Format War furor

CES is still a couple days away, and already the 'net is in an uproar. In case any gunslingers have been away from the electronics-related news channels for the last 24 hours, Warner Brothers (the principle format neutral studio in the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format war) announced that they are going Blu-ray exclusive by the end of May and that the HD-DVD releases already in the pipeline for now through May will be re-scheduled to arrive shortly behind the DVD and Blu-ray releases. New Line will be doing likewise, leaving just Paramount and Universal to support HD-DVD. THere's a large article at Variety about it, along with news posts, threads, press releases, and lots of gnashing of teeth scattered across the net.

As sincerely as I like the HD DVD format, I think this is the death blow. I just hope that the BDA and hardware manufacturers now get busy and provide Blu-ray players with the functionality and audio support that was an integral part of the HD DVD specification from day one.

It's stupid that we had a format war in the first place, however, it's far from over. Microsoft could potentially pay money to woo one of the big Blu-ray studios for instance and do a little tit-for-tat.

But yeah, it is a shame that it has come down to this.

If Blu-Ray does win, it would mean the first time that Sony has chosen the right side in a format/tech war that I can remember in my lifetime.

The war may not be over, but I'd say that the writing's on the wall. The studios are starting to see that the war is not helping generate mainstream adoption, and what is likely to be really bothering them is the realization that the golden goose that is DVD sales is suffering because of the war. I highly doubt that any Blu-ray studio will want to change sides because of a check from the HD-DVD camp knowing that it will just prolong the war.

The Financial Times and other news sources have reported that Paramount may get out of its HD-DVD contract. The story is that the HD-DVD contract Paramount signed had a clause stating that if Warner went exlcusively Blu, or if Universal changed their stance on Blu, Paramount could get out of the contract early. Paramount has denied the rumor, but with a non-denial, saying that, "its current plan" is to continue to support HD-DVD. Even if Paramount stays with HD-DVD for now, the report creates even greater uncertainty about HD-DVD's prospects.

I saw that recently. It seems like there would be a strong temptation for Paramount to act on such an option (either by using an escape clause such as the one that is rumored to exist or by surrendering some of the money paid to them as part of the deal), but I doubt they'll admit to such thoughts until and unless they actually make a move back to Blu-ray.

Check this out.
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2206746/paramount-continues-back-hd-dvd

How quickly things change.

I don't know that I consider this a "change" - the rumors I've seen about Paramount abandoning HD-DVD have been guesswork and rumors about clauses that exist in the contract, not any particularly convincing indication of a specific plan of action. Of course, likely the first really convincing rumors of a Blu-ray move by Paramount will be the official press release announcing the change...

The exact quote from that article:

""Paramount's current plan is to continue to support the HD-DVD format,"

To my ears, that doesn't sound very definitive. I would say you're better off staying neutral at this point though Blu is certainly looking stronger.

things could change and Paramount split with HD DVD at any time. there will certainly be a time in the near future where they will have to decide to stay or go. Who will offer them more money though, the Blu camp or the Red one?

Right now since there are more HD-DVD players than Blu-ray players (at least according to what I've heard), their choice is a bit muddied. However, if Sony can get on the ball and get partners to come out with cheaper players and get more Blu-ray players into the wild than HD-DVD, then the remaining studios will have little choice but to switch.

On the other hand, Microsoft could literally flood the market with HD-DVD players if they wanted to. They have the money to do it.

Unfortunately, though, for HD-DVD, content is king. And from what I hear Blu-ray beats HD-DVD about 2 to 1 for available content.

What Microsoft really needs to do is bake Blu-ray into the 360 to take away that advantage Sony currently has for pushing the PS3...even though they are currently at a marked disadvantage in content (games) for the PS3 vs the 360.

It's all very interesting and makes me glad that I haven't bought one of the newer players on either side.

Although I do own a 360. Gamerpoints FTW!

same here.. I waiting for the next generation of combo players from Samsung.. due out later this year. it will have the profiles built into it.

I like both formats.. and both have strengths and weaknesses.

It may be less a matter of who can offer the most cash incentives and more a matter of whether changing sides can accelerate the end of the format war and start making up for the lull in DVD sales...

Of the current high definition DVDs, approx 75% are slated for Blu ray and only 25% HD DVD. Disney is all Blu Ray, now Universal and Lion's Gate. Soon to be Paramount as well. At CES, Microsoft said they would scale back HD DVD add-on players and soon offer a Blu ray add-on player for the XBox 360.

I'd say 2008 is the year HD DVD finally goes away.

I suspect HD-DVD will indeed fade away, but not right away. Warner, Paramount and Universal all have HD-DVD projects in the works that are far enough along that they will put out HD discs for a while. Warner said so itself when it announced its switch to Blu-ray alone. Where we may see the first indication of HD-DVD drop-off is if sales of HD-DVD players start falling off in the near-term.

Warner is doing what Paramount didn't do last fall - they are following through with the already-announced releases in HD-DVD before discontinuing support for it, whereas Paramount simply pulled all Blu-ray support (including titles that had already been put into production). The format won't disappear, but I do wonder what sort of sales numbers it will see.

Universal isn't with BD openhelix...

When I posted, every major news outlet had released Universal would support both formats. And, in fact, the might still one day... just not today - http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=180

There were a bunch of articles about that, but the ones I saw seemd to be mostly FUD - when you read them closely, all they said was that they believed Universal's contractual deadline for staying HD-DVD exclusive had already passed, meaning that they could change to Blu-ray without any penalty. Even that hasn't been officially confirmed at this point, though.

Not sure if this is simply rumor mill or hard news, but I pass it on -- reports that Toshiba will be dropping HD-DVD.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKN1451010520080215

Also, Walmart is dropping its support of HD-DVD, stopping sales of HD-DVD players and discs by June.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/15/technology/wal-mart_blu-ray/index.htm?postversion=2008021511

I saw that this morning, too, along with some rumors that Toshiba had secret plans to release one or two Blu-ray players as soon as late summer. Toss in the announcements from Netflix and Best Buy this week, and things certainly are staying interesting. Digital Bits also mentioned rumors that Paramount might resume Blu-ray support around late March or late April. While I'd love to see a definitive resolution of some sort to the war, I'm not ready to put too much stock in anything until I see something official from Toshiba, Paramount, or Universal.

Another mention of Toshiba dropping HD DVD:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Toshiba/Report:_Toshiba_to_Drop_HD_DVD/1468

Just my .02 cents:

The sooner this is over, the better. Not just for the movies, but also for the price of Blu-Ray software and hardware. I would love to be able to adopt Blu-Ray as an archival format over regular DVD-R discs. With the format war nonsense over, I really think we'll start seeing more uses of the discs beyond HD movies and better, competitive prices for the hardware.

While one format war (Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD) may be ending, I suspect the next one (disc vs. digital delivery) is just starting.

plus once HD DVD is gone from the market.. then the makers of Blu Ray players don't have to compete with another format... so the prices will drop more slowly.

there will still be competition from other makers of the players.. but that is way less then competeing with another format.

It took DVD player a good what 7 or 8 years before they started to bottom out on price. Of course I'd never buy a $39 dvd player and expect it to work well for several years or to even look that good.

From here on out.. players will probably get less expensive, but also the build quality will go way down. Using less and less expensive and good chip sets, components and parts.

Now that this war appears to be almost over, can someone point me to a list of the current line up of 1.3 Blu-Ray players that pass DTS HD MA and Dolby True HD?

Best,

- VD

you need a player that has HDMI or 5.1 channel analog outputs to pass along those DTS HD and True DD. If you use an optical cable or coax it will only be regular DD and regular DTS. not the high def versions of those.

Panasonic BD30 will do this and is Profile 1.1. The BD50 will also do it and will be Profile 2.0 when it is released later this year. The Pioneer BDP95 will do it, and I think it's Profile 1.1. I think the Samsung 1200 will do it (Profile 1.0). I believe that Sony's BDP-S500 will also, at least for TrueHD and DTS-HD HR (although for some reason it may not pass DTS-HD MA, if one site I looked at is correct).

Here's another report from NHK in Japan on Toshiba's exit from HD-DVD, followed by a separate Reuters story with informal confirmation from a source within Toshiba.

http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSL1627196120080216

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080216/bs_nm/toshiba_hd_dvd_dc_1

It looks like next week may see some interesting official announcements.

If Ars Technica is right, I think I understand why we saw the rash of announcements last week from Netflix, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart. Toshiba's senior management could recognize the repercussions of Warner's January announcement as well as anyone, and it appears that they started looking at exit strategies back in early January. This Ars article says that Netflix and Wal-Mart knew that Toshiba was working on an exit strategy that minimized their financial losses and was as graceful as possible. They may have chosen to make their announcements to avoid having to wait longer for the format war to end - Netflix would presumably be happy to simplify their disc inventory sooner rather than later, while Wal-Mart (like all retailers) would be happy to reclaim shelf space from a soon-to-be-discontinued format as quickly as possible. And if the endless parade of reports pan out, it looks like their announcements were enough to push Toshiba into faster action.

Even though I've had an HD-DVD player since last June, I'll be happy to see this format war come to a truly definitive conclusion. The alternative (mutual market stagnation, a la DVD-Audio/SACD) isn't really appealing...

Ditto. Though I don't think Blu-ray would have come as far as it did (quality, interactivity, prices) in as short a time had it not been for HD DVD nipping at its heels. Competition has some advantages. Now for the bigger war: BD vs DVD (weaning consumers off standard def).

I've just heard on CNN that the format war is over and that Toshiba is soon to make its defeat public.
Blu Ray seems to have prevailed.
Probably now we'll see some faster movement in this area...

It may be a matter of semantics, but Toshiba has yet to make any official announcements - so far it's all rumors and leaked information from anonymous sources. Until there's a press release, it's not technically over.

Toshiba will probably announce a new line of BD players instead of HD-DVD defeat.

I believe I heard on the radio that Target, WalMart, and some other retail chains are going to sell Blue Ray DVDs exclusively. That move certainly will spell death for HD DVD, if it hasn't occurred already with Toshiba's planned anouncement. Now if only the war in Iraq would end just as swiftly...

OK, now it's technically over. They'll be slowing down player shipments immediately and ceasing player shipments entirely by the end of next month.

At least those of us who had been on the fence can move forward. Now Blu-ray hardware manufacturers have to start producing players that meet the "final" Blu-ray spec (2.0). To the best of my knowledge, the DMP-BD50 that Panasonic announced at the CES is the only one firmly on the horizon (beyond the Playstation 3).

While it will benefit the consumer having this settled, It stings having recently jumped into the HD-DVD camp. Those inexpensive HD-A2's really caught a lot of "fish". It is still a very good upconverting player, feeding my AQUOS a nice 1080i signal. I guess my impulsiveness came back to bite me on the a**!

So, any word of the next Outlaw receiver with Dolby TrueHD and other lossless audio decoding?

I'm curious to see how this will impact Oppo's plans to develop yet another upscaling machine instead of an HD one.
Probably now they'll really start to develop that universal one that I, one, am waiting for.
If I'm not wrong, Blu Ray players don't readily play old DVD discs, thus Oppo will hit the nail in the head with a machine capable of upscaling old DVD discs and playing Blu Ray discs in one unit.

Well, OPPO has been telling folks to expect the DV-983H by the end of March. That will be something of a statement piece for them regarding standard DVD players. They've been very tight-lipped about what will come after that, but in light of the difficulties seen with LG and Samsung combo players I'm starting to suspect that their first shot at an HD player will be Blu-ray only rather than combo.

Every Blu-ray player supports DVD playback, including upscaling via the HDMI output. Like the HD-DVD players, the quality of that upscaling will vary from player to player, but DVD support in Blu-ray players has never been an issue. Ain't It Cool was the first place I ever saw that suggested otherwise when they had ran an article coming out in favor of HD-DVD. While HD-DVD certainly does a good job delivering HD content, that article was far from being an accurate description of the format war - it included a lengthy discussion of how convenient it was that HD-DVD players would play DVD's, how cool it was that it would upscale those DVD's, and why that was a benefit over Blu-ray. The truth is that my HD-A2 is a decent upscaling player (not as good as my 981HD, closer to my 980H, and not much different than my Panasonic BD30) with a sluggish interface and slow layer changes. The XA2 uses a Reon chip for upscaling DVD, which is a very good video processor, but it still has the same interface and layer change limitations of my A2.

What would I like from an OPPO Blu-ray player? I'd love to see them be able to retain some of the typical OPPO features (interface speed, layer change speed, and DVD-A and SACD support interest me, while others would be interested in PAL support and region-free operation) and combine that with good Blu-ray support (especially if it went profile 2.0). The end of the format ware will likely make it easier for them to move forward with a design, but I will be surprised if they can get an HD player out before 2009.

And in related news... Universal is going to start releasing titles on Blu-ray . Seems reasonable to suspect that Paramount isn't far behind, especially since they have prior experience with Blu-ray. They may even have some Blu-ray software ready for production or even produced and in the warehouse, if rumors are correct.

well according to the news Toshiba is pulling the plug on hd-dvd. darn! oh well, the consumer takes it on the chin again. cant wait for the 99.00 blue ray machine.lol

2009 for an OPPO Blueray, that is a long wait. I have been patiently waiting for the format war to end. It's been apparent to me for sometime now that Blueray was winning the war, however I didn't want to take the chance.

I have my eye on the soon to be released Panasonic DMP-BD50. Sure wish OPPO would make an announcement. I would buy a Blueray from them in a heart beat. My OPPO 970 has been bullet proof.

Well, the "war" is over and HD-DVD is history. Now how long must we wait for a player that does all digital formats well?

I'm just guessing, obviously, so I could always be horribly wrong. On the other hand, they're a small manufacturer and the Blu-ray format isn't exactly an easy target. We're just starting to see a couple manufacturers offer profile 1.1 players, and there's only one profile 2.0 player announced at this point (the Panasonic BD50 you mentioned, due around mid-year or so, although the PS3 is slated to get a firmware update to make it profile 2.0 eventually as well). If the companies that helped create the format (Sony, Panasonic, etc.) can't get full-featured players into production, how can a small company like OPPO? Add in the uncertainty of the format war, and it just compounds the problems. I'd love to be wrong if it meant that OPPO started shipping a really good Blu-ray player in the next five or six months, but they're in the final weeks of development on one player now and I can't see them turning around and pushing an even more complex product out the doors that fast.

On Monday I emailed OPPO and asked them if they had a Blu-ray player in the works. The net was buzzing that Toshiba would concede defeat today (they did) and I wondered if OPPO would give an indication of where they were headed. I added my suggestion it include the features of the 980H too. This is their response:

"We have not yet aligned ourselves to the HD DVD, Blu-Ray, or combo high definition video formats. The primary reason for this is that we feel that neither of these hardware designs are mature enough to be implemented and released by OPPO Digital. Our operational motto is to "make a mature product better". The HD DVD and Blu-Ray specifications are continually changing, and we can't afford to create a solution which will become obsolete within a year.

We are vigorously investigating all current and future hardware solutions, however we do not know when we will commit to them.

Best Regards,

Customer Service
OPPO Digital, Inc."

So now that HD-DVD is out of the way the question of when a Blu-ray OPPO will appear seems to be based upon when the standard settles down. Let's hope that is soon. If past performance is an indicator of the future a Blu-ray player from OPPO would smoke the competition.

Should we expect the price of existing HD DVD's to drop in order to clear them out? I might as well build a small library since I have the HD-A2.

My son commented last night that Sony will have the PS4 next year since the PS3 is reported to be a piece of junk. That is from a 13 year old, so I write this with that caveat. Any truth to that rumor?

It's certainly possible that HD-DVD software prices will fall, but it's also possible that new releases will simply be produced in smaller batches. You might watch for folks selling off HD-DVD collections, as that's more likely to be a good way to get some deals.
The PS3 is only about 15 months old and will be around for quite a while longer. There is no official mention of a PS4, and considering both the average life cycle of a game console and the investment that Sony made in the Cell processor and the PS3 platform I'd expect it to be around for a few more years. As for it being junk, the hardware has actually been pretty stable and reliable, aside from the inevitable fan noise that can be an issue for both Sony and Microsoft game consoles. The Wii has also been a good platform, aside from some property damage and personal injuries produced by swung and thrown controllers. By comparison, the Xbox360 has had a dreadful time with the "red ring of death" and heat-induced hardware failures, which appears to have been resolved only recently with some hardware changes.

It appears that Toshiba's announcement has helped them lock in on a development path, according to this engadget article . The article confirms that they are "very early" in the development cycle, so I wouldn't want to revise my guess on how soon anything might actually reach market, but it also indicates that they are officially going to build a Blu-ray player.

Thanks for posting the egadget link Gonk. OPPO's 983 has generated quite the discussion on the AVS forum so I expect there will be many anticipating OPPO's future Blu-ray player, me included. I hope news about the player this summer translates to a Blu-ray player available before the end of the year.

I am going to sit this out a while. Now all the manufacturers will be concentrating on Blu-Ray players, so I'd hope the competition will drive down player prices. Maybe by the end of 2009 will bring mass market prices with most of the teething-pains elliminated in a new(er) format. Of course, it would not surprise me if Toshiba began developing a next-generation format to undermine Sony's Blu-Ray. Buying into emerging technology these days has slightly better odds than a Vegas book.

Anyhow.......off to Wal-mart at lunch to see if there's any HD DVD deals!!

Gonk, second the thanks for the engadget article. I guess that’s the announcement I was waiting on. Be careful what you wish for.

So now it's a waiting game for me. Since the Panasonic DMP-BD50 is scheduled to be released mid year I have to wait anyway. So maybe there will be an update on the OPPO Blueray in the meantime. Logic and my gut tell me to wait for the OPPO, emotion wants to by the Panasonic the first day it’s available.

Maybe, just maybe the "New" 990 will be out at the same time. (What a nice upgrade package)

If you are looking for a deal on an HD DVD player, check out Circuit City. They are dropping the Toshiba A3 to $99.00 with 7 free movies.

Here is the link.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/20/so-it-begins-toshibas-hd-a3-falls-to-99-at-circuit-city-come/

Appreciate the link, however tempting I am going to put my money towards a blueray player.

On the lighter side: After Gonk and Butchgo posted links from engadget I browsed the site for a little while. I came across this article I thought was amusing:

Top ten things to do with your now-defunct HD DVD player:

Gimmes
eBay
Doorstop
Entertainment center cup-holder
Destroy it. Office Space style.
Oh, the humanity

1)Mail it to the office of Howard Stringer in protest of Blu-ray's victory.
2)Plug it into your clothes dryer's 240-volt outlet. Woops, honey! My bad, guess we have to buy a Blu-ray player now.
3)Finally, replace your Betamax player.
4)Buy the Blu-ray player of your choice, put it in the box, attempt to return it as "defective."
5)Channel it through Whoopi Goldberg and make some pottery with it.
6)Put a Blu-ray disc in the tray and then call up Toshiba when it doesn't work. Repeatedly.
7)Put it in a time capsule, just to confuse future generations.
8)Buy a few dozen of 'em and build a little hut for your Blu-ray player.
9)Lock it alone in a room with a few lethal weapons... let it die honorably.
10)Use it to upscale DVDs, which is all you ever used it for anyways

Top Ten Things To Do With Your Now-Defunct HD Dvd Player

Thanks for the suggestions edcon. I will be needing to put one of them to use here soon enough. God I love buying on impulse.