The obvious anomaly. It sells better on HD DVD than Blu-ray for some reason, which is the complete opposite of other Warner releases. I'm not exactly sure why it has been such a huge success for the format. Its almost as if people are picking up this title and nothing else.

Or Toshitba has been having its agents purchase a steady stream of them to keep retail "sales" up. The PE discs could be included "free" in a future Toshiba bundle. It really is a mystery.

It's nice to see Blu-ray is widening its lead over HD-DVD. Next Friday's numbers will be very telling. If Blu-ray leads in a week where they had no exclusive releases and HD-DVD had 14, then the writing is clearly on wall about this format war.

Yep, and that writing would read "both formats struggling" :rolleyes:

YOu keep on saying this, and it makes no sense, yet you have never explained where you get this when asked. If HD DVD is selling better across a wider spectrum of titles, wouldn't they just be selling better?

The definition of spin...see post #7991

Yep, and that writing would read "both formats struggling" :rolleyes:

HD DVDs new slogan?

Next Friday's numbers will be very telling. If Blu-ray leads in a week where they had no exclusive releases and HD-DVD had 14, then the writing is clearly on wall about this format war.

~Josh

Funny, you have indicated that the writing is not only on the wall but just about everywhere else too for a long time now.

The new catalogue titles will probably sell around 10.000 copies combined. That's based on how pretty much everyother such titles have done. It might be enough to pass BD or it might not depending on how much other titles already out loose. HD DVD adds some thousand of sales next week. But it's really more up to whether Blu Ray does well or not that determen the outcome for next weeks numbers.

Funny, you have indicated that the writing is not only on the wall but just about everywhere else too for a long time now.

The new catalogue titles will probably sell around 10.000 copies combined. That's based on how pretty much everyother such titles have done. It might be enough to pass BD or it might not depending on how much other titles already out loose. HD DVD adds some thousand of sales next week. But it's really more up to whether Blu Ray does well or not that determen the outcome for next weeks numbers.

Sounds like prediction time...

This week was 70/30 for BD, I will put next week at 62/38 still BD of course.

I am just going to stop guessing titles, especially this week, I have no clue.

Or Toshitba has been having its agents purchase a steady stream of them to keep retail "sales" up. The PE discs could be included "free" in a future Toshiba bundle. It really is a mystery.

And obviously Sonys agents have run out of money to buy Pirates and Apocalyptos because now they are buying Casino Royale instead? I thought I had seem them all but one side just seems to come up with new lows all the time.

And obviously Sonys agents have run out of money to buy Pirates and Apocalyptos because now they are buying Casino Royale instead? I thought I had seem them all but one side just seems to come up with new lows all the time.

I am with you jpb, this conspiracy crap is ridiculous, <insert scientology reference here>

^ There are lots of walls, lots of writings on these walls, but only with hindsight do we see the logic in all these writings.

There's two theories on HDM adoption.

1. People just don't care about highdef. It doesn't matter if there is one format or two formats. In this scenario, nothing matters. HD DVD will die, BD will die (outside of PS3). DVD goes on for another decade. Both should be abandoned asap until something better comes along. Solution : Kill Both.

2. Some people care, but very few are willing to look past the format war and won't care until there is a single format. If there is a single format, there will be more adopters. In this scenario, at some point one format should die. The advantage of keeping both is price pressure on the dominant format to price their offering competitively. At some point, this will become more negative as top-tier companies not in core IP-pool lose their ability to return a decent profit. Studios will likely not be able to tell #1 from #2 if #2 continues for too long. Solution : Kill one.

---

One and only one of the above has to be true.

Actually the format war will not be decided by marketing slogans. You have to go below the skin deep marketing and PR fluff to try to understand the true picture...

HD DVD is selling better across a wider spectrum of titles....which is a good thing. IMO.

L O L

nice joke post plazman, good to know you have a sense of humor about things ;)


... this was a joke post right?

YOu keep on saying this, and it makes no sense, yet you have never explained where you get this when asked. If HD DVD is selling better across a wider spectrum of titles, wouldn't they just be selling better?

OK. Let me explain this. Here is how the analysis works...

1. The weekly sales ratio is 70 : 30

2. IF the top 10 ratio is greater than 70 to 30 then the rest of the titles sales ratio must be closer than 70:30, to end up with 70:30.

3. How close the ratio is for the rest of the titles is dependent upon the % of sales that BD did for the 8 titles that are in the top 10...and HD DVD did for the 2 that are in the top 10.

4. So the mathematical formula would be:

BD = total sales - sales for titles in the top 10 = Total sales for all other titles (312-8).

HD DVD = total sales - sales titles in the top 10 = Total sales for all other titles (254-2).

5. If you divide the total sales for the others by 304 for BD and 252 for HD DVD, you will get the avg. units sold for all other titles...(the 312 and 254 is the total titles that can ship today from Amazon).

Your business model could either be one that prefers 90% revenue from the top 10% titles, or one that has a more even distribution of sales....

This isn't spin. This is just how business analysis works. What is spinning is to say that HD DVD is getting crushed because it has 30% of weekly sales. 30% is a sizeable marketshare and no company would fold up tent with 30% share. Very few products achieve 30% marketshare....since we live in a competitive world :)

There is no LAW that says that only one HD format will survive. Across all industries today we are seeing competing technologies....MSFT has more competition on the PS side. TV has more than just CRT, content comes from more than just off the air and cable....the real trend is competing formats. And 30% market share is more than viable in the short term. Long term it will come down to economics.

A few calculations...

85% of the top 10 Sales were Blu-Ray, 15% were HD-DVD
Top 5 Blu-Ray sold roughly 3 times as much as top 5 HD-DVD
Total Sales Ratio for all titles we know of (Top 10 + Top 5 HD-DVD) is 80.5% Blu-Ray, 19.5% HD-DVD.

If Top 10, Top 5 known sales accounts for half of total volume, all other sales would be roughly 60/40 for Blu-Ray to make it 70/30 total for the week. If known sales is 2/3 of total volume, all other sales would be 50/50.

I said it before - Planet Earth is excellent value for money. It is new on disc, has lots of eye candy, and you can watch fragments or show to friends without ruining the plot. Planet Earth is the perfect early adopter or highly involved enthusiast purchase. Its also a great first eye candy purchase for someone wanting to show off their new hardware. For that to continue to lead HD DVD may mean that HD DVD purchases still are driven by enthusiasts, and not yet mainstream buyers, or by new HD DVD player or HDTV owners.

It would seem to me to indicate that HD DVD buyers are still niche early adopter or early adopter types that were waiting for prices to drop a bit, and that HD DVD sales still has not reached the mass audiance stage that the PS3 automatically gave Blu-ray for mass audiance titles.

I see nothing in these numbers to show the increasing numbers of HD A2s being sold are affecting the disc sales numbers yet. I'm still waiting for that to happen. As the HD DVD installed base continues to rise, it should start affecting these type of numbers in the near future.

Next week should be interesting.

L O L

nice joke post plazman, good to know you have a sense of humor about things ;)


... this was a joke post right?

It would appear to be a joke. But it isn't....just simple analysis and another perspective to consider the numbers with... :)

OK. Let me explain this. Here is how the analysis works...

1. The weekly sales ratio is 70 : 30

2. IF the top 10 ratio is greater than 70 to 30 then the rest of the titles sales ratio must be closer than 70:30, to end up with 70:30.

3. How close the ratio is for the rest of the titles is dependent upon the % of sales that BD did for the 8 titles that are in the top 10...and HD DVD did for the 2 that are in the top 10.

4. So the mathematical formula would be:

BD = total sales - sales for titles in the top 10 = Total sales for all other titles (312-8).

HD DVD = total sales - sales titles in the top 10 = Total sales for all other titles (254-2).

5. If you divide the total sales for the others by 304 for BD and 252 for HD DVD, you will get the avg. units sold for all other titles...(the 312 and 254 is the total titles that can ship today from Amazon).

Your business model could either be one that prefers 90% revenue from the top 10% titles, or one that has a more even distribution of sales....

This isn't spin. This is just how business analysis works. What is spinning is to say that HD DVD is getting crushed because it has 30% of weekly sales. 30% is a sizeable marketshare and no company would fold up tent with 30% share. Very few products achieve 30% marketshare....since we live in a competitive world :)

There is no LAW that says that only one HD format will survive. Across all industries today we are seeing competing technologies....MSFT has more competition on the PS side. TV has more than just CRT, content comes from more than just off the air and cable....the real trend is competing formats. And 30% market share is more than viable in the short term. Long term it will come down to economics. To add. HD DVD is also setting the groundwork for sales in teh larger volume 4th quarter and throughout next year. Increasing number of installed players should over time narrow the gap. It also will be an advantage in the 4th quarter when more hardware and software units are sold.

I do disagree , that HD DVD can prosper with a 30% market share over the long term. If HD DVD 's economic advantages are significant, they should narrow this current gap, well before the end of this year.

HD DVD is also setting the groundwork for sales in teh larger volume 4th quarter and throughout next year. Increasing number of installed players should over time narrow the gap.

These two sentences are unrelated. By implanting players in homes, HD DVD is ensuring that more movies get purchased in the long run, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the gap will close between Blu-ray and HD DVD. Blu-ray will also continue to sell titles, and with more players on the market, the potential is definitely with Blu-ray to expand the gap by flooding the market with new titles. Remember, the only studio which can flood exclusive HD DVD titles is Universal (which they are doing now). Releases by Warner and Paramount will go to both formats (in most cases) and sell better on Blu-ray (in most cases).

So, your gap closing hypothesis is that Universal will sell enough titles to make up for the difference between Warner and Paramount Blu-ray and HD DVD sales, as well as the exclusive Blu-ray title sales. That is truly a huge hill to climb. The studio support pretty much ensures that the sales gap will continue to grow in favor of Blu-ray. What we don't know is how fast. Too slow and the war continues.

Planet Earth is the perfect early adopter or highly involved enthusiast purchase. Its also a great first eye candy purchase for someone wanting to show off their new hardware. For that to continue to lead HD DVD may mean that HD DVD purchases still are driven by enthusiasts, and not yet mainstream buyers, or by new HD DVD player or HDTV owners.

It would seem to me to indicate that HD DVD buyers are still niche early adopter or early adopter types that were waiting for prices to drop a bit, and that HD DVD sales still has not reached the mass audiance stage that the PS3 automatically gave Blu-ray for mass audiance titles.

I see nothing in these numbers to show the increasing numbers of HD A2s being sold are affecting the disc sales numbers yet. I'm still waiting for that to happen. As the HD DVD installed base continues to rise, it should start affecting these type of numbers in the near future.

Next week should be interesting.

Many folks bougth a discounted Toshiba player with PE. They also got 5..7 movies for free. It's obvious that short term movie sales are not picking up right after this sale. That would at best happen two or three paychecks later.

At dvdempire the ratio given for this week is now back at 57:43. Over the last couple of weeks HD DVD steadily climbed back from a depressing 71:29 shortly after Pirates got released.

It's a real possibility now that HD DVD will equal the weekly br sales and regain the lead.

To add. HD DVD is also setting the groundwork for sales in teh larger volume 4th quarter and throughout next year. Increasing number of installed players should over time narrow the gap. It also will be an advantage in the 4th quarter when more hardware and software units are sold.


true but bd install base will probably grow at a faster rate due to ps3 and exclusive titles will give it tremendous edge in sales. also transformers will be a huge hit with ps3 crowd. i really think that transformer's sales ratios will tell the tale.

Many folks bougth a discounted Toshiba player with PE. They also got 5..7 movies for free. It's obvious that short term movie sales are not picking up right after this sale. That would at best happen two or three paychecks later.

At dvdempire the ratio given for this week is now back at 57:43. Over the last couple of weeks HD DVD steadily climbed back from a depressing 71:29 shortly after Pirates got released.

It's a real possibility now that HD DVD will equal the weekly br sales and regain the lead.

spiderman release will make it a lot worse...

Many folks bougth a discounted Toshiba player with PE. They also got 5..7 movies for free. It's obvious that short term movie sales are not picking up right after this sale. That would at best happen two or three paychecks later.

At dvdempire the ratio given for this week is now back at 57:43. Over the last couple of weeks HD DVD steadily climbed back from a depressing 71:29 shortly after Pirates got released.

It's a real possibility now that HD DVD will equal the weekly br sales and regain the lead.

Isn't the week you're referring to one with multiple exclusive HD DVD releases, and nothing of note on Blu-ray? For the ratio to still be 57/43 in BD's favor I think speaks more towards a grim future for HD DVD than it does any sort of comeback.

OK. Let me explain this. Here is how the analysis works...

1. The weekly sales ratio is 70 : 30

2. IF the top 10 ratio is greater than 70 to 30 then the rest of the titles sales ratio must be closer than 70:30, to end up with 70:30.

3. How close the ratio is for the rest of the titles is dependent upon the % of sales that BD did for the 8 titles that are in the top 10...and HD DVD did for the 2 that are in the top 10.

4. So the mathematical formula would be:

BD = total sales - sales for titles in the top 10 = Total sales for all other titles (312-8).

HD DVD = total sales - sales titles in the top 10 = Total sales for all other titles (254-2).

5. If you divide the total sales for the others by 304 for BD and 252 for HD DVD, you will get the avg. units sold for all other titles...(the 312 and 254 is the total titles that can ship today from Amazon).

Your business model could either be one that prefers 90% revenue from the top 10% titles, or one that has a more even distribution of sales....

This isn't spin. This is just how business analysis works. What is spinning is to say that HD DVD is getting crushed because it has 30% of weekly sales. 30% is a sizeable marketshare and no company would fold up tent with 30% share. Very few products achieve 30% marketshare....since we live in a competitive world :)

There is no LAW that says that only one HD format will survive. Across all industries today we are seeing competing technologies....MSFT has more competition on the PS side. TV has more than just CRT, content comes from more than just off the air and cable....the real trend is competing formats. And 30% market share is more than viable in the short term. Long term it will come down to economics.

So Plazman, what you're saying is that HD-DVD will thrive as a "BOTTOM FEEDER"? That should engender a new HD-DVD motto: HD-DVD -- KING OF CRAPPY MOVIES. That business model could possibly thrive in the locales where Blockbuster is closing its stores due to low sales/rentals.

OK. Let me explain this. Here is how the analysis works...

1. The weekly sales ratio is 70 : 30

2. IF the top 10 ratio is greater than 70 to 30 then the rest of the titles sales ratio must be closer than 70:30, to end up with 70:30.

3. How close the ratio is for the rest of the titles is dependent upon the % of sales that BD did for the 8 titles that are in the top 10...and HD DVD did for the 2 that are in the top 10.

4. So the mathematical formula would be:

BD = total sales - sales for titles in the top 10 = Total sales for all other titles (312-8).

HD DVD = total sales - sales titles in the top 10 = Total sales for all other titles (254-2).

5. If you divide the total sales for the others by 304 for BD and 252 for HD DVD, you will get the avg. units sold for all other titles...(the 312 and 254 is the total titles that can ship today from Amazon).

Your business model could either be one that prefers 90% revenue from the top 10% titles, or one that has a more even distribution of sales....

This isn't spin. This is just how business analysis works. What is spinning is to say that HD DVD is getting crushed because it has 30% of weekly sales. 30% is a sizeable marketshare and no company would fold up tent with 30% share. Very few products achieve 30% marketshare....since we live in a competitive world :)

There is no LAW that says that only one HD format will survive. Across all industries today we are seeing competing technologies....MSFT has more competition on the PS side. TV has more than just CRT, content comes from more than just off the air and cable....the real trend is competing formats. And 30% market share is more than viable in the short term. Long term it will come down to economics.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v293/bluesmoke79/TRUTH.jpg

This pic makes me laugh, but fitting with a post like that.

At dvdempire the ratio given for this week is now back at 57:43. Over the last couple of weeks HD DVD steadily climbed back from a depressing 71:29 shortly after Pirates got released.
You should go back and read what you're saying. Because you just told us that in a week that there were two neutral titles and 12+ HD DVD exclusives, and zero Blu-ray exclusives, HD DVD is still being outsold by almost 25%. :D:D:D

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/3110/bdratiofj2.jpg

To add. HD DVD is also setting the groundwork for sales in teh larger volume 4th quarter and throughout next year. Increasing number of installed players should over time narrow the gap.

I have always considered that Batman Begins is a good measure of new player purchase - it is the HD DVD that everyone seems to buy (aside from Planet Earth! haha).

Anyways, this week has some interesting info on the BD side - two old titles in the top 10.

We see Casino Royale at number 3 - now this could be coloured by being included in the Amazon sale so lets leave that one alone.

What is more interesting is that Open Season is #9. I would hardly call Open Season a must have title.

Yet this week it sold 23% of Ghostrider.

Batman Begins sold roughly 13.5% of Ghost Rider.

So Open Season sold 70% more copies than Batman Begins in that week.

This implies to me that BD hardware is indeed selling and perhaps outselling HD DVD hardware. Open Season was not part of any promotion that I know of (though am willing to stand corrected on this).

As for health of the repsective formats. 30% is a healthy market share with no new releases and in the face of a decided negative news story that was picked up by the general media. However, even without any news, 30% market share is considered a viable market share in any business anywhere, any time :)If Toshiba could guarantee that HD DVD would have 30% of the disc sales forever they might be very happy with that, but 30% is not a healthy market share in a situation where the goal is to get studios from the other side to go neutral and to keep Universal exclusive. If there is some threshold at which an exclusive studio will go neutral, as things are now it looks like Universal would go neutral before Disney. And once they went neutral, the share would turn more. Yes, I now you have to look at what is released and how common releases are doing on each, along with this not being an average week, but in general 30% is not a way to keep your one main exclusive studio happy and to get those from the other side to join you.
YOu keep on saying this, and it makes no sense, yet you have never explained where you get this when asked. If HD DVD is selling better across a wider spectrum of titles, wouldn't they just be selling better?
To use a basketball analogy, what plazman is basically doing would be similar to someone saying that back in his heyday, if Michael Jordan's numbers were removed, the other team was doing better across a wider spectrum of players. Even if Michael scored 30 points and the Bulls won by 40 points.
This isn't spin. This is just how business analysis works.This is spin with the way you are doing it. While the theory is good, you are misapplying it and making a claim you haven't backed up. For others, one of the tricks that plazman is playing here is setting things up so that both Matrix box set releases count in his lower titles set for HD DVD, while neither POTC release counts for Blu-ray. Besides the fact that this doesn't mean that HD DVD had to have greater than 50% for the "other" titles, yet plazman's claim was:
HD DVD is selling better across a wider spectrum of titles....So plazman,

If you want people to believe you, show us how this means that HD DVD is selling better for the "other" titles. Wasn't that your claim? If they had 45% of the "other" titles, it wouldn't mean they were selling better for those than Blu-ray (even though it would be better than 70/30 and pull the average down to that).
30% is a sizeable marketshare and no company would fold up tent with 30% share.You seem to be holding on tight to this position, yet simple business analysis shows that a group that is holding that marketshare by having a studio be exclusive to them has to worry about that studio changing that position, and thus changing that marketshare (and not for the better). The game now is largely to try to get all the studios (or all but Sony for HD DVD for now) and anybody analyzing this business needs to look at the likely effects of certain things (like staying behind for too long or getting behind by too much).

--Darin

Another interesting aspect of todays data - all of the top 5 Blu-ray sellers are BD exclusives.

For HD DVD only one of the best selling discs is from an HD DVD exclusive studio, though two of the Warner titles are not yet available on BD.

I'm going to take a shot at the next week's numbers (the week ending July 1st). At one point I thought HD DVD would probably win this week with something like 12 to 2 for releases. But given how deep Universal is having to dig (they are running low on titles from the last 5 years that did even $50 million at the US box office) and how poorly some of their latest releases have been getting reviewed for image quality, I'm not thinking about 52:48 for Blu-ray for this week. HD DVD could still win the week, but I am leaning toward not at the moment.

--Darin

I find it telling that HDDVD can hold a 40% (SI) Market Share WITHOUT a PS3, Disney, Sony, Lionsgate and Fox. What it tells me is either

1) HDM as a whole are stinking up the joint so bad that selling 100 copies of anything can sway the numbers by whole percentage points

2) Having 2M+ players out there (including the PS3) makes #1 look even more plausible

3) That there are exactly the same # of people who give a rats butt about either/or as post on here ...... which isn't a great # in the large scope of things. (see #1)

Having Universal/Warner/Paramount/Weinstein hold a 40% market share (si) with a growing to 300K players (as there haven't been that many players the whole time) on the market seems to me that HDDVD is doing just about as well as BD is as a whole. It took the BDA 1.5M MORE players and 4 exclusive studios to gain a 10% additional market share. That just doesn't seem to be anything really worth crowing about

It would appear to be a joke. But it isn't....just simple analysis and another perspective to consider the numbers with... :)

I actually suspected your long post might be an attempt at humour. But the smiley confirms it...

There's always so many perspectives on each development, but some angles will be really tough on the back. For example, if we set up the ratios as two stacks of dominoes, I suppose one could place the red stack in front of the blue stack, bend down real low and look in a certain way, there are some angles where anyone can see that the red stack looks a lot more impressive than the blu one.

But it might strain my neck and my back to stoop that low. :)

I have always considered that Batman Begins is a good measure of new player purchase - it is the HD DVD that everyone seems to buy (aside from Planet Earth! haha).

Anyways, this week has some interesting info on the BD side - two old titles in the top 10.

We see Casino Royale at number 3 - now this could be coloured by being included in the Amazon sale so lets leave that one alone.

What is more interesting is that Open Season is #9. I would hardly call Open Season a must have title.

Yet this week it sold 23% of Ghostrider.

Batman Begins sold roughly 13.5% of Ghost Rider.

So Open Season sold 70% more copies than Batman Begins in that week.

This implies to me that BD hardware is indeed selling and perhaps outselling HD DVD hardware. Open Season was not part of any promotion that I know of (though am willing to stand corrected on this).
I like your analysis here with one exception: could the bump in Open Season be due to most kids getting out of school for the summer and this being a good purchase for them?

I'd say Disney will add more units sold by suporting HD DVD than Universal will gain by going to BD.

The relative sales of common titles are much closer than the overall ratio. I am not aware of how many common titles were split 70:30. Not any I can think of in Q2....

So, Disney is leaving more money on the table than Universal, unless someone can show me catalogs doing better on BD than HD DVD by a big margin.

Let's apply some business sense here. The sports analogy with MJ is really not how business works....none that I have worked for.

The basic premise is - IF Disney sells 20K units on BD, they could have sold 12K on HD DVD - 12K X $ = money left on table. For Uni, if they sell 2K of a catalog title on HD DVD, they would sell probably 2,500 on BD, so money on the table is 2.5K X $....if you factor in the cost of BD replication, it may not be viable for Uni to release any catalog titles on BD.

2) Having 2M+ players out there (including the PS3) makes #1 look even more plausibleYour number is wrong unless you want to count overseas, where Blu-ray disc sales are probably doing even better.
Having Universal/Warner/Paramount/Weinstein hold a 40% market share (si) with a growing to 300K players (as there haven't been that many players the whole time) on the market seems to me that HDDVD is doing just about as well as BD is as a whole. It took the BDA 1.5M MORE players and 4 exclusive studios to gain a 10% additional market share. That just doesn't seem to be anything really worth crowing aboutBesides your claim of 1.5M MORE being wrong, you also seem to ignore that HD DVD launched first, Warner has favored HD DVD up until now (with some good reason, but that may not last once Blu-ray adds their HD PiP support), and that HD DVD had a good lead in SI at the time that PS3 launched. Since that launch it doesn't look like HD DVD has been close to 40% for market share for discs sold.

--Darin

I like your analysis here with one exception: could the bump in Open Season be due to most kids getting out of school for the summer and this being a good purchase for them?

I would be more inclined that stores are covering copies of it with super glue and then putting titles people want behind them and then telling folks that they HAVE to buy it since they cant leave the store without paying for it and/or surgery.. The movie is awful :D

I would be more inclined that stores are covering copies of it with super glue and then putting titles people want behind them and then telling folks that they HAVE to buy it since they cant leave the store without paying for it and/or surgery.. The movie is awful :D
:D

I'd say Disney will add more units sold by suporting HD DVD than Universal will gain by going to BD.


Until HD DVD gets region coding, there is ZERO chance of Disney ever releasing anything on it.

Great Plazman you should Email Toshibas marketing department and offer this new Slogan.

"HD DVD : We dominate Blu Ray for the lowest titles sold!"

or

"HD DVD " We sell the most of the least bought titles!"

ROFL. 70/30 this week? Stick a fork in it ... ;)

The BD players showing up at around $350 MSRP or less will probably be more positive in pushing this as well.

Once consumers actually begin seeing those blu discs in their local B&Ms... and when many see the noticeably absent red discs... I think the blu boulder will begin to accelerate.

Your number is wrong unless you want to count overseas, where Blu-ray disc sales are probably doing even better.
Besides your claim of 1.5M MORE being wrong, you also seem to ignore that HD DVD launched first, Warner has favored HD DVD up until now (with some good reason, but that may not last once Blu-ray adds their HD PiP support), and that HD DVD had a good lead in SI at the time that PS3 launched. Since that launch it doesn't look like HD DVD has been close to 40% for market share for discs sold.

--Darin

Umm Haven't they sold 1.8M PS3s in the US? And I keep seeing #s where HDDVD has 60% of the set top market which is listed as 300K making the BD market at least 200K. HDDVD launched about 60 days before BD did (Sorry I have to use your tag line that this is the AV SCIENCE forum....not the BD didn't launch until the PS3 did forum)

Even if there has never been a standalone sold anywhere 1.8M PS3s - 300K HDDVD players would still be 1.5M MORE players and I notice that you didn't address that they have 4 exclusive studios backing them as well.. I stand by what I said.

I'd say Disney will add more units sold by suporting HD DVD than Universal will gain by going to BD.

The relative sales of common titles are much closer than the overall ratio. I am not aware of how many common titles were split 70:30. Not any I can think of in Q2....

So, Disney is leaving more money on the table than Universal, unless someone can show me catalogs doing better on BD than HD DVD by a big margin.

Let's apply some business sense here. The sports analogy with MJ is really not how business works....none that I have worked for.

The basic premise is - IF Disney sells 20K units on BD, they could have sold 12K on HD DVD - 12K X $ = money left on table. For Uni, if they sell 2K of a catalog title on HD DVD, they would sell probably 2,500 on BD, so money on the table is 2.5K X $....if you factor in the cost of BD replication, it may not be viable for Uni to release any catalog titles on BD.Is your position that Disney will just sell a lot more discs overall than Universal going forward? That seems to be the tactic you are taking, but it is an interesting one given that it basically says that Disney is going to be a lot more important than Universal as far as HD formats. Not the kind of thing to encourage people that HD DVD will thrive enough.

You also ignore the simple business sense that Disney releasing on both could cost them lots of sales in the long run by extending the war, even if they get some more sales in the short run. Ignoring that wouldn't necessarily be good business sense on their part. Do you think they would have sold more discs if DVD had had a competitor with 30% of the market and neither format having all the studios (so those buying players for each format couldn't get all releases to play in them)?

Despite Amir's misrepresenting what I said about region encoding and being able to do it by only being willing to debate on this forum if he can get an uneven playing field, I know there is more than one thing that Disney doesn't like about HD DVD as much as BD. Just because they want region encoding, doesn't mean that there aren't other things they would want before releasing on HD DVD.

And back to your position:
HD DVD is selling better across a wider spectrum of titles....is it that HD DVD is selling better than 50% for the "others", or better than 30%?

--Darin

Umm Haven't they sold 1.8M PS3s in the US?www.vgchartz.com now lists it as up to 1.55 million for "America". I'm guessing that includes Canada. A different report about a week ago said about 1.5 million counting standalones, but I figure the 1.5 million without standalones was probably most accurate at the time.
And I keep seeing #s where HDDVD has 60% of the set top market which is listed as 300K making the BD market at least 200K.The HD DVD promotions group tells us that they just want to compare standalones because that is what has the best attach rates, but they use just standalones for comparing players while including all players for their attach rate claims. Skews things by changing the rules, but the 60% was about 150k standalones for HD DVD to 100k for Blu-ray (or about that). Another 155k XBOX360 add-ons would have put them a little over 300k. With the latest report it looks like they are up to about 170k standalones, so maybe around 325k total.
HDDVD launched about 60 days before BD did (Sorry I have to use your tag line that this is the AV SCIENCE forum....not the BD didn't launch until the PS3 did forum)Yes, about 2 months. That was my point. If you compare the first year of HD DVD to the first year of Blu-ray, the ratio was more than 60:40.
Even if there has never been a standalone sold anywhere 1.8M PS3s - 300K HDDVD players would still be 1.5M MORE players and I notice that you didn't address that they have 4 exclusive studios backing them as well.. I stand by what I said.Looks like 4 exclusives to 2 exclusives by your count and we know that the HD DVD studios came out of the gate much faster (including Warner who is technically neutral but hasn't been to this point). We know that HD DVD had done much better by about November of last year. Is that what impresses you most, or that in 2007 they've only been down about 2:1 for disc sales?

--Darin

I'd say Disney will add more units sold by suporting HD DVD than Universal will gain by going to BD.

The relative sales of common titles are much closer than the overall ratio. I am not aware of how many common titles were split 70:30. Not any I can think of in Q2....

So, Disney is leaving more money on the table than Universal, unless someone can show me catalogs doing better on BD than HD DVD by a big margin.

Let's apply some business sense here. The sports analogy with MJ is really not how business works....none that I have worked for.

The basic premise is - IF Disney sells 20K units on BD, they could have sold 12K on HD DVD - 12K X $ = money left on table. For Uni, if they sell 2K of a catalog title on HD DVD, they would sell probably 2,500 on BD, so money on the table is 2.5K X $....if you factor in the cost of BD replication, it may not be viable for Uni to release any catalog titles on BD.

That was the most amazing bit of logic I have ever read.

And I hang out at the BD/HD area of AVS, so that is saying a lot.

Universal could increase it sales by at least 60% by making movies for both blu-ray and HD DVD, Disney could increase their sales by at most 40% by making movies for both blu-ray and HD DVD.

In case you didn't know Disney selling more movies than Universal is not an argument that favors HD DVD.

I'd say Disney will add more units sold by suporting HD DVD than Universal will gain by going to BD.



I'd say that Disney will make a massive amount more by helping to end the HD DVD project and enable the wider market to adopt a unified HD format. A clear upgrade path for DVD owners - to Blu-ray Disc.

Of course, that's just a wild and crazy idea that certain people round these parts dismiss as mere fantasy. :rolleyes:

On the other hand, talk of Disney releasing on HD DVD is truly laughable given that Disney are quite keen on regional coding and the additional copy protection afforded by BD+. Two things that the HD DVD camp have vowed never to use.

You are correct about Universal's HD DVD sales being pathetic. But that's another story for another thread.

I actually agree. I would guess 69:31 (5% more than the previous week) for last week due to BBI & other announcements, and say that we're back to 64:36 this week due to Univ. releases. 2 of those titles broke into the top 1XXs on amazon.

Yay, I was pretty close for this week's announcement. :D

Top 10 hidef sellers

1 (1) Ghost Rider BD 100.00
2 (-) Bridge to Terabithia BD 84.65
3 (8) Casino Royale BD 59.46
4 (2) Planet Earth HD 43.03
5 (4) Apocalypto BD 35.65
6 (5) PotC DMC BD 34.14
7 (6) Planet Earth BD 33.51
8 (7) PotC CBP BD 28.53
9 (-) Open Season BD 23.10
10 (3) Breach 22.71

xx Letters from Iwo Jima BD 14.80
xx Batman Begins HD 13.50
xx Letters from Iwo Jima HD 10.96
xx Complete Matrix Trilogy HD 9.01

Top 10 aggregate

1. Ghost Rider 100.00
2. Bridge to Terabithia 84.65
4. Planet Earth 76.53
3. Casino Royale 59.46
5. Apocalypto 35.65
6. PotC DMC 34.14
7. Planet Earth 33.51
8. PotC CBP 28.53
9. Open Season 23.10
10. Breach 22.71


Hmm, I doubt that it is anything but a mathmatical oversite on the part of whoever calculated the aggregate totals but shouln'd Letters from Iwo Jima be on the list. 14.80 + 10.96 = 25.76 should put it 9th combined.

Most of the people who buy the PE HD-DVD probably don’t even have HD-DVD players. Go and read all of the negative feedback/comments from SDDVD owners on Amazon. People know PE is filmed in HD so they think that HD-DVD is just a normal version that that will play in HD on SD-DVD players.

It’s much harder to be confused about the Blu-ray version.


It would be interesting to see a detailed breakdown of the number of HD-DVD versions bought mistakenly. It might not be a large % but I bet it is a significant % of the difference between BR and HD-DVD.

www.vgchartz.com now lists it as up to 1.55 million for "America". I'm guessing that includes Canada. A different report about a week ago said about 1.5 million counting standalones, but I figure the 1.5 million without standalones was probably most accurate at the time.
The HD DVD promotions group tells us that they just want to compare standalones because that is what has the best attach rates, but they use just standalones for comparing players while including all players for their attach rate claims. Skews things by changing the rules, but the 60% was about 150k standalones for HD DVD to 100k for Blu-ray (or about that). Another 155k XBOX360 add-ons would have put them a little over 300k. With the latest report it looks like they are up to about 170k standalones, so maybe around 325k total.
Yes, about 2 months. That was my point. If you compare the first year of HD DVD to the first year of Blu-ray, the ratio was more than 60:40.
Looks like 4 exclusives to 2 exclusives by your count and we know that the HD DVD studios came out of the gate much faster (including Warner who is technically neutral but hasn't been to this point). We know that HD DVD had done much better by about November of last year. Is that what impresses you most, or that in 2007 they've only been down about 2:1 for disc sales?

--Darin

I apologize for the 1.5M number being off (using the VGChartz #s) but they still have better than 1M more players out there which just doesn't seem to bode well to me but /shrug I could be wrong. BTW according to VGChartz the PS3 doesn't have a game in the TOP 50 in sales last week. That tells me folks aren't buying games for it either. Not sure what they are doing with the darn things. I know mine pretty much does F@H and watches 3-4 movies a week. That can't be good for Sony's bottom line.

Yes the ratio last year (at least before the PS3 skewed the player #s so heavily lopsided) was better for HDDVD but I think that the 40% share they have hung on to despite the overwhelming inbalance in player #s AND major exclusive studios is quite telling at least to me. I think we are looking at the "Nobody really cares" part of this. The 4 exclusive vs 2 exclusive is a bit incorrect on both our parts as both sides have some "exclusive" smaller studios. I probably should have left Lionsgate off and just used Fox/Sony/Disney.

I think what impresses me the most is that there are probably more posts on AVS (in pure #s) than actual HDM sales combined which just tells me that the apathy towrds the whole thing by the general public makes this all a e-p*nis waving contest at this point.

On the other hand if Sony had suddenly sold 70.000 PS3 in a week I'ld be pretty sure we would have heard about it.

Would those new owners be purchasers of the SP1?

I apologize for the 1.5M number being off (using the VGChartz #s) but they still have better than 1M more players out there which just doesn't seem to bode well to me but /shrug I could be wrong.Before the PS3 shipped I figured if they could get an effective 20% from it, that would be significant. 1.5M * .2 would be 300k. Plus 100k standalones would be 400k. Against maybe 300k on the HD DVD side. So, the disc sales don't surprise me that much. If the PS3 had really taken off for games, maybe the 20% or so would be lower though.
I think what impresses me the most is that there are probably more posts on AVS (in pure #s) than actual HDM sales combined which just tells me that the apathy towrds the whole thing by the general public makes this all a e-p*nis waving contest at this point.Good point.

--Darin

wow 70 to 30? OUCH for hd-dvd :( :(

Hmm, I doubt that it is anything but a mathmatical oversite on the part of whoever calculated the aggregate totals but shouln'd Letters from Iwo Jima be on the list. 14.80 + 10.96 = 25.76 should put it 9th combined.

Sorry, there was a mixup in the aggregate list. This is the correct aggregate list:

Top 10 aggregate

1. Ghost Rider 100.00
2. Bridge to Terabithia 84.65
4. Planet Earth 76.53
3. Casino Royale 59.46
5. Apocalypto 35.65
6. PotC DMC 34.14
7. PotC CBP 28.53
8. Letters from Iwo Jima 25.76
9. Open Season 23.10
10. Breach 22.71

Thanks for pointing it out.

Guys, in the enf it isn't about % it is about $. Does anyone here believe that releasing PoTC on HD DVD will earn Disney more money than Universal releasing Bruce Almighty on BD! The amount of money you leave on the table is based more on what movie is being released rather than who is releasing it....the fact that same titles sell in the same range for both formats is the most important metric there can be.

I am surprised how few people here do not care about the business side of these things. I am simply trying to point out how business analysts work. But as long as the market is small it is easy to ignore the real economic environment...

Guys, in the enf it isn't about % it is about $. Does anyone here believe that releasing PoTC on HD DVD will earn Disney more money than Universal releasing Bruce Almighty on BD! The amount of money you leave on the table is based more on what movie is being released rather than who is releasing it....the fact that same titles sell in the same range for both formats is the most important metric there can be.

I am surprised how few people here do not care about the business side of these things. I am simply trying to point out how business analysts work. But as long as the market is small it is easy to ignore the real economic environment...

Perhaps you didn't read the post that described that Disney going neutral would only prolong the war and make all studios lose more money?

Chump change today in exchange for riches tomorrow? Disney is smarter than that.

Guys, in the enf it isn't about % it is about $. Does anyone here believe that releasing PoTC on HD DVD will earn Disney more money than Universal releasing Bruce Almighty on BD! The amount of money you leave on the table is based more on what movie is being released rather than who is releasing it....Of course the absolute amount is. So again:
Is your position that Disney will just sell a lot more discs overall than Universal going forward?
I am surprised how few people here do not care about the business side of these things. I am simply trying to point out how business analysts work.Some of us care about how the business side works, but you are making mistakes or misrepresentations and acting like your analysis is sound. How about at least answering this from before:

And back to your position:
HD DVD is selling better across a wider spectrum of titles....is it that HD DVD is selling better than 50% for the "others", or better than 30%?

--Darin

Guys, in the enf it isn't about % it is about $. Does anyone here believe that releasing PoTC on HD DVD will earn Disney more money than Universal releasing Bruce Almighty on BD! The amount of money you leave on the table is based more on what movie is being released rather than who is releasing it....the fact that same titles sell in the same range for both formats is the most important metric there can be.

I am surprised how few people here do not care about the business side of these things. I am simply trying to point out how business analysts work. But as long as the market is small it is easy to ignore the real economic environment...

This is yet another HD DVD supporter inferring that it is more of a mistake for Disney to not go into the SMALLER HD DVD market than it is for Universal to not go into the LARGER BD market.

Then he is telling us that we don't understand how business works.

I would say unbelievable, but this is more of the same ****.

OK. So what is the logic that one format will increase sales for ALL studios...and how does the upgrade from DVD to BD seem smoother than the upgrade from DVD to HD DVD? Isn't the goal to migrate folks from DVD to HD Media? How does BD even make that possible? It would be wayyyyy more expensive than going from DVD to HD DVD...

Just because more studios are behind BD does not mean that their imposed solution is going to work....DVD to HD DVD is possible....DVD to BD is probably never going to happen. Too expensive and will require many people to buy 2 disks - SD and BD versions or upgrade multiple players...

Does anyone have any data comparing $ from PoTC sales from itunes @14.99 v. BD sales? I'd bet the itunes download business is probly growing even faster than either HD format. Reason IMO is the confusion that BD is causing and the FUD the BDA is creating makes it hard for many to adopt the real successor of DVD - HD DVD.

No I did not say Universal should not release on BD, I was simply pointing out that both formats are much closer when it comes to sales of same titles. So, in that regard Blockbusters that sell well on BD would also sell well on HD DVD....since Disney has more blockbusters than Universal, they are leaving more money on the table.

I can't believe this is too complex for people to understand.

OK. So what is the logic that one format will increase sales for ALL studios...and how does the upgrade from DVD to BD seem smoother than the upgrade from DVD to HD DVD? Isn't the goal to migrate folks from DVD to HD Media? How does BD even make that possible? It would be wayyyyy more expensive than going from DVD to HD DVD...

Just because more studios are behind BD does not mean that their imposed solution is going to work....DVD to HD DVD is possible....DVD to BD is probably never going to happen. Too expensive and will require many people to buy 2 disks - SD and BD versions or upgrade multiple players...

Does anyone have any data comparing $ from PoTC sales from itunes @14.99 v. BD sales? I'd bet the itunes download business is probly growing even faster than either HD format. Reason IMO is the confusion that BD is causing and the FUD the BDA is creating makes it hard for many to adopt the real successor of DVD - HD DVD.

Well, that is a new tack

HD DVD can't even beat BD and yet it is supposed to be the successor of DVD, that sounds much more plausible. :rolleyes:

No I did not say Universal should not release on BD, I was simply pointing out that both formats are much closer when it comes to sales of same titles. So, in that regard Blockbusters that sell well on BD would also sell well on HD DVD....since Disney has more blockbusters than Universal, they are leaving more money on the table.

I can't believe this is too complex for people to understand.

Disney is releasing more blockbusters than Universal, that doesn't mean that Universal can't release blockbusters on HD media, it just means that they aren't.

If Universal made movies in the larger area of this market then the consumer would be able to buy one player that played all of the movies. This would increase adoption.

So why is that too complex for you to understand?

Darin, I thought it was clear I meant better than 30%. However, how does that impact my position that Disney is leaving more money on the table by having exclusive blockbusters than Uni with their catalog titles....you agree or not?

OK. So what is the logic that one format will increase sales for ALL studios...

How many articles in the general press have we all seen saying don't buy either format until there is a clear winner?

One player problem can be solved by dual format HD players. But only HD DVD can solve the problem of dual format DVD and HD disks...i.e. buy only one disks that will play in all players - HD and regular DVD :)

Guys, in the enf it isn't about % it is about $. Does anyone here believe that releasing PoTC on HD DVD will earn Disney more money than Universal releasing Bruce Almighty on BD! The amount of money you leave on the table is based more on what movie is being released rather than who is releasing it....the fact that same titles sell in the same range for both formats is the most important metric there can be.No I did not say Universal should not release on BD, I was simply pointing out that both formats are much closer when it comes to sales of same titles. So, in that regard Blockbusters that sell well on BD would also sell well on HD DVD....since Disney has more blockbusters than Universal, they are leaving more money on the table.
I see. You're saying Universal has crappier titles, so that's less incentive to release. Well, that's good business sense. If this is the case, why does Universal bother to release at all?
I am surprised how few people here do not care about the business side of these things. We do, just not when they're being presented so clumsily. Your theories in particular seem to change as often as release dates.

One player problem can be solved by dual format HD players. But only HD DVD can solve the problem of dual format DVD and HD disks...i.e. buy only one disks that will play in all players - HD and regular DVD :)

Fwaah? Any DVD will play in my Blu-ray player. Or do you mean my my BDs won't play in my old DVD player (which I gave to my brother in another state)? And why do I care?

Or is it like how HD DVD is doing better for studios, even though it only accounted for 30% of sales in the last Nielsen numbers, even though there was a Toshiba hardware fire sale going on at the time? And how inexpoensive do you imagine that the Chinese players can be (seeing as how they aren't going to make them for free?)

Guys, in the enf it isn't about % it is about $. Does anyone here believe that releasing PoTC on HD DVD will earn Disney more money than Universal releasing Bruce Almighty on BD! The amount of money you leave on the table is based more on what movie is being released rather than who is releasing it....the fact that same titles sell in the same range for both formats is the most important metric there can be.

I am surprised how few people here do not care about the business side of these things. I am simply trying to point out how business analysts work. But as long as the market is small it is easy to ignore the real economic environment...

Plazman, you're taking a short term view of things. By being firmly Blu-ray exclusive, Disney is thinking more strategically and looking toward maximizing profits over the long term. And believe it or not, for many years or decades to come Disney will have periodic re-releases of it Blu-ray "stars".

And the "metric" that Universal is overlooking is that the disparity of gross sales for discs released in both formats have favored Blu-ray for some time AND THE DISPARITY IS GROWING AND WILL CONTINUE TO GROW.

No I did not say Universal should not release on BD, I was simply pointing out that both formats are much closer when it comes to sales of same titles. So, in that regard Blockbusters that sell well on BD would also sell well on HD DVD....since Disney has more blockbusters than Universal, they are leaving more money on the table.

I can't believe this is too complex for people to understand.

Again, you're thinking short term money. Disney and the other Blu-ray studios are thinking long term. I can't believe the ability to think strategically is too complex for some people to master. Do you want a nickle now or a dollar tomorrow? Fools will take the nickle everytime.

One player problem can be solved by dual format HD players. But only HD DVD can solve the problem of dual format DVD and HD disks...i.e. buy only one disks that will play in all players - HD and regular DVD :)

Sounds like a Rube Goldman solution to me. Better to go with a quality solution like Blu-ray players. Mine plays Blu-ray discs just fine and, just as fine, upscales regular DVDs. I'm in Blu heaven and more folks join us here everyday.

Bullet point time again :)

1. Most people with a new BD/HD DVD player will also have DVD players. In order to watch the same movie on all players requires you to buy both a DVD+ BD disk. HD DVD combo disk means you buy one disk that plays in all players..

2. With a dual format disk studios can do whatever they are doing - Fox and Disney can have BD+ and region coding and Universal, WB and Paramount can have lower production cost and consumers can simply buy the movie they want and play it on their single player at home.

3. Plus with dual players studios can pick and choose which format they want what disks to be on to optimize their profits.

4. Long term strategic thinking does favor HD DVD since it looks beyond Sonys limited replication capacity to the time when existing DVD lines will be converted for HD media and a single disk will have both the HD and SD version of a movie....allowing people to build up their HD library at no extra cost....it is short term thinking to believe that the PS3 will win the format war - right now we have 1.5M PS3 sold and around the same number of disks....Sony is spending decent $ in upgrading the PS3 to a movie player....as of now the cost to Sony is $200+ in subsidy cost for the PS3 - that is $3B so far spent....how is that strategic? How do you make money in the long run with that sort of economics?

I bet Disney, Fox etc are unsure about how to make money on BD. The format is going nowhere. The magic bullet is to end the format war. But that is not the fundamental problem. The problem is with the economics behind BD itself. Disney seems to be more enamoured by itunes than BD for now....their upcoming BD release schedule is weak to say the least, not indicative of a studio bullish on the format....my 2 cents.

JB, I never said anything about Uni having crappier titles (are even in high school?) I simply said Disney is releasing more blockbusters - blockbusters does not equal better movies IMO. For me Ghost Rider was pretty crappy, Midnight Run OTOH was an excellent movie. But Ghost Rider is a much better seller....

You can look at the BO numbers and see that Disney is doing better than Uni.

I bet Disney, Fox etc are unsure about how to make money on BD. The format is going nowhere.

Going into the format that's less than "half-nowhere" certainly wouldn't be the answer.


The magic bullet is to end the format war.

Indeed. BD has been pounding on HDDVD all year and Q4 is obviously where both sides are positition for the beginning of the endgame. BD's survival shouldn't really be in doubt, th ough... The only question is whether HDDVD will survive at the end of it. If so, it wouldn't necessarily be bad and universal players and the DVD +/- R solution may have a shot.

JB, I never said anything about Uni having crappier titles (are even in high school?) I simply said Disney is releasing more blockbusters - blockbusters does not equal better movies IMO. For me Ghost Rider was pretty crappy, Midnight Run OTOH was an excellent movie. But Ghost Rider is a much better seller....

You can look at the BO numbers and see that Disney is doing better than Uni.


I'll agree with that. IMO SM3 & POTC3 were both mediocre, at the same time the "newness" has an appeal, and I'll probably get the SM series & POTC series.

I'll also say that it's rediculous to sell catalog titles for what they're selling them. For the hardcore enthusist, yeah $20 - $25 for a 20 year old film may be fine, but for "normal people" with hd-players, $10 is more reasonable. Studios would make less to the bottom line per copy sold, but sell far more copies.

Darin, I thought it was clear I meant better than 30%.Seriously? Just the other day you posted:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10898753&&#post10898753
I am sure people realize that it is a good thing to have a more even distribution of sales across titles rather than relying on a couple of titles for most of the sales. So if we have 220 titles on HD DVD and 250 on BD and BD has a 60% to 40% market share advantage and say a 80% to 20% share in the top 20. So outside of the top 20 and the 30 extra titles, HD DVD sells better on avg. from 21 thru 220. Which means a greater diversity of titles sell better on HD DVD v. BD, so IF you are looking to release your catalog on on of the formats, which do your think looks like the better deal? Clearly HD DVD!and defended it when I pointed out the faulty logic. You replied with more faulty logic that you ended with, "That was wayyyyyy to easy." Are you trying to deceive people? One post from you seems to clearly take the position that things below 20 are doing over 50% for HD DVD, then in this thread you post:
Actually the format war will not be decided by marketing slogans. You have to go below the skin deep marketing and PR fluff to try to understand the true picture...

HD DVD is selling better across a wider spectrum of titles....which is a good thing. IMO.Is there anybody in this thread besides plazman who thinks that in the post I just quoted "selling better" meant selling better than 30% and not "selling better than Blu-ray".

Simple question plazman. If your claim was "better than 30%", why did you post elsewhere using basically the same logic you were pushing in this thread, and claimed that those looking to release catalog titles should release them on HD DVD? Your greater than 30% sure doesn't support that. Sure looks like you were claiming greater than 50% there and now want to change things. Or were you claiming greater than 50% for catalog titles just 2 days ago and now are claiming greater than 30% for the lower titles (which you thought should be obvious)?
However, how does that impact my position that Disney is leaving more money on the table by having exclusive blockbusters than Uni with their catalog titles....you agree or not?You talk about looking at the business reasons and then it seems like you purposely want to ignore anything except a moment in time where one has more blockbusters. For a single movie that is going to be much more popular than another, of course not releasing it on some format is likely leaving more money on the table than the same thing for a title that isn't going to sell as well either way. Universal is a major studio and if your position is that Disney releases will swamp Universal releases for popularity regardless of the format and this will continue, feel free to say so. And taking money off the table now can mean missing out on money that would be on the table elsewhere. Again, simple business, yet you seem to want to ignore it and act like it is others how aren't using business sense. I don't honestly know why you are ignoring some business basics.

One player problem can be solved by dual format HD players.And now you want to burden purchasers with paying for licenses for both formats for years? Those licenses aren't free and get passed on to consumers. Dual format players don't double the license fees, but they go up. Makes it hard to get below a certain point for sales prices.
With a dual format disk studios can do whatever they are doing - Fox and Disney can have BD+ and region coding and Universal, WB and Paramount can have lower production cost and consumers can simply buy the movie they want and play it on their single player at home.Do you understand the BD ROM-Mark? It is largely to stop or slow down professional pirates from replicating discs and selling them. With HD DVD around that would give them a solution for pirating Blu-ray movies too and selling them on HD DVDs. So, no, things would not be the same for Fox and Disney. And unless consumers are burdened with the cost of combo players, those studios would have to make discs for both formats, adding to the time to master them (like menus and extras like games) or miss out on some sales they would have gotten if HD DVD didn't exist.

Amir made it clear that one reason they weren't happy with the Blu-ray camp is that they didn't make things so that the formats were more alike and easier to make combo players and now your idea seems to be to hopefully end up at a place where consumers need to buy combo players, engineers need to work on combo players, or those making extras and menus for these need to do much of that work twice for the differences between the formats, etc.

I also find it interesting that one of the main reasons you think HD DVD is so great is because of combo discs when people around here dislike them so much that Universal stopped doing them for their catalog releases.

IMO, you are really reaching today. I bet if there had been a format with 6GB of space and lower bandwidth than DVD, but built on the same machines that make CDs (with some modifications) you would have been saying that you preferred that format to DVD or that they should have both stuck around so that even today people would need to buy combo players instead of just having the one DVD format for everybody. Of course there was a cost to building DVD replicators instead of modifying CD replicators, but at the time Toshiba didn't seem to have a problem moving forward more.

--Darin

OK. So what is the logic that one format will increase sales for ALL studios...and how does the upgrade from DVD to BD seem smoother than the upgrade from DVD to HD DVD? Isn't the goal to migrate folks from DVD to HD Media? How does BD even make that possible? It would be wayyyyy more expensive than going from DVD to HD DVD...

Just because more studios are behind BD does not mean that their imposed solution is going to work....DVD to HD DVD is possible....DVD to BD is probably never going to happen. Too expensive and will require many people to buy 2 disks - SD and BD versions or upgrade multiple players...

Does anyone have any data comparing $ from PoTC sales from itunes @14.99 v. BD sales? I'd bet the itunes download business is probly growing even faster than either HD format. Reason IMO is the confusion that BD is causing and the FUD the BDA is creating makes it hard for many to adopt the real successor of DVD - HD DVD.

I try and be respectful, but this is so dumb it's funny. I'm not even quite sure how to respond to something like this...BD can't win because HD-DVD is the rightful successor? Is this guy for real, or is he trying to be funny?

Sony is spending decent $ in upgrading the PS3 to a movie player....as of now the cost to Sony is $200+ in subsidy cost for the PS3 - that is $3B so far spent....how is that strategic? How do you make money in the long run with that sort of economics?



Are you so blind with your loyalty to HD DVD that you can't see the obvious? :rolleyes:

Hello! Sony also has games divisions and studios. The way consoles work is that you lose money on hardware but you make it back through software. It offsets the hardware $$$ loss. It's been the strategy for both Sony and Microsoft since the last generation.

I can't believe people have to spell this out for you like you're in kindergarten. :rolleyes:

Let me pose this question/scenario. This week Blu-ray lead 70/30 over HD-DVD. If Blu-ray were to lead in next Friday's (7/06/07) numbers by even a larger ratio, lets say 75/25 or even 71/29 and given the fact that for that reporting cycle HD-DVD had a 14 to 0 exclusive advantage, where would HD-DVD's current state of affairs be? Could even the HD-DVD owners agree that HD-DVD is in serious trouble?

~Josh

Let me pose this question/scenario. This week Blu-ray lead 70/30 over HD-DVD. If Blu-ray were to lead in next Friday's (7/06/07) numbers by even a larger ratio, lets say 75/25 or even 71/29 and given the fact that for that reporting cycle HD-DVD had a 14 to 0 exclusive advantage, where would HD-DVD's current state of affairs be? Could even the HD-DVD owners agree that HD-DVD is in serious trouble?

~Josh

I don't think there's a chance in hell of Blu-ray getting 70% next week. I would be SHOCKED if Blu-ray was to do 64:36. I'm expecting the first HD DVD win of the year by 53:47.

I don't think there's a chance in hell of Blu-ray getting 70% next week. I would be SHOCKED if Blu-ray was to do 64:36. I'm expecting the first HD DVD win of the year by 53:47.

Next friday is one heck of an important date.

I don't think there's a chance in hell of Blu-ray getting 70% next week. I would be SHOCKED if Blu-ray was to do 64:36. I'm expecting the first HD DVD win of the year by 53:47.
Next friday is Red team's best chance to lead. The exclusive red releases are overwhelming. However, they are all old catalogs, and some are quite questionable. There are a couple of good movies though. Lebowski and Meet Joe Black are entertaining enough. (I don't recall what in those two will look good in highdef)

I don't think there's a chance in hell of Blu-ray getting 70% next week. I would be SHOCKED if Blu-ray was to do 64:36. I'm expecting the first HD DVD win of the year by 53:47.


I think it'll be 64:36 next week. If you look at the hd-dvd/blu-ray amazon comparison graph, hd-dvd shrinks the gap, but doesn't come close to overtaking. Maybe 1 or 2 of hd-dvd's exclusives is doing decently (ranking in the 1xx), but blu-rays older "hit" releases seem to be outselling them for the most part.

6/26 marked the day that the hd-dvd exclusives were released.

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/91/cachedimageservicego5.png (http://imageshack.us)

Next friday is one heck of an important date.

I predict low-sales for both as it's the day before the biggest holiday of the summer. Actually I predict low sales for both no matter what, so the only thing important about this Friday or any other Friday in the near future is if you guys are making book on these predictions.

Let me pose this question/scenario. This week Blu-ray lead 70/30 over HD-DVD. If Blu-ray were to lead in next Friday's (7/06/07) numbers by even a larger ratio, lets say 75/25 or even 71/29 and given the fact that for that reporting cycle HD-DVD had a 14 to 0 exclusive advantage, where would HD-DVD's current state of affairs be? Could even the HD-DVD owners agree that HD-DVD is in serious trouble?What if HD DVD wins the week 90/10? What if somebody agrees to give us all a million dollars? In other words, none of these things is going to happen for that week.

--Darin

I try and be respectful, but this is so dumb it's funny. I'm not even quite sure how to respond to something like this...BD can't win because HD-DVD is the rightful successor? Is this guy for real, or is he trying to be funny?
We have heard of the divine right of kings. Now we have the divine right of the dvd foum.

I don't think he is trying to be funny. The above argument is for real and imo, way divorced from reality.

what the hell is going on in this thread...its gonna get locked ....keep it on topic and not on smackdown

Darin, Perhaps I should have qualified it better :)

OK. Since I post during work and we were in the end of the Q so losts of work - I have to make some assumptions that people will understand the gist of my comments. Obviously this isn't an essay here...

When I say 'better' I meant it in the same way that one woukd say that HD DVD picked up market share in Q2 v. Q1. This does not mean that HD DVD sold more movies than BD, but it means that HD DVD picked up a larger % of the market....so by better it means that it was an area where HD DVD is doing 'relatively' better than BD. So, in some of the posts I should have perhaps qualified it with relatively. However, this does not change the basic premise of the argument which was, that the more skewed the top 10 sales rankings were, the less skewed the rest of the titles would be...and as I said, based on your business model you could either like it or not. I have seen folks prefer either one.

The next thing is that my point is that when you examine sales you should look at beyond just the basic number. There is value in analyzing what the numbers are telling us beyond just the obvious...Anyway, my point was to show the more skewed the top titles are the more the rest of the titles will be. Which makes it more attractive for studios to release those titles that are not going to be huge sellers.

As for HD DVD being the successor of DVD. I thought I clarified that the reasons were:

1. HD DVD can be produced from existing DVD production lines while BD cannot. So HD DVD has disk the replication advantage.

2. HD DVD disk can also have the DVD version on the same disk. BD cannot.

3. HD DVD allows a studio to release just one disk for a movie - which contains both HD and SD versions and will play in all your current Players. With BD you will have to buy 2 - the SD and BD versions.

So when I say one offers the better upgrade path, it is because of technical compatibility, not because the DVD Forum endorsed it.

So to summarize, my 2 key points here are:

1. The more skewed the top 10 sales are, the less skewed the rest will be.

2. HD DVD is technically more compatible with DVD than BD, hence will make transition easier.

Oh yeah. Before I forget. The cost of dual format players - in the end it is not the number of royalties that matter but the cost of the player. If its to expensive people won't buy. Simple as that....

Finallly, about the subsidy to the PS3. My point was that Sony is spending a lot of money om subsidizing it as a BD player. There is a lot of PS3 being bought ONLY as a BD player or primarily as a BD Player. I doubt anyone is doing the same with the xbox.

If I left something out I get to it next time :)

Are you so blind with your loyalty to HD DVD that you can't see the obvious? :rolleyes:

Hello! Sony also has games divisions and studios. The way consoles work is that you lose money on hardware but you make it back through software. It offsets the hardware $$$ loss. It's been the strategy for both Sony and Microsoft since the last generation.

I can't believe people have to spell this out for you like you're in kindergarten. :rolleyes:
Make up your mind. Sony is selling [20]% of its PS3's for movies only (a guessed equivalent number of PS3's that consume the same amount of movies as dedicated players). So they get no game revenue for those 20% equivalents, and they get to subsidize each one for $200. For 10,000,000 players they've thrown nearly $1/2 billion down the hole.

I'll agree with that. IMO SM3 & POTC3 were both mediocre, at the same time the "newness" has an appeal, and I'll probably get the SM series & POTC series.

I'll also say that it's rediculous to sell catalog titles for what they're selling them. For the hardcore enthusist, yeah $20 - $25 for a 20 year old film may be fine, but for "normal people" with hd-players, $10 is more reasonable. Studios would make less to the bottom line per copy sold, but sell far more copies.

SM3 and POTC3 will sell like crazy in HD.. no matter if YOU liked them or not, them being release close to Xmas will rock

Make up your mind. Sony is selling [20]% of its PS3's for movies only (a guessed equivalent number of PS3's that consume the same amount of movies as dedicated players). So they get no game revenue for those 20% equivalents, and they get to subsidize each one for $200. For 10,000,000 players they've thrown nearly $1/2 billion down the hole.

The 20% that are being used for movies....

wait for it...



Can and are still being used for games.

I know this is mindblowing stuff. ;)

Darin, Perhaps I should have qualified it better :)

OK. Since I post during work and we were in the end of the Q so losts of work - I have to make some assumptions that people will understand the gist of my comments. Obviously this isn't an essay here...

When I say 'better' I meant it in the same way that one woukd say that HD DVD picked up market share in Q2 v. Q1. This does not mean that HD DVD sold more movies than BD, but it means that HD DVD picked up a larger % of the market....so by better it means that it was an area where HD DVD is doing 'relatively' better than BD. So, in some of the posts I should have perhaps qualified it with relatively. However, this does not change the basic premise of the argument which was, that the more skewed the top 10 sales rankings were, the less skewed the rest of the titles would be...and as I said, based on your business model you could either like it or not. I have seen folks prefer either one.

The next thing is that my point is that when you examine sales you should look at beyond just the basic number. There is value in analyzing what the numbers are telling us beyond just the obvious...Anyway, my point was to show the more skewed the top titles are the more the rest of the titles will be. Which makes it more attractive for studios to release those titles that are not going to be huge sellers.

As for HD DVD being the successor of DVD. I thought I clarified that the reasons were:

1. HD DVD can be produced from existing DVD production lines while BD cannot. So HD DVD has disk the replication advantage.

2. HD DVD disk can also have the DVD version on the same disk. BD cannot.

3. HD DVD allows a studio to release just one disk for a movie - which contains both HD and SD versions and will play in all your current Players. With BD you will have to buy 2 - the SD and BD versions.

So when I say one offers the better upgrade path, it is because of technical compatibility, not because the DVD Forum endorsed it.

So to summarize, my 2 key points here are:

1. The more skewed the top 10 sales are, the less skewed the rest will be.

2. HD DVD is technically more compatible with DVD than BD, hence will make transition easier.

Oh yeah. Before I forget. The cost of dual format players - in the end it is not the number of royalties that matter but the cost of the player. If its to expensive people won't buy. Simple as that....

Finallly, about the subsidy to the PS3. My point was that Sony is spending a lot of money om subsidizing it as a BD player. There is a lot of PS3 being bought ONLY as a BD player or primarily as a BD Player. I doubt anyone is doing the same with the xbox.

If I left something out I get to it next time :)

Apparently plazman is calling for all future HD DVD releases to be combos, ignoring the fact that the tiny percentage of people who already bought into HD DVD basically despise them.

Funny, I don't seem to remember vhs/dvd combo disc/tape things, maybe I am just blocking them out.

FWIW I agree that this doesn't belong here and won't reply to it anymore in this thread.

If you go back and read plazman's prior posts, you'll find that he is one of the most insightful posters here. Unlike many DVD buffs, he actually has some understanding of business. While reasonable people can often disagree with his conclusions, some of the other posters here are embarrassing themselves--or, rather, they should feel embarrassed.

The 20% that are being used for movies....

wait for it...



Can and are still being used for games.

I know this is mindblowing stuff. ;)
Looking at the sales figures for PS3 games, I'm not certain that 20% of the user base are actually buying PS3 games.
Hopefully that will change as more compelling games come out.
Maybe PS3 users are still buying mostly PS2 games?

Apparently plazman is calling for all future HD DVD releases to be combos, ignoring the fact that the tiny percentage of people who already bought into HD DVD basically despise them.

Funny, I don't seem to remember vhs/dvd combo disc/tape things, maybe I am just blocking them out.

FWIW I agree that this doesn't belong here and won't reply to it anymore in this thread.

With the new Twin Format - which is less expensive to produce than the Combo this could be the future for both DVD and HD DVD releases (for those supporting HD DVD):

1. Looks like a DVD - silk screen on top
2. No glue issue
3. DVD reads it's layer - HD DVD reads it's layers
4. Less material cost and cheaper to manufacturer than a Combo.
5. Made on the same man. line as a DVD or HD DVD

Plays in any DVD player without trying to figure which side to play - just pop it in and enjoy the movie. - No disclaimer that it will only play in an HD DVD player.

BRD has nothing like this now or for the foreseeable future.

A very powerful "weapon" that can be used in the war - if used correctly ala pricing.

With the new Twin Format - which is less expensive to produce than the Combo this could be the future for both DVD and HD DVD releases (for those supporting HD DVD):

1. Looks like a DVD - silk screen on top
2. No glue issue
3. DVD reads it's layer - HD DVD reads it's layers
4. Less material cost and cheaper to manufacturer than a Combo.
5. Made on the same man. line as a DVD or HD DVD

Plays in any DVD player without trying to figure which side to play - just pop it in and enjoy the movie. - No disclaimer that it will only play in an HD DVD player.

BRD has nothing like this now or for the foreseeable future.

A very powerful "weapon" that can be used in the war - if used correctly ala pricing.


I disagree the resounding sentiment has been that we want HD versions of movies only. I am happy that BD can not have a side or layer with the SD version as I dont want it. Thus it saves me money and also makes more money for the studios, because they dont have to eat the cost of putting the SD version on it as well (though currently they are making consumers pay for it). Studios will see that they can make more money on BD thus good for BD good for having only 1 format thus good for us all.

I disagree the resounding sentiment has been that we want HD versions of movies only. I am happy that BD can not have a side or layer with the SD version as I dont want it. Thus it saves me money and also makes more money for the studios, because they dont have to eat the cost of putting the SD version on it as well (though currently they are making consumers pay for it). Studios will see that they can make more money on BD thus good for BD good for having only 1 format thus good for us all.

But this is your personal opinion and you are speaking as a BD supporter. The cost differental between a Twin and an HD DVD is pennies.

Most people have DVD players besides their HDM player. If they have children with their own DVD players or a Van/SUV that has a DVD player, or even friends and relatives with DVD players - they can take advantage of the dual format.

If priced at $29.99 like a regular HD DVD and a few dollars higher than a DVD - I am sure even you can see the benefit to it.

Jiffy, I believe you are making my point. Unlike VHS and DVD, with HD DVD you can in fact have both versions on the same disk. And my comment was in response to those who said that people do NOT want a BD Player and an HD DVD Player and one format, one player is what people want...

My point is that BD does not solve the problem of one disk for one movie, which HD DVD does. Unlike VHS v. DVD, in the case of DVD v. High Def, people may want to still keep their DVD players for screen sizes below 32 inches. In that case they would need to buy 2 copies of the movie and studios would need to make a DVD and BD version. So, if we are talking about seamless upgrade from DVD to hi def, HD DVD is definitely more seamless. Why are we even arguing this? Technically HD DVD is designed to integrate with DVD better than BD, by design.

Also we have another major difference between the current Hi def war than between beta v. VHS. In beta v. VHS there was no way for a VHS owner to watch a beta exclusive movie on that player - in the case of the current war ALL movies will play on ALL players the only difference is the ratio of SD to HD content based on the format you support. So as an HD DVD owner I can always watch Ghost Rider upconverted and Casino in Hi-def and a BD owner can do just the reverse....it's a trade off, applicable to both formats.

Finally, what the Neilson numbers are showing is that adoption is slow in general. That for me is the much bigger story than the sales ratio. If Hi def video were a $1B market by now, we would not even care about 70% and 30%. Do we have a thread that monitors the weekly sales ratio of LCD v. Plasma? I believe the slow adoption is due to the confusion being caused by the BDA. It is the BDA that is making a huge deal about the format war. The HD DVD group by contrast has a simple message - there are 2 formats for hi def, there will be 2 formats. Just pick the one you want and enjoy the content. If you want both get a BD player or a combo player....

The BDA is more like there will be one, there must be one....so since there isn't one don't buy! OK. That is what most consumers are doing. Not buying....

Question about these "twin format"... isn't it limited to just 3 layers, meaning you can have DVD-9, HD-DVD 30 but not both? Or would this new format allow DVD-9 as well as HD-DVD 30 (or 51 in the future, if it ever comes to fruition?)

Question about these "twin format"... isn't it limited to just 3 layers, meaning you can have DVD-9, HD-DVD 30 but not both? Or would this new format allow DVD-9 as well as HD-DVD 30 (or 51 in the future, if it ever comes to fruition?)

Yes - 3 layers. And Toshiba and Universal did announce a 45 GB 3 layer disc a while ago. 15GB on each layer so SD DVD gets one 15GB layer and HD DVD gets the other 2 at 30GB

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-10-2005/0003592426&EDATE=

As usual Plaz, your logic is flawed. You say HD DVD is more compatible because of combo dics, but they are rarely used and then are more expensive, you always pound your chest on how cheap HD is, except a combo.

I remember when you would use dvdwars to prove how HD had such greater adoption, now BD does better there and in Nielsen. But somehow HD is still doing better when it is selling 3 copies(not literal) of each catalog title, when BD is apparently ony selling well in the top 10(your view). We don't know the numbers outside the top 10, so quit making it sound like HD must be doing better there, when you really don't.

Anyone with a lick of sense, knows that there should only be one format for mass adoption, but that ship sailed over a year ago. So here we are standing on our soap boxes proclaiming which format is better. But this a Nielson thread and it keeps showing that BD is doing better than HD, get used to it.

As usual Plaz, your logic is flawed. You say HD DVD is more compatible because of combo dics, but they are rarely used and then are more expensive, you always pound your chest on how cheap HD is, except a combo.

I remember when you would use dvdwars to prove how HD had such greater adoption, now BD does better there and in Nielsen. But somehow HD is still doing better when it is selling 3 copies(not literal) of each catalog title, when BD is apparently ony selling well in the top 10(your view). We don't know the numbers outside the top 10, so quit making it sound like HD must be doing better there, when you really don't.

Anyone with a lick of sense, knows that there should only be one format for mass adoption, but that ship sailed over a year ago. So here we are standing on our soap boxes proclaiming which format is better. But this a Nielson thread and it keeps showing that BD is doing better than HD, get used to it.

We are used to it. 7 months worth of "used to it" and in that 7 months - the numbers don't change. If BD is doing well, then HD DVD has kept up. And seeing as how the entire HDM market represents .03% of total optical disc revenue - you are cheering on two go carts that are racing each other in the middle of the Daytona 500.

Are you so blind with your loyalty to HD DVD that you can't see the obvious? :rolleyes:

Hello! Sony also has games divisions and studios. The way consoles work is that you lose money on hardware but you make it back through software. It offsets the hardware $$$ loss. It's been the strategy for both Sony and Microsoft since the last generation.

I can't believe people have to spell this out for you like you're in kindergarten. :rolleyes:

The problem for Sony is that software sales for the PS3 and PSP are really poor so they aren't able to offset their losses on hardware. No wonder Nintendo are now worth more than the whole of Sony, they make a killing and software and hardware.

If you go back and read plazman's prior posts, you'll find that he is one of the most insightful posters here. Unlike many DVD buffs, he actually has some understanding of business. While reasonable people can often disagree with his conclusions, some of the other posters here are embarrassing themselves--or, rather, they should feel embarrassed.
Agreed.

And much of the time I DISagree with Plazman, but most of his arguments are well thought out. He is also not above rethinking his positions when he believes the evidence warrants such.

I too have been a bit disturbed by these attacks on him, though I must admit that I have not been keeping up so I don't know whether the attacks are warranted or not. Regardless that kind of behavior does not belong on this thread.

With the new Twin Format - which is less expensive to produce than the Combo this could be the future for both DVD and HD DVD releases (for those supporting HD DVD):

1. Looks like a DVD - silk screen on top
2. No glue issue
3. DVD reads it's layer - HD DVD reads it's layers
4. Less material cost and cheaper to manufacturer than a Combo.
5. Made on the same man. line as a DVD or HD DVD

Plays in any DVD player without trying to figure which side to play - just pop it in and enjoy the movie. - No disclaimer that it will only play in an HD DVD player.

BRD has nothing like this now or for the foreseeable future.

A very powerful "weapon" that can be used in the war - if used correctly ala pricing.
I was hoping for something like this before the formats even came out. It would be great if BD would/could do this. The early thought was that this was impossible on either format.

The problem for Sony is that software sales for the PS3 and PSP are really poor so they aren't able to offset their losses on hardware. No wonder Nintendo are now worth more than the whole of Sony, they make a killing and software and hardware.

LOL nintendo is using 6 years old Hardware desgized in a interface using a 'new' way of playing games..

But right now, if you check the forum... the gaming forum , you'll see that there's about 2 games that actually work great with that remote and it's Wii Sports (a game that come with the console) and another one that i forgot.

The thing is.. right of the bat.. the Wii cost nothing to make, isn't even compatible with HD (well only 1fr party are 480p and widescreen) but Nintendo sell it 'Cheaper' and do what all Console marker do, sell the accessories at RipOff price... both controller for the Wii is about 100$CAD total (witch is need for the whole package)..

Plazmans posts are based on the fact that HD DVD had a plan to make the transition from DVD to HD DVD a "painless" one and a smooth one. HD DVD did have a chance because of two discs that marry DVD amd HD DVD together.

That chance is gone now with the introduction of BRD. A format that is not compatable with DVD. Oh the players are - but not the software.

With both the Twin and Combo formats - you could buy software with both DVD and HD DVD and when you are read to buy an HD DVD player - your collection is there for the viewing.

BRD - only works in a BRD player. Sony created yet another niche product and that is going to cause the whole HDM marketplace to remain a niche for a long time . . possibly forever.

LOL nintendo is using 6 years old Hardware desgized in a interface using a 'new' way of playing games..

But right now, if you check the forum... the gaming forum , you'll see that there's about 2 games that actually work great with that remote and it's Wii Sports (a game that come with the console) and another one that i forgot.

The thing is.. right of the bat.. the Wii cost nothing to make, isn't even compatible with HD (well only 1fr party are 480p and widescreen) but Nintendo sell it 'Cheaper' and do what all Console marker do, sell the accessories at RipOff price... both controller for the Wii is about 100$CAD total (witch is need for the whole package)..

The hardware in the Wii is more up to date than both the PS3 and the Xbox360. It may lack the CPU power and HD graphics, but the fact that it consumes less than a 10th of the power shows how modern it is.

I don't think there's a chance in hell of Blu-ray getting 70% next week. I would be SHOCKED if Blu-ray was to do 64:36. I'm expecting the first HD DVD win of the year by 53:47.

I disagree. I don't think HD DVD will win the week ending July 1. Maybe next week (thanks to Blood Diamond) or one of the weeks in the second half of July.

Like another poster said, sales are pretty slow overall.

Planet Earth and Blockbuster notwithstanding, I can't help wondering what are those new 50,000 HD DVD player owners doing right now.

BRD - only works in a BRD player. Sony created yet another niche product and that is going to cause the whole HDM marketplace to remain a niche for a long time . . possibly forever.
Sounds like you've reached some conclusions about HD DVD there. ;)

With both the Twin and Combo formats - you could buy software with both DVD and HD DVD and when you are read to buy an HD DVD player - your collection is there for the viewing.

Except when the discs don't work.

Sounds like you've reached some conclusions about HD DVD there. ;)

Sure I have. Isn't HD DVD part of the HDM marketplace?

I try to look at the big picture. I try to see what is stopping the formats from growth - and unfortunately there are a bunch of obstacles and hurdles that HDM needs to get over before it can reach success . . .

The first being mass appeal. HDM is an evolutionary format not a revolutonary format. Biggest hurdle.

And with the issue of two formats as opposed to one - another roadblock.

We have accepted 2 formats for PC's, we have accepted more than two formats for games. We are in the middle of a transition of one format to another (HDTV)

But for many - this is the first time we have 2 video formats where the machines themselves are not much different. They both play HD movies - they both play DVD's. Anything else is BS bells lights and whistles.

Yes - 3 layers. And Toshiba and Universal did announce a 45 GB 3 layer disc a while ago. 15GB on each layer so SD DVD gets one 15GB layer and HD DVD gets the other 2 at 30GB

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-10-2005/0003592426&EDATE=

What would the point of the SD layer be if it couldn't be played on an SD DVD player?

What would the point of the SD layer be if it couldn't be played on an SD DVD player?

Don't understand your question. One layer for SD DVD and two for HD DVD. It will work fine in a SD DVD player just like the Twin Format movie of Freedom 1 does today. Only difference is the second 15 GB layer for HD DVD

The "Twin Format" doesn't mean twin layers - it means 2 different formats

Darin, Perhaps I should have qualified it better :)

OK. Since I post during work and we were in the end of the Q so losts of work - I have to make some assumptions that people will understand the gist of my comments. Obviously this isn't an essay here...

When I say 'better' I meant it in the same way that one woukd say that HD DVD picked up market share in Q2 v. Q1. This does not mean that HD DVD sold more movies than BD, but it means that HD DVD picked up a larger % of the market....so by better it means that it was an area where HD DVD is doing 'relatively' better than BD. So, in some of the posts I should have perhaps qualified it with relatively. However, this does not change the basic premise of the argument which was, that the more skewed the top 10 sales rankings were, the less skewed the rest of the titles would be...and as I said, based on your business model you could either like it or not. I have seen folks prefer either one.I understand the basic premise and you still haven't addressed this part in the post you just responded to:
Just the other day you posted:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10898753&&#post10898753
I am sure people realize that it is a good thing to have a more even distribution of sales across titles rather than relying on a couple of titles for most of the sales. So if we have 220 titles on HD DVD and 250 on BD and BD has a 60% to 40% market share advantage and say a 80% to 20% share in the top 20. So outside of the top 20 and the 30 extra titles, HD DVD sells better on avg. from 21 thru 220. Which means a greater diversity of titles sell better on HD DVD v. BD, so IF you are looking to release your catalog on on of the formats, which do your think looks like the better deal? Clearly HD DVD!and defended it when I pointed out the faulty logic. You replied with more faulty logic that you ended with, "That was wayyyyyy to easy."I know what you are saying "better" means in your posts on this subject, but I think it is clear to everybody that you used this to claim that those releasing catalog titles should release on HD DVD. As I have said more than once, that is faulty logic. It makes no sense to make that claim based on the catalog titles doing better than 30%, because they need to be doing better than 50% for your claim to be valid (other than bringing other issues in). Do you understand why your claim of what a studio looking to release catalog titles should do is faulty logic based just on them doing better than the top titles (where they are getting beat more handily)?

Basically, if you can show better than 50% sales for individual catalog titles recently enough then you can support your claim there, but just showing better than 30% or even 40% doesn't.

--Darin

I don't think there's a chance in hell of Blu-ray getting 70% next week. I would be SHOCKED if Blu-ray was to do 64:36. I'm expecting the first HD DVD win of the year by 53:47.
I think you're overestimating the selling power of catalog titles. I expect more of a 57:43 in favor of Blu-ray.

Don't understand your question. One layer for SD DVD and two for HD DVD. It will work fine in a SD DVD player just like the Twin Format movie of Freedom 1 does today. Only difference is the second 15 GB layer for HD DVD

The "Twin Format" doesn't mean twin layers - it means 2 different formats

because you said 15GB layer for SD DVD, well that one will not play on SD DVD player :)

one layer for SD DVD is 4.5GB, two layers 9GB

Marek

because you said 15GB layer for SD DVD, well that one will not play on SD DVD player :)

one layer for SD DVD is 4.5GB, two layers 9GB

Marek

The layer will be read by a red laser. The pits will be readable by a red laser on the DVD layer.

It will just have 6GB of extra space - you know like a BRD movie has now.

The layer will be read by a red laser. The pits will be readable by a red laser on the DVD layer.

It will just have 6GB of extra space - you know like a BRD movie has now.What are you trying to say? Are you saying that a twin format disc with 3 layers will have 15GB for DVD plus 30GB for HD DVD? Sounds like it, but that isn't right. It would be more like 30/4.5GB or 15/9GB (or around those) depending on how many layers they gave to each.

--Darin

The layer will be read by a red laser. The pits will be readable by a red laser on the DVD layer.

It will just have 6GB of extra space - you know like a BRD movie has now.

any link to back up this ?
how do you know that SD DVD player will read 15GB layer ?
9GB is already two layers.... and suddenly you will have 15GB single layer for SD ?

What are you trying to say? Are you saying that a twin format disc with 3 layers will have 15GB for DVD plus 30GB for HD DVD? Sounds like it, but that isn't right. It would be more like 30/4.5GB or 15/9GB (or around those) depending on how many layers they gave to each.

--Darin

Here is the information that I have and my source. As this is 2 years old - we can look back to the announceme4nt to see how many new HD DVD formats have come from this announcement. If I am incorrect in the issuse that they are not equal 15GB layers but a single 9 GB layer and (2) 18 GB layers for a total of 45 GB 3 layers - it is not important at all.

It is a format that allows a DVD and a HD DVD to reside on a single face with silk sscreen on the top and will play in either a SD DVD player or a HD DVD player. Just pop in the disc - player takes care of which layer(s) read

Universal Studios Home Entertainment Endorses New HD DVD Discs

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Universal Studios Home
Entertainment (USHE) today announced its endorsement of two new types of HD
DVD ROM (read-only) discs, which were announced today by Toshiba Corporation.
Toshiba has just announced a triple-layered, 45GB disc, and a
double-sided, double-layer hybrid ROM disc that can store 30GB of
high-definition content on one side and 8.5GB of standard-definition content
on the other.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-10-2005/0003592426&EDATE=

Lee,

I went and read that article linked in your previous post. I saw nothing that said the 3-layer disc could be read by standard SD DVD drives. The only mention of SD was with the 2-sided discs.

Lee,

I went and read that article linked in your previous post. I saw nothing that said the 3-layer disc could be read by standard SD DVD drives. The only mention of SD was with the 2-sided discs.


"This impressive hybrid technology breakthrough by Toshiba allows
consumers the unique experience of purchasing one disc that will play both on
the new HD DVD player as well as on their current DVD device," said Craig
Kornblau, President, Universal Studios Home Entertainment. "The addition of
the new versions to the HD DVD disc line up will allow USHE to further broaden
its market potential by providing a wider variety of HD content for future
generations of consumers as well as encouraging current DVD owners to
transition to the HD format."

Notice he said "versions" and not "version" there is a difference. The single sided 15 GB HD DVD - has that ever been used? That referenced in addition to the 30GB DL HD DVD.

We now have a Twin Format HD DVD - Freedom 1

The 20% that are being used for movies....

wait for it...



Can and are still being used for games.

I know this is mindblowing stuff. ;)
Oh, you're saying Sony isn't losing game sales because some PS3's are used exclusively for movies, some are primarily used for movies, some are frequently used for movies and most of the rest who are spending on movies are likely spending less on games. No zero sums in this game world?

The only number we have ever heard about in connection to PS3 and HDTV's and movie buyers and game players was:

""22% of all PS3's are more than likely to rent/buy a BRD"

This was quoted by the independent consultant working for Paramount at the beginning of this year.

That's it unless someone can provide a link to an article that says exactly how many PS3's are attched to HDTV's and are renting/buying BRD's

Good Luck . . .I have wasted more than enough of my time trying to find it.

The only number we have ever heard about in connection to PS3 and HDTV's and movie buyers and game players was:

""22% of all PS3's are more than likely to rent/buy a BRD"

This was quoted by the independent consultant working for Paramount at the beginning of this year.

That's it unless someone can provide a link to an article that says exactly how many PS3's are attched to HDTV's and are renting/buying BRD's

Good Luck . . .I have wasted more than enough of my time trying to find it.
Geez, you take the fun out of this. But wasn't there a report on a questionnaire given each PS3 owner that said that 80% planned to watch BD?

Geez, you take the fun out of this. But wasn't there a report on a questionnaire given each PS3 owner that said that 80% planned to watch BD?

Sure - that was before Sony announced that 90% of all PS3's are attached to an HDTV.

If you believe that . . .

I have this bridge for sale . . :)

Plazmans posts are based on the fact that HD DVD had a plan to make the transition from DVD to HD DVD a "painless" one and a smooth one. HD DVD did have a chance because of two discs that marry DVD amd HD DVD together.

That chance is gone now with the introduction of BRD. A format that is not compatable with DVD. Oh the players are - but not the software.

With both the Twin and Combo formats - you could buy software with both DVD and HD DVD and when you are read to buy an HD DVD player - your collection is there for the viewing.

BRD - only works in a BRD player. Sony created yet another niche product and that is going to cause the whole HDM marketplace to remain a niche for a long time . . possibly forever.

The split in the HDM marketplace is a result of powerful corporations that have diverging business interests which they ulimately were unable to reach a point of compromise on.

No matter what the hardware makers decided, Hollywood is ultimately the dominant content makers. Sony is a big part of that and has unique power across all of the key industries true, but they required the other studios involvement to create the current situation.

If Hollywood had ultimately agreed on their priorities then sure they could have smoothly integrated and introduced high def into the marketplace with hd-dvd hybrids, or they could have forced entire market to go blu-ray for high def beginning with Sony and the PS3, but clearly there are other goals here wagging the dog. Deafeating movie piracy for instance is a driving force. IP rights interests is another. Positioning for the downloadable future is another.

Pushing profitability up is the common thread for each. If that meant every consumer replaces every dvd player, then so be it. Unfortunately it's never been about how to get high def content into consumer's hands. High def is only a means to other ends...

The split in the HDM marketplace is a result of powerful corporations that have diverging business interests which they ulimately were unable to reach a point of compromise on.

No matter what the hardware makers decided, Hollywood is ultimately the dominant content makers. Sony is a big part of that and has unique power across all of the key industries true, but they required the other studios involvement to create the current situation.

If Hollywood had ultimately agreed on their priorities then sure they could have smoothly integrated and introduced high def into the marketplace with hd-dvd hybrids, or they could have forced entire market to go blu-ray for high def beginning with Sony and the PS3, but clearly there are other goals here wagging the dog. Deafeating movie piracy for instance is a driving force. IP rights interests is another. Positioning for the downloadable future is another.

Pushing profitability up is the common thread for each. If that meant every consumer replaces every dvd player, then so be it. Unfortunately it's never been about how to get high def content into consumer's hands. High def is only a means to other ends...

Good post. All excellent points and very true.

Unfortunately the reality of the situation is two formats with a split in the studios and a grand plan by the BDA that is doomed to failure - replace all DVD players.

Good post. All excellent points and very true.

Unfortunately the reality of the situation is two formats with a split in the studios and a grand plan by the BDA that is doomed to failure - replace all DVD players.

Just like DVD failed to replace all VCRs? :rolleyes:

Please tell me that you have a DVD that can't play in a BR player, or better yet show me a HD-DVD that plays its HD version of a movie in a DVD player.

Just like DVD failed to replace all VCRs? :rolleyes:

Please tell me that you have a DVD that can't play in a BR player, or better yet show me a HD-DVD that plays its HD version of a movie in a DVD player.

You continue to argue with me but you keep leaving these huge holes in your arguement for me to walk through - no, excuse me . . drive a car through :eek:

DVD was a revolutionary product over VHS

HDM is an evolutionary product over DVD - totally different situation.

We came up with a list of 15 differences as to why DVD was/is better than VHS. But only 3 for HDM:

1. Better PQ
2. Better AQ (but needs special equipment to enjoy ie receiver with 1.3 or a player with Analog out)
3. Fancier menus and gimmic features

There was only one thing that color televisions was better than B&W televisions. And that's the color thing. I don't know why we have to wade through these off-topic non-nielsen discussions. Next friday should be HD DVD finest showing so far, so supporters on either side, pseudo neutrals, almost neutrals, true-neutrals who just want to watch mud-slinging, should just sit back and wait till the next set of numbers. It's probably the most important weekly number for the red format in this format war so far.

The last time things got messy, a smart AVSforum moderatior stepped in and locked the thread until thursday. Perhaps it's time for the same?

You continue to argue with me but you keep leaving these huge holes in your arguement for me to walk through - no, excuse me . . drive a car through :eek:

DVD was a revolutionary product over VHS

HDM is an evolutionary product over DVD - totally different situation.

We came up with a list of 15 differences as to why DVD was/is better than VHS. But only 3 for HDM:

1. Better PQ
2. Better AQ (but needs special equipment to enjoy ie receiver with 1.3 or a player with Analog out)
3. Fancier menus and gimmic features

You already tried this line with me buddy - heres the quote from last time.
Here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10827715#post10827715)


I made a list on another thread and with the help of the members on the thread we came up with 15 reasons why DVD was better than VHS. We only came up with 3 for Hi Def Disc; PQ, AQ and Web enabled


I'd actually like to see that. But given that we have had 10 years to ponder DVD and only 1 to ponder HiDef I am surprised the list isn't larger. How about larger storage medium, generally more audio options, and more scratch resistant (BR anyway), interactive (non-web) extras (on HD-DVD). There more than doubled your list in 10 mins. Imagine what I could do in 10 years.

Like I said, give me 10 years and I bet I can come up with a list of 15 things that HD/BR media have that better DVD. I'd still like to see that list if you can find it.

You already tried this line with me buddy - heres the quote from last time.
Here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10827715#post10827715)

Like I said, give me 10 years and I bet I can come up with a list of 15 things that HD/BR media have that better DVD. I'd still like to see that list if you can find it.

No ten years needed - right within the first year:

1. No rewinding
2. No tracking control necessary
3. Chapter stops
4. DD 5.1 and DTS
5. Menu's
6. Didn't wear out with use
7. 100% improvement in PQ
8. Director Commentary's
9. Multiple languages
10 Two Aspect ratios on same DVD - Full and OAR
11. Special features like "making of"
12 Smaller in size on shelf
13. Could play a CD - dual use
14. Selectable Subtitles in different languages
15.Anamorphic transfer - Enhanced for 16x9 TV's

There you go.

Here is the information that I have and my source. As this is 2 years old - we can look back to the announceme4nt to see how many new HD DVD formats have come from this announcement. If I am incorrect in the issuse that they are not equal 15GB layers but a single 9 GB layer and (2) 18 GB layers for a total of 45 GB 3 layers - it is not important at all.

It is a format that allows a DVD and a HD DVD to reside on a single face with silk sscreen on the top and will play in either a SD DVD player or a HD DVD player. Just pop in the disc - player takes care of which layer(s) read

Universal Studios Home Entertainment Endorses New HD DVD Discs

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif., May 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Universal Studios Home
Entertainment (USHE) today announced its endorsement of two new types of HD
DVD ROM (read-only) discs, which were announced today by Toshiba Corporation.
Toshiba has just announced a triple-layered, 45GB disc, and a
double-sided, double-layer hybrid ROM disc that can store 30GB of
high-definition content on one side and 8.5GB of standard-definition content
on the other.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-10-2005/0003592426&EDATE=
I think you're a little mixed up. The article you posted is about the combo format that is currently in use (double-sided - 30GB/9GB) and a triple-layer disc - HD45 (3 X 15GB) - that has since been abandoned in favor of the HD51 (3 X 17GB.) On the HD45 (and HD51) all three layers are readable only by HD DVD players - there's no way for an SD DVD player to read 9GB of data and ignore the rest, as you've suggested.

Then there's the Twin Format disc. This is the disc that has both formats (SD DVD and HD DVD) on the same side, allowing for the disc art to remain. There's a significant limitation to this Twin Format disc - currently only 3 layers are supported. What this means is that one format must be compromised - you either get a 30GB HD DVD and a 4.5GB SD DVD or a 9GB SD DVD and a 15GB HD DVD. Until they can make four layer Twin Format discs, they will only be of limited use. I believe that Freedom is the one and only Twin Format disc available and according to DVD Talk, it's a 15GB/4.5GB disc.

darinp2's post was 100% correct.

I think you're a little mixed up. The article you posted is about the combo format that is currently in use (double-sided - 30GB/9GB) and a triple-layer disc - HD45 (3 X 15GB) - that has since been abandoned in favor of the HD51 (3 X 17GB.) On the HD45 (and HD51) all three layers are readable only by HD DVD players - there's no way for an SD DVD player to read 9GB of data and ignore the rest, as you've suggested.

Then there's the Twin Format disc. This is the disc that has both formats (SD DVD and HD DVD) on the same side, allowing for the disc art to remain. There's a significant limitation to this Twin Format disc - currently only 3 layers are supported. What this means is that one format must be compromised - you either get a 30GB HD DVD and a 4.5GB SD DVD or a 9GB SD DVD and a 15GB HD DVD. Until they can make four layer Twin Format discs, they will only be of limited use. I believe that Freedom is the one and only Twin Format disc available and according to DVD Talk, it's a 15GB/4.5GB disc.

darinp2's post was 100% correct.

Steeb you are probably absolutely correct. I will not challange your knowledge in these matters. It is superior to mine - no question.

And if I misspeculated - then I admit it.

Sure I have. Isn't HD DVD part of the HDM marketplace?

I try to look at the big picture. I try to see what is stopping the formats from growth - and unfortunately there are a bunch of obstacles and hurdles that HDM needs to get over before it can reach success . . .

The first being mass appeal. HDM is an evolutionary format not a revolutonary format. Biggest hurdle.

And with the issue of two formats as opposed to one - another roadblock.

We have accepted 2 formats for PC's, we have accepted more than two formats for games. We are in the middle of a transition of one format to another (HDTV)

But for many - this is the first time we have 2 video formats where the machines themselves are not much different. They both play HD movies - they both play DVD's. Anything else is BS bells lights and whistles.
Well that's no good. You didn't give me anything to argue with. Very insightful.

Now if you and the rest of your cronies would give up the ghost on HD DVD, we could at least get around your 2-format roadblock. Every little bit helps. :)

Well that's no good. You didn't give me anything to argue with. Very insightful.

Now if you and the rest of your cronies would give up the ghost on HD DVD, we could at least get around your 2-format roadblock. Every little bit helps. :)

Last insightful comment . . . .

At what point does everyone agree that we now have two formats and live with it?

Oops a question - not a statement ;)

Last insightful comment . . . .

At what point does everyone agree that we now have two formats and live with it?

Oops a question - not a statement ;)

There will not be 2 formats. Just wont happen. HD-DVD will lose, the players will become worthless along with the movies, and blu-ray has already become the set standard in the mind of most consumers already. All thats left is support to drop. IMO of course.

Everybody get back on topic.

If you want to discuss forthcoming sales numbers, these were the titles released this week:

Blu-ray
Black Snake Moan
Hustle & Flow

HD DVD
American Me
Being John Malkovich
Big Lebowski, The
Black Snake Moan
Bulletproof
Dead Silence
Freedom Vol. 1
Hustle & Flow
Mallrats
Meet Joe Black
Mystery Men
Watcher, The

New theatrical releases are underlined.

Last insightful comment . . . .

At what point does everyone agree that we now have two formats and live with it?
Now...

but maybe not next year.

I think just about everyone here has come to the conclusion that there are just 2 possibilities...

1. BD wins and HD DVD goes away.

2. Coexistence

I do feel both are very possible at this point. Interesting times ahead.

I'd say Disney will add more units sold by suporting HD DVD than Universal will gain by going to BD.

The relative sales of common titles are much closer than the overall ratio. I am not aware of how many common titles were split 70:30. Not any I can think of in Q2....

So, Disney is leaving more money on the table than Universal, unless someone can show me catalogs doing better on BD than HD DVD by a big margin.

Let's apply some business sense here. The sports analogy with MJ is really not how business works....none that I have worked for.

The basic premise is - IF Disney sells 20K units on BD, they could have sold 12K on HD DVD - 12K X $ = money left on table. For Uni, if they sell 2K of a catalog title on HD DVD, they would sell probably 2,500 on BD, so money on the table is 2.5K X $....if you factor in the cost of BD replication, it may not be viable for Uni to release any catalog titles on BD. Universal could always in the future make up most of the money left on the table for a catalog release by a later release in the other format. A catalog title will sell just as well , if it was released next year as thiis year. The same does not apply for new day and date first time releases as they sell a majority of units withinh 8-10 weeks of launch.

Universal and its catalog releases, lose little by being HD DVD exclusive, as if Blu-ray totally wins and HD DVD dies, they can always release in Blu-ray in the upcoming years and the catalog sales will be similar, only deferred. They may even sell more with the larger installed base of dedicated players.

Disney, is similar, but witha lot of day and date releases making some money, they are taking more of a hit. But the numbers are so small releative to DVD and none of the crown jewels are being released, it no big deal to wait also.

Everyone is probably waiting until after this 4th quarters sales numbers, and more serious lower pricing and retail availabilty to make any decisions.

Universal in particular, stands to have a large upside if HD DVD wins in the 4th quarter and has little downside to staying HD DVD exclusive for now.

Don't expect Universal or Disney to change positions bedore next spring at the earliest.

I find it telling that HDDVD can hold a 40% (SI) Market Share WITHOUT a PS3, Disney, Sony, Lionsgate and Fox. What it tells me is either

1) HDM as a whole are stinking up the joint so bad that selling 100 copies of anything can sway the numbers by whole percentage points

2) Having 2M+ players out there (including the PS3) makes #1 look even more plausible

3) That there are exactly the same # of people who give a rats butt about either/or as post on here ...... which isn't a great # in the large scope of things. (see #1)

Having Universal/Warner/Paramount/Weinstein hold a 40% market share (si) with a growing to 300K players (as there haven't been that many players the whole time) on the market seems to me that HDDVD is doing just about as well as BD is as a whole. It took the BDA 1.5M MORE players and 4 exclusive studios to gain a 10% additional market share. That just doesn't seem to be anything really worth crowing about Not so much stinking up the joint, but overall volumes are so low on both sides, that studios and retailers probably still see this as still early in the game and need to see the how things develop later in the year when players sold on both sides increase in the higher volume 4th quarter Oct-Dec sales period when historically most DVD player units ( and DVDs) have sold.

How many articles in the general press have we all seen saying don't buy either format until there is a clear winner? High player prices and high disc prices on both sides affect consumer purchases far more than any format war discussions.

Regular consumers are barely aware of this war but they know $399 or $34.99 is too much for them to pay for a player or HD diisc.

When prices get to $199 or $140 or $99 for players and less than $19.99 for HD titles and they are on B&M shelfs when they walk buy people will start to buy more.

HD DVD and Blu-ray player and movie prices are just still too high for general consumers.

Some consumers are aware of the format war, or are confused by it when they are about to buy a player, but the costs are limiting sales. If the costs were $99 for both formats players, format war or not, people would buy anyway. The high costs make the format uncertainty more significant.

Price is the key for most.

Bullet point time again :)

1. Most people with a new BD/HD DVD player will also have DVD players. In order to watch the same movie on all players requires you to buy both a DVD+ BD disk. HD DVD combo disk means you buy one disk that plays in all players..

2. With a dual format disk studios can do whatever they are doing - Fox and Disney can have BD+ and region coding and Universal, WB and Paramount can have lower production cost and consumers can simply buy the movie they want and play it on their single player at home.

3. Plus with dual players studios can pick and choose which format they want what disks to be on to optimize their profits.

4. Long term strategic thinking does favor HD DVD since it looks beyond Sonys limited replication capacity to the time when existing DVD lines will be converted for HD media and a single disk will have both the HD and SD version of a movie....allowing people to build up their HD library at no extra cost....it is short term thinking to believe that the PS3 will win the format war - right now we have 1.5M PS3 sold and around the same number of disks....Sony is spending decent $ in upgrading the PS3 to a movie player....as of now the cost to Sony is $200+ in subsidy cost for the PS3 - that is $3B so far spent....how is that strategic? How do you make money in the long run with that sort of economics?

I bet Disney, Fox etc are unsure about how to make money on BD. The format is going nowhere. The magic bullet is to end the format war. But that is not the fundamental problem. The problem is with the economics behind BD itself. Disney seems to be more enamoured by itunes than BD for now....their upcoming BD release schedule is weak to say the least, not indicative of a studio bullish on the format....my 2 cents. The critical thing for Blu-ray is that the PS3 is failing as a game console and that other standalone sales are still small.

Short term sales leads over HD DVD do little if the installed base of Blu-ray players is still dependent on the PS3 and if Blu-ray growth is dependent on converting PS3 owners over to HD movie watchers using HDTV's they don't own and for converting PS3 owners into using their hardware devices to a use they did not intend when they purchased the device.

Even at $399, Blu-ray players aer not going to sell at mass market consumer levels.

The HD A2 is now going to be $299 MSRP. That means $249 or $199 (or less !) B&M pricing by this Christmas holiday season. Other HD DVD players may be even lower by this fall. Those prices will mean HD DVD player sales will continue to expand. Eventually that may translate into larger disc sales if those prices drop,

Blu-ray players need to be much lower than $399 in pricing by this fall to match the HD DVD player sales volumes. Or the PS3 has to sell a lot more units and those people have to buy more dics than current PS3 users.

A lot of the new HD DVD player owners may be still watching their initla purchase discs or re-watching their existing DVD libraries and waiting to purchase discs until HD DVD prices drop.

I know , and many other HD DV owners I own, don't purchase hardly any HD DVD titles at brick and mortar retail stores like Circuit City because they retail MSRP pricing ($34.99) etc is too high. But if my local Wal-Mart or CC had discs at $19.99 or even $24.99, I would them there instead of Amazon or not at all.

I think a lot of new HD DVD owners are watching there old discs upconverted and waiting for HD DVD disc prices to fall until buying more titles.

The same applies to PS3 owners using their units as HD movie players.

As the installed base of players increase on both sides, their is a potential of much larger future sales if HD titles are sold nearer to DVD pricing.

The excessive premium at retail locations for HD pricing is limiting sales and everyone knows that. HD DVD and blu-ray sales will increase as pricing drops and more titles are on retail display. But retailers have no incentive to do that until the installed bases are larger.

Blu-ray players need to be much lower than $399 in pricing by this fall to match the HD DVD player sales volumes. Or the PS3 has to sell a lot more units and those people have to buy more dics than current PS3 users.

I think you'll find that the $499 Sony Blu-ray player will outsell the $299 HDA2 in July. The PS3 is expected to have a price drop in September set at $449 to $399 - which will be revealed at E3 this month: a whopping $150-200 drop to co-incide with some big titles.

The 20% that are being used for movies....

wait for it...



Can and are still being used for games.

I know this is mindblowing stuff. ;) A lot of early PS3 units were bought by Blu-ray backers are dedicated movie players with absolutely no intention of being used for gaming.

wait for it...


its possible though unlikely that those people that bought them as dedicated Blu-ray movie machines will buy a lot of games for it.

Those "movie' PS3's are basically dead to Sony for generating PS3 game royalties.

Apparently plazman is calling for all future HD DVD releases to be combos, ignoring the fact that the tiny percentage of people who already bought into HD DVD basically despise them.

Funny, I don't seem to remember vhs/dvd combo disc/tape things, maybe I am just blocking them out.

FWIW I agree that this doesn't belong here and won't reply to it anymore in this thread. The problem with combo discs is the pricing.

If pricing for combos was lower, most HD DVD owners have no problem with them. The issue was they were priced even higher than normal HD DVDs and much higher than day and date DVDs.

If their was one SKU, for DVD and HD DVDs for a new release and that combo disc cost no more than a regular new day and date DVD release, say $24.99 or $19.99, then there is no problem. The only issue then is the silk screen printing, which may be insignificant to a consumer purchase.

Combos now just cost too damn much.

With the new Twin Format - which is less expensive to produce than the Combo this could be the future for both DVD and HD DVD releases (for those supporting HD DVD):

1. Looks like a DVD - silk screen on top
2. No glue issue
3. DVD reads it's layer - HD DVD reads it's layers
4. Less material cost and cheaper to manufacturer than a Combo.
5. Made on the same man. line as a DVD or HD DVD

Plays in any DVD player without trying to figure which side to play - just pop it in and enjoy the movie. - No disclaimer that it will only play in an HD DVD player.

BRD has nothing like this now or for the foreseeable future.

A very powerful "weapon" that can be used in the war - if used correctly ala pricing. The twin format with its silk screening and one side simplicty is even better than the combo format.

No matter how small, the Combo and Twin formats are HD DVD advantages when these formats reach more and more consumers. Again the issue is what premium over DVD are consumers willing to pay?

I disagree. I don't think HD DVD will win the week ending July 1. Maybe next week (thanks to Blood Diamond) or one of the weeks in the second half of July.

Like another poster said, sales are pretty slow overall.

Planet Earth and Blockbuster notwithstanding, I can't help wondering what are those new 50,000 HD DVD player owners doing right now. watching upconverted DVDs?


They are watching their intial HD DVD purchases and their existing DVD libraries and waiting for more cheaper HD DVD titles to be displayed at the retail locations they bought their players from.

I read somewhere that typically early DVD owners went out and bought new DVDs on one or two dedicated shopping trips a month. That probably was when you needed to go to a dedicated electronics store like CC or BB. That's kinda similar to a HD DVD or Blu-ray purchase today. Right now you still have to seek out a B&M disc purchase.

When a lot of titles are carried at normal day by day shopping locations, people will purshase more. DVD sales didn't explode until Wal-Mart, K-Mart and Target and other discount general retailers started carrying titles. And they didn't do it until the installed player base was larger.

I think you're a little mixed up. The article you posted is about the combo format that is currently in use (double-sided - 30GB/9GB) and a triple-layer disc - HD45 (3 X 15GB) - that has since been abandoned in favor of the HD51 (3 X 17GB.) On the HD45 (and HD51) all three layers are readable only by HD DVD players - there's no way for an SD DVD player to read 9GB of data and ignore the rest, as you've suggested.

Then there's the Twin Format disc. This is the disc that has both formats (SD DVD and HD DVD) on the same side, allowing for the disc art to remain. There's a significant limitation to this Twin Format disc - currently only 3 layers are supported. What this means is that one format must be compromised - you either get a 30GB HD DVD and a 4.5GB SD DVD or a 9GB SD DVD and a 15GB HD DVD. Until they can make four layer Twin Format discs, they will only be of limited use. I believe that Freedom is the one and only Twin Format disc available and according to DVD Talk, it's a 15GB/4.5GB disc.

darinp2's post was 100% correct. Twin discs make a lot of sense for older catalog titles where there is not a lot of extra features where one 15GB or 17GB layer is enough for the VC1 encoding and DD+ soundtrack.

I think you'll find that the $499 Sony Blu-ray player will outsell the $299 HDA2 in July. The PS3 is expected to have a price drop in September set at $449 to $399 - which will be revealed at E3 this month: a whopping $150-200 drop to co-incide with some big titles. Maybe maybe not based on the pent up demand for an affordable Blu-ray player with modern specs from highly involved purchasers. Heck, I'm considering one myself.

But $499 is still a lot of coin for a general consumer.

But the real question is how much more HD DVD units will sell than Blu-ray units at the 4th quarter price points.

Once you get below $399. every drop in price leads to dramtically higher sales until you get below $99.

If both formats player prices drop $100 from today's levels, you get $199 and $399 as price points.

If HD DVD prices are near $199 and Blu-ray prices are near $399 in December of this year, thats a huge advanatage for HD DVD.

If Blu-ray prices are below $299, then that's a less of an HD DVD advantage.

4th quarter player and disc pricing is critical for both formats.

The twin format with its silk screening and one side simplicty is even better than the combo format.Personally I think the combo format has to many issues for its own good in terms of cost, reliability, and lack of disc art. On the other hand I would consider twin format to have potential if they can ever get it to work well with 4 layer discs. At the moment though they are only able to get it to work with 3 layer discs meaning that one of the formats gets stuck with a single layer. Also the first twin format disc released in the US only has two layers (http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/freedomvol1.html) and we have yet to see a 3 layer disc in the US. Just a guess but there is probably a reason for that.

Could the reason possibly be that 25 minutes of content doesn't necessitate more than 5GB for SD or 15GB for HD? Jus' sayin'. :) Give it a break, it's the first one.

Personally I think the combo format has to many issues for its own good in terms of cost, reliability, and lack of disc art.

Why are some people hung-up on disc art? I don't care if there's no artwork on a 'flipper' or Combo disc as long as the content (and the price) is right!

BTW Richard Paul, loved your work on Hee-Haw and as a guest panelist on the old Match Game gameshow! ;) :p :D

Could the reason possibly be that 25 minutes of content doesn't necessitate more than 5GB for SD or 15GB for HD?Actually the short run time of that disc is probably the reason why they were able to use a twin format disc for it.


Why are some people hung-up on disc art? I don't care if there's no artwork on a 'flipper' or Combo disc as long as the content (and the price) is right!Personally speaking I just have never liked discs without disc art and I never liked dual sided DVDs for that reason either. The movie and price are more important but I do consider it a bit of a negative when a disc doesn't have disc art on it.

Well it does make it harder to put it back in the cover if the artwork isn't on the disk

Well it does make it harder to put it back in the cover if the artwork isn't on the disk
If you can read it shouldn't be a problem.

A lot of early PS3 units were bought by Blu-ray backers are dedicated movie players with absolutely no intention of being used for gaming.

wait for it...


its possible though unlikely that those people that bought them as dedicated Blu-ray movie machines will buy a lot of games for it.

Those "movie' PS3's are basically dead to Sony for generating PS3 game royalties.
I've purchased one game and it was used. But I can't bring myself to play it becasue of the crappy controller. If Sony has a redesigned controller that might change but I can't see myself playing any games on the PS3 anytime soon. Only BD movies with the remote. I would be perfectly happy if I would never see that controller again. But unfortunately you have to plug it in everytime you upgrade the firmware.

Everybody get back on topic.

If you want to discuss forthcoming sales numbers, these were the titles released this week:

Blu-ray
Black Snake Moan
Hustle & Flow

HD DVD
American Me
Being John Malkovich
Big Lebowski, The
Black Snake Moan
Bulletproof
Dead Silence
Freedom Vol. 1
Hustle & Flow
Mallrats
Meet Joe Black
Mystery Men
Watcher, The

New theatrical releases are underlined.


Black Snake Moan will likely show the typical BD 60:40 HDDVD that most dual format releases show. Most of the HDDVD catalogs aren't likely to show up on the radar. I love the Big Lebowski but really question if I need to see The Dude in high def. :p

casino royal had a good week last time out... big lebowski is a good movie but that type of title has not sold well. bd will do better than expected.

Black Snake Moan will likely show the typical BD 60:40 HDDVD that most dual format releases show. Most of the HDDVD catalogs aren't likely to show up on the radar. I love the Big Lebowski but really question if I need to see The Dude in high def. :pI expect this week to show once again that the Amazon rankings don't reflect what gets reported by Nielsen in many cases. For instance, The Big Lebowski was ranked higher than Black Snake Moan on either format for every time I recall checking during the week. I will be surprised if it ends up higher by the Nielsen report though.

--Darin

Some people are looking forward to Q4 to make a difference. What can we realistically expect to happen?

Premises
Sales in 2006 were 367K BD / 578K HD DVD.
Sales Jan - May 27, 2007 were 1,270K BD / 614K HD DVD. That was 262K/mo and 127K/mo for BD and HD DVD, respectively.

BD sales YTD as of the end of June are very probably in the vicinity of 1.5 million for BD and half that for HD DVD.

Things are going to be pretty much statu quo for the next couple months. So let's say sales will continue to be 250K/130K units for June-August.

That leaves us at the beginning of September with:

YTD: 2,020K BD / 1,004K HD DVD.

So it is a safe guess that yearly sales through Aug 31 will be 2 million vs 1 million. That's is our ballpark starting point. No Nostradamus stuff so far.

Everybody with me so far? Now's the time to pull out the crystal ball.

Our success criterion will be doubling current sales on average for the period Sep-Dec. I think it is unrealistic to expect anything more.

That is:

Blu-ray success: Sep-Dec sales to average 500K units/month, or 2 million total.
HD DVD success: Sep-Dec sales to average 260K units/month, or 1,04 million total.

SCENARIO 1: both formats 'succeed'

Let us postulate that, between September and december, BD sales are 500K units/month; HD DVD sales are 260K units/month. That doesn't have to be a uniform increase: if September stays the same, Oct-Nov double and Dec triples, the effect will be the same.

Sep-Dec sales: 2,000,000 BD / 1,040,000 HD
YTD sales: 4,000,000 BD / 2,040,000 HD (66/34)
SI sales: 4,368,000 BD / 2,618,000 HD (63/37)


SCENARIO 2: only HD DVD 'succeeds'

Now let us imagine that, through cheaper players or other developments, HD DVD manages to double its monthly sales, but Blu-ray totally stagnates at the current level. Therefore, between September and december, BD sales are 250K units/month; HD DVD sales are 260K units/month.

Sep-Dec sales: 1,000,000 BD / 1,040,000 HD
YTD sales: 3,000,000 BD / 2,040,000 HD (60/40)
SI sales: 3,368,000 BD / 2,618,000 HD (56/44)

SCENARIO 3: only Blu-ray 'succeeds'

Finally, let us consider the possibility that Blu-ray sales flourish but HD DVD sales stagnate. Therefore, between September and December, BD sales are 500K units/month; HD DVD sales are 130K units/month.

Sep-Dec sales: 2,000,000 BD / 520,000 HD
YTD sales: 4,000,000 BD / 1,520,000 HD (72/38)
SI sales: 4,368,000 BD / 2,098,000 HD (68/32)

There are other scenarios (like one format quadrupling its sales and the other totally tanking), but they aren't nearly as likely.

Our success criterion will be doubling current sales on average for the period Sep-Dec. I think it is unrealistic to expect anything more.
Saying sales will "only" double indicates that you believe Toshiba will only have sold about 300k players in 2007, right? Is that what you think will happen? What happens if Toshiba succeeds with their revised target of 1 million players in 2007?

Do I recall correctly that Toshiba sold about 50k players in one month after the discount to 299USD? Let's say they continue to do so until the end of the year. That would be about 300-350k more players than there are today. So let's say half a million. Compare that to the current 150k players. So why is it unrealistic to expect more than double sales at year's end? 500k players should achieve more than double sales of 150k players. And if we see even cheaper HD DVD and/or Blu-Ray players for the holiday season (e.g. chinese players), things may improve even more than that.

I think you're a bit too pessimistic.

Okay, let's think of a more upbeat scenario.

September sales are x
October sales are 2x
November sales are 3x
December sales are 6x

where x is the previously given average. That would be in line with the sales curve we got last year (helped by the appearance of the $199 Xbox 360 add-on in November and the 2G players in December):

http://i8.tinypic.com/4lor0qd.jpg

For example for HD DVD that would mean:

September 130K
October 260K
November 390K
December 780K

That is to say, 1,560,000 HD DVD units sold Sep-Oct 2007. Meaning that average sales over that four-month period would be triple that of previous months. That's as optimistic as I can get. ;)

Or 2,560,000 units sold during the whole of 2007.

Of course, the same thing could happen to Blu-ray.

So here it is in a nutshell


YEARLY SALES (1000S)
Poor Good Great
Blu-ray 3000 4000 5000
HD DVD 1500 2000 2560

Saying sales will "only" double indicates that you believe Toshiba will only have sold about 300k players in 2007, right? Is that what you think will happen? What happens if Toshiba succeeds with their revised target of 1 million players in 2007?

I think you're a bit too pessimistic.

What if due to lack of confidence in the format HD-DVD owners purchase fewer titles than previous quarters, relative to Blu-ray?

Let's face it, confidence must have been shaken.

@Grubert, your post is quite software centric. Of course that's "correct" because we're here in the software numbers thread... :) And I think I can agree with your latest post. However, I have 2 things to say:

(1) I think it's more important where the trend goes compared to how past sales were overall during the last x months. Do you think the studios cared much that HD DVD sold lots more software in 2006 when suddenly Blu-Ray was in front early 2007 in software sales?

(2) When trying to predict sales many many months into the future, I prefer to look at probable hardware sales and their potential effect on software sales. I think that's a better way to reliably predict future software sales. So my biggest question would be: What will HD DVD and Blu-Ray player prices be during holiday sale season? At the end of the day the prices will affect the hardware sales very greatly. And the hardware sales will in the long run affect the software sales very greatly.

(1) I think it's more important where the trend goes compared to how past sales were overall during the last x months.

But that's exactly what I'm doing! Sales have been about 100K - 130K per month for HD DVD and 1.5-2x that for Blu-ray during most of the year. We have to start from that.

When trying to predict sales many many months into the future, I prefer to look at probable hardware sales and their potential effect on software sales. I think that's a better way to reliably predict future software sales.

That's a very tricky thing. We know that Toshiba sold 50,000 players in one month but that didn't help software sales.

And here are the EOY YTD/SI percentages for BD:

HD DVD
BD POOR GOOD GREAT
POOR 67/62 60/57 54/52
GOOD 73/68 67/63 61/58
GREAT 77/72 71/68 66/63

When HMM publishes the sales figures next January 4, 2008, we can go back to this chart and see how each of them did. :)

What if due to lack of confidence in the format HD-DVD owners purchases fewer titles than previous quarters, relative to Blu-ray?

Let's face it, confidence must have been shaken.
I see no reason for HD DVD owners to have their confidence shaken right now. Announced software titles for HD DVD currently look alright to me. I see no indications that any HD DVD supporting company would be slowing down their HD DVD support.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that I expect hardware sales (both Blu-Ray and HD DVD) to improve quite noticably due to lower hardware prices. And I think software sales will follow suit - but probably with a certain delay.

But that's exactly what I'm doing! Sales have been about 100K - 130K per month for HD DVD and 1.5-2x that for Blu-ray during most of the year. We have to start from that.
Yes, agreed.

That's a very tricky thing. We know that Toshiba sold 50,000 players in one month but that didn't help software sales.
Well, how would software sales have been without those 50,000 additional players? That's very hard to estimate.

Well, how would software sales have been without those 50,000 additional players? That's very hard to estimate.

You mean those new players kept sales from collapsing? You may have a point there.

I see no reason for HD DVD owners to have their confidence shaken right now. Announced software titles for HD DVD currently look alright to me. I see no indications that any HD DVD supporting company would be slowing down their HD DVD support.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make is that I expect hardware sales (both Blu-Ray and HD DVD) to improve quite noticably due to lower hardware prices. And I think software sales will follow suit - but probably with a certain delay.

Blockbuster, their confidence and the confidence of potential adopters has been shaken by the Blockbuster announcement and news coverage.

I think it will be almost impossible for them to get 50,000 players sold in one month again unless something drastic happens to change the public perception that HD DVD is dieing.

If EOY YTD > 70, then BD will have won Q4.

If EOY YTD < 62, then HD DVD will have won Q4.

Agree?

I see no reason for HD DVD owners to have their confidence shaken right now. Announced software titles for HD DVD currently look alright to me. I see no indications that any HD DVD supporting company would be slowing down their HD DVD support.



I wasn't suggesting studios will slow support short term, just HD-DVD owners will be more selective, especially if they are dual format owners.

Well, how would software sales have been without those 50,000 additional players? That's very hard to estimate.

To add to my point, maybe this backs up my scenario that HD-DVD owners are being more selective, so have to sell more hardware to maintain current software sales.

You mean those new players kept sales from collapsing? You may have a point there.
I think we need to invest some thoughts about how old and new hardware owners are buying software:

(1) "old" hardware owners (e.g. those 100,000 HD DVD standalone owners) probably have already bought most older/catalog releases they were interested in. So the only way to get software sales from these kind of people is with new software releases.

(2) "new" hardware owners (e.g. those new 50,000 HD DVD standalone owners) have a much broader list of titles available to them which they haven't bought yet. For the newbies all titles are kind of "new", so I'd guess that they buy a much higher percentage of older/catalog titles compared to group (1).

As a result I think those new 50,000 standalones probably have boosted sales of older/catalog titles quite a lot and sales of new releases only a little. Why only a little? Because those 50,000 new owners only jumped in now that prices got so much lower. So I guess they'll have a lower overall attach rate than the older owners. As a result I think we can't expect the new release sales to grow 50% because of 50% bigger hardware base. However, I expect older/catalog sales to boost more than 50%. Simply because older owners are barely buying any older/catalog titles, anymore, at all, while the new owners will probably buy a noticable number of older titles together with some newer titles.

And I believe that I have seen the effects of this behaviour in the numbers, at least a bit. E.g. Blu-Ray currently has most titles in the top10 sales, but overall HD DVD doesn't look as bad as the top10 sales would indicate.

Blockbuster, their confidence and the confidence of potential adopters has been shaken by the Blockbuster announcement and news coverage.
Unfortunately news coverage has been inprecise or even incorrect. I repeat: I see no reason to lose confidence in HD DVD right now. But that's just my personal opinion. I'm dual format, so I don't really care much either way, as long as at least one format survives.

When trying to predict sales many many months into the future, I prefer to look at probable hardware sales and their potential effect on software sales. I think that's a better way to reliably predict future software sales.
Actually, that's a very difficult thing to do. You have to make assumptions about attach rates. I don't think anyone believes those buying $300 players are going to buy titles at the same rate as those early adopters/enthusiasts who paid $500+ for them. So how much will the attach rates drop?

Personally, I think Grubert's approach makes the most sense.

Actually, that's a very difficult thing to do. You have to make assumptions about attach rates. I don't think anyone believes those buying $300 players are going to buy titles at the same rate as those early adopters/enthusiasts who paid $500+ for them. So how much will the attach rates drop?
Yeah, that's definately true. But simply stating that more than 2x improvement is unreasonable without even taking hardware sales into account doesn't look very accurate to me, either... :) Ok, maybe Toshiba will not succeed with selling their revised target of 1 million standalones. But what if they do? Do you think 1 million players will only sell 2x of what 150k players do? But yeah, Grubert has allowed up to 6x sales for December in his revised calculation, so I should be satisfied, I guess... :p

Unfortunately news coverage has been inprecise or even incorrect. I repeat: I see no reason to lose confidence in HD DVD right now. But that's just my personal opinion. I'm dual format, so I don't really care much either way, as long as at least one format survives.

You are correct about the coverage but you are missing the point, the casual observer who was a potential customer is now going to be less likely to invest in the format.

Initial post updated.

Saying sales will "only" double indicates that you believe Toshiba will only have sold about 300k players in 2007, right? Is that what you think will happen? What happens if Toshiba succeeds with their revised target of 1 million players in 2007?

Do I recall correctly that Toshiba sold about 50k players in one month after the discount to 299USD? Let's say they continue to do so until the end of the year. That would be about 300-350k more players than there are today. So let's say half a million. Compare that to the current 150k players. So why is it unrealistic to expect more than double sales at year's end? 500k players should achieve more than double sales of 150k players. And if we see even cheaper HD DVD and/or Blu-Ray players for the holiday season (e.g. chinese players), things may improve even more than that.

I think you're a bit too pessimistic. Agree.

A half or million or more HD DVD players sold with owners looking to buy movies in the 4th quarter could sell a lot more movies if more were available at brick and mortar retail locations and at a lower price.

If movie prices drop and are more available, that will dramatically affect sales upward for both formats.

The significance of the installed base of owners is that as it increases, it is more likely that retailers will drop retail prices and increase shelf space for impulse buying.

I think you are too pessismistic for both HD DVD and Blu-ray Grubert.

But that's exactly what I'm doing! Sales have been about 100K - 130K per month for HD DVD and 1.5-2x that for Blu-ray during most of the year. We have to start from that.

That's a very tricky thing. We know that Toshiba sold 50,000 players in one month but that didn't help software sales. One reason that those hardware sales have not affected software sales so much is again the pricing. But those players are now in teh wild and those and future owners may start to buy software in the future as prices drop and availablity increases.

As player sales accumulate, there is a much greater potential for future software sales if retailers get serious about selling the movies by dropping retail pricing to mass market levels and reducing the cost premium over DVD day and date pricing.

Actually, that's a very difficult thing to do. You have to make assumptions about attach rates. I don't think anyone believes those buying $300 players are going to buy titles at the same rate as those early adopters/enthusiasts who paid $500+ for them. So how much will the attach rates drop?

Personally, I think Grubert's approach makes the most sense. Agree with this, but as prices drop , attach rates will rise for both groups.

The one big disk sales bump we have seen has been with the PS3 last December. That made a huge difference in the numbers and it persists today. I think that was because people had a number of reasons for buying the PS3, not just Blu-ray.

The biggest problem that both formats face right now is that customers are holding off adoption until the end of the format war. Lowering the price of the players may not help that much because, IMO, the real problem is that people do not want to get into a format until things are resolved. [Remember that the price of the player is only a fraction of what they will ultimatey spend.]

Indeed, among my friends, the idea that things are heating up in the format war has simply increased their determination to wait. Why jump in when it may be over soon, they are saying. We were right to wait, let's keep waiting.

So, it is very possible that the two formats may have a big price war here without seeing the real uptake in adoption that they are hoping for.

The one thing that I am looking for is a price reduction in the PS3. I think that would really bump PS3 sales, and by extension, Blu-ray.

IMHO, the problem is price and not the "war". When both get down to reasonable pricing as with DVD, they will both do well. Both formats are here to stay. I think that the old one video format model is broken once and for all. Plenty of room for both to exist just like the gaming world.

The one big disk sales bump we have seen has been with the PS3 last December. That made a huge difference in the numbers and it persists today. I think that was because people had a number of reasons for buying the PS3, not just Blu-ray.

The biggest problem that both formats face right now is that customers are holding off adoption until the end of the format war. Lowering the price of the players may not help that much because, IMO, the real problem is that people do not want to get into a format until things are resolved. [Remember that the price of the player is only a fraction of what they will ultimatey spend.]

Indeed, among my friends, the idea that things are heating up in the format war has simply increased their determination to wait. Why jump in when it may be over soon, they are saying. We were right to wait, let's keep waiting.

So, it is very possible that the two formats may have a big price war here without seeing the real uptake in adoption that they are hoping for.

The one thing that I am looking for is a price reduction in the PS3. I think that would really bump PS3 sales, and by extension, Blu-ray.

Yup. This is true so far from what I've seen. We've been hearing the "First to $199 wins because that's when DVD took off". WRONG! Because we've seen the HDA2 at $199 and it hasn't helped much. DVD also had no competition. If there's one thing we can learn here is that price isn't that much of a factor here. Because while the hardware may be cheap, consumers don't want to invest in SOFTWARE TO A POSSIBLE DEAD FORMAT. I think once the dust settles, whoever the winner is, will have a ton of people flocking to them.

eight,

Yup. This is true so far from what I've seen. We've been hearing the "First to $199 wins because that's when DVD took off". WRONG! Because we've seen the HDA2 at $199 and it hasn't helped much

Except that Toshiba claimed they sold 70K units in the month that they had the $299 sale. They reported a 70% increase in sales. So if price is not a factor as you state, then there should not have been that big a sales increase in response to a decrease in price.

Also, the $199 deals tend to be online, and most people dont buy players online. When you can walk into BB, CC, Walmart, Sears, etc and see players for $199, that will be a different situation.

I think you guys are correct when you say the general public doesn't want to buy into HDM until the format war is over.

On the other hand, I believe more and more people are realizing HD-DVD is not going to win this war which in turn is getting some that were sitting on the sidelines to go ahead and adopt Blu-Ray. Many of the format neutral folks are silly to buy HD-DVD software (over BR) given a choice on the same software titles knowing the direction this war is clearly headed. I think we'll see lower priced BR hardware on the market for Q4 and a big push from all of the BR studios including Fox and Disney, not to mention all of the missing Warner titles. We'll also see new BR hardware with finalized specs (although it seems only the HD-DVD suporters really seem to care about that). I'm sure BB siding with BR wont hurt things either.... I don't see HD-DVD having anything to offer other than a hardware fire-sale by the holidays.

IMO, the house of cards will have all but fallen completely on HD-DVD by CES 2008... At which point I expect to see Universal offering their titles on BR for 2008.

IMO, the house of cards will have all but fallen completely on HD-DVD by CES 2008... At which point I expect to see Universal offering their titles on BR for 2008.

From your lips to God's ear.

I propose a different scenario. If Toshiba drops the A2 below the Oppo upconverting player and continues to show that it is better than the Oppo at upconversion THEN more people will switch to the A2 from Oppo and will most likely try HD DVD's to agument their large SD DVD library.

Once the price of the entry level HD DVD player drops below $199 for an extended time, there will be a shift in the poles. BDA will have to respond with sub $350 players to hold them off and I just don't see that happening. Sigma Designs stock is NOT ramping up so their BR SoC's just aren't selling.

Agree.

A half or million or more HD DVD players sold with owners looking to buy movies in the 4th quarter could sell a lot more movies if more were available at brick and mortar retail locations and at a lower price.

If movie prices drop and are more available, that will dramatically affect sales upward for both formats.

The significance of the installed base of owners is that as it increases, it is more likely that retailers will drop retail prices and increase shelf space for impulse buying.

I think you are too pessismistic for both HD DVD and Blu-ray Grubert.

Could be. Then again, I've been following this war for long enough to not be too bullish.

But, if I'm being too pessimistic, what is your own prediction.

In my original post, I said HD DVD sales between September and December would be 1.56M at most, and more likely 1 million. Blu-ray sales would be 2 million if things are good, and 3 million at the very best. (I won't mention the disaster scenarios.)

What is your own prediction for sales in the last 4 months of the year?

From your lips to God's ear.

I propose a different scenario. If Toshiba drops the A2 below the Oppo upconverting player and continues to show that it is better than the Oppo at upconversion THEN more people will switch to the A2 from Oppo and will most likely try HD DVD's to agument their large SD DVD library.
Oh yes that'll make a HUGE difference since so many of the general public have bought Oppos. :)

eight,



Except that Toshiba claimed they sold 70K units in the month that they had the $299 sale. They reported a 70% increase in sales. So if price is not a factor as you state, then there should not have been that big a sales increase in response to a decrease in price.

Also, the $199 deals tend to be online, and most people dont buy players online. When you can walk into BB, CC, Walmart, Sears, etc and see players for $199, that will be a different situation.

I think they said 70.000 in 7 weeks. Still pretty good considering.

HD-DVD
Week of Jun. 26th - 43.37%
Week of Jun. 19th - 45.34%

Blu-ray
Week of Jun. 26th - 56.63%
Week of Jun. 19th - 54.66%

Even with a 14 to 0 Exclusive advantage for the week of June 26th, HD-DVD lost market-share to Blu-ray.

http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Features/hidef_wars.asp?view=1&userid=99365188134781




~Josh

HD-DVD
Week of Jun. 26th - 43.37%
Week of Jun. 19th - 45.34%

Blu-ray
Week of Jun. 26th - 56.63%
Week of Jun. 19th - 54.66%

Even with a 14 to 0 Exclusive advantage for the week of June 26th, HD-DVD lost market-share to Blu-ray.

http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Features/hidef_wars.asp?view=1&userid=99365188134781




~Josh

Yeah, but HD DVD seems to making a comeback the last two weeks - just take a look at the rest of the chart.

Wow, HD DVD just can not pull ahead, even for a week when they drastically outnumbered Blu Ray Releases!

Yeah, but HD DVD seems to making a comeback the last two weeks - just take a look at the rest of the chart.

But the most recent two weeks take in to account the Blockbuster annoucement. To lose market-share when you have a 14 to 0 exclusive advantage shows the Blockbuster annoucement is having an effect and has ended any momentum HD-DVD may have had due to the hardware sale.

~Josh

I think DVDEmpire's numbers are going to be nicer to HD DVD for the week than Nielson's will be as well... expecting "more of the same" on that front.

Oh yes that'll make a HUGE difference since so many of the general public have bought Oppos. :)

What is an Oppo? Is it just an upconverting player?

But the most recent two weeks take in to account the Blockbuster annoucement. To lose market-share when you have a 14 to 0 exclusive advantage shows the Blockbuster annoucement is having an effect and has ended any momentum HD-DVD may have had due to the hardware sale.

~Josh
It is amazing to see posts like this based a week's worth of data. Check back in Q1 2008. Until then, all this suposition is just that.

HD-DVD
Week of Jun. 26th - 43.37%
Week of Jun. 19th - 45.34%

Blu-ray
Week of Jun. 26th - 56.63%
Week of Jun. 19th - 54.66%

Even with a 14 to 0 Exclusive advantage for the week of June 26th, HD-DVD lost market-share to Blu-ray.

http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Features/hidef_wars.asp?view=1&userid=99365188134781




~Josh
And I'm sure you know (though you're trying to pretend like you don't) that DVD Empire doesn't count ANY preorders until they close out the week. Ratios can and do change dramatically when the numbers are final, which is when the next week's percentages are first posted. As of now, "Week of Jun. 19th" is final, while "Week of Jun. 26th" won't be until some time tomorrow, and all of the preorders of titles released on the 26th are added into the totals.

And I'm sure you know (though you're trying to pretend like you don't) that DVD Empire doesn't count ANY preorders until they close out the week. Ratios can and do change dramatically when the numbers are final, which is when the next week's percentages are first posted. As of now, "Week of Jun. 19th" is final, while "Week of Jun. 26th" won't be until some time tomorrow, and all of the preorders of titles released on the 26th are added into the totals.

Actually I did not know that about DVD Empire. We will re-evaluate tomorrow then.

~Josh

And I'm sure you know (though you're trying to pretend like you don't) that DVD Empire doesn't count ANY preorders until they close out the week. Ratios can and do change dramatically when the numbers are final, which is when the next week's percentages are first posted. As of now, "Week of Jun. 19th" is final, while "Week of Jun. 26th" won't be until some time tomorrow, and all of the preorders of titles released on the 26th are added into the totals.

Then let's see what tomorrow brings. It is good information on "when" to look at sample data before making conclusions.

I often wonder about pre-orders. DO they count as sales ONLY when they ship or when they are charged???

k

What is an Oppo? Is it just an upconverting player?
:D

tf, you da' man! Thanks for, albeit inadvertently driving my point all the way home for me.

Yes. Oppo is considered by many around these parts to be the best value in upconverting players.

I have been following DVDEmpire for many months.

-- their weekly numbers are extremely variable and do not seem to match to their monthly numbers
-- the monthly numbers track the Videoscan pretty well in terms of the general trends but are always somewhat more positive toward HD DVD than the Videoscan numbers.

My model of what is happening is that HD DVD has somewhat higher traction among early adopters, film buffs, and bloggers, while Blu-ray picks up more support among more typical B&M customers.

You can judge whose business you would rather have, but I will take 70% over 30% anytime.

:D

tf, you da' man! Thanks for, albeit inadvertently driving my point all the way home for me.

Yes. Oppo is considered by many around these parts to be the best value in upconverting players.

I've never heard of oppo till I visited this board.

I've never heard of oppo till I visited this board.
Oh yeah! Keep 'em comin'! :D

:D

tf, you da' man! Thanks for, albeit inadvertently driving my point all the way home for me.

Yes. Oppo is considered by many around these parts to be the best value in upconverting players.

Yeah, Ive never heard of Oppos until I got here. Ive never heard of Frys or even new Amazon had Hi Def dvds until I came here. I had never even heard of firmware. That just seemed like a strange idea that you can update a player after youve bought it. I learn new stuff all the time.

And I'm sure you know (though you're trying to pretend like you don't) that DVD Empire doesn't count ANY preorders until they close out the week. Ratios can and do change dramatically when the numbers are final, which is when the next week's percentages are first posted. As of now, "Week of Jun. 19th" is final, while "Week of Jun. 26th" won't be until some time tomorrow, and all of the preorders of titles released on the 26th are added into the totals.

Well, the final numbers are in for 6/26 and HD-DVD actually lost even more share then the previous posted numbers with their 14 to 0 exclusives:

HD-DVD
Week of Jun. 26th - 42.86%
Week of Jun. 19th - 45.34%

Blu-ray
Week of Jun. 26th - 57.14%
Week of Jun. 19th - 54.66%

Well, the final numbers are in for 6/26 and HD-DVD actually lost even more share then the previous posted numbers with their 14 to 0 exclusives:

HD-DVD
Week of Jun. 26th - 42.86%
Week of Jun. 19th - 45.34%

Blu-ray
Week of Jun. 26th - 57.14%
Week of Jun. 19th - 54.66%

That seems really strange to me, I wonder what Nielsen will show...

Well, the final numbers are in for 6/26 and HD-DVD actually lost even more share then the previous posted numbers with their 14 to 0 exclusives:
Somehow I knew when I said that I would wind up with egg on my face. :D Move along now, nothing to see here. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. :)

Don't worry, it happens to all of us at one time or another :)

From WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118341745768555943-kNVDQFP6HttfagW30Wtx2t2PHwY_20070802.html?mod=tff_main_tff_t op):

Through June, Blu-ray had sold about 1.8 million discs, compared with 1.3 million for HD DVD, according to consultancy Adams Media Research.

Granted, the Adams data won't necessarily match the Nielsen ones, but that's something.

(Remember HMM said it was 1,637,090 / 1,192,410 through May 27.)

From WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB118341745768555943-kNVDQFP6HttfagW30Wtx2t2PHwY_20070802.html?mod=tff_main_tff_t op):



Granted, the Adams data won't necessarily match the Nielsen ones, but that's something.

(Remember HMM said it was 1,637,090 / 1,192,410 through May 27.)

That would coincide with the roughly 2:1 sales ratio for BD as well.

Well, the final numbers are in for 6/26 and HD-DVD actually lost even more share then the previous posted numbers with their 14 to 0 exclusives:

HD-DVD
Week of Jun. 26th - 42.86%
Week of Jun. 19th - 45.34%

Blu-ray
Week of Jun. 26th - 57.14%
Week of Jun. 19th - 54.66%

How the hell did Blu-ray sell more on DVDEmpire when it got creamed in releases? :confused: Logic defies those numbers.

Because people like me opted to buy titles we'd been wanting to get but hadn't because we'd been picking up new releases as they came out?

Quiet weeks for new releases are good for catching-up like that. I had meant to get Closer a few weeks back and picked it up last week instead. And yes, I do all my BD shopping at DVD Empire just as I've done all my Hollywood film purchases from them since DVD Express went out of business.

:confused: Logic defies those numbers.

YES! Someone hacked the website and faked the numbers.

How the hell did Blu-ray sell more on DVDEmpire when it got creamed in releases? :confused: Logic defies those numbers.

Catalog titles just don't sell in comparable numbers and both formats were tied in new non-exclusive releases while Blu-ray has a significantly larger install base.

How the hell did Blu-ray sell more on DVDEmpire when it got creamed in releases? :confused: Logic defies those numbers.

Catalog titles don't sell.

The one big disk sales bump we have seen has been with the PS3 last December. That made a huge difference in the numbers and it persists today. I think that was because people had a number of reasons for buying the PS3, not just Blu-ray.

The biggest problem that both formats face right now is that customers are holding off adoption until the end of the format war. Lowering the price of the players may not help that much because, IMO, the real problem is that people do not want to get into a format until things are resolved. [Remember that the price of the player is only a fraction of what they will ultimatey spend.]

Indeed, among my friends, the idea that things are heating up in the format war has simply increased their determination to wait. Why jump in when it may be over soon, they are saying. We were right to wait, let's keep waiting.

So, it is very possible that the two formats may have a big price war here without seeing the real uptake in adoption that they are hoping for.

The one thing that I am looking for is a price reduction in the PS3. I think that would really bump PS3 sales, and by extension, Blu-ray. That goes with your theory that the format war is bad, Blu-ray is leading, so HD DVD should die for everyone to be happy.

I disagree.

To me, most consumers are barely aware of the format war, but when they are aware or not, its the price of the of the players and then the discs that stop them buying, as well as the fact that for the most part, they do not see these devices or movies on display in their retail stores.

Most consumers would not buy a $499 Blu-ray player, because of the price, even if there was just one format. True, that would make retail decisions easier, but retailers would find a way to find space for both if they were profitable.

HD DVD is moving to make prices lower faster than Blu-ray, and will have consumer friendly pricing by this fall and fourth quarter sales season. That hasn't realized a lot of results so far in the direct sales comparison with Blu-ray disc sales, but the more aggressive player pricing is a long term advantage in increasing the size of the installed base for larger potential fututre disc sales.

Its not the format war that is the problem. Most consumers are barely aware of that. Its the pricing they are scared of. Indeed the uncertainty makes that worse, but if the prices were less a wasted investment in a format is less of an issue.

The format war uncertainty also means less if you have a critical mass of titles available for purchase. When both formats can/will over 500 titles available by the end of the year, that may titles on display could support a purchase decision.

High prices are the dominant factor.

..My model of what is happening is that HD DVD has somewhat higher traction among early adopters, film buffs, and bloggers, while Blu-ray picks up more support among more typical B&M customers. ... Agree, except that the Blu-ray strength among B&M people is frm the sheer number of PS3 owners. As HD DVD player prices fall, and more players are sold, the less the B&M advantage will be over time.

Right now, the standalone Blu-ray player owners are like HD DVD owners. Its the PS3 which created the Blu-ray mass audiance.

The lead continues to grow for Blu-ray despite the 14 to 0 exclusive advantage for HD-DVD for the week of June 26th. Blu-ray is out to a very strong week this week. Thoughts?

http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Features/hidef_wars.asp?view=1&userid=99365188134781


HD-DVD
Week of Jul. 03rd - 35.71%
Week of Jun. 26th - 42.86%
Week of Jun. 19th - 45.34%

Blu-ray
Week of Jul. 03rd - 64.29%
Week of Jun. 26th - 57.14%
Week of Jun. 19th - 54.66%

~Josh

The week of July 3rd numbers are incomplete garbage as of now.

The previous weeks 55/45 and 57/43 are almost the same and probably within random variation. No trend there.

Both sets of numbers are better at DVD Empire for HD DVD than either the Amazon tracking or Nielson numbers.

Its the PS3 which created the Blu-ray mass audiance.
Sure did. Of course none of us EVER saw that coming. ;)

And even with poor PS3 sales.

Catalog titles don't sell.
The poll I posted months ago yielded results in line with this, even though these boards were overwhelmingly HD DVD. It's encouraging to get some more confirmation of this theory.

8-9,

It is VERY logical.

The lead continues to grow for Blu-ray despite the 14 to 0 exclusive advantage for HD-DVD for the week of June 26th. Blu-ray is out to a very strong week this week. Thoughts?

~Josh
One thought: Why doesn't 300 appear in either format's best selling list? Is it that different compared to Amazon, or is there an error in their system? I can only get it to appear of you go to "Future Releases" and then select the date of release (31 JUL, 2007).
Even if that title is selling close to 50:50, it could have enough volume to bring the overall ratio closer to even. Do pre-orders count in their statistics?

The lead continues to grow for Blu-ray despite the 14 to 0 exclusive advantage for HD-DVD for the week of June 26th. Blu-ray is out to a very strong week this week. Thoughts?

http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Features/hidef_wars.asp?view=1&userid=99365188134781
Thoughts? The DVDEmpire numbers are completely different from the Nielsen numbers so they're not worth much. Unfortunately. Because a 43% market share would be outstanding for HD DVD.

I think that ANY report of sales that uses anything other than final point-of-sale (i.e., delivery) such as counting pre-orders is fundamentally flawed. So when I see 300 appearing in Amazon's ranking of most popular it makes me question the reliability of their statistics.

I think that ANY report of sales that uses anything other than final point-of-sale (i.e., delivery) such as counting pre-orders is fundamentally flawed. So when I see 300 appearing in Amazon's ranking of most popular it makes me question the reliability of their statistics.

I agree. Amazon rankings are easily gamed, as shown by buy-days not generating noticeable sales. Pre-orders are created and then cancelled.

Do pre-orders count in their statistics?The impression I get is that dvdempire doesn't count pre-orders in their statistics. Just shipments.

--Darin

The impression I get is that dvdempire doesn't count pre-orders in their statistics. Just shipments.

--Darin
Thanks. :) I still wonder why it doesn't show as a best-selling pre-order on their site, though. (for either format).

Thanks. :) I still wonder why it doesn't show as a best-selling pre-order on their site, though. (for either format).

Yes, that would be a good thing to see as long as every cancellation was subtracted from the count for that title.

One thought: Why doesn't 300 appear in either format's best selling list? Is it that different compared to Amazon, or is there an error in their system? I can only get it to appear of you go to "Future Releases" and then select the date of release (31 JUL, 2007).
Even if that title is selling close to 50:50, it could have enough volume to bring the overall ratio closer to even. Do pre-orders count in their statistics?

They haven't officially put it in ther "Recent Additions" section, so most people don't even know it's available on the site without a direct search. I have a feeling it will be in the Recent Additions section tomorrow. Wasn't there an embargo on preorder listing this until today?

Yes, that would be a good thing to see as long as every cancellation was subtracted from the count for that title.
If Darin is correct and only shipments are counted then that should account for cancellations to pre-orders.

Yeah, someone here confirmed with DVDEmpire a while back that preorders are not counted until they're charged and shipped (which they do on the Friday before release Tuesday).

Yeah, someone here confirmed with DVDEmpire a while back that preorders are not counted until they're charged and shipped (which they do on the Friday before release Tuesday).

That was me.

The poll I posted months ago yielded results in line with this, even though these boards were overwhelmingly HD DVD. It's encouraging to get some more confirmation of this theory.


Do you see this as some kind of personal war? Is that what you care about? How could it possibly be encouraging if catalogue doesn't sell on HD?

Question: If Blockbuster is supplying 1000+ of their stores each with dozens (hundreds?) of BD titles, are these titles going to be included as units sold in any of the sales reporting metrics? After all, even though they will be used for rentals, they were actually bought by Blockbuster, right?

I assume they are not included as sales but if they are I would think it would have a pretty big impact on the marketshare ratio.

If Darin is correct and only shipments are counted then that should account for cancellations to pre-orders.

I think that he was suggesting that it would be good to have accurate counts (by format/title) of movies currently on pre-order. Pre-order a title & the count is incremented by one; cancel a pre-order then the count would be decremented by one. Then when that title is shipping, that pre-order count "goes away" as a separate count and is added to the "shipped" count. From that point on, each additional copy of the title that is shipped increments the count by one. And, ideally, if somebody returns a shipped title, it would be decremented from the shipped count (or, better still, a count of the returned by title would be kept.

You can pretty well bet your boots that internal counts such as these are being kept and being analyzed. Well run businesses need well thought out metrics.

I agree. Amazon rankings are easily gamed, as shown by buy-days not generating noticeable sales. Pre-orders are created and then cancelled.

Here we go again.

A buy day (and I've never participated in one) generates noticeable ranks. It's changes in RANKS that you see on the sites and changes in RANKS that are being discussed and changes in RANKS that are the goal. The fact that the sales of a thousand (or so) disks spread out over several release dates means that a couple of hundred sales for each release date is the result. Yes HD media sales are slow but a couple of hundred disks, that mostly would have been ordered anyway, will not be noticeable.

It's seems to be a fixed idea about cancellations for some. Maybe you've tried it yourself since you're so fixated with the idea?

Furthermore. It' pretty clear that a huge amount of Amazons sales be it HD or SD is from pre-orders. That and deep catalogue titles that together add up.

Question: If Blockbuster is supplying 1000+ of their stores each with dozens (hundreds?) of BD titles, are these titles going to be included as units sold in any of the sales reporting metrics? After all, even though they will be used for rentals, they were actually bought by Blockbuster, right?

I assume they are not included as sales but if they are I would think it would have a pretty big impact on the marketshare ratio.

There is no reason to believe that they would be counted anywhere. Not that it matters but it's even debatable whether the studios will actually have sold them, at shipping time, since blockbuster will likely have a return deal. They will be counted by Nielsen as Blockbuster sell them.

As far as I remember the only time a studio have used shipped (to stores) as opposed to sold (to customers) was the initial announcement of Casino Royale reaching 100.000 shipped which Sony tried to make look as sold.

... Its not the format war that is the problem. Most consumers are barely aware of that. Its the pricing they are scared of. Indeed the uncertainty makes that worse, but if the prices were less a wasted investment in a format is less of an issue. ...


On this very point I think we have a fundamental factual disagreement.

Among the people I know, many would have bought a player last year and had no problem with the pricing. People with HT systems who just would have walked out last summer and paid $500 or $1000 without much of a worry, just like they are spending $2000-3000 for a new display.

A friend called me last night. He had seen the BDP-S301 at Costco and was asking me about it. He also saw the HD-D2 for $279. He doesn't really mind either price he said. While he believes Blu-ray will win the format war and is inclined to Blu-ray, he is still waiting for the resolution of the format war. "I'll wait until it's over." were his exact words. (This friend has two systems, one plasma, the other front projection, and a huge video collection. He teaches film.)

I have many more such anecdotes.

People have no great urgency to decide, they have plenty of sources for video (HD and otherwise), and they don't want to be made foolish by the CE companies and studios. Decades of obsolete formats and broken promises have had their effect on a lot of us.

The only way we can test this point definitively is to look at the adoption uptake when the format war ends.

The poll I posted months ago yielded results in line with this, even though these boards were overwhelmingly HD DVD. It's encouraging to get some more confirmation of this theory.

8-9,

It is VERY logical.

I don't see how it is. When Blu-ray was releasing catalog titles in Feb, they were creaming HD DVD with a 2.5:1. Something is rotten in the state of HD DVD, especially considering the player price drops.

Among the people I know, many would have bought a player last year and had no problem with the pricing. People with HT systems who just would have walked out last summer and paid $500 or $1000 without much of a worry, just like they are spending $2000-3000 for a new display.
I have the same anecdotal experience from my friends.

There is such a fixation in these boards on the $200 price difference between players ($299 HD-DVD vs. $499 BD). But for anyone willing to drop money on $20+ HD movies, that's a relatively small difference, the equivalent of 10 or fewer discs. If you only rent, maybe it's a bigger issue for you. Accordingly, as the HD player costs continue to drop, the player cost becomes insignificant compared to the amount of money you would spend on discs over the next few years. From experience, much more of my money is poured into my DVDs than my DVD players, and I suspect that's true of most folks on this forum.

My friends aren't concerned about the player cost at this point, but whether or not their larger investment in HD movies would be wasted if they choose the losing format. So they're holding off. That's what the format war is doing.

That would coincide with the roughly 2:1 sales ratio for BD as well.
That's pretty rough. It's 1.38:1.

That's pretty rough. It's 1.38:1.

YTD is over 2:1

YTD is over 2:1
OK, I'm not getting it.

"Through June, Blu-ray had sold about 1.8 million discs, compared with 1.3 million for HD DVD, according to consultancy Adams Media Research."

1.8/1.3=1.38

"(Remember HMM said it was 1,637,090 / 1,192,410 through May 27.)"

1,637,090/1,192,410=1.37

Am I looking at this wrong?

My friends aren't concerned about the player cost at this point, but whether or not their larger investment in HD movies would be wasted if they choose the losing format. So they're holding off. That's what the format war is doing.
BAM!!!

One day we will ALL (not just us anti-war folk) look back on this time with hindsight and finally realize that the war hurt the initial adoption and kept folks from enjoying HDM for too long. Beta set the precedent and most people that can afford HDM (that includes software too people,) remember Beta.

Thoughts? The DVDEmpire numbers are completely different from the Nielsen numbers so they're not worth much. Actually, no they're not. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10943000&highlight=empire#post10943000)
Unfortunately. Because a 43% market share would be outstanding for HD DVD.How can a 43% market share be "outstanding" for HD DVD in a week where they had 12 or 13 exclusives to no BD exclusives, and only two neutral titles, especially when they've had a $100+ price drop on players for over a month?

YTD is over 2:1OK, I'm not getting it.

"Through June, Blu-ray had sold about 1.8 million discs, compared with 1.3 million for HD DVD, according to consultancy Adams Media Research."

1.8/1.3=1.38

"(Remember HMM said it was 1,637,090 / 1,192,410 through May 27.)"

1,637,090/1,192,410=1.37

Am I looking at this wrong?
YTD means year to date. So far this year BD is outselling HD DVD by 2 to 1. But the HMM numbers you are using are overall sales (including last year).

OK, I'm not getting it.

"Through June, Blu-ray had sold about 1.8 million discs, compared with 1.3 million for HD DVD, according to consultancy Adams Media Research."

1.8/1.3=1.38

"(Remember HMM said it was 1,637,090 / 1,192,410 through May 27.)"

1,637,090/1,192,410=1.37

Am I looking at this wrong?

That is since inception. From jan 01 Till now, its been 2:1.

OK, I'm not getting it.

"Through June, Blu-ray had sold about 1.8 million discs, compared with 1.3 million for HD DVD, according to consultancy Adams Media Research."

1.8/1.3=1.38

"(Remember HMM said it was 1,637,090 / 1,192,410 through May 27.)"

1,637,090/1,192,410=1.37

Am I looking at this wrong?

This chart should give a better picture. Year to date is 2:1 as Rich Peterson and Jack just mentioned. What you're computing is the Since Inception (Apr2006) chart which counts when HD-DVD was winning last year.

http://i203.photobucket.com/albums/aa41/calgarymarc/Blu-ray-1.jpg