Michael Bay, posterboy for integrity...

[chicagofilms]

Taken from his site today...

So his original post was just drunken rant?


Michael Bay HD-DVD post
08/21/2007 07:51 PM

Last night at dinner I was having dinner with three Blu-Ray owners, they were pissed about no Transformers Blu-Ray and I drank the kool aid hook line and sinker. So at 1:30 in the morning I posted - nothing good ever comes out of early am posts mind you - I over reacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard.

As a director, I'm all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard firsthand people upset about a corporate decision.

So today I saw 300 on HD-DVD, it rocks!

So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!

Michael Bay

 

[jgantert]

Gotta watch out for that Kool Aid.

 

[meStevo]

Wow, and I thought my cats were fickle!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Idiot, stick to making your movies to the big screen and let your movie company decide how they release it for home viewing.

 

[SatinKzo]

NOOOO! Micheal, stay away from Part 2 Got back to hating Paramount! You got away with a decent entertaining movie with Transformers, but I just know you'll kill part 2 with too many cutsey stuff.

 

[sampatterson]

Michael...yawn....<insert snoring here>

 

[vurbano]

SO much for that bit of BD FUD. Bill the shill must be stomping on his digital bits right now.

 

[CochiseGuy]

SO much for that bit of BD FUD. Bill the shill must be stomping on his digital bits right now.

What's really funny is reading the comments over at the fan site blu-ray.com. Yesterday they were singing his praise "Way to go Michael! Stand up to Paramount & demand your movies in Blu-ray!". Today it's "What a sleaze ball! Boycott his movies!". I think some are forming a lynch party.

 

[chicagofilms]

SO much for that bit of BD FUD. Bill the shill must be stomping on his digital bits right now.

Why do I get the feeling you wouldn't call him that if the bits chose HD-DVD?

 

[vurbano]

Why do I get the feeling you wouldn't call him that if the bits chose HD-DVD?

Because HD DVD is the most efficient format and far more cost effective for the consumer.

 

[chicagofilms]

How is it more efficient? It has less capacity and does nothing BD can't do.

Far more cost effective? The movies are pretty much priced the same on both formats. Unless you're referring to cheaper players. There's what, 2 players that are cheaper? It's not as if there are a hundred devices to choose from and $50 HD players. The fact is there are only a few manufacturers selling players for either format. As more are released, prices on both sides will continue to fall. Toshiba just reached a lower price point first, BD will catch up.

So HD has far less storage capacity but currently (probably not for long) a cheaper player and less exclusive studio support. How is it a better format?

 

[John Kotches]

How is it more efficient? It has less capacity and does nothing BD can't do.

PiP, Interactivity, Network connectivity for downloading and integrating additional content.

None of these are supported by any BD Player with the possible exception of the PS3; I'm not sure what part of specs 1.1 and 2.0 it supports. When the 1.1 spec players ship some of these will be taken off the table. That's a few months from now assuming they ship on time.

The 2.0 players have an indeterminate ship date.

Far more cost effective?

1. 
   HD-DVD is a $100,000 change to an existing DVD production line. Blu-ray requires dedicated production lines to the tune of millions of dollars. Lower costs to be amortized on disc production.
2. Authoring with BD-J is more time consuming than with HDi. Lower costs to build the software layer.
3. BD Authoring platform is about 4x the cost of an HD-DVD authoring platform.

That's off the top of my head.

The movies are pretty much priced the same on both formats. Unless you're referring to cheaper players. There's what, 2 players that are cheaper? It's not as if there are a hundred devices to choose from and $50 HD players. The fact is there are only a few manufacturers selling players for either format. As more are released, prices on both sides will continue to fall. Toshiba just reached a lower price point first, BD will catch up.

There's only a 2-3 month Delta between the two and Blu-ray has been playing catchup since day one.

So HD has far less storage capacity but currently (probably not for long) a cheaper player and less exclusive studio support. How is it a better format?

You've assumed the 51GB disc (in prototype) won't come to fruition. If it doesn't get announced between now and CES then it won't exist in production (IMO).

If capacity is removed from the "laundry list" it's going to be interesting to see where we go.

Exclusive to Blu-ray:
Sony (and affiliates)
Fox
Disney

Exclusive to HD-DVD:
Universal
Paramount (and affiliates)

We're back to near parity. If Warner drops BD support it will be parity.

Cheers,

 

[chicagofilms]

" 1. HD-DVD is a $100,000 change to an existing DVD production line. Blu-ray requires dedicated production lines to the tune of millions of dollars. Lower costs to be amortized on disc production.
2. Authoring with BD-J is more time consuming than with HDi. Lower costs to build the software layer.
3. BD Authoring platform is about 4x the cost of an HD-DVD authoring platform."

Then why do HD-DVD movies cost the same as BD? They should be as cheap as DVDs.

"You've assumed the 51GB disc (in prototype) won't come to fruition. If it doesn't get announced between now and CES then it won't exist in production (IMO)."

Trumped by BD 100GB - 250GB prototypes.

Somewhere between now and this time next year, BD will be the superior format from a technical standpoint, hands down. During that time, the cost of players will drop, probably dramatically.

 

[meStevo]

That's the recurring line in these arguments generally for the BD side...

Sometime between now and this time next year...

 

[John Kotches]

Then why do HD-DVD movies cost the same as BD? They should be as cheap as DVDs.

They do have to recoup their costs involved for production lines; authoring etc including the software / hardware tools involved. These cost money. Should they cost as much as they do? I don't think so. Should they cost more than a DVD? Yes, because it does cost a bit more to manufacture each disc presently. There is a higher perceived value for HD over SD.

It's a free market and they can decide what to price the end product at -- since the wholesale --> retail costs scale pretty linearly so the wholesale price dictates in part the retail price. DVDs can be used as loss leaders with anywhere from a slight negative to a slight positive margin realized on each unit. This gets buyers into the store where they can buy other more profitable items.

Trumped by BD 100GB - 250GB prototypes.

Somewhere between now and this time next year, BD will be the superior format from a technical standpoint, hands down. During that time, the cost of players will drop, probably dramatically.

Could you explain to me how the computer end of the business will benefit from these discs when the defined spec only handles a dual layer disc? And 4 - 10 layers will be a nightmare for production.

 

[mrschwarz]

Then why do HD-DVD movies cost the same as BD? They should be as cheap as DVDs.

Since when does cost relate to price? CDs were cheaper to produce than cassettes, but had a higher retail price.

 

[chicagofilms]

Since when does cost relate to price? CDs were cheaper to produce than cassettes, but had a higher retail price.

Then the cheaper production cost of HD-DVD should not be used in an argument supporting it as better for the consumer. So HD looses another round to BD.

 

[chicagofilms]

Could you explain to me how the computer end of the business will benefit from these discs when the defined spec only handles a dual layer disc? And 4 - 10 layers will be a nightmare for production.

When recordable DVD hit the market, there was only single layer. Then came the dual layer discs much later. I see the same thing happening with BD in the computer world. We now have single layer, dual layer on the way and somewhere down the line 4 layers or more should become available.

Even if bith formats stay where they are, you have 50GB vs. 30GB. That extra 20GB is huge. Even leaving the PC side out of it, here's an example of the issues this causes on the movie side(taken from the bits):

Here's another interesting story I've heard through the grapevine. People at Paramount who were working on the HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc versions of Blades of Glory had actually been planning to do some kind of elaborate interactive feature on both versions... except that they discovered the 30GB HD-DVD disc didn't have enough space to do what they'd wanted to do. So they were planning to include this feature exclusively on the Blu-ray version. Now, of course, that's all changed. But this casts some doubt on comments made by Paramount's chief technology officer, Alan Bell, in the media since yesterday, to the effect that the studio considered HD-DVD the superior format from a technical standpoint. Apparently someone didn't tell that to the guys actually WORKING with these formats at the studio.

 

[mrschwarz]

Then the cheaper production cost of HD-DVD should not be used in an argument supporting it as better for the consumer. So HD looses another round to BD.

Personally, I couldn't care less which one wins or loses. I don't have an HD TV and don't have any plans to get one. I haven't found HDTV to be compelling enough to me to justify the cost. This Blu-Ray, HD-DVD 'war' is amusing to me. People get so emotionally involved in a format. I doubt that HD-DVDs in either form are going to have the same level of success as regular ones. Look at what is happening with CD sales. Are DVD sales far behind?

Again, while the cost of production is not related to the sale price (the studios will charge as much as you let them), cost will be a factor in adoption. Studios try to maximize their profits. They do this by making something that will sell. They also try to minimize their expenses. If all things are equal. The format that is the cheapest to produce will win. The real question is 'Are all other things equal?'.

I believe Sony is one of the driving forces behind Blu-Ray. If it's not I'm sure someone will correct me. Looking at Sony's track record of trying to set a standard (Betamax, mini CD, Walkman, Memory stick), I wouldn't bet the farm.

 

[John Kotches]

When recordable DVD hit the market, there was only single layer. Then came the dual layer discs much later. I see the same thing happening with BD in the computer world. We now have single layer, dual layer on the way and somewhere down the line 4 layers or more should become available.

The computer market is not the same as the BD-ROM for consumer video playback. So what might work someday is a red herring in this discussion.

To be honest; as cheap as disk space is getting there's little point not to go disk to disk for backups.

Even if bith formats stay where they are, you have 50GB vs. 30GB. That extra 20GB is huge. Even leaving the PC side out of it, here's an example of the issues this causes on the movie side(taken from the bits):

Here's another interesting story I've heard through the grapevine. People at Paramount who were working on the HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc versions of Blades of Glory had actually been planning to do some kind of elaborate interactive feature on both versions... except that they discovered the 30GB HD-DVD disc didn't have enough space to do what they'd wanted to do. So they were planning to include this feature exclusively on the Blu-ray version. Now, of course, that's all changed. But this casts some doubt on comments made by Paramount's chief technology officer, Alan Bell, in the media since yesterday, to the effect that the studio considered HD-DVD the superior format from a technical standpoint. Apparently someone didn't tell that to the guys actually WORKING with these formats at the studio.

1) The cost to include a second HD-DVD with extras would be at least as cost effective as the BD-50 delivery would have been.

2) I'm not sure how big the extras are with everyone. I personally find them to be more of novelty value than anything else.

3) There is more to technology than disc capacity; and if you only look at one aspect you're not looking at technology.