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Financial Times reports Paramount ready to drop HD DVD for Blu Ray.
Cade
Eppur si muove.Registered User regular
Eppur si muove.Registered User regular
The final nail?
After Warner Brothers joined the Blu Ray club exclusively something had to give and looks like this may be it, if this does occur that will be the final nail in the HD DVD coffin. No if's, ands or buts.
Paramount is poised to drop its support of HD DVD after Warner Brothers’ recent backing of Sony’s Blu-ray technology, in a move that will sound the death knell of HD DVD and bring the home entertainment format war to a definitive end.
Paramount and DreamWorks Animation, which makes the Shrek films, came out in support of HD DVD last summer, joining General Electric’s Universal Studios as the main backers of the Toshiba format.
After Warner Brothers joined the Blu Ray club exclusively something had to give and looks like this may be it, if this does occur that will be the final nail in the HD DVD coffin. No if's, ands or buts.
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I find it interesting that all of this is happening around the same time MS announced they picked up Disney, among other studios, for digital distribution. Very interesting indeed.
Stoked that I ended up backing the winner tho.
Until the BD 2.0 firmwares were releases, HD-DVD was superior from all but a straight capacity standpoint. HD-DVD was the first for Picture-In-Picture commentaries and special features, and the first to offer a lot of the online connectivity/features that stuff like the Heroes set uses.
Now though, BD has more or less closed the gap and BD-Java has some interesting stuff on the horizion that could be nice.
I was cautious and supported both. Although right now my HD-DVD collection out numbers my BD collection 3-1.
I'm cool though if this winds being true, I might be able to pick up the Battlestar Galactica set on the cheap somewhere real soon.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
But dude, like, dvd outsells blu ray and blah blah it'll never catch on. EVER!!
Even though I like having a hard copy, I hope digital distribution comes up big soon so Blu-Ray fails hard.
Speaking of which I forgot to say:
"Bill Gates' plan is unfolding just as he foresaw it."
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Digital Distribution won't take hold for a long time. I don't know why it's so hard for people to understand that not everyone has the internet right now. Especially broadband. Until broad band reaches into the upper 70% proliferation, digital distribution won't take front seat to hard copies. Movie companies would simply lose too much money by switching to digital distribution at this point.
Most movies don't make their money back until they go into retail. If they suddenly cannot reach 40-50% of the market anymore, then they will push for hard copies.
Fucking christ.
Now I can get back to ignoring the new formats the same way I ignore SACD.
I still can't really see how DD would reach less of a market than Blu-Ray or HD-DVD....
Really?Its alot easier to just walk into a store and buy a Blu Ray player than it is to come up with the bandwidth necessary to stream HD at a tolerable level. I have cable and youtube videos trip up sometimes. Most people dont even have broadband yet.
By the time it's a majority, the companies will already have come up with another format war.
well, because there are less limiting factors to the spread of high-def formats than broadband. Anyone can buy a high-def player, while some people cannot get broadband.
Think about it this way - say blu-ray wins out over hd-dvd (which I believe will happen), then suddenly all new disc players are blu-ray players with DVD backwards compatibility. They slowly appear more and more until you walk into walmart and cannot find a DVD-only player unless it's tucked away in the back, like HDTV is doing. People switch without even knowing their switching - they can still play their old catalogs, and they simply have access to the new format.
That alone doesn't guarantee success, but it enables it to have much more success than DD.
I'm still holding out hope that they'll go back to supporting Betamax. It was a superior tape format, in all but capacity.
Especially the sound. Beta kicked the shit out of VHS (even Hi-Fi VHS) in the audio department.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
Except, by next year, we'll make the switch to digital tv. HDTV is a long term project, and it wasn't that long ago that it's penetration was marginal. Now we're starting to get into the 20-30% range.
Remember - it took color tv 30 years to catch on. These standards aren't made with a 10 year life span. They're not being made with a make or break time limit of 4 years.
When do these $100 or less Blue-Ray players come out again?
I seriously think some of you arent old enough to remember the last major format changes... (VHS>DVD...Cassette>CD) A complete format change can take years. Since Blu Ray isnt instantaneously adopted by everyone its somehow a failure... :roll:
How long would it take to download a movie, even on an average speed broadband connection?
Now as I understand it only half of america is on Broadband (I could be wrong, please disproove me).
Do you understand the argument now?
Until you can get a movie in under 15 minutes it will not be popular.
Satans..... hints.....
Digital tv can still be seen on SD televisions ya know. The switch to digital being end of SD is something that is overhyped IMO.
I would be pleased because the HD media war is just bullshit and they needed to decide on one fucking format from the get go.
I would be displeased because I generally like Toshiba, I thought HD-DVD was an excellent product, and I'm sad to see so many companies whom have put money into the format have it be all for naught.
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Well, frankly, the whole mechanic of digital distribution isn't something a lot of people are comfortable with. I can go to any store in the world and it works pretty much the same way. Shelf -> till -> home. It works, and not a lot of people really feel the need to change this system. Why should they? What advantages, really, does this system deliver to the consumer?
Lower prices? Maybe, but when you consider that most movies are lower quality than digital broadcasts or Blue-Ray/HD-DVD, they don't include special features, and they aren't hardcopy, then the savings diminish significantly. $10 for the download or $20-ish for the special edition DVD with commentary from the cinematographer, two versions of the film, and special art on the cover? Depending on the film my choice might be different, but people will always want that choice.
Convenience? Maybe, if you have an AppleTV or a HTPC. I don't, I don't know many people that do, and I know a lot of people that really don't care if they ever have one. Sure, I can buy the movie from my house but I can also walk a few blocks and get the hardcopy anyway, and then I can play it without having to install a computer next to my TV. Sure, the physical copies might go out of stock every now and then, but then you just go to the Blockbuster next door and rent it or something. 'Sides, am I going to keep all three hundred of my movies sitting on my hard drive? Be serious.
Quality? Certainly fucking not. I know I'm in the minority, but I can barely stand the compression on DVDs, let alone downloads.
I know a lot of people like the idea of digital distribution, but if I'm going to be honest here, the only advantage I see is that--as a content creator--I can give away my work with next to no cost to the consumer or myself. That's the only reason I care. But I'm not Paramount or whoever, and they aren't giving it away, so I still don't know why everyone is in such a rush to move to digital distribution.
It can only be seen on SD with the use of an adaptor. And do you really think after the switch, there will still be a steady stream of SD televisions for years to come?
the switch to digial television is going to be the death of SD, and you're being blind if you think otherwise.
They still sell VHS/DVD combo players since many people have VHS for recording or old tapes or family videos.
Actually any SDTV sold right now comes with ATSC feature installed, no adapters needed. And any DirecTV or Comcast digital user isn't going to see much difference if any at all AFAIK.
someone brought this up in IRC. Please please tell me you're not using this as an argument as to why DVD will stay viable over blu-ray... because that would imply that VHS is the main format over DVD.
True, but at the same time you have people like my parents that use a TV into into the thing basically turns to dust. The TV in the "living room" is a 32" CRT Magnavox from 1998, where the TV in the "den" is a console TV (THAT HAS A WOODEN FRAME) from about 1992. Will they buy a TV for HD? No. They wouldn't care about the difference. My father in particular has issues with paying over $400 for a TV. Then they'd bitch about having a nice TV but having it look worse than the old one because FUCK if they're gonna pay three times as much for better service.
I got chewed out for about 3 days for bringing home a $150 home theatre system home, I can't imagine what would happen if I suggested the idea to move up to a HDTV.
You may see a digital signal take hold, but as long as Wal-Mart and your other big-box stores carry Tube TVs and as long as what's in homes work, you won't see Digital take off.
Edit: My sister, as well, whom is 24, and a graphic designer, whom you would think would be more in tune with this kind of thing doesn't give a fuck. "Why would I want High-Def? Everything looks all pixelated." (Refering to what the TVs in Wal-Mart typically look like. Her herself purchased a 26" Tube TV a few months back "because it was much cheaper".
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Sure and they still sell cassettes for handheld recorders... what does that have to do with the mainstream movie watching public?
No I was using it as an supporting analogy to the CD/cassette argument.
If your sister believes that Hi def makes things all pixelated she isn't very bright and really shouldn't be used as an example.
Satans..... hints.....
Those would be called "Late adopters"
no marketing push targets late adopters. Late adopters are the same people who refuse to buy DVD players. These people were also the last people to switch from VHS to DVD. That didn't stop the switch, and I promise you the number of people who keep a TV from 1978 until it turns to dust are much smaller than the people who would switch in a more timely manner. You never try to get 100% of the people to switch, you try to get a majority.
Fun fact for everyone who is poo pooing HDTV and a format change - the freaking TELEPHONE doesn't have 95% market penetration. The united states has been trying to get 95% penetration for the telephone since the 1930's, and even today, only around 90% of the people in the US have telephone. Meaning nearly 10% of america have no phone at all.
Consider that before you say formats will never catch on due to late adopters.
Oh, we do. Which is why Blue-Ray and HD-DVD are doing shit all right now.
We remember Betamax vs VHS. Beta people remember getting burned on that.
We remember LaserDisk and SACD and MiniDisk. How are those doing these days?
People have gotten wise.
And that's not even touching the fact that VHS->DVD and Casette->CD are both massive upgrades compared to DVD->Blue-Ray/HD-DVD.
It may be coming eventually, but not anytime soon. And that's if something better doesn't come along in the meantime. For now, both the disks and the players are too expensive, and the future too uncertain.