Why no announcements from Universal?

[JoeSp]

Did anyone else think it suspicious that Universal who for the last 6 months has been touting HD-DVD every chance they get has suddenly gone silent during one of the most important public events the CES 2007? I know that their excusivity contract with HD-DVD was up the end of 2006. Is it possible that Universal might just be rethinking their posistion and might be moving towards producing their movies also on BluRay?

When HD-DVD needed big news from their supporters the biggest studio providing HD-DVD only support at this time stood silent. No new release news. While all the BluRay studios were putting out great lists of titles to be released in 2007 the only studios showing HD-DVD any love was the porn industry. Not what I would say is great news (except for you perverts out there). This silence from one of the most outspoken HD-DVD advocates could not of come at a worse time for HD-DVD.

The combo player is a bust. While it will play HD-DVD movies it will not support any of the iHD interactive menus on the disc. The player will use BD-Java to create menus for the HD-DVD movies. And the price of $1199 is not going to make it a mass market product.

Sales of BluRay movies increased 700% while BluRay outsold HD-DVD by 20% the last week of 2006. Most studios have been reporting sharp increases in the sales of their BluRay titles during December. I guess the PS3 lauch really didn't have alot to do with that.

Still, to me the most damaging to the HD-DVD camp is the silence from Universal. When your bigest gun comes to the party and does not even unholster the gun this can not bode well for HD-DVD.

Still all is not bad, there will be cheap HD-DVD players from China for the US market the last half of 2007. There will be porn on HD-DVD by February. And finally, Bill Gates has hinted that he might just start making his own M$ branded standalone HD-DVD player. Those of you hoping for a M$ dominated world can now rejoice.

 

[teamerickson]

The agenda at CES for HD DVD was hardware, and for Blue-Ray it was software support.

 

[teamerickson]

Sales of BluRay movies increased 700% while BluRay outsold HD-DVD by 20% the last week of 2006. Most studios have been reporting sharp increases in the sales of their BluRay titles during December. I guess the PS3 lauch really didn't have alot to do with that.

Can you please indicate where you got that info. Please use something other then a Blue-Ray exec's statement from CES.

 

[teachsac]

Joe, Joe, Joe....

Being format neutral let me take the spin off of your posted info.

1. Universal was not silent at CES. Universal is the chairman of the HDDVD group and gave the keynote address at CES. They wholeheartedly gave their support to HDDVD. Universal is committed to the interactivity of HDi. Java interactivity is still not where it needs to be.

CES take: A wash

CES is a consumer electroncis show. That is what HD-DVD focused on. BDA focused on chest pounding and movie titles. There are approximately 16,000 DVD titles. Neither format can come close to matching that. BD made their announcements and some release dates. HD-DVD is set to have a total of 600 HDDVD titles world-wide by the end of the year. There will be announcements as to release dates soon. And..... HD-DVD is region free.

HDDVD: Announced new manufacturers including ONKYO, Meridian, and several Korean companies. The latter will bring low priced players into the hands of J6P. Meridian will bring a very high end player. HP has announced an inexpensive HDDVD drive for computers that can not be matched by BD.

BD: No new support from CE manufacturers. No new low cost players to bring into the average home. The only less expensive player was the Samsung for $799. Studios finally quit dragging their feet and are announcing titles that could/should have been announced or released.

Studio support: No studio has switched alliances at this time. Executives could switch on a dime and release titles within a month; however, there are manufacturing and other difficulties that still need to be overcome in the BD camp. HDDVD is readily available, inexpensive, and offers high quality.

Neither camp is going away for now. Overall, HDDVD offers the better value to consumers and manufacturers. THis might change later on.

For now, Enjoy your format of choice. If you choose BR, great... If you choose HD-DVD.... that's great, too. If you have both, then you can enjoy it all.

S~

 

[mike123abc]

Universal pictures suffers from a lack of recent hit movies. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about them cutting back to smaller movies to try to save $$. Their budget was cut by $750 million by NBC-Universal. They made up some of the cutback by opening up their library a lot last year in both DVD and HD DVD. But, they did not have big hit movies in theaters. Evan All Mighty is their last big budget pic to be released (it was in pipeline before the cutbacks). They are worried about Evan not making back the huge budget already. They cancelled a bunch of projects because of the budget.

The Journal article quoted them as stressing their commitment to HD DVD. But it is hard to influence the standard without the big hit movies to be released. Once they go through their library on HD DVD they are hurting.

They did not give any hints of starting up BluRay releases yet.

 

[Sarang]

Universal pictures suffers from a lack of recent hit movies. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about them cutting back to smaller movies to try to save $$. Their budget was cut by $750 million by NBC-Universal. They made up some of the cutback by opening up their library a lot last year in both DVD and HD DVD. But, they did not have big hit movies in theaters. Evan All Mighty is their last big budget pic to be released (it was in pipeline before the cutbacks). They are worried about Evan not making back the huge budget already. They cancelled a bunch of projects because of the budget.

The Journal article quoted them as stressing their commitment to HD DVD. But it is hard to influence the standard without the big hit movies to be released. Once they go through their library on HD DVD they are hurting.

They did not give any hints of starting up BluRay releases yet.

They still have "Jurassic Park" and many others to release.

 

[Sarang]

Does anyone have a link to all the films Universal has the rights to in the U.S.

 

[BobMurdoch]

Battlestar Galactica series sets in HD DVD should win over a few folks. Coming in 2007....