NYT Confirms Movie Studios Paid to Support HD DVD

An anonymous reader writes "The New York Times has confirmed the story that Paramount and DreamWorks Animation were paid $150 million for an exclusive HD-DVD deal that will last 18 months. 'Paramount and DreamWorks Animation declined to comment. Microsoft, the most prominent technology company supporting HD DVDs, said it could not rule out payment but said it wrote no checks. "We provided no financial incentives to Paramount or DreamWorks whatsoever," said Amir Majidimehr, the head of Microsoft's consumer media technology group.'" We discussed Paramount's defection on Monday.

Comments

So what?

[DaveCBio]

Let's drag out all of Sony and friends general ledgers and see how much "promotional consideration" Target and Blockbuster got. I really don't get why people are making a big deal about a company making promotional deals. Let's be serious, these days $150 million is about enough to cover one big budget movie.

Re:So what?

[DaveCBio]

Huh? Since when does this violate the ideals of capitalism? Capitalism has nothing to do with the "best ideas rising to the top" unless you are ascribing some sort of Randian idealism. What is happening here is pure capitalism. People with wealth are using it to further their own agenda, which ultimately they hope will generate a suitable return.

Re:So what?

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Huh? Since when does this violate the ideals of capitalism?

Not the way capitalism really operates, the idealistic way American (and possibly other) children are tought to think capitalism operates in middle school.

Re:So what?

[rollingcalf]

"All property rights are "government-granted monopolies".

Yes, one could make that argument. But "intellectual property" rights are significantly more far-reaching than physical property rights.

With physical property rights, you build a better mousetrap and you own that mousetrap. You have a "government granted monopoly" over that specific mousetrap, if you want to put it that way. But everybody else's mousetrap is still their own.

Once you patent your mousetrap, you own not just the mousetrap you made, but you also effectively own every other mousetrap in the country that is similar to yours, even though they were made by the hands and tools and materials of somebody else. Your intellectual property takes away the physical property rights of other people.

Yawn

[rlp]

Wake me when one format bites the dust and players for the other format are $100. Till then I'll make do with DVD's.

With Dual Players Becoming Common, Easy Money

[CubeNudger]

Now that combo Blu-Ray HD-DVD players are becoming increasingly available and cheap, any studio would be stupid to not take a cash payout for (what may end being an ultimately meaningless) format switch. With the format war continuing for at least another few years (by all likelihood), it's conceivable that mass adoption of combo players as they become affordable will mean that format difference will ultimately be of as little meaning as DVD+/-R is now. Besides, with adoption rates lagging so badly, the losses from switching to a less-popular format over the next 18 months are probably outweighed by the cash payment. Great business decision by Paramount.

Obviously, the money is to buy an inferior format.

[Futurepower(R)]

There is only one reason why someone would pay $150 million to buy the adoption of a particular format: The HD DVD people realized their preferred format was inferior, and could not possibly win in the marketplace in a fair competition on the merits.

In other words, the people who paid believed that the format they don't want to win, Blu-ray, is worth $150 million more than their HD DVD format in true value, so to even the score they had to pay.

That shouts very loudly to me. Someone with $150 million to spend has set the value of Blu-ray as being worth that much more than HD DVD. Thanks for the information. You have voted with your dollars, and shouted to everyone who thinks about it that Blu-ray should win.

From the New York Times article: "The battle over the competing high-definition DVD technologies has sputtered in recent months as Blu-ray discs have emerged as the front-runner. Blu-ray titles are sharply outselling HD offerings..."

Not only the corrupters, but the marketplace also, agree that Blu-ray is better.

I wonder how much it would cost to get Paramount and DreamWorks Animation to adopt 8-track tapes?

I wonder how much it would cost to get Paramount and DreamWorks Animation executives never to take showers or baths? Obviously, to them, everything is for sale, even their technical integrity.

If that kind of thing continues, the word "executive" will become synonymous with the word "sleaze".

Re:Yeah... So?

[speaker of the truth]

Isn't it ironic that the consumer vigorously defends his right to "choice" but won't make a move until the choice is made for him? Yeah. After all no consoles were bought in significant numbers until the Wii was chosen, oh wait....

Consumers want and demand choice all the time. They've simply learned that the market supporting two high-end video formats simultaneously is unlikely (see Beta vs VHS) and so are unwilling to invest in a format that will soon die.

Re:Yeah... So?

[RexRhino]

Isn't it ironic that the consumer vigorously defends his right to "choice" but won't make a move until the choice is made for him?

No, the consumer has clearly chosen not to spend his/her money on more unnecessary crap like Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players. The consumer has decided that normal DVD is plenty fine for them right now.

Re:Yeah... So?

[ozmanjusri]

Isn't it ironic that the consumer vigorously defends his right to "choice" but won't make a move until the choice is made for him?

No irony there, just common sense.

We want choice in our products and standards for our containers. The disk is the container, not the product.