Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Format DVD War: There will be blood...

http://www.edmontonsun.com/Lifestyle/Gadgets/2008/02/19/4859507.html

As I stated before, the formats wars are pretty much over. Toshiba threw in the towel today officially. Rumor has it that they wanted to stop production over the next few months but the Wal-mart and Best Buy announcements pretty much forced them to accurate their decision.

((Critically, only two of the major Hollywood studios — Universal plus Paramount and its DreamWorks division — have been releasing exclusively in HD DVD. Both studios are doomed in the high-def business if they do not capitulate and quickly switch. Both are expected to do so, although both studios refused to comment to Sun Media this week.))

Well, there is good news and bad news. Paramount has already had experience in making Blue Ray discs. They had several Blue Ray discs in the works when their exclusive deal with HD DVD came about. Expect Transformers to see the Blu-Ray light real soon. Bad news; Universal put all their eggs in the HD DVD basket, going as far as putting their own money in support of HD DVD.

Yet, Universal is the one of two supported HD DVD studios to announce they’re switching to the Blue Ray Format. It only took them a matter of hours to make this statement.

((“The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear," Craig Kornblau, President, Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Universal Pictures Digital Platforms, said in a statement.

"The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate. While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray," he said.))

Here's the Timeline for the whole Blu-ray/HD DVD thing: It is a very interesting read if I say so myself.

BTW, there will be no refunds from Toshiba.

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