Blu-ray's Dirty Little Secret

So, after a long Blu-ray disc (BD) release hiatus by Fox and MGM, how does one celebrate the recent press release that new titles are coming? This, of course, arrives fast on the heels of Paramount and Dreamworks Animation announcement to drop BD,

High Def Digest: Fox Set to Renew Blu-ray Commitment, Announce Future Release Plans

High Def Digest: Fox/MGM: 'Silver Surfer', 'Live Free Die Hard', Extensive Catalog Coming to Blu-ray

Why, one celebrates by buying one of these studios’ BD-only titles on HD DVD! Yes, Blu-ray-Only Titles are available on HD DVD. Yes, that is correct.

One might ask: How does one do this? The answer has been available all along.

BD-Only Studios’ Dirty Little HD DVD Secret

Apparently, a number of (US) movie studios that claim to be devout, faithful supporters of the BD format are guilty of a little electronic adultery. HD DVD is the mistress at a secret challis, in other markets. Life is interesting indeed.

In a recent post on Home Theater Forum, Dispelling rumors around Paramount/Dreamworks and Microsoft - Home Theater Forum, Kevin Collins, Microsoft’s key HD DVD man, says he would like to dispel rumors surrounding the recent decision of Paramount/Dreamworks Animation to drop BD. Collins disavows any payment to sway Paramount/Dreamworks Animation to support HD DVD exclusively and takes a bit of umbrage at certain articles that suggest Microsoft cash was responsible.

Much of what Collins says is similar to what Paramount/Dreamworks Animation has officially said, and incidentally, similar to what a number of other industry insiders have said regarding the costs of manufacturing Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: Blu-ray is expensive to manufacture.

PC World: Paramount's CTO on Why His Studio is Dumping Blu-ray

What is even more interesting is that Mr. Collins provides links to several web sites, such as Amazon.co.uk, that sell movies on HD DVD, movies that supposedly should only be available on BD because of studio exclusive format deals. At least according to what we are told in the US by the BD (sic) only studios.

Xploitedcinema HD DVD

Amazon.co.uk HD DVD

The best part of the whole Blu-ray farce is which titles are available and from whom.

Why, there are titles from every BD only studio around, in one incarnation or another.

If I were to say that a study of the film industry and the interrelationship between major studios and independent studios, (who owns catalog movie rights) would reveal a convoluted mess of inbreeding, it would be an understatement. Independent studios team up with majors... what might appear to be independent studio is often a front company for a major... back catalogs are not always owned by the original production studio even if they are still in business... major titles often have split distribution in different parts of the world... and competitors on both sides of the format war are often business partners elsewhere.

While perusing the availability of HD DVD outside of the US, I noticed studios that release both or HD DVD-only have no problem releasing titles under some form of their own moniker while BD on HD DVD titles tend to be hidden away under the names of local distribution and production houses or subsidiary companies to obscure who owns the rights.

All of the BD-only studios seem to have movies released as HD DVD titles in Europe and elsewhere, but they don’t use their real names in these other countries. Even better, many of the very first batch of BD releases are available.

Wikipedia: Blu-ray Released Titles

Below are titles I found just using the two links provided by Mr. Collins, but I am sure further digging will reveal more. I have provided Wikipedia links to articles about the respective companies, studios, and films. In each Wikipedia film article, a column on the left provides production information including which studio released the title, but as rights change hands, I have grouped the movies based on who currently owns rights to release the titles using information kindly provided by www.blu-ray.com, a US-based web site.

An Evaluation of Studios and Titles

Blu-ray.com: The 'Now Available' List

Title	Studio	Release date
Underworld: Evolution	Sony Pictures	20-Jun-06
xXx	Sony Pictures	20-Jun-06
Basic Instinct: Director's Cut	Lionsgate Films	29-May-07
Rambo: First Blood	Lionsgate Films	6-Feb-07
Terminator 2: Judgment Day	Lionsgate Films	27-Jun-06
Total Recall	Lionsgate Films	Aug 29, 2006
The Brothers Grimm	Disney / Buena Vista	17-Oct-06
The Prestige	Disney / Buena Vista	20-Feb-07
Reign of Fire	Disney / Buena Vista	13-Feb-07
Fantastic Four	20th Century Fox	14-Nov-06

Beyond these titles, I found additional titles on HD DVD that are not out on BD yet that would ultimately come from BD-only studios.

While I have included links to the websites where these titles are for sale as a convenience, this is not intended to advertise these particular merchants and I welcome all to submit the web addresses of any other merchants that readers might discover.

Sony

Wikipedia: TriStar Pictures (spelled Tri-Star until 1991) is a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, itself a subdivision of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, which is owned by Sony Pictures. It was founded in 1982.

Wikipedia: XXx
xXx - xploitedcinema.com

Wikipedia: Screen Gems is an American subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation.

Wikipedia: Underworld Evolution
Underworld Evolution - xploitedcinema.com

Walt Disney

Wikipedia: Touchstone Pictures (also known as Touchstone Films in its early years) is one of several alternate film labels of The Walt Disney Company, established in 1984. Its releases typically feature more mature themes than those that get released under the Walt Disney Pictures banner. Touchstone Pictures is merely a brand and does not exist as a separate company: the two de facto companies behind it are Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, Inc. and Walt Disney Pictures and Television.

Wikipedia: Reign of Fire
Reign of Fire - xploitedcinema.com

Wikipedia: The Prestige
The Prestige - amazon.co.uk

Wikipedia: Miramax Films is a film production and distribution brand that was a leading independent film motion picture distribution and production company headquartered in New York City before it was acquired by The Walt Disney Company. It was considered an important quasi-independent studio for many years after the Disney purchase.

In 1993 Miramax was purchased for $70 million by The Walt Disney Company. Harvey and Bob Weinstein ran Miramax until they left the company on September 30, 2005. During their tenure, the Weinstein brothers ran Miramax independently of other Disney companies. However, Disney had the final say on what Miramax could release (see Fahrenheit 9/11 and Dogma, for examples). Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment division releases Miramax output.

Wikipedia: The Brothers Grimm
The Brothers Grimm - xploitedcinema.com

Despite initial fears by some critics and film fans (based on the fact that the release date was rescheduled several times), The Brothers Grimm was released August 26, 2005 after final arrangements made by the Weinstein brothers and the Walt Disney Company concerning how to divide the catalog of Miramax films currently in production. MGM and Miramax's Dimension Films produced the film, MGM has international rights, and Dimension/Miramax has US distribution rights. MGM backed out of its deal to co-distribute in the US, which also contributed to the delay in its release.

Wikipedia: Renaissance
Renaissance - xploitedcinema.com

Wikipedia: Becoming Jane
Becoming Jane - amazon.co.uk

MGM

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., or MGM, is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs.

On April 8, 2005, the company was acquired by a partnership led by Sony Corporation of America and Comcast in association with Texas Pacific Group (now TPG Capital, L.P.) and Providence Equity Partners. MGM Mirage, a Las Vegas-based hotel and casino company listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "MGM", is not currently affiliated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Sony Pictures will distribute several MGM/UA/Columbia TriStar co-productions—most notably Casino Royale—but outside of the co-productions MGM is now actively involved in acquiring worldwide film rights and distributing theatrical motion pictures domestically. 20th Century Fox will be handling the international theatrical distribution and worldwide home video distribution of MGM titles.

Wikipedia: Leaving Las Vegas
Leaving Las Vega - amazon.co.uk

Twentieth Century Fox

Wikipedia: Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Mr. & Mrs. Smith - xploitedcinema.com

Wikipedia: Fantastic Four
Fantastic Four - xploitedcinema.com

Lions Gate

Wikipedia: Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, (usually rendered as Lionsgate) is an American entertainment company which originated in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and now is headquartered in Santa Monica, California. As of 2007, it is the most commercially-successful independent film and television distribution company in the United States.

Wikipedia: First Blood
Rambo First Blood - xploitedcinema.com

Artisan Entertainment was a privately held independent American movie studio that has been owned by Lions Gate Entertainment since 2003. At the time of its acquisition, Artisan had a library of thousands of films developed through acquisition, original production, and production and distribution agreements.

The company owned the home video rights to the film libraries of Republic Pictures, Vestron, and Carolco Pictures. They also owned Family Home Entertainment (FHE), and its motion picture subdivision, FHE Pictures.

Wikipedia: Total Recall
Total Recall - amazon.co.uk

Wikipedia: Terminator 2
Terminator 2 - amazon.co.uk

Wikipedia: Basic Instinct
Basic Instinct - xploitedcinema.com

Wikipedia: Rambo: First Blood Part II
Rambo First Blood Part II - xploitedcinema.com

Wikipedia: Rambo III
Rambo III - xploitedcinema.com

How and Why Is This Happening?

So why are HD DVD’s being made in Europe and why is Paramount/Dreamworks Animation dropping Blu-ray?

The Economist: Video Wars II - Can Toshiba's David Topple Sony's Goliath?

For a start, HD DVD is a cheaper system all around. Unlike Blu-ray, which has a much shallower (and therefore a more delicate) data layer, an HD DVD has its digital information etched deeper beneath the surface just like a conventional DVD—and can therefore be stamped out on much the same sort of equipment as a DVD. That translates into a larger profit margin for the studios.

Meanwhile, because of the robustness of the disc, HD DVD players have proved to be much cheaper to build. Models now start at $299, and are expected to fall to $199 by the coming holiday season. By contrast, basic Blu-ray players start at $449.

That’s not all. Engineers who’ve worked with both formats say Blu-ray is a pig to program. While extremely flexible, its programming language, BD-Java, requires lots of low-level code for even the simplest of instructions. The highly skilled programmers needed to do the job don’t exactly grow on trees. And because of the program’s complexity, even the best produce their share of bug-ridden software.

By comparison, writing software for HD DVD using Microsoft’s HDi interactive technology is a doddle—with one simple command doing the task of scores of lines of BD-Java. More importantly, HDi is the key to HD DVD’s better navigation around menus, and its instinctive ability to interact with the outside world.

- Tech.view/The Economist

Ars Technica: The economics of the next-generation DVD formats

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has long asserted that its Blu-ray (BD) format is superior to the rival HD DVD format, and BD’s "revolutionary" buzz has understandably caught the fancy of certain technologists. But CEOs should be wary, because what the BDA does not sufficiently address is what lies behind those assertions. The numbers are stark: manufacturing BD discs will require an estimated US$1.7 million cost per manufacturing line. Per line!

Then, each major manufacturing facility would require the implementation of a minimum of two mastering systems, at a minimum cost of US$2 million per system. DVD, at the height of its success, resulted in an estimated 600 manufacturing lines globally. Even allowing for a decline in systems costs over time as the manufacturing base expanded, the tab for radically overhauling the media manufacturing industry would approach a billion dollars worldwide or more. Already-beleaguered CFOs will be challenged to raise—and risk—this significant amount of capital.

Compare this to the estimated cost of retooling for the HD DVD format compared to BD. HD DVD is able to utilize virtually the entire existing manufacturing infrastructure. The cost of upgrading an existing DVD line is about US$150,000—less than a tenth the cost of a BD line. A DVD mastering system can be upgraded for US$145,000. Basically, HD DVD is a DVD-9—a version of DVD we have enormous manufacturing experience with already—with a denser pit structure.

Once people realize the hidden costs of the Blu-ray format, they will also realize the extent to which it actually endangers their very industry.

Blu-ray is the Emperor’s New Clothes—it advances the agendas of a few select companies instead of the markets and that of the consumer. No one—the studios, the disc manufacturers, the consumer electronics manufacturers—can afford a format war today.

- Rick Marquardt, former GM, Warner Advanced Media Operations,
via Ars Technica

BetaNews: HD DVD: Blu-ray Has Problems

The costs to convert a DVD production line is roughly 10 times the cost of conversion to HD DVD and the BD converted line can no longer make DVDs, therefore requiring two production lines. Quality control issues also exist, with limited BD manufacturing experience, the disc yield of a production run is lower than with either DVD or HD DVD; there are a lot more ‘coasters’ as the techies like to say. On top of all of this, hardcore programmers are required to code the interactivity and menu structures, not typical movie post production staff, and coding bugs abound like the loop that the ‘Dead Man’s Chest’ Liars game goes into with some BD players. Current, poorly executed retail pricing strategies might suggest to consumers that BD is cheaper: it is not.

Conclusion

Then everything comes together: unfaithful for convenience and cost. Maybe when one is away from home, one can get away with having a different wife in every port, who would know?

It’s a very old trick, that.

Collins points out that only two production facilities for 50GB Blu-ray Disc exist in the world, one in Japan, and on in Terre Haute, Idiana. So in addition to the other costs of BD manufacturing, local production is used to avoid the costs of having to produce discs in either Japan or the States and then ship them to Europe. Because of the costs of switching to BD production, few facilities in Europe have spent the coin to go BD.

So, what does this mean, strategically, to BD’s goal of taking over the (HD) world?

The marketers solution: get a foothold in the two countries that are effectively home base for BD companies, Japanese electronics manufacturers and US movie studios, lie through ones teeth about the availability of titles, create lots of marketing hype, and obscure the economic and technical limits of BD. Then once the foothold is established on home turf, expand and force out the competition in other markets.

We here in the States are having the wool pulled over our eyes.

Fortunately, as Mr. Collins kindly points out, unlike Blu-ray, HD DVD is region free. As long as the titles still have an English soundtrack, one doesn’t mind subtitles, or speaks the language these HD DVDs will work just fine in an American HD DVD player. Fortunately, many releases in non-English countries still seam to have the original English sound track.

Over the years, I have acquired quite a few imported CDs that were not available in the US. In looking through these web sites, I noticed a few titles from HD DVD supporters that I don’t recall seeing at US merchants. It looks like I will now be importing some movies as well.

So, what are you waiting for?

Go order yourself some European HD DVDs of some (supposedly) BD-only movies. My HD DVD copies of The Prestige, Terminator 2, and Total Recall should be arriving sometime next week.