Last time we heard from Jaman, it was giving viewers the choice between watching downloaded HD video with or without ads. The decidedly indie offerings on Jaman are about to get a big dose of Hollywood, though, thanks to a distribution deal with Paramount Digital Entertainment. Slated for release are some big titles, too. Certainly, Paramount likes the security offered up by the Jaman service. But we think there's more to it than that -- film aficionados like those who frequent Jaman are a great set of eyeballs to grab. Even if titles like Beowulf don't strike us as necessarily appealing to this crowd, the Kite Runner and There Will Be Blood, for example are a pretty good fit. Now we just hope that Jaman and Paramount decide to really cinch things by making these premium titles available in HD quality.

Catching The Godfather on HD VOD is one thing; catching the famed trilogy on remastered Blu-ray is another. On September 23rd, Paramount will (re)release what's sure to be a holiday favorite in The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration. The package will be available in both DVD ($72.99) and Blu-ray ($119.99) formats, and videophiles will be elated to know that director Francis Ford Coppola oversaw the restoration process himself. The four-disc BD set will be presented in 1080p with Dolby TrueHD, and extras junkies should find plenty to love as well. For a rundown of what to expect on each disc, check out the read link below.

[Via Electronic House]

Now that the Paramount is back onboard the Blu-ray train, it's going above and beyond in its efforts to fuel the format by creating a Blu-ray support website. Insert the joke of your choice about "life support" being more accurate; we still think Blu-ray is coming along fine. Paramount's new website will, naturally, promote the studios releases (complete with links straight to corresponding pages on Amazon), but also adds bits like new player announcements. A big chunk of the page is set aside for a "Coming Soon" Flash player, so expect to see some content poured in there, well, "soon." Given the growing pains Blu-ray is experiencing, we'd choose to remove the non-functional Flash player, but overall we applaud Paramount's effort. And yes, title announcements will buy a lot of forgiveness in our book as well!

[Thanks, Dave C.]

There are some times in our life when being wrong is awesome, and when we told you last week that only two of the Jack Ryan movies would be available on Blu, it was one of those times. Usually the first movie in a franchise is the best, and that is true in this case with The Hunt for Red October, which will be available in HD along with Clear and Present Danger at the end of July. We are however concerned that no details have been announced yet, as this title has seen its fair share of issues and we'd feel much better if Paramount gave us reason to believe all the issues were ironed out.

Check it, Blu-ray fans. That totally believable rumor about Transformers finally fitting into a BD sleeve was indeed accurate, and now we're starting to see the nitty-gritty details about what we can expect come September 2nd. For starters, the Blu-ray edition will feature a 5.1 Dolby TrueHD track as well as a 5.1 PCM uncompressed track to complement the obligatory 1080p transfer. We're also told to expect a trailer for the BD release of Iron Man, BD-Live content and a lengthy list of supplemental material -- all of which is expected to be in beautiful high-def. Tap the read link for the full list of extras, and start saving that $39.99 (or so) right now.

[Thanks, Wii60Warrior]

The day Michael Bay and fans of Blu-ray and big robots have all been waiting for is September 2, according to advanced, inside information obtained by TVShowsonDVD.com. Last year's HD DVD blockbuster Transformers is finally coming to Blu-ray after last fall's exclusivity agreement fell by the wayside, in a 2-disc release described as "similar" to the previous version. Hopefully that means all HDi and internet connectivity features intact, with new bits added courtesy of 50GBs of storage space and BD-Live. We expect there should be, and with a majority of Blu-ray owners using PlayStation 3s, they may even surpass the HD DVD edition's 30% internet-connected rate.

[Via Seibertron.com]

Although it's all water under the bridge now, we still find it interesting that Viacom's recent earnings statement confirmed that Paramount received compensation for dumping Blu-ray. But contrary to the New York Times article, Variety is reporting that it was only $29 Million, instead of $150 Million. This is of course only cash, and it is still entirely possible that the other $121 Million included future revenues that didn't materialize once things fell apart, but we have a hard time believing Paramount received that much in promotional services or free replication. And while the Warner payoff rumors weren't from a source as sound as the NYT, we'll still be keeping an eye on revenue statements from Engadget and Warner's shared parent company all the same.

[Via Format War Central]

The last HD DVD exclusive studio to announce Blu-ray titles won't be the last to release, as Paramount has announced its first Blu-ray movies will hit the street starting on May 20th with Face/Off, Next, and Bee Movie. But the fun really starts in June, as the long awaited award winning There Will Be Blood and Cloverfield are both due on June 3rd. Then a few weeks later, the first day and date title will come with The Spiderwick Chronicles on June 24th. So with the last studio finally lined up, it won't be long until we really get to see DVD and Blu-ray go head to head and once and for all find out if the new Blu format can make a run at the defending champ.

[Via Blu-ray.com]

Don't worry about Showtime, the network insists the threat of a Viacom-MGM-Paramount-Lionsgate premium movie channel is not going to hurt it, and in fact it's "in a better position as a free agent", according to VP Stu Zakim. Multichannel News has word from the corporate PR exec that only two movies ranked among the 20 top rated programs on the network in 2007, and considering the license fees the studios asked, it was better served investing in series development and marketing. We can expect fresh movies on Showtime through 2010-11, but after that it'll be up to remaining partner CBS Films to keep serving up the flicks, but for lovers of Weeds, Californication and Dexter there should be plenty more where that came from.

Hope you like your movies served fresh on-demand, as Viacom, Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM have just announced plans for a new "premium" channel launching fall 2009. Other than having access to Paramount and Paramount Vintage titles released to theaters on or after January 1, 2008, and MGM, United Artist and Lionsgate flicks released after January 1, 2009, the service plans a "robust" VOD component. According to Variety, the big loser here is Showtime, which loses access to several theaters it's depended on for content, and also faces competition for shows like Weeds and Dexter. We're sure no premium movie channel would launch in this day and age without an HD offering, so tell your provider to keep a slot open for this latest addition.

Things have been quiet in the ex-Red camp recently, and James from FWC brings up a good point, what's the deal with Paramount and Universal? Although it's too early to get concerned, it is only three weeks until the Oscar Winning, There Will Be Blood is set to be released on DVD. The Hollywood Reporter did say it expected both studios to release titles by late spring/early summer, but April 8th is more like mid-spring. The other title we'd miss is Cloverfield, which is due to release on April 22nd. We can kinda understand it taking Universal a little while to get up to speed on Blu-ray, but certainly Paramount hasn't forgotten how to make Blu-ray Discs between now and last August.

We don't know if Jeffrey Katzenberg got a text message, fax, e-mail or smoke signal indicating the format war was over, but Video Business has confirmed Paramount and Dreamworks Animation will (rather abruptly) to stop releasing HD DVDs after next week. If you were looking forward to Bee Movie on March 11, Sweeney Todd on April 1 or the just announced There Will Be Blood, those are cancelled. Into the Wild and the appropriately-named Things We Lost in the Fire will be Paramount's last reminders of its exclusive agreement. Not specifically mentioned was Star Trek: TOS Season 2, but don't hold your breath. Blu-ray release plans are still up in the air but we wouldn't be surprised to hear something soon. As far as HD DVD movies still scheduled, that leaves two from Universal (for now) and twelve from Warner Bros, who may have been the first to leave red, but will apparently be the last major studio out the door.

Read - Video Business
Read - High-Def Digest

Way back when Paramount dropped Blu-ray for HD DVD, we saw something very odd happen as some titles were snatched from shelves and within a few months Paramount Blu-ray titles were going for a premium via 2nd hand services like Amazon and eBay. Now just as quickly as they disappeared about half of the 32 titles are back in stock on Amazon.com. No one really knows what the deal is, but we'd bet that these discs have been in a warehouse all along -- just in case. If this is in fact how it went down, Paramount certainly did play its cards right on this one.

Michael Bay can breathe easy, Paramount (Dreamworks included) has officially gone Blu-ray. Two and a half years after announcing itself purple, and exactly five months after becoming HD DVD exclusive, this move makes all six major Hollywood studios Blu. Don't make space for that Blu edition of Transformers in your DVD rack just yet, as the company plans to "monitor consumer adoption and determine our release plans accordingly", but with PS3 sales up and BD Live on the way, we can't imagine it will take very long. The Hollywood Reporter expects to see Universal and Paramount new releases hitting Blu-ray and DVD at the same time by late spring or early summer, when we can forget this whole thing ever happened -- unless of course you picked up an HD DVD player for Shrek, in which case we have a few ideas on what to do next.

[Thanks to Robert and everyone who sent this in]

It's hard to believe it's actually over, but for more than two years we've followed what has come to be one of our favorite topics as Blu has faced Red in a battle to be the next physical home media format. In the end it came down to studio and consumer electronic industry support -- not to mention the PS3 -- but it was by no means an easy victory, and just because it was more popular than HD DVD, doesn't mean Blu-ray can win over the hearts of millions of DVD fans. But while we wait to see how well Blu-ray is adopted by the masses, we wanted to take a second to look back at how it all ended up working out.

We'll start this story way back in the Summer of '05 where the talks to create a unified format broke down: this is the moment most of us realized we were in for some fun. Sure, this thing got started way before that, but we have to start somewhere and this is when it really began to get interesting. As HD DVD approached the BDA to join forces and demanded too many changes to the Blu-ray disc format, the BDA told them to pound sand.