Paramount to Drop HD DVD?

zeromemory writes "The Financial Times reports that " Paramount is poised to drop its support of HD DVD after Warner Brothers' recent backing of Sony's Blu-ray technology, in a move that will sound the death knell of HD DVD and bring the home entertainment format war to a definitive end." According to the Times, Warner Brother's recent defection to Blu-Ray allowed Paramount to terminate their exclusive relationship with HD DVD. Universal Studios remains the only major studio to exclusively support the HD DVD format, though rumors have surfaced that their contract may also contain a termination provision similar to that exercised by Paramount."

already denied by paramount

[Jesus_Corpse]

Paramount already denied this:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aQMGgh2LV_bU&refer=japan [bloomberg.com]

There's only a clausule that it is permitted for Paramount to drop hd-dvd if they think it's needed.

Paramount Denies

[quantumplacet]

Paramount had denied this allegation. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=178864 [computeran...ogames.com]

Re:Seems like HD-DVD is dead

[oahazmatt]

Looks like Sony wins this one.

I used to think the same thing, until I read this comment [slashdot.org] and realized it was not just a Sony product.

Re:The impossible happened, hell froze over

[ergo98]

Bluray does 1080p, and HD-DVD does 1080i, at least with the way things are set up right now.

Get educated.

Firstly, the difference between the two is completely irrelevant [hometheatermag.com] for movies (which is what we're talking about). I want 1080/24p, not the 1080/60p that the kids are giggling over.

Secondly, HD-DVD is the same 1080p as Blu-ray. Perhaps you mean specific players? There are 1080i and 1080p players for both formats.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Winner is the Consumer

[gnuman99]

1 or 2 Mbps or Megabits per second. 1MB broadband - wtf does that mean? 1MB download total?

MB => megabyte
Mb => megabit

MB/s => megabytes per second. Generally used to describe disk speed, memory speed (in the past, now in GB/s)
Mb/s or Mbs => magabits per second. USed to describe network speeds.

1 byte = 8 bits unless you are living in the 70s.

BTW, 1.5 Mbps is one of the standard speeds for ADSL and would net you about 177kB/s download rate. Going at full throttle, that gives you 14.5GB/day. On 7.5Mbps speed, or 5x faster, that would give you 72.5GB/day. Since HD movies now are probably around 25-30 GB/2hours or 15GB/h, to watch that real time, you'd need a 36Mbps broadband minimum or download speed of 4.3MB/s. Since HD content will be less compressed on the 50GB discs, you'll need about 70Mbps for that to download.

For regular DVDs, they tend to be about 3GB/h so you'd need a 7Mbps service minimum to be able to watch DVD quality movies real time.

Neither of the scenarios will be a reality for vast majority of the Internet users. If it costs you $1.5/GB to get the stuff in network charges, the HD content would cost you $50-$100. The DVD would be about $12. A mailed rental DVD costs you a lot less than that and even buying one may be cheaper.

So yes, you are correct. DL is *way* off in the digital future, just keep the darn units correct.

Re:If Sony Wins a Format War . . .

[__aaqvdr516]

Sony didn't really "create" the 3.5in floppy. They really only introduced the form factor. The guts of the floppy were created much earlier by IBM. They also didn't partner with Philips until 9 years after the prototype CD was created. Reaching further into the depths you can even find that they didn't even create the Playstation on their own. http://www.nintendowiifanboy.com/2007/06/07/original-nintendo-sony-playstation-prototype-found/ [nintendowiifanboy.com] Sony is about as innovative as a rock.

Re:May I be the first to say...

[ProppaT]

To me this is a major loss for consumers.

1) Sony likes to fix market prices.

2) Blue Ray players are a royal pain to program for, where HD-DVD's devopment tools are quite robust and relatively easy to use. This is a loss for DVD collectors such as myself who often buy DVD's just for the bonus features.

3) Discs will be more expensive to print because BR is not an open standard and royalties will have to be paid to Sony.

4) DRM, blah blah. Good luck ever being able to rip those movies onto a media server.

The only positive I see is that BR winning over HD-DVD is that it might allow Sony to drop the price of the PS3 sooner.

Re:Porn studios showed the way.

[MBGMorden]

All a matter of perspective and how close you are. Real genitals at 6 inches away are likely more detailed than 42" screen closeup genitals from 6 feet away.

Re:do not want

[geekoid]

Blu-Ray players will play your old DVDs.

Re: DAT

[jonfromspace]

I don't know if you could call DAT a failure... Mini disk and memory sticks, maybe, but DAT was/is pretty popular in the recording industry.

Re:It will be a cold day in hell

[bigstrat2003]

1) Blu-Ray movies don't cost $25-30, unless we're not using US dollars here. They cost more like $20-$25, I rarely see Blu-Ray titles for >$25.
2) So they're encrypted. Whoop-de-fuckin' doo. So are DVDs, I hope that you have just as much moral objection to them, and refuse to use them.

Re:Seems like HD-DVD is dead

[king-manic]

Mem sticks is a failure. MD is actually a huge success in Asia. 3.5" and CD were the other Sony victories.

Re:Seems like HD-DVD is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

External Drives (eSata) are in the range of ~60-100 MB/sec transfer rate. A bluray burner (2x) has a transfer rate of 72mbps ~9 MB/sec. Filling a 50GB bluray disc at 9MB/sec takes about an hour and a half per dual layer disc. Filling an 500GB external drive takes just about the same amount of time. If you have lots of stuff to backup, a external drive seems to be better currently as it has more storage and takes less time. Over time I will assume faster faster burners will come out, but so will faster and larger drives. Current tape drives also tend to be faster, though not as accessible due to the linear nature though they have similar sizes.

Re:Yawn

[Midnight Thunder]

Since the time this news was in the firehose till now... we are now discussing green-ray vs MegaHD-DVD. The old war is over.

I know this was a joke, but in many ways you aren't far from the truth:
  - Holographic Storage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_data_storage [wikipedia.org]
  - Tapestry Media: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapestry_Media [wikipedia.org]
  - Enhanced Versatile Disc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_Versatile_Disc [wikipedia.org]