Paramount following Warner out the HD DVD door?
By Richard Lawler 
posted January 7th 2008 10:29PM
posted January 7th 2008 10:29PM
The Financial Times is reporting that Paramount is preparing to use a get out clause in its HD DVD exclusivity deal, and go back to Blu-ray, about 4 months after ending its dual-format release schedule. The move would be a result of Warner's switch to Blu-ray, using a "get out" clause in Paramount's promotional agreement with the HD DVD camp. No details on what it might take to rip up the contract and make Michael Bay very, very happy, but if the rumor proves true this could make the slow death he predicted for HD DVD a very, very fast one.
@yonkers-
Most of those people are buying it to watch sporting events, or because its a flat panel. More often than not, they do not even have an HD source feeding the TV, and then connect DVDs to it via composite. My sister has a cable box connected through RF to her tv fer crissakes. (but has a HD tuner on her plasma in her bedroom).
Im also sure some concerns over the switch to digital next year play a role even though few of those people have antennae.
Nibehlung
@ Jan 8th 2008 12:42AM
"I have downloadled HD moview off of xboxlive they were about 5gigabytes and only took me an hour "
Hey asshole i said it took me and hour and some change to download an HD movie, If i remember it wasl ike 85 minutes to download Crank. IF i was to buy Crank from a local retailer it would have taken an and hour and some change also to go buy it outside for the physical option.
Oh yeah my cable was no problematic it was running at 5mbps and at teh sametime i have one desktop two notebooks and my xbox360 and oh yeah my nintendo Dslite playing metriod prime hunters on the same network sharing the internet at the sametime. Crank downloaded in abotu 88 minutes if i remember. and oh yeah 5gigabyte crank was HD but it was compressed and probably used a different code unlike blu ray which it codes uses bigger data and scheme.
So Niheblug it took you 5 hours to download a 2gigabyte movie. Were you using 1mbps dsl or 56k dial up? Or were you trying to download a xboxlive movie during the past week. Xboxlive been slow due to recent hiccups. And oh yeah i know that. Im good with my cable downloads i dont need verizon FIOS anymore.
You are full of shit, 5 GB on a 5Mb line will take you at least 136 minutes to download (5120/(0.625*60)) assuming you get maximum throughput during the transfer, all dedicated to your movie download.
With your stated activity, this was certainly not the case and your 5GB movie download would have taken LONGER than 136 minutes.
Oh man!!!! I love my hd dvd player and my hd dvd's. I also love my Blu Ray player and my Blu Ray movies, well most of 'em. I hate that when 2.0 is released I'll need a new player! I hate that there is no set standard for my beloved Blu Ray. I hate that there is region coding for my beloved Blu Ray. I also hate that my beloved, more than Blu Ray, yes I'll admit it, Hd Dvd is dying!!!! I own a Sony 60" XBR2, Sony Vaio desktop and laptop, Sony digital camera and camcorder oh yeah and that Betamax player in the attic. Congrats Sony. Toshiba and Microsoft did this to themselves, marketing for hd dvd was about non-existent!!
"Movies dont get scratched like Dvds and blu ray discs and when you want to throw the movie away you just delete the movie"
No, but Hard Drives fail, and storing paid content on a console with ~30% fail rate seems like a gamble I wouldn't be willing to take. And what happens when that hard drive is full? Or you want to take that movie to a friend's?
So Seattle Yonkers, are you trying to say a hard drive is more likely to fail then a DVD or Cd or Blu ray Disc getting scrateched and permantly damaged? I download movies from VONGO on my laptop and my harddrive has never failed and same goes for my xbox360. I been through 3 matrix reloades 2 trainign days, been through 2 starwars IVVVI trilogy and i have an hddvd player and my 300 has cracked inside my HDA3 player. And yes i put my movies back in the box and properly store them but the CDS get damaged inside the player. To me Hard drive are much more safer then Cds getting damaged. Its more expensive replacing Blu ray after blu ray movie or any Cd format compared to just buying one hard drive. The next big fight after the HDDVD V blu wars wars is Blu Ray VS Digital downloads. Masses have a computer, the masses have high speed internet, but the masses dont own a playstation3 and the masses dont own Blu ray rom player. Digital distribution is best. Fuck blu ray.
Until comcast, qwest, and many other big business telecom providers speed up their lines, that war is not even on the horizon.
While I applaud your vast amount of anecdotal evidence you always seem to have on hand, it does not change that fact that while the "masses" have a computer, and have the internet, the "masses" do not yet have the *means* to make Digital Distribution feasible. FiOS is not available just anywhere, and if you want to throw around personal stories, in some parts of Southern Texas, 760kbps DSL is just popping up.
Not to mention that while Video on Demand accounted for some $2 billion in 2007, it pales in comparison to the estimated $35 billion that the DVD market will do. Roughly a 17:1 ratio, which, to me at least, seems to prove that people prefer physical discs some seventeen times more than content from the cloud.
I was curious about your story of how long it took you to download a movie, so i decided to try it out for myself. I started to download Shoot'em Up off xbox market place at 12:03 GMT it's 12:32 as im typing this up and it's only 15% so almost 30 min just for me to get 15% of a 720p movie. I was going to wait for it to download fully and type this up but really i don't have the time to piss off and wait for it to download completely. At the current rate I'll have to wait almost 4 hours for this movie and it's only a 3.9GB download. And i think i've just found the reason why digital download sucks balls, as i was typing this up a message came up and said it can't download the rest of the movie so now i have 17% of a movie sitting in my hard drive and it won't download the rest. The future will one day be digital downloads but that future is a long way off i'd say another 5 to 10 years before it is a mainstream viable option. So for the time being Blu - Ray is the only reliable source for Full 1080p video and HD audio. As for players damaging discs i have never seen that happen in a home player, i have damaged a dvd while playing it in my truck but thats because the head unit went bad. Oh here's a link from speedtest.net my connection speed is almost 5 times yours and it would still take me hours to download a movie.
[URL=http://www.speedtest.net][IMG]http://www.speedtest.net/result/219024065.png[/IMG][/URL]
"war is not even on the horizon"
The war is not on the horizon, dude what WTF are you talking about. The war against digital downloads for movies has been talked about for a while and the war has already started thanks to companies taht supports HD Disc formats such as apple and microsoft who also favor digital downloads and see it as the future medium of choice for consumers. one of the main reason why warner bros went with blu ray is because of the emerging war against digital downloads. the war is coming and brewing. Those that are happy with the Blu ray victory will feel the Nuge when blu ray loses to Digital distribution. last time i saw I did see companies like verizon qwest and comcast installing Fiber optic wires in underground manholes. Then again I live in New York City and i see different companies adding fiber optic wires in inside manholes. Maybe were you live u dont have High speed internet? The bigger war against blu ray is looming Dan, maybe in your head Dan or inside your playstation 3, Digital distribution is Horizons or light years away!
I suggest you spend some time researching the telecommunications situation in the USA today. There is *NOWHERE NEAR* enough broadband bandwidth to fuel even a minority of American households downloading 5-10GB HD movies regularly. That's just laughable. Cable companies, which provide most of the broadband internet service in the United States right now, VASTLY oversell the capacity of their networks. They are able to do this because at the moment the average subscribers data usage is quite small. You can already see many employing draconian filtering methods to block and/or limit P2P and Bittorrent usage since they see these "types of activities" (AKA downloading many large files a month) as some sort of "abuse" of their network. And you are going to tell me that within a few years, the majority of Americans will get their HD movies from their broadband connections??? That's ridiculous.
I have no words. If this is true I ended way too fast.
man, i hate Warner now...they could've made the decision earlier b4 the holidays so that ppl would be able to make a better choice on their hd hardware...but i've had the xbox hd dvd add since nov 2006 and i love it...i also just bought a ps3 3 weeks ago for the blu ray movies, not so much the games yet...360 rules that hands down!
it still is odd b/c if companies want to save more money they would go with hddvd b/c its cheaper to make and all the interactive features come integrated for all systems unlike bluray, so the decision on Warner was very odd. I know they went with BR b/c it sold more last qtr. but I think there's alot more to this.
I hope Paramount doesn't jump ship so early which it sounds like they will. But this does leave a bad taste in the hd dvd backers mouths...
I personally wanted hd dvd to win b/c even though I bought a ps3, b/c of a sweet deal. I don't really like sony, super arrogant!
I wish MS would just buy out Warner and all the other studios and personally just switch to HD, that would be sweet and of course unrealisitc, or maybe Toshiba and other affliates can do that..hehehe...but MS hasn't reacted to the decision of idiot Warner :) but I guess they want their users to use more digital downloads like mr. bay noted.
also the video of Mr. Gates at CES was awesome. With that who doesn't want HD to win and 360 to rein superior over the console wars!
GO 360 and I need a miracle HD!
And Warner supported HD-DVD right up until it didn't.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/13/warner-vp-denies-blu-ray-exclusive-which-is-nice/
That was some three weeks ago, and we know how that ended.
Sony shouldn't be too happy even Blueray seems to have an upper hand right now. Blueray disk will have a short life span anyway. The future isn't on a plastic disk, the future is in your home data pipe. Video streaming will bring much better experience for viewers. The movie studios should lean toward the online distribution of their contents, not picking their side on the disk format. Buying a disk from a mortar store is so yesterday.
I agree sony shouldnt be to happy. Not only that but a few companies and corportations and movie studios are pro digital distribution like apple,Fox, digital playgrounds and etc. I think Blu ray is going to be a short lived format. If sony/panasonic/phillips really want blu ray to be succesful they really need to drive blu ray rom prices down and drive movie prices down and try not to persuade communication companies not to lay down fiberoptic high speed networks. however i dotn favor sony options. Digital distribution is going end blu ray in its tracks by the end of this decade. Hopefully by 2010 there is a 99.99 blu ray rom player thats the size of a 8 by 10 text book.
Bluray are aware of online downloading.. that's what BD-Live is all about. A BD-Live player allows you to stream movies online.
OTOH being able to download a 20GB movie in anything like real time is years off yet for the vast majority of consumers. First they'd need stupidly fast connection, and second they'd have to persuade the ISP to remove the download caps. Can't see it myself.
Yo travis, why did you download an xboxlive movie while microsoft did not even fix its xboxlive problems which has plagued xboxlive users since xmas. I havent downloaded a movie on live between now and xmas because of xboxlive hiccups. The reason why it took to long to download is not your connection but xboxlive current problem with bandwith and servers. i dont know how your internet is five times faster then mines and you are saying it takes you 4 hours and soem change to download. Your totally B.S travis. and that website link you posted dont even work, its probably not a legitimate site. When i was downloading crank, everyone 1 percent was about one minute. crank is about 80 something minutes, it took me more then 80 minutes to download the HD version of Crank. If anything i was probably having some good service from unreliable cablevision. The trend now is to move away from Sony/phillips CD format and that has been happing for the past half decade with the harddrives and flashdrives. IF you like your physical format thats good for you. Who knows Xbox720 and nintendo real life console will probably have downloadble games instead of physical ones. Nothing wrong having physical copies. Jeez.
First off, tell me why the Hell would I download a 720p movie in which I need to first, go out and buy a XBOX360 that has a good chance of RRODing on me, when I could just go out and buy a blu-ray , which does not scratch btw, and enjoy my movie in 1080/24p???? answer that HDDVD fanboy turned VOD fanboy.....
crap, so much for built-in HD-DVD 360 then.
Hope it's true. Warner dug the grave and threw HD DVD in it. Paramount can start shovelling the dirt.
go blu!
what part of my post was bs?? try this a direct link: http://www.speedtest.net/result/219714527.png
Speedtest.net is a real site. i download at 23 mbps.
As good as downloading of media is, physical copies will always have a place, hell i buy LP's (current artists) still and those have been "dead" for decades now.
Not to pour salt on the wound (or gas on the extinguishing fire), but where are all the HD-DVD fanatics that were battling so proudly against Blu-ray and all things remotely Sony?
Seriously, I'm not trying to be antagonistic. The posts in the last couple of days on 99% of the blogs I've seen, including this one, have boiled down to either "I told you so", "Wow, this is big!", or "Sony is terrible!" (even though BD is far from just being a Sony format... Philips, Panasonic, and Pioneer own much of the intellectual property details).
But the intelligent argument from the HD-DVD side is totally gone. Compare the discussions from a month ago to the ones from this past week or so. I know there isn't much to say, but the silence is equaling defeat.
Are things that final, that quick?
They usually are.
Blu-ray dealt a swift and crippling blow to HD-DVD with the Warner deal and there's just no way for HD-DVD to dig out from that without them taking an equivalent studio (like getting Disney over to HD-DVD, which would be an unrealistically major coup).
We're seeing the end of the chess game, and Blu-ray has HD-DVD in check, and HD-DVD cannot make a move to stop Blu-ray from stating checkmate on their next move.
It's over, and the armchair gadget pundits know it.
Someone mentioned in the comments further back that it is part of the BR spec that any releases 6 months old are required to be region free, any links to this? As two films that are 12 MONTHS old still aren't out in the UK and are still locked (Devil Wears Prada and Transporter 2).
There's a chart here: http://bluray.liesinc.net/ that seems to be investigating this. It seems generally true, but I heard it takes a year. The only films that don't work are mostly Fox movies, who only recently started releasing discs anyway.
BTW...where's Nfinity? Even Truth Teller posted a few times since the Warner switchover, fanboy spin and all. :)
Ah right, I do use that site to check on the region coding, just it cant be a requirment of the spec if Fox aren't releasing region free after a set time (the two films I mentioned are also over 12 months old on BR).
May be worth picking a Region A BR player up, as if Blu wins I bet the studios will enforce the region a fair bit more, films like Ratatouille were out on BR in the US while it was still on at the cinema in the UK lol.
good job sony, you have finally won a format war...
http://computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=178864
not true
Great news!
I'm so glad this makes people happy. I just got a 360 HD DVD player for Christmas. Now my wife is upset because she spent the money on it and now it will be worthless in a year.
The movies studios did this on purpose. It shows up much the industry cares about it's customers.
The studios are worried about their stockholders, not the customers. If serving the customers helps in serving the stockholders, then it all works out.
Furthermore: Since Blu-ray was outselling HD-DVD for Warner (and across the board), does it not make sense, from a corporate view, to do what is right for the company's bottom line? Are you telling me that you would, from a corporate viewpoint, spend double the money promoting both formats when one is clearly winning?
I love how people think large corporations are out to help the little guys out. They aren't! That might occur in the process (Apple makes a computer less susceptible to viruses, MS backs a standard that costs less on the hardware side, Wal-Mart enforces an energy policy on its stores to save money but also conserves), but it isn't because the customer is the one they are trying to satisfy.
At least I'll be able to buy a Blu-Ray player for my 360 when they decided to bring that out.
I guess there's an upside to everything.
hurray, now when blu-ray dies out we can watch our reasonably priced dvds.
well hey atleast the porn industry is using HDDVD, and the past formats that they have used have won.. They chose vhs over beta etc....
What rock have you been under? Porn has started to move over to Blu-ray at the request of their viewers. And, don't forget: The web didn't exist the last time we had a format war (VHS vs. Betamax). Very few people are going to buy physical porn when they can just download it off the web.
its a rather large rock apperently! oh and by the way over 83% of all disc for sale at this years AEE show are of the HD DVD format. Go there and walk around and look at the products just as I have for the past few days.
The HD DVD Group need to forget about courting the movie studios, that's over. They should quickly focus on making the format a worldwide standard for computer storage, both in software and hardware and get some of their R&D money back in the process.
Many of you seem happy that BD is winning the format war but you have overlooked a few areas where HD-DVD was better. There was NO region coding, NO DRM and the players are cheaper. The spec of the players is also better with interactivity, PIP etc. Were it not for the fact that Sony already had shares in many of the studios I doubt they would have been any competition.
The irony is that HD DVD has eased the pain of its death for owners:
http://www.techconsumer.com/2008/01/08/irony-alert-hd-dvd-eases-the-pain-of-its-death-for-owners/
Was reading a article on here yesterday saying that Blu Ray will get home media, but Microsoft won't let HD DVD die on the PC side. Next Gen Windows on HD DVD, home movies on HD DVD, sounds like dual format players for everyone. Microsoft flexing its HUGE muscle again!
I agree.
Home theatre movies might get Blu-Ray; but Microsoft (and Intel) still support HD DVD - so expect PCs to still require players etc..
Don't get too excited about this guys. Until Paramount leave; there isn't actually any new news here.
Well HD DVD could come back by simply becoming the pirate media of choice. That would teach those fucking studios to dump them. Defeat the HDCP in the hardware itself and tack on a burner and everyone will have one in their computer, even if you have to mail order them from China. And you know all the best HD movies come from China anyway. It's really all about the MPAA and HDCP. I think they all should go down on us for all the trouble and insult they've cost their customers.
Not huge fan of either, but as someone with an MSEE degree and works in the industry, I wanted blu-ray to win because it is the technically better format. "Blu-Ray is expensive, HD-DVD is cheaper", true, but 2 things: 1. People who spend $1500+ on an HDTV and $700+ on a good home theater kit, in general, aren't cheapskates, and therefore won't decide to go with one format over the other only to save $100 - $200. 2. At the moment, most people dont even have HDTVs, and by the time most people have them, Blu-ray will be at 100GB-200GB capacity and alot cheaper to buy and manufacture. The maximum potential capacity for HD-DVD is 64GB? and even at that, the physical material used in HD-DVD has not improved over what is used in DVD, thus the more dense the disc, the more sensitive it will be to nicks and scratches. The coating material used in blu-ray is much more resistant, making it the better media especially for industrial use. When it comes to data backup and storage, blu-ray is definitely the better choice. Even if HD-DVD won, it would not last very long due to its limitations, requiring manufacturers to re-kit their machines much sooner for a successor format, thus being more expensive than blu-ray in the long run. Blu-ray is the better choice. Contrary to what people say, Sony IS NOT pushing this as a proprietary format (yes, they have made the mistake in the past, but not this time), as Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Mitsubishi, Philips, Pioneer, and many others part of the Blu-ray Disc Association. There are more manufacturers on BDA than those on the HD-DVD Consortium. "Sony is an evil dominating corporation" -- by that logic, so is Microsoft, who is a major player in the HD-DVD consortium.
To those who think waiting for a downloadable service is a smart alternative... "don't hold your breath". There will be a much larger war fought over downloadable services than has been fought over the HD disc. There will be lots of division amongst players and providers and the customers will end up confused and unimpressed. When do you expect we'll see all major distribution companies supporting a single device? Not very soon indeed. And there's no chance of it replacing the disc in less than 5 years, by which time DVD will be long abandoned. Just swallow your sour grapes and get a BD player!