Gizmodo
It's been speculated upon and speculated upon, but today it happened: Warner Bros. declared undying allegiance to one format alone: Blu-ray. "The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger," said Warner chairman Barry Meyer, suggesting that this move will end the format war. We are a bit sad about this, given our current love of Warner's HD DVDs over their identical Blu-ray titles. And there's still a lot of momentum on the HD DVD side, with Paramount, DreamWorks and Universal exclusivity. But this is a massive blow for sure.
WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT TO RELEASE ITS HIGH-DEFINITION DVD TITLES EXCLUSIVELY IN THE BLU-RAY DISC FORMAT BEGINNING LATER THIS YEAR Decision Made in Response to Strong Consumer Preference for Format(January 4, 2008 - Burbank, CA) - In response to consumer demand, Warner Bros. Entertainment will release its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year, it was announced today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros. and Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.
"Warner Bros.' move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want," said Meyer. "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 Home Video will continue to release its titles in standard DVD format and Blu-ray. After a short window following their standard DVD and Blu-ray releases, all new titles will continue to be released in HD DVD until the end of May 2008.
"Warner Bros. has produced in both high-definition formats in an effort to provide consumer choice, foster mainstream adoption and drive down hardware prices," said Jeff Bewkes, President and Chief Executive Officer, Time Warner Inc., the parent company of Warner Bros. Entertainment. "Today's decision by Warner Bros. to distribute in a single format comes at the right time and is the best decision both for consumers and Time Warner."
"A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry," said Tsujihara. "Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the right step in making this great home entertainment experience accessible to the widest possible audience. Warner Bros. has worked very closely with the Toshiba Corporation in promoting high definition media and we have enormous respect for their efforts. We look forward to working with them on other projects in the future."
Comments
YEEESSSSSS! The end of this format war may be near and for a brief moment the world makes sense.
I guess this is for the best...
I just wonder how much sony paid Warner brothers for this? 300 million dollars?
Glad I waited!
THANK GOD, NAH NAH NAH NAH, NAH NAH NAH NAH, HEY HEY HEY GOOD BYE HD DUD!
yes a smart move, hehe hd-dvd's end is very near, i'll give it about 5 months to die, a year at the very most
Meh...
I figure just as BR gets crowned everyone will start the slow drift away from disk based media.
Dang. Sony just can't win.
(Sigh.) At least I got the Ultimate Matrix, Harry Potters and Kubrick set on Betamax before I realized I had to buy an Intellivision.
I can hear crying already,
another nail in the hd-dvd coffin!
Blu-Ray Lord of the Rings Extended Edition please.
Let me know when The Lord of The Rings picks a side and I'm there. Until then, I've got my PS3 and can always pick up an HDDVD player if they stage a comeback. With prices where they are now, they're not going to be more than $100 by the end of this year anyway.
I wish it was that simple. Yes, it is a big blow, but here I quote the Colbert Report (except substitute "at&t with "HD-DVD") "HD-DVD is the T-1000 of disc formats. No matter how many pieces you split it apart, it always comes right back."
And people wonder why MS doesn't do a 360 with a built in HDDVD drive.
Blu-Ray is for fanboys! The public doesn't even know what a Blu-Ray is. Sad. HD-DVD is the logical progression to DVDs. The players are cheaper too.
"Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the right step in making this great home entertainment experience accessible to the widest possible audience."
We're so confident of the clarity of their choice, we will make it impossible for any other choice to be made. This is called customer service, or, more accurately:"...becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry," said Tsujihara.
Oh, and Blu-Ray Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet please.
And all was well with the world.
This is the greatest way to start off the new year.
Praise the Lord.
@CubFan81: Didn't they just do that? New Line is part of Time Warner. New Line owns LOTR.
And yes, I'm pissed because I bought HD-DVD. Why there wasn't consensus at the beginning is all to do with Sony's greed. Toshiba, the creator of DVDs, were just making the next step. ARRRGGG!!!
I picked right!
Farcast, why is HD-DVD the logical progression to DVD? Just because the name sounds similar?
Though I want nothing more than an end to the format war... I suspect cheap dual format players will make it irrelevant by the end of the year.
"After that my guess is that you will never hear from him again. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist. And like that... he is gone."
@CubFan81: Beings New Line is owned by Warner Bros, I'd say they just did pick a side (and I really doubt PJ has the clout to work a Spielberg/Paramount style deal).
I can see it now:
"Grandpa, what are those red disc cases?"
"Well Johnny those are HD-DVD's. They were going to make the world a better place until Warner Bros. decided to piss in the pool of consumer goodwill to get an elitist hand job or two from the BluRay fanboys."
"Grandpa what's a fanboy?"
@Messiah023: That's exactly why. Joe consumer walking through Wal-Mart probably has a DVD player and hears all about HDTV and HD cable and DirecTV HD....then he sees "HD DVD"...it makes sense to people who aren't tech geeks like us. Blu-ray sounds like a weapon from a James Bond film.
They'll regret this. Surely.
Granted, the technology is superior, but you have to think about what the average consumer would have to do to adapt to this: purchase very expensive new equipment in order to purchase very expensive high-tech DVDs.
Communication theories (adaptation, in particular) say that the harder it is for the average movie-watching consumer to switch, the less likely the plan is to succeed.
Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-Ray? Hardly. Hardly. Hardly. Go to Wal-Mart and ask 20 random people (NOT in the electronics department) to tell you what Blu-Ray is and you'll get your answer. Those are the average consumers - not techies.
Sony ditching DRM and now this....
It is a good day to be a geek.
I picked the winnar!
@farcast: Please expand on your "logical progression" comment. That in itself seems to be a fanboy comment you claim to loathe. The naming is purely marketing.
Those of us that thought Paramount's decision was a deathblow were proven wrong already. I think this will be the same. Why does this have to be a back and forth about winning when we as consumers are losing because Hollywood has it's thumb up it's @$$? How many people remember that just about EVERY studio was supporting UMD at one point...and UMD didn't even have competition other than Memory sticks and ripped DVDs. This is unfortunately still not over.
damn IE7Pro plugin updated today and has kept me from posting...kept giving me errors...so I uninstalled so I could actually post.
Only tech geeks own HD machines. Average Joe knows nothing about HD or Blu-Ray. Names don't mean everything. Plus, Blu-Ray advertises more than HD-DVD. Consumers won't have trouble at all.
funny how no one is talking about a payoff like they did with Paramount...how much did Warner Brothers get?
@loadedthorn: "Grandpa what's a fanboy?"
"Well Johnny this is a person that believes until death that one thing is greater than another and if the object falls to its death a fanboy will continue believing foolishly that it can live forever.
"Grandpa were you a fanboy?"
"...!" [Grandpa begins to cry]
@SEIVEN
this situation is far different then the Paramount backstab. This has now put BR at 70% of major studio support. This is most certainly the final death knell for HD-DVD.
The format war is NOT over - don't just think that Blu-Ray will win the war just because WB went with that format.
Whatever format the p0rn industry selects will win the war! I still have hopes for HD since Sony is supposedly refusing to collaborate with adult film makers to get porn on Blu-Ray discs.
@Nexcidia: Unfortunately I don't think Sony will be ditching AACS or BD+ encryption/DRM on Blu-Ray disks any time soon...
If you have kids you already went BluRay for the Disney films, not to mention the Sony animated films and Sony's huge film library.
Dreamworks? Oh boo-hoo, I can't see Shrek's pimply face in HD. Who cares?
BLURAY all the way baby!!!
Apple had to know what's going down, thats why the rumor
of including BD for all computers.
@IphtashuFitz: True, but you have to start some where, and ending DRM on music is a start.
@dna:
True, but still if you've seen one Disney movie you've seen them all. Same story different characters.
BluRay is the better format anyway. They have a cooler logo.
BluRay is the better format anyway because they have a cooler logo.
@demonwolf:
Exaaactly. But HD-DVD has proven to be pretty resilient, it'll be interesting to see how Toshiba counters this.
Finally Sony can lick and heal their wounds from that whole Betamax debacle of the 80s. *sigh* damn VHS!
I do hope this ends this silly and ridiculous format war once and for all. Until the format war is dead and buried most people will stick with upsampled DVDs. And Warner knows this.
I feel bad for people who bought pricy HD DVD players (pricy = anything greater than or equal to $200) but that's the risk.
@PlasmaMachine: I'm sure you're excluding the Pixar canon. This small collection of films is vastly different from anything else Disney's doled out.
To be honest, I never really cared which format won. I have an HD camcorder and I'd like to buy a burner to watch my HD videos. Player/burners and media would have already dropped in price if the manufacturers had settled on one format or the other before now. Economies of scale will force hardware and media down quickly and everyone will benefit in the end. Prices for dvd players and burners dropped quickly because the quality of video was so much better than VHS tapes. HDTV's are being purchased in large numbers lately. Settling on one HD disc format will make sales of players explode bringing prices down to earth.