AfterDawn: News

Blu ray gets new exclusive backer

Yesterday, the Blu ray camp got an unexpected new exclusive backer, the Starz Home Entertainment, which announced its exclusive support alongside the release of its feature "Masters of Horror".

The news came at the Sixth Annual Home Entertainment Summit when Starz Home Entertainment President Bill Clark revealed the exclusive support for the camp.



Although no other titles were announced, Starz did say many more in their catalogue would follow 'Horror'.

The news is even more noteworthy because Starz owns the catalogue of Anchor Bay Entertainment, one of, if not the, most popular independent genre suppliers for standard DVDs.

A few in Anchor's library are the classics, 'Halloween,' 'The Evil Dead,' 'Re-Animator' and the original 'Night of the Living Dead.'

More importantly for Blu ray, Clark said that they had no plans to release any movies for rival HD DVD.

Source:
HD Digest

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Jun 2007 14:36

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• 13 comments

• 26r0cK

  Things are starting to look good for Blu Ray, yet its still too early to decide a winner of the format war. None the less, this is good news for Blu Ray. Good job.

  19.6.2007 14:43 #1

• Pop_Smith

  I didn't know Starz made/own movies, I thought they just showed movies on TV. :p
  
  Blu-Ray is shaping up but things are not one-sided just yet.

  19.6.2007 14:48 #2

• Riotard

  Well frankly these are only a small movie market compared to the big picture.
  
  Both discs still have many problems with them, especially now the whole BR discs rotting up and stuff. This formate war wont be won by either of the two formates, but more likely another knew formate which will be cheaper and hodl more to produce in the next 2-5 years!

  19.6.2007 15:17 #3

• NexGen76

  Originally posted by Pop_Smith:I didn't know Starz made/own movies, I thought they just showed movies on TV.
  
  Same here didn't know they was in to making home media...

  19.6.2007 15:26 #4

• Moomoo2

  Originally posted by Article:A few in Anchor's library are the classics, 'Halloween,' 'The Evil Dead,' 'Re-Animator' and the original 'Night of the Living Dead.'Well Night of the Living Dead is in the public domain. Anyone can say they own the rights to it. That's why you can find so many different versions in the bargain big at your local video store. Its a great movie, no less... Classic.
  
  ---Moomoo2

  19.6.2007 16:14 #5

• AXT

  Yay!!! Competition. At this rate i will be able to own a combo player for under $300 by Christmas.

  19.6.2007 16:38 #6

• kaosX

  plus blockbuster just announced being Blu-ray exclusive.

  19.6.2007 17:44 #7

• fgamer

  Well from the looks of it, it looks like the PS3's Blu-ray drive may come in handy after all.

  19.6.2007 19:12 #8

• mspurloc

  Massive DRM, ridiculous content prices and discs that rot, forcing you to buy new ones. What's not to like, for them?

  20.6.2007 05:36 #9

• tleewade

  why would any one? want to pay a lot more for anything . that has something that shows or works as good or better. and at half the price ? use your head some people can buy a mercedase benz. but 95 % will buy the chevy because it does the job and is a lot more sensible for the masses. we only have about 5% rich people but 95% poor wantabees. so wantabees rule. this is more or less true.

  20.6.2007 08:10 #10

• hughjars

  My 1st reaction was 'who'?
  
  This is a long fight, it'll not be clear what's going to happen until maybe 18 - 24mths......and I have some sympathy for the view that says (just like with DVD -R & +R) it'll probably end up with some kind of dual/neutral format.
  
  I've said for a long time now that I expect all the movie studios to go neutral/dual format eventually (with Sony saving face as last to switch) maybe in 24mths time and sweep up what they can from both formats - both of which are IMO too large now to simply disappear.
  
  BD talk a good game but it's all small beer & short-term tactical stuff, as we can see from announcements like this one & the Blockbuster one.....in fact they have me wondering just how worried are they if they need to spin this kind of weak PR out as 'huge'?
  
  The root of the BD problem is that like it or not PS3 is just not shifting the numbers of movie discs they thought it would.
  The PS3 'attachment rate' is frankly rather laughable.
  
  HD DVD meanwhile just keeps on heading for those sub $200 prices for a Japanese known brand and the sub $100/$150 for the coming Chinese brands.
  BD simply has no answer to that kind of competiton.......and as they take off watch the content suppliers follow the hardware suppliers and abandon that 'BD exclusive' status.
  
  ......and for those who want to keep up their day-dreams that this will finish soon I suggest you look at the comments of Masayuki Kozuka of Matsushita (one of the Blu-ray backers) from digitimes 20/06/2007 -
  
  Quote: This year, DVD standards will account for 95% of the global sales volume of all kinds of Optical Disk Drives (including players and recorders), leaving 5% for BD and HD DVD. But the proportion for BD and HD DVD will rise to 20-30% in 2010. In addition, the shipment volume of desktop and notebook PCs equipped with BD and/or HD DVD burners/drives will reach an estimated 35 million units in 2010, accounting for 17.5% of the projected 200 million units for all PCs.http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20070620PD201.html
  
  (note he is looking 3 years ahead & refers to 'blue laser' in the interview, ie both Blu-ray and HD DVD)

  20.6.2007 08:38 #11

• DoomLight

  i'd hardly call Starz a huge backer. im on no side of either. i still think regular DVD has plenty of life left in it.

  21.6.2007 05:14 #12

• borhan9

  Sorry but not big on horror flicks. Ill give this a miss.

  21.6.2007 20:29 #13