Blu-ray Disc Association London Press Conference

Yesterday (Tuesday February 12th, 2008), the Blu-ray Disc Association invited a selection of journalists and industry insiders to London for a press conference, which was arranged to mark the sale of 2 million Blu-ray Discs across Europe. The event was held in 3Rooms, a swanky East End apartment-styled venue which was set up to promote the Playstation brand, but is home to all sorts of events. Being Sony's homely pad, it was appropriately decked out with BRAVIA HDTVs (mainly KDL-46X2000s, if you're curious), and their VPL-VW100 1080p projector, which were demonstrating Blu-ray demo reels.



Disney's Stephen Foulser initiated the proceedings and explained that following CES and the announcement that Warner Home Video would be phasing out support for the HD DVD format, sales of Blu-ray hardware and software in the USA had soared to sky-high levels. And, as such, the BDA's focus is quite rightly now on how to grow Blu-ray Disc, rather than how to compete against its quickly-fading rival. However, he noted, the situation with HD in Europe is still quite different to the US, where HD broadcasts are plentiful. Blu-ray Disc, he said, is poised to fill Europe's HD content gap.

The press conference actually wasn't a press conference in the traditional sense, because after this brief introduction, we were encouraged to walk around freely and talk to the various representatives and executive, rather than sit down and take notes.

Bootup time a priority for Sharp

Sharp were on hand demonstrating their Blu-ray Disc player, the AQUOS BD-HP20H, bravely pitting it against the ever-popular Playstation 3. I specifically asked Sharp when we'd see Blu-ray Players that were as quick to operate as current DVD players, because the slow boot-up times of most BD (and HD DVD) players is a slight annoyance for me. I was glad to hear that this unit takes only 15 seconds. So unusual is this fast boot-up time that Sharp actively promote the feature in the player's marketing blurb, and mention that it's the fastest in the industry for a dedicated BD Player.

Hitachi's Blu-ray camcorders

Hitachi were also present, demonstrating their Blu-ray Disc camcorders. I've always found this interesting, because I've always considered BD a format for cinephiles to watch feature films or TV shows on, rather than shoot their own home movies. Given that the PS3 is currently competing a little bit too well against dedicated Blu-ray players, though, it's perhaps not suprising that Hitachi have instead chosen to fill this empty gap in the format. Either way, it's good to see more devices using the technology.



Explaining the superiority of their camcorders, Hitachi's representative reminded me that Hitachi's unit records in Full HD (1920x1080i) and stores the result on a BD-R (recordable) or BD-RE (rewritable) disc utilising AVC/MPEG-4 compression, and most importantly, the resultant discs will play in any Blu-ray Disc player in the same way that a Hollywood film would. By comparison, another disc-based HD consumer recording solution is the AVCHD format, which records 1440x1080 MPEG-4 video onto a red-laser DVD disc, which will only play on AVCHD compatible DVD players. Not unreasonably, Hitachi assumed that this mish-mash of standards would cause confusion ("why does this DVD not play on my DVD player?"), so took the more direct route. As someone who's used standard-def broadcast cameras, I have to say that the images being played from Hitachi's device were very impressive indeed, so look forward to seeing more of the same from them.

The studios talk

After feeding us up, the BDA moved us upstairs to a projection room, where Sony, LionsGate, Fox and Disney each played a showreel. Sony's emphasised titles such as RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION (which, assuming is the same as the American disc which is already released, will have a sublime video transfer), whereas LionsGate instead chose to show pre-release footage from EARTH, and then reminded us that if scenic beauty wasn't our thing, SAW 4 is also around the corner and will feature the world's first "Molog" feature. What is a molog, you ask? According to LionsGate, it's a "movie blog", and users will be able to blog while watching the film thanks to BD Live and its internet connectivity. I'm not quite sure how this is going to work, though. Also, for the BD release of WAR, we're promised an online Street Fighter style beat-em-up game.

Next, David Stevens, the International VP for Fox, played a demo reel which concentrated solely on ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR: REQUIEM. The demo reel featured the line, "The future is Blu! The future is BD Live!", which is sure to delight owners of Profile 1.0 and 1.1 players. AVP: REQUIEM is said to feature a real-time first-person shooter style action game, "ALIEN VERSUS PREDATOR VERSUS YOU", and apparently, you'll be able to play "with your friends around the world". Another point explicitly made in the Fox reel was that BD Live features "go beyond a web-connected player", which I interpreted as a comparison against HD DVD's already existing (and honestly, quite unthrilling) web connectivity.

Stephen Foulser from Disney/Buena Vista was up next. He reiterated the point of 2 million Blu-ray Discs being sold across Europe, and then stopped to correct himself: it turns out that the number now is actually 2.37 million. In the time that it took for GfK (the market research institute) to approve the sales figures, they had risen substantially, said Stephen. (Looking back to the last BDA press conference DVD Times attended, at IFA in August 2007, the BDA then boasted that "over half a million" BD discs had been sold across Europe. This, then, would appear to be a not-exactly-shabby growth!)

Disney's presentation flew the Blu flag even moreso than Sony's. From this reel, you really get the perception that they are 110% committed to the format. It lasted for a long time and was the only reel to specifically name all of the other studios also backing Blu-ray Disc. It also specifically and openly mentioned HD DVD, and trumpeted BD's superior capacity and data transfer rate. Not only this, but it acknowledged customers' fear of backing the losing format, and explained that they should worry no longer, safe in the knowledge that they have "picked the right format" (I believe those were the exact words).

All of this talk of competition was followed quickly by a shot of an aircraft exploding, crashing and burning, taken from PEARL HARBOR. Oh Disney, you sly devils! It's a shame that I don't have a copy to share here (copyright reasons), because Disney should really show this to people other than the press. Disney then reminded us that SLEEPING BEAUTY is due on BD later this year, and again reiterated that this is "a statement of intent to the product" (that is, Disney thinks Blu-ray is worthy of such a classic title).

Bob from the BDA Press Office then walked in and briefly mentioned Toshiba's recent promotion of their HD DVD players' upscaling features, but then made the difficult-to-contest point that the Playstation 3 is "the best SD upscaler, bar none", before adding "I want to make that very clear". (The quality of the scaling in the PS3 is very impressive, without a doubt, so this argument does indeed blow a rather large hole in Toshiba's strategy from a quality perspective).

Downloadable movies, and more Disney

Before leaving, I talked to David from Fox, and discussed Downloadable movies with him. A number of sites seem to think that this is the future of home video delivery. I told him that the idea of over-compressed, region-restricted, non-physical films replacing hard copies on disc made me want to retch (although not in those exact words). David's answer put a huge smile on my face, because he told me that although Fox recognises downloads as a new route which they support, every piece of research they've commissioned has came to the conclusion that packaged media will be around for a long time yet. Issues of bandwidth and speed, in particular, are why the studio's latest releases featuring managed digital copy (where the user can store a portable copy of the film on their iPod) have done so by copying from disc, rather than over the web. On top of that, David also acknowledged the desire to own a physical product rather than paying to watch a virtual one.

Lastly, I spoke to Stephen from Disney, and bugged him about when we'd see more 2D Disney movies on BD (live action, live shmacktion). As most people will be aware, Disney operates on an unusual cycle whereby their classic movies are released and then re-released approximately every seven years (Disney's US division uses the term "Going back into the Disney vault"). From now on, though, all of Disney's 2D classics will be released on DVD as well as BD, simultaneously. (Personally, I'd really like to see certain titles from Disney's Florida feature animation division appear sooner rather than later). When asked, I mentioned that my favourite Blu-ray Disc so far is, appropriately enough, RATATOUILLE (because it actually is, not because I was speaking to a Disney rep!), which incidentally has just appeared on these shores. Not only is it a fantastic film, but while watching it, the quality of the compression is so good that it's almost hard to believe that you're watching lossy compressed video at all. I asked Stephen if he was aware of the specifics behind the video transfer, which involved Rick Sayre, a Pixar employee who was not only involved in making the film, but is also supposedly something of a home theatre fan. "That wouldn't surprise me", he said, noting that Pixar like to keep things under control at all times.

I left the event, glad to see that Sony, as well as the other studios - most notably Disney - were so confident with the direction things are heading in. Not only that, but I'm glad that we're coming closer than ever to a single-format world. No matter how affordable or excellent HD DVD could also be, one format is the only way forward. Hopefully, the BDA can convince enough customers that their "Upconverting" DVD players are no match for a proper High Definition disc format, and that they should feed their HD-starved display some Blu-ray Disc.