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  Warner Bros. moves to Blu-ray camp exclusively
Time: 15:47 EST/20:47 GMT | News Source: BetaNews | Posted By: Michael Dragone

In a move that could upset the balance between the competing high-definition disc formats yet again, Warner Home Video today said that it is switching its allegiance entirely to the Blu-ray camp, in an effort to reduce confusion.

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#1 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/4/2008 4:01:57 PM
Don't blame them its selling better - only reason Paramount went with HD DVD was thanks to a pay off...this pretty much ends the war and the right group will win. This payoff for Warner seems a much better idea to me.

Now roll out Xbox 360 Ultimate Microsoft so we can all have a laugh.

This post was edited by Byron_Hinson[AW] on Friday, January 04, 2008 at 16:15.

#2 By 3653 (65.80.181.153) at 1/4/2008 7:49:38 PM
byron, your post is a bit scattered. hard to follow completely.

how is this gonna end the war? feel free to elaborate.

"The payoff for Warner" - huh?

360 Ultimate makes you laugh? why is that?

#3 By 82766 (202.154.80.85) at 1/4/2008 9:59:53 PM
I'll take a stab...

1 - With all major studios except Paramount now with Blu-ray... what are the consumers going to see in the stores? Yes the majority of "HD" discs will be Blu-ray thus the consumers will "go with" Blu-ray players. So this time next year, the war should be won with Blu-ray being the winner.

2 - The payoff for Warner is quite simple really... the economic gain of Blu-ray sales by being with the majority.

3 - Who now really wants to see an inferior* HD-DVD based 360? I say "inferior" because thats what the general public will think HD-DVD is...

Remember the beta vs vhs "war" - if it can be called that. The public went with VHS because it was "cheaper" even though it was inferior to beta. But in this day and age, it is *MY* view that the public will go with what they see on the shelves... and the majority of the "big name films" will be supplied on Blu-ray.

This post was edited by MyBlueRex on Friday, January 04, 2008 at 22:00.

#4 By 37 (66.188.104.250) at 1/5/2008 9:09:59 AM
"Don't blame them its selling better"

I would hardly call giving away BR players in every PS3 at a loss as "selling better". If you were to look at stand alone players, HD-DVD is outselling BR.

I am sure Warner was paid off by Sony, just like others, so it's no surprise.

This is actually a loss to the consumer because the HD-DVD format is a better quality format. In the end, the BR and Hd-DVD will just be storage media. The future is downloadable content. Expect these formats to die off just like betamax.

#5 By 2201 (78.32.103.51) at 1/5/2008 3:09:02 PM
#4 except that when you look at stand-alone, the fact that PS3 can play Blu-rays (which means owners don't need to buy seperate Blu-ray players) is complicating the issue and is one of the reasons why HD DVD players are selling more. In actual fact (where the actual money is) Blu-ray discs are outselling HD DVD discs.

#6 By 37 (66.188.104.250) at 1/5/2008 3:33:40 PM
They are outselling HD-DVD because of all the free BR (PS3) players out there, and due to a lack of quality game titles, many PS3 owners are purchasing BR movies as a substitute for gaming entertainment...at least for the time being.

Of course there will be more BR movie sales than HD-DVD sales when there are more BR players out there.

#7 By 92283 (64.180.196.143) at 1/5/2008 3:39:05 PM
"While 4 million Blu-Ray discs sold is better than 2006, it means that all of the BD discs sold in 2007 don’t even total the sales figures for one major DVD release like Transformers or 300. That’s right, ONE DVD release in 2007, just one, has outsold the entire number of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD’s sold in 2007. How pitiful is that?"

http://www.tvpredictions.com/2007/12/blu-ray-hd-dvd-sales-pitiful.html

DVD's sold 1.092 billion units in 2007 in the USA. Thats a drop of 4.5% from 2006.

"According to Adams Media tallies, consumer spending on DVDs fell 4.8 percent to $15.7 billion in 2007 from $16.5 billion in 2006."

http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSN0325539220080105


#8 By 3653 (65.80.181.153) at 1/5/2008 4:16:43 PM
"Blu-ray discs are outselling HD DVD discs"

amazon buy-one-get-one-free firesale on bluray didnt hurt, i suppose. kinda hard to call that 'outselling' though. Its called DUMPING on the market. Good for consumers, so power to them.

For the life of me, I find it hard to understand bluray supporters. WHY would anyone choose a format that seems to be routinely 50% more expensive to follow? And the quality appears no better, from what I've seen.

#9 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/5/2008 6:28:21 PM
#8 - once they start to use the proper codec and everything goes Blu-Ray only we'll see proper quality differences over HD-DVD - some titles (few) already show that. The reason they have chosen it seems simply to be because they are selling more titles and there are more players out there. People knocked Sony for shipping the PS3 with Blu-Ray but that has worked for them and I'm personally pleased it has as I pray for cheaper blu-ray burners now.

#7 - it is pitiful - but thats because of the battle between the two, a heck of a lot of people didn't want to choose between a blu-ray player or HD-DVD player as one or the other would be useless within a year. Blame MS for part of that too, but again that won't get mentioned by you.

#6 - actually as the PS3 got better titles at Christmas such as Ratchet and my game of the year - Uncharted, sales of games were high, but blu-ray titles still sold just as many. I buy them not due to lack of games on the PS3, but because I want the films - I don't buy things for the sake of it and I doubt most of the blu-ray owners do either.

#4 - how is sony buying them off (if they did, and unlikely i still feel as warner always said they would go with the format that was selling best) different to Microsoft (and it was them who paid most of the money to the HD-DVD foundation)...it isn't so that is a mute point.

also HD-DVD quality isn't better than Blu-Ray - they even use the same codecs now - a look at the reviews can even tell you that Blu-ray quality is now starting to outdo hd-dvd, and no surprise seeing using the same codec and the larger size disks will result in much improved bitrates.

#10 By 92283 (64.180.196.143) at 1/5/2008 9:28:34 PM
Admittedly, this is from Wikipedia:

"The DVD Forum (which was chaired by Toshiba) was deeply split over whether to go with the more expensive blue lasers or not. In addition, the proposed Blu-ray disc with its protective caddy was both expensive and physically different from DVD, posing several problems.[11]

In March 2002, the forum voted to approve a proposal endorsed by Warner Bros. and other motion picture studios that involved compressing HD content onto dual-layer DVD-9 discs.

If this had happened, I bet 50% of more of all DVD's sold by now would be HD.

[13] However, in spite of this decision, the DVD Forum's Steering Committee announced in April that it was pursuing its own blue-laser high-definition solution.[14] In August, Toshiba and NEC announced their competing standard Advanced Optical Disc.[15]

It was finally adopted by the DVD forum and renamed HD DVD the next year,[16] after being voted down twice by Blu-ray Disc Association members, prompting the U.S. Department of Justice to make preliminary investigations into the situation. Three new members had to be invited and the voting rules changed before the vote finally passed."

"much larger issue, though, was the physical formats of the discs themselves; the Blu-ray member companies did not want to risk losing billions of dollars in royalties as they had done with standard DVD."

Byron, trying to blame Microsoft for the stupidity and greed of the Blu-Ray camp is kind of sad.

This post was edited by NotParkerToo on Saturday, January 05, 2008 at 21:33.

#11 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/5/2008 10:47:47 PM
#10 - I don't see stupidity when they'll win, they went for the advanced format that was moving forward with larger space on the disks. Also I was talking about dragging out the "war" Blu-Ray was winning on merit then Microsoft/HD-DVD Foundations money bought out Paramount that even most directors were not happy about - that is what i mean about dragging things out when there was already a winner on the horizon.

This post was edited by Byron_Hinson[AW] on Saturday, January 05, 2008 at 22:49.

#12 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/5/2008 10:56:47 PM
http://kotaku.com/341012/ces-hd-dvd-press-conference-canceled

Another bell tolls

#13 By 2960 (72.196.195.185) at 1/5/2008 11:27:51 PM
#1,

You don't think THESE companies were paid off?

Of course they were...

TL

#14 By 2960 (72.196.195.185) at 1/5/2008 11:33:39 PM
It's amazing how the format with everything against it is supposidly winning...


For manufacturers:

1. It costs considerably more for media companies to make BluRay Discs.
2. New production lines are required (HDDVD can use existing production lines).
3. Hardware is more expensive to the consumer, which can stall sales.

For consumers:

1. BluRay is more expensive.
2. BluRay has esoteric, changing copy protection that requires frequent Firmware Updates to players.
3. BluRay has Region Coding, HDDVD does not.
4. BluRay is controled by Sony. That in itself is a reason not to support BluRay. No one in their right mind would trust Sony. History has shown they are not trustworthy.

I truly don't get it.

If they made a movie about this, I guess it would be called "BluRay - Revenge of the BetaMax"

TL

#15 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/5/2008 11:37:50 PM
#13#14 - where do I say they didn't get paid off " This payoff for Warner seems a much better idea to me." in my post tends to state i do think they did.

Also love how you are stating that blu-rays are more expensive to consumers...where exactly is this you shop - certainly here in the UK HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are priced the same...and it seems if you read the forums they are over in America too.

Good to ignore any plus points for blu-ray too though, always good to get an even view.

#16 By 37 (66.188.104.250) at 1/6/2008 7:56:03 AM
#6 - actually as the PS3 got better titles at Christmas such as Ratchet and my game of the year - Uncharted, sales of games were high, but blu-ray titles still sold just as many. I buy them not due to lack of games on the PS3, but because I want the films - I don't buy things for the sake of it and I doubt most of the blu-ray owners do either.

They didn't get that much better though. In fact, they are still hurting for long term AAA titles. They are not winning any awards either. The majority of people I know are using their PS3 for a BR player until some better games are released. it's too bad that the highly anticipated Unreal III has also been a bomb on the PS3. I had high hopes for that game.

#4 - how is sony buying them off (if they did, and unlikely i still feel as warner always said they would go with the format that was selling best) different to Microsoft (and it was them who paid most of the money to the HD-DVD foundation)...it isn't so that is a mute point.

Sony giving Warner money to go exclusive to BR is how.

also HD-DVD quality isn't better than Blu-Ray - they even use the same codecs now - a look at the reviews can even tell you that Blu-ray quality is now starting to outdo hd-dvd, and no surprise seeing using the same codec and the larger size disks will result in much improved bitrates.

In everything I have watched between the two, and everything I have read in forums and online, HD-DVD has been a superior quality advantage. The larger disks haven't made a difference, and the movies are not even using half the space.

This post was edited by AWBrian on Sunday, January 06, 2008 at 07:56.

#17 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/6/2008 8:04:22 AM
#16.

Unreal 3 is a flop on all formats...trust me it will be on the 360 too - the biggest surprise isn't it was a flop on the PS3, it was a bigger flop on the PC where the fan base was. People just don't want that kind of multiplayer only title.

But again, Sony paying Warner is no different to Microsoft/HD-DVD paying off Paramount is it? So again its a mute point as they have both done exactly the same thing except Sony went and got the major company.

Don't disagree about them not using up all the space, though as you would know - quite a few now do and this has resulted in better picture quality over HD-DVD, although not too noticeable. They have already stated once the companies went to a specific Blu-Ray or HD-DVD format they would then produce titles that are designed specifically for that format - at the moment they went for the lowest common one, HD-DVD using 30gb with identical codecs to ease the push to both formats in one..now at last they can fill up those disks seeing that format is dead.

#18 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/6/2008 8:20:43 AM
Seems warner are saying there was no payoff

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Warner/Warner:_No_Payoff_for_Move_to_Blu-ray/1327

#19 By 37 (66.188.104.250) at 1/6/2008 8:54:24 AM
That is what they ALL say.

#20 By 3653 (65.80.181.153) at 1/6/2008 10:22:48 PM
TechLarry, I'm with you. From the consumer's point of view... I just don't see any advantage to going bluray. Its more bucks outta my pocket, for what? Even byron admits the codecs are the same. But the price sure isn't.

ps... whatever happened to the idea that whatever the pr0n producers chose, would win this format war? Does Warner now make pr0n? ;-) Me thinks, blurayers are simply using any change in the marketplace to declare victory AGAIN (for the 6th time i think).

This post was edited by mooresa56 on Sunday, January 06, 2008 at 22:25.

#21 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/7/2008 5:04:55 AM
#20 - using the same codec doesn't mean one doesn't have an advantage over the other - if the guys/girls who make the blu-rays in the future actually use up the whole space with the same codec you will see an improvement thanks to much better bitrates - something HD-DVD wouldn't be able to do due to lack of space.

I'm not surprised Pron didn't help either side, it was sold on HD-DVD far more than Blu-Ray and hasn't sold well on that format - but I don't blame HD-DVD - no one sensible gets pron on media disks these days!!!

Still got to say where the hell are you guys buying HD-DVD or Blu-Rays from, as everywhere has them priced the same over here.

This post was edited by Byron_Hinson[AW] on Monday, January 07, 2008 at 05:07.

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