LED Lights & Accessories Wholesaler

HD DVD camp in $150m Paramount bribe

Itwas announced late yesterday that Paramount and its Dreamworks Animation arm were ditching the Blu-ray disc format infavour of going HD DVD exclusive. But now it seems that the HD DVD camp mayhave bribed Paramount to the tune of $150m to make the deal happen.

DeadlineHollywood Daily says of the deal: "Note how there's no mention of the moneyParamount (I'm told $50 million) and DreamWorks Animation (I'm told $100million) is receiving for 'promotional consideration' from the HD DVDside to continue with what is widely recognised as the losing high-def format."

Gizmodo put the bribery claims to Paramount and the Toshiba-led HD DVD camp, and received this response: "Whenever weconduct co-marketing, production deals or other agreements, we never discussbusiness terms."

Sothat's not a denial then. It just goes to show the amount of money that's involvedin the HD format war. That one side can afford to throw $150m at a companyfor its support indicates the kind of stakes involved.

Neitherside wants to lose this format war, so instead of one withdrawing and admittingdefeat, it seems much more likely that both formats will exist side-by-side forsome time to come.