Re: Warner Bros. did not take any money to choose Blu-ray

Will either format really win????

I am gonna admit being a bit stupid...Many moons ago I bought Star wars on VHS. Then I was hyped into buying Star wars the last releases...Then they released Star Wars Special editions (I bought all of these on VHS) Then they releases the special editions with an episode 2 trailer. Then They released Star Wars special editions on DVD.....They are bound to re-release them on Hi Def and am I expected to buy them again...I think not.

I am in the HD DVD camp (un-nervingly at the moment) and I have already promised myself not to buy any HD disc that I already own on DVD. HD DVD recently released Battlestar Galactica season 1. I have season 1 its been out ages.....release season 3 see how it goes and back date if successful.

Anyway this lot does have a point on the topic. With all the new films being released on 2 formats surely it is only honest people that lose out. Plenty of people wait for these film to appear on torrents and download them in hi def regardless of the format. Warner choosing Blu-ray makes a small difference to consumers when it will possibly just be that a hi def movie is downloaded at home and burn't on to a format of choice. No matter how good the copy protection is there is alway some computer genius out there with nothing better to do than crack the copy codes and allow people to rip the disc. Bandwidth may not be there at the moment but consumers may choose niether format and find alternatives to get their Hi def Material.

Hope with those (if) 500,000,000 blank discs, WB keep away from making mistakes.

that allows them to make 499,999,999 mistakes surely. but then the law of averages...

You forgot the .99, you know, because you can have 99% of a disc...

Warner only answered about whether or not they got paid. The question which should have been posed to Warner would have been "what insentive were you given to support Blu-ray exclusively?" - I'd still like to hear their answer to that. )

Nice question, JPS...

For what I know, Paramount and Dreamworks turned to HD DVD are also because of incentives and money! So it is very normal if Warner turns to Blu-ray for the similar reason. Warner is not doing anything wrong or bad, just doing the thing that displeases HD DVD supporters.

Moreover, Warner has denied that there is a payment. It is meaningless for us to guess whether they are lying or not. At least there is still a chance that they are telling the truth. At least there is a chance that they did better than what Paramount and Dreamworks did.

Paramount and Dreamworks obviously abandoned Blu-ray because of money! I really doubt that they chose HD DVD because HD DVD is a better format.

I am sure that what the studios are doing are all about money. No matter the money or incentives they got from the promoters or they would earn more money from standardizing the HD format. I believe that there can be a win-win situation with overall consumers.

What I predict is:
- DVD price will drop so it is good for people not needing HD movies.
- HD movies price will drop too as the technology becomes matured and the mass market for a single format, the cost will drop, and people has the chance to not to buy HD movies if the price is too high as there are still some alternatives, rental, upscaling DVD,...

ckplee, i sincerely hope that you're right with your predictions, for our sake and best interests in mind.

Of course they will say they took no money. Who in there right mind would admit they took $$$$ to flip flop in 22 days time from their previous stance of Format Neutral?