A year or two from now say Fox goes neutral as an example.

Will they press movies they released in BD in HD DVD now?
And vice versa.

Let me take a look into my crystal ball :)

What do I know, but I'd say, hey why wouldn't they? I bet you stuidos who only released on Beta initally went back and released on VHS later.

Certainly! Just as in Universal goes neutral, they'd release their current titles on Blu-ray.

In fact, one distributer has done just that: "Chronos" (IMAX doc). I believe it was an HD-DVD exclusive, but since the distribution change, it's now for Blu-ray as well. They also enhanced it for Blu-ray and the title is better than the HD-DVD release.

Link: Chronos (http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Disc_Announcements/Koch/Chronos_HD_DVD_Gets_New_Distributor_Blu-ray_Version_on_the_Way/374)

It would probably depend on a number of factors like the mastering/encoding, which special features were included, and the time between releases.

For example, with a recent title with a good master, all the DVD's features included, and not much time between releases, I can't really see them doing a new release on the same format when it's time to release it on the other format. We saw this with Warner's BD versions of its HD DVD titles that followed not too long after the original HD DVD releases: they were just ports.

On the other hand, if something was severely lacking in the mastering/encoding and/or a bunch of features were dropped, I could see them taking the opportunity to do a simultaneous new edition for the original format to correct the earlier release. So, if, say, Lionsgate were to go neutral, they would probably do a new encoding of a title like T2 and put the missing special features back on the HD DVD and a new BD release. Before a BD fanboy crucifies me for the hypothetical mention of LGF going neutral, I'll even this out by saying that Universal would do the same for King Kong, putting back the missing features and adding lossless sound on a new release for both formats.

I bet eventually they will release on both formats (each studio). Of course I picked over 48 for the big game yesterday and was wrong. Oh, but I also picked Hester to score the first TD of the game and was right about that.

If a studio went neutral we would probably get a port of the Blu Ray release and in the case of Fox it would probably cost $40. Which is a bad thing seeing how quite of few titles lack any special features.

Within the current situation (format war), the term "neutral" implies that they will release hd resolution movies on both formats.

Certainly! Just as in Universal goes neutral, they'd release their current titles on Blu-ray.Because Universal is mastering for lower bandwidth and space, it could be easier for them to port titles though. Much like Warner does. With some Blu-ray studios mastering to levels above what HD DVD can currently do they would likely have to go back and remaster many titles for HD DVD unless something changes. If HD DVD adds the TL51 discs, ups their spin rate to 1.5x like Blu-ray and ups their bitrate ceilings for video and mux rate then it is possible that a Blu-ray studio going exclusive could just port the same encode to HD DVD and release on one of those discs. Even if they go to a 1.5x spin rate they may not up their video bitrate ceiling because of compatibility issues and Blu-ray calls for a bigger buffer size. But at least upping some limits could make it easier for a Blu-ray studio to release the same title on HD DVD without putting in too much time (and money).

--Darin

Because Universal is mastering for lower bandwidth and space, it could be easier for them to port titles though. Much like Warner does. With some Blu-ray studios mastering to levels above what HD DVD can currently do they would likely have to go back and remaster many titles for HD DVD unless something changes. If HD DVD adds the TL51 discs, ups their spin rate to 1.5x like Blu-ray and ups their bitrate ceilings for video and mux rate then it is possible that a Blu-ray studio going exclusive could just port the same encode to HD DVD and release on one of those discs. Even if they go to a 1.5x spin rate they may not up their video bitrate ceiling because of compatibility issues and Blu-ray calls for a bigger buffer size. But at least upping some limits could make it easier for a Blu-ray studio to release the same title on HD DVD without putting in too much time (and money).

--Darin


ahh .. another advantage of HD DVD .. flexibility :)

The real question is, if a BD studio goes 'neutral' will they stall releases of BD titles to allow HD DVD to 'catch up' ? :)

The real question is, if a BD studio goes 'neutral' will they stall releases of BD titles to allow HD DVD to 'catch up' ? :)

they wont ... anyhow if they stall the new release, the same would apply to both BD and HD DVD releases :p

a more relevant question maybe - will they release titles in HD DVD which have already been released elsewhere in the world ;)

The real question is, if a BD studio goes 'neutral' will they stall releases of BD titles to allow HD DVD to 'catch up' ? :)At the very least they should release HD DVD versions of their Blu-ray discs with additional interactivity that HD DVD is capable of... ;)