Why Warner needs to go HD DVD exclusive!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If hd dvd is serious about winning the format war and staying competitive this needs to happen!!!!! I have been the most ardent hddvd supporter from the beginning, but in my eyes bluray still has the edge.

Paramount, Dreamworks exclusivity is not going to be enough to sway people. From the beginning 90% of the sales people selling high def players have been touting bluray and we know this is true. I ran into another idiot over the weekend at best buy that said Toshiba players were 720p. He was quickly corrected. They have know clue about the lack of interactive features, lack of extras that surprisingly continues to this day even with BD-50 and AVC or have any idea what BD 1.1 is. I won't even get into the the Superman Returns bluray vs. hddvd comparison I saw at BB using identical displays, but the hddvd player playing the dvd side of the combo disc!!! Most of these people are uneducated (concerning the formats) own neither and thier only real experiance with them is on the displays in the store.

We have already seen the damage supporting 2 formats has caused. Namely being format nuetral before the war started Warner let MGM slip right out of their fingers. If Warner would have remained hddvd exclusive this never would have happened!!! I don't know if MGM will change their bare bones $40 BD stratagy, but this never would have been the case if these titles were released on hddvd and to top it off using audio not one BD player can decode(DTS-HD).

I will also say if hddvd wants Disney, Warner needs to go hddvd exclusive! I don't see anyway around this. I know some rumours have circulated even on the bluray site forums where Disney and their shareholders are considering going format neutral to increase their revenue. Without Warners hddvd exclusivity I don't see this happening. We all know that a HDi which Disney helped develop has all the interactivity needed for their purposes. If they want extras galore they can easily fit on a second disc. Quite arguably a 30gb disc would do as numerous titles have shown (Hot Fuzz, Constantine, Matrix collection etc.). A VC1 encode would easily do the pirates films justice on a HD-30 with True HD. I own the BD Pirates films and they are very good but are not better looking than many of my hddvd's even with AVC encodes approaching 40 mbps. Disney as well has been the only BD studio consistently releasing their titles with all the extras from the dvd. Basically like every hddvd release. In other words not releasing a compromise product.

How would Warners exclusivity affect New Line. Being owned by Warner I believe they would be hddvd exclusive as well much like mgm's stance with Fox. LOTR being hddvd exclusive. That is a big deal.

Not to mention Warner helped develop hddvd so they are entitles to royalties if the format suceeds.

As well Warner is the most universally shunned studio by every BD forum due to their hddvd port overs limited to 30gb and low bit rate VC1 encodes. It would simply give them a lot less to complain about.

Obviously stopping the manufacture of dvd titles to hddvd combo at $20 a pop would be a no brainer as well. As it stands Bluray still has the studio edge. Hopefully hddvd can pull a few more rabbits out of there hat before xmas. The sooner the better.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last edited by PRO-630HD : 08-25-07 at 01:36 PM.

With all that out of the way, let's look at some real numbers. For months now, we've been inundated with press releases trumpeting the 2:1 sales gap between Blu-ray and HD DVD, but until recently none of them offered the actual number of units sold. We were given ratios and percentages, all of which sounded pretty damning for HD DVD's chances of survival, but had no real figures to back them up. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that Home Media Research provided actual sales numbers for the first half of 2007. In that announcement we learned that sales of Blu-ray discs for the first six months of 2007 totaled 1.6 million units, compared with 795,000 HD-DVD discs sold in the same time frame.

Indeed, that's twice as many Blu-ray sales as HD DVD. Doesn't that just about wrap up this format war?

Not so fast. The sales lead only sounds impressive when taken out of context. To put those numbers into perspective, during its first week of release alone, the Standard-Def DVD edition of '300' sold 5.10 million copies. That's one single movie on DVD, during just one week of release, moving more than twice as many units as all Blu-rays and HD DVDs combined could manage in 6 months. In fact, that lone DVD in its first week significantly outsold the grand total of all High-Def media from inception in early 2006 to date (3.7 million in all). That's an astounding disparity, and it has only grown in subsequent weeks of that disc's sales life.

Let there be no confusion on this point. DVD is where the studios make their money. High Definition media amounts to barely a blip on the DVD sales radar. Bragging that Blu-ray has outsold HD DVD 2:1 at these volumes is like boasting that an ant is larger than a flea, just before the big shoe of DVD comes down to smoosh them both into oblivion.

These formats are going to have to start moving DVD-sized sales before either one can be called a success, and that isn't going to happen anytime soon. A year into their lives, both are still in their infancy. Another thing you won't read in a Blu-ray Disc Association press release is that Blu-ray is a lot more expensive for the studios than HD DVD. The development costs are higher, the authoring and manufacturing costs are higher, and the licensing fees are higher. If the discs were selling in DVD-sized volumes, none of those problems would be significant, but that isn't happening. We have to consider the possibility that, despite selling more Blu-rays than HD DVDs, at the volumes we're talking about Paramount may have actually been losing more money on Blu-ray than they were losing on HD DVD. Wouldn't that be a kick in the head? Now, that's merely speculation on my part. No hard numbers on that have been released, but Alan Bell's comments above about "manufacturability, the reliability of players, the cost, [and] the infrastructure that's developed to support our creation of titles" sure seem to hint to that effect.

In any case, this notion that Paramount is "leaving money on the table" by dumping Blu-ray is clearly false. If anything, they're letting go of one failing aspect of their business and hoping for the best from another.

As most readers of this site are by now well aware, the High Definition format war got a whole lot more interesting on Monday, August 20th, 2007. Surprising just about everyone, including many within their own company, Paramount Home Entertainment announced that effective immediately the studio would be dropping support for Blu-ray and releasing High Definition titles exclusively on the HD DVD format. As has been widely reported, this means that some major summer blockbusters including 'Transformers' and 'Shrek the Third' (Paramount also distributes Dreamworks titles) that were hotly-anticipated as future Blu-ray releases will now come out only on HD DVD.

The impact of this cannot be overstated, and goes far beyond a couple of hit movies. In fact, it may just be the single biggest and most shocking development to happen in the format war to date. Prior to this point, Paramount was, alongside Warner Bros., one of the chief proponents of format neutrality, and had released discs equally on both sides. By kicking Blu-ray to the curb, as it were, a major studio with a huge catalog of desirable titles ('The Godfather' trilogy, 'Braveheart', 'Grease', and the entire 'Star Trek' franchise among them) has effectively issued a vote of no confidence for the future prospects of the format.

Making this news all the more startling is the fact that it came despite many recent reports that Blu-ray discs had been outselling HD DVD by a 2:1 margin. Why, in the midst of numerous proclamations that Blu-ray had all but locked up the win in this horse race, would a major studio change its strategy and side exclusively with the "losing" format? If they're already selling more Blu-rays than HD DVDs, aren't they "leaving money on the table," so to speak, by dropping Blu-ray? Industry and web pundits have been abuzz with theories about Paramount's motivations, the most popular being that they were paid off to the tune of up to $150 million, an allegation reported by no less than the venerable New York Times. For their own part, in an interview with Chief Technology Officer Alan Bell, Paramount has cited "manufacturability, the reliability of players, the cost, [and] the infrastructure that's developed to support our creation of titles" as the primary factors behind their decision.

Could these factors really outweigh the widely acknowledged sales advantage that Blu-ray software currently holds over HD DVD? What's really going on here? To get to the heart of this matter we need to cut through all the hype, spin, and outright misinformation that has perpetuated since the start of this format war. We need to take a hard look at that credited 2:1 sales ratio and analyze what it really means in practical terms to the companies involved.

And what of the claims that Microsoft and/or Toshiba offered Paramount a $150 million incentive package to drop Blu-ray? A public relations firm employed by BDA member Sony has reportedly been making hay of this story in an (arguably successful) attempt to undermine the public perception of Paramount's decision. Microsoft denies participating in anything of the sort, and none of the other companies involved have officially acknowledged such a package, but for the sake of argument let's say that it's true and there was some sort of compensation involved.

Frankly, who cares? It's a business deal. They happen every day, and I find it tremendously hypocritical to denounce Paramount for accepting an incentive package from the HD DVD camp without considering the possibility that at least one of the Blu-ray studios may have done the same at the start of the format war. For the record, when directly confronted with the question this week, Fox, MGM, and Sony each denied that any "sweeteners" influenced their decisions, while Disney would only issue a mysterious "No comment" statement.

So consider this: Disney has long claimed that interactivity was one of their biggest concerns in choosing a High-Def disc format, even to the extent of actively participating in the design of the HDi specification used in HD DVD. Yet despite that, they release titles exclusively on the competing format that currently still can't implement simple picture-in-picture functionality and is at least a year and a half behind HD DVD's progress in the area Disney claims is of critical importance to them. Early last year, CEO Robert Iger stated that the company would "probably publish in both formats", yet that never came to pass.

Where was the outrage last year when the Blu-ray exclusive studios declined format neutrality? Would it have been considered scandalous if Paramount had chosen Blu-ray exclusivity last week rather than HD DVD?

Likewise, when Sony recently locked down a promotional arrangement with Target, in which the manufacturer will pay for an endcap display in Target stores and the national retailer will not carry any other stand-alone High-Def disc players, where were the cries of "payoff" then? Aren't consumer choices being limited to further a corporate agenda?

Business is business. Whether Paramount or any of the studios are really receiving anything in return for supporting their chosen formats, I can't say, but transactions of this nature happen all the time between huge multi-national corporations. There's nothing illegal or unethical about them. Let's not kid ourselves into believing that companies in the BDA haven't tried to entice Warner and Universal into dumping HD DVD and going Blu-ray exclusive with similar offers; Personally, I have no doubt that they're continuing to do so right at this very minute.

Venturer HD DVD Player: $199?
Wed Aug 29, 2007 at 04:07 PM ET
Tags: Hardware, Venturer (all tags)

According to a published report, Venturer has revealed pricing for its recently-announced SHD7000 HD DVD Player.

As we first reported yesterday, budget electronics manufacturer Venturerplans to release a value-priced HD DVD player ahead of the holiday shopping.

ADVERTISEMENT
Newly Listed HD DVD Discs on Amazon
(Click to pre-order from Amazon)A Mighty Heart
List: $39.98; Amazon: $27.95 (ships 10/16/07)
Old School
List: $29.99; Amazon: $19.95 (ships 11/27/07)
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
List: $29.98; Amazon: $19.95 (ships 11/27/07)
Star Trek: The Original Series - Season One
List: $198.99; Amazon: $139.25 (ships 11/10/07)
Seed of Chucky
List: $29.98; Amazon: $19.95 (ships 10/23/07)
Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics
List: $29.98; Amazon: $22.49 (ships 10/30/07)

Blu-ray Pre-orders | More HD DVD Pre-orders




Today, DVD Town is reporting that according to a Venturer rep, the deck will be made available at a record-low suggested retail price $199.

As we've previously reported, the player's announced specs include 1080i video output via HDMI and Dolby TrueHD support.

No word yet on a release date, nor whether the deck will be carried by Wal-Mart, Venturer's largest North American retail partner. Stay tuned...

Blu-ray i know little before, but i am interested in it now, thanks for your information. A international free btob, e-business website www.cycbiz.com can support many videos formats for products, company and training videos freely. There is my products on it pls. check it.

I own 7 video stores in the state of Wisconsin. I have already sold over 200 Playstations since the price reduction on November 2. People are excited, and I mean customers. We sell 3 or 4 to 1 blu-ray over hd-dvd. The hit titles are there. Transformers and Dhrek have done very well, but we sold many more Ratatouille than Shrek in the first 2 days, I would say 5 to 1, perhaps this was due to Shrek not being on par with the first 2, but we sold more than Transformers too. People also seem angered about the 2 Dreamworks titles not having uncompressed sound. The public knows what it is, especially many of our movie-lover customers. They have the equipment to play at the least PCM tracks as most receivers 8 years old to now have inputs of at least 5.1 analog. Blu-ray has the space for these tracks, 20gb of extra space, as they take more room.

Most of the Playstations we have sold are for movies, not games. I am sure in game stores, they sell more for games, but the nice thing is that for $399, they can play both. Can't get the xbox and hd-dvd add-on for $399. Alot of people have limited space and want one player, and this is ideal. I know, I spend hours with my customers, that's why my stock of blu-ray is so much higher, hd-dvd just isn't selling for us. Sure we have been able to provide low prices for the Toshiba players, but the people looking over the shelves of movies and lists of titles on each format that we provide, don't want to be left out of so many hits and catalog titles. Disney is a biggie when it comes to consumer decision. They still don't have a big desire for hd-dvd, even when we slashed the A2 to $149 for a week. We still sold more playstations and Panasonic/Sony stand-alones than hd-dvd players..and our sales teams are trained not to pick a side when dealing with the public.

As for Paramount going hd-dvd exclusive, I would also accept $150 million for 18 month exclusive.That's more than they would make on both formats combined, so it was worth their picking a side. The sad thing is that had they not done that, blu would have won faster, and this retailer hell that is the format war could have been over much sooner. Paramount may, in the end, be the reason these 2 formats end up like SACD and DVD Audio or laserdisc, and it's very possible from what I am seeing day to day dealing with consumers.

If things are going as they are in my stores, blu-ray may just be the winner. We ordered another 600 Playstations, but already have sold 478, so there you go, they're moving now. Sony adding Spiderman, which is truly a demo disc, will show anyone who buys the system that they have not only purchased a great game machine, but also a wonderful movie player (especially with the quality of audio and video on the included Spiderman 3 disc).

I just want it noted for the record that I did not post the previous comments on this page that were attributed to me. They were quoted by an unknown party without permission from an article published on 8/31/07 at highdefdigest.com.