Sep

17

Warner puts Total HD on the backburner

Posted by Todd

September 17, 2007 |

In a move that really isn’t all that surprising, Warner Home Video(WHV) announced that they are going to halt development on their new optical disc format called Total HD.

To refresh your memory, Total HD is basically a combo disc that has an HD-DVD title on one side and a BluRay title on the other. As I noted in a previous blog entry, the problem is that this format only allows BluRay titles to be half as big as standard BluRay discs.

WHV noted that only studios supporting both formats would be interested in this technology. At this moment WHV is the only studio supporting both. They feel that it is too much pressure to work on this alone.

I personally am happy to see this. This technology only adds to the confusion surrounding the current format war and I have a feeling most consumers would be luke warm to it anyway.

There are also rumors going around that WHV has been offered lucrative payments to support HD-DVD. Their president denies this (of course) and says that the company is comfortable supporting both formats due to their strong sales.

TWICE: Have you received offers from HD DVD or Blu-ray to be exclusive with either format, as Paramount recently did with HD DVD?

Sanders: We’re talking to both sides and it’s crazy right now. We remain committed to both for the time being. We’ll see how the fourth quarter plays out. The consumer is still kind of divided, and we still believe that we should offer the content in both formats. Now, we will watch the marketplace very closely, and see how it plays out, but for now we are supporting both.

For anyone who has never attended a presentation by an MBA type, I’ll translate that:

         Sanders: Yes

I am leaning more towards the payoff but that might just be the cynic in me. I have trouble believing that a studio is comfortable with putting content out on three different formats. I know what they pay to have the newer high def titles worked on and believe me, it’s not cheap.

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1 Comment so far

  1. Format war to continue for quite a while : The DVD Shrink on September 26, 2007 11:31 am

    [...] format war.  More specifically, I blogged about a new format HD-VMD and the fact that Warner has shelved its Total HD format.  It seems like these moves, along with HD-DVD stealing Paramount away, have [...]

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