[wakeride74]

[size=medium]WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT TO RELEASE ITS HIGH-DEFINITION DVD TITLES EXCLUSIVELY IN THE BLU-RAY DISC FORMAT BEGINNING LATER THIS YEAR[/size]

Source here and here

Quote:

Decision Made in Response to Strong Consumer Preference for Format (January 4, 2008 - Burbank, CA) - 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, it was announced today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros. and Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. "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." Warner Home Video will continue to release its titles in standard DVD format and Blu-ray. 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. "Warner Bros. has produced in both high-definition formats in an effort to provide consumer choice, foster mainstream adoption and drive down hardware prices," said Jeff Bewkes, President and Chief Executive Officer, Time Warner Inc., the parent company of Warner Bros. Entertainment. "Today's decision by Warner Bros. to distribute in a single format comes at the right time and is the best decision both for consumers and Time Warner." "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.

 

[rsaavedra]

Very interesting development. Possibly not the beginning though, since there have been other earlier signs, for instance Blockbuster favoring Blu-Ray last year.

 

[mbriant]

A friend of mine has been buying quite a few Blu-Ray dvds recently and was complaining that he's had problems playing several of them. Has also had two recent incidents where in a 2 dvd set, the second dvd was a mislabeled copy of the first disc. I wonder if this seemingly poor QC is because of a rush to get new software to market quickly, or because the technical bugs with Blu-Ray haven't yet been fully worked out, or just bad luck. He's tried the discs on a friend's player as well and they still don't work correctly. I could tell he's beginning to sour on the whole thing.

Anybody else noticing abnormal QC issues with these new formats?

 

[wakeride74]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mbriant /img/forum/go_quote.gif A friend of mine has been buying quite a few Blu-Ray dvds recently and was complaining that he's had problems playing several of them. Has also had two recent incidents where in a 2 dvd set, the second dvd was a mislabeled copy of the first disc. I wonder if this seemingly poor QC is because of a rush to get new software to market quickly, or because the technical bugs with Blu-Ray haven't yet been fully worked out, or just bad luck. He's tried the discs on a friend's player as well and they still don't work correctly. I could tell he's beginning to sour on the whole thing. Anybody else noticing abnormal QC issues with these new formats?

From what I have read it's been more issues with players and firmware. My uncle bough a Sony BDS300 this past weekend and I brought Pirates 3 over for him because I know it is a problem disc for lots of players. It had issues playing the movie but after he downloaded the firmware update it was fine.

The Samy BD1200 is supposed to have a lot of problems too... which is sad because it is supposed to produce one the best BD pictures.

As far as discs I've read about people with Potter sets getting BD or HD copies mixed in on both sides.

 

[wakeride74]

Blu-ray now has 70% exclusive access to Hollywood studio content.

"Game over man... game over!!!"

 

[virometal]

Wow, thanks for the heads up Wake. For us that wanted this stupid format war done with, this is good news. I wonder if the HD-DVD camp has any more tricks up their sleeve?

It's odd to finally see this come to pass. It's been rumored for a year.

 

[wakeride74]

Quote:

Originally Posted by virometal /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wow, thanks for the heads up Wake. For us that wanted this stupid format war done with, this is good news. I wonder if the HD-DVD camp has any more tricks up their sleeve? It's odd to finally see this come to pass. It's been rumored for a year.

It should be very interesting to see how Paramount and Universal respond.

 

[bhd812]

the only thing that has to happen is the HD-DVD player makers come out with a cheaply priced player and the people then the studios will follow. simple business tactic, just get the players in peoples homes in mass and the studios will have no choice but to follow what the customer wants. i am sure wake has looked into this a lot more then i have but i personally think Blue ray is over hyped and already at its limit in terms of putting more info and future capability to expand..

 

[wakeride74]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhd812 /img/forum/go_quote.gif the only thing that has to happen is the HD-DVD player makers come out with a cheaply priced player and the people then the studios will follow. simple business tactic, just get the players in peoples homes in mass and the studios will have no choice but to follow what the customer wants. i am sure wake has looked into this a lot more then i have but i personally think Blue ray is over hyped and already at its limit in terms of putting more info and future capability to expand..

The HD players have always been cheaper but the studios don't care about how many players are sold they care about how many discs are sold and Blu has out-sold red every week for over 52 weeks straight with an average of around 65% to 35%.

Perhaps the people looking to get into HDM for less are the same people that are renting from netflicks instead of buying the disc... hard to say. One thing for certain is that Blu-ray has more space available on the disc so I'm not sure what you mean by limitations but I own both a HD and BD player so this is sad news for BOGO deals

 

[Kirosia]

Warner Swayed By $500 Million From The BDA : Format War Central

(not sure if it was linked already)

 

[skudmunky]

none of that matters. whoever the "prawnz0rz" industry supports wins. its betamax verse vhs all over again!

 

[colonelkernel8]

and Sony won't let pr0n be made on Blu ray in there big disc replicating plants. Who wants HD pr0n anyway? Lets leave something to the imagination...

 

[Kirosia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kirosia /img/forum/go_quote.gif Warner Swayed By $500 Million From The BDA : Format War Central (not sure if it was linked already)

Warner: No Payoff for Move to Blu-ray | High-Def Digest

Warner: New Line, HBO Not Covered By Blu-ray Announcement | High-Def Digest

Turkey.

 

[Redo]

HD-DVD was priced better, and the stand alone players were a fairly easy choice. BluRay was released before the format was finalized, players were expensive, and thus outside of the PS3 the unit sales dragged.


HD-DVD had a nice run, I really can't see them winning in light of this news. I guess I'll have to pick up a dual format player in the future, when the units get cheaper and more well rounded. I can only hope HD-DVD retains support for a good long time.

 

[n_maher]

I'm kinda glad that I didn't buy that HD-DVD player last week.