Toshiba
officially announced two days ago the impending discontinuation of their HD DVD format, handing a victory in the high definition format war to Sony's Blu-ray Disc. Afterwards, speculation immediately turned to how soon the two major studios exclusively supporting HD DVD would switch and "go Blu". The studio with the longest time supporting HD DVD with titles, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, actually made that switch within hours, per a statement issued by USHE president Craig Kornblau and sent directly to any interested news source (TV Guide-owned TVShowsOnDVD.com
received it immediately upon request).
Viacom-owned Paramount Home Entertainment had previously been a supporter of both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, releasing titles in each of those formats. But in August 2007 the studio, along with sister company Dreamworks Animation, suddenly
announced that they would immediately cease Blu-ray software production and cancel all schedule titles in the format, supporting HD DVD exclusively. After Toshiba's announcement ending the rival format, and Universal's quick move to distance itself from HD DVD and join the other majors in the Blu-ray camp, Paramount seemingly found itself in the odd position of "being left holding the bag" for HD DVD.
In fact, in a completely coincidental move, Paramount Home Entertainment had already scheduled automatically-posted announcements for two new HD DVD titles to go up on the same day Toshiba made their announcement. PHE's password-protect retailer/press site listed an April 1st high-def release of Johnny Depp's
Sweeney Todd, and an April 8th bow for Daniel Day-Lewis in
There Will Be Blood. Late yesterday, however, visitors with the authorization to visit that site noticed that the announcement listing for
Blood had been removed, in both DVD and HD DVD formats, indicating a removal of those items from the schedule (
Sweeney Todd is still present, though). More telling was that a front page link, leading to a convenient list of all 50-odd HD DVD titles Paramount has released or announced, had been taken off and was no longer there.
This morning
The Hollywood Reporter obtained an exclusive statement from Paramount Home Entertainment, stating that it's in the consumer interest for the industry to adopt a single high-def format, and that "As we look to (begin) releasing our titles on Blu-ray, we will monitor consumer adoption and determine our release plans accordingly." Not much more was quoted from the studio's statement, but the intent is clear: Paramount has gone back to Blu. Dreamworks Animation was not specifically mentioned in the story as switching back, but the presumption is there that they will follow PHE's lead.
No specific titles have been announced in the Blu-ray format by either Universal or Paramount at this time, and it may be a little while before these two studios can gear up and get work done developing those releases and scheduling them for release. Paramount does have a few titles "in the can", though, which were going to be released on Blu-ray Disc this past Summer/Fall (before they switched to HD DVD), and these could potentially hit the market fast. Among them are
Blades of Glory, Top Gun and
The Jack Ryan Collection (with
Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and
The Sum of All Fears). It's worth noting here, though, that it was
reported this past Monday that the Toshiba-funded HD DVD development for "remastered"
Star Trek - Season 2 episodes was completely halted, most likely due to the impending change.
Warner Brothers had
switched in early January from dual-format support, to supporting only Blu-ray, and most of us agree that this spelled the beginning of the end for HD DVD. With the switch now by the final two major studios, all 8 of the big Hollywood names are now solidly behind the Blu-ray Disc format: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, MGM Home Entertainment (distributed by Fox), Warner Home Video, Lionsgate Entertainment (usually described as a "mini-major"), Universal Studios Home Entertainment and now Paramount Home Entertainment. A long list of smaller, independent studios have also announced support for Blu-ray Disc.
We've seen no word of reaction yet from NME, makers of the "third" high definition video disc format known as HD VMD. We first
spoke of the format last October, and we had a more in-depth
look at it in November. NME's strategy seems to be more niche-oriented at the moment, targeting the worldwide market with inexpensive offerings and often with specific content such as Bollywood films. But they also do have
plans for further development in North America. However, it does not appear that the discontinuation of Toshiba's HD DVD format will affect their strategy.
Yesterday also saw major online retailer Amazon.com
issue a statement expressing support for Blu-ray Disc. At the same time Amazon put some additional HD DVD titles
on sale, including television sets such as
The Sopranos, Smallville and
Nip/Tuck. In a story about Amazon's move, trade magazine
Video Business reported that online retailer DVDEmpire had also made a similar statement of Blu-ray support. DVDEmpire's Shannon Nutt made it clear that they will continue to fill orders for HD DVD titles, but that there are plans in the works to put their "entire HD DVD inventory" on sale in the near future.
These statements of solidarity with Blu-ray Disc by Amazon and DVDEmpire follow similar moves last week by fellow retailers Best Buy and Wal-Mart, and by online rentailer NetFlix. The other major rentailer, Blockbuster Video, was the first seller to express support for Blu-ray over HD DVD. That was way back in June, 2007.
What do you say? Now that all the big studios (and sellers, apparently) are behind Blu-ray Disc, what titles would you most like to see? Certain titles released in Blu-ray High Definition could possibly drive the adaption of the format. Which ones do you think will help make people want to upgrade? What do YOU want? We're
taking comments about this at the TVGuide.com blog "DVD News & Reviews", where an abbreviated version of this story is also posted. Let us, and the studios, know!
