Warner Bros to back Blu-ray DVD format exclusively
Fri Jan 4, 2008 6:48pm EST
Warner Bros, Hollywood's biggest seller of DVDs, representing about 18 to 20 percent of sales in the United States, was one of the few studios that backed both formats.
All sides of the format war had agreed it was confusing to consumers and a stumbling block for a potential multibillion-dollar industry.
Total DVD unit sales fell 4.5 percent in 2007, the first major year-over-year decline since the disc format debuted in 1997, according to Adams Media Research. Sales fell 4.8 percent to $15.7 billion.
"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 Bros Chairman and Chief Executive Barry Meyer said in a statement.
Warner said it would continue releasing in the HD DVD format until the end of May, although those releases would follow the standard DVD and Blu-ray releases.
Well, as I understand it, there won't be any need to replace collections this time...just replace the machine you're using. The Blu-Ray machine will also play the older, standard DVD format we're most familiar with.
Unless, of course, you've already started snatching up HD-DVD's...then you may be replacing some eventually.
Seriously, I don't ever buy into the new gadgets and technology until the standards have been locked in for quite some time. It'll probably be at least another couple of years before we've fully switched over to the High Def craze.
-- Judy
Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows...but only empties today of its strengths.
C. H. Spurgeon
i wish they would pick a format and stick with it. i'm sick of replacing my collections...
records to 8-track to cassette to cd
beta to vhs to dvd and now this...
oh man... consumerism bites... harms the earth with the garbage it creates.
we never should of had vhs to start with beta was far better sony just lost the war back then.
thankfully the industry realized their mistake all those years ago and realize how far ahead of the game sony is and is backing them now (it doesnt hurt that sony is huge in the movie industry now i believe #2 or #3)
hd dvd never had a chance anyway tho the quality of blu-ray on a 1080 tv is so crisp and clean it doesnt look like real life it looks better
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we never should of had vhs to start with beta was far better sony just lost the war back then.
thankfully the industry realized their mistake all those years ago and realize how far ahead of the game sony is and is backing them now (it doesnt hurt that sony is huge in the movie industry now i believe #2 or #3)
hd dvd never had a chance anyway tho the quality of blu-ray on a 1080 tv is so crisp and clean it doesnt look like real life it looks better
HD-DVD and blu-ray pictures are exactly the same, and often use the same video file on the disc. The big difference is that HD-DVD encryption has been cracked so it's now the consumer friendly format despite the wish of it's creators, while blu-ray is still the anti-consumer pro-studio format.
Having moved beyond plastic discs a couple of years ago, blu-ray with it's locked-in format is useless to me. HD-DVD can be copied to my media server and played at a click from a menu without the disc being present, and those files will be playable without restriction when HD-DVD and blu-ray are a distant memory.
Blu-ray has one advantage right now in that if you buy a PS3 and a $1,200 stereo, you can play uncompressed 7.1 audio over HDMI 1.3 rather than DTS-ES on several movies.
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Originally Posted by littleindiangirl
i wish they would pick a format and stick with it. i'm sick of replacing my collections... 
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