Warner Bros go Blu-ray exclusive !

dannyjo22 said:
Yeah it's an option but not one many people outside of a geek forum is interested in. If i even think about where I work there are hundreds of people downloading/swapping and copying crap copies of dvd's. Even watching copies with poor sound and picture quality 5 times worse than a dvd rip.

They want to watch a film thats on at the cinema now.

The dvd market is huge now because finally they are at a decent price a few days after release. There are bargains about.

There are 3 series I would buy on HD, Starwars, LOTR and Alien, the rest I will just keep a dvd format for.

I got caught up in the whole shiney new dvd format and own stacks of films that I've never watched again.

Neither format will ever get anywhere near dvd before it's replaced.
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Thats probably where I'm different, I'm very interested in film so I want it top notch hence why I'll pay that little more for HD DVD's.

Again, I see where your coming from.

The HD DVD market is a small one right now and I can't see it ever really taking off tbh. There just isn't a difference that the general audience can see unfortunately.
 
neocon said:
i think these movie studios have completely lost it, i mean, within a month of a movie being released at the cinema, it is available on torrents for free. they have no control over this..

MS will never have blu-ray drives in its console

its all about download services

warner's move isnt that big of a deal cos hardly any people are bothering to buy dighdef discs anyway
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The amount of people who do torrents is probably even smaller than the people buying hd media currently - think of the time taken to download a full hd title - it would take hours which most cant be bothered with even if they have a fast enough and reliable enough net connection
 
FrankJH said:
The amount of people who do torrents is probably even smaller than the people buying hd media currently - think of the time taken to download a full hd title - it would take hours which most cant be bothered with even if they have a fast enough and reliable enough net connection
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2 hours on a 16mb connection for 10gb, it could even be streamed.
 
"According to a trusted source that was close to the negotiations, Warner and FOX were working on a deal to go Exclusive to HD DVD as recent as last week. Our source tells us that Warner was only willing to go to HD DVD if FOX would go with them. Their thinking was if they just went to HD DVD by themselves, it would not end the format war. Early this week FOX was paid an undisclosed amount to remain exclusive to Blu-ray. With the FOX deal falling through, Warner had no choice but to accept the BDA’s $500 Million offer to go Blu-ray exclusive. We do wonder if FOX was just playing the HD DVD side, while having no intentions of ever switching."
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http://www.campaignhd.com/080104_Warner_Paid.html

All quite ugly if true.
 
at last a winning format is emerging, well done Sony, having the PS3 with built in blu-ray is now starting to show that they did the right thing (for a change). I'm sure if MS had included a bundled hd-dvd drive in every console then things may have been different. I also hear Apple Macs are comming with blu-ray drives now also or will very soon.
 
Metalface Mark said:
2 hours on a 16mb connection for 10gb, it could even be streamed.
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and very few people have a 16mb connection - compared to the thousands who buy BR's /HD-DVD's every week especially

McManicMan said:
I'm sure if MS had included a bundled hd-dvd drive in every console then things may have been different. I also hear Apple Macs are comming with blu-ray drives now also or will very soon.
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Probably very true - however consider the 12 month + lead time MS had when the PS3 wasnt out, imo it would have been far too early (and costly) to bundle hd-dvd at that point - even with MS's economy of scale, it would have cost them a fortune (unless of course they charged a significant amount more per unit )
 
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I am now hoping this is the end, I have been neutral for too long. What blu-ray need to do now is release lots and lots of the most wanted films with the exclusive companies they have. Personally for me this is the end of my HD-DVD days, but these dual formats should never have gone on for this long.
 
What blu-ray needs to is sort out a feature complete player (version 2.0 and not out yet) and lower the stand alone price so that the average non-PS3 player can actually afford one.

If WB had gone HD-DVD exclusive as was planned before the big money-hat the war would be over. It's feature complete and stand alone players (which were outselling blu-ray ones) were all ready down to £200. As it is, it isn't ready to win so this will drag out a while longer.
 
the_dead_parrot said:
I am now hoping this is the end, I have been neutral for too long. What blu-ray need to do now is release lots and lots of the most wanted films with the exclusive companies they have. Personally for me this is the end of my HD-DVD days, but these dual formats should never have gone on for this long.
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I know where you are coming from (and agree to a degree) but its also a good thing that the market got to chose - rather than it being forced by corporations - after all if the figures are to be believed BR has considerably outsold hd-dvd every single week for the last 6 months or so

Abooie said:
What blu-ray needs to is sort out a feature complete player (version 2.0 and not out yet) and lower the stand alone price so that the average non-PS3 player can actually afford one.

If WB had gone HD-DVD exclusive as was planned before the big money-hat the war would be over. It's feature complete and stand alone players (which were outselling blu-ray ones) were all ready down to £200. As it is, it isn't ready to win so this will drag out a while longer.
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I think version 2 is some way away (maybe a few months) , 1.1 though should be a viable update on most new stand alone's now, and to be fair I think £300 for a stand alone is a reasonable price to pay when/if the war ends especially if they are upgradable to 2.0 relatively easily. Of course the more people buy stand-alone's the cheaper they will become but it may be some time before players are edging towards the ideal of around £200.
 
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Warner: No Payoff for Move to Blu-ray

Warner Home Entertainment President Kevin Tsujihara.

"The packaged media business is a $42 billion dollar business worldwide at the retail level, and we [Warner] have the largest market share of anybody," said Tsujihara. "From our perspective, the most important piece of this whole puzzle is, "How do we get growth back into this category?" That far outweighed anything else."

This [decision] was one hundred percent around what makes the most sense for the consumer, the retailer and the industry. This was not a bidding war. This was all about what was best, strategically, for us."

$42 billion dollars thats a lot of money.
 
Jihad said:
Yeah, a certain 13GB HD-DVD .mkv of a [1080P movie] took a mere 4 hours or so, nothing wrong with that.

20MB connection here, was only grabbing at 1.5mb/s at the time.
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But the UK is only at an average of 4MB, for those who actually have Broadband. I'm only on 2MB, which I'm perfectly happy with as I download very little, and when I do the files aren't anywhere near 13GB. Furthermore, what would I do with a 13GB movie file? HTPC? These aren't particularly popular either.

It's going to take a good while before what you're doing is anywhere near the mainstream that is DVD. Besides, I like my bloody cases and covers all stacked on my shelves :D
 
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