HD DVD vs Blu-ray war heats up with third party manufacturer support
By Sean P. Aune
Things seem to be heating up already in 2008 for the HD DVD vs Blu-ray war, and it’s not just the format backers who are jumping in this time.
If one thing comes to mind about the early days of 2008 and the high def war, it’s that everyone seems to be picking a side. Companies want to include an HD format drive in their products, but which companies will finally bite the bullet and just go for it.
MacRumors.com, amongst other Apple rumors sites, is reporting that Mac laptops may be getting Blu-ray drives as early as this month’s Macworld conference. This one isn’t too hard to believe as Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, is the largest individual shareholder, and sits on the board of directors, of Disney. Mr. Jobs gets to put a high definition drive in his computers, at the same time helping to support the format that Disney has gone with. A smart move on his part.
Over at Microsoft, numerous rumors have been pointing to the Xbox 360 finally getting a built-in HD DVD drive. Up until now, the 360 has been able to play HD DVDs only through the purchase of a HD drive peripheral. As of right now, Microsoft is not commenting, but Toshiba, the biggest backer of the HD DVD format is saying the rumors are false.
Then there are those companies who decide to walk the painted line in the middle of the road. HP has announced a new desktop, the HP Pavilion Slimline s3330f PC, which will include support for both formats. The timing of this announcement is amusing with the recent study by ABI Research that addressed this very scenario.
Who knows who else may try to pack a high def drive into their equipment, but this year is sure off to an exciting start for those who haven’t made a decision yet.
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Stumble It!
January 3rd, 2008
It’s not about wildly over-priced Macs
(who, btw, have a history of initially installing grossly over-priced hardware that doesn’t sell and then moving to dual formats at a more reasonable price).
No, it’s about getting the self-same punters currently still buying regular DVD (in such quantities that it still trashes both high def formats combined out of sight in the sales numbers) to move to high def.
Only HD DVD will do this, this year.
It happens when those same Chinese companies making the very well selling regular upscaling DVD players swap their production over to making even better upscaling DVD players that also happen to play HD DVD and for around the same money ($100).
‘HD DVD China’ launches in march.
The new Chinese brands all use the excellent Toshiba HD A3 as their reference design.
It’s perfect for the mainstream a/v mass-market, it’s all that’s needed and it can be sold for sub $100 which we already know moves as fast as it is stocked..
‘Twin’ discs (with an SD DVD & HD DVD copy of a movie on the same side of the disc) will see the differences in movie disc production eliminated = vast production numbers.
This will mean high def discs will soon be around the same price as regular DVD.
Game over for Blu-ray is this year.
They have nothing to counter this.
Blu-ray will just be another failed game console proprietary format for the PS3 with a relatively tiny amount of standalone and PC burner activity bolted on.
January 3rd, 2008
DaveBG, I seriously hope Toshiba is paying you, since I see your comment everywhere.
There has already been a cheap chinese HD DVD player, and even Walmart refused to sell it. Come on, thats just sad.
Right now, it seems Bluray has the advantage over HD-DVD. I don’t know where you’re getting your info from…
January 4th, 2008
HD-DVD will be dead in 3 month after Warner studio dumps it.
Over 10 million Bluray players are sold compared to less than 1 million HD-DVD.
January 4th, 2008
Just days before CES 2008, Warner Home Video has announced that they
are going to stop supporting HD-DVD and support the Blu-Ray format
exclusively. There are rumors that this decision was made after Sony
paid Warner 1.8 billion dollars to sign an exclusive contract, one of
the largest payoffs yet (the second largest being 150 million to
Paramount and Dreamworks to go HD-DVD exclusively.)
Warner’s official response, however, was:
“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.
After August 2007, Sir Howard Stringer, CEO of Sony said that the Blu-
Ray format was in a stalemate. “It’s a difficult fight. We were trying
to win on the merits, which we were doing for a while, until Paramount
changed sides,” Howard Stringer told the AP.
Blu-Ray was winning the HD format war in North America and Asia, but
not Europe, until the Dreamworks/Paramount buyout.
Many consider this new Warner Home Video buyout to be the end of the
format war completely.
January 5th, 2008
Unfortunately the format war will drag on a lil longer even with Warner’s announcement. There are still major players on HD-DVD and until everyone (ALL studios and all hardware manufacturers) agree and move quickly in one swoop, we haven’t seen the end of the tunnel just yet. Plus normal DVD sales are still a huge market for at least a few more years. As a hd-dvd owner, I am saddened and also betrayed given Warner’s last announcement they would “stay” neutral (denying rumors earlier about BD exclusivity.)
This format war has left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths (Paramount/Dreamworks leaving BD, Warner leaving HD-DVD). The question now is,l how soon can Sony come up with a 99-199 standalone 1.1 player with ethernet?