Is there any reason why Para and Uni are still red (besides stupidity)?

[Nerdkiller likes BD]

I made a thread around a week ago on why Para and Uni are still with the red fire ants and things didn't turn out the way I expected it to be. I was hoing for something like "they're being payed to do it" but all I usually got was stupidity. Granted, I probably believe anyone with that situation right now, i.e. Nat Geo gone BD exclusive, people returning more HD DVD players than the stores are selling and other bad press for the red camp, but I want a better and more inteligent reason why. Let me know anything.

[Scrapanatchi]

I've heared they are having meetings and discussions @ a dvdforum event today

there is a number of reasons they are still with hd dvd one is they want to help toshiba move some stock. or they still think the hd dvd business is still doing fine. but a thing like this takes time.

[stockstar1138]

1. Universal was retarded and did not encode their movies properly to port them to blu-ray. Its going to be months even if they announced neutrality today for them to get movies to the market.

2. Both studios have millions of dollars of HD DVDs out on the market. if they announce neutraility today, the war is over, no retailers will carry hd dvd anymore, end of story, Universal and Paramount are out millions. it is better for them to act confident in hd dvd, sell/firesale off the rest of their movies, then when stock has been depleated significantly (in months, you just watch, we are going to see bogo every week for HD DVD from here on out) they are going to drop the bomb.

3. What does it say in Paramount's contract. Cause if it states that WB has to stop releasing HD DVD, then they gotta wait til June to announce neutrality/exclusive.

3 good reasons why they aren't going to switch til a little later this year, just be patient.

[nhaase]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

2. Both studios have millions of dollars of HD DVDs out on the market. if they announce neutraility today, the war is over, no retailers will carry hd dvd anymore, end of story, Universal and Paramount are out millions. it is better for them to act confident in hd dvd, sell/firesale off the rest of their movies, then when stock has been depleated significantly (in months, you just watch, we are going to see bogo every week for HD DVD from here on out) they are going to drop the bomb.

It would be nice to see how much of their future titles they ship. We've said many times about how they need to sell through stock, but in doing so, they would also be producing less of future releases, so they don't end up w/ stock of those titles left. That could be seen if there are availability problems w/ titles like American Gangster and Beowulf.

[Clark Kent]

Apparently the Warner decision shocked both Universal and Paramount. Even last year they knew HD DVD was never going to be the dominant format but my speculation is that they thought the market would eventually go dual-format. But with the recent turn of events and Microsoft basically abandoning the format they can see the writing on the wall.

Internally they've probably already made the decision to go at least neutral at some point but it could take months before they'd announce anything. Paramount has financial incentives to stick with HD DVD temporarily and Universal apparently never did any prep work for what exactly happened(ie Blu-ray totally winning the format war). Rome wasn't built in a day...

[Bullseye]

The thing about Paramount is that they have a few movies already prepped for BD including Transformers so they could get back on the horse pretty quickly. I just hope they don't wait too long. I figure Universal will be the last to jump ship.

[Kirsty_Mc]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

1. Universal was retarded and did not encode their movies properly to port them to blu-ray. Its going to be months even if they announced neutrality today for them to get movies to the market.

2. Both studios have millions of dollars of HD DVDs out on the market. if they announce neutraility today, the war is over, no retailers will carry hd dvd anymore, end of story, Universal and Paramount are out millions. it is better for them to act confident in hd dvd, sell/firesale off the rest of their movies, then when stock has been depleated significantly (in months, you just watch, we are going to see bogo every week for HD DVD from here on out) they are going to drop the bomb.

3. What does it say in Paramount's contract. Cause if it states that WB has to stop releasing HD DVD, then they gotta wait til June to announce neutrality/exclusive.

3 good reasons why they aren't going to switch til a little later this year, just be patient.

In that case it will be a long time coming. Most of the HD-DVD fanboys will already have most of the titles. If not many suckers are buying into HD-DVD, then there's not much of a market for them. If folk are indeed returning their most unsophisticated hardware, then they are going to have a hell of a time shifting their stocks.

At this rate it could be years

I think that they will just have to write these stocks off... No one at Universal or Paramount will be leaving rings on their desk for a long time indeed

[Blu Titan]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

1. Universal was retarded and did not encode their movies properly to port them to blu-ray. Its going to be months even if they announced neutrality today for them to get movies to the market.

2. Both studios have millions of dollars of HD DVDs out on the market. if they announce neutraility today, the war is over, no retailers will carry hd dvd anymore, end of story, Universal and Paramount are out millions. it is better for them to act confident in hd dvd, sell/firesale off the rest of their movies, then when stock has been depleated significantly (in months, you just watch, we are going to see bogo every week for HD DVD from here on out) they are going to drop the bomb.

3. What does it say in Paramount's contract. Cause if it states that WB has to stop releasing HD DVD, then they gotta wait til June to announce neutrality/exclusive.

3 good reasons why they aren't going to switch til a little later this year, just be patient.

Very good points! Dreamworks and Paramount should be ready to release in June, since they already have the necessary encodes.