[goMac]

Engadget is reporting Warner was paid half a billion dollars to go Bluray.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Engadget is reporting Warner was paid half a billion dollars to go Bluray.

Engadget is unreliable.

Originally Posted by Oversoul 

From Warner backs Blu-ray exclusively - 1/4/2008 - Video Business

Warner will be joining other BD-exclusive suppliers Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Walt Disney Home Entertainment, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment and Lionsgate. Time Warner divisions New Line Home Entertainment and HBO Video are also included in the move to Blu-ray.

I'll take Lord of the Rings Extended Editions and Rome on Blu-ray please.

I'd expect them to eventually go Blu-ray, but your link is wrong.

Warner: New Line, HBO Not Covered By Blu-ray Announcement

That's according to Warner Home Entertainment President Kevin Tsujihara, who said that the studio's announcement that it would drop HD DVD support does not extend to titles released by New Line, HBO or the BBC (which Warner distributes here in the US).

"They'll be making whatever decision they're going to make," said Tsujihara. "I assume they'll let people know very quickly, but they are not covered by this initial announcement."

[icruise]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Engadget is unreliable.

Oh my yes.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Engadget is reporting Warner was paid half a billion dollars to go Bluray.

Great but 6 hours ago warner confirmed they got zero payoff.

[CaseCom]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Engadget is unreliable.



I'd expect them to eventually go Blu-ray, but your link is wrong.

Warner: New Line, HBO Not Covered By Blu-ray Announcement

That's according to Warner Home Entertainment President Kevin Tsujihara, who said that the studio's announcement that it would drop HD DVD support does not extend to titles released by New Line, HBO or the BBC (which Warner distributes here in the US).

"They'll be making whatever decision they're going to make," said Tsujihara. "I assume they'll let people know very quickly, but they are not covered by this initial announcement."

Variety reports that New Line is also going Blu:

Warner Bros. backs Blu-ray - Entertainment News, Home Ent News, Media - Variety

My jaw dropped when I saw the Warner news today. Part of me wants to go out tomorrow and buy the Panasonic BD30, but I'll wait to see what's announced at CES; I'd like a good midrange Profile 1.1 player with solid upconversion (Reon, ideally). I just use my TV speakers so I don't care about the advanced audio decoding.

But my TV is only 32 inches (Sony Bravia KDL-V32XBR2) with 1366x768 resolution. I'm not sure how much of a difference Blu-ray would make at that size, but I would like to upgrade a few of my favorites like Lawrence of Arabia and LOTR (when they come out on Blu-ray). But most my collection I'll probably just keep my existing DVDs.

[aristotles]

Originally Posted by Eug 

Profile 1.0. No thanks.



Well, I'm not going to be buying a PS3. I want IR. Plus it's about twice as much as I want to pay.

Like I said, $199 is the sweet spot for me.

PS3 now has Profile 1.1, Divx and WMV playback. What's wrong with the PS3? The players are eventually going to go down to that price but if you think that is going to happen right now, you are dreaming. Toshiba was product dumping. There is no way they could have been earning a profit while selling at 199 retail and including 5 free movies. You will have a bit of a wait but you might want to consider that Blu-ray titles have generally been cheaper (even without BOGO sales) so you would make up the 100 dollar diffference from your unrealistic "sweet spot" and the lowest blu-ray players coming out of CES after purchasing a few titles.

Blu-ray CE's are in the business to make some profit so you really should not expect them to match Toshiba's loss leader pricing. Toshiba intended on locking up the market and making back the money on disc royalties.

I've tried 1.1 features on my PS3 and the HD DVD equivalent and you are not missing anything with a 1.0 profile player. The titles will playback just fine and the Pip commentary is just a gimmick losses it's novelty really fast. Do you really want to see some fat cats sitting in a studio talking about the film? Do you even enjoy regular audio commentary for the main feature? I prefer hearing the actual movie to listening to talking heads even on DVD but that's just me.

I think those "Profile 1.1" or "Profile 2.0" or nothing excuses are just that, it is an attempt to save face. You are an HD DVD supporter and you are trying to make excuses for not buying a blu-ray player. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

[Oversoul]

Originally Posted by CaseCom 

Variety reports that New Line is also going Blu:

Warner Bros. backs Blu-ray - Entertainment News, Home Ent News, Media - Variety

I was going to pull up the same article, but you beat me to it. Yes, per Variety:

Warner sister company New Line confirmed it will shift allegiance to Blu-ray only as well.

The speculation is that New Line and HBO Films will issue separate announcements to give greater impact to their shift to Blu.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

Great but 6 hours ago warner confirmed they got zero payoff.

Really? I'd like to see this quote from Warner where they say they weren't paid off.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

Originally Posted by goMac 

Really? I'd like to see this quote from Warner where they say they weren't paid off.

"Warner Home Entertainment President Kevin Tsujihara says the studio took no pay-offs to exclusively back Blu-ray.
In a post-announcement conference call, Tsujihara flatly denied rumors that studio had accepted anywhere from 250M to $500M in exchange for dropping its HD DVD format support."

Warner: No Payoff for Move to Blu-ray | High-Def Digest

[Eug]

Originally Posted by aristotles 

PS3 now has Profile 1.1, Divx and WMV playback. What's wrong with the PS3?

It's a console. I don't want another console. And it has no IR. And it's twice as much as I want to spend on another player.

Blu-ray CE's are in the business to make some profit so you really should not expect them to match Toshiba's loss leader pricing.

Huh?

I swear, I've just never understood that argument. "You must spend more money for crappier hardware. You see, the CE companies have to make money!" I'm don't care what the CEs want. I care what I want.

I've tried 1.1 features on my PS3 and the HD DVD equivalent and you are not missing anything with a 1.0 profile player. The titles will playback just fine and the Pip commentary is just a gimmick losses it's novelty really fast. Do you really want to see some fat cats sitting in a studio talking about the film?

I happen to enjoy PiP very much, when it's done right. I'm not about to invest in an obsolete BD 1.0 player om 2008, especially at those terrible prices.

I think those "Profile 1.1" or "Profile 2.0" or nothing excuses are just that, it is an attempt to save face. You are an HD DVD supporter and you are trying to make excuses for not buying a blu-ray player. Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

Yeah, whatever. If you've read this thread, you'll see that I've said the same thing several times. $200ish for a good BD 1.1 player, and I'd go neutral. That was true before the Warner announcement, and that's still true now. I just hope that this announcement doesn't give the CE companies less incentive to drop prices quickly.

[analogue SPRINKLES]

I predict that within 3 months major resellers already start pulling HD-DVD off the shelves.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by analogue SPRINKLES 

"Warner Home Entertainment President Kevin Tsujihara says the studio took no pay-offs to exclusively back Blu-ray.
In a post-announcement conference call, Tsujihara flatly denied rumors that studio had accepted anywhere from 250M to $500M in exchange for dropping its HD DVD format support."

Warner: No Payoff for Move to Blu-ray | High-Def Digest

If you look at the quote, Warner says nothing about not accepting a payment, and it's been noted by other blogs.

One theory, that sounds extremely plausible, is that Warner was only willing to go HD-DVD if Fox would go with them, bringing about an end to the format war in the other direction:

Warner Swayed By $500 Million From The BDA : Format War Central

According to the rumor Fox was paid off earlier this week to stay Bluray, and Warner took the cash that was offered because you'd have to be pretty dumb to turn down free cash for a format you are switching to.

[Oversoul]

Originally Posted by goMac 

If you look at the quote, Warner says nothing about not accepting a payment, and it's been noted by other blogs.

One theory, that sounds extremely plausible, is that Warner was only willing to go HD-DVD if Fox would go with them, bringing about an end to the format war in the other direction:

Warner Swayed By $500 Million From The BDA : Format War Central

According to the rumor Fox was paid off earlier this week to stay Bluray, and Warner took the cash that was offered because you'd have to be pretty dumb to turn down free cash for a format you are switching to.

I wouldn't be surprised if substantial incentives were exchanged, but I'm not quite sure there was a cash payment as such. Detailed facts quickly emerged as to Toshiba/Microsoft's $150M payment to and deal with Paramount and Dreamworks following their exclusivity announcement. I'm not seeing the same here other than hearsay from some vague "trusted source" who was "close to the negotiations."*

* I'm sorry, but any disgruntled HD DVD fanboy could come up with secret information from a "trusted source" who was close to the negotiations. I'd like to see some more credible proof there was a payment made.

For Warner Home Entertainment's president to come out publicly and deny that no payments were received for Warner's Blu-ray exclusivity should be pretty conclusive otherwise it's tantamount to misrepresentation. Furthermore, if such a deal were made, it will eventually show up on Time Warner's financials, which as a publicly traded company is open to inspection. Tsujihara has no incentive to deny what might come back to bite him in the rear later on. Again, I'm not saying some other form of deal was not agreed upon, but I'll take him at his word that Warner did not receive a cash pay off in exchange for exclusivity.

And while the High Def Digest article doesn't offer up a quote where Tsujihara denies accepting a payment, I think the article merely sums up a longer conference call with the man where this issue was covered and ultimately denied. The report states that:

In a post-announcement conference call, Tsujihara flatly denied rumors that studio had accepted anywhere from 250M to $500M in exchange for dropping its HD DVD format support.

And even in the Engadget article on the same conference call, they report that

when asked about any "compensation" Kevin Tsujihara, president, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group said that it "was not a bidding war" and that it really came down to Q4 sales, specifically in the International markets -- then he wanted to know if we had any idea where they could collect the $500 Million. Ultimately, Warner wanted to try and give consumers a reason to get off the fence.

We're not getting the whole transcript of the conference call here, but from the context of all these reports my guess is Tsujihara does deny Warner taking a cash payment.

[PaperNotes]

It was exactly one month that I was attacked by HD-DVD fanboys for mentioning that Warner was waiting for holiday sales figures before announcing Blu-ray exclusivity.

It's really time for goMac to swallow his self-loving pride and shut up. For months and months he has been gloating about how Warner is going to become HD-DVD exclusive. Just search "goMac" and "warner" and half a laugh. Now Warner's announcement has slapped the likes of him in the face and they have to jump up and down and shout about Warner taking bribes. These HD-DVD fanboys have played every dirty trick in the book from lying about how expensive and technically retarded Blu-ray is and hacking the Blu-ray forum's website. Nothing they did slowed down Blu-ray disc sales.

[PaperNotes]

Originally Posted by goMac 

According to the RUMOR that came flying out of my ass Fox was paid off earlier this week to stay Bluray, and Warner took the cash

Oh shut up. They didn't need payment. They looked at the sales and it was always getting better for Blu-ray. Please go back to your Nintendo and never buy a Mac with Blu-ray in it if you hate it so much.

[jokell82]

Originally Posted by Oversoul 

I wouldn't be surprised if substantial incentives were exchanged, but I'm not quite sure there was a cash payment as such. Detailed facts quickly emerged as to Toshiba/Microsoft's $150M payment to and deal with Paramount and Dreamworks following their exclusivity announcement. I'm not seeing the same here other than hearsay from some vague "trusted source" who was "close to the negotiations."*

* I'm sorry, but any disgruntled HD DVD fanboy could come up with secret information from a "trusted source" who was close to the negotiations. I'd like to see some more credible proof there was a payment made.

That is exactly the same kind of "detailed facts" that came to light when Paramount went neutral. It was a "trusted source" even though every company involved denied making any kind of payments.