From darkhorizons, The ongoing format war could be over quicker than anyone imagined as The Financial Times reports that Paramount Pictures may be poised to drop its support of HD-DVD after Warner Brothers' recent backing of Sony's Blu-ray technology.
According to the report, Paramount is understood to have a clause in the contract it signed mid-2007 with the HD-DVD camp that would allow it to get out of the deal in the event of Warner Bros. Pictures backing Blu-ray. DreamWorks Animation, which was also part of that contract, is expected to have a similar arrangement.
The day before this report emerged however, Paramount officially continued its commitment to HD-DVD - telling people at the current CES convention in Las Vegas this week that "the studios have no plans to abandon the HD-DVD format". Despite that support however, they will not be making any new high-def title announcements at the show.
With Warners in tow, Blu-ray has four of the major six studios behind it and most of the minors. If Paramount/Dreamworks defected, that would leave just Universal Pictures as HD-DVD proponents. That studio has declined to comment on their plans, but many expect that they would shift quickly if Paramount were to change as they're arrangement with the HD-DVD group isn't as iron clad.
3 comments:
Oh jeez, whatever. Meanwhile, regular dvds continue to be totally awesome.
I saw a high-def TV in Best Buy the other day playing the first Fantastic Four movie. Maybe the settings weren't optimal or something, but the picture quality, while very sharp, looked like video. It actually looked like a soap opera starring the Thing.
JSP and I have discussed this often and both agree that DVD is just fine with us for the time being. Granted we'll all own an HD set-up eventually, the difference is hardly VHS vs. DVD, but more like PS2 and PS3.
We have an HDTV, we most often use the HD channels when watching football - I'm kind of eh on the whole thing. I don't see that much of a difference...
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