Paramount to unleash tons of HD DVD *exclusive* titles!

DemoCoder said:
MS simply agreed to provide tools or services, or cross promotion, it's the same. When a politician has his home repaired for free by a lobbyist, instead of being handed $20k in cash to have it done, do we really consider it less of a bribe?
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Similar to how Sony was doing the Paramount encodes for them and subsidizing BD50 media, sure. Btw, if you notice a lot of Paramounts recent encodes on HD DVD have actually been AVC HP and not VC-1. MS had openly admitted to helping even BD companies such as Disney with VC-1 so again, that's all the same. The codec team is quite small so if you're thinking MS will do the encodes for Paramount that's not going to happen either. If a check was written, it's Toshiba. However, MS is generally a more fun company to slam and throw jabs at.

That MS does "what is best for their business" is reason enough to be skeptical of their attempts to *sabotage* next-gen optical. Because, what is best for MS is not always what is best for the consumer or the industry in general.
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The word sabotage is a bit over the top especially when you consider that the BDA could have had MS in a neutral stance with the adoption of HDi (which even their technical working group recommended!) However, fearing that MS would control the software layer of both formats the BDA dediced to go against their own recommendation and adopted Java, which translated to the mess in the specs. Profile 1.0, 1.1, BD-Live and so on....If anything Sun is sabotaging BR with such profiles :)
 
willardjuice said:
And does that change anything? His bias is still well-documented and therefore his posts should be taken with a grain of salt.
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Sure, but his post also mentioned that there could be more fallout, and that's the part I highlighted. Unless you know for sure that the buck stops at today's news, I would be interested to follow what happens next.

I did and his source is that one insignificant online store is now selling slightly more Blu-ray players than HD DVD players (that store also sells six types of Blu-ray players vs three types of HD DVD players). :rolleyes: Overall at the end of July, HD DVD players outsold Blu-ray players by about 1.5-2:1 depending on which source you use (and of course disregarding PS3 and the Xbox360 add-on).
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That's what I meant. Many people use PS3 as their home theater player too (Look at the number of remotes sold and the activities in AVSforum). These numbers are not accounted for. The truth is probably somewhere in between. MS released their sales for Xbox 360 add-on to be 150,000 a few months ago.
 
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RobertR1 said:
The word sabotage is a bit over the top especially when you consider that the BDA could have had MS in a neutral stance with the adoption of HDi (which even their technical working group recommended!) However, fearing that MS would control the software layer of both formats the BDA dediced to go against their own recommendation and adopted Java, which translated to the mess in the specs. Profile 1.0, 1.1, BD-Live and so on....If anything Sun is sabotaging BR with such profiles :)
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I for one am glad, because

1) Javascript execution performance sucks (yes, even with the new Adobe JIT), and embedded Java is the clear winner here. Do I really want a bastardized version of Microsoft Silverlight on every device? No. (Don't get me started on how absolutely atrocious and terrible MS's design sensibility is with respect to XML dialects, see XAML)

2) It's better to have a weak industry player like Sun 'controlling' interactivity software layer than a strong player like MS. The reason being, Sun's weakness has translated into huge market opportunities for dozens of VM vendors (like IBM, BEA, and tons of embedded provides) to provide alternate implementations, whereas MS's HDi reference implementation would pretty much put the kibosh on that.

It's like asking whether I'd prefer OpenGL or DirectX inside these players. Without question, OpenGL. OpenGL has been lagging DX10 technology wise, but that's irrelevent. I would not want the preeminent software layer of hundreds of millions of players to be pretty much controlled by MS with MS's implementation everywhere, and highly dependent on MS tool libraries.

Am I biased? Hell yes. Is Sony proprietary? Yes. Is Apple? Yes. But you have to pick your battles wisely, and balance of power is important. MS has too much, therefore, I wish to see it "lose" this fight, even if it means other corporate DRM bastards winning for the time being.


Maybe Google will swoop in, buy Paramount, and pull the rug out from under MS. :)
 
I would think that in this battle, that Toshiba has the most to gain.

Blind bias for or against any company is never a good thing. After all, any company, whether it's Sony, MS, Apple or any other could come up with the technology that benefits us all in the long run. To argue or hinder for the sake of "I dislike company A" is rather childish (meant to no one in particular).

That said, I do wish that one format would go away and hopefully soon. I do want a an HD format winner, but I am willing to risk my money on guessing which it will be as is probably the case with most consumers sitting on the fence.
 
Very dissapointing

I'm quite ticked off at this news and at Paramount.

I was really looking forward to the Top Gun BRD. Had it pre ordered and everything and it was only weeks away from being released!! Now it will probably be years before I will get to see it in Full HD.

That and Face Off as well. They were literally only weeks away!! I imagine the discs were already pressed, shipped, and just waiting to be sold. And now they will have to be destroyed or something just because some executive wanted a bigger bonus this year.

I was also really looking forward to the eventual release of Transformers god damn it! :devilish: I refuse to go dual format. I just want this war to end. Paramout obviously doesn't.
 
I'd like to raise a few points about the online distrubution and a couple of other things that seems to have been overlooked by you guys or me when reading through the pages.

1) I don't think it would be possible for the movie industry to move away from disc based revenue for this generation. We've certainly seen how TV show providers and cable companies have advanced in this field but at this point there is not enough content or incentive to move much further. Obviously people on this board are well versed enough about technology to appreciate digital distrubution, but we have to realize that we are not a big market. I still have to help my family when setting up automated recording of TV shows on our DVD player. I can imagine the idea sounding good, but so did our dvd-player.

2) The chain of companies and entire industries created around the physical distrubution would prohibit this kind of widespread digital distrubution. Disc manufacturers (be they hd-dvd or BR) and brick and mortar stores would only be a few of those that would do everything in their power to keep from loosing their profits.

We have to accept that the biggest market for movies are casual movie watchers, The mothers and fathers who go out and buy movies for their kids or rent them to watch. Untill there is a solution that makes all of these parts that make up the entire movie industry happy, content providers and consumers alike, we wont see widespread adoption of digital content or such distribution. Look at Steam for games, nearly all of the games on Steam also have their products on shelves.

Gotta go, hope this sheds some light on things that might have been overlooked.
 
I am not blindly biased to MS. I defend MS from time to time. My bias is conditional on their market domination. I just think it's ultimately bad for business and consumer in the long run.

I also don't like the fact that they are in effect, trying to breathe life support into a platform for the sheer purpose of delaying it. MS is not a movie studio, nor do they make any standalone optical players, so I view it as suspicious that they are trying to defeat another format so much. After all, MS will still sell media centers regardless of HDDVD or BR, it's just a question of software. And MS will still make money off of VC-1 royalties. So why do they care so much about the outcome of the fight?

HDi? I don't think they would bet so much money on a trivial API component.

Look at Apple. They don't care. Whichever format wins, they'll sell Macs with it, and include OS X playback capability. Why does MS care SOOO deeply about this fight?

Moving further, MS can freely use VC-1 in IPTV and DD, regardless of HD-DVD or BR, since they all share the same codec as well.

I find the whole situation to be bullshit. Bribery and triangulation to create uncertainty in the market. We know what Toshiba and Universal's motives are, especially Toshiba, since they bet the farm on it.
 
My post wasn't meant to be personal nor aimed at you specifically.

I agree it sucks to have to have 2 formats and maybe it is only to hurt Sony and Blu Ray that MS is backing HD DVD, but isn't this par for the course. Their future stake is on Digital Distribution, so it is in their best interest to keep Blu Ray from getting dugged in.

My utopian system would be a system that allows you to access digital media at anywhere anytime thru any device. For example, I buy a song once it's stored on a universal server that I have access to anywhere. I can play it on my Ipod or Zune, my PC, laptop, X360, PS3 or my Home Entertainment system. It would be great if I could do this with video as well.

I do not see any difference in how other companies operate. Sony for example before the PS2 launched with the PR relating to the DreamCast and last year with their PR relating to the X360. Companies that have future profits at stake will always try to downplay or ally with competitors to keep that competitor from becoming the de facto standard. This is true in every technological aspect (Cell phones, videogames, TVs, PC, etc). You only have to look as far the Iphone to the latest example.

I think both are great formats with many things to offer, but may be MS is backing HD DVD because they really do see it as a superior format. From everything I've read on both formats, there isn't a clearly superior format taking price, ease of production, etc into consideration.
 
Digital downloads are fine for SD but not HD feature films.

When I buy a movie, I want:
1080p
5.1 sound or better
Directors commentary and audio tracks.
I want to be able to let freinds browse my movie catalog and pick some to either take home or watch with me

Now I am a pretty heavy technology user. I could easily setup a MC server with terabytes of storage if I wanted to. I have a 100Mb internet connection, I am well positioned for network downloads if I wanted to. And probably most importantly, I am already very familar with the technology and would not be afraid of using it. Been downloading music and SD video for over a decade. So it should be telling when someone like me says NO to digital film downloads. I still insist on discs!

In order for Digital Downloads/Ownership of large HD media (20-50GB per film) that cost $20-$40 to become interesting to me, the architecture would have to change significantly.
 
Who gives a shit if M.Bay is pissed, Steven Spielbergo on the other hand has influence and he prefers Blu-Ray and i'm sure he is pissed right now.


Anyway this seems like yet another desperation act from HD-DVD camp
 
Darkon said:
Who gives a shit if M.Bay is pissed, Steven Spielbergo on the other hand has influence and he prefers Blu-Ray and i'm sure he is pissed right now.


Anyway this seems like yet another desperation act from HD-DVD camp
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Movies directed by Spielberg were specifically called out as the exception in the deal.
 
inefficient said:
I'm quite ticked off at this news and at Paramount.

I was really looking forward to the Top Gun BRD. Had it pre ordered and everything and it was only weeks away from being released!! Now it will probably be years before I will get to see it in Full HD.

That and Face Off as well. They were literally only weeks away!! I imagine the discs were already pressed, shipped, and just waiting to be sold. And now they will have to be destroyed or something just because some executive wanted a bigger bonus this year.
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Errr, are we sure those won't be appearing? I'd be very surprised if they got to the point of letting Amazon take pre-orders and then pulled the plug on them. That'd piss Amazon off as well.
 
Geo said:
Movies directed by Spielberg were specifically called out as the exception in the deal.
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Close Encounters was Blu-ray only before, this looks like it means that Spielberg / Paramount movies will actually be both now, according to the Paramount interview at Ain't it Cool.

Random Digital said:
Dell uses Blu-ray as well and I think they are still the biggest PC manufacturer.
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HP is at the moment.
 
I agree with every word DemoCoder has written on this issue so far. No need to be diplomatic over this. Microsoft is engaged in active sabotage. It is all the more funny that the Hollywood studios would let themselves be divided and conquered at will by the suits at Redmond. To say I’m not angry about this would be to lie, they are denying the existence of a prosperous HD optical format but bravo to them, their strategy is working a treat.

Dave Baumann said:
So you are positive that this apparent $150M deal is all thats behind it, despite, as you concede, its actually not a big sum of money?

Could Paramounts take that the HD DVD format being cheaper for them to use in the long run have no grain of truth to it? Having seen both formats and the costs associated with them they are one of the ones who can judge this.
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Dave, to be honest I have never bought the cheaper argument. At all. It is such a trivial issue since the absolute differences are so vanishingly small. In the long run even smaller!

This "cheaper production" meme is a continued talking point because HD-DVD has to try and justify its existence.

I think the deal could have been executed at Viacom Group level, after all there is quite a chummy relationship between them and Microsoft, has been for years. Moreover, like I said previously, there have been comments from Paramount executives that they don't believe that either of these two will ever become the HD standard, so maybe this deal is a logical extension of that line of thinking and a quick cash grab.

Brimstone,
Please do not take offence, I know your post history at NeoGAF and various other places which I lurk at, it is creative to say the least. So I think it’s best if I don’t continue this discussion with you.

Geo,
They sacrificed future earnings potential of a successful industry standard format being established for HD optical. This guarantee’s stalemate for another 18months at least. This makes it a remote possibility that there will be any winner at all. The CFNPV of such a format would dwarf the money they have received in cash and non cash items.
 
Geo said:
Errr, are we sure those won't be appearing? I'd be very surprised if they got to the point of letting Amazon take pre-orders and then pulled the plug on them. That'd piss Amazon off as well.
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Not unheard of. Fox did last minute reshuffles/delays/cancellations on large portions of their spring/summer BD lineups (reportedly in anticipation of BD+) well after preorders had started at the major retailers. Coincidently, only announcing some new titles yesterday following months of silence.
 
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