Monday, January 7, 2008

A Major Move in the High Def DVD Wars

We have discussed the fight between HD-DVD and Blu-ray to establish the standard format for high definition DVDs (see posts here, here, and here).

Last week, HD-DVD took a haymaker to the chin when Warner Brothers announced that it would release new movies only in Blu-ray format (see ABC News story here).

Only two major US studios support HD-DVD, while five support Blu-ray. Is HD-DVD headed for the Betamax pile?
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5 comments:

  1. docJanuary 7, 2008 at 10:07 AM

    I don't remember. Is Sony backing BluRay of HD-DVD? Based on Sony's failure with Beta (admitedly a very imiited sample), the question is whether they learned anything from that debacle.

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  2. atlasJanuary 7, 2008 at 12:35 PM

    Toshiba, a founder of HD-DVD, will be producing Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo players.

    Let's just king Blu-ray and watch prices fall already...

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  3. stevewJanuary 8, 2008 at 9:08 AM

    Sony is one of the founding members of the Blu-Ray consortium.

    An article in Financial Times here claims that Viacom/Paramount Studios (one of the two remaining movie studios supporting HD-DVD) has an "escape clause" in their agreement with the HD-DVD consortium that allows them to switch to Blu-Ray if Warner Bros did so. The second studio (Universal Pictures) may have a similar clause as well. So the endgame may play out rather quickly...

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  4. stevewJanuary 8, 2008 at 2:26 PM

    Update: Paramount has denied the FT story and says "Paramount's current plan is to continue to support the HD-DVD format".

    Story at Bloomberg here

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  5. atlasJanuary 8, 2008 at 3:48 PM

    Here's an interesting interview -
    Samsung's Exec VP says HD DVD will be used for PCs (storage, etc) while BluRay will be used by Hollywood.

    http://gizmodo.com/341906/interview-samsung-says-theres-life-after-hollywood-for-hd-dvd

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