Warner adopts Blu-Ray; Paramount to follow suit?
A little over a month ago I wrote that I was keeping out of the hi-def DVD format wars for a while, but that if I had to make a choice I'd probably go with Blu-Ray. Looks like my instincts were good as Warner Bros. announced last Friday that it would be releasing its films exclusively in the Blu-Ray format. (For those catching up, Sony was one of the major players in the consortium that created the Blu-Ray format and Toshiba appears to be heading up the rival HD-DVD format.)
Industry analysts are falling all over themselves to predict the end of the format war -- I think everyone (except perhaps the HD-DVD consortium) wants a quick end to this one, but it doesn't seem over quite yet. There were an awful lot of HD-DVD players sold at deep discount this Christmas, and a large number of PS3 systems (which have Blu-Ray players built in) out there as well.
The player to watch at this point seems to be Paramount Pictures, which famously took a $150 million payoff to declare its exclusive commitment to Toshiba's format back in August. Just four months later, however, rumors have it that Paramount may have an escape clause in that contract that permits it to abandon that position in the event that Warner commits to Blu-Ray -- which of course, it just did.
I'm still planning to bide my time and wait for a price drop on the PS-3 (and hopefully they'll figure out the whole backwards-compatibility thing in the meantime), but it's looking good for those folks who chose Blu-Ray as their high definition DVD format. Stay tuned.
Industry analysts are falling all over themselves to predict the end of the format war -- I think everyone (except perhaps the HD-DVD consortium) wants a quick end to this one, but it doesn't seem over quite yet. There were an awful lot of HD-DVD players sold at deep discount this Christmas, and a large number of PS3 systems (which have Blu-Ray players built in) out there as well.
The player to watch at this point seems to be Paramount Pictures, which famously took a $150 million payoff to declare its exclusive commitment to Toshiba's format back in August. Just four months later, however, rumors have it that Paramount may have an escape clause in that contract that permits it to abandon that position in the event that Warner commits to Blu-Ray -- which of course, it just did.
I'm still planning to bide my time and wait for a price drop on the PS-3 (and hopefully they'll figure out the whole backwards-compatibility thing in the meantime), but it's looking good for those folks who chose Blu-Ray as their high definition DVD format. Stay tuned.
Labels: movies, technology
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