ParisLemon » Paramount To Opt-Out of Their HD-DVD Deal? The Fatal Blow Comes Swiftly.

Paramount To Opt-Out of Their HD-DVD Deal? The Fatal Blow Comes Swiftly.

3 days ago upon hearing that Warner Brothers was siding with Blu-ray, I wrote:

“When Paramount – one of the two big guns of the majors signed on to an exclusive deal with HD-DVD – sees this, expect them to start looking into ways of getting out of their deal”

And today we find that very prediction could be materializing. The Financial Times is reporting that Paramount is “poised to drop its support of HD-DVD” by utilizing an opt-out clause that was built-in to their exclusivity deal with HD-DVD in the event that Warner Brothers went to Blu-ray. This reminds me of a star athlete signing a deal with a team and having the opt-out clause if they feel the team isn’t doing everything in its power to stay competitive.

While Warner Brothers going to Blu-ray was a major blow to HD-DVD likely signaling the eventual end of the war by the end of this year – Paramount now doing the same thing would be a much quicker fatal blow with HD-DVD possibly even ceasing to exist as early as May 2008 when Warner Brothers stops making HD-DVDs.

The story also notes that HD-DVD’s now apparently lone gunman, Universal, declined to comment on their situation – but as I said in my previous post, if everyone else is on board, you can be sure they won’t be left behind.

Nice knowing you HD-DVD.

[UPDATE]: Multiple reports are coming in with Paramount denying they are jumping from HD-DVD’s sinking ship. I can’t help but wonder if this is simply to sell some more HD-DVDs until they are ready to make the switch probably sometime in the summer (you’ll recall Warner Bros. won’t stop supporting HD-DVD until May).

If you only currently had one format on the market would you announce you were stopping support of that format before the other one is ready to sell? Probably not.

More thoughts:

[photo: flickr/zoonabar]

Post by MG Siegler on 01/07/08
Comments

nimbus

Good stuff. Now Universal will have to go to Blu-ray. If not, that's cool too. They won't be selling hi def movies on a successful disc format and they won't be selling movies on iTunes.

They better decide. By the way, I don't like NBC, Universal, or Microsoft.

MG Siegler

Yeah Universal (which NBC owns) is quickly painting itself in a corner by continuously backing the wrong horses.

David Chen

Hey MG,

I was also hoping for a swift end to the war but it looks like it won't be so easy:

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/DreamWorks/Paramount/CES_2008/Paramount/DreamWorks:__Still_Supporting_HD_DVD_%5BUPDATED%5D/1345

MG Siegler

@david - interesting, I can't help but get a feeling that might be a denial to sell more HD-DVDs until they cut off support sometime in the early summer - if that's true they are pretty big assholes.