Proof That Paramount Did The Wrong Thing

[welwynnick]

This post has been rattling around in my head for weeks, so it’s time to let it out. Paramount switched to HD DVD in August, but didn’t say it was motivated by any external inducements. Instead, they justified it with the following list of reasons for adopting HDDVD, paraphrased from the PCWorld interview with CTO Alan Bell:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136253-c,dvdtechnology/article.html

1. Player prices are lower
2. Supported by the DVD forum
3. Replication on existing DVD plant
4. Mandatory, standardized, proven functionality
5. Migration doesn’t leave early adopters behind
6. Disc capacity only one element of choice
7. Capacity not an over-riding factor
8. 30GB is sufficient for 3-4 hours
9. Overflowing bonus material onto second disc is no disadvantage
10. HDi is sufficiently flexible, but reliable and simple to implement

While those are my actual words, they are a fair reflection of what Bell said. This shows the reasoning behind their justification. Remember before the format war, when the studios were deciding who to support? The studios that went with HDDVD duly ignored Blu-ray, and quoted the advantages of HDDVD to justify their decisions. The reasons they gave obviously didn’t have the benefit of any hindsight, and could only speculate what factors might lead to a successful campaign.

And what were the reasons they would have used? The very same reasons Paramount gave, above. So, more than a year into the format war and HDDVD still doesn’t have any better reasons. In that time, Blu-ray has proven that in spite of more expensive players, they have still sold more discs. That is material proof that those reasons were not valid before the format war, yet they are the same reasons that Paramount try to use to justify their new direction. They are the wrong reasons, that don’t work and won’t beat the core, fundamental market forces.

Paramount didn’t have any good reasons to join HDDVD, so they had to take the low ground and take the money, knowing they were taking their decision for the wrong reasons. Only Blu-ray has generated new reasons to extend their support. I know this won’t change the views of any Blu supporters, but I wanted to explain my view of some of the reasoning behind the format war.

Best regards, Nick