Warner to join Blu-ray exclusively?
- Posted December 8th, 2007 at 20:31 EDT by
- 55 Comments
The snowball effect for Blu-ray has been accumulating greatly since launch. Especially with the help of the PlayStation 3, Blu-ray has outsold HD-DVD by a ratio of 2:1. The Blu-ray camp has been fortunate to grab four major movie development studios to release titles exclusively on the format while HD-DVD only has 3 exclusive supports, two of whom (Paramount, Dreamworks) which is said to be forced by Microsoft to exclusively support HD-DVD because of their own agenda.
Now it looks like there could be a 5th exclusive supporter coming to Blu-ray, Warner Bros. whom currently supports both formats by releasing on Blu-ray and HD-DVD. That could come to an end soon, which would allow Blu-ray to hold 70% of the high-def market almost by default declaring them the winner of this battle.
“The rumor is that Warner is coming aboard soon," says Michael Burns, vice-chairman of Blu-ray supporter Lionsgate, "That will make it awfully tough for HD DVD to stay in this game."
A representative from Business Week added, "either side could (win the Warner endorsement)...but the Sony group has suddenly emerged as the front runner."
"Persuading it (Warner) to sign an exclusive deal would give the Sony crowd about 70% of DVD market share. That could prompt the other studios to abandon HD DVD.”
Furthermore, Business Week states that if Warner were to join HD-DVD, it would create an impasse:
“That could create mass consumer confusion and potentially strangle a new technology that the studios hope will give a lift to flagging DVD sales. That's exactly why Warner has long pushed for a single format,"
Source: TV Predictions
Email
Related Content
Comments
-
Ill_Omen17
- 3:33pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 1
blu-rays been beating hd-dvd from the dawn of time now were just kicking dirt in their faces
-
-
JMelillo57
- 3:46pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 3
Please Warner just go to Blu-Ray to end all this stuff. There is no need for two formats. It just means in the end some people will end up wasting a lot of money.
-
-
-
-
kudoshinchi
- 4:19pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 7
Come on Warner just the side, so I can watch Matrix on Blu Ray
-
Sniperwithacause |
Sniperwithacause- 4:28pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 8
Matrix on Blu-Ray.............. Im drooling so bad right now!! Please give us the MATRIX. WE NEED THE MATRIX
-
-Zaku-
- 4:56pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 9
@macphisto:
No. Blu-Ray 'movies' only and they have been constantly outselling HD-DVD even with movies released on both formats.
Warner should go ahead and go Blu. Blu-Ray has the largest support of the two not only with movie studios, but home theatre businesses and computer companies as well. It has wide appeal in multiple markets.
-
gingo
- 5:09pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 10
psn id: gingo... soon all companies will support blu ray exclusively and only the ones getting paid millions by microsoft will stay supporting hd dvd but soon they will realise they have no hope of selling as many copies and will abandom microsoft leaving them with nothing
-
Daz
- 5:37pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 11
The fact that every PS3 game is on BD helps the format to reduce there cost. The quicker Warner does this, the better for everyone. What would be great is if the other studios followed suit and Paramount/Dreamworks was stuck with with the failed HD-DVD. It would serve them right.
-
terminator12259
- 5:49pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 12
now all we need is for paramount to switch over and then we can have transformers on Blu-Ray
-
The Cleaner
- 6:17pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 13
But what if they go with HD-DVD? How long can Bluray hold out?
Problem for Bluray is quality control over the standards introduced - not all the vendors have implemented the features of Bluray entirely so some players are already stuffed and a good number of others will be gimped at the next revision... Seriously that needs to be cleaned up quickly and users of crap BD players should get a refund or free upgrade to a player that works. Failure to do so will leave more bad press and resentment.
Second hurdle is price. They need to halve the cost of Bluray players now and drastically cut media prices. In Australia the DVD of Blazing Saddles costs $7.95 at Kmart the Bluray copy cost $29.95 .... WTF ? Maybe you can watch the movie once or twice at most so spending $30 is stupid. Thats why no one is buying them.
Now let's compare the Blazing Saddles film.... Nada...there's no friken difference. Please tell me what difference is there with this particular film on HD? I cant see how "HD" has done anything with this particular film. In fact 98% of the movies out on BD are old - already seen-em type films... and not the type of films that are enhanced by HD. Its not worth more than DVD so the price has to drop.
China is the most important ascending market and all the film studio's dont want to miss out. CH-DVD is based on the HD-DVD format and this means that HD-DVD players support the official standard in China market. In addition this means that China is gearing production around HD-DVD drives so the pricing is going to be even more favourable next year. Bluray is absolutely out gunned from a production point of view and is going to have a hard time keeping up with the price leadership of CH/HD-DVD.
Third problem is longevity. Bluray is way too slow to be used for any commercial applications or computing needs. With a throughput of only 9Mbs sustained and IOps of less than 1.0 it's absolutely useless for nearline storage or even backups. Because of this the only application for Bluray is movies and limited software distribution. In terms of Software, HD-DVD media is supported by Microsoft so most Bluray media is going to be sidelined for movies and PS3 software only.
In the movie world Fox isn't interested in supporting Bluray long term as they have spent vast sums of money buying a global bandwidth footprint and digital download assets. Rupert Murdoch is on the record as saying that distribution using recorded media is yesterdays business model. Disney agree's or at least hedging bets as they have signed up with Microsoft for digital downloads already so where does that leave things long term? There really isnt much scope for Bluray.
In my opinion both HD-DVD and Bluray are a waste of money. Of the two HD-DVD has bigger backing in terms of money so they could be the last man standing. Sony is a pauper compared to Toshiba, Microsoft & Intel. It's got a bit of loose change it has borrowed in its purse whereas any of the HD-DVD backers hold serious money in the bank. If push comes to shove...
-
-
zbamf
- 7:48pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 15
@the cleaner
$29.95? Maybe you need to shop around a bit more? In one store the HD-DVD version is dearer than the blu-ray version. You also find that many HD-DVD versions at Amazon sell for more than the blu-ray versions and this is due to that blu-ray is selling more copies of that product. I discussed this before with HMV guys and they said that’s how they do business, movies in the top ten that are selling more sell far less than movies that came out a few years ago.
I think your 98% of blu-ray movie releases of old is way off so I don't know why you used the word 'fact’. I would even say that on some weeks there are more latest movie releases on blu-ray than old movies.
I also think that physical media will still be around for more than 10 years. How can you expect digital distribution to be the future so soon when so many don't even know what it is or have the means to do so? Are there not more people buying movies on blu-ray than downloading them? With blu-ray movie sales inevitably going to increase year on year, digital movie download is far off from taking over.
The only thing keeping HD-DVD afloat is Microsoft's money. As blu-ray success is based off the technology, mass backing off the electronic consumer companies and the movie industry, including help from PS3, marketing and there is way more blu-ray movies out there. What HD-DVD can account for, that’s all from Microsoft writing cheques. Microsoft will soon abandon their HD-DVD add-on upsetting many thousands of 360 owners and they'll have success with digital movie downloads but they won't get every latest releases as I’m sure Sony won’t supply them. But the mass consumer isn't going to buy a 360 for digital movies. There going to want to buy physical media from stores and online for their PS3's or stand-alone blu-ray players and the movies will be in better quality. The digital downloaded movies from xbox live will be compressed to be inferior quality.
So what file size are these movies going to be on xbox live because these HD movies can reach 20gb, so anyone with a premium 360 or less are screwed. It looks like you need a 360 Elite just for 10 movies. I have over 100 movies on DVD, so for all those who purchase many movies who want to download HD ones, how much storage space do we need? 100 movies in HD, that a lot of data. People aren’t going to have this amount of storage for sometime.
You’re crazy if you think digital distribution will the successor to physical media so soon.
-
Nosferatu
- 8:12pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 16
most hd-dvd supporters probably saying oh well and how digital distribution everyone thinks that thats going to be the future and how formats would be non existing sorta like how microsoft could ditch hd-dvd and just go movies thru their xbl service in high def , yet the market ppl would rather have high def dvd cases in their collection since they could always take them to families homes during holidays etc.
-
BlueSteel18
- 8:20pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 17
Let's just hope that Warner makes the right choice and goes BD exclusive.
-
-
alielle3
- 11:35pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 19
Warner would be nice. Paramount would be good too. But really, Blu needs Universal! You can still track down the Paramount Blu Ray titles if you look around, and most of the Warner disks are HD and Blu. Universal is the only major studio that has never put out a single Blu Ray disk and that makes me sad =(
@killercop Only 85%? Who owns the rest of Blu Ray?
-
motzo
- 11:51pm EST - December 8th, 2007
- 20
geez the confusion cuased by multiple gaming systems is bad enohg even though the competiotin is necciesary since blue ray proably would never have even surfaced if it wasnt for ps3 trying to out do its competition but the fact is THERE NEEDS TO BE ONLY 1 STANDARD FORMAT FOR VIDEO / MUSIC / GAMES/ ALL THIS SOFTWARE MUST BE UNIVERSAL BECUASE OTHER WISE IT WILL RUIN MANY OTHER THINGS AND ONLY HURT TO CONSUMER our eyes can only see so much people high definition will reach a point and proably alredy has where the differance is indecernable to the human eye this is why this area no longer needs to have such competition as it has basicly reached its higest potential and it is time that new technology rather then improved old technology needs to start being implimented. at this point constant competiton in the vidoe format area will only hurt vidoe in genral one format being selected at this point even if it was not the one we were hoping for is better then a on going stuggle. but i belive in blu ray and do not belive that hd dvd was created for the right reasons and do not have confidence in microsofts plans for it in the future. so I am for blu ray as the winner and porably more importantly for it winning quickly
This will permanently ban this user and delete all associated comments. This action is irreversible, are you SURE you want to do this?!
