Warner goes blu-ray exclusive

[Lazybones]

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/01/04/warner-goes-blu-ray-exclusive/

looks like it was a good thing I was too broke to get in to hd dvd

[Melbosa]

BOOO!  Either the industry picks a medium or companies release for both.  Don't segregate your customers damnit!!!!! (This from the guy who has both players, so you know I really mean it).

[Mr. Analog]

Good luck with that Warner! Lock-in formats are always teh win.

Prediction: Five years from now we'll all be using some open Chinese HD format that is surprisingly (or, perhaps, subversively) universal.

[Mr. Analog]

Either the industry picks a medium

@%&# the industry! Let consumers choose which format rules, in the mean time publishers get boned because they let the hardware guys run off and cut the pie up again.

DVD nearly went this way before the major disc hardware guys, IBM (and some lawsuits) knocked heads and realized that if they all make the same gear they can compete with each other and not for publishers. I suspect that if it had it would have gone the way of the DivX set-top box or the LaserDisc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD#History

But otherwise I agree with you 100%.

[Melbosa]

Let consumers choose which format rules, in the mean time publishers get boned because they let the hardware guys run off and cut the pie up again.

Yeah this is the best way for the decision to be made, and partially what I had in mind when I said to pick a medium.  Wrong choice of words on my part, so I 100% agree with you Mr. A!

[Darren Dirt]

Good luck with that Warner! Lock-in formats are always teh win.

Prediction: Five years from now we'll all be using some open Chinese HD format that is surprisingly (or, perhaps, subversively) universal.

I am happy with my DVD collection. And the music CDs. Ain't re-buying ANY of it. Call me an old fart, I don't care... (zip it, Melbosa! )

[Melbosa]

Good luck with that Warner! Lock-in formats are always teh win.

Prediction: Five years from now we'll all be using some open Chinese HD format that is surprisingly (or, perhaps, subversively) universal.

I am happy with my DVD collection. And the music CDs. Ain't re-buying ANY of it. Call me an old fart, I don't care... (zip it, Melbosa! )

But! BUT! ooooooooooooooo............ darnit

[Lazybones]

It is still possible that the hard media will loose out to download services if they ever get their act together.. Just look at what iTunes has done to music.

Key issues to work out:
1. Price
2. Ease of use
3. Speed

[Thorin]

Some interesting quotes from the article:

In response to consumer demand, Warner Bros. Entertainment will release its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year

Really?  Consumers actually asked Warner not to release in HD DVD anymore?  Nice bit of BS.

Warner Bros.' move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want [..] 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.

Exclusively?  As in, releasing in Blu-ray and no other format?  Bold move!

Warner Home Video will continue to release its titles in standard DVD format and Blu-ray

Oh, wait, not exclusively.  Chickens.  Y'know, if the technology is so beneficial to us consumers, why continue in standard DVD format?

A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry

No, it's not the two-format landscape...  It's that the masses simply aren't that interested in upgrading to high-def content.  What the masses are interested in is ease of use and portability.  Same as why people picked low-def MP3s over high-def CDs.

All of this smacks of a giant Sony pay-off.

[Lazybones]

HD DVD group cancels CES press conference in wake of Warner announcement

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/04/hd-dvd-group-cancels-ces-press-conference-in-wake-of-warner-anno/

[Mr. Analog]

It is still possible that the hard media will loose out to download services if they ever get their act together.. Just look at what iTunes has done to music.

Key issues to work out:
1. Price
2. Ease of use
3. Speed

That is key, and likely the future for movies as well. I think digital media as a pack-n-go physical storage medium will still have it's place though.

[Mr. Analog]

Big side note I know but...

Ha! Sony BMG is planning on dropping DRM:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2008/tc2008013_398775.htm

This reaction comes to what is probably the most accurate (and awesome) guess as to why Sony is doing this after going thus far with DRM.

Now I'll tie this back to our thread. So we see Sony doing things like this in order to (presumably) start an online download store. Now why would they do this after forking out millions into piracy countermeasure R&D and implementation into all their formats?

I think they're solidly in panic mode at the moment trying to figure out how to recover costs from all the lofty, money losing ventures they've poured swathes of cash into (PS3, Blu-Ray, DRM, etc) and they're making a grab at an easy win. They have a massive library of music, they have the technology to transfer it into an online marketplace. The only thing stopping them is themselves and how they "allow" their property to be distributed (via Apple lock-in iTunes at the moment).

Sony is a Big Japanese Company and I wouldn't throw my stock out just yet, but maybe, just maybe they've figured out what consumers are actually wanting instead of dictating it from on high.

That or I've been sick too long and drinking "Blue" gatorade does something to you...

[Darren Dirt]

Big side note I know but...

Ha! Sony BMG is planning on dropping DRM:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2008/tc2008013_398775.htm

CD Liner Notes of the Distant Present (Something Awful -- satire or real, nowadays can't be too sure...)

[Cova]

If you guys are interested in keeping up on the HD format war, I'd suggest you check www.doom9.org fairly regularly...

My opinions on the announcement can be most easily summed up by quoting the news post from doom9 about it...

And finally, the one that almost turned my Friday evening beer sour - and I reserve the right to bill the culprit for one perfectly fine Hefeweizen. Anyway, after a lot of rumors, Warner - the only remaining major Hollywood studio not to have chosen a side in the high definition war - has chosen a side after all: Blu-ray. They'll keep releasing new HD DVD movies until the end of May 2008, but that's it. A quick look at the HD DVD statistics reveals that Warner has been responsible for more than one third of all HD DVD movies (and interestingly more Blu-ray movies than Sony - slightly more than every 4th Blu-ray movie is from Warner), so that statistic along should be enough to tell you the significance of this announcement. With the HD DVD promotion group's CES event coming up in short order, it will be interesting to see the reaction (I for one expect at least some juicy details about how much Warner cost). Needless to say that Blu-ray fans, that were spewing poison when Dreamworks and Paramount dumped Blu-ray are now in a very cheery mood (and who cares if money exchanged hands, right?) - while I remain convinced that either move was not beneficial for consumers.

Suppose this is the beginning of the end for HD DVD. The Blu-ray camp has reaffirmed many times that they don't see player prices dropping any further - and if the pre CES announcements of plus 1000$ players are a sign of things to come - I wouldn't expect affordable players Blu-ray players for every room in your house anytime soon (considering the percentage of HD media versus DVD, absent a war, I doubt we'd have seen a sub $100 player until any format breaks a double digit percentage in terms of market share in the entire movie market). And absent the competition boasting titles with all kind of fancy features, where's the motivation to bring affordable profile 2.0 players and improve in the quite abysmal performance of BD-J? I don't recall the source but in one reaction to the news I read something about HD DVD being at its best now whereas Blu-ray still had places to go - that's quite true, but not in the way the BDA would like to have you believe - if it weren't for the HD DVD competition bringing 30GB titles with advanced video codecs, the percentage of MPEG-2 encoded BD-25 titles would not have shrunk so fast (and BD-50 titles encoded using AVC wouldn't have taken off the way they had), and as I said.. faster loading times and 2.0 players (especially cheap ones that don't make any noise - unless you're a gamer or can't get your kids out of the living room I don't see the PS3 as a viable market leading Blu-ray player in the long run)? Don't expect any wonders. Here's hoping that if HD DVD fades away, regionfree cheap and fast profile 2.0 players will become ubiquitous before 201x and that BD+ will be summarily broken. If not, we're in for an extremely rough ride (oh yeah and I almost forgot about Fox's outrageous prices - don't expect those BOGO deals that have driven Blu-ray stats to stick around forever - they're a sideeffect of the format war). High def has a long way to go to unsubsidized $14.99 titles currently on sale at Amazon (BD-50 didn't just suddenly get cheaper to produce - and those BD-J guys certainly won't come in as cheap as the HD-I enabled web designers).

Also - this is an excellent article (link from doom9 also) about the influence that the big stores like best-buy and walmart have on this format-battle - I had never thought about it from that perspective before, it really is a good read.  http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/jeffkleist/editorial010108.html

[Mr. Analog]

An interesting article, but it contains some specious reasoning. If no one buys a Blu-Ray player it doesn't matter what the stores profit on markup is, it just turns into dead weight. It's also no secret that Sony in particular is doing everything it can to get Blu-Ray players into homes (the PS3 bundle was a HUGE risk for them), giving retailers a nice profit margin is just another vector.

What Sony (et al) have failed to do is make the average consumer want a HD DVD player.