Warner: No plan to drop HD neutrality

According to Warner Bros. spokesman Jim Noonan, the studio has not changed its dual high-def format stance - contrary to the rumors started when Warner VP of HD Media, Dan Silverberg, hinted that the studio was re-evaluating its stance on being HD neutral in the format war.

"As far as whether this is an iron-clad situation, we are a smart company and evaluate all of our strategies on an ongoing basis. It won't be any different in this case." said Noonan. "We have not altered our decision to be in both formats."

The fourth quarter "is another piece of information," Noonan added.

(Reported by DVD Town via Video Business Online on October 31)

[Bladestar]

Warner: No plan to drop HD neutrality... and if we did... we would tell you...

[drewdrakes]

lol ya...well we all know that whoever drops Back to the Future first will inevitably win!
Edit: Never mind, i just researched and found that Universal did Back to the Future, so ill get flamed by blu-ray fanboys :S.

[Meus Renaissance]

The fourth quarter "is another piece of information," Noonan added.

What is the 4th quarter, does he mean fiscal year? And what does he mean by "another piece of information".

[jaja1434]

Basically its means they want to see how each formate sales. Which is somewhat lopped sided right now with the 198$ HD player. But there's plenty of time for BR to make its own price drop. In any event 4th quarter roughly means Christmas time sales.

[XxZxX]

you will be surprise what gonna happen next ;)

PR wouldn't say **** until it really happen.

[ichimaru]

DEBUNKED!!!!!!!!!

[Shaka2K6]

Easy, dont drop it yet, milk the blind tools over the holiday season to get rid of unsold h-dud stock then after the holidays are over focus just on the superior format Blu-ray.
perfect plan gets rid of all those unsold copies of the matrix or batman and then BOOM!
Blu-ray exclusive starting next year.

[IdontTakeSides]

LOL..couldn't have said it ne better...

[TheExodus]

It's a cagey response from Warner at best, but it sounds like they may have issued an ultimatum to Toshiba & Sony: "Sell your format this Christmas because come New Year's Day we're picking one!"

[Eclipticus]

most likely response. with the HD fire sales. I am sure toshiba is compensating, the companies selling at 98 bucks. hence the one day sale. I am sure by march. Warners will be exclusive. and the other studios, (fox, disney) will follow suite by the end of the year.

[pwnsause]

Now that make a lot of sense

[XxZxX]

Sony: We sold the most software
Toshiba: We sold the most standalone.
Sony: We sold more Blu-ray hardware since PS3 involved
Toshiba: Can't take PS3 seriously since they are gaming machine. People buy standalone sole purpose is to watch movies.
Sony: How did we sold more software then?
Warner: You two stfu, I'll see who sold more software this Q4 in neutral format.

G*ULP

[xplosneer]

Fox Blu Ray exclusive?

I agree with the first guy. Choose one and we'll follow .....We think.

[jaja1434]

^^^

I wont argue with that but think of this. Both sides tend to agree that BR has outsold HD somewhere between 1.5-2 depending on who you ask. Which is great and all, but there are what 7 million odd PS3 and well I have no clue how many BR players, lets just say an even 9 million. Probably more but you get the idea. It should be selling a hell of a lot more than HD right now. So if you were a company which would you look at more, PS3 sales or stand alone sales?

If you can answer that question for or against intelligently, for or against, I'll be a happy bunny.

*Edit
No offense Action but I've read to many of your extravagant fanboy post to take anything you say for well anything other than shear amusement.
Sorry. :(

[ActionBastard]

It is selling a hell of a lot more than HD DVD. 9:1 in JPN and 4:1 in EU. NA is not the only market.

EDIT: None taken. I still enjoyed proving you wrong. And will continue to do so. Your false neutrality is as laughable as your avatar. Sorry :(

[tethered]

@ jaja

You stated and I quote:
".....Both sides tend to agree that BR has outsold HD somewhere between 1.5-2 depending on who you ask. Which is great and all, but there are what 7 million odd PS3 and well I have no clue how many BR players, lets just say an even 9 million. Probably more but you get the idea. It should be selling a hell of a lot more than HD right now. So if you were a company which would you look at more, PS3 sales or stand alone sales?"

OK, what I hear is 2 to 1 (in favor of Blu-Ray) in sales in the US. That is double what HD-DVD sells. You don't think that is huge?

Thats the number these Hollywood executives are watching closely and not the stand alone player sales. They want to sell what sells. It doesn't matter who is buying their movies. They don't care that a whole bunch of gamers are buying them, they just love the fact that they are buying them.

If you don't like the facts then go out and change them. Go out an buy that HD-DVD player and a bunch of HD-DVD movies and try and get all your friends to buy into it too. Just don't be surprised to find out later that you bought into the wrong format because the PS3 is about to take off and so are Blu-Ray movie sales along with it.

[jaja1434]

No I don't think its huge and here why.
The margin is just to wide. I don't know the HD sales numbers off the top of my head but if we could agree on say 2 million stand alone units sold I'll go with that.

So if I go by my numbers, which as I said are only an estimate they could be higher or lower either way, then that would mean that BR players out number HD players 4.5:1, but can barely manage a 2:1 lead. What that tells me is that for one reason or another the 2.5 or about 30% of PS3 owners are not buying BR movies.

Or to put it another way all an HD owner would have to do is buy 3 movies, which is a safe bet since thats pretty much the whole reason you buy a stand alone player, to completely negate the PS3 lead. Now you could argue and rightfully so that PS3 owners could just as easily start to buy more but that isn't the case right now, so you have to ignore that.

Or just one more way, for every about 3 million PS3 sold you get 1 million movies sold Vs whatever the attach rate for HD players are. I would just assume around 5 or so. Just a guess but it seems about right.

And lastly yes Hollywood does care about stand alone sales. This isn't something that you take a look at from a short term perspective. And as I described above stand alone sales mean a hell of a lot more than PS3 sales for the simple virtue that the PS3 is a gaming machine first and while you can use it as a movie player, a damm good one at that, your primary use of it is for gaming. Where as the only reason I would buy an HD unit is to watch/buy HD movies.

Anyways my point is Stand Alone Units have a much greater impact that integrated units(PS3).

[cuco33]

I think Warner wanted from the get go to see how this Xmas pans out. PS3 should get a boost in sales with the 40gb model and HD DVD will get a boost in sales clearancing out HD-A2s and with sales on the HD-A3. That's just hardware.

They'll also look at software and the blu group, if they want their format of choice to succeed, needs to start buying BD movies. I'm not talking about 1 or 2, I'm talking about a decent amount like the HD DVD group will be doing. Look at the whole picture so to speak

[Eclipticus]

see i know im buying alot of HD's not because i am heavily supporting it. but because i havent senn a visual difference yet. and i dont own a ps3. so i will be buying and importing more and more hd dvds. i usually get 3-4 movies at a time, not cause im a supporter but because im a movie fanatic/film student.

[Big_Toast]

Do you have an hdtv? That may be why you are not seeing any difference in the visuals.

[Eclipticus]

yup i got a 1080i/ 32 in.

oh i meant a difference between blu-ray and hd
i definatly see a difference between dvd and hd

[ironwolf]

I've ordered the 5 movies that you get when you buy it, and I've already bought 5 more. Not bad for 6 days. People who buy stand alones buy movies not games. Thats why even though PS3s alone out number HD-DVD players almost 10-1 the sale of Blu-Ray movies over HD-DVD isn't quite 2-1.

The interesting thing is it will be far easier for Toshiba and others to double or even triple the number of stand alone players than it will be for the PS3 to double its numbers.

[ActionBastard]

And yet, there will be more BD playing PS3s than HD DVD players.

[konrad]

Why they force us to use half HD format ? Hd-dvd is not enough for HD film now Transformers HD-DVD "due to space limitations on the disc, the decision was made to limit the audio to Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 Surround only (here at 1.5mbps)" ( http://hddvd.highdefdigest.... ). Hd-dvd supporters want me be to buy a new player and films every two years, HHD-DVD, HHHD-DVD ..... :( ?

[JosefTor]

They recentely said they might support only Blu-ray right? I have a feeling that Blu-ray resisting going below $399 while HD DVD is going down to $99 in some cases was part of their "evidence" in staying neutral. I can't believe people actually want Blu-ray to win. Blood money sucking sony.

[cmrbe]

Some people like myself want blu-ray to win because it's the superior format with the most support. This war has gone long enough and it will hurt alot of consumers that will end up with the loosing format. It is time for this war to end and everyone embraces one unified format especially with the prices as low as they are. If the situations were reversed and Hd-dvd had more space and support i would support it wholehearted but it is not. So i am with blu.

[jiggyjay]

@cmbre... so does this mean you also backed up betamax in the 80's because it was superior to VHS? hmm If you did I wonder what you did with your betamax stuff..

[cmrbe]

Only focus on Sales of each format in NA to make their decision?. Dose anyone know?. From what i read HD-dvd is already dead to the rest of the world except NA which is not but is struggling. Warner should take all these into account. Come on Warner end this. Side with Blu.

[Eclipticus]

if its dead, why do i keep buying hds from other countries?

[cmrbe]

Perhaps its not dead yet but you can't deny the fact that blu is outselling Hd-dvd a really huge margin outside of NA. yes i believe Warner can end this or at least start the end of this costly war.

[Eclipticus]

so the warner bros( and their sister dot) will end another war.