that purports to show that Blu-ray has taken the sales lead. Lots of great titles were announced or mentioned.

In a move that puzzled many observers, Universal, the only studio exclusively supporting HD DVD, had little to say and announced no new titles.

Casino Royale comes to Blu-ray in March.

Before the show, Blu-ray had 55 announced titles compared to 15 for HD DVD. As a result of firm announcements made at the show, Blu-ray climbed to 73 and HD DVD to 20. Given the confirmed support configuration of the major studios, it is clear that Blu-ray will have a much larger number of titles for the next six months and probably for the whole year.

In a different demonstration of studio authority, Warner Bros., the most important of the studios and a key supporter of both formats, announced a dual-format disc, called Total HD. Essentially gluing together HD DVD on one side and Blu-ray on the other, the disc is claimed to allow a full 30GB of HD DVD storage and 50GB for Blu-ray.

It is not clear what this disc will mean to the format war. Retailers will certainly like it because it reduces the number of SKU’s and simplifies their process. Customers may feel that it reduces their risk somewhat; it does not, however, help them in selecting which player to invest in.

Warner says they will start using this THD disk this summer. I predict that Paramount, which also supports both formats, will also start using THD, responding to pressure from retailers if nothing else.

On the hardware front, things were mostly rather predictable, with a big but curious exception.

Samsung announced a second-generation Blu-ray player, less expensive and supposedly better than their much-criticized first generation player. Sharp showed a player, and Sony showed two models. Philips, Panasonic, and Pioneer all continue to support Blu-ray. Sony announced that over 1 million PlayStation 3 systems had been shipped to North America by the end of the year (but no one knows how many of those are used for watching movies.)

For HD DVD, Toshiba announced a new mid-level player. High-end manufacturer Onkyo announced plans for a player, but RCA, which had shipped a rebadged Toshiba last year, announced that it is no longer marketing HD DVD. Microsoft also announced that it is working with Chinese manufacturers to make cheaper players; Microsoft continues to sell its XBox 360 add-on drive but did not announce. Toshiba stated that 175,000 HD DVD players had been sold last year.

Many observers were waiting for a combo player, and I had predicted that LG might announce or show one (50/50 chance). They did. Their new combo player is priced at $1199 and will ship soon. Oddly, it appears to be a full-fledged Blu-ray player, but does not include any of the interactive features of HD DVD, only playing the HD DVD movies. This lack of compliance with the HD DVD specification has created a problem with the DVD Forum, which licenses HD DVD. It is not clear what will happen.
 
Well looks like after CES Show that Blu-Ray is coming out to be most likely the winner. Due to the movie studios will determine who will win do to most of them are choosing Blu-Ray. Which means more titles will be on Blu-Ray and more Hardware vendors will make Blu-Ray Hardware. Overall the HD-DVD has very little industry support which will cause it to fall to the way side.
 
The Total HD Disc seems stupid....

Why would we want to get hit up for double royalities for every disc purchased?

I'd rather have a dual format player and only get hit for double royality once.

Maybe the original author is right and Blu-Ray will just take over.
 
The Total HD Disc seems stupid....

Why would we want to get hit up for double royalities for every disc purchased?

I'd rather have a dual format player and only get hit for double royality once.

Maybe the original author is right and Blu-Ray will just take over.

Many of the royalties you refer to are to the same technologies in both cases. So its not that much of a difference. Personally I agree that it is little dumb to have to produce both formats and obviously it cost a bit more, but apparently they think it will work.
 

Maybe not lost, but if Sony is in fact stopping porn from being distributed on Blu-ray, they will ensure the survival of HD-DVD. Both will co-exist. Or HD-DVD will win. And once Daddy buys an HD-DVD player for his purposes, the rest of the family will buy HD-DVD movies. They aren't likely to buy a BD player also.

Hopefully, Sony will reverse course and drop the censorship (how far would it go?), or perhaps it's simply not true. We need a publication to put the question to the Blu-ray Disc Association and Sony and get them on record, one way or the other. If there is to be a winner, that winner must not attempt to control what is distributed on the media. Otherwise, it leaves the door open for competition.

Of course, if it's true, and Sony "stays the course" to the bitter end, maybe HD-DVD will be the overall winner. We could, for all practical purposes, have a single format. And that is what is most important- far more important than which one wins.

I've said it before: Never underestimate Sony's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
 
Well, I've done a bit of research online on this. It seems likely the story is Not Quite Right, as regards Sony preventing porn from being distributed on BD.

1. Porn, perhaps soft or fuzzed/censored, on BD appears to be available in Japan. Note the Blu-ray logo on the bottom picture of this link, top right corner. Squint, it's porn of some sort. Maybe someone who reads Japanese can fill in more.
2. Sony seems to have allowed porn on UMD.
3. Vivid, a major adult film producer, still plans to release on BD beginning this month. And see this link dated 1/12/07.

It now seems that the "refusal" to produce porn on BD was just a policy by the duplicators, or they just didn't reach a deal. If BD succeeds, they'll drop those policies the moment they have spare production capacity, if not sooner. This will be driven home if in fact any BD porn hits the market soon, as predicted in 3, above. Sony can keep their hands clean and not run any porn thru their own duplication facilities, if they want.

There's money on the table, and if Sony and the Blu-ray Disc Association leave it there, HD-DVD's future will be assured. Surely they see that. The most modest estimate of the adult video share of the market that I've seen is around 15% - and the highest pegged them as larger than Hollywood. Anywhere in that range translates into a lot of business.
 
The Total HD Disc seems stupid....

Why would we want to get hit up for double royalities for every disc purchased?

I'd rather have a dual format player and only get hit for double royality once.

Maybe the original author is right and Blu-Ray will just take over.

Warner is sick of producing two SKUs for every release and this is their way of shifting the debate from hardware to software... Oh well.....
 
Even if the Total HD disc costs 3x to produce the studio probably saves money since they do not have to stock 2 versions nation wide and balance everything.
 
Even if the Total HD disc costs 3x to produce the studio probably saves money since they do not have to stock 2 versions nation wide and balance everything.

I think this would have to be short term. Businesses look for ways to shave pennies off of production costs. If they do use this format, when a format winner is in sight the TotalHD will disappear.
 

Why no announcements from Universal?

LG Dual Player Shipping?

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