To encourage Lions Gate Studios to release movies on the HD DVD format
- by: Roger Stern
- recipient: Home Video, Lions Gate Studios
PLEASE NOTE -
This petition has been replaced - the new site is at http://www.hdnowonline.com
PLEASE sign it there - we have over 2,300 supporters now!
This petition has been replaced - the new site is at http://www.hdnowonline.com
PLEASE sign it there - we have over 2,300 supporters now!
Dear Lions Gate.
We ask that you support the HD DVD Hi Definition disc by releasing titles to this format.
While we understand that you initially decided to support Bluray exclusively, the situation today is significantly different than promised a year ago.
HD DVD has successfully launched to market, but we believe that Bluray still has grave problems to overcome.
Given this situation, we feel you may lose sales if you only support Bluray.
1) HD_DVD players have shipped earlier (April 15th 2006) and are available at a much lower price ($500, vs $1,000 to $1,800 for Bluray players). This will ensure rapid adoption. Tens of thousands of players have already been sold and hundreds of thousands of movie titles have been purchased. The vast majority of users are pleased with their players. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=670945
2) HD DVD delivers tremendous quality. The majority of the releases have been on 30 Gig Dual Layer discs, encoded in the VC1 video codec. Video and audio quality has surpassed even D-Theater tapes.
3) Conversely, Bluray does not seem to have solved some key manufacturing problems for Dual Layer discs yet, and will be launching their format, in June or July, on single-layer 25 Gig discs. Worse, they apparently will launch using Mpeg 2 on this smaller disc. We believe these factors may result in poorer Bluray quality at launch than HD DVD discs. Therefore, some users have chosen to buy only 1st Gen HD DVD players, but not 1st Gen Bluray players. Sony has stated that they feel 18 Mbps is the best data rate to run Mpeg 2 at http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article.asp?section_id=2&article_id=1441&page_number=2
4) Online posts indicate that the first Bluray Single-disc releases may only be 20 Gigs, as they have reduced the size of the data layer, to reduce read problems at the outer edges of the disc and increase production yields. http://www.hddvd.org/messageboard/topic/10/22837/
5) It is said in some forums that production yields on Bluray Single Layer discs may be only 33% to 50%. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7707846&&#post7707846 For Dual-Layer BD ROMs, it is said that the rejection rates in manufacture are currently between 60% and 75%. http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2006/4/emw377427.htm and http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7667705&&#post7667705
6) HD DVD player specifications mandate the inclusion of decoders for some of the newest “Advanced Audio Codecs”. As a result, HD DVD players include decoders for Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) and Dolby True HD (DTHD). They also include the ability to extract DTS streams from the new DTS-HD format. Therefore, HD DVD owners and users can enjoy advanced audio content of HD DVD releases on their home systems today, via HDMI, analog and even SPDIF optical/coax (via legacy DTS recoding).
7) Conversely, Bluray player specifications do not require onboard decoders for these audio standards, instead only requiring legacy DD and DTS support. Therefore owners and users of 1st Gen Bluray players may not be able to enjoy these audio formats. Nor can these advanced audio streams be output from the first generation Bluray players to an external AVR for decoding, since these players do not have HDMI 1.3 connectors, which are required.
8) The upscaling of regular Standard Definition (SD) DVDs in these first HD DVD players has proven to be stunning. Many users are now buying the HD DVD players for that reason, so that they can continue to make the best of their existing SD DVD libraries until they have HD DVD libraries. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=672983&page=1&pp=30
9) In a poll taken before the HD DVD launch, potential DVD buyers expressed a strong interest in Hi Def players as their next purchase http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=661801
10) In addition, the audio circuits of the players appear to up-sample standard audio formats to 96/24, which provides great sound from CDs and DVDs also.
11) Conversely, not much is yet known about the legacy capabilities of the 1st Gen Bluray players, but it has been said on a few Audio Visual Forums that some cannot read standard CDs, including, apparently, Sony's. It is known from polls online that CD playback is important to prospective buyers of these players http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=661801
12) HD DVD has proven that they can produce “Hybrid” discs that have both HD DVD and SD DVD versions of the movies. This format is desired by consumers, according to a poll on a major A/V forum http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=660189
13) Conversely, Bluray has not been able to successfully manufacture a hybrid disc, and at least one company, JVC, is reported to have given up on their efforts to achieve this. It seems to remain a specification that only exists in theory, not practice.
14) According to a recent poll, buyers and potential buyers of both Hi Definition Disc formats, have mostly chosen to go with HD DVD in the first generation. Even where buyers are choosing to buy 1st Gen players from both formats, most are choosing to buy mainly HD DVD titles where possible, due to concerns about the quality of Mpeg 2 releases on smaller Bluray discs. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=677878&page=1&pp=30
15) Sony had assured many users that Bluray would be the better format and that it would win the format war on this count. We feel it has not delivered on the promise.
We ask that you re-consider your decision to support only one format and add support for the HD DVD format to your announced releases.
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