Since the format war has been on-going with no clear winner, it looks like the studios are ready to help consumers make a decision. On January 4, 2008, Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros. and Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group. announced that they will release their high definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-Ray disc format beginning later this year.
This was a devastating move to Toshiba who up until now was fighting the good fight to get their proprietary HD format (HD DVD) out to the masses. With the recent holiday discounts, Toshiba had a record quarter in HD DVD player sales. In fact, at CES 2008 (just a few days ago), Toshiba showed a pie chart of their HD market share. As of Dec 2007, Toshiba had captured 49.3% of the total dedicated HD player market followed by Sony & Samsung at 29.4% and 13.7% respectively.
Jodi Sally of Toshiba’s digital A/V department speaks at the CES 2008 press conference telling the crowd that Toshiba has now put 1 million units of their HD player into consumer hands. This sound very impressive since Toshiba is not backed by any other major manufacturer in producing HD DVD players. Unfortunately, the above chart does not tell the whole story as it only includes dedicated HD players. At last count, Sony has sold about 3 million of their gaming console, the PS3, and these also play Blu-Ray HD discs.
Here is the press conference at CES 2008 where Jodi Sally speaks about the future of HD DVD in the light of Warner Bros. move to Blu-ray.
Audio & video forums like AV Science Forum and Digital Home are buzzing with the latest development in the HD format war. Some are even speculating that the war is over and Sony’s Blu-Ray is the clear winner.
Is it truly over for Toshiba’s HD DVD format? Can the remaining studios (Paramount & Universal) who currently put out their movies exclusively in HD DVD follow Warner Bros. and make the switch to Blu-Ray after their contract with Toshiba is up? Can Toshiba make a come back with even lower HD DVD player unit prices? How will Microsoft (who produces an HD VDD add-on for their gaming console, the XBox360) react to this latest news? Only time will tell but as of this moment, it looks like Blu-Ray is the new VHS.
While I agree it was a serious blow to HD DVD Im not sure its a killing blow yet. We could still see HDDVD come back and take the market. I personally don’t have either blue ray or hddvd so I will continue to wait. 🙂
@Cedar, it may or may not be a killing blow but HD DVD only has 2 major studios backing it while Blu-Ray has double that with 4. It will be interesting to see how many HD movies these 6 studios put out this year. This will definitely contribute to the winner of the format war… if there is still one left 🙂
For what it’s worth, here are some numbers for normal DVD and HD movie sales. HD is not a big percentage but as more movies are released in the HD space and hardware comes down in price, it’s going to add up fast.
The Digital Entertainment Group on behalf of the studios show that consumers spent $16 billion on DVDs in 2007, down from $16.6 billion the previous year. Next-generation media sales, both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD, added $300 million to the pie, while the rental business was flat at $7.5 billion. (source)
Well,
i dont have either, too.
But i always planned to buy a ps3…so that would be a good reason, i think
Blu-Ray wins, but it’s going to be difficult for it to get as popular as regular dvd until prices come down. But the picture is sweet and I dare anyone who sees the picture to not want a player.
For those who have been following the high definition (HD) format war between Sony’s Blu-Ray and Toshiba’s HD DVD, it sure
Well,
i dont have either, too.
Yes, the decision of Warner Bros. ist bad for Toshiba. But now all consumers get more clearness what system to buy.
I wonder how long it will take for Blu-Ray to become obsolete since hi-speed streaming will be the future.