UPDATE:Paramount spokeswoman Brenda Ciccone made this statement in response to reports that Paramount is abandoning the HD-DVD format: “Paramount’s current plan is to continue to support the HD-DVD format.” The statement didn’t specify if Paramount would also produce Blu-ray DVDs in addition to HD-DVDs. It will be interesting to see how this story pans out.

I just gave the bad new to one of the guys in the Toshiba booth at CES. He wasn’t happy. Their HD-DVD focused booth looks a little silly now.

According to the Financial Times, Paramount is going to drop their support for Toshiba’s HD-DVD after Warner Brothers pulled out of the HD-DVD camp last Sunday night. This will most likely put the final nail in the coffin of the HD-DVD format and end the biggest home entertainment format war since Betamax vs. VHS.

Why the sudden switch? Why did Paramount go over to Sony’s Blu-ray so quickly? Insiders are saying that a clause in Paramount’s contract allowed the company to drop HD-DVD in the event that Warner Bros decided to back Blu-ray.

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According to reports, Apple is close to announcing plans to make Fox and Disney movies available as online rentals via iTunes (US). Apple CEO Steve Jobs is likely saving the official announcement for his Macworld Expo keynote on Jan. 14.

Customers would pay a fee to download titles viewable on computers, iPods and presumably Apple TV devices that would expire after a short window of time. Netflix, Amazon.com and Blockbuster’s Movielink are competitors in this space.

Wal-Mart, however, has thrown in the towel. Wal-Mart.com quietly pulled the plug on its video download service late last month as Hewlett Packard decided to discontinue the back-office technology that powered it. The service, popular with studios because it offered variable pricing, struggled with compatibility issues. Wal-Mart downloads could not be burned to DVDs or watched on video iPods.

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Last week Apple sent out an email (screenshot courtesy of TechCrunch.com) to video podcasters asking them to increase the quality of their productions and start formatting their videos for the big screen. Since the launch of the Apple TV (full review here) in March, Apple TVs have been selling like hotcakes and video podcast subscription numbers have skyrocketed.

Apple TV owners, who don’t necessarily want to spend lots of money in the iTunes Store, are gobbling up video podcasts like never before. Even though there currently isn’t any HD quality videos for sale in the iTunes Store, the Apple TV is capable of HD video playback. So several popular video podcasters, including The Washington Post, TWIT (MacBreak), Revision3 (Diggnation) and Vintage Tooncast, have decided to fill the void of HD content by distributing their podcasts in HD or hi res quality.

Why hasn’t everyone started distributing their video podcasts in HD? Money. Not only does producing an HD podcasts require extra hard drive space (roughly 4 times more), special cameras and editing software, but just hosting these giant video files on the Internet can be enough to bankrupt your entire production. For example, the iPod Video version of MacBreak episode 63 is 21 MBs. The HD version is 93 MBs. To help alleviate increased HD production costs, many podcasters have reached out to HD television manufacturers like Samsung and Panasonic to get them to sponsor their new HD podcasts.

For video podcasters who are still producing content at 320×240 but want to do something to increase quality, there is an intermediary step before going HD. Podcasters can start by migrating their productions to 640×480, or even 640×360 (letterbox). This way their video files will still be compatible with portable media players like the Zune and iPod, but will also work on the Apple TV. If the material is carefully encoded, it will look as good or better than typical TV.

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apple, apple tv, itunes, podcasting

Remember a band called The Rembrants? If not, don’t feel bad. The Rembrants were pretty much just a one hit wonder from the 1990’s. Their only hit song was “I’ll Be There For You” (aka the Friends TV show theme song).

Well, if you happen to be a fan of the classic cartoon Thundercats (1985), you might suffer a slight Rembrants flashback. Part of the DVD extras for Thundercats - Season Two, Vol. 1 is music video of the Thundercats theme song sung by The Rembrants. In case you are curious, here’s a behind the scenes promotional video of the music video I found on Vmix.

Where’s Mumm-Ra when you need him?

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Last week Sony Pictures Television made its programming available for the first time in Apple’s iTunes Store (US).

Episodes from current shows “‘Til Death” and “Rules of Engagement” as well as from classic series including “Starsky & Hutch,” “Charlie’s Angels,” and “NewsRadio” were added to iTunes’ offerings for $1.99 each.

Season 1 from Spiderman, the animated series, was also added to iTunes. The series features Neil Patrick Harris (Starship Troopers, Doogie Howser), Ian Ziering (Beverly Hills 90210) and singer-songwriter Lias Loeb.

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Guess what showed up in the mail today? You can see more Apple TV unpacking photos here.

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I got an email from Apple this morning at 4 A.M.. Guess my Apple TV is on its way. And it looks like they gave me a discount. I only got charged $281. It’s listed for $299 on Apple.com. I pre-ordered my Apple TV the day it was announced. Maybe I got the discount because it got delayed a month?

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Think paying $800 for a Series3 HD TiVo box without service is insane? You are not alone. Consumers weren’t exactly excited about coughing up that much $$$ for the Series3 and TiVo sales have slumped. In fact, TiVo just reported a Q4 net loss of $18.7 million.

With products like Apple TV and a Windows Vista CableCARD coming out soon, TiVo has to do something before they are quickly phased out of the digital living room.

So what’s their solution? Just make it cheaper I guess. TiVo CEO Tom Rogers had this to say in his quarter results commentary: “We will be highly focused this year on launching a lower-priced, mass appeal High Definition product.”

That vague quote doesn’t exactly guarantee a cheap HD TiVo during 2007, but hopefully they can come up with something during the next 9 months. Whatever they are going to do, they better do it quick. I already pre-ordered an Apple TV and if it lives up to expectations, my Series2 TiVo will be making a brief cameo on eBay before it leaves my living room.

hdtv, tivo

According to bloggers and a flood of angry comments on the Internet, operations at American DVD rental service, Blockbuster Online, have come to a screeching halt. Angry customers are reporting that they have not received movies from their queues for weeks. According to one customer, repeated calls to Blockbuster customer service were fruitless and when he finally did get through, a customer service rep told him that their mail rental system was shut down.

However an official spokesperson for Blockbuster denied the existance of any problems when contacted by Ars Technica.com. “We’ve been continually shipping product. If a customer feels like they are not getting a movie, they should follow up with our customer service. But in terms of product being allocated and shipped, there has been no interruption.”

Despite what the spokesperson says, sites like DVDRR.com have been flooded with negative comments like this one from a Blockbuster Online user named Cat: “No dvds have been shipped for over a week despite 3 open slots and 26 available titles in my queue. Emails and phone calls to customer support have not succeeded in getting this resolved, just promises that are not kept. I will be canceling and switching to Netflix.”

Is it just a random coincidence that Blockbuster Online users didn’t receive any DVDs last month? Or is Blockbuster being less than truthful about possible problems with their rental service? Blockbuster is engaged a tough battle against Netflix, the market leader in online rentals. Admitting to significant service interruptions might persuade users to switch to Netflix.

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