Filming studios give HDDVD another chance
The format war over next-generation DVDs appeared to have a clear winner, but the picture just got fuzzier. Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. said Monday that they would offer movies exclusively in the HD DVD format rather than in that of the better-selling Blu-ray — a surprise move that complicates the technology battle that Blu-ray had been clearly winning. “I am very late to this party because I was skeptical about high definition,” said Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation, “but what is happening in the marketplace is a game changer.”
Not included are director Steven Spielberg’s films, which the companies said were “not exclusive to either format.” Spielberg, Katzenberg and mogul David Geffen sold their DreamWorks SKG live-action operation to Paramount parent Viacom Inc. last year. Both HD DVD and Blu-ray players produce much sharper pictures than conventional DVD players. Because most people still have standard machines, high-definition discs are just a fraction of the overall DVD market. From Jan. 1 through Aug. 12, consumers bought 2.1 Blu-ray discs and 1.1 million HD DVD discs, compared with nearly half a billion standard DVDs, said Judith McCourt, research director of Home Media Research. But HD DVD players now retail in some cases for $299 and could be headed as low as $199 by the holiday season. Blu-ray players have come down to $499 today from about $1,000 a year ago. This may be still an interesting battle…
Source: LA Times, CanmagÂ
Comments(28)
“From Jan. 1 through Aug. 12, consumers bought 2.1 Blu-ray discs and 1.1 million HD DVD discs, ”
haha those blu-ray discs are just flying off the shelves.
ps yes i know its a typo. i just thought it was funny.
Wow i really though blu-ray would land them because of the sony connection
It is good to see more than one format in the market, if not we will still have $1,000 blu-ray players. Both will take off if machine price and DVD price fall to standard DVD level. HD is very nice to watch and it by far better than standard DVD and the theater quality. Having 2 players is not a big deal if you enjoy movies.
Paramount’s first releases under the exclusive HD DVD program include “Blades of Glory” on Aug. 28 and the summer blockbusters “Transformers” and “Shrek the Third,” due for release later this fall.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/08/20/technology/dreamworks_paramount.reut/
HD DVD video players have outsold rival standard Blu-ray players by a three-to-one margin in Europe’s main markets so far this year, according to a lobby group.
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL1135679220070712?feedType=RSS
Yup.. I think HD DVD is starting to look a LOT more promising. At least at this price point.
HD-DVD also have no region coding and in some instances combo discs for those who want the SD disc as well.
I wouldn’t care either way if it wasn’t for the Blu-Ray region coding, that pushed me towards the HD-DVD camp for now.
paying 150 million $ for getting your movies on a HD-DVD platform which is being outsold 2-1 by another platform(BR) is deff on of the last bumps in the road..
more producers should listen to steven spielberg instead of listening to their wallet
i’ll stick with regular dvds kkthx
in 5 years they’re gonna come out with green-ray and hddvd-hd-version
useless crap .. i don’t about quality of the dvd, but the quality of the movie .. as long as it’s watchable (like it is now, with regular dvd) I’m ok
I agree John… Lol I don’t know about you guys but a standard DVD movie has pretty decent quality… What do people sit up 1 meter away or some shit? Even on a very large screen I doubt that you would get too bad quality at all, No-were neer unwatchable.
500 for a Blue Ray? 200 for a HD DVD?
20 for a DVD?
I choose DVD player! maybe get a bigger TV or something, even know I watch all my movies/tv on my 17″ monitor :O lol.
i kinda agree with john, i still dont see any need for any hd whatsoever format as long as there is standard dvd
I agree with John (post 9).we seem to be so bothered with the quality of the picture and yet noone has stopped to ask the film companies to make better quality stories. I admit that there are a few (and I mean a few)good films each year but the rest of them are sub standard storyline or production. I will stick with dvd format as it performs perfectly well and the price is cheap……. unless of course anyone wants to give me a PS3. I got into this scene as I got increasingly frustrated with paying high prices at the cinema and dvd stores and receiving utter substandard rubbish in return. so all film companies if you are listening, “If you want to charge extortionate prices, please give us some quality in return, otherwise drop the prices”. Rant over!
WHY? there is absolutely no logic in this move.
the blu ray format has more space! and it outsells HD-DVD by 2:1!
sometimes i get the feeling companies simply want bluray to fail , because its a sony technology… WHY?
Its does seem silly as we all over and over buy films we like and the new releases over and over again.
Not including all the nonsense with cd formats we are being sold the same thing.
I bought laser disc when that came out and the quality was great but not brilliant as many films were not remastered to a decent standard.
So with vhs, cd, Ld, dvd, now blue ray or hd how many times are we gonna get sold the same thing?
Ive lost count of the amount of times Ive brought some films usually for the extras then for the extra mins added.
To be honest the way the internet is set up with torrents especially what is the motivation for anyone to rebuy all their old favs while they are then worth nothing when resold?
Better to download a version of tv or film that has a pixel ratio than stands up to the screen sizes available.
When we are being ripped off over and over again by companies its no wonder we use sites such as this to get the stuff.
Like John said we will only get sold it all AGAIN in 5 years time with green ray or some usb type stick player.
..and cos its new us the sheep in us will have to have the newest bestest tech wont we? which is why the whole format debate thing is eeven funnier.
In a supermarket the other day al the formats available wher e there next to each other.
VHS, DVD, BLUE RAY, HD AND EVEN UMD I just had to laff.
Im sticking to dvd cos all this reselling us thing is a con.
I want HD-DVD to win, man! It has the better encoding (took a while before blu-ray sorted that out), can be manufactured on the cheap (without having to pay Sony $$$ for special burning machines + licences), has little protection against ripping, and is completly REGION FREE – so for all us pirates its the right format!
3 years down the line i can see HD-DVD being the same price as DVD is now, BluRay i cannot! simply cos of the Sony brandname.
Common pirates, support HDDVD!
Cool.
HD DHD is a lot easier to rip
U guys, I understand that this is a new technology and like always ppl are afraid and skeptical, it is totally natural to get that reaction, but let me ask u a question for those saying they are satisfied with their dvd quality, have ever watched a full hddvd/bluray from beginning on a high quality 1080p tv before? Believe me even if u have seen the movie a 100 times on regular dvd, as long as your eyes and ears function well, you can clearly tell me they are not selling us the same crap, I mean I just saw Pirates of the Carribean in Bluray for the 1st time bluray after seeing on dvd alot of times and believe me, it was like a different movie, especially with the older movies that have to be remastered from scratch, dvd quality sucks ass with so many artifacts that u cant enjoy that movie u used to watch as a kid with decent quality, that is not the case with hd,
there is a HUGE difference and like every addiction, once you go HD, its so beautiful with bright colors, u want more HD and hence have to feed ur addiction, I personally recomment HD DVD bcos its easier on the budget and quality difference with Bluray is almost non existent. The first time I saw a high def movie was a bluray one and I almost crapped my pants, I started saving since then and now have a beautiful 1080p monitor, prices are dropping for those tvs,
They probably made the move because they got paid by microsoft for sponsoring the format. This is to support their xbox360 hddvd player.
Over here in europe hddvd is not available in most stores and if it is, it is cerntainly not cheaper than blu-ray.
You know blu-ray and hddvd both support identical video and audio standards. I hope blu-ray dominates so I can store more data using a burner, but otherwise it doesn’t matter who wins.
IF you have get used to hd quality movies then there is no turning back. I’ve d/l 720 versions of matrix, Star Wars:ROTS into the blue etc and no freaking dvd can even come close to it. Luckily i hv an xbox360 and can stream wmv vids to my 50″ LCD Tv. I’m rooting for HD-DVD to win cuz i hate sony for their forcing BD on us via ps3.
Now, all paramount needs to do it release to theater and HD-DVD at the same time and HD-DVD will win this format war!
Everyone who says their happy with just DVD; the DVD didn’t start out cheap, people spent large amounts on DVD players when they first came out, as a result DVD technology flourished, so now you people can enjoy cheap entertainment. The same thing will happen with Blu-ray/HD-DVD…but once the players fit your bill…you’ll be too old and too blind to notice the difference in quality.
People who claim to be happy with the quality of DVDs don’t have decent HD capable sets – and if they do, one has to ask, why did you buy it? I agree that DVDs look great on those 19″ CRTs that you can pick up at Best Buy for fifty bucks, but when you stretch that tiny 720×480 image across a 60″ TV with 1920×1080 pixels, it looks pretty terrible.
I could care less. I am going to hook up a pc to my 50 inch Pioneer Elite Plasma and have my movie collection on the hard drive. Who cares who wins…really? As long as I can rip it and save on my Hard drive..I don’t care.
Im not getting paid for any of this.
Surprised no one mentioned the other reason for why HD-DVD is better than DVD.
It’s not always about quality but content.
For example many HD-DVD titles will and have included multiple angles of each scene. Some include games, hours of behind the scene extras, bloopers and cut scenes, etc. All in wonderful Hi-Deaf.
So yeah HD-DVD allows for way more content than a DVD. Most DVDs I have bought lately have under an hour of total extras. Some have none.
For me image and sound quality is a plus but really the extra content is why I buy in HD-DVD instead of just DVD.
@ #1 ……. PWND !
Ummmmm yes format wars suck ballz and SONY is always in the middle of this shit, the customer doesnt win in a format war….. the customer has to buy 2 of everything. I originally went Blu-Ray by default because my PS3 is a BR player, but then i also got the HD-DVD add on for the XBOX so now i have both. With this stupid format war going on you basically have to get both if you want to see all of your favorite movies in HD with the extra content.
Personally i pirate most of my stuff and DVDRip quality is generally good enough, but if people come over to your house they dont want to see DVDRip quality on your 60” HDTV……. it just dont look right (gg artifacts).
the thing is sony has put so much money into blu – ray but like all of sony’s new formats, they’ve all been a big hype for a few months or year or so. and then it just dissapears, and the latter always wins. betamax lost, mini disc dissapeared, umd, has anyone actually baught a umd movie for there psp. their new music formats ATRAC and OMg, are absolutly terrible and the software to use them are absolute ram destroyers. i mean really there are no blu-ray tv’s out there, so no ones even seeing its full potential. and can you imagine how expensive a blue ray tv is gonna cost. i mean if a dvd player alone started a $1000, and tv is ganna be atleast $6000 – $10,000+. hd tv’s are already here, hd dvd’s are already here, and so are the dvds, and i mean you could buy and full hd entertainment set for under $4000. which is absolutly amazing. hd dvd will win theres no doubt about, its too early for blu-ray, and something else would have came out by the time its time for blu-ray.
3d tv is less than a decade away anyway, which is what blu-ray is gonna be shut down by.
Awesome, I hope HD-DVD wins and we can all put this Pathetic BETA.. sorry I mean BlueRay thing behind us and move on.
I agree with AlphA.
I lived throuhg the 80’s and remember VHS vs. Beta “Format-war” very well. Then also Beta was ahead first but as we all know kids today dont even know what betamax is.
So its like:
HDDVD=VHS
Blu-Ray=Beta
at least thats how I feel like…