Goodnight, Sweet Prince: HD-DVD is dead
At last: revenge.
Some might argue that Red still has some fight left in him, but its clear from recent announcements that the entertainment industry has chosen Blu-ray as their champion, leaving HD-DVD on limited life support.
The first blow came on January 4th, when Warner Brothers announced that beginning later this year they would release titles exclusively on the Blu-ray format.
(January 4, 2008 Burbank, CA) In response to consumer demand, Warner Bros. Entertainment will release its high-definition DVD titles exclusively in the Blu-ray disc format beginning later this year, it was announced today by Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO, Warner Bros. and Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.
Then two more in rapid succession: both Netflix and Blockbuster will dump HD-DVD for Blu-ray, though they plan to keep HD-DVD on the shelves for around a year before those titles disappear all together.
In a huge blow to Toshiba, Universal, and the rest of the HD DVD devotees, rental giant Blockbuster has decided to stock only Blu-ray discs in the vast majority of its nationwide locations, although HD DVD titles will continue to be offered online and in the 250 (out of 1,450) stores that have been testing both formats since last year.
If that wasnt enough, both Best Buy and Wal-Mart kicked HD-DVD to the curb barely a week ago. And today Universal issued a press release announcing their side in the Hi-Def Format War.
"While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray," said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
"The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for hi-def´s unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate."
Oh, God, do you still think theres a chance that HD-DVD might overcome? A small sliver of hope? Hope you have a hankie, because youre wrong. HD-DVDs most ardent supporter has also called it quits.
TOKYO--Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full product support and after-sales service for all owners of Toshiba HD DVD products.
We barely knew him. May he rest in peace.
punk feels sorry for those who couldnt wait to see who came out on top and bought an HD-DVD player. Really, he does. Hat-tip to Bennybum.
Universal Sees the Future of Music Promotion... Taxi Cabs.
Apparently, Universal has discovered how to thrive in the digital music age: Taxi Cabs..
For the months of September and October, London Taxi Cab commuters have the option of rocking out to Mozart, while traveling in Universal's brand new yellow taxi cab. The album being promoted is Welsh bass-bariton Bryn Terfel's Tutto Mozarti. Classical fans should be on the hunt for this black cab, painted yellow and emblazoned with cover art on the doors.
Included in the cost of trip, riders will be subjected to arias from "The Magic Flute," "Don Giovanni," and "The Marriage of Figaro." For those who like their classical music gang-banged down their ears, Terfel joins up with soprano Miah Person and mezzo-soprano Christine Rice to hit you with trio "Soave sia il vento" from "Cosi Fan Tutte."
Terfel thinks the cab driver will be down with the whole hijacking of his stereo thing:
"It's good to challenge stereotypes of cabbies," the singer said. "They need something to get away from the heavy traffic, so a high percentage listen to classical music."
Yeah, right. Cabbies are gonna love listening to the same fucking disc for two months.
Obviously, this Taxi Cab idea is some serious forward thinking on Universal's part. I had my doubts when they decided to threaten lawsuits against promotion giants Youtube, and Myspace, but now I see how rash I was in assuming that was a mistake. Here, not only are they promoting their catalogue, but making some nice money on top of it.
Brilliant!
Universal Threatens Youtube and Myspace with Lawsuits
Universal is one crazy monkey. In their continuing ambition to ignore changing trends in technology, Universal Music Group is threatening two very popular websites with copyright infringement lawsuits. Myspace and YouTube, two sites famous for allowing registered users popular venues for self promotion, have been catching fire from the world's largest record company.
Rather than using these mediums as the free and very visible promotional tools they are intended to be, Universal is demanding compensation.
"We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars," Universal Music CEO Doug Morris told investors Wednesday at a conference in Pasadena. "How we deal with these companies will be revealed shortly."
While other labels such as Capitol and Warner Bros. Records utilize the services, Universal has been cracking down on the same sites presenting cease and desist orders, which Myspace and Youtube promptly comply with. Myspace and Youtube are not alone.
Universal has made it a priority to get compensation for content that was once seen as purely promotional. Last year, the company began charging Web portals such as Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL for playing its artists' music videos online or over video-on-demand services.
I am assuming that Universal, being as large as they are, have probably hired some smart people to help guide the company into the future. So my question for them is when and how they plan on adapting to the changing needs of their consumers. While obviously the digital revolution has made theft and piracy easier and therefore more socially acceptable, technology advances with a lightning speed that makes completely stopping crimes of this nature a hopeless venture. The honest truth is the people most guilty of supporting piracy and copyright infringement are your most valuable consumers and it is the market you should be targetting. The only means to limit piracy is to offer a truly competitive alternative. Perhaps these actions are an effort to help secure your inventory for your contracted partnership with SpiralFrog this December. I'm not sure. But the longer you wait to make the transition, the harder it will be to win over a portion of the market share. As you attempt to stem the tide with lawsuits, you ignore the fact that each time the complaint is the same, just with a different company, such as Napster, Limewire, Gnutella, Myspace, or Youtube. The most recent violators are not even distributors, but promotional arenas that you should consider exploring. I understand that some of these companies have made millions, and your grievance is that you think you are entitled to a share, but are you not entrepreneurial enough to offer a competitive service thereby limiting the growth potential of these alleged copyright infringing companies?
SpiralFrog Announces Legal Free Music Website
In an article from the Financial Times, acccording to the International Federation for Phonographic Industries, illegal music downloading still dominates legal downloads 40 to 1. It is this number which prompted Universal to sign contracts with SpiralFrog, a new website which will allow free downloads and rely on advertising for revenues. When the site goes live this December, visitors will be entitled to download select portions of Universal's catalogue. Being that Universal is the world's largest music company, we can expect other labels to follow suit.
Robin Kent, CEO for SpiralFrog, spoke about SpiralFrog's allure to young customers:
Offering young consumers an easy-to-use alternative to pirated music sites will be compelling. SpiralFrog will offer those consumers a better experience and environment than they can get from any pirate site.
Customers will be able to download an unlimited number of songs to their computer and to one other device. Safeguards are in place to prevent burning CDs of the downloaded material, and if the customer does not pay monthly visits to SpiralFrog, access to their downloaded material will freeze.
While Kent tries to lure other major labels and their catalogue into his inventory, advertisers are expressing interest in the idea. Companies, like Perry Ellis, Levi's, Benetton, Aeropostale whose primary target is youth, find the idea compelling. Oscar Feldenkreis, president of Perry Ellis International:
Our audience is heavily into music and can be more easily reached on the web.
SpiralFrog's business relies on the notion that young consumers are wiling to trade their attention for free music. Kent says that research suggests they will, should the brands and products be relevant to the audience.
While this is an exciting idea and, finally, nearly half a decade following the Napster aftermath, labels begin to see that there is no going back, there is no word on how the advertising revenues passed on to the label will be distributed to the artists.
Paid Character Transfers At Last?
There's been a lot of speculation about paid character transfers coming to World of Warcraft: mainly gossip and conjecture about cost, logistics, and--oddly enough--a lot of chatter about how it's somehow a very stupid decision on Blizzard's part. Last night, in the forums of all places, word spread about a leaked (but not really) internal FAQ document from Vivendi Universal Games Australia. Set to be published this morning, June 22nd, at 8am, the document claims that while the transfers are imminent, they will not be available across all reams. Yet. Blame load balancing issues. I just beg that Deathwing is included!
At a cost of only $25 per transfer, a figure much below other competing MMOs, Blizzard will surely be plating their gold--with gold.
On numerous occasions, I've seen the whimpering of multiple account owner players begging to be given the chance to transfer their characters to the same account, and now, with paid character transfer, you can.
Transfers between accounts are only allowed between accounts where you are the subscriber. To initiate an "account to account" transfer, you will have to answer the 'secret question' for each account, and the last name of each account holder must match.
The transfer process will take approximately 10 days to complete, during which you will not be able to play the character in question.
And to those wondering, no, you cannot transfer from a PvE server to a PvP server. However, for those hating the ganked life in STV, transfers from PvP to PvE are allowed.
No official date has been released.