Low/no budget filmmaker blogs daily on subjects like video production, HD cameras, screenwriting, etc.
According to HD Beat, hackers have discovered the “processing key used to decrypt the DRM on all HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc films”.
What this means in layman terms is that pretty soon, your favorite torrent tracker will feature movies in all their HD glory, be them Blu-ray or HD DVD.
Everyone (and their grandma) is predicting a demise for Blu-ray and hence Sony and even the Playstation 3. It’s been just over two months since Blu-ray’s premiere and these “format” wars are not decided in a day. If wars were decided in a day (or a month), Hitler would’ve taken both Russia and the UK (extrapolating his early successes).
HD DVD experienced a surge around Christmas when studios supporting it released more titles than the Blu-ray camp. The situation has changed a bit. While Universal is silent about upcoming HD DVD titles, the Blu-ray camp churns new titles.
Looking at the release lists, Blu-ray studios are going to release MORE movies in February than HD DVD released in 2006. I’m not eager to announce them winners just yet. These guys should’ve settled their difference a long time ago anyway. Sometimes it’s the consumer who’s the best judge of a format but the HD media doesn’t come particularly cheap as to allow open experimentation.
Or is it? The North American HD DVD Promotional Group took advantage of CES to get out the following:
As of January 5th, the group estimates there were more than 175,000 HD DVD players sold in America, with an annualized attach rate of 28 movies per player. The group projects sales will reach 2.5 million players by the end of this year and more than $600 million worth of movie revenues. HD DVD buyers can look forward to more HDi enhanced titles, now featuring internet features that were demoed at the event, as well as more players hitting the market from manufacturers like Lite-On, Alco, Alpine, Meridian and Onkyo. Look for the trend of combo releases to continue, as the format’s backers see it as a viable way of introducing current DVD owners to the format and building a library prior to upgrading.
Numbers usually don’t lie. And the numbers here (at least in terms of players) are very much skewed in favor of the Blu-ray camp. The reason? One million Playstation 3 have been purchased and I bet this is just the beginning.
Blu-Ray is piggy-backing on Playstation 3 recent launch.
So far HD DVD leads the way with 130 titles released. Blu-ray is closely behind with 116. The titles to be released any moment are:
The Architect (Magnolia)
Bulletproof Monk (Fox)
A Christmas Story (Warner)
Flight of the Phoenix (Fox)
From Hell (Fox)
National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (Warner)
Rising Sun (Fox)
Rocky (Fox)
I’m a big SONY fan so I hope Blu-ray doesn’t turn out to be the new Beta Max.
According to a post at the Long Tail, it would seem that Hollywood is doing its best to hide the fact that blockbusters are few and far in between.
I first posted about Hollywood’s plans to produce fewer movies last year. Now it seems they’ll also be massaging the numbers as well.
According to post (a reader who requested anonymity said):
I happened to be riding to work with an exec from one of the major studios this morning, and he mentioned that the studios are increasingly making deals with theaters to inflate opening numbers. In particular, they will give the theaters very high revenue share for the first X days of the movie (he mentioned 100% for the first 3 days), incentivizing the theater to maximize the number of screens the movie’s shown on, inflating opening numbers.
The particular example of Superman and Pirates were actually the ones he brought up - that Superman’s decline was partially due to the theathers’ incentive period running out.
I have no idea how true or prevalent this is, but something you might want to look into. This would be done for movies which the studio considers potential “hits”, increasing discrepancy between them and normal movies.
Funny, I don’t think I heard Bryan Singer mention it in his Superman interview.
I’m still hopeful that the explosion of user-generated content will severely erode the blockbuster’s share of the pie. Remains to be seen if Google Video will finally launch their marketplace for indie producers.
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