HD DVD: The Day After Warner Jumped Ship
It's always fun when a bombshell announcement hits the tech world. You know the sort: The sort of announcement that gets tongues wagging as everyone tries to absorb and decipher the implications and new course set by said announcement. That's exactly the effect I've seen today from Warner's announcement yesterday that it would be backing Blu-ray exclusively.
Granted, I spent the day at the Storage Visions conference here in Las Vegas, so the Blu-ray-HD DVD battle has some relevance to this crowd. But the Warner announcement has clearly dominated every conversation I've had today. And why wouldn?t it: The studio with the largest content catalog had chosen which format it was going to back. (Unsurprisingly, New Line Cinema, which shares the same parent company as Warner Home Video, confirmed it too would be going Blu-ray exclusively.)
Warner's news hit at a strategic time on Friday, a time when many executives from the HD DVD camp were likely alredy en route to Las Vegas for CES. However, what's been more surprising is how the HD DVD Promotional Group responded to the announcement.
Rather than having some snappy come back--as we've all become used to in the tit-for-tat, he-said-she-said PR campaign that has defined this vitriolic format war for two-plus years--the HD DVD Promotion Group instead tucked tail and scrubbed its press conference on Sunday night. The statement was notably terse, and squarely cited the Warner announcement as the reason.
"Based on the timing of the Warner Home Video announcement today, we have decided to postpone our CES 2008 press conference scheduled for Sunday, January 6th at 8:30 p.m. in the Wynn Hotel. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. We are currently discussing the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluating next steps."
Postpone could mean they'll try to reassemble a horde of journalists later in the show after they've had a chance to regroup, but that's an unlikely scenario. The general interpretation on this day-after is that they've canceled their press conference and were caught flat-footed--a bewildering concept considering that Warner has publicly said for the past two months it was reassessing its format-agnostic strategy. Regardless of how far in advance that press conference had been planned, it's shocking that the HD DVD camp didn't have a Plan B contingency for this eventuality. Canceling the press conference was inifintely worse than sidestepping questions. No wonder word had that the mood at the Blu-ray Disc Association's booth (during setup today on the show floor) was "giddy" and that the HD DVD booth across the way was quite the opposite.
While few of the industry experts I spoke to today were willing to say the game is completely over, the Warner announcement had clearly shifted the balance considerably in this format war--and Blu-ray is the format that's smelling sweet right now.
Analyst Thomas Coughlin of Coughlin Associates and chairman of the Storage Visions conference held in Las Vegas, said the Warner move "maybe the pivotal event that resolves the format war. It certainly changes the rules and the playing field. I think everyone is trying to reassess what this means--including the HD DVD guys."
Laughing, Coughlin added that if Blu-ray does come out on top, "it would be poetic justice after the Betamax vs. VHS war. That time, Sony lost."
IDC analyst Wolfgang Schlichting had another perspective--one that included a future for HD DVD, albeit a murky future at that. Schlichting noted that the precipitous drop in DVD movie sales was a strong motivator for Warner to get serious about high-definition discs. "They want to make up for the declining market for DVD with high-def disc revenues, and that market wasn't materializing at the same rate as DVD [because of the two formats]."
But Schlichting doesn't think we can call the war won just because of Warner's announcement. "I don't think we're quite there yet. The fine print to Warner's announcement is interesting--they will continue offering HD DVDs until May; that gives HD DVD backers time to react to the announcement.
"The logical way for HD DVD to survive is in dual-format products," Schlichting adds. Currently such products, like LG's $999 BH200, carry a huge premium over single-format players. In order for HD DVD to have a chance, Schlichting says, the price of dual-format players would have to fall quickly. "If price doesn't get there, the future is bleak for HD DVD," he says. "The race is on for a $299 dual-format player. HD DVD is now at the point of being an added feature. But, as we've seen with DVD-RAM, if a company is determined to get a format into a multiformat device, they can get the premium of doing so down to very low levels."
Why still bother with HD DVD? In the long-term, the strategy would be that if everyone has dual-format players, content providers could choose the lowest cost media, explains Schlichting. There, he adds, HD DVD still has an advantage. "It's a race against the clock. If [the dual-format price drop] takes too long, the [HD DVD] movie studios will switch and will release movies on Blu-ray. And once that happens, HD DVD is finished."
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What about the folks who got a HD DVD player for Christmas? I don't understand why they can't release movies in both formats. They're out to charge more for blu ray movies and make the consumer look retarted. If you have a blu ray, you know you have a blu ray. Gee, do I have a Mac or PC? I forget...
They're all greedy jerks
...sorry, RETARDED!
It seems that HD-DVD consortium didn't offer enough money to the movie industry. Sony learned a lot from the betamax experience. It's not just a matter of create the best technology. You MUST make it "intere$ting" to this industry.
The thing that scares me the most about this swing in the Hi Def format wars is that it seems people on both sides of the fence have forgoten the Sony CD debacle of recent years. Do we really want to support a company who purposefully infects consumer products with viruses. For me the online features/ region free formating of HD DVD and the storage/ bitrate superiority of BD are a wash, I will never support Sony or its corrupt practices. Microsoft may race to the production of technology at times, but it never purposefully encodes harmfull programs in an attempt to control consumer behaviour. I may not agree with piracy, but infecting all consumers in an attempt to stop a few, is on par with a police state, and I will never support such practices.
On a lighter note Hi Def DVDs are a long way from wrangiling the market from standard DVD, online HD streaming and Hi Def cable are currently a much more viable option for the majority of the public.
One thing a lot of people seem to forget is the outcome is not really that great for either format. In three years content will be primarily on demand down loadable content. While this is debatable this is were things appear to be headed. It is in the best interest of both parties to make like DVD-R plus and minus, just like the the article says, otherwise if and when blu-ray wins it, it may not be able to enjoy it very long. I still wont by a blu-ray just yet, I would like to see what happens with HVD and what the plan to do in the the future.
As someone who just dropped some bucks for an HD DVD player, this news is a bit disappointing. I'm not sure whether to jump to ebay and sell or just hang on get some cheap hd-dvd movies and keep buying SD-DVD and let my machine upconvert...
HD-DVD & XBox vs. Blu-Ray & PS3. What is the future of gaming?
Microsoft, Paramount & Universal... What a Joke! The collective brain power of the CEO's couldn't light a light bulb.
To ALL HD-DVD owners: Look at the bright side...
If you were the lucky one's to purchase a $99 HD-DVD player at the Toshiba Fire-Sale, you still have a great upconverting DVD player and a great Downconverting HD player because it's only 1080i.
eBay!!!
And as per usual MS back a loser !
Some day MS is going to wake up and smell the coffee but only after its to late as normal ( IE "VISTA" )