Are Paramount about to follow Warner out the HD DVD door?

[spiderman78]

Just seen this on Engadget:

The Financial Times is reporting that Paramount is preparing to use a get out clause in its HD DVD exclusivity deal, and go back to Blu-ray, about 4 months after ending its dual-format release schedule. The move would be a result of Warner's switch to Blu-ray, using a "get out" clause in Paramount's promotional agreement with the HD DVD camp. No details on what it might take to rip up the contract and make Michael Bay very, very happy, but if the rumor proves true this could make the slow death he predicted for HD DVD a very, very fast one.

By the way I am a HD DVD owner and this is not a dig at any camp just thought people would be interested in this news.


Here's a link to Financial Times article http://www.ft.com/cms/s/dc409afa-bd7...0779fd2ac.html

UPDATE 08:27 - Please see Blad Monkey's post below

[Bald Monkey]

This speculative article has already been denied by Paramount, they insist there is no truth to it and the 'unnamed sources' are wrong they are sticking with HD-DVD..

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...bU&refer=japan

``Paramount's current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format,'' Brenda Ciccone, a spokeswoman for Paramount, said in an e-mail today.


Keisuke Ohmori, a spokesman for Tokyo-based Toshiba, said the report is speculative.

[stevos]

What an absolute mess this format war is becoming. Before christmas when Paramount signed the deal people were saying its the end of bluray and now the reverse.

Personally i would prefer hd-dvd to succeed since its not region locked (but i have both so don't overly care either way), but at this moment in time my money is roundly on neither format winning.

What a mess.

A message to the studios, if you want a hd optical format to succeed, how about lowering the prices of the discs.

[Bald Monkey]

Originally Posted by stevos

What an absolute mess this format war is becoming. .

I agree, and it's a shame as before Xmas these rumours from both sides had died down, as AV and Movie fans we were mainly going dual and discussing which releases offered us the best choice, warning others to avoid substandard releases, recommending the best places to get good prices and generally all enjoying HD of both flavours whilst pushing for better.

Now it seems we are back to infighting and bickering, with the coporations pulling the strings, it no longer seems to matter what films are avaliable, how good the HD versions are etc, just what colour the cases are and who is/was right!

[micks_address]

i dont think people were saying Blue Ray was in trouble when Paramount signed the deal with HD DVD.. i think the mainstream opinion was that it would help HD DVD keep going in the format war..

i would bet that Paramount are at least thinking over the situation and looking at possibly releasing on Blue Ray again.. ok they have said they arent going to abandon HD DVD but they havent said they arent going releasing on Blue Ray... at least not yet..



{QUOTE=stevos;6166431]What an absolute mess this format war is becoming. Before christmas when Paramount signed the deal people were saying its the end of bluray and now the reverse.

Personally i would prefer hd-dvd to succeed since its not region locked (but i have both so don't overly care either way), but at this moment in time my money is roundly on neither format winning.

What a mess.

A message to the studios, if you want a hd optical format to succeed, how about lowering the prices of the discs.[/QUOTE]

[pixelpixel]

Its all smoke and mirrors........

Due to the blue/red stuff, I have decided that I won't be going to use any as it seems overnight things change and people jump ship. I will continue to use my 576i feed to watch dvd's and if needed I can upscale via my pc. Well thats what I have been doing for over 2 years why should I change now.

So say NO to HD as a media format.

[micks_address]

the next few months should see it settle down.. i think there's a definite improvement with HD versus upscaled DVD.. sometimes its not that remarkable but there's no denying it when you see it..

Originally Posted by pixelpixel

Its all smoke and mirrors........

Due to the blue/red stuff, I have decided that I won't be going to use any as it seems overnight things change and people jump ship. I will continue to use my 576i feed to watch dvd's and if needed I can upscale via my pc. Well thats what I have been doing for over 2 years why should I change now.

So say NO to HD as a media format.

[sdb123]

I'm seriously considering chucking in the proverbial HD towel at the moment.

[andy_dandy]

Lets not forget that Paramount are only doing HD-DVD exclusively due to a wad of cash being thrown at them from Microsoft.
Even if they thought they were backing a looser, if someone pays you to do so you still would (well i would).
The format war i do see as coming to an end, BD now has enough of the big studios exclusively to convince the consumer that its the format of choice.

[irascian]

Originally Posted by Bald Monkey

This speculative article has already been denied by Paramount, they insist there is no truth to it and the 'unnamed sources' are wrong they are sticking with HD-DVD..

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...bU&refer=japan

Isn't that EXACTLY what Warner Brothers said just before Christmas when one of their staff leaked the fact they were going to drop HD-DVD.

(and no, I'm not a Blu-Ray fan boy - I have over 200 HD-DVDs, but this whole speculation/denial thing has got to the stage where you can't believe anything anyone says)

[sdb123]

Originally Posted by andy_dandy

Lets not forget that Paramount are only doing HD-DVD exclusively due to a wad of cash being thrown at them from Microsoft.

But the same argument could be levelled against Warner and Sony.

[andy_dandy]

Originally Posted by sdb123

But the same argument could be levelled against Warner and Sony.

Dont think so, Sony have no choice, it's their format after all.
The difference with Paramount is that they were releasing on both formats and then were tied into HD-DVD by Microsofts 'wad'.
Warner was slightly different as they were exclusive anyway.

[Noggin1980]

Originally Posted by irascian

Isn't that EXACTLY what Warner Brothers said just before Christmas when one of their staff leaked the fact they were going to drop HD-DVD.

(and no, I'm not a Blu-Ray fan boy - I have over 200 HD-DVDs, but this whole speculation/denial thing has got to the stage where you can't believe anything anyone says)

It's a safe bet that the old rumors about warner were false, It's clear this has been done at the very highest level at warner and that it has been very fluid, HD-DVD were clearly not expecting to lose Warner and so obviously felt their negotiations with them were going well. I get the impression this was decided very late in the day, no doubt with both sides offering warner fantastic incentives.

I think there would be alot of anger at paramount if they were to switch, their contract to go HD DVD exclusive was something that made many people buy a HD DVD player to go back on what they said 6 months later would cause alot of people to feel they have lost alot of money because of paramount.

Warner did handle it badly though, they should have kept quiet on the run up to christmas, if they were planning (and they clearly were) to make a choice, reafirming there support for both formats, arrangeing to be a speaker at the HD DVD CES event made people confident in buying many HD DVD disks from them for christmas like the harry potter series (that now you won't be able to buy the final 2 movies on HD DVD), I'm not too upset I'll buy them on blu-ray but I can certainly see why many people are upset and feel they have been mislead

[Starburst]

It's a given that Blu-ray owners will be buying Paramount releases again in 2009 and well Para took the "incentive" they should honour the contract after all there is still a very definite market for HD DVD and then in a year they have the far more mature BD market to milk.

Of course I have no idea exactly what profit Para are making out of their HD DVD catalogue and if they were honest about supporting the format more likely to get mass market adoption via a price point and while that is still true the counter argument of studio support/number of titles is far more of a factor than it was last year.
Warner really have tipped the scales wildly in favour of Blu-ray and Paramount are a business that would have no issues with grinding former customers under their heel, that's just the way it is

[Noggin1980]

Originally Posted by andy_dandy

Dont think so, Sony have no choice, it's their format after all.
The difference with Paramount is that they were releasing on both formats and then were tied into HD-DVD by Microsofts 'wad'.
Warner was slightly different as they were exclusive anyway.

Warner were neutral untill a few days ago and are now blu-ray exclusive, despite the fact they deny it's pretty much a guarentee they took huge incentives to go blu-ray exclusive, they would have been stupid not too. I don't think anyone can on the HD DVD side can be angry about that though as I'm positive that similar incentives were offered from them too.