THD
The solution to the HD format war may lie with Warner Brothers’ solution
Tags: misc dvd Categories: DVD/TV Features, Features
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jan 9th, 2007
Warner Brothers held a press event at the 2007 Consume Electronics Show titled Developments in the High Definition Marketplace. This may seem like a rather daunting preamble, and it is – on purpose. At first, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Warner Brothers came out to talk a little bit about CES, and how the general movement not just in the industry but for consumer as well, is towards high definition in the home. He mentioned that “public reaction has been very positive” for adoption of HD, but the market has experienced some confusion and consumer hesitancy, which is not conducive to growing a business, especially when retailers are having trouble knowing how much of which format to stock on shelves.
Warner Brothers is more beholden to retailers and consumers than perhaps some other companies in this format war. To this end, the drive for a common ground was what drove Warner to have the Total High definition disc, which the company hopes both colleagues and competitors will embrace.
Kevin Tsujihara – President Warner Bros Home entertainment Group and Ron Sanders President Warner Home Video came out to talk about the solution. Kevin started off by saying that the DVD provided a fundamental shift in how movies were viewed in the home. Currently there are approximately 88 million DVD households in the US. HD media is growing at an even faster pace.
Ron then said that HD-DVD and Blu-ray player manufacturers are going to be giving more consumers a wider range of offerings this year. On Sunday the HD-DVD promotions group announced it would be bringing 2.5 million devices to market, and the Blu-ray association announced it would have 6.5 million moving out to retail – all in 2007. As a comparison, there were only 1.3 million DVD players in the second year on market
While walking around the CES show floor, all people will see is high definition. LCD, plasma, projectors, and even HD-DVD and Blu-ray are all over vying for acceptance. The best way to move forward, according to Kevin, is to look at this as a whole market and business – one where every HD television set is a new opportunity. Warner Brothers wants to think of total content sold, regardless of the format that it is on.
“The wait is over” for consumers who want the “winner” in the format war. This is where we were shown the THD or total High Definition disc.
Being in both formats made the studio #1 in the market place with 37% with regards to HD-DVD and Blu-ray sales when looking at the HD market as one business model. Ron said that this solution would provide “all of the content with non of the risk” for everybody concerned.
Kevin made the obvious remark that it addresses a major concern for retails as they have only one movie to stock. It’s better for consumers as it eliminates the confusion as to which format to get behind, as well as availability of titles. Almost half of consumers that WB talked to said they would buy into HD with this disc on the market, with over 60 percent says it takes the confusion out and can play no matter which format wins. This “eliminates the fear of choosing the wrong format.”
Steve Nickerson – Senior VP Market Management WHV showed a clip from Superman Returns playing via THD on a Toshiba HD-DVD player , then a Panasonic Blu-ray player and finally the newly announced LG SuperMulti Blu. Each time he took the disc out and put it in the next player, so we saw the same disc being used to play on different formatted machines. Each time the clip played flawlessly.
Then a number of executives from New Line Home Video, HBO, LG Electronics and more came out to answer some questions. The firt was about capacity. Because it is a “flipper” style disc, each format is designated a side to the full capacity of each format is able to be met.
The pricing at retail is still being worked on, but while it will be more expensive, it won’t be prohibitively more for the consumer. Par of the higher cost comes from manufacturing. Of course, when more people buy something, then that drives down prices.
So far only Warner Brothers, New Line and HBO have announced support for the THD. New Line hasn’t jumped into the HD format war, and this solution will help to speed things up in that regards. No, Lord of the Rings wasn’t announced. Titles will be announced in the near future, and before the end of the year we will see titles on shelves. Shortly after that, Warner Bothers will be releasing movies exclusively on the THD format.
So what if one format wins out over the other? Kevin remarked that “In an optimal world, we would have just one format” but pointed to the videogame industry, where more than one format is able to find its way to the marketplace and still be consumer viable.
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Tags: misc dvd
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jan 9th, 2007 and is filed under DVD/TV Features, Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
