PC World – Paramount’s CTO on Why His Studio Is Dumping Blu-ray — You should read this whole thing. It has an interesting political ring and there is no doubt that something fishy is going on. There is zero reason that anyone should exclusively support only one format. It just makes no sense to not support both until the scene shakes out. So something is up. I’d love to find out what is really going on.
In a surprise move, Paramount and DreamWorks Animation announced this week that they would align themselves exclusively with the HD DVD high-definition format. The controversial decision has attracted a lot of attention, and not just because it comes at a time when market indicators have been pointing to competitor Blu-ray Disc as having the lead (disc sales have been running 2-1 in Blu-ray’s favor).
related link:
John rants on the subject
I agree that there’s probably little reason to go exclusive just yet, but it sounds like this guy has played his hand perfectly. He’s tried both formats, made noises about favouring the one he doesn’t actually favour, thereby prodding the other guys to pay him cash on the barrelhead to sway the debate, and then picks the format he wants, claiming it’s a better format on further analysis.
Most of what he says makes sense on the surface, not least the issues of content development. If the Microsoft platform is a better development environment than (BD)Java, then this alone could save the studios a lot of money if they don’t need to hire Java programmers just to put together menus and gimmicks.
At the end of the day, I don’t care about either format. Upscaled DVD on a 1080i/720p 50″ plasma is good enough.
They were bought. 150 million for 18 months.
http://tinyurl.com/2ww749
[Please use TinyUrl.com for overly long URLs. – ed.]
Just another reason not to make the plunge into HD Players. The main reason, however, is there are very few movies I give a shit about to buy a HD player.
#3 – gquaglia – …there are very few movies I give a shit about to buy a HD player.
Yep, I couldn’t care less about HD at the moment…
iTunes or something like it…
By the time the HD-DVD/Blu-ray debate is finally resolved, I would bet there will be something better on the horizon. Probably super hi-res internet download, I suppose. No matter which you buy, it will be obsolete in five years.
Anyway, it definitely smells like a payoff to the execs. If Blu-Ray continues to climb, expect Paramount to reverse their decision in a year or two (after any clandestine exclusionary contract between Toshiba and Paramount has run its contractual term limits).
2 They were bought. 150 million for 18 months.
It is a safe, lucrative, but totally “empty” gesture by the two studios.
Who will still be watching Blades of Glory or Transformers 18-months from now?
The 2007 holiday-seasons’ movies will only be exclusive for a year…
Next summer’s “blockbusters” will only be exclusive for 6-months…
And they were paid 150-Million for this?
Of course, there is the Microsoft issue… From the article:so all players had to be compatible with the HDi interactivity layer, and all players had to be capable of the interactivity.
HDi is what Microsoft & Disney co-developed, and the reason Microsoft supported HD-DVD – because it is required on all HD-DVD players, but only optional in Blu-ray [and Blu-ray camp prefers open-source Java over M$-ware]
Mike Voice:
Ah, I suspected M$ was somehow involved but I didn’t want to look like a basher. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
My favorite format is the hard drive. My favorite portable format is the USB stick. I just laugh at this fight for control of the Vellum market!
So I buy the kids CARS in BluRay from Disney and SHREK in HD-DVD from Dreamworks and a combo player from Toshiba until it violates SOMEbody’s patents …
or…
visit PirateBay and not worry.
Who says the big studios don’t support piracy?
Originally I thought that the Blu Ray format was far superior. After reading about it all lots over the last few weeks, I’m firmly behind HD DVD. The capacity of the Blu Ray is a big plus, but the features that HD DVD have as mandatory give it a serious edge.
Looks like Michael Bay had become suckered into this debate/decision…
http://www.superherohype.com/news/topnews.php?id=6228
But then after “sobering up” he sang a different tune…
http://www.superherohype.com/news.php?id=6233
This will be the last fixed media format. Everything will be delivered over the net. HD-DVD will be the new betamax.
Where’s the porn. Whichever format the porn industry uses will be the winning format.
The Paramount guy’s point about compatibility across different players and the stability of the spec may be a good one. Regular DVD has had plenty of minor compatibility issues, and with the far more complex programmability in the HD formats, this is likely to be much worse as Chinese manufacturers stamp out cheap players.
BD-Java (on Blu-Ray) is powerful, but don’t forget all the cross-platform compatibility problems that Java had on PCs. By all rights, Java should be much more widely used on the client, but because Sun f-ed it up, it’s not. People are using Flash, AJAX, etc. Complex interactive Blu-Ray discs could be as buggy as Java applets trying to run on client Macs, PCs, Linux, etc., back in the late 90’s.
#16, GigG – The porn industry proudly supports HD-DVD and has from day one.
#16 & #18
The best HD porn is the hardcore BDSM porn.
All he’s saying is moot altogether.
Either formats have connectivity. They have to, because of the AACS. AACS must revoke licenses if a certain player and it’s implementation gets compromised. So they all have it. Java issues is moot too. What? An obscure language from Microsoft is better than a standard language? And all players have firmware upgrade ability, So with the implicit connectivity, forced upgrades can be delivered. Codecs are basically the same…
So any tipping factor must be the better deal. They got it good. 150 mil is a lot of cash.
I’m just waiting for the best player prices. But the shoot out of another wars can also determine the success of the format: the console wars.
Let’s see what happens this next Christmas…
I love HD and want to get an HD player. I’m getting damn close to buying an HD-DVD unit. This HD war is not going to end soon. I don’t give a flying patootie that some of you say HD is no big deal. I want the best picture quality and currently 1080P is where it’s at.
Didn’t Universal recently break away from iTunes? It would behoove the old timers to stop Apple Inc. anyway they can.
The move makes sense as the ultimate target is the mass consumer market. HD DVD is the better bet because the low manufacturing costs associated with the technology will get it to the sub $200.00 per player range faster than Blu ray. The reported payoff to the studios just lowers their losses if this format fails. This war is great for consumers as prices will fall faster. Imagine if Blu ray is the only format. Without competition, Sony will have no incentive to lower prices.
#23 – Ronald West
Sony isn’t the sole manufacturer of the players… so competition will still exist. Much like the Actual DVD: There’s only one standard, but competition among manufacturers brought prices down to ludicrous levels (8,99 euros for a DVD…c’mon…). Even Sony had to lower prices and be more agressive (remember, the first sony DVD players didn’t read recordable media.
Granted, there were talks about licensing being higher on SONY camp…
but if they botch the PS3 advantage they’ll cut their licensing.
>>I just laugh at this fight for control of the Vellum market!
Just wait until your provider goes out of business or decides for some other reason to cancel your DRM “right” to view what’s on the USB stick or hard drive. Which you already paid for.
See if you’re laughing then.
I’m pretty amazed at the resurgence of HD-DVD. Only days ago it seemed to be knocking on death’s door. Yet the information supposedly proving HD-DVD to be superior over Blu-ray seems only to be coming out now. What gives? Isn’t this a debate that should have taken place more than a year ago? Or maybe I was making a sandwich at the time.
RBG
#20 Neither format REQUIRES connectivity. AACS “revokes” players by not including that player’s key in newly encoded content.
#27
Hmmm… not sure about that… but ok. I’m making this assumption after listening to a Security Now episode where Steve Gibson explained the way AACS worked. Maybe I just assumed connectivity had to play a part on revocation.
This also means that you can still view every disc you purchased and some more after you player being revoked.
There was already a revocation, but was a software player (Win DVD or Power DVD dunno which).
(continued)
It was Win DVD and here is a nice explanation about AACS working, although not easy to grasp…
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=122363
Sun got the whole concept ass-backward. The key to productive development is not a “platform-independent language”, it’s a “language-independent platform”.
9 Ah, I suspected M$ was somehow involved but I didn’t want to look like a basher. Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
Microsoft wanted two things to be mandatory, and they threw there support behind HD-DVD when that group agreed to both:
1. Managed copy
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/hardware/microsoft-hd-dvd.ars
Furthermore, HD DVD makes Managed Copy mandatory: all content provided on HD DVD must give users the option of making at least one copy.
Helps sell “Media Center” computers, because people can place that copy on a home media-server… And you wondered why Vista is loaded with DRM & HDCP goodness?
2. HDi
http://tinyurl.com/ysd9t6
The interactive features will be available on all new HD-DVD discs that take advantage of the HD-DVD player’s Internet connection.
Does M$ gets licensing fees from all manufacturers of HD-DVD players, and all studios releasing content on HD-DVD?
Does M$ get a license-fee on all that server-side software – which all those HDi-equipped HD-DVD players will “phone home” to…