In a surprise announcement, Paramount Pictures (which includes Dreamworks, Nickelodeon Movies, and MTV Films) has stated that it will now be supporting the HD-DVD format exclusively for all future high-def releases. Up until now, Paramount was one of two studios (the other being Warner) that supported both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats. What makes this announcement a complete surprise is the recent news that Blu-ray had widened its lead over the HD-DVD format in both Player and Software sales. Also, up until now, Universal Studios was the only studio that backed HD-DVD exclusively. Will this move strengthen HD-DVD's position in its fight against the Blu-ray surge? Will we see more Blu-ray/HD-DVD combo players such as those from LG and Samsung? It looks like the Blu-ray/HD-DVD War has just gotten a little hotter... For more details and perspective, check out the reports from AP, High-Def Digest, and Audioholics.
Related Story: The Blu-ray Disc Association Responds to Paramount's HD-DVD Decision (High Def Digest)
Update 08/21/07: Here is a report from the New York Times that contains some additional information on this continuing story.
Updates: 08/22/07: PC World Interviews Paramount's CTO On The Move to HD-DVD Only - More details are revealed!
Director Michael Bay Softens Position on Paramount's HD-DVD Decision (TV Predictions/HD-Diva)
Update: 08/23/07: Related Story - How Blu-ray Can Win (TV Predictions)
Comments
The above story is not entirely accurate. Stephen Spielberg who works for Paramount said that his movies will only be released in blu-ray because hd-dvd doesn’t have a high enough gigabyte capacity to include the movie and uncompressed audio on one disc.
The reason that Paramount did this was because they were paid $150 million to retain exclusivity rights to all of Paramounts movies, excluding Steven Speilbergs’ movies. This is for a period of no longer than 18 months. Up to now blu-ray as been outselling hd-dvd by a greater than 2 to 1 margin. Blu-ray players, including PS3, have outsold hd-dvd players by a 70% to 30% margin. This is clearly an act of desperation by the technically inferior hd-dvd group.
Yes, the Steven Spielberg issue has been clarified and is true – except for the disc capacity comment – HD-DVDs can easily hold Close Encounters and Multi-channel PCM Uncompressed Audio, check out current HD-DVD releases that are of equivalent length that do contain both of these elements – and include special features as well – especially if the movie is in the VC-1 format instead of the MPEG2 format.
For a useful resource on the Myths of Blu-ray and HD-DVD that discusses this issue:
http://www.hometheaterblog.com/hometheater/2006/06/bluray_vs_hddvd.html
However, it is still not clear if the Steven Spielberg/Paramount properties will actuually be released on high-def disc at all at this point. If they cannot release them on HD-DVD, without also releasing them on Blu-ray. Also, there is a possibility that Paramount may just sit on the Spielberg properties until something can be worked out, or until the end of Paramount’s HD-DVD-only agreement. So far, the only Steven Spielberg film that has a firm scheduled release date on high-def disc is Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is a Spielberg/Sony-Columbia Property – it will be a Blu-ray release only.
Robert Silva
Guide to Home Theater
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Addressing the comment regarding “the technically inferior hd-dvd group” – what technical inferiority are you referring to?
Although I am personally format neutral (I own players in both formats) – last time I checked, I had more problems with playback inconsistency with Blu-ray Discs than HD-DVD discs. Several films, such The Descent, and Disney’s two Pirates films were unplayable on two of my Blu-ray Disc players until I installed firmware upgrades – and it still takes several minutes to load and play the discs. I haven’t had any of these problems with my HD-DVD discs or players.
Also, the HD-DVD format came to market already equipped for easy upgrade for Internet and Interactive capabilities. Most Blu-ray Disc players don’t have complete capabilities in this area (BD Java issues), even after several firmware upgrades. Also, many Blu-ray disc players don’t even have ethernet ports to allow direct firmware update downloading or other interactive functions.
Also refer to the resource I found on HD-DVD and Blu-ray Myths:
http://www.hometheaterblog.com/hometheater/2006/06/bluray_vs_hddvd.html
Robert Silva
Guide to Home Theater
http://hometheater.about.com
Become an About.com Guide: http://beaguide.about.com
About.com is part of the New York Times Company
The only thing that Microsoft’s move to buy off Paramount/ DreamWorks will do is create more confusion among consumers. Which is exactly what they want. It’s pretty obvious that Microsoft wants to prolong the format war so that BOTH formats fail. They have the potential to make an obscene amount of money on movie downloads as soon as they a have an infrastructure in place to support such a large scale service (which industry insiders say is still a few years off). The definitely do not want another storage based format dominating distribution for the next several years. Unfortunately there are reports that Microsoft is putting the pressure on Warner to go HD-DVD exclusive also. Let’s hope Warner doesn’t cave. If they do, then Hi-Def on disc will never go mainstream.