Sony declares victory over the next gen DVD standard battle

When Warner Brothers decided to join the Blu-ray Disc Association, Sony declared victory over the next generation disc battle.  As a result, a Sony representative said the format war is now over as this means five of the six major Hollywood studios now support Blu-ray.  Warner decided to make its move as a result of Paramount's decision earlier this month to provide content on both Blu-ray and HD DVD media.

According to Sony, Blu-ray is now backed by 90% of the companies in the consumer electronics market.  While Blu-ray is also backed by 90% of the companies in the PC market and 80% of companies in the games market, they currently lack a few major companies in these markets including Microsoft, Toshiba, NEC and Sanyo, which all back the HD DVD format only.

While Blu-ray appears to be doing very well with its supporters so far, Hewlett Packard, the 2nd largest major PC Company, threatens to switch to HD DVD if the Blu-ray Disc Association does not incorporate managed copying and iHD, both of which are guaranteed to be supported by HD DVD.  However, it is unlikely for these features to be incorporated into the Blu-ray disc format as it would mean the difficulty in having to get these approved by the 17 members of the Blu-ray Disc Association.

SONY has declared victory in the battle over the next-generation DVD standard after Warner Brothers, the Hollywood studio that has been a long-time supporter of rival Japanese group Toshiba, said it would back its Blu-ray disc format in addition to Toshiba's HD-DVD. "With this, the format war is now over," a Sony representative said last Friday, adding that with Warner Brothers' support "five out of six Hollywood studios are supporting Blu-ray disc, which has a much larger market". The move by Warner Brothers, one of Toshiba's staunchest supporters, follows the decision by Paramount earlier this month to bring out content in both HD-DVD and Blu-ray disc standards. It appears to tip the balance in favour of Sony's format. In addition to the growing support of Hollywood, the Blu-ray disc format has the backing of companies accounting for 90 per cent of the PC market, 80 per cent of the games market and 90 per cent of the consumer electronics market, Sony said.

Even though Sony may have the majority of the studios backing its Blu-ray format, most of these also support the HD DVD format, indicating that both will end up entering the market anyway.  If all the studios do end up backing both formats by the time the formats hit the market, the advantage in this case would mean that no matter which side the consumer chooses, chances are that they can get the movies they want in their chosen disc format.  It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming months.

Feel free to discuss and find out more about the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats on our Satellite, HD-TV, Blu-ray and HD-DVD Forum.

Source: The Australian