Blu Ray wins the format war, HD-DVD loses WB and is basically dead
The High Definition DVD format war is now effectively over.
The announcement came on Friday that Warner Brothers, one of the biggest movie studio’s for DVD distribution have gone Blu Ray exclusive, their titles will no longer be available to purchase on HD-DVD. The outcome of this is now Blu Ray exclusively holding 70% of the next generation market (Sony, New Line, Dreamworks, Warner Brothers, Fox, MGM and Lionsgate) whereas HD have only 30% (Paramount/Dreamworks, Universal).
The official announcement from the big wigs at WB…
“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,” said Meyer. “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.”
“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,” said Tsujihara. “Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the right step in making this great home entertainment experience accessible to the widest possible audience. Warner Bros. has worked very closely with the Toshiba Corporation in promoting high definition media and we have enormous respect for their efforts. We look forward to working with them on other projects in the future”.
What WB have done is basically put HD-DVD into checkmate and it’s absolutely the best decision that could have been made by their camp.
WB had three options moving into 2008, they could either stay neutral (which would prolong the format war and keep mass consumer interest down), choose to support HD-DVD exclusively (which would make it a 50-50 battle between HD and Blu Ray, still prolonging the format war and keeping mass consumer interest down) or choose to support Blu Ray (effectively killing the format war, making Blu Ray THE HD-DVD choice and hopefully beginning mas consumer interest and falling prices).
This stalemate between HD and Blu Ray was killing both formats or at best delaying it in becoming the new alternative to the standard DVD. With now holding 70% of the market titles, Blu Ray should soon become the forefront of the next generation of DVD and we might finally see it become the new standard of format for the future.
Industry expects now expect Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks to go the same way before the Summer, so that a mass sales pitch at Christmas time this year can push the High Definition format into becoming the consumer’s number one choice.
DVD which only ten years ago was seen as the format for the future, looks to have held a shorter life span than the VHS system and it would seem by 2010, Blu Ray will be the dominant way to watch film. But how long can that last, who knows?
I still stand by my statements that digital streaming and downloading to a Television Set or Hard Drive will no doubt be the future of how we watch film at home, but for the start of the next decade at least it would seem Blu Ray will be the consumer choice.
source - coming soon
Thanks for visiting us at Obsessed With Film, we update several times a day, so if you haven't done so yet you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also sign up to receive updates via e-mail.
