One of Hollywood’s major players Paramount has voted on the next generation DVD platform and HD-DVD is getting their nod. Sorry Sony but Blu Ray will only be an option for Spielberg films. Odd for them to choose one format over the other, particularly when Blu-Ray is outselling HD-DVD — although initially they said they’d support only the HD-DVD format and then changed their mind in 2005. Also, Blu-Ray is currently outselling HD-DVD by a 2-to-1 ratio: (1.6 million Blu-ray discs versus 795,000 HD DVD discs).

At retail stores in our local area — and I’d be the first to admit this isn’t very scientific and will vary from store to store and location to location — the selection at stores like Best Buy is about the same for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Compared to DVD neither format is in significant supply. In fact, I think there are almost as many PSP UMDs available and dying was the word on that format a year ago. Retail store shelf space, usually at a premium at least suggests availability, but as mentioned above, Blu-Ray is selling better. Only one of two local Wal-Mart stores here (about 40 minutes south of Seattle) even carries HD-DVD and Blu Ray. How is the selection in your area?

The decision will see movies from Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films available in standard definition DVD and HD DVD, exclusively … Paramount says that its evaluation uncovered two benefits to HD DVD. First, the format is less expensive to produce … Second, Paramount described HD DVD as being superior owing to “market-ready technology.”

As somebody who owns players for both and has no loyalty to either format (yet), the three benefits I can see for HD-DVD over Blu-Ray thus far are:

- combo DVDs. You can spend a few more bucks than the DVD and get both HD-DVD and Blu Ray. For folks who are building a DVD collection and are thinking about buying either Blu Ray or HD-DVD, this seems like a safe option for future proofing their purchase. You can’t play the Blu-Ray discs in any DVD player. That is if the HD-DVD option becomes a standard after DVD.
- easier name recognition with non-geeky crowd. Admittedly a bit weak, but HD-DVD does have the words “HD” and “DVD” in the format title, which gives a psychological edge over Blu-Ray to less tech-savvy consumers. With the move to HDTVs more and more consumers are understanding what ‘HD’ means (higher quality). Blu-Ray is new vernacular.
- more non-movie interactivity options. Looking at the pack-in for King Kong there are some curious options for mixing in the behind the scenes movie information while watching the movie. Maybe Blu Ray can do some or all of this too, but I haven’t seen it advertised or used in the Blu Ray movies as clearly. I can see HD-DVD specific games being something that tips the scales in that format over Blu Ray. Yeah, I know you can just buy a PS3 and play both, but Sony isn’t marketing Blu-Ray movies with games.

Imagine a new game being launched on the same disc along with the movie. It’s a marketer’s dream: target both passive and interactive consumers. Hey, you can pay a few more dollars and get a game with your movie too. The movie theater chains have been looking for a way to drive more people to the theater. I think they could use a lower quality DVD version of the film as an enticement to pay the higher movie ticket prices and then come out 3-6 months later in stores with the HD-DVD version complete with a game. Take a game like The Simpsons which isn’t going to be available for the Xbox 360 until September when the movie is already out of the theater. A marketing opportunity exists to give people a reason to spend a little more than the DVD. Right now, you pay a little more to get a higher quality version, but I don’t think that’s enough and the lackluster sales numbers for both formats are telling.

Tonight at midnight we’re hitting the stores for a couple new release Xbox 360 games and both will cost over $50. It’s not unimaginable to pay $50-75 and get both a feature length HD-DVD movie and a game. I’d do it if the games weren’t totally lame. I realize that’s not giving much profit to the game company, but as a package deal it could make it more desirable and help seal in the format. It could also help movie studios shoot the game and video footage at the same time and perhaps save some money. A lot of the movie to games suck, but there have been improvements in the genre.

There is decent potential here to create a gaming network around a movie. Mentioned recently are movie-type games like Dragon’s Lair coming out for HD-DVD and Blu Ray (Dragon’s Lair Blu Ray is already available), but these aren’t the type of games I’m talking about. And full motion movies like Dragon’s Lair have been out for 20 years (I’m feeling older just typing that). Movie watching is a passive activity, but it seems to me that HD-DVD is a little better poised to make it more of an interactive process on the same disc than Blu-Ray. Sony could hamper this HD-DVD momentum and thinking and start releasing Blu-Ray games that don’t require the PS3. Even better, leverage their upcoming HOME network with people watching Blu-Ray movies that have the PS3. This makes it even wiser to buy the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player.

What are Blu-Ray strengths
I’m still evaluating both formats, but my early opinion is that Blu-Ray looks better than HD-DVD. Maybe it’s the lower priced Xbox 360 HD-DVD player or 1080p TV we bought that leads to this conclusion, but I see a crispness and sharpness with the Blu-Ray images that I don’t see as well on an HD-DVD. I’m not saying HD-DVD is bad — it still looks very good — just perhaps a bit inferior. Being the best picture around means nothing if you don’t have the TV and movie title support and Sony can’t do it alone.

Also worth repeating: complete TV season support for both nextgen formats is lousy.

We just picked up the first season of Weeds on Blu Ray, but season two was already on DVD and not on Blu Ray (at least at the store we were at, is it available elsewhere?). This is one area the studios need to get together on and fast if they want either format to take off. Support complete TV seasons on Blu Ray and HD-DVD. None of that lame volume 1, volume 2 crap either, make them complete seasons with every aired episode. Why this isn’t a priority now is puzzling to me. When you compare a new release movie for $19.99 to something like Buck Rogers the Complete Series for the same price (pictured me holding both above) and you already own the player, which would you rather buy?

Back to Paramount making a budgetary decision to support one format exclusively. Can’t blame them there, and if the market continues to choose Blu-ray with their wallets, they can always change their minds down the road. Considering both HD-DVD and Blu-ray haven’t sold over three million titles to date, this isn’t a good sign of confidence from consumers for either format.

Finally, the article credits the sales of PS3 for giving the edge to Blu-Ray over HD-DVD. Sure, who would pay the same price for a Blu-Ray player when you can get a PS3 for the same price? Sony’s strategy was to handcuff their gaming console with a proprietary movie format. The PS3 has USB ports though and could someday support HD-DVD like the Xbox did with HD-DVD.

Official support for HD-DVD players on the PS3? Yeah, right, when monkeys fly out of your PS3 controller.

While the official Sony Playstation blog doesn’t name names, they do point to the same NY Times Xbox 360 unreliability article linked and discussed here yesterday.

Here’s the mild, but effective dig:

A lot of noise has been made recently about the reliability issues of one of our competitor’s systems … [PS Vault] put [the PS3] in a freezer at zero degrees for up to 108 hours and they put it in a sauna at 120 degrees for up to 64 hours — all the while running games and Blu-ray Disc movies on it. Did it fail? Nope.

No argument here that the PS3 is more reliable than the Xbox 360. Microsoft may have gotten it to market first, but it seems to have been at a great cost in quality control. Conversely, more Xbox 360s are being sold (and returned for repair). Which is the more envious position?

With the PS3 price drop and more good games on the way, I see a brighter holiday season for the PS3. It’s still going to be #3 (still a chump) this holiday season, but for gamers who already have the Wii and Xbox 360 and also a 1080p capable TV, the PS3 would look good under the tree.

The most telling holiday war for game systems will be in 2008 when all three systems have more established libraries and the PS3 has their HOME network in (non-beta) play.

More and more I’m seeing stories covered on the internet and mainstream media pick up on it later. The staggering amount of Xbox 360 consoles that have gone bad isn’t really news at all any more; it’s a state of Xbox 360 life. Add Matt Ritchel at The New York Times to the list of those late to the party.

Microsoft, which has 57 percent of the market, has declined to say what is causing some of its Xbox 360 to stop working, or how many machines have been affected. It has set aside $1.1 billion for repairs, a figure that suggests to industry analysts that the problem could affect a third of the 11.6 million 360s already in the hands of consumers.

The story is somewhat redeemed by a small amount of discussion around Halo 3 which is the best-selling preorder of all time and asking if hardcore gamers care about the three red rings of death problems?

Sure, we care, but is it going to translate to less sales from us? No. Hardcore gamers buy and play all the systems they can afford. We buy systems like the Atari Jaguar, 3DO, Sega 32X and NEO-GEO where some games cost over $200 each. We wait in line for signature games like Halo 3, Grand Theft Auto and Madden Football to launch. Which means yes we’ll be there at midnight tonight for the launch of Madden 2008. We’ll even weather the elements to bag a new system.

Although I haven’t ever camped overnight for a game system, the hardest of the hardcore gamers most certainly will.

HD-DVD blackouts
Speaking of problems with the Xbox 360, I’m getting some new ones since buying an HD-DVD player: blackouts during movie playback. At one point the TV blacked out completely while watching the DVD of 4400. Though it’s only been a week of owning an HD-DVD drive, I’m completely unimpressed by the DVD upscaling from the add-on HD-DVD drive compared to PS3 upscaling of DVDs.

I was at Microsoft yesterday for a beta playtesting session and got into a conversation about Blu Ray and HD-DVD with another tester (we weren’t testing anything to do with HD-DVD, BTW; we weren’t breaking the NDA), and he asked about which was better. Apparently his cousin had a PS3 and he was impressed too with movie playback on the PS3. Give this nod to Sony. Now all they need are some more games.

Games are the magic elixir for hardcore gamers. A great game, a 10 on the scale may not completely wash clean the memory of hardware problems, but it helps the healing process. Do we want to see our systems go down? No way. But at least in our household where we have three Xbox 360 (two regular Xbox 360, one Xbox 360 Elite), if one goes down, there are others to take the fallen’s place until a replacement arrives.

Hmmcast #156 mp4

Since Microsoft announced the reduced price and Toshiba made the 5 HD-DVD videos for free offer, we’ve been waiting for the first retail store in our area to offer the deal. On the first of August we visited the local retailers and none of them knew about the deal. A week later and Best Buy had the HD-DVD drives along with paper copies of the mail-in offer from Toshiba.

Looking for a list of 15 HD-DVD movies you can choose from? They are separated by the following five different categories:

Category A
*Apollo 13
Seabiscuit
The Chronicles of Riddick

Category B
Casablanca
Constantine
*Dukes of Hazzard

Category C
Four Brothers
*Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
SKy Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Category D
The Rundown
*Blazing Saddles
US: Rattle and Hum

Category E
*U-571
The Perfect Storm
We Were Soldiers

How to get your 5 HD-DVDs
The movies with *asterisk are our pending choices (we haven’t mailed the offer back in yet, so let us know in the comments if you think we’re missing a better choice). In order to receive the HD-DVD movies you need to fill out your name, address, phone, email and choices along with the original UPC code located on the outside of the HD-DVD player box. The original or a copy of the cash register receipt for the player purchased between 3/107 and 9/30/07. The fine print says to allow 8-10 weeks for shipping (yowsa!). After that you can call 1-800-405-7520.

Toshiba reserves the right to substitute titles.

HD-DVD vs. Blu Ray
Since we now have both, I’ll soon be able to offer a customer opinion on which looks better on our Samsung HDTV at 1080p. Blu-Ray was first reviewed here back on Hmmcast #34, January 4th.

My early opinion? I like how the PS3 upscales the DVD and allows stretching to fit the full screen. The PS3 seems to do a little better job upscaling existing DVDs. Does the Xbox 360 allow you to stretch the DVDs? The manual doesn’t say anything, but a Google search led me to this May 2007 post:

There are 5 display modes: auto, letterbox, fullscreen, stretch, and native. You can access these modes while watching a video by pressing Display on your remote or A on your controller.

I just tried that and the letterbox mode worked the best. The stretch mode didn’t look right, leaving some of the text along the bottom of the screen cut off. Points to the PS3 for what appears to my naked eye anyway as better upscaling.

More review time needed to compare HD-DVD vs. Blu Ray.

We’ve watched more movies in Blu-Ray format than HD-DVD and while both are clearly an improvement over DVD, is it that much better that it warrants all the extra money required? You need a 1080p TV, HDMI cord and PS3 or HD-DVD player. Seems like an individual decision as to whether it’s worth it or not financially but readers on a budget (and who isn’t on a budget?) should be cautioned not to run out and buy into either technology yet.

So why did we do it? We’re still exploring the many wonders of 1080p, trying to see if it’s all it’s cracked up to be. So far I’ve been more impressed with the PS3 and the highest resolution which appears to be what Sony wanted everybody to go out and do: purchase a bunch of expensive hardware. That’s not a very family friendly promotion strategy which sales of their consoles seem to be showing.

The biggest problem with both next generation movie format remains selection.

We can’t get anywhere remotely close to the title selection, especially TV shows, that we can get with DVDs. It’s a catch-22 as more titles won’t be coming until there is enough adoption. I heard something about the complete first season of Heroes being available on HD-DVD but haven’t seen that in any retail store locally yet.

The HD-DVD combo option is somewhat attractive. For a few bucks more you can get both a normal DVD version of the movie and HD-DVD on the same disc. There are relatively few movies that are worth watching repeatedly and thus buying and taking home. We tend to treat these few titles like we’ll just buy as HD-DVD or Blu-Ray instead of spending the money to see them in the theater. Two theater tickets plus gas to/from the theater, popcorn and snacks costs between $40-50. Both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are less expensive and you can watch them as many times as you want. You lose the social activity points of the movie theater experience for whatever it’s worth.

Gaming seems to be the best practical use of 1080p at the present time, but as noted recently there is a limited number of native 1080p games. Games like Dragon’s Lair are coming out in HD-DVD — already available in Blu Ray for $49.95 — and these are all new transfers from the original film include the original game sounds and no pauses according to the FAQ.

We already have Dragon’s Lair, Dragon’s Lair II and Space Ace in DVD format (the 20th Anniversary edition). Love the original Dragon’s Lair. Think we paid like $20 for all three of them in a 20th Anniversary Special Edition at Best Buy. Will the HD-DVD version of one of the three games be worth over twice the price? Probably not unless you are a diehard fan.

That’s what all this next generation video and high resolution television stuff seems like: made for hardcore fans. Those wanting the highest quality video and gaming experience possible. I’m sold on the gaming part but will need more time to see how important it is with the video. Perhaps sacrilege to nextgen movie fans but Movies in DVD format still look good enough to me.

It’s opening day for Bourne Ultimatum and before checking the final day’s Bourne Ultimatum game, there’s a good deal going at Best Buy to snag the Bourne Files 3-disc collection.

This includes the Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremecy and a special third disc containing 45 minutes of bonus footage as well information about Bourne Ultimatum. Normally this package retails for $17.99, and is on sale for $14.99 plus you can get an additional $5 off by paying with your Mastercard. Since we’re still flying credit card less, we paid with our PayPal card which can be used like a credit card and still received the discount and get 1% bonus cash back. Sweet deal and way to catch up on the preceding Bourne flicks before checking out the Bourne Ultimatum.

Day 15
Follow the link in the agent indicator to ReadTeStOn.com and click on the numbers. The numbers will lead to a familiar agent IM window asking for a passphrase using the clue: “Which set of files was Pamela Landy looking for in Berlin when she found Bourne’s fingerprint?”

Hint: You’ll need to know some details about the Bourne Supremecy movie to find the file name. If you’re going to see the movie today, just pay attention to what files agent Pamela Landy is looking for in Berlin.

After solving today’s final mission there isn’t any message that we’ve reached the end, at least for those of us with less than the required 25-32 sightings (I finished with 11 sightings). You can still enter a drawing for the iPhone by postcard as long as it’s postmarked by tomorrow according to the Search For Bourne Official Contest Rules.

It’s going to seem kind of empty on Monday when there’s no more game missions to solve. Google and Hollywood need to get together to keep this streak alive. Movies coming in the future that could make for cool contest suggestions? How about Star Trek 11?

Only one day left in the Bourne Ultimatum game. If you’re just now getting into this there’s still time to start at the beginning and catch up with everybody else, but time is definitely running out. Here are links to all the days of the game which contain hints for each day’s missions. Day 15 if everything remains on schedule should be available at midnight EST (GMT-5) tonight.

Day 1 & 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14 (this post)

Oh, and I got another Bourne sighting yesterday, bringing my total sightings to seven for the contest.

Day 14
Today we must use IM to talk to Mustapha Nayet and then run down a phrase by Jason Bourne that is a lie.

Hint: Search for the phrase in all lowercase “bourne lie detection treadstone” on Google images and you’ll see a couple images from Dater Notes with the phrase Bourne said from yesterday’s YouTube video. That video is also in your agent console video section (see screenshot).

Good luck to all players!

Day 13
Today in the Bourne Ultimatum game we’re watching a slightly altered trailer and doing some instant messaging with the man himself, Jason Bourne.

Hint: Watch the trailer and be prepared to pause the frames for a message handle to put in the instant message section for Bourne and be prepared to copy his answer in the instant message window.

I’m up to six sightings of Bourne now. That’s probably not too good comparatively, how many sightings do you have?

After getting through today’s challenge there’s only three days left of the Bourne Ultimatum game. What will we do until the next movie challenge comes along? Google should just go from one movie to the next with these challenges. There has to be enough movies in the pipe to warrant a continual stream of games like these. They don’t take too long, are fun and engaging.

Day 12
We’re back to Nicky Parson’s Dater Notes profile and particularly scanning her pictures in the image filter.

Hint: Don’t forget there are three image filters, A, B and C.

Two of the three Back to the Future films were worth watching, the third one based on a western motiff should have stayed in the can. The coolest stage prop was the time machine itself which thankfully wasn’t the refrigerator as once planned.

John Delorean may have died in 2005, but the car with his last name lives on.

via LA Times:

Espey’s company acquired the parts and engines that were left over after DeLorean’s company went belly up; it also owns the trademarks and many of the engineering drawings. Espey’s 20-person operation handles a dozen or so rebuilds a year and has an eight-month waiting list. (Buying and restoring a used DeLorean will cost you about $25,000; they’ll strip one to the frame and completely rebuild it for a base price of $42,500.)

We’re still looking to buy a car and unfortunately the Delorean rebuild is over twice what we’re looking to spend. The Delorean wouldn’t be complete without the Flux Capacitor. I wonder if that’s included?

One of the coolest looking cars ever created, I can see why a fanbase lives on. Although the linked article gives most the credit to the Michael J. Fox movie, what other cool looking cars under $50,000 can you cite?

We got another break over the weekend, which means this will be another full week of the Bourne Ultimatum game. Here’s the schedule:

Monday July 30 - Day 11
Tuesday July 31 - Day 12
Wednesday Aug 1 - Day 13
Thursday Aug 2 - Day 14
Friday Aug 3 - Day 15 = it’s over

Day 11
Ugh. A crossword puzzle. What’s next, Sudoku? Good thing Bernice stopped by this morning and told me to not bother actually doing the crossword puzzle.

Hint: via Bernice:

LISTEN to the video that David Strathairn does when you log-in…then use those nifty tools we have … clue: it’s a city name.

Thanks Bernice!