Hi Def Video Formats: Post CES 2007 Snapshot

[Blade_Runner]

Hi Def Video Formats: Post CES 2007 Snapshot
For the past few years, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held annually in January at Las Vegas, has been a PR and marketing battleground for HD DVD and Blu-ray. The HD DVD camp has always been low key, adopting the "under promise and over deliver" mentality, as most underdogs generally do. The Blu-ray camp, leveraging their vast consumer electronics (CE) and content support, uses CES to flood the media channels and flex their muscle. This year was no different. Let's examine each camp on their merits.

Blu-ray Hardware

Samsung was the first to showcase their upcoming Generation 2 player called the BD-P1200 for a list price of $799. This player is set to debut in June and features a Silicon Optix HQV video processor (likely the Realta). Sony displayed their Generation 2 players codenamed "Sapphire 1" and "Sapphire 2." No information was given about these players in regards to price, feature set or release date. Pioneer and Panasonic did not have any Generation 2 announcements or demonstration units.

Blu-ray Content

While the hardware announcements for standalone players were rather muted, the content announcements really shined for Blu-ray (BR). Disney, Fox, MGM, LionsGate and of course Sony confirmed their sole commitment to Blu-ray and launched an all out assault with very desirable titles set to be launched exclusively on BR during 2007. Notables include: Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2, Cars, Casino Royale and many others. Coupled with the format neutral (i.e. supporting both formats) additions of Warner and Paramount, BR certainly continues to have the content advantage going forward.

HD DVD Hardware

The HD DVD camp used CES to gain much needed Hardware support. The addition of Onkyo, Meridian, Lite-on and other Chinese manufacturers, likely influenced by the MS/Broadcom collaboration, should allow for cheaper HD DVD players down the road. HD DVD seems poised to have a full lineup of players, ranging from the entry-level mass-consumer price range, to the very exotic A/V enthusiast-level players, and everything in between. Even though Toshiba recently launched their Generation 2 players with the HD-A2 and HD-XA2, they announced yet another player: the HD-A20, list price $599.

HD DVD Content

While the HD DVD camp failed to persuade any exclusive BR studios to go neutral, they did gain an advantage in two niche markets, anime and adult entertainment. Bandai, a well known Anime company announced four titles, while Digital Playground, the largest adult entertainment company, matched that with four of their own. How this will affect disc sales in 2007 remains to be seen. For traditional movie content, Warner and Paramount are fully neutral, meaning any titles on HD DVD will be on BR also, and vice versa. This leaves Universal and Weinstein. In interesting move, Universal did not make any formal announcements during CES, except their participation in the HD DVD group promotional conference, which they head. Weinstein has not made any formal announcements either.

LG and the Warner "Total Hi Def" discs

In the days leading up to CES, we learned that LG was going to announce a combo player and Warner had prepared combo discs with HD30 media on one side and BD50 on the other. At CES we saw demonstrations of both products. A critical flaw in the LG player became apparent. The LG player does not support HDi (HD DVD’s interactivity layer) and without full HDi support, their player is not spec compliant; thus they cannot obtain the HD DVD logo or use the name. The only loophole being, within 90 days of release, if the player can be made fully spec compliant via firmware update(s) it may be released with the logo.

Beyond3D - Which was nice.