Warner Bros studio to be Blu-ray exclusive
Category: PlayStation 3, Posted: 01/04/2008 at 05:03PM CST by Brendon Lindsey, Editor-in-Chief
The final nail in the coffin for HD-DVD? Probably. Despite a large spike of HD-DVD demand after the holidays, Hollywood's biggest seller of DVDs announced today that starting this June, they're 100% Blu-ray exclusive. Warner Bros studios accounts for roughly 20% of DVD sales in the US, and was one of the few studios still backing both Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
"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 Bros Chairman and Chief Executive Barry Meyer said in a statement.
Warner will continue releasing titles in all three formats (DVD, Blu-ray, HD-DVD) until the end of May. Now that Warner Bros has sided with the Blu-ray camp, it will be interesting to see how HD-DVD responds--if it even can at this point.
For those keeping track, this move puts Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, MGM, Disney, 20th Century Fox, and Lionsgate in the blu-ray exclusive camp; Universal (including Rogue and Focus Features), Paramount Pictures (including Nickelodeon, MTV Films, and DreamWorks), and The Weinstein Company are the studios currently HD-DVD exclusive.
[source Reuters]
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The HD-DVD camp might as well just give up... >.>
For me, this isn't really a big issue. Blu-ray discs are just too expensive and the incremental increase in detail isn't worth it for me. I'm happy with the regular old DVD format for now. The thing is, even if HD-DVD dies, who really cares? Most people aren't concerned about Blu-ray either so it's just possible that it will die an eventual death as well...it'll just take a little longer.
In reply to Quasar's comment:
I don't think that the need for a new high def format will die, instead it is actually growing stronger. The number of people who have bough an HDTV grows considerably everyday. And they don't buy a HDTV just to play standard def. movies on them... they will want some HD movies.
You may not think that HD is as special as every says it is... but trust me, it is hard to go back to the "standard" after spending some time with an HDTV.
So yeah.. neither HDDVD nor bluRay is going to to just "die out" because of the lack of demand from consumers... because the demand actually grows stronger on a daily basis.
The difference in quality is very noticeable on screens larger than 30". I've hosted a few movie nights at my house and my friends were amazed when I switched from a regular DVD of Transformers to the HD DVD version.
Making the jump over to HD can be very frustrating for newcomers though. The format war screwed over early adopters and scared a lot of potential consumers away. There's also no standard for HDTVs either so it can be confusing trying to choose between a DLP, LCD, and plasma or rationalize the higher cost of a television with HDMI 1.3 as opposed to HDMI 1.2. There's also the matter of aspect ratio, native contrast vs. dynamic contrast, grayscale, calibration, output support, etc. That said, I still don't think BluRay or the HD movement in general will die. Rather, at the moment, it's more of a niche market, but it's getting more affordable every few months and it's getting easier to navigate the field.
It'll probably take longer for Blu-Ray to reach critical mass than it did for DVD simply because of this asinine format war, but it'll happen eventually now that HD-DVD is all but dead.
Sony sacrificed the PS3 to assure victory for Blu-Ray. Well played on them, I say.
I agree decyx. The difference between standard definition dvds and Blu-ray/Hd-dvdS are like night and day. I have both the standard definition dvd and Blu-ray versions of Pirates Of The Caribbean:Dead Man's Chest. I put them both on for my friends who thought there would not be any difference, and let's just say that they went out and bought an HDTV shortly after that, or are considering one. The picture is absolutely breathtaking. Upconverted dvds are not even in the same league as Blu-ray/HD-DVDs.