The real story is that all it took was $150M in incentives to sway the #1 movie studio this year to abandon BD! What does that tell you about the confidence that a major company like Viacom has in the economic viability of BD? This is a discussion point that no one seems to be thinking about. Apparently, Universal turned down an equally attractive offer to go netural (in opportunity cost that would mean Univeral too decided that $150M or whatever the BDA was offering them was not sufficient inducement to release on that format)!!!!

:eek:

Honestly, I am shocked. What do these studios know about the basic business model about BD that Paramount who was already neutral and had a team in place would abandon it so easily....with nary a second thought. There is NO WAY the BDA can spin that....OK they got money. But wait a minute. You mean, all it took was $150M to abandon all their existing BD infrastructure and pull all their titles? Is there a correlation between Paramount making this decision and Fox announcing titles? Did Sony coerce Fox into action?

For me that is the true story....where is the studio enthusiasm for BD?

For me that is the true story....where is the studio enthusiasm for BD?

Only when they are pressured to do anything will they act. They simply should have waited until they had a complete SW/HW format ready and then launch.

Only when they are pressured to do anything will they act. They simply should have waited until they had a complete SW/HW format ready and then launch.

I agree. The BD strategy was formulated on tieing up exclusive content contracts and channel (where possible) and win the war by denying access....I would say Sony went in for the airline industry model where one carrier will undercut a competitor and buy up gates at the airport to choke off their competition....sometimes it works, but when it doesn't the result is bankruptcy.

The real story is that all it took was $150M in incentives to sway the #1 movie studio this year to abandon BD! What does that tell you about the confidence that a major company like Viacom has in the economic viability of BD? This is a discussion point that no one seems to be thinking about. Apparently, Universal turned down an equally attractive offer to go netural (in opportunity cost that would mean Univeral too decided that $150M or whatever the BDA was offering them was not sufficient inducement to release on that format)!!!!

:eek:

Honestly, I am shocked. What do these studios know about the basic business model about BD that Paramount who was already neutral and had a team in place would abandon it so easily....with nary a second thought. There is NO WAY the BDA can spin that....OK they got money. But wait a minute. You mean, all it took was $150M to abandon all their existing BD infrastructure and pull all their titles? Is there a correlation between Paramount making this decision and Fox announcing titles? Did Sony coerce Fox into action?

For me that is the true story....where is the studio enthusiasm for BD?

Well at around ~300,000 HD DVD players out there, that $150M comes across at about ~$500 per current HD DVD user. $500 !!! That speaks of desperation by the HD DVD-Camp. Kudos to Paramount/DW for getting some free money (especially without, apparently, the Spielberg movies ...). I'd prolly do it too, for some more free money of limited titles, over a limited period of time.

That's steep, but HD DVD had to do something, because HD DVD was dying, and was poised to die a confirmed death after XMAS.

Kudos to M$/HD DVD PRG for making this format war a more interesting fight.

The real story is that all it took was $150M in incentives to sway the #1 movie studio this year to abandon BD! What does that tell you about the confidence that a major company like Viacom has in the economic viability of BD? This is a discussion point that no one seems to be thinking about. Apparently, Universal turned down an equally attractive offer to go netural (in opportunity cost that would mean Univeral too decided that $150M or whatever the BDA was offering them was not sufficient inducement to release on that format)!!!!

:eek:

Honestly, I am shocked. What do these studios know about the basic business model about BD that Paramount who was already neutral and had a team in place would abandon it so easily....with nary a second thought. There is NO WAY the BDA can spin that....OK they got money. But wait a minute. You mean, all it took was $150M to abandon all their existing BD infrastructure and pull all their titles? Is there a correlation between Paramount making this decision and Fox announcing titles? Did Sony coerce Fox into action?

For me that is the true story....where is the studio enthusiasm for BD?



Paramount needs cash. HD DVD (perhaps Microsoft) offered it. Blu-ray offered less than HD DVD. Paramount looked at how well BOTH formats were doing, did the math, and realized that 150 million now with half the profits of what they're making now slowly climbing over the next 6-18 months was estimated to be more than having both formats, but no 150 million bonus. Neither format is taking off at the rate that would make abandoning either a killer at the moment.

By next year, if things change, expect changes in the landscape. Nor would I assume that the BDA even does payoffs, given that Disney and Fox have steadfast denied ever being offered payoffs, but Paramount/Dreamworks as good as admits that there was indeed one. Not that payoffs are bad. Personally, I think it's a viable business movie and a smart one when in a situation as bad as the one HD DVD was in.

But let's go hypothetical. If the BDA does do payoffs, I imagine they'd be rather cash-strapped to have to payoff Disney, Fox, MGM, and Lionsgate. I doubt they'd have the cash for Paramount, too. There. Even in your twisted little world of corporate blue deception, I give you a logical, rational reason for why Paramount found more money on the Red Side than the Blue Side. All without even thinking about Blu-ray's "business model," whatever that means, being inferior to HD DVD's.

Do you even think about what you say? As the situation for HD DVD has become more dire, you have gone from being a pretty rational poster to a little out there with conspiracy theories and such. Take a walk.

Repeat after me. Paramount does NOT have to have seen something wrong with Blu-ray to go with HD DVD. Money talks. Hell, you could even make the argument that being one of the big fish in a small Red pond is better than being just another fish in a large blue ocean.

I agree plazman. 150 million is nothing compared to future sales and obviously they felt HD DVD has a real advantage to help them accomplish their longterm goals. I just wish we knew what they really are.

To leave the BDA this way tells me there is something seriously wrong with the BDA strategy for the future. What other conclusion can there be?

Paramount needs cash. HD DVD (perhaps Microsoft) offered it. Blu-ray offered less than HD DVD. Paramount looked at how well BOTH formats were doing, did the math, and realized that 150 million now with half the profits of what they're making now slowly climbing over the next 6-18 months was estimated to be more than having both formats, but no 150 million bonus. Neither format is taking off at the rate that would make abandoning either a killer at the moment.

By next year, if things change, expect changes in the landscape. Nor would I assume that the BDA even does payoffs, given that Disney and Fox have steadfast denied ever being offered payoffs, but Paramount/Dreamworks as good as admits that there was indeed one. Not that payoffs are bad. Personally, I think it's a viable business movie and a smart one when in a situation as bad as the one HD DVD was in.

But let's go hypothetical. If the BDA does do payoffs, I imagine they'd be rather cash-strapped to have to payoff Disney, Fox, MGM, and Lionsgate. I doubt they'd have the cash for Paramount, too. There. Even in your twisted little world of corporate blue deception, I give you a logical, rational reason for why Paramount found more money on the Red Side than the Blue Side. All without even thinking about Blu-ray's "business model," whatever that means, being inferior to HD DVD's.

Do you even think about what you say? As the situation for HD DVD has become more dire, you have gone from being a pretty rational poster to a little out there with conspiracy theories and such. Take a walk.

Repeat after me. Paramount does NOT have to have seen something wrong with Blu-ray to go with HD DVD. Money talks. Hell, you could even make the argument that being one of the big fish in a small Red pond is better than being just another fish in a large blue ocean.


Unless you can prove that MS wrote that check I would strongly advise against continuing to propogate a totally unfounded rumor.

Paramount needs cash. HD DVD (perhaps Microsoft) offered it. Blu-ray offered less than HD DVD. Paramount looked at how well BOTH formats were doing, did the math, and realized that 150 million now with half the profits of what they're making now slowly climbing over the next 6-18 months was estimated to be more than having both formats, but no 150 million bonus. Neither format is taking off at the rate that would make abandoning either a killer at the moment.

By next year, if things change, expect changes in the landscape. Nor would I assume that the BDA even does payoffs, given that Disney and Fox have steadfast denied ever being offered payoffs, but Paramount/Dreamworks as good as admits that there was indeed one. Not that payoffs are bad. Personally, I think it's a viable business movie and a smart one when in a situation as bad as the one HD DVD was in.

But let's go hypothetical. If the BDA does do payoffs, I imagine they'd be rather cash-strapped to have to payoff Disney, Fox, MGM, and Lionsgate. I doubt they'd have the cash for Paramount, too. There. Even in your twisted little world of corporate blue deception, I give you a logical, rational reason for why Paramount found more money on the Red Side than the Blue Side. All without even thinking about Blu-ray's "business model," whatever that means, being inferior to HD DVD's.

Do you even think about what you say? As the situation for HD DVD has become more dire, you have gone from being a pretty rational poster to a little out there with conspiracy theories and such. Take a walk.

Repeat after me. Paramount does NOT have to have seen something wrong with Blu-ray to go with HD DVD. Money talks. Hell, you could even make the argument that being one of the big fish in a small Red pond is better than being just another fish in a large blue ocean.

Are you being serious with this post? Do a little research yourself. These companies are looking at the future of millions of disks sold not 50,000 like it is now. Your claim is uterly rediclious.

Only when they are pressured to do anything will they act. They simply should have waited until they had a complete SW/HW format ready and then launch.
This could be expanded upon quite a bit...

*BD was originaly all legacy CODECs until pressure from HD DVD's specs forced them to change. Even then it took a while for them to embrace them.

*BD's original releases were abismal and it was the high standard that HD DVD set that forced them to do better.

*BD's player prices very expensive initially, and I am certain that the early success of HD DVD's players at half their price caused them to start making major adjustments here as well.

*HD DVD set a high bench mark for interactivity from the begining. I am sure this has expedited BD-J's and the various hardware profiles developement cycle and even brought to bear crude sodtwar tricks to make up for a lack of hardware.

There is probably more and I am not saying BD is a bad technology. I am just saying BD fans should probably be more thankful for HD DVD and this war than they realize.

The real story is that all it took was $150M in incentives to sway the #1 movie studio this year to abandon BD! What does that tell you about the confidence that a major company like Viacom has in the economic viability of BD? This is a discussion point that no one seems to be thinking about. Apparently, Universal turned down an equally attractive offer to go netural (in opportunity cost that would mean Univeral too decided that $150M or whatever the BDA was offering them was not sufficient inducement to release on that format)!!!!

:eek:

Honestly, I am shocked. What do these studios know about the basic business model about BD that Paramount who was already neutral and had a team in place would abandon it so easily....with nary a second thought. There is NO WAY the BDA can spin that....OK they got money. But wait a minute. You mean, all it took was $150M to abandon all their existing BD infrastructure and pull all their titles? Is there a correlation between Paramount making this decision and Fox announcing titles? Did Sony coerce Fox into action?

For me that is the true story....where is the studio enthusiasm for BD?

Your argument of:

A) Paramount has stopped releasing on Blu-ray
Therefore...
B) Blu-ray does not have a viable economic model

Is a logical fallacy. B cannot be determined by A.

I agree plazman. 150 million is nothing compared to future sales and obviously they felt HD DVD has a real advantage to help them accomplish their longterm goals. I just wish we knew what they really are.

To leave the BDA this way tells me there is something seriously wrong with the BDA strategy for the future. What other conclusion can there be?

I'm not exactly sure how you come to that conclusion though. Paramount has gone HD-DVD exclusive when they:

already don't put out many titles (except for the recent flood of catalog titles)
won't sell a large amount copies of any title, regardless of format (no one really does)
only have to wait 12-24 months before they can contractually put out blu-ray (this is fuzzy because of the conflicting numbers from the press)
can't put out anything by Spielberg on HD-DVD only

Has anyone made $150 million from selling HDM yet? This was an excellent business move by Paramount, even if I don't like it, but I don't think it has much of anything to say about the future of BDA. If it were a long term deal, then I'd be much more concerned about what Paramount thought of BD's future. And before anyone says I'm trying to spin or this isn't a hard blow to BD, let me say that Paramount dropping BD is a stunner and detrimental to BD. I just don't read into it the deathblow that some people do.

As an HD-DVD owner. Hearing this news put a smile on my face. I would hate for any HDM user lose out and miss any of there choice flicks.....regardless of if they are Blu or Red.

Paramount/Dreamworks went to the HD-DVD side for reasons that were in there best interest and they only know what those reasons are. Consumers are stuck in the middle...like it or not. I'm sure Paramount/Dreamworks are looking long term and making the "switch" was in their best interest and their's only.

By the time there is a clear winner....many years from now. There will probably be affordable combo players available for the consumer. When that does happen....there really will be no losers as the disc purchased now....will still be usable.

I'm not exactly sure how you come to that conclusion though. Paramount has gone HD-DVD exclusive when they:

already don't put out many titles (except for the recent flood of catalog titles)
won't sell a large amount copies of any title, regardless of format (no one really does)
only have to wait 12-24 months before they can contractually put out blu-ray (this is fuzzy because of the conflicting numbers from the press)
can't put out anything by Spielberg on HD-DVD only

Has anyone made $150 million from selling HDM yet? This was an excellent business move by Paramount, even if I don't like it, but I don't think it has much of anything to say about the future of BDA. If it were a long term deal, then I'd be much more concerned about what Paramount thought of BD's future. And before anyone says I'm trying to spin or this isn't a hard blow to BD, let me say that Paramount dropping BD is a stunner and detrimental to BD. I just don't read into it the deathblow that some people do.

Where does it say it is NOT a long term deal. We have BDA spin masters talking about the limited timeline....which studio has ever gone from neutral to exclusive to neutral in any format? We are talking historical. Paramount must have known that they were making a decision on which format they wanted to exclusively back....hence they were holding back on the big titles? FWIW, Uni controls most of Spielbergs biggest titles....

Your argument of:

A) Paramount has stopped releasing on Blu-ray
Therefore...
B) Blu-ray does not have a viable economic model

Is a logical fallacy. B cannot be determined by A.

You got it backwards...

1. BD is economically unviable
2. hence they are backing HD DVD

I bet you did that on purpose :rolleyes:

I agree plazman. 150 million is nothing compared to future sales and obviously they felt HD DVD has a real advantage to help them accomplish their longterm goals. I just wish we knew what they really are.

To leave the BDA this way tells me there is something seriously wrong with the BDA strategy for the future. What other conclusion can there be?

My guess (just by 1/50th of a $) is it deals with BD50 replication. Lots of rumors about Sony DADC subsidizing the cost of BD50. Eventually those subsidizes will run out. If costs are say $0.50 - $1.00 higher that is a big chunk of profit from the studios. Sony sold them a song about the PS3 selling tens of millions of units to end the war and BD50 prices reaching parity with HD DVD and then DVD.

Where are the hundreds of BD50 replications lines (by independent replicators)?

Why can I see the pricing for every format from CD to HD DVD (both HD15 & HD30 online by dozens of replicators but there is no public pricing for BD50?

Demand is small now but lets say it skyrockets in 2009 to 10x current capacity plus larger numbers of movies. Can 20-30x as many BD50 discs be replicated?

If you are Unversal, Warner, or Paramount does the idea that Sony DADC is the largest (90%+) owner of BD50 lines seem like a conflict on interests? If there is a crunch does anyone honestly think Sony DADC wouldn't replicate it's parent companies films over a competitor. "Oops sorry looks like you miss that holiday release, we only have enough capacity to replicate Spiderman 4".

When I see public pricing on BD50 including setup costs from a third party then I will be convinced the BD50 facts are on the table. Obviously something spooked the studios about BD. Warner didn't go exclusive, Universal didn't switch sides and now P/DW switched back to HD DVD.

Unless you can prove that MS wrote that check I would strongly advise against continuing to propogate a totally unfounded rumor.

Maybe I agree with you. But I've read dozens of messages over the last day stating, as fact, that Sony has been writing checks to Fox and Disney, but I haven't seen anyone prove it. I'm not even saying it isn't true, but basically, arguments on online forums aren't exactly filled with citations.

I do think with Fox having been so dictatorial about Blu-ray's copy protection system, that they'd be pretty ballsy to ask for much beyond disc pressing discounts.

Maybe I agree with you. But I've read dozens of messages over the last day stating, as fact, that Sony has been writing checks to Fox and Disney, but I haven't seen anyone prove it. I'm not even saying it isn't true, but basically, arguments on online forums aren't exactly filled with citations.

I do think with Fox having been so dictatorial about Blu-ray's copy protection system, that they'd be pretty ballsy to ask for much beyond disc pressing discounts.


We know that someone associated with the HD DVD promotions group gave Paramount a chunk of change, just as we know that somoene(s) associated with the BDA have been giving incentives to other companies.

The company involved in this case however is not MS. Personally I think it just burns the asses of BD fanbois to not be able to pin this to MS. Look at Bill Hunt, there's not a shred of proof MS was involved but he has written a froth mouthed, rabid diatribe against MS for "dooming HDM". His sentiments are parroted by many here at AVS.

You got it backwards...

1. BD is economically unviable
2. hence they are backing HD DVD

I bet you did that on purpose :rolleyes:

sony went to studio's promising a quick knockout with their ps3 (trojan horse),studios saw the ps2 sales and automatically said **** !!! hddvd has no chance against that kinda avalanche and signed on

fast forward to today

ps3 lays at the bottom of the ladder
blu ray has not knocked out hddvd 61-39 currently
attache rates for blu ray are abysmal when compared to hddvd ,despite having a 1.8 million to 400k advantage in players (ps3 included)
300 sells 165k on blu ray vs 89k :eek: (attache rates)
hddvd has j6p lined up on pricepoint cross hairs (sub 200)
rumor of walmart picking sides

studios

holy crap,the tide is about to turn

"BETTER SWITCH WHILE WE CAN" OR ELSE GET RUNOVER AND MISS OUT"

paramont switch
followed by two other studio's shortly

this wave is getting bigger ...watch

the hddvd offensive is just beginning

sony went to studio's promising a quick knockout with their ps3 (trojan horse),studios saw the ps2 sales and automatically said **** !!! hddvd has no chance against that kinda avalanche and signed on

fast forward to today

ps3 lays at the bottom of the ladder
blu ray has not knocked out hddvd 61-39 currently
attache rates for blu ray are abysmal when compared to hddvd ,despite having a 1.8 million to 400k advantage in players (ps3 included)
300 sells 165k on blu ray vs 89k :eek: (attache rates)
hddvd has j6p lined up on pricepoint cross hairs (sub 200)
rumor of walmart picking sides

studios

holy crap,the tide is about to turn

"BETTER SWITCH WHILE WE CAN" OR ELSE GET RUNOVER AND MISS OUT"

paramont switch
followed by two other studio's shortly

this wave is getting bigger ...watch

the hddvd offensive is just beginning

Which two other studios are switching? Is this insider information?

Paramount needs cash. HD DVD (perhaps Microsoft) offered it. Blu-ray offered less than HD DVD. Paramount looked at how well BOTH formats were doing, did the math, and realized that 150 million now with half the profits of what they're making now slowly climbing over the next 6-18 months was estimated to be more than having both formats, but no 150 million bonus. Neither format is taking off at the rate that would make abandoning either a killer at the moment.


Sounds like a reasonable evaluation.


Repeat after me. Paramount does NOT have to have seen something wrong with Blu-ray to go with HD DVD. Money talks. Hell, you could even make the argument that being one of the big fish in a small Red pond is better than being just another fish in a large blue ocean.

Well said. Don't expect certain crackpots around here to think it's even remotely reasonable, however.

Unless you can prove that MS wrote that check I would strongly advise against continuing to propogate a totally unfounded rumor.

Like that ever stopped you before. :rolleyes:


*BD was originaly all legacy CODECs until pressure from HD DVD's specs forced them to change.


HDDVD was going to be red laser, 720p, with legacy audio, as well, before BD's spec's forced them to change.


*BD's original releases were abismal and it was the high standard that HD DVD set that forced them to do better.


Abysmal even, yet still better than the slop of Universal's recent catalog titles, as well as such masterpieces as Excalibur, Spartacus, and Army of Darkness. :o


*BD's player prices very expensive initially, and I am certain that the early success of HD DVD's players at half their price caused them to start making major adjustments here as well.


Obviously you weren't an early buyer of the XA1. :p


There is probably more and I am not saying BD is a bad technology. I am just saying BD fans should probably be more thankful for HD DVD and this war than they realize.

Maybe, but that goes both ways. I'd rather have a 1080p blue laser, MPEG2, PCM format than a red laser, 720p, legacy audio one.

It's actually not that hard. If I was in Katzenberg's shoes, 100M for Dreamworks, 50M for Paramount, take the total sales of Paramount/Dreamworks titles for next 18 months. If you don't believe you're going to make a profit off BD bigger than the 150M, then it's an easy choice.

In the case of Universal, whatever BD was offering likely not enough of a premium over their current share of the in-kind offering from the red camp.

Lets not forget also that Katzenberg believes neither will survive and that everyone will go to movie downloads, so if you think the whole red-vs-blu thing is not part of your future, you take the best deal on the table and run with it.

I was kinda of hoping that with all the green thrown around by red and blu that there's some left for me to promote any one of the two formats. My offer still stands, if someone pays me 150K, I will agree to buy only disks of one color for the next 18 months. Heck. Make it 24 months! :D

There you have it. I'll even buy a player every 3 months without extra cost.

PM me. Serious offers only. No headgames.

I have no idea of the profit margin on a HDM is but lets say it is $10 per disc to a studio. That would mean that $150 million would equal 15 million discs sold. In a year, the entire HDM market sold less than 4 million.

So, given a possible 2 year exclusive deal, Paramount gets the profits equal or greater than the entire market, plus gets to sell their own discs into a market (HD DVD) with 30-50% of the HDM sales.

Then, if BD wins, they get to resell all their movies to the BD crowd for more profits. If there is a tie or HD DVD wins, they still come out way ahead.

This is a dream short term deal for any studio. Considering they were neutral, it is a no brainer.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136253-c,dvdtechnology/article.htmlParamount says it's indefinite....

Who exactly paid them $150MM ?? Where did this money come from ???

The real story is that all it took was $150M in incentives to sway the #1 movie studio this year to abandon BD! What does that tell you about the confidence that a major company like Viacom has in the economic viability of BD? This is a discussion point that no one seems to be thinking about. Apparently, Universal turned down an equally attractive offer to go netural (in opportunity cost that would mean Univeral too decided that $150M or whatever the BDA was offering them was not sufficient inducement to release on that format)!!!!

:eek:

Honestly, I am shocked. What do these studios know about the basic business model about BD that Paramount who was already neutral and had a team in place would abandon it so easily....with nary a second thought. There is NO WAY the BDA can spin that....OK they got money. But wait a minute. You mean, all it took was $150M to abandon all their existing BD infrastructure and pull all their titles? Is there a correlation between Paramount making this decision and Fox announcing titles? Did Sony coerce Fox into action?

For me that is the true story....where is the studio enthusiasm for BD?

Huge load of crap above.

Why would it surprise anyone that a boat load of Money would change Paramount's mind?....Last I checked, Paramount was in the business to make money. Hello!!!!.....By simply accepting $150 million in cash to put out a given, single format, who wouldn't take the money? Hell, I would!!

If Blu ray had offered them a couple hundred million, guess what? They would have told HD DVD, "Adios mother fu**er"!!

Only $150 million to abandon Blu Ray? Only?? Do you really think Blu ray would have generated $150 million in PROFIT over the next 18 mos from a few dozen Paramount titles? (or HD DVD genrating the same for that matter)? Hell no! Micro$oft simpy gave them the profits that they would have made selling Paramount BD titles over the next 18 months PLUS a sizeable bonus to help them in the format war against Sony. This idea that Paramount gave up some big, expensive 'infrastructure' in the face of $150 million in cash is a huge pile of typical Plazman crap. Paramount made a money grab! It is that simple!!! Who wouldn't?

The fact is after this 18 mos expires, they may even take a larger sum from Sony (or Micro$oft) depending on who is offering more.. It is that simple. Not the typical convuluted, spin garbage above. Typical crap. Darin has called you out so many times on your ridiculous spin. I guess I have to put in my 2 cents as well. (laughing)..

Read the PC World interview and the direct quotes from those involved to get the most "real" story available. Everything else is pure speculation about business decisions and deals about which we will never know the inner workings.

Huge load of crap above.


:p If you want to see a huge load of crap, reference the rambling mess of a post quoted below:

What a great day for HD DVD. They followed Sony's leads and bought a couple of nice studios. As many Blu Ray folks have said all along, it is about studio support - not player prices. They are now playing in the dirt like Sony. Kudos to Toshiba, I didn't think they had it in them. But clearly, they are showing signs of life.

Todays cheers and madness from the HD DVD fans is a clear endorsement of the Blu Ray strategy. Sell software and pay off studios if needed to do so.

I like a good fight, so my complements to Toshiba for learning to play the game. Seriously, this was an important move for them and I give them my complements on such.

Now reality, in my estimation, this single announcement will prolong the format war from months to years with a new question mark as to who will end up on top....

For the politicians, here this means more bantering and arguing. So they are happy

But for the enthusiasts, it means that about 1/2 of all meaningful HD content will be divided between the two formats. And with this announcement, the war will go on for years.

So, if you are rooting for HD DVD, this announcement surely feels good, but when the excitement wears off you are left with an unpalatable choice. If you are here for movie content and watching movies, you will be forced to buy Blu Ray because of Paramounts announcement unless you want to deny yourself 1/2 the HD media for 2,3 or more years...Conversely, this holds true for Blu Ray owners.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=893650


Back to the OP: Yes, that's pretty much the feeling I was left with as well. After all, multi-billion dollar corporations don't move lightly; in fact, I think you'd be safe saying that they're much more apt to stick to the status quo in almost all situations. So in my mind, it'd take a lot more than relatively small, one time payment for them to rock the boat in such a dramatic fashion.

Of course, on the other hand, they could have looked at the paltry sum they pulled in from their past HDM releases, looked at the 150 mil on the table, and decided to take the payment and go HD-DVD exclusive for a finite timespan, feeling that the revenue they would have received from their BD releases in that time span would be eclipsed many times over by the 150 mil payment.

Huge load of crap above.

Why would it surprise anyone that a boat load of Money would change Paramount's mind?....Last I checked, Paramount was in the business to make money. Hello!!!!.....By simply accepting $150 million in cash to put out a given, single format, who wouldn't take the money? Hell, I would!!

If Blu ray had offered them a couple hundred million, guess what? They would have told HD DVD, "Adios mother fu**er"!!

Only $150 million to abandon Blu Ray? Only?? Do you really think Blu ray would have generated $150 million in PROFIT over the next 18 mos from a few dozen Paramount titles? (or HD DVD genrating the same for that matter)? Hell no! Micro$oft simpy gave them the profits that they would have made selling Paramount BD titles over the next 18 months PLUS a sizeable bonus to help them in the format war against Sony. This idea that Paramount gave up some big, expensive 'infrastructure' in the face of $150 million in cash is a huge pile of typical Plazman crap. Paramount made a money grab! It is that simple!!! Who wouldn't?

The fact is after this 18 mos expires, they may even take a larger sum from Sony (or Micro$oft) depending on who is offering more.. It is that simple. Not the typical convuluted, spin garbage above. Typical crap. Darin has called you out so many times on your ridiculous spin. I guess I have to put in my 2 cents as well. (laughing)..

If $150million can buy exclusivity, why cant BDA pay P/DW and end the format war? Why BDA let the neutral studios switch camp and lost the "7 of 8 major studios support" marketing point? Why did Universal reject BDA offer?

I am sure everyone here knows that the switch decision is not as simple as accepting the $$$. This is the real story.

As someone have mentioned, this is not the last announcement. ;)

jpco,
It's good to hear from the decision makers themselves but you can't expect them to completely reveal all the reasons. Once a decision is made by the CEO, the rest of the execs better fall in line or walk out the door.

Huge load of crap above.

Why would it surprise anyone that a boat load of Money would change Paramount's mind?....Last I checked, Paramount was in the business to make money. Hello!!!!.....By simply accepting $150 million in cash to put out a given, single format, who wouldn't take the money? Hell, I would!!

If Blu ray had offered them a couple hundred million, guess what? They would have told HD DVD, "Adios mother fu**er"!!

Only $150 million to abandon Blu Ray? Only?? Do you really think Blu ray would have generated $150 million in PROFIT over the next 18 mos from a few dozen Paramount titles? (or HD DVD genrating the same for that matter)? Hell no! Micro$oft simpy gave them the profits that they would have made selling Paramount BD titles over the next 18 months PLUS a sizeable bonus to help them in the format war against Sony. This idea that Paramount gave up some big, expensive 'infrastructure' in the face of $150 million in cash is a huge pile of typical Plazman crap. Paramount made a money grab! It is that simple!!! Who wouldn't?

The fact is after this 18 mos expires, they may even take a larger sum from Sony (or Micro$oft) depending on who is offering more.. It is that simple. Not the typical convuluted, spin garbage above. Typical crap. Darin has called you out so many times on your ridiculous spin. I guess I have to put in my 2 cents as well. (laughing)..

It must suck to be in your shoes. There you are, making all your bold predictions about BD and BAM! you're *****d. Yup. A major studio says they have decided to abandon BD indefinately (not 18 months, that is another BD FUD)...because it is not worth it. They would rather focus on HD DVD. OTOH, BD has no success in wooing Universal....is WB hanging by a thread? Will Disney be forced to go neutral at some point to keep WB neutral? I'm looking at the chess board and BDA pieces are in disarray - Blockbuster and Target end cap are like pawns sacrificed to take a rook (Paramount - the #1 studio this year)....hope the wine is good at least :D

If $150million can buy exclusivity, why cant BDA pay P/DW and end the format war? Why BDA let the neutral studios switch camp and lost the "7 of 8 major studios support" marketing point? Why did Universal reject BDA offer?

I am sure everyone here knows that the switch decision is not as simple as accepting the $$$. This is the real story.

As someone have mentioned, this is not the last announcement. ;)

Common sense it appears is not so common after all! Nice summary :)

Huge load of crap above.

Why would it surprise anyone that a boat load of Money would change Paramount's mind?....Last I checked, Paramount was in the business to make money. Hello!!!!.....By simply accepting $150 million in cash to put out a given, single format, who wouldn't take the money? Hell, I would!!

If Blu ray had offered them a couple hundred million, guess what? They would have told HD DVD, "Adios mother fu**er"!!

Only $150 million to abandon Blu Ray? Only?? Do you really think Blu ray would have generated $150 million in PROFIT over the next 18 mos from a few dozen Paramount titles? (or HD DVD genrating the same for that matter)? Hell no! Micro$oft simpy gave them the profits that they would have made selling Paramount BD titles over the next 18 months PLUS a sizeable bonus to help them in the format war against Sony. This idea that Paramount gave up some big, expensive 'infrastructure' in the face of $150 million in cash is a huge pile of typical Plazman crap. Paramount made a money grab! It is that simple!!! Who wouldn't?

The fact is after this 18 mos expires, they may even take a larger sum from Sony (or Micro$oft) depending on who is offering more.. It is that simple. Not the typical convuluted, spin garbage above. Typical crap. Darin has called you out so many times on your ridiculous spin. I guess I have to put in my 2 cents as well. (laughing)..
Yeah. Read the interview, and get back with us. Paramount is saying exactly what I have been saying, and I suspect that other studios have the same issues.

It must suck to be in your shoes.


There you are, making all your bold predictions about BD and BAM! you're *****d. Yup. A major studio says they have decided to abandon BD indefinately (not 18 months, that is another BD FUD)...because it is not worth it. They would rather focus on HD DVD. OTOH, BD has no success in wooing Universal....is WB hanging by a thread? Will Disney be forced to go neutral at some point to keep WB neutral? I'm looking at the chess board and BDA pieces are in disarray - Blockbuster and Target end cap are like pawns sacrificed to take a rook (Paramount - the #1 studio this year)....hope the wine is good at least :D


No not really...I had a great bottle of wine tonight (Ruffino Chianti) and I have hedged my bets with an XA2...Nope, I am doing just fine....

But reading your spin above, I see you didn't address my post at all as I took your argument apart. You have mastered spinning spin!:p

"Paramount would rather focus on HD DVD??" Yep, I'll give you $150,000,000 reasons why. Focus... Did you really say focus? Not the money, of course, Paramount wants to focus.... Well, I guess $150,000,000.00 would help me 'focus', too..

Plaz..you are hopeless. You spin better than a top! Focus....HA! (laughing)

Plaz..you are hopeless. You spin better than a top! Focus....HA! (laughing)

blandman, my friend, you can't post like you do, all day every day, and get on anybody else's case for spinning. You just can't. Not possible. No can do.

Ok, maybe if in your spare time you get off by painting your face, putting on a big red nose and big floppy shoes, and entertaining others by being the source of ridicule, then maybe it makes sense for you to criticize others for spinning. But even then you're stretching it big time.

HDDVD was going to be red laser, 720p, with legacy audio, as well, before BD's spec's forced them to change.
??? Early versions of AOD, but never HD DVD.

Abysmal even, yet still better than the slop of Universal's recent catalog titles, as well as such masterpieces as Excalibur, Spartacus, and Army of Darkness. :o
No denying HD DVD has had a an occasional let down. However, that doesn't detract from the across the board thumbs down reviews from early BD titles and the embarrassing comparisons by various review sites to HD DVD titles. I agree that BD has finally gotten their act together and PQ and AQ are a fairly irrelevant comparison these days.

Obviously you weren't an early buyer of the XA1. :p
HDA1 for $500 at a time you could not buy a stand alone BD player for less than $1,000.

Maybe, but that goes both ways. I'd rather have a 1080p blue laser, MPEG2, PCM format than a red laser, 720p, legacy audio one.
:confused: So don't buy Terminator 2 Extreme Edition?

No not really...I had a great bottle of wine tonight (Ruffino Chianti) and I have hedged my bets with an XA2...Nope, I am doing just fine....

But reading your spin above, I see you didn't address my post at all as I took your argument apart. You have mastered spinning spin!:p

"Paramount would rather focus on HD DVD??" Yep, I'll give you $150,000,000 reasons why. Focus... Did you really say focus? Not the money, of course, Paramount wants to focus.... Well, I guess $150,000,000.00 would help me 'focus', too..

Plaz..you are hopeless. You spin better than a top! Focus....HA! (laughing)

I'd like some focusing too :)

150M is no small amount of money and, as you pointed out clearly, is an amount that reimburses any financial losses for not releasing on blu-ray, plus some more. It is not surprising though that some here are unable to see the point.

The real story is that all it took was $150M in incentives to sway the #1 movie studio this year to abandon BD! What does that tell you about the confidence that a major company like Viacom has in the economic viability of BD? This is a discussion point that no one seems to be thinking about. Apparently, Universal turned down an equally attractive offer to go netural (in opportunity cost that would mean Univeral too decided that $150M or whatever the BDA was offering them was not sufficient inducement to release on that format)!!!!

:eek:

Honestly, I am shocked. What do these studios know about the basic business model about BD that Paramount who was already neutral and had a team in place would abandon it so easily....with nary a second thought. There is NO WAY the BDA can spin that....OK they got money. But wait a minute. You mean, all it took was $150M to abandon all their existing BD infrastructure and pull all their titles? Is there a correlation between Paramount making this decision and Fox announcing titles? Did Sony coerce Fox into action?

For me that is the true story....where is the studio enthusiasm for BD?Once again, plazman, a sensible and logical post. I have come to expect nothing less...:)

Paramount has been publishing both HD DVD and Blu-ray for about one year. The only other studio that knows as much about both formats is Warner. Like Blockbuster, Paramount had plenty of data. Thing is they have ALL the data not just Neilson numbers. They know what manufacturing costs at every step as well as other costs that add up to significant dollar amounts in mass production (especially if there are yield issues greater than a few percent). I don't believe this decision was made overnight. It sure seems like a quick decision since the announcement came from left field. Funny how that happens when leaks don't happen...:)...kinda interesting how it makes the blow quite a bit harder on the enemy...:D

Maybe Paramount looked at the last 7 months worth of numbers and realizes that:

1. BD success is directly tied to the PS3 (90+% of BD players are PS3's) and decided the PS3 was not going to make BD a success.

2. No matter what the BDA did including selling hundreds of thousands of PS3's, and the BBI announcement . . the sales ratio is always 2 to 1. Never changes no matter what BD does.

3. Throw support to HD DVD and surpass BD because HD DVD is holding it's own with a single CEM and a single exclusibe studio

4. Toshiba has "opened the kimono" for P/DW and showed them exactly how they intend to sell between 700,000 to 1 million HD DVD players in Q4.

Pick one . . pick all . . . IMO.

Paramount had 150 million good reasons to go HD-DVD only and not one reason more. This is simple bean-counting. You are so naive if you think that the hd-dvd praise printed in the press-release is anything other than Paramount trying to keep a straight face while they laugh all the way to the bank.

Why in the world would Paramount turn down a $150 million offer. That is many times the amount of money they would make off selling blu-ray content for the next 18 months. They can't possibly lose on this deal, there is zero risk for them. Even if blu-ray continues to win the format war and is the clear winner 18 months from now, Paramount still walks away with more money than they would have had they stayed neutral, and then they can go ahead and release all their wares in blu-ray and make most of that money back too.

I agree plazman. 150 million is nothing compared to future sales and obviously they felt HD DVD has a real advantage to help them accomplish their longterm goals. I just wish we knew what they really are.

To leave the BDA this way tells me there is something seriously wrong with the BDA strategy for the future. What other conclusion can there be?


I guess you could conclude that $150m for 18 months exclusivity is is the real reason. If they honestly believed the spin in their press release, why did it take $150m for them to make the decision?

Also, speaking of strategies, there is no strategy difference here. This isn't rocket science. The strategy of both hd-dvd and blu-ray is identical. Both want to sell as many players as they can, both want to get as much studio support as they can, both want to sell as much software as they can.

Saying that hd-dvd and blu-ray have such different strategies that clearly paramount wanted to go hd-dvd is like saying that Coke and Pepsi have completely different strategies. I suppose if you consider hiring Britney Spears as a spokesmodel to be a completely different strategy than hiring Christina Agulara as being your spokesmodel, then you may have a point....

Or I suppose the other angle to look at the *real* story, is that the only few chances we had to compare VC-1 to AVC was with Paramount releases. Now with the HD DVD camp paying off Paramount, we can no longer compare the two codecs... I'm just saying... :eek:

Here's an interesting post from the highly respected David Vaughn about Paramount's decision to drop Blu-ray and just stick with HD DVD.

From the Home Theater Spot:


Quote:
Since the announcement, I have done some digging with some industry sources and have found out some interesting news.

First off, the interactivity has had a role in all of this actually starting with the release of Transformer onto HD DVD. There will be PiP features on the film that will be released on a HD-30 disc. In order to do it on BD, they had to do two separate encodes on the disc similar to The Descent on BD, one with PiP, one without since no players released thus far have dual video decoders in them on the BD side of the equation. This costs the studio more money in the long run. When you add in the FACT that the subsidy from Sony on BD-50's is now over, the cost of getting a movie on a BD-50 compared to a HD-30 disc is about 50% higher, the economies of scale start to make a difference. Budget figures on the sales of a Transformers HD DVD is in the neighborhood of 200,000 to 300,000 copies the first week of sales. With a BD, the sales may have been higher, but in the end, the BD would have been a losing propsition for the release. Also, Paramount had two separate encoding facilities handling their HD DVD and BD releases, so the cost of encoding the discs was much higher as well. Also, this caused more work because both encodes had to be approved by the directors before they went to manufacturing, which in some cases, they didn't look the same (Coming to America as well as a yet unreleased film that will now only be HD DVD).

BD may be the best thing since sliced bread, but the studios are in the business to make money, and right now, they can make more money overall with HD DVD. Is it short sighted? Maybe, but it is money in the bank especially when you consider the reported $150 million dollar payoff. BD had all of the momentum up until this point, but that can change pretty quick, especially with the price of the players. My local Costco has both the A-2 and the Sony BD player ($249 vs $475) and according to the guys who work in the electronics department, the A-2 is selling much better than the Sony for the past two weeks by a margin of 3:1. In the long run, this will start to have an impact and eat into the PS3 advantage that BD enjoys at this point. With this new announcement it will be at least 2 more years for all of this to shake out.

On a separate matter is Warner. What will Warner do now that Paramount has announced this support for HD DVD? They have all along been favoring HD DVD slightly since they get the royalties from the technology. Will they suddenly do the same thing as Paramount but without the payoff? The biggest issue right now for the "neutral" studio will be how well the "interactive" features on the BD players come into play on 10/31 of this year. If new players are slow to come out or if there are a lot of software issues with the old players with the new Java programming, then I think they may jump ship as well (just a theory on my part). It will certainly be an interesting 4th quarter, that's for sure!

Universal said no to the $ony $150 Mill bribe. $ony then offers $50 Mill to Paramont for exclusivity for X amount of months, being its one year deal with them comeing to an end.
Now, unbenown to $ony, Paramont had been using their new transformer technology to listen in on how much they had offerd Universal, the rest as they say is HISTORY.
BR the begining of the end?

No not really...I had a great bottle of wine tonight (Ruffino Chianti) and I have hedged my bets with an XA2...Nope, I am doing just fine....

But reading your spin above, I see you didn't address my post at all as I took your argument apart. You have mastered spinning spin!:p

"Paramount would rather focus on HD DVD??" Yep, I'll give you $150,000,000 reasons why. Focus... Did you really say focus? Not the money, of course, Paramount wants to focus.... Well, I guess $150,000,000.00 would help me 'focus', too..

Plaz..you are hopeless. You spin better than a top! Focus....HA! (laughing)

It's gotta just burn your ass then that per BD insiders BDA made a similar offer to Universal and they wouldn't budge.

Universal hasn't had the blockbusters that Paramount has had. If any studio wanted to "take the money and run" it would have been Universal.

Lets face it. Seems that some studios feel let down by BD performance in the market to date, or the economics of BD production, or BD authoring costs, or maybe they are ticked off because they don't like the amount of control they see going to a direct competitor in the movie biz.

PS, if you like the Ruffino Chianti then I'm assuming that you have at least a few bottles of the 2001 Ducale Riserva in your collection. You should check out the 2004 Da Vinci Chianti, it's a steal at $13 a bottle.

That's it in a nutshell. Paramount gave it a try. They analyzed the data and determined that from a financial standpoint Blu-Ray disc manufacturing is not viable, and is most likely detrimental to the bottom line in the long run. They were probably promised certain checkpoints or milestones by the BDA several years ago when they decided to press on both formats and those milestones have probably never been met and werent likely to be. So, Paramount stopped chasing good money after bad and pulled the plug. They got to experiment with BD disc on Sony's nickel, then when the subsidy period ended, they did the math. It doesnt make financial sense to support a technology owned by a rival studio.

It is quite clear why there was the frantic push by the BDA to repeatedly declare HD DVD dead since January. Their only hope of mitigating defections was to remove the competing format from the landscape. They failed.

Paramount must have looked at their release schedule and realized they can net more money by NOT selling BD's than selling both formats, regardless of the 150 million (which until i see proof otherwise in a financial 10-K i wont believe).

The real story is that all it took was $150M in incentives to sway the #1 movie studio this year to abandon BD! What does that tell you about the confidence that a major company like Viacom has in the economic viability of BD? This is a discussion point that no one seems to be thinking about. Apparently, Universal turned down an equally attractive offer to go netural (in opportunity cost that would mean Univeral too decided that $150M or whatever the BDA was offering them was not sufficient inducement to release on that format)!!!!

:eek:

Honestly, I am shocked. What do these studios know about the basic business model about BD that Paramount who was already neutral and had a team in place would abandon it so easily....with nary a second thought. There is NO WAY the BDA can spin that....OK they got money. But wait a minute. You mean, all it took was $150M to abandon all their existing BD infrastructure and pull all their titles? Is there a correlation between Paramount making this decision and Fox announcing titles? Did Sony coerce Fox into action?

For me that is the true story....where is the studio enthusiasm for BD?


Beatboy proclaims to have inside BD information that will soon be released that will end the format wars.... http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=894666

In other news, Beatboy's PS3 was abducted by aliens.

Seems like one point many are missing is that it's so early in these HDM format's lives (compared to DVD) that there really isn't much money to be made in them at this point, it all about positioning for the future. Asl long as Paramount isn't locked into an exclusive deal forever, the next year or two may make little difference long term. Some of the criticisms of BD will be answered one way or another by then (does the interactivity work; how well, is it buggy, how much does BD50 media costs now that they've had a few years to perfect it, etc, etc). Once all the profiles are out, uncertainty is removed with interactivity; internet options, etc; media costs are down (presumably), and player costs are down to the HD DVD ballpark; well, at that point, then there wouldn't be any reason not to publish on BD. Unless some of those things don't turn out so well. I was shocked to see Paramount flip; but was equally shocked 2 years ago when Warner (esp) and Paramount went neutral. Another factor to consider is the PS3; by the time standalone BD players cost significantly less than the PS3 you would more easily be able to evaluate future growth based on stand-alone sales (IMO the PS3 is a stop-gap solution for putting lots of BD players in homes, not the long-term one).

So there will be much better data for Paramount (and Uni) to evaluate in a year and a half than there is now. With that climate I can't blame them for taking the "incentives" (assuming they did). Before any high def format really begins to take off vs. DVD they'll have plenty of time to change positions again.

So what happens if the New York Times decides to run an article in their Technology Section:

"Bluray Disc Players Found to be Obsolete . . . Already."

And the whole sorid affair concerning Profile 1.1 and 2.0 is dragged kicking and screaming out of the darkness and into the light of the Full Media . . . and Paramount wants to distance themselves from this . . along with the payola and incentives.

More and more websites are writing about this issue. And more of these quotes from Paramount are referring to it as a problem.

Can't happen . . won't happen?

Show of hands . . . . who guessed Paramount and Dreamworks would go HD DVD exclusive?

I don't see any hands up.

Some pretty good information in this thread. Good discussion as well, lets keep this going. Please refrain from the bashing as it just looks childish.

The BD spec issues are going to be a huge problem this fall. Paramount knows that. Warner knows that. BD is not "market ready" when it comes to interactive features. Why use advanced audio codecs when most BD players can't cope with them, and why put PiP and other interactive features on disks that existing players can't use?

The cost of producing BD50 disks and relying on Sony's replicators is another hurdle for studios. Sony is the only studio that won't be competing with Sony for access to these replicators, especially when disk sales become respectable.

It reminds me of the ethanol scam. When the subsidies end, who will support ethanol as an alternative energy source? By the same token, what studio (other than Sony) will support BD when Sony's replication subsidies end? It is a matter of weighing cost against benefit.

Alan Bell sounds quite logical in his interview. He has done a cost/benefit analysis of producing BD, and that format has come up short. It is all about money, but I don't think it is about the so-called $150 million. Remember that HD DVD spent $100 million for promotion early this year.

We could use some hard data showing what BDA has spent to keep their exclusive studios and CE manufacturers from becoming restless. Apparently, it didn't work for LG and Samsung.

Huge load of crap above.
If Blu ray had offered them a couple hundred million, guess what? They would have told HD DVD, "Adios mother fu**er"!!


If it's this easy, then why doesn't the BDA just offer Universal and Paramount half a billion dollars to go blu-ray exclusive? Then, Sony wouldn't have to worry about this war. Or does Sony have an interest in keeping HD DVD alive?

Once again, plazman, a sensible and logical post. I have come to expect nothing less...:)

Paramount has been publishing both HD DVD and Blu-ray for about one year. The only other studio that knows as much about both formats is Warner. Like Blockbuster, Paramount had plenty of data. Thing is they have ALL the data not just Neilson numbers. They know what manufacturing costs at every step as well as other costs that add up to significant dollar amounts in mass production (especially if there are yield issues greater than a few percent). I don't believe this decision was made overnight. It sure seems like a quick decision since the announcement came from left field. Funny how that happens when leaks don't happen...:)...kinda interesting how it makes the blow quite a bit harder on the enemy...:D

Yep.;)

I agree it makes tons of sense to abandon BRD for HD DVD. As for the $150 million? If true, it is just the cherry on the TOP of a very big sundae!;)

This could be expanded upon quite a bit...

*BD was originaly all legacy CODECs until pressure from HD DVD's specs forced them to change. Even then it took a while for them to embrace them.

*BD's original releases were abismal and it was the high standard that HD DVD set that forced them to do better.

*BD's player prices very expensive initially, and I am certain that the early success of HD DVD's players at half their price caused them to start making major adjustments here as well.

*HD DVD set a high bench mark for interactivity from the begining. I am sure this has expedited BD-J's and the various hardware profiles developement cycle and even brought to bear crude sodtwar tricks to make up for a lack of hardware.

There is probably more and I am not saying BD is a bad technology. I am just saying BD fans should probably be more thankful for HD DVD and this war than they realize.

As a BR owner, these are my sediments exactly.

I have been banned from bluray.com for stating it, too (oh, for that as well as pointing out that the PS3's remote, which you pay extra for, doesn't even have an on/off button). I paid $500+ for a machine, and another $25 for a remote that turns the thing on whenever you touch ANY button on the remote, and it doesn't even have an off button.

Who and the #*@&! makes a remote without a simple 1-touch on/off button?

Answer: Sony

If $150million can buy exclusivity, why cant BDA pay P/DW and end the format war? Why BDA let the neutral studios switch camp and lost the "7 of 8 major studios support" marketing point? Why did Universal reject BDA offer?

I am sure everyone here knows that the switch decision is not as simple as accepting the $$$. This is the real story.

Totally agree. 150MM is NOT alot of money in the context of this war. Measuring it in terms of how much per disc sale makes no sense.

How much money has the BDA spent so far?

. They are estimated to be losing $1-1.5B per annum in gaming due mostly to huge PS3 losses

. There was a massive opportunity loss because the PS3 launch had a lengthy delay in order to get Blu-ray players installed. That loss over time will probably be at least $1B-2B

. Replication subsidies

. Heavy non-stop PR, advertising, promotion, endcaps, etc. for over a year now.

. "Incentives" to Fox, Disney, Blockbuster, etc.

The total cost of all BDA related funding and missed opportunities must be in the $3B - 4B range.

IMO, the 150MM was a BARGAIN for the publicity, momentum shift, and media reporting influence it has on the format war. At 2-3 times the price, ti would have been worth it. That is why it is only logical to see that Paramount did indeed study the formats and likely found fundamental issues with Blu-ray that turned them off to it.

Who and the #*@&! makes a remote without a simple 1-touch on/off button?

Answer: Sony
Had a JVC receiver like that - must have spent 30 minutes scanning the manual & the remote as I simply couldn't believe it didn't have an on/off button :mad:

honestly, that 150mil is more than Paramount has made on this whole endeavor to date

Huge load of crap above.

Why would it surprise anyone that a boat load of Money would change Paramount's mind?....Last I checked, Paramount was in the business to make money. Hello!!!!.....By simply accepting $150 million in cash to put out a given, single format, who wouldn't take the money? Hell, I would!!

If Blu ray had offered them a couple hundred million, guess what? They would have told HD DVD, "Adios mother fu**er"!!

Only $150 million to abandon Blu Ray? Only?? Do you really think Blu ray would have generated $150 million in PROFIT over the next 18 mos from a few dozen Paramount titles? (or HD DVD genrating the same for that matter)? Hell no! Micro$oft simpy gave them the profits that they would have made selling Paramount BD titles over the next 18 months PLUS a sizeable bonus to help them in the format war against Sony. This idea that Paramount gave up some big, expensive 'infrastructure' in the face of $150 million in cash is a huge pile of typical Plazman crap. Paramount made a money grab! It is that simple!!! Who wouldn't?

The fact is after this 18 mos expires, they may even take a larger sum from Sony (or Micro$oft) depending on who is offering more.. It is that simple. Not the typical convuluted, spin garbage above. Typical crap. Darin has called you out so many times on your ridiculous spin. I guess I have to put in my 2 cents as well. (laughing)..

Paramount isn't saying 18 months! MS denies it gave Paramount any money. You have evidence to the contrary or is it O.K. to make up rumours about anyone on this forum? So much anger over a silly format - amazing! Or is this really about winning? My way or the highway - pretty sad.

Spin - your thread about how the Paramount news is good for BD is the penultimate when it comes to spin! A little good news, well maybe a lot of good news for HD DVD and the BD fanboys have a paroxysm. You can judge just how big this news is for HD DVD by how badly the BD hardcore supporters are taking it - and they're taking it very, very badly as evidenced by some totally irrational posts that I've seen on this forum.


Cheers,

Grant

PS, if you like the Ruffino Chianti then I'm assuming that you have at least a few bottles of the 2001 Ducale Riserva in your collection. You should check out the 2004 Da Vinci Chianti, it's a steal at $13 a bottle.

Actually, we drank the Ruffino Riserva last night. I'll have to check the year. It was really a nice bottle. A good, somewhat earthy taste. Had it witha thick deep dish pizza while watching the ball game.

I am not a huge Chianti drinker but I do have 1/2 a case of bottles a friend brought home (shipped) from the Chianti region Italy..

Good stuff. I'll look for the Da Vinci..Always looking for good value in wines.

Actually, we drank the Ruffino Riserva last night. I'll have to check the year. It was really a nice bottle. A good, somewhat earthy taste. Had it witha thick deep dish pizza while watching the ball game.

I am not a huge Chianti drinker but I do have 1/2 a case of bottles a friend brought home (shipped) from the Chianti region Italy..

Good stuff. I'll look for the Da Vinci..Always looking for good value in wines.

This crap is definitely off topic.

This crap is definitely off topic.

So is the thread...Plaz didn't give the REAL story...he gave HIS story.

He said the reasons for Paramount going neutral was to 'focus' on HD DVD. I say, $150,000,000.00 may be a bit more logical.

agreed. it is a chucnk of change that cannot be ignored.

no matter what, HD optical media is in its infancy and $150 mill to the bottom line is an amount of $$ no studio would pass on.

business is business

hey, I'd switch sides and be a BD supporter for less.....:D

Paramount says it's indefinite....

How could they possibly say anything else? Sony stated no reduction in ps3 price a couple of days before the reduction too. In the Paramount case, they are committed to 18-24 months. For the amount they got, I'm sure HDDVD consortium would be pretty pissed if they announced "We got 150 million, but we may change our minds in x months when the agreement runs out.."

This crap is definitely off topic.

Depressed people are known to drink and ramble....:)

How could they possibly say anything else? Sony stated no reduction in ps3 price a couple of days before the reduction too. In the Paramount case, they are committed to 18-24 months. For the amount they got, I'm sure HDDVD consortium would be pretty pissed if they announced "We got 150 million, but we may change our minds in x months when the agreement runs out.."

No studio has EVER gone from neutral to exclusive to neutral again...never happened and the smart money is on it not happening this time either. Paramount basically said NO to UMD2.

Your argument of:

A) Paramount has stopped releasing on Blu-ray
Therefore...
B) Blu-ray does not have a viable economic model

Is a logical fallacy. B cannot be determined by A.

That's his point. The meat of this discussion is all the points (mysteries) in between that begs his question.

That, and the real world isn't bound by the rules of debate club.:rolleyes:

Seems like one point many are missing is that it's so early in these HDM format's lives (compared to DVD) that there really isn't much money to be made in them at this point, it all about positioning for the future. Asl long as Paramount isn't locked into an exclusive deal forever, the next year or two may make little difference long term. Some of the criticisms of BD will be answered one way or another by then (does the interactivity work; how well, is it buggy, how much does BD50 media costs now that they've had a few years to perfect it, etc, etc). Once all the profiles are out, uncertainty is removed with interactivity; internet options, etc; media costs are down (presumably), and player costs are down to the HD DVD ballpark; well, at that point, then there wouldn't be any reason not to publish on BD. Unless some of those things don't turn out so well. I was shocked to see Paramount flip; but was equally shocked 2 years ago when Warner (esp) and Paramount went neutral. Another factor to consider is the PS3; by the time standalone BD players cost significantly less than the PS3 you would more easily be able to evaluate future growth based on stand-alone sales (IMO the PS3 is a stop-gap solution for putting lots of BD players in homes, not the long-term one).

So there will be much better data for Paramount (and Uni) to evaluate in a year and a half than there is now. With that climate I can't blame them for taking the "incentives" (assuming they did). Before any high def format really begins to take off vs. DVD they'll have plenty of time to change positions again.

What about for Fox, Disney to evaluate.....

The real story is that all it took was $150M in incentives to sway the #1 movie studio this year to abandon BD! What does that tell you about the confidence that a major company like Viacom has in the economic viability of BD? This is a discussion point that no one seems to be thinking about. Apparently, Universal turned down an equally attractive offer to go netural (in opportunity cost that would mean Univeral too decided that $150M or whatever the BDA was offering them was not sufficient inducement to release on that format)!!!!

:eek:

Honestly, I am shocked. What do these studios know about the basic business model about BD that Paramount who was already neutral and had a team in place would abandon it so easily....with nary a second thought. There is NO WAY the BDA can spin that....OK they got money. But wait a minute. You mean, all it took was $150M to abandon all their existing BD infrastructure and pull all their titles? Is there a correlation between Paramount making this decision and Fox announcing titles? Did Sony coerce Fox into action?

For me that is the true story....where is the studio enthusiasm for BD?


Great post and I agree 1000%. All the BD fanboys keep saying its all about the money but I disagree completly because in reality this is not a very large chunk of money, not considering how much is on the line for the format that is victorious. As Universal has already shown its not jut about money or they would have accepted Sony's offers to go neutral. You have to believe in the product period. Dont get me wrong I am not saying the money wasnt influential, it always is in the business world but my point is no matter how much money you offer a company, they wont buy into a bad business decision. These studios believe that HD DVD is the way to go and I believe that completly.

It's been said that the $150,000,000 figure was made up. It may be, or it may not.

Bland, one thing you seem to be missing...

If Paramount's move was all about the supposed $150 million payoff, what was stopping Sony from offering them $175 million, etc. to buy their exclusivity?

If it was confirmed by BD insiders that Sony was offering Universal $150 million to go neutral, surely they would have no problem coming up with the cash to buy off Paramount.

They could have just used the same $150 million that Universal turned down and tossed in a bit more and had themselves exclusive rights to some of the biggest films in history.

That did not happen because the BD business model is so economically unviable that any amount of money Sony may have been offering was not enough to offset the potential loss of revenue Paramount would take down the line relative to what they could make with HD DVD.

On top of that there has been serious concern of the BDA's ability to even meet the replication demands of mass market adoption.

How could they possibly say anything else? Sony stated no reduction in ps3 price a couple of days before the reduction too. In the Paramount case, they are committed to 18-24 months. For the amount they got, I'm sure HDDVD consortium would be pretty pissed if they announced "We got 150 million, but we may change our minds in x months when the agreement runs out.."

Once again Paramount has said it is indefinite. If you have some inside info that proves otherwise by all means produce it otherwise your numbers your throwing out are meaningless. Paramount themsives have said this is a permanent position they are taking. As other have said no studio in history has gone from neutral to exclusive back to neutral and if your really placing your bets on Paramount going back to neutral 2 years down the road when dual format players will be cheap and readily available, well your just not looking at this very logically at all.

Once again Paramount has said it is indefinite.I wonder what they would have said the time period was if somebody had asked them at the time they went neutral. Unfortunately, I don't remember anybody asking. But I think the odds are pretty high that they would have said, "indefinite".

--Darin

Your argument of:

A) Paramount has stopped releasing on Blu-ray
Therefore...
B) Blu-ray does not have a viable economic model

Is a logical fallacy. B cannot be determined by A.

Nor the opposite can be proved:
A) Blu-ray is supported by more studios, therefore...
B) Blu-ray is viable.

It is also a logical fallacy. B cannot be determined by A

The best we can do is bet and hunch... or speculate...
A) When those platforms hit the market, it was 5 versus 3.
B) Now, one year after launch, it is 4 versus 3.

That does not prove a thing. but it send your mind wondering...

I agree. The BD strategy was formulated on tieing up exclusive content contracts and channel (where possible) and win the war by denying access....I would say Sony went in for the airline industry model where one carrier will undercut a competitor and buy up gates at the airport to choke off their competition....sometimes it works, but when it doesn't the result is bankruptcy.

You may not know, but you've just created a great slogan...
sometimes it works, but when it doesn't the result is bankruptcy.

I can imagine it already:
Blu-ray. Sometimes it works. When it doesn't: bankruptcy. :D

So is the thread...Plaz didn't give the REAL story...he gave HIS story.

He said the reasons for Paramount going neutral was to 'focus' on HD DVD. I say, $150,000,000.00 may be a bit more logical.

$150,000,000 is chump change in the long term picture here. They saw the problems with replication and high player cost and decided to support the format that is ready now. These people are not fools, and short term gain will get you fired in a business that has a 10 year life span worth billions.

I wonder what they would have said the time period was if somebody had asked them at the time they went neutral. Unfortunately, I don't remember anybody asking. But I think the odds are pretty high that they would have said, "indefinite".

--Darin

I think the odds are high they would have said "until we determine it is not economically viable for us to produce on BD"

any deal like this is going to include money for promotional activity - $150M is nothing and for a major studio to go exclusive for any amount of money speaks more to the weakness of the 'other side' than any money on the table for a supposedly dying format. Blue Ray is a consortium not focused on the customer that is about to break.