Has Warner Bros made Blu-ray the new way for HD?

Stan Beer
Sunday, 06 January 2008 03:37

Opinion and Analysis

Warner Bros' decision to go exclusively Blu-ray raises many questions. The overarching one of course is whether this means the end of the much publicised HD format war. Has the bell tolled for HD DVD?

Of course Warber Bros is not the only studio in the game. However, with the largest library of movies and its massive market influence, Warner the fence sitter was considered by both HD video camps as the tipping point.

The HD DVD camp is now looking increasingly isolated, with just Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks in its corner. What's more, the Paramount and Dreamworks exclusivity, bought for a purported US$150 million, only runs for the remainder of 2008.

The dismay and importance of the Warner Bros decision was all over the face of the HD DVD camp at the Consumer Elelctronics Show. A media party celebrating supposedly important developments in the HD DVD campaign has been cancelled.

The growing dominance of Blu-ray over HD DVD demonstrates that this war was never really about the hardware - at least not the standalone hardware. If it had been, then HD DVD, with the much lower cost player technology, would have won hands down.

There were a number factors that have tipped the scales towards Blu-ray.

From the outset, the Sony developed format had the support of most of the major studios, including of course Sony Pictures. As a result, there were more exclusive Blu-ray titles being released than exclusive HD DVD titles.