New evidence that Paramount is going Blu?
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Jan 21st 2008 3:13PM
posted Jan 21st 2008 3:13PM
In what could just as easily be an honest mistake but is causing lots of discussion among Blu-ray fans -- Amazon.co.uk has three Paramount titles available for pre-order. All three titles have a expected ship date of March 10th and all those hopeful for a single format to get behind, want to believe this is another slip by our friends at Amazon that would confirm the rumor that Paramount is using its exit clause to go Blu. We're sure if we asked Paramount it'd be denied 'til the cows come home, but even though these titles were previously available on Blu-ray, we'd still put our money on this being just like the third generation HD DVD player situation.[Via FormatWarCentral]
Read - Trading Spaces
Read - Coming to America
Read - Anchorman
Reminds me of when I imported the classic Transformers last month to piss off my HDDVD luvn buddy who kept trying to brag about having that assterd movie that came out in the theaters.
Some people seem as obsessed with the format war as Hitler was over invading Russia.....his one BIGGGG mistake!
I have BOTH formats....not a WHIT of difference between them on a 73 inch DLP screen and $20,000 worth of equipment. NEITHER of them is particularly impressive. HD-TV, on the other hand, IS impressive.
I now have a TON of friends who have switched to HD-TV and NONE have bothered with EITHER format because there is virtually NO major difference between them and regular DVD. Oh, sure, for tech-heads, it's like counting the number of angels on the head of a pin.....there is a TINY difference between regular DVD and HD-DVD or Bluray on the best of the best discs.....but not enough to EVER make anyone rush out to buy these sets. Guys who argue the merits of one format over the other are simply perpetrating a HOAX on the unsuspecting public.
NEITHER format is anything to write home about. UPCONVERSION is!!!!!!!
I'm afraid this is going to end like the battle of the cassette formats back in the late 70s - 80s. BOTH will just fade away.......
Stop obsessing about all of this nonsense. And that is what it is. Relax. Take some Xanax!
You THINK you see something spectacular. Most people do NOT!!!!!
Maybe we ALL need to....."Get a Life!!!!"
Paramount is going blu......when they say it! until then, its fanboy fantasies!
Who has the International distrubtion rights for these movies?
Is it Paramount?
exactly what I was thinking, especially since it's amazon.co.uk, not amazon.com. Is Paramount exclusive to HD DVD worldwide or just in the US? I honestly have no idea.
Amazon probably don't know anything more than we do. They are just expecting (hoping) that Paramount will go neutral again.
I am a diehard blu, but I just don't believe in amazon. This news can't be taken as Para going blu
As much as I want the remaining studios to go blu-ray, I hoped they would do it with better titles than these...
If you don't like Trading Places, Coming to America and Anchorman you must not like comedy.
Oh I like comedies, just not sure I need them in HD...
I remember when DVD first came out and a people talked about not needing dvd (or widescreen) for comedies. They may not show off what the formats can really do, but they will soon be the norm. btw I thought trading spaces on hd dvd looked awesome compared to my brothers old dvd copy.
I'm pretty sure Coming to America and Trading Places came out on Blu-ray in the US before Paramount went HD DVD exclusive. Anchorman is the only "new" one, and it's a DreamWorks movie that Paramount acquired as a catalog title when the companies merged--which means, ironically, that in most countries it was released on DVD by HD DVD-exclusive Universal!
Amazon has done this before with BD Exclusive titles in HD-DVD format, nothing new.
It's probably just the international distributing right aren't owned by paramount. But I sure hope Paramount switches to blu-ray, I'd really like Cloverfield on Blu-ray.
I only want Cloverfield on Blu Ray or HD-DVD with a Lossless Audio track. If no lossless audio is present, the DVD of Cloverfield will do.
I don't believe that Paramount has the international distribution rights to these films. This article was written a little hastily. I am a blu-ray fan, and waiting for Toshiba to waive the white flag already, but this is a sign of nothing. There are many films on HD-DVD in the US that you can import on blu-ray, or vice versa.
I'm pretty sure Blu is region locked, which means you CAN'T import BR titles (if you want to play them, that is)
Blu is not region locked as of yet, they print regions on some titles, but it is not locked.
@Eddie:
A great deal of Blu-ray titles are not region locked, that's up to the studios:
http://bluray.liesinc.net/
And a great deal of Blu-ray movies are region locked especially of all of Fox's titles.
Name one HD DVD is region locked.
another day, another rumor... thank you engadget for wasting your time to get the blu-ray fanboys all excited... what is worse is that they are all happy these past few weeks even though they did not get any more studio supoort... they were just happy that the other format lost studio support...
Ok, even as a blu guy, I admit that I would like Anchorman with some PiP commentary if its anything like the dvd anchorman commentary with will ferrell.
Siiiiiighhhhhhh......... I'm still wondering when Amazon's going to e-mail me when Indiana Jones will be available on HD DVD. I think they may soon... hopefully!
(Note the sarcasm in my post.)
In response to this post:
I don't see this happening until Paramount/Dreamworks says it's going to happen. Not even Billy the Hunt can change that logic... wait, all he has to do is post his "Two Cents" and he already does.
Damn you Billy the Hunt, and your FUD!
Indiana Jones is a Steven Speilberg movie, and I'm pretty sure his movies aren't allowed to be put on to HD DVD. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
@Elad:
Spielberg movies can appear on HDDVD with his permission. As of now his movies are exempt from exclusivity agreements. If they appear on HDDVD, they'll also have to appear on Blu-ray.
Actually, it is Spielberg's choice. If he wants his movies on blu-ray, he can have them on blu-ray. If he wants his movies on hd-dvd, he can have them on hd-dvd. Just look at Close Encounters, it is blu-ray exclusive. Maybe if Dreamworks had given Bay that kind of power, we wouldn't have to listen to him mouth off all the time.
It seems that Paramount owns the rights to Coming to America and Trading Spaces. Amazon is not listing the studio for the blu-ray releases, but it can be seen by viewing the regular UK DVD release. Anchorman is Dreamworks...but I think we are all forgetting that Paramount owns Dreamworks Animation and not Dreamworks.
just a question but, say i wanted a movie on hd-dvd and it was on blu ray only but overseas it is on hd-dvd if i imported it, would it still be in english and just like the movies we have here, or would it be a different movie
Jeez, why don't we get a new Engadget forum that specializes in these types of "news" pieces by Ben? Something like "Engadet Blu-boys Circle Jerk"?
It took all of 30 seconds to show that these discs are actually coming on HD DVD by looking on competitor websites. Quality journalism.
http://www.play.com/DVD/HD%20DVD/4-/3595167/-/Product.html?searchstring=anchorman&searchsource=0
http://www.sendit.com/video/item/7001000141923
http://www.play.com/DVD/HD%20DVD/4-/3595177/-/Product.html?searchstring=failure+to+launch&searchsource=0
ouch!!!!!!
bad news for HD-DVD shills just keep on coming!!!!
engadgethd's traffic flow must be down again, HD fud will always get the posters in.
I saw a blog commenting on Paramount's 2008 releases. Anyone know if this is true? Is TL51 the new 51GB HD DVD?
-------------------------------------
Paramount/DreamWorks Home Entertainment
Proposed list for 1st Quarter 2008 to 2nd Quarter 2008 HD DVD:
Titanic TLT
Braveheart TLT
Gladiator TLT
Deep Impact HD
The Prince of Egypt HD
Saving Private Ryan HD
Small Soldiers American Beauty HD
Cast Away TLT
Shrek 1 & 2 (Also Trilogy BOX Set w/P3) TLT
The Last Castle HD
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence HD
A Beautiful Mind HD
The Curse of the Jade Scorpion HD
The Time Machine HD
The Tuxedo HD
Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas TL51
Shark Tale HD
ASSUMING this is even true, I'd say their best titles are Braveheart, Gladiator and Shaving Ryans Privates... not a bad lineup at all, but HD-DVD could have used this during the Holidays... again, too little, too late.
Seems unlikely.
Considering Amazon has outed cameras from Canon and NIkon, computers and software from Apple and many other consumer items before their official announcements, this might just be something we will be learning soon enough.
It's a no-brainer. They have to go Blu-ray if they want to compete. And they will.
I took the obviously completely wacky step of e-mailing Amazon.co.uk today asking them about it. So just a few hours later I get a reply just now and hey presto the links point to the HD DVD versions. I get the feeling I'm doing somebody else's job here. Abysmal journalism. I assume that there will be a correction! LOL...
After today I will not be reading Engadget HD again, because it's totally unconcerned with the truth and totally committed to promoting Blu-ray. It saddens me that such a well-read website has no integrity in these matters. In future I will frequent sites like HighDefDigest.com instead, since they don't appear to have any hidden agenda. Bye-bye.
The was the stupidest comment I've ever seen that wasn't an obvious troll, hamerg. Check out the read link and you'll see that the info came from Format War Central, a reputable provider of format war news, and UK's Amazon site did originally list the releases as Blu-ray, apparently by mistake.
Can't wait to buy King Kong on Blu-ray, particularly for the higher quality encode to utilize the additional 20GB lacking from the crap HD-DVD version.