So how long till Universal and Paramount stop releasing titles?

3.1234 weeks

I'm thinking that titles already produced will of course be sold. Titles that haven't been printed yet probably never will be. But in the end what do i know.

Neither one has said they're going to stop, but I wouldn't count on anything beyond what's announced.

The upside is that there are 600k players out there and half of those are probably in the hands of early adopters that may still buy titles. If production and distrubution (likely direct to consumer or internet only) are low enough it isn't impossible that either one could do small runs (50k - 100k discs) of selected titles at a premium over the price of Blu.

They could do it, but I highly doubt it...unless they know they're going to make a profit. After all it isn't about happy consumers. It IS about happy shareholders.

Well Paramount was BRUTAL with BR when it dropped them.

Although one might say this could be different because there's no competition anymore so it's less strategic. But I would be very thankful for ANY Paramount titles from here on out. I owuld imagine Universal would treat it's red customers a bit better like Warner is and hopefully at least fulfill titles already announced.


Logic would dictate, what ever has already been made will be released. But of course that logic didn't fly with Blades of Glory last fall.

I think they will stop releasing on HD DVD after April'2008. May be they can press limited HD DVDs to please current HD DVD owners.

wouldn't independents overseas with distribution rights go for the niche' market of HD DVDs installed base and release titles??

My guess is end of March,I'm sure they will be making an announcement soon.
I'm waiting for the clearance sales.

Universal will probably be done once they release Fletch.

Paramount will be likely finished once they release There Will Be Blood. (As noted, Paramount has no problem dropping something cold turkey.)

This assumes they actually go through with current release plans. It's possible that Warner will be the last studio releasing HD DVD's.

fitprod

Come on sales! I can't justify an anywhere near full price buy of American Gangster now!

'This is show business... not show friends!'

+1. I sure hope they release There Will Be Blood...or.....there will be blood!

I would guess anything already printed will be sold, and anything still on the production line will be released up until the actual printing is stopped.

Speculation disclaimer
I'd be surprised if many/most retailers didn't have deals in place that stipulate they can return unsold media to the studio if/when something like this happened (toshiba or the bd forum conceding defeat), so I wouldn't think there would be any guarantees at this point. Even if disks are produced a studio might be forced to landfill some releases because they can't find vendors willing to stock them.

Yeah, but Paramount was paid not to release on Blu-Ray. I'm sure they'll gladly sell whatever HD DVDs they already have made and have gone far enough along on. Other stuff will likely just be ignored, unless they believe they can make money on it.

I was thinking the same thing. But the SD-DVD goes for about $20 usually. So the cost of the SD-DVD version PLUS the HD-DVD version on one disk was only $10 more. That is how I convinced myself anyway.

Well none of us KNOWS what/if/how Paramount was paid and what their contract said. Let's be clear on that, unless you are an insider it's just educated guesses at best. That being said, if you read my post you quoted again you will see I made mention of "competition", which alludes to what you are saying. There was a war going on and a strategic reason (beyond base profits) to stop BR sales immediately. Since BR doesn't feel competition from HD DVD anymore, one might assume there isn't outside pressure to stop producing HD DVDs immediately. But here very well might be inside pressure.

None of us really knows the answers to this. I just hope for HD DVD owners that Paramount is kinder to them than they were to BR fans last fall.

Oh it is worth it. What a great movie. Fantastic HD presentation.
If you have an HD-DVD player there is no need to wait for this one on blu.

I say as long as WB releases HD DVD, Uni and par will release HD also. We'll see after May what happens.

Depends on if you're OK with having the HD version become utterly worthless if/WHEN your HD player craps-out.

That's my dilemma, and why I'm waiting for deep clearance sales before carefully choosing a few more 'highly-visual' discs (like Blade Runner, maybe the Potter series).

Of course, there are also several dual-format HD packages that will always work on SD players...I'll look at those, too.

Based upon the fact that LG has officially commited to continuing support for HD-DVD , I'm not worried. I expect at least a few other hardware manufacturers will follow suite. Based upon this and my already setup HTPC with a Combo Drive.. I'm going to exploit the fire sales and liquidations to buy more HD-DVD's!

More than likely, I think LG's announcement was just to point out they still have combo players available, since Samsung has run for the hill.

Once the current model has cleared out of their inventory, they're history. (See Toshiba's January announcements vs February 19th.)

fitprod

It gets difficult. Even if you have a studio willing to release, and a vendor willing to stock it, you run into deciding where to actually put it on the shelf. In the Blu-ray section? In the DVD section?

Even the Warner releases may end up available pretty much only from online vendors.

I'm thinking the same thing. I can not think of any reason why I would pay full price on any Hd-Dvds now. I'll wait patiently for sells towards the end of March(or when ever players cease to be sold at B@M).

All of my local Best Buys still have tons of HD DVD in stock, so I think the format will be here to stay for a while. In fact, I saw two people buying several HD DVDs and no one buying any Blu Rays.

You saw me buying Marix Complete. It was on sale for 65% off MSRP, but was not marked! Sales people had no clue it was on sale, although the scanner knew. Nobody even was looking at BD. I fear for the future of HDM.

Even though Paramount is now back on the Blu-train, I bet they'll releases a few more HD DVD titles before dropping the format completely in a month or so.

They will probably release all of the titles they have already started production on but anything beyond that will most likely depend on the benefits/costs of releasing any further titles.



Well the NYT and WSJ told us the basics including that it was a business deal worth $150 million lasting 18 months for the exclusive support of HD DVD. Business Week also noted that part of the business deal included money to license Shrek from Dreamworks for marketing purposes.

Universal will probably release everything they had announced through April or May, but I can see Paramount ceasing production mid-March.