03 September 2007 – The HD DVD disc format is inferior to Blu-ray and does not offer enough capacity for modern day HD movies. That’s the view of Frank Simonis, the chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association.
"The majority of Hollywood studios have chosen Blu-ray not because we have asked them to – we let them make up their own mind. They choose Blu-ray because it is the superior format," Simonis said.
"For Disney to do the movie Cars in HD including the interactivity, a 50GB disc is needed. Pirates Of The Caribbean you couldn’t do on an HD DVD disc. You’d have to have multiple discs. How can that be a good thing?
"Should you stop half way and say ‘let’s have a pee and then continue’? No that does not work. The movie is that long. And HD DVD is simply not good enough to carry that, or it would discriminate the quality.
HD DVD too small?
"Take Disney’s Cars. You look at the depth of the graphical animation in that movie and HD DVD would discriminate that part. Therefore the studio’s choice was clear. HD DVD is not good enough. Blu-ray is the only format which has the 50GB.
"HD DVD tried to counter that with the statement that they could make a three-layer disc, but that’s just a statement. I have never seen any product that can handle that, and nor did I see the title ever coming alive. They create mist in a market where they should in fact clarify the situation and satisfy the consumer’s needs," Simonis said.
He also went on to say that it is not true that HD DVD players are cheaper to produce than Blu-ray ones. He said that Toshiba and other HD DVD manufacturers are heavily subsidising the players to make them a more attractive proposition.
"Both format players use the same back-end decoders so the video and the audio is nearly similar. And I can’t imagine that an optical mechanism for HD DVD and Blu-ray has a big spread in cost – the expensive part is the blue laser. Technology-wise, there is not a major difference.
"They do something else in their marketing [to make this possible]. Now, I don’t know how deep their pockets are but I hear the rumour that they spent $150m just to get one studio over. Perhaps they like to play that game, and I wish them a lot of luck.
"Because at the end of the day we believe in fair competition between the different hardware manufacturers to make a business all based on our own model. Not on subsidised pricing in the products."
Frank Simonis is also the senior director of communications at Philips.
