Maybe I should have used the title The Return of the HD DVD. Or perhaps The HD DVD Strikes Back. Meh.
Both Paramount and DreamWorks Animation SKG today announced their backing of HD DVD, which will entail exclusive use of the HD DVD format. The decision will see movies from Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films available in standard definition DVD and HD DVD, exclusively.
Here's a very next-next-gen idea for you... maybe we should go formatless and just agree on a codec and distribute content electronically. Or perhaps the industry could go with BOTH and allow the consumer to decide! In reality, how much more would it cost to publish in both formats?
Bah, maybe I should just secretly patent a player that handles both and live off of the royalties. Or maybe HD DVD and Blu-ray will both go the way of the laser disk for a better alternative.
7 comments:
I'm pretty sure players that support both (or rather, all three, including DVD) have at least been announced, if not yet released commercially.
I agree that it's frustrating, especially when you know that no matter what you do, you're going to get screwed over in the end, since:
screwing over = selling more stuff in BizSpeak.
Speaking of which, I just ordered my third Blu-Ray movie, Babel, with the $25 Amazon.com Gift Certificate that Mike Cohn's Mountain Goat company gave me last week after I filled out their 20-page Agile Assessment questionnaire. When it arrives, it'll join The Prestige and 300 in my Blu-Ray library, which I swore I wasn't going to grow (and yet, here I am doing just that).
P.S. I just want to say, here in the relative privacy of the Comment Space, that I absolutely love this collaborative blog idea! Being part of something that grows and evolves even when I'm not paying attention to it is just simply awesome!
Awesomeness, indeed. I'm actually blogging again! ;)
Ewww Babel ... why? Actually it was decent, I just haven't gotten over my grudge when it looked like it was going to beat the Departed in the Best Picture oscar race.
Geez, you freaked me for a second there with your "Ewww Babel" comment!
I was pretty sure it was a big Oscar-worthy film but really hadn't bothered looking into it before placing the order. Glad to know it was simply your innate competitiveness exerting itself!
To MikeM: Yeah, I'd noticed that, too! Good on ya! (And don't let being in NYC for 5 days get in the way of your blogging! It's not like there's anything to do in that deadsville town after the dinner hour!)
Saw a news article today (I think - the days run together lately) that indicated that the studios that switched were paid to. Like $150 million. To stay HD-DVD exclusively. Anyway, I didn't like it, but I thought I'd point it out.
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