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Universal Studios "supposedly" dropped HD-DVD deal for neutrality UPDATED

Posted May 9, 2007 at 3:19PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: PS3, Xbox 360 Tags: gaming accessories, Hollywood, Pioneer, Sony, Toshiba

According to a report by German site Heise Online, movie production giant Universal Studios "stepped out" of their exclusive HD-DVD deal with Toshiba. This rumored information, spilled through a press conference held by Blu-Ray advocates Pioneer, also came with a mention that Universal was the last of the exclusive HD-DVD format supporters in Hollywood.

Major publishing giants Paramount and Warner also stepped down from the HD-DVD exclusive agreement with Toshiba, some time before Universal followed suit. It was publicly announced that Universal would be supporting the HD-DVD format back in January, but following this development coming from the pro-Blu-Ray camp, Universal might have chosen to stay neutral in the HD format wars.

And if this development is of any consequence, it might give Sony a level battlefield with Toshiba in vying for domination of the future HD movie format. As of publishing, Universal has yet to officially confirm or deny these claims made by Pioneer.

UPDATE: According to Engadget, Universal Studio's Craig Kornblau has stated that the rumors of Universal studios "going neutral" are "totally false." Engadget, however, feels that this may just be a ruse before the real news storm brews:

As much as we love to get the official word straight from the horses mouth, we can't help but feel like this is like the time the head coach was denying rumors of his star quarterback getting traded, right before the trade goes through.

Thanks to our commenter keepUp for the tip.

Via Heise Online

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It's going to happen. Universal can't deny the success that Blu-ray has over them. Universals marketing of HD DVD is worse then Sonys PS3 marketing.

It's rare to see any commercials fro HD DVD movies while everyday I see Blu-ray disk commercials. HD DVD is lacking in studio support and will hinder the format even further.

At this point, Blu-ray will continue to hold the lead because of the better sales and better movie releases. In the beginning Blu-ray was suffering from a low amount of players and slightly better then DVD transfers. Since the move to VC-1 and MPEG-4/H.264 the Blu-ray transfers are great.

If HD DVD loses their only exclusive studio support, they should give up and make back money on developing cheap Blu-ray players. Undercutting Sony would be the real way to make up for the loses on HD DVD.

# No Surpise — Jin Wu 2007-05-09 20:15

HD DVD was doomed from the beginning. With as few studios on board, how was it even going to win? I'm just glad I didn't was my money on a HD DVD player for my 360.

# . — Guest 2007-05-10 01:14

"Universals marketing of HD DVD is worse then Sonys PS3 marketing."

Yeah, HD-DVD should have said "we won the format war" after selling more movies for 2 weeks like the blu ray association did.

# you havent sense — Guest 2007-05-10 02:14

if i go in a shop a see BD-R, BD-RW, BD-reader, BD- burner and some film. I have never see a HD-DVD disk. And most studio goes to BD and Sony has three studio that produce only on BD.

# Hmph, someone's a bit jealous — Guest 2007-05-10 03:00

Mister Common Sense,

No matter how much you try to make Blu-Ray seem inferior and "gay", it doesnt change the fact that its winning steadily over HD-DVD. People have more incentive to buy Blu-Ray for several reasons, foremost being that they can get a Blu-Ray player for nearly a 1/3 of the cost of a conventional one. (That being the PS3).

If you want to watch HD-DVDs, you would have to buy a standalone player, or, a... standalone player, pretty much. IT was a bad move for M$ to make the HD-DVD an attachement/accessory rather than a part of the actual console. If they had done that, they might have actually had a running chance.

Also, Many more studios support Blu-Ray than HD-DVD as well, and two exclusive supporters of HD-DVD as we have seen, have now decided to record on both. They were probably payed not to go all-Blu-Ray, IMHO.

# to mcs — Guest 2007-05-10 03:57

hehehe u sound jealous

# Please don't listen to him... — Guest 2007-05-10 04:48

Please don't listen to Mister Common Sense. He's nothing more but an Xbox 360 fanboy who likes dissing the PS3 and it's accessories...

And calling Blu-ray for Blu-gay clearly means that you don't like it because it's from Sony. Why do you even post here? Go back to the xbox 360 qj site and stop waisting our time

# ... — Guest 2007-05-10 04:54

How is blu-ray crap? You get almost twice the space, better movies and more extras.

Why would they lie? Face it Blu-ray is winning the format war.

Why don't you tell me what makes HD-DVD so wonderfull and Blu-ray so crap? Care to argue or what?

# Blue laser diode — Guest 2007-05-10 10:26

OK, since everyone seems to be dodging the real point on why blu-ray is superior, It's because of the blue laser.

They are now able to fit 25GB onto 1 layer of a blu-ray disk compared to 16GB of a HD-DVD. And HD-DVD is at the limit of the red lasers capabilities.

Another big factor is the distance the laser is from the disc, in the blu-ray drive it's much closer, there are already lots of sites showing the resilliency of blu-ray discs.

I personally have experience while playing back almost all of my scratched audio CD's, except only the very worst.

So maybe HD-DVD is as good as Blu-Ray and through multiple layers can achieve the same capacity, Blu-Ray is the future. IMHO Blu-Ray will replace everything.

I can't wait to get a blu-ray recordable drive for my comp, when they come down in price in a couple years.

# nice — Guest 2007-05-10 10:27

nicely said ! :)

# $200 fantasies — damonous 2007-05-10 11:08

Ah, by $200 HD-DVD players, I presume Mr No Common Sense means the recent 'Internet fantasy' relating to the supposed $50-core-cost HD-DVD drives that WalMart has purchased. --The report which NO ONE has confirmed is truly an HD-DVD unit (only assumptions) and not Blu-Ray. (By the way, the one WalMart in my area that caries a 4 foot selection of HD titles went from an even-split, to 1 row of HD-DVD, and the rest Blu-Ray. --Hardly makes sense if they're about to invest big in HD-DVD.) As regarding "scandalous marketing" ---I suppose it's already forgotten how the HD-DVD camp about a month ago tried to claim that the January Blu-Ray software increases were due to Sony 'giving away Blu-Ray movies' with PS3 (when in fact, Toshiba has been "giving away" 3-5 movies with the purchase of every HD standalong unit since November, and all Sony did was give $10 rebates for a handful of $30 discs with PS3 boxes). Or, how about Toshiba's "strategic selling" ever since the start that since they are part of the DVD Forum, they are the only HD-sanctioned format? --Sounds great until you realize that ONLY Universal is exclusive to HD-DVD, and every other studio worth a damn is lined-up behind Blu-Ray. ....And it looks like that might change now. With AACS possibly cracked, only Blu-Ray has a true alternative-additional encryption method available. Besides that, it would be no big surprise to see them go multi-platform, based upon their absence of presence at CES 2007. Everyone expected a big announcement of titles, and they waited until well AFTER CES closed to release a list ---not exactly a show of confidence in HD-DVD. I think "common sense" dictates that they had a falling-out with Toshiba of some sort even back then. Personally, I made the choice a while back to own both a PS3 and a Toshiba HD-DVD. However, I don't buy ANY HD-DVDs that exist on Blu-Ray, as "common sense" also dictates that a single format is preferable. Might as well back the better team and technology (go Blu).

# I love stuff like this — Guest 2007-05-10 14:22

I love coming into these kinds of articles and reading what the sheep have to say. They all think they know what they're talking about, it's so funny

# Old news — Guest 2007-05-10 14:46

Rumor is that August Universal will announce its support of Blu Ray. Someone let the cat out of the bag early, and the new Universal Press got ticked! That's all it is.

# HD_DVD and BLU RAY are both FLOPS — Guest 2007-05-10 22:15

FORZA 2 IS JUST AMAZING, WHO GIVES A ***** ABOUT HD_DVD OR BLU RAY WHEN THIS QUALITY OF GAME CAN COME OUT ON DVD9.

# Blu Ray ? HD-Dvd ? they are flops, they cant touch dvd9 no one cares about HD players — Guest 2007-05-10 22:39

Big deal anyway, Samsung etc have now gone DUAL format rather than Blu Ray only so what difference does it make to PS3 owners(rember the thing called GAMES)! FFS you are meant to have a games machine why should it bother anyone if these huge companys go dual format ? what difference in this world does it really make to you?..

# @bigBOss, "PS3 and it's accessories..." — Guest 2007-05-11 08:08

you make it sound like Hank selling propane

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Universal Studios "supposedly" dropped HD-DVD deal for neutrality *UPDATED*

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