Industry Executives on the Format War

[Roger]

At the recent 'DVD's Nine Lives' conference in Los Angeles, several home entertainment executives came together to discuss the future of DVD, and how the industry might eventually move away from packaged media entirely.

The movie studios seem determined not to repeat the same mistakes the music industry made; specifically their initial apprehension to legal music downloads. Luckily for us the talk soon turned to new technologies and some specific questions about Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

The industry insiders from the likes of Disney, Universal and Warner Brothers were asked to "predict where their industry would be in five years" Disney's Bob Chapek after a brief pause, offered "It just seems to change every Monday when you come in".

Chapek's comment might help explain Disney's apparent about-face with regards to entertaining the idea of supporting HD-DVD.new window Disney had initially indicated they would only release pre-recorded high definition content via Blu-ray.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment President Craig Kornblau, stated he believes "all of the new technologies can co-exist without confusing or turning off consumers." Universal as you may know, is HD-DVD's only exclusive studio but I would be hard pressed to read anything into this statement, that might imply this might change.

I'm not sure I share Mr. Kornblau's belief that the formats can peacefully co-exist, at least not until unilateral format support from the studios is reality. I fully expect some consumers to shun both formats, the first time they realize they might not be able to enjoy all their favorite titles with one player.

I just ran across another bit of blu-ray related news, and rather than start a new post, I'll add it here:

Sony's BDP-S1 has been delayed again. The new date in now August 15 (2006). June, July, August, whenever.

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