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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.
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My initial reaction too was "Big deal! No story here!" But then I got to thinking. Is this really different than Microsoft using various incentives to get governments/schools/other customers to buy Microsoft products? Does it just feel different because it's a bunch of big evil corporations using shady practices to try and outdo each other?
I've been saying since this format war started though that if someone REALLY wants to win, they should just pony up a ton of money to get George Lucas to release the unmolested, Greedo-shoots-first Trilogy in their format.
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.
[Insert pithy quote here]
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.
the checks were actually written by some Canadian company called BayStar Capital.
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.
I have a 720p projector. It looks fantastic showing HD-DVD, which I picked at random. It is really nice to get away from lame DVD artifacts, and I figure if blu-ray wins, I'll finally have an excuse to buy a PS3. But let's summarize the other options, based on previous slashdot articles:
0) "I haven't watched anything on a TV since 1970 and now I'm Jesus Christ"
1) "Even if you don't watch broadcast TV, all movies are crap too. Ditto for music."
2) "I watch TV and movies, but who would pay for them when you can steal, I mean find them online?"
3) "I've never bought a DVD, so they'll pry $25 out of my hands for a blu-ray/hd-dvd disc when hell freezes over - I get them from the library, which is also my only social outlet"
4) "I'll buy hd-dvd/blu-ray when it costs $10 and the discs are $1. My VCR is still running."
5) "Physical media is dead anyway, in fact I don't even _type_ anymore because it involves physical contact."
6) "All video formats are the same, and anyone who says otherwise is blind... I love my 12" vga monitor!"
7) "LINUX LINUX LINUX!!!! Microsoft can suck my dick."
8) "They all use DRM, so I'm going to boycott life, as soon as I get one."
9) "First post!"
10) "All companies are run by Nazis who also control your congresspeople, and you live in a police state that just wants to monitor what you watch. It's too late to do anything about it, but I'm Canadian, which means I'm an expert on how the US sucks."
11) "DVI / HDMI / HDCP / WTF"
So in summary, I have seen an actual HD-DVD played back on a quality LARGE screen, and it looks very very nice.
Probably too good for you, if you don't care about movies. Or if you have anything less than a 60" screen,
which is the same thing. I am COMPLETELY PISSED that there are two formats, and that the movie studios won't do both formats. Is it that big of a deal to master two discs? What a cluster fuck. If money changes hands, whatever. Hopefully there will be a decent dual format player soon. And don't get me started on why I can't rip a movie I paid for legally!
I'm glad someone's making a revitalizing effort on the part of HD-DVD, even if it means handing out buckets of cash. My biggest reason for supporting HDDVD over BluRay (other than a long-time dislike for Sony) is that HDDVD does not have any form of region coding, while BluRay does. I haven't seen that point raised here on Slashdot before, so I'm at the point of wondering if A) it's even correct, and B) if I'm really the only one who cares.
We've seen big companies embrace globalization when convenient many times before, and then immediately turn around and implement artificial barriers so that consumers can't take advantage of that same global market (the stories here on Slashdot a few years ago about textbook manufacturers come to mind, where they would sell English versions of their textbooks in foreign countries at hugely discounted prices, and then fight over efforts of other companies and individuals to make those same books available back to customers in the USA).
Region coding ought to be universally despised. So far as I know, with HD-DVD I don't have to worry about it. But Sony, showing their true stripes once again, embraced it with BluRay.
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
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".
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.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
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.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."