AfterDawn: News

Acer, Huala Group support Blu-ray

The Blu-ray Disc Association has made several announcements at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin this year. On the device front, Acer has become a contributing member of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), joining with Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Levono. Huala, a major Chinese consumer electronics manufacturer has also agreed to become a contributing member.

Huala will also team up with the China Film Group to establish a Blu-ray Disc authoring center in China. The Bluy-ray group also announced a flood of new Blu-ray releases in Belrin at a news conference yesterday. Some of the notable movies form the announcements are Spiderman from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 300 from Warner Home Video and a special edition of Disney's Sleeping Beauty.



"We've been involved with Blu-ray Disc from the very beginning," said Stephen Foulser, vice president of marketing and business development for Disney in the EMEA regions. "We will be launching 30 new titles in the format." There are currently more than 300 Blu-ray titles available, but supporting studios hope to double that figure before the end of 2007.

Danny Kay, executive vice president of research and development at 20th Century Fox, declined to comment fully on the recent decision by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation to put exclusive support behind rival HD DVD, but did say that both studios had access to the same market data as Fox and the other studios.

Source:
Yahoo (Infoworld)

Written by: James Delahunty @ 31 Aug 2007 5:04

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• 11 comments

• hughjars

  When you look at the concrete actions being taken it's the existing people releasing some more movies.
  The rest is just a couple of new "contributing members".
  
  These are not licencing agreements for low-cost Chinese production or brands (which take years to reach production, toshiba licenced to the Chinese in 2005).
  
  = Far too little far too late.

  31.8.2007 06:01 #1

• xtago

  I guess that's the PC and Laptop markets sown up for Blu-ray.
  
  Acer is the 3rd highest PC/laptop seller.

  31.8.2007 07:00 #2

• eatsushi

  Acer is already a member of the HD DVD Promotion Group and has already released a notebook with an HD DVD Rom drive. This just means they've gone neutral.
  
  http://www.hddvdprg.com/eng/about/member.html
  http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/as9920.htm

  31.8.2007 08:04 #3

• Riotard

  xtago they alreayd had the pc laptop market, because well heck 4 in every 5 computers are dell branded. this si anotehr reason for other companies to move to HD DVD because it means less peopel can pirate the movies! Still did they rele need a convention to announce this! its like we are announcing a load of un interesting statements all at teh same time! hopefully ppl will think they are interesting!

  31.8.2007 09:53 #4

• hughjars

  Originally posted by Riotard: xtago they alreayd had the pc laptop market, because well heck 4 in every 5 computers are dell branded. - ....and at the prices Blu-ray burning drives go for they are getting relatively few buyers too.
  
  Originally posted by Riotard: this si anotehr reason for other companies to move to HD DVD because it means less peopel can pirate the movies! - Wait until people start to realise that Blu-ray players cannot and will not read blank BD - R /BD - RE media.
  
  It's even in the users manual (so no weaseling out pretending this is 'FUD') of the Sony S300.

  31.8.2007 10:11 #5

• Unfocused

  Quote:There are currently more than 300 Blu-ray titles available, but supporting studios hope to double that figure before the end of 2007. So when are the classics coming out? Godfather? Star Wars? Don't they understand that if they give the people what they want, then the people will be more than happy to spend their hard earned dollars? Simple common sense.

  31.8.2007 15:32 #6

• NexGen76

  Look like BDA is getting stronger adding Dell & Hewlett-Packard this move is huge.
  
  
  Quote:Danny Kay, executive vice president of research and development at 20th Century Fox, declined to comment fully on the recent decision by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation to put exclusive support behind rival HD DVD, but did say that both studios had access to the same market data as Fox and the other studios.The data they didn't have that HD-DVD did was the check Microsoft paid them.This got to be a time exclusive because 150 million is cheap just for a CE to turn exclusive for a format that losing ground to Blu-Ray everyday.But if they think Blu-Ray is costly lets see the money they loose by not saying format neutral.

  31.8.2007 17:55 #7

• akaangus

  Acer is trash... our office got an acer laptop and the thing BENDS in when you type... also it has a button for bluetooth, press it and in huge font up comes FEATURE NOT AVAILABLE.
  
  Acer is for the people who can't afford / won't pay for a better computer, blu-ray sales out of this demographic will be very very low.

  1.9.2007 01:56 #8

• hughjars

  Originally posted by nextgen76: Look like BDA is getting stronger adding Dell & Hewlett-Packard this move is huge. - No.
  Go look it up, Dell and HP have been 'on-board' with Blu-ray for a long time.
  
  The trouble is that the Blu-ray burner drives are so expensive relatively few are specifying them.
  
  Then people find out that Blu-ray stand-alones won't play BD -R or BD -RE discs
  (page six of the Sony S300 manual if you don't believe me).
  
  Originally posted by nextgen76: The data they didn't have that HD-DVD did was the check Microsoft paid them. - Prove it.
  
  Originally posted by nextgen76: This got to be a time exclusive because 150 million is cheap just for a CE to turn exclusive for a format that losing ground to Blu-Ray everyday. - Nextgen if you're going to tell the story at least try and look like you know it.
  
  The exclusive was the paper quoting 'inside sources' (ie Bill Hunt and his pal) who claimed to know that a payment had been made.
  They began this rumour.
  
  Over the course of the week it grew from a laughable $150 million to $250 million and back again (although who paid what to whom kept changing and the awkward thing - that had Bill Hunt revise & remove his original claim(s) from his blog on legal advice - was that it was denied on the record by all concerned).
  
  Originally posted by nextgen76: But if they think Blu-Ray is costly lets see the money they loose by not saying format neutral. - We shall see indeed.
  
  Instead of seizing on every idiotic fairy tale why not just read what Viacom/Paramount themselves had to say?
  
  Blu-ray has several problems, not least cost.
  Now that Sony no longer subsidises Blu-ray disc production (hmmm, can you say 'bribe'?......or does it only apply to everyone else) the additional short-term sales Viacom/Paramount would have gained by remaining format neutral are outweighed by the costs.
  
  They only had a year evaluating both formats so I guess you'd just sneer and say what do they know about it, huh?
  
  Then there is the issue of those supposedly advanced features which require 'profile 1.1' (not to mention the later 'profile 2.0').
  They cost money and with not a single 'profile 1.1' compliant Blu-ray player on the market and no true idea of when one or two will finally arrive, why would Viacom/Paramount want to throw money into something that remains completely unknown?
  
  Then we get to attachment rates. Blu-ray works out at an average far below 1:1 whereas HD DVD is around the 4:1 level.
  Like I said, it's just a matter of time
  (and as HD DVD player sales rise this is what we are seeing, the retail movie disc sales gap is closing).
  
  At this point Viacom/Paramount could see it is only a matter of time until low cost HD DVD players stood to take the mainstream a/v market.
  Clearly PS3 has failed to 'win' anything for Blu-ray.
  Game over.
  The one thing you can be sure of is that after the Viacom/Paramount move tho that Blu-ray has lost.
  
  So now we have not only all the cost and functionality advantages HD DVD has but thanks to the Viacom/Paramount move we also have a situation where HD DVD has the largest available content, the largest amount of exclusive content and the greatest potential catalogue.
  
  No wonder they dumped Blu-ray.
  
  It's true that HD DVD may still not actually 'win' the a/v market and consumers prefer to stick with SD DVD but as the line blurs and the distinction is lost (where DVD players will do everything that they do now but just also play HD DVD - all at prices very close to where they are now) it is most likely it'll be HD DVD in most living rooms eventually.
  
  But if you want to ignore all of the actual things that Viacom/Paramount actually said and believe ridiculous fairy tales that were begun & spread around by a known Blu-ray supporting shill (Bill Hunt)
  (jeez turn on your brain and think about it....as if a Hollywood giant like Viacom/Paramount would think $150 million was a vast amount of money or would or could be bribed away from what you claim is the format with the future and the profits)
  then that's up to you.

  1.9.2007 08:49 #9

• hughjars

  Originally posted by xtago: I guess that's the PC and Laptop markets sown up for Blu-ray.
  
  Acer is the 3rd highest PC/laptop seller.Actually Acer are members of the HD DVD group (and are the 4th largest PC manufacturers in the world); this gives HD DVD four (of the top five) notebook manufacturers sorted: Toshiba, Acer, HP and Asus.
  There's only Dell left to go on that one.

  6.9.2007 08:37 #10

• borhan9

  Just a few more companies choosing sides in the format war.

  9.9.2007 23:34 #11