PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
Financial Times reported this morning that Paramount has a clause in its HD-DVD contract, which will allow the film studio to switch sides in the event of Warner Brothers backing Blu-ray.
Following Warner’s decision, Blu-ray can now boast that it holds 70 per cent of Hollywood’s output. Despite this, and the fact that Toshiba cancelled its HD-DVD press conference at the CES, Akiyo Ozaka, president of Toshiba America Consumer Products, insisted on Sunday that HD-DVD “has not lost”
In other movie related news, DVD sales in America have also fallen. According to USA Today, DVD sales and rentals have dropped three per cent in 2007 over the previous year. USA Today pointed towards film downloads, and not HD DVD, as the reason for the drop. The download industry is expected to double from $689 million in 2006 to $1.6 billion in 2008.
