Paramount and Dreamworks Animation's decision to go exclusively HD DVD and even up the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD war has pissed off Transformers director Michael Bay. There's seriously urine all over the place. This is what he said in a post on his own forum:
I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. And the kicker.
. No Transformers 2 for me! Ouch. That's rough. But he does have a point. Why lock out people who have Blu-ray? Oh, right, money. Because HD DVD paid quite a lot for the two studios' exclusivity. [Shoot For the Edit]

Adobe's introduced a powerful new component it'll be placing into its Flash Video Player 9, adding support for that red-hot H.264 codec, the video compression routine that's behind Blu-ray, HD DVD and lots of HD goodness all over the videoscape. Adobe's also heightened the efficiency of Flash audio, adding AAC audio compression. Perhaps the most important part of the announcement is the addition of hardware acceleration for playback of all different types of full-screen video.
What does that mean for us? Over the next few months, watching video over the web (think YouTube, Myspace video, streaming video everywhere) will be noticeably improved, finally taking advantage of those fancy graphics cards you have tucked into your PCs and Macs and H.264, too. Another big plus is that the AAC audio codec is so efficient that it frees up more processor power for handling video. Adobe also told us it's slipped in better support of multi-core processors as well.
Adobe's offering t...

DreamWorks, Paramount to offer content exclusively on HD DVD format There is some good news for the HD DVD camp. Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation have announced that they would now release their movies exclusively on the HD DVD next generation format (ignoring the rival Blu-Ray format). The two companies are hoping that the upcoming holiday season [...]

Paramount and Dreamworks went HD DVD exclusive today. Then, a Hollywood news blog reported that the HD DVD camp paid Paramount $50 million and DreamWorks Animation $100 million for "promotional consideration." We asked Paramount and the HD DVD camp about this, and received a quick albeit vague reply: "Whenever we conduct co-marketing, production deals or other agreements, we never discuss business terms."
I take that as a confirmation of sorts—certainly it isn't a denial—but is it bad, or even out of the ordinary? Let's get some context. First, here's a fuller version of what transpired today:
When reporting the Paramount/DreamWorks Animation announcement, Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily wrote this:Note how there's no mention of the money Paramount (I'm told $50 million) and DreamWorks Animation (I'm told $100 million) is receiving for "promotional consideration" from the HD DVD side to continue with what is widely recognized as the losing high-def f...

Today, a Hollywood news blog reported that the HD DVD camp paid Paramount $50 million and DreamWorks Animation $100 million for "promotional consideration." We asked Paramount and the HD DVD camp about this, and received a quick albeit vague reply: "Whenever we conduct co-marketing, production deals or other agreements, we never discuss business terms." I take that as a confirmation of sorts—certainly it isn't a denial—but is it bad, or even out of the ordinary? Let's get some context.
First, here's a fuller version of what transpired today:
When reporting the Paramount/DreamWorks Animation announcement, Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily wrote this:Note how there's no mention of the money Paramount (I'm told $50 million) and DreamWorks Animation (I'm told $100 million) is receiving for "promotional consideration" from the HD DVD side to continue with what is widely recognized as the losing high-def format.We're sure Nikki's a good person and a fine repo...

Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc said on Monday they will release their DVD titles exclusively on HD DVD, the high-definition digital movie format whose sales have lagged those of rival Blu-Ray so far this year.

Perhaps in spin-response to the Paramount news from this AM, a Blu ray Consortium rep just called me to tell me Fox is supporting Blu-ray. What's weird is that they're already supposed to be supporting Blu-ray. Everyone is entitled to defend their own turf, but in order to spin the news, you have to have facts that are actually news. I guess the news should be that Fox isn't ditching Blu-ray, as it seemed they were going to since they haven't released a disc on that format since April, according to Wikipedia, and haven't had any plans to.
The thing is, Fox hasn't released a blu disc in months. That's weird because they were part of the board that created Blu. They were the ones gunning for all that deep DRM. We'll update you when the release comes out, because we're hoping that they at least mention some movie titles.
But as you can see in our chart from this morning, there has been no real change, Except for Paramount going to HD DVD exclusively.
Blu-ra...

Now that Paramount and Dreamworks Animation have just announced to exclusively support the HD DVD format, we thought it was time to revisit the current status of studio support for both Blu-ray and HD DVD. At last check, Blu-ray had all but a few studios locked down in their camp, with HD DVD trailing far behind. Has it changed?
Blu-ray HD DVD Columbia Pictures(1), MGM (1,3) Yes No Disney Yes No Dreamworks (4) No Yes HBO Yes Yes First Look Studios No Yes Fox (3) Yes No Image Entertainment Yes Yes Lionsgate Yes No Magnolia Pictures Yes Yes New Line Cinema Yes Yes Paramount (2) No Yes Porn Studios (7) No (except for Vivid) Yes Studio Canal Yes Yes Universal Studios (5) No Yes Warner Bros. (6) Yes Yes The Weinstein Company/Dimension ...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Affiliations in the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray format war have been pretty clearly defined for nearly two years now -- despite a hybrid player here and some international releases there, most of the players involved have not switched support since the early days. Well that's all about to change, as Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Animation -- which started off HD DVD only before deciding to go both ways -- have officially announced plans to release movies exclusively on HD DVD, dropping Blu-ray support entirely. This means that hits like Transformers, Shrek the Third and Blades of Glory won't follow Mission: Impossible III as cross-format releases when they debut this holiday season. Paramount has released about 30 movies on Blu-ray so far, but those days have come to an end: apparently cheaper HD players trump a 2:1 sales advantage. We can't wait to see how the Blu-ray camp responds to this.

[Thanks to everyone ...

Every time I feel ready to declare Blu-ray a winner by technical knock-out, HD DVD fights back—hard. Today Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation announced that it would be releasing movies exclusively on HD DVD, starting with Blades of Glory, Transformers and Shrek the Third.
This is a pretty sizable deal, which includes movies from Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies, MTV Films. The reason DreamWorks Animation gets lumped in is that it uses Paramount for home-video distribution. Paramount had been playing the Warner Bros. game by releasing movies on both platforms. The reasons for the decision to ditch Blu-ray and put all their chips on HD DVD: "market-ready technology and lower manufacturing costs."

PARAMOUNT AND DREAMWORKS ANIMATION EACH DECLARE EXCLUSIVE SUPPORT FOR HD DVD Movies Distributed by Paramount Home Entertainment Including Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Animation SKG, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV ...