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Paramount poised to drop HD DVD format support | |
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| Time: 04:19 EST/09:19 GMT | News Source: Press Release | Posted By: Byron Hinson | ||
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Paramount studios is poised to drop its support of the high-definition DVD (HD DVD) format after Warner Bros studio said it would back the competing Blu-ray format, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday. The loss of support from Paramount, which is owned by Viacom, would likely deal the final blow to the HD DVD format backed by Toshiba and put an end to the format war, the newspaper said on its Web site. Time Warner's Warner Bros studio on Friday said it would exclusively release high-definition DVDs in Sony's Blu-ray format, marking a major setback to the HD DVD camp. Blu-ray discs outsold HD DVD by nearly two-to-one in the United States last year, but HD DVD had secured major allies in August when Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG said they would go exclusively with HD DVD. But Paramount is understood to have a clause in its contract with the HD DVD camp that would allow it to change sides if Warner Bros backed Blu-ray, the Financial Times said, citing people familiar with the situation. | ||
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| #1 By 2960 (72.196.195.185) at 1/8/2008 7:43:18 AM |
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Yep. Sad to say, that will indeed probably do it.
Consumers lose again :( Looks like those with the most fluff money won. TL |
| #2 By 24027 (72.188.103.245) at 1/8/2008 7:58:57 AM |
| Cue the Whining 3...2...1... |
| #3 By 95817 (66.41.151.58) at 1/8/2008 9:40:50 AM |
| http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aQMGgh2LV_bU&refer=japan |
| #4 By 2960 (72.196.195.185) at 1/8/2008 10:41:08 AM |
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I don't see how they would have much choice now. One company cannot sustain the format.
If Sony wanted to do right by consumers, they would allow them to trade in their HDDVD titles for BluRay versions, maybe charging mateiral and shipping costs only. It would be the right thing to do. But it's Sony. "Right" is not part of their vocabulary. TL |
| #5 By 8556 (12.210.39.82) at 1/8/2008 10:46:09 AM |
| #2: Who's whining, except for a possible few HD-DVD users? I'll be glad to see either format take command of the market. I've been waiting Obiwan. |
| #6 By 7754 (206.169.247.2) at 1/8/2008 11:21:17 AM |
| #4: I'm disappointed as well, but wouldn't the responsibility for trading HD-DVDs to BluRay versions be the responsibility of the studio, rather than Sony? |
| #7 By 92283 (64.180.196.143) at 1/8/2008 11:54:56 AM |
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Blu-Ray adds 30$ per PC drive in royalties. Plus royalties for each disc.
It should be Sun and Sony paying. They are the ones benefitting. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/2005/12/18/bluray_royalties_30_per_pc_drive.html |
| #8 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/8/2008 12:36:33 PM |
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#4 - there is talk today that they are going to annouce a trade in deal on HD-DVD hardware, no mention for HD-DVD titles - in fairness to Sony it isn't their fault you bought either of them so its just a gesture. Would Microsoft have done it if it was the other way round or the HD-DVD group, no probably not.
#7 - and adds 50% more space onto the disks too - oh but we forget that ;o) |
| #9 By 92283 (64.180.196.143) at 1/8/2008 1:06:41 PM |
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#8 HD DVD will do 51GB on triple layer discs.
However, I'm not too worried about that since I remember the promise of 18GB DVD on dual layer - double sided discs that never materialized. I can buy 30$ SATA DVD burners. With the royaly, that won't happen with Blu Ray. I can guarantee you part of the deal with Sony is that Sony will never allow cheap Blu Ray burners or cheap BR media to exist in order to make sure copying won't occur on any kind of scale. DVD's will be around a long, long time. |
| #10 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/8/2008 1:09:28 PM |
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#9 - but you will need a new unreleased HD-DVD drive to do that. Just like you would need a new Blu-Ray drive when their 200GB disks come out. So again..good point, but not quite working out the way you hoped.
I'll wait and see on burners, all of them (HD and Blu) are over priced at the moment as most sensible PC buyers didn't go for them yet. |
| #11 By 92283 (64.180.196.143) at 1/8/2008 1:20:39 PM |
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#10 I'll wait for flash.
Right now I can buy a 16GB flash card for 70$. http://www.meritline.com/a-data-16gb-turbo-sdhc-flash-card.html A year from now, it'll be cheap enough to put a movie on it. And the player will be miniscule. Blu Ray is too expensive and too late. Flash and downloading will win. |
| #12 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/8/2008 1:22:20 PM |
| Downloading won't win anything still for the next few years...though in 4/5 years certainly it should do without a doubt. Services are still too slow right now and lower quality - Xbox Live's "HD" download service for an example, lower quality picture and basic sound. |
| #13 By 47914 (24.225.231.107) at 1/8/2008 1:23:51 PM |
| #9 Talk about cheap! (me, that is) I still have never purchased DL discs as they are still generally over $1.00 apiece for blanks. Probably will never buy a blue ray player or burner unless blanks come WAY down in price. I don't have perfect vision anyhow, so the diff in quality of video is not that great to me. Besides, it's the plot, script, acting, game playability etc. that's important to me, more than anything else. |
| #14 By 8556 (12.208.163.138) at 1/8/2008 1:54:21 PM |
| #12: You nailed it. Current "DVD Quality" movie downloads look more like compressed DVD copies burned to CD. Practical High Def downloads are years away. At my exising cable broadband speed of 9Mb/sec (when no one else is awake) it will take many hours to download a High Def movie. |
| #15 By 92283 (64.180.196.143) at 1/8/2008 2:04:57 PM |
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400MB 720P Divx encoded 1 hour TV shows look fantastic on my 22" monitor.
HD discs in consumer electronics stores (I don't have HD DVD or Blu Ray) don't look any better. |
| #16 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/8/2008 2:15:39 PM |
| Try it on a proper high definition TV designed for rea high definition content and try making the same statement again. |
| #17 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 1/8/2008 2:19:59 PM |
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#5: You pirate TV shows? Interesting.
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| #18 By 37 (192.251.125.85) at 1/8/2008 2:23:17 PM |
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"Xbox Live's "HD" download service for an example, lower quality picture and basic sound"
My Xbox Live HD downloads are fast, high quality 720p, and have 5.1 surround. |
| #19 By 92283 (64.180.196.143) at 1/8/2008 2:24:35 PM |
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http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/08/paramount-current-plan-is-to-support-the-hd-dvd-format-curre/
"Paramount has officially issued its denial of the rumor -- originally printed in the Financial Times -- that it is very close to ending its exclusive support of HD DVD." #16 The TV's I saw were playing HD content on HD TV's. Sure, the demo discs playing scenery look great. Movies look no better than the stuff I have. |
| #20 By 7754 (206.169.247.2) at 1/8/2008 2:38:48 PM |
| #17: more surprising to me (considering the source) is that it's Divx rather than WMV. |
| #21 By 3 (86.1.38.147) at 1/8/2008 2:56:21 PM |
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#18 - I can create 720p content with 5.1 on my camcorder, doesn't mean the quality is that hot. I've used the live download service and comparing HD downloads on there (5gb) to HD-DVD titles of the same film is like chalk and cheese, there is a massive difference and I want HD sound from my HD films currently download services can't provide that.
#19 I guess my eyesight just seems a heck of a lot more quality than yours does. I'd like to see a comparison of exactly the same footage on a blu-ray or HD-DVD disk compared to the Divx file as it will clearly have far better quality, even you could see that I'm sure. But hey, if HD-DVD had won this war I'm sure you'd be spouting how fantastic that was. Oh and I'm judging it on the Blu-ray box set of Lost Series 3. ;o) |
| #22 By 7754 (206.169.247.2) at 1/8/2008 3:00:15 PM |
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Regarding DVD quality and HD movie downloads... I have to agree with AWBrian--the XBox Live HD downloads work really well for me... I have 6Mbps (12Mbps "burst"), and it's only 5-10 minutes or so before you can start watching (the rest of the download is finished before the movie is over). I'm really impressed with the service, and the quality looks very good to me. I don't have a really fancy TV, though, and I'm not exactly doing an A-B test.
However, even on DVDs, I've not been all that impressed with the quality. Not that it's bad, but there are a couple things that bug me: banded colors in gradients (low color bit-depth), and loss of fidelity during fast action scenes. I've brought this up before (lketchum explained it by saying that I have especially good vision, though I don't really think that's the case), but I'll give you an example. Take Casino Royale--during the street-running chase scene in the beginning of the movie, when they are running through the tall green plants, there is a considerable loss of detail... in fact, you can even start to see block artifacts (much like JPEG's block artifacts at high rates of compression) and other fidelity issues. It would appear that the content is changing too fast for the codec to encode everything adequately for the given bitrate (this seems to happen regardless of player, TV, etc.). Unfortunately, these are the types of quality issues that aren't easily identifiable, because you can't simply hit "pause" and closely examine the scene. Another thing that's interesting about movie downloads is that movies can, in essence, be patched. Once you buy a DVD, HD-DVD, BluRay disc, etc., that's it--those bits aren't changing. But take that Casino Royale example... if customers complained, the movie could be re-encoded at a higher bitrate, even if only for the fast action scenes. Or, when the day comes that 4k resolution screens are broadly available, the content could be "upgraded" for a reasonable fee. |
| #23 By 7754 (206.169.247.2) at 1/8/2008 3:08:31 PM |
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#21: 5.1 on your camcorder? How many mics does it have?
It would be interesting to do a side-by-side with HD downloads (~5GB) and BluRay/HD-DVD. I don't have either player type and haven't spent much time with any, so I'd be really curious to see the difference. It does make sense that the optical discs could offer better fidelity. However, that assumes that the movies are actually taking advantage of that extra capacity. Anyone have any stats on how much of the capacity of those discs is actually used today? Only the movie, not including any of the special features, of course. |
| #24 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 1/8/2008 3:17:41 PM |
| #20: That's how I knew the shows he watches are pirated. Otherwise, if he was doing the encoding himself, it would be some MS thing for sure. Some drink the Kool-Aid, others breathe it but very few have it integrated into their DNA. |
| #25 By 92283 (64.180.196.143) at 1/8/2008 3:19:56 PM |
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#29 My DVD player plays Divx and Xvid without authoring. Just burn them as files. This post was edited by NotParkerToo on Tuesday, January 08, 2008 at 15:20. |
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