BDA responds to the Paramount announcement

[cueman98]

From highdefdegest.com:

http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/news/

Three of the primary players in the Blu-ray camp issued a rare joint statement late Monday in response to Paramount's decision to drop support of Blu-ray.

Sent via email to various news outlets, the statement includes quotes from the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), as well as representatives of Blu-ray backing studios Disney and Fox.

In its statement, the BDA expresses what can only be described as bewilderment at why Paramount and sister studio DreamWorks would choose to exclusively support HD DVD at a time when the sales gulf between the two formats seems to be so clearly in Blu-ray's favor.

"The decision seems oddly timed given Blu-ray's tremendous momentum both with consumers and with retail," said Andy Parsons, Chairman, Blu-ray Disc Association US Promotions Committee. "Blu-ray title sales continue to outpaceHD-DVD sales by nearly a 2 to 1 margin, and major retailers have expressed a strong preference for Blu-ray.

"Moreover, the price delta between HD DVD and Blu-ray players has been greatly reduced in the past few months, a trend that is on its way to eliminating any perceived cost advantage the HD DVD format has claimed to have. Under these circumstances, we can only imagine what could have enticed Paramount to walk away from a format that is clearly selling significantly more software than the HD-DVD format."

The BDA statement appears to make thinly-veiled reference to rumors that the HD DVD camp paid Paramount/DreamWorks up to $150 million in exchange for its exclusive support, an accusation that was similarly leveled at the BDA following its widely-reported exclusivity announcements with Blockbuster and Target.

Fox and Disney, for their part, took the opportunity to showcase their own recent Blu-ray-related announcements, and to emphasize their support and excitement for the format.

Referring to Fox's announcement earlier today that it would release 29 new Blu-ray titles before the end of 2007, Mike Dunn, President Worldwide, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, said, "Given that Blu-ray has consistently outsold HD DVD all year, and this is the case for any titles released by any studio in both formats, we believe that the time is right for us to accelerate our activities and help convert the nearly 60 million high definition households worldwide into Blu-ray households."

"By the end of this calendar year there will be expansive availability of technically vibrant releases featuring never-before-seen, advanced BD-J interactivity as well as a broad offering of playback devices at attractive prices that will prove to any doubting consumers once and for all that Blu-ray is the only way."

Similarly, a statement from Bob Chapek, President of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment references the studio's commitment late last week to release four key tentpole titles in 2008: "The proven Blu-ray technology has allowed us to take our films to new heights, fully utilizing the larger capacity and interactive capabilities for an incredible all-new consumer experience. The strides that we've made with this format are just the tip of the iceberg and we are confident that consumers will be astounded by the level of entertainment that can only be achieved by using the maximum capacity of the Blu-ray Disc format."

[WriteSimply]

The DOJ definitely needs to take a look at this, especially the ones that have investigated Microsoft before.


fuad

[warhawk21114]

Hopefully someone will, sometimes when people screw others over they brag too much and wham, the sandbag hits them!!!

[CJ P]

Be careful what you wish for. If you think money hasn't been handed over by the BDA, you're being naive. Why does it seem like no one is willing to "take one for the team" though. Disney should add The Jungle book which is coming out on DVD only in October to BD. Sony should ramp up and be doing pretty much every movie Day and Date with DVD and look at "best selling" catalog titles and get those out. The problem is studios want to hold back their premium content until there is a larger isntall bass for hardware (see my comments about Star Wars in another thread). Someone needs to step up.

[warhawk21114]

I likte that thought line. Let them have their deal and we can still beat them with tactics like those!

[Need0fMany]

Originally Posted by WriteSimply

The DOJ definitely needs to take a look at this, especially the ones that have investigated Microsoft before.


fuad

That would be really great and I agree that an investigation should be done about the payouts and kickbacks. However, the truth is that the Administration in power in the US is NOT the same one as back then, the current Administration is very friendly to special interests and mega corporations. They also made sure to clean house of investigators, lawyers and judges that did not see eye to eye with them. Sorry if this doesn't sound good, it is the sad truth.

To go back on topic, the BDA response is very politically correct, as it should be so the Paramount\Dreamwork can one day come back to supporting Blu-ray once they come back to their senses and stop taking Microsoft handouts.

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by Need0fMany

That would be really great and I agree that an investigation should be done about the payouts and kickbacks. However, the truth is that the Administration in power in the US is NOT the same one as back then, the current Administration is very friendly to special interests and mega corporations.

They can claim they "were only helping with promotion" as a way to launder the money--

But back during the "Is Disney telling Sony to prevent porn?" urban-legend, one of the things we all learned about Anti-trust law is HD's own hoped-for argument against Blu: Namely that it's illegal for one company to dictate the policy of another, especially in regards to dictating what it can't produce.
Paramount may have rationalized the decision, but don't think it was Paramount that Micro was after...They wanted Dreamworks, and got to it through parent-company Viacom.
If that demonstratably prevents Paramount from continuing to support the Blu they were originally bragging about, all rise for the Judge.

To go back on topic, the BDA response is very politically correct, as it should be so the Paramount\Dreamwork can one day come back to supporting Blu-ray once they come back to their senses and stop taking Microsoft handouts.

Corporate etiquette, like political diplomacy, requires kid gloves:
BDA has to be polite for the press cameras, or if they come out saying "Hah!...It's a fix!", they end up looking like "sore losers", which is all Micro's PR needs to play up.

Which makes it difficult, when they know we know what they're thinking about Why It Happened--
But "We can only imagine why [Paramount] would walk away...", unquote, is as darn close as you can get to a flat-out public "Yeah, they 'chose' Micro's technology, cough-cough, wink-wink... "