Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by horseflesh

I generally don't like "When is xxxx coming on Blu-ray??" (ok, I know I did ask about Lolita & Barry Lyndon recently ), but I can't help asking about the one Universal "catch-up" title that interests me the most; Midnight Run.

Or in that vein, look at the missed tie-in opportunities there:

- Did nobody think of releasing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind at the same time as Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York? The HD DVD was in pretty good shape so no remastering seemed to be needed (now, Being John Malkovich is something entirely different).

Or, for that matter, Sony could have released Adaptation, which already had been released on a Superbit edition. That would be better than Universal Soldier: The Return.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Universal output- Can't say, thingss are shuffling all over

I seriously doubt we'll see the HD DVD titles in that quantity this year. They were shovelwaring those discs out, and the majority of them like Tremors were crap. There's a few I really want that need re-doing that might come this year.

Universal is still finding their feet, remember Paramount was already on the Blu train once, and Uni was starting not only from scratch, but pissed-off scratch. I'd much rather see them get it right than fast, no matter how long Tremors or Last Starfighter take to come out.

Why "pissed off scratch"? Bluray won fair and square. Are they missing those checks they gto from Toshiba.

[yobrenoops]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Why "pissed off scratch"? Bluray won fair and square. Are they missing those checks they gto from Toshiba.

I think Jeff means they (Universal) pissed off the Bluray crew by staying HD-DVD only so have a lot of work to do.

Or I might be wrong...

[Slec]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Why "pissed off scratch"? Bluray won fair and square. Are they missing those checks they gto from Toshiba.

It's a business. Imagine putting time money and resources into something, only to find out you have to start all over after 18 months...

For the studio's it's not a 'fair and square' mentality. It means having to redo all of this. Even if re-authoring doesn't occur on existing titles, I'm sure they are doing their diligence to see if it'll fly without bad press....

it's viewed internally as just throwing money away (or having thrown money away)

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Slec

It's a business. Imagine putting time money and resources into something, only to find out you have to start all over after 18 months...

For the studio's it's not a 'fair and square' mentality. It means having to redo all of this. Even if re-authoring doesn't occur on existing titles, I'm sure they are doing their diligence to see if it'll fly without bad press....

it's viewed internally as just throwing money away (or having thrown money away)

Lets be honest though, did they really throw money away if they were indeed getting the kickbacks that many insiders have hinted at?

It may never be truly known why Universal was so loyal to HD-DVD, when it was clear by 2007 that blu was the way to go.

But I will without hesitation say that Universal has done a great job so far and they can at least serve as an example of how to use a BD-25 and still have a film look good. cough *Warner* cough.

[Slec]

Originally Posted by merrick97

Lets be honest though, did they really throw money away if they were indeed getting the kickbacks that many insiders have hinted at?

It may never be truly known why Universal was so loyal to HD-DVD, when it was clear by 2007 that blu was the way to go.

But I will without hesitation say that Universal has done a great job so far and they can at least serve as an example of how to use a BD-25 and still have a film look good. cough *Warner* cough.

Right, and you budget for these things based off all sorts of metrics... All of that went out the window 14 months ago. I'm betting they were left holding some of the cost that *should* have been covered. MS stopped writing checks (if that was the case) and Toshiba was staring down the barrel of a $1B in current and future losses. There was an out in the contracts for such an occurrence (I say this based on the fact that any lawyer worth his salt would put such a clause in there...not off any knowledge or rumors)

[Jeff Kleist]

Universal made a lot of money off of HD DVD no question

They still have to start agina from scratch and have 100+ discs that they can't sell any more, and have to re-do, mostly from scratch, and often do new transfers on

And yes, Uni had no relationships, and was basically surviving on the good will toward the format more than a desire to help them personally. So they were starting from scratch in a town that wasn't happy with them in the first place

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

They still have to start agina from scratch and have 100+ discs that they can't sell any more, and have to re-do, mostly from scratch, and often do new transfers on

Hey, if I can get new transfers and new encodes which take advantage of BD storage space on the couple of make-up titles I want, I'm very happy to wait another year or so.


Of course, none of those titles are real top faves of mine, so that's pretty easy for me to say.

[MerrickG]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Universal made a lot of money off of HD DVD no question

They still have to start agina from scratch and have 100+ discs that they can't sell any more, and have to re-do, mostly from scratch, and often do new transfers on

And yes, Uni had no relationships, and was basically surviving on the good will toward the format more than a desire to help them personally. So they were starting from scratch in a town that wasn't happy with them in the first place

They couldnt have been more pissed at them than they were at Paramount.

But then again, if Universal would have used their head early on, there wouldnt have been a format war.

[Jeff Kleist]

In a business sense, they DID use their heads


They chose short term outrageous profit over growing a new format

Some people push the idea that it was all about UMD hate and getting back at Sony, that's just bull. The buy-in to UMD was quite low, and anyone who thought that was a long term viable thing, wasn't paying attention

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The buy-in to UMD was quite low, and anyone who thought that was a long term viable thing, wasn't paying attention

True dat!

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

In a business sense, they DID use their heads


They chose short term outrageous profit over growing a new format

Some people push the idea that it was all about UMD hate and getting back at Sony, that's just bull. The buy-in to UMD was quite low, and anyone who thought that was a long term viable thing, wasn't paying attention

UMD was never aimed at replacing DVD, it was basically buying what they have on DVDs now with Digital Copy. AFAIK Sony also never produced any other device capable of using it other than the PSP. It was certainly not pushed as an HD format.

[HeavyHitter]

Speaking of "midnight," I recently watched Midnight Express for the first time ever...on DVD. A great movie and true story. Any word about this one coming, Jeff?

[Jeff Kleist]

Well, one thing people have to understand about UMD

When the PSP came out, and movie purchases went through the roof, this alarm bell went off in movie studio land

Not knowing anything about the game industry for the most part, they assumed that they'd hit portable gold, that people were going to rebuy their movies at high prices. Flash forward a few months, and everyone's figured out they can rip their DVDs for free. By this time, a full UMD slate had been commissioned and authoring houses had gotten the software. Luckily you only needed to push about 5 titles through to pay that off, so most of them didn't lose money. UMD went from boom to bust in about a 5 month period. Most of them took it in stride, but I'm guessing that it made a convienient point of contention to hide the real "We didn't go Blu cause we got paid" reason

[NoQuestion]

Over on the recently listed section, Sony and Fox/MGM has a TON of new titles listed, FOX bringing a couple of seasons, the unit, dollhouse, and prison break and Sony has at least 20 new titles listed. All, however, have no release date. Can you or Bill comment on any of these? Is this a we will see these on shelves soon or we got some time before they street?

I personally are looking forward to a bunch of the newly listed titles. I hope release dates are coming shortly, just no more June 2nd titles my wallet is already drained for that day

[Jeff Kleist]

If Amazon lists something and it has a price, then an announcement won't be far away

moving into mid-summer on a lot of them, though the quick announcement on Dollhouse makes me think that it's as doomed as Terminator (which is already unjustly cancelled, and without any kind of resolution I might add, because the creators were silly enough to think they were getting another season), oh and as doomed as it was the day it was announced for the fall schedule

Now that we have a nerd in the white house, I believe there is non-partisan legislation in order forbidding Fox from airing science fiction on Fridays, or in any slot besides their prime ones, promoted by someone who's competant to promote these kinds of shows

[Doctorossi]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

Now that we have a nerd in the white house, I believe there is non-partisan legislation in order forbidding Fox from airing science fiction on Fridays, or in any slot besides their prime ones, promoted by someone who's competant to promote these kinds of shows

It's about time this legislation passed!

Anyone who doubts Obama's nerd cred need look no further than the Pac-Man sticker on his Macbook Pro.*





*not a joke!

[PeterTHX]

Originally Posted by Doctorossi

It's about time this legislation passed!

Anyone who doubts Obama's nerd cred need look no further than the Pac-Man sticker on his Macbook Pro.*

*not a joke!

Macbook doesn't say nerd.

Self-built running Linux does.

[Jeff Kleist]

The fact that he gave the Queen of England an iPod cemented that one :P

But a true nerd would have known that DVDs have region codes, or did he just assume that 10 Downing St had a region free deck like most of europe?

[aygie]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kleist

The fact that he gave the Queen of England an iPod cemented that one :P

But a true nerd would have known that DVDs have region codes, or did he just assume that 10 Downing St had a region free deck like most of europe?

That was classic when i heard about that.

He also caused a hooha when he said he needed to keep his blackberry. (Security reasons i think)