New Line Home Entertainment is following in the footsteps of its parent company, Warner Bros., and supporting both high-definition DVD formats. It’s great to hear that New Line is starting their disc business, because they’re the ones who will ultimately put out the long-awaited Lord of the Rings.

New Line’s first disc will be this summer’s hit comedy, Hairspray, but there’s a catch for the HD DVD release: Instead of coming out “day and date” (simultaneous release on all formats), New Line will release the HD DVD version next year because of HD DVD’s lack of region coding.

Region coding is something that’s common in the video game world, and has also made its way to DVDs. It works like this: If you try to play a movie or game from a foreign region, your player will refuse or reject the disc if region coding is enabled. There’s nothing wrong with your machine, and there’s nothing wrong with the disc. It’s just that the content provider has elected to enforce how and when the content should be enjoyed in your region.

One of the supporting reasons for region coding is that (more…)

Is three company or a crowd? Just when you thought there were too many versions of HDMI, Dolby, and DTS to keep straight, comes yet another high-def disc format. Joining HD DVD and Blu-ray on the high-def scene at CEDIA Expo 2007 was HD VMD. Promising 40GB (maybe even more) on up to 20-layer DVD discs, the HD VMD (Versatile Multilayer Disc) format is poised for launch.

Players feature a lot of the same kinds of specs as on HD DVD and Blu-ray machines such as 1080p, ethernet port, up-scaled video, HDMI 1.3, VC-1 codec. They even have a “5 Free Movies” offer in Europe.

The list price is $199, but units are expected to be $150 when they appear in stores. These slim and good-looking players support VCDs, DVDs, CDs and MP3 CDs. In reading through their press releases for the year, it looks like manufacturer New Medium Enterprises has made a lot of movie distribution deals around the world to ensure a good launch and decent library. Discs will cost a little more than standard DVDs, but definitely less than HD DVD and Blu-ray titles.

It’s easy to write this off as a wasted effort compared to everything happening with HD DVD and Blu-ray, but that’s because (more…)

“Both format players use the same back-end decoders so the video and the audio is nearly similar. And I can’t imagine that an optical mechanism for HD DVD and Blu-ray has a big spread in cost – the expensive part is the blue laser. Technology-wise, there is not a major difference.”

These are some of the comments from Frank Simonis, chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association in an interview over at Tech.co.uk.

Mr. Simonis also thinks that one of the advantages of Blu-ray is that you don’t (or maybe it’s can’t) stop a movie in the middle to pee. Gosh, I had been doing that with VHS for many years, I didn’t know that it was undesirable.

Go read the rest for yourself: Frank Simonis interview at Tech.co.uk

Prominent high-def enthusiast Josh Zyber has taken a few moments to share his thoughts on all the recent commotion about last week’s Paramount news, as well as the hyping of disc sales numbers.

Some of Josh’s points have already been made in comments or articles at this site (and by a lot of High-Def fans on various forums), and it’s nice to see that these opinions are actually shared by a more authorative person like Mr. Zyber.

Pop on over to High-Def Digest to read his piece, and even post your thoughts for him to respond to over in the associated discussion thread in their forum.

Here are just a few of Josh’s points:

• Zyber’s early reviews of Blu-ray titles were negative because the studios were putting out lousy discs compared to HD DVD. He’d like to think that criticism like his has led to an improvement in Blu-ray quality, both formats are much more directly comparable today.

For some unknown reason, Blu-ray titles would come out in MPEG2 encoding, while the HD DVD version used VC-1.

• Comparing sales numbers between Blu-ray and HD DVD is “like boasting an ant is larger than a flea, just before the big shoe of DVD comes down to smoosh them both into oblivion.”

Josh is referring to the fact that DVD heartily outsells Blu-ray and HD DVD combined, and points out that 300 sold more copies on DVD in one week than both formats have sold of everything combined in 6 months of 2007. One format would have to start selling way better before trying to proclaim itself the winner.

• Business is business and if you’re going to point fingers at the Paramount deal, then don’t be hypocritical about Blu-ray’s deals.

He points out that Disney was a contributor to the HD DVD interactivity features, but “surprisingly,” they don’t even use this stuff because they’re Blu-ray exclusive.

• Both formats are going to be around together for a while, get used to it.

That’s how it has worked for many years in the video game world, and all of the competition forces everyone to make better products (at better prices too).

There’s even more food for thought in his article. To a Blu-ray supporter, Josh’s article is going to come off as an anti-Blu commentary. He promises that his next commentary will take on various problems with HD DVD. And I’ll be happy to report on that piece as well. Please do yourself a favor and read his article for yourself over at High-Def Digest.

• A War of Hype, and Paramount’s Big Bombshell

IFA, basically the German version of CES, is going on in Berlin right now and the first big day brought a lot of Blu-ray product announcements. It’s worth knowing what the other guys are up to so that you can have a better perspective on your own position. The first day at IFA featured announcements from Samsung, Sharp, Philips, Sony, and Daewoo saying they each had at least one new Blu-ray player coming out soon.

Except for the Daewoo (price or launch date not announced), most of those players are already “old” in the sense that none of them support the latest Blu-ray spec. In fact, there’s no player out now or coming out in 2007 that supports all the coolest interactivity features that are bragged about in Blu-ray promotions. Some of those features are beyond what firmware updates can fix, so this is not a silly issue. The reason that many of these players need to get announced and launched right now is that those advanced features become mandatory on Blu-ray players that come out from November onwards.

But internet stuff and disc bonus features are really only secondary to picture and audio quality when it comes to home theater, and in that area, all of these players feature 1080p, HDMI 1.3, Dolby True HD, and most of them also offered support for DTS-HD audio. Here are links to various gadget sites and their descriptions (and photos) of the new machines:

• Sharp @ EngadgedHD
• Philips @ Gizmodo
• Sony @ Electronista
• Samsung @ Reg Hardware
• Daewoo @ Engadget

One of the things that many (Blu-ray) folks criticize about HD DVD is that Toshiba is the only company that makes the players, but we’ve seen recently that Onkyo and Venturer are about to fill in the highest and lowest ends of the spectrum with their own players in a month or two. As hinted at in the Gizmodo article about the Philips, even if many people make units, if all the units are essentially the same thing, isn’t that almost the same situation in the end as having only one company make all of them? Where does the consumer get any variety if everybody’s pretty much putting out the same box?

As is typically the case with shows like this, major competitors make announcements on separate days so that each can get their fair share of media coverage. The HD DVD news from IFA is coming next.

It’s been a tumultuous week in the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray world with the recent conversion of Paramount (who also distributes DreamWorks) to HD DVD-only instead of supporting both formats. Going forward, all Paramount discs will now only be in HD DVD. Blu-ray pre-orders for Blades of Glory and other movies will have to be refunded, and all existing Paramount Blu-ray titles are about to become collector’s items.

It’s natural to jump to conclusions about the motivations that people and companies have for doing what they do. In Paramount’s case, a certain part of that motivation came in the form of some special consideration, like free advertising, and other incentives reportedly worth $150 million. Many people have jumped to the conclusion that Microsoft was behind that sum of money – after all, even the man on the Moon knows Microsoft has tons of cash lying around.

Two noted Microsoftians have gone on the record to dispel these theories. (more…)

Blu-ray folks will dismiss Paramount’s recent switch to HD DVD as nothing more than a money grab, and that’s to be expected. They now know how it feels to have a studio shun them for no apparent reason. Well, in this case, it turns out that there are actually quite a few logical reasons why Paramount might have wanted to go back to the side they originally started with.

Comments from Paramount’s Chief Technology Officer, Alan Bell, have appeared at PC World and Ars Technica, in which Bell lays out the business case for the switch. Many of these points have been made by other pro-HD DVD voices, and are probably not going to be new to a lot of you. What is new and refreshing to me is to hear it from a person so deeply involved with technology from the studio side of things.

You should definitely read those two interviews for yourself, but here are the highlights: (more…)

After a few items of not-so-great news in the last few weeks, the HD DVD camp just scored one of the biggest deals they could to ensure the format’s longevity.

Blu-ray fans are groaning that Paramount and DreamWorks were paid off in various ways, including free advertising promotions. So what? Do you think that the other guys haven’t been up to the same kinds of antics? Do you honestly think that stores freely “chose” Blu-ray with no special considerations whatsoever? Whatever millions any of these companies may have spent or received, it’s “chump change” considering the billions of dollars at stake in both hardware and movies.

It sucks that such shenanigans even have to happen in the first place. It would have been great if all movies had always been available in both HD formats, leaving consumers to make their own choices. It would have been even more wonderful if both formats were compatible with each other, or to have just one format. But it can never work that way because every party involved, even the consumer, puts their own interests first.

I’m glad the HD DVD group had the nerve to pull off such a great deal. (more…)

Make some room, Jason Bourne, Shrek is about to join you exclusively on HD DVD.

Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation announced today that their future is in the HD DVD format ONLY. This exclusivity applies to all movies distributed by:

• Paramount Pictures
• DreamWorks Pictures
• Paramount Vantage
• Nickelodeon Movies
• MTV Films
• DreamWorks Animation

Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, Brad Grey, said “The combination of Paramount and DreamWorks Animation brings a critical mass of current box office hits to consumers with a line-up of live-action and animated films that are perfect for HD DVD.” Grey went on to say, “Part of our vision is to aggressively extend our movies beyond the theater, and deliver the quality and features that appeal to our audience. I believe HD DVD is not only the affordable high quality choice for consumers, but also the smart choice for Paramount.”

DreamWorks Animation CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg, is quoted as saying, “We decided to release ‘Shrek the Third’ and other DreamWorks Animation titles exclusively on HD DVD because we believe it is the best format to bring high quality home entertainment to a a key segment of our audience – families.”

Paramount’s new HD DVD strategy begins with the release of “Blades of Glory” on August 28, followed by “Transformers” and “Shrek the Third.” These three movies generated over $1.5 billion in worldwide box office ticket sales.

This is HUGE news for HD DVD. Paramount and DreamWorks alone represent a big share of the movie industry, and Paramount brings along a link to television content as well. We’ll undoubtedly be talking more about this in future posts at HDDVD.com, and you’re welcome to add your comments about the significance of this move.

• Viacom (Paramount’s parent company) Press Release