DailyTech - Movie Studios Re-examining HD Exclusivity Positions

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Hardware Movie Studios Re-examining HD Exclusivity Positions
Marcus Yam (Blog) - January 15, 2008 3:42 PM

49 comment(s) - last by tastyratz.. on Jan 17 at 8:26 AM

Universal, Paramount contemplating exclusivity; Warner pushes HD DVD away

While Toshiba continues to promote the price advantage and other merits of HD DVD players, the two major exclusive movie studio forces behind the format are unusually mum on the high-definition format war.

According to entertainment publication Daily Variety, Universal’s deal with HD DVD to back the format exclusively has ended. As the only major movie studio to back HD DVD since the format’s inception, Universal’s long history with HD DVD could be one of the major forces keeping it from releasing its movies in blue boxes.

Paramount, which signed last summer along with DreamWorks Animation as an HD DVD exclusive studio, is believed to be re-examining its position with high-definition movies and may publish on Blu-ray Disc again soon, despite statements regarding its current strategy. If reports are to believed, Paramount has an escape clause in its contract with HD DVD should Warner Bros. choose to exclusively support a single format.

Neither movie studio has made any comments hinting at a potential switch in high-definition allegiance, though conversely, studio representatives have refrained from making any overly confident claims about their respective company’s future with HD DVD.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. started to reveal its plans to bring Blu-ray Disc into the forefront by staggering the releases between the two high-definition formats.

The Invasion (Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig) was originally slated for a January 29 release on both formats, but now the HD DVD version has been pushed back three weeks to February 19. The Blu-ray Disc version retains the original January 29 date.

A similar delay will also hit The Assassination of Jesse James (Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck), which will release on HD DVD on March 19, while the Blu-ray Disc will street on February 26.

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sell your stocks in hddvd

By tastyratz on 1/15/2008 4:09:19 PM , Rating: 1

At this point its pretty obvious where the direction for HD media is going. Ill probably buy a cheap used hddvd player as an upscaling dvd player for my bedroom in 6 months when they are 50 bux but other than that the format is doomed. People cry and say consumers push the drive and demand and the movie studios will go where consumers go.
Well... The consumers chose and they picked the more expensive bluray regardless of what toshiba told everyone on price. They picked it awhile ago and sales are still multiple times more. Now the studios are moving over and the notion of HDDVD albeit great was one that just didn't have what the consumer wanted as well as the studios.

It gave a good run and I expect a lot of sore losers but I'm sure Ill be happy to pick up that copy of transformers in a blue box soon enough.

RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By InternetGeek on 1/15/2008 4:41:59 PM , Rating: 3

I got a upscaler DVD (Phillips) and will just hold until a HD player is within an affordable price. Meaning under $100. If their cash cow are the movies there's no need to give them a premium for the player.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By NullSubroutine on 1/15/08, Rating: -1

RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By JSK on 1/15/2008 6:45:23 PM , Rating: 5

This is a total fallacy. It all depends on the chipset.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By TomZ on 1/15/2008 8:17:30 PM , Rating: 1

On the other hand, HD-DVD players are almost all newer more modern designs compared with their DVD counterparts, and they also tend to have higher-end electronics generally. So a generalization that many/most have better upscalars doesn't seem too implausible to me.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By Treckin on 1/15/08, Rating: -1

RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By JustTom on 1/16/2008 1:10:14 AM , Rating: 3

Of course something can be a fallacy, since one common usage of fallacy is as a noun that means false notion. Anything that is a false notion must also be a fallacy for example "The belief that the world is flat is a fallacy." In this case it has nothing at all to do with the logic of the argument it simply is a statement of its truthfulness. The sentence can also be structured as "The belief that the world is flat is fallacious" since fallacious is nothing more than an adjective that means containing a fallacy. It would be similar to saying "That animal is a cat" opposed to "That animal is feline" both mean much the same thing structured slightly differently.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By Bigjee on 1/16/2008 1:27:02 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
Even then, your pushing it.

Surely you mean 'you're'

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By roadrun777 on 1/16/2008 6:23:29 AM , Rating: 5

Stewie Voice:
Oh god, please will someone just shoot the English teacher so we can all just get along?
Every time someone wins an argument with chewy, mystery nuggets of information, a strange and mysterious English perfectionist, appears from nowhere, and gives us all lessons.

OOHH! OOHHH! can you count my comma usage?

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By Moishe on 1/15/2008 5:01:46 PM , Rating: 2

I got mine for under $100 and HD is certainly better than upscaled. I call tell the difference every time.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By Dart23 on 1/15/08, Rating: -1

RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By OxBow on 1/15/2008 5:23:46 PM , Rating: 3

What Sony payoffs? HD-DVD has made some payments to keep exclusivity, but apparently even that wasn't enough to keep them viable.

Here's the kicker. The PS3 uses Blue-Ray discs for their games. With millions on PS3's in the wild worldwide now, there's a viable, long term marketplace for those disc manufacturers. On top of that, the larger, more lucrative movie market is a pretty little cherry on top. Blue Ray manufacturing won't go away, it's here, so the long term viability of the format is stable (regardless of it's technical merits and demerits).

HD-DVD can only become a viable production line for movie's, no ancillary demand is driving their production. As such, even though their cheaper to produce, they're trying to enter a glutted market on a margin that has already been staked out by Blue Ray. Granted, HD-DVD was first to market, but that thin margin they're operating in is to narrow to maintain a long term competition. With Blue Ray having an effectively subsidized back end, most of the studios see HD-DVD as a doomed technology. The only reason to go HD-DVD is if you're paid to do so. Toshiba has some deep pockets, but not deep enough to float that far for that long.

Universal and Paramount will dump HD-DVD in a couple months. They are probably scrambling behind the scenes right now negotiating new contracts and setting up new production schedules so that their christmas releases are competitive on blue ray. They won't announce anything until those new contracts are settled, at which point go set your HD-DVD player next to your old betamax.

As far as DVD upscaling, both HD-DVD and Blue Ray players are quite good at this. While not quite as good as native high def, it's still pretty good. That's why I haven't bothered with an HD-DVD player. If it's not out on blue ray, it's still out on DVD and that looks pretty good on my 42" LCD. There's only a couple movies that I wanted to see that were HD-DVD exclusive and I still was able to see them as pretty good, upscaled DVD's.

Had Microsoft embraced HD-DVD for games as Sony did Blue Ray, the story would have been different. I think that MS should have, since future games will need that extra space, something that'll be incovenient down the road for the 360. They didn't, however, so HD-DVD had no deep pocket underwriter to support it's long term back end production. To bad for HD-DVD, now it's just up to Universal and Paramount to have their quick little press conferences and the war will be over.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By griffynz on 1/15/2008 10:38:54 PM , Rating: 3

Your 42 inch LCD would not benefit from the new Samsung Blu-ray for DVD upscaling as they have dropped all the good stuff out.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cd-dvd-player-produ...

Try watching movies on a real 'home theatre' screen (my projector is 110 inch) and you will think upscaling is rubbish. HD is the only way to go.

The problem with the HD DVD and Blu-ray fight is that apart from the USA where Toshiba has started selling cheap players, the rest of the world can only buy HD DVD add-on drives and PS3.
Here in New Zealand ($0.79us) it costs $2999 for a panasonic Blu-ray player, HD DVD player is nz$1599. Sony Blu-ray is nz$1499.
Most people either add a Xbox 360 drive, buy a PS3 (cheapest is nz$799) or get a friend to import a HD DVD drive (dvd stuck on zone 1).
I see prices are getting better in Australia. But many of the cheaper stand alone players are dropping all the good parts to cut price.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By JarrettV on 1/15/2008 4:56:27 PM , Rating: 5

I disagree with tastyratz that the consumer decided. It's more logical that the studios decided. The consumers just wanted to watch their favorite movie in HD and it just so happens that more of the popular movies (and movies which do well as home videos such as disney) came out on bluray rather than hd-dvd.

I'd bet that if all movies came out on both formats that HD-DVD would have easily won.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By feraltoad on 1/15/2008 8:03:14 PM , Rating: 3

I totally agree. The studios want it both ways! First, saying that consumers have made a clear choice in regards to which technology they prefer. Then they say the opposite, which is they have to KILL HDDVD using dissuasive tactics in order to facilitate the adoption of a single format so consumers will finally decide. ? Which is it? If CONSUMERS really had made the choice for BR, then HDDVD would have died on its own, and there would be no reason to adopt ANTI-consumer strategies in order to kill it. This "consumer choice" line is pure BS, whoever throws it around has an agenda.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By mars777 on 1/16/2008 10:40:49 AM , Rating: 2

Regarding stocks:

I dont' know if consumers or studios made the choice but i know who will make the choice for Paramount and Dreamworks (VIACOM) to head back to BluRay:

http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?tick...

Look the stock going down from January the 3rd when Warner went Blue. If they continue going down like this or don't catch up (and this is all the conglomerate not just Paramount) somebody shall get fired soon...

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By killerroach on 1/16/2008 9:45:02 AM , Rating: 1

quote:
I'd bet that if all movies came out on both formats that HD-DVD would have easily won.

But that's called "living in a fantasy world." The truth of the matter is, when a movie did come out in both formats, the HD-DVD movie typically was outsold very badly, and, in the best of situations, still lagged behind its Blu-Ray counterpart. Even cheap players and other promotions couldn't fix that situation.

Perhaps the studios decided. That being said, the consumers had the ability to turn the tide, and their inaction spoke volumes.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By sweetsauce on 1/16/2008 11:14:13 AM , Rating: 3

The main reason HD-DVD's don't outsell blu is because the studios are greedy. They can easily charge less for HD-DVD movies since it costs less to produce, but if they did that they would not only hurt their blu sales, but they would lower their own profit. If toshiba can somehow convince their studio partners to drop the prices of their HD-DVDs and make them close in price to DVD, i guarantee the sales will skyrocket.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By tastyratz on 1/17/08, Rating: 0

By tastyratz on 1/17/2008 8:26:05 AM , Rating: 0

but thats just it.
There are multiple facets to hd-dvds problems right now.
You are absolutely correct that the studios were greedy and hd-dvd would have sold much better if they were not. Toshiba should have had pricing restrictions in contractual agreements. I was shocked when Toshiba's big promotion was price for hd-dvd and yet the movies were not any cheaper than blu-ray on the shelf.
Leaving no consumer incentive they chose the more dominant and technologically advanced option. Had the movies been only 5$ different from their dvd counterparts I think hd-dvd would have sold much better than it has so far. While I don't believe it would have been what hd-dvd needed to get the upper hand it certainly would have assured a larger market share

On the same plane with Blu-ray hddvd's lower storage capacity unfortunately just doesn't give the same quality of disc as a Blu-ray. We all know that they can just argue and make it a 300 layer disc but that makes it very expensive to produce and more prone to failure. I know I know I'm offending the masses here but think...
Movie studios could produce the same movie with the same content for both formats and it wouldn't matter. The movie that still only fills 15gb of the Blu-ray disc will look no different than HD-DVD and essentially be the same. When you get down to the fact that some movies on Blu-ray are 25gb that extra 10gb is either less compression, more content, or both. Either option would make a better looking picture and more value for your money. Given no financial incentives to go with the less capacitive option the Blu-ray is the better value.

Considering all the press HD-DVD has had lately on losing exclusive support of movie studio's the drop in prices absolutely looks like a fire sale because to the consumer it just seems like more of an act of desperation.

Congrats Toshiba, had you followed through on the cheaper player and cheaper movie promise you made at format launch you probably wouldn't be in this bad a state right now.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By Cygni on 1/15/2008 6:48:39 PM , Rating: 3

Saying that the consumers chose anything in the HD/BR fracas is complete ignorance. The consumer had absolutely nothing to do with this entire battle from day 1. It has been a political chess game played between the studios, the distributors, and the electronics manufacturers.

All parties... from Sony, Toshiba, and the other member electronics producers offering multi-million dollar contracts for exclusivity, to disc manufacturers who were promised massive sales that still havent come if they upgraded their production lines, to the retailers who dedicated large chunks of crowded shelf space for the new formats when their sales even when combined have been absolutely abysmal... have lost their hat on this deal.

The consumers have chosen alright... they chose to IGNORE both formats. Just like they should have.

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RE: sell your stocks in hddvd

By KashGarinn on 1/17/2008 6:05:11 AM , Rating: 2

quote:
At this point its pretty obvious where the direction for HD media is going.

- Yes.. they are supporting both formats, not leaving one out cold.

I'm surprised that people go "they're not HD-DVD exclusive anymore, HD-DVD is dead!" - because it isn't.

They're basically coming to their senses and trying not to alienate people who purchased one format by being exclusive to only one format themselves.

So it'll basically become the CD+/-, as in both will be here and neither will "win".

On a personal note I would like to see PS3 and bluray die a horrible death, dragging Sony with it, but sadly that's not going to happen.

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Manufactured News

By Buz on 1/15/2008 5:33:03 PM , Rating: 5

This is the 3rd or 4th time that your articles have referred to Paramount contemplating dropping HD, with the only source quoted being the opinion of a journalist at your own site. It doesn't matter if the prediction runs true - I don't read DailyTech for contentless stories.

RE: Manufactured News

By TomZ on 1/15/2008 6:04:39 PM , Rating: 5

I get the impression that DT is trying to drive the format war a bit towards BD, to the extent of their influence. There have been a number of articles written lately on DT that basically assume it's game over for HD-DVD. For example, classifying the recent Toshiba price drop as a "fire sale" - and as you said repeating the Paramount "contemplations" over and over again.

Let's have some more unbiased reporting, please! 90% of DT news articles are pretty fair and balanced - let's please work on that final 10%. Please just report the facts and let the market sort itself out.

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RE: Manufactured News

By feraltoad on 1/15/2008 8:08:09 PM , Rating: 2

Agreed. We get enough campaign lies from both camps. We certainly don't need it from a news site. Also, even if BR does get Studio exclusivity there can still be a market for the discs if future players play both. Imagine cheap HDDVD discs for back-ups from BR discs. Now that would be funny!

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RE: Manufactured News

By SavagePotato on 1/15/2008 8:23:12 PM , Rating: 2

Dailytech has been acused of being an hd-dvd favoring site far more times than it has for favoring blu ray. The sheer concept of this site favoring blu ray is alien.

What is true is it's a news regurgitating site where bloggers put a personal slant on articles of their choosing. That is all this is, more of the same news that everyone else is reporting.

The only reason I read dailytech is to watch the fireworks that ensue from the hugely biased articles that do come along, and the comment blowouts that follow. Kind of like train wreck journalism.

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RE: Manufactured News

By trax64 on 1/16/2008 8:31:30 PM , Rating: 2

To even suggest that DailyTech is more biased towards Blu-Ray is simply laughable.

I just had a quick look at this article's ratings and nothing has changed. DailyTech remains infested with a strong HD-DVD base to this day.

If the recent turnout of events regarding HD-DVD made you accuse DailyTech of bias, how about we roll back the archives to right before the PS3 was released and during 07, a period when even mentioning the word Sony or BD was enough to fuel thousands of derogatory comments, and a series of -1 rating to even those who were sitting on the fence.

You above all should know better, because you were there and witnessed it all.

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RE: Manufactured News

By sweetsauce on 1/15/2008 6:18:24 PM , Rating: 4

Stupid title had me thinking maybe warner realized how stupid they were and began to reconsider. Instead its the same rummor crap being repeated. Thanks for wasting my time.

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RE: Manufactured News

By Gio6518 on 1/16/08, Rating: 0

By Gio6518 on 1/16/2008 12:08:41 AM , Rating: 0

Why would Warner re-consider (never going to happen) its just wishful thinking on your part, and of course universal / paramount is going to go BLU-RAY, just not yet...

first off they're going to help Toshiba out and delay their announcement for a couple months, giving Toshiba to sell out their stock of HD-DVD players or as many as they can (hence the fire sale and it is a fire sale), its the least they can do for $150 million.

then after they sell out of already completed HD-DVD units they'll use all the parts in their warehouse (non assembled) to either make dual format players or make drives for the XBOX 360 (which would help increase game content on discs, which they can now pick up at a cheap price, since it'll be dead for movies )

meanwhile Uni/Paramount will start mass producing BLU-RAY discs and storing them in their warehouse until they officially announce their switching sides, while slowing the production on new movies, and completely discontinuing production of current titles.....giving them also an opportunity to sell much of their inventory currently in stores

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New???

By baronzemo78 on 1/15/2008 3:57:36 PM , Rating: 5

How is any of this new news? Didn't we hear this same thing a week ago?

RE: New???

By TimTheEnchanter25 on 1/15/2008 4:07:56 PM , Rating: 5

I was thinking the same thing. The only "news" was the 2 stupid movies listed at the bottom as being the first staggered releases.

Thanks for the update!!!

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Inevitable... but good.

By Micronite on 1/15/2008 3:58:06 PM , Rating: 3

I jumped on th $99 Wal-Mart special HDDVD player, but if Blu-Ray becomes the only format, I'll still be pretty relieved.
I just want to know what movies to buy. At 30 bucks a pop (or more), I'd like my purchases to be a little more long-lived.

RE: Inevitable... but good.

By orgy08 on 1/15/2008 4:11:08 PM , Rating: 3

As long as you don't throw out your HD DVD player, your HD movies will last forever. You might run out of content to play on it, but all your purchased content will still work. Just buy the movies you like.

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RE: Inevitable... but good.

By orgy08 on 1/15/2008 4:25:13 PM , Rating: 2

Also, since you got the HD player for only $99, you sorta got a free HD player if you count each movie you get in the mail with a value of $20, assuming you wanted all 5 movies and would have boughten them at $20 each.

I got my HD DVD xbox add on for $129 when amazon had it at the price last month in December, and I feel like I got the HD player for only $9 because of the 5 movies by mail and king kong in the box, all movies the movies I picked and King Kong are movies I would have bought.

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RE: Inevitable... but good.

By BMFPitt on 1/15/2008 5:22:09 PM , Rating: 2

I, too, jumped on the $99 HD-A2 deal. Not including the 5 freebies on the way, I have paid a total of about $170 for the 12 HD-DVDs in my collection. Not a single one over $20 (excluding tax.)

Amazon B1G1s are great... Now I'll just have to wait for a $150 combo player to come out.

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wow...

By Moishe on 1/15/2008 5:00:43 PM , Rating: 3

Same news, slightly different wording. It's kinda getting old hearing about the same thing over and over in slightly different new articles.

RE: wow...

By Locutus465 on 1/15/2008 5:26:08 PM , Rating: 4

Particularly since when you get down to it this is hearsay reporting... I don't doubt that they are considering options including this, I don't even doubt that eventually both will be releasing on blu... But seriously, as of right now their stated intentions are "we're sticking with hd dvd"...

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Universal Studios counters Variety's FUD.

By encia on 1/16/2008 6:52:30 AM , Rating: 2

http://www.betanews.com/article/HD_DVD_Universal_e...

5:00 pm ET January 10, 2008 -- Universal Studios has officially dispelled the rumors from Variety that it will drop HD DVD and switch to Blu-ray.

Contrary to unsubstantiated rumors from unnamed sources, Universal's current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format," said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment and also co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group.

RE: Universal Studios counters Variety's FUD.

By therealnickdanger on 1/16/2008 8:38:17 AM , Rating: 2

OK, now read that with your special PR-decoder ring:

"Contrary to what you have heard from top-level executives speaking on conditions of anonimity, our current plan is to not tell you what our plans are beyond our current plan, which is to still support HD-DVD. We will be dropping HD-DVD and supporting Blu-Ray as soon as we announce the plan to do so. That's the plan."

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Annoying

By inighthawki on 1/15/2008 8:16:57 PM , Rating: 3

To be honest, I'm actually quite tired of hearing people rave about how HD-DVD is dead, "go sell your stock," "go sell your players and movies," "blu ray won!"...

The war isn't even close to over. Simply because some studios have decided to make blu-ray movies doesn't mean all the consumers have. Please stop making ignorant comments and please let the game roll out till an end before you start looking like a fool.

As stated many times before, both formats could EASILY drop out and neither could win. HD-DVD could make a surprising comback. Maybe HD-DVD will become very popular in PC's do to cheap drives and drive everyone to get cheap drives and media for larger amounts of data storage than dvds...WHO KNOWS...let it play out first people. Blu-ray may appear to be winning but if you look at history, the winning side isnt always the winner by the end.

Blu-Ray is f****** expensive

By DingieM on 1/16/2008 3:32:23 AM , Rating: 1

"Last minute deal with Fox was the key":

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_conte...

Studio's going to Blu-Ray have to feel their own pain with high fall-outs and high production costs.
And we consumers are going to pay.
I say let those studio's bleed.

Blu-Ray is pure $ony $hit.

RE: Blu-Ray is f****** expensive

By sweetsauce on 1/16/2008 11:09:02 AM , Rating: 2

Who cares that it costs millions to purchase new equipment to make blu disks, and how there is a very high reject rate on disks, its blue!!! I see $10 blu disks coming soon. You just watch, its coming. I mean it, its coming. No really, its coming, right behind the $100 blu players. Then you will see that blu was the right choice.

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this is old news and pretty much wrong

By Shawn on 1/15/2008 8:23:03 PM , Rating: 2

see here: http://www.itwire.com/content/view/16081/1103/

Bad day for consumers.

By MMilitia on 1/16/2008 7:25:25 AM , Rating: 2

Though I agree this is far from being the end of the "format war" it really is a shame blu-ray is coming out on top.

Blu-Ray is still way too expensive and to add insult to injury if you buy one of the current £500 blu-ray players there isn't even any grantee that it'll still play blu-ray films in a year or so, thanks to the constant updates to the standard.

No DiVX? No thank you

By DukeN on 1/16/2008 8:27:42 AM , Rating: 2

Well, don't see me buying an HD DVD player for upscaling DVDs unless they could make one that'll play DIVX movies. For under $100.

If Toshiba had any wits about them, they would get serious and cut their prices to the point where they would actually compete with day to day upscaling DVD players. Not sell them for $150-$250.

Not Interested In Either - Apple TV Please

By kelmon on 1/16/2008 9:13:10 AM , Rating: 2

OK, I will say right now that I know that the iTunes Store's Movie Rental service only does 720 and that there are no extras but at this point I am much more prepared to go with that and Apple TV than I am to invest in either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. The cost of the rentals is pretty much peanuts, the image quality is better than DVD and I can start watching my choice almost immediately rather than having to go and buy/rent a disc. Movie delivery over the Internet is where it's at so why should I care about either of these 2 formats?

All in a name

By Sunbird on 1/16/2008 3:12:45 PM , Rating: 2

I think it all boils down to the naming, Blu Ray just flows easier off the tongue than HD DVD and also doesnt sound so generic and clinical.

Though I wish HD DVD had won, cause Blu Ray = regions = the suck!

Blu ray won! Sony won!

By Serafina on 1/15/08, Rating: -1

RE: Blu ray won! Sony won!

By Roffles on 1/16/08, Rating: -1

RE: Blu ray won! Sony won!

By Gio6518 on 1/16/2008 2:46:13 AM , Rating: 1

man you are ruthless but correct

it was always one of my favorite arguments that HD-DVD will win cause its cheaper and i cant afford BLU-RAY

but it looks like being cheap ended costing them a whole lot more, the best course of action right now for HD-DVD supporters is to stop living in denial and sell of their discs and players now while it still has value, go to FYE and trade in those discs for BLU-RAY discs, sell on ebay etc etc before you can pick that stuff up at the dollar store

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"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." -- Robert Heinlein