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You go Warner!!!

4956 Views 71 Replies 32 Participants Last post by  HPforMe, 
T
This is why Warner Brothers are my Home Video Hero's

Quote:
Today Warner Home Video (WHV) announced that it is the first studio to surpass sales of 100,000 copies of a high definition title with Martin Scorsese's 2006 Academy Award® Best Picture winner, "The Departed".


With the number one and two highest selling titles on high definition formats - "The Departed" and "Superman Returns" - as well as three other titles in the top ten, ("Batman Begins", "Happy Feet" and "Goodfellas") Warner Home Video continues to be the market share leader in high definition disc sales.


"It's no accident that Warner is the first studio to reach this benchmark. We owe this success to a combination of great content and our decision to support both high definition formats," said Ron Sanders, President of Warner Home Video. "By releasing titles on HD DVD and Blu-ray, Warner Home Video not only increases our potential audience reach, but also offers consumers assurance that regardless of the format they choose they can enjoy our movies."


With more than 30-percent market share of DVD sales in the high definition market, Warner Home Video has sold more high definition product and released more titles than any other studio. WHV's support of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc allows consumers to watch the Studio's award-winning entertainment on any high definition home viewing device or player they choose.


"High definition media represents an incredible opportunity for the industry, and we, as content providers, can help push mainstream adoption by producing in both formats and giving the consumer a simple choice," continued Sanders. "At a time when the home video business is flat and high definition media presents our best hope for near term growth, it is unfortunate that we as an industry continue to perpetuate consumer confusion."
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D
Guess I need to look back at the sales figures we've seen for the different discs. I thought that the figures for "Casino Royale" supported that it would have sold more than "Superman Returns" by now, despite SR being on both formats.


I'm confident that Warner would be very happy if they heard that Disney was following their lead and going neutral, but I wonder if they would be happy if they heard that Universal read their statements and was persuaded to go neutral also. Just to note, not saying that either is happening, just wondering if Warner is really as neutral as those statements might make some think.


--Darin
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A
Again, here's a clue...these numbers are so small compared to retail numbers for SD DVD that it does not matter as much to the studio as the possibility of long-term gains by having a unified front. In other words, if a single format wins out and the public embraces HD, then the benefits for studios is magnitudes more than the pittance they are getting now because the public will not jump in while the format war is going on.


This is why studios that are digging in and standing their ground make more sense than those that are inadvertantly prolonging a war that benefits no one and may kill off HD in the end by being neutral.
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T
I like the whole "War? What War?" way they framed this. Crank'em out and let us decide. I strikes me as progressive, consumer-friendly and overall more positive message.


It also takes into account that most people don't care enough about either to "fight" for it, and the suggestion that they should, could be more of a turn-off than the mere fact two formats similar in nature are out there at once.
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In the midst of this "war" I've become a big fan of Warner.
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The most recent figures came on the HMM Q1 summary , according to which 53,640 copies of the film were sold on Blu-ray Disc and 31,590 units on HD DVD. If that 1.7:1 ratio stayed the same after March 31, a fair estimate would be 63K Departed for BD and 37K for HD DVD.
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F

Quote:
Originally Posted by asj2006 /forum/post/0


Again, here's a clue...these numbers are so small compared to retail numbers for SD DVD that it does not matter as much to the studio as the possibility of long-term gains by having a unified front. In other words, if a single format wins out and the public embraces HD, then the benefits for studios is magnitudes more than the pittance they are getting now because the public will not jump in while the format war is going on.


This is why studios that are digging in and standing their ground make more sense than those that are inadvertantly prolonging a war that benefits no one and may kill off HD in the end by being neutral.
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Indeed the volume is small and a unified front would help to get more content out there since some companies (Criterion for example) have said they won't publish in HD until there is a clear winner. At the same time the competition has been great for consumers; BOGO, 50% off sales and sub-$300 players would never have seen the light of day without the element of competition.


With DVD we saw what studios and CEs will do early on in a format's life-cycle if it's the only game in town. First year DVD players were buggy, expensive and getting firmware updates was cost prohibitive. I paid almost $600 for my first-gen Sony DVD player and I didn't pay less than $25 for a DVD until the format was well over a year old. By contrast I paid $199 to get in the world of HDM and fully half of my movies have cost less than $20. Just based on those numbers I'm getting the better deal this time around. Adjust for inflation and the monetary comparisons are downright sad.


BD can thank Warner for their survival because that format would already be on its last legs if Warner had remained an HD DVD exclusive.


HD DVD can thank Warner for being the biggest advocate of TrueHD audio.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Timothy Ramzyk /forum/post/0


I like the whole "War? What War?" way they framed this. Crank'em out and let us decide. I strikes me as progressive, consumer-friendly and overall more positive message.


It also takes into account that most people don't care enough about either to "fight" for it, and the suggestion that they should, could be more of a turn-off than the mere fact two formats similar in nature are out there at once.
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More war! Just imagine the crap that would be released on Blu Ray if they didn't have any competition. I want Warner and the other HD DVD studios to squeeze Fox until they have to release Aliens and Star Wars.
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Thanks mikemorel for bringing this one in, more of what is becoming some very admirable standards we can see in practice.

Quote:
Q 10: Why was the industry unable to resolve the format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD before it reached the market? What went wrong this time?


Part of it, of course, was the ongoing battle for the living room between Microsoft and Sony but also at some point in this process the common wisdom in the industry was that HD-DVD was a short term proposition. The real issue at this point is this: When it is clear that both formats will be in the marketplace for the foreseeable future, why has the industry not made the appropriate adjustment to eliminate consumer confusion and do everything we can to bring about main stream adoption of HD media?


Most people don't understand the difference between the LCD versus plasma HD monitors, and yet both are flying off the shelves simply because consumers can get the programming they want on either. There is a very simple solution here and that is for all the content providers to produce in both formats and give the consumer a simple choice.


High definition media represents an incredible opportunity for the industry. Having both formats in the market has created a competitive environment that is leading to innovation and competitive pricing. In order for us to see mass adoption of high definition and the concomitant growth in home video revenues we should all be working to lower the price of the hardware. We saw a significant jump in the sales of Toshiba HD-DVD players when they dropped the price of their lowest price player to $399 on April 1st. If we only had one format we would never have seen this kind of competitive pricing this early in the format's lifecycle.


At a time when the home video business is flat and HD media presents our best hope for near term growth our focus as an industry should be on the consumer and creating the most attractive scenario for them. We have a window of opportunity here and if we continue to perpetuate consumer confusion HD media may become the next laser disk.
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Yeah, way to go Warner. Love those low bitrate BDs. Love that Superman Returns disc with 22 GB of empty space.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jackinbox /forum/post/0


Yeah, way to go Warner. Love those low bitrate BDs. Love that Superman Returns disc with 22 GB of empty space.
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i love the low bitrate disks too. my favorites are:


matrix

batman begins

corpse bride

poto


someday these transfers will be great to rip to a hdd.


you are right about the bd50. IMO they should have put SR on a bd25 and cut the price by $1.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jackinbox /forum/post/0


Yeah, way to go Warner. Love those low bitrate BDs. Love that Superman Returns disc with 22 GB of empty space.
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Are you buying a movie or a bunch of bits? I only care about having enough bits to acurately display the movie in the quality I like.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jackinbox /forum/post/0


Yeah, way to go Warner. Love those low bitrate BDs. Love that Superman Returns disc with 22 GB of empty space.
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You're right-I think they should drop BD altogether.


I have to hand it to Warner. They really are making an effort, remastering classic movies, putting out quite a few discs. I probably have more Warner titles in my HD collection than any other studio.

J
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Dahlsim

Quote:
Originally Posted by Timothy Ramzyk /forum/post/0


I like the whole "War? What War?" way they framed this. Crank'em out and let us decide. I strikes me as progressive, consumer-friendly and overall more positive message.


It also takes into account that most people don't care enough about either to "fight" for it, and the suggestion that they should, could be more of a turn-off than the mere fact two formats similar in nature are out there at once.
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Market forces allow companies to fight it out among the consumers and vy for acceptance by promotion, improvement of features, lowering of prices etc.


Now why it is that consumers should want to kill off that competition early instead of allowing these mega corps to spend $$ fighting for their purchases is beyond me.


Sony has enough money to fight for this market so why not let them do it, as well as Toshiba. Matshushita is no poor sister and MS just spent $6B to get into industry they wanted bad enough.


If these companies want our high def dollars, let them fight it out till the end, whatever that is.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jackinbox /forum/post/0


Yeah, way to go Warner. Love those low bitrate BDs. Love that Superman Returns disc with 22 GB of empty space.
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Jackinbox, there's a diminishing return on bitrates and what you can see on the screen. Just because Warner is optimizing the bitrate does not mean that you are not seeing everything.


Disney right now is using and open throttle approach to their releases as there is not to many extras on the disks and extra space. Also less production prep required this way. When they start to load up their disks with all the Java based games and extras they have planned for the future you will start to see bitrate optimization on their part as well.
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M
I've hated Warner ever since they started their blu-ray releases. They're pathetic with their stupid (HD PICTURE AND SOUND) stickers on films that only have DD 5.1!! (HD SOUND????????)


Warner and Paramount are rushing these movies on the market and make us pay ridiculous prices for something they call HD while it's really nothing more than a joke!


I mean, 100.000 copies of the Departed? Somebody must have made a miscalculation
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dennis M /forum/post/0


When they start to load up their disks with all the Java based games and extras they have planned for the future you will start to see bitrate optimization on their part as well.
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I guess that is why those Pirate movies are 2 Disc editions, no need to do a bitrate optimization, they'll just bring it out on 2 BD50 discs.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by darinp2 /forum/post/0


I'm confident that Warner would be very happy if they heard that Disney was following their lead and going neutral, but I wonder if they would be happy if they heard that Universal read their statements and was persuaded to go neutral also. Just to note, not saying that either is happening, just wondering if Warner is really as neutral as those statements might make some think.


--Darin
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I love what you said here. It's interesting how a studio going neutral looks from a different perspective.
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O

Quote:
Originally Posted by MitchR /forum/post/0


I've hated Warner ever since they started their blu-ray releases. They're pathetic with their stupid (HD PICTURE AND SOUND) stickers on films that only have DD 5.1!! (HD SOUND????????)


Warner and Paramount are rushing these movies on the market and make us pay ridiculous prices for something they call HD while it's really nothing more than a joke!


I mean, 100.000 copies of the Departed? Somebody must have made a miscalculation
Click to expand...


you go girl! stop buying warner bd disks. that will send them the message.
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