Michael Bay: 'Blu-ray is where my money is'
by Andrew Yoon 
{ Oct 23rd 2007 at 12:30PM }
Due to a recent exclusivity deal, Dreamworks' Transformers became an HD DVD exclusive. Michael Bay became pretty distressed at the deal, and threatened to leave production of Transformers 2.The recent release of the HD DVD has been the best debut HD disc so far -- a significant victory for those in the HD DVD camp. However, that hasn't stopped the outspoken director from declaring Blu-ray as the ultimate victor. "It's short-sighted and it has delayed consumers' moving to HD (home video)," he told USA Today. "As a director, my critical eye is that Blu-ray is where my money is. Consumers are smart, and they are going to wait it out."
The exclusivity arrangement for Dreamworks' catalog expires in less than two years.
[Thanks, AG23!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Frank @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:35PM
It'll be interesting to see who is going to win. I'm not that invested in this war. Blu-ray has the advantage of being built into ps3s, but HD-DVD players are dropping very quickly, especially the 360 add-on. 180 bucks for 5 dvds + season 1 of heroes, it's getting very tempting. I think when the HD-DVD addon drops to around 100 it'll get a lot more interesting.
Johnny @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:37PM
Damn,I was waiting for this one....
jeff masson @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:39PM
the case says it all 2 disc's
how out of date is that cant fit it on 1 disc? time to move to blu-ray
Popfrogs @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:39PM
At least someone in Hollywood isn't planted firmly in Microsoft and Toshiba's pocket. HD-DVD is just slowing HD adoption and the consumer on the sidelines will just keep waiting for a winner to emerge.
RazielDune @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:42PM
its sad that the HD-DVD sales proubly matched the HD-DVD sales of 300 yet i bet if it was on Blu-Ray as well it'd make them look bad by Blu-Ray Version outselling it 4 to 1 again.
Random1448 @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:43PM
apparently a lot of directors are wanting to go to blu-ray, apparently Steven Speilberg didn't allow his films to be included in the HD-DVD deal with dreamworks. Looks like Blu-ray is the way to go.
comtar @ Oct 23rd 2007 1:00PM
I think the more amusing story is Toshiba wanting Microsoft to make HD-DVD internal to the 360, and Microsoft in a nice way is like... "Um no, cause that would make our console more expensive then PS3, and no one would buy it."
It's so bizarre how close Toshiba and Sony work together in alot of things, just not when it comes to the HD format wars. Sony and Toshiba work together on alot of projects, including the Cell Processor... you'd think they would have settled on a format before releasing it to the public. I almost wonder if this is planned in some sort of way...
ViNhT426 @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:56PM
thats awesome of Spielberg! where did you hear this from #6?
Frank @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:57PM
I currently own both (PS3 & 360 w/ add-on). I really wonder what his motivation is here. The video quality is the same on both formats. Blueray has a capacity advantage 'for now'. Why is he so anti-HD-DVD? What's his angle?
For him to say the future is Blueray is a bit foolish this early in the war. Neither seems to have a huge advantage over the other at this point.
josh83 @ Oct 23rd 2007 1:04PM
Video: the most violent video games ever made. Check it out
http://www.pollsb.com/polls/poll/3204/most-violent-game-ever
Slaytan @ Oct 23rd 2007 1:11PM
@9 Think of it as brothers playing baseball on different teams. while they root for each other when they're not playing against each other; when they face off, it's every man for themselves.
Kspraydad @ Oct 23rd 2007 1:33PM
@#7
http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/pressrelease_paramounthddvdex08202007.html
Quote:
Today's announcement does not include films directed by Steven Spielberg as his films are not exclusive to either format.
So in other words he won't do exclusive but he WILL do both.
Jon @ Oct 25th 2007 11:10AM
Don't know if anyone saw this the other day, but the HD-DVD of Transformers is partially crippled anyways.
http://www.n4g.com/News-74839.aspx
Granted the reviewer said it sounded good, there is no Dolby TrueHD or uncompressed PCM, only Dolby Digital-Plus 5.1 Surround. The studio's answer was that it was due to space limitations on the disc.
Dolphis @ Oct 23rd 2007 1:34PM
hahaha YES!! I can't wait till it comes out on BD. I remember watching this movie when it first came out and thinking to my self: "I can't wait till this comes out in BD, this is gonna be so great!" and then... the bomb dropped! I have a 360, but seems pointless to buy the HD-DVD add on. I'll just wait until its out on BD. But I'm really glad that Michael Bay is sticking to his guns on this one.
Benjamin09 @ Oct 23rd 2007 1:34PM
..I love how he does say "Consumers are smart"...
HAHAHAHA, I'm not saying that Blu Ray is going to lose or win but I just find that statement funny. He must have never worked retail before. Most consumers are mindless blobs and are not very bright.
Dadidito @ Oct 23rd 2007 1:40PM
Blue-ray is in my opinion and many here the better choice, but the problem is that as Sony is well aware of the best format does not always win. Its the format that MOST people can just go in the store not spend to much money and buy. Beta was the better choice but VHS won that one. I still have two working betas. One of them is Sony, the other Sanyo :). Still no loss of quality when compared to my old VHS tapes from the same time.
Aurvant @ Oct 23rd 2007 3:17PM
Weird stuff going on with the comments...anyways! Here's a little story I found that pretty much strikes a very painful blow to the DVD/HD-DVD crowd.
http://www.itnews.it/2007/1023121801565/pioneer-and-mitsubishi-kagaku-announce-use-of-organic-dye-recording-film-in-blu-ray-recordable-discs-and-technology-for-recordable-blu-ray-discs-with-metal-nitride-film.html
What that basically says is that the Blu-Ray is now just as cheap to produce as the DVD and CD-R formats due to the fact that they no longer need high production costs and investments in to the technology. Here's the moneyqoute:
"With this standardization, the mass production of organic dye recording media has now become possible with BD-R. Discs with organic dye do not require large-scale investments in facilities so that the current coating facilities for CD-R and DVD-R can be used for BD production lines with only minor adjustments, making low priced discs a possibility."
When that Paramount deal runs out I am pretty darn sure that Michael Bay will finally "get his money's worth" from his movies. Considering that the Blu-Ray just became cheaper to produce than the HD-DVD I would say that it has now made a significant stride over the competition.
Doug @ Oct 23rd 2007 1:56PM
Did anybody actually read the article closely? The Blu-ray quote is *old* news and Michael Bay retracted it the next day: "The next day he backpedaled, but he is still upset about the format war."
The statements about Blu-ray were made months ago and were made when he didn't understand the two formats. He later decided that releasing on HD-DVD was fine.
No Blu-ray on this one, folks!
Khamikazi @ Oct 23rd 2007 2:09PM
I own both types of players and they look the same to me. The only difference is I get extras on my HD-DVDs where as most of the 'extras' on my Blu-Ray movies are just trailers of the same two movies. So its kind of funny to think blu-ray in all its space is unable to give any extras. /sigh
Aleks @ Oct 23rd 2007 2:27PM
You forgot to mention Micheal Bay is one of the worst directors in Hollywood.
seedaripper1973 @ Oct 23rd 2007 2:40PM
er....am i the only one not able to access ps3fanboy via my ps3 anymore????i used to be able to...but now i get 'ran out of memory,so brought up a blank screen' message???????????? is this just me? or do any others have the same problems???
mucho gracies for any feedback...
PSN seedaripper1973
p.s nice one micheal...(heres hoping for 'heat')
;)
NATO_Duke @ Oct 23rd 2007 2:45PM
I was a tad bummed it wasn't available for BluRay when I went to get a copy. This movie isn't enough to make me buy an HD-Dvd player right now.
Popfrogs @ Oct 23rd 2007 2:51PM
"Neither seems to have a huge advantage over the other at this point."
Well that's gotta be the least informed comment of the decade. Blu-ray has a huge advantage with storage space and it continues to grow with the development of 2 and 4 layer discs which double and quadruple capacity. You could store an entire season of 24 in HD on a quad-layer disc. That'd probably eat up 10 HD-DVDs. Let's not even mention storage space for games and the fact that some machines are now shipping with BR burners. DVD needs to die as soon as BR media becomes affordable, there is just too much data to back up and distribute to keep DVD viable these days.
Ghaleon @ Oct 23rd 2007 3:15PM
Way to report month-old, retracted news. PS3fanboy does it again.
Obviously neither will win anyway.
qwerter @ Oct 23rd 2007 3:26PM
@22 i have the same thing happening to me and i dont have a clue why and i also cant access pspfanboy either..anybody know why?..oh and i know i have enought memory thats 4 sure got 100gbs left
RazielDune @ Oct 23rd 2007 3:27PM
@25 this is actually New hes feeling blu again its on blu-ray.com
leiwei @ Oct 23rd 2007 3:43PM
I heard from highdefdigest that the probable reason for why blu-ray and hd-dvd looks the same is because companies remaster the movies to fit on hd-dvd, then port it over to blu. And the Michael Bay blu-is-back is new news.
What i'm still waiting for is Spielberg's spokesperson and Toshiba-Hddvd group public apology announcement for that JP,ET,Jaws slide picture fiasco in the powerpoint presentation back in the convention in Japan. So far I think only blu-ray.com is the only "source" for that issue.
Dru @ Oct 23rd 2007 4:36PM
If HD-DVD was so great than why are businesses like Blockbuster going to BD alone?
Doug @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:39PM
MB's comments on Blu-ray are being quoted from several months ago; they have since been retracted. No new news there. The article clearly states that it is citing a previous article about MB's Blu-ray comments, and indicates that they were retracted.
HD-DVD and Blu-ray are going to look identical with the same content. Both use the same codecs, and come from the same encoding, thus identical image quality. Even HD-DVD has enough space to produce stellar images using MPEG-4 for a feature length title. The extra space the Blu-ray offers is only of benefit if the director decides to include a ton of bonus features on the main disc; the difference in quality between a 30GB and 50GB version of a movie encoded in MPEG-4 (if there were separate encodings) would be completely imperceptible. MPEG-4 is just that good, where extra data just doesn't improve image quality at all.
I'm not knocking Blu-ray here... I myself own a PS3 with several Blu-ray movies. Just trying to get facts set straight.
TXCrowe @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:46PM
Doug, Sorry Wrong!
He did make previous comments about it when it a while ago, However this is a NEW COMMENT by Bay.
And as to the poster that said Spielberg will support BOTH formats....Go tell it Close Encounters, Only Blu, no Hd dvd in site.
Easo @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:49PM
I still think that DVD will come out as the winner of this format war. Its cheap, everyone already owns a dvd player, and most people arent fully convinced that DVD technology is visually outdated. This is can be proven by simply taking a look at the large rapid growth of the DVD market over its first few years and compareing it to the extremely small and slow growth of both hd formats (HDDVD and Blu ray) over the last few years.
However I do think that DVD will be replaced as the A/V format of choice for consumers within the next 10 years. I believe that the corporate acceptance of HVD (holographic video disc) will drive the cost of the technology down low enough for the common consumer and with a storage capacity of 3Tb (thats equal to about 3,075GB) There will be no disputing its dominance.
h0mi @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:06PM
"the case says it all 2 disc's "
POTC had 2 discs as well.
Starfire @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:23PM
Blu versus HD-DVD- the former has the space, the latter has better standards (which is why people report better extras, transparent menus etc on HD-DVD. For me, it would be better for Blu to win as it has more space which suggests less compromises. But if a bunch of players out there can never support new disk-features, all that space may not stop people from holding back from those. It's a dual-format world, folks, it's a bit like saying PS3 will kill of the 360 (or visa-versa). Wouldn't a machine that plays both be best? With the movie formats this is very possible, as they're just types of disk, after all and if they have any sense they'll do this for games next time around, too.
And I also can't see this from my PS3 anymore. Mysterious, eh!
animekid3515 @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:50PM
the blu ray is called useless at times, but lets think, because of the omega storage on it you can have: 1080p resolution, lossless audio (you cant do better than lossless these days) and still have room for extras.
lovingps3owner @ Oct 23rd 2007 10:19PM
i get the same problem too, i cant visit ps3fanboy on my ps3 anymore because i get a blank screen and out of memory error
SKI @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:02PM
"Blu-ray has a huge advantage with storage space and it continues to grow with the development of 2 and 4 layer discs which double and quadruple capacity. You could store an entire season of 24 in HD on a quad-layer disc. That'd probably eat up 10 HD-DVDs."
Wrong, 51 GB HD-DVD have now been standardized.
http://www.hwupgrade.com/news/cpu/hd-dvd-reaches-51-gb_80.html
And every-one forgets blu-ray's major problem, region-encoding.
GL @ Oct 25th 2007 11:18AM
SKI,
The 51GB you linked is not a "standardization" but a PRES promotional meeting in Las Vegas. It's basically a bunch of Toshiba shills cheerleaders.
The 51GB, even if it was completed would be for PC storge media. Not for movies. So, this is just a bunch of propaganda.
By the way. Did you know the max limit for Blu-ray is 33GB per layer. So, it's like saying that Blu-ray could do 33GB and 66GB for single and double layer? See how that works?
The fact of the matter is that blu-ray's 25GB per layer will always be ahead of hd dvd. 75GB would be Blu-ray's triple layer. And 100GB is the quadlayer!
BOOYA!
nick @ Oct 28th 2007 6:49PM
I thought this story was reported about a month ago, then retracted the next day. See Engadget HD..
Vegeta (aka Ska Oreo) @ Oct 28th 2007 10:44PM
@20
You are awesome!!!
I think I'm going to post this quote from South Park every time that shitty director is mention.
"Those aren't ideas!!! Those are special effects!!!"
"I don't understand the difference."
thisbroken @ Nov 25th 2007 3:56PM
comments broken?
thisbroken @ Nov 25th 2007 3:55PM
don't claim absurd layer counts like claiming that double layer double sided dvds are a huge advantage. when you add so many layers its a stunt, not something for actual use. first its costly and second its unnecessary. its why dvd box sets use multiple discs instead of adding as many layers as they can. there is no real increase in utility, and the cost of pressing regular single/double layer discs is so low that having multiple discs is insignificant especially when considering the selling price of box sets.
thisbroken @ Oct 29th 2007 4:46PM
furthermore its more impressive to have a box set for a season instead of a single disc. there is little increase in utility for the consumer for single disc, its actually lower since you can't lend out episodes and such, and it makes the single disc over precious, if it goes, you lose everything. an extra disc here ror there for bonus features is no burden or real disadvantage. frankly what matters more to consumers is that special features are worth watching at all, instead of some publicity puff piece and actors yammering on about how talented and wonderful everyone was.
thisbroken @ Oct 29th 2007 3:12AM
as for data backup, i don't think so. we are up to terabyte drives now, and cheap as well. flash drives are pocketable and are prices are dropping at incredible rates. we have 16-32gb in a pocket, or on your keychain. by the time bluray drives and media become affordable we will have thumb drives that will blow your mind. unlike the days of cdr/dvd, we are in a data storage rich environment these days. there isn't the desperate need that could only practically filled by optical media as it was then. in fact optical media is pretty old fashioned and inferior in practicability.
in fact recent break throughs apparently will allow terabyte thumb drives within a few years. http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2007/10/ion_memory
thisbroken @ Oct 29th 2007 3:14AM
as for data backup, i don't think so. we are up to terabyte drives now, and cheap as well. flash drives are pocketable and are prices are dropping at incredible rates. we have 16-32gb in a pocket, or on your keychain. by the time bluray drives and media become affordable we will have thumb drives that will blow your mind. unlike the days of cdr/dvd, we are in a data storage rich environment these days. there isn't the desperate need that could only practically filled by optical media as it was then. in fact optical media is pretty old fashioned and inferior in practicability.
in fact recent break throughs apparently will allow terabyte thumb drives within a few years. http://www.wired.com/gadgets/miscellaneous/news/2007/10/ion_memory
thisbroken @ Oct 29th 2007 3:16AM
as for data backup, i don't think so. we are up to terabyte drives now, and cheap as well. flash drives are pocketable and are prices are dropping at incredible rates. we have 16-32gb in a pocket, or on your keychain. by the time bluray drives and media become affordable we will have thumb drives that will blow your mind. unlike the days of cdr/dvd, we are in a data storage rich environment these days. there isn't the desperate need that could only practically filled by optical media as it was then. in fact optical media is pretty old fashioned and inferior in practicability.
thisbroken @ Oct 29th 2007 7:35AM
"At least someone in Hollywood isn't planted firmly in Microsoft and
Toshiba's pocket. HD-DVD is just slowing HD adoption and the consumer
on the sidelines will just keep waiting for a winner to emerge"
what are you smoking, sony is both the RIAA+MPAA in one company. who do
you think has more pull in the entertainment industry? don't kid
yourself, the big ugly gorilla in this contest is sony.
animekid3515 @ Oct 29th 2007 10:38AM
yes they do look pretty much the same, the difference is most HD-DVD movies dont use lossless audio, which most blu ray movies do, if not then all of them. they look the same right now, hence the reason so many people say its the future, the second a high quality codec comes out that make movies too big to be on HD-DVD, trust me, it will happen, then HD-DVD will be in major trouble, and by that time, the BR discs will be nice and cheap.
tretle @ Oct 30th 2007 1:08PM
"The statements about Blu-ray were made months ago and were made when he didn't understand the two formats. He later decided that releasing on HD-DVD was fine."
So in other words they bought his opinion, or better yet threatened his career for making such an outburst. How can you be so gullible, retractions like these are common in the business. He either did it because he got offered money to shut up or because he was threatened. He probably still has strong views on blueray but instead of expressing them now,he gets a wad of cash.