Slashdot Mirror
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 $150 million for an exclusive HD-DVD deal that will last 18 months. 'Paramount and DreamWorks Animation declined to comment. Microsoft, the most prominent technology company supporting HD DVDs, said it could not rule out payment but said it wrote no checks. "We provided no financial incentives to Paramount or DreamWorks whatsoever," said Amir Majidimehr, the head of Microsoft's consumer media technology group.'" We discussed Paramount's defection on Monday.
just the way the answered the questions seems to imply they are the ones behind the payments and THAT is no surprise. Customers asking for HD-DVD you say? And what is the truth but a state of belief or perception of a belief... Glad to see Microsoft hasn't changed one bit.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
That's just your opinion, and it's no more valid than anyone else's.
It's my opinion, the reporter's opinion, Disney's opinion and it was M$'s opinion. Here's what they article said:
$300 million says M$ was more than a little convinced as well. That's more than they paid out in some of the anti-trust, copyright and patent violations suits they have lost over the years.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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.
Spoken like a true BR fanboy. It always amazes me to no end how you people go complete bonkers about any positive news for HD. What do you think the BDA has been doing lately? Huh? You think Target just up and decided not to sell HD for their health? Hell no, they got paid you fool. If you think that the BDA is not shelling out millions upon millions to buy the format into success, you are a complete fool. Frankly, any studio or retail that decided to choose either format at this point in the game is frankly moronic. Fine PR is selling discs 2:1, well HD is selling stand alone players out the ass compared to BR. Why? Price of the players, I got my HD player for about $250, impulse buy because Heroes is HD only. Had Heroes not come out on HD and been BR only, I would not have bothered because the damned BR players are too expensive and the stand alone players all suck ass! The only decent BR player is the PS3, period. Both formats are terrific, and if there was a BR player under $400 that I knew would actually be capable of playing the movies coming out in the future (and didn't suck so bad), I would have both! As it is, the HD is the only one I can afford. Also, HD is the ONLY format that at the time of the players hitting the shelves, had full feature support on the players. The first and second generation BR players do not have support for all the features (yes fanboy I know what a firmware update is) because they are not even finalized yet. It won't be until after Oct. 31 that BR players are mandated to have PiP, HD has been doing that since day one. The video encode is THE SAME (well except for the first batches of BR which used MPEG2 because some arrogant company *ahem*SONY*ahem* did not have the authoring tools ready). BDA has been late to the gate in every step of the game here and is only selling more movies because of the PS3. And this is only because there are no killer games coming out and since the owners are bored, they decide to rent/buy a movie to feed their $600 monster. Well, that's my thought at least. One thing is clear to me, BR would be tanking if not for the BDA buying off retailers and studios; not having the studios owned by Sony; and the PS3 hype. Feature to feature, HD has been in the lead from the start, manufacturing costs for HD is very little more than DVD, you use the same equipment as the physical disc structure is the same between HD and DVD; BR requires a much different process and costs much more (gee, I wonder why I see BR discs that cost less than HD discs when they cost so much more to make, hmmm, BDA buy off? could be). Any superiority between the formats really amounts to nothing, they both sound and look great, 20GB, big deal, still plenty enough room for the movie and extras out the wazoo. As soon as there is a capable BR player that I can afford, I will be buying one, that won't be for a while due to the arrogance of the BDA not lowering the price, and that arrogance is quite enough for me to just not bother with BR until they get their act together. It just reminds me too much of the rootkit situation.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Put down your MiniDisc player, and stop calling Suncoast demanding that they get you a Beta copy of "Wild Hogs". It's over.
Other delusions you need to disabuse yourself of:
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
It's one thing to pay for placement of your products, it's another to pay for the displacement of your competition which is exactly what happened. This is or should be considered an anti-competitive practice. It discourages competition in the market and ignores consumer choice
I'll grow the hell up if you learn how to read.