Netflix CEO sees HD DVD and Blu-ray war "maintaining stalemate"
By Richard Lawler 
posted Jul 25th 2006 2:39PM
posted Jul 25th 2006 2:39PM
Remember last November when Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy declared Blu-ray the winner, then Netflix announced they would carry both formats? Eight months later and things are a bit different in the video rental giants' view. During their Q2 Earnings Conference Call yesterday, CEO Reed Hastings stated that they now view the format war as an unwinnable one. In their view, the best thing that can happen now would be for all studios currently declared exclusive on either side to release films on both formats starting early next year, ending the war and restoring consumer confidence in both camps. That is certainly a better alternative than going the way of DVD Audio and SACD, which all sides risk with the situation as it is. It's also interesting to see the sudden boost of confidence in HD DVD, Blu-ray's shaky, slow launch may be costing them some of their most important allies in getting discs and players to consumers.Blu-ray supporters are still strong in their belief that they will dominate HD DVD and achieve victory outright, but until they start delivering players and sics that are more in line with expectations, it's very difficult to believe them. The question is will Fox, Universal, Lionsgate and others listen to Netflix, or stay the course and hope they've backed the right one?
[Via Thomas Hawk]
This is why I say that Sony, aka the Blu-Ray Association is greedy. They see an opertunity to get bigger royalty amounts (that they did not get with original DVDs) and are forcing a format war on consumers just so they can receive the royalties for the replacement to the DVD. With Sony selling the stupid expensive PS3 with Blu-Ray it is pretty much a garuntee that Blu-Ray will be around even if it does lose the war (at least for PS3 games). That is also another thing that is not needed as the last generation of console games failed to fill DVDs to their limit.
All we need are affordable hybrid players that play both. Then it will not matter to the consumer which format they rent/buy. I would be willing to give up the ability to play standard DVD's if it meant the cost was lower.
WASD John... And I suppose Toshiba and Microsoft couldn't give a sh*t about the Royalties from HD-DVD?
Don't really see the point in blaming Sony ALONE for causing a format war...afterall, they are not the entirity of the Blu-ray association.
We live with more than one game standard so I'm sure we can live with more than one movie standard. I'd say he is right that both will survive for some time. Blu-Ray was smart to add extra content protection from a marketing perspective to the content owners, and it might tip things their way if HD DVD gets hacked and they don't, but odds are both get hacked, hardware stumbles along and nobody gets the "perfect world" for years to come. But hey, at least we have something. I just hope I can buy a reasonably priced complete 1080p video, lossless audio, home theatre system by the end of the year.
Steve J, Of course they are not, but why are they charging twice as much for a product that pretty much does the same dam thing as a competitor? I mean come on, is the blue-ray laser that much smaller than the blue laser on hd-dvd to warrant asking twice as much for the player?
Both side are greedy #~%$(&! So you can't really put a halo on either camp. They had a chance to unified the formats, but were too greedy to compromise.
But you gotta hand it to Sony though, right now they are more hated then Microsoft (at least around the web and internet forums anyway)...which is quite a task.
With that said, I'll still be getting a PS3 because of Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy XIII.
I'm not sure I'm interested in either side winning. They can and both should lose. That we have movies for certain studios in one format and movies from other studios in a different format, means we (as consumers) have already lost.
I hope digital distribution and streaming technologies make disc obsolete.
Let's not forget that BLUE RAY is using MPEG 2 :-( while HD DVD is using VC1 a loss less codec producing a much better picture. Even if BLUE RAY would use all it space capacity, it simply couldn't match the quality of HD DVD. Don't take my word for it, listen to the interview given by JOE KANE in UK about HDTV and HD DVD/BLUE RAY
FYI: JOE KANE is known around the world as an expert in picture quality!!!!!!
http://www.cinenow.com/us/news-2118.html
I think I'd rather have a more future ready technology. Why not offer HD movies on a 30GB ROM card with encryption. No disc mastering or authoring. No scratches or bad sectors.
Keep in mind that Toshiba is losing big time over their HD-DVD players... why? Because that's their gimmick. half the price of current BD players... but do you think other companies who make HD-DVD players will do that? of course not, they want profit. Now if Samsung were to sell their players under cost, probably would be about $600 - $700... but why would they? Maybe Sony which they are with the PS3 but don't expect other companies to do it.
Note that the current HD-DVD's being produced are pretty bare-bones, and they're taking up 18-23 GB, and they're all dual-layer.
Also keep in mind that Blu-Ray is not restricted to Mpeg-2, and can do any of the formats that HD-DVD can. So any argument that says HDVD is better than Blu because of it's Codec is worthless.
I was an early Blu-Ray supporter & had no intention of going HD-DVD. That is until the reviews started pouring in about Samsungs faulty player and the horrible looking discs that have been released. Another good point is that Blu-Ray can support the same codecs, but as of now it DOESNT!!! WHY??? Plus they're discs have no extras at all. Thanks to Toshiba & the great transfer jobs the studios are doing,Im enjoying the best hi-def player & software on the market NOW! For half the cost.
Toutster - BD and HD-DVD support *identical* codecs. They both support MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264, and VC-1/WM9. They both use AACS. The only really software differences are that BD uses BD-J and HD-DVD uses iHD for interactive menus, and BD adds BD+ and ROM Mark for additional copy protection. The big differences between the two are in the physical structure of the discs and the materials and the pick up heads. BD is actually capable of producing video quality higher than HD-DVD, because they can use the exact same codec with lower compression - because they have more space to use. Judging a format by the first discs out the door isn't rational - the first DVDs to street largely sucked, I still own some. (I was an early adopter.) Things will settle out in time.
WASD John - the licensing costs, etc, have nothing to do with the cost of the players. Toshiba is heavily subsidizing their players to buy market share. They're losing money on the $500 player, estimates are $700-$800 production costs. For them it is a gamble, they're hoping to get a foothold for HD-DVD so they can make millions in licensing over the coming years. The BD camp doesn't feel the same pressure to buy users, so they aren't selling players at a loss. The PS3 will be subsidized, of course, and that'll probably be one of the cheapest BD options, and not a bad one really.
As for multi-format players. LG Electronics just announced that they will NOT do a combo player in 2006, as they'd earlier said they may do, and instead they will be sticking with BD only.
I intend to by a PS3 in any case, so I'll have BD. I don't intend to buy HD-DVD because there is no good reason to do so. One studio isn't backing it, I can live with that - I expect them to cave in and do BD as the market grows anyway. If HD-DVD is still viable in a year or two, I'll consider it.