Warner raining on the Blu-ray parade at IFA?

[luclin999]

Originally Posted by Beta-guy

call it whatever you want Paramount was doing what Toshiba wanted...

thanks to Steve Nickerson HD DVD supporters have movies that are yet to be released on Blu-ray! oh yes and Superman returned got a DD soundtrack while HD DVD supporters had lossless audio... don't sit there pretending he did nothing for you. Warner and Universal even if you want to pretend Paramount wasn't, were all in bed with Toshiba.

Yes, yes... Despite reality and the fact that Warner didn't do anything at all in the way of "crazy sales" of the type Disney and Sony held, and the fact that all Paramount did was uphold the letter of their contract with Toshiba to exclusively distribute content (but not at insane pricing) they must have been equally as "in bed with" Toshiba as Disney is to Sony...

Thats right they were all in it together, uh-huh. It was all a sinister conspiracy!

Ok, Ok.. Calm down... Here's your medicine...

Shhhh... They're all gone now.

It's Ok.

HD DVD has gone on a loooonnnngg trip and won't be coming back.

None of them can hurt you any more...



Heh, seriously though, if Toshiba really had the leverage over Warner and Paramount to coerce them into throwing open their catalogs for BOGO or better sales during quarters three and four of last year, then why in God's name didn't they exercise it and level the playing field?

If Warner and Paramount had done so to combat the BDA's sales on the weeks coinciding with HD DVD's major releases then it's obvious that HD DVD would have won some of those weeks.

The simple answer is that they couldn't. Toshiba didn't have the level of influence or control with either studio which would have enabled them to force something like that to happen.

Occam's Razor strikes again.

[Taffy]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

Here's an interesting report from the BDA press conference at the IFA fair in Berlin, Germany:

Blu-ray: Warner legt Finger in die Wunde
[Blu-ray: Warner puts a finger in the wound]

For those who do not speak German: After the usual hyping by the representatives of the BDA and Sony Pictures, Warner's Monica Juniel made some surprisingly sober remarks on the state of Blu-ray, apparently spoiling the party a bit for the other guys:

- According to Juniel, Warner is not happy with the development of the Blu-ray market. One of her main criticisms was the extreme dominance of the PS3 in the BD player market. According to her, PS3 owners on average bought only 2.5 movie titles, whereas owners of standalone players bought 5.6 [the old attach rate àrgument rearing it's head? ]. Warner is hence planning to stimulate standalone sales with bundles and special discounts.

- She said that while [as the BDA guy had previously pointed out] supposedly 70% of the German population know what BD is, only 17% intend to buy a player. 57% stated that the players were too expensive, 53% are satisfied with DVD's picture quality.

- While the prognosis of a 52 million Euro revenue for 2008 is a significant improvement over 2007, it stands in contrast to a DVD revenue of 1.3 billion Euro.

- She also rejected the retail strategy previously layed out by the Sony representative, saying that store displays on Sony flatscreen TVs will not be enough to convince customers.

- After this sober assessment, the Disney representative trying to sell interactivity and Internet connectivity as Blu-ray's "killer application" apparently did not come across very convincing.

The reporter also speculates about possible reasons for Warner's less than enthusiastic presentation. While it was Warner itself that killed off HD DVD, apparently they were asking for lower BD player prices in return, which the BDA so far apparently has denied.

Do I sense a bit of buyer's remorse here?

Interesting thread. This past week I got 3 e-mails from Warner Home Video offering discounts on HDM software. HDM sales got to be hurting.

[HD DX]

So what will be the release date for TDK on HD DVD?

[zombieflanders]

Here's a more balanced report that shows that Warner isn't complaining, so much as laying out policy for improving BD adoption:

Next clip shows Warner's 2008 BD titles. Afterwards, Monica Juniel, VP of International Marketing at Warner Home Video comes out with a concise and to the point presentation. They're happy with how BD is going, but "there are a few things we see which are slowing us down a bit". Warner are upset that PS3 owners don't buy as many BD movie titles as owners of dedicated players.

"We're thrilled to bits to have those consoles out there, [...] but we need more set top players out there, and we need the PS3 households to buy more movies". Standalone owners buy about twice as many discs as PS3 households.

Next problem: BD awareness is high, but familiarity is low. Barriers to purchase are mentioned: over 50% of people say the players are too expensive, and they're indifferent to BD. "Indifference here is telling us that they're completely happy with their standard definiton setup" and don't see a reason to move up.

Warner's plan: bundle titles with BD players and PS3s. The second initiative is to get PS3 households to buy Blu-ray Remote addons. Apparently, owners of PS3 remote controls buy 5 discs annually instead of 2. Given how annoying controlling a movie with a game pad is, I'm not surprised! Next plan: better "retail experience". Monica wants displays with SD DVD and BD playing beside each other to show consumers the difference.

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=68697

[BluFalcon]

Originally Posted by HD DX

So what will be the release date for TDK on HD DVD?

You should ask Lestat, he should have an email about it from some warner insiders

[theflux]

Originally Posted by BluFalcon

You should ask Lestat, he should have an email about it from some warner insiders

RDJAM has inside info that Disney will go neutral at CES.

Ah those were the good old days.

[hdmoviefan101]

Originally Posted by zombieflanders

Here's a more balanced report that shows that Warner isn't complaining, so much as laying out policy for improving BD adoption:http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=68697

Sounds very reasonable.

[Gargamel]

Hmmm... not that it matters, but I wonder how Blu-ray's actual performance is compared to the performance clauses placed in the exclusivity contract? I understand the bar was set pretty low, but if Blu-ray is in fact meeting the performance clauses placed in the agreement, it seems to me Warner should hold their tongue as the BDA is upholding their end of the deal, even if it is a low bar. It's kind of uncool to air dirty laundry in public and I'm sure the BDA would rather that Warner had sung a happy tune like Disney and Sony did.

There is no going back at this point and Warner knows that, and we will never know all the details, but it would be interesting to see how well performance is vs. the assurances they received.

[Dave J]

Originally Posted by luclin999

HD DVD and Transformers lost that week simply because they couldn't compete with the sheer volume of discounted Blu-Ray disks that Sony and Disney were willing to dump on the market in order to win.

The studios on the Blu side went into "fire sale" mode with insane prices (in some cases more than 50% off) on almost their entire catalogs.

Of course they also did that on any week when the HD side had a decent new release hitting the shelves which is what insured their "weekly winning streak" on the media side of things.

The consumers didn't decide the format war, they were bought off with low-cost, subsidized media which of course jumped up in price again once the format "war" had been decided.

Of course that meant that in turn, hundreds of thousands of HD DVD owners got to purchase whole libraries of HD media at bargain prices (sometimes as low as four to five dollars a disk).

Toshiba paying for Paramount/Dreamworks exclusivity (including the release of "Transformers") was done to prevent a Q4 slaughter that would have ensued had those studios remained neutral. We all know what happened with the previous "big" release (Warner's "300") just a month prior - blu-ray outsold the HD DVD version 2-1. Having "Transformers" scooped from under the BDA was a full on attempt to hurt blu-ray disc sales and adoption. Why some would unduly criticize the blu-ray supporting studios for counter-marketing this move by Toshiba is puzzling. Those same blu-ray supporting studios (including Warner) openly criticized Paramount/Dreamworks for their decision and it was no suprise they chose to minimize the damage by offering up their product in the form of BOGO promotions.

I think it was pure genius of the BDA and this is what I posted in response to the criticism at the time.

Originally Posted by Dave J

It's semantics. Whether the sale is marketed as a BOGOF or a 2 for $25 is irrelevant. The bottom line is it works out to a 50% discount per blu-ray sold. If blu-ray sold 100,000 units during this promotion to counter the release of Transformers then we are looking at a very modest promotional investment of approximately $1,250,000 (100,000 x $12.50). That's quite the bang for the BDA's buck compared to the reported $150,000,000 paid for Paramount exclusivity with Transformers as the crown jewell of that deal. That's less than 1% of the Toshiba "investment" and both consumers and retailers benefited rather than a couple studios (Paramount/Dreamworks).

Originally Posted by luclin999

Yes, yes... Despite reality and the fact that Warner didn't do anything at all in the way of "crazy sales" of the type Disney and Sony held, and the fact that all Paramount did was uphold the letter of their contract with Toshiba to exclusively distribute content (but not at insane pricing) they must have been equally as "in bed with" Toshiba as Disney is to Sony...

Heh, seriously though, if Toshiba really had the leverage over Warner and Paramount to coerce them into throwing open their catalogs for BOGO or better sales during quarters three and four of last year, then why in God's name didn't they exercise it and level the playing field?

If Warner and Paramount had done so to combat the BDA's sales on the weeks coinciding with HD DVD's major releases then it's obvious that HD DVD would have won some of those weeks.

The simple answer is that they couldn't. Toshiba didn't have the level of influence or control with either studio which would have enabled them to force something like that to happen.

As to Warner, they did offer a BOGO promotion for both blu-ray and HD DVD during Q4 2007. As to Paramount/Dreamworks, I don't believe they were true to either the blu-ray (obviously!) or to the HD DVD format (no BOGOs). They simply followed the money. Universal, imo, invested in the form of the number of movies they released for HD DVD. They more than did their share in promoting the format but even they offered a BOGO promotion.

[Fettastic]

Originally Posted by Fiffy

Here's an interesting report from the BDA press conference at the IFA fair in Berlin, Germany:

Blu-ray: Warner legt Finger in die Wunde
[Blu-ray: Warner puts a finger in the wound]

For those who do not speak German: After the usual hyping by the representatives of the BDA and Sony Pictures, Warner's Monica Juniel made some surprisingly sober remarks on the state of Blu-ray, apparently spoiling the party a bit for the other guys:

- According to Juniel, Warner is not happy with the development of the Blu-ray market. One of her main criticisms was the extreme dominance of the PS3 in the BD player market. According to her, PS3 owners on average bought only 2.5 movie titles, whereas owners of standalone players bought 5.6 [the old attach rate àrgument rearing it's head? ]. Warner is hence planning to stimulate standalone sales with bundles and special discounts.

- She said that while [as the BDA guy had previously pointed out] supposedly 70% of the German population know what BD is, only 17% intend to buy a player. 57% stated that the players were too expensive, 53% are satisfied with DVD's picture quality.

- While the prognosis of a 52 million Euro revenue for 2008 is a significant improvement over 2007, it stands in contrast to a DVD revenue of 1.3 billion Euro.

- She also rejected the retail strategy previously layed out by the Sony representative, saying that store displays on Sony flatscreen TVs will not be enough to convince customers.

- After this sober assessment, the Disney representative trying to sell interactivity and Internet connectivity as Blu-ray's "killer application" apparently did not come across very convincing.

The reporter also speculates about possible reasons for Warner's less than enthusiastic presentation. While it was Warner itself that killed off HD DVD, apparently they were asking for lower BD player prices in return, which the BDA so far apparently has denied.

Do I sense a bit of buyer's remorse here?

I think you are taking the wrong message from this article. This has NOTHING to do with HD DVD. Imagine how much worse adoption would be with a format that wasn't even selling half as well as Blu-ray!

No this is about the consumer embracing a technology that requires a lot of components, expensive components, to provide a quality upgrade to what they already have. Of COURSE that's going to take time.

As we've already read from numerous places, BD adoption is AMAZINGLY on track with DVD adoption. More and more of Best Buy and other retailers are rolling over to BD shelf space, sales are spiking and this Christmas will be a watershed period for the format.

Sure WB has some naysayers that will publicly air their dirty feelings and whiney natures. After all, WB is a patent holder of HD DVD so I'm sure them slamming the door on it brused some egos. They did the right thing for all of us that day, and the fruits of that decision are bountiful.

[Stormkeep]

Historically, Warner has always been aggressive about wanting new technologies to go through the adoption phase quickly. This is no different.

They want blu-ray adoption to go faster than it currently is, and they say what they think could be done to help facilitate it. Why exactly is that bad? Constructive criticism is a positive thing.

They were critical of others during DVD adoption as well. Warner is a more forward-thinking company and a more aggressive company, when it comes to these things, than most other companies involved. They always have been.

[crazzeto]

Originally Posted by Stormkeep

Historically, Warner has always been aggressive about wanting new technologies to go through the adoption phase quickly. This is no different.

They want blu-ray adoption to go faster than it currently is, and they say what they think could be done to help facilitate it. Why exactly is that bad? Constructive criticism is a positive thing.

They were critical of others during DVD adoption as well. Warner is a more forward-thinking company and a more aggressive company, when it comes to these things, than most other companies involved. They always have been.

This didn't have a constructive tone, this was decidedly more negative which particularly for them is rather uncalled for... They had a choice, they made it, they should get with the program and play ball now.

[Stormkeep]

Originally Posted by crazzeto

This didn't have a constructive tone, this was decidedly more negative which particularly for them is rather uncalled for... They had a choice, they made it, they should get with the program and play ball now.

I disagree, the way it was presented in the original post of this thread makes it seem like it didn't have a constructive tone but reality is quite different. That's the problem with trusting someone who just "summarizes" what was said, as OP did.

If you had read this whole thread you would have seen a more balanced coverage which shows they were quite constructive.

Originally Posted by zombieflanders

Here's a more balanced report that shows that Warner isn't complaining, so much as laying out policy for improving BD adoption:http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=68697

If you are a blu-ray supporter I challenge you to find anything in what they said that you disagree with from a business perspective. I certainly can't.

[Fettastic]

Originally Posted by zombieflanders

Here's a more balanced report that shows that Warner isn't complaining, so much as laying out policy for improving BD adoption:http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=68697

I don't know why I'm surprised to discover that it was the reporter's OWN bias coloring the remarks. How many times has this happened? Maybe I've learned my lesson this time.

[Pro-bassoonist]

Warner's (Germany) statement is as indicative of a developing trend as were the "conclusive" statements from their Australian branch that they were firmly behind HDDVD. With other words Warner-Germany has absolutely no leverage on how Warner assesses the market where it matters the most - the head office in Hollywood.

Pro-B