January 5, 2008

Warner Backs Blu-ray, Tilting DVD Battle
By BROOKS BARNES

LOS ANGELES — The high-definition DVD war is all but over.

Hollywood’s squabble over which of two technologies will replace standard DVDs skewed in the direction of the Sony Corporation on Friday, with Warner Brothers casting the deciding vote in favor of the company’s Blu-ray discs over the rival format, HD DVD.

In some ways, the fight is a replay of the VHS versus Betamax battle of the 1980s. This time, however, the Sony product appears to have prevailed.

“The overwhelming industry opinion is that this decides the format battle in favor of Blu-ray,” said Richard Doherty, research director at the Envisioneering Group, a market research firm in Seaford, N.Y.

Behind the studio’s decision are industrywide fears about the sagging home entertainment market, which has bruised the movie industry in recent years as piracy, competition from video games and the Internet, and soaring costs have cut into profitability. Analysts predict that domestic DVD sales fell by nearly 3 percent in 2007, partly because of confusion in the marketplace over the various formats.

HD DVD, however, is not dead. Two major studios, Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, have deals in place to continue releasing their movies exclusively on HD DVD, as does DreamWorks Animation. Warner Brothers, part of Time Warner, will also continue to release its titles on both formats until the end of May.

But by supporting Blu-ray, Warner Brothers, the largest player in the $42 billion global home entertainment market, makes it next to impossible for HD DVD to recover the early momentum it achieved.

While the specifics of the Blu-ray and HD DVD skirmish might be of interest only to insiders, the consequences of deciding a winner are not. Consumers have been largely sitting on the sidelines, waiting to buy high-definition players until they see which will have the most titles available. Retailers have been complaining about having to devote space to three kinds of DVDs. And the movie business has delayed tapping a lucrative new market worth billions. High-definition discs sell for a 25 percent premium.

“Consolidating into one format is something that we felt was necessary for the health of the industry,” Barry M. Meyer, the chief executive of Warner Brothers, said in a telephone interview. “The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger.”

In addition to Sony, a consortium of other electronics makers back Blu-ray. For Sony, Warner’s decision is a chance to rewrite history: the company faltered in its introduction of Betamax in the consumer market in the 1980s. Many analysts say the HD DVD players now risk becoming the equivalent of Betamax machines, which died out in large part because it became harder for consumers to find Betamax movies as studios shifted allegiance to VHS.

With Warner on board, Blu-ray now has about 70 percent of the market locked up; Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Lionsgate and, of course, Sony are all on Blu-ray’s team. Warner Brothers has some of the bigger releases in 2008, including “Speed Racer,” the Batman sequel “The Dark Knight” and the sixth Harry Potter installment.

“This doesn’t necessarily kill the HD DVD format, but it definitely deals it a severe blow,” said Paul Erickson, an analyst at the NPD Group’s DisplaySearch. “When a consumer asks a store clerk which format to buy, that clerk is now going to have a hard time arguing for HD DVD.”

In a prepared statement, Toshiba said it was “quite surprised” and “particularly disappointed” by Warner’s decision. “We will assess the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies,” the company said. Universal Pictures declined to comment.

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Indiantelevision.com Team

13 December 2007 3:20 pm

MUMBAI: According to a research conducted by The Diffusion Group (TDG), nearly one-third of non-high definition television (HDTV) households in the US are interested in purchasing a new HDTV in the next six months -- a good omen for HDTV manufacturers and, by relation, high-definition DVD manufacturers.

More interestingly, the research found that the characteristics of these HDTV intenders greatly differ from those of current HDTV owners. HDTV intenders tend to be younger, single, more ethnically diverse and have lower annual household incomes than current HDTV owners. In many respects, this is more characteristic of mainstream consumers than the early adopters who today own an HDTV.

While this trend could in theory benefit either Blu-ray or HD DVD, the data suggests otherwise. Among the HDTV Intenders, who are likely to purchase a new HD DVD player in the next six months, 43 per cent prefer the HD DVD player, 27 per cent prefer Blu-ray, and 30 per cent are undecided.

TDG president and principal analyst Michael Greeson says, "The strength of this preference and its correlation to mainstream attributes are notable. Today's high definition DVD owner is likely to be an early adopter with a knack for power gaming; most certainly, tech-sophisticates are not at all mainstream in temperament.

"The next wave of buyers is comprised of early mass-market consumers, a much larger segment with a focus on practical considerations such as price. TDG thinks that the format that can best address the needs of mainstream consumers will emerge as the winner of this format war."

When asked to characterise their own 'status' as technology consumers, HD DVD owners are five times more likely than non-owning HD DVD intenders to see themselves as early adopters. Conversely, non-owning HD DVD intenders are almost twice as likely as HD DVD owners to view themselves as early mass-market buyers.

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By Joel Hruska
Published: December 11, 2007 - 01:25PM CT

With Christmas fast approaching, movie studios, other HD content providers, and consumer electronics manufacturers are all focused on the performance of HD DVD and Blu-ray. As we've previously discussed, total sales of both HD DVD and Blu-ray movies since both standards launched in 2006 are only a tiny fraction of DVD sales. Samsung is hoping to tilt the scales in favor of Blu-ray; as of right now, Samsung's BD-P1400 Blu-ray player is selling for $279 on Amazon, down from a $499 MSRP.

That's not so much a discount as it is a steal, and it drops the BD-P1400 squarely within the price range for an HD DVD box. Unless Samsung is sitting on a mammoth heap of these things that it wants to move, I'd be surprised if the units stay in stock anywhere very long. If you've been waiting for a Blu-ray player, this definitely looks like one deal to jump on.

Earlier this year, Forrester Research predicted that the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray would continue until at least 2009. Even then, we observed that Forrester's time frame seemed a bit optimistic, and current trends today have only reinforced that opinion. Up until now, Warner Brothers has backed both formats and released titles on each format, but that may be about to change. The New York Times reports that Warner will choose which format to back based on which sells more movies through the Christmas season. If that's true, the studio is almost certainly headed for Blu-ray land—Toshiba may have sold more standalone HD players, but Blu-ray continues to dominate total disc sales. Losing WB would be a significant loss for HD DVD.

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December 12, 2007

by Jan Harris

New research from market intelligence firm, The Diffusion Group (TDG), finds that more people in the US, who are thinking of buying an HD TV in the next six months, are considering buying an HD DVD player than those who are thinking of buying a Blu-ray Disc machine.

TDG surveyed 1,500 US, adult internet users in October 2007 and 2,000 adult broadband users in November 2007.

Nearly 30% of respondents to the survey, who don’t already own an HD TV are planning to acquire one in the next six months.

An unspecified number of this group said they were also planning to buy a hi-def media player in the next six months, with 43% of them favouring an HD DVD machine, and just 27% considering a Blu-ray player. The remainder were undecided.

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New tool streamlines development and testing process for HD DVD content, accelerates advancement of next-generation interactivity, including experiences powered by Microsoft HDi technology.
December 13, 2007: 09:00 AM EST

REDMOND, Wash., Dec. 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. today announced the release of the Xbox 360 HD DVD Emulator, enabling film studios and disc authoring companies to model the behavior of HD DVD disc content, including encoded video and HDi interactivity, in a virtual environment before committing to burning a single HD DVD disc. This comprehensive tool is among the first commercially available, software-based solutions of its kind, eliminating the need for expensive hardware or time-consuming and costly trial-and-error processes for testing HD DVD titles, helping to ensure that titles ship error-free.

The enhanced content and rich interactive capabilities of HD DVD increase the need for an efficient way to troubleshoot coding to maintain the highest-quality consumer experiences. The emulator uses a combination of available hardware (the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system and the Xbox 360 HD DVD Player) and specialized emulation software to ultimately enable playback of near-final assets from a network storage share, portable hard drive or optical disc. This allows focused testing of the layout, the menus, and the behavior of the interactivity functionality of a title. Detailed log reports from the Xbox 360 HD DVD Emulator deliver valuable tracing information to help quickly and easily pinpoint problems with advanced interactivity code that otherwise could take hours of manual debugging.

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