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Paramount says current plan is still HD DVD; does not comment on future

Paramount has denied reports claiming that it will be dropping support for HD DVD. Company spokeswoman Brenda Ciccone wrote in an email received by Bloomberg, “Paramount's current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format.”

The movie studio’s statement is in response to an earlier report by the Financial Times that declared Paramount as “poised to drop its support of HD-DVD” in light of Warner’s decision to side with Blu-ray Disc exclusively.

According to the report, Paramount has a clause in its contract with the HD DVD Group allowing it to back out from the agreement should Warner exclusively support Blu-ray Disc. Keisuke Ohmori, a spokesman for Toshiba, commented that the FT report was speculation.

While Paramount has denied that its current plan is to drop HD DVD support, the studio did not comment on its supposed contract clause. A similar response was received by High-Def Digest: “We are still supporting HD DVD,” a Paramount spokesperson told the website.

While HD DVD owners should take some solace in Paramount’s words, the studio is saying little else to reaffirm its future plans for the high-definition format – instead repeating that its current strategy is still status quo.

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"Current" plan?
By killerroach on 1/9/2008 2:34:29 PM , Rating: 4
What does that mean? "Ask us again in five minutes"? "Stay tuned"? "Give me liberty or give me death!"?!

I guess we don't know :)




RE: "Current" plan?
By bighairycamel on 1/9/2008 2:36:16 PM , Rating: 2
Most likely they want to let Warner test the waters first. Warner wont be going exclusive with BluRay for a few months yet, so there is no reason for Paramount to jump ship.... yet.


RE: "Current" plan?
By Wagnbat on 1/10/2008 5:18:40 AM , Rating: 2
Testing the waters, indeed! And they didn't deny the exclusivity clause, which means they could very well support both formats using that clause.


RE: "Current" plan?
By Scalptrash on 1/9/2008 2:39:52 PM , Rating: 1
It was shocking when they first announced exclusive support for a trailing format. What else can they do now? Who in their right mind would invest in HD-DVD right now? They know and fully realize where the money will be and it's just a matter of time until their lawyers finalize their withdrawl from the HD-DVD agreement. Stay tuned!


RE: "Current" plan?
By Belard on 1/9/2008 4:26:36 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah - Especially considering how many of the news sites and tech sites talk about "Finally! The war is over!" (The HiDef media war, not the iraq one). People at CES and all over are saying "ah, finally we can move on", etc.

What is currently left, studiowise for HD-DVD is about 25% with both Paramount and Universal combined.

Newline, did like Paramount - they have scraped all future HD-DVD titles. Their one and only title is Pan’s Labyrinth , with no more to be made.

With almost 20 Blu-Ray players of various models and companies compared to 3-4 for Blu-Ray, its time to stop playing around.

note: When you think about this, companies tend to say "its not true" or "no comment" then later when it fits their schedule they'll backtrack and tell what we already knew.


RE: "Current" plan?
By V2K on 1/9/2008 5:49:06 PM , Rating: 2
maybe now we'll start seeing some better quality players appearing sooner rather than later that fully support BD-Live.

The existing crop of players may be many but their features are few and inconsistent.


RE: "Current" plan?
By glenn8 on 1/9/2008 2:53:35 PM , Rating: 1
I don't understand why the movie industry is thinking so backwards. They have to start realizing that it's not the technology that drives movie sales, it's the movies. If there are plenty of great movies on a particular format, people will begin to adopt that format (so long as the price is fair). It doesn't make sense that the movie industry needs to actively monitor this "format war" to decide which side to take.


RE: "Current" plan?
By mdogs444 on 1/9/2008 4:35:39 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
They have to start realizing that it's not the technology that drives movie sales, it's the movies.

Its a cycle...

The technology drives the need/want for a movie player, the movie player drives the supply for movies, the supply of movies drives the demand/want for movie buyers.

You cant have one without the other. But the 1% of total DVD sales goes to show that its just too early for majority of consumers to adopt a new technology. Whether its too expensive, or there is just no "want" yet, or perhaps economic concerns - either way, most people make this out to be a BD vs. HD war - when in fact, the real war is the technology market vs. consumers willingness to spend on non-necessity items.


RE: "Current" plan?
By werepossum on 1/9/2008 5:24:30 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
I don't understand why the movie industry is thinking so backwards. They have to start realizing that it's not the technology that drives movie sales, it's the movies. If there are plenty of great movies on a particular format, people will begin to adopt that format (so long as the price is fair). It doesn't make sense that the movie industry needs to actively monitor this "format war" to decide which side to take.


It's a balancing act between the added expense of producing movies in two formats versus making a losing move and getting left behind. Remember, with almost anything the unit cost goes down as quantity goes up, whether purchased or manufactured in-house. Splitting quantity into two different formats halves the quantity for each, therefore increasing unit cost to some degree.

Paramont for example received $180M IIRC in assistance for going exclusively HD-DVD. I don't know what WB received - I don't for a minute believe they got nothing. I'd readily believe they received no cash, but I'm sure they received a hefty package of royalty discounts, production conversion assistance, cost sharing, etc. to make the move. With Warner's Blu-Ray announcement, the BD money has probably dried up - why subsidize studios that clearly have to convert to your standard or fall behind? Paramont has well and truly screwed itself, as its choices now are to continue producing discs in a declining format (costing an ever-increasing number of sales as the numbers of BD-equipped consumers increase and HD-DVD-equipped consumers flatten) until its HD-DVD contract runs out, or bail from its contract, which will almost certainly cost it the bulk or even all its subsidy and leave the studio facing the cost of set-up for both formats (first HD-DVD, then BD) from its own pockets. Paramont gambled. And lost.


RE: "Current" plan?
By 91TTZ on 1/9/2008 5:54:04 PM , Rating: 2
Exactly.

This is just playing tricks with words. They can change direction in 1 hour and say "That really was our current plan. We told you that we wouldn't comment on future plans"


RE: "Current" plan?
By Clauzii on 1/9/2008 6:55:41 PM , Rating: 1
Agree one hundred :)

But I'll guess that, at least Microsoft will do enough for some time (2-3 years? - until X-Box 405) to keep HD-DVD alive. Unless we only want to either only play games (ie. no new movies (maybe older ones), or go for the BuyIn' of say $100-150 for a X-Box360 BD-Player. At least one ends up having HD-DVD to stuff into PC :-O

And a tingy more on the table (and PSU under) if both HD and BD are seperate devices, of course :)

So, maybe in 2-3 years, Microsoft have to probably decide to stay alone or select Purple Ray(n) as their future format :)


Warner
By SavagePotato on 1/9/2008 2:36:29 PM , Rating: 1
Warner said the same right to the very end. Paramount and Universal will at the least release blu ray, and at best drop dud all together before summer. It's a foregone conclusion.

Some spokeswoman reading a canned message is of no more value than the "insider" reports that both studios are considering a switch.




RE: Warner
By Spuke on 1/9/2008 3:04:01 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Some spokeswoman reading a canned message is of no more value than the "insider" reports that both studios are considering a switch.
I actually agree with SavagePotato. I think I'm going to go buy a lottery ticket.


RE: Warner
By therealnickdanger on 1/9/2008 3:27:59 PM , Rating: 2
Paramount will stick it out until summer, when final Warner HD-DVD production will cease, then prepare a barrage of Blu-Ray titles for the Christmas season, foregoing their contract with Toshiba. That's my prediction.


RE: Warner
By aos007 on 1/9/2008 7:45:03 PM , Rating: 2
Absolutely agree. After reading any site such as Daily Tech for a while, you realize that all companies say these things all the time only to change their direction a little while later if they feel like it. At some point it stops being news. It becomes the waste of everybody's time. Isn't the intention of sites such as this to FILTER (at least to some degree) all the useless daily info released and deliver only the RELEVANT stuff? There's such thing as information overload.


RE: Warner
By AlexWade on 1/9/2008 10:34:01 PM , Rating: 2
I thought of something which may or may not be true. I wonder if WB gave the 5 month window to see if HD DVD can stage some sort of comeback and if so, they'll say "Oh wait, the consumer says they want HD DVD, so we'll go HD DVD exclusive now".


RE: Warner
By winterspan on 1/10/2008 12:54:03 AM , Rating: 2
Not I don't think so.
I would guess their reasoning is either of two possibilities, or a combination of both.

1) They realize that just their announcement is already going to cause a large consolidation in the market into Blu-ray, and they are going to take advantage of it by selling as many movies as they can to both Blu and HD-DVD for the next 5 months. And then, by the time they stop selling HD-DVDs, The Blu market will have increased to the point that it offsets the loss of HDDVD revenue.

2) Contractual obligations


RE: Warner
By SavagePotato on 1/10/2008 9:38:01 AM , Rating: 2
Considering the clobbering blu-ray administered last year, even in the midst of $98 players, exlusives like transformers etc, nothing is going to change.

In the midst of every site on the web save the hardcore hddvd faithful saying don't touch hddvd, and the war is over. Other small non major player studios tipping over like dominoes in favor of blue, for example the porn company digital playground. There is no comeback.

Word of mouth was the most huge selling point for VHS. Back in the ancient times when the family bought the first VCR, granted there was no internet in those days, VHS was chose based on the sales rep's advice that it had the momentum over beta. Perfect example of uninformed consumers making a purchase descision.

Now though, it's a different ballgame, publications and consumer advice sites were not telling general consumers to go out there and pick one definative format, if anything they were urging caution. That's all starting to change fast. Blu ray has won, your safe to buy will be coming out more and more as a message. Don't touch hd-dvd is already being put out like I said everywhere. In this buisness the buzz around something means everything. Even the rumors about Paramount and Universal switching have a huge effect on things, and the aura surrounding hddvd is one of imminent death.


RE: Warner
By sweetsauce on 1/10/2008 5:14:00 PM , Rating: 2
what clobbering are you reffering to? you must live in another dimension or something. even with a 6 million player advantage, they never managed to double the amount of hd-dvd sales, and it didn't even dent into 1% of dvd sales.


They'll be switching.
By goodstuff on 1/9/2008 3:03:38 PM , Rating: 2
The use of the word "current" and lack of the word "exclusive" leads me to believe they will soon be switching to blu or at least going back to neutral. You can't have just two studios supporting a format (and Paramount already released the least amount of HDM discs of the major studios as well). Universal's sole comment at CES on it's format status was just "No comment." Doesn't sound too reassuring for the HD-DVD world. And before someone mentions Weinstein, they haven't released an HD-DVD since June.




RE: They'll be switching.
By OxBow on 1/9/2008 3:55:15 PM , Rating: 5
I agree. I think they were probably a little suprised by Warners move. Since everyone is on parade at CES this week, immediately following the Warner annoucement, there's no way that anybody is going to stick their neck out and announce their dropping HD-DVD until they've gotten back to the office and talked to their legal department (not to mention figuring out scheduling & production issues, distribution contracts, etc.).

I'd expect both Universal and Paramount to announce around the end of March or April that they're switching. That'll give them enough time to work out their schedules and legal obligations while still having time to take Christmas '08 rush orders.


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