Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg Upset Over Paramount/HD-DVD Deal

Posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 by Peter Sciretta

Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay

Paramount made a very bad decision earlier this week when it was announced an exclusive partnership with HD-DVD. HD-DVD is clearly the losing format at this point in the next gen format war. Most of the other studios have decided to support Blu-Ray. Nikki Finke is reporting that the HD-DVD camp is paying over $150 million for the “promotional consideration” exclusivity.

A fallout is starting to occur, not from consumers, but from the creative side. After the Paramount announcement, long-time Spielberg spokesman Marvin Levy told High Def Digest:

 ”It was important to Steven that if any of his films were to be released [first] on high-definition, that it would be a classic. Steven is big supporter of Blu-ray, and chose ‘Close Encounters’ to be the first of his films on either format.”

And now Michael Bay has issued an angry statement on his official website forums:

“I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me!”

No Transformers 2? Isn’t that a bit harsh? I mean, I agree that consumers should have the choice, but I’m not sure if I would quit a successful franchise over it. The fan outcry came down and Michael Bay removed his previous statement and put up the following:

Last night at dinner I was having dinner with three blu-ray owners, they were pissed about no Transformers Blu-ray and I drank the kool aid hook line and sinker. So at 1:30 in the morning I posted - nothing good ever comes out of early am posts mind you - I over reacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard.

As a director, I’m all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard firsthand people upset about a corporate decision.

So today I saw 300 on HD, it rocks!

So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!

Michael Bay

My bottom line opinion: Paramount should find a way to pull out of this deal. Consumers should have the right to choose. A big money deal like this sends the wrong kind of message to the many millions of people who have chosen to support the  studio over the years.

Comments 

 

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  • Well HD-DVD isn't really losing, in as much as they've sold more players [and therefore users] than blu-ray
  • AL5508
    Well, What about Fox and Disney? They are exclusive to blue-ray. Are the studio supporting blue-ray sending the wrong message? Yes! So why can't Paramount do the same thing? Sony just wants to shove their blu-ray technology down the consumer's throat.
  • Zach
    First of all Transformers SUCKED so how is it a threat in anyway for Bay to deny us it's "stellar" sequel. And Secondly...Blu-Ray does look better from what I've seen so Paramount made a bad decision in terms of quality and in terms of sales.
  • Not_A_Bluray_Shill
    Yeah consumers have the right to choose alright! That's why studios that in the past have lined up behind Blu-ray to try and force them to choose 1 format over another without giving them a choice! Clueless Blu-ray shill.
  • janus
    Its very simple.
    I won't buy anything Paramount for the next 3 years at least.
    I read an earlier post about not buying Paramount products and I agree. This is a chicken shit move. I'm not one of the dumb consumers so the spin has no effect. I wont even go to see a Paramount flick. So you effectively lose well in excess of $100 of my money in a quarter. That's 400 for the year. If I get 1 million others to do the same...we afffect your bottom line. If I get every PS3 owner on the planet to do the same your bottom line hurts more.
  • XdarXideX
    Blu-Ray may be selling just under 2:1 against HD-DVD, but that in no way makes it the winning format. Some research is in order - including actually watching the range of films for both formats to determine the picture and movie quality for both sides. I think you'll find there will be 2 formats on the scene now until the next big thing unless the manufacturers come to some agreement. No-one is going to "win" when there are too many adopters for both formats.

    You know, i suspect like Bay, Spielberg hasn't even witnessed a HD-DVD movie on play let alone been able to tell the difference in quality. "Best format"... jeez.
  • John
    Not sure how anyone can blame Paramount for choosing HD-DVD and not point out the obvious in studious such as Disney choosing Blue-Ray.

    If your gonna argue objectively then be objective.
  • Carl Baron
    Who cares? I see nothing wrong with HD-DVD. On the contrary everything I've heard about it sounds sensible; the players have all the right features, the standard is nice & stable, it has more features, and the discs have a thicker protective coating - whats not to like?

    Right now I'm just buying DVD's and upscaling. I'd like a download service too and would go that way if it was offered. If and when HD media becomes desireable, I will go HD-DVD. I also like the way they are trying to get the price down. I definately trust Toshiba but not Sony - no I think Paramount made the right choice.
  • giantman
    The Paramount deal is only good for 18 months and HD-DVD paid them $150 million for the decision, so who can really blame them? It has also been decided that Spielberg films will NOT be included, so CE3K and Raiders will be released on Blu-Ray.

    The truth is that none of this really matters, shortly we wil be able to buy TRUE HD players that will play both formats and the "war" will be effectively over.
  • Blu-ray is more expensive and better quality for sure but we all know how that mixture worked for Betamax.
  • puinsai
    I agree consumers should have the right to choose. Now lets spread the word to not only Paramount but to FOX, Disney, Sony and Universal?!? I don't know about you guys but I have seen Blu-ray and HDDVD in action and there is no obvious difference in picture and sound using the same rig. Yes! give the "consumer the right to choose" because I prefer to pay less going HDDVD with more movies available. Until then the format war is far from over.
  • "Its very simple.
    I won’t buy anything Paramount for the next 3 years at least.
    I read an earlier post about not buying Paramount products and I agree. This is a chicken shit move. I’m not one of the dumb consumers so the spin has no effect. I wont even go to see a Paramount flick. So you effectively lose well in excess of $100 of my money in a quarter. That’s 400 for the year. If I get 1 million others to do the same…we afffect your bottom line. If I get every PS3 owner on the planet to do the same your bottom line hurts more."

    ok well over 3 years, [12 quarters], they will have lost a MAXIMUM of $1200 from you by your own guesses [really? you're not gonna see cloverfield OR Star Trek? alright...] . Now, if you want to actually make them break even, let alone a loss after that $150 million payoff, you would have to get at LEAST 250000 people who spend $100 a quarter on PARAMOUNT stuff ALONE to suddenly stop for 36 MONTHS. I'd say 125 000 ppl, but the studio only gets 1/2 the movie ticket.

    if you managed THAT, then forget your little campaign, you should be in marketing or politics sir
  • Not_A_Bluray_Shill
    I don't even know why people want Blu-ray to win. All the BD camp has been doing is promising.

    Did you know that the BDA (Blu-ray Disc Association) just crippled all BD-R disc from playing in Blu-ray players when the new Blu-ray Profile 1.1 rolls out this late October?

    Did you know what all of the mandatory features that is available NOW on HD-DVD will be rolled out in BD "profiles" in the near future?
    So if you spent money on a Blu-ray player, compatibility will become a issue as new hardware "profiles" roll out?

    How can ANY reasonable person want a format/machine where old hardware might have serious capability issues because future releases are made to conform to changing hardware profiles??

    Not only that but HD-DVD is REGION FREE! HD-DVD is a good product for the consumer and as far as I'm concerned it has lived up to their promise by delivering great new features and technology all at very affordable prices.

    People always bring up the 2:1 sales... lets put things into perspective and look at the raw numbers. We're talking about 1 million disc difference between the 2 formats, or compared to DVD a little over 2% of what DVD is selling.

    There are more standalone HD-DVD players out there now. It's not hard to figure out what a consumer with a standalone DVD player is going to do. Basically standalone players are going to be used for movies and movies only. That's why HD-DVD owners on average buy four times as many movies then owners of Blu-ray capable players.
  • Flash
    Lets get one thing straight here Transformers was everything it was supposed to be and that is AWESOME. Ok sure after seeing it 3 times I could pick it apart but it was Bay who directed it so I'm not surprised at holes in the plot. Second I've been told that Bay isn't being asked back anyway so I find it amusing that he comments as though he even has a say in it.
  • Michael92
    I believe hat companies should stop making cr@p formats, I mean 11 years of DVD for that? I expected the new formats to be much more evolved, like except for having HD, they should come up with multiple ratios to sho non-black or distorted content on 4:3 Tvs. I mean there should be in 4:3 format and cropped when becoming 16:9. ANother thing that the formats should do is internet connectivity, polls and comments published on the net thorough the players, also something like live adds downloaded from the internet and new online trailers that correspond with the movie seen. I mean that the only thing Blu-ray and HD DVD formats offer is HD expierience which can be ripped to a single dvd through DivX or mkv files. Both formats suck and are too expensive for what they do offer.

    Mike from Greece, 14
  • Bluray is the format of the future. This is the opposite of Beta vs VHS. (Beta was still used in Broadcasting until DV in 2003) How many companies make HD-dVd players? Just 2 that I know of. All the rest make Bluray. You still have more studios (disney being the biggest one) that sees the future capacity of bluray. HDDVD is just a movie format. Bluray is currently used in 4 different industries. Do you have HDDVD computers? Can you put games on HDDVD along with a movie? Microsoft supports hDDVD because Bluray uses Java (Sun Microsystems) Wake up people. Check out my website to learn more about the formats.
  • Ken
    I own both blu-ray and hd-dvd players and I personally like hd-dvd better.I think blu-ray is being forced onto the consumer more so than hd. Bluray has more studios and stores like target and blockbuster only selling or renting their products. This dosen't give hddvd a fair chance in my opinion. The things that makes hddvd the better choice for me is,in most cases they are cheaper, the players are cheaper, and I like the hddvd-dvd combo format where you can just flip the disc and it will play on regular dvd players, something you cant do with bluray discs
  • ADX
    There is no difference between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. 1) They both use the same blue laser pickup lenz. 2) They both support the same video and sound compresion formats: Microsoft's VC-1, MPEG2 and MPEG4, Dolbly Digital and DTS, thus making the picture quality and sound the same. The only difference is that Blu-ray can store more data on the disk. Sony has just changed the way the disk is made, by puting the data track closer to the surface so that there can be more layers of data. HD DVD is made the same way as normal DVD's. I look at it as pure economics. It will cost more for both studios and consumers to switch to blu-ray, because the studios will have to re-invest in blu-ray disk manufactuing equipment, and consumers will pay more because of the rediculous licensing fees Sony charges to manufaturers of blu-ray players, thus passing that cost to the consumer. The storage capacity of HD-DVD is more than enough to hold a full lenth movie will extras and all sound tracks. Blu-ray might have the upper hand when it comes to 7 channel PCM, which is a lossless feed of digital sound, but no one will care about that except dorky audofiles. Dolbly Digial is satifactory and will be for a very long time. HD-DVD is a better choice because it makes it easier for the consumer to adopt High Definition at a lower cost. I think this is whay more studios such as Paramount/Dreamworks are making the switch to HD-DVD. You will see this trend as the next Christmas season aproaches, when there will be $200 HD-DVD player on store shelves, and over 100 new HD-DVD titles will be relased by that time. Consumers will be faced with the choice between a $200 player or a $500 dollar player. You figure it out.
  • ADX
    Here is an update. There is now a 3rd HD format call HD-VMD (HD-Versitile Multi-layer Disk) It is a true HD 1080p HD format but it is incredibly cheaper than HD-DVD and Blu-ray players. Instead os using Blue laser technology like Blu-ray and HD-DVD, HD-VMD uses the same Red Laser technology as normal DVD players. The difference is that like Blu-ray, HD-VMD adds more data layers and thus can store up to 30 GB, which is enough to hold an HD movie. It is basically a normal DVD player with extra software added to tell the red laser to read the extra layers on the disk. Costco will sell it for $150 dollars. The downside is that not alot studios are publishing on HD-VMD. So no real content yet, but maybe in the future.
  • ADX
    Im board now so I'll post one more thing. Quality in picture and sound is not depended on which data storage fomat that's used. It is the codec format. Codec's such as MPEG2, MPEG4, and VC-1. The same applies to audio formats such as Dolbly Digital and DTS. Lets analyze the facts here. HD-DVD came to market first, thus forcing Sony to rush Blu-ray to the market in response. Blu-ray was initially designed to use the MPEG2 codec, which is the same used to encode DVD's. HD-DVD uses VC-1 as it's standard codec, which is far superior to MPEG2. VC-1 is the standardized codec for High Definition Broadcastsing and Distribution. MPEG2 is the standard for Standard Broadcasting and Distribution. Sony pushed very hard but failed to keep MPEG2 as the stadard, but the Industry said "NO" due to limitations in quality in MPEG2 formats in HD. Thus all the innitial Blu-ray releases were encoded in MPEG2 which uses more storage space and provides less quality compared to VC-1. Example would be "The Fith Element" on Blu-ray. Sony decided to use MPEG4 AVC which is much better than MPEG2 for High Definition, but still does not have the same range in specifications to match the quality and range of VC-1, which by the way is Microsoft's Windows Media 9 format. Sony was initially trying to lower development and transfer costs for the studios because they would be using the same authoring tool that they use for DVD transfers, to offset the high cost of Sony's Blu-ray equipment. So now all Blu-ray movies are either encoded in MPEG2 or MPEG4 AVC which is inferior to HD-DVD's VC-1. Sony has now made VC-1 codec part of the Blu-ray codec linup in Hardware specifications for BD players, but there are no Blu-ray movies encoded in VC-1. Thus Most of that extra storage capacity on a Blu-ray disk will be used up by MPEG2 (inferior HD codec), while HD-DVD movies maxize storage space using the superior codec VC-1. HD-DVD movies will look better with more dynamic range and less noise in the picture, which is why it is the standard HD codec in the first place.
  • Jeffy
    ADX sorry to disagree but the standard broadcasting codec is NOT VC-1 for HD but MPEG 4 AVC / H.264 Microsoft? they wanted people to lock into VC-1 which is not an open standard like MPEG and thus pass Microsoft another monopoly thankfully other industry bodies disagreed. Panasonic, Sony, and all the video camera manufacturers support MPEG4 AVC
  • Jim
    I have a hddvd player and a PS3 blue ray,
    they both use the same technology, the only
    difference is the angle of the laser.
    They do have a chip that can be used in one single cheap
    player that can play both formats, but sony doesn't
    want this to come out, they want you to buy blue-ray
    so they can control the market. I like hddvd better,
    i think it has a much crisper picture, and the people who brought
    us the DVD made the HDdvd format, so who do you trust more?
    I also think hddvd has more movies that i like better, than they
    have on blueray.
    Disney!! My regular disney movies look
    great on a Hddvd player upconverted or on a upconvert dvd player
    so why waist my money.
    Most hdtvs people buy arent't even 1080i let alone 1080p
    most are 720p. Only the newest tvs have 1080p.
    I have watched blueray movie in 1080p and hdhdvd in 1080i,
    and there is not much difference in quality.
  • leroy white
    Look how silly all of yall hd-dvd anti sony fags look now! HA HA, Blu Ray won!!
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