The Burning CES Question: What Will Paramount and Universal Do?
January 8, 2008

Sorry! I have little concrete answers about what the HD DVD exclusive studios are going do following Warner's sayonara to the format. No luck yet getting Par folks to speak on the record about their 2008 plans. But CES was abound with people who thought they knew what would happen.
At one evening get-together with press, BD studio executives and reporters gabbed out possible 'out clauses' that Par or Uni could envoke if they wanted to end their HD DVD exclusivity. Par signed onto HD DVD exclusively for 18 months, but at that point last year the studio couldn't have guessed that Warner would say bye to the format. In fact, HD DVD Promotional Group folks and Microsoft learned of Warner's opt-out just hours before the news release was publicly sent. Perhaps Warner's move will allow Paramount to produce in both formats through next year without getting in legal trouble, or goes the gossip-mongering.
Yet despite the speculation, there's also reports that Paramount is committed to the current contract.  Our own Paul Sweeting sees the HD DVD studios taking a wait-and-see, hopeful position, as execs rely mostly on whether or not Toshiba continues to sell its hardware.
I myself got to Kevin Collins, Microsoft's HD DVD evangelist, while he was trolling the CES floor Tuesday. He expressed a business-as-usual attitude, and was continuing to talk up retailers and CES-goers about what he still believes to be the format's ongoing interactivity advantages over Blu-ray.
As for Universal, Ken Graffeo insisted Tuesday there are "no changes" to the studio's current sole HD DVD support. But he declined to really get into how the future may unfold. Graffeo seems heartened by retailers at CES who have said they are especially pleased with HD DVD hardware sales during the holidays.
In a way, it's funny how much conversations at the show were about these studios' next steps. You'd think the CES bull sessions would be more focused on the loads and loads and seriously, loads of new electronics products on hand. There is a lot of oddball stuff heading our way. In one of the stranger concepts, Philips will be rolling out a line of flash drives bejeweled with Swarovski crystals. And Sony is betting on something called the Rolly, which launches in the U.S. this spring. Already available in Japan, it is a portable music device that eerily figures out how to dance in time to the tracks.  

Posted by Susanne Ault on January 8, 2008 | Comments (0)