Why the Paramount deal doesn't matter

[Proteus]

The PS3 will upscale to 1080i just like any upscaling DVD player. You must use HDMI cables for it to work though.

Back on topic:

In reality, this is squat.

They have two good franchises, Transformers and Shrek, and that's it. All of their other good franchises are excluded from the deal due to Spielberg or the 'financial level' clause.

HDDVD promotions group (largely funded by Microsoft) spent $150mil just to be sure they didn't go completely out of business when Blu-ray dropped 10+ mega AAA titles by Xmas. So, now HDDVD has two AAA titles... wow.

I think Blu-ray will be fine as long as no other studios are stupid enough to fall into this kind of slippery slope.

The media really needs to do a better job of covering this and getting the truth out to the public.

There will likely come a time when _retailers_ will be fed up with all of this and want to actually save their consumers from this nonsense. I'm hoping that retailers will do the right thing at this point and end this war for the studios by jumping behind the superior format (which is Blu-ray both technically and industry support wise). It is very much in their best interest to do so because if they are so uninformed as to see what is going on and how digital downloading will _destroy_ their packaged media revenue completely... Well, they deserve to lose the billions of dollars then, I guess.

Retailers: It's time to pick a side or risk getting stuck with the increasingly declining sales of DVD and no new hot packaged media to bolster revenue... Digital downloading will ruin your packaged media profits, no question.

[Krazy]

Just a quick look at the numbers shows why it doesn't matter:

2 big titles on Paramount (Transformers and Shrek 3) vs. 29+ titles on FOX and Disney coming out this 4Q, I could easily wait 18 months (or maybe even do without if Viacom gets another "donation" from the HD-Dead guys) months when there's lots of other great movies from BD studios to choose from

There's also the fact that the current BD studios would never go HD-Dead for these simple reasons:

Sony Pictures: the name says it all
Disney: wants the PQ/AQ that HD-Dead doesn't deliver
Fox: wants the security that HD-Dead doesn't deliver either