Even though dual-format high-definition discs could end the war between Blu-ray and HD DVD formats, Warner Home Video, which developed a disc with both Blu-ray and HD DVD layers, says that it will be rather hard for a single studio to push the new disc type. As a consequence, the world may never see Total HD discs.

“We’re concerned that as the only one publishing on it, it would be hard to make it go. We’re still looking at, though. We’re still talking to retail, but it’s kind of on hold right now,” said Ron Sanders, Warner Home Video president, in an interview with TWICE web-site.

Earlier this year Warner already said that instead of releasing the first Total HD discs this year, the first such products would emerge only in 2008. The latest comment may mean that Warner’s dual-format discs are pretty expensive to manufacture and with only Warner’s economies of scale the new dual-format discs may never see the light of the day.

Given that the future of Total HD is uncertain, the chief of Warner’s home video business expressed excitement about dual-format players and expressed hope that shortly they would become more affordable. A natural comment for a company materially interested in increased popularity of high-definition movies. In fact, popularization of hybrid HD players will eliminate the need for universal Blu-ray/HD DVD discs.

“I’m excited about dual-format players. It takes out that worry about picking the wrong format, and with the studios lining up on one or the other format it’s kind of a nice solution, but until the price points come down – they are still around $1000 – it’s not going to be a mass product. As more and more drives go into computers for both formats, I think that will drive the price down for drives going into set tops,” Mr. Sanders said.

Both Blu-ray and HD DVD use 405nm wavelength laser to read data from the recordable media of the discs. However, the data layer of the Blu-ray discs is located 0.1mm from the disk’s surface, whereas the HD-DVD data layer resides 0.6mm deep from the disk’s surface. Warner’s engineers plan to create a disc with a Blu-ray top layer that works like a two-way mirror: it should reflect just enough blue light for a Blu-ray player to read, but it should also let enough light through for HD-DVD players to ignore the Blu-ray recording and find a second HD-DVD layer beneath, it was reported earlier. Theoretically, triple-layer DVDs can be created too, if DVD layer is located on the other side to the Blu-ray and HD DVD layers.

Even though the Total HD project sounds like a simplistic one, it involves pretty complex technologies on the optical disc side as well as custom-made replication equipment, which makes Total HD a pretty expensive initiative. Moreover, in addition to increased cost of the disc itself it involves increased cost of replication, which adds several dollars to already not really affordable Blu-ray or HD DVD, which cost $20 - $27 online. Moreover, Warner also has to standardize its Total HD with both Blu-ray disc association as well as DVD Forum.