The latest on Blu-ray

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[Hollywood, Calif.] At a two-day media event sponsored by the Blu-ray Disc Association and Walt Disney Home Entertainment on October 29-30, journalists got a little "swag" (mostly movies we now have to review--thanks, guys) and saw lots of swagger from the Blu-ray camp.

Though there were brief moments of evasiveness and defensiveness (mostly from Fox), executives from Blu-ray studios and electronics companies were remarkably candid in their exchanges with some 50 journalists representing online and international media. I was one of those invited to attend, and I enjoyed the parties as much as anybody. Meeting Brad Bird and John Ratzenberger was a personal highlight, but I have to tell you that most of the time was spent interviewing execs and furiously scribbling notes. Take 50 journalists to the unveiling of a new Panasonic Blu-ray player, for example, then give them three hours of down time and you won't find a single person walking around Hollywood. They're all at their computers, writing stories. This was a big announcement--probably the biggest news to come out of the festival. Aside from Fox's announcement that they would soon experiment with downloadable copies of their films, the rest of what we heard was an update on the State of Blu.

In a nutshell
--The Blu-ray Disc Association, directed by 18 people representing the board of directors companies and some 200 other contributing and general member firms, is in the middle of a nationwide Mall Tour to educate consumers about Blu-ray. To a person, they're convinced that this format "war" will end when the public is better informed about Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD.
--Blu-ray has more backers, we were reminded. We didn't need to be. Just look at the BDA board members: Apple, Dell, HP, Hitachi, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Sun Microsystems, TDK, Thomson, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney, and Warner Bros. That's some group. The most recent to announce exclusive support of Blu-ray is Home Theater Specialists of America, the largest home theater installation consortium in the nation. That's also big-time, since these folks depend on word-of-mouth customer satisfaction for their livelihoods, and their decision to back one format exclusively was based on a poll of all their members working in the home entertainment field. Blu-ray was what they recommended to the 11 million "luxury lifestyle" clients they serviced a whopping 92 percent of the time.
--Yes, it was mentioned that Paramount and DreamWorks Animation bolted from the ranks and went over to HD-DVD exclusively, which execs said was "a mistake." Now all consumer eyes will be on Warner Bros., the only major studio releasing movies in both formats. While we were there, a rumor even popped up that Warner Bros. was reconsidering their position. Not true.
--Asked why even 50-gig discs don't have more bonus features on Blu-ray, reps from two different studio told us that at this stage they are devoted to quality first, and bonus features second. Right now their big priority is "maxing out" the 50-gig discs with high-as-possible bit rates on the audio and video to get the absolute best picture and sound--to, in fact, replicate the theatrical master. Fox, meanwhile, seems to be taking the lead in the development of new Blu-ray disc bonus-feature technology.
--Andy Parsons, president of the Blu-ray Disc Association, told me they were well aware of playback issues and that addressing them was also a high priority.
--Winning the HD war seemed a foregone conclusion to this bunch, who in private conversations seemed surprisingly concerned that the longer the war persists, the more consumer casualties there will be . . . on the other side.

Take no prisoners
Forget peaceful coexistence (or at least unfriendly competition along the lines of Macs vs. PCs). Every executive I spoke with said that this won't end in a shared market, and that they were all willing to do whatever it took to win. This is indeed a war, they said, and reiterated that two technologies like this is NOT good for consumers. The numbers they gave us and their attitudes made them sound more like the Boston Red Sox after a 3-0 lead than the Colorado Rockies. To a person, they were convinced that Blu-ray will win out. It's inevitable, they said. Their confidence seemed so real that you wondered what they knew that they weren't telling you . . . and I wasn't the only journalist wondering that.

At a presentation at the Little Theater on the Fox Studios lot, we watched demonstrations of new Fox Blu-ray technologies (mostly Picture-in-Picture) and were given a summary of why they're convinced this is a war that, the sooner ended, the less consumers who buy that other product will be scorched. What we heard from Fox at their presentation is, I'm guessing, the sort of thing that people will be hearing during the Mall Tour:

--Blu-ray has more technology going for it
--Blu-ray has more space capacity
--Blu-ray is more flexible (meaning it will play on more machines and media)
--Blu-ray has more studio support
--Blu-ray has more support of Hollywood filmmakers
--Blu-ray has more movie titles
--Blu-ray has more games

Blu-ray is also more expensive, but Fox and execs from other Blu-ray electronics companies and studios said, in effect, that you get what you pay for. They scoffed that certain unnamed megastores are pushing HD-DVD players for under $100--not because they seemed to fear being undersold, but because they said consumers are being duped into buying an inferior product (1080i, not 1080p) and are being confused by an online HD-DVD campaign that's prolonging this format war. I guess that explains why the Blu-ray folks were inviting online journalists to hear and relay their side of it.

On the Digital Rights Management front, Fox, who've taken some heat for using BD+ copyright protection, announced that they would "experiment" with downloadable copies of films. In January 2008 when "Sunshine" is released, those who purchase the DVD will find an insert inside with an individual code on it that will entitle the consumer to go to the Fox Web site and download two copies of the film: one for a personal computer, and the other for portable media. "We want consumers to try it and get used to it," they said, before they'd decide how extensive or how permanent the policy would become. We were shown the download process (which took only minutes) and saw a playback that looked very close to the original print.

Numbers game
At a "Blu-ray Lounge" at the Level 3 Club in the Hollywood & Highland complex, with catering by Wolfgang Puck's (with "Blu" martinis the signature drink), a Sony executive announced that they had just sold their one-millionth disc. Cha-CHING . . . clinking of glasses. That's not the only number we were given, of course. Here are others, all of which came from independent sources, not the Blu-ray Disc Association:

--Since January 2007, Blu-ray has outsold HD-DVD by a margin of 2-1.
-- Blu-ray software sales account for 61 percent of the high definition software sales from the inception of the High Definition optical disc, up from 47 percent as of January 1, 2007.
--16 of the Top-20 selling HD titles in 2007 were Blu-rays. Only "300" in HD-DVD (#3), "Planet Earth: The Complete Series" (#5), "The Departed" (#11), and "Batman Begins" (#12) made the Top-20 from the rival camp. Top Blu-ray sellers, in order, were "300," "Casino Royale," "The Departed," "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "Planet Earth: The Complete Series," "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," "Apocalypto," "Ghost Rider," "The Prestige," "Night at the Museum," "Black Hawk Down," "Déjà vu," "Happy Feet," "Crank," "Superman Returns," and "Underworld Evolution."
--Coming up between now and January are a bunch of titles that, we were told, collectively pulled in 1.5 billion at the box office.

But of course none of this is surprising. Though enough minor studios release titles on HD-DVD to make for a pretty even match-up (37 studios releasing on HD-DVD, compared to 36 on Blu-ray) Blu-ray has more major-studio support, and we were told that consumers are going to start seeing a slew of big titles coming from those big studios that they expect will dwarf the competition. Frankly, though, the number that impressed me most was actually given in response to a different question. Read on.

Playback issues
Still apparently sensitive because of recent problems with "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," a Fox spokesman snapped, "So, are we supposed to dumb it down?" Though they were defensive and (more than a few journalists thought) arrogant, they had a point. Somebody has to lead, and Fox seems determined to do so, rather than sit back and wait for hardware companies to make all the breakthroughs. They were developing a technology for the future, not the present, they said, and it's still a fluid technology. As a representative from Fox put it, with that testy little edge in his voice, "Three out of 13 players didn't play "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.' Another way to look at it is that 10 players had no problem, and the three that did were fixed very quickly with firmware upgrades. It's a non-story." Good point. But did you have to be so darned snippy about it?

I asked the president of the Blu-ray Association if they were going to share technology more and communicate better to avoid such playback issues in the future, and he said that it was a high priority for their members. That was something confirmed by Gordon Ho, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Brand Marketing and Product Management for Walt Disney. But the most convincing thing to me was Parsons' reminder that of COURSE there are less playback issues with HD-DVD. Not counting dual machines, only one electronics company manufactures HD-DVD players--Toshiba--whereas Blu-ray players are presently made by eight different electronics companies. That will naturally involve more interfacing issues, and Blu-ray, like HD-DVD, is still in its infancy. Any future issues will be resolved just as quickly or even faster than the "Silver Surfer" problems, Parsons said.

Blu soon?
It wasn't all technology talk, though. At a mill-and-mingle breakfast, Dan Bradley of TheManRoom.com and I sat down with Disney exec Ho and talked new releases. "Sleeping Beauty" had been previously announced as the first classic animated title to be released in Blu-ray, and Ho said that after that October '08 release, Disney would be releasing three to four "Platinum" titles every spring and fall. With noticeable passion he talked about how breathless all the studio brass were when they got their first glimpse of "Sleeping Beauty" on Blu-ray. Ho didn't say so, and there's obviously no timetable, but a big screen demonstration we watched at the "Ratatouille" release party the following evening listed these Disney titles as forthcoming in Blu-ray:

"Aladdin"
"The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"
"Cinderella"
"Dumbo"
"Freaky Friday"
"Lilo & Stitch"
"The Lion King"
"The Little Mermaid"
"The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh"
"Monster's Inc."
"National Treasure"
"101 Dalmatians"
"The Parent Trap"
"Peter Pan"
"Pinocchio"
"Pocahontas"
"The Princess Diaries"
"The Rookie"
"The Santa Clause"
"The Santa Clause 2"
"The Shaggy Dog"
"Tarzan"
"Toy Story 2"

I know I missed at least one, but hey, the slide with the names on it flew by as quickly as those young women dressed as carhops skating through the crowd with malt-shop trays in the "Cars" room.

While we were touring Fox and the Panasonic Hollywood Labs, some of the Blu-ray demo machines listed these titles as showroom options, and I'm assuming that they too will be soon announced as Blu-ray releases:

"The Wedding Crashers"
"Walk the Line"
"The Last Mimzy"

Sacre Blu!
"Ratatoille" director Brad Bird told us that he was "flabbergasted" by the Blu-ray version of his film, and said that as a constant tinkerer he managed to add something to the Blu-ray disc that you didn't see in theaters. Look for a chef's hat on the mouse at film's end that didn't appear in the original. Bird couldn't stop gushing how fantastic his film looked in HD, and how indistinguishably close it was to the original master. When I review the Blu-ray of "Ratatoille," I'll try to post a complete transcript of Bird's Q&A session. Stay tuned!

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