A seem deal with Warner Bros. could hand Blu-ray victory in the fight against HD DVD, claims a tip from industry insiders speaking to BusinessWeek. The magazine points to rumors of its own and from Lionsgate Studios vice-chair Michael Burns that Sony and other backers of the Blu-ray format are close to persuading Warner to ship movies only in Blu-ray, abandoning its rare policy of shipping movies in both of the HD formats. The studio is mainly waiting on holiday sales figures for each of the standards to make its choice, the publication says. The conversion is said to be so important that Sony chief Sir Howard Stringer is negotiating personally with the heads of Warner’s parent company, Time Warner.
A decision by Warner in either direction would tip the balance in favor of either disc format, but would be especially favorable to Blu-ray. If the format’s studio supporters produced their entire DVD catalogs in Blu-ray, they would account for just under half of all movies sold. Persuading Warner to join would boost that number to 70 percent and give the HD DVD studios very little incentive to hold on to HD DVD, the magazine explains.
HD DVD supporter Toshiba has pressed hard to return the balance, obtaining exclusive Paramount movies as well as focusing on the average lower prices of its players. However, a separate source claims that a manufacturer expects to have a Blu-ray player below the $300 mark, canceling out much of the advantage. Sony’s PS3 console may also weigh heavily against HD DVD as the game machine helps Blu-ray’s supporters claim four million total systems versus HD DVD’s estimated 700,000.
No details have been released regarding the Blu-ray player to date, though likely candidates for producing the system are Samsung and Sony.
