Universal studios Boss sees HD DVD as next gen champion

September 20, 2006

Universal Studios president Craig Kornblau has released a statement at the electronics design show CEDIA EXPO 2006 about how the early reviews of next generation players indicate that HD DVD has already become the champion in the battle of the two formats. According to the statement, HD DVD has led the market by being the first to market its players, deliver its promise of offering the best high definition video, sound and interactive features as well as at the best price. Universal has long been a supporter of HD DVD, has no intention of taking on Blu-ray support and are also seen as the leading major studio to remain on that side.

This statement has resulted in a quite a serious blow to Blu-ray, particularly at a time when Blu-ray is showing weaknesses in other areas. Just recently, Sony had to delay the European PlayStation 3 launch by four months to March 2007 due to problems manufacturing blue laser diodes used by the PS3's Blu-ray drive, thus resulting in a major set back for Blu-ray. The frequent Blu-ray player launch delays, image quality issues in the first players and high pricing just makes matters worse. According to the North American HD DVD Promotion Group, HD DVD leads with the most number of titles on the market, with over 60 titles at this time and up to around 150 titles expected by the end of the year. Thanks to toyol for letting us know about this news:

Well today, we learn of even more bad news for the Sony camp. Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment, came out swinging against the Blu-ray standard calling HD DVD the "hands down" winner in the next generation movie formats. "Look at the blogs, look at the reviews by the early adopters and even look at the mainstream media '“ HD DVD has maintained its first-to-market advantage and delivered on the promises of providing the best high definition image and sound quality at the best value for consumers today," said Kornblau.

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But to summarize, with this batch there is no clear "winner." If last time Blu-ray took more than its fair share of slings and arrows over picture quality and the format's reliance (up until now) on MPEG-2, this time the more level playing field has helped close the gap between Blu-ray and HD DVD. If nothing else, our second Blu-ray versus HD DVD face-off strongly indicates that what some people had declared a format war won is still far from over.

The full article can be read here.

It would have been interesting to how just well Blu-ray would have done if they managed to get their players on the market before HD DVD. But at this stage, unless the Blu-ray camp can come up with something to make consumers suddenly start dashing for Blu-ray players, chances are that Sony's only hope will be for the PlayStation 3 to boost the Blu-ray format for movies, assuming most consumers just don't buy it for playing games only.

Feel free to discuss about Blu-ray and HD DVD on our forum.

Source: DailyTech News