I was just saying in yesterday’s post that there’s still some sense in buying certain movies on HD DVD since Universal’s Blu-ray plans for this year are largely about releasing new movies, and just barely getting caught up on the titles that came out on HD DVD, while Paramount had not even said how they and Dreamworks would be going back to Blu. Well, we have to wonder no more about Par’s plans.

On Tuesday, Paramount announced a strategy similar to Universal’s about Blu-ray releases for the year. It consists mainly of putting out new titles “day and date” (meaning they come out the same time as) with their DVD versions, and then getting caught up on catalog titles a little more slowly. They’ll kick off their re-entry to Blu-ray a few weeks from now on May 20 with Bee Movie, Face/Off and Next.

These will be followed up by recent movies such as Cloverfield and There Will Be Blood on June 3, and Spiderwick Chronicles on June 24, while August brings No Country for Old Men. Paramount did not disclose any further release plans for the rest of the year, but it’s a good bet that all of the significant new movies will come out a few months after their theatrical runs.

This means that Michael Bay and the many legions of his fans, as well as a few dozen Blu-ray owners, will apparently have to wait a little longer to see Transformers on Paramount’s Blu-ray release slate. Likewise, many Trekkies will have to wait and see when the first and second seasons of the original series discs come out in high-def.

For at least the next few months, and maybe some more after that, HD DVD is still the only way to enjoy certain movies from Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros. and many other studios, because their high-def disc strategy going forward prioritizes new movies over catching up on catalog titles. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to wait a year or longer for some of your HD DVD favorites to come out on Blu, most likely at full-price, or get them now at whatever discounts you can find.

UPDATE: It looks like some of the Blu-ray titles that had been taken off shelves when Paramount went HD DVD-exclusive last year will be returning to shelves on May 20, including Blades of Glory, Babel, Aeon Flux, The Warriors, and Black Snake Moan.

The most recent news item for Toshiba and HD DVD is that their first HD DVD player, the HD-A1 which made its debut in April of 2006, just got a firmware 3.0 update. No word just yet on updates for the later models.

A pseudo-news item about a Toshiba Blu-ray machine came up a few days ago when it was revealed that their Brazilian unit was offering a home theater PC (HTPC) sporting a combo HD DVD/Blu-ray drive. Writers who are less familiar with covering HD DVD and Blu-ray were quick to suggest that this was Toshiba’s attempt at getting into Blu-ray. Technically, this is a Toshiba product and it does do Blu-ray, so it’s not like these reporters were lying. However, it’s not a mainstream player from the big Toshiba mothership, and in the end there’s no reason to expect this Brazilian product at Best Buy, Circuit City or Amazon any time soon.

In early March, Toshiba put a final number on what they’d be writing off as they got out of the HD DVD business. Now that those documents are filed, this amount made news again and you might have read that Toshiba’s earnings were down 95%, representing their first fall in profits in three years. Toshiba is not a one-trick pony and has good prospects in other product areas, so don’t feel too bad for them. They’re still active in the DVD forum and I’m sure we’ll be hearing about at least one or two measures aimed at keeping DVD technology afloat as the world switches to Blu-ray or other ways to get movies.

The big news in movie deals has been that you have to look over in Australia or Europe for the HD DVD fire sales. Australian sites such as EzDvd and Dvdcrave have been selling a lot of discs for prices as low as USD $8.50 and under. Some of these titles are already around $10 at Amazon, Fry’s or DeepDiscount, but it seems that the stores from down under are offering more discs from more studios at these low prices.

On the European front, the various Amazon sites have had some good deals on discs too, but the currency conversion rate from Pounds and Euros is not as favorable when compared to the Aussies. Still, there are some really interesting titles there, many of which were only available on Blu-ray here.

There’s no need to worry that European or Australian discs won’t work with your US player. Region encoding was never enforced on HD DVD discs, and there’s no such thing as PAL incompatibility on HD. Except for the fact that a European disc may have different language options, the movies themselves will work just fine.

Shipping costs don’t really weigh down the final price much, and it might take a few more days to get discs internationally, but if you’re definitely not getting into Blu-ray any time soon, then this may be a good way to get some of the movies you had always wanted. Don’t forget that Paramount has still not come out with any solid Blu-ray plans, and Universal’s first Blu-ray discs barely scratch the potential catalog they had put out on HD DVD. This means that the only way to enjoy certain titles on HD discs is still via HD DVD.

Most of the deals from the start of April are still in effect at US-based stores, and you can revisit this April 4 posting for more information about those sales.

• EzDvd clearance sale on HD DVD
• Dvdcrave has lots of HD DVD titles under USD $9

April 22 is observed around these here parts as “Earth Day” and what better day to rekindle your love of HD DVD and Mother Earth than with another viewing of an episode or two from the remarkable Planet Earth disc set?

This was my first HD DVD purchase over a year ago, coming just a couple of days before my player did. A few months ago thousands took advantage of a big sale at the Discovery Channel store to buy the Discovery version and they’ve been sold out since. If you’re still looking for a deal on this title, head on over to the PBS store, where it’s being sold as an overstock item for only $29.99. Though the picture at the site shows the BBC cover, I am pretty sure they are actually selling the Discovery Channel version because brand new sets of the BBC version are still going for around $45 at Amazon.

There are some difference betweens the two versions, such as the fact that the Discovery version is 1080i, has Sigourney Weaver as the narrator, and each episode is about ten minutes shorter since that’s the way they all aired on the channel. Despite those differences, a lot of people have bought and loved this version a lot.

Coupon code “WELCOME15″ brings that price down a couple of dollars at the ShopPBS store, by the way, and it appears that some aspect of this discounted price also ends on April 28.

• Planet Earth at ShopPBS.org
• Planet Earth HD DVD at $29.99 at Discovery store
• “Your HD Collection is incomplete without Planet Earth” – Post from last year

Universal Studios was the staunchest in its support of HD DVD, and there’s been plenty of speculation about when they’d finally start releasing any of their titles on Blu-ray now that the format war is officially over.

The guessing can now formally end. According to a Hollywood Reporter / Reuters story, Universal will bring its Mummy series out on Blu-ray on July 22, consisting of The Mummy, The Mummy Returns, and The Scorpion King. No doubt, this is timed to coincide with the theatrical release of the fourth movie in that series, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor starring Brendan Fraser and Jet Li.

Many of Universal’s favorites on HD DVD will make their way to Blu-ray by the end of the year as they release close to 40 titles in the months ahead, including hits such as American Gangster, Knocked Up, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

No word yet on Paramount’s plans to return to the Blu-ray flock that they once broke bread with.

• Universal joining Blu-ray bandwagon in the summer at Yahoo! News
• Universal Unveils Blu-ray Disc Plans at Home Media Magazine

includes some statements from Universal Studios Home Entertainment President Craig Kornblau

Amazon.com is the latest company to offer some special consideration for its HD DVD customers. While stores like Circuit City and Wal-Mart have extended their refund policies, Best Buy opted for gift certificates because they recognized that some people might still want to keep their players and might be due to purchase some new movies on HD DVD, or perhaps they might take a peek at other items like a Blu-ray player or USB hub.

Add Amazon to that $50 gift certificate club. If you purchased an HD DVD player from Amazon.com before February 23, 2008, then check your email for the following letter that was sent out this morning:

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

As someone who purchased an HD DVD player from us before February 23, 2008,* you might like to hear about a special offer available from Amazon.com.

New technologies don’t always work out as planned. We at Amazon.com value our customer relationships more than anything and would like to support customers who purchased these players by offering a credit good for $50 off any products sold by Amazon.com.** Just use promotional code ****-******-****** when checking out. The code is valid through April 9, 2009, so you have plenty of time to use your credit. Purchases from third-party merchants on our site are not eligible.

In addition, we’d like to share some of our top offers on Blu-ray discs , HDTVs , and other high-def technology and remind you that the Amazon.com Marketplace is available to sell items you might not want anymore as you upgrade to new ones. Also be sure to check out our monthly Amazon.com Early Adopters Delivers e-mail to find out about the latest technology.

* On February 23, 2008, the last manufacturer of HD DVD players announced it was ceasing production of those players.

** Offer cannot be used to pay for special-order titles, e-books or downloadable e-content, wireless service plans, gift certificates, gift-wrap, taxes, or shipping and handling charges. $50.00 promotional credit is per HD DVD player purchased prior to February 23, 2008–up to 10 units for a maximum credit of $500.00.

You are receiving this e-mail due to your purchase of a qualifying HD DVD player from Amazon.com. Canceled or returned orders of eligible HD DVD players are not eligible for this promotion.

You have a full year to redeem this $50 coupon on a purchase at Amazon, and it can be on anything they sell. As for me, I’m going to use it on a wireless mouse I’ve had my eye on…

There’s an Xbox 360 HD DVD update for you next time you log in to Xbox Live with your 360 and HD DVD add-on. This update mainly brings fixes for the web-enabled features on certain titles, and “additional support for network features” (whatever that means).

I never got a chance to get into programming HDi, but I’m guessing that these essentially amount to patches for certain titles (no names were mentioned) and possibly a few fixes to anything that needed updating on the HDi engine itself.

Reading around the web, some people have made snarky comments about this update being pointless. I’m guessing they’re made by people who never liked HD DVD or even own the add-on. The reality is that the comments about this being pointless are themselves pointless. If you have a 360 and HD DVD add-on, and this update fixes issues you’ve had on some discs, then Microsoft should be congratulated on letting you get more use from a peripheral they no longer make. It’s a lot better than being left completely on your own with no chance of getting these problems fixed at all.

Might there be other updates in the future? I’d guess that this is probably the last update of its kind for a very long time since the team that works on this product has probably started their transition to other technologies.

How about another Toshiba update? Toshiba said they’d support the products for 8 more years, but it’s not clear whether this mostly means hardware fixes or if they’ll still have an engineer or two working on firmware. Since there are no new models of HD DVD players coming out, I’d guess that there could be at least one final update that fixes some problems that came up in the most recent firmware updates. Beyond that, updates might only come if it turns out that the feature is somehow similar to another DVD player product, and maaaaaaaaybe they’re willing to let that engineer apply a quick fix to the equivalent lines of code in the HD DVD firmware. Slim chance for that, me thinks.

November 2007 was a remarkable month in the history of HD DVD because Wal-Mart kicked off a big sale that many other retailers were quick to copy. In the end, it’s estimated that nearly 100,000 players were sold that month.

But business is business, and Wal-mart was swift in announcing they’d drop support for the format just a couple of months ago, and that was one of the factors that ultimately contributed to Toshiba’s decision to cease HD DVD production.

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart is offering refunds for HD DVD players purchased on or after November 1. You just have to bring your receipt, no box is necessary. This is a big deal because Wal-Mart single-handedly brought a lot of non-technical people into the world of HD DVD and it seemed a little mean for them to so quickly ditch all of those customers.

Wal-mart is a little late to this party, however and only giving customers until April 30 to take advantage of this offer. Right around now, many of you who purchased HD DVD players from Best Buy are probably receiving your $50 gift cards — which don’t even require returning the units to the store. Prior to that, Circuit City graciously extended their returns policy to allow an extended period of time for customers to return HD DVD players.

• Wall Street Journal article

Not letting all that time and money poured into HD DVD research and development to go to waste, it’s reported that the DVD forum wants to bring at least a few upgrades to standard DVDs.

A reader comment on an earlier posting has some of the rumor-tastic details, and we’ll all find out for sure when the DVD forum officially publishes some meeting results in several more weeks (or more members blab). Reader “Peter” reported from this article that the WG-12 Working Group is looking into bringing completely backward compatible upgrades to the DVD standard revolving around networking and including some form of interactivity.

As I write this post one week after April Fool’s, I should let you know that much of what has been divulged here is actually plausible, much of it is documented, and there has already been discussion about this at a few websites back in March.

The DVD Forum’s site has a news item dated December 17, 2007 announcing the formation of WG-12 which has the objective of studying network application related issues for DVD and HD DVD, with the first meeting to be held on January 11, 2008 in Mountain View, California. Formation of WG-12 was approved at the November 15, 2007 meeting under item #3, and also included nominating Microsoft and Panasonic as Provisional Chair-companies for WG-12 (item #4).

According to the minutes of that November meeting, even Sony approved formation of the WG-12 group, (more…)

With the end of HD DVD production, and many studios slowly winding down their release of new titles, there’s usually not a lot of news happening on the HD DVD front. Regardless, I still make the rounds of various press releases to see if anything interesting has come up, and there was quite a doozy for me this morning because it turned out that I made some news instead of just reporting on it.

It seems that our April Fool’s joke has been circulated around on the internet, with some people taking certain parts of it seriously. The initial nugget for the joke came from the knowledge that many would love for their PS3s to read HD DVD discs, or their 360 HD DVD to do the same with Blu-ray media. The joke article also hit upon other points which might be familiar to people who keep abreast of technology news, such as the heat that Microsoft has taken over the “Vista capable” label applied on some lower-end computers. The joke concluded with a reference to the EU’s subsidies in the interest of fair competition.

Some people apparently circulated the joke enough that it caught the attention of the folks over at NME, the people behind the HD-VMD format. Here are some parts of the press release they put out this morning: (more…)