Not a whole lot to go on right now, but German site
HDTV Praxis has it that both Paramount and Universal will now make the obvious choice and publish their films on Blu-ray. Notably, this follows hints seen in certain
Circuit City databases as well as word that we've received noting that both studios would indeed make things easy on everyone and simply support the one format
still standing. Interestingly, DreamWorks isn't mentioned in the linked article per se, but we've all ideas it'll be following suit shortly.
[Thanks, Khattab]
Update: Universal's president Craig Kornblau had
this to say: "While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray." Thanks, Kiwi616!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
HD Tom @ Feb 19th 2008 11:21AM
Gosh .... just didn't see this coming.
Larry @ Feb 19th 2008 1:35PM
...and LG are not dropping HD-DVD:
http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/12929/13953/lg-back-hddvd-disc-players.phtml
LG not dumping HD DVD
In a strange move, LG has said it will continue to back, develop and offer HD DVD players.
LG has issued a statement to Pocket-lint following the announcement this morning that Toshiba was stopping support for the HD DVD format.
"LG believes that at this present moment in time, it is necessary to provide a player which supports both formats and therefore create simplicity and convenience for the existing HDDVD consumer."
LG, who currently offer a dual machine capable of playing both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs isn't dumping the format straight away.
Daniel Aziz, marketing manager for LG Electronics told us:
"With the recent announcement from Toshiba, Blu-Ray will now be the format that will pave the way for high definition movies, however this does not rule out HDDVD immediately as there are still a number of consumers who have chosen HDDVD and begun to build a HDDVD collection."
Before going on to say that "The previous confusion in the high definition market (HDDVD v Blu-ray) is now clearer and LG welcomes this as it will provide confidence for the end user, to the retailers and overall the home entertainment market."
"Overall LG is still excited about the future of this market, LG has always set out to lead high definition players and will continue to do so with more technology evolutions and hybrids which will launch in due course."
Toshiba might be dumping the format, but it appears LG is still very much a firm believer
JimC @ Feb 19th 2008 4:46PM
Larry,
LG is wanting to capitalize on the transition consumers. They see a market for HDDVD owners that want to move to Blu-ray but still wants to view their HDDVD library with one player. Samsung has bowed out of that market leaving LG. So their faithfulness is only $$$ deep. As soon as the demand drops off, they will most likely stop producing a combo player.
HDDVD will live on as a legacy product, LG is simply catering to that small market space....
Michial @ Feb 19th 2008 11:26AM
Yes but when and will it be only Blu? The smart business answer should be yes. Why print HDDVD anymore?
anon @ Feb 19th 2008 11:29AM
I would think they have a few HD DVD's printed for the upcoming weeks, but I don't think it would make much sense to get going on a movie that they haven't even started getting ready for HD DVD yet. I think after about a month or so, it will be all Blu releases, just to get the HD DVD's out of there system and make a little money out of the deal. Or at least lose less money.
andy @ Feb 19th 2008 11:31AM
I dunno. I'd probably print on HDDVD because I wanted to sell an extra half million (50% of the million or so players out there) copies at 20 bucks each and I already had all of the tools to do it. But what do I know?
H Choi @ Feb 19th 2008 11:41AM
Well, there still is a market for HD DVDs since thousands of people already have HD DVD players like I do. So if I was a smart business man, I would milk everything out of HD DVD until blu-ray players become more affordable and hits mass appeal.
JimC @ Feb 19th 2008 11:58AM
Andy, retailers....Walmart, Netflix, Best Buy and surely more to follow. Why invest in publishing titles that have a dwindling retail outlet??? That's why they will stop publishing in the HDDVD format....
MI @ Feb 19th 2008 12:25PM
I would expect retailers to quickly move to a prominent Blu-Ray display and a 'clearance style' HDVD display. Making it clear that shoppers should buy a Blu-Ray player, but the HDVD folks will know to go looking for their discs in the red clearance rack.
Kiwi616 @ Feb 19th 2008 11:33AM
GREAT, now Old School can come out for BD along with Transformers!
You're my boy BLUE!
Gus @ Feb 21st 2008 1:45AM
Typical kiwi, given up on the sheep and started shagging your BR player by the sounds of it!
fumoffu @ Feb 19th 2008 11:34AM
Gosh! Duh! Everyone thought this a month ago!
Look at the titles coming out in the next month:
Beowulf (2007) (Paramount)
Into the Wild (Paramount)
Things We Lost in the Fire (DreamWorks)
Bee Movie (DreamWorks)
Fletch (Universal)
No catalogs, they had already given up. I just hope I can get Beowulf on Blu soon!
p @ Feb 19th 2008 11:42AM
Beowulf was always going to be available on Blu.... as European distributed region-free.
FreeRange @ Feb 19th 2008 12:01PM
I just hope I can still get Beowulf in HD-DVD.
SimplePanda @ Feb 19th 2008 12:26PM
Paramount, when they dropped Blu-ray for HD-DVD, cancelled all their announced releases at the time (Jack Ryan Collection, Blades of Glory, etc). No reason to think they won't do the same this time. I doubt very much we'll see any of those Paramount or Dreamworks titles actually released en masse.
ProfWho @ Feb 19th 2008 11:37AM
Well, this only makes sense now that HD-DVD is dead. I just hope that they get the Blu titles out the door fast.
Leif @ Feb 19th 2008 11:45AM
As the all-knowing Truth Teller would say, this is just rumor and speculation at this point. There's still a slight chance they may exclusively support HD VMD.
alienclays @ Feb 19th 2008 11:50AM
word, but i still want the offical announcement.
to gloat, and to see their perspective.
toshiba was gracefull enough to end this without dragging it out, lets see what excuses they had for not following warner over the past month and waiting to be forced instead of ending this on their own.
ProfWho @ Feb 19th 2008 11:51AM
Well, I am still waiting for that big insider HD-DVD announcement that will be the deathblow for Blu-ray he talked about.
Also, I wonder how much awesome Dark Knight will be on HD-DVD at Nfinity's house on that triple-layer disc?
John Drinkwater @ Feb 19th 2008 11:44AM
Star Trek :D :D
Children of Men :D
Serenity :D :D
mntwister @ Feb 19th 2008 11:46AM
We all knew this was going to happen, which is why anyone could have printed that story and it's going to be true. I'll rely on the studio announcement.
KayRazy Ken Kutaragi @ Feb 19th 2008 11:51AM
Well duh George, thank you George, which way do we go now George? I love you George. George is my friend...I'm gonna hug him and sqeeze him, and pat him, and pet him and...
Paramount and Universal want their movies in HD, so where o where can they go? Blu baby blu....yeah baby groovy, simply smashing Basil.
Hey Ken Graffeo, how are you doing bud? How do you keep your job after this gigantamoose frakup of yours?
John B @ Feb 19th 2008 12:00PM
"Well duh George, thank you George, which way do we go now George? I love you George. George is my friend...I'm gonna hug him and sqeeze him, and pat him, and pet him and..."
Awesome Looney Tunes reference!! Considering what's happened in the past few days, maybe "Why did you hit me in the head with a Blu-ray bat, George?" might be fitting.
Kudos to your "Enola Gay" photo response as well.
KayRazy Ken Kutaragi @ Feb 19th 2008 12:29PM
Yes JohnB...priceless stuff. Blu-ray bat. Good one.
DrXym @ Feb 19th 2008 12:40PM
I wouldn't be so quick to judge Ken Graffeo. If he gets tossed out soon you know he screwed up. If he stays you can infer Universal may have done exceedingly well out of their dalliance with HD DVD. If Toshiba or Microsoft tossed a bunch of money at them, the chances are they made more than they would have selling Blu Ray discs. It just depends on what form the money took, whether it was cash, stock, or something else which doesn't show on the books like software licences, marketing assistance etc.
morpheus73 @ Feb 19th 2008 12:12PM
This article is all well and good, but I'll wait for an official announcement. I'm guessing Paramount can resume Blu production quickly since they only stopped 6 months ago. Universal has to get a whole new infrastructure in place before they make an announcement.
My condolences to the red gang. I've been Blu all along, but I can sympathize. Format wars just plain suck.
Devils Advocate @ Feb 19th 2008 12:25PM
Universal has announced that they will join the bluray club:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/html/breaking_article.cfm?sec_id=2&&article_ID=12118
Us bluray backers have been waiting for them to say that for a while.
Now make an official announcement with actual titles.
Despite many people claiming that Universal titles arent up to par for bluray. I disagree. There are actually quite a few titles they can put out on bluray that would make good bluray discs.
HEY!!!! @ Feb 19th 2008 12:26PM
transformers are probably going to take alot longer to come out if the want to match the same interacivity the the HD-DVD version had.
Michael @ Feb 19th 2008 12:27PM
Michael @ Feb 19th 2008 12:27PM
so when is heroes going blu?
Gordon Werner @ Feb 19th 2008 12:28PM
The overt greed of the entertainment industry never ceases to amaze me.
Geoff @ Feb 19th 2008 12:29PM
lols..... well duh!
Jove @ Feb 19th 2008 12:29PM
take that fanatics!!!!! oh damn i was gonna bring myself to make fun of truth teller and all them other fellas but its just not funny anymore cuz we have all run out of jokes... but man i got somethings that i just want to say!!! but for the sake of all the other readers i wont give them comments that will bother them really
hooray for the hi def market baby! and all of us who followed this so closely for so long. regardless what side we were on!
bizdady @ Feb 19th 2008 12:33PM
Cant we all be friends now? LOL Finally Good to see that universal Logo on BDs other than 12 monkeys import lol
HD Tom @ Feb 19th 2008 12:54PM
Anyone see any HD-DVDs on clearance anywhere? Local Wal-Mart still has them at full price ??????
James @ Feb 19th 2008 1:07PM
KayRazy Ken Kutaragi, please grow up. Your comments are fitting for a 5th grader but not an adult.
Truth Teller @ Feb 19th 2008 1:10PM
The big deal will be to see how Universal go with this
(as well as how long it takes them starting from scratch).
Whether they stay region free and whether they reject BD+.
I expect they will all be embracing those poisonous follys as fast as they can.
I see Paramount (like most of the other studios) are already signed up for Microsoft's HD downloading services for XBox.
It'll be interesting to see how that develops & grows
(we already saw iTunes take only 3 mths to match and then beat Blu-ray sales numbers - so much for audio & visual quality being the be-all and end-all in this).
It'll be mightily ironic if downloads do win out that 720p on DVD9 could have been done ages ago and that's what we end up with).
tomanderson @ Feb 19th 2008 1:30PM
Since apparently 50% of HDDVD support isn't a "big deal" refresh the page, Universal is Blu too.
alienclays @ Feb 19th 2008 1:34PM
whoa! big TT, and back with a logical arguement no doubt. i'm shocked!
how have you been latly bro? as i'm sure everyone wants to know, how have you been taking recent annoucements about hd-dvd?
anyway, to the comment at hand, signing up for DL service is not that big of a deal, exclusive titles only on DL never to come out on disc would be. do you know of any? esp any new releases?
apple DL sales should be something of concern for blockbuster and netflix, show how that number relates to hurting overall ownership disc sales.
JimC @ Feb 19th 2008 1:37PM
Downloads will not compete until quality increases and bandwidth increases. even at the best speeds downloading a persistent movie will take too long and streaming requires too much compression and thus quality loss.
Downloads is only viable for rentals but not for purchases, don't expect much traction on that anytime soon.
alienclays @ Feb 19th 2008 1:45PM
i think most people here understand that, but i want to hear it or at least a well spoken retort voicing his view, from TT.
Truth Teller @ Feb 19th 2008 1:59PM
@ alienclays
Well it's early days (obviously) but I think it's significant that Apple caught & over took BD sales in only 3 mths (where will they be in 12?).
People can delude themselves that their POV is universal if they like but it's pure delusion.
The mass-market is not interested in paying the premium for the nth degree in audio or visual quality, quite clearly.
Those unable to accept this obvious truth are just engaging in a little self-reinforcement of their own fantasy.
At the end of the day Blu-ray beat HD DVD not because HD DVD was 'too cheap' or had anything 'wrong' with it.
It was merely the 'weight' of PS3s that saw BD disc sales accelerate to a point where it would have taken HD DVD too long to catch up
(tho given enough time I have no doubt it could have won eventually with numbers Blu-ray could never match in the genuine a/v mass-market).
The question remains very much open.
Has this format war seen 2 formats lose?
DrXym @ Feb 19th 2008 2:07PM
Grow up Truth Teller. Your precious format lost. If you think VOD is the future I have to wonder why you even bothered supporting HD DVD for so long. Consistency isn't one of your strong points.
As for Paramount / Universal etc. I'm sure they're delighted get rid of HD DVD at last. I'm sure whatever pain is caused by the transition will be dampened by instantly quadrupling their sales.
Truth Teller @ Feb 19th 2008 2:39PM
@ DrXym
I know it's a hard concept for your 'football supporter' mentality to get used to but just because HD DVD has lost that does not mean everything wrong with Blu-ray suddenly becomes OK.
So no, I will not be going Blu. I will go elsewhere for my high def content and swerve the pitfalls inherent in Blu-ray
(and yes, if that means occasionally missing out on the nth degree of image or audio quality then so be it, IMO it's simply not worth it at the cost - both literally & figuratively).
You disagree? Well that's ok, you work away, you're welcome to it, go ahead enjoy.
But you are only fooling yourself if you try & keep up that silly crap that it's to do with being bitter or anyone being a sore loser.
It's everything to do with the original concerns about Blu-ray still being unchanged, still there and still being completely unaddressed.
XDragon @ Feb 19th 2008 3:08PM
No TT,
the real problem is your comments as they are only came out because Blu won and your preference, HD-DVD, lost. If HD-DVD won, you would not have made the exact comments but the reality is, either format winning still has the greater battle to fight which is aginst DVD. HD-DVD winning would NOT have put them in a better position than having Blu win and to be honest, the PS3 will be the reason why Blu will do well and HD-DVD would have had a harder time if it had won.
Truth Teller @ Feb 19th 2008 3:31PM
XDragon
As hard as it is for you to accept the truth is that I have only seen HD DVD as the format that might take over from DVD
(mainly because thanks to Twin disc & to a lesser degree combos it could have simply become DVD by a barely noticed & simple evolutionary process that left no-onebehind).
Blu-ray doesn't have anything even remotely close to that & doesn't stand a hope in hell.
Blu-ray has PS3, it gave them a great start, a start so good even it knocked HD DVD (eventually) out of the fight.
But that is a very long way off of having a proper range of final spec players at mass-market-friendly prices.....and PS3 is not that.
They won't have even close to that until well into next year - if then.
That's 3yrs + for the format.
It's all far too little far too late for BD.
Like I said this format war saw both formats lose.
Blu-ray just doesn't want to see it or know it yet.
How long it survives as a niche format is the only relevant question for BD now.
alienclays @ Feb 19th 2008 3:40PM
"Well it's early days (obviously) but I think it's significant that Apple caught & over took BD sales in only 3 mths (where will they be in 12?)."
ok, yes, impressive, yes. but show me that they are actully hurting owner ship sales and not just biting into the blockbuster/netflix rental market.
The mass-market is not interested in paying the premium for the nth degree in audio or visual quality, quite clearly.
but they are buying into hdtv's and the higher price of that tech,... humm.
"Those unable to accept this obvious truth are just engaging in a little self-reinforcement of their own fantasy."
kinda like people who can delude themselves that their POV is automaticly the truth even in the light of a bad track record?
"At the end of the day Blu-ray beat HD DVD not because HD DVD was 'too cheap' or had anything 'wrong' with it.
...yadda, yaddda,yadda,...
The question remains very much open."
let's not cry over spilled milk shall we.
"Has this format war seen 2 formats lose?"
comparing adoption HDM overall to dvd adoption over the same amount of time, why do you think BD has lost? esp with this silly format war keeping a lot of people sitting on the fence?
but really TT, i just want you to answer the first question, i don't have a lot of time for the others.
MI @ Feb 19th 2008 3:47PM
"As hard as it is for you to accept the truth is that I have only seen HD DVD as the format that might take over from DVD "
Um, so since you're been dead wrong on every other thing you've ever said on this board, why should the fact that 'the only scenario you could see is that hdvd could overtake DVD" Up to about 48 hours ago you could only imagine HDVD defeating Blu-Ray.
You've got no intelligent argument for anything you say, and you've got no credibility. Give it a rest.
mntwister @ Feb 19th 2008 4:27PM
Truthteller, I havn't responded to your posts for all these months that I have read them, but now that hd-dvd has wrapped it up, I think you are totally wrong about blu-ray, and also about the PS3, just as you were wrong about hd-dvd. Through all the ranting and raving and trying to prove everyone wrong, it seems everything you said went the opposite way. You are also wrong about finalized players not coming until early next year (Panasonic, Sharp and Sony all have them due before summer and the Sharp is $349 list), and you are wrong about player prices.
I am not sure if you plan on going blu, which I doubt, but hope then that you enjoy your compressed picture downloads that are not true high-def and the more-than-dvd compressed sound that can be downloaded to drives that can fail anytime.
DrXym @ Feb 19th 2008 4:41PM
What are you babbling about now "Truth Teller"? HD DVD and Blu Ray are comparable in virtually every respect. It is bizarre to claim that your arguments with respect to VOD only apply to Blu Ray and not HD DVD. Bizarre, pathetic and hypocritical. Grow up. Your format lost.