I've heard it. I believe I ordered a Chinese manufactured player yesterday when I ordered the HD-A2. I'll check to see if it says anything about where it was made when I get it. It will be interesting to see how much lower players manufactured in China for Chinese companies are compared to players manufactured in China for Toshiba are.

--Darin

I bet the difference is trivial.

You know, like support and warrantees between a known company and some fly-by-night Chinese brand.

So who designed and wrote the AACS anyways?

Why would they wish that? It isn't their content.

Because it sure wouldn't be as much of a headache for the studios if the add-on drive for the XBox 360 was just an add-on drive the Xbox 360.

I'm sure HP would be happier too.

Gary

Because it sure wouldn't be as much of a headache for the studios if the add-on drive for the XBox 360 was just an add-on drive the Xbox 360.

I'm sure HP would be happier too.I see. I thought you meant in general for HD DVD and didn't realize you just meant the XBOX360 add-on. The hackers could have used a dedicated PC drive, but without the XBOX360 add-on for $200 I doubt they would have hacked this stuff this early. This could turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing for the studios (getting it hacked early could be said to help them later by getting working on plugging the holes now), but from a PR standpoint with the studios probably doesn't look good. On the other hand, if Microsoft mostly just wants to keep Sony from winning (we could argue that one for a while), then maybe this doesn't look so bad from that perspective, even if it hurts HD DVD also.

--Darin

Yes, but I believe Microsoft was trying to support everyone who owns an HDTV with the Xbox 360, out of the box -- unlike SonyOkay, obviously some people, who don't even own a PS3, are still angry about the fact that the PS3 only shipped with a composite video cable. I would point out though that that any PS2 component video could be used with the PS3 and that any HDMI cable could be used as well.


Which brings me to a thought ... will VGA -> DVI -> HDMI work? :confused:There are two problems with that. The first problem is that VGA is purely analog and HDMI is purely digital and the only way to convert VGA to DVI is with a $300 to $400 converter (also all the ones in that price range I have seen are limited to 1080i60). The second problem is that you would not be able to get any multi-channel PCM audio even with such a converter, which is one of the main benefits of HDMI.


The Flip side is that while 10 million Xboxes do not have HDMI ports, they can all still play CD's, and they can all upscale DVD's, and they can all output in High Definition. Out of the box.I think you are forgetting about the Xbox 360 core system, which ships only with composite cables, and the fact that the PS3 can play CDs. Also just to point this out but upscaling DVDs wasn't even a feature that was originally possible on the Xbox 360. It was added later by a firmware update.


Also, the 360 can upscale content just fine via the component outputs. VGA is for the 1080p output.Actually you can't upscale copy protected DVDs to any HD resolution over component video because of copy protection rules. You can do that over VGA but those displays that have a VGA input usually expect full range RGB signals and not video RGB signals. One of the reasons that many people who connect their Xbox 360 to an HDTV have a problem with the image looking bad.


Could be time to roll that BD+ protection out soon then so muslix64 (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=939873#post939873) can have a look at it.If he really does break AACS protection on Blu-ray, which is possible, will the hdnowonline website continue to accuse him of working for the BDA? Or am I being to logical about those who would make such a paranoid theory?

Just meditated about this exchange from yesterday.

If Blu-ray's advantages of:

20 GB more capacity : is countered by TL 51 HD DVD discs or network storage and internet downloading

18 M/bps of bandwidth: is wasted because of using MPEG-2 or LPCM or is negated because HD DVD can get an extra 15 mps from a networked stream or may create more bandwidth on the TL 51 discs

Good recordable support : consumers don't care about more than 30 GB of recordable support just like SL DVD-R's vastly outsell DL DVD-Rs right now Flash memory and HDD makes 20 GB difference look silly

Support from more than one CE vendor : Hmm what about the Chinese makers, Onkyo probably Meridian ( ok no product announcement just just HD DVD Promo group membership) LG kinda counts, Samsung has a HD DVD drive in their new laptops and Toshiba is producing 100,000's of HD DVD players versus 10,000's for the other CE makers. Oh ya, there is a Microsoft HD DVD thingy for the Xbox 360 that can get 10 million people into HD DVD for under $199.

Studio support : will follow the dollars. If HD DVD makes $600 million split between 3 studios next year, how long will it take the studios beside Sony and Fox to stay BD only.




You're putting a bunch of awfully big "if" on TL51, when it's no more solid than TL45 or the specs on the Onkyo, Meridian, or Chinese players. Do you stipulate that Blu-ray holds the advantages without such an ephemeral factor? LG counts? Are they really the player or are they going to be sued by DVD Forum?

Is the networking even being used anywhere? Neither that nor TL51 can be counted as counterweight to BD50's currently real advantage.

Nor can you use the price of the add-on alone, unless you are exclusively limiting the potential market to gamers (meaning current 360 owners) and specifically the subset of gamers who are also movie watchers (I do think this is a larger subset than most do, but this plays to the advantage of BD, as well, and due to the far greater numbers of PS3 sold than add-ons, a net advantage for Blu-ray, though mitigated by the presumption that Toshiba standalone sales are far in excess of the BDA standalones, which is not unreasonable given the price difference).

It definitely can't be denied that LPCM and MPEG2 detract at least some from the capacity advantage.

The dollars being made by HD-DVD shouldn't be denied. Can't wait for sales numbers for the holidays, if not January, as well. I wonder how someone like me appears to these statistics. Just about every time out I buy one blue and one red case (last purchases were Sahara BD, Hulk, Batman Begins, and Crank, though the last two were separate solo purchases). Are people like me cancelling myself out every time or giving each side a boost?

Studio support : will follow the dollars.If you truely believe that, given that HD DVD is looking like they aren't getting much market share for players in Japan (just over 4% of the players and players/recorders for the XMas season not even counting the PS3), I would be interested in when you think Universal will follow the Blu-ray dollars in Japan (if you think they ever will) and why, if not. I created a poll here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9526175#post9526175
If HD DVD makes $600 million split between 3 studios next year, how long will it take the studios beside Sony and Fox to stay BD only.Do you remember what the people who made that $600 million prediction for this year predicted for 2006? I also seem to recall that there was something about the $600 million being 40x the actual for HD DVD in 2006. Nothing like predicting 3900% growth in one year. And isn't Toshiba predicting something like 10x sales growth for players from 2006 to 2007? I think they better pick up the pace if they are going to come close.

--Darin

Oldies, but I must have missed these! :eek:

How about form factor, interface, cables and most importantly a remote. Not to talk about the fact that it is a "play station". Except for tube electronics I don't think any CE equipment ships today without a remote.


Form factor? There are plenty of strangely shaped DVD players. Have you seen any of the $30 DVD players talked about so often? :) Cables? I used my PS2 component cables I've had for at least 4 years as an experiment in possibility before going to the intended $17 3' HDMI cables from Frys I purcha :confused:

No doubt, Sony should definitely include the BD remote in the box, but it's not like the PS doesn't include a remote, albeit in the form of a SIXAXIS. ;) Wonder what sales of the BD remote is like, anyways, and how many were produced. Too bad we don't have an insider from SCEI here... or any hardware insider from any of the CE on either side, for that matter.



Afterall what is the difference between a HTPC and a PC like CE player (say Tosh A1) ?

Size, noise, and ergonomics. Even the best HTPC case stink in this regard. My PS3 is as silent as my Toshiba SD-2109 or my Sony 5-disc DVD carousel and quicker than both. PS3 is on a comparable, if not favorable scale to all 3. I wouldn't count it as a CE device unless it had said LED display and autoplay from XMB, though. ;)


I would say the PS3 is the best BD player available, at least for most people. The best HD player becomes much more subjective.

If you prefer the content on BD - buy a PS3
If you prefer the content on HD-DVD and own an Xbox360 - buy the add-on



These were the only two that apply to me, and at a cost/benefit ratio, I definitely agree on both counts. I just wish my PS3 also did HD-DVD rather than wishing my 360 had a BD add-on, for example. Alas... :(

Darin, looks like the Japanese market was mainly HD recorders, not players. So Japanese market may not be a factor.

I do believe Universal will release on BD. My guess is that by end 2007 all major studios will support BD. JMHO. I say this since Universal is struggling right now. Fox and Disney are probably under less pressure. WB's new disk format also greatly favors BD. So, unless HD DVD maintains a greater than 40% market share of a growing market, we won't see studio suport until 2008. But studios will follow the money and consumers are cost conscious. It isn't a surprise that the lowest cost players for either format sell the best. Right now we don't know the real cost of BD disks due to Sony subsidizing it. Also, HD DVD disks are higher than they ought to be due to them being combo disks. So, on the disk side, HD DVD is reallly hurting themselves by using combos while Sony subsidizes BD.....my 2 cents.

20 GB more capacity : is countered by TL 51 HD DVD discs or network storage and internet downloading

18 M/bps of bandwidth: is wasted because of using MPEG-2 or LPCM or is negated because HD DVD can get an extra 15 mps from a networked stream or may create more bandwidth on the TL 51 discs

TL51 was just a PR stunt by Toshiba at CES imo and downloading 20GB from the Internet? Yes very convenient :eek: And if you're willing to do that then why not download the complete movie? Then you don't have to bother with a buggy HD DVD player at all...


Good recordable support : consumers don't care about more than 30 GB of recordable support just like SL DVD-R's vastly outsell DL DVD-Rs right now Flash memory and HDD makes 20 GB difference look silly

Good recordable support is not just about storage capacity, it's also about speed and reliability. DL DVDs take more time to burn and there is essentially only one manufacturer that can make reliable recordable DL DVDs so people don't buy them unless they really need the extra capacity on a single disk. And then they buy them in the DVD+R DL format and not in the DVD forum's essentially dead DVD-R DL format, which just like the (recordable) HD DVD format was poorly designed.

Now take HD DVD-R vs. BD-R:
HD DVD-R is at 1x now vs. 4x for BD-R and there is no reason to believe it will ever catch up. Regarding reliability I believe Toshiba's standalone recorder was a coaster factory so it will be interesting to see how Toshiba's delayed PC writers work and especially how HD DVD-R DL works (will even MKM be able to produce reliable HD DVD-R DL media?).

HD DVD-R is not even cheaper per GB so BD-R has simply all the advantage when it comes to recordable media...

Universal 13285
Could you explain the derivation of this number please. I'm trying to understand the IMDB system, and so far have only 5000 or so titles for Uni.

Much has been posted back and forth regarding the content depth available to the two formats. I've been doing some work on imdb and have come up with the following numbers. These were collected by looking for distributors. I wanted to understand how many titles everyone has distribution rights to. I'm looking for peer review, so feel free to provide feedback.

Notes: Columbia is not listed out seperately. This is because titles I find when looking under Columbia show up under Sony or Fox as well (search for Spiderman). Similarly MGM sold the rights to its pre 1986 content which is now owned by Warner. I also didn't account for the fact that you can actually get Lionsgate content from EU resellers in HD-DVD. Since there is no region coding in HD-DVD these discs can be used in North America. I know I didn't capture every dual release studio, but the ones I missed will be added to both sides of the ledger. As for Adult content, Vivid will release in both formats. The other Adult studios that plan to release in HD are HD-DVD exclusive. These are Digital Playground Inc., Wicked Pictures, Pink Visual, Bang Bros, and ClubJenna Inc. The final item is small Indy studios. I suspect that many of these will find it more affordable to do small low cost production runs in HD-DVD. I believe this is why most of the Adult studios decided to go with HD-DVD exclusively.

BD

Lionsgate 786
Sony Pictures 2249
Fox 7612
Buena Vista (Disney) 2275
MGM (1986 and later) 1003
Warner 8274
Paramount 7118

TOTAL 29317

HD-DVD

Warner 8274
Paramount 7118
Universal 13285
Bandai 152
Weinstein 109
HBO 1059
New Line Cinema 591

TOTAL 30588

Catalog depth on both sides seems pretty similar . About half of the catalog depth is available to both formats. I am going to copy your post into this thread for further discussion.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=715977&page=1&pp=60

If you truely believe that, given that HD DVD is looking like they aren't getting much market share for players in Japan (just over 4% of the players and players/recorders for the XMas season not even counting the PS3), I would be interested in when you think Universal will follow the Blu-ray dollars in Japan (if you think they ever will) and why, if not. I created a poll here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9526175#post9526175
Do you remember what the people who made that $600 million prediction for this year predicted for 2006? I also seem to recall that there was something about the $600 million being 40x the actual for HD DVD in 2006. Nothing like predicting 3900% growth in one year. And isn't Toshiba predicting something like 10x sales growth for players from 2006 to 2007? I think they better pick up the pace if they are going to come close.

--Darin I betcha they are going to come close. I think 600 million in HD DVD movie sales was calculated by assuming a 20 movie average attach rate per player and a $25 cost per title. That would estimate 1.2 million HD DVD players on hand by end of 2007.

$1,500,000 x 20 x$ 25 = $600,000,000

The attach rate seems reasonable, less than 2 a month, spread over older and new sales. The price seems ok too.

The 1.2 million HD DVD players seems high, but if there are 130,000 XBox 360s already, 70,000 1st gen players sold already that needs only 1,000,000 HD A2 A20 and XA2 to be sold in NA. Doesn't even cound the E2 or F2 versions or additional Xbox sales. Toshiba has openly said 1.8 million HD DVD players are its expectation.

Guess we will see what the 150 million dollar HD DVD promotion war chest will buy in way of promotions.

They are picking up the pace, but it still seems to be a high figure. Guess we will see soon enough. ;)

TL51 was just a PR stunt by Toshiba at CES imo and downloading 20GB from the Internet? Yes very convenient :eek: And if you're willing to do that then why not download the complete movie? Then you don't have to bother with a buggy HD DVD player at all... The point is you don't have to download 20GB form the Internet to match Blu-ray 's content.

Heck, right now IIRC some BD50's still have less interactive content than an identical HD DVD 30. That is certainly the case for BD25s. If Blu-ray is wasting space using MPEG-2 and LPCM, then there is much less to download than 20 GB.
50GB are still less than 25% of releases. Most are still BD25.

My thought was that by the time BD50 is common and as economical as BD25, then fast broadband and cheap easy to use home network storage using HDi features can download a lot of stuff overnight or buffer it in the persistent memory. Those individual files such as new trailers using VC-1 would be a lot less than 20GB.

The point is the main movie and 30 GB of content to use the disc at once and play the movie would already be there, jump starting the use of the internet as a supplement not a replacement for the optical disc.

Good recordable support is not just about storage capacity, it's also about speed and reliability. DL DVDs take more time to burn and there is essentially only one manufacturer that can make reliable recordable DL DVDs so people don't buy them unless they really need the extra capacity on a single disk. And then they buy them in the DVD+R DL format and not in the DVD forum's essentially dead DVD-R DL format, which just like the (recordable) HD DVD format was poorly designed. Except that most recordable sales are IIRC DVD-R which for its quirks plays in more players than the DVD+R format. That's what I use, because of compatability issues with older DVD players.

Now take HD DVD-R vs. BD-R:
HD DVD-R is at 1x now vs. 4x for BD-R and there is no reason to believe it will ever catch up. Regarding reliability I believe Toshiba's standalone recorder was a coaster factory so it will be interesting to see how Toshiba's delayed PC writers work and especially how HD DVD-R DL works (will even MKM be able to produce reliable HD DVD-R DL media?). I think this important to a small group of people, but optical disc burning is not that important to most users. If it was DL would outsell SL DVD-Rs.

HD DVD-R is not even cheaper per GB so BD-R has simply all the advantage when it comes to recordable media... Agreed on a cost per megabit basis, but most people don't need that much burnable space now adn HDD and flash memory or network storage may be a better option. Blu-ray does have an advantage here, but it is important to only a few people at the moment.

Okay, obviously some people, who don't even own a PS3, are still angry about the fact that the PS3 only shipped with a composite video cable. I would point out though that that any PS2 component video could be used with the PS3 and that any HDMI cable could be used as well.

Yup.. unlike the 360 which would not accept the component accessory from the xbox.

That was just weak, Imo. Use the same output port, for heaven's sake. Was there some insurmountable engineering challenge or a matter of obtaining tens of dollars from core sku buyers?

Because it sure wouldn't be as much of a headache for the studios if the add-on drive for the XBox 360 was just an add-on drive the Xbox 360.

I'm sure HP would be happier too.

Gary

I dunno ... it was going to happen one way or another imo ... Even if Microsoft blocked it for PC use, the PS3 can be made into a PC running Linux. If that's not a big ole "please pirate me" sticker on the front, I don't know what is. If I remember correctly, they've already managed to rip game images right to the HDD. *shrug*

I dunno ... it was going to happen one way or another imo ... Even if Microsoft blocked it for PC use, the PS3 can be made into a PC running Linux. If that's not a big ole "please pirate me" sticker on the front, I don't know what is. If I remember correctly, they've already managed to rip game images right to the HDD. *shrug*

Yes, it certainly would happen. And there is something for encouraging the holes to be uncovered sooner than later while the risk is minimal.

Unfortunately, for HD DVD folk, it is source of current concern with respect to Universal's release plans (I actually think Universal is considering what to do in Japan, and that is what is delaying things here).

Gary

Okay, obviously some people, who don't even own a PS3, are still angry about the fact that the PS3 only shipped with a composite video cable. I would point out though that that any PS2 component video could be used with the PS3 and that any HDMI cable could be used as well.


I like you. :D

From what I was reading, I believe only Sony Branded/Licensed cables are supported by Warranty Services. There is another thread floating around that notes any 3rd party products (including cables/connectors) will void the PS3 Warranty. This makes a $500-600 system $50-60 more ... just to experience something that Sony promised. I guess my point is, don't hype up this HD experience and then give me an SD-Only-Capable Kit. *shrug*


There are two problems with that. The first problem is that VGA is purely analog and HDMI is purely digital and the only way to convert VGA to DVI is with a $300 to $400 converter (also all the ones in that price range I have seen are limited to 1080i60). The second problem is that you would not be able to get any multi-channel PCM audio even with such a converter, which is one of the main benefits of HDMI.


Hmm ... I guess those little VGA <-> DVI convertors don't work then? Because the output of the DVI would then be Analog and the DVI/HDMI convertor wouldn't know what to do with the signal? I dunno here, I'm asking for my own education. Thanks for the details. :)

Oh, and on the PCM audio ... that's not a big deal to me ... 5.1 is fine ... I still really don't even know what PCM2.0 is? I thought it was just lossless 2 channel audio? The big deal for me would be to get 1080p out of the VGA and into an HDMI. That's why I brought it up. ;)


I think you are forgetting about the Xbox 360 core system, which ships only with composite cables, and the fact that the PS3 can play CDs. Also just to point this out but upscaling DVDs wasn't even a feature that was originally possible on the Xbox 360. It was added later by a firmware update.


That's a good point ... I am not sure what the distribution is between Core/Premium ... so I don't know how many millions of Premiums there are out there. That said, I'm guessing (again, just guessing), it's more than currently available PS3's.


Actually you can't upscale copy protected DVDs to any HD resolution over component video because of copy protection rules. You can do that over VGA but those displays that have a VGA input usually expect full range RGB signals and not video RGB signals. One of the reasons that many people who connect their Xbox 360 to an HDTV have a problem with the image looking bad.


Thanks for this, I went and checked and got 480p out of the Component on a regular DVD. A disney one, in fact, that had a huge commercial at the beginning for 'Blu' ... A Blu Way to Watch or something like that. Was a good piece of marketing actually ... makes me think Disney has zero chance of going neutral. I'm trying to figure out the deal with the RGB signal thing. From what I've read it has to do with the way that white/black signals or sent and they don't really show those colors or something. I think amir suggested there might be a way to fix that though via a user-selectable option (that doesn't exist yet, so, for all intents and purposes, it's moot). But, I suppose it could be addressed via a firmware update like the DVD Scaling?


If he really does break AACS protection on Blu-ray, which is possible, will the hdnowonline website continue to accuse him of working for the BDA? Or am I being to logical about those who would make such a paranoid theory?

This one wasn't for me ... I had to go back and check ... I thought I had forgotten a part of my original post. :)

Thanks again for the feedback! ;)

You're putting a bunch of awfully big "if" on TL51, when it's no more solid than TL45 or the specs on the Onkyo, Meridian, or Chinese players. Do you stipulate that Blu-ray holds the advantages without such an ephemeral factor? LG counts? Are they really the player or are they going to be sued by DVD Forum?

Is the networking even being used anywhere? Neither that nor TL51 can be counted as counterweight to BD50's currently real advantage.

Nor can you use the price of the add-on alone, unless you are exclusively limiting the potential market to gamers (meaning current 360 owners) and specifically the subset of gamers who are also movie watchers (I do think this is a larger subset than most do, but this plays to the advantage of BD, as well, and due to the far greater numbers of PS3 sold than add-ons, a net advantage for Blu-ray, though mitigated by the presumption that Toshiba standalone sales are far in excess of the BDA standalones, which is not unreasonable given the price difference).

It definitely can't be denied that LPCM and MPEG2 detract at least some from the capacity advantage.

The dollars being made by HD-DVD shouldn't be denied. Can't wait for sales numbers for the holidays, if not January, as well. I wonder how someone like me appears to these statistics. Just about every time out I buy one blue and one red case (last purchases were Sahara BD, Hulk, Batman Begins, and Crank, though the last two were separate solo purchases). Are people like me cancelling myself out every time or giving each side a boost?

Just a side note here ... but why is it that it is okay to tout the 'potential' of one format and not the other?

Well, BR can't do it now ... but it has the potential to do it.
HD-DVD doesn't have the size ... but it has the potential to do it.

And, when one format does have something 'now', it's discounted?

Well, BR has a size advantage now ... but it's useless and not needed unless you encode MPEG2.
HD-DVD has interactivity/networking support now ... but, no one is going to use that, so it's irrelevent.

:confused:

And, when one format does have something 'now', it's discounted?


When it isn't in the spec, and it is unclear whether it will ever be available in current players, I think a discount is in order.

The BD50, PiP, and BD-Live arguments are about when not if. TL51 is still about if.

Gary

Darin, looks like the Japanese market was mainly HD recorders, not players.True, they and some other regions are not interested in players, but BD recorders also play BD movies.

True, they and some other regions are not interested in players, but BD recorders also play BD movies.

I remember seeing a few that did not play BD disks last year. I believe one was a Samsung and another a Sony. Both recorders and players, but not BD optical disks.

I like you. :D

From what I was reading, I believe only Sony Branded/Licensed cables are supported by Warranty Services. There is another thread floating around that notes any 3rd party products (including cables/connectors) will void the PS3 Warranty. This makes a $500-600 system $50-60 more ... just to experience something that Sony promised. I guess my point is, don't hype up this HD experience and then give me an SD-Only-Capable Kit. *shrug*


Then I guess you would be equally disappointed with a Toshiba A2 HD-DVD player. It only comes with a composite A/V cable too. ;)

b2b

I wonder if Microsoft wishes it had blocked PC use now?

Why ? These problems are better found earlier rather than latter. If not now, when the hd-dvd drives had become cheaper, this would have been exposed.

When it isn't in the spec, and it is unclear whether it will ever be available in current players, I think a discount is in order.

The BD50, PiP, and BD-Live arguments are about when not if. TL51 is still about if.

Gary

But do anyone except insiders have access to the BD25/50 Spec? I think the HD-DVD spec is available in the public forum. Wasn't there a link to something on profiles, but you needed an account to access it?

If that's the case ... and the spec is 'private' ... can't it simply be changed on the fly as if the changes were always there?

The left wing Daily Kos is now a tech news source?

Not worse than fox news anyway ;)

The idea was to show how in non-technical media this war is playing ...

Well the new Toshiba promotion coming up for $200 off a HDTV and HD DVD combo with other dealer incentives certainly implies there is some margin here for Toshiba on the HD A2s.HDTVs are the big profit maker for now, so that's likely where the margin is coming from. But all CE companies will be doing this, so I don't know what you are excited about.

By the way, anybody hear that Chinese players are coming???? :DAs much as this is talked about, it starting to sound like desparation. :rolleyes:

Hmmm... looks like about 50K BD recorders (which can play BD movies) were sold in Japan in Nov. and Dec. Any comment?

Then I guess you would be equally disappointed with a Toshiba A2 HD-DVD player. It only comes with a composite A/V cable too. ;)

b2b

Not so much ... most pieces of CE equipment don't include the 'better' cables ... I don't think they ever really have (aside from occasional bundles, etc) ... so a precedent was set.

In the case of the PS3 ... they slammed the competition as being 'fake next gen' and 'fake high definition' ... they stated time and time again that 'next generation begins with ps3, not before' ... so you go out, spend $200 more on something ... and it doesn't look any better than your ps2 output? Plus, when you do buy the cables, it might still look like garbage unless you have a 720p/1080i capable set. *shrug*

Size, noise, and ergonomics.

Form factor is a part of ergonomics. As I said the look & feel.

It is unfortunate that some BD insiders are trying to twist the traditional well understood concepts to advance partisan arguments.

But all CE companies will be doing this, so I don't know what you are excited about.

Doing what ? Selling Hidef dvd CE players for $299 after rebate ? :D

I don't think so.

In other words, $499 to $299 is a BIG deal compared to $1299 to $1099.

Not so much ... most pieces of CE equipment don't include the 'better' cables ... I don't think they ever really have (aside from occasional bundles, etc) ... so a precedent was set.

In the case of the PS3 ... they slammed the competition as being 'fake next gen' and 'fake high definition' ... they stated time and time again that 'next generation begins with ps3, not before' ... so you go out, spend $200 more on something ... and it doesn't look any better than your ps2 output? Plus, when you do buy the cables, it might still look like garbage unless you have a 720p/1080i capable set. *shrug*

Well actually a precedent was set with the Toshiba A1 which did come with a HDMI cable. So with the A2 you lose the 5.1 analog support and the HDMI cable vs. what you got with the A1.

You obviously haven't followed the technical aspects of any of this HW and are laboring under many false impressions of how this stuff works. :)

b2b

B2B,

You get a PS3 yet? I mean really, they're easy to find now and you get a great BR player.

I have yet to see a PS3 for sale in any store in the SF Bay Area, but you can readily get them online now.


As an aside, I know this probably belongs more in the gamer forum, but since the viability of the PS3 is discussed so much here, I thought this article from CNN was interesting...

Review: 'Blazing Angels' for PS3 fails to soar

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/fun.games/01/19/blazing.angels/index.html

specifically this bit;

quote:

This intense historical action game -- which fuses arcade-like dogfighting with near photorealistic graphics -- fares better than the Microsoft Xbox 360 and other versions available last spring, but it still doesn't soar as high as it should.

and then

This PS3 version also includes two exclusive missions -- North Sea and New Georgia Island in the Pacific -- along with 11 new aircraft, such as the Boulton Paul Defiant and De Havilland Mosquito.


So there is at least one advantage to going second in the console war....you may not just get game ports, but the games may be upgraded for your system. If the numbers for the PS3 go into the millions, I'm sure game developers know many of those people already have the game for their 360, so if they want a chance to double dip they need to offer more.

However, as long as games stay in the current tenet, I don't think the added space on BD is as much of an issue as it should be. I was expecting/hoping for more this generation. It has been fifteen years since I put a helmet on in an arcade and shot swooping pterodactyls (as well as my block figure friend) for five bucks a pop. I would think that by 2007 we could have some decent first person shooter virutal reality games out - complete immersion without a monitor. Instead the closest we have is the Wii having people do hula hoop dances.


I imagine the porting issue could end up being true with movies as well. Right now the volumes are so low I can imagine there is little to no incentive for Warner and Paramount to redo anything for BD. If the numbers for HD-DVD and BD get into the millions of players, we will probably see some differentiation on the discs - unless everyone just remains lazy.

Doing what ? Selling Hidef dvd CE players for $299 after rebate ? :D

I don't think so.

In other words, $499 to $299 is a BIG deal compared to $1299 to $1099.


assuming margin percentages are equivalent, I would expect the comparison would be $499 to $299 and $1299 to $780 (roughly) which looks incredible.

Couple that with the 1080P plasmas that panasonic is releasing in the next few months and you have two really high margin items that can be heavily discounted. I think Toshiba was relying on SED to be their high end by now. They haven't had nearly the TV presence since they and Mitsubishi dominated the initial HD-Ready RPTV's in 2000-2003.

Could you explain the derivation of this number please. I'm trying to understand the IMDB system, and so far have only 5000 or so titles for Uni.

From my original post

These were collected by looking for distributors. I wanted to understand how many titles everyone has distribution rights to.

IMDB allows you to search on distributors. You can enter Paramount, Fox, Universal, etc. and it comes back with the results. I tried to be careful about catching overlap between distributors, but I need to spend more time on this. It's a challenging project, so I'm happy to get any input that everyone here can offer.

I think Toshiba was relying on SED to be their high end by now.

Toshiba already ended the affair on SED with Canon.

Then I guess you would be equally disappointed with a Toshiba A2 HD-DVD player. It only comes with a composite A/V cable too. ;)

b2b
And the 360 core sku. Like i said above, they sh/could have made it work with the xbox's component cable.

No doubt, Sony should definitely include the BD remote in the box, but it's not like the PS doesn't include a remote, albeit in the form of a SIXAXIS. ;) Wonder what sales of the BD remote is like, anyways, and how many were produced. Too bad we don't have an insider from SCEI here... or any hardware insider from any of the CE on either side, for that matter.

You know this is a really great metric to look for. The remote is cheap ($20 online) and if you really have any plans to use the PS3 as a BD player, you're going to buy the remote. So where can we get this sales data from? Does NPD track this?

Just a side note here ... but why is it that it is okay to tout the 'potential' of one format and not the other?


It wouldn't be, but to be fair in BD200 should be considered in the same status iwith TL51. Both are prototypes, though BD200 has what... was announced 4 months earlier (along with the 16GB 8cm discs)?



Well, BR has a size advantage now ... but it's useless and not needed unless you encode MPEG2.
HD-DVD has interactivity/networking support now ... but, no one is going to use that, so it's irrelevent.

:confused:

What networking support? I've missed all discussion, but I'd love to use it through my 360/add-on, if possible.

You know this is a really great metric to look for. The remote is cheap ($20 online) and if you really have any plans to use the PS3 as a BD player, you're going to buy the remote. So where can we get this sales data from? Does NPD track this?

Indeed, I'd love to have these numbers. It wouldn't be a complete metric for BD use on the PS3 (the guy at Ultimate AV became familiar enough with the SIXAXIS and even liked it, though he had doubts about his family using it - really hitting the triangle button solves any questions even the most novice user could have.) I could see some people staying with the SIXAXIS even if I myself don't touch a SIXAXIS unless I"m going to play a game.

Form factor is a part of ergonomics. As I said the look & feel.

It is unfortunate that some BD insiders are trying to twist the traditional well understood concepts to advance partisan arguments.

Indeed, though I guess we'll have to agree to disagree that the PS is really all that far off from a traditional form factor.

I posted some time ago that I would be quite amiable to a more conventional rectangular box. As I posted recently, gaining true CE status should only be limited to adding an LED dispaly and auto-play from the XMB. Maybe in the first hardware revision. ;)

I'm thinking now this could be a great chance for Sony to reuse some R&D effort already spent on the JDM BDZ-V series recorders. IR support, put a 500GB 3.5" drive instead of the 2.5"... use some of the inputs/outputs (coaxial, HDMI in, etc) from the BDZ-V and you can slap a $2k price tag on it and they will sell at least a few units to botique type places, if not Sony Style. It'd be a great flagship piece at the very least. Ah well.

assuming margin percentages are equivalent, I would expect the comparison would be $499 to $299 and $1299 to $780 (roughly) which looks incredible.

Yes. And even $780 is hardly attractive compared to $299. I doubt samsung is going to sell many at $799.

Because of the high prices of BD players even with so many CE manufacturers backing BD, all their market muscle in HDTVs, don't translate to much in HiDef DVD player sales.

If BD supporters can provide a $299 CE player with every one of their HDTV, they can easily sweep away HD DVD.

From my original post

These were collected by looking for distributors. I wanted to understand how many titles everyone has distribution rights to.

IMDB allows you to search on distributors. You can enter Paramount, Fox, Universal, etc. and it comes back with the results. I tried to be careful about catching overlap between distributors, but I need to spend more time on this. It's a challenging project, so I'm happy to get any input that everyone here can offer.
Just done a bit more searching and I think I see how you've come to this figure. Are you including the 8000+ silent movies owned by Universal Film Manufacturing Company (http://www.imdb.com/company/co0048238/) ? That might be one way the figures have been squewed. I'm not sure if any of these titles have been released on DVD, or if the original negatives are even still available. Probably unlikely. Robert Harris would probably be a good fellow to ask.

Why ? These problems are better found earlier rather than latter. If not now, when the hd-dvd drives had become cheaper, this would have been exposed.

Agreed. You notice I said much the same thing above. :) Open hacking is GOOD. And the Xbox 360 has aided this open hacking.

I was wondering about the politics, rather than the philosophical issues.

Gary

Doing what ? Selling Hidef dvd CE players for $299 after rebate ? :D

I don't think so.


So certain, of this, are you? (Yoda voice)

Keith: Good luck with that "vacation" in China and Taiwan.

Gary

Yes. And even $780 is hardly attractive compared to $299. I doubt samsung is going to sell many at $799.


Me too, since they'll undoubtedly be sold well under SRP.

What is with this desire to compare locked SRP prices for BD to best case price scenarios for HD DVD?

And, in the end: Samsung v. Chinese no-name?

Gary

When it isn't in the spec, and it is unclear whether it will ever be available in current players, I think a discount is in order.

The BD50, PiP, and BD-Live arguments are about when not if. TL51 is still about if.

Gary Yes , but triple layer single sided DVDs have been produced in economical quantities and teh physical structure is the same as TL HD DVDs. The only issue is the optics and data extraction and software to make sure the smaller pit and land size of the HD DVD gives good data from the 3rd layer.

Thats a software and error checking issue, not a manufacturing and physical properties one like a triple layer on a Blu-ray disc.

TL51's probably can be manufactured, the question is backward compatiablity with the 1st generation players. But since they all were made by Toshiba, there's hope. Plus the 3rd layer may be used for optional content that may be available for downloading if it can't be read by the first generation machines, since they all have networking and persistent storage. ;)

TL51's probably can be manufactured, the question is backward compatiablity with the 1st generation players.


Agreed. Sorry, I didn't mean to imply otherwise. I was refering to whether it will happen and if so whether it will be compatible. Two IFs.


But since they all were made by Toshiba, there's hope. Plus the 3rd layer may be used for optional content that may be available for downloading if it can't be read by the first generation machines, since they all have networking and persistent storage. ;)

New LG drive? Player? Upcoming full logoed player? Onkyo?

Unless it is two 15GB and one 17GB layer, I can't see how compatibility is got around no matter how it is used.

And the claim of 30GB is enough is absolutely right, at the current HD DVD bandwidth.

Gary

Yes , but triple layer single sided DVDs have been produced in economical quantities and teh physical structure is the same as TL HD DVDs. The only issue is the optics and data extraction and software to make sure the smaller pit and land size of the HD DVD gives good data from the 3rd layer.

Thats a software and error checking issue, not a manufacturing and physical properties one like a triple layer on a Blu-ray disc.

TL51's probably can be manufactured, the question is backward compatiablity with the 1st generation players. But since they all were made by Toshiba, there's hope. Plus the 3rd layer may be used for optional content that may be available for downloading if it can't be read by the first generation machines, since they all have networking and persistent storage. ;)

Well gee, that sure is a lot of "wishing and hoping" for HD-DVD just to have parity with what can be done with BD-50GB today... ;)

b2b

HDTVs are the big profit maker for now, so that's likely where the margin is coming from. But all CE companies will be doing this, so I don't know what you are excited about.

As much as this is talked about, it starting to sound like desparation. :rolleyes:

Hmmm... looks like about 50K BD recorders (which can play BD movies) were sold in Japan in Nov. and Dec. Any comment? Its the market perception.

This will be the first mass marketing campaign for HD DVD the week of the Superbowl. Remember the $150 million war chest anyone?

If Toshiba and the HD DVD Promotion group can establish that HD DVD performs well as is cheaper and is available around a consumer friendly price point, then that is a big deal.

The beauty of this promotion is that it double dips the perceived discount.

Another advantage is that it helps Toshiba make money and if it works would tend to show other HDTV makers that they could also make money too if they eventually created HD DVD players.

Its a short promotion so, its also a price point test.

If the 42 inch Toshiba HDTV is say $1199 and the HD DVD HD A2 is $499, the consumer can rationalize the $200 instant rebate and apply it either way in their mind.

"Gee, its almost like I got my HD TV for only $999, 'cause I got $200 off or its like I got my new HD DVD player for only $299 cause I got $200 off." And I still got three $25 dollar movies coming, thats another $75!."

Darin, looks like the Japanese market was mainly HD recorders, not players. So Japanese market may not be a factor.Others have mentioned that the best selling recorder also plays Blu-ray ROM discs. Also, you seem to be ignoring the PS3, which has maybe 600k owners in Japan. We've seen that the PS3 is most likely having a big impact on software sales in the US (unless HD DVD was having dismal sales).
I betcha they are going to come close. I think 600 million in HD DVD movie sales was calculated by assuming a 20 movie average attach rate per player and a $25 cost per title. That would estimate 1.2 million HD DVD players on hand by end of 2007.

$1,500,000 x 20 x$ 25 = $600,000,000

The attach rate seems reasonable, less than 2 a month, spread over older and new sales. The price seems ok too.Sorry, but an average attach rate of 20 for 2007 doesn't sound very realistic at all. Are you confusing annualized attach rate with average attach rate for players sold in a year, or are you really going with an annualized attach rate of something like 50? If 1 million HD DVD players will be sold in 2007, then it is most likely that those will be skewed toward the end of the year, with average ownership times of well under 6 months.
The 1.2 million HD DVD players seems high...If you think that is high, then it would seem that $600 million is way to high if a realistic attach rate is used. Or do you still think that 20 discs sold per player average in 2007 is realistic, even with Christmas sales of players and things were the median ownership time during 2007 might be 4 months? Even the HD DVD group only claimed an annualized rate of 28 for 2006 and your prediction of 20 not annualized for 2007 dwarfs that.

--Darin

You know this is a really great metric to look for. The remote is cheap ($20 online) and if you really have any plans to use the PS3 as a BD player, you're going to buy the remote. So where can we get this sales data from? Does NPD track this?This isn't actual sales figures, but the rankings on Amazon might give us some clue. The PS3 remote has been ranked pretty well on there off and on. I just checked and it is at #12 in Video Games. That puts it ahead of the Lost Planet game for the XBOX360 (at #13), the $399 XBOX360 (at #15), and the sixaxis wireless controller for the PS3 (at #17).

I checked on bestbuy.com and it is available on their website. I checked for in store pickup and it is available at one out of 6 stores local to me. As a comparison, the HD-A2 is backordered on bestbuy.com, but shows up as available (in stock) at all 6 of those stores.

--Darin

Well actually a precedent was set with the Toshiba A1 which did come with a HDMI cable. So with the A2 you lose the 5.1 analog support and the HDMI cable vs. what you got with the A1.

You obviously haven't followed the technical aspects of any of this HW and are laboring under many false impressions of how this stuff works. :)

b2b Well hate to break it to ya , but the HD A1 and HD XA1 is yesterday's news. They are already in the hands of satisfied owners. They don't enter into the buying decision of new potential HD DVD owners.

Potential buyers of the second generation models, don't know and don't care about the loss of the 5.1 analog outs or the HDMI capables.

Most satistfied 1st generation owners know they were getting some extra audio goodies in the big black boxes, in exchange for the first generation quirks. Overall most owners, like me, thought it was a fair deal and great value. We also experienced a year of great HD PQ and AQ.

New buyers of the HD DVD players will mostly only know about the three new models and the Xbox 360 add on. If they are really educated about this stuff, and care about the 5.1 analog outs they still can find a HD XA1 somewhere or can upgrade to a super duper HD XA2 that still costs less than most Blu-ray players and has superior HQV Reon DVD upconversion.

Others have mentioned that the best selling recorder also plays Blu-ray ROM discs. Also, you seem to be ignoring the PS3, which has maybe 600k owners in Japan. We've seen that the PS3 is most likely having a big impact on software sales in the US (unless HD DVD was having dismal sales).
Sorry, but an average attach rate of 20 for 2007 doesn't sound very realistic at all. Are you confusing annualized attach rate with average attach rate for players sold in a year, or are you really going with an annualized attach rate of something like 50? If 1 million HD DVD players will be sold in 2007, then it is most likely that those will be skewed toward the end of the year, with average ownership times of well under 6 months.
If you think that is high, then it would seem that $600 million is way to high if a realistic attach rate is used. Or do you still think that 20 discs sold per player average in 2007 is realistic, even with Christmas sales of players and things were the median ownership time during 2007 might be 4 months? Even the HD DVD group only claimed an annualized rate of 28 for 2006 and your prediction of 20 not annualized for 2007 dwarfs that.

--Darin I actually agree with you on all of these points. But I think it was calculated in some way like that. Or it was based on the 1.8 million number.

But for example if you take the 1,800,000 HD DVD Toshiba sales number times $25 average movie price you get a $45,000,000 number for every single $25 title sold to 1.8 million HD DVD players. In other words an attach rate of 1 for 1.8 million players generates $45 million.

So $600 million in sales for 1.8 million players for $25 movie purchases only needs an average attach rate of 13.33. That's a reasonable average attach rate for sales occurring throughout the year.

I do think that HD DVD second generation sales for 2007 will actually not skew toward the fourth quarter. With the new players starting to become available in inventory I think that 1st and 2nd calender year quarter sales will be higher than a normal year.

This is in effect the first real consumer launch of the HD DVD format.

This isn't actual sales figures, but the rankings on Amazon might give us some clue. The PS3 remote has been ranked pretty well on there off and on. I just checked and it is at #12 in Video Games. That puts it ahead of the Lost Planet game for the XBOX360 (at #13), the $399 XBOX360 (at #15), and the sixaxis wireless controller for the PS3 (at #17).

I checked on bestbuy.com and it is available on their website. I checked for in store pickup and it is available at one out of 6 stores local to me. As a comparison, the HD-A2 is backordered on bestbuy.com, but shows up as available (in stock) at all 6 of those stores.

--Darin Thats good info. I wish we could get better info on the remote as I think it would be a key indicator. It would be interesting to see if it was anywhere similar to the conversion rate of Xbox 360 owners to the HD DVD bundle.

But for example if you take the 1,800,000 HD DVD Toshiba sales number times $25 average movie price you get a $45,000,000 number for every single $25 title sold to 1.8 million HD DVD players.Even after saying, "The 1.2 million HD DVD players seems high..." before I had a feeling that you would now use a higher number to try to get to $600 million. ;)
So $600 million in sales for 1.8 million players for $25 movie purchases only needs an average attach rate of 13.33. That's a reasonable average attach rate for sales occurring throughout the year.So, do you think the annualized attach rate will be higher than 28? I think 13.33 non-annualized for 2007 will end up being high. If the average ownership time was 5 months, 13.33 would be an annualized rate of 32. That 32 * $25 is an average annualized rate of $800 worth of software.
I do think that HD DVD second generation sales for 2007 will actually not skew toward the fourth quarter.So, do you think $299 players will show up this year? If so, when? Do you think HD DVD can get to 1.2 million players by the end of the year with current prices (no $299 standalones for instance). How many players do you think HD DVD will have sold by the middle of the year if they get to 1.2 million by the end of the year?
This is in effect the first real consumer launch of the HD DVD format.Then annualized attach rates will probably not be what they were for whatever the other launch was, given that this is the "first real consumer launch".

--Darin

Heck I don't know.

I think that Toshiba has a chance of getting 1.2 million or 1.8 million players sold.

That combined with the existing first generation sales and Xbox 360 sales may get to enough players that you can reach $600 million in sales.

Not trying to defend the numbers here, just trying to figure out where they came from.

But, I do think a average 13 attach rate is reasonable for new owners in the first year. Some guys her on AVS already own 40 or 50 HD DVD discs. Myself, I already have a large collection that will eventually rival my 300 + DVD collection. So me and others balance out a lot of 1 movie a month guys.

I can't remember my statistically modeling on the top of my head, but a 2 a month attach rate for an accumulating population of owners would give :

....say we had an even number of sales per month with 2 attach rate. We divide 1.2 million in sales evenly throughout the year
plus Jan 100,000 players for 200,000 movies total sold in Jan for all 2007 bought players
plus Feb 100,000 players for 400,000 movies total sold in Feb for all 2007 bought players
plus Mar 100,000 players for 600,000 movies
plus Apr 100,000 players for 800,000 movies
plus May 100,000 players for 1.000,000 movies
plus Jun 100.000 players for 1,200,000 movies
plus Jul 100,000 players for 1,400,000 movies
plus Aug 100,000 players for 1,600,000 movies
plus Sep 100,000 players for 1,800,000 movies
plus Oct 100.000 players for 2,000,000 movies
plus Nov 100,000 players for 2,200,000 movies
plus Dec 100.000 players for 2,400,000 movies total sold in Dec for all 2007 bought players
------------------------------------------------------------
1,200,000 players sold in 2007, 15,600,000 movies sold

Assumptions there would be a monthly attach rate of 2, monthly unit sales of 100,000 units, movie average cost of $25.

15,600,000 / 1,200,000 = 13.00 attach rate

15,600,000 titles sold for $25 each is = $390,000,000 in movie sales for new 2007 player sales , based on 2 a month new attach rate and 100,000 a month in new sales

say 150,000 is the existing 2006 HD DVD stand alone player base

then 150,000 x 24 movies $25 each is another $90,000,000 in movie revenue

$390 million plus $90 million is $480 million in stand alone player sales

Add at least $120 million in HD DVD movie sales to Xbox 360 owners and thats on way to get $600 million in HD DVD sales.

Maybe that's a plausible number.

So, do you think $299 players will show up this year? If so, when? Do you think HD DVD can get to 1.2 million players by the end of the year with current prices (no $299 standalones for instance). No. Not at least from Toshiba. Not at least by MSRP. I think the MSRP of the HD A2 will drop by summer or the fall to $399, and that street prices might fall to below $349.

Chinese players might appear at $299 by the end of the year. The HD A2 will probably stay at least $50 above their MSRP price.

How many players do you think HD DVD will have sold by the middle of the year if they get to 1.2 million by the end of the year? They can make it even on an even rate of 100,000 units per month. With 2006 first generation player and Xbox 360 bundle owners also buying movies at a hot clip , they may be able to make it with less.

100,000 units a month average for the first six months may be possible. It will be interesting to see if Toshiba can deliver and sell that many units.

No. Not at least from Toshiba. Not at least by MSRP. I think the MSRP of the HD A2 will drop by summer or the fall to $399, and that street prices might fall to below $349.

Chinese players might appear at $299 by the end of the year. The HD A2 will probably stay at least $50 above their MSRP price.

They can make it even on an even rate of 100,000 units per month. With 2006 first generation player and Xbox 360 bundle owners also buying movies at a hot clip , they may be able to make it with less.

100,000 units a month average for the first six months may be possible. It will be interesting to see if Toshiba can deliver and sell that many units.

It took until Sep. 1998 for DVD (113,558) to break over 100,000 units per month, with the first six months average being 46,056. The market logistics just doesn't support that kind of sale numbers for any standalone HD disc product.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/cemadvdsales.html

It would really be nice for people to look at historical data before going off on these pie-in-the-sky projections that have little basis in reality. :)

b2b

Well actually a precedent was set with the Toshiba A1 which did come with a HDMI cable. So with the A2 you lose the 5.1 analog support and the HDMI cable vs. what you got with the A1.

You obviously haven't followed the technical aspects of any of this HW and are laboring under many false impressions of how this stuff works. :)

b2b

I'm sorry ... which player do you own again?

The A1 came with an HDMI cable as part of a promo -- If I remember correctly, there were ads specific to it including an HDMI cable. ie: Get an HDMI Cable Free with the Purchase of an A1.

And, again, the precedent is for most CE equipment like I said. I'm sure we can all single out a model here or there that is outside this scope. *shrug*

Well gee, that sure is a lot of "wishing and hoping" for HD-DVD just to have parity with what can be done with BD-50GB today... ;)

b2b

Well gee, that sure is a lot of "wishing and hoping" for BR just to have parity with what can be done with HDi today... ;)

Fixed ... :p

It took until Sep. 1998 for DVD (113,558) to break over 100,000 units per month, with the first six months average being 46,056. The market logistics just doesn't support that kind of sale numbers for any standalone HD disc product.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/cemadvdsales.html

It would really be nice for people to look at historical data before going off on these pie-in-the-sky projections that have little basis in reality. :)

b2b

Yup ... I agree ... BetaMax, MiniDisc, Memory Stick, UMD ... ahhh ... History ... :p

Besides, how many Xbox Add-On's were sold? That was only from November on? Plus whatever Standalones were sold. If not for shortages, I'd think 100k could have gone off in December.

This is a completely different market than DVD. The First DVD Players were $600+ ... you can buy an Add-On for $150, and a Standalone for $299 - $499 after the rebates and current promos. Price is dropping to 'impulse' levels a lot quicker imo.

It took until Sep. 1998 for DVD (113,558) to break over 100,000 units per month, with the first six months average being 46,056. The market logistics just doesn't support that kind of sale numbers for any standalone HD disc product.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/cemadvdsales.html

It would really be nice for people to look at historical data before going off on these pie-in-the-sky projections that have little basis in reality. :)

b2b We will see.

If the market "logistics" can support Xbox 360 or PS3 distribution at these levels they can support HD A2 production and distribution. The market penetration of this items may be quicker as they are lagging to HDTV sales, and they give a matching capability. Also the HD DVD players are cheaper in relative terms to DVD players on their introduction.

If tens of millions of HDTV's can be sold in NA to date at over $1000 a pop, then a lot of HD DVD players can potentially be sold to feed them HD goodness.

Historical data may not be relevent here. Toshiba's production capabilty and willingness to attack the market is the operative factor.

I was told shipments will be in the 100's of thousand before April and that will be stacked up on big box end caps. If that happens then those kind of sales numbers may be able to be reached.

It would really be nice for people to look at historical data before going off on these pie-in-the-sky projections that have little basis in reality. :)
b2b

You mean like Fox's Blu-ray sales projection presentation at CES -- you know, the one with the exponential curve. :rolleyes:

You mean like Fox's Blu-ray sales projection presentation at CES -- you know, the one with the exponential curve. :rolleyes:..... for Blu-ray sales and the flat linear one for HD DVD sales. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

It was so absurd that even the press was commenting about how silly it was. :D

..... for Blu-ray sales and the flat linear one for HD DVD sales. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

It was so absurd that even the press was commenting about how silly it was. :D

Blu-ray surpassed HD in sales for one day in 2006 (12/24/06); and yet, based on this data, Fox extrapolated the exponential Blu-ray sales curve -- simply amazing! Unbelievable, really. <shakes head in disgust>

We will see.

If the market "logistics" can support Xbox 360 or PS3 distribution at these levels they can support HD A2 production and distribution. The market penetration of this items may be quicker as they are lagging to HDTV sales, and they give a matching capability. Also the HD DVD players are cheaper in relative terms to DVD players on their introduction.

If tens of millions of HDTV's can be sold in NA to date at over $1000 a pop, then a lot of HD DVD players can potentially be sold to feed them HD goodness.

Historical data may not be relevent here. Toshiba's production capabilty and willingness to attack the market is the operative factor.

I was told shipments will be in the 100's of thousand before April and that will be stacked up on big box end caps. If that happens then those kind of sales numbers may be able to be reached.

The XbAO sold 92,000 units because it was cheap. The PS3 sold a million because it was a PS3 and included a "free" BD player as part of it's feature set. Those two devices broke the mold of the "standalone" player that the DVD stats were based on.

Standalone sales are going to have to live on the only thing they do, play movie discs and that is going to be more difficult with the added competition from the XbAO and PS3. In time lower prices and improved feature sets for standalone players will make the consoles less attractive, but we are still well over a year away from that (unless low margin players continue to be the norm for HD-DVD).

b2b

Just done a bit more searching and I think I see how you've come to this figure. Are you including the 8000+ silent movies owned by Universal Film Manufacturing Company (http://www.imdb.com/company/co0048238/) ? That might be one way the figures have been squewed. I'm not sure if any of these titles have been released on DVD, or if the original negatives are even still available. Probably unlikely. Robert Harris would probably be a good fellow to ask.

Thanks for letting me know. I will include this in my update.

Blu-ray surpassed HD in sales for one day in 2006 (12/24/06); and yet, based on this data, Fox extrapolated the exponential Blu-ray sales curve -- simply amazing! Unbelievable, really. <shakes head in disgust>

Maybe this will help.. buy 1 get 1 free... ;)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=category&id=pcmcat110300050004

b2b

This was pulled off the news thread because:

Reason: personal claims are not relevant news

Blu-ray cracked too?
http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/01/20/blu-ray-cracked-too/

The XbAO sold 92,000 units because it was cheap. The PS3 sold a million because it was a PS3 and included a "free" BD player as part of it's feature set. Those two devices broke the mold of the "standalone" player that the DVD stats were based on.

Standalone sales are going to have to live on the only thing they do, play movie discs and that is going to be more difficult with the added competition from the XbAO and PS3. In time lower prices and improved feature sets for standalone players will make the consoles less attractive, but we are still well over a year away from that (unless low margin players continue to be the norm for HD-DVD).

b2b Not my numbers man. I am looking to see if they reach them just as much as you are:

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6405191.html?q=HD+DVD+
Chinese manufacturers Alco, Shinco and Lite-On will join Toshiba in making players as will Japanese company Onkyo, execs announced. Microsoft may also make players, officials said, but didn’t provide further details. Car system manufacturer Alpine is making a player for cars.

The move is expected to add lower-priced players to the market, which could greatly expand household penetration for the format.Meanwhile, Toshiba, so far the only manufacturer with HD DVD set-top players on the market, is ramping up player production, conservatively projecting it will ship more than 1.8 million units to the market this year, Toshiba’s Digital Media Network president and CEO Yoshihidi Fujii said.

Overall, the group is projecting more than 2.5 million players will be sold through 2007.The group said more than 175,000 players were sold between the format’s April, 2006 launch and Jan. 5.

Their early adopter purchasers have a healthy movie appetite. The attach rate for HD DVD, the average number of movies people buy for each player sold, is 28, said Craig Kornblau, chair of the HD DVD Promotional Group and president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

The group is projecting HD DVD movie sales to exceed $600 million in 2007 with more than 600 movies available by year-end.

Maybe this will help.. buy 1 get 1 free... ;)

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?type=category&id=pcmcat110300050004

b2b Maybe its a sign of overstock, slow sales and retail desperation?? :eek:

(Just kidding, just thought I'd channel a certain Blu-ray insider for a moment. :rolleyes: )


Well, since they can't drop the price of the players yet, giving away the discs couldn't hurt.. :D

Seriously, this seems like a good idea for a limited time. If they keep the MSRP prices up, they still will make money and consumers may perceive they are getting a bargin.

Maybe this "format war" stuff is actually good for consumers in that it is bring competition.

I'm sorry ... which player do you own again?

The A1 came with an HDMI cable as part of a promo -- If I remember correctly, there were ads specific to it including an HDMI cable. ie: Get an HDMI Cable Free with the Purchase of an A1.

And, again, the precedent is for most CE equipment like I said. I'm sure we can all single out a model here or there that is outside this scope. *shrug*

Nope.. You guys are funny... :) Don't even know your own product lines... ;)

HDMI cable was included "in the box" with A1.. Page 9 of owners manual.. see attached doc.

b2b

Nope.. You guys are funny... :) Don't even know your own product lines... ;)

HDMI cable was included "in the box" with A1.. Page 9 of owners manual.. see attached doc.

b2b

Yah ... and I believe the box had a 'Free HDMI Cable Included' bitmap on the front ... what's your point? One product ... I still maintain the precedent ... *shrug*

btw, you didn't answer ... which player do you own? :p

Nope.. You guys are funny... :) Don't even know your own product lines... ;)

HDMI cable was included "in the box" with A1.. Page 9 of owners manual.. see attached doc.

b2b AFAIK, b2 is correct.

All of the Toshiba HD A1's and HD XA1's came with the HDMI cable. Not sure of the RCA and Wal-mart clones.

The cable was short though, and useless for my front projector setup. I used it elsewhere though.



BTW, B2, what kinda cable came in the box of the Blu-ray or HD DVD player that you own? Oh ya, nevermind. ;) Got a PS3 yet? Hear there getting easier to find. ;)

AFAIK, b2 is correct.

All of the Toshiba HD A1's and HD XA1's came with the HDMI cable. Not sure of the RCA and Wal-mart clones.

The cable was short though, and useless for my front projector setup. I used it elsewhere though.



BTW, B2, what kinda cable came in the box of the Blu-ray or HD DVD player that you own? Oh ya, nevermind. ;) Got a PS3 yet? Hear there getting easier to find. ;)

Nope, not around here. Haven't seen one in the wild yet.. :) BestBuy is cleaned out, Amazon only lists the bundles and the other places I wouldn't even give them your credit card number... :D

Plenty of A2 though... 22 stores and all showing "in stock".. ;)

http://www.epinions.com/Toshiba_HD_A2_HD_DVD_Player

b2b

I like you. :DThanks, and to be clear one of the reasons I defend the PS3 is because I believe it has a lot of potential. I have owned a lot of game consoles over the years from the NES to the PS3. Of them all I would put the PS3 as the third most innovative behind the PS1 and Xbox.


From what I was reading, I believe only Sony Branded/Licensed cables are supported by Warranty Services. There is another thread floating around that notes any 3rd party products (including cables/connectors) will void the PS3 Warranty.I don't know much about that but I have used non-Sony video cables for the PS2 and PS3 and those have never caused any problem. Personally if it is something as simple as a video cable there is no way that it could cause any damage to a game console in which case I think it would be acceptable to lie about it.


This makes a $500-600 system $50-60 more ... just to experience something that Sony promised.Well it is $50 if you buy an official PS3 component video cable and you can get an official PS2 component video cable for less than that. It is not really required though and you can get a good quality third party component video cable for around $25.


Hmm ... I guess those little VGA <-> DVI convertors don't work then? Because the output of the DVI would then be Analog and the DVI/HDMI convertor wouldn't know what to do with the signal?Correct, a DVI connector has 4 pins on it that can carry an analog signal but HDMI is purely digital.


Oh, and on the PCM audio ... that's not a big deal to me ... 5.1 is fine ... I still really don't even know what PCM2.0 is? I thought it was just lossless 2 channel audio? The big deal for me would be to get 1080p out of the VGA and into an HDMI. That's why I brought it up. ;)I see, and if you don't mind lossy audio than that aspect of HDMI would not be important. Just to explain but HDMI can carry up to 8 channels of PCM audio at up to 24 bits and 192 kHz. In comparison CD is only capable of 2 channels of PCM at 16-bits and 44.1 kHz.


That's a good point ... I am not sure what the distribution is between Core/Premium ... so I don't know how many millions of Premiums there are out there. That said, I'm guessing (again, just guessing), it's more than currently available PS3's.Possible, and I was just saying that even the Xbox 360 core systems only included a composite cable. Factor in that a PS2 component cable can be used with the PS3 and that it has an HDMI output and there are a few reasons for why Sony might have decided to include only a composite cable. Personally though I think it would have been a good idea if they had included a component video cable.


I'm trying to figure out the deal with the RGB signal thing. From what I've read it has to do with the way that white/black signals or sent and they don't really show those colors or something. I think amir suggested there might be a way to fix that though via a user-selectable option (that doesn't exist yet, so, for all intents and purposes, it's moot). But, I suppose it could be addressed via a firmware update like the DVD Scaling?It might be something that can be added by a firmware update but that depends a lot on how the Xbox 360 was designed. Just to give a brief explanation but it has to do with the idea of below black and above white video signals. This was done with video equipment for several reasons two of which was so that the signal could be easily calibrated and because of the analog equipment that was used at the time. As such a video RGB signal has black at the value of 16 and white at the value of 235. Computers on the other hand used a full range RGB signal with black at 0 and white at 255.


But do anyone except insiders have access to the BD25/50 Spec? I think the HD-DVD spec is available in the public forum. Wasn't there a link to something on profiles, but you needed an account to access it?Here is a list of the Blu-ray profiles (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9391582&&#post9391582) that I have made from the information posted by various insiders on this forum.

The A1 came with an HDMI cable as part of a promo...

No. A1 always had HDMI cable - BTW, they cost just a buck or two.

What is with this desire to compare locked SRP prices for BD to best case price scenarios for HD DVD?

Not best case - if you followed the discussion. We are comparing the announced $200 break (which takes A2's MSRP to $299=$499-$200) to equivalent % discount on a Panny or Sony CE player.

Plenty of A2 though... 22 stores and all showing "in stock".. Then Toshiba wasn't blowing smoke, they ARE coming by the boatloads. :D

Nice that they are starting to be on Best Buy and Circuit City endcaps and are starting to be displayed correctly.

BTW, its amazing that the retail drones seem to be more enthusiastic about them when they actually have stock to sell. ;)

Yes , but triple layer single sided DVDs have been produced in economical quantities and teh physical structure is the same as TL HD DVDs. The only issue is the optics and data extraction and software to make sure the smaller pit and land size of the HD DVD gives good data from the 3rd layer.




Do you have a quote or a link for this? It is something that gets brought up once in awhile, usually in reference to DVD-14. DVD-14 was made reliably and in low quanitties initially, but it was not single sided - it was two layers on one side and a single on the other.

If three layer DVD-14 had been so easy (or existed at all), I would imagine the red laser hid def disc formats would be using it rather than dual layer - 14 Gigs would have been quite a boost even with advanced codecs.

http://www.manifest-tech.com/media_dvd/dvd_hd_multi_layer.htm

Old reference but:

As described by Toshiba, the triple-layer discs are produced by back-to-back bonding of a 0.6mm-thick dual-layer disc and a single-layer 0.6mm disc. The single-layer disc is produced first, using the same process as HD DVD-ROM. Next, the second layer is formed on the first layer using a one-time polycarbonate stamper, the same process used for the double-sided dual-layer DVD-18 disc. Finally, the single-layer 0.6mm disc is bonded to the dual-layer disc, using standard technology.

"The manufacturing process is similar to today's DVD 14," says Knox, "but needs a little more precision since the bonding layer is in the optical path. There are four additional process steps compared to DVD 9, so this is the most expensive option, about 50% - 60% more than DVD 9. Frankly a lot of studios do not see the advantage of 45 GB capacity, as very few films need that much space.

Basically for the TL 45 the manufacturing idea is the same as a DVD -14, with the upside down data layer flipped right side up and a optically transparent glue bonding together so they can be read from the same side. The manufacturing would be the same as a DVD-14, it would make no difference if the 3rd data layer was flipped from a replication standpoint.

The trick would probably be in reliably reading and doing error checking from the 3rd layer, not its physical manufacture.

The TL51 is probably the same idea using a tighter pitch fro the data spiral.

If three layer DVD-14 had been so easy (or existed at all), I would imagine the red laser hid def disc formats would be using it rather than dual layer - 14 Gigs would have been quite a boost even with advanced codecs. It was never used because DL DVD 9's became common and virtually as cheap as SL and if more space was needed consumers preferred the "special expanded edition" two disc sets, which were perceived as giving more value than a single higher density disc. Also flippers could not get pretty silk screened graphics.

The PS3 sold a million because it was a PS3 and included a "free" BD player as part of it's feature set.
b2b

It might have sold 3 or 4 million without the "free" BD feature. :D

Toshiba just announced a new advertising campaign.

Buy a new Toshiba HD TV 42 " or larger and a new HD DVD and save $200 with an instant rebate . Dealers get a incentive also.Yes, I'm sure Toshiba's 3% market share in televisions (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2005/tc20050914_9372_tc119.htm) will make this a very successful campaign!

Catalog Depth 2.0

I filtered the search results for titles from 1940 to today. This should eliminate all silent film content from all distributors. Hopefully I've still captured most of the classics. Again feed back is welcome. My goal is to make this information as accurate as possible.

Notes: Columbia is not listed out seperately. This is because titles I find when looking under Columbia show up under Sony or Fox as well (search for Spiderman). Similarly MGM sold the rights to its pre 1986 content which is now owned by Warner. I also didn't account for the fact that you can actually get Lionsgate content from EU resellers in HD-DVD. Since there is no region coding in HD-DVD these discs can be used in North America. I know I didn't capture every dual release studio, but the ones I missed will be added to both sides of the ledger. As for Adult content, Vivid will release in both formats. The other Adult studios that plan to release in HD are HD-DVD exclusive. These are Digital Playground Inc., Wicked Pictures, Pink Visual, Bang Bros, and ClubJenna Inc. The final item is small Indy studios. I suspect that many of these will find it more affordable to do small low cost production runs in HD-DVD. I believe this is why most of the Adult studios decided to go with HD-DVD exclusively.

BD

Lions Gate 780
Sony Pictures 2238
Fox 5237
Buena Vista (Disney) 2247
MGM 1003
Warner 6529
Paramount 3780
Bandai 153
HBO 1037
New Line Cinema 589
Studio Canal 147

TOTAL 23740

HD-DVD

Warner 6529
Paramount 3780
Universal 4387
Bandai 153
Weinstein 109
HBO 1037
New Line Cinema 589
Studio Canal 147

TOTAL 16731

BD has deeper catalog depth based on these criteria. Though please keep in mind that many of these titles are not available in DVD, so these are not potential totals of HD discs. Trying to get these numbers right is difficult because there is no easy way to keep duplicates out using IMDB, but I hope these numbers are at least in the ballpark.

There are, of course, new content providers coming on board to HD discs. CBS TV will be distributing it's catlog through Paramount and they plan to release in both formats. So far Star Trek is announced on HD-DVD combo disc only though. I would to see it show up on BD later on.

Then we have the issue of the small time Independent film makers. I believe HD-DVD is the easier HD format for them because AACS is not required. From the information I've seen it looks like if you want to create HD content on BD and be able to play it on all BD players you have to license and use AACS.

Nope, not around here. Haven't seen one in the wild yet.. :) BestBuy is cleaned out, Amazon only lists the bundles and the other places I wouldn't even give them your credit card number... :D (clip)
b2b
hehe, good one

is the critical point. Sony has backed off all plans to advertise at consumer levels "Blu-ray " as a brand. Its left that to CE at the point of sale level.Not sure what you're talking about here - I see all kinds of print ads mentioning Blu-ray, both from individual vendors (i.e. Sony) and from a promotions group (Disney, Sony, Fox, Panasonic, etc.).
HD DVD does not have to be branded in consumers minds like Blu-ray does. It is a brand extension of the DVD name with HD being added, which consumers already know means high definition as it relates to HDTV.Yes, and it's also been used to refer to upscaling DVD players and MPEG-4 DVD players selling as low as $59, especially with Chinese players. There is definitely market confusion regarding the use of "HD DVD".
All he will care about is when he is deciding to buy his HD DVD player or Blu-ray player there seems to be enough movies available to make his investment worthwhile. With Disney providing handy-dandy quick reference cards for retailers showing which studios are supporting which format, plenty of consumers are going to know that HD DVD = no Disney or Fox.

And I bet that you will not see such a move by BD manufacturers - who probably control a large portion of HDTV market compared to Tosh. I'm talking about a 40% discount here. This is possible only when you have a player which is inexpensive ...Or when you're willing to continue to use price as your primary strategic weapon to compensate for far less compelling technology.
And I think once MS can make enough HD DVD add-ons we will start seeing 360+add-on bundles as well ....I'd like to see some confirmation of this myth. The various product tracker sites always showed widespread availability for the HD DVD add-on. Yes, they sold out in some stores, but they were always available in others, as opposed to the PS3 and Wii which were consistently sold out everywhere through Christmas.

Remember first format to get to $199 next generation HD player wins.Even if that price is via QVC and Overstock.com once HD DVD is dead and it's only excess inventory which is being sold through the liquidators?

^ The porn industry went HD DVD. No, a handful of studios announced HD DVD support, which is a far, far cry from "the porn industry". The predominantly male 18-35 PS3-owning demographic is far too appealing to let the challenge of finding non-Sony replication get in the way...

For the Panasonic BMP-BD10 I stated "may not support all audio CD discsWhat audio CD's does the DMP-BD10 have difficulty with?

If Blu-ray's advantages of:

20 GB more capacity : is countered by TL 51 HD DVD discs or network storage and internet downloadingIt isn't. TL51 is only a concept, and if everything works perfectly won't show up for at least a year; downloading and locally storing 20GB of content for the typical owner is much further off.
18 M/bps of bandwidth: is wasted because of using MPEG-2 or LPCM or is negated because HD DVD can get an extra 15 mps from a networked stream or may create more bandwidth on the TL 51 discsWhile Amir has stated that the 15Mbps of bandwidth doesn't count against the 30Mpbs mux rate, he hasn't confirmed that the A/V decoders are guaranteed to support 15Mbps in addition to 30Mbps from optical media. Since secondary video is only mandated to support 4Mbps (or is it 6?), I highly doubt you're guaranteed all players will magically support 15Mbps from persistent storage while handling peak bandwidth from optical.
Good recordable support : consumers don't care about more than 30 GB of recordable supportReference? 30GB is "just the right amount", but 50GB is overkill? Where have I heard that before?!?
just like SL DVD-R's vastly outsell DL DVD-Rs right nowBecause there isn't a compelling value proposition to support the price difference between SL and DL DVD. HD video provides that value proposition.
Studio support : will follow the dollars. If HD DVD makes $600 million split between 3 studios next year, how long will it take the studios beside Sony and Fox to stay BD only.$600M is laughable. Besides, "BD studios besides Sony and Fox" equals Disney and Lionsgate, which still leave two of the top three grossing studios Blu-ray exclusive.

Sorry, Kosty, your re-thinking of these points didn't actually strengthen your position one bit.

No, a handful of studios announced HD DVD support, which is a far, far cry from "the porn industry". The predominantly male 18-35 PS3-owning demographic is far too appealing to let the challenge of finding non-Sony replication get in the way...
Hey, I never thought of that issue. Males 18-35.. PS3.. Porn market..

Good synergy there, not that I would know first-hand ;)

the PS3 can be made into a PC running Linux. If that's not a big ole "please pirate me" sticker on the front, I don't know what is. If I remember correctly, they've already managed to rip game images right to the HDD.You can also stick any Blu-ray disc (including PS3 games) into a PC with a Blu-ray drive and use Windows Explorer to copy the files to your hard drive. No attempt has been made to prevent copying the bits. The bits are encrypted, just copying them does nothing for you.

Hmm ... I guess those little VGA <-> DVI convertors don't work then?They aren't VGA <-> DVI, they are DVI -> VGA. Much easier to go from digital to analog than analog to digital.

But do anyone except insiders have access to the BD25/50 Spec? I think the HD-DVD spec is available in the public forum.Nope. You've got to agree to long licenses and pay thousands of bucks to get either spec.

Not best case - if you followed the discussion. We are comparing the announced $200 break (which takes A2's MSRP to $299=$499-$200) to equivalent % discount on a Panny or Sony CE player.$200 break? That's a bit generous. $200 break if you were already planning on buying a Toshiba TV. Given Toshiba isn't in a strong position in the HDTV market my guess is the number of people who will act on this offer will number in the hundreds.

Not best case - if you followed the discussion. We are comparing the announced $200 break (which takes A2's MSRP to $299=$499-$200) to equivalent % discount on a Panny or Sony CE player.

I think the way to look at it is that it is $200 off a 42" television + HD DVD player. Fixating on the price of the HD DVD player sounds like you think people are going to buy a Toshiba set simply to get an HD DVD player for $299.

I think it is probably obvious that all the makers will eventually offer bundles.

Gary

Or when you're willing to continue to use price as your primary strategic weapon to compensate for far less compelling technology.

Are you referring to Sony propping up BD, by selling PS3 at a loss?

I think the way to look at it is that it is $200 off a 42" television + HD DVD player. Fixating on the price of the HD DVD player sounds like you think people are going to buy a Toshiba set simply to get an HD DVD player for $299.

I think it is probably obvious that all the makers will eventually offer bundles.

Gary
SXRD RP + PS3 is what I would be in for in a heartbeat.

Yes, I'm sure Toshiba's 3% market share in televisions (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2005/tc20050914_9372_tc119.htm) will make this a very successful campaign! Well I think they have a much larger share of flat panel displays.

You know if they have a small share and it doubles because it was so low to begin with they will brag about it.

Kinda like the increase in stand alone Blu-ray player sales. ;)

Catalog Depth 2.0

I filtered the search results for titles from 1940 to today. This should eliminate all silent film content from all distributors. Hopefully I've still captured most of the classics. Again feed back is welcome. My goal is to make this information as accurate as possible.

Notes: Columbia is not listed out seperately. This is because titles I find when looking under Columbia show up under Sony or Fox as well (search for Spiderman). Similarly MGM sold the rights to its pre 1986 content which is now owned by Warner. I also didn't account for the fact that you can actually get Lionsgate content from EU resellers in HD-DVD. Since there is no region coding in HD-DVD these discs can be used in North America. I know I didn't capture every dual release studio, but the ones I missed will be added to both sides of the ledger. As for Adult content, Vivid will release in both formats. The other Adult studios that plan to release in HD are HD-DVD exclusive. These are Digital Playground Inc., Wicked Pictures, Pink Visual, Bang Bros, and ClubJenna Inc. The final item is small Indy studios. I suspect that many of these will find it more affordable to do small low cost production runs in HD-DVD. I believe this is why most of the Adult studios decided to go with HD-DVD exclusively.

BD

Lions Gate 780
Sony Pictures 2238
Fox 5237
Buena Vista (Disney) 2247
MGM 1003
Warner 6529
Paramount 3780
Bandai 153
HBO 1037
New Line Cinema 589
Studio Canal 147

TOTAL 23740

HD-DVD

Warner 6529
Paramount 3780
Universal 4387
Bandai 153
Weinstein 109
HBO 1037
New Line Cinema 589
Studio Canal 147

TOTAL 16731

BD has deeper catalog depth based on these criteria. Though please keep in mind that many of these titles are not available in DVD, so these are not potential totals of HD discs. Trying to get these numbers right is difficult because there is no easy way to keep duplicates out using IMDB, but I hope these numbers are at least in the ballpark.

There are, of course, new content providers coming on board to HD discs. CBS TV will be distributing it's catlog through Paramount and they plan to release in both formats. So far Star Trek is announced on HD-DVD combo disc only though. I would to see it show up on BD later on.

Then we have the issue of the small time Independent film makers. I believe HD-DVD is the easier HD format for them because AACS is not required. From the information I've seen it looks like if you want to create HD content on BD and be able to play it on all BD players you have to license and use AACS.

I copied this post into the AFI top 100 sticky thread so it can be seen with the other lists over there.


We had previously came up with this WAG:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8486953&&#post8486953

Bottom Line: Currently Blu-ray has 6123 more potential titles available out of the 28023 Total Available

Common 11586 (41.3%) HD DVD 5157 (18.4%) Blu-ray 11280 (40.3%) which is line with your estimate.

Those numbers yield 11586 + 5157 = 16743 for HD DVD and 11586 + 11280 = 22866 for Blu-ray which actually is pretty close in proportion to your finds using a different methodology.

You know this is a really great metric to look for. The remote is cheap ($20 online) and if you really have any plans to use the PS3 as a BD player, you're going to buy the remote. So where can we get this sales data from? Does NPD track this?

I'm one of those PS3 owners that bought it for a BD player. I find the game controller sufficient for remote control, and I have no plans to buy the remote.

My personal opinion...and I work as a sys admin, so I know a bit about storage....is that for the next generation of HD media, it might not need to be the same format as what might be the next gen storage media.

For most users, dvd DL is enough space to back up their stuff. I haven't seen the price of recordable BD or HD DVD media....but I am guessing it is pricey. Now of course that will change, but by the time it becomes cheap enough to be palatable for end user storage, One format may have one. (or both will just continue to exist). People buying new PC's and Macs that come with an HD DVD or BD recordable drive are going to take a while to figure out what the heck they have in their machine. (Computer end users are worse than HD consumers) OR wonder why their recorded "dvd" won't play in their DVD player like it used to.

In any case, my point is more that having two HD formats is confusing enough for the average person. Having certain discs that don't play in certain players is bad too.....but for HD DVD to change its disc spec at this stage would REALLY confuse people. They have proven that 30 gigs is enough....if studios need to be "enticed" with the promise of more storage which is not needed.....well I guess these aren't the brightest people anyway.
I've been buying BD media for about 3 months now. Mostly BD-RE. BD-RE is erasable and is about $15 in US. BD-R is write once can be as low as $10 but is now settling around $13 in US.

In Tokyo's Akihabara, I held the BD-R 50GB DL disks in my hands but they wanted > Y6000, so I didn't get any. I did get a lot of BD-RE and a few BD-R because they were cheaper in there.

The BD-REs are cheaper now than what I paid for DVD-RW when I first bought them.

In fact, my HDVs transfer over to BD-R and BD-RE and that's the bulk of the disks I created on BD-R (I basically use BD-RE for prototyping and put them on BD-R after I am satisfied with the edits). These disks play on both the samsung and PS3.

Quote: Originally Posted by nataraj
And I bet that you will not see such a move by BD manufacturers - who probably control a large portion of HDTV market compared to Tosh. I'm talking about a 40% discount here. This is possible only when you have a player which is inexpensive ...

Quote: Talkstr8t
Or when you're willing to continue to use price as your primary strategic weapon to compensate for far less compelling technology.

Quote: nataraj
And I think once MS can make enough HD DVD add-ons we will start seeing 360+add-on bundles as well ....

Quote: Talkstr8t
I'd like to see some confirmation of this myth. The various product tracker sites always showed widespread availability for the HD DVD add-on. Yes, they sold out in some stores, but they were always available in others, as opposed to the PS3 and Wii which were consistently sold out everywhere through Christmas.

It appears that there are enough HD-DVD addons for Overstock.com to have inventory for shipment.. ;)

http://www.overstock.com/cgi-bin/d2.cgi?PAGE=PRODUCT&PROD_ID=2165711&cid=97284&fp=F

And plenty of other sellers have stock too..

http://www.epinions.com/search/?submitted_form=searchbar&search_string=xbox+hd+dvd+player&no_results_vertical=all&no_results_vertical_name=

b2b

I too use the controller as my BD player remote. It's very easy once you get used to it, though I agree with the point about the overlay menu ruining the movie while it's up.

Still, the PS3 will not be my BD player of choice forever so I see no reason to buy the remote. As soon as I see a standalone BD player I like, I'll jump on that and leave the PS3 mainly to gaming. The great thing is that having the PS3 takes the pressure off for now, and the entry price is "right".

I too use the controller as my BD player remote. It's very easy once you get used to it, though I agree with the point about the overlay menu ruining the movie while it's up.

Still, the PS3 will not be my BD player of choice forever so I see no reason to buy the remote. As soon as I see a standalone BD player I like, I'll jump on that and leave the PS3 mainly to gaming. The great thing is that having the PS3 takes the pressure off for now, and the entry price is "right".

It makes menu navigation, numeric input, web site navigation easier too. I only pick up the game controller to play games now.

I agree though, I expect I'll have something like the 2G Pioneer Elite deck within a year or so.

Gary

http://www.manifest-tech.com/media_dvd/dvd_hd_multi_layer.htm

Old reference but:



Basically for the TL 45 the manufacturing idea is the same as a DVD -14, with the upside down data layer flipped right side up and a optically transparent glue bonding together so they can be read from the same side. The manufacturing would be the same as a DVD-14, it would make no difference if the 3rd data layer was flipped from a replication standpoint.

The trick would probably be in reliably reading and doing error checking from the 3rd layer, not its physical manufacture.

The TL51 is probably the same idea using a tighter pitch fro the data spiral.


So it is as we have discussed before. TL51 (45 whatever ) is just like DVD-14 except it is completely different.

I don't think anyone is going to dispute that Toshiba can glue three layers together - we can assume they know how to use glue.

The three tricks they have to overcome;
- aligning three layers reliably - alignment issues are additive
- reading the third layer reliably - each layer diffracts and absorbs a certain percentage of lights o this problem can be multiplicative
- and then upgrading all existing players to read it.

I'm guessing because they announced it they have solved the first two. To say it is trivial because DVD-14 is out there does not give due credit to the engineers who pulled this off. This is akin to saying someone who knows how to build one story houses and two story houses can easily build a multi-story apartment building since you just put one house on top of another until they are tall enough. It's a tad different structure.

The third one is going to be the trick. Can you get current players to look for a third layer, focus deeper into a disc, error correct with just a fraction of the light bouncing back through the other two layers, and all that with just a firmware upgrade?

So yeah, kudos on the first two, but I'm a tad skeptical on the third.

No. A1 always had HDMI cable - BTW, they cost just a buck or two.

Perhaps my use of the word 'Promo' was a bad choice. I remember seeing adds for the A1 though and they noted it came with the HDMI cable.

So it is as we have discussed before. TL51 (45 whatever ) is just like DVD-14 except it is completely different.

I don't think anyone is going to dispute that Toshiba can glue three layers together - we can assume they know how to use glue.

The three tricks they have to overcome;
- aligning three layers reliably - alignment issues are additive
- reading the third layer reliably - each layer diffracts and absorbs a certain percentage of lights o this problem can be multiplicative
- and then upgrading all existing players to read it.

I'm guessing because they announced it they have solved the first two. To say it is trivial because DVD-14 is out there does not give due credit to the engineers who pulled this off. This is akin to saying someone who knows how to build one story houses and two story houses can easily build a multi-story apartment building since you just put one house on top of another until they are tall enough. It's a tad different structure.

The third one is going to be the trick. Can you get current players to look for a third layer, focus deeper into a disc, error correct with just a fraction of the light bouncing back through the other two layers, and all that with just a firmware upgrade?

So yeah, kudos on the first two, but I'm a tad skeptical on the third.

Glue can be a problem too...
“The biggest issues are the adhesive dust that’s
formed during PMMA separation: the bonding adhesive
can sometimes produce dust; that gets putback into
the protective coating, and is then is a source of reject
discs. Controlling the space layer on the HD-30 is a
somewhat overlooked parameter – the space layer for
HD-30 is much more severe than that of DVD-9 so
that’s very difficult. And air entrapment in the final
bond is also an issue.”

None of this stuff is as easy as the HD-DVD evanglists would have us think... ;)

b2b

Well it is $50 if you buy an official PS3 component video cable and you can get an official PS2 component video cable for less than that. It is not really required though and you can get a good quality third party component video cable for around $25.


Thanks for the details! I appreciate it! The only concern I have with the third party issue is the warranty issue I mentioned. ;)


Here is a list of the Blu-ray profiles (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9391582&&#post9391582) that I have made from the information posted by various insiders on this forum.

I saw that, and thought it was a great resource. Though Talk later mentioned there were only two Video Profiles ... perhaps he means after all is said and done and v1.0 is 'retired'. :confused:

That said, if someone wanted to educate themselves on this, they'd have to come here ... and not be able to go to the BDA directly? I just think that's odd. So, yah, we have some information here, but access to the spec as a whole? Why is it such a secret? :confused:

Or when you're willing to continue to use price as your primary strategic weapon to compensate for far less compelling technology.


But you continue to use Studio Support ... that's not really a 'technology', is it?


I'd like to see some confirmation of this myth. The various product tracker sites always showed widespread availability for the HD DVD add-on. Yes, they sold out in some stores, but they were always available in others, as opposed to the PS3 and Wii which were consistently sold out everywhere through Christmas.

PS3 was available in quite many places locally before Christmas. The Wii, frankly, was and is still sold out.

Before Xmas is crazy talk. There are a few places off and on and most online places tend to carry PS3, but anecdotes aside, you still can't walk into any retail outlet in LA, for example, and seriously expect to find one.

Just admit you were wrong on the 1st gen players (they were all Toshibas, even the RCA clone, so we don't need to split hairs on nomenclature) including HDMI (this was a minor factor that was tipping me towards getting an XA1, though ultimately not enough in comparison with the 360 add-on) and we can move on. :)

Here is a list of the Blu-ray profiles (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=9391582&&#post9391582) that I have made from the information posted by various insiders on this forum.

Your usage of PiP is clearly incorrect. As Talk has defined it and The Descent has demonstrated, PiP is avaiable on all players today(albeit w/ a firmware upgrade for some) , and is different from what what is required in 1.1 onward.


(Note for the Sarcasm Impaired: Move along.... nothing to see here.)

So it is as we have discussed before. TL51 (45 whatever ) is just like DVD-14 except it is completely different.

I don't think anyone is going to dispute that Toshiba can glue three layers together - we can assume they know how to use glue.

The three tricks they have to overcome;
- aligning three layers reliably - alignment issues are additive
- reading the third layer reliably - each layer diffracts and absorbs a certain percentage of lights o this problem can be multiplicative
- and then upgrading all existing players to read it.

I'm guessing because they announced it they have solved the first two. To say it is trivial because DVD-14 is out there does not give due credit to the engineers who pulled this off. This is akin to saying someone who knows how to build one story houses and two story houses can easily build a multi-story apartment building since you just put one house on top of another until they are tall enough. It's a tad different structure.

The third one is going to be the trick. Can you get current players to look for a third layer, focus deeper into a disc, error correct with just a fraction of the light bouncing back through the other two layers, and all that with just a firmware upgrade?

So yeah, kudos on the first two, but I'm a tad skeptical on the third.Agree with everything you have said. :)

Its not so much the physical engineering of the replication process (which is easier with HD DVD since its like proven DVD processes) but the error correction of the third layer and player compatability that is the issue.

But since this is a Toshiba initiative, I see a strong possibility that all the 2nd generation and Xbox 360 players and notebooks out their built by Toshiba and using the Toshiba drive will be able to run this just fine. Thats one advantage of having one manufacturer at least, is the equipment variation is limited. They all use the same Toshiba built drive.

Since all the 1st generation players HD A1 , XA1 and clones all used the NEC drive ( which did have a spec sheet saying it could read TL) and have powerful processors and were built basically as HTPCs, (disadvantage boot up times , advantage, CPU processing and flexibility) there is a strong possibility that TL can work in them too.

Since the problem set is two drives and you basically have heavy PC based horsepower and memory to work with, and Toshiba should have no problem working on its own equipment, so you have a well defined and stable engineering problem. THose are the kind of problems that get solved

That won't be the case soon, so if TL is ever going to come into the mix, it should be soon, or the complexity of a mix of players will be a real problem.

The worse case, I see is that the 1st generation players may not reliably read the 3rd deeper layer. Error checking and buffering should be able to solve this, but access may be slow and inconsistent. In the worse case of unreliable, not just slow access, a standard can be made that only short features or bonus content that could be downloaded as an alternative would be placed on the third layer, leaving all time sensitive real time use and critical content, like the main feature, and all the audio on the normal two non problem layers.

I do see less issues with the 1st generation players being able ot use a full increasse from 15 to 17 GB per layer. That limitation may have been with the mastering and replication process, not just the playback. If they have gotten the error checking at all to work on the 3rd layer, the increase of the pitch or width of the usable data on the data layer surface should be easier. I'm not sure if it like a analog stereo needle just following a track a little longer on a LP, but a longer stream of data should be easier to read than a different depth of data.

That would still leave the 70,000 or so 1st generation buyers as crash test dummies, but it could be a rational course of action.

BTW b2, if they are considering this, they probably fixed the dust and glue issues. It's probably a lot easier than producing a Blu-ray hyrid disc because of the physical tolerances required.

Anyway, we will see,. ;) You know it would just be a real shame to take that Blu-ray 50GB > 30 GB talking point away. :rolleyes: ( not just 45 GB but 51GB! :eek: )

Ok, then I suppose the logical explanation for the lack of IME on the BD version is the lack of secondary video support in the current players. Would you agree with that?

The end result is the same - neither format gets IME for these titles.

no, the explenation is it could not workon HD DVD and so they decided not to make such features

It's not like neutral studios haven't released a title on both formats and given one format more features than the other in the past. Look at Superman Returns - the HD DVD version had a lossless audio track (and an SD DVD version), while the BD version only had DD. Why wouldn't New Line favor BD by giving them the IME-type features? Isn't New Line a divison of Warner Brothers (the company that put out Superman Returns?) History has shown that they are willing to favor one format over the other in terms of features, so why wouldn't they do that here?


did you notice you leaped to both. The BD of superman could have had DTHD but just because it would need reencoding ( the BD DTHD is slightly differnt then HD DVD DTHD) Warner decided to drop it. Even though Warner is neutral because they did not want to back a loser and snub a winner, they are still not 100% neutral and the decisions always start off with HD DVD. Show me when Warner favoured BD over HD DVD we all asked CJPlay (and there was space and BW for it) for them to add a lossless track on the BD but Warner would not

Not my numbers man. I am looking to see if they reach them just as much as you are:

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6405191.html?q=HD+DVD+


"Microsoft may also make players, officials said, but didn’t provide further details. "


Eh? Doesn't sound like they're talking about the add-on? :confused: More "sleeves being rolled up?"

A comparable example would be if we found out that *ALL* Toshiba HD DVD players didn't support audio-cd playback. To then say that CD playback is a non-issue because the other players do it would be FALSE.

but Toshiba is the only HD DVD maker :), no one else has a standalone and theyu make the drive for MS. The issue is that here if someone wants CD playback or upconverting then they can buy a player that supports that. If they bought a PS3 and don't intend to buy something else then it is not that important for them.

Would you say it is correct for me to say DVD is not writable because the vast majority of DVD machines are players?

"Microsoft may also make players, officials said, but didn’t provide further details. "


Eh? Doesn't sound like they're talking about the add-on? :confused: More "sleeves being rolled up?"

Those Chinese HD-DVD players need some kind of brand name on the front that people have heard of don't they... ;)

b2b

Glue can be a problem too...


“The biggest issues are the adhesive dust that’s
formed during PMMA separation: the bonding adhesive
can sometimes produce dust; that gets putback into
the protective coating, and is then is a source of reject
discs. Controlling the space layer on the HD-30 is a
somewhat overlooked parameter – the space layer for
HD-30 is much more severe than that of DVD-9 so
that’s very difficult. And air entrapment in the final
bond is also an issue.”


b2b

How about this from Cinram:


"For HD-15/DVD-9 combo discs, cycle time is currently five seconds and system yields are about 75% – this is after the rebond process.”


That's below the conventional acceptable level of 80%, isn't it? The cycle time is pretty poor too.

What happens to the yield and cycle time with TL45/51 when the glue needs to be optically pure and the two halves need to precisely aligned?

Gary

I'm one of those PS3 owners that bought it for a BD player. I find the game controller sufficient for remote control, and I have no plans to buy the remote.

Just out of curiosity, why not? The remote is available on line for $20, a little less than most BD movies.

So who designed and wrote the AACS anyways?

AACS is headed by an 8 company board. The 8 companies are

IT- IBM, INTEL, MS
CE only - Matsushita (Panasonic), Toshiba
studio only - Disney, Warner
CE/studio - Sony

even though there are 8 companies because Sony is both a studio and a CE the break down is seen as 3/3/3 PS even though Sony has dual role it only has one vote.

I've been buying BD media for about 3 months now. Mostly BD-RE. BD-RE is erasable and is about $15 in US. BD-R is write once can be as low as $10 but is now settling around $13 in US.

In Tokyo's Akihabara, I held the BD-R 50GB DL disks in my hands but they wanted > Y6000, so I didn't get any. I did get a lot of BD-RE and a few BD-R because they were cheaper in there.

The BD-REs are cheaper now than what I paid for DVD-RW when I first bought them.

In fact, my HDVs transfer over to BD-R and BD-RE and that's the bulk of the disks I created on BD-R (I basically use BD-RE for prototyping and put them on BD-R after I am satisfied with the edits). These disks play on both the samsung and PS3.

What are you doing the writes and edits on, one of those Japanese BD recorders or a PC drive?

How reliable are the BD-RE media after multiple writes and reads?

AACS is headed by an 8 company board. The 8 companies are

IT- IBM, INTEL, MS
CE only - Matsushita (Panasonic), Toshiba
studio only - Disney, Warner
CE/studio - Sony

even though there are 8 companies because Sony is both a studio and a CE the break down is seen as 3/3/3 PS even though Sony has dual role it only has one vote.

But who implemented it? You know, the current implementation which has been cracked already and AACS isn't even finalized right, this is an interim spec?

How about this from Cinram:



That's below the conventional acceptable level of 80%, isn't it? The cycle time is pretty poor too.

What happens to the yield and cycle time with TL45/51 when the glue needs to be optically pure and the two halves need to precisely aligned?

Gary

Somewhere in that article they mention that all HD-DVD discs would have been combos if they had the replication lines to do it. That's why I don't pay much attention to all of the "but, HD-DVD discs are cheaper to replicate..." talking points of the HD-DVD crowd. Combos, the new Total HD discs and TL51 are going be just as expensive as BD discs (if not more) and twice the headache to get good yields.

b2b

But, I do think a average 13 attach rate is reasonable for new owners in the first year.An annualized attach rate of 13 isn't close to what you were using when you used 13 as an average for all players (even ones sold the day before Christmas). If the average owner buying this year owns it 6 months and 1.8 million are sold, an average of 13 for new owners in their first year would end up at around 12.6 million discs total, if we skewed it to use 7 in their first 6 months. Even at $25 per disc that would only be $315 million. Are the 175k+ owners from 2006 going to buy $285 million in software in 2007? That would be an average of around $1500 worth of software just in 2007 using your $25 per disc average.

The above even assumes close to 2 million total (1.8 million this year and 175k+ last year), and you said, "The 1.2 million HD DVD players seems high...".
We divide 1.2 million in sales evenly throughout the year.If HD DVD doesn't sell more players in December than in March of this year, then it will probably be an indicator that they are in trouble going into 2008. I have a feeling that when we get to the middle of the year your position will be that HD DVD will sell more players in the 2nd half of the year than they did in the first half. Do you disagree?

--Darin

BD

Lions Gate 780
Sony Pictures 2238
Fox 5237
Buena Vista (Disney) 2247
MGM 1003
Warner 6529
Paramount 3780
Bandai 153
HBO 1037
New Line Cinema 589
Studio Canal 147

TOTAL 23740

HD-DVD

Warner 6529
Paramount 3780
Universal 4387
Bandai 153
Weinstein 109
HBO 1037
New Line Cinema 589
Studio Canal 147

TOTAL 16731

- I think studio canal is HD DVD only
- In MGM/Warner did you make sure to put some of the pre 86 MGM as MGM and not Warner. As mentioned before most of the large franchises (like Rocky, Bond....) were not sold to Warner
- Weinstein looks too big

- I think studio canal is HD DVD only
- In MGM/Warner did you make sure to put some of the pre 86 MGM as MGM and not Warner. As mentioned before most of the large franchises (like Rocky, Bond....) were not sold to Warner
- Weinstein looks too big

Weinstein Co. stuff before last year is still with Disney.

When Sony bought into MGM the articles claimed MGM had 4400 titles in its vault.

Gary

But who implemented it? You know, the current implementation which has been cracked already and AACS isn't even finalized right, this is an interim spec?

not sure what you are asking, the different techs come from different companies (some of which are not on the board) the board votes on and decides what techs to use and how to manage them.

1) it was no cracked but circumvented (at least from everything I read) the data is still as encrypted as ever, the guy just managed to move it.

2) interim just means that some stuff was not agreed on yet (maybe for example MC) and how some stuff (politically) should work. Obviously everything important (encryption....) must be there. Today's players must be able to support tomorrows disks.

Circumvented or cracked is semantics.

It's on **********, so the implementation wasn't exactly robust.

Kosty. You are obviously a smart guy. I don't understand why you sometimes seem to fall into the HD DVD PR trap. For over a year and a half we have heard from Toshiba dn other insiders how TL45 was easy possible and will be soon added to the specs. Now all of a sudden it is "no it was never our intent because 45 was not good enough but we will have TL 51 that will be added to the specs".

You tend to be doubtful of BD predictions no matter how obvious they are

- PS3 will be used for movies and when it comes out BD will take the lead
- BD50 is in the spec and manufacturers will make those disks.

but at the same time you have full and blind confidence in stuff like
- even though TL45 was promised and never added (or demonstrated for that matter) TL51 will be added to the specs soon
- even though HD DVD has never come close to DVD numbers HD DVDs big jump that will make DVD look like a joke is right around the corner.

No, a handful of studios announced HD DVD support, which is a far, far cry from "the porn industry". The predominantly male 18-35 PS3-owning demographic is far too appealing to let the challenge of finding non-Sony replication get in the way...

So far about 9 adult studios switched from being BD exclusive to HD DVD exclusive and I believe only one adult studio still has plans to make any BD titles. My statistic may be a little off, but if so not by much.

-Robert

- I think studio canal is HD DVD only
- In MGM/Warner did you make sure to put some of the pre 86 MGM as MGM and not Warner. As mentioned before most of the large franchises (like Rocky, Bond....) were not sold to Warner
- Weinstein looks too big

The Weinsteins have a large catalog of asian movies (which may or may not be part of that list).

Kosty. You are obviously a smart guy. I don't understand why you sometimes seem to fall into the HD DVD PR trap. For over a year and a half we have heard from Toshiba dn other insiders how TL45 was easy possible and will be soon added to the specs. Now all of a sudden it is "no it was never our intent because 45 was not good enough but we will have TL 51 that will be added to the specs".

You tend to be doubtful of BD predictions no matter how obvious they are

- PS3 will be used for movies and when it comes out BD will take the lead
- BD50 is in the spec and manufacturers will make those disks.

but at the same time you have full and blind confidence in stuff like
- even though TL45 was promised and never added (or demonstrated for that matter) TL51 will be added to the specs soon
- even though HD DVD has never come close to DVD numbers HD DVDs big jump that will make DVD look like a joke is right around the corner.

AnthonyP we have not had a HD DVD movie that needed anything larger than the DL 30 GB HD DVD disc. More advanced and efficient VC1 compression has provided the studios with more than sufficient storage to produce every movie to date. Whereas the harder to produce BD DL 50 GB discs are more expensive and far more difficult to produce and sorely needed when encoding BD with the older and far less efficient MPEG-2 compression. Every HD DVD two disc movie also required two BD 50 discs to produce so the higher cost harder to produce extra capacity BD50 has provided zero advantage to BD so far.

Storage capacity is an ever rapidly evolving business we see big advances every day. Criticizing Toshiba or anyone for developing a higher and easier to manufacture HD DVD TL disc is hardly admirable of you.

Further, your statement of PS3 being used to play BD discs is very clearly an exageration of the actual facts. No doubt many PS3 owners will use their consoles to play BD movies, but the percentages will continue to be very low and the amount of BD usage of those who chose to play BD discs will also be very low. Of course, I understand many folks purchase their PS3 just as a BD player, but they are also a tiny minority of the actual PS3 customers.

Consider these factors:
1. PS3S are not attached to the main HDTV in most homes.
2. PS3 was bundled with a very poorly mastered BD disc, which will do very little to encourage their viewers to get the wow factor.
3. The overwhelming majority of PS3 owners have no interest in watching BD HD movies whatsoever.
4. Actual sell-through to the end users is far less than the unit sales volume Sony shipped to distributors, whorehouses and retailers. Far, far less.

Most serious movie watchers purchase full featured stand alone players so they can enjoy all of the rich features like high quality up-converting of their SD DVD library and all of the advanced audio codec.

Sorry to dispute your post, but I feel compelled to share with the AVS Forum members and visitors some of the factors that effect these one sided posts.

One major difference I have vs. any other poster is that I chose HD DVD by my sincere and professional decision. My company sells BD and HD DVD and from a purely business decision I would clearly chose BD as the profits are infinitely higher. However, in my way of thinking the truth must prevail.

-Robert

4. Actual sell-through to the end users is far less than the unit sales volume Sony shipped to distributors, whorehouses and retailers. Far, far less.
-Robert

Bob, I know your opinion of Sony and BD etal. is pretty low, but that's taking it a bit far... :D

Rest up guy, and let the meds wear-off... :)

b2b

4. Actual sell-through to the end users is far less than the unit sales volume Sony shipped to distributors, whorehouses and retailers. Far, far less.



If I were to go to a whorehouse -- it wouldn't be to play a PS3 :D

PS: I hope you are feeling better Robert.

An annualized attach rate of 13 isn't close to what you were using when you used 13 as an average for all players (even ones sold the day before Christmas). If the average owner buying this year owns it 6 months and 1.8 million are sold, an average of 13 for new owners in their first year would end up at around 12.6 million discs total, if we skewed it to use 7 in their first 6 months. Even at $25 per disc that would only be $315 million. Are the 175k+ owners from 2006 going to buy $285 million in software in 2007? That would be an average of around $1500 worth of software just in 2007 using your $25 per disc average.

The above even assumes close to 2 million total (1.8 million this year and 175k+ last year), and you said, "The 1.2 million HD DVD players seems high...".
If HD DVD doesn't sell more players in December than in March of this year, then it will probably be an indicator that they are in trouble going into 2008. I have a feeling that when we get to the middle of the year your position will be that HD DVD will sell more players in the 2nd half of the year than they did in the first half. Do you disagree?

--Darin I was deliberately showing a conservative estimate on the attach rate and flat sales pace. I believe it will be much higher than that, but the point was it could be reached with a conservative estimate.

I wasn't really trying to make a prediction, I was just trying to figure out if the Toshiba and HD DVD estimates were even possible or if they were as absurd as some of the Sony predictions we have seen. I think they are agressive and possibly optimistic but entirely possible.

Personally, I think HD DVD will sell more than 1.2 million players this year. (Toshiba 2nd Gen and Xbox 360) I also believe they will sell more movies than Blu-ray and movie sales for HD DVD will total over $500 million in sales.

your position will be that HD DVD will sell more players in the 2nd half of the year than they did in the first half. Do you disagree? No I agree that HD DVD sales will generally increase over time, but there will be a large boost in the spring, whether there is a slowdown in summer, I don't know.

Are the 175k+ owners from 2006 going to buy $285 million in software in 2007? I think the 175,000 2006 HD DVD owners will buy 24 movies per year x $25 each title for at last an estimated $105 million.

Bob, I know your opinion of Sony and BD etal. is pretty low, but that's taking it a bit far... :D

Rest up guy, and let the meds wear-off... :)

b2b


:eek: :eek:

I can't believe we were thinking the same thing! ;)

Actual sell-through to the end users is far less than the unit sales volume Sony shipped to distributors, whorehouses and retailers. Far, far less.
Bob, I know your opinion of Sony and BD etal. is pretty low, but that's taking it a bit far... :D

Rest up guy, and let the meds wear-off... :)

b2b He's still thinking on how he got screwed :D on the Blu-ray player returns that they wouldn't credit back to his business. ;)

He's still thinking on how he got screwed :D on the Blu-ray player returns that they wouldn't credit back to his business. ;)

Well it could be you two boys had a wee bit too much fun in Vegas.. Freudian slip ? What's the wifes emails...??

I'll give the both of you two hours head start so y'all can get your stories straight... ;)

b2b

I was deliberately showing a conservative estimate on the attach rate and flat sales pace. I believe it will be much higher than that, but the point was it could be reached with a conservative estimate.You think 13 non-annualized (which is way more than 13 annualized) was conservative? Okay, what do you think the annualized attach rate for people buying players this year will be, without being conservative? You haven't shown that it could be reached with a conservative estimate. At least not yet. If you want to give a real annualized attach rate and can get to $600 million while being realistic, I would like to see it.
Personally, I think HD DVD will sell more than 1.2 million players this year.So, which is it? Before I pointed out that you seemed to be using an annualized attach rate as if it was a non-annualized rate (when you used 20 per player sold for 2007) you said, "The 1.2 million HD DVD players seems high...". Is 1.2 million high in your opinion like you said then, or not? If not, what changed your mind?
I think the 175,000 2006 HD DVD owners will buy 24 movies per year x $25 each title for at last an estimated $105 million.That leaves $495 million from people buying players throughout 2007 to hit $600 million.

--Darin

AnthonyP we have not had a HD DVD movie that needed anything larger than the DL 30 GB HD DVD disc.And how did you decide this? Did you take into account that King Kong had the IME removed in Europe with space (and bandwidth) taken up by more audio tracks? Or do you believe that the reason they removed the IME was because it would have required translating (even though Europe has gotten IME for at least one other title)? Maybe you ignore how Universal announced TrueHD for "Miami Vice" and then went without it. Gullible people can believe some of the spin about space or bandwidth having nothing to do with some of these things, just like they can believe that BD50s were "science fiction" just a year ago, if they choose to.

That said, I agree that nothing "needed" the things that 50 or 51GB discs with a 1.5x spin rate would provide as long as we agree that things like real lossless audio (not cut part of the audio off and then encode the rest as lossless) aren't "needed".
Every HD DVD two disc movie also required two BD 50 discs to produce...As far as I know MI:3 was two BD25s, so your statement isn't true if that is right.
Further, your statement of PS3 being used to play BD discs is very clearly an exageration of the actual facts. No doubt many PS3 owners will use their consoles to play BD movies, but the percentages will continue to be very low and the amount of BD usage of those who chose to play BD discs will also be very low. Of course, I understand many folks purchase their PS3 just as a BD player, but they are also a tiny minority of the actual PS3 customers.

Consider these factors:
1. PS3S are not attached to the main HDTV in most homes.
2. PS3 was bundled with a very poorly mastered BD disc, which will do very little to encourage their viewers to get the wow factor.
3. The overwhelming majority of PS3 owners have no interest in watching BD HD movies whatsoever.
4. Actual sell-through to the end users is far less than the unit sales volume Sony shipped to distributors, whorehouses and retailers. Far, far less.For those who claim that only a tiny minority of PS3 owners use it for movies, I have one question. Then why don't HD DVD sales look better in comparison? Just think about it. If a person claims that BD stand-alone players are very low and the number of PS3s being used for BD movies is very low, then BD movie sales must suck and by comparison HD DVD movie sales must suck for indicators out there not to show HD DVD movie sales beating them handily.

So Robert, do you feel like BD movie sales are poor right now? Do you feel that HD DVD movie sales are poor right now?

--Darin

Most serious movie watchers purchase full featured stand alone players so they can enjoy all of the rich features like high quality up-converting of their SD DVD library and all of the advanced audio codec.


But somehow they don't already have a high quality up-converting DVD player? I'm still using mine.

And just how serious are they if they are willing to give up HD content from five major studios?

Gary

Kosty. You are obviously a smart guy. I don't understand why you sometimes seem to fall into the HD DVD PR trap. For over a year and a half we have heard from Toshiba dn other insiders how TL45 was easy possible and will be soon added to the specs. Now all of a sudden it is "no it was never our intent because 45 was not good enough but we will have TL 51 that will be added to the specs". Well, first I am partial when I see any organization under promise and over deliver. I have more faith in that organizations promises. My fur raises and I get suspicious when I see marketing hype that is misleading consumers and I see continuous spin and missed promises.

You tend to be doubtful of BD predictions no matter how obvious they are

- PS3 will be used for movies and when it comes out BD will take the lead
- BD50 is in the spec and manufacturers will make those disks. I think that it is absurd to assume that all PS3's will be used for Blu-ray playback. Some will , most won't . For Andy Parsons and the BDA to imply otherwise is spin. They know better. I know better. So do you.

but at the same time you have full and blind confidence in stuff like
- even though TL45 was promised and never added (or demonstrated for that matter) TL51 will be added to the specs soon I think that the physics and mechanical process engineering here is in HD DVDs favor. There are simply great tolerances to engineer. If the will exists, its an easier problem than others that Blu-ray has overcome.

- even though HD DVD has never come close to DVD numbers HD DVDs big jump that will make DVD look like a joke is right around the corner. HD DVD has not ever, not even once in its introduction, ever had a time until now that its inventory was not limited. The HD A2's are the first players that are available in quantity, not just onsies and tousies, on retail shelves. The HD A1 wasn't even sold at Circuit City!. I also know that the HD DVD PRG and Toshiba have just started to spend promotion and advertising dollars. They have been dormant so far.

I also have seen some of the new HD DVD promotional materials including a slick glossy paper 8 page color brochures that will be on point of sale distribution in a few weeks.

I also see a possibility for HD DVD player price reductions that will be far lower than DVD was this early in their life cycles.

Also HD TV sales are taking off and lower priced HD DVD players are a natural combination for that.

Kosty. You are obviously a smart guy. I don't understand why you sometimes seem to fall into the HD DVD PR trap So I'm a guy who understands PR spin and marketing BS. To me its Blu-ray that is guilty of those sins, not HD DVD. If anything, I see the HD DVD PRG and Toshiba even underestimating sales volumes and title releases.

And last, but not least, HD DVD players have performed for me and others.

My personal experience and the shared experience of other users in HD DVD PQ and AQ as well as superior DVD upconversion has proven to me that HD DVD is the more elegant engineering solution, that 30GB and VC-1 can do the job, that more smaller replicators can bring HD content to market sooner.

When I see my experiences discounted, by some that don't even own a HD player, or I get told BS from BDA spokesmen (codec Ameoba's anyone?) I wonder why the lies or spin or empty promises are required?

To me, at this moment, both formats can deliver equally stunning HD performance, if they are done right. But HD DVD is less complex and simpler to execute both hardware and software wise. simpler easy to use tools, less replication complexity, less probable cost.

All things considered, if both formats give equal quality, then quicker to market, faster to be adopted, cheaper for consumers, cheaper for replicators, cheaper for manufacturers seems to me to be the better solution.

Extra storage and bandwidth is secondary if it is not needed, and studio support will follow the money.

Kosty. You are obviously a smart guy. I don't understand why you sometimes seem to fall into the HD DVD PR trap So in short, I don't think I've been hypnotized by HD DVD spin. I just think I've been immune to Blu-ray spin. When I look past the PR, I see performance. In HD DVDs case its better performance at a lessor price.

BTW, I think that their have been other reasons for the lack of TL implementation, including lack of interest. Maybe Toshiba even knew TL51 was possible, so it didn;t want to introduce 45 GB to the specs. It doesn't seen to be as tough to create as BD 50s to make from a science and engineering perspective. So I tend to give a bit of slack to the HD DVD insiders on this one. HD DVDs even TL ones are just closer to DVDs in their physical characteristics and replicators can make those for dimes and pennies in mass quantities in any flavor.

- I think studio canal is HD DVD only
- In MGM/Warner did you make sure to put some of the pre 86 MGM as MGM and not Warner. As mentioned before most of the large franchises (like Rocky, Bond....) were not sold to Warner
- Weinstein looks too big

Thanks for the feedback AnthonyP. I'll look into Studio Canal. Do you know how I can get a list or filter out the pre 86 MGM content that MGM held onto? As for Weinstein, that's what IMDB says for them when I put them in as a distributor. Unfortunately I don't know how accurate IMDB actually is. Sometimes you get what you pay for. ;)

Kosty. You are obviously a smart guy. I don't understand why you sometimes seem to fall into the HD DVD PR trap. BTW, Anthony out of all of the pro Blu-ray regulars here, I appreciate your postings the most.

You bring a rational devil's advocate position and can explain the real advantages of Blu-ray well.

I agree with your logic in most cases and I can following your reasoning , even when I don't agree with your conclusions.

I want to support Blu-ray. I think Blu-ray will be around for a long time adn I want it to improve. Its just that as a passionate HD supporter and home theater fanatic I am now convinced that HD DVD is the best way to bring that HD goodness to the masses as quickly as possible.

Somewhere in that article they mention that all HD-DVD discs would have been combos if they had the replication lines to do it. That's why I don't pay much attention to all of the "but, HD-DVD discs are cheaper to replicate..." talking points of the HD-DVD crowd. Combos, the new Total HD discs and TL51 are going be just as expensive as BD discs (if not more) and twice the headache to get good yields.

b2b I stand by the assumption that HD DVD discs are cheaper to replicate as a rule. DL30s and 30/9 Combos aer probably within pennies of DVD9s. All that changes there is the mastering of the data layer which has smaller pit/,ands adn a tighter pitch. Thats commodity level technology.

TL 45/51 's are more difficult, but still based on proven technology, The problem is probably not reliable consistent replication but legacy player support.

Total HD discs are going to be cheap on the HD DVD side and expensive on the Blu-ray side. Those will be the most expensive discs probably of either format.

Blu-ray DL50 and SL25 are probably past their teething problems, but their limited number of tightly controlled mastering facilities and replication lines make them more expensive. Plus their replication is still not at the maturity of DVD replication in reject rates etc. Thus they cost more. Just because BD50's are showing up doesn't mean they can be produced in DVD level mass quantities yet.

TL 45/51 's are more difficult, but still based on proven technology, The problem is probably not reliable consistent replication but legacy player support.


The alignment requirement is brand new. Seems tricky to me.

If I tell you, you need to stamp aligned layers on a fixed target, you probably see that as being fairly easy. Now, if I tell you to glue two seperate 1/2 discs back to back AND align one layer of one to the other two layers of the other?

AFAIK nobody has ever done that.

Gary

.....So in short, I don't think I've been hypnotized by HD DVD spin. I just think I've been immune to Blu-ray spin. When I look past the PR, I see performance. In HD DVDs case its better performance at a lessor price.......

I have to agree. I've written about my own perpsective in the past which is similar to yours.

There a re a number of factors, obviously, but one of them is that I find the sales and marketing approach of the Blu-Ray companies regretable. It's a collection of many of the bad stereotypes that give people in sales and marketing a bad name.

Well it could be you two boys had a wee bit too much fun in Vegas.. Freudian slip ? What's the wifes emails...??

I'll give the both of you two hours head start so y'all can get your stories straight... ;)

b2b Hey now, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" :D

...actually , I believe his better half and family was with him for most of his trip, or at least for most of his free time. ;)

Weinstein Co. stuff before last year is still with Disney.

When Sony bought into MGM the articles claimed MGM had 4400 titles in its vault.

Gary

So Weinstein should only include titles from 1/1/06 and later? Is that the right date, or is there a different date?

But somehow they don't already have a high quality up-converting DVD player? I'm still using mine.

And just how serious are they if they are willing to give up HD content from five major studios?

Gary
Good points.

So Weinstein should only include titles from 1/1/06 and later? Is that the right date, or is there a different date?

According to the Wikipedia entry "Derailed" was their first independent release.

Gary

Bob, I know your opinion of Sony and BD etal. is pretty low, but that's taking it a bit far... :D

Rest up guy, and let the meds wear-off... :)

b2b
Just to set the record straight I very highly regard Pioneer, Panasonic and Sony. They are clearly among the very best CE companies.

I do not believe we need two competing optical HD formats and HD DVD is clearly better, easier to make hardware and software and lower cost to the consumer. Absolutely no need for a more difficult and more expensive second format.

-Robert

You think 13 non-annualized (which is way more than 13 annualized) was conservative? Okay, what do you think the annualized attach rate for people buying players this year will be, without being conservative? You haven't shown that it could be reached with a conservative estimate. At least not yet. If you want to give a real annualized attach rate and can get to $600 million while being realistic, I would like to see it. I think the Toshiba estimate is high. My previous chart showed cumulative sales with each months new owners and previous owners buying 2 discs a month.

So, which is it? Before I pointed out that you seemed to be using an annualized attach rate as if it was a non-annualized rate (when you used 20 per player sold for 2007) you said, "The 1.2 million HD DVD players seems high...". Is 1.2 million high in your opinion like you said then, or not? If not, what changed your mind?--Darin I was trying to show that the Toshiba estimate was order of magnitude possible. I personally think it seems 1.2 M or more seens high, but doable. But the Toshiba and HD DVD execs may know more than I do. :rolleyes: I just see signs for explosive HD DVD sales growth. Whether or not it can reach those levels, I am unsure of.

That leaves $495 million from people buying players throughout 2007 to hit $600 million. Yep. I think that' s a very optimistic number.

My personal prediction would be $500 million in total HD DVD sales.

Hey now, "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" :D

...actually , I believe his better half and family was with him for most of his trip, or at least for most of his free time. ;)

Correct, I traveled with my wife and three children. We got to Vegas a few days early, stayed in a terrific resort and had a very lovely family vacation.

My family went to the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD and the winner is... conference session I was a board member and presenter of and enjoyed the CES Show as well.

-Robert

Or do you believe that the reason they removed the IME was because it would have required translating ?
--Darin
Why do you believe it wasn't removed for that reason? Can they (BD or HD) have multiple language dubbed IME? Can they even sub-title IME?

Still interesting how many tout BD capacity when it is rarely effectively used or needed. They would like us to believe it is a magnitude of improvement over HD, when at best it's fractional.

But somehow they don't already have a high quality up-converting DVD player? I'm still using mine.

And just how serious are they if they are willing to give up HD content from five major studios?

Gary

I guess that HD-DVD will make it up being billed as "The Porn Format".. I just can't wait until AP or Reuters picks up on HD-DVD being selected as the "Porn Format" and plasters it in the newspapers coast to coast. ;)

I can hear it now...

Husband: "Honey, I'm going to Best Buy to pick up one of those new HD-DVD players.."
Wife: "Over my dead body will you bring that filth into this house with me and the kids !!! "
Husband: "What do you mean.. ?? It's just an fancy DVD player for the new HDTV"
Wife: "That's not what the ladies at Church said. They read in the papers that it was the new Porn Format !! "
Husband: "Well that's not right.. They have movies just like DVD, but they look better.. "
Wife: "I don't care what they say... Does it have Disney movies for the kids to watch ???"
Husband: "Well no, Disney doesn't make movies for HD-DVD.."
Wife: "See what I told you.. If Disney won't make movies for it, something's wrong.. It's the Porn Fromat. It was in all the papers..."
Husband: "OK, I'll get a PS3 if I can find one, it plays Disney movies and they say it will have some cool Internet features for little Suzy, like "Jasmine's Tea Party" and it costs the same as the cheap HD-DVD players.
Wife: "That sounds better anyway. If it can play games and Disney movies for the same price why would you even think about buying some silly "Porn" DVD player.. Just what were you thinking ??

b2b

According to the Wikipedia entry "Derailed" was their first independent release.

Gary

Thanks, if the number for Weinstein is off I dont't think it's by a lot. Derailed is listed as 2005 along with 13 other titles, one of which is Matador. The rest of the titles are newer (except for a TV show called Off the Hook from 1999).

Keep in mind that IMDB shows titles that are currently in production. I think it's fair to leave those in for all of the studios, or I could go back and strip them out from all of the studios.

I guess that HD-DVD will make it up being billed as "The Porn Format".. I just can't wait until AP or Reuters picks up on HD-DVD being selected as the "Porn Format" and plasters it in the newspapers coast to coast. ;)


Yeah. All this excitement about being big with porn that is recorded at 720p or 1080i compressed on cheap HD cameras, is hardly the recipe for mainstream HD disc success. Somehow THAT will show stunning differences to the DVDs made from the same source?

Chicken and egg. The primary use is Hollywood. The secondary use is other stuff (Dora, Blue Clues and [I can't believe I'm saying this together] porn).

Gary

And how did you decide this? Did you take into account that King Kong had the IME removed in Europe with space (and bandwidth) taken up by more audio tracks? Or do you believe that the reason they removed the IME was because it would have required translating (even though Europe has gotten IME for at least one other title)? Maybe you ignore how Universal announced TrueHD for "Miami Vice" and then went without it. I think there could be other reasons including translation issues , consistency and time to market considerations. Specific authoring decisions could be made for various reasons.

Gullible people can believe some of the spin about space or bandwidth having nothing to do with some of these things, just like they can believe that BD50s were "science fiction" just a year ago, if they choose to. I'm not that gullible, its that I'm not that riled up about HD DVD;s lesser specs. Its clear that Blu-ray has an advantage with 50 GB discs here in both capacity and bandwidth. Its just that currently BD50' still aren't the standard and Blu-ray studios may still have an economical reasons to release on SL25. I also think that for most scenarios DL30 and VC-1 can more than do the job or a second disc can be used. I really don't care that much about a zillion alternative audio tracks, if the OAR and original language is present. I'm just not as worked up about it as you are. :)

The secondary use is other stuff (Dora, Blue Clues and [I can't believe I'm saying this together] porn). :eek:


ROFLMAO :D

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/19/HNnopornonbluray_1.html

Sorry, I just had to quote that out of context.

(Ok, I'll go back to football now)

But somehow they don't already have a high quality up-converting DVD player? I'm still using mine.

And just how serious are they if they are willing to give up HD content from five major studios?

Gary

There are a few exclusive HD DVD studios as well. This two format situation is ridiculous and hurts consumers, CE manufacturers and studios.

Many of my thousands of customers tell me they enjoy the excellent up-converting quality of all exclusive BD studios they want by watching the SD DVD version. Many others have purchased both player formats.

Up-conversion on a HD DVD player rivals most up-converting SD DVD players.

Once one format prevails all studios will make HD optical discs, if it's HD DVD or BD at the end all studios will be making discs for the prevailing format winner.

-Robert

I guess that HD-DVD will make it up being billed as "The Porn Format".. I just can't wait until AP or Reuters picks up on HD-DVD being selected as the "Porn Format" and plasters it in the newspapers coast to coast. ;)

I can hear it now...

Husband: "Honey, I'm going to Best Buy to pick up one of those new HD-DVD players.."
Wife: "Over my dead body will you bring that filth into this house with me and the kids !!! "
Husband: "What do you mean.. ?? It's just an fancy DVD player for the new HDTV"
Wife: "That's not what the ladies at Church said. They read in the papers that it was the new Porn Format !! "
Husband: "Well that's not right.. They have movies just like DVD, but they look better.. "
Wife: "I don't care what they say... Does it have Disney movies for the kids to watch ???"
Husband: "Well no, Disney doesn't make movies for HD-DVD.."
Wife: "See what I told you.. If Disney won't make movies for it, something's wrong.. It's the Porn Fromat. It was in all the papers..."
Husband: "OK, I'll get a PS3 if I can find one, it plays Disney movies and they say it will have some cool Internet features for little Suzy, like "Jasmine's Tea Party" and it costs the same as the cheap HD-DVD players.
Wife: "That sounds better anyway. If it can play games and Disney movies for the same price why would you even think about buying some silly "Porn" DVD player.. Just what were you thinking ??

b2b


Yeah, cuz we have the precedent of this exact scenario having been played out millions of times with VHS and Beta, right?........And I suppose the "typical" family doesn't subscribe to an online service, because they are notorious conduits for sexually explicit media? Or perhaps we're to accept the chauvinistic premise that "decent" women don't enjoy porn? Uh huh. Sorry, but this is wishful thinking, at its' silliest.

Just to set the record straight I very highly regard Pioneer, Panasonic and Sony. They are clearly among the very best CE companies.

I do not believe we need two competing optical HD formats and HD DVD is clearly better, easier to make hardware and software and lower cost to the consumer. Absolutely no need for a more difficult and more expensive second format.

-Robert

Just poking a bit of humor at your typo... no worries.. :)

"Better" is a highly subjective term. Better to me is seeing the best that HW technology can offer vs. the cheapest "good enough" to get by with. Just for once I would like to see just the slightest bit of industrial strength engineering make it into a consumer product vs. the bean counters idea of "Better".

HD-DVD is as "penny wise and pound foolish" as I have seen in a long time.. ;)

b2b

Thanks for the feedback AnthonyP. I'll look into Studio Canal. Do you know how I can get a list or filter out the pre 86 MGM content that MGM held onto? As for Weinstein, that's what IMDB says for them when I put them in as a distributor. Unfortunately I don't know how accurate IMDB actually is. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

For MGM you might want to try searching for an aricle on what hppened when Turner bought part of MGM. If you are lucky it might have the division.


For Weinstein there issues

When they left Disney in 2005 they left almost everything except for a hand full of Dimension titles. that is why the 109 does not sound right (the number should be closer to 19 then 109


PS I checked out IMDB, you might want to rerun the numbers and stick -2006 in the date field. On the large studios it won't make a difference but on something like this it does. The issue is that they can't release on HD DVD (or others on BDs) movies that have not even been produced or filmed yet. And in 2010 (some of the titles) there might not even be a format war and we might all be laughing about some of the debates we had in 2006/2007

I guess that HD-DVD will make it up being billed as "The Porn Format".. I just can't wait until AP or Reuters picks up on HD-DVD being selected as the "Porn Format" and plasters it in the newspapers coast to coast. ;)

I can hear it now...

Husband: "Honey, I'm going to Best Buy to pick up one of those new HD-DVD players.."
Wife: "Over my dead body will you bring that filth into this house with me and the kids !!! "
Husband: "What do you mean.. ?? It's just an fancy DVD player for the new HDTV"
Wife: "That's not what the ladies at Church said. They read in the papers that it was the new Porn Format !! "
Husband: "Well that's not right.. They have movies just like DVD, but they look better.. "
Wife: "I don't care what they say... Does it have Disney movies for the kids to watch ???"
Husband: "Well no, Disney doesn't make movies for HD-DVD.."
Wife: "See what I told you.. If Disney won't make movies for it, something's wrong.. It's the Porn Fromat. It was in all the papers..."
Husband: "OK, I'll get a PS3 if I can find one, it plays Disney movies and they say it will have some cool Internet features for little Suzy, like "Jasmine's Tea Party" and it costs the same as the cheap HD-DVD players.
Wife: "That sounds better anyway. If it can play games and Disney movies for the same price why would you even think about buying some silly "Porn" DVD player.. Just what were you thinking ??

b2b

I really don't see it, and here's why. Most people haven't heard of either format. Of the ones who have heard about either format, it's much more likely that it's the husband who has. It takes lots and lots of repition to seep into the public consciousness. That's why add campaigns are so expensive. One Reuters/AP story will make practically no impact.

Anecodtal story break. I had lunch with a coworker who isn't local but was in town for a meeting. He bought a 1080p HD TV earlier this year. He's heard about both formats, but bought a cheap DVD player with HDMI for the time being because he thought it would be very expensive to get into either of the new formats. I told him he was wrong, and ran through all of his options, including the PS3. Two reactions......I din't know I could get an HD-DVD player at such a low price........really, the PS3 can play Blu-Ray?

Clearly both sides have more work to do when a guy making lots of money who just bought a 1080p tv doesn't know this.

So let me offer up some likely scenarios. And forgive me up front if I seem mysogynistic, but my wife has pointed out to me numerous times the gender make up of both audiophiles and videophiles.

First off, the "I'm going to go buy a new player", is a non starter for most households. That's followed by...what's wrong with our old player, you're crazy don't waste the money. Have you cleaned out the gutters like I asked you to?

Scenario #1 (does not require kids)

Husband: Honey when we buy the new TV we're going to need a new DVD player to go with it.
Wife: What, why can't we use the DVD player we have now?
Husband: These new HD TV's have different inputs and connectors. Our DVD player is old and it won't work with it.
Wife: How much is this going to cost us?
Husband: I'll make sure it's under $500.
Wife: Ok, but this TV is getting more expensive by the minute.

Or modify above scenarios with, there's a special discount on a new player with the TV we 're going to buy. The above scenario also works for BD, but the stand alone prices are higher, and thus a tougher sell. You could potentially insert the PS3 in this scenario, but then your wife might get suspicious that this is all some big excuse for you to buy a game console.

Scenario #2 (Kid required, works better with a son)

Husband: Honey I've got the perfect birthday gift for Johny. I'm going to get him a PS3. He's really been wanting one and his grades are good.
Wife: Are you sure?
Husband: I'm positive, plus we'll have fun playing games together. It'll be a bonding thing.
Wife: I don't know, that's an expensive gift.
Husband: Count it as my birthday gift this year too.
Wife: Ok, If you two want it that much.

The above scenario could work equally well with the Xbox360. Just slip the add on in as one of the accessories that you "really need" with the system.

For MGM you might want to try searching for an aricle on what hppened when Turner bought part of MGM. If you are lucky it might have the division.


For Weinstein there issues

When they left Disney in 2005 they left almost everything except for a hand full of Dimension titles. that is why the 109 does not sound right (the number should be closer to 19 then 109


PS I checked out IMDB, you might want to rerun the numbers and stick -2006 in the date field. On the large studios it won't make a difference but on something like this it does. The issue is that they can't release on HD DVD (or others on BDs) movies that have not even been produced or filmed yet. And in 2010 (some of the titles) there might not even be a format war and we might all be laughing about some of the debates we had in 2006/2007

That goes back to my previous post on this subject. Should I strip out all of the tiles in production for all of the studios? I can do that (when I get some time), but I'm not sure that really alters the picture.

Yeah, cuz we have the precedent of this exact scenario having been played out millions of times with VHS and Beta, right?........And I suppose the "typical" family doesn't subscribe to an online service, because they are notorious conduits for sexually explicit media? Or perhaps we're to accept the chauvinistic premise that "decent" women don't enjoy porn?

Uh huh. Sorry, but this is wishful thinking, at its' silliest. ..kinda summarizes a lot of the posts in this thread in a nutshell. :)

I really don't see it, and here's why. Most people haven't heard of either format.

But everyone has heard of "Porn". And if you associate "Porn" with HD-DVD and associate "Disney" with family entertainment and Blu-Ray, then wave the Red Flag of "Porn" in front of a bunch of church ladies, guess which one gets thrown out with the trash... ;)

Have you ever been in a suburban community when some porn shop tries to open up ?? It's in the papers, on the 6 o'clock news and county commisioners vow to never let it happen... ;)

b2b

Well, first I am partial when I see any organization under promise and over deliver. I have more faith in that organizations promises. My fur raises and I get suspicious when I see marketing hype that is misleading consumers and I see continuous spin and missed promises.


exactly it is not as if every HD DVD insider (or the HD DVD PRG) has not talked about TL45, have said it will soon be added to spec……. and none of it happened. Why are you so convinced this time it is any more true?

I think that it is absurd to assume that all PS3's will be used for Blu-ray playback. Some will , most won't . For Andy Parsons and the BDA to imply otherwise is spin. They know better. I know better. So do you.

I don’t remember him saying every and my post definitely did not mean to imply every. I hope you have read enough of my posts in the past to know as much. The point was always that if we assume 1M PS3 were sold in 2006, 25% (or close to that) brings PS3 users close to that of HD DVD.

I think that the physics and mechanical process engineering here is in HD DVDs favor. There are simply great tolerances to engineer. If the will exists, its an easier problem than others that Blu-ray has overcome.

TL is harder then DL BD50, the issue is not even physics (I don’t think it is that incredible or sci-fi) the issue is like you said “if the will exists”, it was not there when Toshiba first talked about it in mid 2005, it was not there when they talked about it at CEDIA it was not there when they talked about it last CES it was not there when they added it to the HD DVD web site (with tested)….. If there was no will when it was easy (before players and compatibility issues) why will it be easier today?

So I'm a guy who understands PR spin and marketing BS. To me its Blu-ray that is guilty of those sins, not HD DVD. If anything, I see the HD DVD PRG and Toshiba even underestimating sales volumes and title releases

that is the difference between both of us I see and usually recognize the BS from either side

BTW, I think that their have been other reasons for the lack of TL implementation, including lack of interest. Maybe Toshiba even knew TL51 was possible, so it didn’t want to introduce 45 GB to the specs.
so you think 45 was BS just to buy time until the 51? Interesting. How do you know that the 51 is not BS buying time for the 60gb QL?

It doesn't seen to be as tough to create as BD 50s to make from a science and engineering perspective.
can I ask what you do and you are an expert on the manufacturability of the disks and players that can read them?


HD DVDs even TL ones are just closer to DVDs in their physical characteristics and replicators can make those for dimes and pennies in mass quantities in any flavor.

but TL SS DVDs were never manufactured. Each layer highly slows down the process and highly increases rejects. Think about it. It is easy to say DL is like DVD that exists and making a parallel but 2x2, TL all of these are not the same.

BTW, Anthony out of all of the pro Blu-ray regulars here, I appreciate your postings the most.

You bring a rational devil's advocate position and can explain the real advantages of Blu-ray well.

I agree with your logic in most cases and I can following your reasoning , even when I don't agree with your conclusions.

same here

Scenario #1 (does not require kids)

Husband: Honey when we buy the new TV we're going to need a new DVD player to go with it.
Wife: What, why can't we use the DVD player we have now?
Husband: These new HD TV's have different inputs and connectors. Our DVD player is old and it won't work with it.
Wife: How much is this going to cost us?
Husband: I'll make sure it's under $500.
Wife: Ok, but this TV is getting more expensive by the minute.

I'll get a new HD DVD player to go along with the new HDTV.

(Its costs less than half the price of the new HDTV)

vs.

I'll get a new Blu-ray player to go along with the new HDTV?

(It costs the same or more than the new HDTV, unless I get the new $499 or $599 "Play"station 3)


Which one has a higher WAF and is an easier sell?

Well, first I am partial when I see any organization under promise and over deliver. I have more faith in that organizations promises. My fur raises and I get suspicious when I see marketing hype that is misleading consumers and I see continuous spin and missed promises.


300 titles
Cheap Chinese players.
Onkyo
Meridian
Toshiba burner drive
TL51
2.5 million player sales in 2007

These are the promises. You figure they will over deliver?

The A2 was two months late.
The HD DVD PRG promised 200 titles in North America in 2006
Toshiba said in 2005 there would be burners on the market in Spring 2006
Toshiba claimed 300K Toshiba stand-alone players would sell in 2006

They overdelivered?

I think you selectively filter and declare HD DVD accomplishing all its goals, and BD failing at all its.

300 titles
Cheap Chinese players.
Onkyo
Meridian
Toshiba burner drive
TL51
2.5 million player sales in 2007

These are the promises. You figure they will over deliver?

Gary

by the end of 2007

Yes on 300 + titles Chinese players, Onkyo, Meridian, Toshisba Burner Drive, TL51 proposed

No on 2,5 million in new HD DVD players sales, even including Xbox 360 add ons

2.5 million player sales in 2007 Who promised that? I don't recall seeing that even as a optimistic suggestion by any HD DVD or Toshiba spokesman or insider. Half of that would be good for HD DVD.

But everyone has heard of "Porn". And if you associate "Porn" with HD-DVD and associate "Disney" with family entertainment and Blu-Ray, then wave the Red Flag of "Porn" in front of a bunch of church ladies, guess which one gets thrown out with the trash... ;)

Have you ever been in a suburban community when some porn shop tries to open up ?? It's in the papers, on the 6 o'clock news and county commisioners vow to never let it happen... ;)

b2b

Were the flags of porn being waved when VHS emerged? Did the church ladies go with BETA instead?

I think there could be other reasons including translation issues , consistency and time to market considerations. Specific authoring decisions could be made for various reasons.

the only issues with that is that

1) the work was already done for the US version

2) DVDs might not have had PiP commentary (OK some did) but they did have audio only commentary. So why would it be a bigger issue for HD DVD then DVD

Who promised that? I don't recall seeing that even as a optimistic suggestion by any HD DVD or Toshiba spokesman or insider. Half of that would be good for HD DVD.

What did I just say about you filtering? Here's the HD DVD PRG's press release:

Consumers Connect with HD DVD Brand, Driving Hardware and Movie Sales
(http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-07-2007/0004501052&EDATE=)


"With the addition of new consumer electronics companies to HD DVD,
we're predicting more than 2.5 million units in the market by the end of
2007," stated Yoshihide Fujii, president and CEO of Toshiba's Digital Media
Network Company.


Under-promise and over-deliver? Or will HD DVD folk ignore this and claim whatever happens was over-delivery?

Gary

The A2 was two months late.
The HD DVD PRG promised 200 titles in North America in 2006
Toshiba said in 2005 there would be burners on the market in Spring 2006
Toshiba claimed 300K Toshiba stand-alone players would sell in 2006

They overdelivered? They did not actively promise those dates to investors and the press such as Sony did with the PS3. You're not comparing the month or so slippage of the "second generation " HD DVD players for a QC fix with the years of PS3 delay are you??

The others estimates were not as off as the PS3 and Blu-ray estimates, and were not as openly trumpeted as the Blu-ray estimates were.

When you say the HD DVD or Toshiba said, go back and look at the wordings of the formal press releases. They are much more nuanced in the fact that many of those items were estimates or projections.

Market sales and future predictions are a different thing than deliberately misleading consumers.

I still think HD DVD has a better performance to hype ratio than Blu-ray.

Same or Better Performance + Lower Cost = Better Value

What did I just say about you filtering? Here's the HD DVD PRG's press release:

Consumers Connect with HD DVD Brand, Driving Hardware and Movie Sales
(http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/01-07-2007/0004501052&EDATE=)
Under-promise and over-deliver? Or will HD DVD folk ignore this and claim whatever happens was over-delivery?

Gary

Using Nielsen data and retailer reports for title sales to date,
the HD DVD studios projected an annualized attach rate of 28 movies per
player. Based on an expected install base of more than 2.5 million players
by the end of 2007, the HD DVD Promotional Group estimates HD DVD movie
title sales to exceed $600 million in North America for 2007. This is more
than 40 times the revenue accrued in 2006 by the format,
Its a carefully worded estimate, a projection where even its assumptions are stated precisely.

Even with 170,000 HD DVD players sold in 2006 and 500,000 Xbox 360 sales in 2007 , I think that 1.8 million is a very high estimate for HD DVD sales.

But again, that's not a promise, its an estimate or projection of the future. Its an estimate , I don't count that as over or under delivering. Some time delays in meeting sales projection sor product launch estimates are ok, performance problems are not.

Overdelivering is giving me Dolby True HD 5.1 support in a 4th firmware update and super upconversion for DVD's I didn't expect or superb audio circuits in my HD XA1 so that my CD's sounded amazing. Having more high quality titles on the street sooner, even with less announced studio support. Using DL 30 GB discs with VC-1 out of the gate. At prices less than I expected.

Underdelivery is releasing stand alone players that won't play CD's or a cheaper one that won't upconvert DVDs, or having the first player in the format shipped with a faulty PQ circuit, or with the first discs on the street to look poor. Using SL 25 GB disks with a 15 year old space hogging codec MPEG-2 on my released titles At prices more than I expected.

Sorry, rant off.

I'm going back to my recorded football. ;)

Yeah, cuz we have the precedent of this exact scenario having been played out millions of times with VHS and Beta, right?........And I suppose the "typical" family doesn't subscribe to an online service, because they are notorious conduits for sexually explicit media? Or perhaps we're to accept the chauvinistic premise that "decent" women don't enjoy porn? Uh huh. Sorry, but this is wishful thinking, at its' silliest.

Hey, I don't give a toot what people watch in the privacy of their homes. But if you get kids involved there are a lot of stupid people who don't know how to shelter them from the influence of porn.

I sat on a jury trial were a stepfather was accused by a 10 year old little girl of some very hideous things. The testimony of the little girl was graphic and very upsetting to the jurors and after all the evidence was in, most jurors felt the girl had been exposed to porn and suffered from nightmares involving her stepfather. It wasn't determined if the exposure was at her fathers home during visitation or in the home of the mother and stepfather, but something planted the images of what she testified to in her psyche. Luckily for the stepfather there was absolutely no physical evidence of molestation either of her person or room. Otherwise, without the good attorney he had, that man would be sitting in jail because of a traumatized, confused little girl....

b2b

Not quite 2.5 million in stand alone sales.

Even with 170,000 HD DVD players sold in 2006 and 500,000 Xbox 360 sales in 2007 , I think that 1.8 million is a very high estimate for HD DVD sales.

I think you can safely guess he meant worldwide. So, that could help the cause a bit.

I said "2.5 million player sales in 2007", not stand-alones. You're right, he means total including 2006. So 2.3 million this year.

Gary

He's still thinking on how he got screwed :D on the Blu-ray player returns that they wouldn't credit back to his business. ;)

You must have missed his quote from the same post:

My company sells BD and HD DVD and from a purely business decision I would clearly chose BD as the profits are infinitely higher.

VERY interesting...

Whorehouses indeed. :D

They did not actively promise those dates to investors and the press such as Sony did with the PS3.

So, you're angry that Sony failed to end this war last spring?

Be honest, if Sony had delivered the PS/3 last March as it is, what would be the situation now?

Gary

I think you can safely guess he meant worldwide. So, that could help the cause a bit.

I said "2.5 million player sales in 2007", not stand-alones. You're right, he means total including 2006. So 2.3 million this year.

Gary Sorry , I was editing my post above. I think you bring up some great points, and I am Blu-ray gun shy,

Its just that I think HD DVD has generally exceeded expectations in 2006 and Blu-ray has not. Think about what the expectations were a year ago, and then compare HD DVD and Blu-ray's progress since the start of the year. :)

I know Yoshi-san. And I can tell you this is his personal goal and he has plans to obtain his goal. Toshiba has very specific strategic plans and they are successfully rolling them out timely to obtain HD DVD market growth. Someday even B2B will be enjoying HD DVD in his home.

-Robert

That goes back to my previous post on this subject. Should I strip out all of the tiles in production for all of the studios? I can do that (when I get some time), but I'm not sure that really alters the picture.

I did not see your post before I started. I got curious how the number in two years could be 109, did they buy an other studio? did I make a mistake on what they got from Disney? was there others in there (Weinstein really does the theatrical, distribution is done by the Genius products and they also distribute some ABC stuff, but Genius puts on HD DVD what is Warner and BD what is Disney).


As for the answer, it is a hard one, I don't think a title that might come out in three years is interesting in the discussion, in that time frame who knows what can happen. 2006 should definitely be OK, 2007 why not, but the farther away it is the harder it is to make a case for inclusion

So, you're angry that Sony failed to end this war last spring?

Be honest, if Sony had delivered the PS/3 last March as it is, what would be the situation now?

Gary I think it would have much worse for HD DVD. and for consumers.

I am glad that Sony failed in their plans for the PS3 because it gave HD DVD a chance to prove it self to me and tens of thousands of others.

HD DVD's performance has convinced me to back the format. But as I said before, I want Blu-ray to get better too, because I believe as of now, neither format will go away anytime soon.

But everyone has heard of "Porn". And if you associate "Porn" with HD-DVD and associate "Disney" with family entertainment and Blu-Ray, then wave the Red Flag of "Porn" in front of a bunch of church ladies, guess which one gets thrown out with the trash... ;)

Have you ever been in a suburban community when some porn shop tries to open up ?? It's in the papers, on the 6 o'clock news and county commisioners vow to never let it happen... ;)

b2b

It looks like I need to repeat the message again.


I really don't see it, and here's why. Most people haven't heard of either format. Of the ones who have heard about either format, it's much more likely that it's the husband who has. It takes lots and lots of repition to seep into the public consciousness. That's why add campaigns are so expensive. One Reuters/AP story will make practically no impact.


A news story on this will have little impact, it just goes over the transom. People will see porn on HD-DVD, and 99% of the people will glance at it and think porn on DVD (the ones who actually do come in contact with the article).

It takes a lot of repitition to seep into the public consciousness. The message needs to be delivered over and over again. This is where the local porn store comes in to the discussion. The store is right there in the neighborhood. Each and every time the church ladies drive by it, it's right there in their face. Repetition, over and over again.

But everyone has heard of "Porn". And if you associate "Porn" with HD-DVD and associate "Disney" with family entertainment and Blu-Ray, then wave the Red Flag of "Porn" in front of a bunch of church ladies, guess which one gets thrown out with the trash... ;)

Bible thumping, sexually repressed "church ladies" are most likely to have husbands who want the filthiest, most deviant content available, and Jerry Falwell's crowd is far too obsessed over Disney's company policies regarding homosexuality, to take their side in this fight.

Have you ever been in a suburban community when some porn shop tries to open up ?? It's in the papers, on the 6 o'clock news and county commisioners vow to never let it happen... ;)

The area in which I live, is a notoriously conservative region of VA. Nonetheless, there's an adult "novelty" shop in every local town. Go figure. Now, if someone were to try opening a strip club.........

They did not actively promise those dates to investors and the press such as Sony did with the PS3. You're not comparing the month or so slippage of the "second generation " HD DVD players for a QC fix with the years of PS3 delay are you??




just to be a pain

how many years before fall of 2006 did they say it would be out, I thought they said late spring of 2006 for Japan. (go look back) that is less then a year if my math is right.

On the other hand when did Toshiba say the first HD DVD players will be out? was it fall of 2005? when did it come out? spring of 2006. What about PS3 (assuming you assumed Spring was for US as well) Spring 2006 delayed to fall 2006. How is what Sony said worst then Toshiba

Hey, I don't give a toot what people watch in the privacy of their homes. But if you get kids involved there are a lot of stupid people who don't know how to shelter them from the influence of porn.

I sat on a jury trial were a stepfather was accused by a 10 year old little girl of some very hideous things. The testimony of the little girl was graphic and very upsetting to the jurors and after all the evidence was in, most jurors felt the girl had been exposed to porn and suffered from nightmares involving her stepfather. It wasn't determined if the exposure was at her fathers home during visitation or in the home of the mother and stepfather, but something planted the images of what she testified to in her psyche. Luckily for the stepfather there was absolutely no physical evidence of molestation either of her person or room. Otherwise, without the good attorney he had, that man would be sitting in jail because of a traumatized, confused little girl....

b2b

Don't get me started on implanted memories. I'm not sure if the phenomenon was relevant in this case, but well meaning,( though incompetent) psychologists have caused a number of innocent people to be unjustly convicted and sentenced to prison terms measured in decades. I do think there's something screwy about a society in which any explicit display of "normal" healthy sexual activity is politically incorrect, and verboten, but 43 graphically violent murders per hour on the boob tube are AOK...... but this is way OT.

I know Yoshi-san. And I can tell you this is his personal goal and he has plans to obtain his goal. Toshiba has very specific strategic plans and they are successfully rolling them out timely to obtain HD DVD market growth. Someday even B2B will be enjoying HD DVD in his home.


I do admire your and Yoshi-san's passion. I just don't see the interest of either side's offerings that could achieve that 2.5 million figure.


1. PS3S are not attached to the main HDTV in most homes.

Therefore, XBox 360 are not attached to the main HDTV in most homes. Agreed? So, where are the Xbox 360 add-on sales that would dent this 2.5 million figure coming from?

What percentage of PS/3 are connected to HDTV, do you think?

Didn't Microsoft show survey results showing a large percentage expected for the Xbox 360? What makes you think people that can afford the expensive PS/3 wouldn't be MORE likely to have an HDTV?

Gary

I know Yoshi-san. And I can tell you this is his personal goal and he has plans to obtain his goal. Toshiba has very specific strategic plans and they are successfully rolling them out timely to obtain HD DVD market growth. Someday even B2B will be enjoying HD DVD in his home.

-Robert

Toshiba has been giving every indication of moving to clear the corporate decks, by giving up on SED, and reducing their commitment to chip manufacturing, as a result of market volatility.

Originally Posted by 2Channel
I really don't see it, and here's why. Most people haven't heard of either format. Of the ones who have heard about either format, it's much more likely that it's the husband who has. It takes lots and lots of repition to seep into the public consciousness. That's why add campaigns are so expensive. One Reuters/AP story will make practically no impact.

Neither format has anywhere had enough advertising to reach critical threshold levels. Sony had a opportunity to co-brand the PS3 with Blu-ray with its console television advertising. It choose not to.

Blu-ray has had superior point of sale promotions and materials in targeted first adopter publications, but HD DVD is gaining fast. Some Blu-ray studio branding has been attempted but not at consumer levels.

The HD DVD PRG choose not to waste advertising or POS or promotional dollars on the first generation models. None the less Toshiba sold all it could produce. That may have been a wise choice of marketing and advertising resources.

Now that the second generation HD DVD players are arriving in quantities, it is only now that advertising and promotional expenditures will start helping sales.

Expect to see a lot of HD DVD awareness in B&M stores as well as sales promotions and television advertising.

Therefore, XBox 360 are not attached to the main HDTV in most homes. Agreed? So, where are the Xbox 360 add-on sales that would dent this 2.5 million figure coming from?

What percentage of PS/3 are connected to HDTV, do you think?

Didn't Microsoft show survey results showing a large percentage expected for the Xbox 360? What makes you think people that can afford the expensive PS/3 wouldn't be MORE likely to have an HDTV? The Xbox 360 was first to market with HD capabilities that could take advantage of HDTVs. So the XBox 360 got a lot of initial users with HDTVs to buy into the format and a lot of people bought HDTV's to use the Xbox 360 on.

Microsoft poached a lot of those HDTVs from Sony by being first to market.

HD DVD may be in the progress of doing this in regard to cheaper standalone players. The Xbox 360 add on is also targeted at those early HDTV users.

First to market is a huge advantage. Microsoft has it now it this generation of the game consoles. Toshiba and HD DVD is now in the progress of doing that for standalone players. By betting and placing Blu-ray drives in the PS3, Sony may become a double loser here and Microsoft a double winner. Xbox 360's are making money, PS3's 'are losing a lot for every unit.

It may all come down to cash and Microsoft has more than Sony.

The PS3 is the hope of Blu-ray, and the PS3 is selling below expectations.

Toshiba has been giving every indication of moving to clear the corporate decks, by giving up on SED, and reducing their commitment to chip manufacturing, as a result of market volatility. Toshiba did not give up on SED, they still have engineeers working on it, For legal reasons they had to sell their stake back to Canon.

Toshiba did not give up on SED, they still have engineeers working on it, For legal reasons they had to sell their stake back to Canon.

Was it a patent issue?

Was it a patent issue? Yes, but Toshiba is still working on it.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/12/canon-set-to-buy-out-toshibas-display-stake-sed-production-in/

http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/17409.html

just to be a pain

how many years before fall of 2006 did they say it would be out, I thought they said late spring of 2006 for Japan. (go look back) that is less then a year if my math is right.

On the other hand when did Toshiba say the first HD DVD players will be out? was it fall of 2005? when did it come out? spring of 2006. What about PS3 (assuming you assumed Spring was for US as well) Spring 2006 delayed to fall 2006. How is what Sony said worst then Toshiba

Q1 2005
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/09/sony_ps3_launch_date/

Sony itself signalled that the event could come much earlier than just ahead of E3 at its last annual analysts' day. Its roadmap, which accurately listed the Japanese and US PlayStation Portable release dates, points to an announcement well ahead of E3, in Q1 2005, the last quarter of Sony's FY2004, when ends on 31 March.

Q4 2005
http://www.engadget.com/2005/05/12/sony-playstation-3-for-2005/

Sony's obviously feeling the pinch from all the Xbox 360 buzz going on right now, since apparently their CFO Takao Yuhara was quoted as stating (in so many words) that Sony was considering a 2005 launch for the PS3

But what really bothers me is the attitude toward the customer. Displays that run demos of BD-Live when there are no players for sale that have announced support for BD-Live borders on criminal behaviour in my mind.

Q1 2005
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/09/sony_ps3_launch_date/

Sony itself signalled that the event could come much earlier than just ahead of E3 at its last annual analysts' day. Its roadmap, which accurately listed the Japanese and US PlayStation Portable release dates, points to an announcement well ahead of E3, in Q1 2005, the last quarter of Sony's FY2004, when ends on 31 March.

Q4 2005
http://www.engadget.com/2005/05/12/sony-playstation-3-for-2005/

Sony's obviously feeling the pinch from all the Xbox 360 buzz going on right now, since apparently their CFO Takao Yuhara was quoted as stating (in so many words) that Sony was considering a 2005 launch for the PS3

But what really bothers me is the attitude toward the customer. Displays that run demos of BD-Live when there are no players for sale that have announced support for BD-Live borders on criminal behaviour in my mind.

Umm.. That's why they call them "demos". If demos are against the law, then you should have called the police while you were at CES and they could arrested half the exhibitors.. ;)

b2b

Umm.. That's why they call them "demos". If demos are against the law, then you should have called the police while you were at CES and they could arrested half the exhibitors..

Misleading consumers with BD Live demos in B&M stores while no products are shipping with that feature is different than a trade show demo :D and is misleading

Saying all Blu-ray discs are 50GB and HD DVD are only 30GB when you are releasing all discs for months at 25 GB is misleading

Saying LPCM is superior to a mandatory lossless codec is misleading

Saying a 1080p output from your first player is superior to a 1080i output from a competing player when you add another chip to the output chain is misleading

Not saying consumers that your HD player won't play CD's like every DVD player on the market is misleading

Not saying upconversion capabilities on your cheapest HD player and then showing consumer demos using basic 480i and MPEG-2 at jacked up bit rates is misleading

Not saying you are wasting space on your 50GB or 25GB discs because you are using space wasting MPEG-2 and LPCM is misleading

Not saying that most of your releases have been and will be on 25GB discs for the foreseeable future and actually less than 30GB and implying all of your discs are 50GB is misleading

Not telling consumers that there newly bought $1000 players won't use BD Live features and may be obsolete soon or will perform in a lessor manner to next June's players or they will be handicapped is misleading

Not telling consumers about a need a fix for a "noise reduction' issue on your format's only player or blaming it on blind critics is misleading


..... I could go on ;)

Displays that run demos of BD-Live when there are no players for sale that have announced support for BD-Live borders on criminal behaviour in my mind.

Oh please. Hyperbole much?

Promising your investors $600 million in sales is criminal fraud if you want to play that game.

Misleading consumers with BD Live demos in B&M stores while no products are shipping with that feature is different than a trade show demo :D and is misleading

Saying all Blu-ray discs are 50GB and HD DVD are only 30GB when you are releasing all discs for months at 25 GB is misleading

Saying LPCM is superior to a mandatory lossless codec is misleading

Saying a 1080p output from your first player is superior to a 1080i output from a competing player when you add another chip to the output chain is misleading

Not saying consumers that your HD player won't play CD's like every DVD player on the market is misleading

Not saying upconversion capabilities on your cheapest HD player and then showing consumer demos using basic 480i and MPEG-2 at jacked up bit rates is misleading

Not saying you are wasting space on your 50GB or 25GB discs because you are using space wasting MPEG-2 and LPCM is misleading

Not saying that most of your releases have been and will be on 25GB discs for the foreseeable future and actually less than 30GB and implying all of your discs are 50GB is misleading

Not telling consumers that there newly bought $1000 players won't use BD Live features and may be obsolete soon or will perform in a lessor manner to next June's players or they will be handicapped is misleading

Not telling consumers about a need a fix for a "noise reduction' issue on your format's only player or blaming it on blind critics is misleading


..... I could go on ;)

Saying that "smaller and slower" is better than "faster and bigger" is the ultimate in misleading spin from the HD-DVD spin meisters. So much so that now they are back to the drawing boards with one that's 51GB and has just about as much chance as the other one that was 45GB.

You guys are too funny... :)

What did you do, cut and paste your "talking points" memo.

BTW.. Don't you think it's about time to come out of the closet and admit to your industry affiliations ??

b2b

Circumvented or cracked is semantics.

It's on **********, so the implementation wasn't exactly robust.

With CSS it might have just been semantics, but with revocation as a core capability of AACS, it's not. It makes all the difference in the world.

AnthonyP is correct.

Saying that "smaller and slower" is better than "faster and bigger" is the ultimate in misleading spin from the HD-DVD spin meisters. So much so that now they are back to the drawing boards with one that's 51GB and has just about as much chance as the other one that was 45GB.

Price is a factor too. ;)

Blu-ray fans tend to forget that higher complexity has its cost; to CE companies, to studios and ultimately to consumers.

Sometimes a simplier solution can be a better one if it can do the job as well as the more complex one.




BTW, not cut and pasted but created on the spot just for your benefit in the euphoric rush of watching Penton Manning and da Bears going to the Superbowl. :)

Misleading consumers with BD Live demos in B&M stores while no products are shipping with that feature is different than a trade show demo :D and is misleading

Saying Meridian is coming out with a player for your format is misleading.

Saying all Blu-ray discs are 50GB and HD DVD are only 30GB when you are releasing all discs for months at 25 GB is misleading

A major representative for your format saying 50GB discs are "science fiction" is misleading. You're going to pretend that 50GB don't exist? They don't for you, when you LIMIT is 30GB. Issuing a press release to make folks think that 51GB discs are imminent and will be used for the format and not saying if they are backwards compatible is misleading.

Saying LPCM is superior to a mandatory lossless codec is misleading

In what way? It may take up more space but the sound quality is the same or BETTER since some PCM tracks for BD have been 24/48 resolution!

Saying a 1080p output from your first player is superior to a 1080i output from a competing player when you add another chip to the output chain is misleading

It's still 1080p. DVD upconversion is still 1080p. Misleading is packaging stating 1080p/24 when NO PLAYBACK HARDWARE supports it is misleading. Sony and Pioneer support native 1080p/24.

Not saying consumers that your HD player won't play CD's like every DVD player on the market is misleading

BS. The specs say EXACTLY what discs will and won't play.

Not saying upconversion capabilities on your cheapest HD player and then showing consumer demos using basic 480i and MPEG-2 at jacked up bit rates is misleading

Not saying you are wasting space on your 50GB or 25GB discs because you are using space wasting MPEG-2 and LPCM is misleading

This makes no sense. What matters is the end result.

Not saying that most of your releases have been and will be on 25GB discs for the foreseeable future and actually less than 30GB and implying all of your discs are 50GB is misleading

When you have no more points to make, restate one to look like more.

Not telling consumers that there newly bought $1000 players won't use BD Live features and may be obsolete soon or will perform in a lessor manner to next June's players or they will be handicapped is misleading

Don't see any players on the market with BD Live labeled on them. Don't see commercials promising it either. What I see is discs like "Excalibur" for a format labeled as "The Look and Sound of PERFECT".

Not telling consumers about a need a fix for a "noise reduction' issue on your format's only player or blaming it on blind critics is misleading

You want to compare how many frikkin' firmware updates and issues on the Toshiba A1 vs Samsung? Trust me, you don't want to.

..... I could go on ;)

Calling PT Barnum!

Issuing a press release to make folks think that 51GB discs are imminent and will be used for the format and not saying if they are backwards compatible is misleading.
That's not misleading. Misleading would be issuing a press release saying that all legacy HD DVD players would be able to play TL51 discs when they knew the players were incapable.

The only way the press release would be misleading is if the discs were never released.

In what way? It may take up more space but the sound quality is the same or BETTER since PCM tracks for BD have been 24/48 resolution!

As a means of satisfying my genuine, earnest curiosity, could you kindly point me to the results of any independently conducted testing, employing scientifically rigorous protocols, which illustrated a clear, statistically significant preference for 24/48 PCM?

That's not misleading. Misleading would be issuing a press release saying that all legacy HD DVD players would be able to play TL51 discs when they knew the players were incapable.

The only way the press release would be misleading is if the discs were never released.

Kinda like this.. ??
Or for the most capacity, just pile on more high-capacity layers. In May 2005, Toshiba announced a triple-layer HD DVD disc at Media-Tech. The HD DVD 45 has a capacity of 45 GB (12 hours). The draft specification for the format has been submitted to the DVD Forum, and should be approved "later this year," says Knox.

Knox reports that triple-layer demo material should be available in the summer, and that existing players can read the format, requiring only a firmware change. The discs could be available in 2005, he says, "although the very beginning of 2006 is more likely for volume production."

b2b

I only have a few HD-DVDs but I noticed that only the Universal titles carry the "LaSoP" logo but not the Warner one.

Does that hold true across Universal titles vs. non-exclusive titles generally? Can someone who has a bunch of HD-DVD titles please comment?

Umm.. That's why they call them "demos". If demos are against the law, then you should have called the police while you were at CES and they could arrested half the exhibitors.. ;)

b2b

Let me give you a couple of scenarios from a different perspective. Please tell me if you're ok with these.

What if Toshiba set up a store demo touting the virtues of HD-DVD. As part of that demo they talk about HD-DVD having superior storage capacity to Blu-Ray. They tell the customer about TL-51 discs and that they're better than BD-50 discs. There's no player confirmed to support TL-51, as there is no TL-51 currently available.

Would you view this as false advertising?

What if Kjack went to talk to one of his potential customers and showed them a demo. Instead of showing a demo of what his available products can do, he shows them a mock up demo of what a future decoder should be able to do. He neglects to mention that his available products don't have this abaility. He simply says, "these are the features of our decoders."

I'm sure that Kjack would never do this buy the way. I am only using this as an example. Would you view this as false advertising?

I only have a few HD-DVDs but I noticed that only the Universal titles carry the "LaSoP" logo but not the Warner one.

Does that hold true across Universal titles vs. non-exclusive titles generally? Can someone who has a bunch of HD-DVD titles please comment?

The format as a whole is advertised as "The Look and Sound of Perfect."

In any case Universal's titles like "Animal House"? "Army of Darkness"? "Fifth Element" looks like state of the art compared to these! :p

Saying that "smaller and slower" is better than "faster and bigger" is the ultimate in misleading spin from the HD-DVD spin meisters. b2b
See, this is the Big Lie:. Bigger and faster hasn't proven better than smaller and slower, more frequently worse

Let me give you a couple of scenarios from a different perspective. Please tell me if you're ok with these.

What if Toshiba set up a store demo touting the virtues of HD-DVD. As part of that demo they talk about HD-DVD having superior storage capacity to Blu-Ray. They tell the customer about TL-51 discs and that they're better than BD-50 discs. There's no player confirmed to support TL-51, as there is no TL-51 currently available.

Would you view this as false advertising?

What if Kjack went to talk to one of his potential customers and showed them a demo. Instead of showing a demo of what his available products can do, he shows them a mock up demo of what a future decoder should be able to do. He neglects to mention that his available products don't have this abaility. He simply says, "these are the features of our decoders."

I'm sure that Kjack would never do this buy the way. I am only using this as an example. Would you view this as false advertising?

As you have clearly written the premises to show a deceptive example, what do you expect me to say ?? What you wrote is clearly deceptive..

So now you are going to write your opinion of the BD-Live demo and without me even seeing the demo to form my own opinion, I should agree with you because your description will be written to show the same kind of deceptions as the examples...?? :)

Please... no silly games ;)

b2b

As you have clearly written the premises to show a deceptive example, what do you expect me to say ?? What you wrote is clearly deceptive..

So now you are going to write your opinion of the BD-Live demo and without me even seeing the demo to form my own opinion, I should agree with you because your description will be written to show the same kind of deceptions as the examples...?? :)

Please... no silly games ;)

b2b

No, your answer is great. I appreciate that. It's a much better answer than Talk gave when confronted on the same subject.

The format as a whole is advertised as "The Look and Sound of Perfect.

In any case Universal's titles like "Animal House"? "Army of Darkness"? "Fifth Element" looks like state of the art compared to these! :p

Granted that both Fifth Element (1997) and Army of Darkness (1992) ahould have been restored first. On the other hand Fifth Element was a critical launch title going into reviewers hands for their first look at Blu-Ray. Of course I don't think that BD-25/Mpeg2 on a 2+ hour movie helped the situation at all.

As for Animal House, it's a shame but....

http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/nationallampoonsanimalhouse.html

Okay, maybe I'm overdoing the adjectives here (especially since I'm talking so affectionately about an inanimate object), but I know this transfer will likely come under fire because it is far from "perfect." And no, it can't really hold a candle to what is probably the best-looking vintage catalog title so far released on either the HD DVD or Blu-ray formats, Warner's 'Blazing Saddles.' Now, I secretly hoped Universal would invest in a new, truly sparkling ground-up remaster of this classic for HD DVD. However, note that John Landis has been reported as saying he initially felt that Universal's remaster on the previous "Double Secret Probation Edition" may have been too good, so he ordered the studio to not make it look so shiny and perfect. Whatever the truth may be, this is probably the best the film is going to look for the foreseeable future.

AnthonyP we have not had a HD DVD movie that needed anything larger than the DL 30 GB HD DVD disc. More advanced and efficient VC1 compression has provided the studios with more than sufficient storage to produce every movie to date.Then why no lossless audio on King Kong?
The overwhelming majority of PS3 owners have no interest in watching BD HD movies whatsoever.How do you reconcile your opinion with Sony's release of survey information from over 10K PS3 owners stating that 80% intend to watch Blu-ray movies on the PS3, and 75% intend to use it as a primary video player? Sorry, between your opinion and Sony's survey I gotta go with Sony.

Alternatively, check out the poll on PS forum about how many PS3 owners have a remote and towards what end.

A rather healthy % of people bought the remote. I would argue that a higher % than even that would ultimately watch movies on the PS3 since these are out and out into BD and others will meander into movie watching once the marketing kicks in.

An observation.

(I have Pioneer FHD1 display, Pioneer BluRay player with Home Media Gallery and about 20 BluRay disks, Toshiba HD-DVD HD-XA1 player and about 50 HD-DVD disks)

I was just watching HBO's Rome on TMNHD/HBO.
I time shifted it.
So, it's a signal that went up and down over satelite (my cable company has some large satelite dishes that are probably covered in ice today), then down a cable line, including through a splitter that's outside my house covered in ice (it's cold outside, and we had freezing rain, and the cable company guy smashed the plastic cover due to wasps), into my Motorola DCT6416III cable DVR, where it was MPEG2 encoded onto the hard disk drive. Obviously no human tweaked the MPEG encoding for optimal compression, it's just some simple defaulting algorithms. There it digitally sat for four hours before I played it back. When played back it goes through an HDMI cable at 1080i.

It was 16:9 -- so there's more information/bytes than a 2.35:1 1080p/24 movie.

Yet it was clearer than, and more enjoyable than, any BluRay disk I've seen in the past couple of weeks.

Given that BluRay is a digital HDMI transfers at 1080p/24 (Pioneer BlueRay BDP-HD1 to Pioneer FHD1), I can find no excuse for BluRay to appear less good than TMNHD.

I doubt the problem is in the HDMI/FHD1 hardware due to the clarity of the 2003 Microsoft ( http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/musicandvideo/hdvideo/contentshowcase.aspx ) 720p/1080p .wmv encodings that were done 3 years ago that I can display using Pioneer BDP-HD1's Home Media Gallery function, and that are crystal clear 16:9 images.

BasementBob

How do the your HD DVD titles played on your HD XA1 look in comparison to Blu-ray and cable?

FYI,

highdefdigest has just published an extensive interview (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/feature_microsofthddvdinterview.html) with Amir.

Lots of topics discussed, including codecs, interactivity layer, compatibility issues, lossless audio, capacity and console synergies.

Alternatively, check out the poll on PS forum about how many PS3 owners have a remote and towards what end.



Well, you did post that poll on a forum dedicated to the enjoyment of high definition equipment. What did you expect? Heck, only 1.45% of the respondants to that poll did not buy their PS3 for BD playback. I think that poll would be more useful on a general gaming forum instead of a place like AVSForum.

Well, you did post that poll on a forum dedicated to the enjoyment of high definition equipment. What did you expect? Heck, only 1.45% of the respondants to that poll did not buy their PS3 for BD playback. I think that poll would be more useful on a general gaming forum instead of a place like AVSForum.
Its in the PS forum dude.

But everyone has heard of "Porn". And if you associate "Porn" with HD-DVD and associate "Disney" with family entertainment and Blu-Ray, then wave the Red Flag of "Porn" in front of a bunch of church ladies, guess which one gets thrown out with the trash... ;)

Have you ever been in a suburban community when some porn shop tries to open up ?? It's in the papers, on the 6 o'clock news and county commisioners vow to never let it happen... ;)

b2b
Getting sillier all the time. :p

As you have clearly written the premises to show a deceptive example, what do you expect me to say ?? What you wrote is clearly deceptive..

So now you are going to write your opinion of the BD-Live demo and without me even seeing the demo to form my own opinion, I should agree with you because your description will be written to show the same kind of deceptions as the examples...?? :)

Please... no silly games ;)

b2b

You may want to seriously consider not making an argument regarding a presentation you admittedly have not seen.

I have seen this BR disc running in stores. (As a matter of fact, I was the one who specifically cited this several weeks as an example of there being no consumer level education as to the distinction of capabilites amongst the decks). There is no indication that this is an "example" of what Blu Ray and the players eventually will do.

It plays right along side BR loops of movies available today, it plays on a deck avaialable for purchase today, and is amongst all of the advertising displays that are declaring the features of the units currently on the shelves.

It is CLEARLY misleading. While I won't say you cant's argue a format without owning hardware (although it would be nice), it's almost impossible to argue the impression a demo makes when you have not seen it.

Then why no lossless audio on King Kong?
How do you reconcile your opinion with Sony's release of survey information from over 10K PS3 owners stating that 80% intend to watch Blu-ray movies on the PS3, and 75% intend to use it as a primary video player? Sorry, between your opinion and Sony's survey I gotta go with Sony.

I've asked several times, as have others ... can you please provide a link to the survey data? Unless we know how the survey was conducted, the numbers don't mean anything.

Here ... I conducted a survey of Xbox Owners, and 100% of them said that they were going to use the Xbox 360 to watch HD-DVD movies. That's 10 Million HD-DVD watchers.

Granted, I only polled those Xbox owners that bought the Add-On ... but ... I don't need to disclose that, so let's just pretend I didn't bring that up. :p

Sorry, between your opinion and Sony's survey I gotta go with Sony.

Sure. Let us just go with the polls that political parties release too ... :p

Alternatively, check out the poll on PS forum about how many PS3 owners have a remote and towards what end.

Are you kidding me ? 70 people bought remotes. Did you see the number of people who bought 360 Add-Ons here ?

ps : The count is some 1070.

Well from what...
Hi Richard - have already answered the questions in detail, so no point in me going around the houses yet again. Your questions and quotes are the same.

It may all come down to cash and Microsoft has more than Sony.


Sony's core business is A/V.

I very much doubt Microsoft shareholders would sit still for Microsoft blowing off billions more shareholder equity on the Xbox 360 or an HD DVD disc player.

In the end, the owners will decide what their company does with their money.

Gary

Sure. Let us just go with the polls that political parties release too ... :p

The great thing about the Sony "poll" is that most people took part in it while configuring their player. They could have chosen gaming, web surfing, etc. as choices but they picked movie watching. A little different than leading questions from a pollster.

How do you reconcile your opinion with Sony's release of survey information from over 10K PS3 owners stating that 80% intend to watch Blu-ray movies on the PS3, and 75% intend to use it as a primary video player? Sorry, between your opinion and Sony's survey I gotta go with Sony.

Two questions:

Would you be interested in purchasing BD movies for your PS3 that are "beyond high definition" at 1080p?

Would you be interested in purchasing BD movies for your PS3 that are "beyond high definition" at 1080p? ( this will require a 1080p capable display with an HDMI input, and BD software sells at a premium over DVD )

Which of these questions is likely to result in more accurate, less misleading data?

Without access to the full text of this survey, I've gotta go with common sense, and an entirely appropriate level of skepticism, over your repeated assertions.

How do you reconcile your opinion with Sony's release of survey information from over 10K PS3 owners stating that 80% intend to watch Blu-ray movies on the PS3, and 75% intend to use it as a primary video player? Sorry, between your opinion and Sony's survey I gotta go with Sony.

If the survey results are anywhere close to accurate, then BD movie sales should be swamping HD DVD. They've increased nicely in the past month or so, but there should 3 or 4+ times as many sales if the poll had any credibility. We're getting far enough along that we can stop quoting polls, and start quoting actual sales figures. How about some actual sales figures? :p

Toshiba has been giving every indication of moving to clear the corporate decks, by giving up on SED, and reducing their commitment to chip manufacturing, as a result of market volatility.
This is an inaccurate statement.

Canon has bought out Toshiba's 49% share in the SED venture in order to fight the lawsuit filed against them by the main technology patent holder. The contract to Canon said that they could only share the technology with subsidiaries.

Canon announced that Toshiba is still their partner in SED - so I'm certain that you will see Toshiba SEDs down the road. Also, a great deal of the staff within the SED joint-venture are Toshiba's.

As you have clearly written the premises to show a deceptive example, what do you expect me to say ?? What you wrote is clearly deceptive..

So now you are going to write your opinion of the BD-Live demo and without me even seeing the demo to form my own opinion, I should agree with you because your description will be written to show the same kind of deceptions as the examples...?? :)

Please... no silly games ;)

b2b
I disagree, actually. I think 2channel hit the nail RIGHT on the head.

The situation he described is almost identical to the current Bluray situation.

Bluray entities have (and have had for quite some time) displays set up in various consumer purchase locations showing off many features of Bluray that technically weren't available yet.

Biggest among these are the interactive features of the format, and including PiP. NO where in this material was it stated that these would only be available under any specific "player profile". NOR was it made clear to the buyers in ANY pre-sale material that none of the Bluray players for sale just yards from these displays were NOT capable of these "feats", nor likely ever would be.

It is a CLASSIC scenario for a truth in advertising lawsuit.

Given that 2channel's example hit the nail so well, how can you try to deny what has happened?

This is an inaccurate statement.

Canon has bought out Toshiba's 49% share in the SED venture in order to fight the lawsuit filed against them by the main technology patent holder. The contract to Canon said that they could only share the technology with subsidiaries.

Canon announced that Toshiba is still their partner in SED - so I'm certain that you will see Toshiba SEDs down the road. Also, a great deal of the staff within the SED joint-venture are Toshiba's.

Kosty already beat you to it:

Yes, but Toshiba is still working on it.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/12/...-production-in/

http://www.cepro.com/news/editorial/17409.html

I'd also read somewhere, that because of cost, SED will be limited to professional displays for the time being.....don't know if that's accurate.

It is a CLASSIC scenario for a truth in advertising lawsuit.

Given that 2channel's example hit the nail so well, how can you try to deny what has happened?

A new cause for your website? ;)

Gary

I disagree, actually. I think 2channel hit the nail RIGHT on the head.

The situation he described is almost identical to the current Bluray situation.

Bluray entities have (and have had for quite some time) displays set up in various consumer purchase locations showing off many features of Bluray that technically weren't available yet.

Biggest among these are the interactive features of the format, and including PiP. NO where in this material was it stated that these would only be available under any specific "player profile". NOR was it made clear to the buyers in ANY pre-sale material that none of the Bluray players for sale just yards from these displays were NOT capable of these "feats", nor likely ever would be.

It is a CLASSIC scenario for a truth in advertising lawsuit.

Given that 2channel's example hit the nail so well, how can you try to deny what has happened?

So hire a lawyer and sue someone about a product you don't even own... :)

Maybe we could go in together for a "cut rate" deal and I could sue someone about the false advertising of the 24p support on HD-DVD for a product that I don't own too... ;)

Deal ?

You guys are too funny.... :D

b2b

So hire a lawyer and sue someone about a product you don't even own... :) b2b

He chooses to prosecute the issue in the public forum, so? Let BDA sue him if he's wrong.

Some analysts recommend Sony as a Strong Sell this morning for missing earnings forecasts. I wonder if Sony may further drop the number of PS3's shipped to get their losses under control. If only they hadn't put in the BD drive, it may have been $100/unit loss instead of $300.

Some analysts recommend Sony as a Strong Sell this morning for missing earnings forecasts. I wonder if Sony may further drop the number of PS3's shipped to get their losses under control. If only they hadn't put in the BD drive, it may have been $100/unit loss instead of $300.

Actually, I'm liking it right now ... my puts are paying dividends ;)

Some analysts recommend Sony as a Strong Sell this morning for missing earnings forecasts. I wonder if Sony may further drop the number of PS3's shipped to get their losses under control. If only they hadn't put in the BD drive, it may have been $100/unit loss instead of $300.

I just checked http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SNE and I didn't see any headline reports of analyst downgrades. Perhaps you could post a link? TIA

Some analysts recommend Sony as a Strong Sell this morning for missing earnings forecasts. I wonder if Sony may further drop the number of PS3's shipped to get their losses under control. If only they hadn't put in the BD drive, it may have been $100/unit loss instead of $300.

No long-side analyst puts out a Strong Sell recommendation, ever. It would be an admission to their clients of making a massive blunder.

More shorties and hedge funds stuff. So goes that game.

Gary

Its in the PS forum dude.

Yeah, I know. The PS Forum at AVS Forum. Your general gamer won't find their way here period unless they have some interest in the latest A/V equipment. Your poll is similar to the one in the PS Forum here asking how many people were playing their PS3's on HDTV's. The result was almost 100%, which is not surprising since the poll was taken here at AVSForum. The results would not be the same at a general gaming forum instead of at AVSForum.

AnthonyP we have not had a HD DVD movie that needed anything larger than the DL 30 GB HD DVD disc. More advanced and efficient VC1 compression has provided the studios with more than sufficient storage to produce every movie to date.

Then why no lossless audio on King Kong?

Studios decide what audio to encode each movie with. Lack of disc space was not the factor that made up their decision.

Talk, as I recall their no lossless audio on the BD King Kong either or any video either. Only kidding, as we all know you need a HD DVD player to watch King Kong in HD.

-Robert

How do you reconcile your opinion with Sony's release of survey information from over 10K PS3 owners stating that 80% intend to watch Blu-ray movies on the PS3, and 75% intend to use it as a primary video player? Sorry, between your opinion and Sony's survey I gotta go with Sony.

Talk if this is your response; you must think we are a bunch of kindergarten kids. Sony can pay any reputable company to do a survey and still get the results they are looking for.

Do you actually believe 75% of PS3 owners plan on using the Play Station as their primary DVD player. Boy will they be surprised when they see the low quality SD DVD image quality.

-Robert

Do you actually believe 75% of PS3 owners plan on using the Play Station as their primary DVD player. Boy will they be surprised when they see the low quality SD DVD image quality.


If you give me your estimate for the average attach rate for BD users of PS/3 compared to HD DVD users, I can give you a decent argument for an estimate based on your number.

Gary

^ Gary, I honestly would have no way of doing anything more than a guess. I do not have any basis for estimating the attach rate of BD movies to PS3 sales.

-Robert

I just checked http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SNE and I didn't see any headline reports of analyst downgrades. Perhaps you could post a link? TIA
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/analyst/recomnd.asp?symbol=SNE