In what some see as a surprise move, studio juggernaut Paramount pledged strong support this past Sunday for Sony's Blu-ray Disc ("BD" or "BRD"), competitor to the Toshiba-led next generation optical disc format, HD-DVD. Both high resolution disc formats are expected to hit the North American market in the first half of 2006. Paramount's nod to BD initially called into some question Paramount's earlier statement of support for HD-DVD, but the studio clarified that it still plans to release titles on HD-DVD as well, supporting both candidates until the day when there is a clear winner.
Apparently Paramount's decision came after an analysis of the cost and copy protection solutions available. Paramount also said it was attracted by Blu-ray's storage capacity, which is at least five times that of current DVDs. But perhaps more important was the realization that Sony's support of BD in their next generation came console, the PlayStation 3, should mean plenty of BD-compatible players right out of the gate.
"We have been intrigued by the broad support of Blu-ray, especially the key advantage of including Blu-ray in PlayStation 3," said Thomas Lesinski, president of Paramount Pictures, Worldwide Home Entertainment.
The PS3 is expected to be a hugely popular game console, which means that the hardware necessary to play the new BD movies will find its way into many households quickly, thereby gaining critical early market share.
Meanwhile Microsoft recently announced that their XBOX 360 next generation game platform will support HD-DVD, which is currently backed by companies such as Intel, Toshiba, Universal Studios and others. If the track record of current generation consoles holds up for the next generation, then this may not be such a big advantage (PS2's console market share is currently at least 3 to 4 times what XBOX is). But still, the current XBOX was Microsoft's first attempt at a game console, and with an estimated number of consoles sold somewere around 19,000,000 for the current XBOX console, that's nothing to scoff at.
At this point, the future is still uncertain. With studio and hardware manufacturers supporting both formats, it may be some time before there is a winner, but at least we should have great movies to watch in either format. Hopefully we won't have a repeat of the DVD-Audio/SACD fiasco, where two great high resolution multi-channel audio formats have virtually faded into the woodwork due to the stubborness of competing hardware manufacturers and a generally apathetic music-buying public who think "MP3 is good enough for me!"
In my opinion, the same is not likely to happen in the battle for the next generation of DVD. As home theater screen sizes increase, people are seeing just how grainy standard DVDs can be. And once consumers see movies in high definition, they'll never want to go back. Let's hope some savvy hardware manufacturers will embrace both formats in a universal player that can play both BRDs and HD-DVD. Well, I'd say Sony and Toshiba are not likely to play along, but Samsung announced this very plan (a unified disc player) last month. But will others follow suit? Hello? Pioneer, Denon, are you listening?
