Sony outbids Time Warner for MGM Assets

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Ted Turner grab all the good movies when he owned MGM (IIRC for only a very, very short time) and keep them for his own networks when he sold MGM?

I'm just wondering if Columbia will do anything stupid like make Full Screen 16:9 films for those dummies who have 16:9 TV, but still hate the smaller black bars at the top and bottom. I wonder what those same people are going to think when they play one of their Full Screen 4:3 films on a 16:9 TV and see the grey bars on the sides.

I just hope Columbia will start doing better with their releases especially when they start with Blu-Ray and not stick to their, "Let's release this film in Full Screen only." and "Let's release 50 versions of the same movie." policies.

Patrick

Who knows how CTS/Sony are going to handle their titles.

All I know is Sony claimed that CTS will be going all out for Blu-Ray. That better not be cheap talk.

If Blu-Ray wins the format war - I better see simultaneous releases of DVDs and BR-DVDs. I dont want them trickling out like they're doing with SACD.

And they better not ignore the catalog titles and foreign and independant films either.

It's going to be interesting seeing what happens as HD-DVD is supposed to come out about 6 months before Blu-Ray.

It is not. Columbia issued a press release committing to issuing all of its films in hidef on BluRay.



I have my doubts since BluRay machines have been on sale in Japan for a few months.

Lee says:


Blu-ray recorders are quite a different animal than consumer video playback devices Lee.

I'm sure you are well aware of this difference.

A press release isn't a guarrantee, it's mainly PR and advertising. There've been many instances where company's fail to live up to their press releases.



As John stated (and you seem to always ignore in other threads) Japan only has recorders, not consumer players. ZERO titles are available for them, and they're probably already obsolete, as the specs have changed since then.

BluRay players will be out late 2005, early 2006 (no earlier), and if HD-DVD get's released in early 2005 (as promised) that'll be at least a 6 month headstart.

now if this can only benefit for the release of Charly on DVD being that Sony is known to see the errors of their ways in terms of releasing a pan and scan title and rectifying it by releasing a wide version.
Ex. Castle Keep and it's recent announcement

My understanding is that BluRay players are also out now. I will do some research to confirm this. There is indeed no software out yet but that's the easy part. Columbia has plenty of hidef transfers...they did these when they telecined many of the DVDs.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/08...s_6104095.html

"The companies plan to start marketing Blu-ray Disc playback machines (without recording capabilities) by the end of the fiscal year."

With PlayStation on board I think playback is going to be a lot easier.

"Marketing" isn't the same as releasing.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5683605/

"Players, computer drives and software compatible with the Blu-ray format are expected on the market by the end of 2005."

RE: PS3...

http://dvd.ign.com/articles/550/550363p1.html

"The next-generation console, expected to launch in 2006, will support broadband and play Blu-ray movies and music in addition to videogame play."

This is an encouraging tidbit. Are there any plans to release HD-DVD "computer drives" (HD-DVD-ROM)?

Yes, NEC will release one.. I don't know when..

One factor that favors HD-DVD over Blu-Ray is that it costs less to manufacture. I remember reading an article here where a demonstration was shown in Japan. A DVD manufacturer made a batch of HD-DVD's. They then stopped the batch, made a couple quick changes, and then started making a batch of standard DVD's. They were showing how economical the process is and how easy it is to make both types of DVD's using the same equipment.

I see that economical savings to be a big advantage to HD-DVD. Blu-Ray definitely has the advantage of space. I don't know if 200Gb discs will be necessary though. It would be great for extras, but look at how much the studios complain it costs them to include a lot of extras.

That space would definitely come in handy for current DVD releases that come out on Blu-Ray as the extras are already finished. I just wonder how much people would hate to have the same extras from current DVD's ported over to Blu-Ray. Personally, I wouldn't care on a lot of releases if they just ported over the same extras as long as they looked and sounded better and not just shoveled over. I wouldn't want it to be like some films where the LD transfer was just ported over to DVD without any remastering.

It's a tough call still, but it is all going to come down to the studios as so many have already said. The studios are definitely going to go with the lowest bidder that can make them the most money unless the lowest bidder has lousy encryption.

Patrick

Thanks for the link Patrick.

That's a big advantage (from a manufacturing standpoint) for HD-DVD. It's important that the discs are priced nicely for consumers, and that the studios/maufacturers can still make a nice profit.



I don't mind either if it's the same extras from DVD - in fact, that's what I was expecting anyways. I just dont think the studios will take the time to make them look and sound better. If they wind up looking/sounding better, it would probably only be attributed to having more space on the disc avoiding high compression - and nothing to do with it being remastered. It really wouldn't bother me much anyways, as the picture/sound quality on most extras aren't made with the highest production values.

The film on the other hand (video/audio) has to be top-notch.

Thanks also for the link Patrick. To show the other side of the coin however, BluRay group believes that its technology will actually be less expensive at scale than HD-DVD...so I gues its a matter of who you believe.

Lee,

Believing something to be true, and having something be true are dramatically different things. So far, it has been demonstrated that HD-DVD is less expensive to manufacture than Blu-ray discs are.

I'll believe Blu-ray is cheaper when I see the numbers, otherwise it's just talk.

Cheers,

"John R. Alchin, vice president and treasurer of Comcast, said earlier this week the company is already "looking at possible new channels using material from MGM and Sony's film and television libraries".

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...m_sale_comcast

Did Sony have to open up their library at below-market value to Comcast in order to make this deal happen? Did they have to cut any exclusivity deals with Comcast? There may be costs to Sony beyond the $300m...opportunity costs.

Perhaps we'll see a new cable channel like TCM, of Columbia and MGM classics.

Mike, read today's Wall Street Journal...it has a fascinating story about how Sony teamed up with Brian Roberts at Comcast to help win the deal at the last minute. Brilliant deal strategy.

Comcast was always sort of envisioned as a partner to leverage the content. That's part of the beauty of the deal - the content is valuable and Sony has mapped out a strategy with its equity partners on how to maximize that value. Far from an opportunity costs, this will increase cash flow to Sony and the equity partnerships.

I think a new channel would be wonderful...the WSJ also talks about the value of the Pink Panther and James Bond franchises they picked up.

The value of the James Bond and Pink Panther franchises vs:

The Lord of the Rings (x3)
The Matrix (x3)
Harry Potter (x3 +)

Which do you think will sell more. Personally, I'd put these 9 titles up against the entire MGM catalog, but that's just me.

It's hard to believe anything that Crumcast is involved in will be a worthwhile thing.

Yeah,

I'm not a big Comcast fan either, but they are a necessary evil right now as DSL is not available here and dialup is not an option. What really stinks is that our cable internet bill went up $15.00 because we ditched cable TV and went to DirecTV which is much cheaper than digital cable.

Back on topic. Does Warner still own or is partners with AOL? If so, I'm wondering if that is one of the reasons Comcast got involved.

Patrick

John,

A great deal of the value of the franchises is due to the ability to produce new films. MGM would have a guaranteed hit every time a new James Bond film hit theaters. On the other hand, there will be no more Rings or Matrix films (which is good news in the latter case ).

Since no other studios are committed, how do you know Time Warner or Fox or any other studio won't go BluRay?

They have no agreement with NEC or Toshiba...

The idea is to create extra incentives for studios to sign up for BluRay. If a studio is making the decision and sees that it will be an uphill battle to fight BluRay then it may be tough to back HD-DVD.

The studios will likely have to balance different financial arrangements like royaltee sharing with the belief that their chosen format will be the standard or not suffer versus a possibly more established competing format (in BluRays case with full PC industry support).

Okay, this was a big topic at the National HTF Meet in LA, including a demo of uncompressed BluRay that would make you sick over the state of your current DVD quality. LoArabria with wipes between the BluRay HD and a tweeked for max quality SD version (not just some slapped together crap).

It was like someone finally came and adjusted focus when the wipe came through going from SD to HD.



2nd - naturally we poked around at every Q&A with studios about the format war, and IMO everyone is just waiting for the eventual BluRay victory before going full-out. I don't think any of us got the vibe that the studios felt the current manufacturing situation was nearly as valuable as going to a truly new and more future-proof format was.

The PS3 tie-in for BluRay almost ensures its victory. BluRay also presents many features designed to enhance viewing as well as the more important business-side enhancements generally tied into a DSL/Cable backchannel (see a cool shirt in a film...buy it now type stuff).

The biz side and the permanent high speed internet items may or may not fall into the final, practical BluRay usage, but they are still out there for software manufacturers to be enticed by.



3rd, in a more direct tie to this area of the forum, it was asked if Sony had been contacting music companies in regards to using BluRay for a new universal HD music format. "No. They've been contacting us," was our answer.

I know several of us, including a conversation between myself and Bill Hunt (Digital Bits), speculated that some of the slow down in DVD-A/SACD could be due to companies seeing the future and preparing themselves to shift out of what appears to be a lost cause to focus on a better single HD music format based on BluRay.

Now that was just our guess in that respect, but the vibe was certainly going around out there.


I have no interest in either format and as a student I sure as hell don't work for any of these companies. This is all based on how each studio/company reacted when asked about this issue, sometimes even more so off the record.

The thing is that some of these companies have had and will continue to have the old "wait and see" attitude rather than throwing in their weight to support a format's success. Again, things like the massive player introduction that will come from the PS3 (blowing away any penetration into the market that stand-alone players could have) will give software companies a lot of incentive to be tied to that.



And for the record in terms of selling BluRay with titles, BluRay is strong enough that the difference between 65mm and 35mm sources starts to become noticable so actually a film like LoA does have the power to be more impressive than a 35mm flick like LOTR, at least to early adopters/film buffs.

Oh, and as far as bringing the technology to market, HD-DVD is going from player to recorder while BluRay is going from recorder to player. The tech shift from a working recorder to a working player would appear to be far less difficult. And this is not just my opinion but one expressed by some tech people we spoke with during the trip.


BluRay has a big advantage also in total storage space thanks to multi-layer technology (they are talking 100-200 gigs here) as well as absolute bandwidth coming off the disk at any given time (higher bit rate DTS comes to mind, as well as greater side features streaming realtime (like video pop-ups instead of just text subtitle type of trivia/commentary tracks).

Those are very good points. I wonder if Microsoft will get involved in this further by making their next XBox HD-DVD compatible. I don't know if they will go Blu-Ray or even if Sony would allow them to since those two consoles are competitors. However, maybe they will work out the differences since both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray will use the same Microsoft codecs.

Patrick

Seth: how large was the monitor? Or was it one of those 100+ inch projector images?

Seth Paxton says:


There is no such thing as "uncompressed BluRay". The data rate for uncompressed HD (assuming 1080p24) is about 1.2 Billion bits per second. At that rate, it would be about a 3 minute clip you viewed.

Never mind that you exceeded the maximum data rate for blu-ray by a factor of roughly 20x, and that Blu-rays supported video codecs are MPEG-2, and MPEG-4, both of which employ compression. I'm not sure what you meant to say here, but you might want to think about revising the text.



That would be true anytime you go from SD to HD on well done material, so it's not that much of a revelation to me.

Watch Moulin Rouge on DVD-Video and D-VHS -- it's the same type of difference.

Cheers,

That would be interesting. Perhaps we may get "higher rez" playback for music at some stage given the extra storage capacity of BluRay. I hope they preserve some backward compatibility with DSD though. That way they can keep the selection in terms of # of discs strong.

I have recently thought of BluRay as video format more than music, particularly after Mike Smith's comments at HE2004.

On the other hand, I have always thought and have said here repeatedly that it would be smart to integrate into one versatile format for music, video, and data storage.

Media companies could mop up with us replacing our movie and music collections.



Microsoft and Sony have worked things out enough for the Microsoft video codec to be included in the BluRay spec. I suspect this thrills Microsoft.

Not jazzed about the MS Codecs.