During an investment meeting, Disney's Robert Iger declared the HD format war was essentially over, causing a mixed reaction from the other attending studio execs.
The most vocal advocate of Blu-ray was Disney, according to a report from the Associated Press. Iger was quoted as saying the format's success was a "foregone conclusion". Above that, he criticized other studios for not following in its same footsteps. "It's disappointing that the industry hasn't managed to be cohesive," he said.
Meanwhile, News Corp CEO sided with Iger and claimed it was obvious that Blu-ray was a better format. "The public can tell the difference," he said. News Corp owns 20th Century Fox, which is also a Blu-ray-exclusive studio.
The most vocal advocate of Blu-ray was Disney, according to a report from the Associated Press. Iger was quoted as saying the format's success was a "foregone conclusion". Above that, he criticized other studios for not following in its same footsteps. "It's disappointing that the industry hasn't managed to be cohesive," he said.
Meanwhile, News Corp CEO sided with Iger and claimed it was obvious that Blu-ray was a better format. "The public can tell the difference," he said. News Corp owns 20th Century Fox, which is also a Blu-ray-exclusive studio.
So studios like Univeral and Paramount that has exclusive support for one format means the industry hasn't manged to be cohesive, then what exactly has Disney done? That's right: exclusively support the other format, from day one.
As for victory being a "foregone conclusion", then why is the Blu-ray camp spending so much money still on promoting Blu-ray, if it already has won as it has claimed before (but now changed to "will win"). Tell that to the millions of HD DVD owners, who will be watching exclusive titles like "The Bourne Ultimatum", "Shrek The Third" and "Transformers" on their "dying" format.
As for "The public can tell the difference" statement, yes, I'm sure the public can tell the difference. HD DVD and Blu-ray are identical in terms of video/audio quality, and the only difference is that HD DVD supports picture-in-picture, Internet content downloads, and sophisticated interactive features, while Blu-ray profile 1.0 players (the majority of them sold) do not, but they do have support for even more DRM and region coding.
Sorry for the rant at Blu-ray. They make me so mad sometimes, mainly because they come out with stupid statements like this that totally ignore reality and their own customers.
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