Microsoft is Hip for HD DVD at Sundance
January 22, 2008

All eyes are on Microsoft's treatment of HD DVD, in these weeks following Warner Bros. very public bye-bye to the format. So it's interesting that during the current Sundance Film Festival, Microsoft has announced it's providing a $100,000 grant to Jason Kohn and Jared Goldman, so the two filmmakers can author their arthouse film Manda Bala in HD DVD. The guys are set to utilize Microsoft-developed interactivity HDi, which covers the format's picture-in-picture encoding among other technologies, for Manda Bala, a documentary which scored the 2007 Sundance Grand Jury Prize.
As a major corporation, Microsoft is more fuddy-duddy establishment, than the quirky, independent spirit that Sundance embodies. So Microsoft will likely make some noise at Sundance with this out-of-character support of indie filmmaking.
Also, this HDi grant extends Microsoft's 1,000 HD DVD Indies Project, which it announced earlier this year and works to provide free access to HD DVD authoring and on-demand replication. Filmmakers from The Ten and We Are the Strange and Sundance Channel TV series Big Ideas for a Small Planet are all making use of these free tools for HD DVD production.
I would say that Microsoft does come out looking warmer and fuzzier than usual in this indie filmmaking and HD DVD cheerleading. But I wonder if it will have any effect on the format war.  These are all small films that hardly anyone will think to see in theaters, much less seek out to watch on their HD DVD players.  If Microsoft really wants to do some HD DVD touting, they need to be pointing out that Cloverfield, the biggest film over the weekend, is slated to go HD DVD. That, of course, is contingent upon Paramount staying exclusive to the format by the time it hits at retail. Paramount is also behind U.S. distribution of There Will Be Blood, which has just racked up a load of Oscar nominations.

Posted by Susanne Ault on January 22, 2008 | Comments (0)