Well, the high definition home video war may be ending relatively soon, and to think a winner won’t be declared by the end of the year is wishful thinking. Yesterday when I posted my HD DVD article in relation to Paramount I said they had an exclusive deal to go with HD DVD through the end of 2008, but Variety is now saying they have an escape clause in its HD DVD contract allowing it to release pics on Blu-ray after Warner Bros.’ decision to back that format exclusively.
On top of that Variety was able to learn what I wasn’t from Universal. Yesterday I asked Universal what the status of their involvement with HD DVD was and I received a big fat “No Comment”, but Variety has confirmed that Universal’s commitment to backing HD DVD exclusively has ended.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that either side is going to instantly abandon HD DVD and go with Blu-ray and make things easy on the customer. Several articles, including this one and this one, were saying that Paramount was ready to abandon HD DVD, but that was quickly corrected as Paramount denied the rumor.
Another interesting tidbit of information is about the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As we all know, Paramount’s deal does not cover Steven Spielberg films, and so Indy 4 is being prepped for Blu-ray Disc for release sometime late this year.
Blu-ray backers don’t get too excited just yet. Paramount will likely stick to HD DVD for the rest of the year as previously stated, but I can’t imagine them sticking with the format too long should Indiana Jones explode on Blu-ray and especially if Universal were to leave them all alone in the HD DVD market.
The question really becomes what can HD DVD do to win the war or at least get back on even ground?
Looking at Paramount and Universal’s most popular titles and franchises I guess Universal could go aggressive by releasing the Back to the Future and Jurassic Park franchises on HD DVD along with E.T. and Paramount could release The Godfather trilogy, Forrest Gump and Titanic. Those are probably the most high profile films in those two respective studio’s catalog. Would it be enough?
I guess Fox could rush out a release of the Star Wars trilogy (original and special editions) on Blu-ray and go for the jugular. Disney has already announced it will be going into its magical catalog with a Blu-ray release of Sleeping Beauty and Finding Nemo later this year.
I know many people think the high definition disc war is pretty much a lost cause as is, since they believe the world will be going digital soon, but how soon is soon? How long will it take for the studios to decide how to best serve the entire nation with streaming media? Do people buy or rent? How is it copy protected? How much server space do we need? How fast does the Internet need to be? How much do the writers get paid?
Honestly I don’t see digital downloads becoming a feasible replacement for about 10-20 years and I don’t see a full adoption for about another 25. There will be options, as there already are, but if you are counting on the entire history of film to be digitally available and the complete abandonment of physical discs anytime soon go ahead and keep dreaming. iTunes doesn’t even carry every song in the world and you still have to buy a CD on occassion and selling/renting movies is a much bigger deal than tossing out a few songs.
