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August 21, 2007 9:00 AM PDT

Blu-ray camp fires back at latest HD DVD announcements

by David Carnoy
  • 93 comments

Will we ever get one disc to rule them all?

(Credit: kotaku.com)

Ah, the emails and voice mails were flying fast and furious yesterday after Paramount and DreamWorks made their little announcement about going HD DVD exclusive. At just after 4 p.m. in New York, Fox and MGM put out a press release saying they were unveiling "an aggressive global Blu-ray Disc release strategy, including 29 new release and 'must-have' catalog titles that runs through the end of the 2007 calendar year."

The release went on to say that Fox intends to put out "at least one state-of-the-art title per month featuring numerous BD 'firsts'" and highlighted the fact that "Blu-ray was out-performing HD DVD 2-to-1 at retail in 2007." Among the 29 new releases, my eye was drawn to Master & Commander, Ronin, Cast Away, Independence Day, A Bridge Too Far, 28 Days Later, The Day After Tomorrow, and the Die Hard trilogy.

After the email went out, the phone started ringing: All the CNET the home-theater editors were contacted, so the PR folks at GCI Group in LA were working overtime, trying to do a little damage control. The basic message was, they may have this, but we have a whole more of that. And, did you hear that the Paramount deal doesn't include any of Spielberg's movies and that the deal only ran for 18 months? Tit for tat. Tat for tit. The war was raging.

Then, thanks to a New York Times article, word got out this morning that indeed (as I suspected), someone was getting paid off. The article noted that, "Paramount and DreamWorks Animation together will receive about $150 million in financial incentives for their commitment to HD DVD, according to two Viacom executives with knowledge of the deal but who asked not to be identified." Microsoft denied paying anything, but wouldn't rule it out as a tactic in the future. There was no word on who might be paying Universal for its exclusive HD DVD agreement, but you gotta think there's a pretty sweet deal in place there, too.

... Read more

April 11, 2007 3:22 PM PDT

iTunes customers to hear MGM's roar

by Tom Krazit
  • 1 comment

Apple has added MGM's films to the list of movies available through the iTunes Store, which now has over 500 movies.

MGM's famous Leo the Lion has graced the opening of thousands of movies since the dawn of the motion picture industry. Apple doesn't plan to offer all those movies right away, but is starting off with classics like Rocky and Dances With Wolves. (How long will that take to download?)

Movies on iTunes cost between $9.99 and $14.99. Apple plans to add additional titles from MGM's library over the next few weeks. In announcing the MGM deal, Apple said it has now sold over 2 million movies since last September.

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