Page 1 of Developments in the HD War - hmm cat & pidgeons

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Paramount Pictures has announced that it will drop support for the Blu-ray Disc format and exclusively support HD DVD. The deal will see all Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Animation titles appear in High Definition exclusively on the format, and affects all territories worldwide.

Snippets from the Press Release follow.

The first Paramount and DreamWorks title to appear exclusively on HD DVD will be the blockbuster comedy "Blades of Glory" on August 28th, followed by two of the highest grossing movies of the year - "Transformers" and "Shrek the Third". These three films alone represent more than $1.5 billion in combined worldwide box office sales.

"The combination of Paramount and DreamWorks Animation brings a critical mass of current box office hits to consumers with a line-up of live action and animated films that are perfect for HD DVD," stated Brad Grey, Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures, which is currently the leading studio in domestic box office. "Part of our vision is to aggressively extend our movies beyond the theater, and deliver the quality and features that appeal to our audience. I believe HD DVD is not only the affordable high quality choice for consumers, but also the smart choice for Paramount."

"We decided to release "Shrek the Third" and other DreamWorks Animation titles exclusively on HD DVD because we believe it is the best format to bring high quality home entertainment to a key segment of our audience - families," stated DreamWorks Animation CEO, Jeffrey Katzenberg. "We believe the combination of this year's low- priced HD DVD players and the commitment to release a significant number of hit titles in the fall makes HD DVD the best way to view movies at home."

Paramount made sure to mention that new releases on HD DVD will be day-and-date with their Standard Definition counterparts, but also reminded us that the announcement did not include the films directed by Steven Spielberg, which the HD DVD Promotion Group mistakenly announced and then retracted last year. Titles with Spielberg`s involvement - such as Transformers - will still be exclusive to HD DVD.

The HD DVD Promotion Group, the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), nor Paramount were available to comment at the time of going to press. "

Been hacking into the upcoming news data, Star? ;)

J Mark Oates

This is a REALLY interesting story. If Dreamworks SKG are going with HD DVD, do you think there`s a chance that Lucasfilm might follow suit?

Also means I should have some more HD DVD titles to review. :)

I honestly have no axe to grind about either format in the format war. It was my intention to adopt whichever proved the ultimate winner to move into HD content. I have no intention of replacing any of my SD collection with HD unless there is a really good argument for double-dipping, otherwise I will simply start collecting new releases in HD.

My worry is the same as Bill Hunt`s over at the Dital Bits, and which he is getting a hell of a lot of flak from HD-DVD fanboys for bias over.

Irrespective of how you feel about the technology, or conversely how much you hate Sony, the failure to resolve the format war will only damage the high-definition content market. Joe Public just wants to go into Blockbuster, pick up a disc, bung it in his player and watch it. Two competing formats will only slow the takeup of either format, and until there is a decent user base out there for either format they will remain a niche market like laserdisc, taken up by technophiles and b*ggers with big disposable incomes**

**Excuse the jealous streak ;)

I am inclined to agree with the undercurrent among industry watchers that the format war is being fuelled for more sinister reasons. Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks have joined the HD-DVD bandwagon purely because of promotional considerations - to the tune of $150million - paid to them by Microsoft as the lead player in the HD-DVD group. Now, I will point out that Microsoft has supported HD-DVD over Blu-Ray for some time, but I think it`s strange that it`s only buying support from the Studios now rather than at the outset of the HD-DVD release. HD-DVD hit the streets before Blu-Ray. The players have a distinct price advantage over Blu-Ray. You would think that HD-DVD would be way ahead of Blu-Ray, and yet it isn`t. The two format camps are now playing a game of oneupmanship that is getting noticed by the mainstream press and the public at large, and this can only dissuade people from buying expensive equipment that could wind up only able to play a limited catalogue of titles.

Some people are advocating combo players able to play both formats, conveniently forgetting that the owners of the patents to the two formats will want crippling licencing fees for their technology to be included in equipment featuring the other format. I`d doubt if combo players would ever be cheap enough to make them viable.

The cynic in me reckons Microsoft has its own agenda, and it has nothing to do with supporting Toshiba and the other manufacturers in the HD-DVD group. It has nothing to do with winning a format war. It has everything to do with wrecking the HD media market altogether. Microsoft has its sights set on providing the infrastructure for HD downloading/streaming. It`s simply playing a waiting game for the technology it`s interested in maturing. Microsoft doesn`t want us collecting physical media and keeping it on shelves in the living room. It wants to provide video-on-demand services where you buy every viewing of a movie or television show. A service which cannot be stored locally or transferred to different platforms (at least not without paying first). Microsoft knows that when it can offer that service to Hollywood, physical media will be as dead as the cylinder phonograph.

I can hear techgasms, but I think we ought to be cautious about the whole idea of virtual media. It would be the end of the traditional movie/ video collector - those of us who love our physical media would have to content ourselves with keeping what collections we already had alive, with the danger that manufacturers would probably no longer support the technologies. Rare video formats are already in danger as machines capable of replaying the content become steadily harder to repair or replace. You would have to rely on commercial organisations considering that your favourite movie is worth the storage real estate to keep it on their servers, and you might have to pay a premium on top of the PPV fee to watch it.

It`ll end in tears, mark my words. 8)

J Mark Oates

The cosmic ballet continues it`s merry dance:

http://www.superherohype.com/news/topnews.php?id=6228

Quote:
**Excuse the jealous streak
Hey shush you. :p Most of the discs I have didn`t cost much more than the DVDs (and are more often than not, combo versions) so I have no problems with justifying HD DVDs. I am glad that there`ll be more support now; in the short term it sounds great.

That comment wasn`t aimed at you in any way, shape or form, Ben. There are a couple of forums I`ve been on where there are some die-hard technophiles who are always banging on about having both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players and how fan-tastic the movies look on their 108-inch screens. I`ll leave you to guess where. ;)

J Mark Oates

I think Microsofts agenda is different, at least in present time. The PS3 is the main competition to the 360. Everyone saw what the dvd playback did for the PS2, so MS are trying to make the Blu Ray drive of the PS3 a redundant feature. That way the expensive price of the PS3 can`t be justified to the public if the drive is no use (or at least is much less desirable if they can`t get half of the new films like Transformers and Shrek 3 for it)

Very clever I think, will be interesting to see what this does for the fate of both formats

UQ Web Design

Wuss:

http://www.superherohype.com/news/topnews.php?id=6233

More likely Paramount have turned around and said "Who said anything about you directing Transformers 2? We own the franchise, so f*** off."

J Mark Oates