Archived: Insiders Thread

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by patrick99

The obvious next question is, when?

Sorry Patrick, an announcement like that is truly a defining moment in the format war and it would be disrespectful of me (and possibly counterproductive) to even hint as to when I think they will make it.

That is up to WB and only WB to indicate when a major announcement like format exclusivity will be forthcoming.
I’m actually a tad surprised that Mr. Burns even revealed the rumor publicly to BusinessWeek but, I guess if you’re Vice Chairman of a major studio, you can do pretty much whatever you want to, if you’ve covered all your bases.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by kurtlingle

Penton-man and Insiders.

Are there any rumors in Hollywood on when WB plans to announce any change on going exclusive? We've all read the rumor thread but are there any rumors on timing?

:-)

Thanks!
Kurt

See my post above.
This is just way too sensitive for me to say anything much more about.

[Penton-Man]

Originally Posted by patrick99

Best supporting actor (Casey Affleck) from the National Board of Review, the first awards of the season.

That virtually guarantees an Oscar nomination as 9 of the last 10 NBR picks for Best Supporting Actor have been nominated.

As to who is/are the current front runners to win that category?
The buzz is Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) or Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson’s War).

[jknuss01]

The interesting part of this.... from what I know about Hollywood politics (which is not a lot) ... is every studio wants the spotlight.

Now if the Universal hint is true, as well as the Warner one .. whichever stuidio announces first is going to be seen as the hero (with the other following suit). True or not, that will be the perception. That being said, it seems like any planned timetable for an announcement may have just gone out the window with this rumor "leak", as each studio may try to sneak in an announcment now before the other....

I may be way...way.. off..but it sure makes sense to me

[Alan Gordon]

Insiders:

Early this year, Sony (or somebody connected to the BDA) "leaked" sales figures for HDM releases which gave everybody the first proof that titles sold better on Blu-ray than HD DVD (which proved a lot of people wrong).

My question is this, even though the studios are/should be well aware of the sales ratio, could the BDA release another (updated) one to drive home that point to the public/press?

A week before CES would probably be a good time!

~Alan

[kurtlingle]

Originally Posted by Penton-Man

See my post above.
This is just way too sensitive for me to say anything much more about.

Thanks Penton-man. Believe it or not, I was not asking the date, just rumors of a date.... :-) I'm sure there must be rumors.... oh well --- we will wait patiently to hear from WB.

What a day that will be!

[androvsky]

Originally Posted by kurtlingle

Thanks Penton-man. Believe it or not, I was not asking the date, just rumors of a date.... :-) I'm sure there must be rumors.... oh well --- we will wait patiently to hear from WB.

What a day that will be!

This sounds like one of the times when it's left to non-insiders to speculate (yeah, probably in another thread, I know, sorry). But most of the major release events for the season have happened, and the biggest one for WB would be the Harry Potter release. All they really need are a couple weeks of numbers for that. Keep in mind WB isn't a hive mind, I'm sure they have blu-ray fans as well as HD-DVD fans in important places, so to pick sides they'll probably want some solid numbers to give to people that want to wait for the next Toshiba desperation move. Well, Black Friday is over, Transformers is over, WB's biggest HD release of the year is over. Or WB might be waiting for Universal to go neutral for all we know (which won't happen until Bourne sales fail to impress).

So really, any time between Monday and CES is likely. Depends on how big of a commotion they want to make. We'll wake up on day to a press release from WB going "Hay guys we're blu now". Don't forget we'll probably have to put up with a good year or so of HD-DVD fans yelling about how Sony must've bribed Warners (especially if a co-marketing agreement is revealed).

[Esox50]

According to plazman @ AVS Forum, Penton-Man is an expert googler & insider wanna-be who has brought nothing original to the whole internet BD vs. HD DVD debate. (Sorry Penton-Man, I really couldn't resist me and you having another laugh at plazman's expense. )

Seriously, Penton-Man has been confirmed by the Mods. What would be an interesting story one of these days, Penton, is what was the deal with the whole "affirmed" insider status at AVS? I would swear it was under your name, but didn't you request its removal or something. I cannot remember.

[JAGUAR1977]

Sorry Patrick, an announcement like that is truly a defining moment in the format war and it would be disrespectful of me (and possibly counterproductive) to even hint as to when I think they will make it.

That is up to WB and only WB to indicate when a major announcement like format exclusivity will be forthcoming.
I’m actually a tad surprised that Mr. Burns even revealed the rumor publicly to BusinessWeek but, I guess if you’re Vice Chairman of a major studio, you can do pretty much whatever you want to, if you’ve covered all your bases.

Are insiders and the BDA fully aware how crucial it is to secure Warner, either exclusively or with a guaranteed dual format deal?

Are the likes of Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, etc. aware that if WB was to go HD-DVD exclusive, both formats will remain niche products, they'd be handing the future movie industry on a plate to Microsoft, DVD would slowly die with Microsoft swiping away their business with downloads.

I don't know why, but I sometimes get the feeling the BDA believe they could cope with the loss of WB, and still grow the business alongside HD-DVD. Personally I don't see ANY appetite from Blu-ray owners to buy another format and continue supprting Blu-ray in the numbers they are, when we've done our part to win every single week this year, especially as Europe, Japan and Australia have embraced the format almost exclusively.

If the movie industry, studios and CE's, ignore consumers wishes they will never be forgiven. The VHS vs Beta wars are still talked of today, this would be the last straw, never again will consumers invest in a new format like they did with DVD.

I can see users on both sides desterting the formats if no decision on WB is made by the end of January, consumers, especially early adopters, have run out of patience, it's time for the BDA and WB to close the deal and focus on the next 5-10 years, not week to week, month to month.

[MerrickG]

Here is an ambitious question for the insiders:

Would Sony be willing to offer Warner the MGM catalogue if that is what it came down to, as long as it was agreed that MGM stayed bluray exclusive?
Afterall, it has been said that the main reason Sony purchased MGM was to force them to support bluray exclusively.

Afterall, that is something that neither Toshiba or MS could match.

I dont expect to get an answer to this, but my curiosity got the best of me

[richteer]

THe second bit first: this site (privately) verifies the credentials of posters wanting to claim insider status. Once they have proven they are who they say they are in the position they claim to be in, insider status is granted. So yeah, Penton-man is an insider, and you can take that to the bank.

As for the 1st question: you should believe what he writes because he's correct much more often than he's wrong. Not to mention, his posts are most entertaining! :-)

Penton, like paidgeek and all the other insiders here, is a class act. When you're on the winning team, you don't need to resort to lies and fabrications like certain members of the red faction.

[WickyWoo]

As for the new people asking about Penton

We don't know who he is, but people who we do know who they are and are 100% confirmed to be in positions of the know have vouched for him, and that's good enough for me.

And yes Penton has proven time and again he has the insider knowlege to be worthy of the title

If you see someone with an "Insider" title on this site, it's not there by accident, and you can be sure that they have proven themselves to be worthy of being annointed as a fountain of information

[blindcat87]

Insiders can correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that WB, not having a propaganda/PR reason to do so like the Red line does, is smart enough to not discount the PS3 as a player. While one cannot count 100 percent of them as being used as players, the percentage is much higher than Tosh/MS would like you to believe. I am legally blind and can't play most modern games, so what do you think I have my PS3 for? I live in a small town in nowhere southern NM, and yet every PS3 owner I know uses the player for movies, including many with no HDTV as of yet.

Chris

[hollywoodguy]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

The damage control that went in on Friday after the article was published

From which side? Blu because of the leak, or red to prevent it from happening?

[Beta-guy]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Seconded.

Guys this really is incredibly sensitive and while I would love to spill the details, as P-Man says, it would be counter-productive of any of anyone to do so. The damage control that went in on Friday after the article was published was something I would rather not have to sit through again.

I just want to thank you and Penton, for the work you guys do, it's nice to get a heads up every now and then, I respect the work you do, I know it can't be easy, and if it means we are in the dark for a while longer on this topic, then that's fine with me.

[Elandyll]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Seconded.

Guys this really is incredibly sensitive and while I would love to spill the details, as P-Man says, it would be counter-productive of any of anyone to do so. The damage control that went in on Friday after the article was published was something I would rather not have to sit through again.

dmg control? Where?
Was there any WB anouncement saying "We haven't made any committment so far .." or something of the like ?

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Seconded.

Guys this really is incredibly sensitive and while I would love to spill the details, as P-Man says, it would be counter-productive of any of anyone to do so. The damage control that went in on Friday after the article was published was something I would rather not have to sit through again.

Well damn. When I saw that article the first question I asked myself is if these public comments do more harm than good.

Of course, the other bit of speculation is that these leaks are actually intentional to ease the public into the likely hood that they will drop HD-DVD.

Thanks, Penton, Max and paidgeek.


Out of curiosity, once the format war is over, can we expect yall to reveal your real names?

[cking2729]

Penton,

I understand that it's a sensitive subject and you may not be able to comment, but are you familiar with 'Lotus' on the AvRev forum? He seems like a DuD insider, and some folks in other threads here have mentioned his similarities to Amir. I have to agree:

http://www.avrevforum.com/showthread...=7324#post7324
http://www.avrevforum.com/showthread.php?t=1155

He does have some seemingly accurate data, but he also seems like he is spinning and FUDding. One thing that caught my attention is that he claims that M$ and Sony are in a bidding war over Warner and M$ is planning to counter and double Sony's offer.

Here is a post regarding Sony offer and the recent BusinessWeek article:

"I heard about the Sony offer on Tuesday and on Wednesday heard that MS will be doubling it.

If Business Week had been looking the week before they'd have printed the opposite thing. I said last week that Warner was officially for sale.

They are and it's an auction. Sony made a counter bid, and now MS is."

If you can comment, what do you make of all this?

[Esox50]

I was going to wait to post this question until Jan. 8, 2008, which is the day that The Rock is released in North America on Blu-Ray Disc. Now, it's not really a technical or Blu-Ray question, but since we have some Hollywood Insiders here, I figured this is my only shot to get the question answered. Anyway, here we go:

The Rock is dedicated to the late Don Simpson, former producing partner of Jerry Bruckheimer (you know, Top Gun, The Rock, Pirates of the Carribean, Bad Boys, et al). Now, back in the early/mid 1980's Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer rose to huge stardom, and they got a lucrative deal that set them up at Paramount. Don Simpson was well known as a "work hard, play hard" type of guy, and for "crossing the line."

There is an "incident" that is the stuff of urban legend and I would love to know if it's confirmed/true. Supposedly, late one night, the member of a cleaning crew saw a completely naked "un-named" actress come running hysterically out of Don Simpson's office, followed shortly thereafter by Don Simpson chasing after her down the hall at Paramount Pictures with a semi-auto 9mm gun.

Fact or Fiction? Penton, you seem to go back a ways, and this seems right up your alley.

[mystiksuicide]

Originally Posted by dustin410

Who is this "Penton-man" character, and why should I believe what he writes?

Just asking a question. Is he really an "Insider" and is he right most of the time?

I want to believe.

Penton-man is The Man and that's all we need to know. If he says it it's a fact!!!