Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

[Pai Pai Master]

After rumours came in this morning that Paramount and Dreamworks were being offered $100m and $50m deals respectively to increase support for HD-DVD format, confirmation came from Viacom this afternoon that Paramount is dropping support for BD and Dreamworks will pledge exclusive support for HD-DVD.

This comes after earlier announcements that Paramount would begin to support BD further by including uncompressed audio tracks in all their multiplatform releases. Naturally, any plans to do so have been nixed, despite that sales have shown Paramount's BD releases outselling their HD-DVD counterparts over 2-to-1 in most cases.

This deal excludes any films directed by Steven Spielberg, who is known to support the BD format over HD-DVD and recently caused an uproar with Paramount when his films were listed as future HD-DVD releases. His first HD film release, Close Encounters of the Third Kind releases on Blu-ray Disc this fall.

Source: http://www.viacom.com/NEWS/NewsText.aspx?RID=1042073

[Feba]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

This is still good, competition = making cheaper and cheaper technology = cheaper products.

Of course, anyone that's already bought an HD player is getting annoyed by now, but they deserve it. so meh

[Mhurron]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Competition over features is a good thing, competition over standards is not.

[Malacite]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Competition over features is a good thing, competition over standards is not.

QFT. All this does is make the situation worse. Blu Ray is already ahead anyway and is the better format.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Exactly. What will this do for Paramount? Their current releases already sell better on BD. Aside from the $100m paycheck, they're kicking themselves in the nuts to extend the inevitable.

Unsurprisingly, the move has pushed 20th Century Fox to rejoin support of the BD format. Fox and MGM have not released a high-definition film since March and had reportedly cancelled all their 2007 releases. A press release from Fox is incoming later today with a rescheduled fall 2007 Blu-ray Disc lineup, which is rumoured to include titles such as Live Free or Die Hard and The Simpsons Movie.

[Icemage]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

This is going to just kill high def sales this Christmas. Consumer confusion reigns supreme. Ugh.

BTW, here's the official buzz from Fox Studios today in response to Paramount.

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...to_Blu-ray/876

It's official: Fox is back. Fox Home Entertainment and MGM Home Entertainment have issued a joint press release unveiling a long list of Blu-ray exclusive releases for 2007.

As promised earlier today, Fox/MGM has at last broken their months-long silence on their future Blu-ray release plans. The hits-heavy Q4 slate will include a mix of new theatrical blockbusters and top catalog titles, as well as Fox's first-ever TV-on-High-Def release.
Due day-and-date with the standard-def DVD releases, Fox will bring two of this summer's biggest blockbusters to Blu-ray, 'Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer' and 'Live Free or Die Hard' (street dates TBA), along with four day & date BD/DVD new theatrical releases from MGM (all still as yet-unnamed).

Both studios will also issue a combined catalog slate of 19 catalog titles on Blu-ray on North America in Q4 2007 through Q1 2008, with the following confirmed street dates:

October 2 - 'Master & Commander,' 'The Day After Tomorrow'
October 9 - 'From Hell,' 'The Fly (1986)', 'Edward Scissorhands,' '28 Days Later,' 'RoboCop,' 'The Amityville Horror (1979)'
November 6 - 'Battle of Britain,' 'A Bridge Too Far'
November 13 - 'I, Robot'
December 4 - 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith,' 'Independence Day,' 'Cast Away,' 'Ronin'

Also in November (exact date TBA), Fox will release the previous installments in the Die Hard franchise, 'Die Hard,' 'Die Hard 2: Die Harder' and "Die Hard with a Vengeance.'

Finally, Fox will release its first-ever TV-on-High-Def release, 'Prison Break' sometime in the fourth quarter. An exact street date -- and just which season(s) of the show will be released -- is still to come.

Select titles are also set to be the first Fox/MGM Blu-ray releases to make use of the format's exclusive BD-Java technology. Among the exclusive extras will be an "Alien Scavenger Hunt" on 'Independence Day,' a "Global Warming Trivia Track" on 'The Day After Tomorrow, and 'Master & Commander' will feature a historical and geographical pop-up map.

Icemage

[Feba]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

and yet, out of that entire press release, I don't see ANYTHING I want.

Anyway, the only benefit HD drives have to me is their potential for storage. Could you imagine a 10 DVD Box Set or TV Season boxes, on a single disk?

Then again, I'm planning on hooking my old PC up to my TV for video playback, so storage doesn't matter too much I guess.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

29 titles from Fox and MGM, makes me pretty happy. The Paramount announcement sucks a lot more than Universal exclusivity ever did, mainly because Paramount actually makes good films. However, I personally don't see how Paramount will ever see an increase in sales from this move, and I can wait until whatever the deal was eventually wears off for that BD version of Transformers.

BD has a fantastic fall lineup upcoming either way. Looking forward to Cars and Ratatouille from Pixar, The Simpsons Movie and Live Free or Die Hard from Fox, and Spider-Man Trilogy from Sony.

[jwalton]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

QFT. All this does is make the situation worse. Blu Ray is already ahead anyway is the better format.

The better format for movies in what way?

Seems to me like Toshiba doesn't want to give up any more than Sony does. Seeing how billions of potential dollars are at stake, can you really blame either side? I think it's pretty ridiculous to champion Sony and vilify Toshiba. Neither side was willing to agree to a unified format that would have benefit consumers the most, so to act like one is worse than the other is pretty ridiculous.

[Icemage]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

The better format for movies in what way?

Seems to me like Toshiba doesn't want to give up any more than Sony does. Seeing how billions of potential dollars are at stake, can you really blame either side? I think it's pretty ridiculous to champion Sony and vilify Toshiba. Neither side was willing to agree to a unified format that would have benefit consumers the most, so to act like one is worse than the other is pretty ridiculous.

Truth be told, both sides suck and are greedy limpets. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs another shot of Reality.

Not surprising in the sense that without a move like this, Toshiba and HD DVD were doomed. They might be doomed anyway, truth be told. Holiday 2007 is going to be big, but with the economy shrinking the way it is, are people going to stick with DVD for another year?


Icemage

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

People are going to stick with DVD for another few years, which is why I point out the futility of this move. The current format war will be over well before the mass consumer decides to invest in any HD format. Switching sides because of a fat paycheck is useless, as sales numbers, particularly for a studio the size of Paramount, won't be high enough to justify the lack of sales incurred by going exclusive.

[jwalton]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Assuming of course, that the story about Paramount switching sides over a $150 million check is even true. I'm not even a business executive, and I can see that that's really far-fetched. $150 million is chump change for them. Apparently they're seeing something that we're not. Only time will tell.

[Malacite]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Btw, you're aware that Sony owns MGM right PaiPai?


And BD is better because of the much higher storage capacity. Besides that, it's outselling HD-DVD at a 2:1 ratio. I don't get why paramount and universal didn't just back Blu-Ray and put an end to this BS ( Paramount previously was backing it, so wtf?)

[jwalton]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

And BD is better because of the much higher storage capacity.

You took the bait. Excellent.

Blu-Ray having a higher capacity means absolutely nothing in the case of movies, which is the only part of the entertainment industry that HD-DVD is competing in. Both formats utilize the same audio and video codecs, and until movies start exceeding the 5 hour mark, HD-DVD is in no danger of disc space problems.

Toshiba's just as entitled to making a stand for their format as Sony is for theirs. In the meantime, consumers like myself will support neither and continue buying old fashioned DVDs.

[Icemage]

Re: Paramount and Dreamworks go HD-DVD Exclusive, Uselessly Extend Format War

Assuming of course, that the story about Paramount switching sides over a $150 million check is even true. I'm not even a business executive, and I can see that that's really far-fetched. $150 million is chump change for them. Apparently they're seeing something that we're not. Only time will tell.

It's not chump change when you consider that so far 300 has been the highest selling HD DVD title, and it did less than 100,000 copies on HD DVD in its release week (compared to 190,000 Blu-ray copies). The DVD version did some crazy $11.9M in its first week of sales.

HD DVD has sold 1.5 million discs total since inception in the USA (and somwhere around 650K in the rest of the world). That reported $150M is more than all the HD DVD-supporting studios have made on the discs themselves in raw revenue (not profit) worldwide on every disc purchased to date.


Icemage