The party for HD DVD is over, literally

War is hell, particularly when you want to schedule cocktail parties.

The HD DVD Promotional Group had scheduled a cocktail party and a press conference this Sunday evening in Las Vegas to tout the "progress" it has made in high definition video and the ongoing format war with the Blu-ray consortium.

On Friday, however, the group sent out a note terminating the event because Warner Home Video earlier in the day said it would switch exclusively to the Blu-ray format.

"Based on the timing of the Warner Home Video announcement today, we have decided to postpone our CES 2008 press conference. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause," the cancellation read. "We are currently discussing the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluating next steps. We believe the consumer continues to benefit from HD DVD's commitment to quality and affordability--a bar that is critical for the mainstream success of any format."

The original invite was a lot more upbeat:

"Please join us as we present exciting news and a sneak peak at what's to come for 2008," it read, "featuring executives from the HD DVD Promotional Group: Intel, Microsoft, Paramount Home Entertainment, Toshiba, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and Warner Home Video."

Warner leaving the group probably wasn't the exciting sneak peek they had in mind. But you have to wonder, why cancel? Was Warner bringing the food? Springing for the drinks? If they had any guts, the remaining members could have bought a keg and held a party in the parking lot.

We've all faced rejection, and the way to deal with it is to get shamelessly drunk and loud in public, after all. Where did these people learn their manners? The upside is that you will probably see a lot of derelicts walking around the strip with "HD DVD 2008" shoulder bags that they found in a dumpster.

The cancellation also marks two bad CESes in a row for Toshiba. Last year, the company abruptly canceled plans to show off its SED TVs at the show. Subsequently, it tossed responsibility for SED to Canon.

Ironically, HD DVD players have outsold standalone Blu-ray players. At Ceatec last October, Blu-ray execs said that their group would become more aggressive in late 2007 in promoting the format and try to gain an advantage by the first quarter of 2008.

[psibot]

All your fail are belong to Toshiba/hd

All hd DVD supporters are now FAIL. To wit: <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.cnbc.com/id/22508081" target="_newWindow">http://www.cnbc.com/id/22508081</a><br />(this article is from CNBC, you know... NBC Universal... Universal Studios... hint- rocket science NOT required)<br /><br />Those crying hd DVD superior <br />{<br />/* no, it ISN'T better looking, you're just crazy when you say you can see a difference */<br /> &lt;bd&gt;1080p == &lt;hd&gt;1080p;<br /> 50GB &gt; 30GB;<br />}<br />are now officially on notice. <br /><br />All aboard the red fail train. The format storm will now surely clear, as we see blu skies ahead.<br /><br />Full disclosure: I DON'T hate Toshiba, I own one of their HDTV's) ~~We get signal!

[zigra74]

WTF AYBBTU LOL

what the **** was that nonsense comment?<br />are you an illiterate robot?

[mikestatic1]

Once again, this time in Engrish

***... is there a secret message in there? I don't see one otherwise...

[megazone]

Let's hold a wake

I think the BDA should swoop in and pick up the tab for the room and the food and drink at the Wynn, and hold a wake for HD DVD! That'd be priceless!

[Mam00th]

A big loss for consumer

Being an external observer for this whole format war, I can only say that this is a big loss for consumers, HD-DVD being cheaper while still having the same image quality*** and better audio on most of its players. Oh and lets not talk about BD-Java...<br /><br />***To psibot saying that image quality is better on 50GB then 30GB, first of all you don't have a clue about technology, and second of all, why then dont we use 1TB HDD for movies because 1TB &gt; 50GB no?<br /><br />Anyways, the future is to movie download service. (I'm not talking about that crap of Itune)

[BCF1968]

BIG GAIN for the consumer

How does protracted format war benefit the consumer? Millions would have eventually bought the next betamax. Is that good? This way the number of casualties is much lower.<br /><br />The whole Beta vs VHS war is why HD hasn't taken off. Too many remember getting stuck with useless stuff they spent hundreds if not more on. Now people will be more likely to upgrade to HD with blu-ray. More players sold mean lower prices. that's simple economics. And prices will drop faster than they would with dualing formats.<br /><br />Movie downloading is over a decade away. 25% of American that have intenet are still on dial-up adn they will be for years because ISPs don't want to give these people more options because they live in the bonies and it's not worthwhile for the ISPs to build out their broadband services. Don't mention satelite as an option for these people. The 6-17 GB monthly caps won't allow you to download any HD content. Of those with broadband half don't even half 3 meg speed. You'll need at least 10 Mbps speed to even begin to enjoy any HD from the internet and that's maybe 5% of households.

[lil-yankee]

Rendering your information.

first off let me update your software with some facts.<br />1st: image quality Blue-Ray/HD-DVD.<br />1080p in a Blue-Ray is not the same as 1080i in a Hd-dvd. If you noticed the difference in the suffix ([p] in blue ray and [i] in Hd-dvd) there seems to be a difference.<br /><br /> Read Carefully<br /><br />A: An image optimized (or video filtered) for interlaced display has a resolution equivalency or sharpness that can be down to approx. 70% (some call it the Kell factor) of a progressive image in a worst case scenario. (In other words, "It's all in the mastering!")<br /><br />B: Your 1080i input display or player could either deinterlace correctly (weave) or "incorrectly" (bob) a progressive (film) image, and of course all 1080p displays and/or 1080p output players have to deinterlace interlaced (shot on HDTV video) images by some method, ranging from optimally (motion pixel adaptive, etc, etc), to the more common bob, that again, at worst, would give you 70% of the sharpness. (In other words, "It's all in the deinterlacing!")<br /><br />Remember this reduction to 70% of 1080p can happen if the transfer is "suboptimal" and you have a 1080p player -&gt; 1080p display; or if the transfer is "perfect" and at some point between the 1080 player and 1080 display there's a worst (bob) deinterlace occurring.*<br /><br />So depending on those two factors, a 1080i vs 1080p path can vary from the 1080i being equivalent to about 768p, to looking equal to 1080p<br /><br />(If you wanna play the laws of averages between the extremes of those two possibilities occurring :-P, that comes out to be about 900p, which in comparison to 1080p is: about the same difference between a 16:9 coded widescreen movie DVD and a 4:3 coded widescreen movie DVD).<br /><br />Then:<br /><br />C: Seating distance also affects perceived quality:<br /><br />The eye finds an about 2000p image to be excellent at 0.8x screen width viewing distance from a 16:9 screen.<br /><br />At 1x screen width sitting distance 1600p<br />At 1.25x screen width sitting distance 1250p<br />At 1.6x screen width sitting distance 1000p<br />At 2x screen width sitting distance 800p<br />At 2.5x screen width sitting distance 640p<br />At 3.2x screen width sitting distance 500p<br />At 4x screen width sitting distance 400p<br /><br />(In other words, "It's all in how close you sit to the screen!")<br /><br /><br />D: You may also tolerate a less than excellent image (well, we accept average 35mm theatrical projection which is miles away from perfectly focused 70mm, etc ) For example, tho a 2000p image watched 9 feet from a 16:9 wide 12 feet diagonal screen will look outstanding, that doesn't mean a 1000p image will look bad, it'll look great still. (In other words, "It's all in what you think is good enough!")<br /><br />E: A judiciously adjusted sharpness control with proper contrast and black level can do wonders to a slightly fuzzy image :-P (In other words nothing beats a correctly calibrated home theater!)<br /><br />F: So in answer to your question: In some cases it might be more thrilling, (but if you have 1080i now don't worry about it and start enjoying your 6x times better than interlaced NTSC DVD video<br /><br />G: I can't wait for Blu-ray<br /><br />I hope you see that it is not the same. To your untrained (cheap) eye not a costumed to the elegance of HD-TV, anything over 420i is marvelous. <br />Maybe you have yet to see them both in a tv over 46" lets say maybe in circuit city. when you see the pixels being out-lasted by the size of the tv, then you could see a more diverse world between both of them.

[lixpaulian]

Yeah, finally: big gain for consumer indeed

It is a big gain for consumers simply because lots of people <br />sitting on a fence (like me) waiting for an end to this silly <br />standards war can finally go out and buy in confidence a player <br />and software (disks). This is the definite moment when the leevy <br />breaks, I mean when people will go and buy in droves a player <br />(if things go well, this will probably happen by the next <br />Christmas). This will in turn determine a substantial price <br />decline for the hardware, a definitive benefit to the users. The <br />sub-$100 BlueRay player is finally in sight.<br /><br />In this case, it seems there are a lot of people having a wrong <br />understanding of what compettition means: competing <br />standards historically brought pain to consumers-and in the end <br />to manufacturers themselves (see NTSC/PAL/SECAM, DVD-<br />Audio/SACD, ...); the competition will happen between <br />manufacturers of the same standard-based players, as it was to <br />DVD (as someone correctly pointed out).<br /><br />However, I also think that in the mid-term disks of any sort are <br />doomed as a distribution medium, broadband (read: fiber!) will <br />kill all of them in about 5 to 10 years.

[mastiff2010]

Good and bad

The war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD is really good for consumers.<br />But that doesn't mean its result will be.<br />SONY has not been so fair with us for a long time.<br />I fear for consumers If SONY wins this battle.

[kamos76]

a great big gain for comsumers

only a complete idiot would say something like this. one format less confusion. it's that simple.<br />watch the adoption rate now. i personally have not bought a new dvd in almlost a year because i was waiting to see what happened I bought my blu-ray in october because ray charles could have seen that this was coming

[lkrupp]

God...

Can Microsoft get anything right these days? Apparently not.

[BCF1968]

Irony

I see comment here and other places how they hate blu-ray because Sony backs it. Do they have a clue that MS supports HD-DVD? That's better? Some are even MacHeads which make even more silly since not only does MS support HD-DVD, Apple supports blue-ray.<br /><br />I use IE and I use XP I'll never get a Mac. That's not going to stop me from gettign a lbu-ray player because Apple supports it. And just because I use IE and XP doesn't mean I like the XBOX 360 because actually I think the PS3 is better. And just because I like the PS3 doesn't mean I'm going to automatically get a Sony Tv. Fanboys are funny sometimes.

[Mam00th]

Yes?

Actually Mircosoft in one of the most profitable company in the world with a US$15 billion profit.<br />So yes they are good at making you buying their products.<br /><br />Don't get me wrong they do make some very good product, and other of very questionnable quality, as a lot of company...

[sanjayb]

Is the end in sight??

Let's hope this signals the end of this stupid format war. I really don't care who wins. I just want to see a clear winner so I and many others can take the plunge.

[badsponge]

Don't care...that much

I haven't bought into either format and am never going to, so I don't really care. I would have liked to see HD-DVD win, but only because I hate Sony. Oh, well.

[lil-yankee]

dude.........

do you have anything to say about the issue?<br />no?, well don't talk is meaningless. <br />Need a job? or a life?<br />www.newyorktimes.com/classified/jobs

[jrm125]

you wanted it to fail just to spite Sony?

Wow...you have some issues man. You should prefer a format with more storage capacity...something that actually benefits you instead of a blind hatred of a corporate entity that has no direct influence in your life.

[cidman2001]

Yayyyyyyy....

Does this mean the blu-ray prices will come down to a more reasonable for the average-joe price?

[EarthMatters]

Reducing choice doesn't usually lower prices

Do you think we'd have seen all the BOGO deals if it weren't for this war going on? I think not.

[urian1975]

HD DVD can survive

Sony has a track record developing overpriced failed or fad media technologies ie. Beta cassette, Laser disc and Bluray is just going to be another one to follow. the price for the equipment and media makes unreachable for the average middle class income family as well as it is rather pointless since you really can see the difference between 720i which can done with an upconverter dvd player and the 1080p available in Bluray. it is inevitable the next media technology I predict to truly replace dvd is some sort of high speed high density flash media

[MadLyb]

A couple things

First, you can tell the difference between 720p and 1080p. You just have to have equipment and content that truly takes advantage of it.<br /><br />Second, Flash is having real problems scaling to HD size capacities. That is why, after almost 3 years, most Flash storage is still hovering the 4GB range and the products that have reached out to 16 and even 32 are slower than their smaller breathren. And there is the cost. A 32GB USB drive is over $200. Gonna take some serious improvement to compete with $5 optical disk.<br /><br />Not saying it won't happen, but just like HD downloads via the Internet, there is still a lot of work to do.

[PatrickLynn]

Are You Kidding Me???!!!

You call yourselves a Promotional Group? I can't believe they <br />caved that fast! Just because Warner Home Video decides to go <br />Blu-Ray...you cancel your Press conference? How do you think <br />that makes your other HD DVD partners feel? What you SHOULD <br />HAVE DONE is get your other HD DVD Partners together, taken <br />your press conference, booze and hors d'oeuvres to the Warner <br />Booth with the biggest flat screen you could find, an HD DVD <br />player and a copy of Jurrasic Park and played the Tyrranasouras <br />roar just to show them how it's done.

[RoryMyers]

HD DVD

Well I purchased a Toshiba HD DVD player and I could not be happier. As far as Blu-Ray goes I will not purchase one. They are far to expensive, you cannot play standard DVD's, and I feel as if Sony is doing some back door manipulation. If HD-DVD goes by the way side I will use my player to watch standard DVD's and be happy with that.

[jrm125]

wtf are you talking about

Uhh....Blu-Ray players play standard DVDs just fine...in fact they upscale to 1080p just like your beloved HD-DVD player. Sony also didn't backdoor anything...BD was actually developed by a consortium, most directly Panasonic. <br /><br />Enjoy your overpriced DVD player with its soon-to-be-discontinued format. :-)

[Waam]

sour grapes

all this war has caused is sour grape customers who feel burned by <br />thier format losing the war. it's up to Toshiba and Microsoft to <br />make things right for their customers since they are the ones on <br />the losing end here. when Toshiba starts making some blu players, <br />there should be some kind of switch program, please! otherwise, i <br />have this really expensive up-converter player.

[couch11]

What?

Why can't you play standard DVDs on a Blu-Ray player? They do play standard DVDs you know?

[jrm125]

where are you Richto?

So...to all you naysayers: Here it is...yet ANOTHER nail in the coffin of that crap known as HD-DVD. <br /><br />Go ahead, flame on...the superior format is finally on it's way to being the lone format. I especially like how the "Promotional Group" canceled their party. I guess they had tons of faith in their format *rolls eyes*

[Hi Def Man]

Who is Responsible for this messy war ?

Answer is not HD DVD or Blue ray.Its all made by Movie studios.Whay all studios cant suppoet both formats and let consumer decide the winner.Consumer decided for VHS vs Betamax.This is actually forcing the consumer to buy a technology.Think about player prices if one format wins at the end.All prices will well in advance fixed and consumers will become deaf and dump spectators.Some body pleaseend this war let common guys like us enjoy Hi def at a resonable price.Studios think again .Monopoly suit is comming......

[make_or_break]

It's THEIR content...

...the studios can screw it up any way they see fit, even if it means they don't have a clue. <br /><br />Someday I'll buy into this hi-def format bull, but it WON'T be on lame, slow-to-load discs, no matter how hard Sony tries to spin them. CD-sized media is barely living on borrowed time. It's high time these hardware and content blowhards get real and use less wasteful and polluting delivery systems to get their crappy movies to us ignorant and generally tasteless consumers.

[gerrrg]

The war is far from over.

The irony could be that it was Warner's objections over key Blu-Ray members' actions in the DVD Forum, that allowed the HD-DVD format to move forward.<br /><br />But this war really isn't over by a long shot. The circumstances behind what happened with Warner is the stuff of backdoor deals...and it will perk the interest of the Justice Department and the EU. Consider that Blu Ray's actions have long interested the Justice Department and EU - <a class="jive-link-external" href="http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6458096.html" target="_newWindow">http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6458096.html</a><br /><br />I don't care about how much data either format carries...what matters is who controls what. Sony has an awful record of trying to control how and what we see and hear (MS less and less able to control how we use computers), so it simply doesn't make sense why the media companies do not support both formats....you can buy DRM-free mp3s, mp4s and wma...why can't you get competing HD video?

[seneschal]

I'm glad

I don't really care which format wins but I'm glad that it's finally coming to an end. Pretty stupid to have this war anyway, the differences are pretty minor in the long run (five years from now 30 GB vs. 50 GB will not mean much). <br /><br />Let' just get on with the show, so we can start buying the winning format and retire the loser to the museum with Sony Beta.

[brianbot5000]

Party for hard copy formats is nearly over, literally

This will all be a mute point 10-15 year from now, when there will be no need for hard copy data format for movies...who will want a shelf full of DVD's taking up space when they could have the same thing on a 3.5 inch hard drive (with an online backup vault in case of fire/flood/etc). Haven't we learned anything from the fall of CD's as digital music players took over?

[daringdogcow]

Not true.

The consumers didn't decide the VHS-Betamax format war; Sony did by refusing to license our their wholly proprietary technology. This is why Sony went out of its way to get 170+ companies behind Blu-ray Disc.<br /><br />Also, companies don't increase profits by illegal price fixing; they do it by ramping up production, which allows economies of scale to minimize costs. Collusion rarely happens anyway, because firms in such agreements usually break them. (When quantities of a good are held artificially low to inflate its price, firms usually can't resist the temptation to flood the market with that good to make excess profit.)<br /><br />There are also legal monopolies, which result from normal competition in the marketplace. These natural monopolies exist simply because one seller is more efficient than many sellers for the given market. This is why we don't have competing utilities, such as <br />water and waste management. I guess the same goes for hi-def media.

[gerrrg]

Whoa, where have you been the past 25 years?

Did you not get your settlement check for the price-fixing case brought by 28 states to the major music labels?<br /><br />Did you not see that there's a price-fixing investigation going on with online music distribution?<br /><br />And "Collusion" does not just refer to the artificial scarcity; it also can refer to price-fixing.<br /><br />Collusion rarely happening in 21st century? You're nuts. If you look with a discerning eye, you can see the current Writer's Guild strike is a form of collusion...to get their hands into the pot of money from revenue of online sales.<br /><br />The marketplace did decide the betamax-vhs war...no one bought betamax, since sony was the only company with betamax players, and you probably don't remember this, but they were more expensive to buy.<br /><br />Further, were it not for the competition between Blu Ray and HD-DVD, do you really believe that Blu Ray prices for players and recorders would have dropped so aggressively (at a tremendous loss I might add) this past year? It's not exactly true what they say...that Blu Ray players outsold HD-DVD 2-1, when the vast majority of those players were in the form of PS3s. There is an implication that Blu Ray was popular because of consumer choice, when in fact that is not a logical argument. Many people buy PS3s because of the level of graphics and legacy titles. That it plays movies is a big side benefit, but they would have bought the PS3 regardless of whether or not it was loaded with Blu Ray. Hell, the PS3 may have sold better if Sony didn't try to package Blu Ray with it - allowing for lower price point than $500. And we already knew that Sony is taking a beating from the loss on each PS3 sold, specifically because the Blu Ray itself cost more than the PS3 unit's retail price to begin with.<br /><br />As for legal monopolies, I think you're confusing yourself. Water is delivered by municipalities, and that in itself is neither an argument for nor against legal monopolies (if you've defined it as a result of normal competition in the marketplace). And waste is not always monopolistic. In my city I have several companies that offer pickup services. There are in fact competing recycling services. There is no inefficiency by breeding competition between waste companies.<br /><br />I mean seriously...how can you NOT see that competition, even between formats, is a good thing? Apple versus IBM PC? Autocad versus Microstation? CD versus digital download? Canon versus Nikon? Helloooo people?!#%^%%!?!!!

[Ivan Thomson]

Who give a s#$t?

The whole HDDVD and BluRay war is stupid. I mean who cares anyway? There are plenty of really important things out there in the world to worry about than some stupid format war that will soon end anyway once a newer more high capacity format replaces both HDDVD and BluRay. Man, some people need to get a real life I think because apparently the groups selling the technology don't even care that much.<br /><br />I you really wanted a format war then try promoting something worth fighting over like an open-source format.

[perfectblue97]

Not So

While I can see people liking the convenience of digital storage, there will remain a significant core of people who want hard copies.<br /><br />Take a look at all of the geeks out there who want a matching set of boxes on their shelves, or the companies who add "limited edition" post cards or booklets to their products to get you to buy them, or all of the traditionalists who simply like something tangible like a boxed movie.

[perfectblue97]

Other implications

Personally, I'm rather concerned that the battle between Blu Ray and HD DVD will be won in the US, and that it will result in an HD solution that is good for American consumers, but which will be bad for international consumers.<br /><br />Worse, that one format will win in the US and another will win overseas. Potentially leading to (for example) Asian and Eastern European countries opting for he Cheaper HD DVD format for econoic reasons and Western Europe and the US opting for the quality and storage of Blu Ray. This could force the need for dual releases and all sorts of messing about for years to come

[gerrrg]

Dual releases are perfectly fine.

It is a crazy argument that dual releases are problematic. Music is released in tons of different formats from MP4, WMA, MP3, CDs...etc. Is that problematic for you as a consumer, or does it provide you CHOICE? What about competing formats of Apple and Microsoft? Is that problematic for you?<br /><br />Please show me how that competing formats causes a consumer problems more so than any other technology release. You don't really care if it's DVD-RW, DVD+R,..etc, do you? Do you??? Most consumers just want to push a button and have it work. Dual players could solve the issue of competing formats if you're a confused consumer.

[poeticfighter]

The heat of battle- pointless

I hate this war with a passion. To be honest blue ray is better in my eyes and the only reason for this pro-longed war was because of the major companies (Microsoft and Sony) and their console wars. The hd-dvd was fighting was because to go Blue is like Micro$oft saying " Hey that blue ray ting is the future. buy it. It is cheaper to buy a ps3 than to buy an actual player so Sony will win. I want an end to this war. i guess this is a killer blow, let's wait and see what happens.

[dddavidn]

So now we've got to wait for Blu Ray players to get their act together

Well, like a whole lot of consumers, with families, who don't <br />have time to argue on these forums, I bought a low cost HD DVD <br />player from Toshiba, researching that the format worked now, <br />and didn't want to be stuck with 1.0 Blu Ray, 1.1 Blu Ray, 2.0 Blu <br />Ray, or whatever since the versions and standards continue to <br />change. This makes me, as a consumer, uncomfortable. <br /><br />Unfortunately, the reality is Sony just bought the war. Sony sells <br />the among the most expensive electronic stuff out there...I think <br />it's dvd for me at least for another 12 months. It's just that <br />John Q Public still won't make the jump until the $200 level <br />player...with interactive blu ray...not the obsolete, un-<br />upgradable 1.0 blu ray boat anchors (at least I didn't buy one of <br />those...and I never opened my Toshiba from Amazon after <br />seeing this story) become available.<br /><br />Thanks for trying to make hd affordable, Toshiba and MS, <br />beyond the psycho "blu ray rules" techies. The rest of us will <br />sadly have to wait to get it for a while, until blu ray profiles <br />stable out and prices come down lots for those stable profiles.