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Posted by Allan on 09/28/19 11:28
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117930059?categoryid=1009&cs=1&s=h&p=0
Par has a Blu-ray day
Studio supports Sony's format
By SCOTT HETTRICK
This article was updated at 9:36 a.m. on Oct. 3.
The high-definition DVD format war has taken a strange twist.
In a stunning announcement, Paramount Home Entertainment has decided
to support Sony's Bluray disc format for the next generation of
high-definition DVDs.
Although ParPar will continue to support Sony's rival HD DVD platform
from Toshiba as well, the studio is the first to end its singular
commitment to one format.
Several execs in each camp believe the Paramount announcement to
publish in both formats, which is the direction Warner has been
leaning for the past week or two (with a similar announcement expected
this week), is simply a temporary face-saving strategy and that
ultimately all studios will shift completely over to Blu-ray by launch
time next spring.
The addition of Paramount to the Blu-ray side means studios repping
59% of the homevid market now plan to release in Blu-ray, while HD DVD
accounts for 45%. (Overlap is due to dual support.)
Many in the industry have observed that momentum has been swinging
toward the Blu-ray camp, particularly after the HD DVD studios
abandoned a plan to release the first batch of DVDs in the format this
holiday season. Toshiba also pushed back the release of the first HD
DVD player until next year.
Thomas Lesinski, Paramount PicturesParamount Pictures president of
worldwide home entertainment, previously one of the staunchest
supporters of HD DVD, said in a statement Sunday that the studio will
release movies on Blu-ray in North America, Japan and Europe as soon
as Blu-ray hardware launches in those markets.
"We have been intrigued by the broad support of Blu-ray, especially
the key advantage of including Blu-ray in PlayStation 3," Lesinski
said in a statement. "After more detailed assessment and new data on
cost, manufacturability and copy protection solutions, we have now
made the decision to move ahead with the Blu-ray format. We believe
the unique portfolio of Viacom content coupled with this format will
provide great benefit for consumers and our shareholders alike."
A format war is precisely what studios, hardware manufacturers,
retailer and consumers were trying desperately to avoid. The
introduction of two incompatible formats has the potential to cause a
much slower adoption of a new format for their movies, games, music
and other programming as consumers hesitate to pick one for fear of
selecting the next Betamax that will quickly be obsolete. Studios and
hardware manufacturers managed to find a compromise solution on DVD,
which led to the introduction of the most successful consumer
electronics product ever.
With the DVD market rapidly maturing and slowing to single-digit
growth rates, media companies, which derive most of their studio
revenue and profits from DVD, are pressuring their home video and
consumer electronics units to get the next-gen format into the market
as quickly as possible, whichever one it is, in order to rejuvenate
sales of their vast libraries of TV, movie and music programming on
discs.
"All we're doing is guaranteeing a format war," a top exec at one
studio DVD division said about the Paramount announcement.
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment president Ben Feingold said that
while the Paramount announcement is very important to the Blu-ray
camp, "being on both formats will confuse the consumer."
"Launching with a single format is the only way to get back quickly to
double-digit compound growth," Feingold said.
Warner's softening position was believed to be what motivated
Microsoft and Intel to announce support of HD DVD last week.
But many said at the time that announcement was too little, too late.
HD DVD will likely debut around the same time as Blu-ray, which has
set mid-2006 as its launch date. Microsoft will not commit to
including HD DVD in its next-gen Xbox 360 system.
In fact, the PlayStation 3 factor -- Sony will not be swayed from
introducing Blu-ray, since the format is locked as a component of
millions of PS3 machines next spring -- is believed to be what has
turned Paramount and Warner around in their thinking.
Despite the defection, HD DVD backers remained resolute.
"When HD DVD goes to market early next year, and while the [Blu-ray]
group is struggling with manufacturability of their products and
consumer concerns with its copy protection, we'll see how the two
formats truly stack up," Microsoft media and entertainment
toppertopper Blair Westlake said.
WHV is believed to be under great pressure from parent Time WarnerTime
Warner, which has its own pressures relative to the recent stock
performance challenges by Carl Icahn, to do whatever it takes to get a
high-def disc to market at the earliest possible time in order to
rejuvenate the maturing DVD market.
While it would be a little more expensive to release movies authored
and inventoried in two different formats, it's something the studios
have done before with Betamax and VHS and even laserdisc and 8mm, in
some cases. And it's something the videogame industry has become used
to.
(Additional reporting by Ben Fritz and Paul Sweeting of Variety sist
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