HD format war not over as Paramount dumps Blu-ray
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By Stevie Smith Aug 21, 2007, 13:25 GMT
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Let me just drop Paramount then....don't buy from them anymore.
If Sony really wants to win this battle of formats, they should get rid of the AACS license fee per title. The cost is upwards of $3000 to $4000 for a serial number. If they did away with this cost a lot of business would come back to Blu-Ray. One thing they might want to remember is the fact that small to medium size businesses will be using this technology and right now the most affordable format is HD DVD hands down.
So listen up Sony before you lose this battle and Blu-Ray goes the way of the MD. BTW not a lot of albums were produced on Mini-Disc.
People are tired of Sony. Their monopolistic business practices will never win, people are smart enough to see that.
Both formats are very short-term anyhow - because holographic media (300GB on a non-spinning disk) are just around the corner!!
HD is NOT caparable in every way to Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray has more storage and better Audio options, for instance.
Go HD-dvd! Sony and blue-ray suck. Sony hasn't backed a winner in years. Stick to making 'Walkmen', Sony. I've got some old mix tapes I still like to listen to.
Once again, the comsumer is stabbed in the back.
The reasoning behind this decision is unfettered by the history of content formats in general.
The claim that Blue-Ray is too expensive to support masks the fact that content and hardware always come down in price.
Blue-Ray discs WILL drop in price. Blue-Ray players WILL drop in price. But this decision simply retards the inevitable selection of the technically superior format, confuses the public, and delays EITHER format from becoming the standard.
I do not believe that we have been given the real reason for this decision.
So I guess the biggest blockbuster this summer is only on HD-DVD.
Spider man 3, and Fantastic 4 don't even come close.
I predict that this war will go on for too long, which will result in both Blu-Ray AND HD-DVD being replaced by Downloadable media.
With digital storage space becoming less and less expensive, and broadband speeds faster and faster, it will only take about 2 more years for downloadable content be more convenient, and less expensive then buying your favorite movie in Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.
Just look at what is happening to the music industry, and they don’t even have a format war going on. Its just CDs VS, Online distribution. (Piracy is not factored in since both the movie and music industry are already trying to battle rampant piracy)
Most importantly with down loadable content you wont have to worry about having to buy your movies again if and when the format you bought goes obsolete.
Paramount should reconsider its decision. For those of us who did extensive research and selected BluRay,Paramounts decision will hurt them in the long run. They must either chose to support BluRay or lose our business. Granted, you can buy a less expensive HD player, but you get what you pay for. Sony has been slow, but did respond to the market needs by developing and now selling a less expensive player.
The industry must find a way to unite and stop punishing the consumer for buying technology that is too quickly obsolete due to industry battles.
Shame!
The delay in a decisive winner will spell the end of both formats, as the next format comes along.
Streaming HD content is the new media.
I think it's disgraceful there's a format war at all. The true winner shouldn't be decided by monoply.
Sony is a corporate beast that over the last few years has been caught with its pants down so many times, who would still buy Sony?
They have long since lost their dominance in both the home television and portable music player markets... They have laptop batteries burning up across the globe... DRM software with rootkit issues... hell, they couldn't even get the launch of PS3 right, since it is lagging far behind the Wii (not to mention the 360) after being the dominant gaming system for 2 generations prior... (this after they made much noise on how the Wii was a joke and a write off of a system)
Consumers are getting smarter, and realizing that they can decide what they want out of their purchases now, instead of listening to companys like Sony who tell them what it is they want!
Good job Paramount!
And to David Ray - 'They must either chose to support BluRay or lose our business.' - For each of you saying that, there is one of us on the other side saying the exact opposite, if these other studios don't start to support HD, they will be riding the train to nowhere with Sony execs...
Gapotter - 'Both formats are very short-term anyhow - because holographic media (300GB on a non-spinning disk) are just around the corner!!' - this new tech is basically at a point where they could start preping to roll it out for public consumption, and it will blow the rest of these formats out of the water...
The smart man is the one who avoids either format and waits for the successor to come along in a couple of years - enjoy your 1st gen DVD's you have only had for 5 or 6 years, they still work just fine, for now...
Halo the movie comming out next year, by Fox
Bluray only!
Hahahahahah Sorry Microsoft..
Lol
I agree with dorkARMY!
I cancelled my Blockbuster Total Access subscription, because of their decision to go with Blu-Ray. Blockbuster said they didn't make their final decision, but they wanted to try out Blu-Ray first. I told them, me too, I haven't made my final decision, I just don't want to give them my money, while they try to tell me which format to use.
Paramount didn't lose my business, they just gained it! Blu-Ray interactive capabilities blow, its more expensive,....and the all important point....the adult video market has backed HD-DVD, they were the tipping point for the VHS/BetaMax wars. My money is with them. I don't think that industry makes the wrong decision when it comes to production. The quality difference is negligible, so then the decision comes down to ease of use and costs. umm,....HD-DVD
This war isn't over, but my early pick is bye-bye Blu-Ray!
OK, I'll just have to buy a pirated copy of their movies that someone converts to BluRay. Nice jobs execs you have created a fricken black market for your movies!
Seems like this war boils down to:
What do you want, more user features or more storage capacity for content.
With 10 extra gig's on a single layer Blueray do I really need a network feature that will let me download (more then likely after purchasing) additional content?
Do I really need all of the cool Menu features HD-DVD touts.. like viewing scene creation picture in picture with the movie? Usually when I want to watch a movie I watch the movie, if it was really good I may go look at additional content and extra features, but if I have the time I would much rather watch another movie so this once again does not seem like something I would get much use out of and definately not worth giving up 10 gigs for.
The only feature of HD DVD that is superior in my opinion is the DVD layer making it playable on a standard DVD player. I can't say however that I am a fan of double sided disks (too much opportunity for scratches). I would rather see blueray pack a standard dvd into each box alongside the blueray version..(yeah I know it will never happen).
A big chunk of the movie industry is for kids/family movies. Disney should do the same as Paramount...The low price point is attractive to families and that's who they market to.. I'm sure that was part of Paramounts decision, particularly concerning Dreamworks.
My comments refer to the UK....
Personally, I'll always prefer the one that gets me most of the benefits (read: features), at the lower cost, particularly when there's such a difference in price. I believe that's what the majority of consumers are going to want too. Most consumers do not understand 720p/1080i/1080p, so they won't care about the formats as long as they play in HD on their new telly, which both formats will. For them, they'll mostly understand 'higher resolution picture' and 'multi-channel sound' (or 5.1 etc). There isn't much else that they will be bothered about. HD-DVD seems to tout it's extra features, but that's mostly irrelevant, as are the other spec. differences between the 2 formats, for the average family/consumer.
The PS3 is far too dear for most families to buy for their kids so I think that Sony will loose potential BD sales because of that.
Torrents - those in the know are sourcing their films in other ways, granted - not in HD - but they are doing this and it's affecting all video formats. Most normal families (excluding tech savvy parents) wouldn't have a clue about torrents and are likely to actually BUY discs.....ergo, families are probably still buying 'movies' on discs at a similar rate as they always have, but others may not be.
I'm still using my VHS HiFi. Go VHS!!!!!
The consumer response is simple: Don't buy a player for either product until there is one format that wins. Save your money. Let the industry suffer until then.
Here's something all you clowns might not be aware of.
The most recent big seller in the home DVD market was the movie 300. At 3 different Best Buy stores in my area the Blu-Ray version was sold out after only 3 days of release. There were ample stocks of the HD-DVD version sitting around that nobody appeared to want.
The movie has been out now for about 1 month and the third party sales numbers have the Blu-Ray version outselling the HD-DVD version by at least 2 - 1.
When you actually compare apples to apples, Blu-Ray is clearly winning and any studio that chooses to support only the losing format is either wanting to keep to 'war' going for some financial reason that we may never truly know or just can't accept defeat.
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