“According to the New York Times, HD DVD promoters are paying $150 million to Paramount/Dreamworks to pay for Paramount dropping its support of Blu-ray while retaining support of HD DVD,” Robert Smith reports for TVPredictions.
“Two years ago, Paramount announced that they would support both HD DVD and Blu-ray in the HDTV disc format war. Blu-ray has been selling two-to-one over HD DVD this year, and this includes Paramount titles,” Smith reports.
“Within the market for HDTV disc players, consumers have to be warned that they cannot depend on anything. I am advising all of my friends and associates to be wary of both formats now, and especially of the apparent commitments made by studios,” Smith reports.
“This decision of Paramount has seriously destabilized the already tenuous HDTV disc market and left customers in a greater state of uncertainty and mistrust that they were before,” Smith reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Giuseppe S.” for the heads up.]
Typical hollywood money bribes… I STILL WANT BLUE-RAY! F**k HD-DVD…
And probably another 150M to the justice department to turn a blind eye…..
The world is a chess board, and we are all pawns.
Steve Jobs was right, DVD is dead, including Hi-Def DVD.
I will never buy either unless one ships in my Mac.
Give me a break, like Sony and the Blu-ray camp haven’t done the same thing. You don’t think Blockbuster got some money for going with strictly blu-ray. It’s all bs, they’re all just playing games and we’re caught in the middle
Re: Give me a break
Not to mention the fact that Sony owns studios that don’t put out movies on HD-DVD. That’s not any less anti-consumer than what’s going on here. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
Give me a combo player for $300-500 and I’m in. Until then, let the idiot studios fight over their .5% niche.
Yes it is anti-consumer, just like the iphone.
The amusing thing is they can keep doing this kind of thing and the public will keep holding off on committing one way or the other. At least in the short-term.
Personally, I prefer blu-ray for its capacity, but there are some nice things about HD-DVD too (no regions for example.) The inevitable conclusion will be that neither will “win” per se, because it’s highly likely that multi-format players/recorders will appear, making the issue mostly irrelevant (which is how the DVD-R and DVD+R was sorted out.)
It seems doubtful this will be a repeat of the Beta vs VHS situation.
I mean cheap multi-format players.
In my opinion, this is a sign of desperation by the HD-DVD backers.
I love the fact that this was announced 1 day after buying my PS3 to play blu-ray movies.
Give me a combo player for $300-500 and I’m in.
Belly up to the bar then!!
http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/26/buffalo-offers-up-external-hd-dvd-blu-ray-combo-drive-in-japan/
In my opinion, this is a sign of desperation by the HD-DVD backers.
Of course it is, but bankrolling this is Microsoft, which is engaged in a “America vs Asia” war of this new format.
As a Mac fan, I hate Microsoft with a passion. Then again Sony hasn’t been quite a angel either with their rootkit and strick DRM.
However Sony is less evil than Microsoft.
However Microsoft is America’s evil and would you, as a American/European, would rahter have the evil on your side or the Asians?
After all the Asians already make most of everything and American/Europeans make nearly nothing.
Or is this just the studios holding M$ hostage? Got to get that cash back somehow right?
My brain hurts.
Of course the thing one has to ask, as a Mac fan.
Is Apple going to side with Microsoft? A American company and Intel, which control the chip market.
Or with Sony? And incure the wrath later on from the Wintel Alliance?
Apple seems to move first. How will the Mac community react if Apple goes HD-DVD?
After all Steve jobs is clinging to increase Mac sales by being able to install Windows.
Windows with HD-DVD?
Whatta think of them apples? (no pun indended)
Isn’t this kind of thing illegal?
I’m sure that the current DoJ supports payoffs of ALL kinds!
If Apple/Dell/Sony can add Blu-Ray drives affordably into their laptops/desktops, the war will be over. Makes sense considering that Blu-Ray has a much larger potential storage capacity @ 200GB.
Much rather see Apple come out with a 3 HD unit with RAID for the home user and at a <$300 price. What this means is that, say for instance, a little unit with 3x500GB SATA drives and RAID would become a transparent home file server. One HD goes, just plug in a new one and the remaining drives replicate. Much more reliable that DVDs as a storage medium.
Technology is always slow to go mainstream. Just look how long it’s taking HDTV to take off. Both cable and satellite do not provide many regular HDTV channels. Several channels I watch regularly clearly have a lot of their programming filmed in HDTV since the aspect ratio of the image is different. But it’s shrunk down to SDTV dimensions and resolution simply because the channel feed isn’t HD.
DVD players used to be costly not so long ago. Now you can get them for less than 50 bucks.
Most of us will have to wait until the price goes down and either combo players are available or one of the formats win. I’m not wasting any more money on expensive equipment until the price drops and the vids are available on the format I need.
I wonder what Blockbuster will do given their selection of Blu-Ray (paid or not). So much for the free market 🙁
I’ll stick with DVD thank you.
The world is a dish of cocktail sauce, and we are all prawns.
DVD here too!
Pornography will win the day for HD DVD.
Pornography will win the day for HD DVD.
Not necessarily.
The internet is a worthwhile investment for virtually unlimited amounts of porn.
Porn stores have not even come close to the variety and selection thats availalbe online.
Now with the iPhone…only $600… for unlimited porn…in your pocket….
ahhhh, you see young grashopper.
I think there’s a good chance neither will take off. Digital downloads and streaming video are coming on very strong.
HD DVD sucks. Only Microsuck and Toshiba back it anyway. Blu Ray is superior technically and has the most support. It’s only a matter of time before the superior format wins.