Paramount postpones it's first three titles (1 Viewer)

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Now they are not giving any new dates for Tomb Raider, U2 and Four Brothers.

I was looking foward in seeing Tomb Raider in HD DVD

Ugh!
How is HD DVD ever going to get to 100 titles let alone 200 titles this year?
We are half way though 2006 and we have less than twenty titles in the US.
HD DVD will need more than 13 titles a month for the next 6 months to get to 100 titles or about 30 titles a month to get to 200 titles.
Good luck!

Call me an optimist, but I'm not terribly concerned. I believe (hope) that Paramount's foray into HD DVD has merely been delayed. Time will tell.

Not to quibble, but there are currently 21 HD DVD releases. And given the limited volume of players on the market, I believe it is more a question of studio policy / strategy vs. capabilities with regards to the number of HD DVD titles produced in 2006.

- Walter.

I'm sure we will see a ton of Hd's released between Oct-Dec for the holiday season, make up for the lag.

How did I miss this thread! I searched the forum before posting my own and still managed to totally not see it...



In any case,

Paramount has always had cold feet with new formats. In fact, I was surprised to see them giving support to *either* camp so early. Usually they sit it out and wait for the dust to settle.

It will be interesting to see what happens. They're not typically the type of studio to trumpet a cause based on principle... (ie, not wanting to put their neck out too soon).



I don't think that either camp will reach their targeted title count. Both camps have been pressured to make exaggerated estimates for title releases to try to "on up" each other in the marketing PR/BS. Neither will actually reach their announced release numbers. But it's ok! We'll have plenty of HD titles coming out over the long haul... don't need to get them all out the first week...

Maybe they were too pissed at their investment releasing way too many WMV HD disc in EU?jk.

when was the 1st paramount SD-DVD?

I believe that Paramount's first DVD releases included The Saint, Face-Off, Kiss the Girls and Star Trek: First Contact on October 6th, 1998.

- Walter.

FC was a pretty good transfer. '98 isn't that far behind the launch ('97 right). so we'll probably see similar strategem of '07-08 release of FC again =).

Did anyone ever find out why Paramount pulled their HD titles?

That's true, and First Contact was even released with anamorphic enhancement (unlike Star Trek: Generations and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country which followed in subsequent months. In fact, it wasn't until August 1999 that Paramount fully embraced the DVD format with basically all-anamorphic transfers of Widescreen movies from that date on.)

However, it should be remembered that Paramount *did* support Circuit City's DIVIX format from its inception. So it's not always true that Paramount waits before committing to a new format.

Paramount also put out the very first movie on CED videodisc (Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown), this month marks the 20th anniversary of the death of that format.
Paramount did support DIVX before regular DVD, but they stopped supplying movies to that format before it died; starting with The Truman Show no further Paramount movies were released on DIVX. They even put out several more laserdisc titles after that, so I was glad to see that outlive DIVX.

Paramount doesn't have cold feet with regards to HD DVD. They are not, however, immune from making mistakes, even dumb mistakes. Expect Paramount to get on the HD DVD board shortly, likely with a somewhat different starting line-up.

I read on AVS that the initial Paramount titles will be released on June 27th. Same lineup as before.