STUDIO SUPPORT STILL A QUESTION MARK AT HD-DVD DEMOS
HD-DVD demonstrations held for reporters Wed. at the MGM Tower in L.A. gave no clear evidence, but tantalizing hints, that the balance of crucial studio support was tipping toward one side in the format war -- against Blu-ray. Similar sessions were held in N.Y.C. in Nov. (CED Nov 4 p1), and separate demonstrations were planned for studio representatives Thurs. to which all major film companies but Sony’s Columbia TriStar were invited, a source told us. Universal also wasn’t expected to take part because it’s on the fence, the source said, as if implying that the other studios had accepted invitations because they were leaning toward HD-DVD.
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With Columbia TriStar the only studio openly supporting Blu- ray and Warner an apparent HD-DVD supporter, senior Toshiba and NEC executives danced around journalists’ persistent questions on studio backing. Toshiba’s HD-DVD point man, Hisashi Yamada, conceded his camp had no formal studio endorsements yet. But clips cleared for demonstration by several of the top 5 Hollywood powerhouses were shown, with the stipulation that reporters not report the films’ or studios’ names. One exception was the Robert DeNiro film Ronin, distributed on DVD by MGM/UA, which we had been barred from identifying from the N.Y.C. briefing. Clips from one of The Matrix films marketed by Warner were another exception.
Newly added to the L.A. agenda, and not shown in N.Y.C., were Microsoft demonstrations of its Windows Media 9 (WM9) compression and split-screen demos comparing the video quality of MPEG-4-based H.264 compression with that of a standard-definition DVD. Toshiba’s Yamada again conceded Blu-ray had a significant capacity advantage compared with HD-DVD, but said the 2 compression systems under consideration for HD-DVD as a dual- mandatory standard, H.264 and WM9, were 3 times more efficient than the MPEG-2 codec adopted for Blu-ray.
Yamada and NEC executive Rick Hayatsu took the opportunity to cast doubt on claims made at the Las Vegas CES that Blu-ray ROM discs wouldn’t need a caddy. Although it’s true the hard coating to be used for Blu-ray media will help address the problem of surface scratches, Yamada said the real issue of Blu- ray’s tight tolerances was how the system would react to fingerprints and smudges, for which hard coatings would have no benefit.
On other issues: (1) Tadashi Kojima of Konica Minolta gave an update on development of the dual-laser optical pickup previously announced for the HD-DVD system. Kojima said production of those pickups could begin this year and prototypes had been verified by Toshiba and NEC. (2) Yamada expressed amazement that Dell and Hewlett-Packard would throw their support to Blu-ray, as those companies announced at CES. But he seemed to express optimism that no company’s support was exclusive to the rival format, adding that the roster of DVD Forum member companies that voted in Nov. to approve preliminary HD-DVD specs included some Blu-ray Disc Founders group companies. (3) Yamada seemed less definitive than he had at CES when asked again Wed. whether there was any prospect of unifying the Blu-ray and HD-DVD systems. He seemed to suggest the HD-DVD camp would work toward unification if that was what the studios demanded, and even implied there had been peace talks between the 2 camps. At CES, he and his Blu-ray counterparts said they had no knowledge of any effort begun to unify the 2 systems, and Yamada said definitively that the significant differences in form factor between Blu-ray and HD-DVD optical media seemed to make unifying the 2 proposals all but impossible.