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Two years of battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray: a retrospective
It's hard to believe it's actually over, but for more than two years we've followed what has come to be one of our favorite topics as Blu has faced Red in a battle to be the next physical home media format. In the end it came down to studio and consumer electronic industry support -- not to mention the PS3 -- but it was by no means an easy victory, and just because it was more popular than HD DVD, doesn't mean Blu-ray can win over the hearts of millions of DVD fans. But while we wait to see how well Blu-ray is adopted by the masses, we wanted to take a second to look back at how it all ended up working out. 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.
New Line to delay HD DVD release, due to lack of region coding
We've heard of Blu-ray titles being delayed due to Blu-ray's immature interactive layer, but this is the first we've heard of a studio delaying an HD DVD release because of region coding. Like DVDs, Blu-ray discs are coding to only play in specific regions of the world, and while Blu-ray titles are less restrictive than DVD, there are still restrictions. HD DVD fans have touted the lack of region coding on their format as an advantage, because they can order many Blu-ray exclusive titles for HD DVD from Amazon.co.uk. High shipping prices aside, this is a great way for devout HD DVD fans to enjoy titles they'd otherwise be required to go blu to get. It appears now, that the lack of region coding on HD DVD isn't all good, 'cause while Blu-ray fans will get to enjoy Hairspray day and date with DVD on Nov. 20th, HD DVD fans will have to wait till the first half of 2008.[Via FormatWarCentral]
StudioCanal HD DVD releases encoded at 1080p 24p = easy imports of Blu-ray exclusives?
StudioCanal, not well known in the US but one of the largest distributors of movies in the world will be releasing films on HD DVD, and now we have confirmation from Microsoft's Amir M. that they will be encoded in VC-1 at 24p, theoretically removing any possible barrier for their being played on US HD DVD players. The main benefit of this of course being that StudioCanal holds the European release rights to many movies currently limited to Blu-ray only distributors like Fox here in the U.S. Unless region coding is adopted by HD DVD, it could be very simple for aficionados to obtain copies of their favorite movies simply by importing them, and perhaps put additional pressure on distributors here to go multiformat to avoid losing sales to importers.We are not aware of any plans yet announced by StudioCanal to release movies on Blu-ray, and with their Vivendi Universal connection plus Blu-ray region coding that may not give US buyers access to Universal content anyway. Of course we have to wait until the titles are actually released and whether or not region coding for HD DVD is finalized, but this could provide a big boost to HD DVD supporters who don't want to be locked out of some of their favorite movies.[Thanks for the tip Glenn!]
