Paramount's HD DVD Decision Is Anti-Consumer
By Robert Smith
HD Observer
Blades of Glory and Shrek the Third may not be Citizen Kane, but Paramount studios has apparently just taken a big payoff to deny some of their customers of these and other titles that Paramount had been promising.
According to the New York Times, HD DVD promoters are paying $150 million to Paramount/Dreamworks to pay for Paramount dropping its support of Blu-ray while retaining support of HD DVD.
Two years ago, Paramount announced that they would support both HD DVD and Blu-ray in the HDTV disc format war. Blu-ray has been selling two-to-one over HD DVD this year, and this includes Paramount titles. The last Paramount title shipped on both formats, Disturbia, had a 68:32 split in favor of Blu-ray in the most recent Videoscan survey.
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See: Swanni's 'I Can't Win the HDTV Format War'
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The speed and violence with which Paramount dropped Blu-ray are stunning. Paramount had 5 titles already announced to retailers. Withdrawal notices were sent to retailers within hours. Blades of Glory, which was due this next week, was pulled back even though it had substantial preorders and reviewers had already received copies.
Paramount will not even restock existing Blu-ray titles once titles in stores are gone. One imagines that tens of thousands of Blu-ray disks are now in a Paramount landfill someplace. This is no gradual withdrawal; it is an instant repudiation of Paramount’s customers.
This is an unprecedented event in the history of home video and packaged media. I did some research on this, and it is apparent that studios have historically taken the support of formats rather seriously. Beta, LD, and VHS were all provided soft landings, with studios continuing to support those formats until the market had really dried up and few customers were hurt. Paramount and other studios continued their historical commitments to these older formats until few customers were left to object. Nobody paid them to do otherwise.
Please click to read Part Two of this article.
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Swanni (Phillip Swann) is
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