Paramount and Dreamworks ditch Blu-ray

I'm very disappointed. I own a Blu-ray player (PS3), and seems like I'll be needing a HD-DVD player to play some movies. Seems like Spielberg movies are not affected, so it means Indiana Jones and other Spielberg classics are still coming on Blu-ray.

I'm looking forward for Moulin Rouge in HD... Luckily, its from Fox ;)

What disappoints me more is that HD-DVD is the inferior media, with less capacity. This is also going to make content distribution more difficult for independents, or event/coverage business. It means double the investment for a Blu-ray and an HD-DVD burner.

Big confusion for consumers, and a market split. There will never be a clear winner in this war, as it seems.

At least both formats accept the same codecs, which doesn't require unique encoding for both media...
 
Hi there SPZ,

just because HD-DVD has less capacity it doesn't make it inferior, I also think it would be nice if everyone could decide on a single format, but

Blu-ray and HD-DVD have different strengths and weakness points.

- Derrick
 
Blue-Ray is better - if nothing else stat wise. And it is a better format for computing purposes as it holds far more information

Blue-Ray's disadvantage is two fold:

1. The diode necessary to create the laser is both expensive and hard to make. This caused the delay in PS3s amongst other things
2. Blue-Ray is fronted by Sony - a company very good at making enemies. It is also a movie distribution company so there is a lot of crossover questionability involved.

I think HD-DVD will go out as the winner but it's not certain - at least not yet. Regardless the consumers will be screwed.

mor10
 
Honestly, more data on 1 disc scares me. You pay all your money for all this content on this one single disc...then if you get a scratch or something goes wrong with the disc its expensive to replace, and you ruin more data than you ever did on a DVD with a single knick. Either way I hope they decide, I haven't even bought an HDTV yet...im waiting.

- Kyle
 
There are a few Blu-Ray specs that aren't so great. In particular, for a home archive of movies, I'd prefer that the data was embedded deeper in the disc. My kids can ruin a conventional DVD in about thirty seconds.

I don't believe that these two formats will become the VHS of the 21st century anyway. Isn't it amazing that VHS was the predominant format for over twenty years? How about 2k and 4k by 2015. That's less than ten years off.

e
 
I'm thinking no one will have either format in a few years. Everything will be harddrives or you will just download . Maybe something we haven't even thought of yet.

In the mean time I'm hanging on to my DVD player and my VHS recorder!
 
And most flat 16:9 displays are not HD. Only very very few feature 1920x1080px.
So people spending today for FAKE HD won't buy a true 1080 display before 5-10 years.
Your HD footage will be appreciated only in 10years.
But in 10 years Wal Mart will sell 4k displays so people will buy them but they will only display a pair of Kpixels. We will be buying 4k cameras that no one will see, because their 4k displays will only output 2k res...
This is the marketing nightmare where you never have what you think. VHS was crap but was exactly what we expected it to be.




.
 
I agree w/ Zim. I don't think either Blu Ray OR HD-DVD will become the new VHS. New generations aren't created on the same media that's currently available (optical disc), they'll instead probably go online-only.
 
To me it seems like a place like Blockbuster would HAVE to stock both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD... Think of how many movies they just wont have available that people will really be wanting to see. Seems ridiculous.
 
Sweet :) Just bought xbox 360 hd dvd add on last weeks it is awesome. Hopefully 20 Century Fox will jump ship too or release on both formats.
 
I've worked on "free" on-demand programming that is already carried nation-wide and, based on this, would put my money on the rental business going away completely in favor of flat-rate subscription-based releases in the near future.

Imagine HBOPremiere or some other service that serves HD on-demand for a flat fee of say, $9.99 - $19.99 per month. For this fee, you get unlimited NetFlix-style releases literally the minute they finish their theatrical run.

I believe very strongly that the majority of people do not want to watch features on their laptops unless they are literally given no other choice (e.g., airports, in-flight). Our HD box and its DVR is currently running about twenty hours a week - not that we ever watch all of it.

What is great is that the technology in digital cable already exists (and is implemented by TWC) to keep people from DVRing the on-demand programming if the broadcaster doesn't want the subscriber to be able to do so. It keeps the average viewer honest - the criminals will certainly work around this.

I'm NetFlix's #1 fan, but I really don't see the physical delivery method beating out on-demand through cable / satellite / computer in the future.

e
 
someday said:
And most flat 16:9 displays are not HD. Only very very few feature 1920x1080px.
So people spending today for FAKE HD won't buy a true 1080 display before 5-10 years.
Click to expand...

If you're referring to 1280x720 displays (or, as often, 1280x768), that's HD. 1920x1080 is not the only HD standard.
 
I just think that the bridge from 1080p to 4k will be a very quick one.

If Jannard is half as smart as we think he is, he'll play a role in bringing low-cost 2k and 4k displays into the market in addition to new ways to deliver the underlying content. I'm not a fanboy, but I don't think we have any reason to doubt anything he says he wants to do at this point.

e
 
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