Did Peter Jackson and KING KONG doom HD-DVD?

HD-DVD does have all the Universal movies though and with the Matrix trilogy coming out soon, that may help. Also, with WB and Paramount releasing on both, I wouldn't say that it's missing that ONE movie.

According to BoxOfficeMojo, the domestic gross for Kong is around 50 million dollars higher than Casino Royale's. That, coupled with Universal's record $100 million revenue from Kong's DVD sales in the first six days, tells me that the answer to your question is a definite no.

Parenthetically, I liked Casino Royale more than I liked Kong. I'd say Royale's Blu-Ray success over Kong owes more to timing than anything else, as Blu-Ray players are more prolific now then they were in June.

Matrix is Warner Bros. though, not Universal.

Yeah, I know that Matrix is WB. But it's coming out on HD-DVD NOW!!! (vs. in the Fall for Blu-ray). As a PS3 owner, I get sad every time I see a movie I like that is by Universal (which is unfortunate since I really like tons of Universal movies).

I just want this freaking format war to end. I honestly don't care which side wins (it's not like my PS3 isn't still going to have a 50GB drive and play PS3 games if the Blu-ray movie format dies). I do think that the extra space of the Blu-ray is an advantage, as well as the superior audio options but if I have to give those up so that I can view every movie that comes out in its 1080p glory, I'm willing to.

But the ease of developing interactive features for the HD-DVD gives it a nice advantage in that regard. Plus, being able to put the DVD and the HD-DVD on the same disc is a great idea. That way you can still take it with you on a trip somewhere or over to a friends or whatever.

My bad, I misunderstood.

HDi is based on Javascript and HTML,XML,CSS. BD-J on Java, which is a full blown language which will allow for more interactivity (or even games) to be developed for the format. The problem was the tools were not ready, I also think some of the early players didn't have a virtual machine.

Kong or no Kong, HD-DVD has been doomed from the start. Sony hate on the internet has deluded people into thinking HD-DVD ever had a chance. The real question is if HD content will overtake DVD anytime soon, before we all have the services and pipes necessary for download only content.

Why anybody was excited about a format that from the start had less capacity and less support from the studios will baffle future archeologists and historians for decades.

Fox will have to do what George wants to do. Fox just distributed the films in the theaters. Lucas owns all the merchandise rights, including the DVDs. If Lucas wants HD-DVD, he'll get it.

It's such a flimsy theory.

Just how many people do you know that own HD-DVD players? Or Xbox 360s? Then again, how many people out there do you know own Blu-Ray players? Or Playstation 3's? Sure, sure, I bet it's a couple. Now narrow it down to people who own one of those items and a HDTV player. I bet it's even smaller then. I don't know anyone with both of those items. A friend of a friend, maybe.

Honestly, I think there's a little life in what Jeffrey Katzenberg said today: "Blu-Ray and HD DVD are a niche business. They're not going to become the next platform ... I think for the general consumer, there is not a big enough delta between the standard DVD in terms of where it is today and the next generation."

He's partly correct in that statement, but also wrong in thinking that people are going to pony up for 3-D glasses (the crux of the article, really). A big whatever on that one. DVD is going to be around for quite a while (Warner Brothers, in one of their many excellent HTF chats, is as committed to the format as any; and look at the other studios, whose vaults have barely been mined - Universal, especially), so I'm really enjoying everybody wax poetic on these issues that a giant chunk of consumers can't afford... yet.

Additionally, if you can even stand to look at the fudged numbers on both KONG and CASINO ROYALE, you'll see that marketing costs really tell the tale, and that CASINO's foreign was higher-and-mightier than KONGs. That's why ROYALE is a bigger hit, as most speculate, because it raked in the cash elsewhere in these hot overseas markets.

EDITED: Uhm, also:
You might want to read up on that subject.

Only mega-geeks would buy a $600 player in order to watch one specific movie in HD.

And mega-geeks are definitely (and thankfully) a minority of a minority.

I think the name does more to hurt HD-DVD than anything Kong could do. To your average consumer, it's tough to communicate the difference between HD-DVD and DVD beyond just 'it looks and sounds better' but with a product with a completely different name, you can say 'this is a new format' and I think people buy it. SVHS never set the world on fire, after all.

I think I'll go with the "niche business" theory.

Does anyone really care if SACD sold more than DVD-Audio?

People are not going to buy expensive new players and expensive new movies that only play on those players. Especially not when only 30% have HDTVs and there are two competing and unproven formats.

Blu-Ray has already outpaced DVD sales historically by 2 months.

Blu-Ray hardware sales include a games machine.

The first DVD-equipped games machine came out in 2000, a couple of years after DVD became available to the public.

Sorry, I meant to say title sales.

BluRay are fucking morons for not making sure they can run these inmovie experience features WB has on their HD-DVDs. I don't understand how they couldn't have fixed this by now. They're fucking lucky they have Casino Royale, because a lot of big movies from WB are only on HD right now, when they could be making big bucks for BluRay. It's absolutely ridiculous they don't have this taken care of in time to have Matrix come out on BluRay next to HD.

We sort of went over this, Blu-Ray is ready for that interactivity and even more with BD-J. I think the problems have been with the tools (IDEs) but I read recently that that's been fixed.

And watch, you are going to regret it, the amount of flexibility in BD-J is going to be a very mixed blessing because I anticipate studios abusing it.

The issue with BD-J is the overwhelming nature of it. You can't just let some graphical designers/timeline guys develop this stuff. You've got to find programmers and have them learn the stuff.

It's like when you look at Apple stuff. It's successful not for how powerful it is, but how accessible it is. The same is true of developers and movie features. By dumbing down the features like HD-DVD does, they make them more accessible to non-developers.

Not that BD-J won't eventually be harnessed and used more effectively, but in the near term it's HD-DVD that will be able to do the cooler stuff easier.

There's also a change in the BR-DVD spec so that they have to support Picture in Picture. This is something that wasn't initially required for Blu-ray spec (but was for HD-DVD) and some of the older players may not be able to handle it even with a firmware upgrade.

That's supposedly why WB is holding off on releasing the Blu-ray Matrix box set.

Yeah I've seen the inserts in the BluRays that say that discs manufactured after your player may not work on your player. Thats fucking brilliant right there. I can't wait for my PS3 to be obsolete as soon as WB puts out their BluRays of Matrix and Batman Begins.

Hence why it's an issue with the tool.

HDi requires programming, just because it's Javascript doesn't mean you should have graphic designers messing with variables, arrays and loop constructs.

The tools were ready for it sooner, BD-J packs more power and flexibilty, but already has a larger development community (it's based party on Java ME the stuff that runs on your very graphical phone games) and will pay off in the long run.

I've been reading there's some Eclipse based 3rd party tools coming along soon, so we'll see. Hopefully they have nice separation of the graphical elements vs the programming elements, which it should.

The PiP stuff was a mistake and should have been included in the first place.

I don't think anything has doomed HD DVD... still too early to tell a clear winner in my opinion... I hope HD DVD wins though.

Well, CR made about $100 mil more in profit (roughly) based on costs and worldwide returns of both flicks.

Is Blu-Ray currently putting out a BR/DVD combo discs? As I am hoping that HD-DVD wins, I've noticed that they are putting out discs that will also play on regular DVD players. I think this is a smart move.

You have people who want to start to prepare for the next-gen and don't want to waste money on buying a regular DVD. So, with this they can watch it now and when the price of a HD-DVD player comes down (speaking of which, I saw a BR/HD-DVD Toshiba combo unit at Best Buy for $500 - we're getting there) they can upgrade and not have to rebuy the same disc. If BR is not doing this, it's just another way that HD-DVD can win favor with the average consumer - which will determine the winner.

Techno-geeks don't determine this (if so, Beta-Max would have destroyed VHS as the quality was superior), but the early units were bulky and appeared more complicated to Joe Average. The "better" system won't win. The one that is cheaper at Wal-Mart will.

I don't think that Blu-ray has a combo DVD disc. I've heard that the HD-DVD/DVD discs are not going to be getting much attention anymore since they cost more to create and weren't selling that well (although I forget where I saw that).

The reason both of these formats suck is that all the good movies cost more than $20. Sorry, I'm not going to spend that on a movie anymore. Especially not when I am able to rent HD discs at the same price from my usual online rental service.

I don't think I can justify a $25-30 movie when that costs almost as much as 2 months of Netflix.

I just bought an HD-DVD player from Best Buy the other day. They have a promotion (and I think Circuit City has one as well) for $399, and you get 4 HDDVD's free, and if you go to the HD-DVD main website you can print out a rebate form and send it in for 5 additional discs.

9 free HD-DVD's and a player for $399 is a pretty monster deal. And if the market moves toward Blu-Ray, then I'll buy a player down the line when it gets dirt cheap.

And let me tell you, it's extremely hard to go back to watching standard DVD's when you start spinning this baby. And if you do prefer watching Standard Def, the player upconverts it enough that it's pretty damn awesome.

And watching Kong in HD makes me forget how long it is. Really breathtaking.

Still, my family bought a decent Sony DVD player in late 1999, 2 years after the format debuted. I don't see it getting that low this year with HD or Blu-ray.

The 9 free DVDs is a sweet deal, certainly better than the 5 crap DVDs that just about everyone had in their collection (Lost in Space, Stargate, Six Days Seven Nights, Stepmom, and Lethal Weapon 4).

Shit.
Now I am trying to remember what 5 discs I got free. Sphere, Lost In Space, City of Angels...and..and...

Fuck.

That's a decent-enough price, I suppose. I've just read too many negative reviews/issues with some of the players out there (HD and Blu-Ray). For the price you pay... it's hard to swallow. Also, the A2 (that $399 HD-DVD player) doesn't support 1080p, which kind of sucks. I just put a 1080p set in the bedroom and would like to take advantage of that. The models up from it do, but they are a bit more.

I hopped into the DVD world pretty early on. I think I paid around $300 for my first player - which, if I remember, was a steal because it supported the short-lived "Divx" - an odd rental-type program that CC offered. Since that program died, the player was on the "cheap".

The difference then - there weren't 2 formats fighting with each other. I just can't get behind either tech at this point/price.

Ha. I have those, like at on of people. I still have them, but I don't think I've ever watched them.

Here is an intersting article, abuot sales of DVD's themselves..

My free DVDs included The Mask, The Jackal, Fools Rush In, and Get Shorty. Seeing them in my DVD collection, I react much the way a climatologist does when he finds a mammoth turd in an ice core sample. Well, maybe not, since mammoth turds are probably pretty interesting to climatologists.

My parents have those same DVD's. Although I think I may have thrown out the Mask while they weren't looking. I have now seen Fools Rush In way too many times though thanks to that offer.