Lions Gate to use Blu-Ray DVD format

[BJ_M]

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. said Wednesday it will release movies and other content on the high definition Blu-Ray disc format when that technology launches next year.

The studio joins Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and The Walt Disney Co. as supporters of one of two next generation DVD formats vying to replace standard DVDs.

Both formats promise increased storage capacity and movie resolution superior enough to get top performance from high-definition television sets. And both would contain stronger anti-piracy protection, a key factor in the studios' haste to adopt a new format.

Supporters of the rival format, HD-DVD, include Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios.

Blu-Ray was developed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes the Panasonic brand, and Philips Electronics NV. HD-DVD was developed by electronics makers Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp.

HD-DVD players and films are expected to be available by the end of the year. Blu-Ray players and films are expected to be available in North America sometime next year.

Studios and consumer electronics makers are hoping to avoid a format war that would leave consumers confused and unwilling to upgrade to the new equipment needed to play high definition discs. Such a war ensued when the competing Betamax and VHS videocassette formats were introduced, and it was blamed for slowing consumer acceptance of videocassette recorders.

Industry officials are pushing this time for both sides to reach a compromise.

[ozymango]

Industry officials are pushing this time for both sides to reach a compromise.

Interesting article but the last line makes me laugh -- how do you reach a "compromise" on differing technologies? The only compromise I can see any studio making is making discs available in both formats, which is exactly the problem in the first place, dueling formats. Long term, either HD or Blu-Ray will become the de facto standard and those who invested in the other media will be out $$$.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

Interesting article but the last line makes me laugh -- how do you reach a "compromise" on differing technologies?...

for a VERY short time, the two camps were trying to work on a hybrid disc that had the 'best' properties of each format.
but that fell flat...

[BJ_M]

well since Sony Pictures controls something like over half of all western film ever made -- i think they will have a strong say in the outcome -- add to that the ps3 ..

[nelson133]

Ok, they can release then, but can they sell them? Nyah Levi

[Xylob the Destroyer]

ja!
see BJ_M's comments.
with as much control over what movies come out that Sony has, if they simply stop releasing on DVD and the movies you want aren't available on HD-DVD, what are you gonna do?
you can pirate and burn to HD-DVD (if that's even gonna be possible - good luck you dirty pirate) or you can suck it up and buy a Blu-Ray machine or a PS3.
the vast majority of PS3 games will be DVD in the beginning, but it won't take long for developers to figure out how to work that bitch and then ALL the games for it will be Blu-Ray.
just like with the PS2 -- most of the early games were cd-rom, now all PS2 games are DVD.
PS2 was a huge seller at first because it "doubled" as a DVD player.
Sony isn't stupid -- if all the movies you want are Blu-Ray and PS3 "doubles" as a Blu-Ray player.....
you can bet your ass Blu-Ray movies will sell.

the DVD format was only slowly starting to gain in popularity prior to the release of the PS2.
when PS2 finally became easy to get, DVD exploded.

[DereX888]

Most of people won't buy blue-ray or any HD-DVD movies on disc until they can see a difference on their home tv. That means it will take about 8 to even a dozen of years until HDTVs reach that critical mass when everyone will be ashamed of using their old CRTs.
Everyone can see the difference between VHS and DVD on any oldest analog tv. Thats why DVDs killed VHS in such a short time.
But if you hook up HD-DVD to your old analog tv (through whatever HDTV converter etc we will have on the mrket Im sure) you will NOT see any difference between HD-DVD and DVD.
HDTV tv sets have to reach some 20-25% households to make a boost in any HD-DVD movie sale (be it blueray or the other one). And Im thinking globally, not just in US of A.

No way in next 5 years it will reach that. I'd say 10 years is more like it. By that time there will be some motion-free (meaning "zero moveable parts inside", like i.e. today's flash) and smaller than the mini-cdr new storage format capable of delivering same or more as blue-ray now. I bet it'll be in the shape of cube, not disc

Any current HighDef DVD is doomed, like Beta or S-VHS or DATs were. By the time there will be real demand for the product on the market, this technology will be obsolete or outdated and replaced with newer one. Its just yet another great technology delivered at the wrong moment in time.

I'd say any high capacity DVDs currently developed to be mostly used as storage, not the "movie format" (think DVD-RAM: great format for DVD-Video no one uses because it was developed at the wrong moment ahead of its time).


EDIT:
Ofcourse I will buy it as soon as it drops below $1k
But then again - Im one of the dudes posting and reading on this forum