Top sellers since inception
In thousands


These and the YTD top list numbers are again extrapolated numbers. So, we can't compare to the numbers we got from Sony. I was hoping to find out the weekly sales of all these titles using Sony numbers and these ...

asj,

Uh, dude, you DO know that 4:1 lead was because of CR, right, and that it could not have lasted?

Uh, dude, Yes I knew that and even said that in some of my post. But apparently you didnt, as you never made that little caveat in any of your posts touting the 4:1 advantage. Heck, IIRC in your poll about Sales ratios for the end of March you predicted that the ratio would still be about 4:1, so apparently you did think it would last, for at least awhile.

It is silly to be talking about "catching up" - without defining what exactly you mean. Depending on the definition (i.e. whether you are looking at weekly ratio, ytd or SI numbers) you get different answers.

I can clearly see both sides of the argument - can you ?

haha.

We can see both sides of the argument.

If you redefine 'catching up' to mean falling behind at a slower rate, yeah HD DVD has been 'catching up'. If you redefine 'winning' to mean coming second, then HD DVD is 'winning'.

I actually think that the current ratio of 60:40 is about 'normal' and that times where BD has sold at higher ratios (or HD DVD for that matter) has been due to specific titles.

As Grubert noted, this is the ratio that we are seeing on 'slow weeks' with catalogue titles released to both formats roughly equally... I think that these last two weeks are the best measure we have seen lately of the reality of the sales ratios...

phloyd,
it all depends on what you mean by widening the gap - the ratio is not increasing, hence in one sense the gap is not widening, as much as asj would like to assert. There is a constant difference between the two. However, in terms of YTD numbers, the gap widens..

Ok, since we're going round and round here..let me put it in another way...

think of BD and HD-DVD as two cars, with BD going at a speed that is twice that of Hd-DVD. say, BD is going 60 kph while Hd-DVD is going 30...the ratio of the speed between them is on average 2:1 at any given time.

however, if you place the two side by side and let them race, the GAP (the DISTANCE) between the BD car and the HD-DVD car will widen (and continue to widen) over time as long as BD keeps going 60 while Hd-DVD goes 30.

asj,

see both nataraj's and phloyd's posts above and that pretty much sums it up.

As Grubert noted, this is the ratio that we are seeing on 'slow weeks' with catalogue titles released to both formats roughly equally... I think that these last two weeks are the best measure we have seen lately of the reality of the sales ratios...

Granted, however, we can also make the assumption that due to slower HD DVD sales of the past few months, the HD DVD owners have more money in their pockets to spend recently (due to new releases) in comparison to the Blu-ray owners.

My analysis:

This week had no day-and-date releases, and three neutral catalog releases. Interestingly, Payback sold better than A Scanner Darkly. Old mainstream beats new arthouse.

In this extremely neutral week, which little mass appeal, sales were about 30,000 for BD and 20,000 for HD DVD, per above estimates. In another week, title advantage would add on top of that.

Why do you say 30,000:20,000 is accurate?

All I've seen is rounded % share figures which allows for quite a margin of error on volume estimates. I've got BD & HD much higher (54,105: 34,291 - that's a ratio of 61.21%:38.79%) - but I also use different start numbers to Icemage & Nat so I always have higher numbers than them (the 1.2 million BD / 937,500 HD (SI) fits quite closely with what I have).

Have Nielsen published 30,000:20,000 as the actual sales for the week? Or do you have the numbers to 2 decimal places that we used to get. If so, any chance you can post them?

Have Nielsen published 30,000:20,000 as the actual sales for the week?

No. But our starting figures are from Nielsen. The HMM figures are extrapolated from Nielsen.

I think the exact figures are not of great importance. 30K vs 50K may look like a big difference - but when compared to 25 Million DVDs that are sold each week, both are abysmally small. And that is what is important.

Ok, since we're going round and round here..let me put it in another way...

think of BD and HD-DVD as two cars, with BD going at a speed that is twice that of Hd-DVD. say, BD is going 60 kph while Hd-DVD is going 30...the ratio of the speed between them is on average 2:1 at any given time.

however, if you place the two side by side and let them race, the GAP (the DISTANCE) between the BD car and the HD-DVD car will widen (and continue to widen) over time as long as BD keeps going 60 while Hd-DVD goes 30.

OK:

1. Absolute gap will increase unless HD DVD sells more than BD. True. But historic sales of disks is not important, but historic sales of hardware is!

2. % gap will fall, as long as HD DVD current week ratio is closer than the previous week.

Measuring both types of gaps (hardware and future software) are important.

Why?

1. Because past sales are not a critical factor in making future decisions. SI numbers don't mean much, future numbers are what count.

2. So if studio believe that the future ratio will be 60:40 that is what matters, not the fact in the past it was 80:20 and that even with 60:40 that HD DVD will never catch up with BD. What they will see is that by ignoring HD DVD we are ignoring 40% of the market...the bigger the share for HD DVD the more painful it will be for a studio to ignore it. Same for BD.

3. The % itself is not as important as the size of the market. So, in the end, studios will decide upon how much $$$ they leave on the table by being exclusive. Which in itself can be a complex calculation. So total sales matter here, not of disks but of hardware :)

SI and total sales may be important , but the trends and projections of future disc sales based on future players sold may be even more so.

Attach rate is key to projecting future sales.

Also same title comparisons of the sales when a title is released in both formats is a performance indicator.

Accelerating or decreasing sales over time is an important trend.

In those factors, HD DVD is more than competitive.


The sales ratio and sales trends are important because the Blu-ray PR strategy has made them important as they are determinate in identifying if Blu-ray will be the inevitable winner in the format war.

Blu-ray is obviously leading and increasing its lead week by week in total copies sold, but that may not be enough if it is not steadily and consistently increasing its lead. After all, the BDA has already declared victory. Its kinda contrary to say that the gap is now closing again. The ratios and sales trends are important because the BDA has made it so.

Blu-ray may become a victim of its own propaganda machine, in failing to meet its short term expectations.

The BDA has staked a lot of credibility in proclaiming that the millions of PS3 in the hands of consumers will create Blu-ray movie sales that will overwhelm any sales of that a smaller number of dedicated HD DVD players can produce.

Thus it is significant that after the launch of the PS3, and the initial surge of people buying it as a dedicated Blu-ray player, the additional sales of the PS3 have not increased the sales gap. That trend implies that increased PS3 sales will in time lead to less and less Blu-ray movies sold in proportion to PS3s sold. In other words the lowish PS3 attach rate will be smaller as less movie enthusiasts buy it compared to gamers.

The decreased cost of the HD DVD players and their higher normal attach rate for movie purchases may be started to be seen in the increasing HD DVD sales, no that new titles are being released.

The question is what happens over time as more and more less expensively priced Toshiba and Chinese players get sold as mass retailers such as Wal-Mart , Target, K-Mart , Sears Sam's Club and Costco.

The narrowing of the sales gap seems to indicate that a smaller number of HD DVD players can compete with millions of PS3s. Its obvious what would happen if millions of HD DVD players hit the market first at mass market price points.

How many PS3s have been sold to date anyway? Even back in March Sony said they were on track to sell 6 million PS3s by the end of March, but they haven't even announced 4 million or 5 million yet, and we're at the end of April now.

Others believe that Sony has only sold around 2.9 millionish PS3s. Add to that less than 100000 standalones out there, then that means around 3 millionish Blu-ray players are out there.

In terms of HD DVD, there are likely around 300000-400000 players out there (and I count the Xbox 360 add-on drive equivalent to a standalone), which means that the player ratio is something like 9:1 in favour of Blu-ray over HD DVD.

However, as we all know, the disc sales ratio based on format is way lower than that, probably closer to 2:1 if we exclude peaks by certain titles or mass buys or whatever. That means every standalone is worth 4.5X as much as a PS3, and interestingly, that's exactly the 22% worth that the Paramount guy attributes to the PS3. IMO, that along with the sluggish PS3 sales is a huge embarrassment for Sony, and a huge ego boost for HD DVD manufacturers, esp. with the low-priced Chinese standalones looming for entry into the Western mass market in 6 months.

Ironically, if Sony has in fact sold over 5 million PS3s, that looks even worse for the Blu-ray cause, given the Blu-ray disc sales rate.

I'll bet the disk sales per typical PS3 player decays with time (most PS3's are sold for games) while the sales to component players stays steady. PS3 sales as players will also decay with time, as cheaper players appear. The benefit from the PS3 to BD will therefore be less with time than it is now, could be much less.

...
The narrowing of the sales gap seems to indicate that a smaller number of HD DVD players can compete with millions of PS3s. Its obvious what would happen if millions of HD DVD players hit the market first at mass market price points.Well besides the fact that you are assuming that nothing will change in terms of Blu-ray there is the fact that you are also assuming that all HD DVD players would have the same attach rate (in fact do we even know what the current attach rate is?). Just a hunch but I don't think a Wal-Mart buyer who purchases their HD DVD player is going to have the same purchasing habits as an early adopter. Also no offense but considering how many threads already have been made on this issue could we at least keep this thread on the issue of software sales?

How many PS3s have been sold to date anyway? Even back in March Sony said they were on track to sell 6 million PS3s by the end of March, but they haven't even announced 4 million or 5 million yet, and we're at the end of April now.

Looking only at US, they have sold some 1.3M PS3s.

http://www.vgchartz.com/

How many PS3s have been sold to date anyway? Even back in March Sony said they were on track to sell 6 million PS3s by the end of March, but they haven't even announced 4 million or 5 million yet, and we're at the end of April now.
I don't think PS3 sales have been what Sony had hoped but please note that when they say they will sell 6 million that means worldwide sales to dealers, not sell-through to consumers. CE companies (including Toshiba) almost always quote sales to dealers numbers since to them that is what they have sold. And it sounds better too.:)

Well besides the fact that you are assuming that nothing will change in terms of Blu-ray there is the fact that you are also assuming that all HD DVD players would have the same attach rate (in fact do we even know what the current attach rate is?). Just a hunch but I don't think a Wal-Mart buyer who purchases their HD DVD player is going to have the same purchasing habits as an early adopter. Also no offense but considering how many threads already have been made on this issue could we at least keep this thread on the issue of software sales? No offense, but you always want to restrict the conversation in the manner most favorable to Blu-ray.

The comment was on the significance of what the trends in the ratios and of the absolute size of the sales gap. The trends are just as important as the absolute numbers. It is about the significance of the reported software sales. You had no problem talking about trends when Blu-ray was steadily pulling away. Now that HD DVD is rebounding......

The trends might be even more significant than the history.

That's just as important as who absolutely won the horse race last week, or which format has sold more since inception.

Its a question of interpreting the significance of the numbers by putting the trends they show in perspective.

I also agree that a Wal-Mart standalone HD DVD player buyer will probably buy less HD titles than AVS member. But he might buy more than a PS3 gaming fan.

Now it seems there might be millions of both by the fall.

I also agree that a Wal-Mart standalone HD DVD player buyer will probably buy less HD titles than AVS member. But he might buy more than a PS3 gaming fan.
I agree.

No offense, but you always want to restrict the conversation in the manner most favorable to Blu-ray.

The comment was on the significance of what the trends in the ratios and of the absolute size of the sales gap. The trends are just as important as the absolute numbers. It is about the significance of the reported software sales. You had no problem talking about trends when Blu-ray was steadily pulling away. Now that HD DVD is rebounding......

The trends might be even more significant than the history.

That's just as important as who absolutely won the horse race last week, or which format has sold more since inception.
Its a question of interpreting the significance of the numbers by putting the trends they show in perspective.

I also agree that a Wal-Mart standalone HD DVD player buyer will probably buy less HD titles than AVS member. But he might buy more than a PS3 gaming fan.

Now it seems there might be millions of both by the fall.

And you don't restrict your conversations to the most favorable light for HD DVD? You been talking about the elusive and mythical "Walmart Chinese HD DVD player" like its a forgone conclusion for the past two days. The reality of the situation is far different than what you see through your rosy red tinted HD DVD sunglasses. In the MOST POSITIVE SPIN OF THINGS, those Chinese HD DVD players won't arrive at least six months from now and a lot of things could happen from now until then. Sony and their BDA partners are not standing still. Blu-ray players will also be decreasing in prices. I heard from a inside source that there will be a sub $300 Blu-ray player by the end of the year. Perhaps its the same player you guys been talking about? :D

In the meantime, we know for a fact there will be several things happening before then. Spider-man 3 and PoTC 3 will be coming out on Blu-ray before then. Major Disney titles will be coming out before then. Six months is a long time so don't count your chickens yet and don't underestimate the importance of content and day and date releases ...especially Disney titles.

syHd

In the meantime, we know for a fact there will be several things happening before then. Spider-man 3 and PoTC 3 will be coming out on Blu-ray before then. Major Disney titles will be coming out before then. Six months is a long time so don't count your chickens yet and don't underestimate the importance of content and day and date releases ...especially Disney titles.

All that may be true, but in some respects, much of the damage has been done, if this the Walmart HD DVD story is true. The fact that Walmart did this, and placed this order has already undoubtably had an effect on the studios. As everyone knows, Walmart has so much clout with so many people, that businesses notice. Even Sony noticed, I am sure, and so did Fox. For all we know, this may explain some of Fox's reticence to release titles.

You may think that a sub $300 BD player will have an effect and that PoTC and Spidey 3 will have an effect - but they wont end the war, not now. The studios know that Walmart is doing the HD DVD thing, so they know that HD DVD isnt going away anytime soon, not with Walmart's muscle behind it.

All the BD brain trust said that the only thing that matters is Content. Guess what - Walmart dictates content. There is a long history of Studios giving Walmart what they want when it comes to DVD and they will do the same with HDM.

If the announced deal really is for NA HD DVD players, then Walmart just made this a stalemate at the best, in spite of what a lot of people may think.

Spidey 3 could sell 250K copies on BD and it wouldnt matter if Walmart kept pushing HD DVD.

No offense, but you always want to restrict the conversation in the manner most favorable to Blu-ray..

Please. And you don't do the same in your pro HD DVD rants?

No that we have seen the whole week pretty much pan out, I'm curious to see what the Videoscan numbers will show on Wednesday.

Based on the Amazon sales, it would seem the two formats are very close for the week - it'll be a tough call.

I wonder how close Videoscan will track with these?

http://www.CampaignHD.com/images/070421_Top10_45.png

syHd



All that may be true, but in some respects, much of the damage has been done, if this the Walmart HD DVD story is true. The fact that Walmart did this, and placed this order has already undoubtably had an effect on the studios. As everyone knows, Walmart has so much clout with so many people, that businesses notice ...

We heard Walmart accounts for 40% of the total DVD sales. Can you guess what titles sell the most at Walmart? It sure isn't Grindhouse or Smokin Aces I can tell you that. Its not titles Universal or Weinstein usually puts out. Does anyone question Walmart moves Disney titles by the truck loads? With that in mind, why would Walmart promote HD DVD over Blu-ray? I go even further ...Disney is the most important studio for Walmart. This is why I found the news article very suspect.

We heard Walmart accounts for 40% of the total DVD sales. Can you guess what titles sell the most at Walmart? ... Disney is the most important studio for Walmart. This is why I found the news article very suspect.
Actually, it kind of makes me think Walmart is pretty important to Disney, not the other way around.

If Walmart has chosen HD DVD, Disney will certainly have a few tough commercial decisions to make, IMO, not the other way around.

syHd

Does anyone question Walmart moves Disney titles by the truck loads?

No, I dont, but they also sell lots of other titles, including Universal and Weinstein flicks. As RDjam, points out, Disney needs Walmart more than Walmart need Disney.

With that in mind, why would Walmart promote HD DVD over Blu-ray?

You dont understand the Walmart business model do you?

1. It is high volume low margin items. HD has always been more cost effective than BD, something that many BD supporters tend to down play. So, it costs less to make a HD disc than a BD disc, and there is no need to build replication plants.

2. Walmart demands control and alot of say so in its purchasing decisions. This is probably not something the BD group was willing to go along with. If Walmart says it wants a certain number of a specific disc by this date, Walmart gets the discs - but given the, at this time, limited capacity, this could potentially put the squeeze on a variety of different studios.

The simple fact is, and you can deny it all you want, that if Walmart told Disney to release in HD DVD or they were going to stop carrying Disney merchandise, you can bet your bottom dollar Disney would release in HD DVD. End of story.

syHd



No, I dont, but they also sell lots of other titles, including Universal and Weinstein flicks. As RDjam, points out, Disney needs Walmart more than Walmart need Disney.



You dont understand the Walmart business model do you?

1. It is high volume low margin items. HD has always been more cost effective than BD, something that many BD supporters tend to down play. So, it costs less to make a HD disc than a BD disc, and there is no need to build replication plants.

2. Walmart demands control and alot of say so in its purchasing decisions. This is probably not something the BD group was willing to go along with. If Walmart says it wants a certain number of a specific disc by this date, Walmart gets the discs - but given the, at this time, limited capacity, this could potentially put the squeeze on a variety of different studios.

The simple fact is, and you can deny it all you want, that if Walmart told Disney to release in HD DVD or they were going to stop carrying Disney merchandise, you can bet your bottom dollar Disney would release in HD DVD. End of story.

I understand Walmart's business model perfectly. I also understand they are very family friendly. Families shop at Walmart and I don't think Weinstein titles move in volume there. I also don't think Children of Men sell very there either. :rolleyes:

HD DVD does not have a monopoly on large volume/low cost model. Blu-ray players will go down in prices too. We are talking at least six months out here if ALL things going according to plan ...if the report is even true. Large volume won't happen until 2008. Thats an eternity.

The assumption made by some HDDVD fanboys thats Wal-mart will exclusively carry HDDVD is just wrong.

Blu-ray technology is also rapidly dropping in price. Blu-ray is also rapidly creating economies of scale in their production processes.

Wal-Mart will also carry Blu-ray players for a reasonable price. Will they carry cheap HD-DVD player first? probably.

But cheap Blu-ray players are coming too.

Even if Walmart gets equally cheap Bluray players six months after the HDDVD ones this certainly will not decide the format war. HDDVD may get a temporary boost only.

Looks like HDVD will be known as the cheapie format with lower bitrate audio and video for cheap people at walmart.

Bluray will remain the true audiophile/videophile format.

Anyone who can afford a $2000 HDTV can afford to pay $200 more to get the player that plays the more sophisticated technology format- bluray.

Krinkle,

Looks like HDVD will be known as the cheapie format with lower bitrate audio and video for cheap people at walmart.

Sounds like sour grapes to me. These players will undoubtably put out an excellent HD picture, that probably wont be that different from any other HD picture. The question of audio is different, but to be honest, most people dont have systems that can take advantage of high resolution audio anyway.

Bluray will remain the true audiophile/videophile format.

Yes, indeedy do, the Fifth Element is the Perfect example of videophile nirvana for a BD supporter.

syHD,

HD DVD does not have a monopoly on large volume/low cost model. Blu-ray players will go down in prices too.

Yes the price of BD players will come down, but I doubt to the $200 level, which is where I think these will be priced.

But the significance of the announcement isnt the fact that cheap chinese players are coming. The significance is that Walmart chose HD and not BD. Walmart just made a significant investment in one format over the other.

Like I said before, for better or worse, and whether we like it or not, Walmart gets what Walmart wants.

If Walmart were to go to the studios and say release in HD so they could sell more HD players, they would. Then the consumer would be faced with all movies on both formats, with one format costing less.

Edit: My bad -- Grubert posted this yesterday. A mod can delete if they wish.

(From tomorrow's Home Theater Magazine)

Sales comparison for week ending 4/15/2007

Week: 61% Blu-ray / 39% HD DVD
YTD: 69% Blu-ray / 31% HD DVD
SIL 57% Blu-ray / 43% HD DVD

And in case people want to view the numbers the old way:

Week: Blu-ray leads 100:63.9 or 1.56:1
YTD: Blu-ray leads 100:44.9 or 2.23:1
SI: Blu-ray leads 100:75.4 or 1.33:1

Check it out at: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom042207/

They also have an article about Blu-ray winning Quarter 1, 2007, and a listing of the top 10 discs sold since inception and in Q1.

Q1 Top 10:
1. Casino Royale -- Blu-ray -- 59,680
2. The Departed -- Blu-ray -- 53,640
3. The Departed -- HD DVD -- 31,590
4. The Prestige -- Blu-ray -- 28,500
5. Crank -- Blu-ray -- 20,880
6. Saw 3 -- Blu-ray -- 18,800
7. Superman Returns -- Blu-ray -- 17,920
8. Batman Begins -- HD DVD -- 16,980
9. Black Hawk Down -- Blu-ray -- 16,810
10. The Fifth Element -- Blu-ray -- 16,060


Top 10 Since Inception
1. Casino Royale -- Blu-ray -- 59,680
2. The Departed -- Blu-ray -- 53,640
3. Batman Begins -- HD DVD -- 44,590
4. Superman Returns -- Blu-ray -- 40,140
5. Superman Returns -- HD DVD -- 36,210
6. The Departed -- HD DVD -- 31,590
7. The Fifth Element -- Blu-ray -- 29,000
8. X-Men: The Last Stand -- Blu-ray -- 28,680
9. The Prestige -- Blu-ray -- 28,500
10. Underworld: Evolution -- Blu-ray -- 28,200

Forgive me if this has been posted:

(From tomorrow's Home Theater Magazine)


Yes it has been. It is usually posted on Friday.

But the significance of the announcement isnt the fact that cheap chinese players are coming. The significance is that Walmart chose HD and not BD. Walmart just made a significant investment in one format over the other.


ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ....i'll bet ya some low-cost blu-ray players will come into play as these HD-DVD players come in.....let's talk about it once these things really come into walmart, not spend the next 5 months going on and on about ifs and buts....

Many assumptions.. You know what they say about assumptions.. It does not matter if Blu-Ray or HD-DVD has $299.99 players at Walmart. Why? J6P up to his neck in credit card debt does not spend $299.99 on movie players. Their range is $50-$100. They are also not going to spend $20.00 dollars for movies, they are digging in those $5 baskets looking for their movies. HD-DVD or Blu-Ray would have much better success positioning $299.99 players in Best Buy and Circuit City than Walmart.

Many assumptions.. You know what they say about assumptions.. It does not matter if Blu-Ray or HD-DVD has $299.99 players at Walmart. Why? J6P up to his neck in credit card debt does not spend $299.99 on movie players. Their range is $50-$100. They are also not going to spend $20.00 dollars for movies, they are digging in those $5 baskets looking for their movies. HD-DVD or Blu-Ray would have much better success positioning $299.99 players in Best Buy and Circuit City than Walmart.
I can't believe how obnoxiously snobby people are about Wal-Mart.

I'm no fan of Wal-Mart either, but it's quite clear that people from all walks of life shop there.

Many assumptions.. You know what they say about assumptions.. It does not matter if Blu-Ray or HD-DVD has $299.99 players at Walmart. Why? J6P up to his neck in credit card debt does not spend $299.99 on movie players. Their range is $50-$100. They are also not going to spend $20.00 dollars for movies, they are digging in those $5 baskets looking for their movies. HD-DVD or Blu-Ray would have much better success positioning $299.99 players in Best Buy and Circuit City than Walmart.

This is an excellent point. Last time I was in a Wal-mart store the crowd there seemed pretty rough around the edges so to speak. Lots of people that looked like recent immigrants shopping for cheap generic groceries and clothes. (Hope this isn't offensive, but it is an honest description of the crowd at an average wal-mart.)

This is the $50 DVD player market and the $4-5 discount bin DVD market.

I agree $299 players would probably sell better at BestBuy and CircuitCity.

Will be interesting to look back at this six months from now and see if it really turns out to be such a big deal.

-edit-


Has anyone seen the HDTVs at a Wal-mart? Total crap. And that is an understatement. The stuff they carry makes Westinghouse look top of the line lol.

The Wal-mart crowd depends on location. In Canada they have people from all walks of life, from all income levels, They have changed Canadian retailing forever. Lets not stereotype here please, it would be a mistake as it can`t be done as their market is huge with all walks of life.

Please. And you don't do the same in your pro HD DVD rants? I was neutral. I now support HD DVD, but I am prepared also to support Blu-ray. I do want HD DVD to survive as that to me is a better way to get more HD content out in the world.

I will probably buy a Blu-ray player when a cost effective model comes out with BD-Live support this fall.

At this point HD DVD has earned my support and hs opened my wallet. Blu-ray currently has not.

In my postings here , I am often responding to others and stating things that have not been mentioned before. I take a Devil's advocate stance sometimes in countering the pro-Blu-ray viewpoint and what I see as BDA propaganda.

I also call them as I see them.

I was responding to the comment to limit the conversation as that implied to me an attempt to not discuss on topic things that were not favorable to Blu-ray.

This thread has evolved into a comprehensive discussion of HD sales and their significance.

I also am not trying to limit the discussion. Feel free to respond to any of my posts. I was trying to respond to a post that in my opinion trying to limit debate to only subjects that were pro- Blu-ray.

I'd rather hear both sides and think for myself.

The assumption made by some HDDVD fanboys thats Wal-mart will exclusively carry HDDVD is just wrong.

Blu-ray technology is also rapidly dropping in price. Blu-ray is also rapidly creating economies of scale in their production processes.

Wal-Mart will also carry Blu-ray players for a reasonable price. Will they carry cheap HD-DVD player first? probably.

But cheap Blu-ray players are coming too.

Even if Walmart gets equally cheap Bluray players six months after the HDDVD ones this certainly will not decide the format war. HDDVD may get a temporary boost only.
Looks like HDVD will be known as the cheapie format with lower bitrate audio and video for cheap people at walmart.

Bluray will remain the true audiophile/videophile format.

Anyone who can afford a $2000 HDTV can afford to pay $200 more to get the player that plays the more sophisticated technology format- bluray. Three really poor assumptions on your part.

You assume that Blu-ray players in the short term can cost as little as HD DVD players. That's wrong on two counts. First their may be an inherent cost advantage in the fact that a Blu-ray player needs to be able to optically focus on smaller pits and lands on the very top of the disc, as well as on the middle for DVD and on the bottom for CD compatibility. There may also be other licensing and other material cost differences. In addition, HD DVD players such as the HD A2 and the Wal-Mart beast are in mass production. That brings cheaper costs. No Blu-ray except the PS3 is approaching those volumes. That makes Blu-ray players more expensive.

You also assume that 6 months or longer gap in cheaper players means nothing. That's wrong in that time is critical in this adoption phase. HD DVD is in its second generation now. These Wal-Mart SoC Chinese players are the THIRD generation of HD DVD players. They will available in volume during the critical 4th quarter Christmas selling season, where most CE sales are made. Any Blu-ray player at that price or volume would probably not be available until the dead 1st quarter sales season next year.

You also assume HDTV buyers are all highly involved and educated about the pro s and cons. That may be you, but not a lot of the sub $999 HDTV buyers at Wal-Mart. To them a $199 HD DVD player and $14.99 or $19.99 HD DVD movies are a perfect match for their $799 or $999 HD TV player they bought at Wal-Mart that will go along with all their DVDs thy bought there before.

This thread needs to be killed. It's hopelessly off the rails.

This thread needs to be killed. It's hopelessly off the rails.I was responding to the comment to limit the conversation as that implied to me an attempt to not discuss on topic things that were not favorable to Blu-ray.

This thread has evolved into a comprehensive discussion of HD sales and their significance.

I also am not trying to limit the discussion. Feel free to respond to any of my posts. I was trying to respond to a post that in my opinion trying to limit debate to only subjects that were pro- Blu-ray.

I'd rather hear both sides and think for myself. I rest my case. :rolleyes:

Interesting post history since April 2007 there. Funny how you want to kill the thread.

Interesting post history since April 2007 there. Funny how you want to kill the thread.

mrseder..............Mr. Seeder? Nah, that would be too obvious. ;)

I would rather bring the thread open and have coherent discussion on the significance of the sales data we receive in between the data dumps.

This is the only real place on the forum that the best sales data is available an its significance is discussed. Its evolved to something larger than the limited thread title, but its goes back to that when the new data is released.

Nothing wrong with that as long as it naturally comes home each week as new data is presented, analyzed and discussed.

There may also be other licensing and other material cost differences. In addition, HD DVD players such as the HD A2 and the Wal-Mart beast are in mass production. That brings cheaper costs. No Blu-ray except the PS3 is approaching those volumes. That makes Blu-ray players more expensive.



I think you've got it backwards. Over 3 million Blu-ray drives have been sold around the world. This is actually closer to 4 million total. That sounds like mass production to me. http://www.vgchartz.com/

HD-DVD has not sold anywhere near that number of drives. Even the two million players going to wal-mart will not even be half the number of blu-ray drives shipped by the end of the year.

Que usual diatribe about attach rates... Let me answer in advance this has nothing to do with attach rates, but simply is information to back up the fact that Blu-ray drives are in mass production. You will see huge price drops over the next two years.

Soon price will not be much difference between the two. Then only specs are going to matter, and Blu-ray offers higher bitrates, higher storage capacity, and more studio support. ;)

Originally Posted by Kosty
There may also be other licensing and other material cost differences. In addition, HD DVD players such as the HD A2 and the Wal-Mart beast are in mass production. That brings cheaper costs. No Blu-ray except the PS3 is approaching those volumes. That makes Blu-ray players more expensive. Drive costs for Blu-ray players will come down when Sony starts selling those drive units to other Blu-ray manufacturers. Right now they are keeping them all to themselves. But the component cost of the optical pick up and drive i just one factor. The PS3 is the only Blu-ray player as a unit that is in mass production. The HD DVD players from Toshiba that are sharing a common chassis have economies of scale as will the 2 M Wal-Mart players. Besides the PS3, all the other Blu-ray devices are low volume boutique items, with inherently higher manufacturing costs per unit because of their volumes.

I wonder what the walmart thing is about. The article quotes the president of Fuh Yuan ( a company in taiwan) that is trying to IPO. He makes references to a component in a blue-ray hd-dvd which is probably an optical drive using blue laser.

The news is not his price of $50, which is about right for a cost reduced optical drive using blue-laser, only marginally cheaper than the currently delayed liteon drive for the 360 addon minus the USB bridge. [ I am guessing here, I did not call anyone in liteon, and if I did, noone would say anything anyway] ;)

The actual news is the claim that walmart has ordered two million of something which means either (1) a HD DVD player or (2) a blu-ray player or (3) a combo player or (4) a PC addin drive (unlikely without the sw player) or (5) this is pre-IPO vaporware.

That the component is $50 is not news if the component is the drive. It still needs at a minimum an SOC IC that can run iHD or BD-J or both along with some fast memory. My guess is if the SOC comes from sigma designs or broadcom it would not be cheap, but the combined BOM could easily go below 100, which is what is needed to hit a retail price of 299.

As of now, HD-A2 uses an NEC decoder needs a 900MHz celeron to decode the 2nd video (my guess) and run HDi/iHD. HD-A1 uses a broadcom decoder and needs an even more powerful P4. If you add the celeron/P4, you will need more memory, a northbridge or memory-hos hub, and that's not going to have a bom below 100 if the drive is 50.

The samsung player uses the same broadcom decoder in HD-A1 (but I have no idea if they use an external cpu).

The panasonic uses a sigma designs decoder.

I'm sure there are other chip providers that might come in and provide a powerful enough SOC that would not need an external cpu --- that's needed to get to your 100 bom --- which is what you need to sell something at 299.

But even then, there's a lot of software to be written between now and product shipment.

If walmart really ordered 2M of something related to highdef , that would be interesting.... since they form the missing piece of the sales puzzle not covered by nielsen. I see them selling some highdef, but for them to order 2 million players of any kind when < 2M disks have sold in both highdef formats combined is not very walmart like, someone would have had to make a pitch to them, and that would have to be one hell of a sales call.

But even then, there's a lot of software to be written between now and product shipment.
Not necessarily, if the bulk of the software has already been written by Microsoft and Broadcom.

Broadcom press release (http://www.broadcom.com/press/release.php?id=950062)

Also at CES today, Microsoft and Broadcom Corp. announced a joint effort to support a hardware and software reference design for more cost-efficient HD DVD playback. The new platform uses Microsoft Windows CE 6.0 and Broadcom's BCM7440 (http://www.broadcom.com/products/Consumer-Electronics/Blu-ray-and-HD-DVD-System-Solutions/BCM7440) system-on-chip solution, allowing consumer electronics manufacturers, original design manufacturers and systems integrators to more easily and affordably deliver HD DVD playback.

If walmart really ordered 2M of something related to highdef , that would be interesting.... since they form the missing piece of the sales puzzle not covered by nielsen. I see them selling some highdef, but for them to order 2 million players of any kind when < 2M disks have sold in both highdef formats combined is not very walmart like, someone would have had to make a pitch to them, and that would have to be one hell of a sales call.

ie: cheap. If anyone understands that price is king, it's Wal Mart.

^ I am curious how the fuh yuan story pans out. Broadcom is rarely a cost leader, and it is curious why they were designed out of the HD-A2 when the NEC chip is not cheap and still needed an external celeron.

It could just be the porting required for that HDi/iHD layer. But if BCM7440 can really decode two video streams like their datasheet implies, I wonder why the samsung BD-P1000 can't handle the secondary video. Curious isn't it? ;)

Still, I want to see how this plays out. That there are chip companies on both sides working with chinese and taiwanese people to make funny players is not a secret, but this 2M order sounds so intriguing, I really want to see how it unfolds.
----
ie: cheap. If anyone understands that price is king, it's Wal Mart.
Walmart sells $20 DVD players. Ok, $22 since I see 25CDN is worth more in USD now. These players don't have any royalties attached. I'm not saying they could go along with the right sales pitch, but it would have to be very convincing and have good terms, since they themselves know how many disks of either formats are selling in their stores : which from all accounts are not that many for either.

^ I am curious how the fuh yuan story pans out. Broadcom is rarely a cost leader, and it is curious why they were designed out of the HD-A2 when the NEC chip is not cheap and still needed an external celeron.

It could just be the porting required for that HDi/iHD layer. But if BCM7440 can really decode two video streams like their datasheet implies, I wonder why the samsung BD-P1000 can't handle the secondary video. Curious isn't it? ;)

Still, I want to see how this plays out. That there are chip companies on both sides working with chinese and taiwanese people to make funny players is not a secret, but this 2M order sounds so intriguing, I really want to see how it unfolds.

Does the BD-P1000 up-convert DVDs? ;) We've been hearing noise about cheap Chinese HD DVD players for quite some time, and the MS/Broadcom agreement would seem to be part of the puzzle.........perhaps it's but one nefarious maneuver in a broader strategy to compete on price within a critical, temporal window of opportunity. ;)

Does anybody think that if it's possible that Walmart is cutting deals for cheap HD DVD players, it's with an eye to which formats software will be the cheapest to produce down the road?

Brushing aside the costs of current replication, I thought it was HD DVD that would be cheapest once the demand rose enough to modify pre-existing SD DVD lines?

Does the BD-P1000 up-convert DVDs? ;) We've been hearing noise about cheap Chinese HD DVD players for quite some time, and the MS/Broadcom agreement would seem to be part of the puzzle.........perhaps it's but one nefarious maneuver in a broader strategy to compete on price within a critical, temporal window of opportunity. ;)


I wondered that too, doesn't BD have to have thier ducks in a row with BD-J, PIP, a BD-1, before they can develop conforming low-end Chinese stand-alones?

I wondered that too, doesn't BD have to have thier ducks in a row with BD-J, PIP, a BD-1, before they can develop conforming low-end Chinese stand-alones?


Yup. There's no reference design.

...assumption made by some HDDVD fanboys
Can we just quit with the inflammatory language already? It's making even me nauseaous. Points can actually be made without personalising the other view in a negative way.

The Wal-Mart buy is for entire HD DVD players, not just the components.

I have had several people who should know confirm to me its based on a Broadcom decoder.

Its a big deal.

Further detailed discussion should be here and not in this thread unless it on the possible impact on disc sales.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=836632

Smart move by Wal-mart to purchase 2 million HD-DVD players. I mean, it only took 12 months for Toshiba to sell 100,000 players. Clearly, Wal-mart saw that supply could not meet demand. I bet those 2 million players will sell out in less than a month.

Reminds me of last week when my son set up a lemonade stand. He sold 4 drinks in only 2 hours! Being the savvy businessman that I am, I immediately went out and bought 75,000 acres of lemon tree groves. Now, my son will finally have the supply to meet the lemonade demand. I expect I'll be retired by the 2nd week in May.

See you guys in the Bahamas!

ehhhh.... Wal-Mart will be selling those players at a much lower price point than the earlier Toshiba players.

Wal-Mart is obviously thinking that HD DVD players can sell in the same order of magnitude of second or third year DVD player sales which were between 1 -4+ million units in 1998 and 1999.

Please lets try to put the Wal-Mart HD DVD player discussion into this thread:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10362005#post10362005

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

We really are starting to get a bit off topic here folks - perhaps anything further can be discussed in the "format battle" thread?

But I have to respond to some of the misleading stuff here...

But if BCM7440 can really decode two video streams like their datasheet implies, I wonder why the samsung BD-P1000 can't handle the secondary video. Curious isn't it? ;) Errr, that's probably "slightly" because the Samsung BD-P1000 *DOESN'T* use the BCM7440 (wink wink back at'cha) as you may already know. The Samsung BD-P1000 uses the BCM7411. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7772314&&#post7772314

Probably not a good idea to give Sammy owners false hope on that one.

I think you've got it backwards. Over 3 million Blu-ray drives have been sold around the world. This is actually closer to 4 million total. That sounds like mass production to me. http://www.vgchartz.com/

HD-DVD has not sold anywhere near that number of drives. Even the two million players going to wal-mart will not even be half the number of blu-ray drives shipped by the end of the year.It's interesting that BD protagonists state that the number of PS3s is only 1.3 million when they want to talk about the poor attach rates of Bluray, yet 4 million when they want to state that BD has more players, therefore is supposed to outsell HD DVD? :)

The fact is that with (as you say) 4 million Bluray drives out there, and only 250,00 to 300,000 HD DVD drives, the HD DVD format is matching Bluray sales almost toe to toe.

So when you claim that 2.25 Million HD DVD players won't make any difference, when that is NINE (9) times the number of HD DVD players currently matching bluray for sales, I think you are conveniently ignoring the obvious impact of HD DVD's much higher attach rate.

If HD DVD had 2 million more players in the market, bluray would be absolutely fried.

I wonder what the walmart thing is about. It was pretty clearly stated in the article several times, and explained by native Chinese speakers - Walmart is launching the first 2 million of their HD DVD players to the market this year

He makes references to a component in a blue-ray hd-dvd which is probably an optical drive using blue laser. Your "inadvertant" use of the word "blu-ray" in you innocent analysis is unfortunate. Everyone has explained, including native speakers that the correct translation is "bright blue light HD DVDs" - nothing to do with Bluray at all, which is a trademark and would have shown up as such.

I can't help wondering it this is an honest mistake or an attempt to plant a seed in the mind of readers who may not have been thru the thread for that discussion?

The news is not his price of $50, which is about right for a cost reduced optical drive using blue-laser, only marginally cheaper than the currently delayed liteon drive for the 360 addon minus the USB bridge. The story clearly stated HD DVD players, not just a "component" for "blue laser" (you got a little closer to the proper translation tho ;) ) - it seems you would seek to have some think that there is still some chance that these are for Bluray players?

The actual news is the claim that walmart has ordered two million of something which means either (1) a HD DVD player or (2) a blu-ray player or (3) a combo player or (4) a PC addin drive (unlikely without the sw player) or (5) this is pre-IPO vaporware.You might consider stopping right there, as you know that the story was about Walmart ordering 2 Million HD DVD players. There is absolutely not on piece of doubt left in the mind of anyone that these are "HD DVD" players, although it seems that you may "inadvertantly" create a few with your innacurate post.

I won't bother responding to the pseudo-technical stuff in the other 4 paragraphs where you pull together various chips and mumbo jumbo to "create" a Bluray player out of a Walmart HD DVD player ;)

Sorry Kosty - I was typing a long time while you were posting - I agree that anything further should be in the thread you've linked.

Quick note or two about the Nielsen data:

Been too busy the last couple days to really tinker with the numbers, but at first glance with my spreadsheet (which I'm sure nataraj is looking at too), the Home Media Magazine numbers from this week don't work at all. I'm going to tinker with last week's numbers and this week's to see if there may be some combination thereof that makes sense (possible).

I don't see the sort of doom and gloom volume reduction talked about earlier in the thread, however. If I use HMM's YTD and SI figures "as is", I get weekly figures on 4/15 of 44823 BD and 15183 HD (this is obviously wrong, though, as it puts the weekly %s much higher than what HMM is reporting).

Will try to have a (hopefully) more sensible projection this evening.

Reminds me of last week when my son set up a lemonade stand. He sold 4 drinks in only 2 hours! Being the savvy businessman that I am, I immediately went out and bought 75,000 acres of lemon tree groves. Now, my son will finally have the supply to meet the lemonade demand. I expect I'll be retired by the 2nd week in May.

See you guys in the Bahamas!
It's always funny when somebody thinks they're so much smarter than company executives.

So in other words: you think that Walmart's executives are a bunch of retards who are ready to throw 100 million dollars out of the window? Is that about the meaning of your post?

The Wal-Mart topic would be better addressed in other topics such as this one (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=831590).

This is a reported software sales thread. Not a rumored future cheap hardware sales thread.

Will try to have a (hopefully) more sensible projection this evening.

One idea is to use Weekly and SI ratios to get one set of numbers. Then Weekly and YTD ratios to get another set. An approximate avg keeping weekly ratio correct will probably give us workable numbers.

If walmart really ordered 2M of something related to highdef , that would be interesting.... since they form the missing piece of the sales puzzle not covered by nielsen. I see them selling some highdef, but for them to order 2 million players of any kind when < 2M disks have sold in both highdef formats combined is not very walmart like, someone would have had to make a pitch to them, and that would have to be one hell of a sales call.
Maybe not, next year is the last full year of analog broadcasting, so HDTV will be front and center. They'll be on the lead edge of the transition curve.

Originally Posted by Kosty
No offense, but you always want to restrict the conversation in the manner most favorable to Blu-ray..


Please. And you don't do the same in your pro HD DVD rants?
That WAS pretty funny. :)

Originally Posted by Neo1965
If walmart really ordered 2M of something related to highdef , that would be interesting.... since they form the missing piece of the sales puzzle not covered by nielsen. I see them selling some highdef, but for them to order 2 million players of any kind when < 2M disks have sold in both highdef formats combined is not very walmart like, someone would have had to make a pitch to them, and that would have to be one hell of a sales call.

I am sure that Walmart did their own analysis of the situation - they are not known for being suckered nor do they often listen to other people. So they must have seen something in their analysis that they liked, or they wouldnt have done this.

The Wal-Mart topic would be better addressed in other topics such as this one (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=831590).

This is a reported software sales thread. Not a rumored future cheap hardware sales thread.
Thank you, G. I think my head was about to explode.

And Kosty gave ME $hite for going off topic (sorry K, who loves ya'. ;) ) I don't know if I've ever seen it this bad on this thread.

Thank you, G. I think my head was about to explode.

Now you know how it feels when people go OT ;)

And Kosty gave ME $hite for going off topic (sorry K, who loves ya'. ;) ) I don't know if I've ever seen it this bad on this thread.

Yep. My charts and numbers seem to have had zero comments ;)

Now you know how it feels when people go OT ;)
:p


Yep. My charts and numbers seem to have had zero comments ;)
I truly appreciate your charts and numbers, nat. And I HAVE examined them. I tend to comment more when I find something wrong. ;)

The Wal-Mart topic would be better addressed in other topics such as this one (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=831590).

This is a reported software sales thread. Not a rumored future cheap hardware sales thread. I agree that the detailed discussion of the Wal-Mart buy of 2 Million HD DVD players should be discussed somewhere else.

I think this is the more comprehensive thread on the subject:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=836632

It is only relevant in this thread if it has a within the context of how the possibility of greater HD DVD hardware may be affecting the studios and consumers decision making processes. Those decisions start with the sales numbers and trends reported and analyzed in this thread, but projected over what what would be the expected in sales based on the anticipated hardware installed base.

Not a rumored future cheap hardware sales thread Your use of this term indicates a possible bias, not quite in sync with your signature. Its a bit more substantial than a rumor and its effect could have a dramatic effect on dynamic of the format war and how this sales data in this thread is viewed. As a specific example, the strong possibility of that many new players in the market by Christmas means attach rates are more significant, that trends in H DVD sales are more significant and that Blu-ray failure to kill off HD DVD will mean that the small sales volumes here will not dramatically effect studio making, until they see the impact of the mass sales of Wal-Mart HD DVD players in the market.

To be far, most of the recent comments about the Wal-Mart players hav beein direct responses to other posts.

But I agree, most detailed decision, should be in those other theads, not here.

Originally Posted by Kosty
No offense, but you always want to restrict the conversation in the manner most favorable to Blu-ray.. Originally Posted by longshot
Please. And you don't do the same in your pro HD DVD rants?That WAS pretty funny. :) The difference is I do not want to limit the discussion or stop the debate because I am losing it or it is not going my way.

Feel free to respond to me

I do NOT do the same. I do not want to limit the debate. I want to engage in it.

Not stop it if it is not going my way. :rolleyes:

I agree that the detailed discussion of the Wal-Mart buy of 2 Million HD DVD players should be discussed somewhere else.

I think this is the more comprehensive thread on the subject:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=836632

One idea is to use Weekly and SI ratios to get one set of numbers. Then Weekly and YTD ratios to get another set. An approximate avg keeping weekly ratio correct will probably give us workable numbers. Is this issue the direct result of us only getting now the first alert data?

Does that imply that there is a growing gap between the first alert numbers and the final numbers that we only got corrected because of the comprehensive MArch 18th data set?

Can Grubert, beg for the final numbers each week from HMM is they are getting them, of can HMM get them in the future? If not was is HMM only getting or releasing the first alert numbers now, which are acknowledged to be equivalent to early box office numbers?

It is nice to be back on topic.... :)

Is this issue the direct result of us only getting now the first alert data?

Yes & No.

The original problem stems from us getting only 1st alert data for a given week. That ratio includes complete data for all other weeks.

The other problem is that we are geeting rounded ratios. As SI & YTD numbers grow and become increasingly large compared to weekly numbers, we need ratios at higher accuracy to calculate numbers well. The problem is in the last tow weeks we got ratios of lesser accuracy with the latest week being the worst (0 decimal places).

We would have still continued using the numbers and calculating merrily - except we now get a weekly ratio as well. As I've said earlier every week we get two new unknown numbers. To solve them we just need two ratios. But now we are getting three. You can use any two of them to get the numbers - and those numbers don't match (because of accuracy & first aler problems mentioned above).

So my solution is to average out the numbers got by using the 3 ratios ...

Darin,

You were partially right. You were not the one that said that China was too poor to support HD DVD players, it was Anthony P who said that.I'm not sure how that makes me "partially right". :)
Uh, dude, Yes I knew that and even said that in some of my post. But apparently you didnt, as you never made that little caveat in any of your posts touting the 4:1 advantage. Heck, IIRC in your poll about Sales ratios for the end of March you predicted that the ratio would still be about 4:1, so apparently you did think it would last, for at least awhile.As I said while the poll was going and before the results came in, it was going to show that some people really didn't understand the reasons for what was happening. The votes can be seen here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=4560

I think anybody who voted higher than 3:1 didn't have much grasp of the situation. Nothing personal, but just an indication of their knowledge level IMO. As you pointed out, asj voted 4:1 to 5:1. When I saw that I figured that all he saw was the numbers and not the reasons for the numbers week to week.

As far as the next couple of week's data, I expect the next one (week ending April 22nd) to be the strongest week of the year for HD DVD on a ratio basis, with the next ending April 29th being stronger for Blu-ray than the 22nd on a ratio basis, due to the releases. "Planet Earth" is doing very well on Amazon for both formats and especially for HD DVD, but I still expect the ratio to be better for Blu-ray for the 29th than for the 22nd.

Those who like to play games like that sales for a shorter period should have a ratio the same as the number of releases (ignoring previous releases) could apply that to HD DVD having 5 new releases on 4/17 to just 2 for Blu-ray (and 2 that have already been released on HD DVD for a while and so pretty weak as far as releases go).

--Darin

As far as the next couple of week's data, I expect the next one (week ending April 22nd) to be the strongest week of the year for HD DVD on a ratio basis, with the next ending April 29th being stronger for Blu-ray than the 22nd on a ratio basis, due to the releases. "Planet Earth" is doing very well on Amazon for both formats and especially for HD DVD, but I still expect the ratio to be better for Blu-ray for the 29th than for the 22nd.

Those who like to play games like that sales for a shorter period should have a ratio the same as the number of releases (ignoring previous releases) could apply that to HD DVD having 5 new releases on 4/17 to just 2 for Blu-ray (and 2 that have already been released on HD DVD for a while and so pretty weak as far as releases go).

Apart from obvious effect of big releases like CR, I didn't see a high correlation between releases and numbers from the figures sony provided. Probably we need a better model (which includes the type of movie released, its BO etc) to be able to predict future numbers based on known future releases.

I think anybody who voted higher than 3:1 didn't have much grasp of the situation. Nothing personal, but just an indication of their knowledge level IMO. As you pointed out, asj voted 4:1 to 5:1. When I saw that I figured that all he saw was the numbers and not the reasons for the numbers week to week.

Quite true. Infact I'd say any HD DVD supporter expecting quick turn around now is also falling into the same trap. Infact somewhere I read an Universal exec specifically saying they don't expect a turn around till end of this year.

Apart from obvious effect of big releases like CR, I didn't see a high correlation between releases and numbers from the figures sony provided. Probably we need a better model (which includes the type of movie released, its BO etc) to be able to predict future numbers based on known future releases.A model might be nice, but I'm just going by looking at the info I can find myself and coming up with my best guess. And to be clear, I'm not one of those who plays games along the lines of, "I think they had 3 times the releases during that period, so they should have 3 times the sales". I was mostly pointing out that anybody who has done that in order to prop HD DVD up (even though the 3x wasn't true), can play the same game with HD DVD for the next weeks data and claim that HD DVD should win by a large amount. Which they are unlikely to, since sales are never just for new releases, but include sales of previously released titles too and then their game would make HD DVD look bad.

--Darin

One idea is to use Weekly and SI ratios to get one set of numbers. Then Weekly and YTD ratios to get another set. An approximate avg keeping weekly ratio correct will probably give us workable numbers.

The problem is SI ratios are too rounded to be of any use. If instead of 57:43, they are actually 56.56:43.44 we get a nice match. So, I suggest we just use weekly and YTD ratios from now on.

The difference is I do not want to limit the discussion or stop the debate because I am losing it or it is not going my way.

Feel free to respond to me

I do NOT do the same. I do not want to limit the debate. I want to engage in it.

Not stop it if it is not going my way. :rolleyes:
Didn't mean to ruffle ya' too much, K. There was at least one more post with a response like this. I just used this one to point out something I had noticed.

Like I said, for me, it "WAS pretty funny." In other words my post was meant to be taken lightheartedly.

Okie dokie. :p

Fur back down. Feathers flattening back. Claws being withdrawn. :)

C'mon guys..this thread is for NIELSEN numbers, not for rumored stuff months in the future. Now, I know HDDVD needs all the help it can get, but posting repeatedly about things that belong elsewhere simply shows desperation on your part. Keep the numbers here. leave the speculation for junk threads.

* Posted via Nokia 9300 using JavaMe Opera Mini Browser.

HMM has posted up new April 4/15 numbers

61% / 39% Week ending 4/15
69% / 31% Year to Date
57% / 43% Since Inception

1:56 sales ratio for the weekly first alert ratio

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 69.0/31.0 67.4/32.6 48.1/51.9
02/11 69.6/30.4 67.7/32.3 49.3/50.7
02/18 65.0/35.0 67.4/32.6 50.3/49.7
02/25 68.5/31.5 67.4/32.6 51.5/48.5
03/04 65.7/34.3 67.2/32.8 52.2/47.8
03/11 68.7/31.3 67.9/32.1 52.8/47.2
03/18 81.7/18.3 69.2/30.8 54.3/45.7
03/25 n/a 70.4/29.6 55.6/44.4
04/01 n/a 69.9/30.1 56.2/43.8
04/08 62.4/37.6 69.4/30.6 56.4/43.6

04/15 61 / 39 69 / 31 57 / 43

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom042207/


Home Media Article summarizing Blu-ray's first quarter 2007 sales victory:

written by Thomas K. Arnold

70% first quarter sales Blu-ray 30% HD DVD

Feb 13 - Mar 31 The Departed sales 53,640 Blu-ray 31,590 HD DVD 62.9%/37.1% or 1.69:1 ratio

8/10 top selling HD dics in 1st qtr 2007 were Blu-ray discs

Casino Royale sold 59,680 units through March 31st

Between Jan1 and Mar 31, 1.2 million HD discs sold 832,530 Blu-ray 359,300 HD DVDs

Since Inception through Mar 31st 2.14 M HD discs total, 1.2 M Blu-ray 937,500 HD DVD

In March 335,980 Blu-ray discs sold, to 119,570 HD DVDs

Batman Begins sold 16,980 HD DVDs 1 Jan - March 31st, total SI through Mar31 for BB is 44,590 "not far behind Casino Royale"

Predictable quotes from all the BDA folks saying this means the format war is over. Funny that they managed to get direct quotes from Bob Chapek (Buena Vista) David Bishop (Sony) Mike Dunn (Fox) Andy Parsons (BDA and Pioneer) without managing a single direct quote from a single neutral of HD DVD source. :rolleyes:

This seems to be intended as Blu-ray's 1st quarter victor lap dance PR piece.

The slight problem with their comments is that April sales are now showing a different more competitive story between the formats.

HMM has posted up new April 4/15 numbers

61% / 39% Week ending 4/15
69% / 31% Year to Date
57% / 43% Since Inception

1:56 sales ratio for the weekly first alert ratio

Aren't these the same ones published 2 days ago? What's different about them?

So my solution is to average out the numbers got by using the 3 ratios ...

I'm obviously a bit dim so can you reveal how this works in pratice? As in: step 1...2...3 etc.

Which numbers are you averaging for instance? What would you say is your margin of error? Do you consider known volume data from previous months and allow for residual sales as well as new buyers for both format entering the market?

We really need those 2 decimal places back!

Back to topic ;)

New data in as of 4/15

Week 61/39
YTD 69/31
SI 57/43 I remember.

I just missed it because Grubert didn't have it in the 1st post.

Same numbers, it just that I see the new April 22-28 HMM is up.

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom042207/


Home Media Article summarizing Blu-ray's first quarter 2007 sales victory:
Never understood the value of YTD as it's an arbitrary point in time in terms of either format's life cycle. It was OK for the early growth of BD. It is now a visual bias in favor of BD since it picks up when BD started doing well.

If we want to group numbers, maybe do it by quarters, then we can see gross trends. You can keep YTD to aid in calculations but it is misleading, since if HD ever takes off the effect of change will be masked by past BD sales in the YTD number.

Obviously,those numbers do not reflect HD DVDs more competitive showng so far in the second quarter.

The figures in that article are historical and are looking at data from January 1st through March 31st.

We all know Blu-ray did well in that period of time.

Never understood the value of YTD as it's an arbitrary point in time in terms of either format's life cycle. It was OK for the early growth of BD. It is now a visual bias in favor of BD since it picks up when BD started doing well.

If we want to group numbers, maybe do it by quarters, then we can see gross trends. You can keep YTD to aid in calculations but it is misleading, since if HD ever takes off the effect of change will be masked by past BD sales in the YTD number.For studios looking at making decisions for the future, SI has a similar problem where you could have said:

You can keep SI to aid in calculations but it is misleading, since if BD ever takes off the effect of change will be masked by past HD sales in the SI number.

back when BD was gaining ground and many HD DVD fans were looking at only the SI numbers.

The one thing I think is the most misleading is playing tricks where HD DVD disc sales before the PS3 ever shipped are used to make it look like the PS3 has poor disc sales (or poorer than they are). I see multiple people doing that.

--Darin

I just missed it because Grubert didn't have it in the 1st post.


They aren't there because they don't really exist yet. ;)

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom042207/

Home Media Article summarizing Blu-ray's first quarter 2007 sales victory:

written by Thomas K. Arnold

Since Inception through Mar 31st 2.14 M HD discs total, 1.2 M Blu-ray 937,500 HD DVDAnd yet xboxboi's signature still says:
BD movies continuously secondary to HD DVD. There are already >2mil BD players out there vs <>0.2mil HD DVD players. Why BD only sold 65K more disk than HD DVD?2 tricks he uses there. Counting players outside the US for hardware while using software for only the US or NA. And counting those SI sales before the PS3 came out and with HD DVD launching first, as if the timeframe for the players sales is equivalent, when even a kid could figure out that hardware that a consumer bought long ago should have more software sold for it, on average. Not even counting how out of date his 65k number is. But some of us know from past experience that he doesn't seem to care about having untrue information in his signature.

--Darin

They aren't there because they don't really exist yet. ;)

I don't know what happened.

When I now go to the the HMM home page, it now gives me the April 15th issue.

I still have open the April 22 issue, and I see the URL for it.

Kinda wierd. Maybe they are in the process of loading it up?

I know you are not posting it in the OP until it goes final. I like that.

P.S. I can see how to project the URL, but I got to it from the HMM page a half hour ago.

For studios looking at making decisions for the future, SI has a similar problem where you could have said:

You can keep SI to aid in calculations but it is misleading, since if BD ever takes off the effect of change will be masked by past HD sales in the SI number.

back when BD was gaining ground and many HD DVD fans were looking at only the SI numbers.

The one thing I think is the most misleading is playing tricks where HD DVD disc sales before the PS3 ever shipped are used to make it look like the PS3 has poor disc sales (or poorer than they are). I see multiple people doing that.

--Darin
Don't agree. Total sales of any product is of value. By year is useless unless you have multi-years of sales history. Q by Q is the next best.

I didn't think we were tracking PS3 sales.

And yet xboxboi's signature still says:
2 tricks he uses there. Counting players outside the US for hardware while using software for only the US or NA. And counting those SI sales before the PS3 came out and with HD DVD launching first, as if the timeframe for the players sales is equivalent, when even a kid could figure out that hardware that a consumer bought long ago should have more software sold for it, on average. Not even counting how out of date his 65k number is. But some of us know from past experience that he doesn't seem to care about having untrue information in his signature.

--Darin I agree that his signature is misleading.

It even annoys me. :D

Its one of the reasons I turned signatures off.

I agree that his signature is misleading.


Not to mention, wildly ungrammatical. :D

Don't agree. Total sales of any product is of value.I didn't say it wasn't of value. I said it has the same problem that you pointed out in that one sentence, which it does. You can disagree if you want to, but it does have that problem.
I didn't think we were tracking PS3 sales.What I was pointing out is that some people play the game of saying the ratio of hardware that they believe and then the ratio of SI for software, to try to say that Blu-ray is doing poorly and put down the PS3. That has to do with the issue you pointed out of something taking off and being masked by previous values. I say it is a trick in this case since they are counting numbers from before the PS3 shipped as if they should count against the PS3.

--Darin

from the April 22 HMM

1st Qtr HD Sales Leaders

Title Format 1 Qtr 2007 B.O.$MM

DEPARTED Blu-ray 53,640 132.37
CASINO ROYALE Blu-ray 59,680 167.00
DEPARTED HD DVD 31,590 132.37
PRESTIGE Blu-ray 28,500 53.08
CRANK Blu-ray 20,880 27.83
SAW 3 Blu-ray 18,800 80.23
SUPERMAN RETURNS Blu-ray 17,920 200.08
BATMAN BEGINS HD DVD 19,980 205.34
BLACK HAWK DOWN Blu-ray 16,810 108.63
FIFTH ELEMENT Blu-ray 16,060 63.82

from the April 22 HMM

Titles Since Inception, Through March 31st

revising

Title Format Units Supplier

CASINO ROYALE Blu-ray 59,680 Sony
THE DEPARTED Blu-ray 53,640 Warner
BATMAN BEGINS HD DVD 44,590 Warner
SUPERMAN RETURNS Blu-ray 40,140 Warner
SUPERMAN RETURNS HD DVD/DVD 36,210 Warner
THE DEPARTED HD DVD/DVD 31,590 Warner
FIFTH ELEMENT Blu-ray 29,000 Sony
X-MEN- LASTSTAND Blu-ray 28,680 Fox
THE PRESTIGE Blu-ray 28,500 BV/Touchstone
UNDERWORLD-REV Blu-ray 28,200 Sony

Neutral Warner has 5 out of the top 6 titles.

Guess they are making some money. 3 HD DVD 2 Blu-ray in the top 10 for them.

Predictable quotes from all the BDA folks saying this means the format war is over. Funny that they managed to get direct quotes from Bob Chapek (Buena Vista) David Bishop (Sony) Mike Dunn (Fox) Andy Parsons (BDA and Pioneer) without managing a single direct quote from a single neutral of HD DVD source. :rolleyes:.Well this is just basic marketing 101 and I have never seen you point this out with articles that mainly/only had positive spin for HD DVD. If anything that article was fairly fact based mostly going into the actual sales numbers for both the 1Q and since inception.


The slight problem with their comments is that April sales are now showing a different more competitive story between the formats.Sure, but if Blu-ray sells better in the 2Q than expect some articles like this one to once again appear. Just as they would appear from the HD DVD side if they manage to sell more HD DVD titles in the 2Q.

I only pointed that out because its clear the article was generated off a BDA press release or data released by them to HMM.

The author of the article was the overall editor, who in the same issue is writing that there has been benefits to the format war. He obviously did not do the research. The fact that the Blu-ray sources are quoted and no , nada, zip HD DVD sources are directly quoted indicate the article originated as an idea from the Blu-ray side.

Nothing wrong with that as the Nielson/Videoscan capture is a fact for those 1st quarter sales, and I would crow about them if I was a Blu-ray spokesperson too.

Other articles in the same issue show less editorial bias, so it evens out.

Well this is just basic marketing 101 and I have never seen you point this out with articles that mainly/only had positive spin for HD DVD That's your job. :p You do it so well. :D

For the record, when I see HD DVD spokespeople really spinning, I often point it too. Its just that you and others beat me to it.

Its just that I see more from the aggessive BDA PR campaign that pure spin. ;) YMMV

Sure, but if Blu-ray sells better in the 2Q than expect some articles like this one to once again appear. Just as they would appear from the HD DVD side if they manage to sell more HD DVD titles in the 2Q. But I bet Blu-ray won't be ever able to claim a ratio like the reported March 335,980 to 119,570, (74% to 26% ratio) ratio again.

This is the Blu-ray big thunder moment.

That's your job. :p You do it so well. :D
I'd like to know what your job is Kosty, or at least understand your interest in this format war. You said you went to CES and since only those in the CE industry can attend that, what is your line of work?

I'd like to know what your job is Kosty, or at least understand your interest in this format war. You said you went to CES and since only those in the CE industry can attend that, what is your line of work?

Or if you have a press-pass, but again journalism is hardly the most neutral of professions these days.

Does that mean it includes the April 15th sales surge, or will that be in next weeks numbers?

they should be included but don't forget that it does not include presales. So most of the fake sales on preorders don't count

So Blu-ray still leads for the week in the first alert data.

Its the lowest showing for Blu-ray all year.

Its the best showing for HD DVD all year.

Weekly ratio closing to 1.56:1.

Kosty it is also the week that included the day that all HD DVD supporters were urged to buy many disks to support their formats 1y anniversary.

Kosty it is also the week that included the day that all HD DVD supporters were urged to buy many disks to support their formats 1y anniversary. yep. or the next week.

I'd have to say I'm getting tired of all the format war stuff here. Very little analysis and a lot of bickering. Lets see this page. One person refuted what Kosty said. No problems there. Three other said the same thing or just posted their support. Where is the analysis there ?


nataraj: agree, though I don't think Kosty put much analysis in his post, and that happens on both sides. How many posts last week were "look at Amazon Ranking" which now we know, it was not a precursor or anything all it did is sap HD DVDs being sold elsewhere. The blip was not even good enough to bring HD DVD close to BD

I'd like to know what your job is Kosty, or at least understand your interest in this format war. You said you went to CES and since only those in the CE industry can attend that, what is your line of work? CES attendance is a bit more open than that and industry affiliation is loosely defined. I do business there, but not on behalf of any company in the format war. Being at CE industry show does not mean I work for a CE company.

I go there to evaluate some products for some of my clients and to complete some negotiations face to face and to check on some things that are better seen than read about. I have dedicated a lot of my own time at those shows investigating HD DVD and Blu-ray on my own time.

But my interest in HD media is my own, and I am not being compensated by any company in the format war. I starting posting here and at home theater spot when I first got an HDTV.

One of my smaller clients is a small regional retailer who sells A/V equipment. but most of my contacts have been developed since I have developed an interest in HD DVD and Blu-ray.

I post here because I want to, not because I have to or being paid to or otherwise have a financial stake in all this.

I'm a passionate enthusiast, not a paid contributer.

If that doesn't answer your questions , PM me.

CES attendance is a bit more open than that and industry affiliation is loosely defined. I do business there, but not on behalf of any company in the format war. Being at CE industry show does not mean I work for a CE company.

I go there to evaluate some products for some of my clients and to complete some negotiations face to face and to check on some things that are better seen than read about. I have dedicated a lot of my own time at those shows investigating HD DVD and Blu-ray on my own time.

But my interest in HD media is my own, and I am not being compensated by any company in the format war. I starting posting here and at home theater spot when I first got an HDTV.

One of my smaller clients is a small regional retailer who sells A/V equipment. but most of my contacts have been developed since I have developed an interest in HD DVD and Blu-ray.

I post here because I want to, not because I have to or being paid to or otherwise have a financial stake in all this.

I'm a passionate enthusiast, not a paid contributer.

If that doesn't answer your questions , PM me.
Thanks for addressing this. I know several wanted clarification.

nataraj: agree, though I don't think Kosty put much analysis in his post, and that happens on both sides. How many posts last week were "look at Amazon Ranking" which now we know, it was not a precursor or anything all it did is sap HD DVDs being sold elsewhere. The blip was not even good enough to bring HD DVD close to BD

huh?

how did it sap HD DVDs showing elsewhere?
dvd empire stats show April 10th week final numbers show HD DVD leading the first time all year?
http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Features/hidef_wars.asp?view=1&userid=99365604128722


Isn't "HD DVD closer" on the Amazon tracking sites? Some metrics there showed HD DVD over for the first time all year. April is certainly closer than March.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/

http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/history.aspx

Isn't HD DVD getting closer on the Nielson/Videoscan reporting in the April numbers? HD DVD is still behind but the April stats have again been the best all year for HD DVD.

Granted Blu-ray is still leading, but the gap is closing. Can't you admit that?

Granted Blu-ray is still leading, but the gap is closing. Can't you admit that?
No the gap is not closing. I am amazed you continue to suggest this. The gap in sales continues to widen week after week. Suggesting otherwise just shows your bias.

We've been over this enough.

they should be included but don't forget that it does not include presales. So most of the fake sales on preorders don't count You seem to think that a lot of those sales were artificial pre-sales that were intended to be canceled later. Or they were otherwise made in bad faith.

Read that thread and you will find little if any evidence of encouragement of inflating pre orders.

It seems to only exist in your wishful thinking and imagination .

You said you went to CES and since only those in the CE industry can attend that, what is your line of work?


CEDIA is industry only, not CES.

No the gap is not closing. I am amazed you continue to suggest this. The gap in sales continues to widen week after week. We've been over this enough. Suggesting otherwise just shows your bias. Depends on how you define "the gap".

I see the trends and velocity of change as more important than the past history of the low volume 1st quarter of 2007 or for that matter all of last year.

The gap in absolute volume of accumulated unit sales obviously increases every week that Blu-ray sales is higher than HD DVD. No one disputes this.

But the gap that exists in the percentage sold between each format or the gap in unit sales for those weeks has closed during the last month starting about the week of March 19th or March 24th.

That separation in the sales volume is what I am referring to as the gap in "weekly sales".

That gap was the highest in the week ending on March 18th. It has eroded steadily since then.

Failing to acknowledge this fact.... "just shows your bias". ;)

CEDIA is industry only, not CES.
Incorrect. CES attendees are only admitted if they are in the CE industry or an affiliated company (or press).

Edit: There are a few others allowed such as government officials and such, but enthusiasts are strictly prohibited.

But I bet Blu-ray won't be ever able to claim a ratio like the reported March 335,980 to 119,570, (74% to 26% ratio) ratio again.

This is the Blu-ray big thunder moment.

let's wait until spiderman 3 and the other blockbusters from Blu-ray come online before such predictsions, shall we? The last time a recent blockbuster hit blu-ray it went to almost 5:1.

CEDIA is industry only, not CES. For the record, I have attended Cedia also the past few years, but as a industry affiliate. :o

I'll attend this year also, and I'll stay longer on my own dime some extra days so I can actually I know what I am talking about here.

Plus I like visiting Denver. :)

Granted Blu-ray is still leading, but the gap is closing. Can't you admit that?

he can't admit that because it's not happening....are we going to go all over this again?

...HD-DVD is NOT closing any sales gap...in fact, the sales gap keeps widening as long as Blu-ray outsells Hd-DVD every week...what's happened in some parts of April is that Blu-ray is not EXTENDING the lead AS FAST as in march....

Again, think of the two as two cars racing, one going TWICE as fast as the other (say, 60 kph versus 30)...if you set them side by side and let them race, the GAP (the LEAD) between them will CONTINUALLY INCREASE UNLESS HD-DVD itself goes to 60+....

In no sense of the word is the HD-DVD car DECREASING the gap, it is merely lowering the pace at which the gap widens.

.... Granted Blu-ray is still leading, but the gap is closing. Can't you admit that?

the gap is growing. just for two weeks it did not grow as fast. And for someone that was trying to portray BDs 2:1 lead in Jan as "it could be a blip and sales won't continue". It is funny how you don't even recognize this rapprochement in ratios were due to two obvious reasons

1) the first week had a few good HD DVD titles and no BD titles, coming after a drought of HD DVD titles.
2) the second week a concerted buy now from Amazon effort by some HD DVD supporters.

Depends on how you define "the gap".

I see the trends and velocity of change as more important than the past history of the low volume 1st quarter of 2007 or for that matter all of last year.

The gap in absolute volume of accumulated unit sales obviously increases every week that Blu-ray sales is higher than HD DVD. No one disputes this.

But the gap that exists in the percentage sold between each format or the gap in unit sales for those weeks has closed during the last month starting about the week of March 19th or March 24th.

That separation in the sales volume is what I am referring to as the gap in "weekly sales".

That gap was the highest in the week ending on March 18th. It has eroded steadily since then.

Failing to acknowledge this fact.... "just shows your bias".



1) I think trends are important, I just don’t see one. Except BD selling much better
2) We don’t know absolute numbers and they are trhe mostr important. Think about it 10000 Vs15000 has a difference of 5000 and is 1.5:1 on the other hand 1000 vs 2000 has a difference of 1000 and a 2:1 ratio. So if it is current sales then we have no idea if the gap grew or shrank
3) It is all a matter of perspective. If you think that the 4:1 for two weeks was a blip then why use them as reference? The ratios are still on average increasing, that is why the gap in SI is not shrinking

Actually HD DVD has picked up 'market share'. The concept of market share is something that many BD supporters cannot grasp. Why? It isn't that hard.

HD DVD went from a weekly share of under 25% of the overall HD market to a hair below 40%. They picked up 15 points in market share from BD since Sony made their PR release on BD dominance. Picking up market share means that HD DVD has narrowed the dominance that BD has been enjoying. So while a few weeks ago 2.5 in every 10 HD disk bought was HD DVD, now 4 in every 10 is.

When you are trying to win a format war, as BD with their subsidized business model needs to do soon, your opponent gaining market share is a red flag. Furthermore, if we reach an equilibrium of say even 30% market share for HD DVD and the market ends up being $1B market, would a studio want to leave a $300M market alone? What if the primary reason for the higher BD market share was content? Then the larger the market for HD DVD gets, the more attractive it will be for content providers and the harder it will be to ignore. Once content is available on both formats, the more efficient technology will win.

So, one thing is clear. BD and Sony must win the war by eliminating HD DVD before it achieves any sort of critical mass - this is what Fox referred to as a 'beach head'. However, you cannot kill off a format if it is gaining market share and achieves any sort of critical mass. That's just the way the business world works.

Bottomline: It does matter how much bigger than HD DVD the market for BD is right now. All that matters is how big the market for HD DVD can get and whether it can achieve a market size that content providers will find hard to ignore. When you pick up substantial market share as HD DVD has done, it means you are closing the gap, in the way businesses think about gap being closed - not mathematicians or Physisists :)

I'm obviously a bit dim so can you reveal how this works in pratice? As in: step 1...2...3 etc.

Which numbers are you averaging for instance? What would you say is your margin of error? Do you consider known volume data from previous months and allow for residual sales as well as new buyers for both format entering the market?

We really need those 2 decimal places back!

My later post actually kind of overrides this ...

The problem is SI ratios are too rounded to be of any use. If instead of 57:43, they are actually 56.56:43.44 we get a nice match. So, I suggest we just use weekly and YTD ratios from now on.

But, in practice, what you would do is get two sets of fugures using Weekly&YTD ratios and Weekly&SI ratios.

Let us say BD1, HD1 & BD2, HD2.

Then calculate BDw as the average of BD1 & BD2. Calculate HDw using BDw and the Weekly ratio.

Ofcource, we don't do this because SI ratio is too gross for our use.

let's wait until spiderman 3 and the other blockbusters from Blu-ray come online before such predictsions, shall we? The last time a recent blockbuster hit blu-ray it went to almost 5:1. Blu-ray does have that advantage in recent blockbusters.

But looking at that top 10 list sales leaders for the year, I posted above shows that non-blockbusters can do well also.

And there' s a lot more of those. :D



Since Inception Sales Numbers
Title Format Units Supplier

CASINO ROYALE Blu-ray 59,680 Sony
THE DEPARTED Blu-ray 53,640 Warner
BATMAN BEGINS HD DVD 44,590 Warner
SUPERMAN RETURNS Blu-ray 40,140 Warner
SUPERMAN RETURNS HD DVD/DVD 36,210 Warner
THE DEPARTED HD DVD/DVD 31,590 Warner
FIFTH ELEMENT Blu-ray 29,000 Sony
X-MEN- LASTSTAND Blu-ray 28,680 Fox
THE PRESTIGE Blu-ray 28,500 BV/Touchstone
UNDERWORLD-REV Blu-ray 28,200 Sony from the April 22 HMM

1st Qtr HD Sales Leaders

Title Format 1 Qtr 2007 B.O.$MM

DEPARTED Blu-ray 53,640 132.37
CASINO ROYALE Blu-ray 59,680 167.00
DEPARTED HD DVD 31,590 132.37
PRESTIGE Blu-ray 28,500 53.08
CRANK Blu-ray 20,880 27.83
SAW 3 Blu-ray 18,800 80.23
SUPERMAN RETURNS Blu-ray 17,920 200.08
BATMAN BEGINS HD DVD 19,980 205.34
BLACK HAWK DOWN Blu-ray 16,810 108.63
FIFTH ELEMENT Blu-ray 16,060 63.82

Actually HD DVD has picked up 'market share'
...
They picked up 15 points in market share from BD since Sony made their PR release on BD dominance. Picking up market share means that HD DVD has narrowed the dominance that BD has been enjoying.
...
your opponent gaining market share is a red flag
...
Furthermore, if we reach an equilibrium of say even 30% market share for HD DVD and the market ends up being $1B market, would a studio want to leave a $300M market alone?
...
What if the primary reason for the higher BD market share was content? Then the larger the market for HD DVD gets, the more attractive it will be for content providers and the harder it will be to ignore.
...
Once content is available on both formats, the more efficient technology will win
...
Bottomline: It does matter how much bigger than HD DVD the market for BD is right now. All that matters is how big the market for HD DVD can get and whether it can achieve a market size that content providers will find hard to ignore. When you pick up substantial market share as HD DVD has done, it means you are closing the gap, in the way businesses think about gap being closed - not mathematicians or Physisists :) Thank you. That explains it better than I did before.

HD DVD picking up market share is critical. It means its competitive and can survive.

If its survives it can get bigger in sales and would not be ignored by all the still exclusive studios.

Actually HD DVD has picked up 'market share'. The concept of market share is something that many BD supporters cannot grasp. Why? It isn't that hard.

HD DVD went from a weekly share of under 25% of the overall HD market to a hair below 40%. They picked up 15 points in market share from BD since Sony made their PR release on BD dominance. Picking up market share means that HD DVD has narrowed the dominance that BD has been enjoying. So while a few weeks ago 2.5 in every 10 HD disk bought was HD DVD, now 4 in every 10 is.

When you are trying to win a format war, as BD with their subsidized business model needs to do soon, your opponent gaining market share is a red flag. Furthermore, if we reach an equilibrium of say even 30% market share for HD DVD and the market ends up being $1B market, would a studio want to leave a $300M market alone? What if the primary reason for the higher BD market share was content? Then the larger the market for HD DVD gets, the more attractive it will be for content providers and the harder it will be to ignore. Once content is available on both formats, the more efficient technology will win.

So, one thing is clear. BD and Sony must win the war by eliminating HD DVD before it achieves any sort of critical mass - this is what Fox referred to as a 'beach head'. However, you cannot kill off a format if it is gaining market share and achieves any sort of critical mass. That's just the way the business world works.

Bottomline: It does matter how much bigger than HD DVD the market for BD is right now. All that matters is how big the market for HD DVD can get and whether it can achieve a market size that content providers will find hard to ignore. When you pick up substantial market share as HD DVD has done, it means you are closing the gap, in the way businesses think about gap being closed - not mathematicians or Physisists :)

If you want to go by market share then weekly is no good, it is far to volatile to make any sort of real reading, monthly or even better quarterly is a much better time scale for market share measurement. I say this because weekly sales are so variable with little or no pattern emerging, while monthly sales have generally been growing at a constant rate so predictions are easier to make etc...

The test for HD DVD will be the final numbers for April, up until now HD DVD has had a stronger release slate, but this week it is about to change with the BVHE releases. So if the final April numbers show a similar ratio to what we have seen in the last couple of weeks then HD DVD is gaining market share, but that is something I can't predict.

PS - Physisists = Physicists

If you want to go by market share then weekly is no good, it is far to volatile to make any sort of real reading, monthly or even better quarterly is a much better time scale for market share measurement.

Thats for established, mature formats. Weekly is good for us here ...

Ofcourse, you are welcome to come here and check once a quarter ;)

HD DVD went from a weekly share of under 25% of the overall HD market to a hair below 40%. They picked up 15 points in market share from BD since Sony made their PR release on BD dominance. Picking up market share means that HD DVD has narrowed the dominance that BD has been enjoying. So while a few weeks ago 2.5 in every 10 HD disk bought was HD DVD, now 4 in every 10 is.


we all know that. But why was every HD DVD supporter at the time calling it a blip? why start on the 18? why not when HD DVD had 3:1 and publicized it all over the place. You can't pick the two weeks you want and draw a line between those two points and say "see". That line is worthless.

Furthermore, if we reach an equilibrium of say even 30% market share for HD DVD and the market ends up being $1B market, would a studio want to leave a $300M market alone?

no, but why would you think it will go that far? if 300M is hard to leave alone, won't, much earlier, when BD reaches 300M$ make it hard for studios to leave alone? What would honestly happen when BD gets to 300M and HD DVD studios elegancies start shifting


What if the primary reason for the higher BD market share was content? Then the larger the market for HD DVD gets, the more attractive it will be for content providers and the harder it will be to ignore.

but how will that happen? where will this content come from?

Also I forgot to add that weekly market share can be very misleading, example:

HD DVD 100% BD 0% l Week 1
HD DVD 0% BD 100% l Week 2

A logical conclusion would be to state that they have equal market share over the two weeks, but without knowing actual unit sales, one can never be sure.

So market share analysis should be done over the month, at least because we know that the volume is never going to be that different from the previous month.

One does not need the "Since Inception" sales of last year to show how badly the PS3 is doing at selling movies.

Current "this week" numbers do a pretty good job of showing that all by themselves...

Oh do be quiet, we really don't need any of that rhetoric.

This is not an invitation to start a flame war, I am just trying to point out this obvious flame bait before any war erupts.

I can't find the numbers that Sony reported a few weeks back.

You know, those numbers that showed about 800K+ HD-DVD's have been sold, and about 900k+ BD's?

Where are those numbers? What are those numbers? Sorry, too many pages to look through..

Oh do be quiet, we really don't need any of that rhetoric.

This is not an invitation to start a flame war, I am just trying to point out this obvious flame bait before any war erupts.
I think you are focusing on the poster, rather than the info.

The "oh do be quiet" admonition, is significantly more likely to cause offence than my above contribution to the discussion.

The fact that HD DVD and BR movies sales are almost equal right now, is ample demonstration that the PS3, with 5 to 10 times the units sold as HD DVD players, is doing a pretty poor job of selling movies.

There, you forced me to spell it out.

I think you are focusing on the poster, rather than the info.

The "oh do be quiet" admonition, is significantly more likely to cause offence than my above contribution to the discussion.

The fact that HD DVD and BR movies sales are almost equal right now, is ample demonstration that the PS3, with 5 to 10 times the units sold as HD DVD players, is doing a pretty poor job of selling movies.

There, you forced me to spell it out.

Nice, trying to force my hand and make me look like the bad guy, sorry it isn't going to work, I give up; you can continue to spread your FUD and rhetoric at will, I just can't be bothered.

One does not need the "Since Inception" sales of last year to show how badly the PS3 is doing at selling movies.

Current "this week" numbers do a pretty good job of showing that all by themselves...So, how about showing us with this week numbers how badly the PS3 is doing at selling movies, since you were the one who used numbers of 10% for the PS3 and predicted that 30% of XBOX360 owners would buy the add-on. Looks like the XBOX360 is doing an extremely poor job of selling movies if the PS3 is doing a bad job of selling movies. Might be fun to calculate the percentage of XBOX360 owners who have bought the add-on and how many more need to buy it to meet your 30% prediction.
The fact that HD DVD and BR movies sales are almost equal right now, is ample demonstration that the PS3, with 5 to 10 times the units sold as HD DVD players, is doing a pretty poor job of selling movies.What happened to your claim of 15x the Blu-ray players as HD DVD players for the US? Did you realize that you were misleading people with that claim, even though you defended it after I pointed it out, much like you've done with previous things?

Interesting how you've gone from claiming it would be 10% for the PS3 to claiming it is doing a bad job, even though it looks like it is doing better than your prediction.

--Darin

No the gap is not closing. I am amazed you continue to suggest this. The gap in sales continues to widen week after week. Suggesting otherwise just shows your bias.

We've been over this enough.
Hi Rich - I deleted my orginal post asking you why you would question Kosty's credibility or motivations publicly rather than by PM, because I thought it may have been an unfair adssumption of me that you had any bias.

But then I see this post, which really makes me wonder. The trackers have CLEARLY shown that HD DVD HAS gained of Bluray, and draws in serious question your claim that the "gap in sales continues to widen week after week".

I don't know where you are looking, but EVEN the Videoscan numbers knock the legs from any credible grounds you may have for making a statement like that. BD has gone from a short term high of 3 or 4 to 1, to a current "first alert" for last week of only 1.5 to 1. And the true final numbers for next week will likely actually be less than 1.5 to 1.

You proudly wear the "AVS Press" under your name, and I'm sure all of us would feel better if you could reassure us that this error in your last statement is not a reflection of an underlying bias?

This tracker chart shows clearly what I have said - but even the Videoscan numbers are showing you that the gap has be narrowed - just as Kosty has said. Are you truly arguing that this is not the case?

http://www.CampaignHD.com/images/070421_Top10_45.png

Also I forgot to add that weekly market share can be very misleading, example:

HD DVD 100% BD 0% l Week 1
HD DVD 0% BD 100% l Week 2

A logical conclusion would be to state that they have equal market share over the two weeks, but without knowing actual unit sales, one can never be sure.

So market share analysis should be done over the month, at least because we know that the volume is never going to be that different from the previous month. Except that a consistent trend over several weeks also gives useful data.

Blu-ray was kicking HD DVDs butt consistent from mid January through mid March. The week to week trends there showed Blu-ray increasing dominance until mid March. Then HD DVD sales began to increase and its market share has crept back up.

Ideally we should look at this the longest possible time frame for the best data and trends. Monthly is better than weekly but who can wait a month or quarter or a year before discussing this stuff?

Several week to week data points moving in the same direction can give us clear trends.

Incorrect. CES attendees are only admitted if they are in the CE industry or an affiliated company (or press).

Edit: There are a few others allowed such as government officials and such, but enthusiasts are strictly prohibited.
You seem to be forgetting buyers from many other industries.

This year was the first year that CES has even attempted to enforce the rules.

You are being quite innacurate in what you are saying in an apparent attempt to question Kosty, but it is seeming that you may have a bias.

show me a consistent trend over several weeks?

Alright then.

I took a stab at normalizing the numbers from Home Media Magazine. Please bear in mind that this is a guess because we don't really know what the previous weekly numbers really are (since this is all First Alert data - see the Error columns to see what happens when the First Alert data is significantly off).

Here's a guess at what's happening, though, as close as I can manage to Home Media Magazine's published data:
http://endrop.com/album/photos/yzdmj5nycjdniwjnldzz.jpg (http://endrop.com/)

EDIT: Please note that these projections also show (since we have the real data up through early March), that there were about 12K unaccounted-for BDs in this projection as of March 25, and about 11K unaccounted for HDs in the projection as of March 25. I personally think these were "caught up with" in the April 1 projection (in fact, looking at the rest of April thus far, they couldn't have reappeared in any other week for HD DVD). It's possible that the undercounts are now out of sync, but seems unlikely given how much in lockstep the numbers have been thus far.

the gap is growing. just for two weeks it did not grow as fast. And for someone that was trying to portray BDs 2:1 lead in Jan as "it could be a blip and sales won't continue". It is funny how you don't even recognize this rapprochement in ratios were due to two obvious reasons

1) the first week had a few good HD DVD titles and no BD titles, coming after a drought of HD DVD titles.
2) the second week a concerted buy now from Amazon effort by some HD DVD supporters.
You guys are just trying to move the goalposts here.

The weekly sales between the two formats HAS narrowed. That is an unquivocally correct statement that you cannot even come close to questioning.

Who cares what the "Since Inception" or "Year to Date" numbers are.

If last week BD sold 10,000 more discs than HD and this week BD only sold 5,000 more discs than HD DVD, then HD DVD has halved the weekly sales gap.

Trying to turn this into a discussion about total discs sold only shows that you KNOW the weekly sales gap is decreasing and want to change the subject.

Who cares what the "Since Inception" or "Year to Date" numbers are.Are you going to respond to my post above?

The runrate has narrowed, but I find it interesting how many HD DVD supporters all of a sudden seem to believe that the runrate is the important one. Sure seems like few felt that way in January when they wanted to use just the SI numbers. And since then when people play that trick of mentioning the ratio of players and then the ratio of SI for software, in order to include software sales that were before the PS3 was out and when there were many fewer PS3s in consumers hands, to try to make the PS3 look poor.

Are you at least done with your deception about 15x the Blu-ray players as HD DVD players for the US now? I've seen you continue another deception when any reasonable person could have seen that they were wrong, so I hope you are at least done with that one.

--Darin

Max,

at least because we know that the volume is never going to be that different from the previous month.

Why in the world would you assume that monthly volume would be constant, just look at the charts, and Icemages charts. Weekly volumes, and hence, monthly volumes have been dropping for the past two weeks. And before that, both formats have shown a cyclic pattern of sales.

If you want to go by market share then weekly is no good
Here we go again.

It seems obvious that HD DVD has now caught up with BD and it is starting to worry BD protagonists.

So they don't want us to consider the weekly numbers of any importance, when it's all they lived off for the last couple of months. It reminds me of how they said that HD DVD outselling BD last year was irrelevant too.

Don't let anyone fool you folks - the weekly numbers are critically important, as they show how each format is doing against the other at any point in the "war".

What you are witnessing here is a concerted effort from the BD side to reduce the significance of the weekly numbers 3 days before the Videoscan numbers are released.

A month ago, none of the BD folks would have thought for a minute that HD DVD would be back in contention with BD in such a short time. In fact they said HD DVD was in the dust and would never come back.

No they know that HD DVD could well pass Bluray again, and so would like to reduce the significance of that.

Well, you can't. It is very significant. And if HD DVD is outselling Bluray again, then a lot of people are going to have to start asking why.

Except that a consistent trend over several weeks also gives useful data.

Blu-ray was kicking HD DVDs butt consistent from mid January through mid March. The week to week trends there showed Blu-ray increasing dominance until mid March. Then HD DVD sales began to increase and its market share has crept back up.

Ideally we should look at this the longest possible time frame for the best data and trends. Monthly is better than weekly but who can wait a month or quarter or a year before discussing this stuff?

Several week to week data points moving in the same direction can give us clear trends.

The problem is that we are not using volumes, and that is what matters, for any useful market share analysis you need a lot of data to come up with any sort of useful conclusion. So either you have to wait until the end of every month and use the sum of four weeks data, or use the past four weeks and do a moving scale. The latter is more useful IMO, but I never bothered downloading Icemage's spreadsheet and I am a bit busy right now so I won't be able to come up with any figures at the moment.

Example
July:
W 1 l HD DVD 20,000 l BD 25,000
W 2 l HD DVD 30,000 l BD 45,000
W 3 l HD DVD 25,000 l BD 37,000
W 4 l HD DVD 29,000 l BD 52,000
August:
W 1 l HD DVD 48,000 l BD 54,000

Under the first scheme in August HD DVD would have a 1:1.08 ratio but using the more representative method it would be more like 1:1.67. As the August data accumulates a more accurate market share analysis for just August can be made.

NB - The numbers are not real, I made them up on the spot, so no arguing the numbers.

darin,

The runrate has narrowed, but I find it interesting how many HD DVD supporters all of a sudden seem to believe that the runrate is the important one. Sure seems like few felt that way in January when they wanted to use just the SI numbers

at least be consistent. There were quite a few BD supporters (e.g., asj) touting weekly sales ratios (e.g., 4:1) as a sign of BD's dominance and drubbing of HD. Now that those ratios have decreased, they are saying that the weekly ratios are not that important or are ignoring them all together.

The inconsistency goes both ways, and we all know it.

You guys are just trying to move the goalposts here.

The weekly sales between the two formats HAS narrowed. That is an unquivocally correct statement that you cannot even come close to questioning.

Who cares what the "Since Inception" or "Year to Date" numbers are.

If last week BD sold 10,000 more discs than HD and this week BD only sold 5,000 more discs than HD DVD, then HD DVD has halved the weekly sales gap.

Trying to turn this into a discussion about total discs sold only shows that you KNOW the weekly sales gap is decreasing and want to change the subject.

I still have you on ignore, but peeked at this post out of curiosity and the lack of understanding from you in this thread is mind-boggling.

Are we talking about the same sales ratios I'm seeing? Because they're not moving all that much. HD DVD had a couple of strong releases in early April that have pushed the weekly sales higher than "the norm" but those releases still do not seem to have brought HD DVD into parity. Not on a weekly basis, let alone year to date or since inception.

As for the scale of the figures, it could be many factors. We're seeing huge systemic drop in the sales figures. Would you like to wager that it's due to these being the last two weeks before tax season? I think we can agree that most of the people that have bought into high definition on both sides of the fence are all mid- to high-income earners, and thus they aren't getting tax returns; they're paying out additional taxes. I know I certainly did this year, and I don't even make that much money.

Don't let anyone fool you folks - Pretty funny comment coming from you. Are you going to tell us why you claimed that Blu-ray had 15x the players where you said you were talking about the US, and why you defended it as if I was the one in the wrong, after I called you on it?
at least be consistent. There were quite a few BD supporters (e.g., asj) touting weekly sales ratios (e.g., 4:1) as a sign of BD's dominance and drubbing of HD. Now that those ratios have decreased, they are saying that the weekly ratios are not that important.

The inconsistency goes both ways, and we all know it.I agree. There is inconsistency on both sides. You may have noticed that I don't give much credence to asj's posts, from what I posted earlier today.

--Darin

Nice, trying to force my hand and make me look like the bad guy, sorry it isn't going to work, I give up; you can continue to spread your FUD and rhetoric at will, I just can't be bothered.
I've already asked you to stick to discussion of facts, not lobbing invectives.

There should be a lower tolerance for this sort of post here right now, so the best option is to "report" it.

Weekly sales are one of the most important measures in this format battle, which is why both sides have paid so much attention to it.

The current effort underway today to portray weekly firgure as meaningless, seems a quite obvious reaction to the obvious reality that Bluray is going to be losing a lot of weekly sales numbers over the coming weeks and months.

It's a PR game...

darin,

I have been out of the loop a bit lately and havent really read the board a whole lot. Been busy.

I hope Icemage is right, and that the precipitious drop in sales is due to tax season, otherwise both formats have a lot to worry about.

I hope Icemage is right, and that the precipitious drop in sales is due to tax season, otherwise both formats have a lot to worry about.

It makes sense. All of this HD stuff comes out of disposable income, when the taxman comes knocking, most people have less disposable income available and many items than come under normal purchasing may have to come out of disposable income for a couple of weeks.

I hope Icemage is right, and that the precipitious drop in sales is due to tax season, otherwise both formats have a lot to worry about.Maybe, but if you want a bright light, look at "Planet Earth". Especially on HD DVD, but both formats on Amazon. If it sells as well overall as those preorders seem to indicate, then could be a good sign for HD discs overall. Would tell the studios that if they deliver stuff that is especially compelling, buyers will come. And I hope it sells well enough to get them to come out with "Blue Planet" on HD disc.

--Darin

max,

yes, it makes sense, but that doesnt necessarily mean it is right ;)

So, how about showing us with this week numbers how badly the PS3 is doing at selling moviesIf you read the above post, I already have. You can do the math. http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10367312&&#post10367312

Might be fun to calculate the percentage of XBOX360 owners who have bought the add-on and how many more need to buy it to meet your 30% prediction.I have no problem admitting that my prediction of 30% was rather exhuberant. I also admit that in the past I have also guessed wrong at how many gobstoppers were in a jar, too ;)

How about we look at something more relevant, then? Such as it would seem that the PS3 has an attach rate of something like .37 movies per unit?

What happened to your claim of 15x the Blu-ray players as HD DVD players for the US? Did you realize that you were misleading people with that claim, even though you defended it after I pointed it out, much like you've done with previous things?You've just added the US, but I already said that my original statement which you criticised was a dramatic exaggeration given for effect, such as "Walmart are going to make a gazillion of the thing".

When I actually sat down and worked it out for my response to you, I was pleasantly surprised to see the true figure come in at 5 to 10 times the players, depending who's numbers you believe.

Question for YOU: Do you disagree that that with 5 times the BD players as HD DVD players, but with pretty equivalent sales numbers, that Bluray has a pretty stinky attach rate? Would you say that the Bluray format itself is responsible for this, due to PQ issues, bad player profiles, etc. Or would you say that the PS3 is responsible?

show me a consistent trend over several weeks?
Is Six weeks several enough for you? ;)

http://www.campaignhd.com/images/070421_Top10_45.png

The runrate has narrowed, but I find it interesting how many HD DVD supporters all of a sudden seem to believe that the runrate is the important one.
Do you know what "runrate" is?

Do you know what "runrate" is?

Wow, and you said I attacked your credibility.

Gotta love those double standards.

I still have you on ignore, but peeked at this post out of curiosity and the lack of understanding from you in this thread is mind-boggling.Prove it.

Are we talking about the same sales ratios I'm seeing? Because they're not moving all that much. A shift from 4 to 1 down to 1.5 to 1 is not much? So when it moves from 1.5 to 1 down to 1 to 1 it won't be much then either? And when HD DVD moves ahead and the ration moves from 1 to 1 to 1 to 1.5 (in HD DVD's favour) then it won't be much then either?

D DVD had a couple of strong releases in early April that have pushed the weekly sales higher than "the norm" but those releases still do not seem to have brought HD DVD into parity. Not on a weekly basis, let alone year to date or since inception.A "couple of strong releases"? Whatever you say. Both formats had equivalent releases during this period. However, your help noticing releases could have been invaluable when HD DVD was down in the first quarter due to a holdup in releases.

the scale of the figures, it could be many factors. We're seeing huge systemic drop in the sales figures. Would you like to wager that it's due to these being the last two weeks before tax season?Nope, no need to bring uncle Sam into this. The "systemic drop" you mention is entirely due to a drop in Bluray sales. HD DVD sales are up, so if there is an overall drop in sales of both, I think we know where to point the finger.

Blaming uncle Sam for a drop in Bluray sales when HD DVD sales are up, is rather like blaming Samsung for poor quality BD releases when HD DVD is excellent.

http://www.campaignhd.com/images/070421_Top10_45.png

How about we look at something more relevant, then? Such as it would seem that the PS3 has an attach rate of something like .37 movies per unit?Let's have some fun. Tell us what the attach rate is for HD DVD, given your .37 for the PS3. The HD DVD group claimed 28 annualized before, so please give us your number since it seems that you've worked out the ratio between HD DVD and Blu-ray and got .37 for the PS3. I hope you aren't trying one of those deceptions where you use worldwide hardware numbers and US software numbers for the division. Are you playing that game?
You've just added the US ...Please don't be dishonest. Do I need to link you to the post where you said it was for the US?
.. .but I already said that my original statement which you criticised was a dramatic exaggeration given for effect, such as "they are going to make a gazillion of the thing".Are you trying to deceive people? You originally claimed 50x and after I called you on that you claimed it was 15x. So I called you on the 15x and you claimed it was right (and that the original was an exageration). I pointed out that you pushed the 15x here and now you want to act like that didn't happen. I can show the trail if you want to try to deceive people to make them think that isn't what happened.
When I actually sat down and worked it out for my response to you, I was pleasantly surprised to see the true figure come in at 5 to 10 times the players, depending who's numbers you believe.For your response to me before you claimed that your post of 15x was right. Now you've changed it to 5 to 10 times. It shouldn't have taken more than once for you to quit your game of misinformation.
Question for YOU: Do you disagree that that with 5 times the BD players as HD DVD players, but with pretty equivalent sales numbers, that Bluray has a pretty stinky attach rate?For what the device is I would say no. If the Toshiba players do 5x the PS3, then that would be in the expected range IMO and higher than the prediction you made in the past. If you thought 5x would be so bad, why were you using 10% for the PS3 before? I know you like to act like people shouldn't have known that the PS3 should have lower attach rates, which pretty much contradicts that you predicted 10% for the PS3 in the past.

If the Toshiba's had attach rates of even 3.7, that would be pretty bad for standalone players. What do your numbers work out to, given that you claim .37 for the PS3?

--Darin

I hope Icemage is right, and that the precipitious drop in sales is due to tax season, otherwise both formats have a lot to worry about.
If it makes you feel any better, I hope I'm right too. If these numbers persist, both formats are going to end up getting flushed into the sewers.

I don't really feel Planet Earth numbers are a good indicator. The fact that a $90 MSRP box set of a documentary is doing well as commendable, but it speaks volumes about the demographics that are buying these discs.

We've been hearing excuses all year long about why sales have been generally horrible. "Oh, post-Christmas blues".... "Oh, tax season's coming"....

While there's truth to all of these, I'm really beginning to wonder just how much traction there is for disc purchases outside of the HT enthusiast crowd. If you only pay attention to AVS, you'd think everyone was going to trek out and buy a new disc every week or two. However, we know that isn't the normal spending habit of the average consumer. We can babble about attach rates all we like, we can talk about sales ratios until we're blue in the face, but what both formats need... soon... is volume. Lots, and lots of volume.

My main concern is that retailers are going to lose patience. We saw a bit of evidence of this earlier this month with Best Buy pulling back a lot of duplicate copies of titles. How much longer are they willing to hold stock in software that just won't sell?

For what the device is I would say no. If the Toshiba players do 5x the PS3, then that would be in the expected range IMO and higher than the prediction you made in the past. If you thought 5x would be so bad, why were you using 10% for the PS3 before? I know you like to act like people shouldn't have known that the PS3 should have lower attach rates, which pretty much contradicts that you predicted 10% for the PS3 in the past.Your "answer" seems more about my previous exhuberant guesses at PS3 and Xbox consumer behaviour, than about your answer to my question, and you left part of my question out when you quoted and answered, so I'll ask it again for you:

Question for YOU: Do you disagree that that with 5 times the BD players as HD DVD players, but with pretty equivalent sales numbers, that Bluray has a pretty stinky attach rate? Would you say that the Bluray format itself is responsible for this, due to PQ issues, bad player profiles, etc. Or would you say that the PS3 is responsible?
And, perhaps you would be good enough to show us your calculations for PS3 attach rates and HD DVD attach rates? That would be very enlightening. Don't forget to inlcude the calculations for the number of standalone BD players in the market and what you think their effect is on the overall BD attach rate.

Thanks in advance.

Let's have some fun. Tell us what the attach rate is for HD DVD, given your .37 for the PS3. The HD DVD group claimed 28 annualized before, so please give us your number since it seems that you've worked out the ratio between HD DVD and Blu-ray and got .37 for the PS3. I hope you aren't trying one of those deceptions where you use worldwide hardware numbers and US software numbers for the division. Are you playing that game?


--Darin

Yes, according to VGCharts the PS3 has sold 1.37m in the US and bump that up to about 1.43m to include standalone players, and we know 1m discs have sold through, giving us an attach rate of 0.70.

For your response to me before you claimed that your post of 15x was right. Now you've changed it to 5 to 10 times. It shouldn't have taken more than once for you to quit your game of misinformation.
I missed this in my reply, so I'll address it here. I didn't "change" this here, I explained the original post to you when you originally challenged it days ago, and also gave you the numbers upon which these are based at that time.

It is frustrating that one spends so much of the time "debating" you simply defending your charges that one is a dishonest deceiver. This is your standard method of debating anyone that says something you wish to disprove. You directly attack the poster, instead of discussing the information.

There should be threads reserved for a more considered and responsible line of debate than this - all in one post at that:

trying one of those deceptions

Please don't be dishonest.

Are you trying to deceive people?

you want to try to deceive people

quit your game of misinformation

I know you like to act

Alright then.

I took a stab at normalizing the numbers from Home Media Magazine. Please bear in mind that this is a guess because we don't really know what the previous weekly numbers really are (since this is all First Alert data - see the Error columns to see what happens when the First Alert data is significantly off).

Here's a guess at what's happening, though, as close as I can manage to Home Media Magazine's published data:
http://endrop.com/album/photos/yzdmj5nycjdniwjnldzz.jpg (http://endrop.com/)

EDIT: Please note that these projections also show (since we have the real data up through early March), that there were about 12K unaccounted-for BDs in this projection as of March 25, and about 11K unaccounted for HDs in the projection as of March 25. I personally think these were "caught up with" in the April 1 projection (in fact, looking at the rest of April thus far, they couldn't have reappeared in any other week for HD DVD). It's possible that the undercounts are now out of sync, but seems unlikely given how much in lockstep the numbers have been thus far.

It kinda doesn't make sense that either Blu-ray nor HD DVD would drop in sales that much after the first of April.

I think the use of first alert data with the hard Jan 1st - Mar 18th is going to be an issue :o

We made be able to correct it though after the next weeks corrected SI and YTD numbers show up.

What would happened if we pretended we did not have the first alert data for the new week?

Can we just correctly calculate last weeks weekly number from this weeks SI and YTD numbers? Assuming those numbers at least are incorporating the corrected final numbers for last week and this weeks first alert numbers?

I feel like you guys are like the Enigma code breakers in WWII. Good work...


Grubert; Any chance at all at getting the corrected final numbers from last week as an update to the first alert numbers?

That's your job. :p You do it so well. :DFunny you say that since I actually don't tend to comment on most of the HD DVD PR that I have seen. There are a few cases of utter nonsense, like the 28 annualized attach rate, that I had to comment on but for the most part it doesn't interest me. There were some developments in HD DVD that I once was interested in such as TL45 but it turned out to be nothing but hot air.


Its just that I see more from the aggessive BDA PR campaign that pure spin. ;) YMMVI think the HD DVD PR campaign is better than you think and more far reaching than people know. I don't think it was a coincidence that so many HD DVD insiders have posted on this and other internet forums over the last year.


But I bet Blu-ray won't be ever able to claim a ratio like the reported March 335,980 to 119,570, (74% to 26% ratio) ratio again.Never say never. If we ever see Universal go neutral we will see ratios far higher than that for Blu-ray.

I missed this in my reply, so I'll address it here. I didn't "change" this here, I explained the original post to you when you originally challenged it days ago, and also gave you the numbers upon which these are based at that time.Show me where you gave the numbers which it is based on, since anybody who follows the link can see that you were claiming it was 15x, then 16x, and now are claiming 5-10x. If you gave me the numbers then, how did things change from 15x to 5-10x?

Here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10206190&&#post10206190

people can see that after I called you on your, ".... yet Bluray has 15 time the "players" in the market (counting the illustrious PS3, of course),..." you claimed that you had given it in a different thread and "When it was worked out, it came in closer to about 16 times the "players"." Twice now you've said that you gave the numbers, and I still don't recall seeing them.

Please just tell people what the numbers were, why you claimed 16x at that time and are claiming 5-10x now, all while claiming that you didn't change it here.
There should be threads reserved for a more considered and responsible line of debate than this - all in one post at that:You are an adult and responsible for the misinformation you spread. The record shows that what you claimed isn't true. That isn't my fault. It is your's. Picking just one, go ahead and show people that your claim that, "You've just added the US ..." is true. I can provide a link to show that you claimed it was for the US.

--Darin

IIRC the HD DVD press release was careful to say that the attach rate would be "projected or annualized" to 28, which is the proper use of the term. The claim was never had the format achieved that ratio, as obviously a year had not passed by at that point.

As of now, its still hard to grab an attach rate as player sales are accelerating ,as new releases have not been consistently available, and as the CE sales season is picking up and both titles and players become more available. Applies to both HD DVD and Blu-ray.

At any time an attach rate calculation is a snapshot, and as titles get more frequent and available and as player numbers increase to a point where new monthly sales are a smaller percentage of the installed base, the calculations will be more stable and easier to do.

About the only thing we can say is that a smaller number of HD DVD player and Xbox 360 HD DVD drives owners are selling discs at rate that is competitive but still below a small number of standalone Blu-ray player owners and the percentage of the larger but still unknown number of PS3 owners buying Blu-ray discs.

http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/_pdf/010707_hddvd_ces_2007.pdf
In just nine months time, “The Look and Sound of Perfect™” has struck a chord with consumers, showing strong movie title sales and high attach rates.

As of January 5th, there are estimated to be more than 175,000 HD DVD players sold in North America, with new models in high demand. Using Nielsen data and retailer reports for title sales to date, the HD DVD studios projected an annualized attach rate of 28 movies per player.

Based on an expected install base of more than 2.5 million players by the end of 2007, the HD DVD Promotional Group estimates HD DVD movie title sales to exceed $600 million in North America for 2007.

This is more than 40 times the revenue accrued in 2006 by the format.

Show me where you gave the numbers which it is based on, since anybody who follows the link can see that you were claiming it was 15x, then 16x, and now are claiming 5-10x. If you gave me the numbers then, how did things change from 15x to 5-10x?Because as you mentioned right here in this thread a few posts before this one, that the original post was about worldwide numbers. Taking worldwide sales into account, the ratio is higher. I honestly don't know if it is as high as 15 to 1, but the principle of the discussion is that there are a lot more BD players around, yet the sales don't reflect it.

I know you'd like to get wrapped up in the difference between x and y, but how about you respond to my invitation to do YOUR OWN calculation of the players and attach rate differences, rather than looking for opportunities to critique others'?

Here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10206190&&#post10206190 At least that link shows that the earlier discussion about "50" times was for dramatic effect to highlight the nature of the discussion. Far more bluray players, yet no equivalent sales advantage.

You are an adult and responsible for the misinformation you spread. The record shows that what you claimed isn't true. That isn't my fault. It is your's. Again, a previous discussion that you drag with you like a tired notebook, so that you can try to bring it into any other discussion you please is not anyone else's "fault" but yours.

Again, if you have something relevant for this thread, please make a constructive contribution to the discussion. If your aim is to have a spat, I suggest to switch to PM for the sake of the thread.

I'm gonna hose you both down. I think we all get your points.

Please take it to PM

I want to hear Icemage's and Grubert's thoughts on this post.

It kinda doesn't make sense that either Blu-ray nor HD DVD would drop in sales that much after the first of April.

I think the use of first alert data with the hard Jan 1st - Mar 18th is going to be an issue

We made be able to correct it though after the next weeks corrected SI and YTD numbers show up.

What would happened if we pretended we did not have the first alert data for the new week?

Can we just correctly calculate last weeks weekly number from this weeks SI and YTD numbers? Assuming those numbers at least are incorporating the corrected final numbers for last week and this weeks first alert numbers?

I feel like you guys are like the Enigma code breakers in WWII. Good work...


Grubert; Any chance at all at getting the corrected final numbers from last week as an update to the first alert numbers?

IIRC the HD DVD press release was careful to say that the attach rate would be "projected or annualized" to 28, which is the proper use of the term. The claim was never had the format achieved that ratio, as obviously a year had not passed by at that point.

As of now, its still hard to grab an attach rate as player sales are accelerating ,as new releases have not been consistently available, and as the CE sales season is picking up and both titles and players become more available. Applies to both HD DVD and Blu-ray.

At any time an attach rate calculation is a snapshot, and as titles get more frequent and available and as player numbers increase to a point where new monthly sales are a smaller percentage of the installed base, the calculations will be more stable and easier to do.

About the only thing we can say is that a smaller number of HD DVD player and Xbox 360 HD DVD drives owners are selling discs at rate that is competitive but still below a small number of standalone Blu-ray player owners and the percentage of the larger but still unknown number of PS3 owners buying Blu-ray discs.

Well the HD DVD advertising is not all that great while the BDA have been pretty good in the marketing department. A lot of people don't like the spin and rhetoric, but it works for the BDA, if they (as leading CE companies and studios) can send out the message that BD has won the war, HD DVD will be in trouble. I know places like Joystiq will say (rightly so) that the BDA are claiming a false victory, but if the tactic works (and it might because they can back up the claim with a few startling statistics these days) it will spell the end of the format war before any of these Chinese players (for HD DVD) or PiP (for BD) shows up.

Because as you mentioned right here in this thread a few posts before this one, that the original post was about worldwide numbers.Not according to somebody who posts under rdjam. Here:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10206284&&#post10206284
I do wonder if those making claims like 15 times the players where they count players in Europe that just sold in the last 2 weeks and sales in Japan while only counting software sales in the US are doing things like that purposely in order to deceive, or if they really don't know enough about this to keep from making claims like that.

Please, back up your 15 times the players by telling us how many of each and then explain why you would use overseas players. Blinded or purposely deceptive would describe that claim, IMO.
Anyway, you'll be glad to know that I am talking specifically of the US market - but counting a few extra from Europe might be a really great idea - thanks! ;)Nice try though. Feel free to take it to PM, but I wasn't just going to let an untruth go after we had been over it and you tried multiple times to change history.

--Darin

IIRC the HD DVD press release was careful to say that the attach rate would be "projected or annualized" to 28, which is the proper use of the term. The claim was never had the format achieved that ratio, as obviously a year had not passed by at that point.The original HD DVD press release though was less than clear what it meant by that and a good number of posters went around this forum declaring that HD DVD had an attach rate of 28 per player for a few months last year. Also the HD DVD companies were less than honest when they used that same annualized attach rate at CES even though it was outdated by that time.


As of now, its still hard to grab an attach rate as player sales are accelerating ,I think if the HD DVD companies wanted to do it they could have done it for the one year anniversary of HD DVD.

The original HD DVD press release though was less than clear what it meant by that and a good number of posters went around this forum declaring that HD DVD had an attach rate of 28 per player for a few months last year.I believe that Kosty was one of the leaders claiming attach rates that would have been way higher than 28 if annualized, based on a poll here and the position (an incorrect position IMO) that the poll was early adopters and HD DVD owners were early adopters, so the poll would be representative of all HD DVD owners at that time. I don't have the links right now, but my memory is that Kosty was claiming something close to 20 discs owned by each person (not annualized, but 20 actually purchased) around August of 2006. Kosty is welcome to say if he doesn't think this is accurate, but it is what I remember about some of the debates we had at that time.

My memory of the original press release in September is that is was clear, since it said 8.4 discs owned per player on average and then some of the things about the average ownership being close to 20 went down, or away.

--Darin

yep, I said based on that poll that AVS owners, which I said were probably representive of the early adopter buyers, had reported over 20 movies owned. I also said that was very high and was good news for HD DVD.

I don't think I ever said that very very high attach rate would be sustained as more players were sold into the mass consumer market. That the attach rate could obviously drop as it penetrated into a larger population of owners. I also though HD DVDs attach rate was higher than DVDs at the same point in there lifecycles.

Thus I predicted more HD DVD players would be made and sold and Universal would stay HD DVD.

I also said that standalone Blu-ray player attach rates were looking high also, but there were looking to be a lot more HD DVD standalones sold because of the HD DVD player probable lower price points.

Max,

the tactic works (and it might because they can back up the claim with a few startling statistics these days) it will spell the end of the format war before any of these Chinese players (for HD DVD) or PiP (for BD) shows up.

I think you are wrong, because the importance isnt the Chinese players per se, but rather that Walmart supposedly placed an order for 2 million players. Do they have Walmart in England? Walmart has tremendous clout and often dictates what major companies do because of their sheer purchasing power. If they put their money behind HD DVD this will delay the outcome until Walmart decides whether the experiment was a success or not.

It kinda doesn't make sense that either Blu-ray nor HD DVD would drop in sales that much after the first of April.
Indeed. Actually, both numbers for BR and HD on Apr 1 seem overly high to me, based on past figures on big release dates like The Departed and Casino Royale. This is really why I think the 11-12K worth of "missing" sales most likely reappeared in this period. It's possible that I am wrong and that those numbers remain unaccounted for, but that seems unlikely this many weeks out unless the same retailers continue to be late with reporting.

I think the use of first alert data with the hard Jan 1st - Mar 18th is going to be an issue :o
There's no question about it. It's definitely a problem, and with Home Media Magazine dropping down to only full percentages, the problem gets worse. It's getting increasingly hard to read the tea leaves even with my spreadsheet.

We made be able to correct it though after the next weeks corrected SI and YTD numbers show up.

What would happened if we pretended we did not have the first alert data for the new week?
Neither of these is possible to do. First Alert data is always "contaminated", and there's no way to remove the "bad" part of the data from the "good" part.

Can we just correctly calculate last weeks weekly number from this weeks SI and YTD numbers? Assuming those numbers at least are incorporating the corrected final numbers for last week and this weeks first alert numbers?
No can do. We don't really know what the real numbers are; all we have are ratios, and while we can work some minor miracles with those ratios (as you've seen), the limitation is that we don't really know what the actual volumes are, and that we are subject to whatever error is inherent to the data.

Grubert; Any chance at all at getting the corrected final numbers from last week as an update to the first alert numbers?
This would be the best possible outcome. What we really need are the finalized ratios, with the 100:xx.xx precision. Those numbers give us the most accurate projections. We're losing a ton of detail with the new way HMM is posting their data, and I'm very concerned about the accuracy of our projections at this point (for a HT analogy, what we're looking at now is a 480i image with EE instead of the full 1080p).

Max,



I think you are wrong, because the importance isnt the Chinese players per se, but rather that Walmart supposedly placed an order for 2 million players. Do they have Walmart in England? Walmart has tremendous clout and often dictates what major companies do because of their sheer purchasing power. If they put their money behind HD DVD this will delay the outcome until Walmart decides whether the experiment was a success or not.

We have Tesco, which is pretty much the same. Wal-Mart bought a lesser chain called Asda, but they never got very big here (I mean they are still number two, but a long way off and they are about to lose their number two position to Sainsbury's who are similar to Tesco in stature) due to the hostility of foreign owned companies by some people and that Asda is a very terrible place to shop.

People over-estimate the so-called Wal-Mart effect, yeah they are good at squeezing suppliers but at the end of the day something is going to cost however much it costs, nothing Wal-Mart can do about that. Also the numbers are pretty pitiful, to a company the size of Wal-Mart $100m is not a huge investment, they make more than that in profit in a couple of days.

But that is a whole other issue, and so are these Chinese players which I would rather not bring into the discussion, last time it was disastrous.

Indeed. Actually, both numbers for BR and HD on Apr 1 seem overly high to me, based on past figures on big release dates like The Departed and Casino Royale. This is really why I think the 11-12K worth of "missing" sales most likely reappeared in this period. It's possible that I am wrong and that those numbers remain unaccounted for, but that seems unlikely this many weeks out unless the same retailers continue to be late with reporting.


There's no question about it. It's definitely a problem, and with Home Media Magazine dropping down to only full percentages, the problem gets worse. It's getting increasingly hard to read the tea leaves even with my spreadsheet.


Neither of these is possible to do. First Alert data is always "contaminated", and there's no way to remove the "bad" part of the data from the "good" part.


No can do. We don't really know what the real numbers are; all we have are ratios, and while we can work some minor miracles with those ratios (as you've seen), the limitation is that we don't really know what the actual volumes are, and that we are subject to whatever error is inherent to the data.


This would be the best possible outcome. What we really need are the finalized ratios, with the 100:xx.xx precision. Those numbers give us the most accurate projections. We're losing a ton of detail with the new way HMM is posting their data, and I'm very concerned about the accuracy of our projections at this point (for a HT analogy, what we're looking at now is a 480i image with EE instead of the full 1080p).


Nuts.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

I am beginning to think that, with the original final weekly numbers and your hard work, we were getting too close for comfort in calculating out those expensive numbers that Nielson expects others to pay nicely for.

Someone didn't like that.

Maybe Grubert's contacts could share a little light on the situation?

That may be why HMM then switched to first alert numbers besides the fact they could publish the data a week sooner.

Now Nielson (or to be more cynical a non neutral studio) asked them to further deliberately complicate or fuzz up our efforts by rounding the numbers up and only giving us first alert data.

Me thinks they really don't want us to know the true numbers with any accuracy. , especially the actual volumes involved in their capture rates :p

those greedy bastards... ;)

Is Six weeks several enough for you? ;)

http://www.campaignhd.com/images/070421_Top10_45.png

Interestingly, that's the third time you post that pic in the last two pages.

Even more interestingly, your graph stops on a high point and right before a dip. This is the most current one (grabbed from hdgamedb 10 minutes ago):

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/1007/hdgdb0422jv3.jpg

Your use of this term [rumor] indicates a possible bias, not quite in sync with your signature.

Then CD Freaks (http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Walmart-might-have-a-199-HD-DVD-player-by-Q4_.html) are biased too. ;)

I agree that the detailed discussion of the Wal-Mart buy of 2 Million HD DVD players should be discussed somewhere else.

I think this is the more comprehensive thread on the subject:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=836632

True. I hadn't posted it only because it's on the "if you're not here for HD DVD, move on" section of the forum. ;)

It is only relevant in this thread if it has a within the context of how the possibility of greater HD DVD hardware may be affecting the studios and consumers decision making processes. Those decisions start with the sales numbers and trends reported and analyzed in this thread, but projected over what what would be the expected in sales based on the anticipated hardware installed base.

Of course, but you're entering the Aristotelian realm of potentiality as opposed to actuality.

Personally, I think it would be more interesting to ascertain the effect of the new, lower entry price for HD DVD. MSRP of the A2 has been $399 since April 1. That is something that really happened.

To what extent did new player owners contribute to April sales? My general impression, not much. As has been said, the whole catalog is new for new owners. So one could expect sales of high-tier older titles to spike. However, we aren't seeing that. The Good Shepherd is top HD DVD again. Batman Begins is #2, but it has usually been in the top 3 for quite a while. I'm surprised not to see King Kong or The Bourne Supremacy there.

Interestingly, that's the third time you post that pic in the last two pages.

Even more interestingly, your graph stops on a high point and right before a dip. This is the most current one (grabbed from hdgamedb 10 minutes ago):

http://img227.imageshack.us/img227/1007/hdgdb0422jv3.jpg



OUCH!! that red line looks sickly. :p

Then CD Freaks (http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Walmart-might-have-a-199-HD-DVD-player-by-Q4_.html) are biased too. ;)

True. I hadn't posted it only because it's on the "if you're not here for HD DVD, move on" section of the forum. ;)

Of course, but you're entering the Aristotelian realm of potentiality as opposed to actuality.

Personally, I think it would be more interesting to ascertain the effect of the new, lower entry price for HD DVD. MSRP of the A2 has been $399 since April 1. That is something that really happened.

To what extent did new player owners contribute to April sales? My general impression, not much. As has been said, the whole catalog is new for new owners. So one could expect sales of high-tier older titles to spike. However, we aren't seeing that. The Good Shepherd is top HD DVD again. Batman Begins is #2, but it has usually been in the top 3 for quite a while. I'm surprised not to see King Kong or The Bourne Supremacy there. A lot of those new owners got 4 or 5 movies free with purchase from CC or other retailers. I would to expect to see those sales impact Nielson on the next couple weeks data as they go out and buy new HD movies a week or so after purchase.

Plus those new HD DVD sales are accumulating week after week.

PS, I think Planet Earth actually ships tomorrow. Expect a spike in it sales fr both formats in the next couple days.

It just back to #5 for HD DVD.
I agree that the detailed discussion of the Wal-Mart buy of 2 Million HD DVD players should be discussed somewhere else.

I think this is the more comprehensive thread on the subject: (Wal-Mart HD DVD player)

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=836632

True. I hadn't posted it only because it's on the "if you're not here for HD DVD, move on" section of the forum. ;) Well reasoned debate is welcomed there on a HD DVD hardware item, even from a pro- Blu-ray backer. Its not quite as scary as a HD DVD leaning guy posting on the Blu-ray grass playground.

I consider the HD DVD hardware forum, the appropriate place to talk about a HD DVD hardware issue, pro or con ,if your not trollish or just trying to be flame baiting.

Right now that;s the most comprehensive place on the AVS forum to talk and learn about that subject as this thead is the most complete place to talk about HD software sales.

Alright then.

I took a stab at normalizing the numbers from Home Media Magazine. Please bear in mind that this is a guess because we don't really know what the previous weekly numbers really are (since this is all First Alert data - see the Error columns to see what happens when the First Alert data is significantly off).

Here's a guess at what's happening, though, as close as I can manage to Home Media Magazine's published data:
http://endrop.com/album/photos/yzdmj5nycjdniwjnldzz.jpg (http://endrop.com/)

EDIT: Please note that these projections also show (since we have the real data up through early March), that there were about 12K unaccounted-for BDs in this projection as of March 25, and about 11K unaccounted for HDs in the projection as of March 25. I personally think these were "caught up with" in the April 1 projection (in fact, looking at the rest of April thus far, they couldn't have reappeared in any other week for HD DVD). It's possible that the undercounts are now out of sync, but seems unlikely given how much in lockstep the numbers have been thus far.

Sorry Ice but on this occasion your weekly numbers are bad. If you guess you have to make your guess fit with known data. There's no point 2nd guessing what Nielsen might or might not do/have done. I think it is safe to say that any missing data from one week is rolled into the next. For example that quirky March 11 number will have been missing data that was rollled into the March 18 number.

Here's what we know for w/e April 15th

Weekly share: BD 61% HD 39%
YTD share: BD 69% HD 31%
SI share: BD 57% HD 43%

On your chart you have correct shares for YTD and SI but you're way off on the weekly figure as you have BD 64% and HD 36%.

My weekly numbers were BD 54,105 and HD 34,291 with a ratio of BD 61.21% and HD 38.79%. My YTD volumes are now BD at 1,255,392 and HD at 962,889 (57:43) which seem to be more in line with what HMM are reporting. I'm also guessing - just a bit higher than you or nat!

I suspect that unless we get figures accurate to 2 decimal places we are taking pot shots and coming up with numbers that allow for too high a margin of error.

In that case we'll just have to wait for HMM to publish the April numbers to see what really happened. In the meantime having a guess is just a bit of harmless fun.

Maybe Grubert or someone else could contact the proper person and ask if we could get better numbers for free with say a 4 week delay or so? The companies paying for Nielsen numbers are paying to get them quickly. Numbers a month old for them are not worth much.

Just a suggestion.

Some sobering figures from Video Business (http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6435138.html):

Next-generation sales reached roughly $30 million in the first quarter. Total home video sales were $3.5 billion.

Not even one percent yet.

But some better figures - The Departed sold 6 million copies on DVD and just over 85,000 on hidef disc - that's 1.4 percent! :D

Someone mentioned velocity (volume per week) as the measurement that shows BD is ahead, when I think they meant distance (volume). The total volume of BD will exceed HD for a long time. What is also significant is the delta-V, difference in volume of each format, also known as acceleration, week to week or long term.

Say in week 1 BD sells 50,000, and HD 25,000; week 2 60,000/40,000, week 3 45,000/15,000.

dV for week 2 (compared to week 1) for BD is 60,000-50,000= 10,000, and 40,000-25,000=15,000 for HD. (wk2-wk1)
dV for week 3 BD: 45,000-60,000=-15,000 HD: 15,000-40,000=-25,000 (wk3-wk2)

Or if we do dV Comparing the two formats in the form (BD-HD), we get week 1: 15,000 week 2: 20,000 and week 3 30,000 . If HD started outselling BD the number would go negative.

These numbers are quite different than the associated weekly ratios.

This might make more sense if the new week's numbers were compared to SI, as that would help normalize it. There may be better ways to express this. I don't have a spreadsheet to play with it.

Interestingly, that's the third time you post that pic in the last two pages.

Even more interestingly, your graph stops on a high point and right before a dip. This is the most current one (grabbed from hdgamedb 10 minutes ago):
Excellent update, Grubert.

Yes, the charts do keep moving, sad to say, so what I captured a day before will not be the same later ;)

The Departed sold 6 million copies on DVD and just over 85,000 on hidef disc - that's 1.4 percent!

Just look at those numbers. Frankly, this is what makes all the bickering funny. HighDef optical is barely a pebble on the Sahara.

Grubert and Jeff,

Yep, that is why I have been saying that all this talk about winning, losing, stomping and all the rest is just nonsense. $30 million dollars divided among the studios is nothing, and no studio is going to make any decision based on that small amount. Heck, these days they probably couldnt make much of a movie for that amount of money (and yes, I do know there are exceptions to that statement).

http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/5313/april15nielsenpa9.jpg (http://img474.imageshack.us/my.php?image=april15nielsenpa9.jpg)


http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/1039/bluraywinsq1ry4.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bluraywinsq1ry4.jpg)

When the formats are so similar, you don't have to wait for the market to mature before ditching one.

One format is better for all, the sooner the better.

From a psychological perspective 61% to 39% seems to be a much bigger number than 59% to 41%.

In political polling, if the polling gap fall within that ratio, that's seen as a close race, as that's only a shift of 10% up and the other side down to change the lead.

It will be intresting if the April 15th sales spike carrries over to the next weeks data and the weekly market share closes to within that mark.

Jag,

When the formats are so similar, you don't have to wait for the market to mature before ditching one

you are so right. So we will simply dump BD because, as you say, they are so similar, and HD is more cost effective. ;)

Also, for all the BD supporters that dismissed the HD DVD coordinated by as a gimmick and a stunt to manipulate Amazon numbers etc, what is your opinion on the BD group buy that is currently going on. When BD numbers go up because of the buy, are you going to discount them as a temporary blip or gimmick?

Jag,


you are so right. So we will simply dump BD because, as you say, they are so similar, and HD is more cost effective. ;)

Also, for all the BD supporters that dismissed the HD DVD coordinated by as a gimmick and a stunt to manipulate Amazon numbers etc, what is your opinion on the BD group buy that is currently going on. When BD numbers go up because of the buy, are you going to discount them as a temporary blip or gimmick?

Yes yes I will. Any surge caused by a group is a temporary blip or gimmick, regardless of which side it is for. It doesn't seem like they accomplished nearly as much as the HD DVD group did on their respective day either. It is also one of the reasons I didn't participate in either of the sales-surge days. I'm used to fanboys in the gaming world, but the slavering format war fanboys put them all to shame. You'd never get people to go out and buy a large amount of console games they may or may not have an interest in just to support their choice console. They are just optical disks, people!

Also, for all the BD supporters that dismissed the HD DVD coordinated by as a gimmick and a stunt to manipulate Amazon numbers etc, what is your opinion on the BD group buy that is currently going on. When BD numbers go up because of the buy, are you going to discount them as a temporary blip or gimmick?
If that, indeed occurs, absolutely.

From a psychological perspective 61% to 39% seems to be a much bigger number than 59% to 41%.

In political polling, if the polling gap fall within that ratio, that's seen as a close race, as that's only a shift of 10% up and the other side down to change the lead.

It will be intresting if the April 15th sales spike carrries over to the next weeks data and the weekly market share closes to within that mark.
How about 70% to 30% as in Krinkle's article above? How's that for Psych effect?

Yikes!

The complete Hollywood Reporter article: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i22635e34795b6681749155f40a55d89d

Blu-ray burning its high-def DVD rival
By Thomas K. Arnold

April 23, 2007

Of the high-definition discs bought by consumers in the first quarter, 70% were in the Blu-ray Disc format and 30% were HD DVD, according to sales figures provided by Home Media Magazine's market research department.

Blu-ray took the lead in February, and its percentage of total sales accelerated to the point where it accounted for nearly three out of every four high-definition discs sold in March.

What's more, when given the choice, consumers are going with Blu-ray. Warner Home Video released "The Departed" the same day, Feb. 13, in both formats. Between then and March 31, consumers bought 53,640 copies of the film on Blu-ray Disc and 31,590 on HD DVD, according to Home Media Magazine's market research, based on studio estimates and Nielsen VideoScan point-of-sale data.

Research also shows that eight of the 10 top-selling high-definition titles in the first quarter were on Blu-ray Disc. At the top of the list is Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's "Casino Royale," which sold through to consumers an estimated 59,680 units in the first quarter. The Blu-ray Disc edition of "Departed" finished second, while the HD DVD version of that Oscar-winning film placed third.

From Jan. 1-March 31, consumers bought almost 1.2 million high-definition discs -- 832,530 Blu-ray units and 359,300 HD DVDs -- according to Home Media Magazine. In March, consumers bought 335,980 Blu-ray Discs and 119,570 HD DVDs.


Since the high-def format's inception -- HD DVD launched in April 2006, while Blu-ray got rolling two months later -- more than 2.14 million discs have been purchased by consumers: 1.2 million Blu-ray Discs and about 937,500 HD DVDs.

Observers aren't surprised by the disparity, noting that Blu-ray Disc enjoys the support of five of the six major studios, while HD DVD is supported by three of them. Three studios -- Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Buena Vista Home Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment -- are exclusively in the Blu-ray camp, as is mini-major Lionsgate, while Paramount Home Entertainment and Warner Home Video support both formats. Universal Studios Home Entertainment is the only major studio to release titles only in the HD DVD format, which backers claim is easier and cheaper to produce.

"All of this data points to the irrefutable facts that the consumers are voting with their dollars and adopting the revolutionary technology of the Blu-ray Disc," Buena Vista Home Entertainment president Bob Chapek said. "With such beloved titles as 'Pirates of the Caribbean' on the horizon, these numbers will only do one thing: grow."

Added Sony Pictures Home Entertainment president David Bishop: "Breaking the 1 million-unit mark is a significant milestone for Blu-ray because it represents rapidly growing consumer acceptance for this revolutionary platform. I am confident that the numbers will increase and more critical benchmarks will be reached to ensure Blu-ray's position as the leading high-definition format."

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment president Mike Dunn agreed.

"Practically, Blu-ray launched this past November and in just over one business quarter has rocketed to a significant lead," Dunn said. "Consumers are clearly choosing Blu-ray as their high-def format of choice and telling us so at retail cash registers."

The three HD DVD studios wielded weak release slates in the first quarter; behind "Departed," the next biggest-selling HD DVD was "Batman Begins," which had been released in October. The title sold 16,980 HD DVDs in the first quarter, but factoring in its initial sales, it stands at 44,590 units, not far behind "Casino Royale."

Blu-ray supporters also were quick to hail the widening gap between Blu-ray and HD DVD titles.

"It's exactly what we've said all along would happen: The strong support for Blu-ray among movie studio and equipment manufacturers means that consumers have more choices when it comes to players and titles," said Andy Parsons, chair of the Blu-ray Disc Assn.'s U.S. promotion committee. "And they're choosing Blu-ray by an ever-increasing margin."

Not a single mention in this story about (a) the Walmart deal (even as a rumor), (b) that the combined sales of both formats amount to less than 1% of the home video market and (c) that the BD hardware ratio to HD-DVD is like 10:1 (with the PS3 and 360 add-on accounted for). Also no mention of attach rates (which would actually make both formats look bad) or a single quote from a studio spokesperson representing the HD-DVD exclusive and/or neutral studios. Fair and balanced? More like Newscorp bought The Hollywood Reporter overnight! :rolleyes:

The complete Hollywood Reporter article: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i22635e34795b6681749155f40a55d89d



Not a single mention in this story about (a) the Walmart deal (even as a rumor), (b) that the combined sales of both formats amount to less than 1% of the home video market and (c) that the BD hardware ratio to HD-DVD is like 10:1 (with the PS3 and 360 add-on accounted for). Also no mention of attach rates (which would actually make both formats look bad) or a single quote from a studio spokesperson representing the HD-DVD exclusive and/or neutral studios. Fair and balanced? More like Newscorp bought The Hollywood Reporter overnight! :rolleyes:

A. When concrete details come out, maybe then Hollywood Reporter will give that story its due.

B. That's a fair comment, but the articles main focus is Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. Not Blu-ray vs. DVD or Blu-ray + HD DVD vs. DVD. Do you call for similar commentary with positive HD DVD articles?

C. Attach rates? rather worthless IMO, everyone knows that a "video game" console is going to screw Blu-ray attach rate since it's a advertised as a "video game" console first and foremost. Where is HD DVD supposedly high attach rate getting them?

A discussion of been fair and balanced? Don't be silly now.

The complete Hollywood Reporter article: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i22635e34795b6681749155f40a55d89d



Not a single mention in this story about (a) the Walmart deal (even as a rumor), (b) that the combined sales of both formats amount to less than 1% of the home video market and (c) that the BD hardware ratio to HD-DVD is like 10:1 (with the PS3 and 360 add-on accounted for). Also no mention of attach rates (which would actually make both formats look bad) or a single quote from a studio spokesperson representing the HD-DVD exclusive and/or neutral studios. Fair and balanced? More like Newscorp bought The Hollywood Reporter overnight! :rolleyes:

You know that BDA press release this morning, it could be because that they are just using the press release rather than editorialising it.

It just reminds me why I don't like the BDA and BD: TotalBS

The Departed was the #2 and #3 selling disks respectively. So, The Departed, on HD DVD outsold all other titles on BD, except for Casino Royale and The Departed.

What about the titles from Paramount, how did those do? What about Happy Feet?

Also, what impact did the Sony coupons and buy one get one free and the 50% off on Amazon sale at a time whem HD DVD had a very poor release schedule have to do with the sales ratios. What about the last week of March and the first two weeks in April - this article was printed after those numbers were known.

What about the fact that Toshibas 5 free disk is hurting software sales through retail channels in the short term, but they are certainly increasing the installed base for the future.

Anyone can see that this particular reporter was simply using his desk to put out a PR. This is a marketing strategy that many companies use - to lure 2nd tier publications to put out pure PR as news.

I do not agree with the person who said that the reporter should have talked about DVD. The article was about HD media and it is fine to report on sales...not sure who he was trying to convince, but whether it is corporations or consumers, HD DVD is picking up support.

How about 70% to 30% as in Krinkle's article above? How's that for Psych effect?

Yikes! Yep, but the Blu-ray backers and the BDA made that the expectation.

Dog Bites Man. No news there, plus it already happened. ;)

If HD DVD fights back. Its Man Bites Dog, because its an unexpected storyline, as HD DVD did not roll over and die. :D

Tom K Arnold's HMM editorial is much more balanced in the April 22 HMM.

B. That's a fair comment [that the HR article failed to mention combined sales of both formats amounts to less than 1% of home video sales], but the articles main focus is Blu-ray vs. HD DVD. Not Blu-ray vs. DVD or Blu-ray + HD DVD vs. DVD. Do you call for similar commentary with positive HD DVD articles?

Absolutely. Billie Jean was right: fair is fair! :rolleyes: Both formats are doing atrociously sales-wise, and when HD-DVD fans (myself included) criticize sales of BD as sluggish that should reflect poorly on us because that means HD-DVD is doing even worse than BD saleswise. I want HD-DVD to come ahead (I have a bias) but that doesn't excuse the poor sales of both formats relative to each other versus established DVD (the very definition of a tempest in a tea pot). I guess what angers the HD-DVD faithful is the Blu-ray claims that this war is over and BD has won based on such miniscule Q1 numbers. This format war, for all practical purposes, hasn't even started until either or both formats start selling 5-10% of home video sales. When/if BD's sales dominance continue when we get into those sales percentages then even I will have to admit BD seems like the horse to bet on, at least as a neutral-worthy option.

Not a single mention in this story about (a) the Walmart deal (even as a rumor)

Which (while probably true) has gotten far more coverage than a rumor desrves already, and was not relevant to a news story on software sales.

(b) that the combined sales of both formats amount to less than 1% of the home video market

Also irrelevant to the article, although a comparison of total sales since inception of BD (or HD DVD) compared to DVD sales after a similar time would have been both pertinent and informative.

and (c) that the BD hardware ratio to HD-DVD is like 10:1 (with the PS3 and 360 add-on accounted for). Also no mention of attach rates (which would actually make both formats look bad)...

Both of which are utterly irrelevant, despite being incessant fanboy talking points. The succes of one, both, or niether format will depend on software sales, period. They could give away players (indeed, that' s probably what Toshiba has been doing) and niether format will prosper if people don't buy movies to watch on them.

...or a single quote from a studio spokesperson representing the HD-DVD exclusive and/or neutral studios. Fair and balanced? More like Newscorp bought The Hollywood Reporter overnight! :rolleyes:

Have you considered that maybe neutral/opposing studios didn't want to comment on bad news? Just because the facts don't line up the way you like doesn't mean someone is being biased. Just like Walmart almost certainly is ordering a $300 MSRP chinese HD DVD player for later this year (or early the next) regardless of whether BD fans want it to be true or not. Or that this move may not help HD DVD as much as its fans have been claiming, no matter how badly they want it to be true.

The Departed was the #2 and #3 selling disks respectively. So, The Departed, on HD DVD outsold all other titles on BD, except for Casino Royale and The Departed.

What about the titles from Paramount, how did those do? What about Happy Feet?

Also, what impact did the Sony coupons and buy one get one free and the 50% off on Amazon sale at a time whem HD DVD had a very poor release schedule have to do with the sales ratios. What about the last week of March and the first two weeks in April - this article was printed after those numbers were known.

What about the fact that Toshibas 5 free disk is hurting software sales through retail channels in the short term, but they are certainly increasing the installed base for the future.

Anyone can see that this particular reporter was simply using his desk to put out a PR. This is a marketing strategy that many companies use - to lure 2nd tier publications to put out pure PR as news.

I do not agree with the person who said that the reporter should have talked about DVD. The article was about HD media and it is fine to report on sales...not sure who he was trying to convince, but whether it is corporations or consumers, HD DVD is picking up support.

What about the 4 free HD DVD disks at the register promotion that both Best Buy and Circuit City have run increasing the buy rate of HD DVD?

A sale is a sale. You may be right about all the free HD DVD's hurting the sales numbers, but that is Toshiba's doing, not the writer.

planet earth blu-ray hits #6 on Amazon.com

http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/2442/planetearthas8.jpg (http://img363.imageshack.us/my.php?image=planetearthas8.jpg)

planet earth blu-ray hits #6 on Amazon.com

http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/2442/planetearthas8.jpg (http://img363.imageshack.us/my.php?image=planetearthas8.jpg)

HD DVD briefly returned to #4. It will be interesting to see how the sales play out tomorrow and a month from now.

ottscay,

much of what you say is right, but

Or that this move really won't help HD DVD as much as its fans have been claiming, no matter how badly they want it to be true

You dont know that. Again the significance isnt the players per se, but rather that, apparently, Wal-Mart has decided to put a hunk of money behind 1 format. As such, one doesnt know what Wal-Mart will do to sell those players, but given their history, they might pressure studios to go neutral. One never knows.

ottscay,
You dont know that. Again the significance isnt the players per se, but rather that, apparently, Wal-Mart has decided to put a hunk of money behind 1 format. As such, one doesnt know what Wal-Mart will do to sell those players, but given their history, they might pressure studios to go neutral. One never knows.

You are absolutely correct. I have edited it to say "may not". Sorry, I type in a hurry sometimes, and simply mispoke.

Again: George is right, and my post has been corrected after the fact to reflect what he pointed out.

I hope it isn't lost on anyone that the high Sales Rank of Planet Earth and even The Queen challenges the stereotype I've seen spread around about Blu-ray buyers. Since the vast majority of Blu-ray players are PS3s, a lot of people fall into the trap and say that the stereotypical gamer taste would apply also to viewing habits and purchasing habits of films. However, I don't think Planet Earth, The Queen, or Happy Feet for that matter fit into the "bloody action blockbuster" genre that the internet seems to think they are interested in exclusively.

ottscay,

no problem, I type in a hurry sometimes also. :)

Maybe Grubert or someone else could contact the proper person and ask if we could get better numbers for free with say a 4 week delay or so? The companies paying for Nielsen numbers are paying to get them quickly. Numbers a month old for them are not worth much.

Just a suggestion.

To be honest I don't think we'll see the old style numbers accurate to 2 decimal places ever again. Nielsen make money by supplying data to paying customers. If amateurs start using market share numbers and guessing volumes pretty accurately - as seems to have happened - then that devalues their product.

So, from now on it's back to rounded market share numbers and the occasional studio release touting volume figures.

Doesn't stop us from guessing though. :)

Sorry Ice but on this occasion your weekly numbers are bad. If you guess you have to make your guess fit with known data. There's no point 2nd guessing what Nielsen might or might not do/have done. I think it is safe to say that any missing data from one week is rolled into the next. For example that quirky March 11 number will have been missing data that was rollled into the March 18 number.

Here's what we know for w/e April 15th

Weekly share: BD 61% HD 39%
YTD share: BD 69% HD 31%
SI share: BD 57% HD 43%

On your chart you have correct shares for YTD and SI but you're way off on the weekly figure as you have BD 64% and HD 36%.

My weekly numbers were BD 54,105 and HD 34,291 with a ratio of BD 61.21% and HD 38.79%. My YTD volumes are now BD at 1,255,392 and HD at 962,889 (57:43) which seem to be more in line with what HMM are reporting. I'm also guessing - just a bit higher than you or nat!

I suspect that unless we get figures accurate to 2 decimal places we are taking pot shots and coming up with numbers that allow for too high a margin of error.

In that case we'll just have to wait for HMM to publish the April numbers to see what really happened. In the meantime having a guess is just a bit of harmless fun.
I realize my guess is off. There is no earthly way to mangle the numbers to where you're at on your projection, though, if we start with HMM's figures on April 1.

My guess is that there's some intrinsic under/overcount in the April 1 First Alert data that's skewing the numbers into impossible pretzel-like shapes. There's literally no more room in my calculation for the numbers to drift further in weekly sales for HD DVD and still maintain the ratios shown by Home Media Magazine when rounded to the nearest percent.

I hope it isn't lost on anyone that the high Sales Rank of Planet Earth and even The Queen challenges the stereotype I've seen spread around about Blu-ray buyers. Since the vast majority of Blu-ray players are PS3s, a lot of people fall into the trap and say that the stereotypical gamer taste would apply also to viewing habits and purchasing habits of films. However, I don't think Planet Earth, The Queen, or Happy Feet for that matter fit into the "bloody action blockbuster" genre that the internet seems to think they are interested in exclusively.

You mean the stereotype that played into Sony not releasing The Da Vinci Code? Wasn't this, by Sony's own admission, not released because the movie appeals more to older viewers? Does this mean that Sony doesn't know its own buyers, perhaps because the PS3 effect resulted in far fewer software sales than they were expecting? Or maybe older buyers are making up a larger percentage for BD only in the last few weeks, for whatever reason? I don't have the answer, but as you mention it is interesting that a movie like Buena Vista's The Queen would seem to be doing reasonable well in comparison to other titles.

You mean the stereotype that played into Sony not releasing The Da Vinci Code? Wasn't this, by Sony's own admission, not released because the movie appeals more to older viewers? Does this mean that Sony doesn't know its own buyers, perhaps because the PS3 effect resulted in far fewer software sales than they were expecting? Or maybe older buyers are making up a larger percentage for BD only in the last few weeks, for whatever reason? I don't have the answer, but as you mention it is interesting that a movie like Buena Vista's The Queen would seem to be doing reasonable well in comparison to other titles.

What happens to the PS3 BD software attach rate, if Sony releases a standalone player that substantially undercuts its' price? Wouldn't anyone who might purchase a PS3 solely for BD.......and eventually pick up a few interactive titles because the capability is already there, go for the cheaper standalone? Doesn't the Trojan horse effect cut both ways?

I realize my guess is off. There is no earthly way to mangle the numbers to where you're at on your projection, though, if we start with HMM's figures on April 1.

You mean the Q1 figures from HMM ? They are not Videoscan numbers - they are projected from Videoscan.

My guess is that there's some intrinsic under/overcount in the April 1 First Alert data that's skewing the numbers into impossible pretzel-like shapes. There's literally no more room in my calculation for the numbers to drift further in weekly sales for HD DVD and still maintain the ratios shown by Home Media Magazine when rounded to the nearest percent.

Did you try using just the Weekly and YTD ratios. Now SI ratio has become too rounded off to be of any use.

You guys are just trying to move the goalposts here.

The weekly sales between the two formats HAS narrowed. That is an unquivocally correct statement that you cannot even come close to questioning.

Who cares what the "Since Inception" or "Year to Date" numbers are.

If last week BD sold 10,000 more discs than HD and this week BD only sold 5,000 more discs than HD DVD, then HD DVD has halved the weekly sales gap.

Trying to turn this into a discussion about total discs sold only shows that you KNOW the weekly sales gap is decreasing and want to change the subject.

not at all what I am saying

if we look at some mythical 5 weeks gap

1: 1000
2: 2000
3: 3000
4: 10000
5: 5000

then 4-5 narrowed but 1-5, 2-5, 3-5, 4-5 did not. If 4 was a fluke and an error point then it does not mean anything. the average 1-4 is 4000 and 5-avg(1-4) increases. To look at a trend you can’t just pick the two weeks you want and say “look”.

Why in the world would you assume that monthly volume would be constant, just look at the charts, and Icemages charts. Weekly volumes, and hence, monthly volumes have been dropping for the past two weeks. And before that, both formats have shown a cyclic pattern of sales.

they won't, just that monthly they will be more stable. A sale one week, a must have title vs no title an other won't have as much as an effect.

Yep, but the Blu-ray backers and the BDA made that the expectation.

Dog Bites Man. No news there, plus it already happened. ;)

If HD DVD fights back. Its Man Bites Dog, because its an unexpected storyline, as HD DVD did not roll over and die. :D
Worst... comeback... ever!

If the HD-DVD player has been in stock at Wal-mart throughout the fourth quarter, but Blu-ray still leads in sales, what then?

What if the Wal-mart player comes out and Blu-ray is still winning in software sales?

What then? Is it over for HD-DVD? What if this hypothetical Wal-mart HD-DVD player is a flop? What if poor people at Wal-mart don't care about high definition at all? What if those customers are more concerned about saving any extra money to pay their rent and buy extra food?

Anyway it will be an exciting year and I can't wait to see what happens. :D

Worst... comeback... ever! How about this article from Grubert's favorite pundit: ;)

from a pro- HD DVD leading pundit but has some new points

http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback184.html

Wal-Mart Names HD DVD the Winner
By: Rob Enderle :D

of course his main reference is AVS, and the original article, but his reasoning may have a bit of sense, its has a dfferent angle. His thesis is its all about about Wal-Mart software sales , which is kinda maybe a little kinda maybe a little still on topic for this thread .

His main point is basically that Wal-Mart uses it DVD sales as a traffic builder an the transition to HD DVD may extend that model.
Wal-Mart uses DVDs to build store traffic. They tend to subsidize the price for the movies they feature to get folks into the stores and once there, these folks tend to buy other things. DVDs have been so effective for the company Wal-Mart sees the new high definition formats as a way to bring in store traffic again but they realized that won’t happen unless the players are affordable and there is only one standard. They recognized their own power in being king maker previously and are now using that power to drive the format that works best for them In short, the Blu-Ray aligned studios will now have to either support both formats or risk losing much of Wal-Mart's business and given how material this business is to them, you have to think that an anti-Wall-Mart decision would have a material impact on their bonuses and career longevity. ...So, if this move by Wal-Mart is true , and it appears to be (but we won’t know for sure for a few months yet), the format war is likely over and Wal-Mart has declared the winner.

If the HD-DVD player has been in stock at Wal-mart throughout the fourth quarter, but Blu-ray still leads in sales, what then?

What if the Wal-mart player comes out and Blu-ray is still winning in software sales?

What then? Is it over for HD-DVD? What if this hypothetical Wal-mart HD-DVD player is a flop? What if poor people at Wal-mart don't care about high definition at all? What if those customers are more concerned about saving any extra money to pay their rent and buy extra food?

Anyway it will be an exciting year and I can't wait to see what happens. :D Well then the Nielson numbers will still be in Blu-ray's favor if that happens, especially since Wal-Mart ain't going to be reported in these Nielson/Videoscan numbers anyway;) .

agree though, It will be an interesting year. :)

Anybody that uses AVS as a source is A-OK in my book! :D

Anybody that uses AVS as a source is A-OK in my book!

Yeah... But it is sound fact based journalism?

fitprod

His was an editorial piece and he disclaimed it sufficiently.

Read the points and comment on them instead of attacking the source.

He is a commentator, not a reporter. So he's actually doing is job.

It is a little weird about the echo chamber effect though.

The earliest these things could affect sales numbers is Aug or Sep so lets try to drag this threadbacck to current or projected sales.

Plenty of threads now to discuss the possible Wal-Mart HD DVD players in now.

I realize my guess is off. There is no earthly way to mangle the numbers to where you're at on your projection, though, if we start with HMM's figures on April 1.

My guess is that there's some intrinsic under/overcount in the April 1 First Alert data that's skewing the numbers into impossible pretzel-like shapes. There's literally no more room in my calculation for the numbers to drift further in weekly sales for HD DVD and still maintain the ratios shown by Home Media Magazine when rounded to the nearest percent.

I have to disagree. Your weekly ratio differs from the one published. Mine does not. No mangling required.

Whatever weekly figures you come up with - and without the accuracy we had previously, it's all a bit of a lottery - they have to round to the posted weekly ratio of 61% for Blu-ray and 39% for HD DVD.

Could you be more specific on why your ratio is more correct than the published Nielsen ratio - or do you have some other data that put Blu-ray at a higher ratio for that week?

So far in April you have Blu-ray selling fewer than 50,000 discs. No way is that close to reality. Same for your HD DVD figure. There won't be a repeat of the 335,000 Blu-ray figure (from March) but 200,000+ is a strong probability. For your estimates to come close Blu-ray has to top 75,000 for the next 2 weeks on your chart - bet it doesn't!

Anyway, the monthly number will be published mid May and we'll see which figure was mangled the most! :)

Anyway, the monthly number will be published mid May and we'll see which figure was mangled the most! Maybe I don't have enough caffeine yet, but how are we assured of getting in mid May the final monthly published number from Nielson/Videoscan?

We have the weekly numbers through March 18th courtesy of the comprehensive Nielson/Videoscan data released/leaked to the press from the Sony "Next Generation Disc Tracking Report - for the week ending March 18, 2007" and we have the end of March data contained in the HMM article attributed to the editor with ready made Blu-ray quotes and n rebuttal (which normally indicates it was mostly generated from a ready made Blu-ray press release or press kit ).

These are both Blu-ray related sources of the actual data, which pointedly failed to give us the details of the last two weeks of March, where HD DVD did better.

Do we have any other sources and any assurances we will get accurate final end of April data?

Do you think we will get accurate final April data if it shows a smaller sales margin or market share for Bu-ray or if it shows HD DVD in a better position?

Probably not from Sony or the BDA. Maybe from Toshiba or Universal though.

Maybe I don't have enough caffeine yet, but how are we assured of getting in mid May the final monthly published number from Nielson/Videoscan?

We have the weekly numbers through March 18th courtesy of the comprehensive Nielson/Videoscan data released/leaked to the press from the Sony "Next Generation Disc Tracking Report - for the week ending March 18, 2007" and we have the end of March data contained in the HMM article attributed to the editor with ready made Blu-ray quotes and n rebuttal (which normally indicates it was mostly generated from a ready made Blu-ray press release or press kit ).

We're not assured of anything. But for February and March the sales figures for those months have been 'leaked' around the middle of the following month. They also seem to be higher than raw Nielsen numbers so these are probably studio estimates based on Nielsen reporting.

For February we got approximate figures of 250,000 (BD) to 125,000 (HD DVD). For March we have 335,000 (BD) to 120,000 (HD DVD).

I just assume that we'll see some April numbers reported around mid May. It's not a promise though.

If you're suggesting these numbers are somehow 'made up' then I think you're wrong. Nielsen do not report the whole market. The true volumes are higher than what Nielsen reports (probably 20-30% higher).

Nielsen based estimated numbers have been reported by Disney, Fox and Sony so far. I would not expect to ever see these numbers touted by universal or Toshiba for obvious reasons (AFAIK Universal/Toshiba have never contradicted published numbers).

It seems Toshiba are happy to stick to bragging about hardware sales.

By: Rob Enderle :D
His main point is basically that Wal-Mart uses it DVD sales as a traffic builder an the transition to HD DVD may extend that model.

Hah, Enderle as the consumer retail strategist. :rolleyes:

I doubt the numbers will be leaked by a BD company if it shows the sales gap decreasing in comparison to the sales of the first quarter. The only rason they were probably leaked in the first place was becasue it showed a huge sales gap between the two and it showed it widening. Now that the HD DVD sales have increased with new releases the sales gap won't be as wide so I'm guessing that will be the end of leaked data unless it continues the same trend from the first quarter.

Anybody that uses AVS as a source is A-OK in my book! :D

Yes, but why not get some confirmation / comments from WalMart PR ?

If the HD-DVD player has been in stock at Wal-mart throughout the fourth quarter, but Blu-ray still leads in sales, what then?


What if suddenly Sony decides to jump ship and support HD DVD ? What if BestBuy, CC, Frys and WalMart decide to ban Blu-ray ? What if US congress suddenly listens to people instead of lobbyists ... oh scracth that. That won't happen ;)

Yes, but why not get some confirmation / comments from WalMart PR ?

It wasn't for lack of trying

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/html/breaking_article.cfm?article_id=10557


[...]

Wal-Mart’s beachhead in high-def packaged media could evolve into something more significant following a report the retailer had ordered 2 million Chinese-made HD DVD players for $100 million.

AVS Forum reported that upstart Taiwanese consumer electronics manufacturer Fuh Yuan had partnered with TDK in China to manufacture the projected $299 players.

Spokesperson O’Brien wouldn't comment on the HD DVD player order but said Wal-Mart is in the process of revamping its electronics department to entice both tech savvy early adopters as well as general consumers with improved products at discounted prices.

“[Most] of the shoppers asking about and purchasing either Blu-ray or HD DVD are already pretty savvy technically about both — they are the kind of consumer that absolutely wants the very best and latest in quality that's available,” said O’Brien via e-mail. “It's not quite yet a product the average shopper is attune too, but we anticipate that will change very soon as prices continue to come down.”


A bit light on specifics, but there you go.

It wasn't for lack of trying

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/html/breaking_article.cfm?article_id=10557



Ha ... thanks.

Spokesperson O’Brien wouldn't comment on the HD DVD player order but said Wal-Mart is in the process of revamping its electronics department to entice both tech savvy early adopters as well as general consumers with improved products at discounted prices.

I'm willing to get a discounted RS1 from wal-mart ;)

In other news, amazon is out of Planet Earth (both formats). Both entries feature the same note:

Due to overwhelming demand, we are temporarily back-ordered on Planet Earth. You may still purchase this title, and we'll send it to you as soon as our new stock arrives in May.

Unfortunately for me, I ordered too late. I put mine in last week after procastinating along with Night at the Museum and others released today. Everything else has shipped except for P.E.

In other news, amazon is out of Planet Earth (both formats). Both entries feature the same note:

They apparently still have ONE copy of the SD DVD unsold from their allocation arriving on April 30th. This title is a MONSTER on all fronts and I can't wait till we get some hard sales figures.

In other news, amazon is out of Planet Earth (both formats). Both entries feature the same note:

It will be interesting to get the #s for this title. I doubt it will be a big seller overall, though.

His was an editorial piece and he disclaimed it sufficiently.

Read the points and comment on them instead of attacking the source.

He is a commentator, not a reporter. So he's actually doing is job.

It is a little weird about the echo chamber effect though.


Rob Enderle is just about the least credible tech pundit around, and is infamous for his off-base predictions and inflammatory commentaries.

Check him on Wikipedia for a start, but he has a long and well-established history.

Whatever merit to his points, they are stained by the presence of his name on the article.

We're not assured of anything. But for February and March the sales figures for those months have been 'leaked' around the middle of the following month. They also seem to be higher than raw Nielsen numbers so these are probably studio estimates based on Nielsen reporting.

For February we got approximate figures of 250,000 (BD) to 125,000 (HD DVD). For March we have 335,000 (BD) to 120,000 (HD DVD).

I just assume that we'll see some April numbers reported around mid May. It's not a promise though.

If you're suggesting these numbers are somehow 'made up' then I think you're wrong. Nielsen do not report the whole market. The true volumes are higher than what Nielsen reports (probably 20-30% higher).

Nielsen based estimated numbers have been reported by Disney, Fox and Sony so far. I would not expect to ever see these numbers touted by universal or Toshiba for obvious reasons (AFAIK Universal/Toshiba have never contradicted published numbers).

It seems Toshiba are happy to stick to bragging about hardware sales. Nope I agree the Nielson/Videoscan numbers we have are their real numbers reflected in their retail capture sales figures.

IMHO it seems their about a 70-80% capture rate of the total market. We have the actual Nielson sell through reported numbers through March 18th, and for March total andthe first quarter. Just missing those last two week so March where HD DVD showed signs of life.

I think whatever side thinks the numbers better fit their story wll release the numbers either NPD hardware numbers of Nielson/Videoscan software sales.

If Sony doesn't like the April numbers someone on the HD DVD side may insure thy get out.

Here is an interesting quote from WB - PS3 owners aren't buying the bulk of movies.

I doubt the numbers will be leaked by a BD company if it shows the sales gap decreasing in comparison to the sales of the first quarter. The only rason they were probably leaked in the first place was becasue it showed a huge sales gap between the two and it showed it widening. Now that the HD DVD sales have increased with new releases the sales gap won't be as wide so I'm guessing that will be the end of leaked data unless it continues the same trend from the first quarter.

nah, you don't think......:rolleyes:

oh course they were leaking/releasing the data because it supported their story line :D

If it doesn't we won't get from them, or they will somehow try to obscure and selectively release the data......

Grubert Icemage or Nataraj:

Thinking of that, anybody get the last couple weeks of March data in final form yet, or did we update our calculations based on the hard end of March figures published in HMM?

It will be interesting to get the #s for this title. I doubt it will be a big seller overall, though.

I agree. It's a fantastic series, no doubt, but I have a feeling this buying frenzy is localised to Amazon for the purposes of claiming the highest ranked title.

My wild guess for week 1 would be BD 12,000 and HD 8,000 units (that's across all outlets).

It's a shame the stock level charts have broken down at eproductwars. Might have given us a clue. I think CR was selling around 400 units a day when it was in the top 10.

Here is an interesting quote from WB - PS3 owners aren't buying the bulk of movies.

Source? Rest of the article this was on? :eek:

Rob Enderle is just about the least credible tech pundit around, and is infamous for his off-base predictions and inflammatory commentaries.

Check him on Wikipedia for a start, but he has a long and well-established history.

Whatever merit to his points, they are stained by the presence of his name on the article. He's not afraid to go out on a limb and some of his more famous pronouncements obviously fell flat. But to be fair, he's been accurate a lot too in quite a few things. he been pro Microsoft an pro HD DVD in the past so obviously Blu-ray guys don't like him.

But he survives because a lot of what he says does come true and he provides some angles that no one else mentions.

That articles is a case in point, no one in a zillion pages at AVS brought up the point of Wal-Mart likes DVDs to bring in traffic and its logical for them to be wanting to sustain that model over a longer period with a successor format like HD DVD.

Even if you hated him in the past, you got to concede no one else brought up that point before he did.

Here is an interesting quote from WB - PS3 owners aren't buying the bulk of movies. linky?

didn't enderle declare bd the clear winner a few months back when the disparity in sales figures first became apparent? his schitzoid scribblings are probably not the best commentary, let alone source of information, for this format war.

In other news, amazon is out of Planet Earth (both formats). Both entries feature the same note:
I think the fact that the HD-DVD version has been in or very near Amazon's top-10 for weeks now is very impressive. Especially for a title at that price.

It will be interesting to get the #s for this title. I doubt it will be a big seller overall, though.
I don't follow the sales figures of individual titles as close as others here but I would have guessed it will be a big seller for both formats. In other words, I hope you are wrong. :)

I think the fact that the HD-DVD version has been in or very near Amazon's top-10 for weeks now is very impressive. Especially for a title at that price.


I think the fact that the Blu-ray version has been in or very near Amazon's top-10 for weeks now is very impressive as well. Especially for a title at that price, considering the vast majority of Blu-ray player owners are considered not to be using it seriously for movies.