HD format wars are only just beginning

Blu-ray’s rival high-definition format is written out of Bill Gates’ farewell speech as HD DVD loses its battle

Warner Home Video president Ron Sanders admitted: “It wasn’t an easy conversation”.

Fearing a news leak ahead of Warner’s formal announcement that it was ditching HD DVD in favour of Blu-ray, Sanders called Toshiba and Microsoft minutes before the world’s press and analysts got the news.

It was midday in Las Vegas on the day before Toshiba, Microsoft and the HD DVD Promotion Group were due to hold a party to boast that HD DVD was to be the high-def format of the future.

The promotion party was cancelled and so were the one-to-one interviews that Microsoft had set up to pledge allegiance to the format. Bill Gates’ scriptwriters wrote all mention of HD DVD out of the keynote and farewell speech he was due to give.

Toshiba marketing vice-president Jody Sally admitted: “We were shocked and disappointed.”

Toshiba went ahead with its press conference but axed the planned section on three new third-generation players.

Company boss and “father of HD DVD” Yoshihide Fujii flew back to Japan for crisis talks and it was left to president of Toshiba USA Akio Osaka and Sally to put on brave faces.

“We were surprised by Warner’s announcement,” they said, gamely insisting that: “HD DVD offers the best solution for the consumer’s wants and needs”.

“This is a tough day,” admitted Sally. “It’s difficult for me to read that HD DVD is dead.”.

The press conference was shut down without any opportunity to ask questions.

The HD DVD Promotion Group’s public relations agency in the US scrapped the planned press releases but the European agency goofed by sending them out at the previously planned time.

So we heard that 2007 had been “a breakthrough year...with HD DVD software sales growing at nearly twice the rate of Blu-ray… and as the official successor to DVD, HD DVD has added to the heritage of the most successful consumer electronics format ever.”

On the CES show floor Toshiba continued to show HD DVD and the HD DVD Promotion Group’s booth was manned. But the HD DVD zones had the smell of death, with demonstrators often talking to themselves.

The only publicity material available on the HD booth was a small, thin leaflet that boasted: “HD DVD is the high-def format of the future.”

The Blu-ray Disc Group learned of Warner’s decision only after the press announcement, although some members had suspected it as Christmas sales were overwhelmingly in Blu-ray’s favour, capping a year-long trend.

According to research firm GFK, by the end of 2007, Blu-ray hardware sales, driven by three million PS3 purchases, had an 85 per cent share worldwide and software sales a 66 per cent share.

If anyone is to blame for HD DVD’s predicament, it is surely Microsoft, which has paid lip service to the format – and developed the HDi interactive system used by HD DVD – but given inadequate HD disc play support for Xbox 360.

Toshiba and Microsoft are now acting on their plan Bs. Toshiba is promoting HD DVD players as a great way to play ordinary DVDs. Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach says Microsoft’s main reason for supporting HD DVD at first was the company’s investment in HDI, and Microsoft now sees digital downloading of HD movies as much more significant than blue laser discs.

CES left no doubt that the next format war will be between PC downloading, dedicated boxes and internet-enabled TVs; Windows and Linux; iTunes and a gaggle of rival services; broadband and satellite delivery (or a bit of both); and all manner of different technical tricks. These involve peer-to-peer sharing and push pre-loading the first part of many movies and seamlessly switching to downloading the remainder.

In a year’s time, when HD DVD is a memory kept alive only by court actions brought by consumers with no HD DVD discs to play on their HD players, we may look back fondly on the good old days when a format war was a two-horse race.