Michael Bay Throws a Fit Over Paramount, HD DVD Exclusivity – DailyTech.com: Yesterday, Paramount and DreamWorks made an announcement that shook the tech community — just when everyone was getting used to the idea that Blu-ray was gaining considerable traction in the high definition format war. The two companies decided to reverse their support for both HD DVD and Blu-ray in exchange for exclusive support for the former.
One high-profile member of the film community decided to make his feeling known about the decision to go HD DVD only. Michael Bay expressed outrage after hearing that “Transformers” would become an HD DVD exclusive title upon its release for high definition players.
“I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me,” exclaimed Bay on his official site.
I wonder how many people he has made happy with the last line. Perhaps this way you will be able to tell what’s happening on screen without having the camera shake like crazy. With both formats using the VC1 codec, there’s no difference in quality, however, HD-DVD has the technical edge until Blu-ray starts using Java in its players for enhanced content display.
There has been an update:
On his blog he has posted the following comments:
Last night at dinner I was having dinner with three Blu-Ray owners, they were pissed about no Transformers Blu-Ray and I drank the kool aid hook line and sinker. So at 1:30 in the morning I posted – nothing good ever comes out of early am posts mind you – I over reacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard.
As a director, I’m all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard firsthand people upset about a corporate decision.
So today I saw 300 on HD-DVD, it rocks!
So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!
Some of the people that have commented on this article will feel disappointed about this development.
Paramount did pull a bone head move. The money they made from switching to HD DVD would be chump change compared to what Transformers 2 would generate!
Good on ya Michael
Michael who?…who cares? No transformers 2? Really? You mean there’s gonna be one less copycat hollywood sequel around? One more reason to love hd-dvd.
Transformers sucked. I could care less if there’s no sequel.
Last I read, only 1% of HDTV owners own a HD player, so this “victory” along with every other “victory” amounts to more hype than anything else. Both formats combined exceeded VHS sales recently, so that alone should tell you how pathetically small this format “war” has been.
That explains why Bay turned a great concept such as the transformers into a Dawson’s Creek movie with giant robot sidekicks.
I’m so happy I bought a dual version player. I don’t have to worry about such nonsense.
Since both disks contain the exact same digital information, as stated by Gasparrini, then there’s ZERO difference between the two, for movies.
I think the problem with BluRay is the name & logo. People (common) don’t associate BluRay with HDTV.
But they do with HD-DVD = HDTV. The logos even match.
Other than Sony/PS3, all BluRay players I say at the store were able to read both formats. Producing the same quality & resolution.
So the average person, no matter what player they have, will “buy” a HD-DVD movie, just because of the “HD” and it’s logo.
Salesperson even told me so…
The payola I mentioned in the other thread is confirmed. $150mil for 18months exclusivity.
A real director for Transformers 2? Now that is news!
I’m so glad that I haven’t thrown any money at either format.
I could care less which wins in the end. (although the name blue ray sounds stupid as all get out)
I’ll wait ’till there is a clear winner when the price for a player drops to under $100 before I even consider purchasing one.
I felt like a fool purchasing my first DVD player for over $200. I now have a much, much better player and it was less than $50. My son found one for under $30 that even plays DIVX.
The movie was a special effects craptacular POS so what difference does it make if it’s on VHS, VCD, DVD, or HD DVD, it’s still garbage.
>>I’ll wait ’till there is a clear winner when the price for a player
>>drops to under $100
Good idea. In this era of disposable technology, it’s absurd to pay more than $100 (or even more than $50) for a playback device. It’s not like reel-to-reel tape, where you could start your music collection in the fifties, and be assured that the format would be supported commercially for the next 25 years. If you get 3 or 4 years out of today’s Bleeding Edge Technology, I’ll be surprised.
And again, that pesky content. If “no Transformers 2” for Michael Bay is the biggest threat to my happiness from sitting out this Blu-ray/ HD-DVD debacle, I’m with Mr. Ray. Wake me up when it’s over [snore].
Actually, Sony have been doing the exact same thing since the release of the PS3.
Basically Sony take a MASSIVE hit for every PS3 sold. Thats the ONLY reason BluRay had ANY sort of advantage at all!
I’m not sure what the cost to Sony is per console sold, but its several metric tons of poop!
For example, even if just $100 (its probably far more), for every 1.5m consoles sold they have in essence contributed the SAME AMOUNT as Paramount/Dreamworks have allegedly received, but its hidden in the price of their trojan horse, the PlayStation 3.
Does anyone else think its a great victory that Bay won’t be directing Transformers 2?
OK,
Why do we hear the same old wrong facts. HD-DVD only looks exactly like Blu-ray on Warner Brothers titles because they use the same files.
Pirates of the Caribbean on Blu-ray peaks at a data rate of 52 Mbps all the time, way above the maximum data rate of HD-DVD (which is 36Mbps). More data = better picture. It’s not MPEG-2 either. You can’t see what the movie looks like on HD-DVD because the format can’t deal with that kind of data.
If you can’t see how much better a 1080P setup is with a high def source, you just haven’t set it up right.
And they aren’t selling the PS3 at a loss any more. In fact, it now costs more for an XBOX with HDMI/Wireless add-on/HD-DVD add-on to have a system for High Def movies.
Yeah, Transformers is a POS…
A POS that has brought-in $600M, so far…
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=transformers06.htm
Great last line of the press release:
“Today’s announcement does not include films directed by Steven Spielberg as his films are not exclusive to either format.”
http://tinyurl.com/2r3s8z
Transformers was great advertisement for GM and the US military…I dont really care to watch it on HD or blueray though. Michael Bay edited the shit out of those fight scenes. I dont think I’ve ever seen a camera move that much on a high-budget film
And the fight for control of obsolete media escalates!
>>A POS that has brought-in $600M, so far…
Well, as Jesus said, “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public”.
That WAS Jesus…. right?
I support HD DVD over Blu-ray for two reasons: HD has no region coding, and it doesn’t support Sony. Blu-ray holds more data per layer, but that point is rendered moot by the fact that I’ve yet to see a single HD or BD movie take up more than 18GB, which both formats can comfortably hold. That’s not to mention the fact that all HD players have mandatory support for lossless audio formats and interactive features, while first-gen Blu-ray owners get screwed in typical Sony fashion.
#14
The same applies to the Matrix sequels which were nothing moe than 300 million dollar infomercials.
I know that it doesn’t make that much sense from a technological perspective, but the format wars is actually keeping me from buying an HDTV in the first place.
The key to the television experience to me is content. If very little content that I’m interested in is actually available in HD format, then why bother. Most TV shows don’t need HD quality (although some are tempting an upgrade), and I can’t rent most movies in an HD format right now, precisely because of the format war.
So pending the end of the format war, resulting in opening up the availability to rent HD movies without concern, the purchase of an HDTV is not a real high priority.
No Transformers 2?
Is that a threat or a promise?
#9 & #11 are right on the mark! Let the early adopters shell out the cash and pay for the R&D, and the rest of us who have the patience to wait will reap the benefits of $50 players and a pre-sorted out format.
I have a $200 Kenwood DVD player I got in 1998. It works, but won’t play what I burn. In the bedroom I have a $35 little thing from some discount store that plays everything I put in it. I can also use the TV remote too.
If I buy a high definition DVD player, it won’t be until the price drops a lot closer to $50. It also won’t be until I buy a H-D TV, which won’t be anytime soon.
I like this part in particular:
“I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats.”
Buy a clue, Michael. they were not progressive — in fact, by supporting both formats they made sure the market stood still as the “format war” raged on. Sure, if by “progressive” you mean “tried to cash in on people’s manufactured confusion” then yes,, but in the more common sense, no.
>>the future of HD and players that will be close
>>to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I
>>like what I heard.
Uh, Mr. Bay….FIFTY DOLLARS is the magic number. And even if the players cost $1.99, I STILL wouldn’t rent a mind-numbing piece of shit like Transformers 2.
@ Bob / whoever said Sony doesn’t lose money on the PS3 … Sony is losing $280 – $350 every PS3. To get BluRay into gamers houses who don’t want BluRay and wish Sony would actually get some GAMES for thier damn GAMES SYSTEM. Sony deserves to lose this format war — it’s already lost this generations console war.
When will mankind learn that this can be easily avoided by not letting Michael Bay do any more films?