Warner Bros. Shifts HD DVD Release Dates

Blu-ray now getting preferential treatment

By: Brad Brevet
Published: Friday, January 11th 2008 at 5:13 PM

Well, it seems Warner Bros. is now doing their very best to give exclusive preferential treatment to the Blu-ray media format as they have adjusted the HD DVD and Blu-ray release dates on six of their upcoming high profile high-definition titles. When HD DVD first hit the scene Warner Bros. was one of the first to fully embrace the format and even once Blu-ray became available HD DVD releases still saw the preferential treatment with early releases and so forth. However, with WB going Blu-ray exclusive beginning May 2008 it seems they are now stacking the deck.

First off there was the original delay of a couple of weeks between the DVD release of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and the high definition releases. Well, the HD DVD release is still sitting at February 26th while the Blu-ray release has been moved up to coincide with the DVD release on February 5th.

On top of that here's a list of five other HD DVD titles that have been bumped by a couple of weeks or so, off the day-and-date Blu-ray/DVD release:

• The Invasion moved from January 29 to February 19
• The Brave One moved from February 5 to February 26
• No Reservations moved from February 12 to March 4
• In the Valley of Elah moved from February 19 to March 11
• Michael Clayton moved from February 19 to March 11

It isn't as if this is a sledgehammer blow to HD DVD, but every little thing that stands in the way of putting more movies in more consumers hands hurts the format.