| HD-DVD In Trouble As Blu-ray Gains Momentum |
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| Home Theater News Industry-Trade News | |
| Written by Jerry Del Colliano | |
| Thursday, 18 August 2005 | |
 The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that HD-DVD’s pre-Christmas release might not make as big of a splash as once thought. The high-definition disc format backed by Toshiba suffered a loss of support from 20th Century Fox last week and The Reporter is suggesting that the other two Hollywood studios now backing HD-DVD are getting wedding day jitters. HD-DVD has some distinct advantages, including a superior name. Everyone in the world knows what a DVD is. They also know what HDTV is. The marriage of the two is a natural. One thing that consumers find unnatural and even repulsive is the idea of a format war and it seems Hollywood studio execs have learned their lessons from the Beta-VHS and SACD-DVD-Audio battles. In the SACD-DVD-Audio battle, consumers and entertainment executives learned it is possible for all parties involved to lose. Consumers hold the power and they want one HDTV disc format and they will spend for it. The process of getting a movie from its archive to a Blu-ray or HD-DVD disc isn’t rocket science. Movies are normally stored on D-5 master tapes and require a relatively simple down-conversion to get to an accepted HDTV format like 720p or 1080i. The audio for most movies made after 1990 or movies that have been released on DVD is mixed for 5.1 home theater systems. Mixing and audio mastering houses can fine-tune soundtracks for movies in surround in a matter of weeks. All of this adds up to a likely pre-holiday launch for one or both formats. Now is the time the Blu-ray camp needs to make friends and influence people at Toshiba and the HD-DVD group. Months ago, there were talks to merge the two formats. Because the next generation Playstation is based on Blu-ray, that format folding was unlikely. Now they have the momentum. Perhaps for a taste of the royalty stream, Toshiba and friends will join forces with Sony and the Blu-ray camp. It is what consumers want and they have their Platinum cards cocked and loaded to pump more money into the system than the studios have ever seen before. Source: The Hollywood Reporter Like this article? Bookmark and share with any of the sites below.        |
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