Paramount chooses HD DVD exclusive!

[The Bat]

I know some one on this Forum said that Paramount was going to cross platform...but that's no longer true. This is the "Deal Breaker" for me...as I still don't own STAR TREK:TOS. Plus...I own an Xbox 360...so I can pick up the HD Player for $199.99

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33722

[highquality]

Being in the industry, this was a huge suprise for me. It was looking like Blu-Ray would win this war hands down. The Sony camp pretty much had a lock with most of the networks before the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Format war even started. As of late, Blu-Ray had 70% of the sales. I wonder what Sony did to tick off Paramount???

[mitchedwards]

Interesting, I thougth Blu Ray was the new standard. I guess the VHS BetaMAx Wars part II is still not over.

[toys2cool]

yeah I was talking about this to my brother and he was telling me that Blu ray was destroying HD dvds,so this is good news for the ones who prefer HD like me

[batmanmc]

never tried hd or blu ray . but ill go with wahtever sticks around like the vhs too dvd.

[toys2cool]

well I don't see either of them sticking around for long if they don't drop them prices,$30 a pop is a lot man

[cjefferys]

The announcement came right out of left field for me. But supposedly, Paramount is being paid $150 million to be HD DVD exclusive for 18 months, so it looks like they took the money and ran (although to be fair, I'm sure Sony has thrown a bit of cash Fox and Disney's way to help them remain Blu-ray exclusive).

If anything, this will just prolong the format war even longer. But on the plus side, this war has helped hardware prices drop much faster than they otherwise would have, and has helped in other ways too (such as forcing Sony to start doing a better job on their own Blu-ray releases, as their initial releases were rather poorly done).

Oh well, up until now, I've been Blu-ray only but have been thinking about going format neutral and getting a HD DVD player soon anyway (there have been several Universal HD DVDs that I've been really wanting to get). This just makes that decision easier for me to make, and now there are HD DVD players are quite reasonably priced.

[Corellian Corvette]

Video sales, *over the last few months*, have been running about 2:1. Life to date, it's about 60/40 in terms of movie sales.

The issue is the PS3. Coming with BluRay, it's very easy for a PS3 owner to rent/buy even one movie and swing the tide. That doesn’t mean he’s an active BD owner.

From a standalone player sales POV, HD DVD is the clear winner there. They've sold about 2x - 3x the number of standalone players which is a very important point. That means, people who are *choosing* a player format are choosing HD DVD 3:1. Every player sold on HD DVD, standalone or an Xbox accessory, are bought with the intention of playing movies.

On the PS3 it's incidental. Once decent games come out, people will move away from movies and buy games, and that's the risk in what's happening with Blu Ray for the studios. What they care about are standalone players as well as movie sales.

HD DVD players are also cheaper (there will be $200 ones this holiday) and around double that price for Blu Ray. Read all the reviews on the movies and the HD DVD versions rate better picture, and more features. Finally, HD DVD has HD and regular DVD versions on the same disc, which Blu Ray can't do.

HD DVD is also the format that was chosen by the DVD Forum, the consortium of companies that decide the specifications for "DVD".

Many people don’t know, but Toshiba and Sony both submitted their formats for consideration for the high-definition spec for the successor to DVD. The DVD Forum chose HDDVD, and Sony took their ball and went home and created BluRay anyway. That’s why their players are so expensive, and buggy (e.g. some of their movies work on some players and not others)

There is a lot of FUD going on around BD but the truth is that HD DVD is in the game far better than the press would like you to think. If all movies were coming out on both formats, HD DVD would win hands down because players are cheaper and the “brand” name of DVD is important.

It will be interesting to see how this all goes down.

[cjefferys]

From a standalone player sales POV, HD DVD is the clear winner there. They've sold about 2x - 3x the number of standalone players which is a very important point. That means, people who are *choosing* a player format are choosing HD DVD 3:1.

Well, there are a large number of people who bought a PS3 strictly for Blu-ray, instead of buying a standalone player, so those people did "choose" a format too. I have no idea what percent bought a PS3 for movies instead of for gaming, but I'm sure I'm far from the only one (considering the PS3 plays BDs flawlessly and seems the most "future proof" of BD players).

Read all the reviews on the movies and the HD DVD versions rate better picture, and more features.

While it's true that the HD DVD versions can have more features at this point (BD was really late with finalizing the spec that would allow them to do things like PIP, etc), but the picture quality of films released in both formats has pretty well been a tie. I don't think I've heard of any HD disc reviewed where it's been stated that the picture looked better on the HD DVD version over the BD version.

Finally, HD DVD has HD and regular DVD versions on the same disc, which Blu Ray can't do.

But thats really a mixed "blessing". Many people actually complain about having to pay more money for having the standard definition version put on the other side of the disc, as many think it's something they will never use so why should they be forced to pay extra for it. And of course, Universal has had some serious quality problems with some of their combo discs (eg. CHILDREN OF MEN) so that a lot of people actively avoid buying those discs.

There is a lot of FUD going on around BD .

Hell, there is tons of FUD being thrown around by both formats' cheerleaders. Forums like AVS are looking like complete trainwrecks these days, this war is driving some people absolutely nuts.

I'm not a BD cheerleader trying to pick apart what you are saying, honest! I just wanted to clear a few points up.

[Dave Mc]

I don't care who "wins", I just wish one would, so I could finally buy one. I refuse to spend the cash, then have half the distributors going exclusive with the other side. Argh!