Paramount backs Blu-ray, Warner and Universal may follow

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6262261.html

Interesting news. If Warner and Universal do back BR as well, then pretty much all the movie studios will back BR; HD-DVD, on the other hand, would still be missing support from some studios (primarily Sony).

BTW, for those that missed it, Microsoft and Intel decided to back HD-DVD due to several "reasons." These "reasons" included the "superior" capacity advantage of HD-DVD, the "exclusive" ability of hybrid discs, the "exclusive" ability of being able to create slim HD-DVD drives for notebooks, and a bunch of other BS. Dell and HP later came out and said it was all a bunch of BS and full of errors. You can look up these articles yourself, but I basically summed them up.

 

Well, if anything, this may mean that you won't have to buy two players. Prior to this announcement, the movie studios were more or less split on which format to support. Now, I think all the studios would at least put movies in each format. Instead of having to buy a BR player for Spiderman and Star Wars as well as a HD-DVD player for LOTR, The Matrix, and Batman, you may now be able to just buy a BR player and get all of those movies on BR. The Wintel decision means HD-DVD may have a little bit more life, but the format is basically dead compared to the support Blu-ray has.

 

I agree with that. Hybrid discs will help as will the PS3 (PSP did wonders for UMD's), but BR won't be selling like DVD (nowadays anyways) until a few years afterwards at best. The desire to move to BR would be largely motivated by HD content, but HDTV prices need to come down DRASTICALLY for it to come mainstream. I'm hopeful that some of the new HD content and HDTV tech will persuade the manufacturers to lower the prices, but that may not be the case. Fortunately for BR, the companies behind it have come up with some other ways to help the tech become mainstream. From the get-go, BR has been promoted more as a recordable disc format than a movie format, so expect a strong push for BR-drives in PC's and other electronics. I don't know about anyone else, but the thought of 25GB storage (minimum) sounds pretty great. And of course, Sony will be pushing the format for PS3 games. Maybe in a few years, this will drive down the costs of BR disc/drive manufacturing, maybe to even sub-DVD prices.

As long as the price is right, I think BR might start to have some nice success. Even though some might not care about movies in HD, the difference is pretty remarkable. For example, there is this one site that compares the DVD version of LOTR to the HD version of the movie:
http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCompare/

One plus for BR is that it may have more time than DVD before a "successor" comes. AFAIK, there really isn't anything after 1080p, at least not for quite a while. DVD, on the other hand, came out at a time when 1080p and other HD resolutions were in reach.

 

If you mean what it will cost us, then it really hasn't been mentioned at all AFAIK. As for what it would cost the manufacturers, I believe I read somewhere that it would initially cost ~20% more, but that could come down drastically, to the point where BR would cost less than a DVD (like I mentioned). And of course, it depends on what type of discs you're comparing (hybrid discs, single layer vs dual-layer, etc). A HD-DVD disc may cost less than a BR disc, but if you can fit the content on fewer discs, it may be cheaper to get the BR version.

I might be wrong to think this, but I wouldn't really worry about it. As it is, BR already has tons of support for BR devices, not to mention the PS3. I would imagine that movie studios could price BR movies a little cheaper if they know that the userbase is much larger than HD-DVD.

 

I'm guessing Warner and Co. just finally came to their senses and realized that there's no freaking way HD-DVD will win. As the article points out, with the PS3 alone, there will be WAY more BR players out there compared to the number of HD-DVD players (probably millions versus a couple hundred thousand, maybe less). Given the same situation I'm sure Sony (as well as the other BR founders/contributors such as Philips, Dell, Fox, Disney, HP, Apple, JVC, Panasonic, TDK, Sharp, Samsung, etc.) would give in as well. Sure, they'd rather support their format, but not at the expense of losing money. As it stands now, Warner and Co would receive more money by putting their movies out on BR than HD-DVD.

Well, I don't know if I'd say they're not compatible. IIRC, you can still watch movies on a BR player without HDMI, it just won't be in hi-def. In fact, I think I even read that the quality would be a little better than DVD.

As for being an early adopter, sucks to be you. AFAIK, HDMI has been in most HDTV's sold for like 2 years now. When you and others decided to put down a few grand on a TV a few years ago, that's the chance you guys, as early adopters, took.

 

Let's put it this way. Again, BR won't really start to pick up steam for another couple of years (maybe 2008 and on). Why should movie studios risk losing their movies to pirates because of some early adopters who spent a couple grand on an HDTV 3-5 years ago, before HDTV standards were really even set? From what I understand, this was known for several years, so if you were did proper research on HDTV's in the past few years, you knew this might happen. If you decided to risk it and put down a couple grand on a new TV, sucks to be you. It happens to anyone who is an early adopter; these companies will use you guys as beta testers, so to speak, and decide on what to do with their technology. In exchange, you guys got to experience the technology before anyone else. In a way, it is kind of like those people who spend 3-4K on PC gaming hardware, just to have it outdated in 6 months; they know it will happen, but they get to experience the best quality available for the time being. And chances are, when HDTV sets start to pick up more and more sales in the next few years, you guys will be back.

FWIW, the next-gen console require HDMI for HD, and I believe Vista will as well (despite the fact that no video card supports that yet). So get used to HDMI.

Yeah, I touched on that at the end of my opening post.

 

The Xbox 360 will have a 12x DVD drive, so basically the same as what's out there today. Although technically, ~2GB will be used for security reasons, so it will actually be a little less than what is out there today (~7 GB to ~9GB). And IMO, yes, this will put the Xbox 360 at a disadvantage over the long run; there's at least one Japanese launch window game that has already filled up 2 DVD's, and may go for 3.

MS has left the door open to a HD-DVD (or even a BR) add-on later on, although it would have to be used for movie playback only. Developers wouldn't use it for games.