Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment president Bob Chapek had some harsh words for HD-DVD backers, saying that those in the HD-DVD camp are prolonging the format war even though it is clear that Blu-ray will win. During a two-day Blu-ray festival in Hollywood, Chapek said the following:

Blu-ray's competition's attempts to sell less than the best will inevitably be trumped by what we stated from the very beginning: That the Blu-ray technology is not a half-step format that will sell consumers short, but rather it is a revolutionary technology that will change the way we view movies for the long term.

And we firmly believe that revolutionary technology, my friends, is indisputably, undeniably and inevitably Blu-ray.

Chapek wasn't alone in chastising HD-DVD backers. Fox's home entertainment president Mike Dunn earlier this week blasted Paramount for switching to HD-DVD. Dunn referred to the rumored US$ 50 million payout that Paramount supposedly received, accusing the studio of "taking the bait".

A group of major Hollywood studios and leading consumer electronics manufacturers have announced that they will be extending the 5 Free Blu-ray Movies promo through this year's holiday season.

The promo goes like this: Consumers who buy any qualifying Blu-ray player - this includes the Sony PlayStation 3 home video game console - between now and January 31, 2008 will be able to choose 5 free Blu-ray titles from a total of 18 titles being offered by participating studios.

Titles available in the promo are Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Wild Hogs, American Psycho, Chain Reaction, The Devil's Rejects, Flight of the Phoenix, Full Metal Jacket, Hart's War, The Last Waltz, Omen 666, The Patriot, The Prestige, Species, Stir of Echoes, Superman: The Movie, SWAT, Swordfish and Ultraviolet. All of these titles will be available through mail-in redemption.

Participating hardware manufacturers include Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony Electronics and Sony Computer Entertainment. The studios offering the free Blu-ray movies are Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, Lionsgate, MGM Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video.

With Disney finally jumping on the Blu-ray bandwagon, they've already released several well-known titles, allowing everyone to relive their favorite films in high definition clarity. However, not everything is as perfect as it seems. Some discrepancies on the new format has been noted by several forum members on AVS.

The release of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was noted to have a few glaring visual problems after its release last May. AVS forum member Denner first posted the report of the discrepancies early last week. And now, screen captures taken by master AVS screencapper, Xylon show significant framing problems between the DVD and the new Blu-ray formats. Several scenes were found to have a badly clipped aspect ratio compared to the original film on DVD.

 

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has assured everyone that they will be investigating the matter, however no official statement has been issued yet at this time. Only time will tell if Disney will be able to remedy the situation and be able to recover from this little faux pas.

In a press release by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment (WDSHE), several Disney titles will be taking a big step into next generation media formats.

One of these innovations, the studio announced, will be the transition of the timeless classic, "Sleeping Beauty", onto the Platinum Blu-ray release format. Its release on Blu-ray marks a breakthrough for the technology's acceptance onto the customer market, similar to the release of Pinocchio on VHS as well as Snow White on DVD.

It was also revealed that the action-adventure "National Treasure" will be the WDSHE's first ever BD-Live Blu-ray Disc title. BD-Live Discs add network connectivity to the list of regular functions and increases mandatory local storage capability to 1 GB.

Also, two more titles, namely Disney/Pixar's "Finding Nemo" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe", will both be released with full motion picture-in-picture bonus features.

Bob Chapek, the President of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment had this to say regarding this about the new releases:

The strides that we've made with this format are just the tip of the iceberg and we are confident that consumers will be astounded by the level of entertainment that can only be achieved by using the maximum capacity of the Blu-ray Disc format. All of these wonderful titles will appeal to the ever growing Blu-ray market and we are extremely proud to offer these in the most pristine and robust presentations ever for Disney fans around the globe.

Everyone can expect all of these to be released next year, starting with "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" in spring, "National Treasure" in summer and topping it off with Disney/Pixar's "Finding Nemo" and "Sleeping Beauty" in fall.

 

Looks like the HD-DVD format is being left out in the cold this holiday season. Following Blockbuster's announcement of a Blu-ray exclusivity deal, this new announcement from Target is looking like the format wars' final nail on the coffin.

The Associated Press has just released a statement that Target, second-largest retail outlet in the US, will be bringing the Blu-ray under the spotlight this holiday season. They're going to be pushing up Blu-ray players and discs all the way to the front displays, specifically, the endcaps of the store aisles.

Sony's BDP-S300 Blu-ray player will be sold come October for US$ 499, and flanking it on the shelves would be Blu-ray movies from Sony Pictures and Walt Disney.

It might be worth of note that Target would still continue selling HD-DVD items, like the Xbox 360's HD-DVD add-on. But it seems as if, on the disc player side of things, the retail chain will only carry Blu-ray players from Sony and not HD-DVD players (with an exception to Toshiba's HD-DVD player which is available on the Target website). So, like the deal with Blockbuster, Sony's hand on Target looks like a pretty secure lock-out.

Target is to make its official announcement of the deal with Sony come Thursday.

Everything fares well towards Sony when talking about high-def format wars. Most of us already know about Blockbuster's stance on selling Blu-rays exclusively, or Blu-ray outselling HD-DVD five to one. It's almost a perfect stage for Sony to dominate this generation like what VHS did to Betamax. European antitrust regulators, however, have their eyes on what could be happening behind the curtains.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, Walt Disney Co., Twentieth Century Fox, Lions Gate Entertainment, and MGM offer full exclusive support to Sony's format. Pretty much every major studio except Universal Pictures have their money on the leading horse. Universal Pictures gives love only to HD-DVD, while Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. aren't taking sides.

"The commission is investigating whether improper tactics were used to suppress competition and persuade the studios to back their format," reports the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd testified that they have been sending letters to Hollywood studios in an attempt to gather evidence.

According to WSJ, "The HD DVD camp has been lobbying the commission to draw attention to Blu-ray's tactics in the movie capital in a bid to force more studios to put their product on HD DVD, according to people familiar with the situation."

More on the investigation should come up as competition heats up, with holiday season coming and sales expected to skyrocket. We'll keep you posted on any new discoveries and revelations, so watch this space.

High-Def Digest recently disclosed the transcript of an investor call with Walt Disney Company CEO Robert Iger, wherein he made his, well, unequivocal support for Blu-ray: "We made our bed with Blu-ray because we believed in that format for a variety of reasons..." Iger lays it down: "the single greatest thing we can do now is not to waffle" in the middle of the (so-called) format wars.

Speaking about which, Iger believed that it was that format war, plus the high price point of the players, that was holding back Blu-ray's market performance, but he's willing to predict that those price points will come down by Christmas season. And the other thing he wants to note is that (as far as he can see) the format war really is confined to the US: "In other markets where next-gen DVD is starting to penetrate, Blu-ray is winning, and substantially; so much so there isn’t even a perceived format war."

One of the things High-Def noted of Iger was the guy's "aggressiveness" in the digital media market - example, being the first studio head to embrace iTunes. And now Blu-ray. Wonder if the "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" home video will be out in time for Christmas?

  

From the looks of it, Blu-ray is getting all the support it needs...and maybe even more. Recently, the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) announced that Sun Microsystems will join their board. Why? Sun's Java powers the interactivity of Blu-ray, so it would be more surprising if they weren't given that illustrious seat in the BDA board. Among Sun's future seatmates in the boardroom are Apple, Sony Corporation, Twentieth Century Fox, Walt Disney Pictures, Samsung among many other big time companies.

In the still-running Berlin IFA, it seems that Blu-ray is gaining more support compared to its adversary, HD-DVD. Mike Dunn, President of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, announced a roster of 8 films that will be released on Blu-ray, including Ridley Scott's Holy Wars epic movie, Kingdom of Heaven (Director's cut). The title boasts of extensive use of Java-driven interactivity, including a video game that uses scenes from the film.

On a more personal note, we would like to thank TheProfessor for the tip.

Dolby is teaming up with German virtual reality company Infitec GmbH to develop a 3D projection system for theaters. The new system will integrate Infitec's 3-D technology with Dolby's digital cinema playback system. Dolby says its system would be cheaper because it allows a 3D image to be projected directly onto standard white screens.

The 3D system developed by Real D requires theaters to put up a special silver screens -- less than 300 installed all over the world -- while movie goers to wear polarized plastic glasses. Another system uses standard white screen, movie goers must wear expensive battery-charged glasses to view the 3-D images. Dolby's upcoming system will allow people to watch 3-D movies on white screens using the cheap plastic polarized glasses. Hollywood execs are hoping Digital 3D systems to bring consumers back to movie theaters.