Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive! - Page 37  

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I must be reading a different Digital Bits.

In any case, I don't know how you manage to find "false hope" in Ron's statement (emphasis added) that:

M.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I don't understand why the burden of proof seems to rest solely on those who don't believe Fox seriously entertained offers to go HD-DVD exclusive. Where is the hard evidence from those who claim otherwise? All I'm seeing is Don Lindich's opinion piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the assurances of several highly placed members of this forum that Fox in reality acted in a down-'n-dirty way (by "playing" Toshiba, the BDA, Warner, etc., for the fattest paycheck).

Who are the sources of this information? No one wants to say. Unfortunately, by stating that these sources are "insiders" deeply embedded within the various entities familiar with the Warner deal, all criticism of the trustworthiness of these reports is completely deflected. The subtext I see in a lot of this is: "To question the authenticity of these reports is to question the integrity of Ron and the other administrators of this forum."

I don't buy any of that. I think Ron and the other admins here are great people. I've been following this forum since 2001 and have read and enjoyed much of what they have had to say. But I think it's entirely fair for me to question the integrity of the information (and yes, even the agendas, if there are any) coming from these "inside sources."

As someone who wants and places a very high value on truth, it's very hard for me to make a decision on who to believe when on the one side you've got The Wall Street Journal and Home Media Magazine saying Fox is extremely bullish about Blu-ray and could not be swayed to HD-DVD, and on the other you've got, well, personal assurances from unnamed sources that things went down in quite a different way altogether. And what's this with Fox being upset about Blu-ray's "lack of manufacturing infrastructure"? That entire argument just seems to come from way out in left field to me. Does anyone else feel that way? I'd love to see a link to a source, if one exists.

I won't repost my previous replies re: WSJ and HMM's coverage of the Warner deal and Mike Dunn's representation of Fox (which, by the way, were mostly met with complete silence), but they can be read here, here, and here.

I'm not trying to brag about myself by making people read my posts. I'm just tired of the spin that this issue continues to get, long after people should have gotten past it and moved on.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I guess all I want to know is when Toshiba is going to raise the white flag? So I am just waiting until it happens and until then I will go on making up HT upgrades and buying HDM. I just hope it does not take to long and it is my hope that both Universal and Paramount sit down and think about HDM and the future of HD. And not just about what Toshiba wants or why Sony shouldn't win. This is bigger than Toshiba and they allready enjoy revenue from DVD, a revenue stream that is not going away anytime soon.

But till that day I will continue to enjoy HDM and will buy as many HD titles as I can get my hands on.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Not really; they were pretty up-front about how Live Free or Die Hard was only the theatrical cut because they couldn't get the unrated version locked down in time to get discs manufactured. It doesn't take much reading between the lines (considering that BD replication is a known issue, even if no-one outside the industry really seems to know the magnitude) to see that they were boxed in by limits of what could be manufactured. Plus, they've delayed a bunch of releases even after they came back in the fall. Some of that's marketing stuff, but some is probably not being able to get manufacturing capacity.

I'm not sure I believe that it's enough to push Fox toward HD-DVD - they've been pretty gung ho about copy protection, for instance - but it's not ridiculous.

It does make me a little concerned going forward - if Warner going BD ends the format war and gets more people buying, is there going to be a lag as replication capacity catches up with demand?

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I'd like to preface all this by saying I am not taking pot shots at Ron, the HTF, Bill Hunt, The Bits, the BDA or the HD DVD Promo Group.

The problem as I see it from a journalistic viewpoint-yep, it's my training-is that we have reliable news organizations which are saying one thing and people supposedly in the know saying something else. For a journalist to protect sources is something which has been going on since the advent of the profession. That is how information is dissiminated when it is of an explosive nature, like it or not. Those news organizations vette the information to ensure its reliability, either with corroborating information from other sources or based on the past reliability of the primary source.

Has any of the information been independently verified or are we going on what sources inside the HD Group and the BDA are saying? Are we taking what both are saying into account and finding the middle ground between the two? Because, frankly, I personally don't trust either group as far as I can throw them. Paramount had a slew of Blu Ray releases announced and ready to go before they jumped to HD. Fox has continually announced and delayed releases. Warner has had their own share of problems, both with their online store and product being wrong.

What is the truth? We're not getting it from anyone involved. Not from Ron, not from Bill, not from The Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal. In order for the truth to come out, people with first hand information need to go on the record, to reputable journalists and organizations and tell the story. No spin. All this other rumor, confirming off the record, "you'll be surprised" type stuff does nothing more than stoke the fire between both sides when, in reality, we need to be bringing high def media enthusiasts together. Teach people about HD and the advantages.

Instead, we fight each other over how it was fine for Paramount to go from neutral to HD, yet Warner going Blu is going to drive prices up. We speculate and assume we know what's going on from teeny tiny promises of a "surprise" from people "in the know". Guys, c'mon. Don't we have anything better to do with our time like, oh I don't know, enjoying the players and movies we have? This bashing, this "I know something you don't but I won't tell you what it is so I'll just say I know something" has to stop.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

That doesn't tell us anything at all about BD manufacturing issues. Rather, that there were issues in the pre-manufacturing process.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

It certainly implies that it would take more time to manufacture relatively few BDs compared to the DVD version. It's hard to know for sure, since people generally don't issue press releases about what goes wrong; that's why we don't really know how much of an issue replication capacity is.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I guess I have to agree on this. We are hearing things, somewhat different from everyone. We don't know who the sources are, and we never will. So how will we ever know how much is true? And does it really matter so much to people that are taking hours of their day posting about it?

What I don't understand is this...if a news organization has information, isn't their job to report it for the readers benefit? What good are sources for information if you don't print what they tell you, but rather hint that you know something? That happened earlier in this thread. How fair is that to your readers?

This is nothing personal against this web site. I have enjoyed it thoroughly since it started and they do a fine job and I visit every day, sometimes more than once. And if it is their wish not to communicate the "surprises" coming up, that is their decision. But on the other hand, having worked before for 2 newspapers, I don't understand what good sources are if you don't print the news given and just hint at it to your readers. Fear of losing sources? I don't understand what good the sources are if you can't forward the information. Isn't that the same as teazing? Maybe I am wrong. I think it's better left unsaid completely if you don't come out and tell us what the surprises are, but that's my opinion.

I do agree with you 100% that is really doesn't matter. Why does everyone need to know every dirty little detail. Will it change the fact that Warner went blu-ray? no. Will it help making a future purchase or give you facts about the players or software? No. I agree that it's time to move on, these issues on these threads are going on a week old now. Certainly there are other things to talk about.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Bryan and Robert,
In order to be short and sweet about your prior two posts, I will repost something I posted much earlier in this thread.

Frankly, I can careless whether you believe me, Ron, Cees, Bill Hunt or any other source on what transpired because it really doesn't matter now. We all have our own opinions with some of our opinions being informed ones on what happened so we can make up our own minds as to what really went down between the corporate parties. At this time, my concern is for the consumers and the membership of this forum. Over the last two years, too much emotional investment has taken place in this format war for much too long by so many people that were once on the same page about enjoying the HT experience to the utmost. Hopefully, we can get back to that and move forward by adjusting our focus on enjoying even more films in high definition with advanced audio codecs. IMO, that's what is really important here.





Crawdaddy

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Fair enough. But please talk about them in other threads. This thread is about Warner going Blu-ray exclusive and how that has affected HD DVD and the whole HDM market. Please pardon those of us that might wish to continue that discussion. Nobody is forced to read this thread.

Mark

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Robert, I am surprised you added my name because as you can see in my post, I said exactly what you did that it didn't matter and too much time was being spent on it. I did say we have heard so many things that we don't know which is true or correct, but never said Ron or Bill Hunt or anyone are down-right lying to us. I was more-so pointing out the fact of the mention of upcoming "surprises" which, if they were not going to be revealed, I didn't feel it should have been mentioned at all. I also said that's just my opinion!!

Because I said "we will never know how much is true" doesn't mean I say anyone is purposely lying, and I never pointed to anyone like some other posts did...just that we will never know the true facts and figures because many posts on different sites have been different.

In any case, I think you read into my post something I did not outright say and surely didn't mean.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Fair enough again. But how does the exact cash amount and who was going to which side before the decision affect HD DVD and the whole market now that the decision is over?

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

(Not picking on Mark. I've seen this comment many times elsewhere.) I don't understand the chest-thumping about "consumer choosing" the winning format. There was no "consumer choosing" with DVD -- an industry consortium launched a single new format and that was that. There were no competing alternate versions for DVD.

And so there should have been no consumer choice with HDM: smart engineers and marketing folks and business leaders should have ginned up a good HDM format that could be supported by the industry and successfully sold to consumers. Instead, they all got greedy, wanting to hold the patents and get DVD-like licensing profits. And so we got this bothersome "war" -- yeah consumer get a choice of spending twice as much to own two players or have a 50% chance of buying a soon-to-be-obsolete product.

Fortunately, backroom wheeling and dealing is bringing this split to an end.

I'm no fan of monopolies or cartels, but when it comes to something like this, I think a single, well-designed solution is better than tossing technical spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.

Or perhaps we should also have competing Broadcast Television standards? NBC and FOX will broadcast on TV-A with TVs made by Sony; ABC and CBS will broadcast on TV-B with TVs made by Toshiba. You can choose the TV you want according to what networks you watch most. Or buy two TVs for each room. And in five years, the consumer will have chosen the best broadcast format..

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

forgot to include Ron's quote in the past post, this is the quote I was refering to when I meant "false hope"...

LA TIMES Dec 2

Yes... he's still pro BR, but by suggesting J6P to sit on the sides line, he's giving a semi-neutral stance... noticed I said "super-pro BR" and "semi neutral" in my original quote... We know where his heart is, but with the Paramount switch, he had to lower the BR flag a little bit and re-evaluate the market conditions... I'm sure, if he had the interview before the Paramount switch, he would have blatantly fully supported BR and give it the seal of approval...

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

I'm waiting to confirm some Warner HD movements, which should be unusual. Should know by end of week, and I'm sure others may also discover.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

It would affect the market because it would mean that the decision to support BD was not made based upon market trends, infrastructure, commercial viability, forward thinking, or relevant research of any type.

If people are threatened by others discussing this topic, I would suggest that they are the ones who need to move on to another thread.

Frankly, I get tired of people jumping in and suggesting that others should just blow off their concerns and hop on the Blu Ray train because it would be best for all HD movie fans.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

This had better not be bad news! I didn't realize just how much I hated this damned format war until Warner's news finally showed us some light at the end of the tunnel, and IF something happens now to FUCK that up and that tunnel goes dark again I'M GONNA GO FREAKIN' NUTS!!!

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Well Fox does have a history of announcing titles on blu-ray, and then canceling them for no apparent reason. When The Fly was released, very few people seemed to be able to find a copy for several weeks.

I don't know if this is a Fox problem or a Blu-ray problem, but the difficulty in finding blu-ray versions of Blade Runner, a Warner title, makes me think it maybe a Blu-ray problem.

Doug

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Ron, Cees, Robert and the rest of the admins here. For the record, I and I'm sure most here would put your facts above anything the Wallstreet Journal and such have to say on the matter. Simply because you guys have your hearts in this. Even if you guys can't share all the details yet or ever, I know you take the good of the people in the forum first. Wallstreet and other media outlets don't give a damn about anyone here. I'm surprised at people who are coming on here demanding facts in one breath then providing none themselves in another. All the while dismissing what's been said as speculation from people who know more about it than they ever could. Also, as fast as sides and news changes on these formats, one days facts could be anothers errors. Until this is over, keeping the facts secret of what you guys know may be the best approach. At least in my opinion. Warner's giving us an out of this whole mess. I want to keep focussing on that for now.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Let me let you in on something...

A few days ago Bill Hunt and I spoke on the phone about
this entire ordeal.

Now Bill and I have highly contrasting opinions on this format
war. He has chosen a side. We will not. He knows that I am
disappointed that he went pro Blu-ray, but to back up an earlier
post, Bill also has told people to stay on the sidelines if at all
possible. Despite our difference in opinion, we have been highly
respectful of one another.

I know where Bill is getting his information from, and he knows
where I am getting mine from. The amazing thing is, when we
discussed the details of the Warner deal, our stories matched
word-for-word. I'm not going to speak for Mr. Hunt by saying
he stands behind this story or not. All I am saying is that from
the inside, there was a definitive story spreading about these
details.

The problem with the information most journalists are getting is
that it comes from studio PR. So, if Warner puts out a Press
Release saying that the deal was "for the good of the consumer"
then that's the story that goes to print.

People like Bill, myself and others who are close to either format
camp start hearing other details that perhaps the studios don't want
published. I mean, really, you think these details would look
flattering if known by the general public?

...and we had no intention of publishing the details of what we
heard about the Warner deal. Honest! The problem was, we felt
people were getting a lot of initial misinformation and then once the
details leaked on another website, we felt we should back it.

Listen, there is always room for error in things that we hear.
However, the same details we knew about this deal prior to the
actual announcement are the same details that broke on AVS
(and were reported here before we confirmed it) and just by sheer
coincidence has been reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

There are always going to be doubters, and that's fine. We don't
expect everyone to take our word for it. I have said previously
that you should always keep an open mind to conflicting information
such as this. Just realize we try not to put ourselves in the position
of standing behind a story unless we are extremely confident its solid.

...and just for a "nah nah nah" moment, we were correct when we
suggested that we heard that Universal, Paramount and DreamWorks
were not changing positions, despite the fact other websites were
reporting that change was "imminent."

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

It doesn't. Who ever said that? And why quote my question to make a general statement like that?

My question was an inquiry about a statement I clearly chose to quote for clarity (you conveniently left that out of the part you quoted yourself): when someone states that another statement is factually not true, I'm interested why he can say that. The proof must be asked from the person making the statement (in this case the statement: "but this is hardly the "facts" on the case...").
For me that goes for every statement I have reason(s) not to believe on first sight.

(And in general more proof must be asked from persons making improbable statements, but that wasn't not applicable in this case.)

BTW, while it's totally valid to take the position that a story isn't proven if no "hard" evidence supporting it was presented, it's not valid to subsequently act and argue as if it is then proven it was not true!

And about "seconding" a statement: it's remarkable that Don Lindich in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette now publishes the exact amount I happened to mention more than a week ago.


Cees

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Not quite bad per se, but 'dark' for you? Light for some of us.
It basically contradicts some of the news, and I'd say it's FAIR news.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

To me that just sounds like good advice in general.

As for The Digital Bits, I don't read the L.A. Times. Bill Hunt's statements on his website could never be described by any rational reader (and probably wouldn't be described by him) as "semi-neutral". He is and remains an unabashed advocate for Blu-ray, which, of course, he has every right to be.

M.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

It's been already confirmed that Warner HD DVD titles will be delayed 3 weeks from the DVD and BR day and day release. This is on new titles. Catalog titles are unaffected by this.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Shane, Chris may be referring to something completely different, although I admit that was one of the first things that popped into my head when I read what he wrote.

Additionally, I have heard rumblings of Warner Bros. reducing the MSRP on their HD DVD titles, which I would assume would be in an effort to clear out their stock.

If it isn't either one of those two things, I guess I'll just have to wait anxiously to find out what it is.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

It must be, since Warner themselves sent out the word on the 3-week delay.
Makes sense, drop them down to DVD-esque MSRPs, clear out both the titles with large pressings (like the HP films) as well as the extremely poor-selling titles (such as the "Forbidden Planet" sets).
If the "dark" in quotes indicates the "The Dark Knight", I'm perplexed, considering the film doesn't even have a theatrical release until after the HD DVD window has completely closed. I would say the Matrix, "Batman Begins", and other BonusView/BD-Live titles, but Warner already confirmed those are in the pipeline, and it's not likely to interest or excite Chris. The biggest thing I can think of is that "I Am Legend" is slated to be released on HD DVD, albeit one of the last HD DVDs released, and being released with a 3-week delay.

I do have to wonder what "inside scoop" one can get in Fiji...

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Grin. I tried to be as vague as possible. I just don't want to jinx it.
It's not the prices.

Let's just say the PR and reality aren't matching yet.
Time to update our HD DVD page!

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

Personally, I don't care if a studio was bought off, or for how much. There are no angels in this fight. Both sides have used subsidies and "incentives".

I've stayed on the sidelines because of uncertainty. The sooner one format is gone the better as far as I am concerned.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

My only guess is that the May 31st deadline has been postponed. Which would basically mean the news from this last week has been meaningless, and that the format war is indefinite.

In any case, I'd say that the mystery surrounding Toshiba, Universal and Paramount, as well as the latest "Warner's BD commitment may not be so concrete" rumors/hints within this thread have pretty much shot holes in the one thing everybody was feeling last Friday - confidence in a HDM format. Without confidence, HDM is on death's door, IMO.

Re: Breaking News!! Warner is soon to be Blu-Ray Exclusive!

That or some HD DVD titles that were being announced as delayed releases are actually going to be released day and date with the BD and DVD releases.