http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/3632/bdhdfeb25eh8.jpg

Hmmmm. These last few posts seem to refer to the magazine and data that came out last week - maybe I'm just having a Deja Vu moment.

Anyway, I was not impressed with Stephanie's editorial. What is this 'fuzziness' of which she speaks. Surely she has heard of digital film restoration? Perhaps not (and don't call me Shirley).

As for multiple titles on a single disc, maybe OK for short films but that's about it. Unless you want to devalue the whole concept of HD - that stands for HIGH DEFINITION by the way, Stephanie.

http://img130.imageshack.us/img130/3632/bdhdfeb25eh8.jpg
Hey look! Here it is again!

You're really on top of things, doby. ;) :D

Just funnin'. :)

Toshiba alone is not fiting the bill for the 150mil I'm sure its divided by all the HD DVD backers.



How is that any better? If HD-DVD collectively spends $150 million to sell 1 million discs, do your think they all will keep the train wreck going?


I'm not saying BD is tearing up the CE market with profitability, but at this point Sony can't stop. The can't discontinue the PS3 and if games are already published on BD's, they can't take the drive out. Even if movie sales never ramp up to 1/5 those of DVD's the studios will still probably keep publishing the same as they did with Laser Discs. UMD pretty much died because sales dropped to nothing when it came out you can copy DVD's to the drive.

So even if BD turns into a niche (ie failure), what would the point being in having two niche products? Nobody spent $150 million a year to promote SACD and DVD-Audio, and neither would have been helped if they did.


Part of me wouldn't mind if this whole thing turned into LD all over again. Nobody borrowed my movies back then. :D

How is that any better? If HD-DVD collectively spends $150 million to sell 1 million discs, do your think they all will keep the train wreck going?
:D

Sony alone spent MORE THAN 250mil subsidy in PS3, numerous game producer jumping ship to XBox 360. this does not include replication subsidy for BD to sale 1mil BD ;) How long can they keep the train wreck going? oh wait, they are already in the process of preventing more damages caused by the train wreck .. in the form of a $599 player ;)

The electronics division, games division, and movies division are each still making big profits, so they'll go as long as they want.

Sony alone spent MORE THAN 250mil subsidy in PS3, numerous game producer jumping ship to XBox 360. this does not include replication subsidy for BD to sale 1mil BD ;) How long can they keep the train wreck going? oh wait, they are already in the process of preventing more damages caused by the train wreck .. in the form of a $599 player ;)

You do know game consoles typically are subsidized, right? Sony will earn the money back on software...plus, they're a BIG company whose other divisions are very profitable (e.g. Sony has the most #1 box office films in 2006)

BD movies continuously secondary to HD DVD. NPD=<700K BD players, HD DVD=175K. BD should BY NOW outsold HD DVD 3:1. Yet still Videoscan data HD DVD (55%) ahead of BD(45%). What went wrong?
How 'bout something more along the lines of...

"BD movies continuously released. NPD = Standalone players even. BD should BY NOW outselling HD DVD 2:1... and IS and growing! Videoscan data BD (51.5% SI) ahead of HD DVD (48.5% SI) What is going wrong?"

The electronics division, games division, and movies division are each still making big profits, so they'll go as long as they want.

Just as MS will go as long as they want because Windows, Office and Servers division make big profits ? ;)

The fact is PS3 will bring down their earnings per share .... forcing them to take some action (if Japanese companies have the same compulsions).

So, how does everyone feel about the Amazon sale?

I think this is a brilliant move by the Blu-ray Group. It is obvious to me that this was a planned move by the group. A combination of no new titles this week and the sale starting on a Tuesday means this could have been planned for months to capitalize on the the March drought of titles on the HD DVD side. An excellent move.

This should, effectively, help widen the gap to a rediculous amount by the end of March. The sale this week, followed next week with Casino Royale and the launch of Blu-ray in Europe is going to put up absolutely huge sales numbers. Obviously, we won't see the effects of the European launch with our data, but the studios no doubt will have access to this data and frame it to hang on the wall.

So what is everyone predicted for market percentages (SI) at the end of March?

So, how does everyone feel about the Amazon sale?

I think this is a brilliant move by the Blu-ray Group. It is obvious to me that this was a planned move by the group. A combination of no new titles this week and the sale starting on a Tuesday means this could have been planned for months to capitalize on the the March drought of titles on the HD DVD side. An excellent move.

This should, effectively, help widen the gap to a rediculous amount by the end of March. The sale this week, followed next week with Casino Royale and the launch of Blu-ray in Europe is going to put up absolutely huge sales numbers. Obviously, we won't see the effects of the European launch with our data, but the studios no doubt will have access to this data and frame it to hang on the wall.

So what is everyone predicted for market percentages (SI) at the end of March?
WOW!

Any idea how long this will go on?

I'm going to say 100:80 or lower by the last Videoscan figures for March.

Wouldn't that be gnarly?!

Yeah I definitely see at least 4 Fox titles I kinda want but am not willing to spend $35 or so on...

Yeah I definitely see at least 4 Fox titles I kinda want but am not willing to spend $35 or so on...
Yeah, but you, of course are no BD newb. You have a bit of a collection already. What about all of those that have added to the bump in recent player sales?

So, how does everyone feel about the Amazon sale?

I think this is a brilliant move by the Blu-ray Group. It is obvious to me that this was a planned move by the group. A combination of no new titles this week and the sale starting on a Tuesday means this could have been planned for months to capitalize on the the March drought of titles on the HD DVD side. An excellent move.

This should, effectively, help widen the gap to a rediculous amount by the end of March. The sale this week, followed next week with Casino Royale and the launch of Blu-ray in Europe is going to put up absolutely huge sales numbers. Obviously, we won't see the effects of the European launch with our data, but the studios no doubt will have access to this data and frame it to hang on the wall.

So what is everyone predicted for market percentages (SI) at the end of March?

I can't decide yet. Is an Amazon sale enough to move total sells by more than a percent or two? It's hard to tell, but we have to acknowledge that BD was going to gain a good deal at any rate due to quality new releases. I'm going to go with a 70% BD lead by end of March, which is about a 3% gain due mainly to strong content, and a little to this sale, if it last a long time.

So, how does everyone feel about the Amazon sale?

I think this is a brilliant move by the Blu-ray Group. It is obvious to me that this was a planned move by the group. A combination of no new titles this week and the sale starting on a Tuesday means this could have been planned for months to capitalize on the the March drought of titles on the HD DVD side. An excellent move.

This should, effectively, help widen the gap to a rediculous amount by the end of March. The sale this week, followed next week with Casino Royale and the launch of Blu-ray in Europe is going to put up absolutely huge sales numbers. Obviously, we won't see the effects of the European launch with our data, but the studios no doubt will have access to this data and frame it to hang on the wall.

So what is everyone predicted for market percentages (SI) at the end of March?

I think it was a very smart move by the BDA. The HD-DVD group has consistently been outsmarted by the BDA. However, until the really big blockbusters come, I can't see the sales ratio moving that much. Because of Casino Royale though, I would say the sales ratio would move to 2.5:1 for March. By the end of the year, it might be 4:1 (80% Blu-ray: 20% HD-dvd)

I keep seeing this Amazon sale being referenced as a BDA strategic maneuver.

Maybe I'm completely clueless (likely), but why would only Amazon be taking place in a BDA strategic move? Wouldn't you expect others such as Walmart and BB to be included in such a sale? Do you think the BDA is subsidizing this initiative? Why just Amazon? I can't imagine the BDA would want to alienate other major retailers...

BTW, I'm all for the sale (I bought 8 today myself). If indeed Amazon is included in these weekly reports, I suspect we'll see a noticeable blip in sales from this.

Yeah, but you, of course are no BD newb. You have a bit of a collection already. What about all of those that have added to the bump in recent player sales?

I don't even have a Blu-Ray player yet, but I took advantage of this sale and ordered 14. At least 8 of them I wouldn't have gotten at the regular Amazon prizes and I was only planning on purchasing FOUR of them this Summer (though it probably wouldn't be long before I purchased 3 of the others).

When I get home, I may shift some of the order around and pick up two more additional titles I'm considering.

~Alan

I keep seeing this Amazon sale being referenced as a BDA strategic maneuver.

Maybe I'm completely clueless (likely), but why would only Amazon be taking place in a BDA strategic move? Wouldn't you expect others such as Walmart and BB to be included in such a sale? Do you think the BDA is subsidizing this initiative? Why just Amazon? I can't imagine the BDA would want to alienate other major retailers...

BTW, I'm all for the sale (I bought 8 today myself). If indeed Amazon is included in these weekly reports, I suspect we'll see a noticeable blip in sales from this.

I think it is subsidized by BDA. The content owners (Sony, Fox, and Magnolia in this instance) have to agree to sell the products to Amazon at below normal prices so that Amazon in return can lower their prices. The studios are obviously taking a cut in profit in order to do this, which in turn costs them money. As some notices, Amazon also sent out emails, which are like ads paid by the BDA.

Amazon is more than likely the biggest and most known internet retailer for movies, so this would be like the Best Buy sales (Sony reducing prices so they could do a B1G1 sale). It cost money (more than likely, advertising dollars), and its a definitive strike by BDA.

I think it is subsidized by BDA.Nope. There is no possibility the BDA could be involved with this without me having some knowledge of it. Further, it's simply not in the charter of the BDA to in any way deal with pricing - it would be a clear anti-trust violation.

Various vendors (CE, studios, etc.) often get together on their own for promotions, advertisements, etc. (like the "$150M" HD DVD Promotions Group). It's certainly possible the studios involved in the sale worked this out with Amazon, but the BDA had nothing to do with this.

Maybe I'm completely clueless (likely), but why would only Amazon be taking place in a BDA strategic move? Wouldn't you expect others such as Walmart and BB to be included in such a sale? Do you think the BDA is subsidizing this initiative? Why just Amazon? I can't imagine the BDA would want to alienate other major retailers...I will be surprised if we don't see a sale at Best Buy on selected Fox titles within the next couple of months. Kind of like Best Buy and then Fry's both had sales on some Sony discs. And I do believe that the studios are pricing some discs lower for sales like these, much like Coke and Pepsi have sales on certain products to stores that then use to have sales for customers.

--Darin

Nope. There is no possibility the BDA could be involved with this without me having some knowledge of it. Further, it's simply not in the charter of the BDA to in any way deal with pricing - it would be a clear anti-trust violation.

Various vendors (CE, studios, etc.) often get together on their own for promotions, advertisements, etc. (like the "$150M" HD DVD Promotions Group). It's certainly possible the studios involved in the sale worked this out with Amazon, but the BDA had nothing to do with this.

Ok. So nothing official, but it could have been a behind the scenes deal with Fox, Sony and Magnolia.

Either way, I applaud the person who came up with this idea. They earned their paycheck.

Does Nielson/Videoscan take online sales into account as well or just B&M?

Looks like we're gonna find out if Videoscan really uses Amazon sales when this weeks numbers come out. I would think the Videoscan numbers should show quite a jump for this week.

Does Nielson/Videoscan take online sales into account as well or just B&M?

yes they do. But VS (and any such service) has a list of companies they work with. Some hints point to Amazon being one of VS numbers supplier. In a few weeks when VS numbers com out we will have a better idea. If they go down then Amazon is not, they go up or stay stable, then Amazon is.

Looks like we're gonna find out if Videoscan really uses Amazon sales when this weeks numbers come out. I would think the Videoscan numbers should show quite a jump for this week.
Oh crap! I forgot about that. Good thing I didn't put money on my projections.

yes they do. But VS (and any such service) has a list of companies they work with. Some hints point to Amazon being one of VS numbers supplier. In a few weeks when VS numbers com out we will have a better idea. If they go down then Amazon is not, they go up or stay stable, then Amazon is.
Well, to be technical, I would say, yes, if they go down, Amazon is not. If they stay stable, still, probably not. If they go up, maybe. If they shoot way up, probably.

Don't forget all we have are ratios, also Amazon will most likely cvanabalize some sales from some of the retailers.

Who says competition and price aren't important?

Who says competition and price aren't important?

Price is important, yes, but to say that competition is driving this sale is difficult to tell without someone official coming out and saying that was the driving factor. They put DVDs on sale all the time, but they have no competition with any other format. If competition is the only factor to having sales, then DVDs would never go on sale.

Price is important, yes, but to say that competition is driving this sale is difficult to tell without someone official coming out and saying that was the driving factor. They put DVDs on sale all the time, but they have no competition with any other format. If competition is the only factor to having sales, then DVDs would never go on sale.
It seems to me if it's not the competition driving down prices, then it must be an oversupply of unsold inventory. :) What I really suspect is they've noticed the press using Amazon sales as a metric, so they've decided to artificially distort it.

It seems to me if it's not the competition driving down prices, then it must be an oversupply of unsold inventory. :) What I really suspect is they've noticed the press using Amazon sales as a metric, so they've decided to artificially distort it.

Amazon did a 50% sale in the early days of DVD also ... and in that case it was Amazon choosing to aggressively price the product to minimize others from even considering entering the market (or so I assume).

If anything we have now a major etailer with a defined "sale" period so there will be additional data (or lack of) in the VS numbers to keep AVSers busy interpreting the data itself..... :p

What I really suspect is they've noticed the press using Amazon sales as a metric, so they've decided to artificially distort it.

Time to adjust the tinfoil hat.

In any case, Amazon is also offering 50% off all Magnolia HD DVD titles.
What conspiracy can you whip up for that one?

It seems to me if it's not the competition driving down prices, then it must be an oversupply of unsold inventory. :) What I really suspect is they've noticed the press using Amazon sales as a metric, so they've decided to artificially distort it.
If there was an oversupply on Amazon's part, why are they restocking mid-sale? If it was an overstock on the part of the studios, why weren't they able to keep Amazon aflush in enough product?

Tinfoil hats, indeed.

Time to adjust the tinfoil hat.

In any case, Amazon is also offering 50% off all Magnolia HD DVD titles.
What conspiracy can you whip up for that one?

All two of them. Wow, what logic.

Looks like we're gonna find out if Videoscan really uses Amazon sales when this weeks numbers come out. I would think the Videoscan numbers should show quite a jump for this week.

The next set of Nielson VideoScan numbers will report up to 3rd March. They won't include any Amazon Blu-ray sale numbers because the sale started after this date.

The next set of Nielson VideoScan numbers will report up to 3rd March. They won't include any Amazon Blu-ray sale numbers because the sale started after this date.

What are we looking at when the figures are released 2.5:1 3:1 ?
If Nielsen use Amazons data from the 3rd March onwards, the figures for April could be totaly one sided.

If there was an oversupply on Amazon's part, why are they restocking mid-sale? If it was an overstock on the part of the studios, why weren't they able to keep Amazon aflush in enough product?

Tinfoil hats, indeed.

They are restocking mid-sale? The only thing I see is that the amount of BDs in stock has now over the last few days dropped to rougly the same as the amount of HD DVDs in stock.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/graphs/quantity-1-1-recent30.jpg

Look at the 24 hour chart instead :
http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/graphs/quantity-time-1-1-recent144.jpg

There are multiple small blips going up throughout the day.

Many disks are sold out with 5 days or more waiting time, and they allow you to order these disks. The test is to see if the titles like Kungfu Hustle/Memento get restocked soon.

As a side note, amazon sale will probably canibalize some of the other etailers sales numbers, so you can' just add them. The other etailers can ask fox and sony for the same sale to compensate, but they probably need the volume get it.

All two of them. Wow, what logic.It's 6 titles, and if HD DVD fans weren't so busy moaning about desparation, they would see the HD DVD versions of the Magnolias are 50% off too.

It's 6 titles, and if HD DVD fans weren't so busy moaning about desparation, they would see the HD DVD versions of the Magnolias are 50% off too.

That is interesting - the implication here is that the sale is available for both formats - just that many of the titles are not available on HD DVD...

Yep.

I took a stab over the weekend to generate some code inside an Excel spreadsheet to do numeric projections against the Neilsen/VideoScan data. Using the same assumption nataraj used of 64:100 Blu-ray to 500,000 HD SI sales on 1/1, here are the results:

http://www.endrop.com/album/photos/wxgtfoiyzmy2h0nly2wy.jpg (http://www.endrop.com/viewer.php?file=wxgtfoiyzmy2h0nly2wy.jpg)

I've attached a copy of the spreadsheet (zipped) for those that want to follow along.

The code behind the button is a macro that does number projection by applying increasing numbers of sales each week until the projected SI figures match what is being reported by VideoScan to within 1/100th of a percent. You can adjust the numbers in either the gray or yellow background cells (reserved for Neilsen reporting numbers and assumed SI disc sales respectively), then click CALCULATE to see the numbers change.

Warning for those with slower computers: The code is very brute force, and may take some time to run. It takes about 15 seconds to run on my 3.0 HT Pentium 4, but YMMV.

There's also room to add more Neilsen data as it comes in. Just add the dates and the Nielsen ratios (normalized to 100 is fine, though you can use the percentages as well, the code doesn't care as long as the ratios are right).

EDIT: It occurs to me that most people will have the default security settings in Excel set to High. You'll need to set your Excel security temporarily to LOW to make this work with the button. Tools > Macro > Security > Low. Change it back once you're done.
Some SI numbers quoted in an interview that should be looked at....
Through Feb. 25, Mandato said, 694,000 Blu-ray movies were sold compared with 655,000 HD DVD movies.
http://www.twice.com/article/CA6422671.html

The sales ratio works out pretty close (655,000 / 694,000 = 94.38 vs 94.25) so that is a close confirmation of the ratios given in the chart data.

b2b

Some SI numbers quoted in an interview that should be looked at....

Great minds think alike! :) I just noticed that quote, and am working in my spare moments (at work right now!) on a solution to derive the original SI figures backwards from Montado's numbers, which appear match VideoScan's.

Will post more if I get better results, including a recomputation and a re-released spreadsheet.

Will post more if I get better results, including a recomputation and a re-released spreadsheet.

Well what are you doing typing here, get out your abacus and get to work Algebra boy! ;)

It's 6 titles, and if HD DVD fans weren't so busy moaning about desparation, they would see the HD DVD versions of the Magnolias are 50% off too.

Stop trying to spin it, since it was pointed out you were wrong. The discussion was, Blu-ray is lop-siding sales by offering 50% off. You countered back, so is HD-DVD, implying the numbers wouldn't be skewed if HD-DVD is really selling.

The difference is, BD is offering 50% off on around 50 different titles HD-DVD has 2. A sale of 50% off 50 titles does not equal a sale of 50% off 2 titles.

Well what are you doing typing here, get out your abacus and get to work Algebra boy! ;)
Yeesh, all these demanding people!! :)

Here you go. It's a rough guess still, but if Montado's numbers are even close this should do.

Again, like Nataraj, I am assuming a 64% SI ratio on 1/1/06 (basically walking back from 1/28/07 at around 5-6% SI per week).

Here's the modified numbers to match Montado's close enough for discussion.

http://www.endrop.com/album/photos/qmqrnez0mfndwn2m4hnh.jpg (http://www.endrop.com/viewer.php?file=qmqrnez0mfndwn2m4hnh.jpg)

I've again attached the zipped spreadsheet. Made a slight optimization to the code, but again the security warnings and slow computer warnings apply.

Discuss if you feel like it!

Icemage,

If you read the whole thing, Mondato also says it is too early to call a winner.

I wonder how all the fanboys will react to this piece of heresy, when the brain trust here has declared HD DVD is getting stomped. :)

If you read the whole thing, Mondato also says it is too early to call a winner.

I wonder how all the fanboys will react to this piece of heresy, when the brain trust here has declared HD DVD is getting stomped.
I agree that it is too early to call a winner. That does not mean we can not take the information available and piece together a picture of what is happening.

This is the AVScience forum. That's what we do here, or so I'm led to believe. :)

Well done.

Icemage,

I agree that it is too early to call a winner. That does not mean we can not take the information available and piece together a picture of what is happening.

I know that you think it is too early, but there are a lot of people, loudly and vocally proclaiming a winner, just as the HD DVD people did in the fall.

I know that you think it is too early, but there are a lot of people, loudly and vocally proclaiming a winner, just as the HD DVD people did in the fall.
And I agree with you that they are wrong today as they were last fall, though the faces may have changed. This format war does not end until the HD DVD PRG or the BDA give up, or one format reaches an insurmountable supermajority of market penetration. You can't blame the proponents of both sides for buying into the propaganda too much; that's what propaganda is all about.

The hope is that we can rise above the spin and find some truth somewhere in between.

Icemage,

Well, maybe I am a hopeless optimist, but I wish people could have reasoned discussions without the hyperbole. There are just too many noobies essentially screaming their point, without any decorum, or respect for others. :(

Well, maybe I am a hopeless optimist, but I wish people could have reasoned discussions without the hyperbole. There are just too many noobies essentially screaming their point, without any decorum, or respect for others. :(
I wish it were true, and I wish I were neutral enough to say I wasn't guilty of it at times, but the truth is that any forum is a living organism that draws the interest of those who have an interest in the topics of discussion. We're all human, we all have opinions, and well... sometimes people let their enthusiasm get away from them. It's just the way things are.

With the rising numbers of HD buyers on both sides of the format, and steadily decreasing pricing, we're seeing a larger cross-section of members join the forum from outside the core constituency of home theatre enthusiasts. The drop in post quality that you're talking about has something to do with this, though I will note that there are a small number of veteran posters here who have been around for years on both sides of the fence who I would classify as no better than some of the newcomers you're lamenting (naming no names, obviously).

---

As an aside, I'm liking my new data numbers much better, as they come very close to the 45K BD disc sale figures per week that have been floating around during the early February period. Doesn't mean my numbers are any more accurate than any other guess, but it's at least a shred of corroboration that I'm on the right track.

And I agree with you that they are wrong today as they were last fall, though the faces may have changed.

You guys finished hugging each other? :D

The difference is:

1. Last year, everyone was basically waiting for the PS3 to change the competitive landscape and win it for Blu-ray. No one today seems to have any idea (other than cheap chinese players, which seem to be vaporware) what it would take to turn around the situation for HD-dvd at this point. ALL the trends (blockbuster releases, players sales, title sales) seem to point to a situation where Blu-ray will keep on widening this lead.

2. The amount of titles sold at the time was very low compared to what it is now. For example, there were significantly more blu-ray titles sold in less than 2 months this year than in the entire year of 2006. Another example, last year neither HD-DVD nor Blu-ray were making any significant impact on amazon.com rankings, which is not true now.

3. Then was then, now is now. It may sound flippant, but the phrase has similarities to "What have you done for me lately?" and "Possession is 9/10ths of the law". The impact of events today have more bearing then on any past events, and because of the growing size of the HD market and current surge of blu-ray sales, the public is more likely to pay attention to the fact that it is blu-ray that is being declared the winner by more and more publications and analysts.

Obviously, no one can predict the future, but we can certainly project current trends and see what is most likely to happen.

asj,

what i find amusing is that the BD brain trust here seems to think they know more than, and have a better understanding of the situation than, the people running the studios.

Mondato from Paramount just said that it is too early to call a winner based on the informatio they have, which is probably more than the information you have, and yet, you are right and he is wrong.

Note, Paramount releases in both formats and therefore has no incentive to spin it one way or another.

asj,

what i find amusing is that the BD brain trust here seems to think they know more than, and have a better understanding of the situation than, the people running the studios.

Mondato from Paramount just said that it is too early to call a winner based on the informatio they have, which is probably more than the information you have, and yet, you are right and he is wrong.


What you don't seem to realize is that there is something called speech for public consumption. Paramount is a neutral studio, which means that what they say (in public) will reflect this stance. Blu-ray could be stomping hd-dvd to the tune of 80% to 20% and (so long as they are still trying to sell HD-DVD discs), Paramount would still be saying the same thing.

asj,

What you don't seem to realize is that there is something called speech for public consumption.

True enough, and if he worked for Sony or Toshiba, I would simply ignore what he says. However, he has no particular reason to spin it. If Paramount believed the war was over, they would say so. Again, the number of sales is so small, I doubt any studio is making any money off disc sales.

That aside though, my statement still stands. You must consider the Board at Unviersal to be monumentally blind and/or stupid then. I mean, according to you and bob, and beatboy, the "war' is clearly over, so clearly over that only an idiot would refuse to accept the "facts" and immediately convert to BD.

asj,
True enough, and if he worked for Sony or Toshiba, I would simply ignore what he says. However, he has no particular reason to spin it. If Paramount believed the war was over, they would say so. Again, the number of sales is so small, I doubt any studio is making any money off disc sales.


1. You didn't read my argument. Paramount will NOT say IN PUBLIC anything that would devalue its neutrality. It's not a question of spin or no spin.

2. I NEVER said Blu-ray is the "winner". What I said is Blu-ray is stomping hd-dvd flat right now, and from all data it looks like it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I could be wrong, but the probability is I'm right.

Neo,

If the red team cannot win

That is your view. It is not a factual statement.

Asj,

You didn't read my argument. Paramount will NOT say IN PUBLIC anything that would devalue its neutrality. It's not a question of spin or no spin.

I read your argument, its just that I dont believe it is correct. Mondato said that there cannot be a peaceful co-existence, and I happen to agree. Having this situation as the status quo will mean both formats will fail.

So, given that Paramount believes there will be a "winner" if they REALLY thought BD won, they would simply come out and say it. They have no need to "spin" it in the sense of appearing neutral, when they dont believe it.

Note, Paramount releases in both formats and therefore has no incentive to spin it one way or another.

They certainly don't want to people to stop buying their HD DVD's!!! If they said "Well actually, BD is wiping the floor with HD DVD" people would start asking them to stop making HD DVD's. Clearly they don't want to do that while they can still milk HD DVD owners

asj,

what i find amusing is that the BD brain trust here seems to think they know more than, and have a better understanding of the situation than, the people running the studios.

Mondato from Paramount just said that it is too early to call a winner based on the informatio they have, which is probably more than the information you have, and yet, you are right and he is wrong.

Note, Paramount releases in both formats and therefore has no incentive to spin it one way or another.

According to the article, he is an executive consultant. So, not sure that would make him 'from' Paramount....

According to the article, he is an executive consultant. So, not sure that would make him 'from' Paramount....
Good ol' voice of reason (most-of-the-time ;),) Plaz.

Top HD DVD Titles For Week Ended 3/4/2007

RANK TITLE (LABEL/DISTRIBUTOR, SRP)
1 The Departed (WB, $39.99)
2 Babel (PAR, $39.99)
3 Batman Begins (WB, $28.99)
4 Goodfellas (WB, $28.99)
5 Serenity (UNI, $29.98)
6 Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (UNI, $29.98)
7 Troy (WB, $28.99)
8 Casino (UNI, $29.98)
9 The Bourne Supremacy (UNI, $34.99)
10 Hollywoodland (UNI, $39.99)

TOP Blu-Ray TITLES FOR WEEK ENDED 3/4/2007

RANK TITLE (LABEL/DISTRIBUTOR, SRP)
1 The Departed (WB, $34.99)
2 Babel (PAR, $39.99)
3 The Prestige (BV, $34.99)
4 Superman Returns (WB, $34.99)
5 Stranger Than Fiction (SONY, $38.96)
6 The Fifth Element (SONY, $28.95)
7 TERMINATOR 2 (LG, $29.99)
8 Black Hawk Down (SONY, $28.95)
9 Crank (LG, $39.99)
10 X-MEN: The Last Stand (FOX, $39.98)

Source: Rentrak’s Retail Essentials ™.
Sales estimations are based on preliminary data provided through an exclusive arrangement with Rentrak Corp.’s Retail Essentials service. Point-of-Sale data is collected weekly and projected nationally for the U.S. bricks-and-mortar sales channel.

Yeesh, all these demanding people!! :)

Here you go. It's a rough guess still, but if Montado's numbers are even close this should do.

Again, like Nataraj, I am assuming a 64% SI ratio on 1/1/06 (basically walking back from 1/28/07 at around 5-6% SI per week).

Here's the modified numbers to match Montado's close enough for discussion.

http://www.endrop.com/album/photos/qmqrnez0mfndwn2m4hnh.jpg (http://www.endrop.com/viewer.php?file=qmqrnez0mfndwn2m4hnh.jpg)

I've again attached the zipped spreadsheet. Made a slight optimization to the code, but again the security warnings and slow computer warnings apply.

Discuss if you feel like it!

Excellent. Thanks a lot, Icemage.

So sales in 2006 were lower still than we thought.

Looking at the top HD DVD and BD titles for the week ended on March 4, it seems the only new movie release (Stranger than Fiction) didn't have lots of sales, so I expect sales ratio to be much more even than we are used to. YTD will decrease slightly but SI will increase very slightly.

Yes, it could be more even sales ratio Grubert, but you know that all those movies on BD side have higher ranking on Amazon, so they have bigger sales....

so I will not be surprised if ratios will be more even, but also if they stay around same...

Marek

Newest numbers up (http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom031107/):

Week ending March 4, 2007

YTD BD 100.00 HD DVD 48.73
SI BD 100.00 HD DVD 91.46

Newest numbers up (http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom031107/):

Week ending March 4, 2007

YTD BD 100.00 HD DVD 48.73
SI BD 100.00 HD DVD 91.46

BD is currently outselling Hd-dvd more than 2:1, so the SI will keep getting smaller for HD-DVD....looks like the ratio of hd-dvd is dropping 3-4 points every week, so by the end of march it'll be close to 100:80 for blu-ray

BD is currently outselling Hd-dvd more than 2:1, so the SI will keep getting smaller for HD-DVD....looks like the ratio of hd-dvd is dropping 3-4 points every week, so by the end of march it'll be close to 100:80 for blu-ray

The ratio would be more than 100:80 considering Casino Royale will be out next week and HD DVD won't have a new release until March the 27th. If I had to guess, it would be 100:75 or 100:70.

I'm not surprised the gap from late feb to early march isn't big. Last week was the first time both formats received the same titles - only difference being Sony's Stanger than Fiction.

And perhaps the first sign that HD DVD is truly in bad shape when it's not the blu-ray exclusive titles that are the difference, but the dual format titles as well.

Next week's numbers should be sick! With Blu-ray in the mid 80s probably in the Since Inception category.

Here are the percentages

YTD:
BD: 67.24% HD: 32.76%

SI:
BD: 52.23% HD: 47.77%


Day Week YTD SI
01/07 63.3/36.7 n/a n/a
01/14 68.2/31.8 n/a n/a
01/21 67.8/32.2 66.4/33.6 45.1/54.9
01/28 68.8/31.2 67.0/33.0 46.7/53.3
02/04 n/a 67.4/32.6 48.1/51.9
02/11 n/a 67.7/32.3 49.3/50.7
02/18 n/a 67.4/32.6 50.3/49.7
02/25 n/a 67.4/32.6 51.5/48.5
03/04 n/a 67.2/32.8 52.2/47.7

Top 5

BD

1. The Departed 100.00
2. The Prestige 81.40
3. Stranger than Fiction 47.82
4. Babel. 35.04
5. Superman Returns 18.31

HD DVD

1. The Departed 100.00
2. Babel 45.07
3. Batman Begins 27.17
4. Troy 15.01
5. Goodfellas 13.95

Video Business (http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6422898.html): Consumers bought around 250,000 units of Blu-ray movies during February, compared to the estimated 125,000 units of HD DVD movies, according to industry sources.

Video Business (http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6422898.html): Consumers bought around 250,000 units of Blu-ray movies during February, compared to the estimated 125,000 units of HD DVD movies, according to industry sources.


Is it just me, or is that Graffeo guy a master at stating the obvious?

"Uh, Blu-ray's got much better sales BECAUSE it has better releases and marketing."

Uh, Duh. Maybe Universal should do something about it instead of stating the obvious, huh? Although I think it's already too late with the momentum Blu-ray has going for it.

asj,

Although I think it's already too late with the momentum Blu-ray has going for it.

While I would expect you to say that, it seems as if the rest of the panel disagrees with you if the reporting is accurate.

asj,



While I would expect you to say that, it seems as if the rest of the panel disagrees with you if the reporting is accurate.

Too bad I'm not "the rest of the panel".

Unless you can give some reasonable indication as to how HD-DVD titles are going to suddenly sell more than Blu-ray titles, I suggest it IS too late. Everything that's happening is just a winding-down period.

I think the sentence that shocks me the most is that Blu-ray and HD DVD set top players were about equal in February. What that tells me is that Software dictates hardware sales, not the other way around regardless of price. I can't imagine what would happen once the Sony player is released and the current player goes on clearance at $399 or something.

asj,

We arent ever going to see eye to eye on this. One example, Universal releases all the Spielberg films.

I have no idea what the outcome is going to be, but when current sales amount to less than 0.5% of all DVD sales, and when iTunes sells more movies than both formats combined, I just think it is way to early to be calling a winner.

I also think that given the paltry amount of money involved at this point that no studio is going to switch, no matter what the BD brain trust may think, hope and wish.

Is there enough information and anybody here who can determine what part of the adoption curve we're in? Innovator? I suspect we're still in the introductory long tail.

Wayne,

Given that the formats account for 0.5% of all DVD sales, I would say we are at the very beginning.

asj, We arent ever going to see eye to eye on this. One example, Universal releases all the Spielberg films.


A catalog list of titles that is impressive but won't dent the huge recent blockbusters and catalog titles coming from Sony, Disney, and the rest. Plus, Spielberg has a history of NOT releasing his work until whatever format war is happening settles down.

I have no idea what the outcome is going to be, but when current sales amount to less than 0.5% of all DVD sales, and when iTunes sells more movies than both formats combined, I just think it is way to early to be calling a winner.

I'm not saying Blu-ray is the "winner", I'm saying that it most likely the winner, and that there is no reasonable argument against this at this point.

I also think that given the paltry amount of money involved at this point that no studio is going to switch, no matter what the BD brain trust may think, hope and wish.

The studios realize that they would all benefit by having one single format. In other words, this "war" does not need to go all the way to the "mass adoption" stage for there to be a winner.

Video Business (http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6422898.html): Consumers bought around 250,000 units of Blu-ray movies during February, compared to the estimated 125,000 units of HD DVD movies, according to industry sources.

My numbers disagree with Video Business by around 50,000 BD and 25,000 HD. I cannot seem to make them mesh with the figures quoted by Vito Mandato yesterday.

At any rate, here's the new projection based on the data provided for 3/4:

http://www.endrop.com/album/photos/4ewzrqwzwui3i2wzoywy.jpg (http://www.endrop.com/viewer.php?file=4ewzrqwzwui3i2wzoywy.jpg)

My numbers disagree with Video Business by around 50,000 BD and 25,000 HD. I cannot seem to make them mesh with the figures quoted by Vito Mandato yesterday.

At any rate, here's the new projection based on the data provided for 3/4:

http://www.endrop.com/album/photos/4ewzrqwzwui3i2wzoywy.jpg (http://www.endrop.com/viewer.php?file=4ewzrqwzwui3i2wzoywy.jpg)


yeah, that SI numbers for Blu-ray versus HD-DVD looks like HD-DVD is losing 3-4 points every week, which means by the end of March (assuming that the 2:1 ratio of weekly sales remains the same and does not get worse for HD-DVD because of Casino Royale) the SI ratio should be about 100:80

end March 100:80
end April 100:68
end May 100:56
end June 100:44

So, by Summer, the SI ratio would be 2:1 in Blu-ray's favor given everything remains the same.

When Ken says:

“When they start talking about numbers, two-to-one, that’s really about the release schedule,” said Ken Graffeo, executive VP of marketing and head of high definition at Universal Studios Home Entertainment, the only major studio to exclusively support HD DVD.

Is he badly advised or is he being deliberately misleading?

My numbers disagree with Video Business by around 50,000 BD and 25,000 HD. I cannot seem to make them mesh with the figures quoted by Vito Mandato yesterday.Mandato could have been going off of numbers that were a week old when he was quoted. Looking at your chart, it would make sense.

yeah, that SI numbers for Blu-ray versus HD-DVD looks like HD-DVD is losing 3-4 points every week, which means by the end of March (assuming that the 2:1 ratio of weekly sales remains the same and does not get worse for HD-DVD because of Casino Royale) the SI ratio should be about 100:80

end March 100:80
end April 100:68
end May 100:56
end June 100:44

So, by Summer, the SI ratio would be 2:1 in Blu-ray's favor given everything remains the same.The number of points moved per week should get smaller as the two ratios approach each other. For instance, if the numbers for the weeks settle out around 100:48, then the SI numbers should never end with the HD DVD side going below 48 and the absolute rate of change for the SI numbers should get smaller each week, getting very small when the SI is 100:50 and the weekly is 100:48, as an example.

The number of points moved per week should get smaller as the two ratios approach each other. For instance, if the numbers for the weeks settle out around 100:48, then the SI numbers should never end with the HD DVD side going below 48 and the absolute rate of change for the SI numbers should get smaller each week, getting very small when the SI is 100:50 and the weekly is 100:48, as an example.

Unless the monthly UNIT sales were to go up dramatically, then the SI numbers could shift more, but that should take a while, especially since this amazon sale could skew things somewhat.

Unless the monthly UNIT sales were to go up dramatically, then the SI numbers could shift more, but that should take a while, especially since this amazon sale could skew things somewhat.Good point. It would take huge sales for the SI to move 3-4 points when the weekly numbers and the SI numbers are close though.

--Darin

asj,



While I would expect you to say that, it seems as if the rest of the panel disagrees with you if the reporting is accurate.
Hey George,

Have you seen the the Gentleman's Wager (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=817298&page=1&pp=30) poll yet? I expect to see you there shortly. ;)

Mandato could have been going off of numbers that were a week old when he was quoted. Looking at your chart, it would make sense.
Can't be. February was 28 days long. That's exactly 4 weeks. While my figures vary from week to week, there's not "that" much difference between the February 1 week and the March 1 week to account for this sort of number discrepancy.

Either Nielsen, Montado or Video Business is wrong; there's no set of numbers that can be projected from all of their data that is consistent with all of them.

EDIT: Per Nielsen, no matter what I stick into the figures for SI, the February monthly ratio seems to range between about 2.09 : 1 and 2.16 : 1, disregarding Montado completely. Video Business is claiming 1.67 to 1, so Video Business also disagrees with Nielsen. Montado agrees with Nielsen, but is very likely drawing his figures from Nielsen.

As this thread is dedicated to discussing Nielsen data, I am tentatively discarding Video Business' figures until I can find any data to corroborate them.

Mandato could have been going off of numbers that were a week old when he was quoted. Looking at your chart, it would make sense.

Mandato erroneously rounded of the numbers of VideoScan ...its that simple

I get very similar numbers to Icemage using new assumed figures to get to near Mandato's quoted numbers.

http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/6553/nielsenhideffu0.gif (http://imageshack.us)

Man as good as the figures are for Blu-ray in the context of this 'war', they're pretty terrible for HD in general.

For all the blubbering that goes on about tie-ratios, looks like its about 0.5-0.75 for Blu-ray (PS3 inclusive), and 1-2 for HD-DVD. That's shocking. What happened to an annualised 28 for HD-DVD, 5 for PS3, or for early adopters buying movies in droves....eh. Thats equally shocking for both.

Phyrric victory coming to one of the contestants.

Man as good as the figures are for Blu-ray in the context of this 'war', they're pretty terrible for HD in general.Terrible? Considering that they are two competing HD video formats both of which are under a year old I don't think it is that bad.


Phyrric victory coming to one of the contestants.Just my opinion but I think once one of the formats wins the format war it will also win in the long term as the HD replacement for DVD. A lot more consumers would feel confident buying into it and we would see sales for both players and movies of that format increase.

yeah, that SI numbers for Blu-ray versus HD-DVD looks like HD-DVD is losing 3-4 points every week, which means by the end of March (assuming that the 2:1 ratio of weekly sales remains the same and does not get worse for HD-DVD because of Casino Royale) the SI ratio should be about 100:80

end March 100:80
end April 100:68
end May 100:56
end June 100:44

So, by Summer, the SI ratio would be 2:1 in Blu-ray's favor given everything remains the same.

It seems you don't realize that if sales ratios remain at a 2:1 level, the SI gain for BD will gradually slow down, and that it can never go beyond 100:50.

What happened to an annualised 28 for HD-DVD, 5 for PS3, or for early adopters buying movies in droves....eh. Thats equally shocking for both.
They're renting... especially PS3 owners. They're holding out for a winner. Many PS3 owners would have bought it regardless of Blu-ray. As to the rest, hardware is expensive, but you need not waste more money on potentially obsolete software when you can just rent.

Oh, but... this format war is a great and wonderful thing for HD Optical. :rolleyes:

It seems you don't realize that if sales ratios remain at a 2:1 level, the SI gain for BD will gradually slow down, and that it can never go beyond 100:50.
Agreed.

It seems you don't realize that if sales ratios remain at a 2:1 level, the SI gain for BD will gradually slow down, and that it can never go beyond 100:50.

Yeah, color me embarrased :o

My numbers disagree with Video Business by around 50,000 BD and 25,000 HD. I cannot seem to make them mesh with the figures quoted by Vito Mandato yesterday.

doesn't VB use Rentrak? the difference could just be the source

Terrible? Considering that they are two competing HD video formats both of which are under a year old I don't think it is that bad.


yes. HD DVD supporters like to point out that BD sales are not good enough to pull HD DVD studios into supporting it. But what they fail to realize is that none of the sales are really good enough to keep studios interested. Sales need to start increasing or they are both doomed.

Just my opinion but I think once one of the formats wins the format war it will also win in the long term as the HD replacement for DVD. A lot more consumers would feel confident buying into it and we would see sales for both players and movies of that format increase.

agree, but that needs to happen sooner rather then later because later could be too late.

agree, but that needs to happen sooner rather then later because later could be too late.

The whole idea that both formats would lose sounds wrong to me. Here's my view:
1. The idea that downloads will replace the DVD format any time soon seems overblown. Even for digital music, for which download speeds are already now perfectly ok and for which players abound, downloads are supposed to pass CDs only by 2011 or so, with CDs being a massive market for many years after. Translating this to DVDs, it seems that there is a huge market for some type of DVDs for quite some time in the future.
2. Prices of blue-laser players will inevitably fall dramatically, if only by the PS3 and PC-drive sales. (Learning effects are tremendous in electronics mfg, and there is no reason to believe that this will be any different.) Two or three years from now, the difference between a HD player and a regular player are likely to be relatively small. Especially between an HD player and un upconverting player.
3. If price differences are small, why not buy an HD player for your next DVD player with HDMI output, now that you bought that HDTV (by 2009)? Even when the format war does not change, it allows you to get about 2/3 of your titles in HD.
4. Once you have the HD player, I personally expect very few people to buy or, even more, rent standard DVDs.

I am not arguing that HDs will replace the full DVD market or so. But it is nearly inevitably that the HD market will be huge (even if this war lasts forever).

Note, by the way, that while the benefits going from a regular DVD to an HD may be smaller than from a VHS to DVD, the transition is also easier (once you have an HDTV) since any HD player will play DVDs. If it wasn't for the format war, an HD player would be just one step up from an expensive upconverting player.

While I personally favor BD, I would prefer by a very very wide margin HD DVD winning tomorrow over BD winning 3 years from now. (In fact, my support for BD is largely driven by the fact that they are in a much better position right now to end it. And so I personally cheer for every of their victories, but I will cheer equally loudly for HD DVD if they were to take the lead. And no, I do not consider this being a fair-weather friend: I don't make friends with DVD players ;) )

I am not arguing that HDs will replace the full DVD market or so. But it is nearly inevitably that the HD market will be huge (even if this war lasts forever).

I see no reason why this is inevitable. HiDef DVDs can remain niche for a long time ... just like DVD-A and SACD.

Already, SD movie downloads have overtaken HiDef DVD sales (in numbers).

Afterall, half of all HDTV owners don't even get any HD programming (even though all it takes to get HD is a call to your local cable operator).

yes. HD DVD supporters like to point out that BD sales are not good enough to pull HD DVD studios into supporting it. But what they fail to realize is that none of the sales are really good enough to keep studios interested.

Obviously an average sale of 5,000 movies is not attractive to any major studio.

Sales need to start increasing or they are both doomed.

How much should they increase and how fast ? Afterall, the sales for 4th of March are not much different from that of 28th of Jan.

Obviously an average sale of 5,000 movies is not attractive to any major studio.

How much should they increase and how fast ? Afterall, the sales for 4th of March are not much different from that of 28th of Jan.

Those numbers are going up. The Departed on Blu-ray sold 23,000 copies the first week. Casino Royales is likely to sell even more than that.

And sales this year have already surpassed the total sales for last year (at least for Blu-ray they have...)

So it is accelerating.

Those numbers are going up. The Departed on Blu-ray sold 23,000 copies the first week. Casino Royales is likely to sell even more than that.Looks like CR has a good chance of outselling all 170+ HD DVDs for that first week. Kind of shows what a good day-and-date title can do and possibly how front loaded these things can be. "The Departed" on Blu-ray by itself looks like it wasn't that far off from matching all HD DVD sales for the week, including "The Departed" on HD DVD.

--Darin

So it is accelerating.

That is not what I see from the charts. Last couple of weeks was a bump ... this week they are back to their original (Jan levels). Yes, the sales are better in '07 than '06. But I don't see any evidence of acceleration.

Ofcourse with 50% off on Amazon I expect better sales when new figures come out.

Assuming 50,000 BDs and 25,000 HD DVDs are sold every week these are the SI ratios we'll see:1st Week SI
April 100:83
May 100:76
June 100:72
July 100:69
August 100:67

I see no reason why this is inevitable. HiDef DVDs can remain niche for a long time ... just like DVD-A and SACD.

Already, SD movie downloads have overtaken HiDef DVD sales (in numbers).

Afterall, half of all HDTV owners don't even get any HD programming (even though all it takes to get HD is a call to your local cable operator).

There is a key difference with DVD-A and SACD: people will switch to HDTV and HD programming at least by 2009. As with many things, they may not appreciate the switch when moving up, but they will feel it when looking at old DVDs, which is a very natural trigger to also move up in DVD players. As soon as prices come down, anyone buying an HDTV will be told to also upgrade their DVD.

The fact that SD movie downloads are lower in value than HiDef sales (which I take your statement about 'numbers' to imply, sorry if I'm wrong :) ) suggests to me that it will be a long time before HD movie downloads will be anywhere.

But obviously my 'inevitable' was too strong an expression. (Who knows whether AppleTV will do to movies what the iPod did to music? Honestly, it would be a lot easier than dealing with scratched disks, so it won't be that bad an outcome :) )

There is a key difference with DVD-A and SACD: people will switch to HDTV and HD programming at least by 2009. As with many things, they may not appreciate the switch when moving up, but they will feel it when looking at old DVDs, which is a very natural trigger to also move up in DVD players. As soon as prices come down, anyone buying an HDTV will be told to also upgrade their DVD.

On smaller sets DVDs look like HD - for most consumers. That is why I said it is not compelling ...

Just see various comments made even on this forum to get confirmation of what I'm saying ...

The fact that SD movie downloads are lower in value than HiDef sales (which I take your statement about 'numbers' to imply, sorry if I'm wrong :) ) suggests to me that it will be a long time before HD movie downloads will be anywhere.

I'm talking about numbers, because that is what I know of. iTunes has sold a million of just Dizney movies. BTW, 5 of top 10 XBoxLive movie rental downloads are HD.

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/marketplace/moviestv/?WT.svl=nav


But obviously my 'inevitable' was too strong an expression. (Who knows whether AppleTV will do to movies what the iPod did to music? Honestly, it would be a lot easier than dealing with scratched disks, so it won't be that bad an outcome :) )

I'm surprised apple didn't think of an iTV with Blu-ray Drive for $500. Now that would have been a compelling device ....

On smaller sets DVDs look like HD - for most consumers. That is why I said it is not compelling ...

Makes sense, though I do believe that it makes a big difference going up versus going down. (I didn't think going from DOS to windows was a big improvement, on the contrary. But pls don't let me go back :) )

I'm talking about numbers, because that is what I know of. iTunes has sold a million of just Dizney movies. 5 of top 10 XBoxLive movie rental downloads are HD.

Actually I did just see an article that claimed that movie downloads of iTunes alone was way ahead of HD movies, so I may be underestimating that. (Although I do think that 'rental versus buying' and different age groups may lead to an important market segmentation here.)

I'm surprised apple didn't think of a iTV with Blu-ray Drive for $500. Now that would have been a compelling device ....

Since their first purpose is to expand the iTunes ecosphere, integrating a (still rather expensive) BD player would increase cost while going against the main purpose. Wouldn't be surprised if they do that as an option eventually.

How much should they increase and how fast ? Afterall, the sales for 4th of March are not much different from that of 28th of Jan.


I guess that is the millinon $ question. I think if studios jumped on UMD when a few titles hit 100k, and dropped out in a few months when they realized it was almost impossible to get anything past 50k that at this time we are lucky they have not given up yet. I think HD had three things going for it (from a studio perspective
1) AACS
2) double dip
3) price

but AACS appears to be useless in protecting movies (players can be revoked, but if it gets circumvented all movies pre last circumvention are free), prices can't stay much higher for too long, the only real thing left is DD for quality (how many of us bought movies we liked over again because of the better PQ/AQ). And if something else comes along that can offer 1 and 3 they could give up as fast as they did on UMD.

Man as good as the figures are for Blu-ray in the context of this 'war', they're pretty terrible for HD in general.

For all the blubbering that goes on about tie-ratios, looks like its about 0.5-0.75 for Blu-ray (PS3 inclusive), and 1-2 for HD-DVD. That's shocking. What happened to an annualised 28 for HD-DVD, 5 for PS3, or for early adopters buying movies in droves....eh. Thats equally shocking for both.

Phyrric victory coming to one of the contestants.

I don't think there is anything shocking about the sales figures for HD in general. Given the low percentage of households with HD and the format war it is amazing that sales are as high as they are.

A timely victory will not be phyrric as a single format will sell much better than two formats combined even at the current HD penetration.

While I personally favor BD, I would prefer by a very very wide margin HD DVD winning tomorrow over BD winning 3 years from now. (In fact, my support for BD is largely driven by the fact that they are in a much better position right now to end it. And so I personally cheer for every of their victories, but I will cheer equally loudly for HD DVD if they were to take the lead. And no, I do not consider this being a fair-weather friend: I don't make friends with DVD players ;) )
I couldn't agree more.

In fact, when Blu-ray first started rolling out, and the reports of poor picture quality began to emerge, unless something were to change quickly, I was fully prepared to change cheerleading uniforms.

If weekly Vidoescan figures remain 2:1 all year, I believe universal would announce neutrality at CES.

I am not arguing that HDs will replace the full DVD market or so. But it is nearly inevitably that the HD market will be huge (even if this war lasts forever).

even though I agree with most of the stuff in your post. Your conclusion does not follow. The problem is that you are assuming players sell movies while it is the opposite. No one buys a door stop and then say "look it can play movies". Look at SACD, DVD-A there are many players that can play them on the market but no one cares any more about them because content gave up before they could grab hold.

While I personally favor BD, I would prefer by a very very wide margin HD DVD winning tomorrow over BD winning 3 years from now. (In fact, my support for BD is largely driven by the fact that they are in a much better position right now to end it. And so I personally cheer for every of their victories, but I will cheer equally loudly for HD DVD if they were to take the lead. And no, I do not consider this being a fair-weather friend: I don't make friends with DVD players )

same here except for one difference, the signs were there from early 2005 and so nothing that has happened so far was a suprise (though to be honestly I thought boyth sides would be higher by now)

same here except for one difference, the signs were there from early 2005 and so nothing that has happened so far was a suprise (though to be honestly I thought boyth sides would be higher by now)
So you weren't even, just a little bit concerned about the early, BD, picture quality reports?

I guess that is the millinon $ question. I think if studios jumped on UMD when a few titles hit 100k, and dropped out in a few months when they realized it was almost impossible to get anything past 50k that at this time we are lucky they have not given up yet.

They have all invested too heavily to give up that easily. But if sales don't improve in '08 - I think they will pursue other alternatives more vigorously.

At this point, I think downloads (SD or HD) have a higher success likelyhood than HiDef DVDs. In five years, it is possible that we will have higher HD downloads than HD disc sales.

At this point, I think downloads (SD or HD) have a higher success likelyhood than HiDef DVDs.

Uh, no. It's one thing to download kb or even a few megabytes of data for music, it's quite another thing for large numbers of people to be downloading tens of gigabytes of data - the infrastructure is not there to handle this.

I also read about the "Target effect", which notes that if downloading takes longer than the amount of hassle or time it takes to pick up a hard disc title from a store on the way home, then the average person would just pick up the disc (which honestly, looks better on your collection than files on your hard drive).

Uh, no. It's one thing to download kb or even a few megabytes of data for music, it's quite another thing for large numbers of people to be downloading tens of gigabytes of data - the infrastructure is not there to handle this.

Don't go by today's infrastructure - since this is not happening today.

BTW, iTunes has sold more Dizney movies than all of HiDef DVDs of either format. All XBoxLive has 5 HD movie downloads in its top 10.

I also read about the "Target effect", which notes that if downloading takes longer than the amount of hassle or time it takes to pick up a hard disc title from a store on the way home, then the average person would just pick up the disc (which honestly, looks better on your collection than files on your hard drive).

These kinds of stuff is only relevent at the time the observation was made. These are not "rules". Personally, even for renting, I'd rather use netflix than rent from the BB which is right on my way to office.

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6422895.html?nid=2840

Unbox on TiVo a 'brilliant idea'

Even before I downloaded my first movie through Amazon’s Unbox on TiVo service, which the two companies began offering to all TiVo customers with broadband this week, I was sold on it.

Don't go by today's infrastructure - since this is not happening today. BTW, iTunes has sold more Dizney movies than all of HiDef DVDs of either format. All XBoxLive has 5 HD movie downloads in its top 10.


I see these are relevant news article:
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/7002/itunes-disney.html
http://californianonline.gns.gannett.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070308/TECH01/701260396/1001/TECH

As noted, the first mentions that downloads don't seem to be cannibalizing DVD sales, but supplementing it...the second has info on issues that need to be solved in order for downloading to work, and some worrying words about how downloading might make the format wars moot (unless universal gives up and the industry as a whole comes together under one format).

Downloading speed is definitely an issue...one person tried out Signs (640x480 resolution) at 1 GB, and it took more than an hour using DSL.

The presence of broadband would definitely be needed, but right now only about 40% of homes in US have broadband (and many probably have slower DSL type connections)

As to the infrastructure, I am not sure we would have the infrastructure in 5 years to handle several hundred million downloads of Gigabyte large files, which would be needed if downloading were to make any dent at all of significance against stored media discs. Perhaps 10 years or more would be more likely.

PS. Honestly, I'd rather buy a disc that i can carry around and stack than depend on a hard drive (which has the tendency to get corrupted).

I couldn't agree more.

In fact, when Blu-ray first started rolling out, and the reports of poor picture quality began to emerge, unless something were to change quickly, I was fully prepared to change cheerleading uniforms.

If weekly Vidoescan figures remain 2:1 all year, I believe universal would announce neutrality at CES.


if the figures remain 2:1 all year. BDA would be in deep trouble ;)

if the figures remain 2:1 all year. BDA would be in deep trouble ;)
Ohhhhhh-Kayyy.

I noticed you didn't vote on the poll I posted, x. What do you expect will happen with the Videoscan figures by year's end?

Ohhhhhh-Kayyy.

I noticed you didn't vote on the poll I posted, x. What do you expect will happen with the Videoscan figures by year's end?

Let him be. He's obviously trapped in his own dreamworld according to his signature.

Ohhhhhh-Kayyy.

I noticed you didn't vote on the poll I posted, x. What do you expect will happen with the Videoscan figures by year's end?

basically i dont know. Me no god! I dont know if LionsGate and Disney will go the HD DVD way mid year and change everything. I dont know how early would the Chinese CEs flood the US market with cheap HD DVD players again to change everything. I dont know if Miscrosoft would buy over Sony Pictures and make Sony Pictures release on HD DVD titles with VC-1. I really dunno. Sooooo what is the point of the poll again?

Let him be. He's obviously trapped in his own dreamworld according to his signature.
You old softie. :)

No, I am honestly interested in hearing his thoughts on this.

basically i dont know. Me no god! I dont know if LionsGate and Disney will go the HD DVD way mid year and change everything. I dont know how early would the Chinese CEs flood the US market with cheap HD DVD players again to change everything. I dont know if Miscrosoft would buy over Sony Pictures and make Sony Pictures release on HD DVD titles with VC-1. I really dunno. Sooooo what is the point of the poll again?
First off, this is a reasonable answer.

The poll was more of a wager, per the title. It's a chance to go on record. See some people are absolutely certain that the war is over. Some are absolutely certain that the Chinese players will be here shortly and thus the trouncing of BD will commence.

I feel too many of us talk too big a game knowing that, if we're wrong it will all be forgotten, buried in old threads that few will have the time, nor wherewithal to seek and find.

It's put up or shut up.

I would recommend posting the above quote of yours on there. You don't have to vote, but it would be nice to have these valid thoughts on record, IMO.

Don't go by today's infrastructure - since this is not happening today.Bandwidth only solves the download problem, not the storage problem. Grandma doesn't want to maintain a series of networked computers with RAID arrays to assure that movies she paid for aren't lost. At best, downloads compete only with the rental industry.

This might be Microsoft's fantasy, but it's not going to happen. I'll take movies on optical disks, thank you.

Well, don't forget that 2-3 years from now grandma will be able to buy a high capacity burner and save those movies on a single disk at reasonable cost (I'll speculate that a single layer BD-R will cost < $5 by Jan 2009). So while it might not become mainstream, it may start to look pretty feasible.

I agree.
Two years ago it was CDN$34.95 for a 3-pack of dual layer DVD blanks.
Now I can get a 25-pack spindle for that price and not have to shrink and lose quality.

Well, don't forget that 2-3 years from now grandma will be able to buy a high capacity burner and save those movies on a single disk...Or she could just click the "1-Click" ordering button at Amazon and have the thing delivered, including all the extras and nice packaging.

None of this is competition for owning movies over the next ten years.

If I do find the poll, I'll vote. If I haven't already :)

But if it's 2:1 by the end of the year and we have 1M HD DVD players, all studios except Sony will be neutral. JMHO. By which time MSFT will make a hostile bid to buy SNE ;)

If I do find the poll, I'll vote. If I haven't already :)

But if it's 2:1 by the end of the year and we have 1M HD DVD players, all studios except Sony will be neutral. JMHO. By which time MSFT will make a hostile bid to buy SNE ;)
It's not hiding. It's right here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=817298). 8 down from the stickies (at present) in the HDTV Software section. ;)

If I do find the poll, I'll vote. If I haven't already :)

But if it's 2:1 by the end of the year and we have 1M HD DVD players, all studios except Sony will be neutral. JMHO. By which time MSFT will make a hostile bid to buy SNE ;)


2mil HD DVD players vs 10mil BD players = disk sale: 1:2 !!! :D :D :D

Or she could just click the "1-Click" ordering button at Amazon and have the thing delivered, including all the extras and nice packaging.

None of this is competition for owning movies over the next ten years.
Here's a prediction. Within 10 years, you will download a movie, and if you choose, burn it on an all-in-one HD-DVD recorder that also prints the disk art, customizable cover art, and insertables (think scripts, mail-in coupons, etc.) Optionally, you can just play it or save it to your media network storage. Sony before then will have abandoned BD like they have other media formats. ;)

P.S.you choose the audio format and if you want extras

They haven't abandoned SACD, UMD, CD or Blu-ray.
Please don't respond with "SACD's dead" because if you look at the number of titles per year it's very obvious that it's growing, rather than dying.

So you weren't even, just a little bit concerned about the early, BD, picture quality reports?

do you mean concerned as in disappointed? yes, I think every movie should look and sound the best, then again I know that will never happen. Concerned as in woried (for example BD could not look better)? No, a format should not be judged on the worst, but the best it can offer. BD, due to the fact that the same codecs can be used and that it has higher BW and capacity, can obviously equal or better any equivalent HD DVD. So they were just bad examples

Bandwidth only solves the download problem, not the storage problem. Grandma doesn't want to maintain a series of networked computers with RAID arrays to assure that movies she paid for aren't lost. At best, downloads compete only with the rental industry.

This might be Microsoft's fantasy, but it's not going to happen. I'll take movies on optical disks, thank you.

It's funny, because while a lot of people on the internet talk about "legal" downloading being the wave of the future, of the people that I've spoken to personally, EVERY single one of them said that they intend to buy the pre-packaged media regardless of whether or not the "legal" downloading becomes mainstream.

However, they do feel that the rental possibilities could be something they might eventually be interested in should internet speeds have a MAJOR increase.

~Alan

They have all invested too heavily to give up that easily. But if sales don't improve in '08 - I think they will pursue other alternatives more vigorously.

Nataraj: agree and that is in one of the main ways that it is dissimilar to UMD and one of the reasons that HD disks have more leeway. I don't know if it is mid 07 or end 09 or when it would be (that is why I called it the 1M$ question), it is obviously a very complex equation and only the studios now what it is (and it is not be the same for all of them).


At this point, I think downloads (SD or HD) have a higher success likelyhood than HiDef DVDs. In five years, it is possible that we will have higher HD downloads than HD disc sales.

I don’t know if the likelihood is higher. But I agree that HD disks are around 50% chance right now (that was also what I voted in my chance poll) http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=796231&page=1 (OK, rounded BD and HD DVD up to the nearest 10% and DVD down)

PS I don’t think you voted

Uh, no. It's one thing to download kb or even a few megabytes of data for music, it's quite another thing for large numbers of people to be downloading tens of gigabytes of data - the infrastructure is not there to handle this.

agree, but you are assuming high quality HD. I am guessing low quality SD

So you weren't even, just a little bit concerned about the early, BD, picture quality reports? I'd be much more concerned about the fact that compressionists have to work a lot harder on HD DVD because of the reduced bandwidth and capacity. As the volumes ramp up, the pressure would be to release lower quality efforts.

The presence of broadband would definitely be needed, but right now only about 40% of homes in US have broadband (and many probably have slower DSL type connections)

That is higher than the HDTV ownership.

As to the infrastructure, I am not sure we would have the infrastructure in 5 years to handle several hundred million downloads of Gigabyte large files, which would be needed if downloading were to make any dent at all of significance against stored media discs. Perhaps 10 years or more would be more likely.

Several hundred million ... is that per day ? Don't think so.

I had made some calculations a few months back - showing how much of internet traffic would be downloads. I think it was around 5 to 10%.

Currently there are two problems. Finding an economical pricing model. The last meter problem of connecting the PC to the TV. Once these two are done, movie download is a done deal.

Since I have to wait for several days to get a Netflix movie now, an overnight download (for that matter a 24hr download) is perfectly acceptable.

Imagine, all netflix customers can see a new release on day one !

Maybe a better way yet is to have Walmart hand-deliver movies to your door.

Since I have to wait for several days to get a Netflix movie now, an overnight download (for that matter a 24hr download) is perfectly acceptable.

I think you are under estimating humanity. You are way too reasonable. People used to wait days for letters, but if e-mail goes down for 1/2 hour they go nuts. People assume DL will be fast/almost instantaneous, if they did not then people would not be asking for higher speed broadband, people would have been happy with dial up.

ok so i download a HD movie, then my isp freaks out because i downloaded to much over a length of time and i am CAPED to 128kps speed. 5 hours on the phone and lots of begging and i get the cap lifted and if i do it 2 more times they ban me :(

I could get a commercial account but who wants to spend over 100$ a month just for broadband? I buy 5-6 blue ray disks a month, i could never get that much download without huge problems. plus where would i store the 35 movies i have now ? like i want a bunch of hard drives sitting on my shelf in my theater room, o that looks great.

just not going to happen, its not just the last mile to house that has to be upgraded but if 30-50 gig HD downloads become popular the whole internet will grind to a stop.

I will require a HD download to take no longer then it takes to drive to the store to buy a disk, thats 10-15 minutes.

It should be noted that lots of people are downloading HD movies today, off xbox live. They're 720P, and look pretty good. In fact, some of the BD exclusive movies are on there.

I would guess an average length movie is about 4G or 5G. I don't remember exactly off the top of my head.

I think you are under estimating humanity. You are way too reasonable. People used to wait days for letters, but if e-mail goes down for 1/2 hour they go nuts. People assume DL will be fast/almost instantaneous, if they did not then people would not be asking for higher speed broadband, people would have been happy with dial up.I don't think HD downloading will take off until it can be streamed directly to the living room HDTV. There's something like it right now called Video-On-Demand. But VOD doesn't offer all the films that's available in HD. Nor do you get day and date releases. And usually you're just "renting" the movie for a certain viewing window or number of views. If also doesn't reach all television viewers.

ok so i download a HD movie, then my isp freaks out because i downloaded to much over a length of time and i am CAPED to 128kps speed. 5 hours on the phone and lots of begging and i get the cap lifted and if i do it 2 more times they ban me :(

There would need to be change in heart at the ISPs for real download. I expect ISPs to have a big say in final HD downloads - most of them coming down thr' fat FTH connections.

I could get a commercial account but who wants to spend over 100$ a month just for broadband? I buy 5-6 blue ray disks a month, i could never get that much download without huge problems. plus where would i store the 35 movies i have now ? like i want a bunch of hard drives sitting on my shelf in my theater room, o that looks great.

Download to own would need some kind of burning option. For renters like me I'd be happy to have 3 or 4 movies at a time.

I will require a HD download to take no longer then it takes to drive to the store to buy a disk, thats 10-15 minutes.

There will also be people who won't be happy with downloads. They will go to the local store and buy. There will be some who buy off internet and don't mind waiting a few days to get the movie. They may not mind the slow download.

I guess download is ideal for netflix customers i.e. renters.

BTW, I know people keep talking about 15 minutes it takes to go and buy. Is that really true ... ? Unless one has no other responsibilities, sitting at home and buying/downloading will always be preferable. Just see the number of people who buy off of internet.

There would need to be change in heart at the ISPs for real download. I expect ISPs to have a big say in final HD downloads - most of them coming down thr' fat FTH connections.ISPs are trying to charge websites for the downloads of the ISPs' users. Google goes to Congress. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/07/BUGIHJ9G3B1.DTL)

I'd be much more concerned about the fact that compressionists have to work a lot harder on HD DVD because of the reduced bandwidth and capacity. As the volumes ramp up, the pressure would be to release lower quality efforts. I think that there may be less pressure if VC-1 software based encoding becomes far more automatic than MPEG-2 for HD quality.

Dial the VC-1 rate, do one or two automatic passes and it looks pretty good. If you want to fine tune and have money or the time, its still easier to produce acceptable quality.

The real pressure for substandard quality exists with MPEG-2 and 25 GB discs that are produced with time or financial constraints.

Shoving a disc in a player is a simple action. Downloading even wit huge bandwidth is still complex. And don't underestimate the urge to physically possess a movie. Movies as in DVDs are seen by consumers to be tangible single possessable collectible items. more than a newscast or TV show.

Streaming of downloading works for small consumable or perishable or replaceable things, but movies are different in consumers minds. Movies are meant to be watched over and over again. Its nice to have a physical token for a movie in the form of a disc and a holding box with artwork that signifies ownership.

I think the storage problem is the more problematical for downloading...for renting movies it's fine, although Xbox users still reported lots of problems like cut off movies and long download times (ans assuming you're willing to let your console sit there doing nothing but downlooading for 10 hours or more), but how many HD movies can you store in your hard drive at 4 GB - or worse, tens of gigabytes, before you realize this is stupid and it makes more sense to have it stored permanently in a hard dics?

Finally, even in the music industry, which has vastly smaller download sizes, some studies have found that downloading has had minimal effect on CD sales, but may have actually increased the industry size...

http://blogs.allofmp3.com/music_news/2007/02/20/study-file-sharing-has-zero-effect-on-music-sales/
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/04.15/09-filesharing.html

And with the exception of Apple's iPods, legal downloading of music actually isn't doing that well;

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/01/23/emi_chief_digital_music_forecast/

So, given that movies are even harder to download than music and might be of less interest to consumers, and given that storage space, bandwidth, and others become issues, I have my doubts that downloading of movies will be anything but a smaller niche for at least the next 10 years.

BTW, I know people keep talking about 15 minutes it takes to go and buy. Is that really true ... ? Unless one has no other responsibilities, sitting at home and buying/downloading will always be preferable. Just see the number of people who buy off of internet.

You can't arbitrarily decide to buy anything (go buy ET on HD DVD). So, you're waiting and waiting and waiting as it is.

Disc gets announce a month or two from release. You wait a month or two. Yet, people complain about the notion of waiting 10-24 hours to download?

Also, there is no reason why a new release couldn't be downloaded days before and locked for the release date. Zero wait.

People just need to start thinking about this differently. It isn't VOD. It's a new way of getting content.

Gary

Also, there is no reason why a new release couldn't be downloaded days before and locked for the release date. Zero wait.

Absolutely. I expect this to become the USP of downloads .... this gives the ability to Netflix and others to be able to rent new releases to everyone that wants it on day one.

...until someone "breaks" the date lock (for glory and fame), then we are back to square 1, where the download is no longer hosted until the official release date. :p

It should be noted that lots of people are downloading HD movies today, off xbox live. They're 720P, and look pretty good. In fact, some of the BD exclusive movies are on there.

I would guess an average length movie is about 4G or 5G. I don't remember exactly off the top of my head.

Consider several factors

1) Very limited overall network of people about less than 4 million. All of which are not downloading at the same time.
2) How long do they let you keep these movies?
3) 720, which is fine I suppose, but for movie viewing you would rather be in the native format that movies are filmed in, as it is they are scaling the movie down for you and thus losing some of the picture quality.
4) How long do these take? I remember 500mb demo downloads taking at least 10-15 minutes on XBL.
5) How much of your hard drive did you just use? Not everyone has cracked their 360 open to put in a bigger hard drive. And as far as I know they don't allow you to transfer the content using the media browser to your PC.
6) The biggest thing that will also be affected XBL, PSN, Wii network and any online gaming is the coming broadband shortage in America due to video content sites like Youtube and Video becoming standard, websites are taking all the bandwidth and there is nothing Microsoft or anyone else can do to asuage this. A lot of analysts are predicting internet blackouts as soon as late in 2007. We simply don't have the bandwidth for everything we are demanding to have online.

Are the video scan numbers out for last week yet?

There are several problems which (I think) will hold downloadable content back:

DL Speed: I live in a major North American metropolis (>3-million people), however I pay dearly for my internet connection, and my speed allows me about 1GB / 30-40 minutes. Downloading a single HD movie would take several hours, and consume all of my connection to do so. I also have several other devices that connect to the network (computers, online gaming, etc.) and I would not be thrilled to have to compromise these for several hours, or deal with lengthy slow downs due to the TV downloading something I can’t even watch, yet. Average speeds would have to increase exponentially, with greater availability and lower costs to allow for VOD downloads to succeed.

Bandwidth: I average >200GB bandwidth usage per month. I know this is higher than average, and while I enjoy unlimited downloads, this is often not the case. In fact, many ISPs are pulling back their limits to ridiculously low levels, with hefty charges applied to healthy users, such as myself. This practice would have to change to allow for VOD downloads to succeed. So, if I purchased a VOD movie, I would pay for the download and a possible surcharge to my ISP. Not good!

Physical Media: Many, many people like to hold their purchase in their hands, or (as is the case with many members here) see themselves as ‘collectors’ and put a value on having the disc, cover art, etc. How many of us boast about the size of our movie collections, and show off the filled shelves when visitors venture into our HT? While there is some benefit to porting your purchased movies of today over to a HDD, how many do this? Probably less than 5% of the members here; a small minority subset of the general population, indeed. Of course, it’s probably cheaper to continue to buy additional HDD space than shelves, but that’s neither here, nor there. There would have to be a perceived cost benefit and I just don’t see how downloadables could change human behavior here…

Technical literacy: Is NA really that technically literate to migrate to a downloading culture. The learning curve for the general population is still far to steep (and will be for years to come). There are far too many people on this continent who are incapable of operating their VCR or microwave… Try to explain to the average person how to download a compressed file & extract it and you’ll see eyes glazed like a Sunday ham. I think we’re at least 5-8 years away from the average person to be computer savvy enough to be accepting of the practice.

I just don’t think downloadable content will ever take the place of physical media, at least not in the foreseeable future… A good option compared to renting - perhaps. Ownership - not likely, and certainly not for me.

As a side note, I would also be concerned about the privacy implications of a migration to such a service. I don’t know if you’ve read the papers lately, but privacy is becoming more and more concerning, in North America. As soon as you move to a completely digital environment, the ability to track / monitor becomes even easier... I’m not even thinking about someone tracking who watches what adult content film – think of the marketer’s dream: You D/L several war movies over a two-week period. You suddenly began to get customized ads based on your purchases to intice. Is this a good thing? But at what point does the marketer wield too much power in this equation? Tracking, customized ads, and tailored content based on personal interests / tendencies are todays subliminal ads... IMO, this can be a scary side effect…

I don't think HD downloading will take off until it can be streamed directly to the living room HDTV

Rusty: agree. That is one reason I don't want DL. The problem is no one has promised high quality HD movies like on HD DVD or BD. My guess is DL will be mostly SD or low quality HD like the 360. And I fully expect it to be lower quality then DVD. That is why I don't want DL. In 10y, 20y who knows, but if HD DVD/BD fails I don't think studios will go with an other disk format and if they go DL everyone here will be kicking themselves

...until someone "breaks" the date lock (for glory and fame), then we are back to square 1, where the download is no longer hosted until the official release date. :p

Just the way they stopped making DVDs after CSS was broken :p

Note : In general, downloads will be less prone to continued hacked state - since the drm and the player are updateable ....

ok how do i download a movie when i do not know what the kids want to watch? 4 out of 5 times we have no idea what we are going to rent till we walk down the isle and my kids run up and ask if we can get this? or i pick up some old b-grade sci fi flick that i never seen one ad for. i can show the wife and kids the download movie list but the kids are not going to understand that they can not see the movie for a few days.

i buy 3-5 movies a month but rent 5-8 more a week, i have only voom and basic on dish so most movie watching is from my collection or rented. my kids also rent PS2 games so we would be stuck going to the store anyway.

Just the way they stopped making DVDs after CSS was broken
it is not the same thing
Gary said studios could let people DL early and playback will only start on launch day (i.e. a type of preorder) that would help on DL BW (PotC sold 5M DVD on the first day, imagine 5M going to DL a new movie on the first day) but what can be done is start allowing DL a week in advance but the movie can only be played on a given date or later




Note : In general, downloads will be less prone to continued hacked state - since the drm and the player are updateable ....

Not that simple, a DRM cannot be changed that easily, even if a DRM can be changed with every movie or 10 movies or 5 days or….. that new DRM and DL needs to be DRMed because someone could find a way to bypass the DRM update.

Back to topic:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom031107/

Initial post updated.

Came across this info cross-linked from a post on eProductWars. Don't know where the numbers are coming from, but the poster in question has very specific number quantities which disagree with Montado/VideoScan.

http://forums.thecarlounge.net/zerothread?id=3105784&page=1

I posted older version of the sales data in the other format war thread. We are tracking the sales data pretty closely and Blu-ray is crushing HD-DVD like a run away train as the weeks roll by. One of the large retail chain will probably pull HD-DVD shelve space (will sell them online only) as early as end of March. At least one HD-DVD studio had already pulled back its HD-DVD release slate pending the decision of this large retail chain.

- Blu-ray ITD unit sales (752,532, or 50.2%) have surpassed HD-DVD ITD unit sales (746,263, or 49.8%). A total of 1.5M High Definition units have now been sold ITD.

- For the current week ending 2/11/07, Blu-ray outsold HD-DVD by 134% (70.1% Blu-ray share vs. 29.9% HD-DVD share).

- YTD 2007, Blu-ray has outsold HD-DVD by 117% (68.4% Blu-Ray share to 31.6% HD-DVD share).

The most telling sign of the future? Look at the units shipped info for upcoming releases for studios that are releasing both formats... I can't share that info here due to senstive title info. But you can look it up yourself on the intraweb if you know where to look...

Updated info this week. plus one of the title info became public info so I thought I share.

- Through week ending 2/18/2007, total Blu-ray unit sales (827,198, or 51.3%) have outperformed HD-DVD ITD unit sales (785,238, or 48.7%).
- YTD 2007, Blu-ray has outsold HD-DVD more than 2:1 (67.9% Blu-Ray share vs. 32.1% HD-DVD share).
- Blu-ray has been out-selling HD-DVD on titles released on both formats. For The Departed, the latest title released day & date on both formats, Blu-ray unit sales out-performed HD-DVD by 58%.

This week's sales update:

In the current week, Blu-ray is outselling HD-DVD by 122% (69% Blu-ray vs. 31% HD-DVD share). Blu-ray sold 72,666 units while HD-DVD sold 32,675 units for a total of 105,341 total high def units for the week.
The new high def releases for the week were:
- The Prestige, Buena Vista – Blu-ray only = 14,403 units
- Babel, Paramount – Blu-ray and HD-DVD = 5,100 Blu-ray units and 3,720 HD-DVD units
- Vertical Limit, Sony – Blu-ray only = 453 units

YTD 2007, Blu-ray has outsold HD-DVD by 113% (68.1% Blu-ray vs. 31.9% HD-DVD share)

ITD, Blu-ray has also outsold HD-DVD: 52.4% Blu-Ray share vs. 47.6% HD-DVD share).

Where is this guy getting his information, and is it reliable? I need to find some time and crunch his numbers to see if they agree with Nielsen (they definitely don't agree with Montado).

Where is this guy getting his information, and is it reliable? I need to find some time and crunch his numbers to see if they agree with Nielsen (they definitely don't agree with Montado).

He may be right on his numbers, but the Samsung was easily found here locally the week it came out, as well as Blu-Ray titles, so the crap he says on page 2 certainly isn't reliable...

~Alan

"Blu-ray ITD unit sales (752,532, or 50.2%) have surpassed HD-DVD ITD unit sales (746,263, or 49.8%). A total of 1.5M High Definition units have now been sold ITD"

Does a 50.2 to 49.8 ratio consitute being crushed like a runaway train nowadays?

"Blu-ray ITD unit sales (752,532, or 50.2%) have surpassed HD-DVD ITD unit sales (746,263, or 49.8%). A total of 1.5M High Definition units have now been sold ITD"

Does a 50.2 to 49.8 ratio consitute being crushed like a runaway train nowadays?

It is not the ratio but the speed at which the Blu-Ray make-up for its bad start. The recovery was done in less than 2 months to finally take the lead. This is not over yet but the ball is for sure in Universals court.

"At least one HD-DVD studio had already pulled back its HD-DVD release slate pending the decision of this large retail chain."

Which studio does this refer to?

Came across this info cross-linked from a post on eProductWars. Don't know where the numbers are coming from, but the poster in question has very specific number quantities which disagree with Montado/VideoScan.







Where is this guy getting his information, and is it reliable? I need to find some time and crunch his numbers to see if they agree with Nielsen (they definitely don't agree with Montado).

bzcat posted his bg in another thread:

My company is the DVD catagory manager for one very large retailer (i.e. we order and stock the DVDs from all the studios for that retailer) with state of the art POS system so we have access to the daily sales data. It is not looking good for one of the format. We are also talking with one of our largest customer (a large national electronics retailer that sells lots of DVDs) and some of its people have told us off the record that they are close to pulling the plug on one of the format due to their own projections. This company has the advantage of selling both hardware and DVDs so they can project the future sale of DVDs much better based on their own hardware sales.

It's just a rumor posted by some guy on the internet.

If he means exclusive studios, I would guess Weinstein. They haven't announced anything in almost 3 weeks, and only have 3 discs in the next 3 months. Their home video company (Genius) also has plans to release on Blu-ray.

Could also be a viral plant

Could also be a viral plant

I didn't know you could cross vegetables with viruses.

It's just a rumor posted by some guy on the internet.

Ironic considering how scores of forum members used to genuflect to tsd2005.

I didn't know you could cross vegetables with viruses.
T.R.I.C.K.Y. :D

I didn't know you could cross vegetables with viruses.

It works with bacteria, though.

If he means exclusive studios, I would guess Weinstein. They haven't announced anything in almost 3 weeks, and only have 3 discs in the next 3 months. Their home video company (Genius) also has plans to release on Blu-ray.


Is there a link to this info?

Ironic considering how scores of forum members used to genuflect to tsd2005.And oshodi, and the Meat that is Dead (who's name is censored by AVS, like so: ********)


Is there a link to this info?Genius Jumps into HD DVD, Blu-ray (http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/235):Genius Products, the home video distribution partner of The Weinstein Company, have announced their first wave of HD DVD titles will debut this holidays season, with Blu-ray support to follow early next year.

He may be right on his numbers, but the Samsung was easily found here locally the week it came out, as well as Blu-Ray titles, so the crap he says on page 2 certainly isn't reliable...

~Alan

However, the Samsung was maligned to an extent where most enthusiasts would ignore it. Certain magazines even refused to review BD disks until the panasonic, sony, pioneer & ps3 showed up.

I returned my first one and only picked up a cheap refurb from ebay much later. The NR settings with the fw upgrade is better, but I can still see the NR artifacts on some disks. The samsung watch is actually a good stream to see this.

Ironic considering how scores of forum members used to genuflect to tsd2005.
At least he posted here. This guy isn't even our nut.

Could also be a viral plant
Agreed that this is possible.

However, the posted numbers are extremely specific and, at least on the face of it, within the realm of plausibility. It shouldn't be hard to analyze the numbers posted and come up with an independent projection of what he's talking about to see if his numbers remain internally consistent and reflective of what Nielsen is reporting.

And oshodi, and the Meat that is Dead (who's name is censored by AVS, like so: ********)



All those people posted here.

Are you guys seriously downgrading the standard of what is credible to "somebody no one knows posted this on another website."

Because if so, I can go collect a whole load of rumors and we can get started sorting through them one at a time. I'll be sancho panza to Grubert's Don Quixote, and we'll ride across the internet tilting our keyboards at every post predicting doom and gloom on one side or another.

But I would rather we didn't. If the op wants to come here and defend himself, so be it. But otherwise, this is classic fud, and anyone can do it for either side - we just have traditionally chosen not to.

However, the Samsung was maligned to an extent where most enthusiasts would ignore it. Certain magazines even refused to review BD disks until the panasonic, sony, pioneer & ps3 showed up.

I returned my first one and only picked up a cheap refurb from ebay much later. The NR settings with the fw upgrade is better, but I can still see the NR artifacts on some disks. The samsung watch is actually a good stream to see this.

Samsung did ship in July but it was not widely avaiable. They released limited demonstration models to key retailers so they can claim to be the first company to sell Blu-ray players. But it failed all the competibility testing so it was basically useless until the firmware update released in November. Also, we didn't start the replication order for the disks until mid October in anticipation of PS3 launch. PS3 launch is the official launch of Blu-ray as far as studios and retailers like BestBuy are concerned.

The point I was trying to make was that you couldn't buy a Blu-ray DVD player (not to mention movies) until end of November, about 6 months after HD-DVD launch. I don't want to start any hair spliting pissing contest with you.

Not widely available?
Didn't start the replication order for the disks until mid-October?
You couldn't buy a Blu-Ray player or movies until the end of November?

~Alan

Not widely available?
Didn't start the replication order for the disks until mid-October?
You couldn't buy a Blu-Ray player or movies until the end of November?

~Alan
I think (just guessing here) that bzcat works for a pressing house that does both hd dvd and blu-ray (hence his 'we') refers to his company not starting BD replication until that date... Which makes it possible to guess where bzcat works in.

I think (just guessing here) that bzcat works for a pressing house that does both hd dvd and blu-ray (hence his 'we') refers to his company not starting BD replication until that date... Which makes it possible to guess where bzcat works in.

My company is the DVD catagory manager for one very large retailer (i.e. we order and stock the DVDs from all the studios for that retailer) with state of the art POS system so we have access to the daily sales data. It is not looking good for one of the format. We are also talking with one of our largest customer (a large national electronics retailer that sells lots of DVDs) and some of its people have told us off the record that they are close to pulling the plug on one of the format due to their own projections. This company has the advantage of selling both hardware and DVDs so they can project the future sale of DVDs much better based on their own hardware sales.

According to the above, he doesn't work for a pressing house (though that would have made perfect sense). However, it still wouldn't have changed the fact that:

The point I was trying to make was that you couldn't buy a Blu-ray DVD player (not to mention movies) until end of November, about 6 months after HD-DVD launch.

the above is simply not true as if I had wanted to, I could have bought a Samsung Blu-Ray (regardless of quality) and choose from 84 titles by the end of October, so why couldn't I have bought a Blu-Ray movie until the end of November?

~Alan

smart money would be on bzcat is an insider ;)

Edit: I put a not by mistake. 30% for HD DVD seems right to me, and I am betting BB will drop HD DVD for BD if they can.

We'll have to see how this plays out. Will they sell the xbox as well or not? BB is going to make a big decision soon. I think the HD DVD group already has alternative plans for distribution.

IMO, BB right now is a minor source for HD DVD sales. They haven't been stocking recent titles when possible.....so it won't change overall sales. Most BB I know, stocked far fewer HD DVD versions of The Departed, and were sold out...FWIW.

Having said, all that come April and BB is still selling HD DVD, or even sells the A20 come June.....bzcats credibility will be shot. So, I'll wait. His hypothesis seems reasonable for now. JMHO.

- Through week ending 2/18/2007, total Blu-ray unit sales (827,198, or 51.3%) have outperformed HD-DVD ITD unit sales (785,238, or 48.7%).
- YTD 2007, Blu-ray has outsold HD-DVD more than 2:1 (67.9% Blu-Ray share vs. 32.1% HD-DVD share).
- Blu-ray has been out-selling HD-DVD on titles released on both formats. For The Departed, the latest title released day & date on both formats, Blu-ray unit sales out-performed HD-DVD by 58%.

There is a significant difference between these numbers and ours. Also the ratios are different - though the variation is small - compared to Nielsen.

There is a significant difference between these numbers and ours. Also the ratios are different - though the variation is small - compared to Nielsen.

agree, on the other hand we know VScan is not complete. If he has Vscan numbers and the chaine he supposedly works for he could have added them together. Then again there must be Rentrek and NPD numbers somewhere as well, it could be one of those.


my opinion not enough info to say BS or good. It is interesting info but needs to be confirmed

agree, on the other hand we know VScan is not complete. If he has Vscan numbers and the chaine he supposedly works for he could have added them together. Then again there must be Rentrek and NPD numbers somewhere as well, it could be one of those.

my opinion not enough info to say BS or good. It is interesting info but needs to be confirmed
I classify his info temporarily into the "BS" column.

I posted above that at first glance his numbers are plausible, and they are. There's nothing inherently wrong with his ratios compared to VideoScan (they're actually very close).

However, I fed his numbers into my calculation spreadsheet and I got these values:

http://endrop.com/album/photos/5w3wnjtkmmmgneejjywk.jpg (http://endrop.com/viewer.php?file=5w3wnjtkmmmgneejjywk.jpg)

His values are not internally consistent. I don't know that he's totally wrong; it's possible he's either misinterpreted the data, reported it incorrectly, or what, but none of my projections based off of the information he posted himself are consistent with his own postings.

Unless I misunderstand his posts, according to his information, I should have 72,666 Blu-ray and 32,675 HD DVD disc sales for week of 2/25/07. As you can see above, I don't come close enough for horseshoes, and with the numbers he provided, I should at least be within a few hundred of his provided numbers.

My apologies to the forum; this "bzcat" guy does not appear to be trustworthy (deliberately or otherwise), and I should have run the numbers before posting them to verify.

EDIT: Should note that my "Actual YTD" number above is mislabelled; it's worded off the assumption that the numbers in yellow (the starting point) were for 1/1/07. My calculations should be essentially correct, however, since I make no assumptions about relative or absolute dates within the calculations themselves.

Somebody put a link to this in his forum to see if we get a reaction :)

smart money would be on bzcat is an insider ;)

Edit: I put a not by mistake. 30% for HD DVD seems right to me, and I am betting BB will drop HD DVD for BD if they can.

We'll have to see how this plays out. Will they sell the xbox as well or not? BB is going to make a big decision soon. I think the HD DVD group already has alternative plans for distribution.

IMO, BB right now is a minor source for HD DVD sales. They haven't been stocking recent titles when possible.....so it won't change overall sales. Most BB I know, stocked far fewer HD DVD versions of The Departed, and were sold out...FWIW.

Having said, all that come April and BB is still selling HD DVD, or even sells the A20 come June.....bzcats credibility will be shot. So, I'll wait. His hypothesis seems reasonable for now. JMHO.

Well with the lull of HD DVD releases this month, now is the perfect time to make any changes in what BB carries. If they are going to do it, it will be in the next few weeks. We will find out soon enough.

Because if so, I can go collect a whole load of rumors and we can get started sorting through them one at a time. I'll be sancho panza to Grubert's Don Quixote, and we'll ride across the internet tilting our keyboards at every post predicting doom and gloom on one side or another.


I hope you're not implying that I'm severely delusional. :D

Well with the lull of HD DVD releases this month, now is the perfect time to make any changes in what BB carries. If they are going to do it, it will be in the next few weeks. We will find out soon enough.

I am sure there is a lot of debate within BBY as well. A few years ago, I used to be better connected to info at BB than now :)

However, they are the primary force behind 'one format' is issue #1. I am sure this is being pushed by Sony, especially when they saw that folks like Samsung may be thinking dual format hardware.

BB itself is under pressure to continue showing growth and hi-def right now is low risk, especially if they are reciprocated by Sony in some way.

Icemage,
I'm not so sure I'd call bzcat's numbers or info BS at this point. Just about everything he said makes sense and his numbers are very close IMO. It is possible his data did not come from the same source you're using (if I'm off base here I apoligize as I haven't read the details carefully). While you might be correct, I wouldn't write his info off at this point... but I agree it would be nice to see some validation.



While I agree with much of what Plazman says, unlike P-man I believe a single format is in everyones best interest at this point. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see retail support for a losing format ween away in the coming months followed by studio support afterwords.... but I guess time will tell. :)

A little information about the numbers we get for monthly sales:

They aren't exact... there's half a dozen companies out there that do the exact same thing, and they'll all come up with slightly different numbers (sometimes 5-10% off each other and upwards of 20% from the actual sales vs tracked sales, in a lot of cases). You can't really discredit this bzcat character based on his numbers, especially if they are similar to what we've in trending to what we've gotten (%'s seem pretty consistent). He may be blowing smoke up everyone's ass, but there is no final word as far as numbers go -- NPD, Rentrack, Nielsen, etc... all are going to be a bit off each other and who knows how much off of reality.

I hope you're not implying that I'm severely delusional. :D
Nah ;) You were just the best fit for my analogy. Cervantes was Spanish, you, I believe, are Spanish - so who else could I pick? :)

As I said, his conclusions seem to generally agree with VideoScan. What I am taking issue above is that I am using the exact numbers he is reporting to project other figures he is reporting and I'm coming up with different answers.

I understand that not every source is going to report the same numbers consistently every week, but his numbers are not consistent even in the same week. If he says he has X number of sales since inception one week, with Y ratio of year to date, providing the new ratios of both (which he did) should allow me to follow his numbers exactly and produce nearly the same number, with the same precision of detail as given (3 significant digits).

He's not even accurate within 2 digits of precision(my calculation shows 75xxx while he shows 72xxx), which means there is something seriously wrong with at least one of the numbers provided which is throwing my projection off.

If you look back earlier in this thread you'll notice that Nataraj and I arrive at almost exactly the same numbers for similar time periods, because we are using the same data despite different modelling techniques. I was expecting to see numbers within at least a few hundred of bzcat's totals based on his reported figures, and I find I'm off by thousands instead.

@ Icemage: I understand

He may have typo'ed a number here n there... or some funny rounding happened with the % numbers and not the numbered totals.

I'm not saying we should trust him, but I'm not ready to discredit him based on numbers that are pretty close (even if they are thousands off). I'd say keeping an eye on what else he has to say wouldn't hurt -- wish there was a way to verify his employment and ramblings though. I certainly wouldn't use him as a source for anything now, at least.

Maybe he fabricated the numbers and didn't do it carefully enough, who knows.

Well, there's a way to verify his claim. Someone should try to get in touch with him, and from the tone of the answer you should be able to see if he seems honest.

Or, better yet, at least a few insiders here should get the Videoscan full feed. Perhaps Grubert could get in touch by PM with one of those people and see if the data is consistent.

Whatever the case, I'd try to keep it reasonably quiet. We wouldn't want him to run into problems for posting data which isn't meant to be divulged on a massive scale. Provided his data is correct, it would be great to keep getting updates in the coming weeks and keep our mouths shut about this. :)

New DVD Empire data for the week of Mar 13th
BD 71.43 HD 28.57

(Whatever these numbers may mean. DVD-Emp tend to update these numbers later in the week on an irregular basis, and their updates are often substantial. So probably better not to draw any conclusions.)

When are the lastest videoscan numbers supposed to be up? I'm curious what the sales were like for last week since neither format had any titles.

New DVD Empire data for the week of Mar 13th
BD 71.43 HD 28.57

(Whatever these numbers may mean. DVD-Emp tend to update these numbers later in the week on an irregular basis, and their updates are often substantial. So probably better not to draw any conclusions.)


Ha! At first I thought you meant videoscan numbers, I was thinking "this is getting ugly" :)

When are the lastest videoscan numbers supposed to be up? I'm curious what the sales were like for last week since neither format had any titles.Friday, late morning or early afternoon.

Friday, late morning or early afternoon.

If videoscan numbers include Amazon.com, then it will get REALLY ugly - for HD-DVD! :p

New DVD Empire data for the week of Mar 13th
BD 71.43 HD 28.57

(Whatever these numbers may mean. DVD-Emp tend to update these numbers later in the week on an irregular basis, and their updates are often substantial. So probably better not to draw any conclusions.)

71.43/28.57 = 2.500 What an odd near-perfect ratio ... much like the 66.67/33.33 we had several weeks ago.

When you stare at constantly chaning numbers long enough, numbers and ratios like that crop up.

If videoscan numbers include Amazon.com, then it will get REALLY ugly - for HD-DVD! :pI actually don't think they'll have that much of an effect on the YTD numbers, unless they sold hundreds of at least 10 of the titles in question. The weekly numbers should be a whole different story, although unless we get them from somewhere, we'll have to depend on the admittedly well-done estimates here.

I actually don't think they'll have that much of an effect on the YTD numbers, unless they sold hundreds of at least 10 of the titles in question. The weekly numbers should be a whole different story, although unless we get them from somewhere, we'll have to depend on the admittedly well-done estimates here.

I agree. I will be surprised if Blu-ray sold more than 20,000 copies that week.

If videoscan numbers include Amazon.com, then it will get REALLY ugly - for HD-DVD! :p

week of CR release will be more ugly :)

Marek

I actually don't think they'll have that much of an effect on the YTD numbers, unless they sold hundreds of at least 10 of the titles in question. The weekly numbers should be a whole different story, although unless we get them from somewhere, we'll have to depend on the admittedly well-done estimates here.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/graphs/quantity-1-1-recent30.jpg

The drop from 15K to 10K copies occured at the beginning of the sale. By last weekend they were out of stock of all but about a dozen of the sale titles. As you can see Amazon got a big shipment yesterday (including 3600+ Casino Royale titles they had after pre-orders).

Most of the sale titles are back in stock (seven remain out of stock).

Gary

71.43/28.57 = 2.500 What an odd near-perfect ratio ... much like the 66.67/33.33 we had several weeks ago.

The CR pre-orders would have booked at DVD Empire. It seems clear the DVD Empire numbers (and Videoscan numbers) represent actual sales, not possible sales (pre-orders).

The Amazon rankings do clearly include pre-orders. They measure "popularity" (presumably partially measured by sales and pre-orders) not actual sales.

But, I would agree, that just as 66.67/33.33 before, 71.43/28.57 seems to be a number they deliberately chose to show (an estimate), rather than something that came from an actual calculation.

Gary

DVDEmpire #'s only represent charged and shipped sales, not preorders. Patrick99 verified that info from them in an email response.

71.43/28.57 = 2.500 What an odd near-perfect ratio ... much like the 66.67/33.33 we had several weeks ago. numbers like that seem to cropo up more with lower absolute volumes or estimates.

I actually don't think they'll have that much of an effect on the YTD numbers, unless they sold hundreds of at least 10 of the titles in question. The weekly numbers should be a whole different story, although unless we get them from somewhere, we'll have to depend on the admittedly well-done estimates here.
They almost assuredly did sell hundreds of several titles (the titles that have been lingering in the top 100 for a week at the least (KoH, XMen3, BHD). Certainly enough to have a direct and substantial swing in the weekly ratio if the pundits here are correct in their analysis, and probably enough for a 0.7-1 point swing in YTD figures.

I would not be at all surprised if more than 10k discs have been sold in the Amazon sale so far. And in a war of such small scale, thats alot.

They almost assuredly did sell hundreds of several titles (the titles that have been lingering in the top 100 for a week at the least (KoH, XMen3, BHD). If their stock rates are correct, it looks like the bigger sales items sold about 500 copies on average. However, for a great deal of titles they were saying they've been sold out since January/February, so who knows how many copies Amazon actually sold. If I was generous, I'd say the sale generated another 4k-5k discs last week, but Amazon's stock counter (or other websites' implementation thereof) doesn't seem to be useful enough to be an accurate gauge.
Certainly enough to have a direct and substantial swing in the weekly ratio if the pundits here are correct in their analysis, and probably enough for a 0.7-1 point swing in YTD figures. I don't know if I'd call that a "substantial swing" (we know the HD DVD crowd won't), but every little bit helps.
I would not be at all surprised if more than 10k discs have been sold in the Amazon sale so far. And in a war of such small scale, thats alot.Like I said, I'm estimating half that (i.e., averaging out to about 100 copies for the 47 titles on sale), and I doubt we'll see any numbers from Amazon themselves. I'd love for your estimate to be right, though. Maybe it'll convince Fox to lower prices! I can wish, can't I? ;)

Top HD DVD Titles For Week Ended 3/11/2007

RANK TITLE (LABEL/DISTRIBUTOR, SRP)
1 The Departed (WB, $39.99)
2 Batman Begins (WB, $28.99)
3 Babael (PAR, $39.99)
4 Casino (UNI, $29.98)
5 Serenity (UNI, $29.98)
6 The Mummy Returns (UNI, $29.98)
7 Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift (UNI, $39.98)
8 Superman Returns (WB, $39.99)
9 Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (UNI, $29.98)
10 Fearless (UNI, $39.98)


Top Blu-Ray Title For Week Ended 3/11/2007

RANK TITLE (LABEL/DISTRIBUTOR, SRP)
1 The Departed (WB, $34.99)
2 The Prestige (BV, $34.99)
3 X-Men: The Last Stand (FOX, $39.98)
4 Black Hawk Down (SONY, $28.95)
5 Open Season (SONY, $34.99)
6 The Fifth Element (SONY, $28.95)
7 Kingdom Of Heaven (FOX, $39.98)
8 Underworld Evolution (SONY, $38.95)
9 Ice Age: Meltdown (FOX, $39.98)
10 House Of Flying Daggers (SONY, $28.95)

Source: Rentrak’s Retail Essentials ™.
Sales estimations are based on preliminary data provided through an exclusive arrangement with Rentrak Corp.’s Retail Essentials service. Point-of-Sale data is collected weekly and projected nationally for the U.S. bricks-and-mortar sales channel.

Are they Counting Amazon sales?

Well, if nothing else is known about anything, I think we can definitely surmise that Rentrak at least incorporates Amazon into their numbers, because those BD titles are all about the Amazon sale.

Are they Counting Amazon sales?

No. Read the last sentence at the end of your post. Its brick-and-mortar (read: physical stores) only.

Hmmm.... what were the titles for the previous Rentrak?

BEcause except for Departed and Prestige, those are seriously all Sony and FOX titles on sale at Amazon. I mean don't get me wrong, those are popular titles in general, but it just seems - well - worthy of note.

No. Read the last sentence at the end of your post. Its brick-and-mortar (read: physical stores) only.The way I read the statement is: FOR the U.S. bricks-and-mortar sales channel, point-of-Sale data is collected weekly and projected nationally.

For the online sales channel such as amazon, buy.com or netflix they wouldn't need to project anything for national sales as they would have all the numbers already. They also could bring up sale and rental numbers at any time, so no need to amass weekly collections by store or region. The online data could be up to the date of Rentrak's release.

Top 5 BD and HD DVD
Week ended February 25, 2007

Top 5 BD
1 The Prestige 100.00
2. The Departed 73.67
3. Babel 36.31
4. Open Season 9.42
5. Superman Returns 9.33

Top 5 HD DVD
1. The Departed 100.00
2. Babel 61.41
3. Batman Begins 21.69
4. Lucky Number Slevin 14.59
5. Troy 11.84
Did we end up not getting numbers like this for the week of February 18th? I figured it would be interesting to assume a 60/40 split for "The Departed" that we've seen from some indicators (like 20k for Blu-ray to 13k for HD DVD) and then try to figure the percentages for the top 5 from each to the top selling title and what that would be if "The Departed" was 20k for Blu-ray that first week. Anyway, assuming that 60/40 split for the week of the 25th, but without absolute numbers, it would look something like this:

The Prestige (Blu-ray) 100.00
The Departed (Blu-ray) 73.67
The Departed (HD DVD) 49.11
Babel (Blu-ray) 36.31
Babel (HD DVD) 30.16
Batman Begins (HD DVD) 10.65
Open Season (Blu-ray) 9.42
Superman Returns (Blu-ray) 9.33
Lucky Number Slevin (HD DVD) 7.17
Troy (HD DVD) 5.82

--Darin

Newest numbers up (http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom031807/):

Week ending March 11, 2007

YTD BD 100.00 HD DVD 47.37
SI BD 100.00 HD DVD 89.25

Newest numbers up (http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom031807/):

Week ending March 11, 2007

YTD BD 100.00 HD DVD 47.37
SI BD 100.00 HD DVD 89.25

You're quick! :)

Top 5 BD
1. The Departed 100.00
2. The Prestige 67.62
3. Babel 35.84
4. Stranger than Fiction 32.49
5. Black Hawk Down 24.25

Top 5 HD DVD
1. The Departed 100.00
2. Babel 44.24
3. Batman Begins 36.10
4. Troy 23.17
5. Goodfellas 18.23

In layman terms, whats happening?

There's something wrong with the Nielsen numbers this week. I don't know what it is yet, but my projections are WAY off if the numbers given are correct. Can someone re-verify the posted figures for 3/11?
Week ending March 11, 2007

YTD BD 100.00 HD DVD 47.37
SI BD 100.00 HD DVD 89.25

There's something wrong with the Nielsen numbers this week. I don't know what it is yet, but my projections are WAY off if the numbers given are correct. Can someone re-verify the posted figures for 3/11?

Yeah the YTD and SI numbers seem not to jive. With YTD number provided, you would expect the SI to be lower than what was provided.

Day Week YTD SI
01/07 63.3/36.7 n/a n/a
01/14 68.2/31.8 n/a n/a
01/21 67.8/32.2 66.4/33.6 45.1/54.9
01/28 68.8/31.2 67.0/33.0 46.7/53.3
02/04 n/a 67.4/32.6 48.1/51.9
02/11 n/a 67.7/32.3 49.3/50.7
02/18 n/a 67.4/32.6 50.3/49.7
02/25 n/a 67.4/32.6 51.5/48.5
03/04 n/a 67.2/32.8 52.2/47.8
03/11 n/a 67.8/32.2 52.8/47.2

Here's what my calculation spreadsheet indicates, based on the numbers given:

http://endrop.com/album/photos/nwzymny5zkzfzfqhm2ng.jpg (http://endrop.com/viewer.php?file=nwzymny5zkzfzfqhm2ng.jpg)

These numbers HAVE to be wrong. It's not a matter of the Amazon sale; from what I can tell the problem is that the shift in SI is too small for the posted difference in YTD.

Its always possible that some sort of error correction was applied from errors in past weeks. Maybe HD DVD got over-reported and this is the adjustment?

Here's what my calculation spreadsheet indicates, based on the numbers given:

http://endrop.com/album/photos/nwzymny5zkzfzfqhm2ng.jpg (http://endrop.com/viewer.php?file=nwzymny5zkzfzfqhm2ng.jpg)

These numbers HAVE to be wrong. It's not a matter of the Amazon sale; from what I can tell the problem is that the shift in SI is too small for the posted difference in YTD.

Maybe its the fact that volume went down drastically last week ...there were no new titles release after all. If thats the case, I don't think they included Amazon in their survey.

Here's what my calculation spreadsheet indicates, based on the numbers given:

http://endrop.com/album/photos/nwzymny5zkzfzfqhm2ng.jpg (http://endrop.com/viewer.php?file=nwzymny5zkzfzfqhm2ng.jpg)

These numbers HAVE to be wrong. It's not a matter of the Amazon sale; from what I can tell the problem is that the shift in SI is too small for the posted difference in YTD.

Let's see ... 24702/5604 = 4.41 ... and no, I don't believe Blu-ray outsold HD DVD last week 4.41:1.

Let's see ... 24702/5604 = 4.41 ... and no, I don't believe Blu-ray outsold HD DVD last week 4.41:1.
Nielsen VideoScan for week ended March 11:
SI, Blu-ray:HD-DVD
100:89.25

YTD, Blu-ray:HD-DVD
100:47.37

Nielsen VideoScan for week ended March 11:
SI, Blu-ray:HD-DVD
100:89.25

YTD, Blu-ray:HD-DVD
100:47.37

I think we can reasonably say there is a typo somewhere in the published numbers - but where?

If they are correct then Blu-ray sales dropped 50% from the previous week and HD DVD completely collapsed, falling by 78%! :eek:

Shome mistrake surely?

Edit: I was using different start numbers to Icemage. On his numbers Blu-ray fell by 58% and HD DVD only dropped by 82% - sounds about right. :D

The more I am looking at those numbers, the more they look legit. These numbers show Blu-ray sales double the norm. With such small sales, would it really be so hard for them to double sales when Amazon had their sale? You're only talking about selling an additional 12K discs across 45 sale discs. That means Amazon would only have to see an average of 266 discs per sale title. Black Hawk Down looks to have sold 1000 discs, 500 for Kingdom of Heaven and 500 for X-Men 3.

To me these numbers are very possible.

The more I am looking at those numbers, the more they look legit. These numbers show Blu-ray sales double the norm......

Where?

If we use Icemage's start numbers Blu-ray sold almost 25,000 FEWER discs in the week ending March 11th.

I think we're through the looking glass here, people.. :)

Josh,

The more I am looking at those numbers, the more they look legit.

and this is a surprise?


With such small sales, would it really be so hard for them to double sales when Amazon had their sale? You're only talking about selling an additional 12K discs across 45 sale discs. That means Amazon would only have to see an average of 266 discs per sale title. Black Hawk Down looks to have sold 1000 discs, 500 for Kingdom of Heaven and 500 for X-Men 3.

Here is your problem with that line of arguing, which I have been making for awhile. If you really believe this, then the whole sales ratios thing is meaningless, because the ratios shift so quickly and widely given small changes in absolute sales numbers. All it would take is one or two strong HD DVD titles to change things dramatically.

It also means that declarations of BD is stomping HD are silly and declarations of victory based on the ratios are meaningless.

The more I am looking at those numbers, the more they look legit. These numbers show Blu-ray sales double the norm. With such small sales, would it really be so hard for them to double sales when Amazon had their sale? You're only talking about selling an additional 12K discs across 45 sale discs. That means Amazon would only have to see an average of 266 discs per sale title. Black Hawk Down looks to have sold 1000 discs, 500 for Kingdom of Heaven and 500 for X-Men 3.

To me these numbers are very possible.
I don't think this is reasonable. We're pretty sure, going by previous weeks, that Amazon is not the primary indicator of sales. Even though the 50% off sale probably did draw quite a lot of sales away from other channels for Blu-ray, it shouldn't have affected B&M sales that much, and they should have held pretty steady, with perhaps a bit of drop-off with the lack of new releases.

This also doesn't explain how HD DVD sales have vanished off the face of the earth. For there to be only 5K sales for HD DVD in a week would suggest that the low hardware pricing isn't moving any significant units (going off the assumption that a new buyer of Blu-ray or HD DVD standalones will purchase at least 1 or 2 titles to watch on their new unit). HD DVD hasn't really seen much in the way of new releases for the better part of a month, so why the sudden disappearance of sales volume?

I find this scenario far less likely than there either being a typo or miscalculation at Nielsen.

If you love HD, regardless of which side of the fence you are on, you should hope the numbers are wrong.

I just tried an experiment and projected for 88.25 HD DVD SI instead of 89.25 and got these numbers instead:
March 11, 2007
YTD BD/HD: 100.00/47.37
SI BD/HD: 100.00/88.25
Weekly projection BD/HD 43,505/14,511
SI total BD/HD: 787,509/694,979
YTD projected total BD/HD: 491,829/232,979
Weekly projected sales BD%/HD%: 74.99%/25.01%

All it would take is a 1% difference in SI to make these numbers more sensible (still dubious, but at least plausible).

Please note that I am *NOT* saying this is what happened. There's no proof of anything like this having happened. I'm just illustrating how even small shifts in the reported percentages affect the projected sales values that we've been using.

I don't think there's any reason to get agitated here - we've had Nielsen "shift" on us before, and the way to handle it is simply to wait it out a week and see what happens. Whatever the case is, will make itself ncreasongly evident as future numbers get released. Right now it could be anything, and indeed a numerical error is not unlikely given past blips on their part.

Since he seems to have the connections, I have one thing to say:

Quick, Grubert! To the NielsenCave!

ETA: Well, next week is CR's numbers, so I don't know if we'll get any sort of stability to the figures.

For clarity's sake, I hope Grubert is using his connections to get an answer, but I still don't see how these couldn't be possible numbers.

You have to remember that this was a week without new releases. I know I am just making assumptions here, but wouldn't B&M stores benefit most from new releases? I'm sure everyone knows a few people who have a date with Best Buy every Tuesday to pick up the new releases. Without any new releases, those people weren't buying anything.

So what happened? HD DVD sales dropped 80% showing that new releases are a deciding factor in success for this war. Blu-ray would have probably also dropped 80%, if it were not for their sale. As it turns out, they only dropped 50% with no new releases.

The true test will be to see if this trend continues next week for HD DVD (as they have no new releases next week either).

just imagine if CR will have more than 50.000 units alone, and HD will stay around 5.000 units........... :) can you imagine what this will do here ? :)

marek

For clarity's sake, I hope Grubert is using his connections to get an answer, but I still don't see how these couldn't be possible numbers.

You have to remember that this was a week without new releases. I know I am just making assumptions here, but wouldn't B&M stores benefit most from new releases? I'm sure everyone knows a few people who have a date with Best Buy every Tuesday to pick up the new releases. Without any new releases, those people weren't buying anything.

So what happened? HD DVD sales dropped 80% showing that new releases are a deciding factor in success for this war. Blu-ray would have probably also dropped 80%, if it were not for their sale. As it turns out, they only dropped 50% with no new releases.

The true test will be to see if this trend continues next week for HD DVD (as they have no new releases next week either).
I agree there may be some dubious scenarios to explain the Blu-ray numbers dropping by 50%, but...

An 80%+ drop in HD DVD sales week-to-week is reasonable? Barely over 5,000 total discs? If I were an HD DVD supporter this would make me very alarmed. That means that even if no existing HD DVD owners bought a single disc during the week, there were less than 5,000 total new units sold (given the assumption that each new buyer buys at least 1 new title to go with their unit). I don't think either of these assumptions holds any water whatsoever...

Since it's almost a given that there's a problem with the HD DVD numbers, the Blu-ray numbers are also suspect.

I agree there may be some dubious scenarios to explain the Blu-ray numbers dropping by 50%, but...

An 80%+ drop in HD DVD sales week-to-week is reasonable? Barely over 5,000 total discs? If I were an HD DVD supporter this would make me very alarmed. That means that even if no existing HD DVD owners bought a single disc during the week, there were less than 5,000 total new units sold (given the assumption that each new buyer buys at least 1 new title to go with their unit). I don't think either of these assumptions holds any water whatsoever...

Since it's almost a given that there's a problem with the HD DVD numbers, the Blu-ray numbers are also suspect.

5000 players a week sounds very high. Didn't Toshiba come out and say they had sold 85,000 G1 players, or something like that? That was over the course of 9 months - or 2,500 players a week. This was, of course, prior to Blu-ray leading, so who knows what kind of weekly hardware sales they are putting up.

5000 players a week sounds very high. Didn't Toshiba come out and say they had sold 85,000 G1 players, or something like that? That was over the course of 9 months - or 2,500 players a week. This was, of course, prior to Blu-ray leading, so who knows what kind of weekly hardware sales they are putting up.
Trusting Toshiba's numbers (or Sony's for that matter) is not a good idea in this format war.

The point is that an 80%+ drop is irrational, even considering there being no new releases. Software sales of any type (computer software, games, movies) do not immediately dry up the moment new releases stop entering the market. That's just not how things work, particularly at brick and mortar locations, which tend to have a more protracted reaction to sales trends.

A 50% drop would already be enormous cause for concern. This sort of cataclysmic drop defies belief.

Trusting Toshiba's numbers (or Sony's for that matter) is not a good idea in this format war.

The point is that an 80%+ drop is irrational, even considering there being no new releases. Software sales of any type (computer software, games, movies) do not immediately dry up the moment new releases stop entering the market. That's just not how things work, particularly at brick and mortar locations, which tend to have a more protracted reaction to sales trends.

A 50% drop would already be enormous cause for concern. This sort of cataclysmic drop defies belief.

Perhaps a picture will help illustrate the point for those who think these numbers are plausible:

http://75.126.103.40/images/eva/eva104/nielsenmar11.jpg

Possible? Yes. Plausible? Not in the world I live in.

How about we look at the top 100 HD format performance on Amazon for the week in question.

http://75.126.103.40/images/eva/eva104/amzon100mar11.jpg

Unless Amazon's HD customers behave in a completely different way to the outside world then there has been no collapse in HD DVD sales. There has been (fairly obviously) no collapse in Blu-ray sales.

If Amazon are not covered by Nielsen then we have learned that Nielsen numbers can be severely distorted by something like the Amazon sale. But even then, how do we explain the collapse of HD DVD by 80%? I just don't see it, sorry.

Perhaps a picture will help illustrate the point for those who think these numbers are plausible:

http://75.126.103.40/images/eva/eva104/nielsenmar11.jpg

Possible? Yes.

If Amazon are not covered by Nielsen then we have learned that Nielsen numbers can be severely distorted by something like the Amazon sale. But even then, how do we explain the collapse of HD DVD by 80%? I just don't see it, sorry.

I understand that DVD reps are currently preparing a press release saying that they have won the format war. Representatives say there is no other way to interpret the always infallible Nielsen numbers.

I don't think this is reasonable. We're pretty sure, going by previous weeks, that Amazon is not the primary indicator of sales. Even though the 50% off sale probably did draw quite a lot of sales away from other channels for Blu-ray, it shouldn't have affected B&M sales that much, and they should have held pretty steady, with perhaps a bit of drop-off with the lack of new releases.

This also doesn't explain how HD DVD sales have vanished off the face of the earth. For there to be only 5K sales for HD DVD in a week would suggest that the low hardware pricing isn't moving any significant units (going off the assumption that a new buyer of Blu-ray or HD DVD standalones will purchase at least 1 or 2 titles to watch on their new unit). HD DVD hasn't really seen much in the way of new releases for the better part of a month, so why the sudden disappearance of sales volume?

I find this scenario far less likely than there either being a typo or miscalculation at Nielsen.

The conclusions from this:

1. Fox was right when they said the ratio of Blu-ray to HD-DVD sales would be at least 3.5:1 pretty soon.

2. We can assume for now that Amazon.com is NOT part of the nielsen. The other possibility is that sales have gone down this week because there were no new releases at all for both sides.

3. The HD-DVD market has collapsed because of (a) no new good releases; (b) news reports all over the media saying that Blu-ray has won, which means people are less likely to buy Hd-DVD.

It will be interesting to see the numbers for when Casino Royale released (Casino Royale Blu-ray is STILL in the Top 10, and still beating the fullscreen version of CR) because the ratio of blu-ray to HD-DVD might be 8:1 :eek:

I understand that DVD reps are currently preparing a press release saying that they have won the format war. Representatives say there is no other way to interpret the always infallible Nielsen numbers.

Hey, you deleted some of my words to spin in your favour. Naughty.

Here's the full line I posted after the chart:

Possible? Yes. Plausible? Not in the world I live in.
If you quote me again please do so in full, thank you.

just imagine if CR will have more than 50.000 units alone, and HD will stay around 5.000 units........... :) can you imagine what this will do here ? :)

marek

CR Blu-ray will most probably do 50k units in its first week, since The Departed (Blu-ray) did 23k its first week and had a much much lower amazon.com ranking (#6 versus #20 or so)

I think if Hd-DVd stays at 5k units per week we ALL know the format war is over.