Warner Bros to back Blu-ray DVD format exclusively


Recommended Posts

Simple. They are avid supporters of HD-DVD and since HD-DVD will be gone soon like Bush, they are just stating their frustrations by writing nonsense.

Not everything being posted is nonsense, although some are claiming everything is.

exactly, or they will post how the war for some reason ISN'T over yet or why it's BAD for the consumer.

It's not over and it is bad for the consumer, but I'll be the first to admit that it's a serious blow that may end up being the straw that broke the camel's back, and may finally actually bury the HD-DVD format. Getting worked over it < discussing it like rational beings.

exactly, or they will post how the war for some reason ISN'T over yet or why it's BAD for the consumer.

The bad for the consumer thing cracks me up. I guess I can understand they "don't like" sony (what I dont understand is how some hate sony so much that will be skipping BD and waiting for the next thing) but, mmm, if Microsoft is the alternative, please refrain from even posting, lol.

I will tell you how HD-DVD isn't consumer-oriented:

1. Blu-ray was first

2. Toshiba then developed a format based on the same technology but more compatible with already available dvd-production equipment. That means it was cheaper for them to produce. Cheaper to produce != lower prices. More likely = higher profit margins.

Economics 101: Maximize profit margins. Minimize production costs.

We all know how introducing a new format works. First, expensive, for early adopters, then, cheaper as demand grows and production costs are reduced even more. By making it cheap since the beginning, that means their profit margins are high since the beginning. That's SO consumer oriented, right?

I think that BD players and HD-DVD players cost about the same to produce. On the hardware side, they both use the blue laser lens, with different optics. They support the same codecs, similar bitrates, etc.. so same hardware. I doubt the different optics justify the current price different. My conclusion is that toshiba is selling them below the cost price or with next-to-zero profit margins.

But wait, there's more. The discs are cheaper to produce, and yield rates are higher. Movies cost about the same. Consumer sees titles from both formats at the same price. Where's the advantage here? Mimicking BD software prices to get higher profits... consumer oriented.

What HD-DVD got right:

1. The whole spec and player requirements. No profile headaches. They simply got what BD wanted, but faster. They were ready to deliver that faster. However, judging by the number of PiP-enabled titles and online-enabled titles, I guess the rush wasn't justified. Still doesn't justify BDAs inability to implement the specs when they should have.

2. Region free.

What Blu-ray got right:

1. blu-ray burners. HD-DVD burners are nowhere was reliable as BD ones (you can check benchmarks and such things)

2. "global" advertising. It didnt matter to them that europe wasnt a big market for HD movies (99% of HDTV owners havent seen ANY hd channel at all). HD-DVD failed miserably outside the US.

What both got wrong:

AACS. Seriously will they ever learn? Calling Bluray "DRM infested" because of BD+ is pure hypocrisy. BD+ finality is the same as AACS. But sadly, it happens to be there. Don't EVER doubt that the goal of both parties was to provide content protection at whatever cost. BOTH formats have the Image constraint token flag, remember? There are more layers of DRM in both formats than paparazzis at britney's gate. AACS, HDCP.. as long as the whole "managed copy" is put into practice I guess it won't matter.

DRM is dying. I don't even know what HDCP is for considering it is uncompressed video that goes through HDMI. 1920 ? 1024 ? 24 bpp ? 24 fps ? average-film-length.. that's too many gigabytes to even bother.

(And I'm not a blind BD fanboy part of the BD cult. I hate BD+, I hate the prices, I hate the profiles... The only reason I jumped into the BD wagon was because the PS3 in March 2007 was as expensive as the cheapest HD-DVD/BD player, it was also a console, and there were enough titles announced/released and studio support that I didnt care if BD eventually lost. Not to mention that the ps3 was more likely to be profile 1.1 and 2.0 compliant than any other BD player).

Edited by Julius Caro
Not to be rude... but do some reading, you can't expect to learn the answer to all your questions in someone's post on a web forum... especially in a topic as heated as this.

As for the whole HD DVD > Blu-Ray comment, yeah, it doesn't have they're reasoning, which would help make their point, but they didn't.

I didn't expect answers to any questions. Simply writing "HD DVD > Blu-Ray" is just a rather pointless reply. Atleast give one reason behind it.

2. "global" advertising. It didnt matter to them that europe wasnt a big market for HD movies (99% of HDTV owners havent seen ANY hd channel at all). HD-DVD failed miserably outside the US.

Agree with that, over here in the UK I've seen the odd Blu-Ray ad and I've never seen a HD-DVD ad. 99% of people think the only HD we have over here is SkyHD and the PS3 cause they are the only ones advertising Hi-Def Movies. If they did the same 10 free HD-DVD and ?100 offer over here and really promoted it, alot of people I think would have gone for it here, I've spoken to alot of people who have HD-TV's and not one person that I spoke too knows what the hell HD-DVD is, yet most of them have heard of Blu-Ray. Quite surprising really seen as 99% of companies take advantage of Rip Off Britain:pp

+ 10 billion to the whatever power necessary.

You would think after years and years of these corporate shenanigans we as consumers would be used to it by now. Alas, some of us are smarter than they.

It's very similar to how life works. Questions like Why did George Bush get elected for the 2nd time? or Why hunger in Africa isn't eliminated yet? or Why nuclear bombs still exist? fall into the same category.

Companies will always find a way of marketing their product to appeal to a certain user base.

Stevan, some people are caught up in the gimmicks and unnecessary fluff that surrounds a product.

HD would have been great if they waited and prepared an industry wide timetable for roll out of a majority of necessary products. Had they done this I beleive it would have saved money, time, and resources that could have been allocated elsewhere.

But then again, HD flagging could have been implemented which may have further alienated the HD user base from the general populace far more than what it is today.

Stevan, some people are caught up in the gimmicks and unnecessary fluff that surrounds a product.

HD would have been great if they waited and prepared an industry wide timetable for roll out of a majority of necessary products. Had they done this I beleive it would have saved money, time, and resources that could have been allocated elsewhere.

But then again, HD flagging could have been implemented which may have further alienated the HD user base from the general populace far more than what it is today.

don't get me wrong, i completely agree with you. and not only do some people get cought in the gimmicks, a lot of them do. I used to work at bestbuy and some of the things management wanted us to say to sell their extended warranty was absurt. but what was even more absurd was the ammount of people that fell for it.

Toshiba press conference is going on right now, may have more mention of HD DVD: http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/06/live-fr...ess-conference/

Well, nothing much was said...

"We've been declared dead before...unit sales in Q4 were the best to date. Nearly 1 million dedicated HD DVD players are in the market" "HD DVD has always put the interests of consumers ahead of companies"

And how many PS3 are in the market?

Doesn't look like they really changed any of their plans. But, I'm going to take a guess here and say they're going to roll out some cheap players soon if they intend to keep the war going... judging from the sounds of their comments, I'm going to say they'll at least attempt it.

But wait, there's more. The discs are cheaper to produce, and yield rates are higher. Movies cost about the same. Consumer sees titles from both formats at the same price. Where's the advantage here? Mimicking BD software prices to get higher profits... consumer oriented.

Isn't this due to the fact that sony pays a bit for each disk so they keep prices down? Also the players for HDDVD are much cheaper than blu ray (im NOT including PS3 since it isn't standalone).

I agree with what you said about what each disk format did right or wrong.

From http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/06/live-fr...ess-conference/

10:10 - Director of Corporate Communications just took the stage - Next up: Jodi Sally to "address" their HD DVD business, but first, President & CEO Mr. Ozaka

10:12 - Great success for Regza LCDs and HD DVD, strong Q4 sales for HD DVD - Really, it says so on the slide.

10:13 - "Very surprised by Warner announcement about HD DVD...etc", basically the same as the press release issued earlier.

10:15 - Jodi Sally is on stage "It's been a tough day for me (laughs)".

10:42 - Annnnd we're out, no Q&A (We had some interesting questions to ask about HD DVD)

Some days, it doesn't pay to get out of bed. :D

Lets all move to VMD.... Forget about Blu-Ray or HD-DVD... !!! :laugh: :laugh:

At least Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are real and here.... VMD is still vaporware and we realy don't need it....

Edited by TruckWEB

So I have been sick since Friday and not online much if not at all. So I pretty much missed this news and am just catching up now, at least trying to.

First off, is there an easy list to read of what studios support what format?

Second, has there been any other major announcements since this one? I see New Line also went exclusive although they are a pretty small fish in a big pond.

Third, from what I have been reading, anyone want to buy a year old HD-DVD add-on drive for the 360?

Philips just showed off a new BD player at CES and said at the same time that Target is going BD only. Of course target has yet to comment on this.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/06/live-co...ps-press-event/

http://ces.cnet.com/8300-13855_1-67-0.html?keyword=Philips

Its also cheaper than the PS3 and profile 1.1, so much for prices not going down.

From http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/06/live-fr...ess-conference/

10:10 - Director of Corporate Communications just took the stage - Next up: Jodi Sally to "address" their HD DVD business, but first, President & CEO Mr. Ozaka

10:12 - Great success for Regza LCDs and HD DVD, strong Q4 sales for HD DVD - Really, it says so on the slide.

10:13 - "Very surprised by Warner announcement about HD DVD...etc", basically the same as the press release issued earlier.

10:15 - Jodi Sally is on stage "It's been a tough day for me (laughs)".

10:42 - Annnnd we're out, no Q&A (We had some interesting questions to ask about HD DVD)

Some days, it doesn't pay to get out of bed. :D

All you had to do was look a few posts up. :laugh:

Philips just showed off a new BD player at CES and said at the same time that Target is going BD only. Of course target has yet to comment on this.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/06/live-co...ps-press-event/

http://ces.cnet.com/8300-13855_1-67-0.html?keyword=Philips

Its also cheaper than the PS3 and profile 1.1, so much for prices not going down.

yeah, according to some people, blu-ray players are supposed to go up now that the war is over, because sony is an evil company and wants to screw us all over. (sarcasm)

great news from phillips.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • @Sayan...I have defended you at various points as I hope you know. This headline however is utter trash...shame on you sir!
    • An actual cosmic "Eye of Sauron" had been looking straight at us all along by Sayan Sen Image by Kovin P. Vasquez via Pexels | Not representative An international team of researchers has solved a long-standing mystery surrounding a distant blazar known as PKS 1424+240, helping explain why it produces some of the brightest high-energy gamma rays and cosmic neutrinos ever observed despite appearing to have a relatively slow-moving jet. The findings were published on June 6 in Astronomy & Astrophysics Letters. The study addresses a broader challenge in astrophysics: understanding how extreme cosmic objects accelerate particles to very high energies and produce very high-energy (VHE) photons and neutrinos. PKS 1424+240 is located billions of light-years from Earth. It has attracted attention for years because it is both a powerful source of VHE gamma rays and the brightest known neutrino-emitting blazar in the sky, according to observations by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. It is also associated with one of the strongest peaks in IceCube's nine-year neutrino sky map A blazar is a type of active galactic nucleus powered by a supermassive black hole that pulls in surrounding matter and launches jets of plasma moving close to the speed of light. What makes blazars unique is their orientation. One of their jets points almost directly toward Earth, making them appear exceptionally bright across the electromagnetic spectrum and allowing scientists to study some of the most extreme physical processes in the Universe. The scientists exclaimed it's like the 'Eye of Sauron' in deep space. Usually, the brightest gamma-ray-emitting blazars are expected to have jets that appear to move very quickly. However, radio observations of PKS 1424+240 suggested that its jet was moving much more slowly, creating a contradiction that became part of a long-running problem known as the "Doppler factor crisis." To investigate, researchers analyzed 15 years of observations from the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a network of 10 radio antennas spread across the continental United States, Hawaii and St. Croix. Using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), astronomers combine signals from widely separated radio telescopes to create a virtual Earth-sized telescope capable of revealing extremely fine details. The team combined 42 polarization-sensitive radio images collected between 2009 and 2025, creating a much deeper and more detailed view of the jet than had previously been possible. The observations were carried out as part of MOJAVE (Monitoring Of Jets in Active galactic nuclei with VLBA Experiments), a long-running program that studies the brightness, polarization and magnetic field structures of jets produced by active galaxies. The project aims to better understand how activity near supermassive black holes is linked to high-energy radiation and neutrino emission. “When we reconstructed the image, it looked absolutely stunning,” said Yuri Kovalev, lead author of the study and Principal Investigator of the European Research Council-funded MuSES project at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. “We have never seen anything quite like it — a near-perfect toroidal magnetic field with a jet, pointing straight at us.” The image revealed an unusual geometry. The researchers found that Earth lies almost directly in line with the jet, with a viewing angle of less than 0.6 degrees. In simple terms, astronomers are looking almost straight down the jet. This turned out to be the key to the mystery. Because the jet is aimed almost directly at Earth, a relativistic effect called Doppler boosting dramatically increases its apparent brightness. The study found that this effect boosts the emission by a factor of about 30 while also making the jet appear slower than it actually is. “This alignment causes a boost in brightness by a factor of 30 or more,” said Jack Livingston, a co-author at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. “At the same time, the jet appears to move slowly due to projection effects — a classic optical illusion.” The nearly head-on view also gave scientists a rare look at the jet's magnetic field. Using polarized radio signals, they detected a clear toroidal, or doughnut-shaped, magnetic field component. The observations suggest the jet carries an electric current and that its magnetic field helps launch, shape and stabilize the flow of plasma. Researchers believe this magnetic structure may also play a key role in accelerating particles to energies high enough to produce both gamma rays and neutrinos. “Solving this puzzle confirms that active galactic nuclei with supermassive black holes are not only powerful accelerators of electrons, but also of protons — the origin of the observed high-energy neutrinos,” Kovalev said. The research was conducted under the MuSES (Multi-messenger Studies of Energetic Sources) project, which investigates how active galactic nuclei accelerate particles and generate different cosmic signals, including light and neutrinos. Scientists say understanding how protons are accelerated and linked to neutrino production remains one of the major unanswered questions in astrophysics. The findings help explain why some blazars can appear to have slow jets while still producing extremely bright high-energy emissions. More broadly, the study strengthens the link between relativistic jets, magnetic fields, gamma rays and high-energy neutrinos. Researchers say the results provide new clues about how some of the Universe's most powerful natural particle accelerators work and offer important insights for multimessenger astronomy, which combines different types of cosmic signals to study extreme events in space. Source: European Research Council, EDP Sciences This article was generated with some help from AI and reviewed by an editor. Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, this material is used for the purpose of news reporting. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.
    • Gotenks98 is right... Outlook (new) is absolute trash. Doesn't Mozilla have an Enterprise Version of Firebird?
    • Microsoft Weekly: Surface Laptop Ultra, Windows 11 context menus, Build 2026 recap, and more by Taras Buria This week's news recap is here, with Microsoft announcing the new Surface Laptop Ultra, fresh chips from NVIDIA for Windows on ARM, a no-build week, fixes for Windows 11's context menus, gaming news, reviews, and more. Quick links: Windows 10 and 11 Windows Insider Program Updates are available Reviews are in Gaming news Great deals to check Windows 11 and Windows 10 Here, we talk about everything happening around Microsoft's latest operating system in the Stable channel and preview builds: new features, removed features, controversies, bugs, interesting findings, and more. And, of course, you may find a word or two about older versions. At Computex 2026, together with NVIDIA, Microsoft announced the Surface Laptop Ultra, its most powerful laptop to date, powered by NVIDIA's RTX Spark processor. Details about this computer are currently scarce, as Microsoft has only revealed certain parts of its specs. So far, we know that the computer has a 15-inch mini-LED display, a rich set of ports, a powerful processor, and all-day battery life. It also comes with a new wallpaper, which you can already download here in full resolution. The Surface Laptop Studio is not the only NVIDIA-powered Surface, which Microsoft unveiled this week. At Build 2026, the company also debuted the Surface RTX Spark Dev Box, an odd-shaped desktop with a 20-core NVIDIA Grace CPU and an NVIDIA Blackwell RTX GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores and fifth-generation Tensor Cores with FP4 precision, connected via the NVIDIA NVLink-C2C chip-to-chip interconnect for high performance. According to Microsoft, it can run models with up to 120 billion parameters locally without relying on cloud GPU infrastructure. These two new Surface devices are likely to cost quite a lot, and for those who need a more affordable device, Microsoft is preparing the next-gen Qualcomm-powered Surface Pro and Surface Laptop. This week, details about these two devices leaked in plenty of detail. Other announcements at Build 2026 include the following: Microsoft unveils new security tools for IT admins and developers building AI products Microsoft announces Scout, an OpenClaw-powered personal agent for enterprise customers Microsoft unveils MAI-Thinking-1 reasoning and MAI-Code-1 coding models Microsoft announced a new Windows 11 native command-line utility Microsoft unveils Majorana 2 quantum chip, accelerating commercial timeline to 2029 Microsoft believes that AI agents will eventually replace apps through Project Solara Microsoft introduces Web IQ, a Bing-powered search system built for AI agents Last week, Microsoft released a new Experimental build, which introduced a major Start menu upgrade. It now lets you toggle off specific parts of the menu without affecting other features, resize the menu, and hide additional UI elements. We published a closer look here, so if you want to know what Microsoft is cooking without enrolling in the Insider program and installing unstable builds, check it out. Speaking of new features, many users are very annoyed about the way Microsoft delivers them. Recently, a frustrated user shared their experience with gradual rollouts, and even Microsoft engineers admitted there is a flaw in the system that prevents new features from applying properly. One of those new features includes the ability to uninstall AI models in Windows 11 with a single click. Windows 11 is finally getting fixes for its slow context menus. Marcus Ash from Microsoft confirmed that the company is working on fixing Windows 11's context menus. Reworked context menus are going to be faster, simpler by default, and "configurable to what you use most." According to Marcus, Microsoft will share more details soon. Windows Insider Program Windows 11 preview builds, released last week, are now available for download as standalone ISO files. These days, Microsoft regularly pushes new images, allowing users to clean-install its recent Windows 11 preview builds faster and easier. If you want to try the latest Windows 11 features without jumping through the Windows Update hoops, get those new images here. Sadly, Microsoft did not release new Windows 11 preview builds this week. Come back next time. Updates are available This section covers software, firmware, and other notable updates (released and coming soon) delivering new features, security fixes, improvements, patches, and more from Microsoft and third parties. Microsoft is preparing new features for Teams. Later this month, the messenger will receive a new download manager with auto-dismissing notifications, reducing clutter and making the overall experience less annoying when dealing with downloads. Mozilla released Firefox 151.0.3, a new bug-fixing update for the browser. It is a small release, which fixes problems with pasting into text fields and the oversized VPN button on the toolbar. The update is now available for all users in the Release channel. Here are other updates and releases you may find interesting: VS Code 1.123 introduces massive upgrades for persistent AI developer workflows Microsoft OneDrive is getting a simple yet much-needed feature Microsoft faces heat after quietly blocking promised Office features on Apple systems Microsoft resumes forced Copilot app installation on some Windows PCs Browser vendors pen an open letter to Microsoft, saying "enough is enough" Here are the latest drivers and firmware updates released this week: AMD Radeon Software 26.6.1 with optimizations for F1 25: 2026 Season, World of Tanks: HEAT, and various bug fixes. Reviews are in Here is the hardware and software we reviewed this week Steven Parker dropped more mini PC reviews this week. GEEKOM Air12 2026 Edition is a low-power, affordable computer with an Intel Tiger Lake Pentium Gold processor, up to 16GB of memory, and 512GB of storage, costing just $349. It is light, quiet, energy efficient, and has modern ports on the front. However, the front-facing USB Type-C is data-only, and there are some quirks with the computer's memory, so check out the full review. The AMD RX 9070 GRE has been released worldwide, and we published a benchmark review comparing this powerful graphics card to the RX 9070 XT, 7800 XT, the NVIDIA RTX 5070, and RTX 4070. It has solid, balanced performance, plenty of RAM, and low temperatures, but watch out for mediocre ray tracing performance and not the best efficiency. Also, we reviewed the Cuktech 10 Ultra, a compact, high-power charger with four ports and a big display full of various stats. This tiny charger can pull nearly 120W and spread that power according to each connected device's needs. It also comes with a high-quality 240W cable, three power modes, and retractable prongs. The best part? It is quite affordable, just make sure you have an outlet placed in the right spot to benefit from the built-in display. On the gaming side Learn about upcoming game releases, Xbox rumors, new hardware, software updates, freebies, deals, discounts, and more. Do you remember the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally, Microsoft's first handheld console designed in partnership with ASUS? This week, ASUS revealed a new version of the device to celebrate twenty years of its Republic of Gamers brand. The new ROG Xbox Ally X20 features an OLED display, a transforming D-Pad, TMR sticks, and other changes. However, the chip inside the console is still the same. Forza Horizon 6 launched last month to critical acclaim, but the game will soon have a new rival made by those who used to work on Forza Horizon titles. Mike Brown from Maverick Games announced Clutch, an upcoming racing game with a story-driven campaign, deep car customization, and rich multiplayer. The game is coming to PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 in Spring 2027. The next update for Minecraft now has a release date. This week, Mojang announced that Chaos Cubed will be available on June 16, 2026. In addition, Mojang published a teaser of the next Minecraft movie. A Minecraft Movie Squared has now been confirmed for a release somewhere in 2027. NVIDIA GeForce Now is getting 18 new games in June. Those include Jurassic World Evolution 3, Fatekeeper, GOALS, Gothic 1 Remake, NTE: Neverness to Everness, and more. If you are a Game Pass subscriber, you can also get new games soon: Persona 5 Royal, Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, and more are coming to the service this month. Sumer Game Fest 2026 happened this week, where we saw plenty of new games, including Alien Isolation 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake Part 3, Gen Atlas from the Shadow of the Colossus creator, a new Cuphead game in 8-bit style, a new expansion for Mafia: The Old Country, and more. Finally, here are this week's Weekend PC Game Deals, full of discounts and the latest freebies from the Epic Games Store. Other gaming news includes the following: God of War Laufey announced, introducing Kratos' wife as the new protagonist Ori studio's No Rest for the Wicked 1.0 release and console plans announced Microsoft launches Godot Sample to streamline Xbox PC game development on the engine Great deals to check Every week, we cover many deals on different hardware and software. The following discounts are still available, so check them out. You might find something you want or need. Samsung 990 PRO SSD 2TB NVMe - $389.99 | 39% off Sonos Sub 4 - Wireless Subwoofer - $759 | 16% off Logitech MX Creative Console - $159.99 | 20% off This link will take you to other issues of the Microsoft Weekly series. You can also support Neowin by registering for a free member account or subscribing for extra member benefits, along with an ad-free tier option.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      lamborghiniv10 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Reacting Well
      X-No-file earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • One Month Later
      pestcontrol46 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      pestcontrol46 earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      511
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      273
    3. 3
      Skyfrog
      75
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      72
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      68
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!