Comments on: Paramount Drops Blu-Ray Support, Goes HD-DVD exclusive

By: Jax Myth

Jax Myth — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 15:54:42 +0000

WHY????????? Just when I’m getting a HD TV.

Microsoft paying a load of money for exclusivity? I’m getting deja vu. *COUGH*GTA IV*COUGH*

By: Tosh Hatch

Tosh Hatch — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:48:43 +0000

So by now you’ve heard that Paramount has dropped support for Blu-ray right? Good, so has a notable Hollywood director. Michael Bay — the man behind “Transformers,” “Bad Boys,” “Pear Harbor,” etc. — just threw down with Paramount in his personal blog. In a forum post titled “Paramount pisses me off!”, he states, “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!” That’s right Mike, aim your PS3 right at their coffers!

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:30:22 +0000

HD-DVD’s refusal to face the reality of how poorly it is selling is going to ruin both formats in the long run. People are just going to keep sitting on the fence until there is only one format, and the longer it takes, the closer companies like Verizon will get to offering everything on demand in HD. Didn’t the Borat DVD sell more in one week then every HD-DVD combined to date?

They’re both doing a lousy job of informing the general public of how much better the high resolutions look on an HDTV.

Hopefully Sony continues to use Blu-Ray in ways that don’t get bogged down by the format war like getting blank discs to a lower price. I’d love to have 25GB discs to back files and media up.

The longer DVD stays around, the more a lot of people are going to be encouraged to pirate. 720×280 two hour movies aren’t much of a download these days. They’re about to follow the music industry off the side of the mountain if they don’t keep things moving forward.

By: Henning

Henning — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 13:23:02 +0000

It looks like Paramount was paid $150 million to exclusively support HD DVD for 18 months:

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=416

By: Henning

Henning — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:44:23 +0000

PS3 plays Blu-ray Disc (BD), DVD, SACD, and CD formats. Not HD DVD.

By: murphyz

murphyz — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:48:49 +0000

Dumb question – does the PS3 play Blu-Ray solely…or is it capable of playing HD-DVD?

Mxx

By: ehandlr

ehandlr — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:42:03 +0000

Michael Bay is pissed about this deal. He wants Transformers on all formats.

By: Sporty

Sporty — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:35:58 +0000

If you follow the format war closely you see that most insiders think MS wants both formats to die so XBL download service is the place to go for HD content. Although DD is a good alternative I’m not too keen on paying $6 for a week’s worth of viewing and never be able to bring it to another system.

The fall out for this move is probably going to haunt Paramount. 150 million might be nice since the HD disk market is still niche, but when we’re approaching 60 million US HD owners the demand is going to spike soon.

Paramount is probably going to see loses over the 150 million with this move. Speilburg isn’t on board and wont release his movies on HD-DVD. Micheal Bay posted on his site that he’s so pissed at paramount that He wont direct Transformers 2 for them now.

http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2299

Universal said they are rethinking their HD-DVD only stance (at least on the IGN podcast).

It’s about to get really nasty in the media due to this move. Although I haven’t heard anyone in the industry say this will help turn the tide to HD-DVDs favor. Since BD still has 4 exclusive studios and 70% of the globat market. It just adds confusion for consumers and delays the outcome.