Paramount + Dreamworks + HD DVD = $$$$$
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 9:27AM CDT
Categories: Movie Related News, Company News, Digital Media NewsPosted by: Seibertron Views: 14,930
Topic Options: View Discussion · Sign in or Join to reply
"Paramount and DreamWorks Animation together will receive about $150 million in financial incentives for their commitment to HD DVD, according to two Viacom executives with knowledge of the deal but who asked not to be identified."
You can read the full article at NYTimes.com.
News Search
Got Transformers News? Let us know here!
Most Popular Transformers News
ROTB Optimus Prime Lead Designer Discusses Why the Face Looks Similar to the 2007 Movie
57,283 viewsMost Recent Transformers News
Posted by QuietStorm on August 22nd, 2007 @ 9:33am CDT
Word.
Posted by NebulanFree on August 22nd, 2007 @ 9:41am CDT
Posted by Jazz-935 on August 22nd, 2007 @ 10:03am CDT
Posted by Hoistimus on August 22nd, 2007 @ 10:24am CDT
Posted by Noisemaze on August 22nd, 2007 @ 10:36am CDT
Posted by metalformer on August 22nd, 2007 @ 10:45am CDT
Posted by Archanubis on August 22nd, 2007 @ 10:49am CDT
Posted by Hanch Prime on August 22nd, 2007 @ 10:49am CDT
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)
Posted by Ravage XK on August 22nd, 2007 @ 10:51am CDT
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".
Posted by Rat Convoy on August 22nd, 2007 @ 11:13am CDT
Posted by HighPrime on August 22nd, 2007 @ 11:21am CDT
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.
Posted by Sid Burn on August 22nd, 2007 @ 11:22am CDT
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
Posted by dinoignacio on August 22nd, 2007 @ 11:23am CDT
here's a peak into the future:
http://www.last100.com/2007/07/24/8-int ... n-8-weeks/
Posted by HighPrime on August 22nd, 2007 @ 11:26am CDT
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 -)..
Posted by Bumblekid on August 22nd, 2007 @ 11:58am CDT
Posted by polymorphic on August 22nd, 2007 @ 12:11pm CDT
Meantime, I'll get the DVD and play it on my upscaling player.
Posted by jgilkinson on August 22nd, 2007 @ 1:34pm CDT
Posted by grimstang on August 22nd, 2007 @ 3:05pm CDT
Posted by Talon523 on August 22nd, 2007 @ 3:34pm CDT
Posted by NuclearConvoy on August 22nd, 2007 @ 3:40pm CDT
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?)
Posted by Sid Burn on August 22nd, 2007 @ 3:54pm CDT
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
Posted by fairplaythings on August 22nd, 2007 @ 4:06pm CDT
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.
Posted by Liege Evilmus on August 22nd, 2007 @ 4:59pm CDT
I never would have imagined such a thing.
Posted by ultimatefroton on August 22nd, 2007 @ 5:12pm CDT
Posted by D-340 on August 22nd, 2007 @ 6:04pm CDT
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.
Posted by i_amtrunks on August 22nd, 2007 @ 6:12pm CDT
Posted by Cyberstrike on August 22nd, 2007 @ 7:38pm CDT
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.
Posted by Kalon on August 22nd, 2007 @ 7:59pm CDT
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...
Posted by tentagil on August 22nd, 2007 @ 8:13pm CDT
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.
Posted by Foallen on August 22nd, 2007 @ 10:04pm CDT
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 $$$$.
Posted by babylon queen on August 22nd, 2007 @ 10:31pm CDT
Posted by Orin_Thomas on August 22nd, 2007 @ 11:24pm CDT
HD-DVD = No Region Encoding
May HD-DVD be victorious and may region encoding die a well deserved death.
Posted by Versa on August 23rd, 2007 @ 2:32am CDT
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.
Posted by Toyotus Superion on August 23rd, 2007 @ 3:44am CDT
Posted by Blozor on August 23rd, 2007 @ 7:32am CDT
Posted by Blozor on August 23rd, 2007 @ 7:37am CDT
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.
Posted by Orin_Thomas on August 23rd, 2007 @ 7:55am CDT
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.
Posted by uranimusprime on August 23rd, 2007 @ 1:01pm CDT
Posted by Ultra Magnus on August 23rd, 2007 @ 4:37pm CDT
Posted by tentagil on August 23rd, 2007 @ 6:31pm CDT
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.
Posted by ZEROmaverick on August 24th, 2007 @ 8:17pm CDT
Posted by Mr.RobotoAutoMan on August 24th, 2007 @ 11:00pm CDT