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01 January 2007, 16:55
LG to End HD Format Wars (Blu-ray/HD DVD Dual-Format Player)
New disc may sway DVD wars
By Richard Siklos
Source
Consumers wary of buying new high-definition DVD players because of a technology war reminiscent of the days of Betamax versus VHS will soon have a new kind of DVD that might make the decision less daunting.
Warner Bros., which helped popularize the DVD more than a decade ago, plans to announce next week a single videodisc that can play films and television programs in both Blu-ray and HD DVD, the rival DVD technologies.
LG Electronics said Thursday that it would launch the world’s first dual-format high-definition video player capable of running both Blu-ray and high definition DVD formats.
The company will unveil the player at the Consumer Electronics Show to be held Jan. 8–11 in Las Vegas, U.S.
The dual player will hit stores by March in the United States, LG said. The company will announce detailed specs and prices at the electronics show.
No other companies could make a dual player because it is very difficult to make a single tray that reads both formats,’’ LG spokesman Kim Kyung-hwan said. ``We expect that this product will help the next-generation DVD market grow rapidly.’’ Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner, plans to formally announce the new disc, which it is calling a Total HD disc, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.
Two rival camps introduced high-definition DVD players last year: a consortium called Blu-ray, backed by Sony and others, and a group called HD DVD, backed by Toshiba and Microsoft. Retail and media executives say this clash of corporate titans and their incompatible machines has left some consumers bewildered and has slowed the introduction of what is intended to be the next great thing in home entertainment.
Executives at Time Warner and its Hollywood subsidiary hope to spur sales of new DVD players and movies by gaining the support of retailers and cajoling rival studios into making their film and television libraries available in both formats on a single disc.
In addition to reviving the ghost of the war that marked the introduction of videocassettes in the 1980s, the high-definition battle has been exacerbated by the decision of several major studios to support only one of the technologies.
Blu-ray and HD DVD are high-density optical disc formats. They are competing to become the industry standard and are expected to replace DVDs as early as this year.
Sony and Samsung support Blu-ray, while Toshiba is leading the HD DVD side.
Samsung introduced the world’s first Blu-ray player in June at $999 in the United States and 1 million won in South Korea.
Toshiba’s HD DVD player has been sold for $499 since early last year.
Until now, there has been no player capable of reading both formats. Thus, for instance, a copy of 20th Century Fox's Ice Age: The Meltdown is available only on Blu-ray, while Universal's The Break-Up can be viewed only on a disc and player built with HD DVD technology.
Barry M. Meyer, the chairman and chief executive of Warner Bros., said in an interview that the company came up with the Total HD disc after concluding that neither Blu-ray nor HD DVD was going the way of Betamax anytime soon.
"The next best thing is to recognize that there will be two formats and to make that not a negative for the consumer," Meyer said. "We felt that the most significant constituency for us to satisfy was the consumer first, and the retailer second. The retailer wants to sell hardware and doesn't want to be forced into stocking two formats for everything. This is ideal for them."
In a world besotted with gadgetry, few consumer products have generated as much excitement--and head-scratching--as high-definition television. Flat-screen, high-definition TVs have been flying off the shelves for the last year and are now as common in homes as coffee pots. Yet few people are actually watching superclear high-definition programming.
The day we've dreamed of has finally come. No, our parents aren't getting un-divorced, nor is Timmy coming back from that "dog farm" he got sent to—LG's just announced the world's first dual-format Blu-ray/HD DVD player to be unveiled at CES. Launch? Some time in early 2007.
We cannot wait!
LG Electronics (LG), a leader in consumer electronics and mobile communicati ons, announced that it will launch the world's first dual-format high-definition disc player, capable of playing both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD content. The unit will be released in the United States in early 2007. Details will be provided at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held January 8-11 in Las Vegas. Part of the disconnect is the lack of high-definition programming on cable and satellite television, and the additional outlay for decoder boxes and premium channels needed to get it. The rival movie player technologies have further blurred the outlook for high definition. Richard Greenfield, an analyst at Pali Capital, predicted in a recent report that this would be the first year since the introduction of the DVD that consumer spending on the discs would decline, putting pressure on the studios that rely heavily on them for profits.
For now, Sony; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which is owned by private equity firms in partnership with the Comcast and Sony; 20th Century Fox, a division of the News Corp.; and Walt Disney Pictures are all exclusively releasing their DVDs in Blu-ray.
Universal Studios, which is owned by General Electric, is releasing only in HD DVD. Warner and Paramount Pictures, a division of Viacom, are issuing DVDs in both formats.
Behind these allegiances are complex strategic questions revolving around everything from manufacturing costs to profit margins, debates over each format's technical strengths and weaknesses, and how these players relate to Microsoft and Sony's video-game strategies.
(Blu-ray players are built into the new Sony PlayStation 3, while Microsoft is selling HD DVD drives that attach to its Xbox 360.)
LG expects this technological breakthrough to end the confusion and inconvenience of competing high-definition disc formats for both content producers and consumers. Another wrinkle is plans by LG Electronics, and possibly other gadget makers attending the Las Vegas conference, to announce new DVD players with drives for both formats; however, such players will most likely be initially more expensive than other players.
Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the president of Time Warner, said the Total HD disc has a better chance of catching on than dual players. Research commissioned by Warner indicates that consumers are willing to pay several dollars more than current high-definition DVDs for a disc that works on both players. At the Web site for Best Buy, Warner's Superman Returns DVD was selling yesterday for $19.99 in its standard format, $29.99 for Blu-ray and $34.99 for HD DVD.
The High-Def DVD Format War is Over: LG Announces Dual-Format Player
With just days before the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, LG has pretty much guaranteed that their representatives be swamped. They've announced that they'll be releasing a combo HD DVD/Blu-ray player in early 2007, ending the should-I/shouldn't-I conundrum that has plagued the two formats since even before they were introduced. I rather expect that Toshiba, RCA, Sony and Samsung are now bracing for a sudden nosedive in their HD DVD and Blu-ray players Still, it is not clear whether news of Warner's Total HD disc would convince the studio heads who are backing one format or the other to release their wares in both. Sony, of course, has placed a big bet on Blu-ray's success and does not want to relive the sting of Betamax's defeat. The number of studios committed solely to Blu-ray has been seen as a competitive edge, particularly because HD DVD came to market several months ahead of Blu-ray.
And HD DVD's boosters say they doubt gaming fans who have been snapping up the just-introduced PlayStation 3 will take advantage of its built-in Blu-ray player and buy movies as well as video games.
In recent interviews, executives at Fox and Disney were unequivocal in their support for Blu-ray. They said they believed that releasing DVDs in both formats would only prolong confusion and the emergence of a winning format. "I think the fastest way to end the format war is through decisiveness and strength," said Bob Chapek, the president of Buena Vista Worldwide Entertainment, the home video arm of Walt Disney.
“LG expects this technological breakthrough to end the confusion and inconvenience of competing high-definition disc formats for both content producers and consumers,” the company said.
The battle for supremacy in the market for next-generation DVD players, which show content in high-definition formats, has intensified since Toshiba and Sony launched competing advanced DVD models in 2006.
Toshiba is leading a group of manufacturers that includes Microsoft and Intel which are supporting the HD-DVD format while the majority of consumer electronics and PC markers, including Samsung Electronics, Matsushita, Dell and most of the Hollywood studios, are firmly in the Blu-ray camp. The controversy is spreading to the video game console market as Sony’s PlayStation 3 includes a Blu-ray player while Microsoft is using the HD-DVD drive in its Xbox 360. Like other Blu-ray proponents and partners, Chapek said that he favors Blu-ray because of its greater storage capacity and other attributes. HD DVD offers the same vivid picture by storing less information on its disc, which means fewer minutes of video and other features. However, among its perceived advantages, HD-DVD players are less expensive. (Both formats can play standard DVDs.)
Because of manufacturing complexities, the Total HD disc will not contain a standard format version, said Kevin Tsujihara, the president of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment Group. However, several months ago the company filed patents for a new disc incorporating all three formats, which it could produce in the future.
Tsujihara described the new disc as an elegant way for studios to make their content available more widely "in a way that is not conceding defeat" for the format they have been backing.
In the short term, Total HD would actually add to the number of formats retailers will have to stock, raising it from three to four. However, Irynne V. MacKay, senior vice president for entertainment products at Circuit City, said she supported the idea because it took pressure off consumers puzzling over which format to invest in. "The simpler the future is for us, the better," said MacKay.
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