DVD/HD DVD for double price - sure thing Warner

By Stan Beer
Thursday, 27 April 2006 15:36

Home IT

Dual format video discs sound nice in theory but in practice the idea will likely go down in history with such marvels as the steam powered automobile and telephone voice recognition systems that put you through to an operator. Not that it wouldn't be handy to have one disc that can be played on both an ordinary DVD player and an HD DVD player - just not at twice the price.

For reasons of its own, Warner Home Video actually believes that people with a standard DVD player will pay double the price for a video that will give them the option of playing the same disc on a HD DVD player at some stage in the future if they decide to buy one. Of course, from Warner's perpective it has to charge consumers double because the technology involves burning a double sided disc - sort of like taking two discs and mashing them together. Brilliant!

The big question, however, is what happens when Blu-ray players come on the market? Perhaps Warner is already scratching its head, trying figure out whether it should develop a DVD/Blu-ray, HD DVD/Blu-ray or perhaps somehow come up with a three sided disc - for which it will charge triple price.