think about it. You release your movies on what you feel will be a defunct format. By the time it dies, the winning formats base has grown enough warrant releasing their "money" titles. why else were they holding back on gold mines like jurassic park and titanic.

I think dreamworks was really ticked that their limbo ended so soon which is why they kept their exclusivity longer than required.

Why do you really think Lucas waited so long before releasing his franchise star wars on DVD... maximum base to sell too. If you watched the extras, Lucas is a financial marketing genius in many ways... which is why he is in the forbes most wealth individuals worth well over 2 billion last time I looked.

I think it was a calculated move on the part of Universal when they went red exclusive. at the time, HD DVD was already behind. I think it was a move by them to prolong the war.

I have two HD DVD devices and no bluray yet so please don't misinterpret me as a BR fanboy.

You really think Universal and Paramount thought HD-DVD would be a defunct format when they went exclusive? :confused:

Let me answer your question with a question...

Was greed the real reason studios like Fox and Disney went Blu-Ray exclusive?

Not greed, business.

Maybe they just saw that HD DVD was/is the better format... to answer your question why is The Matrix trilogy only available on HD DVD?? Surley Warner who at the time was a supporter of both formats would have released it on Blu Ray as well - or so the story goes that a) the initial encodes to Blu Ray didn't look that great and b)they didn't want to release it till they could add interactive features to the disks. Problems that have never really applied to HD DVD.

In a word, No.

Maybe they just saw that HD DVD was/is the better format... to answer your question why is The Matrix trilogy only available on HD DVD?? Surley Warner who at the time was a supporter of both formats would have released it on Blu Ray as well - or so the story goes that a) the initial encodes to Blu Ray didn't look that great and b)they didn't want to release it till they could add interactive features to the disks. Problems that have never really applied to HD DVD.

Or were they waited to release a catalog title like the matrix on a base of millions instead of hundreds of thousands.

If I were running the company, the hope is taht people will double dip and pick up titles they already have on SD DVD. It happened all the time when they released classic.

A good example is Planet of the Apes. When it was released on DVD, they did a massive advertising campaign. Following the initial buzz, TV programs started reshowing the sequels and it fed upon itself.

In the first 3-4 months when a "big" title is released, there is a big push by the company in advertising to sell these titles. After a year, they need to be discounted down to keep their sales going. Would it make sense to spend alot of money advertising a rerelease when their is such a small base or would it make more BUSINESS sense to wait until the market is large enough to make the impact you want in sales.

I am in sales management and advertising. It is what I studied in school. It is what I get paid alot to do as a career.

In many ways it is like playing poker. You play your hand to get to grow the pot, but you don't make your big move until the pot is large enough. Why else would they hold back on such titles.

The question that you should ask yourself is that if Universal and Paramount really wanted to sell HD disks, why didn't they go purple like WB? They picked HD DVD. Now look at the result. They can rerelease them onto BR in the next 12-18 months with a real ad campaign to what will inevitably be a much larger base (how many of us are now going purple within the next 6 months - I know I am). And now more people will hop on BR now that the media has declared it the winner. So when they release these titles, they will have a much much larger base to offer these too. I still wouldn't expect to see a megahit like titanic until atleast another 18 months.

When you look at the position that they are in now, aren't Paramount and Universal in many ways the REAL winners? Now they can release their "HD DVD exclusive titles on a larger base than their competitors at the onset of the release at full pop. The answer to 90% of why things happen is one thing... money.
At the time

Time to move on. This have come up many times already. No need for a new thread.

larry