Paramount + Dreamworks + HD DVD = $$$$$

Toldja, it's all about the dough. Dollars that is....

Word.

...and the ghost of Betamax wailed in agony...

This is getting sadder and sadder by the minute.

yep.. I refuse to get either HD as my little 27 inch TV wouldn't know what to do with it anyway.

Whatever, why anybody even gives a rat's ass is beyond me!

That explains it all. That and the so-called savings they will have manufacturing the DVDs is enough incentive for anyone to support any specific format!

I'm still not convinced Blu-Ray is the "next best thing," especially since most of the stores in my area that sell or rent movies are wall to wall DVDs.

Noisemaze wrote:Whatever, why anybody even gives a rat's ass is beyond me!

dude have you seen a movie on a blue ray player? Its crazy, just like the difference between dvd and vhs. go back and watch a movie on vhs it looks terrible. people said the same thing when dvd came out, "i can't tell the difference" you must be blind. Its a huge difference. If you have a home sound system like me that is 7.1 sound it sounds unbelievable too. I would rather watch it at home than the theater. (course having a 70inch protection lcd doesn't hurt either)

If only Sony would allow other companys to produce Blu Ray discs then I am sure this could be solved.

I have Blu Ray and dont want to have to buy another box, besides I dont have any more HDMI ports on my Tele.

I also know that should I decide to go buy a new player that the instant I paid for it, Paramount would announce that it would support Blu Ray.

Should Blu Ray get into the position of being the obvious winner in the format war then these non supporters will change their tunes as I am sure that the cost of having to use a rivals format would be tiny compared to lost sales.

Its given me an idea for the next TF line "Transformers: The Format Wars".

No way I'm buying either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray until this whole silly "format war" thing is sorted out. I'm not buying a player that only plays half the movies. Bad enough we do that for video games.

150 million? C'mon people... that's a drop in the bucket for Paramount... This is a HUGE corporation... Financial incentives don't necessary mean 150 million in cash was exchange, either... you can equate to a tax break or other financial means to spur growth. Like Sony didn't do the same thing for Blockbuster, Disney, etc. It's all about leverage. It's business. I think this is great, personally. Good to see a conglomerate that gets too big for its britches (read Sony) be brought back down to earth.

On a another note - Trust me, you can see the difference between HD-DVD/Blu-ray and standard DVD... it's night and day. I won both players (PS3) and HD-AX2. I've stopped buying standard DVDs, now. personally, I'm an HD-DVD supporter, but I've hedged my bets by purchasing (actually traded in my Xbox360) a PS3 (when it dropeed $100.)

Sound and picture is night and day difference, even with an less than optimal setup. You'll get the best quality using Component or HDMI cables, but watch out for copy protection. the flag hasn't been enforced yet, but it exists for component cables. if the copy protection bit is set, your picture will downgrade to standard 480i/p definition. Only HDMI cables will work, then.

I mentioned this 150 mil deal in the previous thread on this subject.

The 150 million is only for 18 months of exclusivity, Transformers WILL find its way onto Blu Ray

this is a last ditch effort by HDDVD to save their asses.
The recent release of 300 on Blu Ray is outselling the HDDVD version 3-1. Standalone Blu Ray players are also selling better than HDDVD players regardless of the price difference.

HDDVD is desparate, and this under the table deal is a big warning sign to HDDVD supporters

they can conspire and bribe all they want. the clear winner in the format wars will be INTERNET DOWNLOAD. its come to a point where you no longer need to physically own media. with the way internet video is pushing forward (youtube, veoh, joost)... in 5 years all you need to own is a box that will download hd movies from a virtual library you have rights to and play it on your tv. this box will... wait a minute i already own this box, its called a pc.
here's a peak into the future:
http://www.last100.com/2007/07/24/8-int ... n-8-weeks/

oh, and for those sitting on the side lines, a few companies are not producing players that play back both HD-DVD and Blue Ray. LG is one, Samsung will have one soon. I think there's another company, but can't remember who. Also, Warner Corp. has inventd a Hybrid disc.. check here http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/warn ... brid-disc/

If you can afford Hi-Def, go for it..

I have a feeling this war will end up similar to the DVD-R,DVD+R... that's a format war that was settled by incorporating both formats into one player (the + or -)..

HA!

The only people who should give a darn about this, and subsequently be upset at themselves, are the early Blu-Ray adopters. I respect them for spending loads of cash on hardware that will be obsolete in a year or so so that others may purchase standardized HD players on the cheap later on.

Meantime, I'll get the DVD and play it on my upscaling player.

why is there this much of an issue... just release it

It is going to still come out on regular DVD, right? Sorry I showed up to the dance late.

Blu-Ray is the better format. The disk itself has more storage capacity. Go to best buy and watch something playing on it. I have a 37" Toshiba LCD HDTV. My cable is brodcast in 1080i. My HD cable looks terrible compared to the Blu Ray player. Blu-ray should win, unless HD-DVD makes a bunch of deals like this to block the market.

I'm still behind blu-ray as a next gen medium, the data storage capability is vastly superior.

However, as far as media goes, I'm actually vastly sick of these upgrades. I don't want to have to get all my movies again in HD format because the regular DVDs just don't look nice any more...

Companies should bloody offer trade-ins for the thousands of dollars I've spent on VHS and DVDs over the years, and they still haven't gotten around to releasing all the stuff that was on VHS on to DVD (One-Armed Swordsman, anyone?)

The memory capacity between HDDVD and Blu Ray is what should turn people towards Blu Ray.

Who wants to own a HD system cant accomadate the best HD transfers.

HD content is a memory guzzler, and 30 gigs per disc isnt going to cut it.

Blu Ray has 50 gigs, enough room for the best transfers and extras.

I personally will wait the 18 months until the exclusive deal between paramount and HDDVD ends, I bet is then we will get a double dip of TF with the Ultra Edition or something like that on Blu ray

Sid Burn is right that it seems to be a last ditch attempt to save a format that is, by all indications, losing the format wars.

And $150M is important to Paramount. Otherwise, they never would have agreed to sign the agreement. Of course, now that only the standard DVDs will be picked up by the likes of Blockbuster and Target, I bet they are reconsidering things...

And a shout out out out out to dinoignacio - you have it there. The big companies are so busy fixating on the next "format" that their profits and businesses are being eroded by the download.

Corporations wanting to make money and pay more for exclusive rights for promotional purposes?

I never would have imagined such a thing.

Lol, all this talk of Blue Ray and HD-DVD bores me. Until this debate is solved....I am going to keep buying regular DVDs.....because they are CHEAP.

NebulanFree wrote:...and the ghost of Betamax wailed in agony...

And it along with the tortured soul of UMD are waiting for Blu-Ray to join them in Sony product hell.

ultimatefroton wrote:Lol, all this talk of Blue Ray and HD-DVD bores me. Until this debate is solved....I am going to keep buying regular DVDs.....because they are CHEAP.

I'm doing the same thing. I'm in no rush to get an HD player. Hell, I did the same thing with VHS before DVD became the norm. When I start finding less and less of regular DVDs is when I'll go HD.

Wake me up when we have a clear winner, so I can go get the player and be done with it all.

Hanch Prime wrote:

Noisemaze wrote:Whatever, why anybody even gives a rat's ass is beyond me!

dude have you seen a movie on a blue ray player? Its crazy, just like the difference between dvd and vhs. go back and watch a movie on vhs it looks terrible. people said the same thing when dvd came out, "i can't tell the difference" you must be blind. Its a huge difference. If you have a home sound system like me that is 7.1 sound it sounds unbelievable too. I would rather watch it at home than the theater. (course having a 70inch protection lcd doesn't hurt either)

Because a lot of people can afford that stuff. I won't lie and say that I don't want a top of the line Blu-Ray player,
a 7.1 sound system, and the best HDTV out there but I don't
have the money for any of it. I'm not alone either. If you
can afford it then more power to you but remember a lot of
people are lucky to afford a dollar burger from McDonalds.

Now at the end of day I would rather pay for food than a lot of high-end technology that will out of date in about 6
months.

trilobitepictures wrote:Imagine that... someone... a company or individual or news website... being PAID to make a decision favourable for a company and lure public opinion that way . Ah... business.

How long is the movie going to stay in theaters, anyway?

quote for truth...

Sid Burn wrote:I mentioned this 150 mil deal in the previous thread on this subject.

The 150 million is only for 18 months of exclusivity, Transformers WILL find its way onto Blu Ray

this is a last ditch effort by HDDVD to save their asses.
The recent release of 300 on Blu Ray is outselling the HDDVD version 3-1. Standalone Blu Ray players are also selling better than HDDVD players regardless of the price difference.

HDDVD is desparate, and this under the table deal is a big warning sign to HDDVD supporters

Actually They are going completely HD-DVD, according to all the sources they have officially dropped Blue-Ray completely. HD-DVD actually has a number of technological advatages in it. One of which is the fact that its been standardized since inception. Where as first generation BlueRay discs are actually a slightly different build then current ones, and more changes are in the works, which means its quite possible that within a year first Gen Blueray discs will be incompatible with newer players. Sony rushed the format out to compete with HD-DVD.

HD-DVD also has much stronger support for future hardware upgrades and interactive and downloadable content built into the specification. Blueray is adding these, but as I said that means its likely earlier versions of the format will have compatibility issues.

HD-DVD discs are also cheaper to produce as are the players. Partly because its a much more open format then Blueray and because it has been standardized and thus manufactures don't have to worry about future changes and can simply focus on making hardware thats good now without having to future proof it.

About the only thing Blueray has on HD-DVD is storage size, and regardless of what people think There hasn't been a movie yet that is significantly different in quality between the two, nor has there been many releases really utilizing the size difference as of yet with much in the way of extras, partly because the flaws and changes in the standard make creating interactive and otherwise "Next Gen" type extras harder to do with Blueray.

Its quite possible that Sony will get the bugs ironed out and Blueray will come out on top of course. Personally I'm not buying either format till we have a winner. DVDs are working fine for me. And though I may not be getting the same kind of quality I can live a few more years with if it means I won't get burned with a collection thats useless because of a failed format.

I don't think there's anything wrong with HDDVD putting money in a studio to produce movies. Sony owns studios that only produce Blu Ray, it's basically the same thing. Also just because they haven't come out and said it, doesn't mean Sony hasn't paid other studios to back blu ray.

In the end, it would be nice if there was a single standard. I have no sympathy for Sony and Blu Ray after reading on a business site articles about Toshiba going to them and trying to reconcile just before the two standards came out. Apparently the proposal was Sony's blu ray for the disk medium (because it was larger) and HDDVD's specifications for software, because it was standardized and ready to go. Sony refused and now there's two formats, and it kind of bugs me that they will win in the end, when they wouldn't reconcile because they wanted all the $$$$.

I am so glad that Michael Bay has come to his senses.

Blu Ray = Region Encoding
HD-DVD = No Region Encoding

May HD-DVD be victorious and may region encoding die a well deserved death.

To my knowledge Blu-Ray has 1080p while HD-DVD only boasts 1080i which isn't full frames like the progressive one.

I bought 300 on Blu-Ray and haven't opened it in hopes BluRay goes down soon and I can just accumulate movies over time for viewing when I can afford a player, but maybe I should return it because I don't want a disc that will be part of an obsolete format. I just fear Sony, though it's the higher quality, will fail due to trying to be a sole manufacturer of a format and you'd think after all this time of their minidisc and beta failure that they'd learn to freakin license that sh^t out and universalize it. They just can't seem to make that work and while Beta was higher quality than VHS it still lost because of just this!

I really don't know who will win. Thedigitalbits.com swears left and right that it will be bluray but I dunno. This war is just getting tiring.

TAKE THAT SONY! HA HA HA! Shouldnt we learn from history people? Isnt that why we study history? To learn from others mistakes. And everyone knows that Sony loves to come up with audio/video formats that ultimately fail.

So can we add another $150 million to the gross totals the movie has raked in? Wait, didn't it cost $150 million to make it? So basically the entire combined theatrical and video revenue is now profit?

Versa wrote:I don't want a disc that will be part of an obsolete format.

There is a market for Blu-Ray if they would just tap into it. Blu-Rays hold how many tens of gigabytes of information per disc? You could back up a small hard drive on one of them. If it fails in the video market, they could be sitting on a nice secondary market in digital media, unless someone else makes a disc that holds more. Just wait for the price of the recorders to come down a bit, and people will warm up to them for that, if nothing else.

Versa - HD-DVD supports exactly the same resolutions (1080i and 1080p) as Blu Ray

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hd-dvd

Blu Ray can store more data - but a 3 hour film at the maximum possible resolution supported by Blu Ray will still not fill the capacity of a HD-DVD disc.

I'm still sitting on the fence. However I have read that HD-DVD will be upgrading its capacity and will be backwards compatible with present HD-DVD players. How they will accomplish that is anyone's guess because unless they create some kind of super duper multi layer disc they will have to change the laser type. Ah slag it all!

I think the Graphic of Paramount, Dreamworks, and HD-DVD all in a hotel room bed is just priceless. That's what I call Funny!

uranimusprime wrote:I'm still sitting on the fence. However I have read that HD-DVD will be upgrading its capacity and will be backwards compatible with present HD-DVD players. How they will accomplish that is anyone's guess because unless they create some kind of super duper multi layer disc they will have to change the laser type. Ah slag it all!

The laser doesn't matter as much as the actually encoding used. If they up the media size but don't change the encoding specs then its not as much of a problem. It does mean some tweaks to the hardware reading the discs, possibly including a secondary laser, but its not really has hard or complicated to pull off as you might think.

Of course it might be a mute point if HD-DVD ends up falling to Blueray, however at this point I don't see either one winning out right for at least another year or two. Regardless of what some people say they are way to close at this point. Its like trying to decide who will win the console war, Nintendo might be in the lead now (based on overall sales) but that doesn't mean Xbox or the PS3 are out of the race.

I think HD-DVD has the best potential simply because its apparently easier for both media and hardware manufactures to work with and other then the size difference is at this time a better overall format then Blueray. However Blueray continues to change and upgrade itself which is both a benefit and a problem at this point. If Sony can get a finalized build out that has everything HD-DVD already does and actually do it with out breaking old versions then they'll have a much better chance of taking the lead and winning out.

Well, a no Bluray release only means we will have an HDDVDrip 720p h.264 version sooner

i saw the TF trailer in blades of glory and it said it was to come out with both fortmats hd-dvd and blu-ray. can i sue for false advertisement?