Listen To The Bell, HD DVD

It isn’t over yet, but the bell you hear tolling is for the now-struggling HD DVD format. Ever since the announcement a few weeks back that Warner Bros. would be going Blu-ray-only this summer, HD DVD sales have taken a hard hit.

Just a week after Warners’ announcement, Blu-ray beat HD DVD in hardware sales by seizing a whopping 93% of the market. Software sales have decreased for HD DVD as well, including right here on DVD Empire – where Blu-ray has gone from having a 3 to 1 advantage to over a 4 to 1 advantage in sales, and growing. Reports from other retailers have the sales gap even wider. While HD DVD rebounded somewhat in overall sales this past week, the overall trend is clear: more and more people are investing in Blu-ray.

To add to HD DVD’s struggles, retailer Woolworths (not a bastion of hi-def sales to be sure, but a major company) announced that they would no longer stock HD DVD; while some Circuit City stores nationwide have launched clearance sales on their HD DVD player stock, selling them for as low as $100.

Can HD DVD possibly survive? Toshiba will make their last-ditch effort to save the format this coming Sunday: a $2.7 million 30-second spot during the Super Bowl.

Talk about a “Hail Mary”.

The War Is Over! Warner Bros. Turns Blu!

The rumors had been circulating, but the shock was still great.

In a move that can only mean the ultimate end of the HD DVD format, powerhouse studio Warner Bros. announced today that they would be going exclusively Blu-ray. The change will go into effect in May of 2008.

The official statement from Warners’ Chairman and CEO Barry Meyer is as follows:

"Warner Bros.' move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want. The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers."

With Warners out of the HD DVD business, Paramount and Universal are the only two major studios supporting HD DVD exclusively.

Blu-ray Picture In Picture Titles Hit Market

It took a while, but some Blu-ray releases are finally offering the picture-in-picture commenatries that HD DVD has been offering on releases for quite some time. The recent 2.10 firmware update for the PS3 brings those players up to Profile 1.1, meaning the PS3 can now use the picture-in-picture feature, if owers update their units.

Hi-Def DVD Empire got a chance to review two of the upcoming releases that offer picture-in-picture, and we're happy to report that the feature does work as well as HD DVD, although the results are a mixed bag.

The picture-in-picture on the release of Sony's Resident Evil: Extinction uses such a small window for the commentary that the text identifying the speakers has actually been placed outside the commentary box.

On the other hand, Fox's Sunshine gets picture-in-picture right, offering a bigger box for the picture-in-picture commentary, with the picture within (at least by our estimation) being a much sharper one than the one we saw on Resident Evil: Extinction.

With the specs now in place to compete with HD DVD on every level, Blu-ray owners can expect lots more releases with picture-in-picture features to be released in 2008.