Universal's Exclusivity Drop from HD DVD
Originally Posted by It's only me:
“It was only a matter of time
http://www.thegamersthought.com/2008...niversals.html”
“It was only a matter of time
http://www.thegamersthought.com/2008...niversals.html”
Its still guesswork but the only surprise will be if it doesnt happen.
HD DVD is dying slowly and I would bet that Paramount and Universal will be releasing BD by May
Oh dear. It seems like less and less companies are wanting to have anything to do with HD DVD, they are all going for Blu Ray. To be quite honest, this doesn't surprise me in the least. If HD DVD had the same amount of storage as the Blu Ray, then they might just have stood a chance, but, seeing as though HD DVD has less storage, they've really only hurt themselves to be honest. If you place two things that people like infront of them, and the one on the right has more, then they aren't exactly going to go for the one that has less. They are obviously going to go for the one that has the most quantity. I think this is what's going to kill HD DVD off in the end, sadly.
From source: http://www.tvpredictions.com/hddvd021508.htm
Washington, D.C. (February 15, 2008) -- Toshiba is expected to pull the plug on the HD DVD high-def disc format in the coming weeks.
That's according to an article in Home Media Magazine, which quotes "reliable industry sources."
The publication says that no official decision has been made, but adds that recent endorsements of rival Blu-ray have forced Toshiba to concede defeat. (Toshiba is the leading supporter of the HD DVD format.)
Washington, D.C. (February 15, 2008) -- Toshiba is expected to pull the plug on the HD DVD high-def disc format in the coming weeks.
That's according to an article in Home Media Magazine, which quotes "reliable industry sources."
The publication says that no official decision has been made, but adds that recent endorsements of rival Blu-ray have forced Toshiba to concede defeat. (Toshiba is the leading supporter of the HD DVD format.)
Originally Posted by zx5:
“Oh dear. It seems like less and less companies are wanting to have anything to do with HD DVD, they are all going for Blu Ray. To be quite honest, this doesn't surprise me in the least. If HD DVD had the same amount of storage as the Blu Ray, then they might just have stood a chance, but, seeing as though HD DVD has less storage, they've really only hurt themselves to be honest. If you place two things that people like infront of them, and the one on the right has more, then they aren't exactly going to go for the one that has less. They are obviously going to go for the one that has the most quantity. I think this is what's going to kill HD DVD off in the end, sadly.”
“Oh dear. It seems like less and less companies are wanting to have anything to do with HD DVD, they are all going for Blu Ray. To be quite honest, this doesn't surprise me in the least. If HD DVD had the same amount of storage as the Blu Ray, then they might just have stood a chance, but, seeing as though HD DVD has less storage, they've really only hurt themselves to be honest. If you place two things that people like infront of them, and the one on the right has more, then they aren't exactly going to go for the one that has less. They are obviously going to go for the one that has the most quantity. I think this is what's going to kill HD DVD off in the end, sadly.”
Storage capacity had little to do with BD winning.
HD DVD capcity was more than enough to hold an HD movie aswell as stacks of extras.
And many current releases on both side dont even bring the dvd extras to the HD version so the capacity issue is irrelevant.
What swayed Disney and Fox was the copy protection systems and region coding of BD.
Hd DVD did not use coding and Sony made quite a claim in saying that if copy protection was hacked on BD they could easily alter it with updates.
Amazing how some people still thank disk capacity is an issue, it only comes into play when you use sloppy encoding or put two copies of a movie on a disk since PIP isn't an option in hardware or use PCM when lossless TrueHD is an option.
The DRM as dennisspooner says has always been the point FOX and Disney have mentioned although no shouting from the rooftops as it's not to make a consumers life better it's to weaken fair use. No question HD DVD was cracked first but the first Blu-ray rips appeared a week later and even the latest BD+ was hacked although it was a brute force approach but once it's on the net how it was done is irrelevant.
Alas all this is pretty much a non-issue, regardless of the merits of either format one had more studio support (how this ended up isn't important) so you can buy any format you want you'll just be denied movies from the other camp.
Wasn't it Henry Fordwho said, any colour you want as long as it's black
The DRM as dennisspooner says has always been the point FOX and Disney have mentioned although no shouting from the rooftops as it's not to make a consumers life better it's to weaken fair use. No question HD DVD was cracked first but the first Blu-ray rips appeared a week later and even the latest BD+ was hacked although it was a brute force approach but once it's on the net how it was done is irrelevant.
Alas all this is pretty much a non-issue, regardless of the merits of either format one had more studio support (how this ended up isn't important) so you can buy any format you want you'll just be denied movies from the other camp.
Wasn't it Henry Fordwho said, any colour you want as long as it's black
IMHO the format war was won by the PS3 pushing more units to market quicker and studios needing a winner sooner rather than later so the next format becomes a standard before downloading becomes mainstream (which I do see as being years off, but realistically the format war could have dragged on another year easy without studios defecting).
Neither format had the edge from a consumer point of view that was verifiable when you sit down to watch a film.
Neither format had the edge from a consumer point of view that was verifiable when you sit down to watch a film.
Originally Posted by Sirius:
“IMHO the format war was won by the PS3 pushing more units to market quicker and studios needing a winner sooner rather than later so the next format becomes a standard before downloading becomes mainstream (which I do see as being years off, but realistically the format war could have dragged on another year easy without studios defecting).
Neither format had the edge from a consumer point of view that was verifiable when you sit down to watch a film.”
“IMHO the format war was won by the PS3 pushing more units to market quicker and studios needing a winner sooner rather than later so the next format becomes a standard before downloading becomes mainstream (which I do see as being years off, but realistically the format war could have dragged on another year easy without studios defecting).
Neither format had the edge from a consumer point of view that was verifiable when you sit down to watch a film.”
Inclusion of a Bluray drive in the PS3 was always going to create a surge in BD sales when the console was released but I dont think anyone could forsee how wide the gap between BD and HD DVD sales would get so quickly and I think that gap was the deciding factor for Warner.
However ,although irrelevant now I think the impact of the PS3 was only so large because the impact of both HD formats on the mass market was so minimal and the obvious advantages for the mass market consumer of much cheaper hardware never really had a chance to make a difference.
The HD disc market is puny and despite having a PS3 myself I believe that BD will remain niche for a good few years yet and it may well never sell in large enough quantities to overtake dvd which by and large still gives pictures that are more than adequate for most people.
