Indies jump into HD DVD

Companies believe early adopters will buy whatever’s available

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 5/5/2006

MAY 5 | Despite having slimmer wallets than the major studios, several indie suppliers are betting there’s a benefit to being first to market with HD DVD.

BCI-Eclipse, Magnolia Home Entertainment and Goldhil are among those companies taking on the relatively expensive task of authoring and mastering in high-definition to release their first titles in the format. The three also have future plans to additionally produce Blu-ray product.

Authoring and mastering in high-def is relatively expensive. Indie Image Entertainment will sit out HD DVD for now because it estimates that producing a master could cost about $30,000, compared with $2,000 to $8,000 for a standard DVD master. Indie titles also might sell far fewer units than major studio films, providing a much smaller base over which to spread the increased production costs.

BCI-Eclipse believes it can make the economics work by planning to simultaneously release a film in standard-def and HD DVD, as well as Blu-ray, eventually. Sci-fi spoof Galaxina, music industry exposé That’s the Way of the World and horror movies Night of the Werewolf and Vengeance of the Zombies are scheduled for day-and-date standard and HD DVD bows in August, priced at $24.99 each.

“By doing all of that on a single project one time, we can amortize the costs,” said BCI president Ed Goetz. “We know we can generate income off of the sales from the SD version, until the HD or Blu-ray sales reach a decent level.”

Goetz thinks the titles will appeal to the tastes of technology early adopters.

“When DVD first launched, I was at Simitar, and we released mainly sci-fi and horror,” he recalled. “And by the end of that first year of DVD in the marketplace, Simitar, as an indie, had 5% of all retail sales.”

Magnolia and Goldhil believe that being early birds at retail will help their specialty product get noticed among major HD DVD offerings.

Magnolia hopes to launch Bubble by May 23, and at that time, there should be just about a dozen HD DVD titles available from Universal Studios Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video.

“The awareness [from bowing HD DVD quickly] certainly helps,” said Mark Cuban, Magnolia co-owner. “But I have no doubt this will be a hit. People who have just bought an HDTV set want content. We have a full slate of more than a dozen movies coming that were shot in [high-def], and it would be crazy not to have them in the highest resolution possible for consumers to buy.”

Magnolia also expects to bow Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, The War Within, Bikini Destinations and HDNet World Report Special: Shuttle Discovery’s Historic Mission on HD DVD this month. Prices haven’t been determined.

Goldhil at this point has one title set for HD DVD and Blu-ray release: landscape film Chronos. Priced at $24.98, the title streets on HD DVD on June 6. Chronos’ costs were manageable for the supplier, because the film was originally shot in high-def. Also, Chronos’ producers are shouldering the bulk of the HD DVD costs, contracting with Goldhil to distribute the title.

The company’s next tentative HD DVD release is music disc Kenny Rogers: The Journey.