You read that headline correctly; Warner Bros. has announced today that it's going to side with Blu-ray exclusively and drop all support for HD DVD. However, we will continue seeing HD DVD releases from Warner until May of this year.
"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.
Quite a shocking development in the ongoing format war if I do say so myself. The recent rumors about a new Xbox 360 with a built in HD DVD drive only make this whole situation even stickier.
For those of you who have invested in either format, how does this news affect you? As someone with an HD DVD player, it's pretty unsettling, as Warner Brothers has some highly-anticipated movies coming out later this year (The Dark Knight anyone?).
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When I read this I wasn't really thinking about the next batman movie being on Blu Ray, but what did come to mind is the last 2 harry potter movies which should be pretty big. I don't think people will buy players just for the movies, but I think it might be something that could tip the scales if your really considering one.
Well, I think I can officially say, HD-DVD is dead. This will be the final blow, with Microsoft's dismal support for the format, don't be surprised if they begin to support Blu-ray soon.
Nice find gft, you beat me to it, I was just about to post this.
I also believe this will help boost PS3 sales in the US, significantly.
Excellent find gft! And while I don't want to say anything too soon, HD DVD really is now dead. BetaMAX was dominating VHS for many years though...
But seriously, walk into a store and ask people at random if they know what Blu-ray and HD DVD are, and you'll find that 3 in 5 won't know what HD DVD is! Sony are actually advertising Blu-ray now, and I've never once seen an ad for HD DVD. Also, judging by name alone, what are consumers going to buy? Blu-ray.
Many people believe that HD DVD is just another type of DVD they can play in their current player, and so deem it pointless.
The NY Times asks: is HD DVD dead?
Warner Brothers' surprise announcement of Blu-ray exclusivity may have effectively ended the format war. At least, that's what analysts are thinking. Richard Greenfield, the media analyst with Pali Research, wrote a pretty sharp comment about the state of the format wars. It's over. "We expect HD DVD to 'die' a quick death," he said.
According to Greenfield, NBC Universal did not commit to backing HD DVD exclusively, which means their catalog of products can move to Blu-ray in the future. Fans of Heroes and Battlestar Galactica, among other series, can breathe a sigh of relief. Paramount and Dreamworks, on the other hand, do have an exclusivity agreement, but may have a potential "escape clause" to abandon their support of the format.
Toshiba and Microsoft are the big backers of HD DVD in this format war, and it appears that WB's announcement caught the electronics manufacturer off-guard. According to GameDaily, the company released a statement: "Toshiba is quite surprised by Warner Bros.' decision to abandon HD DVD in favor of Blu-ray, despite the fact that there are various contracts in place between our companies concerning the support of HD DVD ... We were particularly disappointed that this decision was made in spite of the significant momentum HD DVD has gained in the US market as well as other regions in 2007."
The next steps are unclear at the moment. Will Toshiba and Microsoft raise the white flag, or will they bust out the moneybags to continue the battle? "We will assess the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluate potential next steps. We remain firm in our belief that HD DVD is the format best suited to the wants and needs of the consumer."
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I'm not very confident that the new york times knows squat about tech, I mean they make a mistake with almost every article they write about technology, but it's interesting to read that Toshiba in particular was caught off guard by the WB decision to only make content on Blu Ray.
Oh God. Can we fast forward so one of these formats is dead? I don't really care which one because its not that big of a deal.
Cosmic makes a good point, Blu-ray's heavy advertising has really put the name "Blu-ray" in most people's minds. Whenever I talk about HD movies to non-techies, they all know "blu-something", or "blu-ray", not HD-DVD. The fact of the matter is, Microsoft never had a full committal to HD-DVD from the start, and I can see them jump to Blu-ray very quickly if HD-DVD fails. Remember, in the end, they both use Microsoft's codec for content encoding.
They're both so similar, yet both so different in my view. We never had this problem with DVD, yet the generation above us dealt with all the VHS/BetaMAX format wars. Microsoft are backing HD DVD as a format, yet I don't see much (or any, even) Microsoft product support for it. How does Windows Vista deal with each considering they both use the same video codecs? How is Vista dealing with HD DVD/Blu-ray Optical Drives?
aww balls.
Well it looks like I'll have to shell out on a hybrid player -_-
There are hybrid players now?
There are hybrid players now?
yup and I believe they're very pricey.
There are hybrid players now?
yup and I believe they're very pricey.
I know 
And until this point most of the films I liked would have been on HD-DVD
this move's going to make all the rest of the studios do the same thing. Then it's goodbye to freedom Hello to Sony's dictatorship.
Well, then I will have to hold off on that xbox 360 hd expansion pack then, now that I have heard this. I knew that you would have this posted here as I was quite surprised at the news.
So far I am enjoying my blu ray movies. I can see the difference for sure.
I didn't buy either one. I think blu ray is going to win bigtime.
i bought bluray, and i'm glad.
Yep, time to pick up that PS3 I think many of us have been waiting on.
The thing is, the Blu-ray player in the PS3 is going nowhere, and so will always be there, but the HD DVD player for Xbox 360 is an add-on that 95% of 360 owners won't buy. You'd rather buy software because you already own the hardware rather than buy the hardware just to avail of the software. Blu-ray being the former and HD DVD the latter.
Well, one thing to consider there, Hastings, is that even though that may be the case, many videophiles bought the PS3 as their primary Blu-ray player. Most HD movie purchasers were either videophiles or technophiles.
Videophiles got the PS3 because it's reported to still have the best picture, and they probably did research and discovered it's the most "future proof" because it's profile can easily be upgraded.
Technophiles got it because it was the best deal, as well as having all of the above.
Some/many of both got it because it also plays games as an added bonus.
A few who got games knowingly did so with that in mind, either for games or movies. Regardless, Blu-ray really was helped by the PS3 acting as a trojan horse.
Naturally, and keying in the fact that PS3 is still a lot better as a package than any standalone player.
most are happy using up conversion DVD players and paying $15 a movie vs $30 for one that is 1080p natively.
Those people spending or not wanting to spend $30 on 1080p native Blu Ray movies should check out Amazon.com and they'll find plenty of excellent movies that run native to that resolution for $19.99.
That's exactly what I do, as I haven't purchased a single movie from a store, every single one from amazon during their specials (buy 1 get 1, buy 2 get 1, etc). However, until they are more closely aligned with DVD prices in brick and mortar stores, I'm afraid that DVD's will still hold a solid value for the vast majority of consumers.
I'll also point out that Amazon's DVD prices are also lower than B&M stores, so you have the same gap between the formats. For instance, Simpsons Movie BD = $27.99, DVD = 15.99. Even if you are looking for older or popular movies that are considered lower cost (19.99 range), the DVD's are even lower as well. For instance, 300 BD = 19.99, DVD = 9.99. Again, the vast majority of consumers will not see the point in paying the extra, and that is aside from actually investing in everything needed to watch it (HDTV, Blu Ray Player, HDMI cables, etc).
I'm afraid that most people are still completely fine using their SD 27" tube with a $30 dvd player hooked up with composite cables. DVD's were not only cheaper than VHS by a good margin (as they were cheaper to produce), but they offered SUBSTANTIAL differences between the formats (hello?! no more rewinding! between quality even on a basic tv, etc). DVD's, just like CD's, were such a great improvement over previous incarnations that it will take something more major than a higher resolution version of the same thing to replace it. I would wager that either format, HDDVD or Blu Ray, will run second horse to DVD until they are both replaced by something else.
You just described me. xD
Except the 27" has a VHS in it (For watching "Aladdin" and "Fox and the Hound" in their original glory. xD ), we took out the 30$ DVD player cause it couldn't read dual-layered DVDs.
The 32" tube upstairs in my room however, has a 60$ DVD player attached to it. And yes. I seriously see no reason to get a new TV or vedio-player until companies stop supporting DVDs (we only just got that 30$ DVD player when movie rental stores stopped supplying VHSs)
