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Warner Backs Blu-Ray. End Times For HD-DVD?
An anonymous reader writes "The NY Times reports: In addition to Apple, Warner Brothers is now going to throw its weight behind the Blu-ray format for high-definition disks. Warner has been the only major studio to publish its movies in both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. Today, the studio announced that from now on, it would only issue movies in Blu-ray.
Richard Greenfield, the media analyst with Pali Research, wrote that this marks the end of the format wars: "We expect HD DVD to 'die' a quick death.""
I knew that $199 HD-DVD player with 10 free HD-DVDs from Amazon.com was too good a deal to be true. But I got suckered into it anyway and bought myself one for the holidays. Betamax all over again.
I figured with HD-DVD players so cheap, they couldn't help but beat Bluray, with their absurdly overpriced players. Apparently I was duped by a dumping strategy - clearly they knew their market position was about to slip off a cliff and they decided to flood the market with cheap players.
I am boycotting further purchases of any high def DVD products for the next few years. This experience has left me utterly disgusted. Move piracy, here I come.
HD-DVD supports AACS, Blu-ray supports AACS, region coding, BD+.
That may in part be why Blu-ray seems to be winning this "war".
But in either case, AnyDVD can decrypt all of that, yes, including BD+.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
"Now" as in "May"?
"After a short window following their standard DVD and Blu-ray releases, all new titles will continue to be released in HD DVD until the end of May 2008."
Not to mention I'd rather just about anyone control a standard for us then Sony.
Good thing there is also Hitachi, LG, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung and Sharp then I guess. You do realize that Blu-Ray isn't a 'Sony' format?
It is going to be much slower than DVD, which wasn't all that fast.
Wasn't DVD the fastest that any consumer electronics device/format has ever been adopted? I seem to recall seeing that a few places.
This guy's the limit!
Seems to me no one has mentioned something which to me says a lot:
"For a long time, Hollywood was lopsided in favor of Blu-ray: 7 of the 8 major movie studios (Disney, Fox, Warner, Paramount, Sony, Lionsgate and MGM) supported Blu-ray, and 5 of them (Disney, Fox, Sony, Lionsgate and MGM) release their movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. Only Universal was exclusively HD-DVD. Now that is rapidly changing what with HD DVD exclusive converts Paramout and DreamWorks Animation, and Warner Bros now for Blu-ray." (this from http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/boost-for-blu-ray-warner-bros-will-release-high-def-titles-exclusively-in-that-format/)
So in summary, we have:
HD-DVD Exclusive:
Paramount/Dreamworks
Bluray Exclusive:
Disney
Fox
Sony
Lionsgate
MGM
Warner Bros
Not mentioned in the article above, I believe Universal Studios is actually HD DVD exclusive, but rumours seem to indicate that they aren't that way by contract, so they COULD jump ship. Further, New Line Cinema is owned by Warner Bros, so it would stand to reason that they will end up Bluray exclusive.
At this point, it LOOKS like a pretty lopsided situation to me. Add in that while supposedly HD-DVD players (and PCs with HD-DVD in them) have outsold bluray players, (again supposedly) bluray titles themselves seem to have outsold HD-DVD, especially in non US markets.
I have been reading about this since the news broke yesterday on places like http://engadgethd.com/ and http://avsforum.com/ and it really sounds like even the HD-DVD diehards (for the most part) are conceding victory to bluray.
-Verxion
"Most people that have a good HDTV can tell a large difference in good HD content."
You mean, some people _think_ they can tell the difference (notably TV salesmen and people who've bought a HDTV).
I read a recent blindtest where three experts and a bunch of non-experts were tested for the difference between HD and non HD material on several LCD's and plasma displays.
On the first test, 42 inch screen, 3.5 meters away (10 ft), they all guessed 720p. It was 480p. After much flipping back and forth, some managed to get it right. More tests and eventually getting down to 50" 2 meters (6 ft) away, and there were still some who couldnt even tell 480p from 1080p. Nobody could tell 720p from 1080p better than random chance.
The fact is, such tests show that under normal viewing conditions most people simply dont have eyes and visual centers good enough to reliably notice the difference between SD and HD, nevermind deciding what looks best. You have to get up to 60-100 inch screens at a normal viewing distance to be able to reliably tell the difference; most people would be much better off getting a TV with better color and contrast ratio and simply slap a HD sticker on it so they think it's buzzword compliant.
Yes, a first. I makes me sick to think of all the Sony format players that I bought and then became utterly useless because of no media -- DVDs, CDs, foppies . . .
DVDs still look fine on an HDTV. Sure, HD formats look better, but DVDs are VHS tapes. They're actually still pretty good, especially with an upscaler. Don't hold your breath waiting for DVD to die or you might just go first.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
It's not totally without precedent. The 3.5" floppy disk was a Sony format.
The NPD sales numbers showed BD sold more disks every week in 2007. Even transformers release week did not sell more HD DVD's. Warner made the correct decision. BD's were outselling HD's by a 61 to 39 advantage YTD07.
Blu-ray titles take 10 spots on the Amazon DVD bestsellers list atm, including the top four. There are _no_ HD DVD titles in the top 25. The bestselling HD DVD title is #35. (Behind 4 more blu-ray titles on the way.)
I know hating on Sony is de rigeur here. Sorry.
As was the CD, a joint venture with Philips, the other company that tries to come up with ground breaking / market changing products.
So did CD, 3.5" discs, DAT and a bunch of computer tape formats.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
I'd been hoping we'd skip HD and Blu-Ray and go to one of those higher-density mediums one hears about on Slashdot every few weeks. Both formats still require too much compression.
We're not there yet. We're probably there when we get 2K high images at 72FPS without compression artifacts. Somewhere around 72FPS, the annoying strobing on pans disappears. Or, in other words, football games finally look right. Football games are hard because the background is moving, there's action moving in different directions, and viewers care about the detail. The motion compression algorithms can't really handle that situation.
The digital cinema industry has a standard for this. They have two formats, "2K", which is simply 1080p, that is, 1080x2048 pixels, and "4K", which is 2160x4096 pixels. They define two speeds; 24FPS and 48FPS. Color depth is 12 bits. Compression is JPEG 2000. Maximum image data per frame is 1,302,083 bytes (which is actually smaller than you'd expect). Audio is sampled at 96KHz with a depth of 24 bits, and is not compressed. There are 16 audio channels. That's the Hollywood/SMTPE definition of a "movie" in the digital era.
In actual practice, most films now being distributed digitally are going out in "2K" mode, at 24 FPS,with 8 audio channels. The spec has headroom to double each of those numbers.
A 2-hour movie at all the highest ratings is about 500GB. So that's what needs to be delivered to the consumer. Neither HD nor Blu-Ray can do that yet.
Looking at that chart, while HD-DVD has support, it's definitely in the minority now with this announcement. Moreover, New Line is owned by Time-Warner, so they're likely to go Blu-Ray only too at some point. I'd say that the situation looks pretty grim for HD-DVD, although it's not quite over yet.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Here's something worth bearing in mind: I'm not doing Blu-ray. I looked at the three formats a month or two ago, DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray, and decided that I felt HD-DVD was a clear step up from DVD, whereas Blu-ray was a step down. (For my logic, see here.) The studios "making the choice for me" doesn't mean I'm breathing a sigh of relief and rushing out to buy a Blu-ray drive, it means they'll be seeing less of my money, especially if they decide to drop DVD as well.
I read your journal entry and I tend to agree with you...at least on paper. From an end-user experience, the two formats have shown to be nearly identical. I have a HD DVD/BD combo drive in my computer. At first, both formats were a severe pain in the ass. I run one video output to an HDMI flat panel display and another to a straight DVI flat-panel monitor. It doesn't complain if I disable the DVI monitor and only run to the HDMI display. However, if my non-HDMI monitor is enabled (regardless of whether or not the video was streamed to the non-HDMI device), AACS-protected video would not play. Certain titles were somehow sensitive to the version of my video driver as well. Eventually, all DRM problems became a non-issue when I installed AnyDVD HD.
So what does this all mean?
If both formats can hang in there long enough for multi-format readers/players to become ubiquitous, disc format will become irrelevant for just about everyone. Other than the fact that BD is more propritary, and includes additional license costs, I don't care who wins. They both look and sound equally great, and they both suck in the same ways.
-Turkey
Completely true.
I ran a little "experiment" of my own, which isn't really scientific but whatever. I set my HD TiVo to only output at 480p (which is the default) and showed a bunch of "HD" content on my 1080p-capable TV.
No one noticed.
And since it IS the default setting, I wonder how many HDTV owners with HD TiVos are staring at 480p content and thinking that it's amazing HD. (Besides, in most people's minds, HD=16:9. Get a widescreen digital SDTV, and people will swear it's HD.)
Which isn't to say the HD TiVo wasn't worth it - it stores something like 180 hours of SD programming, and outputs in digital, which really does help the picture quality. (Plus it comes with a network adapter so I no longer have to hook it up to the phone.)
The move from analog to digital massively improved the picture quality. The move from 480p to 1080i was completely unnoticeable.
Well, almost. The network brand in the lower-right corner is a bit sharper in HD...
(Which, I think, hints at the truth. The difference between SD and HD is only really noticeable in static imagery - once things start moving, the motion completely obscures the difference. And since I rarely watch TV shows of walls, there's really no point in HD.)
Yes. AACS is an optional feature of HD-DVD discs, but a compulsory feature of (Blue laser) Blu-ray discs.
It is possible to master a type of red-laser (DVD) Blu-ray (data) format disc without AACS, but for obvious reasons this isn't exactly an attractive option.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
It used to be dirt easy to feed dozens of TVs - you just needed a roll of coax, a bunch of t-junctions and ends, appropriate tools, and a cable type amplifier box.
Pushing out dozens of copies of an HD stream is much more expensive, so many stores haven't bothered.
Viewing a DVD is 10X as hard as viewing a video Cassette
Say what? A DVD doesn't have rewind, I don't(generally) have fast forward through ten minutes of outdated ads, it's just plop the disc in and hit play.
If you want a DVD that can record, they're sitting on the shelves today. You're just going to end up spending some more money to get one.
I suspect that HD content will require 10X as hard to view as the DVD, which will probably eventually involve a long conversation between the device that is want to play the content and a central server in order to gain authorization to play the content, which part of the content may be played, at a which resolution and with which options.
While that seems to be what the MPAA wants, so far blueray and HDDVD are pretty much as 'difficult' to play as DVD. No central server needed.
I don't read AC A human right
No it isn't. The author is saying that Paramount should look for ways out and speculates they will. I see nothing that says they actually are.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
You're not talking 44K vs 96K like you were with CD vs. DVD-Audio.
With DVD vs. HD-DVD / Blu-Ray you're talking lossy Dolby Digital (roughtly equivalent to a 96kbps mp3 per channel) vs. lossless 5 channel (either via LPCM, MLP, or the DTS and Dolby Digital lossless formats).
There's a huge difference there.
Notable facts:
- DRM: AACS-128 on Both; BD+, ROM-Mark optional on Blu-ray
- Larger aperture on Blu-ray, allowing for the higher capacity
- 3 layer HD-DVD is v2.0 spec, 3 x 17GB = 51GB, currently unknown compatibility
- Max bitrates (total, audio, video) are higher on Blu-ray
- DD+ and Dolby TrueHD are mandatory on HD-DVD, optional on Blu-ray
- HD-DVD is region free; Blu-ray has 3 regions; SD-DVD has 7 regions
- Microsoft's HDi in HD-DVD vs. Sun's BD-J in Blu-ray
- Stand-alone component manufacturers: HD-DVD: 5; Blu-ray: 5
- LG has a player that supports both discs but is expensive
- Blu-ray discs are hard-coated
Most people I know that have an HDTV are quite satisfied with an upconverting DVD player and SD-DVDs. They're cheaper to buy at $BIGBOXRETAIL, look good enough scaled, and sound great. For most, DD 5.1 or DTS 5.1 are good enough for their setups. Even with the DD+/DTS-HD/TrueHD/DTS-HD Master, unless you have better speakers (think bought seperately, not a home-theater-in-a-box), you probably won't notice the difference in codecs.Also interesting to note how many geeks here are praising HD-DVD even though its an MS product. Isn't MS = Bad? Did I miss the MS = Good decision? Is it the lesser of two evils? Subjective, so you decide for yourself.
"The quality of life is determined by its activites."--Aristotle
Yes, I know. They were 90x94mm, but most people in the US and UK knew them as 3.5 inch disks so I'll stick with the well known convention.
H-264 is set to replace VC-1 pretty much exclusively, especially now that Microsoft is out of the picture (geddit).
In a number of the press releases you'll see New Line is Blu-Ray only as well. LOTR will only be on Blu-Ray now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Blu-Ray isn't nearly as bad as DVD was:
1) Most Blu-Ray discs today have no region codes enabled.
2) All Bly-Ray discs are required to drop the region code a year after first sale.
So the majority of content you buy except for the very latest releases will be region free.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Not in practice. Both formats have similar capacities in their most common forms (dual layer HD-DVD vs single layer Blu-ray)
100% of Blu-Rays released in the last two months have been dual layer (50GB discs). Of all Blu-Ray discs on the market now, something around 20% of them are single layer (basically some of the ones release in the first few months of the year).
More space, means more room for higher bitrates and lossless audio. 100% of Disney and Fox Blu-Ray discs have lossless audio. What percentage of Universal or Paramount titles offer that on Blu-Ray?
You're treating this as if 100,000 Blu-ray discs take half as much storage as 50,000 Blu-ray discs and 50,000 HD-DVD discs. That's clearly not the case.
They take up the same space but are half as complex to track and distribute, all being just one unit instead of two different kinds.
And what marketing costs are you looking at that are saved by ditching HD DVD?
If you'd been paying attention you'd have seen multiple full-page ads from Warner - some for HD-DVD only, some for Blu-Ray only. They can reduce the full page ads by half now.
Up to a point. I don't think this would have been an issue if studios had all supported both formats
The issue would have been both formats dying because people continued to stay away until there was one. No-one wants two players. No-one wants an overly expensive combo player.
Here's something worth bearing in mind: I'm not doing Blu-ray. I looked at the three formats a month or two ago, DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-ray, and decided that I felt HD-DVD was a clear step up from DVD, whereas Blu-ray was a step down. (For my logic, see here.)
Your "logic" there is equally as flawed as your post was.
Some points:
1) AACS is not mandatory on Blu-Ray, and in any case all HD-DVD discs to date have made use of it.
2) As noted, Blu-Ray has more space for higher bitrates and also a higher maximum bitrate.
3) Blu-Ray the format also supports managed copy.
4) If Blu-Ray discs are cheaper to manufacture how come movies on both formats costs the same, except for the horrible HD-DVD combo discs that are $5 more?
Every single point you have would have gone to Blu-Ray had you got the facts straight. You boght into the FUD and misinformation campaign that so many HD-DVD backers were pushing the whole year.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The latest generation of GPUs supports decoding of CAVLC/CABAC in hardware (NVIDIA calls it a Bitstream Processor).
I feel sorry for you that you were tricked into buying hardware yesterday and that you cannot see how 7 to 10 free movies for a device that costs the same as the retail price of the movies is a big scam to product dump and lock you into Toshiba hardware and their HD DVD format.
If you really want to know more about the formats rather than FUD, check out wikipedia.org.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
No sure what you mean, but BR and HD-DVD security has already been cracked.
Since almost no titles include region codes today, and any titles that do have region codes will not after a year, AND there are only three region codes (unlike DVD's seven) AND Japan is in the same region as the US - any Blu-Ray player will do.
But you didn't really want an answer, you just wanted to look smart. Sorry I foiled your little plan.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley