Will Paramount/Universal come to Blu-ray?

[The Shrike]

Originally Posted by MovieMan19

I work for a major online retailer so I know what incentives are being offered from the various studios.

I don't suppose the online retailer you work for would be this site, www.hddvdworld.com, which you hocked to us in the only thread you ever created, seen here https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=15237, would it? I would hope not, because you certainly didn't act as though you worked there when you posted the ad, I mean, recommendation. Odd name for a site, huh?

[The Shrike]

The biggest shame about www.hddvdworld.com, is apparently, they've been ripping off people! There's even an entire thread devoted to it at HiDefDigest here http://forums.highdefdigest.com/arch...p/t-10252.html

Crazy!

[Papi4baby]

Originally Posted by MovieMan19

If you don't want to believe that Disney offered retailers incentives to push their Blu-Rays that is your choice but it is true. Any distributor, namely VPD or Ingram who supplies most of the retailers in the country would also confirm that Disney offered this program to retailers.

That is common practice. You said incentives. A friend of mine works as salesman at a motorcycle dealer, everytime he sells a certain bike he gets a reward from the manufacturer on the manufacturer cash card. Same applies to big electronics. HDM being new technology i asumed that they would do the same.

[stringent]

Isn't that basically commission?

Sell my Ferrari rather than that Aston and we will give you a £500 bonus.

[scragham]

Originally Posted by MovieMan19

If you don't want to believe that Disney offered retailers incentives to push their Blu-Rays that is your choice but it is true. Any distributor, namely VPD or Ingram who supplies most of the retailers in the country would also confirm that Disney offered this program to retailers.

wow, this news IS shocking.

no, really, it's not.

disney is offering retailers incentives to push their BD discs? you mean, on the discs that have higher margins now and in the future (especially compared with SD-DVDs where the margins are getting more commodity-like)?

just like gillette might offer a retailer incentives to push their newest razor, where they have the highest margins?

SHOCKING. TRULY SHOCKING.

and you have yet to provide any evidence from a reputable source that the BD's incentives to anyone are anything out of the ordinary. unlike, say, articles from the NYT (which specifically names an incentive package worth $150 mill in cash and otherwise to P/DW) and the WSJ. hop to it, HD DVD fanboy in disguise.

[TheTenth]

It seems there are "legal" ways to get over this shocking agreement : even if Paramount is the leagal distributor of Transformers in the USA, it's not the case in all countries (especially Europe).
A German distributor (Concorde entertainment I think) released a new version (enhanced audio) of the Phantom of the Opera without having to ask authorization from Warner Bros ...

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by MovieMan19

People complaining about the Paramount payoff need to realize that Sony & the BDA started this first. Target & BJ's were both offered alot of money to double the size for their Blu-Ray sections as was Blockbuster for going Blu-Ray exclusive in most of their stores. On top of that Disney has been paying retailers a $5 bonus for just about every Disney Blu-Ray they've been selling from July through September. Payoffs are nothing new and Toshiba did what they had to do. If you're goint to complain about payoffs complain that Sony started it in the first place, which is nothing new for them.

And as for Warner going Blu-Ray exclusive, don't count on it. Warner owns patents in both DVD & HD-DVD, they get money for every disc made, whether it is a Warner disc or another studio's, it just matters that its on HD-DVD. Right now Warner is just playing neutral for a bigger pay out, most likely a larger percentage for each HD-DVD disc made. Warner knows that right now they control the format war, whichever side gets them exclusive will win. Warner also distributes Disney's movies overseas, which could cause them to want to go neutral if Warner goes exclusive. It would take some major money to make Warner give up all the royalities from HD-DVD discs. They've made billions off of DVD in the past 10 years and stand to make billions off of HD-DVD as well, and that's on top of the money they make from their actual titles on either format. People keep laughing when people ask if Sony would ever release on HD-DVD, but it's no different for HD-DVD and Warner Bros., they have a big investment in the actual HD-DVD technology just like Sony does in Blu-Ray.

I assure you there is more to it than royalities. It's common knowledge Warner makes money on every HD disk sold as they do with DVD. However you are completely ignorning the fact they decided from the begining to support both. They were FORCED to support HD because they partly owned the product while BR they had nothing invested.....think for a minute and ask yourself why would they support a format they had NOTHING invested in?


I think it's because some studio execs are not stupid. PS3 was the trojan horse (and it's obvious it's the reason for BR success right now). Also if Warner was to go with Universal (at the beginning) the thought was it would create confusion with the customer. Too many movies would be exclusive one or the other. They decided to release on both to give the customer the power to choose the winner of this war. Customers picked BluRay as you can see from even the recent 300 movie. Instead of taking it like a man the HD group tries to pay everyone off with a big check.

Stuidos are exclusive with BluRay for their own reasons. Sure they could be promised royalties (like Warner) but it's THEIR decision to stay exclusive. I know for sure FOX went with BR just because of regional coding and BR's new copy protection. In fact just this last week I asked my Fox rep why Star Wars was not released on BR this year as that would have surely killed HD by itself. The answer was because Fox was waiting for particular copy protection issues to be resolved and it was going to be finalized too late to make it to the 4th qtr. He did say however Star Wars is projected for next 4th qtr.

Basically I'm saying what HD did was directly pay cash for someone to flip their opinion. Paramount was leaning towards BR (and I know this for a fact from what their reps were saying just THREE DAYS before the announcement) and was given their opinion by money. Disney, FOX, Lionsgate, ect.....they think BR is just the better product. They want the war to end so they are exclusive. Paramount can't even say they think HD is the better product because their opinion changed just 3 days after the payoff.

Oh and one last thing, where is your proof Blockbuster was paid off? I run over 40 Blockbuster stores and I can tell you the decision we made was based off REAL DATA. The kind that had BR winning with 3 times the rental activity. Thinking Corporate Blockbuster came to their decision because of a payoff is pretty shortsighted. They picked the one that was renting the best because you can't afford to support both formats with the costs being so high. Quit thinking everyone needs $$$ to make a decision......sometimes it's just the best BUSINESS decision. People like to ignore the fact the software is 2:1 in BR's favor....in rental it's even more in BR favor (at least my stores).

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by MovieMan19

The article that states Target, BJ's & Blockbuster were paid off is very easily found on the TheDigitalBits.Com site.

And the Disney information can be confirmed by any retailer, why do you think every retailer had such huge sales on Disney Blu-Ray titles over the summer? Or would you like to see a copy of the check we received from Disney this month to give us the $5 for every Blu-Ray sold as proof?

I have no reason to make this stuff up. I'm trying to give you accurate information and you just tell me off. If you want to believe all the spin that either the BDA or DVD Forum has been putting on things then fine, live in your fantasy world. I'm in the industry and tried giving you accurate information, not to be told I was full of crap.

I'll say again, I work for a franchise Blockbuster and we were not paid off to support BR only. I think this is more of an HD talking point to try and defend what happened with Paramount.

Blockbuster does not have the space to support two new formats that basically are less than 1% of the rental revenue. Unlike some of these stuidos, real businesses can make a decision without being paid off.

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by MovieMan19

If you don't want to believe that Disney offered retailers incentives to push their Blu-Rays that is your choice but it is true. Any distributor, namely VPD or Ingram who supplies most of the retailers in the country would also confirm that Disney offered this program to retailers.

Yes both Disney and Lionsgate are running programs to give POS (point of sale) rebates for BR product. This is so they can TEMPORARELY reduce the price of their software so customers will be more likely to buy it. Since you know SOOOOO much about these "incentives" (lol, they are called REBATES), I suppose you also know ALL stuidos due this with DVD product every day right?

Heck just like Paramount offering Blockbuster a FREE MP3 player with the purchase of the Transformers movie. This is designed to increase sales of their titles.

All stuidos have rebate programs. Right now I'm involved with a rebate program from 4 stuidos on $14.99 SRP DVD's. I get a POS rebate for every one I sale so I can price the product at $9.99 and still make the targeted margin.

I can't believe you are trying to compare POS rebates to paying off Paramount. That's just intellectually dishonest.

[Joe Cain]

Originally Posted by MovieMan19

Warner also distributes Disney's movies overseas, which could cause them to want to go neutral if Warner goes exclusive.

I'm still trying to puzzle this out, so if anyone has any help to offer, chime in.

How would Warner's hypothetical decision to go HD-DVD-exclusive cause Disney to want to go format-neutral?

Distribution is not manufacturing. Warner would distribute what Disney gave them to distribute, unless Warner were also responsible for manufacturing product for overseas distribution. If Warner could not supply BDs or refused to distribute BDs, it seems to me that Disney would find another distributor. Just my opinion, of course.

And if Disney were going to contemplate format neutrality, why would they do it overseas? No linkage here, but from the smattering of sales figures I've seen Blu-Ray has a more marked sales advantage over HD-DVD in overseas markets than in North America---what could possibly compel them to want to back the losing format?

Finally, can anyone confirm that Warner does Disney's overseas distribution? I seem to recall they had an agreement once upon a time, but that it fell by the wayside when Disney launched Buena Vista International in the early 90s; anyway, I'm unclear whether that agreement covered theatrical releases or home media sales or both.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by Joe Cain

...

How would Warner's hypothetical decision to go HD-DVD-exclusive cause Disney to want to go format-neutral?
....

Guys, guys, we are creating our own misinformation and FUD. We have to remember these are BUSINESS PEOPLE who think in terms of, "WHAT WILL MAKE THE MOST MONEY?". I am sure some care about blu-ray winning but "business is business". I prefer we stop the BS speculation. It's making me nervous.