Bill Hunt's latest on the format war (September 12)

[DJeffries]

Seems Bill felt the need to defend his position on hometheaterforum.com. This is a long post and is not on The Digital Bits (at least not yet).

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...postcount=1442

I love this line

"It’s getting a little silly when even the people who actually ARE getting paid to promote each format spend more time in the online newsgroups attacking the competition as opposed to promoting the merits of their own. "

[ReduxInflux]

thanks for the link. good stuff. i wish every studio exec would read this.

[WickyWoo]

As usual they all stream out of the woodwork screaming bias and how he is engaging in "the very partisanship you're decrying"

Frankly every day I'm more and more certain that if Toshiba refuses to end it, Warner will end it for them. Total HD is a TotalBust, both in companies to sell it to and in yields, Warner knows as well as everyone else does that as Bill said, there is a time limit to get momentum before it becomes another LaserDisc.

If HD doesn't show signs of recovery, and instead sinks further as is highly likely, I believe Warner will dump it, especially since Nickerson is gone, and Paramount undoubtedly has some kind of out clause on their contract. If Warner falls and if the excellent rumors are true that Uni is eyeing neutrality (their people have been spotted at Panasonic's facility apparently), I expect that bad Xmas sales will be the excuse everyone needs to jump ship.

[JAGUAR1977]

AVS has now become a complete joke, the witch Hunt is well underway.

[dialog_gvf]

I've been saying the same thing for years.

Hopefully "methinks thou doeth protest too much" comes to the minds of the general consumer.

Wow, 1 in 3 combos fail for the gang at The Digital Bits?! That's insane. Wait until the Venturer buyers get a taste of that.

Where are the "press" stories about the terrible problems with HD DVD discs?!

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

Now we’re hearing that triple-layer HD-DVD discs will solve all the format’s disc space concerns, when we can’t get roughly 1 in every 3 DVD/HD-DVD Combo discs to work in our Toshiba HD-A2s.

Gary

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Frankly every day I'm more and more certain that if Toshiba refuses to end it, Warner will end it for them. Total HD is a TotalBust, both in companies to sell it to and in yields, Warner knows as well as everyone else does that as Bill said, there is a time limit to get momentum before it becomes another LaserDisc.

If HD doesn't show signs of recovery, and instead sinks further as is highly likely, I believe Warner will dump it, especially since Nickerson is gone, and Paramount undoubtedly has some kind of out clause on their contract. If Warner falls and if the excellent rumors are true that Uni is eyeing neutrality (their people have been spotted at Panasonic's facility apparently), I expect that bad Xmas sales will be the excuse everyone needs to jump ship.

I certainly hope you're right. Sounds like a very plausible scenario.

[Esox50]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

If Warner falls and if the excellent rumors are true that Uni is eyeing neutrality (their people have been spotted at Panasonic's facility apparently), I expect that bad Xmas sales will be the excuse everyone needs to jump ship.

Word was that Universal was checking out BD authoring earlier in the year, but then decided to stay exclusive to HD DVD. Are you saying they are back at it (i.e. poking around again)? This would be an interesting new development of an old story.

Wasn't early word that the Paramount/Dreamworks "promotional considerations" deal for HD DVD was a pre-emptive "strike" because the bottom was falling out of HD DVD behind the scenes? And when you tie this up with Nickerson leaving WB, it certainly leaves an interesting trail.

Any commentary you can add would be appreciated.

[Teazle]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

...
Frankly every day I'm more and more certain that if Toshiba refuses to end it, Warner will end it for them. Total HD is a TotalBust, both in companies to sell it to and in yields, Warner knows as well as everyone else does that as Bill said, there is a time limit to get momentum before it becomes another LaserDisc.

If HD doesn't show signs of recovery, and instead sinks further as is highly likely, I believe Warner will dump it, especially since Nickerson is gone, and Paramount undoubtedly has some kind of out clause on their contract. If Warner falls and if the excellent rumors are true that Uni is eyeing neutrality (their people have been spotted at Panasonic's facility apparently), I expect that bad Xmas sales will be the excuse everyone needs to jump ship.

Warner seems to be giving HD-DVD one last chance to redeem itself in the final quarter of this year. Provided the HDM market continues to grow at a respectable rate ("respectable" with all things considered given the format war), the BD/HD-DVD sales gap might finally reach that proverbial "tipping point" where Warner drops HD-DVD. I wonder what it would take. 70:30 BD sales advantage on Warner's own titles from Thanksgiving to New Years?

[WickyWoo]

Where are the "press" stories about the terrible problems with HD DVD discs?!

I agree. The BDA's standing policy is that "homey don't play the negative game"

There are other well-known public organizations that have trouble doing it to. The difference is that none of these studios have ever HAD to play that game before

Learn from the lessons of the past. Amir and company are out there Karl Roving them right now. You must always be willing to go lower than your opponent. There comes a time that no matter how right you are, that you stop saying "please stop being a jerk" while they take a jackhammer to your balls, and send a nuke where the sun don't shine.

BDA has the tech and software end, they're losing the perception battle bigtime.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Esox50

Wasn't early word that the Paramount/Dreamworks "promotional considerations" deal for HD DVD was a pre-emptive "strike" because the bottom was falling out of HD DVD behind the scenes?

Any commentary you can add would be appreciated.

Anyone notice that New Line has delayed HD DVD releases until 2008?

Is regional coding the reason, or the excuse pending Warner's end of year decision? It wouldn't look good to start releasing only to have your sister company dump support a few months later.

Gary

[WickyWoo]

Word was that Universal was checking out BD authoring earlier in the year, but then decided to stay exclusive to HD DVD. Are you saying they are back at it (i.e. poking around again)? This would be an interesting new development of an old story.

I don't think they ever stopped. I just think they got a new check to make sure their exclusivity went through Christmas when it became obvious the "100 titles" clause was going to be satisfied in time for them to jump. Uni's crazy blitz of releases says 1 thing to me- They were planning to go Blu and were fufilling the contract so they could get out.

Wasn't early word that the Paramount/Dreamworks "promotional considerations" deal for HD DVD was a pre-emptive "strike" because the bottom was falling out of HD DVD behind the scenes?

Oh it definatley was. If Uni's looking to jump (which visits to authoring houses indicates), then that should tell you all you need to know

Anyone notice that New Line has delayed HD DVD releases until 2008?

Is regional coding the reason, or the excuse pending Warner's end of year decision? It wouldn't look good to start releasing only to have your sister company dump support a few months later.

There's no reason to believe what they said wasn't true. I'm sure the disc is done anyway

[DJeffries]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Anyone notice that New Line has delayed HD DVD releases until 2008?

Is regional coding the reason, or the excuse pending Warner's end of year decision? It wouldn't look good to start releasing only to have your sister company dump support a few months later.

Gary

Region Coding was cited as the reason. I read that the US DVD/BD release is only a few weeks after the theactrical release somewhere else. Don't remember where I read that but if I find it again I'll post a link.

[Beta-guy]

I think he's right, though, would we all have been happy if Betamax AND VHS co-existed? that's mean we'd need a VCR that supported both format (costly) or 2 VCR one Beta the other VHS just to play the movies if the various studio's held to exclusives like they are today.

Another thing we have to look at is what are the terms that define what format will win? Blu-ray is selling roughly 2:1 ratio I've heard in Japan it's much higher, but the format war is still going on, what has to happen when all of the vast majority of studio's, retailers, and Consumers all agree the format war is over?

[WickyWoo]

Australia and Japan are at 90%+ Blu, Europe is falling fast thanks to PS3.

Wit hthe $399 PS3 you're going to see a huge amount of sales this Christmas, which means that much more Blu. Even if only 1 in 5 is buying discs, that's at least half a million new customers based on likely sales, and I'm being conservative.

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

Where are the "press" stories about the terrible problems with HD DVD discs?!Gary

Same place the 360 failures were for over a year .. being suppressed/ignored in the hope people won't find out until their invested and then are stuck.

[E-Dogg]

Great article. Let's make this a Blu holiday season.

[Blu As Hell]

Originally Posted by Teazle

Warner seems to be giving HD-DVD one last chance to redeem itself in the final quarter of this year. Provided the HDM market continues to grow at a respectable rate ("respectable" with all things considered given the format war), the BD/HD-DVD sales gap might finally reach that proverbial "tipping point" where Warner drops HD-DVD. I wonder what it would take. 70:30 BD sales advantage on Warner's own titles from Thanksgiving to New Years?

I agree with you it looks like that Warner will be making the final decision. If Warner goes Blu-ray exclusive the "format war" will be over within 6 months. If not earlier.

[JTK]

Originally Posted by Blu As Hell

I agree with you it looks like that Warner will be making the final decision. If Warner goes Blu-ray exclusive the "format war" will be over within 6 months. If not earlier.

I agree.

[glenn22]

As usual Bill Hunt is the voice of reason in an increasingly hostile HD world.

He's right on the money about the dual formats. No one wants 2 formats for long. The content providers want to focus on one format for a lot of reasons. If they wait too long to go exclusive then they hurt the customer as more and more products in the losing format will be sold in the mean time. They have to make a decision before it affects more than just us early adopters. Warner has just recently stated that they are holding off on Total HD for the time being and are looking very closely at sales in Q4.... that says to me that they want to make a decision very soon. (like January 2008 or sooner)

[CAB]

Originally Posted by WickyWoo

Uni is eyeing neutrality (their people have been spotted at Panasonic's facility apparently). . . .

Mkay - I sported wood.