Opinion: Disc vs. Web

By Paul Sweeting -- Video Business, 3/20/2009 12:00:00 PM

It was easy to draw different conclusions from comments at the McGraw Hill Media Summit in New York last week.

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman certainly didn’t do Blu-ray any favors in his keynote interview with BusinessWeek Los Angeles bureau chief Ron Grover.

Referring to the current economic climate, Dauman said, “The other thing we were looking forward to in the industry was Blu-ray. Clearly you’re not going to see as many Blu-ray players in the market because of the recession, and that means fewer Blu-ray discs sold.”

Hard to argue with that. But Dauman also discussed other aspects of Viacom and Paramount Pictures’ strategic plans that, while not specifically related to Blu-ray, suggest the studio is already thinking past optical disc for HD movie delivery.

Paramount is one of three studio partners in Epix, the planned premium movie service that will launch first as an online VOD service and eventually as a pay-TV movie channel on cable and satellite systems. (Epix has yet to announce any affiliate deals with cable operators for a variety of reasons, but that’s another story.)

Even with the online version, all titles will be in HD—“full, 1080p,” according to Dauman—and will include a variety of bonus features and interactive elements.

In other words, a Blu-ray disc online.

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