Warner's Blu-ray / HD DVD hybrid disc on indefinite hold
The story's in the search results with this one -- after continually delaying its Total HD hybrid Blu-ray / HD DVD discs, Warner president Ron Sanders told TWICE that the format is "on hold for now," because the company fears being the only publisher of such discs could "be hard to make it go." Furthermore, while the studio is still planning on putting out both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs, but its talking to both sides about exclusives and "it's kind of crazy right now." Indeed. Too bad all that craziness is terrible for the consumer, eh, Ron?[Via Hi-Def Digest]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kevin Murphy @ Sep 15th 2007 2:25PM
What's crazy for the consumer is that only Warner is willing to be neutral. If all studios had been neutral for the last year, this war would be over now, HD DVD winning hands down on player price.
Of course, that's why Sony bought those studios in the first place (they said so, too), if we wan to get into the "who paying money to whom" game.
david @ Sep 16th 2007 12:34AM
Sony bought the motion picture studio before blu-ray was a thought in their greedy little heads. It was purchased to increase sales of pre-recorded video TAPES and the "new" dvd format.
david farmer @ Sep 15th 2007 3:04PM
this industry is totally F'd up. I have a PS3 Blu-Ray player, but will NEVER buy any discs until the "war" is over. Even rentals stink at this point, as there just aren't many good movies out.
Thank God there wasn't a competing Format to the CD when it came out, or we'd still be listening to cassette tapes!
Jeff @ Sep 15th 2007 3:56PM
The Blu Ray/HD fanbois are pretty lame. You should combine your anger toward the studios that are playing the game rather than each other that are the victims of such. Personally I don't have either because I just don't care.
The point of the article is that all of this game playing is anti-consumer. Just like Comcast/Directv fighting with each other, neither one of them has done much of anything to this point. Hopefully Directv will get their channels up and then lower the price on their HD/DVD boxes.
Now for the point of my post. Get over yourself. Nobody with a life cares whether HD or Blu Ray wins.
DeadPlasmaCell @ Sep 15th 2007 4:35PM
Hybrid disc ay?? Sounds like a good idea if more studios would pick it up.. Much cheaper than a Combo Player
Michael @ Sep 16th 2007 6:14PM
"Much cheaper than a Combo Player"
Not really. You only have to buy a combo player once. Dual discs you pay for every single time you buy them. Since these are currently on hold, it's difficult to say how much of a premium price each disc will be however the HD-DVD/DVD combo discs run a minimum of $10 more than a single format disc. You can pretty much count on these hybrid discs running a minimum of $20 more apiece. Conceivably, they might come close to doubling the cost of a single format disc.
Still think these are cheaper than a Combo Player?
skablaw @ Sep 15th 2007 7:15PM
Nice
Vince @ Sep 15th 2007 8:24PM
If Sony had made all the calls without Toshiba rearing their HD DVD head, I'm sure we'd still be paying $1000 for Blu-Ray players and the PS3 might still be at $600!
SimbaDogg @ Sep 15th 2007 11:26PM
yeah...thats sounds about right...priced so 97% of the population would find it out of reach/too expensive
JeffDM @ Sep 16th 2007 11:12AM
What would these discs cost? If an HD-DVD costs about $2 a piece to stamp, and BRDs cost $2 a piece, combined with the low run lots and lost economies of scale, would that mean that $6 would go to just making the disc? Wouldn't that make it a $60 movie?
Vince; I'm kind of doubting your explanation. The Blu-Ray players have to compete against the PS3, and the PS3 has to compete against XB360. DVD players went down in price pretty quickly without a credible competing format, I really don't think Divx was a credible competing format, besides, prices on DVD players were dropping before and after Divx.
Sean @ Sep 16th 2007 10:13PM
It's on hold because it just doesn't have enough value. The only studios that would put these discs out are studios that are already releasing on both formats...in which case you just buy the disc that works on your player. The only possible benefits I can see to this disc is future proofing your hi-def collection if your player of choice loses the format war.
Kumar @ Sep 17th 2007 10:08AM
Warner is probably doing this because they're going to commit to one side or the other in the next month, just in time for exclusive Christmas sales. You can bet there's a huge...betting war going on right now for them too. Whichever 'side' they choose would be hheeeeuuge.
Which reminds me, time to update the firmware on my hd-d2 ;)
The Jeremy @ Sep 17th 2007 2:20PM
There's other "advantages" for a studio to produce the THD hybrid disc. For one, it would (ultimately) lower their production/packaging costs by reducing their output from 2 different platform versions of the same title to 1. This also makes it easier for the studio to get the retailers to stock more catalog titles because shelf space is better maximized...a Best Buy would only have to use shelf space for THD instead of separate space for both HD DVD and Blu-ray as is the current practice.
What is incidious about the whole thing (THD) is Warner's claim that they would be helping out Joe Consumer with such releases. In fact, if Blu-ray wins, then Warner will still ensure that they will be making money on each sale of the THD releases based upon their patent portfolio covering DVD and HD DVD by forcing the Blu-ray consumer to pay that license (built into the price). If the whole market shifts to strictly Blu-ray, then Warner loses out on those monies which is why Warner supports HD DVD. They support Blu-ray for the CYA benefits of the often debated larger owner base.
The only reason in my mind why Warner has not gone to exclusively to THD would be manufacturing costs. They'd probably have to sell them currently above the cost of the DVD/HD DVD combo discs which would scare Joe Consumer even though if inflation adjusted, a $39.99 MRSP or more in 2007 (US) dollars is still certainly a better price than the cost of a movie on VHS was back in the late 1980s or early 1990s.