Paramount will release movies in both next-gen formats

Paramount is playing it safe for now as the next generation format war continues to heat up. The company has said in a statement that while it is backing the Blu-Ray format, it will release movies in both the Blu-Ray format and the HD-DVD format. The reason for this is simple; the company would like for its customers to have a choice and not be forced into accepting just one format for Paramount movies.

It is likely that other movie studios will follow in Paramount's footsteps. If Toshiba is first to release HD-DVD players around the world, then those studios backing Blu-Ray would want to start worrying that more and more consumers might adopt HD-DVD early and stick with that format after BD discs and players are released.

President of Paramount Pictures, Thomas Lesinski, said that Sony's decision to use Blu-Ray in the upcoming PlayStation 3 console was a major point for Blu-Ray. Last week, Microsoft and Intel joined the supporters of HD-DVD, adding more weight to the format war.

Sources:
New York Times
Mercury News

Written by: James Delahunty @ 2 Oct 2005 18:58

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7 comments

borhan9

All I can say here is that it is still early days and nothin major has happened yet....

I still stress the point that companies that make the players should make the player dual format soo then consumers dont have to worry about what player to buy...

But companies want to make a little bit of extra b4 things go down to a level that the current DVD's are at...

I'll b waiting for things to die down...

2.10.2005 22:28 #1

A_Klingon

IF:

(a) Every forthcoming HD-DVD set-top player will also play Blu-Ray discs, AND IF...

(b) Every forthcoming Blu-Ray set-top player will also play HD-DVD discs, THEN...

(c) It will STILL royally piss people off, many to the point where they will refuse to adopt EITHER system.

The Software Dealer's Association (of America) has made it abundantly clear to the movie studios and hardware manufacturers alike, that they do NOT want their dealerships to be forced to carry two totally incompatible formats of the same movie. Retail inventory space is at a premium, and 2 versions of the same thing unnecessarily takes up twice the storage space and serves to do nothing more than alienate customers. The dealerships had enough of that s--t with dual inventories of Beta and VHS.

There is absolutely nothing to be gained in the long run by carrying two different formats.

It seems that the movie industry (in this case Paramount Pictures) has learned very little from the music industry in this regard. We still have SACD and DVD-Audio formats. Neither is a "winner". Both are just "niche" formats and seem destined to remain as such.

If YOU were to walk into a retail video store and see two $40 versions of the same movie, which format would you buy? If history repeats itself, you could wind up buying the "Betamax" version of a yet-to-be scrapped format. I pity all those movie fans who wound up with extensive Betamax tape collections.

As borhan9 says above, it is WAY to early to consider either of these systems. Corporate greed has absolutely assured all of us that High Definiton movies are still in their earliest, embryonic stage.

May God help the brave Early Adopters. :-)

2.10.2005 23:20 #2

Jauzzi

maybe we should go back to the days of tape recording... man, that was so much easier to crack....

3.10.2005 11:30 #3

punx777

this is good as of now for the consumer, but what happens when one format starts dominating the other, (likely blu-ray, being backed by disney, and several other major lables) what happens when people stop buying hd-dvd? (v/v) is it economicly (viable?) for the companyto continue releasing the format? If i were you guys, i would hold off from buying either format until a clear winner (or unified format?) is decided,

as of now it would sound like blu-ray is dominant, since all teh companies are backing it, if the 360 would only aquire a hd-dvd drive NOW before the tech starts getting out you would get a million people who are not going to waste money on a new b-r player

3.10.2005 18:57 #4

evilh0ly

i think Blue's gonna win bc as far as technology advance
the media storage's gonna get bigger and blue's in the spot.

if Hddvd wins i think it's gonna be a bad new for consumers bc there's probably another upgrade in a year or two since technology just keep on growing nonstop.

3.10.2005 19:14 #5

carg0

Are you people still here??

Blue-Ray is gonna win, hands-down. Sony's trump card is the PS3 and the HD-DVD camp simply doesn't have a similar offering. There's no point in debating which format will win because while you idiots are still arguing a year from now the Blu-Ray enabled PS3 will have an installed base of at least 2 million all over the world. And it's predecessor, the PS2, has sold over 90 million units worldwide and most analysts have already gone on record stating the PS3 won't have any trouble replicating those numbers.

So to all the morons going "gee, hmmm, i wonder, it'll be interesting to see who wins, gee, hmmm, i think I'm an analyst at J.P.Morgan" do us a favor and just shut up already.

4.10.2005 05:54 #6

Fuzrock

Are people really ready to change to a new format again?

We had VHS from the early eighties until not that long ago and most of us have only had a DVD player for a few years. I don't think that the majority of the people will want to switch to a whole new format this soon.

It's going to be quite a while before a winner in this war is decided and by then there will be an even higher quality system knocking on our door.

4.10.2005 12:03 #7

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