Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
Confirmation that Universal and Paramount, the last two movie studios that support the HD DVD format, are now free to switch to Blu-ray, joining the other major studios, appears to sound the death knell for HD DVD.
Show business clarion Variety, which has
extensive connections with Hollywood power brokers, has confirmed in a
report what many had suspected, the move of Warner Bros to Blu-ray has
activated an escape clause for Paramount, which only last August
announced its intention to back HD DVD exclusively. The escape clause
reportedly let Paramount off the HD DVD hook if Warner Bros announced
exclusive backing for Blu-ray.
To make the situation even more tenuous for Toshiba, Microsoft and the
rest of the HD DVD camp, Variety reports that Universal is now free of
any further HD DVD commitments, except for some upcoming promotions.
While Toshiba is putting on a brave face, despite receiving the shock
of its life at the Consumer Electronics Show when Warner Bros announced
its exclusive support for Blu-ray, pundits are widely predicting that
it's only a matter of time before the consumer electronics giant throws
in the towel. It would be a bitter pill to swallow indeed if it were
forced to start making Blu-ray players.
With studios and retailers now firmly behind Blu-ray and an established
and growing installed player base, thanks to the PlayStation 3 console,
Sony looks set to finally get some payback for its bitter defeat in the
VHS versus Betamax VCR war more than two decades ago. The win should
provide some consolation and relief for Sony, which has suffered more
than its share of troubles over the past year.
As for Microsoft, it appears to have dug itself a hole by backing HD
DVD. While some pundits speculate that Microsoft's salvation will come
through HD downloads making HD video disks obsolete, this is fanciful
at best. The general feeling is that there are still quite a few years
of life left in the optical disk format before downloads start to take
over.
David Frost
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