In the improperly named Format War we have two sides. HD DVD and BluRay. I thought I would remind you people in case you have been living under a rock. Like John.
See its not a Format War. Back in the Format Wars we had VHS and Beta. Many people debated over which would last and well in the end they BOTH DIED! And yes, I am old enough to vividly remember the video stores divided into two sections offering movies on both formats. If you were lucky, the one you wanted to rent was in. If you were really lucky (and rich) your parents had both machines and it didn’t matter.
So here we are in the middle of another Format War, however not all movies are available on both. In fact, very few are. People are picking sides. So for the last time (yet I will inevitably repeat it on another day) this shall be forever dubbed the Civil War of Next Generation DVD Formats™ And some major players have sided with HD DVD. No, not porn. (but for the record, they did pick HD DVD)
The companies each said that the decision to distribute exclusively in the HD DVD format resulted from an extensive evaluation of current market offerings, which confirmed the clear benefits of HD DVD, particularly its market-ready technology and lower manufacturing costs. Paramount Home Entertainment will launch its exclusive HD DVD program with the release of the blockbuster comedy hit Blades of Glory on August 28th and follow with two of the biggest grossing movies of the year Transformers and Shrek the Third. These three titles alone represent more than $1.5 billion in box office ticket sales worldwide.
Interestingly enough, arguably the biggest movie rental chain in North America has thrown its hat in with BluRay. Which means when Transformers and Shrek the Third are released on HD, they won’t be around for rental on the shelves at Blockbuster.
It appears that Blockbuster made up its mind to go Blu when their numbers came back indicating that majority of next gen format dvd rentals were from the BluRay camp. With such rental giants like Pirates and Spiderman on that roster, I am not surprised. It looks as though the MOVIES dictated the format, not the format itself.
People are not statistically choosing BluRay over HD DVD because they feel its “better”, but rather choosing the movies they like are only available on BluRay. Paramount and Dreamworks are doing the homework and siding with the technology that they feel is better based on a number of considerations.
Sadly this is how this Civil War of Next Generation DVD Formats™ will be won. Content. The side to sign exclusivity deals with the studios that put out the biggest and best selling movies will tip the war.
Do Dreamworks and Paramount have the power to change the tide?
Will Blockbuster waver on their deal now that people will want to rent HD Transformers more than the latest lackluster Disney effort?
I don’t think it is fare to leave either one out paramount should have left it the way it was and make for both brands considering there fans has one or the other. This just don’t make any damm since.
DVD can still look amazing, even on an HD screen. If you have a good upscaling player it can help a bit. But there is lots of information on the disc, and as long as the bitrate is kept high, the picture can look virtually HD, under certain conditions.
That’s not to say I don’t love HD, becuase I do. After watching for a while you realise how much more you are seeing, and how much better everything looks.
DVD was a perfect solution to a problem that no longer exists. Namely: How can we create a home video format that doesn’t suck, is more compact, and has better picture and sound quality. DVD changed the world, HD DVD and Blu-ray won’t do that.
Really, the whole war is a waste of everyone’s time and money. The hardware companies get rich off it, and eventually one format will go the way of the dodo.
I still find this funny, really… DVD became the prime just what, less than 2 years ago, VHS officially killed off at the time, and now we already have the new format war. Sadly, our family switched to DVD really late in time, and now we might have to buy another new system…
DVD still remains as a solid format, so impressively better than VHS, and yeah, I’m sort of hoping the two will maybe wound each other in the war for supremacy long enough to give DVD a bit of a run, as it’s still going pretty strong. Then again, the High-def DVD formats might be coming along with the popularity of plasma screens, I’m not sure on that, though. I’m not sure about the image difference on such a screen.
eh, whatever… I rant.
I just have to say that, {ph[oe]nix}. You are Awesome. I love it when someone supports their points with links that back them up. Well done.
Jason, you scare me. In fact, you’re the reason people don’t trust their local AV store employee.
Okay, so you are selling Blu-ray players like hot cakes, how many are we talking here? Are you including the PS3 in this sales number?
As for “a lot of HD DVD players only supporting 1080i/720p” that’s just horsecrap. There is one player that only supports 1080i/720p and it’s the lowest priced HD DVD player, in the UK it’s the HD E1, in the US, it’s called the A2 I believe. However, there is a VERY important point to make here about 1080p. With material shot on film, 1080i at 60hz is incredibly easy to convert to 1080p at 30hz. Meaning that any TV that can de-interlace, and has a 1080p panel will turn a 1080i movie input into a 1080p one. With great quality.
What’s more, 720p is amazing anyway, and only people with VERY large TVs will really see a benifit with 1080p over 1080i
So drop the “a lot” and replace it with “one”.
Blu-ray discs may well have uncompressed audio, but this is also perfectly possible with HD DVD. Indeed, if we count how many discs support Dolby TrueHD, you’ll see that there are 11 Blu-ray discs that have an uncompressed soundtrack. While there are many, many more HD DVDs that have those tracks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_true_hd
Also, you may, or may not, know, that the PS3 does NOT support losless audio over HDMI, although it will decode it and send it as LPCM 7.1 audio. The PS3 is the biggest selling Blu-ray player in the marketplace.
Amusingly, HD DVD mandates all players MUST support Dolby TrueHD, Blu-ray doesn’t mandate any support for either DTS MA or TrueHD.
As for your “Maximum storage capacity of Blue-ray (sic) being 200gb and HD-DVD (sic) being 60gb “, I have no clue where you got those figures. I have heard there may be a 50gb HD DVD for Christmas, Blu-ray, could in theory support 250gb, with a 7 layer disc, but then HD DVD could do 150gb, with the same layers. Both of which have been developed in labs, but won’t work with ANY existing players. Plus the discs would cost far too much money, look at writeable dual-layer DVDs now.
In conclusion, as someone that sells these things to other people, you should be ashamed that you don’t know ALL of the facts. It’s people like you that sell people crap they don’t want and doesn’t do what you say it will.
I’m just gonna skip HD discs and go from DVDs to Digital Downloads, so none of this even matters to me. Blu-Ray is shit. HD-DVD is shit. Series of Tubes FTW.
-Calviin
Looks like someone else has a problem with Paramount’s choice.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/21/michael-bay-responds-to-paramounts-abandonment-of-blu-ray-no-t/
You think he’d really give up all the money he’d make from Transformers 2 just because of this?
@Max,
The only reason BluRay is outselling HD was because of content. It just happened that last year the biggest selling movies happened to be on BluRay. Coincidence. That is all.
No one expects the cost of production to stay the same forever, but it will not change until there is only one format. Demand drives price down, so why is there higher production costs on the format you claim is in more demand?
I haven’t thrown my support at either of them because the whole thing is stupid. I won’t buy either nor support either until there is a clear winner. The “right” choice may not turn out to be the winner.
Beta was clearly better than VHS, but it lost that war too.
There is a next-gen player that plays both formats. So the whole thing is pointless.
http://www.digitalbattle.com/2006/06/23/blu-ray-hd-dvd-hybrid/
@Rodney: The reason I called them sellouts was because of that rumor that Paramount/Dreamworks for $150 million to go HD DVD exclusive. They don’t care about what the fans want. It seems that all they want is short-term money. It would make more sense the way Blu-ray is selling and outselling HD DVD disks that in the long-term, Blu-ray would make them more money. They cited lower production costs for HD DVD, but that’s also short-term. Nobody expects Blu-ray disk production costs to be high(er than HD DVD) forever. They will eventually go down just like all new technology costs and prices go down. I just don’t understand why Paramount would almost betray such a huge fan base of Blu-ray supporters (and you know there’s more of those because more Blu-ray disks are being sold than HD DVD disks).
Rumor has it that Wal-Mart is mulling over the idea of going Blu-Ray only on their DVD offerings. Which is interesting since they are such a low-price / low-cost focus on their products. But it seems they can’t ignore the fact that Blu-Ray is selling almost 2x the units than HD-DVD. If Wal-Mart does go Blu-Ray only, that could easily be the nail in the coffin for HD-DVD.
Keep in mind that movies in the HD-DVD format are significantly cheaper then the Blu-Ray versions. I think this is why they went with HD-DVD on the exclusivity.
Another nail in the coffin for Blu-Ray.
I work for a high end audio/video chain and we are selling Blu-ray drives like hotcakes. I cannot remember the last time that we sold a HD-DVD drive. The biggest selling point is that a lot of HD-DVD players only support up to 1080i/720p, where all Blu-Ray players are 1080p. People are buying Hi-def 1080p televisions and want to be able to use them to their full capacity, which alot of HD-DVD players cannot do (right now). Some of the Blu-Ray discs are also including uncompressed audio which is a HUGE improvement over any compressed audio format. If you have never heard uncompressed audio pumping through a 5.1 or 7.1 system, its quite a treat!
Heres a link to engadget with some info on the two formats:
http://www.engadget.com/2005/09/19/blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-state-of-the-s-union-s-division/
Check out the maximum storage capacity on the two discs…
Blue-Ray: Theoretical limit: 200GB
HD-DVD: Theoretical limit: 60GB
I’d cast my lot in with the Blu-Ray camp, but I’m not willing to go out and buy a player and DVD’s only to find out in a year I backed the wrong horse ;) Only time will tell!
Universal is also HD DVD only
People who say that Blu Ray is shit are stupid fanboys. I have neither, but BluRay certainly has the audio advantage over HDDVD. If I were a betting man, I would say Sony has it.
I just got the HD-DVD add-on for my XBOX360, so I’m not that commited to the format. I’ll probably get a PS3 eventually, too. So I really don’t care who “wins” at this point.
I am happy to hear this news because it means I’m one step closer to owning my favorite movie of all time in HD.
KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!
Bring it on Paramount!
Bluray is beating HD DVD 2:1 in the us and 3:1 in Europe. Bluray players are more expensive but bluray movies are cheaper to buy and produce. Warner brothers started HD DVD and then went neutral. With so many companies behind bluray it seems a bit fishy that paramount would go HD DVD exclusively
Actually Rodney, Blu-Ray isn’t outselling HD-DVD based on content. For proof of this we just have to look at the sales for 300. The movie was available on both formats, yet the Blu-Ray counterpart outsold the HD-DVD version by the market ratio of 2:1.
What many sites are not taking into account is that while Paramount is stating technology and pricing as the reasons behind their release, reports are that the Toshiba led HD-DVD camp paid for the exclusivity in the form of $150 million.
This isn’t about which format is better, at this point all the movie studios realize the real money is in standard DVD and if a company can squeeze a sizable amount of money out of an exclusive deal they will.
I’m not happy about this “civil war between next generation dvd formats” as you so deftly put it, Rodney. Seems like every other week I hear some company proclaiming that “Blu-Ray’s the winner” or “HD-DVD is the winner!” Whatever.
Answer: dual-format dvd player.
I love how people rage and call Paramount “sellouts” when they announce the format they want to back.
I wonder how much of a “sellout” they would have to be to resort to picking the popular norm instead of the one they feel is best just because its currently selling more.
@Max
As I mentioned in the post, BluRay is outselling based on content, not technology. Looks like Microsoft paid the right people to back the right technology. Because if Paramount chose BluRay, they would truly be sellouts.
FOX and MGM have fired back in response reaffirming their support of the Blu-Ray format. With Spielberg’s films not part of the exclusive deal I don’t even see this as a major problem for Blu-Ray. Sure there is no Transformers but overall Disney movies sell more than anything else generally and Disney is still Blu-Ray exclusive.
yep … more gasoline to the fire. Really, it doesn’t matter who wins to me, just someone step to the throne and move forward … but this isn’t the world we live in … i’ll stick to my regular dvds
Oh shit, didn’t really read the entire post. No Transformers for Blu-Ray. :( What the hell Paramount. What the hell.
Well Paramount will hopefully see a slump in sales by going to the HD-DVD side. Then they’ll say, “Umm…sorry about that. We’ll go Blu-Ray as well.”
Hopefully we’ll still get Transformers on Blu-Ray this year since the deal isn’t until the start of next year.
You know I have been following this for awhile now. Some sourses say Blue-Ray is winning and some say HD is winning. But few have asked how normal DVDs format is doing. I think it be really funny if both next-gen DVDs killed each other off leaving the current format to thrive. After all its cheap to get a DVD player and all movies are on DVD anyway. So if yea got 50$ go with a perfectly fine format which is plain DVD and dont get suckered into buying Blue-ray or HD.
It seems that Microsoft paid Paramount and DreamWorks to go HD-DVD exclusive when Blu-Ray was having the lead.
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/desperation-move-cash-grab-or-intensified-blu-rayhd-dvd-format-war/
It will be Transformers, Bourne Ultimatum and Shrek 3 vs Spider-Man 3, Pirates 3, DIe Hard 4, Fantastic Four 2, The Simpsons Movie, Ratatouille, with WB-movies staying neutral. That means we can probably get Harry Potter on both formats. What i would do if i was into HD is buy Blu-Ray and the HD-DVD exclusives on DVD
Here here! Blue-Ray is shit, cheers to Paramount and Dreamworks for not falling to the dark side.
No Transformers on Blu-ray?! This is horrible news and a dumbass move on Paramount’s part. Blu-ray has been outselling HD-DVD 2.2 million to 1.5 million disks, and two of the highest grossing movies of the year will not be going to Blu-ray. What sense does that make? Blockbuster went Blu-ray exclusive, Target is Blu-ray exclusive, and Paramount decides to slap its fans in the face and say no, you can’t have Transformers on Blu-ray because we’re assholes. There’s also a rumor that Paramount and Dreamworks got $150 million to go HD-DVD exclusive [http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/desperation-move-cash-grab-or-intensified-blu-rayhd-dvd-format-war/]. If it’s true, I hope that’s the last $150 million they ever make. Sinc Blu-ray is outselling HD-DVD picking Blu-ray would be the smart move because they could make a lot more than $150 million in the future. FUCK YOU Paramount. Sellouts.