European studios opt for HD-DVD
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The HD format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD continues to rage! While Sony put on its big Playstation 3 to impose the Blu-ray in Europe, founder of rival Toshiba HD-DVD fans the film studios based on the old continent.
Thus, nearly 35 European studios have announced they now offer their products on HD-DVD. At present, the number of studios have opted for the Blu-ray in Europe is less than 10. Among the French studios have opted recently for HD-DVD include Pathe and Studio Canal. Mention will also Filmax, DaPlaneta for Spain or Imagion Nixbu and for Germany.
The independent European film production represents about 30% of the UK market, 50% of sales in France, 40 and 35 to 40% for Germany and Spain. This attraction for the European HD-DVD would be linked to a campaign by Toshiba / Microsoft to highlight the strengths of the format: reduced production cost, price reductions coming HD-DVD decks ... The arrival of HD-DVD decks China expected by the end of the year should also help drive prices down.
On production costs, a specialist in precise duplication:  "a production line HD-DVD costs about 800,000 euros and you can produced 40,000 discs a day with. For Blu-ray, we're talking 1.7 - 1.8 million and a production rate of 10 000 - 15 000 discs per day [...] The financial risk is not comparable, especially for small studios  ».
Moreover, these studios are only interested in very little capacity advantage of Blu-ray offers 50 GB of storage space against 30 GB maximum for HD-DVD.
Source: News Clubic
