Here's an article by Scott Hetrick at HollywoodinHiDef.com. I've never read the site before, so I'm sure some people can chime in. Just interesting comments from the Universal Studios president Craig Cornblau. It kind of left me scratching my head....

http://www.hollywoodinhidef.com/blog_detail.php?id=107

Just as a heads up before any one reads this, but hollywoodinhidef is a bluray run and backed website.

Doesn't bother me, obviously. I'm glad he can admit that the company has been lacking in hit releases. But they still believe in HD and realize the long fight ahead. BRING IT!!!

Edit: Yeah there was a big Blu-ray slant in the whole article. Lots of woe is me, why wont Universal bow down and surrender.

Thanks, good to know. I was wondering about that.

Even though it is, I still question the comments by Cornblau - unless they "interepreted" his comments....

If they don't notice before they read it, they'll definetley know after they read it.

Wow, that sounds almost exactly like some of the stuff I've been saying to people who say they want the format war to end immediately.

Im going to pretend I know what im talking about here, but according to wiki:

On 19 November 2003, the DVD Forum voted to support HD DVD as the high definition successor of the standard DVD. At this meeting, they also renamed it HD DVD. HD DVD stands for "High Definition Digital Versatile Disc"

So doesnt that mean Sony and Blu-ray are the reason for the war, yet are coming down on Universal for not ending it?

It's hard to say definitively since Kornblau is only directly quoted a grand total of four times, and one of those wasn't even a complete sentence. Still, if you look past the kinda silly, heavy-handed format championing throughout the editorial (big chunks of it read more like a press release than a blog entry), it does seem like a solid explanation of Universal's position, and it's not an unreasonable one. The numbers are so small right now that they might as well stick with the hand that their money's on and see what happens. If they bet on the wrong horse, they're really not out that much, and there's nothing stopping them from supporting Blu-ray or even both formats down the road.

I don't disagree with some of the criticisms leveled at Universal in the article, although the perception of the landscape seems oversimplified to me.

Well, it's only a war if there are at least two combatants, so both sides are to blame. I don't think Toshiba and the DVD Forum should automatically get the nod to determine the next-gen format.

I wonder if that site is at all biased:



No... They're clearly very pragmatic.

Out of curiosity, why not? Thats the one of the first things I considered when choosing a format. Sony is/was part for the DVD Forum right?

In part to stave off complacency, and in part that just because a group did something truly exceptional ten years ago doesn't mean that other companies should be denied the opportunity to do follow it up with an approach that's different and potentially better.

After reading the article, I still don't get what Universal is trying to accomplish. Why prolong the inevitable? I'm assuming Universal's strategy is probably just get out as much catalog titles and what not before year's end and announce neutrality at CES 2008.

. . . and yet, when each of the two formats debuted, any criticisms involving the word "complacency" were invariably leveled at the Challenger for the Title.

I do agree with the principle -- if somebody's got an idea for a better mousetrap, let 'em build it. But for twice the price of the mousetrap I already own -- which kills the mice just as dead -- I'm not buyin' it.

Rediculous "article", but it's the type of garbage i've come to expect out of the BR camp.
I found it funny how he conveniently forgot all about King Kong:

"last year..." was 2006, Kong came out in 2005. So it is correct there... although they did leave out Bourne Ultimatum at the end.

That's all I meant, really. I mean, I think it's a positive that you're able to evaluate multiple formats and choose the one that suits your needs the best.

The stakes are so low right now that there's no real rush, so why shouldn't they give HD DVD through the holidays to see if their gamble pays off?

Bear in mind that Universal also chairs the HD DVD Promotions Group.

...but there really isn't any short term benefit in doing that, so I doubt that's their strategy. Releasing waves of catalog titles as they have seems like more of attempt to say "look at how many titles HD DVD has!" than Universal trying to squeeze every cent out of the format over the next few months as they can.

Ooof.

I'm actually shocked that the head of Universal would even agree to this interview. Why would one do that?

And what is your HD camp all about?

We're not doing this.

The post you're replying to really shouldn't have been made either, but any more format bickering and the thread is closed.

It also tries to lump Knocked Up, which is a good movie and has been a pretty big hit for Universal, in with the likes of Evan Almighty and Chuck & Larry, in order to downplay the studio's entire output. Even those last two, though theatrical flops respective to their budgets, will undoubtedly do very well on home video.

only to quote Rodney King...

'Why cant we all... just get along?'

I really hate the blame game. For example, one could say that since the BD Association was founded in 2002, that the DVD Forum are to "blame" for adopting a competing format, instead of just rolling over and letting the new association control the HD market.
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/Section-1...004/Index.html

It's really not any one person of company's fault, or even a group's fault. Competition is normal and format wars are far more common than not. Even DVD had to deal with DivX, which had nearly exclusive support from Disney and Fox.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Format_war

I really don't see one format winning as inevitable. I can easily see this going the way of the DVD -R/W vs +R/W format war, with the widespread adoption of multi-format hardware and lack of consumer concern.

Yep. VHS/Beta was actually pretty uncommon, and that was of course due to the fact that the two systems were mechanically incompatible.

I don't see this war ending anytime soon, because the stakes are relatively low at this point. It seems clear that high-definition movies are not going to become the norm until 5-8 years out, so backing down now would be idiotic. Its quite possible that somekind of new format will emerge to overtake what we are getting now.

Oh and I pretty much blame Sony for the whole thing. They were tired of getting eaten up in the DVD player market due to REAL competition from competitors at every price level, so they decided to leverage their video game strength and movie producing arms to strongarm a format that has no real advantages and whose price point is aritificially high.