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[syllogism]

According to this article, New Line is included in the deal, if it wasn't obvious

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6517192.html

 

[Walshicus]

And what is happening where you live is representative of the rest of the world? You like in the UK ... its tiny. Things don't move that way in larger areas.

The UK is behind France and Germany in Europe with this. Behind *most* of Europe really.

EDIT: Anyway, whatever. I'm sure with my newly minted tag nobody's really going to listen to me on this subject in this thread on this day.

 

[Raistlin]

oh hey -- i wonder if this is criterion's cue to get cracking on bd releases

My god ... I hope so!!!

 

[maharg]

Most people do not have the hard drive capacity, the GB allowance (my bandwidth is capped to 20GB a month and there's no way I'd spend it on downloading 1 HD movie), nor the patience to wait for a 20GB movie to download (assuming my internet connection is not already disconnected by the provider at that point due to going over the download limit).

Bandwidth and caps are one thing (though I think you'd see caps going away real fast if net neutrality fails and the providers are the ones distributing the movies to you), but storage? Come on. You can build a multi-TB array for the price of a bluray player now.

If DD became a big thing, it'd be on dedicated devices with plenty of storage. Hard discs are cheap. Optical recorded media are even cheaper.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

This is the day the format war ended.....

Now that's how you start a new year!

 

[PjotrStroganov]

And I don't even have an HDTV.:lol


Glad to be knowing what to buy in the future. Eventually.

 

[Outdoor Miner]

oh hey -- i wonder if this is criterion's cue to get cracking on bd releases

That would be fucking awesome.

 

[Costanza]

holy shit this was an awesome thing to come home to

 

[kaching]

2008 is shaping up to be an interesting year right from the start for movie buffs. You've got Netflix talking about working their way into as many set-tops as possible as a download service plus rumors about Apple getting into digital movie rentals. With the strengthening commitment to BD on the side of physical media, I'd love to see a box emerge that lets me rent movies via network and then right there and then order the disc itself for playback on the same machine if I enjoyed the movie enough to own.

 

[Mifune]

Criterion has said in the past that they don't have any interest in HD, but I'd love to see them change their minds. Eventually they will, I'm sure.

 

[drohne]

i believe criterion's line was that they wouldn't get involved in hd as long as there was a format war

edit: here's a link to that effect: http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/11/06/criterion-wont-enter-blu-ray-vs-hd-dvd-battle-yet/

interesting to note that they've been mastering in hd for years

 

[Raistlin]

The UK is behind France and Germany in Europe with this. Behind *most* of Europe really.

And that matters?

Half of Europe can fit inside of Texas. Beyond that fact, that are tons of areas in world that purchase physical media, but don't have the infrastructure for HD media regardless of geography.


I can't believe this is even being argued. Christ, most of the physical media buying world doesn't even know how to use a PC ... at least not at the level of getting HD media to their TV. :lol

 

[rage1973]

I hope to help celebrate Amazon throws a huge BOGO sale on bluray movies. If this means the end of BOGO sales I am going to be pissed and boycott any new sales and just rent all my movies from Netflix.

 

[Mifune]

i believe criterion's line was that they wouldn't get involved in hd as long as there was a format war

Oh really? That's great news, then.

 

[distantmantra]

Criterion has said in the past that they don't have any interest in HD, but I'd love to see them change their minds. Eventually they will, I'm sure.

I heard recently that Criterion had done a test run of one of their titles in one of the high definition formats just to see how it turned out.

 

[Shaneus]

I can't believe that this kind of news is swaying me as much as it is toward getting a PS3. I can imagine that there are thousands more thinking exactly the same thing.

 

[Eel O'Brian]

I hope to help celebrate Amazon throws a huge BOGO sale on bluray movies. If this means the end of BOGO sales I am going to be pissed and boycott any new sales and just rent all my movies from Netflix.

I doubt being the only game in town is much incentive to continue giving free movies away, so you better just go ahead and start filling up that queue now.

 

[indie85]

Sir irrational hate of sony must be one of the most idiotic posters I've ever come across on all my times on the internets :lol
I guess you must be pretty proud to have boycotted sony all your life, I mean what a stand up fuckin achievement, I bet everyones impressed by that :lol :lol
As the joker would say....

 

[avaya]

The UK is behind France and Germany in Europe with this. Behind *most* of Europe really.

EDIT: Anyway, whatever. I'm sure with my newly minted tag nobody's really going to listen to me on this subject in this thread on this day.

Posted this a couple of days ago in this thread:

BT is investing £10bn in speeding up the existing network, which includes some fibre, and will be able to deliver download speeds of 24 Mbps by 2011.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7112373.stm#anchor

£10bn from one Telco for only 24Mbps in 2011.

That graph is advertised PR connection speed. The top speed you can get is not the issue. 24MB is necessary, 8MB minimum. The issue is average connection for the country. In the UK it's barely 2MB, a lot of those are bandwidth limited (like Virgin's services are too):

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/intc1107.pdf (page 3)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7105242.stm

It's not much different across the rest of the world.

Next problem is contention. That one is a tough nut to crack.

DD is a long way away from being mass market. A long way away.

 

[DarkJediKnight]

"One of the things you see in the NPD data for this fourth quarter was that even with a $100 premium, BD set-tops outsold HD set-tops in December. Even with Toshiba having the lower-cost player in the market, software sales remained 2-to-1 in favor of Blu-ray. Our titles were running roughly 60/40 Blu-ray and that didn't change in the fourth quarter even with the price advantage HD had on the hardware side."

- Warner Home Video president Ron Sanders

Money aside, this may have been the tipping factor.

 

[jjasper]

Just got in, holy shit.

 

[Raistlin]

Post of awesomeness

Thank you!



I'm really growing weary of this ridiculous argument.

Money aside, this may have been the tipping factor.

You think?

 

[borghe]

Criterion has said in the past that they don't have any interest in HD, but I'd love to see them change their minds. Eventually they will, I'm sure.

I think the problem with criterion is they are slowly becoming less relevant and they know this. back when they were one of only a handful of studios doing special editions with extensive extras on laserdisc, they had the market all to themselves. Then when they moved to DVD, the extras weren't much different than what criterion had already been doing. With HD and the formats, it's a whole new ball game on what the consumer expects. Not to mention criterion has been doing video transfers much of the same way for almost the past 20 years, which of course now would change with HD also.

I love criterion and own quite a few DVDs and laserdiscs.. but I honestly don't see them transitioning to HD very successfully. I agree that they'll need to or die, I just don't know if they will or not.

I doubt being the only game in town is much incentive to continue giving free movies away, so you better just go ahead and start filling up that queue now.

absolutely. while you will still see the free movies with players and occassional promotions by studios, enjoy the bogos while the last over the next couple of weeks, because I have a strong feeling they're going to disappear almost permanently.

 

[Walshicus]

Sir irrational hate of sony must be one of the most idiotic posters I've ever come across on all my times on the internets :lol

Yeah, I'm an idiot. Can I has your internets?

I guess you must be pretty proud to have boycotted sony all your life, I mean what a stand up fuckin achievement, I bet everyones impressed by that :lol :lol

I use it in my chat-up lines all the time.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Money aside, this may have been the tipping factor.

I've been saying for a while that hardware sales were not as lopsided as we were led to believe.

Didn't expect BD to lead, though.

 

[Nicodimas]

Fuck.

Oh well looks like I will be picking up some imported warner movies<30 bucks versus 10> in the next year. Thank god for region-free.

Now Toshiba pick up another studio quickly and keep the war going!


My hate for Sony came when they nuked the dreamcast. I left buying console games after the DC went. I will come back when/if they ever come back .

On a random note MY Tv is a sony 34xs955 and monitor our 24 inch so i find myself hiliarious at times. But I try to avoid sony as much as possible.

 

[Raistlin]

I've been saying for a while that hardware sales were not as lopsided as we were led to believe.

Didn't expect BD to lead, though.

And remember, this is completely disregarding PS3 owners.

Once the format war is 'over', who knows how many will start to purchase BD movies.

 

[OokieSpookie]

Fuck.

Oh well looks like I will be picking up some imported warner movies<30 bucks versus 10> in the next year. Thank god for region-free.

Now Toshiba pick up another studio quickly and keep the war going!

So so sad.

 

[Raistlin]

Fuck.

Oh well looks like I will be picking up some imported warner movies<30 bucks versus 10> in the next year. Thank god for region-free.

Now Toshiba pick up another studio quickly and keep the war going!

Who's left that would move over? Fox? No. Disney? No. Sony? Obviously NO. There are really no non-trivial studios left with Warner moving over.

 

[Mifune]

I think the problem with criterion is they are slowly becoming less relevant and they know this. back when they were one of only a handful of studios doing special editions with extensive extras on laserdisc, they had the market all to themselves. Then when they moved to DVD, the extras weren't much different than what criterion had already been doing. With HD and the formats, it's a whole new ball game on what the consumer expects. Not to mention criterion has been doing video transfers much of the same way for almost the past 20 years, which of course now would change with HD also.

I love criterion and own quite a few DVDs and laserdiscs.. but I honestly don't see them transitioning to HD very successfully. I agree that they'll need to or die, I just don't know if they will or not.

Based on that engadget link drohne posted, it's looking like they are just waiting for the right time to jump in.

And personally I don't feel Criterion is becoming less relevant at all. In a global sales sense, yeah maybe, but I don't think they've ever been in it completely for the sales.

 

[Nicodimas]

I thought the big CES rumor was Fox going to Hd-dvd camp? Is this even possible now..

Like I said can't stand Sony. Good luck with profile crap when they resolve that bullshit I will buy the panasonic on the market.

Forming Hd-dvd resistance. Import your movies you want as most of the time they are better. Looks at band of brother hd-dvds...so sweet.

20/80 does not bother me.

 

[Raistlin]

I thought the big CES rumor was Fox going to Hd-dvd camp? Is this even possible now..

Like I said can't stand Sony. Good luck with profile crap when they resolve that bullshit I will buy the panasonic on the market.

Forming Hd-dvd resistance. Import your movies you want as most of the time they are better. Looks at band of brother hd-dvds...so sweet.

There are not enough :lol for this post

 

[OokieSpookie]

I thought the big CES rumor was Fox going to Hd-dvd camp? Is this even possible now..

Like I said can't stand Sony. Good luck with profile crap when they resolve that bullshit I will buy the panasonic on the market.

Forming Hd-dvd resistance. Import your movies you want as most of the time they are better. Looks at band of brother hd-dvds...so sweet.

There was never a fox rumor that was tangible , even the so called hd insiders including amir and the other vermin would never even dare to suggest that something like that is even possible.
The "profile crap" has been resolved for a while now.
When you stop reading fud and investigating facts the world looks quite different.

 

[davepoobond]

I thought the big CES rumor was Fox going to Hd-dvd camp? Is this even possible now..

Like I said can't stand Sony. Good luck with profile crap when they resolve that bullshit I will buy the panasonic on the market.

Forming Hd-dvd resistance. Import your movies you want as most of the time they are better. Looks at band of brother hd-dvds...so sweet.

20/80 does not bother me.

you're stupid. how much technology/content has sony invented in the past?

not to mention how many important movies they've released.

 

[Christopher]

:lol

Oh boy oh boy I come home to work to see this. This is almost too good.

 

[Nicodimas]

you're stupid.

Naturally, I'm a Sega fan. Can't say much more can I?

 

[Mifune]

Hopefully this means more HBO shows will hit Blu-Ray.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Well, some of the anti-Sony sentiment I was told didn't exist in the thread has come bubbling up.

Frag, *why* do you hate Sony so? And as I said... DVD? They're one of three big players in that. You boycott?

 

[M3wThr33]

My hate for Sony came when they nuked the dreamcast. I left buying console games after the DC went. I will come back when/if they ever come back .

Yeah... DAMN Sony for shitting on Sega and their easily pirated, under powered, noisy, console that lacked SO many buttons on the controller, the SNES could almost outclass it.
(I still love my Dreamcast, but come on, man. Stop drinking the hater-ade)

 

[nerbo]

So much for any grace or maturity in this thread post-announcement. :lol

 

[Nicodimas]

Yeah... DAMN Sony for shitting on Sega and their easily pirated, under powered, noisy, console that lacked SO many buttons on the controller, the SNES could almost outclass it.
(I still love my Dreamcast, but come on, man. Stop drinking the hater-ade)

You would buy a box of shit as long a SONY was stamped on it? It was about the games man...the games!

(DC had tons of great games if given a chance..)

Off the DC bullshit..old argument. Sorry for the derail.

Hd-dvd will be around at least one more year because the paramount deal. Plus this means alot of cheap titles now + import of movies you miss to blu.

 

[Chiggs]

So much for any grace or maturity in this thread post-announcement. :lol

It was surprisingly calm when it was first announced.

 

[el Diablo]

Not that i believe this but maybe no money did change hands

Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group says the studio took no pay-offs to exclusively back Blu-ray.

Speaking with High-Def Digest, Tsujihara flatly denied rumors that studio had accepted anywhere from 250M to $500M in exchange for dropping its HD DVD format support.

According to the exec, Warner's sole motivation in dropping its HD DVD format support was to ensure growth of the "category" and the long-term health of the industry.

"The packaged media business is a $42 billion dollar business worldwide at the retail level, and we [Warner] have the largest market share of anybody," said Tsujihara. "From our perspective, the most important piece of this whole puzzle is, "How do we get growth back into this category?" That far outweighed anything else."

This [decision] was one hundred percent around what makes the most sense fro the consumer, the retailer and the industry. This was not a bidding war. This was all about what was best, strategically, for us."

As we've previously reported, Paramount came under this past August after it reportedly accepted $150 million in exchange for its exclusive support of HD DVD.

 

[Mifune]

Not that i believe this but maybe no money did change hands

He only denies receiving payoffs in the amount of 250 to 500 million. He says nothing about 620 million dollar ones.

 

[Big-E]

On the subject of Criterion, they mention in their FAQ they are waiting on a winner.

http://www.criterion.com/asp/faq.asp#FAQ31

We know this is a concern for many of our customers, but we honestly don’t think consumers should have to take a stand in a format war. That said, we know how good our films can look in high definition because we’ve been doing all our mastering and restoration in HD for years. But the format war has as much to do with patent licenses and pressing plants as it does with putting gorgeous images on your screen. At this point, any solution that would let consumers upgrade with confidence would be a step in the right direction, and as soon as that solution emerges, we’ll be there.

 

[Raistlin]

You would buy a box of shit as long a SONY was stamped on it? It was about the games man...the games!

And you wouldn't buy god-in-a-box if SONY was stamped on it?


Please ... just stop :lol

 

[Nicodimas]

obviously you missed my point completely. ill take it pms if your interested but drop and go to main subject.

 

[Mifune]

On the subject of Criterion, they mention in their FAQ they are waiting on a winner.

http://www.criterion.com/asp/faq.asp#FAQ31

Fan-fucking-tastic. Thanks for posting that.

 

[Pristine_Condition]

So much for any grace or maturity in this thread post-announcement. :lol

Most of the regular posters in this thread, on both sides, have been gracious.

 

[captive]

e-high five for one format future.
That includes everyone on the HD DVD side too.

Now maybe we can stop arguing about all this crap?

wtf@ digital distribution
wtf@x10 the irrational sony haters coming out of the woodwork too. :lol