Two years of battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray: a retrospective
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted February 20th 2008 11:48AM
posted February 20th 2008 11:48AM
We'll start this story way back in the Summer of '05 where the talks to create a unified format broke down: this is the moment most of us realized we were in for some fun. Sure, this thing got started way before that, but we have to start somewhere and this is when it really began to get interesting. As HD DVD approached the BDA to join forces and demanded too many changes to the Blu-ray disc format, the BDA told them to pound sand.
Now that we knew there was going to be a format war, all that was left to do was wait -- and we did plenty of that as we saw the delay of the HD DVD launch from late '05 to the Spring of '06. Things were going to get worse before they got better, as two studios who had originally promised HD DVD exclusivity had announced in the Fall of '05 that they'd also release titles on Blu-ray. Paramount was the first studio to go purple, followed by Warner a few days later. This had many people wondering if this war would be over before it started, as Universal became the only remaining major studio to exclusively back HD DVD. Of course we all know now it did get started, but as we waited for things to kick off, Netflix let its intentions to support both formats be known.At the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show, we all oohed and aahed over the beautiful sights at the Blu-ray and HD DVD booths. Still, it was very apparent by the number of prototypes that Blu was going to have more hardware support, but HD DVD had the time advantage and was due to hit the streets in March. But March came and left, and HD DVD was delayed again, but this time by about a month to April 18th, 2006. No one knew how good either format would be, and while some assumed Blu-ray would look better because of it's capacity advantage, some were worried it wouldn't matter. In fact, many believed the studios would down convert the 1080p signal over component video which was the most common connection at the time. That fear was soon put to rest as one by one each studio announced it wouldn't set the Image Constraint Token (ICT) -- yet.
Alas the wait was finally over and the format war officially started around June 15th as the Samsung BD-P1000 hits
the streets. But as reviews starting to pour in, there was trouble in the Blu camp as some of the transfers from film were terrible -- so bad in fact, that a few titles were later replaced for free. This, combined with a bug in the first player that messed up its noise cancellation circuitry, left many thinking HD DVD was the clear choice for videophiles. But this wasn't the only problem -- most of the initial Blu-ray titles released were using MPEG2, which by itself doesn't pose much of a problem, but due to some issues producing BD50 discs, the authors of the discs had to make it all fit on a single layer disc (25GB). At this point, many in the Red camp were claiming that BD50 discs were a myth and would never come to market, and although it took about four months, on October 10th 2006, Sony's Click was released on Blu-ray as the first BD50 title. 
Although the format war had officially started, we all knew things were just about to get rolling when the game consoles entered the scene. And in November, both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 add-on HD DVD drive were released. The PlayStation 3 had the craziest price anyone had ever seen on a gaming console at $499 (20GB), and although many were skeptical about its abilities as a Blu-ray player, it not only was the cheapest option at the time, but it was also by far the best. The Xbox 360 add-on was only $199, but required an additional purchase, making the two options very comparably priced. At this point, the debate of which would help their format was out of control. Claims were made in both directions about gamers and playing movies on a gaming console, but ultimately the PS3 was outselling the add-on by about five to one. It wasn't until much much later that we learned the impact that the PS3 would have on the outcome. Going into CES 2007 the Blu-ray camp had really picked up a lot of steam after an embarrassing start. We knew things were far from over, and Blu was looking good. It didn't stay that way for very long as the Red camp picked up it's second hardware manufacture -- no we don't count the RCA -- and a big one at that, as LG not only announced the first dual format player at CES, but it actually hit the streets a week or two later.
The rub was of course that although it would play HD DVD movies, it didn't support HDi, so the best part of HD DVD was not included. But LG wasn't the only one with a surprise at CES, as Warner was there to announce its Total HD disc. Sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it was short on details and seemed like a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
Towards the end of 2006, both formats were seeing moderate success, and although HD DVD had outsold
Blu-ray every week of year, the charts pulled a 180 half way through December and Blu-ray was off to a good start in 2007 -- it went on to win every week that year. The first title to really move any volume was Casino Royale, which Sony touted the fact that it shipped over 100k copies, but unfortunately for Blu, only half of them were actually sold. At this point, many analysts believed that the HD movie market was Blu-ray's for the taking. Sales were good, but Blu-ray wasn't doing anything to seal the deal, and after a few months of silence, HD DVD got a break in the way of a fantastic rumor that seems downright silly in hindsight. How so? In April of '07, $300 for a Chinese HD DVD player at Wal-Mart sounded like a great deal, but a week later we learned there wasn't much to the rumor, but of course HD DVD had the last laugh as Toshiba brand HD DVD players were available for $98 at Wal-Mart during a pre-Black Friday sale in November.
The Blu-ray Disc Association wasn't going to take this lying down, and somehow managed to get Blockbuster to announce it'd only carry Blu-ray titles in many of its stores. Many still believe that there was some sort of deal going on here, and although it was argued that this was a non-announcement, we heard at least a few sales people say something like "if you want'a rent movies, then Blu-ray is for you" -- despite the fact that it wasn't true.
Then, in the Fall of '07, HD DVD dropped the bomb on the BDA, one that could've very easily been the watershed moment that shifted things in its favor. Paramount and Dreamworks announced it would no longer release its movies on Blu-ray. This was very sudden and in fact one title (Blades of Glory) still managed to make its way on to Blu-ray and still goes for a premium on the second-hand market. Many were predicting that this was the first of many defections from Blu-ray, but rumors quickly surfaced indicating that there was a backdoor deal involved and while it was never definitively confirmed, many believe Paramount made out. But not everyone working with Paramount was on board, as Michael Bay was already planning on releasing his latest project on Blu-ray, and was not bashful about voicing his beef with the fact that Transformers wouldn't be released on Blu-ray. Toshiba's new alliance with Paramount soon paid off as Transformers set new records for sales, but it wasn't enough to take that week's Nielsen VideoScan numbers as Blu-ray's defensive buy one get one free offer kept Blu ahead by a mere 1 percent -- the closest Red ever got to winning a single week since December of '06.
Moving into the holiday season, Blu looked like it had an answer for every HD DVD offensive and even though HD DVD had a few very successful hardware sales before Thanksgiving, the Nielsen VideoScan numbers continued to show Blu-ray with a solid lead -- many considered media sales the most important metric when measuring the success of a format. But regardless of sales, it seemed like a stalemate and many wondered if it'd ever end. What we didn't realize was that when Warner decided to kill off its Total HD disc plans, that soon after it'd make a move that would be remembered as the one thing that sealed the deal for Blu-ray. We did suspect something was up because for the first time ever Warner released a Blu-ray title with arguably better specifications than its HD DVD counterpart, and consumers finally had a choice between HD DVD's interactivity or Blu-ray HD supplements. It wasn't long before we learned that more people chose the Blu-ray version and we believe this is a big part of the reason why Warner eventually made the decision that it did.
Meanwhile, the Blu-ray spec continued to be a work in progress as Sony released a firmware update for the PS3 that -- among other things -- made it the first Bonus View (Profile 1.10) compatible player.
Leading up to CES 2008, we heard many rumors that Warner was going to make a move and many of our readers were convinced that Warner was going Blu and that it'd mean the end for HD DVD. And just before the big show, Warner dropped the final big bomb on Red, letting the whole world know that it was over between 'em. As we all expected, rumors of payoffs were in the air and we have no doubt some sort of deal was made. Warner insists it was doing what it thought was best for the home media business -- of which Warner owns most of.
After Warner's big announcement, we wondered how HD DVD would (or could) fire back, but for the first time, we think Toshiba was caught off guard, as not only was the HD DVD CES press event canceled, but the official response to Warner's move was down right somber.
After the dust from CES settled, things really started to get interesting as the HD DVD camp starting seeing defections right and left, and although it held on to its core by not losing any studios, companies like Netflix and Wal-Mart seemed to know something no one else did. At this point we're not sure which came first, but regardless, within a week of Netflix, Wal-Mart and Best Buy announcing their love for all things Blu, the rumors of the official end for HD DVD starting coming in so solid that not even the most devout HD DVD fanboy could feel at ease.
Finally, Toshiba held a press conference in Japan that would effectively and definitively end the HD media format war after 1 year, 10 months and 5 days.
In retrospect, it was the PS3 and its owners who won the war for Blu-ray. Despite what many believed, PS3 owners were buying Blu-ray movies and although it was a small fraction, it was enough to convince the studios Blu-ray had the most potential to be the next physical format -- that and because the BDA was willing to offer a few anti-consumer features like BD+ and region coding. We can certainly appreciate Toshiba not having any regrets about the way it approached HD DVD, and although it didn't win when it was all said and done, we believe HD DVD did successfully pressure Blu-ray to step up its game. Red forced Blu to be more concerned about its transfers and authoring, to reduce prices earlier than it may have liked, and to market itself more heavily than if there was no format war at all.
let me be the first to say....STOP WITH THIS....its so old news, if you want to talk about it, start showing prices of players/drives and movies!
I think the problem for Engadget is many people only came here to watch the lunatics in the red and blue camps make ever more outrageous flames and claims :)
Nothing quite like a flame war to drive hits up.
excuse me, but none of us really need to read the news about hd-dvd, how it started, and what happen in the war because those of us who actually read the news about hd-dvd, should know a good bit of it already, we don't need a recap
and If I didn't say it, someone else would, and we are all thinking about it!
Personally I enjoyed this little recap. I couldn't recall all these things from memory because I personally didn't care to much about the format war, one was going to win and thats when I would buy. Honestly this may have taken up 6 inches of your monitor while you were scrolling through so it's not a big deal. Unless someone's jumping down your throat to read this I don't see why you complain. Maybe you should go read gizmodo or some other less interesting blog.
You didn't have to read it or comment on it, Montusama. Some people are interested in more than just the latest updates to a story - an article like this gives us some more perspective and a well-written recap of what happened.
As I said, you didn't need to read the article, and you don't seem to be the senior editor of the site. Calm down.
my parents fought in the betamax-vhs wars. I remember seeing her betamax player in her room and i always wondered why vhs tapes wouldnt work with it. i soon later realized that they were two formats completing for market dominance. This war i sought to correct my parents mistake so i went with the anti-sony choice, hd-dvd. I just hope that my son will choose the right side by the time the next war starts.
say what yo will guys... I did enjoy the recap.
I'm not saying I didn't like it, it has pretty pictures and some things I didn't know about, but my second reply was geared towards a comment that was deleted, plus....kinda seeing the article like 5 times already gets rid of any annoyance it had
Does anyone remember those hybrid HD/Blu-ray players? Now might be the time to snatch one up..HD dvd's will be CHEAP to fill in your collection, and you will have the (winning) Blu-ray player going forward! Althought you know the format was isn't really over; Sony never wins....
They won the UMD war against no competitor!
Amazon dropped Samsung's from $800 to $600. Great bargain right now!
Can't wait for those HD-DVD movie sales to really heat up!
How the hell is $600 a bargain?
That's like saying a Corvette is a bargain over a Murcielago.
$600 for a disk player is insane.
The high def war isn't over - now it is between the consumers and the studios. The studios want us to give up on standard def DVDs in favor of the new BR DVDs. I'm more than happy to buy a ton of BR DVDs and a BR player as soon as they start making the good BR DVDs.
The studios played a game with us before on the standard DVDs
The initial "crap edition"
The "crap edition with deleted scenes or uncut version" released 6 months later
The "ultimate edition with DTS" or better transfer quality - another 6 months after that
The "utlimate directors cut" with better quality and the uncut scenes released another 6 months after that.
Again I have no issue with buying many of my DVDs again in BR - but only when they release the BR edition with DTS MA or Dolby HD recordings, 1080p quality transfers and the deleted scenes - ideally they would have the theatrical release and the uncut or directors version on the same disc - wouldn't take up much more space if they just used the programming on the DVD to switch between both versions instead of trying to put both full length on the disc - can be done with the programming on the initial menu - which version you select.
Frankly I don't care much about the extras - like what the keygrip was thinking when they were shooting a scene or what that the director was sick on a day of shooting - I just want the best quality video and audio with a choice of cut or uncut.
They're not "BR DVDs" mate, they're BDs.
i don't like BD. if you're in the corporate world, it stands for Business Development.
on the other hand, you could call them BRD's or Blu-rays, but BRD sounds like a bowel movement and Blu-rays sound like an animal that killed Steve Irwin (RIP). I personally don't like things that kill the Crocodile Hunter; it's un-American.
CH-DVD ftw!
A suggestion to the Studios - if you want BR to take off in sales over regular DVDs.
Release the "crap edition" for 18.99
Release the "ultimate director's cut" with DTS-MA or DD HD, 1080p, theatrical and uncut edition for $23.99 and see if BR sales increase. I think people willing to pay for BR tend to be people with large TV's and a home theatre system. These are the people who are more likely to notice a difference in BR over standard DVD - likewise they are more likely to notice better sound, better video and want both the theatrical and directors cut.
"As HD DVD approached the BDA to join forces and demanded too many changes to the Blu-ray disc format, the BDA told them to pound sand."
I think you need to check your facts. The BDA demanded that Toshiba drop everything from their standard and join. Just some left over sour grapes from Sony-Philips MMCD loosing to SDD (now known as DVD)
Eh, you're kind of both right, though I'd go with Ben's interpretation. I started blogging about the war in 2004 - and I was personally following it well before then.
Did the BDA basically tell Toshiba they'd have to drop their proposals and go with the group? Yes. But that was not unreasonable, let alone 'sour grapes', given the context.
When Toshiba blinked at the last minute and approached the BDA the reports were that they offered to avert the war and join - but only if the BDA would use HDi instead of BD-J and make changes to the physical disc structure (very likely to use more of Toshiba's DVD patents). At that point the physical BD specs were done and the interactivity issue had been put to rest well before. The BDA was rightfully unwilling to undo years of cooperation and hard-won compromises just to make Toshiba happy. Remember, Toshiba basically wrote the HD DVD spec themselves. The BD spec was very much a group effort, and in order to change it would've meant going through the process of hammering out agreements amongst the members on issues they'd just spent years working to finalize.
Toshiba was approached *many* times over the years to join the BDA. They were greedy and insisted on going their own way. Despite everyone except NEC and Sanyo (and what the hell did Sanyo contribute in the end anyway?) siding with Blu-ray, Toshiba kept insisting they could build better spec. If they hadn't waited until the absolute last minute, when it was too late, to join the BDA then they could've influenced the spec.
Toshiba locked themselves out, plain and simple. They insisted on doing their own thing while everyone else pitched in and hammered out a compromise. Then Toshiba comes back and deigns to join the group - if the group does a few (major) things their way? That's arrogant and unreasonable.
Toshiba burned themselves. They could've joined the BDA, influenced the spec, got more of their IP used, and earned more licensing from Blu-ray. Instead they got greedy and decided to bet all-or-nothing - and lost. Unfortunately, in the process of burning themselves they burned a lot of consumers and distracted the entire market.
Last time around Sony did the right thing by joining DVD - largely a Toshiba effort. This time around Toshiba failed to do the right thing - and got spanked for it.
It isn't like the BDA locked Toshiba out until the last minute - Toshiba shunned all invites until the last minute. It is just not reasonable to expect an entire industry to junk years of work because one company was too arrogant and/or greedy to work with them despite repeated invitations to do so.
Heh - I was going back through my old posts and I found this one where I got all excited about the report that a truce had been reached for a joint standard - May 10, 2005: http://www.tivolovers.com/2005/05/10/well-i-have-to-say-it-congratulations-to-toshiba-nec-and-sanyo/
Of course, the next day the high was crushed: http://www.tivolovers.com/2005/05/10/toshiba-slams-blu-ray-hd-dvd-convergence-claims/
As much as I hated this format war and would have liked for it to have been one format from the beginning, I do agree that it helped drive prices down a bit faster that if only one existed, and I do think HD DVD gave BD a swift kick in the rear about improving the quality of their transfers and their players. They still have much to improve on, and all eyes are on BD now so the pressure is definitely still on.
I'm not so sure about this commonly touted argument about prices.
While in the short term Blu manufacturers discounted some players to compete with HD DVD, ultimately it is volume that is going to drive prices down. Higher volumes make it cheaper to make the players, whereas the discounting we saw was a strategy to gain long term market share, with minimal profit on each sale, which is eventually unsustainable. This war has significantly delayed widespread adoption of hi def players - a lot of people were scared of being betamaxed. I think most of us are aware of how miniscule hi-def sales remain compared to DVD.
Blu ray manufacturers will compete with each other. This is why we saw DVD player prices tumble despite being an unopposed format.
It's a nice look back but money talks and Sony just put up more of it. Business as usual...
100% agree. Also, selling your soul to finally win a format war helps too.
Good read. I chose the wrong side, obviously...but I like the last sentence. If it weren't for the format war, Blu-ray players would still cost $900 and the movies would still be cropped wrong.
@zamm: you're absolutely right. I just saw somewhere that an HD DVD player that includes an HDMI cable, 300 and The Bourne Identity is $79 at Costco. That's an amazing deal even if you only use it as an upconverting DVD player in the future.
Wow, you're so right. Without competition that stupid DVD format just never came down in price or exceeded the quality of VHS, did it?
I concede the format war may have accelerated the timetable, but let's not go overboard. The format war sucked, pure and simple.
Any one know if Linux can run on the Toshiba HD-A2. It already comes with two USB ports on the front and a NIC. I would love to use mine to browse the web or stream media to it.
It does--check the EULA at the back of the manual or when you do the firmware check from the menu. Don't know if anyone has hacked it for access, but it is Linux under the hood.
Not sure about the HD-A2 but a PS3 will do all these things. No special hacks or mods necessary. PS3 was designed to run another OS and even has an option in the system menu to help with the install and create a partition for you (take that M$). Yellow Dog is the officially recommended distribution (since Cell is basically a power PC) but I've seen people run Ubuntu on there with little hassle.
PS3 also supports Bluetooth, comes with wifi and has an array of media card slots.
Guys...news must be slow but what's with the daily rehash of the HDM wars? I don't understand why Engadget spends an inordinate amount of time covering a battles between nascent HD formats.
Whatever man, this took a long time to prepare and you could've just as easily passed it by instead of leaving a negative comment.
I think it's important to remember how things went down and I'm sure there are a few that came in towards the end and don't exactly remember what happened. I know I wrote half the stories myself and until I started researching, I didn't realize how much of it I had forgotten.
engadget please leave the Hd war........its over.
and have some respect for the SOLDIERS WHO DIED IN WWII .
You're an idiot.
What's fantastic is that in all that "blah blah blah" blu-colored recap the fact that HD DVD was a more feature complete format was mentioned. Not only that but you actually dedicated ONLY 1 sentence to Profile issue which is actually a MUCH larger problem in the overall state of things even now when the format war is over. It's simple ripoff of the consumer by forcing them to buy a new player if they want to play all features of the movies they buy, but again, I don't expect anything objective from Engadget.
If anything, at least we know where Engadget alliances and the alliances of it's authors belong right? I think that this war was great to root out all of the corrupted and anti-consumer media outlets, of course, Engadget being one of them.
Dude, just let it go. When mass adoption of Blu-ray starts really happening in the next few years, the whole "profile issue" you think is the end of the world will be long forgotten. The profiles were announced by the BDA at the launch of the format, so consumers knew what they were getting into. Maybe Toshiba should have forewarned everyone that their format was doomed? Early HD DVD adopters are probably a lot madder than any Blu-ray early adopter will be when he can't use his remote to click through and buy his licensed merchandise from that BD-Live disc, eh?
Early adopters know they are taking a risk on early hardware, especially in a format war. If they don't, they have no business being early adopters!
Come profile 2.0 discs, when it becomes a FACT that new releases cannot play on older machines, then you can come and "Told you so" us back to hell... till then, STFU.
Profile 2 isn't going to leave folks in the dust except for some extra add on features. Movies will still play so stop your lies already. Your credibility is non-existent after all the crap you've posted since day one.
Don't you have another funeral after-party to attend?
Why isn't this kid banned off Engadget yet? I mean, the format war is unquestionably over, and yet, this dude is STILL leaving his instigating trash comments on almost every single HD DVD/BD-related post.
You hate BD, Nfinity. Right, we get it!
Go find a way to accept that it beat HD DVD and come back when you're over it.
I agree with Juncys, why isn't the idiot Nfinity filtered out from these forums. He has now reduced himself from a little curiosity spweing his bullshit all over the place to a soore looser.
His posts have never been anything than total BS so just loose these idiot from the forums. Hi's posts are just a total waste of space.
wow, Nfinity, let me be the first to thank you for the overall objectivity and reason you've displayed over the last little while that there was a format war, fanboy.
I first was a Nintendo fanboy back in the 80's when I was a young lad with the NES, hated sega. then in the mid 90's Sony made the Playstation and the N64 didn't seem as good. Later the PS2 helped bring your precious DVD to the forefront. and yes now the PS3 will DOMINATE soon begin to dominate regular DVD sales in the next 12-18 month and oh yeah your beloved Xbox360 is all but dead in the same period of time.
as far as your saying that BR is "incomplete" I guess you're saying this because of profile 1.1 and 2.0 and everything going forward. There is this crazy thing call "firmware," I believe they have that on computers that run operating systems made by the Microsoft Corporation. As far as I know this can be updated since I have done it on my third generation Playstation, so I guess it is better to have technology that is constantly getting better, no? is 1080p not better resolution than 1080i? that's always confused me, "i" comes before "p" in the alphabet so "i" is better right? because HDDVD was better than BR and 1080i is all that HDDVD had... I'm still confused...
Nfinity... I see you've managed to crawl out the woodwork... I thought we'd seen the last of you when your beloved format finally kicked the bucket... Oh well why don't you just crawl back and dissapear along with you idioitic comments!!!
Out of the hundreds of BD players I have personally sold, you know how many consumers even mentioned or cared about which profile it was? Zero.
seriously Ben, thanks for the hd vs br war summary cliff's notes style!
will the final exam be open book or can i have a cheat sheet?
Yeah, but Google is your cheat sheet.
What's with the people bashing the article? I thought it was a great read, and I loved seeing how things went back and forth for so long. I'm ultimately happy that Blu-ray won (for some reason, Blu-ray movies seem to look significantly better on my PS3 when compared to HD DVD movies on my Xbox 360 player), but I still say that this was a war that shouldn't have happened in the first place. The BDA and Toshiba were too busy trying to save face to bother to think about what would be best for the consumer.
I'm somewhat angry with Toshiba. What am I going to do with my HD DVD movies now? If they really wanted to get on my good side, they'd offer me a $15 Visa gift card for each HD DVD I own so I can purchase them on Blu-ray (once they're released).
Correction: The PS3 was $599 when it came out, not $500, making it all the more shocking.
The 20gb version was $499.
Good point guys, I updated my post.
Thanks for the clarifications.
Thanks for the recap, Ben, I appreciated the refresher on this stupid and pointless format war.
HAHAHA! the map of the "format war" is the funniest thing I've seen all day.
That picture is funny but kinda crappy analogy... The picture is when the axis army was overruled by Hitler to attack Mortain with fresh re-enforcements instead of using them in a timely withdraw back to the father land.
HD DVD has no reinforcements... unless you consider LG's combo player a slight reinforcement
Nice review. I think everyone knew that Blu-Ray was going to win once the XBOX360 dropped the HD-DVD drive. Much like how the PS2 had an impact on dvds, the PS3 had the same with Blu-Ray. Sony sold millions of gaming systems putting that disc into millions of home's of people who would have never gone out and bought a stand alone player. I think the PS3 had as much of an impact for Blu-Ray's success as Microsoft did for HD-DVD's demise.
It seems more likely every day that the rumor of Microsoft wanting the downloading of movies to be the victor is every so true.