A Brief History of the Blu-ray Versus HD DVD War - Article
by Jonas De Jaeger , posted on 23 September 2015 / 10,752 Views
Between 2006 and 2008 a war raged on between two optical disc formats: BD (Blu-ray Disc) and HD DVD (High Density Digital Versatile Disc), with Sony and Toshiba as their major backers, respectively. The war resembled an earlier conflict between Betamax and VHS and was, of course, eventually won by the Blu-ray format.
With the commercialization of High Definition (HD) televisions, there was a need for a new disc medium that could store the large amounts of data required for HD videos. In 2002, the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) was founded by nine companies, including Sony (its initial name was the ‘Blu-ray Disc Founder Group').
Other companies in the DVD Forum (the group of DVD-developing companies) were split over the decision to join the BDA. Their main concerns were the high price of developing the discs and (at the time) the big visual differences between BD and DVD. They decided to create their own format: HD DVD.
When Sony announced the PlayStation 3 at E3 2005, the firm also announced that the system would be equipped with the brand new Blu-ray technology. Sony wanted to use the PS3 to promote Blu-ray in similar fashion to how the PS2 had made DVD more popular. Microsoft decided to stick with the DVD format for the Xbox 360 believing that the DVD's storage capacity would be sufficient. However, they would later release a HD DVD add-on to support the rival platform.
With the horrors of the costly format war between Betamax and VHS still on their minds, both parties got together to create a unified format. They both had different technical preferences, so the talks did not proceed smoothly. The cost and storage size of both formats were also issues. HD DVD could store less data (30 GB, whereas a BD can store up to 50 GB of data), but was also cheaper to make (DVD producing plants were also capable of making HD DVDs, whereas they required extensive changes to produce Blu-ray discs). Another major hurdle was the division of royalties that would be earned by the different companies. Members of the BDA felt like they missed out on too many royalties with DVD and so wanted to get more out of the next format.
Even though there was some promising initial progress, it was clear by the summer of 2005 that the attempt at creating a unified format had failed and both parties went their own way. War was coming. In September 2005 Toshiba announced that the HD DVD launch would be delayed from late 2005 to early 2006. The advantage of releasing earlier than Blu-ray would not be as strong because of this decision.
One month later, two film studios who were exclusive to HD DVD (Paramount and Warner Bros.) announced that they would actually be releasing their movies on both formats. At that moment in time, Universal Studios remained as the only major exclusive backer of the HD DVD format.
In March 2006 Toshiba announced yet another delay for its HD DVD players of one month. Despite the delays, however, HD DVD players still beat their Blu-ray counterparts to market. The first BD player (created by Samsung) was released in June 2006, two months later. On top of that, the Blu-ray players had a fair share of hardware issues. Because of this, and a higher price tag for BD players, HD DVD took an early lead.
However, things started to change and the tide began to turn when Sony released the PlayStation 3 in November 2006 (March 2007 in Europe). Not only was it the best Blu-ray player at the time, it was also the cheapest, despite its hefty price tag of 600 dollars (60GB version). Microsoft's HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 was not very popular and did little to increase the market share of the HD DVD format. After the release of the PS3, HD DVD quickly lost its lead in software sales, but Blu-ray didn't initially take like a duck to water either. BD sales did, however, increase faster than HD DVD sales over time.
Despite the increased popularity of Blu-ray, the format was dealt a big blow in the summer of 2007. Two studios - Paramount and DreamWorks - announced that they would only be releasing their movies in the HD DVD format. They cited the lower production costs of HD DVD and better technological opportunities of the format as being the key reasons behind the decision, although it was later discovered that both companies were paid handsomely for their commitment to HD DVD, receiving promotional campaigns and hard cash.
Still, Blu-ray struck an important first victory with the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix from Warner Bros. The movie was released on both formats, but the Blu-ray version proved the most popular version. This likely influenced a decision that would prove to be a huge blow to Toshiba and the other HD DVD backers.
In the beginning of 2008, Warner Bros. announced its intention to drop HD DVD support completely (rumor has it that Warner Bros. was paid hundreds of millions of dollars for this decision, but this has never been confirmed). This must have come as a huge shock to Toshiba - the company cancelled its appearance at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas which commenced a few days later. Toshiba openly expressed its disappointment over Warner's decision but remained committed to its format. The company also announced huge price cuts (up to fifty percent off certain players) in hopes of regaining lost market share.
Despite this aggressive strategy, Toshiba could not turn the tide of the war. The domino effect had well and truly begun. Other film studios followed Warner's example and abandoned the HD DVD format. Retailers began to back BD exclusively one by one and, at this stage, it was widely believed that Blu-ray had complete victory within its grasp.
Then, on February 19th 2008, Toshiba announced that it would stop manufacturing HD DVD players. Universal Studios, still backing HD DVD exclusively at that point, announced its decision to support the Blu-ray format as well. Microsoft later announced that it would cease the production of the HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, but mentioned nothing about a possible BD player add-on. The war was over.
Despite winning the format war, Blu-ray never managed to fully replace DVD. Even now, DVDs are still purchased by consumers in huge amounts, and Blu-ray also faces strong competition from streaming services like Netflix.
Looking back on it, Sony's commitment to Blu-ray, especially in the form of the PlayStation 3, gave it the extra edge needed to win the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray format war. Before the PlayStation 3's release, HD DVD was leading the race, mainly due to a lower price and more identifiable name. But, quite suddenly, millions of people owned Blu-ray players. Victory became almost inevitable after that.
This all came at a huge cost for Sony, though. Blu-ray technology was new and expensive to manufacture, so despite its expensive price tag of 599 dollars the company still made initial losses of about 200 dollars per PlayStation 3 system sold. The price tag also, of course, hit Sony in terms of console market share and the PS3 struggled to gather momentum early on in its life cycle. In some senses this proved a pyrrhic victory for Sony, if not for Blu-ray as a format.
More Articles
Fun fact: because MS uses the blu-ray drive in the XBO, they have to pay royalties to Sony.
to the BDA...
Guess who else is a member of the BDA. Microsoft!
All Blu-rays also use the VC-1 codec, created by Microsoft, so Sony is actually paying royalties to Microsoft for that. Sony also has to pay for using Blu-ray.
There's really no positive way to slice it, no matter how you look at it. Sony is paying Microsoft a lot more than Microsoft is paying Sony, and it'll likely always be that way.
Very nice article, good read.
Blu-ray beating HD DVD was definitely a huge win for consumers and particularly for the game industry. HD DVD was a disastrously poor format by comparison.
This was Sony's chance to make up for the failure of betamax so they really put their backs into it.
HD DVD's looked and sounded better than most Blu-rays at the time though so, I don't now what you're talking about.
HD DVD was superior what are you talking about.
Please explain why it was better for consumers? More expensive disc to manufacture means higher cost to the consumer, worse quality video and less options, serious DRM which hampers consumers use, etc...
I admit since BD won they have surpassed HDDVD but when it launched, it was the inferior product by far.
Fantastic article. I didn't know half of the info about this format war. Makes you wonder what will happen when digital really starts to take over.
Thanks for writing this. Not enough people understand the major role that this war had in the PS3's history.
nice article i really enjoyed
On Another Fun Fact: WiiU's Disc format is based on HD DVDs... sadly isn't popular there either...
BTW never had the chance to watch a HD DVD player or Disc, anyone know how it omapred in terms of visual fidelity to BD?
HD DVD's were considered superior in quality at the time.
Sony and Panasonic will reveal 300gb Bluray this year
Nice article. It was a good read, did not know most of thae info that goes down on that format war.
Nice article of an interesting time in entertainment technology. I made out well on an HD DVD player and many HD DVD movies on 2/19/2008 (or close to it). I really liked the platform, and enjoyed it for at least 1-2 years after the war ended.
No offense but there is literally no difference between Blu Ray and HD DVD except that HD DVD is inferior.
No offense but there is literally no difference between Blu Ray and HD DVD except that HD DVD is inferior.
There was a HUGE difference. HD DVD's looked better most of the time. If you had done your homework, you would have already known this. It's well documented.
Stupid fekking companies always failing to realise formats invariably collapse down to one and wasting millions of dollars trying to win out. If you consider that agreement on a single format could have been reached in 2005 if there had been more good will, and less money grubbing we probably would have ended up with a superior technology by combining the R&D and know how of all parties. Xbox 360 may have had the HD disc format built in rather than an add-on peripheral, and PS3 might have been able to release taking a smaller loss, and possibly sooner.
Ain't competition grand? We ended up with a lesser technology than we would have if there had been genuine collaboration by all players. Which is also what happened with VHS vs Betamax. Despite not wanting to repeat history, greed got in the way and history ended up repeating itself.
It wasn't really a money grubbing war. You had Sony with a format which was arguable superior but far more expensive and far more technologically troublesome. costs were very significant, Sony had basically lost the Blu-ray HD-DVD war hence the very large cheques that were written to studios, industry and consumers had chosen HD-DVD, sony bought victory out of the jaws of defeat.
Money grubbing came in the form of who owned the format. BD Founders wanted the whole pie. If they'd given equal share to prevent competition we'd have had a superior format with no war. Gotta agree with Binary..
Blue ray discs are still too expensive.
