Looks like Universal may take longer to roll out BR...

According to DB:

All that's left now IS for Toshiba to make an official statement, followed (or perhaps preceded) by long-awaited announcements of Blu-ray Disc support from Universal and Paramount, which we now expect very soon. Word is that Paramount will be able to quickly shift gears back to Blu-ray, as they already have experience working with the format (and some unreleased BD titles have already been replicated - think the titles that were cancelled last year at the last minute when the studio abandoned Blu-ray - or at least have finished masters ready for replication). Universal on the other hand, will take longer to ramp up, as they're at least two years behind the other Hollywood studios in working with the format (though one would expect the BDA to provide them help in getting up to speed as quickly as possible).


My question is, being that far behind, how long can we expect before we see their first BR releases??? I hope it is not that long because I am ready to start buying some titles on BR from them. Especially all the Monster Films!!!

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Universal on the other hand, will take longer to ramp up, as they're at least two years behind the other Hollywood studios in working with the format

Hilarious.

I't wont take them two years. Still funny to see that in print.

Considering that at worst all Universal would have to do is simply port their encode over to the Blu-Ray's like WB used to do. I really don't see it taking two years. I wouldn't expect much from the first batch they'll probably be the exact same discs as their HD-DVD counterparts to save time.

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[Post edited by Movielover316 on Feb 16, 2008]

Please Universal, don't give us HD port-overs on BD! Well, maybe with the exception of a few titles, but too many Universal HD DVD releases were sub par. Go ahead and take all the time you need to ensure all of your upcoming Blu-ray releases will be top notch. Many thanks.

I doubt the'll take too long, perhaps they could even sub-lease another studio's pressing factory to come out with movies while they set up their own BD presses. Anything is possible in Hollywood.

With an already installed base of over 1 million HD DVD players out there, I would expect Universal and Paramount to first go Format-Neutral, to continue to reap profits from existing HD DVD equipment owners, while they work towards deploying Blu Ray.

They probably will help to bring Dual-Format players into the mainstream with this process, and in doing so they will help heal some of the wounds inflicted by either side of the battle.

Universal has already gone to prefer the DVD/HD DVD "Combo-Disc" market, so they can market to existing DVD buyers, HD-DVD buyers, and probably in a years time to Blu Ray buyers.

We may even see odd format combos released such as SD DVD/Blu Ray, or HD DVD/Blu Ray in the interim time frame.

Toshiba has still not made a formal press release as to their "official" position, but if they have just ceased production of HD DVD players, there could still be many hundreds of thousands of HD DVD players in shipment or storage.

With the suggestion that Disney and Fox were considering following Warner to HD DVD exclusivity, with a last moment political ploy by $ony throwing a wrench into the deal, Toshiba may have been ramping up production late last year to meet what would have been an overwhelming demand for HD DVD players.

Could there possibly be close to 1 million yet unsold HD DVD players in existence???

If Toshiba realizing their already existing losses, decided to dump them onto the consumer market to recover only a mere 10 Cents on the Dollar, even sold as primary up-converting players, with the HD DVD as an unintended bonus, how much could that destabilize the HDM marketplace, possibly even causing a major resurgence in HD DVD sales as well???

I still am anxiously awaiting Toshiba's official statements, as well as the HD DVD exclusive studio camp spin on all of this.

From Microsoft as well, because they stand to loose heavily from their HDi investment in HD DVD.

Maybe this isn't over quite yet, it should be a very interesting week that we are heading into...

Especially since UPS tracking shows my PS3 will be returning home from the repair shop on Tuesday...

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[Post edited by VideoCipher on Feb 17, 2008]

Interesting take videocipher,

I think we can be sure that Toshiba, Universal and paramount are going to take which ever path they feel will yield the highest profits.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to see some sort of statement that universal/paramount are going neutral for some set time, possibly till the end of 2008.

It really all depends on what toshiba does this week. IF they do release a statement echoing what we have all read so far, they still are open for business in a way. What will likely happen is this: Toshiba will start to market their players as Up converters with the bonus of HD dvd capability. Universal and paramount will go neutral and continue to pump out limited quantities of hddvd new titles.

It also depends though, on what the retail stores are doing. At this point I think its fair to say they are predominantly blu-ray.

I think we can be sure that toshiba will leave the door open for the future in some small way. I doubt we will see "pack it up hddvd users we're out of here!" They will want to pawn off their, now obsolete, stock in what ever way possible. So i expect a vague announcement with some positive spin about the future.

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I think we can be sure that Toshiba, Universal and paramount are going to take which ever path they feel will yield the highest profits.

Intelligent companies NEVER turn their back on easy money.

With 1 million HD DVD players in consumer living rooms, if each HD DVD player owner buys only 1 HD DVD title again, that is $15 to $30 million dollars in the studios pockets

Just ignore all of the HD DVD nutcases that have purchased thousands of dollars in HD DVD's in the recent months.

Oh wait, you can't actually ignore that fact.

So what's any major picture studio to do now...

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[Post edited by VideoCipher on Feb 17, 2008]

You know VideoCipher I read a little while back that WB actually had plans to put out discs in BOTH formats with Blu Ray being on one side of the disc and HD DVD on the other side. Of course this was before they announced the switch to BD.
I wish I could find that story but I can't remember where I read it.

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You know VideoCipher I read a little while back that WB actually had plans to put out discs in BOTH formats with Blu Ray being on one side of the disc and HD DVD on the other side. Of course this was before they announced the switch to BD.
I wish I could find that story but I can't remember where I read it.

It was called Total HD, but WB decided against releasing it about a year ago.

It's my understanding that Universal does not do any in-house authoring. It's farmed out to many outside facilities, including Deluxe, Ritek, and GDMX, just to name a few. I'd be shocked if these facilities are not equipped to do both HD DVD and Blu-ray, seeing as Universal would not be their only client.

And yes, as previously posted, the same transfer can be recycled for both formats. There's a very small, very simple utility written by Microsoft that converts an HD DVD savvy stream to a Blu-ray one (without altering the actual encode, mind you.) EDIT -- This is concerning Microsoft's VC1 codec, WB's codec of choice.

Jason

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[Post edited by jpetersen on Feb 17, 2008]

I didn't get the press release yet? Since when is HD DVD done?


I think I'll trust Toshiba, universal and Paramount, before I trust you guys...

You guys can ask Hendrix about this but when they stopped making Laserdisk players the Laserdisk movies were still coming out for quite some time afterwards, a few years if I remember correctly.

I would be surprised if HD DVD movies stopped being produced just like that. You will probably still see the occasional new release come out for a while still. There are a lot of HD DVD players out there still and the prices just get cheaper and cheaper now. In other words there's still a market for the product.

It may not be the same case as laserdisc though. Even though the technology was abandoned in the states, it was still a major seller in Japan. The last release that I am aware of was The Phantom Menace. But HD DVD was never adopted so widely there, so that could factor in.

VideoCipher, you made some interesting points. but this quote:

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I would expect Universal and Paramount to first go Format-Neutral, to continue to reap profits from existing HD DVD equipment owners, while they work towards deploying Blu Ray.

Unviversal has no expirience with Blu ray and judging by Warner foul ups in the past in producing in both formats I think it would be logical just to pick one format. That's two production lines producing 30 gig HDDVD disks and 50 gig Blu ray disks, that can get expensive.

Umm... speaking of Universal, is that it for their new releases after this Tuesday? American Gangster looks to be the only new one and nothing yet scheduled or announced for the rest of the year, apart from their catalog title "Fletch" to be released March 11.

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It was called Total HD, but WB decided against releasing it about a year ago.

They decided not to release it when Paramount went HD DVD as WB would be the only studio releasing movies on it.

As for universal, it will take them awhile. They have a real stick up their ass about Blu ray and no one really knows why.

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They decided not to release it when Paramount went HD DVD as WB would be the only studio releasing movies on it.

That was just part of the reason. WB knew that a "third type" (HD/Blu-ray hybrid) of disc would only cause further confusion amongst consumers, so they did the sensible thing in dropping it.

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There's a very small, very simple utility written by Microsoft that converts an HD DVD savvy stream to a Blu-ray one (without altering the actual encode, mind you.) EDIT -- This is concerning Microsoft's VC1 codec, WB's codec of choice.

Simple utillity written by Micro$oft eh??

That would mean "software licensed from Micro$oft" is needed to perform that very simple VC-1 encode, but Micro$oft has still not dropped it's support of HD DVD yet.

Sounds like a good Back-Stab opportunity for Micro$oft to hurt $ony if they wanted to.

There is still a Game Console War going on, and I don't see Micro$oft doing $ony any favors, plus if HD DVD fails in the movie market, it still is likely to become a big player in the Optical Data market due to it's cheaper cost to manufacture discs, drives, and burners for PC's.


Sure, the M$ licensing agreement now goes like this, you can use our Software Encoder Utility and VC-1 CODEC for only $50Million per Blu re-encode.

That's a nice chunk out of the entire box office take for many films, and even more than the entire production cost of many films.

Movie execs everywhere start soiling themselves, as they suddenly realize they need new Encoding software, and a new CODEC.

Oh wait, there is already MPEG-2, let's go back to that while we plot a new strategy.

Result, a market flooded with Blu discs that look no better than regular DVD's, and $ony better get those 4 and 5 layer Blu discs ready for market, because they are going to need every bit of the room on them to do MPEG-2 and still keep all of their audio formats.

Sorry, no Blu players currently on the market will play 4 and 5 layer Blu media.

Is it time to go buy a new Blu player again????

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Unviversal has no expirience with Blu ray and judging by Warner foul ups in the past in producing in both formats I think it would be logical just to pick one format. That's two production lines producing 30 gig HDDVD disks and 50 gig Blu ray disks, that can get expensive.

It's not a big deal to release in both formats, many smaller studio don't think so. They already have DVD to attend to, and in Universal's case, they don't do their own replicating anyway. The WB packaging thing was 100% due to incompetence and not the 'daunting' task of keeping track of two HDM formats.

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Oh wait, there is already MPEG-2, let's go back to that while we plot a new strategy.

Although MPEG-2 works, AVC is more bitrate and space efficient (comparable to VC-1) and is currently used on most Blu-ray disks along with VC-1.

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There is still a Game Console War going on, and I don't see Micro$oft doing $ony any favors

Yea problem with this statement is that MS has already confirmed that a Blu ray accessory drive is a possiblity in the future. And if blu ray is indeed the next disk format, MS really doesnt have a choice outside of not offering 360 users HD movie playback. Which will not happen. They gotta compete with the suddenly resurgent ps3 remember!

http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=24659

So whats more likely to happen is: IF toshiba indeed bails out on hddvd, MS will continue supporting hddvd and later introduce a BR add in until eventually phasing out hddvd all together.

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IF toshiba indeed bails out on hddvd, MS will continue supporting hddvd and later introduce a BR add in until eventually phasing out hddvd all together.

I really don't see Micro$oft paying $ony a $30-$50 royalty per BR add-on.

The XBOX360 is designed to be a GAME CONSOLE, with an expensive add on to make it double as a movie player, if M$ wanted to market movie players they would have built in HD DVD drives from the start.

M$ NEVER said that they WOULD produce a BR player add-on for the XBOX360, they just never said that they would completely rule it out.

As the size and complexity of Video Games grows, M$ will need an Optical Disc with greater capacity than DVD for their game releases, and their most logical step will be HD DVD-ROM, because of much smaller licensing fees(if any) since they were a big Toshiba supporter, and contributed HDi and VC-1 encoding to the format.

If Toshiba bows out, they may grant M$ an open license to use the HD DVD technology for free.

M$ might even buy the HD DVD patents for their own use, and the 30Gb and 51Gb HD DVD-ROM discs will work out nicely for Data and XBOX360 games without requiring M$ to line $ony's pockets with anything but more lint.

There is no end in sight to the GAME CONSOLE WAR, and any smart P$3 owner better not be holding their breath for the P$3 version of HALO 2 to be released.

It was my understanding that the PRIMARY reason that Warner's TotalHD was abandoned (publicly) was the lack of retail support - the idea of stocking these discs (along with the other two types) was met with resistance from retailers/distributors.

Privately, (it's a rumour) the TotalHD concept may be in violation of the 'fine print' contractual clauses of whether this new dual-format disc was legally within Warner's right to actually produced and sell (would Sony and the BRDA allow it?, etc). Maybe others here know more about this, as I can't remember the details.

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)