AfterDawn: News

Disney to release movies in HD DVD format also?

While there has been no formal announcement made by the company, comments made during Disney's annual meeting with shareholders last week indicate that the studio may release movies in the HD DVD format as well as Blu-Ray Disc. The comments were made by Disney CEO Robert Iger. "We're very exited about next generation DVD formats," he said, but added that the company still believed Blu-ray would win the format war. He went ahead then to say the company "will probably publish in both formats."

The Blu-ray backer may be changing its mind at the very last minute as the HD DVD launch is only a couple of weeks away, and will be followed in May by Blu-ray. It would seem to Disney as a safe move, as both formats are strong in their own ways. Blu-ray provides more capacity than HD DVD, but at the moment it seems Blu-ray will be the more expensive option for consumers and uncertainty about the launch of the PlayStation 3 console, which includes a Blu-ray drive, may help HD DVD to be more successful initially.



The price of players for the next generation formats also favours HD DVD for now, but the Blu-ray camp is relying on the PS3 console to put a Blu-ray player in thousands of homes. Consumer confusion also will probably drag out the format war for a few years. Right now, it is still too early to predict who will ultimately win. It will eventually come down to consumers to decide a favourite.

Source:
Ars technica

Written by: James Delahunty @ 14 Mar 2006 17:14

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• 11 comments

• borhan9

  I have mentioned this b4... I dont get y the DVD companies like Toshiba and the rest of them dont make their players, play both formats...
  
  Sorta like in the beginig we had DVD palyers that could play certain Regional codes but now its Universal...
  
  I guess its about $$$ in the begining :P

  14.3.2006 22:05 #1

• DVDRipGuy

  all i want to know is will we still have standard DVD'S out because im'm not going to buy the damn HD-DVD play nor the blue ray player right away. i'm going to wait til the price goes down a bit and $39 for a blue ray disc movie you have got to be kidding me LMAO..if anyone get any info about the Standard DVD plz let me know thank you :)

  15.3.2006 07:02 #2

• Halen5150

  @DVDRipGuy
  
  I can assure you that there will be DVD still available once they come out with these new formats. I have read many news articles on both HDDVD and Blu-ray, and in most of them they say one of the features to these new players is that they still be able to play the standard dvd format. So, with that info. given; I would assume that the movie studios will still put out new releases on dvd as well as one of the new formats.

  15.3.2006 07:47 #3

• l34merik

  @borhan9
  
  Well it would be more expensive to have a HD-DVD/Blue-ray player. Not all DVD players are universal yet, it's still regional code. Probably becaue ur on AD too, you backuped ur collection with DVD Decrypter and that takes the region code away too so now they're region-free and u forgot or something. I'm hoping Blueray will win because then all I have to do is buy a PS3 for half the price of a blue-ray player and be happy until the movies get to around $20-30 a movie.

  15.3.2006 12:17 #4

• neo1000

  It will certainly help HD-DVD since disney is a very important movie studio...good news.

  15.3.2006 14:25 #5

• borhan9

  @l34merik
  
  Thanxs for reminding me i forgot DVD Decrypter does that :P hahaha its amazin what u take for granted :)

  16.3.2006 00:21 #6

• mattkind

  Can some1 explain 2 me plsss ?? So Hd movies need a new player to play them....even blu ray...So evey1 needs to buy the 2 of them !!???? And on Hd movies what will be extra , exept clearer picture...i hope there will be like 3 hrs special features
  
  Are the companies realising there movies on both of them players ??

  16.3.2006 01:21 #7

• mackdl

  You will also need a new TV, and apparently all those HD ready tvs aren't going to cut it. OH, and you can replace that expensive home theatre sound system while you are at it.
  
  This will go over like their self-destructing dvds! I'm not buying into it.

  16.3.2006 06:32 #8

• mattkind

  Then im not buying anything, until the dvds became like VHS :)...its to much for me

  16.3.2006 11:10 #9

• sukhvail

  the ps3 will work with standard definition tv's so i guess blu ray will work with sdtv

  19.3.2006 05:26 #10

• Rikoshay

  I'm beginning to think that this whole HD-DVD vs. BluRay thing is totally bogus. Why couldn't they just make standard DVD's with HD content with some x264 decoder and get it over with? It's not that hard... We do it all the time!

  20.3.2006 14:12 #11