I have been saying this for awhile now. It appears that BD is shooting its wad early. They only have so many blockbusters in their arsanal. What happens when they are gone...and I mean by the end of this year. I don't expect Lucas to be releasing Star Wars anytime soon either.

Early? From where I sit most of the huge titles have yet to be released or even announced on BD yet, I think it is going to be a very long time until Disney alone is done releasing big movies.

One thing that is important to note about new blockbuster movies is that there are always going to be new blockbuster movies. Given that all the major studios except Universal release on BD we should have plenty of new big titles today, tomorrow and well into the future.

I am way more concerned about the lack of current releases than the thought of them actually running out of stuff to release.

You guys are joking, right? None of the Spiderman movies are yet out, nor is Pirates 3. Ratatouille will probably be as big as Cars and Shrek, as well as the Fantastic 4. Anyone who thinks the Simpsons gross's under $150 million does not understand the value of that brand.

So tell us what's in your crystal ball that says Fox, Disney and Sony won't produce any mega-hits over the Christmas season?

Are you stating these movies as an incentive for those with BD players to buy them?

Or are you stating them as an incentive for those who have no player to buy a player and then buy the movies in your post?

If the first choice - then the cost to see Spiderman 3 will be about $20+

If the second choice - then the cost rises to $320+ (assumes S300 will sell for $300 at Xmas time) . . . and the DVD will be $15+

Are you stating these movies as an incentive for those with BD players to buy them?

Or are you stating them as an incentive for those who have no player to buy a player and then buy the movies in your post?

If the first choice - then the cost to see Spiderman 3 will be about $20+

If the second choice - then the cost rises to $320+ (assumes S300 will sell for $300 at Xmas time) . . . and the DVD will be $15+

No one is buying into either format for one movie, so that price still doesn't make any sense.

Maybe people will purchase them for the as yet unused BD playing functionality of their current PS3?

Are you stating these movies as an incentive for those with BD players to buy them?

Or are you stating them as an incentive for those who have no player to buy a player and then buy the movies in your post?

If the first choice - then the cost to see Spiderman 3 will be about $20+

If the second choice - then the cost rises to $320+ (assumes S300 will sell for $300 at Xmas time) . . . and the DVD will be $15+

The movies on the shelves in November and December are going to matter and the line up potential for HD DVD is looking thin.

No one is buying into either format for one movie, so that price still doesn't make any sense.

But that is the entry cost for the first movie you want to buy so it sure does make sense. You have to committ to the format first. Especially in relationship to the alternative of buying the DVD at $15+

Maybe people will purchase them for the as yet unused BD playing functionality of their current PS3?

If and only if they have an HDTV. Market penetration of HDTV in the USA (HDTV versus NTSC TV sets) is less than 5%. This drops even further because less than 1/2 of all HDTV owners are actually watching HD on their HDTV.

More are buying an HDTV because it is flat and hangs on the wall - just like The Jetson's had 40 years ago.

Plus literally all TV's being sold are HDTV's.

30 million HDTV's sold over the last 8 years sounds like a big number until you compare it to the number of NTSC sets that exist.

Sorry for coming in late to this discussion. I've read through and I don't think this has been discussed.

Does anybody else think Blockbuster's decision was based on the physical properties of the discs. I am format neutral and I have been receiving both HD-DVDs and BRs from BB Total Access. I have had no problems with the BR discs, but about 25% of the HD-DVDs have been damaged and unplayable. The BR discs I have received have all looked pristine and new while the HD-DVDs have looked like someone has run steel wool across the surface. Don't BR discs have a scratch coating similar to the one used on eyeglasses? I have had a similar experience purchasing used PS3 games. I have never received a scratched disc.
I've had a HD-DVD disk from NF that had obviously been intentionally defaced - it had to used as a skate board to get that bad. I think there must be a few BD fanboys out there trying to make their sick point. But these things have serial numbers on their jackets, so it will stop.

I've had a HD-DVD disk from NF that had obviously been intentionally defaced - it had to used as a skate board to get that bad. I think there must be a few BD fanboys out there trying to make their sick point. But these things have serial numbers on their jackets, so it will stop.

I am sure that is what it is, and those VHS fanboys must be the ones trashing the DVDs.

FWIW, I haven't seen any BDs from either Blockbuster or Netflix that had any problems at all, not even one with tons of fingerprints.

I am sure that is what it is, and those VHS fanboys must be the ones trashing the DVDs.

FWIW, I haven't seen any BDs from either Blockbuster or Netflix that had any problems at all, not even one with tons of fingerprints.
Don't try to explain it away

Don't try to explain it away

Of course not, why would anyone want to do that when we can indulge another conspiracy theory instead?

This factual and obviously intentional and why would HD-DVD fans do that to themselves? A HD conspiracy to make BD radicals look bad?

If and only if they have an HDTV. Market penetration of HDTV in the USA (HDTV versus NTSC TV sets) is less than 5%. This drops even further because less than 1/2 of all HDTV owners are actually watching HD on their HDTV.



Lee am I missing something here? Can you explain how if a person owns a HDTV and is watching only SD cable they can somehow be rendered unable to buy a HiDef player? This makes sense to you? Don't HiDef players opererate independantly of the cable box? I'm really curious because when I first bought my HDTV I had no HD source hooked up to it, yet somehow I was able to hook a HD source to it at a later date. ;)

This factual and obviously intentional and why would HD-DVD fans do that to themselves? A HD conspiracy to make BD radicals look bad?

Since we are making **** up how about this.

Maybe HD DVD fanboys are destroying the discs so that netflix will have to purchase more and it will increase the sales of HD DVD media. :eek:

Now where did I put that deranged smiley face that was in Johnny Dangerously?!

you guys need to chill


move on please

:(

Ok fine...

Anyone have any word on a b&m getting their new BD movies?

I haven't been to my local since the announcement, fingers crossed hoping one near me gets them.

Are you stating these movies as an incentive for those with BD players to buy them?

Or are you stating them as an incentive for those who have no player to buy a player and then buy the movies in your post?
Neither. I'm refuting the argument that Blu-Ray studios have "shot its wad early", as posted by alfbinet. His post made it seem as though Blu-Ray studios have no more blockbusters to release, when in fact they have at least ten more, not counting releases in the next six months.

De-sticky: Move on folks, nothing to see here

Neither. I'm refuting the argument that Blu-Ray studios have "shot its wad early", as posted by alfbinet. His post made it seem as though Blu-Ray studios have no more blockbusters to release, when in fact they have at least ten more, not counting releases in the next six months.

And I am questioning the significance of these blockbusters on the HD Disc marketplace as the whole

We have 1 title that has broken 100,000 as an exclusive release - Casino Royale.

We have 1 title that has broken 100,000 as a neutral release - The Departed.

We don't need to sell HD movies to existing player owners - we need more people to buy players.

Any word if the Blockbuster announcement includes Canada? 1 of out 6 local stores had BR and HD-DVD but its not the one closest to me.

oh yeah...love the name changes to the thread...now there is no mention of what the announcement is in the title....let's face it, after this christmas sony is going to sell a crap load of PS3's (which is already a large factor in the BB decision...even though it's not selling great as a console...yet) and all other major retailers will follow suit.
Of course...that's just my opinion...

Any word if the Blockbuster announcement includes Canada? 1 of out 6 local stores had BR and HD-DVD but its not the one closest to me.

oh yeah...love the name changes to the thread...now there is no mention of what the announcement is in the title....let's face it, after this christmas sony is going to sell a crap load of PS3's (which is already a large factor in the BB decision...even though it's not selling great as a console...yet) and all other major retailers will follow suit.
Of course...that's just my opinion...

There is another thread about Blockbuster Canada, basically no, this decision does not apply to them. They are still testing the waters in 75 stores and have not made any decisions at this time.

There is another thread about Blockbuster Canada, basically no, this decision does not apply to them. They are still testing the waters in 75 stores and have not made any decisions at this time.
Do they have either red or blue disks? It does no good if they test the waters and don't really carry any disks.

Do they have either red or blue disks? It does no good if they test the waters and don't really carry any disks.

According to information in another thread Blockbuster Canada is carrying BD and HD DVD in 75 stores.

^ I didn't know that.

Are you stating these movies as an incentive for those with BD players to buy them?

Or are you stating them as an incentive for those who have no player to buy a player and then buy the movies in your post?

If the first choice - then the cost to see Spiderman 3 will be about $20+

If the second choice - then the cost rises to $320+ (assumes S300 will sell for $300 at Xmas time) . . . and the DVD will be $15+

I have been watching this format situation play out from the beginning. There is no way that my final decision of which way to go will be based on the first movie I want to purchase. Attaching the cost of the player to a single movie purchase makes no sense.

When I decide which format and player to go with, it will be based on long-term sustainability of the format, content, and the quality of the player. Don't forget, there are MANY consumers (J6P) who do NOT purchase the cheapest of what is available. There are also many consumers who fall into categories between early adopters/enthusiasts and Wal Mart J6P's. They would be willing to spend $300-$600 for a player if they thought the quality and value were there and there was confidence in the format.

BB's decision is the first news that has really caught my attention and has me leaning in a certain direction. To some of us on the sidelines, this is more important than the current costs of players, attach rates, PS3, laptop drives, and speculation on which blockbuster titles will be available when. The expectation is that, if one of these formats gets full acceptance, it will become THE way to release HD movies, and they will all be available in the mainstream at reasonable cost.

I have been watching this format situation play out from the beginning. There is no way that my final decision of which way to go will be based on the first movie I want to purchase. Attaching the cost of the player to a single movie purchase makes no sense.

When I decide which format and player to go with, it will be based on long-term sustainability of the format, content, and the quality of the player. Don't forget, there are MANY consumers (J6P) who do NOT purchase the cheapest of what is available. There are also many consumers who fall into categories between early adopters/enthusiasts and Wal Mart J6P's. They would be willing to spend $300-$600 for a player if they thought the quality and value were there and there was confidence in the format.

BB's decision is the first news that has really caught my attention and has me leaning in a certain direction. To some of us on the sidelines, this is more important than the current costs of players, attach rates, PS3, laptop drives, and speculation on which blockbuster titles will be available when. The expectation is that, if one of these formats gets full acceptance, it will become THE way to release HD movies, and they will all be available in the mainstream at reasonable cost.

From your first sentence you give the impression that you have not yet made a decision.

Well . . . . with the BB annoucement . . . . now can you?

the next nail will probably be the last for HD-DVD. NetFlix? Universal? Walmart.

i wont be surprised if BlockBluster starts gaining ground with Total Acces due to the fact you have a store as an option to dropoff/pick up from.

I am late to the party so don't be surprised if I sound like it. :)

This whole debate about formats is interesting. Who really cares? I mean I want all my media on a big fat hard drive. Forget about the plastic discs. I want to download my media from the net (I have no problem paying for that, if it's reasonable) and leave it on my home SAN. For long term storage I would like to burn it to disc but I don't care what format that disc is, only the cheaper the better.

Peoples, there's a huge technology shift taking place. There's also great resistance to that shift, as there always is to any technology shift that alters the flow of money. The distribution of physical media is on the way out. iTunes for example, YouTube, etc. Notice that distributing music on physical discs is changing, Tower Records anyone? Smart money is getting away from brick-and-mortar physical media distribution and in some case dumb money is stepping in to buy out the smart money and the smart money is, of course, willing.

Think about the waste involved in physical media. The movie is made and stored digtally. Then the movie is put on discs, millions of discs. The discs are store, then bought, then moved to trucks, then moved to stores, then moved to shelves, then you get in your car or walk or bike to the store. You search the store, you may or may not find your movie, if you do you buy it, take it home and play it. It's frigging crazy. It's WAY old-school right?

You know what surprises me?

Wasn't the one year anniversay of BD two days ago?

And not one Happy Birthday BD post here - or a thread . . .

And you call yourselves BD supporters?

So from an HD DVD supporter . . .

Happy First Birthday Blu-Ray!

The distribution of physical media is on the way out. iTunes for example, YouTube, etc.

And that is *exactly* why there is resistance.

Have you seen/heard the "quality" of media on those delivery mechanisms? Yet, your average teen today has no problem with it...

That's the nightmare scenario. High-end audio and video is pushed aside for convenience and portability.


Regardless, the days of being able to download HD movies reasonably for sale or rent over the internet are much further off than most people think. There's a huge speed/bandwidth issue that needs to be resolved. And internet access isn't as widespread as you would think -- only about 75% of the US has access at home (and 20% of those are still using dial-up). Physical media can't go away in that environment. (And we're not even sure if the general population wants this... some like the collectibility factor of physical media.)

This won't happen overnight. Standard DVD has been around for 10 years and I suspect that BD/HD will have a similar lifespan before we even start to go down this road.

And that is *exactly* why there is resistance.

Have you seen/heard the "quality" of media on those delivery mechanisms? Yet, your average teen today has no problem with it...

That's the nightmare scenario. High-end audio and video is pushed aside for convenience and portability.


Regardless, the days of being able to download HD movies reasonably for sale or rent over the internet are much further off than most people think. There's a huge speed/bandwidth issue that needs to be resolved. And internet access isn't as widespread as you would think -- only about 75% of the US has access at home (and 20% of those are still using dial-up). Physical media can't go away in that environment. (And we're not even sure if the general population wants this... some like the collectibility factor of physical media.)

This won't happen overnight. Standard DVD has been around for 10 years and I suspect that BD/HD will have a similar lifespan before we even start to go down this road.

i agree. network based delivery is the future but not for at least five to seven years. too many bottlenecks.

And that is *exactly* why there is resistance.

Have you seen/heard the "quality" of media on those delivery mechanisms? Yet, your average teen today has no problem with it...

That's the nightmare scenario. High-end audio and video is pushed aside for convenience and portability.

"Nightmare scenario" is exactly right! My niece asked me to listen to a song/new group that she really liked on her iPod. I couldn't believe how crappy it sounded! Downright shrill. :eek:


Regardless, the days of being able to download HD movies reasonably for sale or rent over the internet are much further off than most people think. There's a huge speed/bandwidth issue that needs to be resolved. And internet access isn't as widespread as you would think -- only about 75% of the US has access at home (and 20% of those are still using dial-up). Physical media can't go away in that environment. (And we're not even sure if the general population wants this... some like the collectibility factor of physical media.)

This won't happen overnight. Standard DVD has been around for 10 years and I suspect that BD/HD will have a similar lifespan before we even start to go down this road.

I agree on both counts.

i agree. network based delivery is the future but not for at least five to seven years. too many bottlenecks.

Maybe longer than that:

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6452274.html

The Blockbuster announcement is being shown as significant BECAUSE of all the posts and activity saying it is or isn't. Obviously insignificant things pass without fever pitch.

This is the first news in the war that has everyone, pro, con and neutral talking. It is good for the overall adoption of hi-def discs.

But don't kid yourselves, if you are posting it is signicant to you one way or the other! :) :mad: :o

Maybe longer than that:

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6452274.html


i've seen that before, i think that demographics shift will favor streaming and downloads. there is a whole generation of kids (9-13) now who will never buy a cd and are already getting tv shows from apple. hopefully they develop an appreciation for quality as they grow older.

Maybe longer than that:

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6452274.html

And they really don't even address HD downloads, which would mean it would be even further out!

i've seen that before, i think that demographics shift will favor streaming and downloads. there is a whole generation of kids (9-13) now who will never buy a cd and are already getting tv shows from apple. hopefully they develop an appreciation for quality as they grow older.

Thats because its practically free. And kids dont have any money.

Thats because its practically free. And kids dont have any money.


iTunes is not free, parents pay for it.

The Blockbuster announcement is being shown as significant BECAUSE of all the posts and activity saying it is or isn't. Obviously insignificant things pass without fever pitch.

This is the first news in the war that has everyone, pro, con and neutral talking. It is good for the overall adoption of hi-def discs.

But don't kid yourselves, if you are posting it is signicant to you one way or the other! :) :mad: :o

Very true, Indeed

I recently thought long and hard about buying Apple TV. I have a DirecTV HD tuner, Windows PC and a PS3 in my home theater now, and I am dying for more HD content. Apple doesn't really offer much in the way of 720p content, let alone 1080p (not that I can display that yet..)

Anyway, I agree that it looks to me like streaming/downloadable HD is a LONG way out right now. I didn't buy AppleTV because it wouldnt give me enough HD content to chose from.

The Blockbuster deal gives me nearly all the HD content the studios produce for a reasonable monthly fee. The fact that I'll be able to go to my local store and exchange a Blu-ray disc for something else is an incredible bonus that I think few other in this business can offer me.

I'm psyched about this. I just want to know is WHEN the titles will arrive in my local store. I'm going to wait on any streaming/download solution until Apple offers one. iTunes as an entity is already enormous, has transformed the music industry, and IMO will only get bigger, regardless of other available solutions.

iTunes is not free, parents pay for it.

So how much does the kid pay for the downloaded song again... To them it is free... even if they choose to use the Itunes download service.

Thats because its practically free. And kids dont have any money.
Who are you kidding? Kids have zero expenses and take their $7/hour jobs and buy loads of things. In fact the teenage market is EXTREMELY lucrative - not due to their parents, but the fact that all their money is discretionary.

Originally Posted by Pjtan
The Blockbuster announcement is being shown as significant BECAUSE of all the posts and activity saying it is or isn't. Obviously insignificant things pass without fever pitch.

This is the first news in the war that has everyone, pro, con and neutral talking. It is good for the overall adoption of hi-def discs.

But don't kid yourselves, if you are posting it is signicant to you one way or the other!

The truth has been spoken.

I wanted to reply to the post below from another thread which was recently closed as redundant. It's plausible to suppose that the Blockbuster PR will influence a lot of people to believe that it's not wise to invest in and HDDVD player and discs. But I would argue that this PR effect is only going to last so long and reach so many people. This was not that huge a story (except for folk like us with an interest already established). Unless it's followed up by other signficant events which keep reinforcing the message, it's eventual effect will be nill, I think, as long as Toshiba comes back swinging with lower prices and slick promotions - you gotta love that ad with the guy from the Sopranos! - most people will forget it and the price of the machines will make the biggest difference in the decision of people who would seriously like to upgrade their DVD quality to match the potential of their new HDTV. I still think as long as neither format has begun to break open a mass market and PR events (I'm including the sort of price cuts and ads we got from Toshiba recently in this package of "PR events" - events which make the media look attractive to consumers) keep swinging as they plausibly should back and forth between the two media, the first machine to a consistent price of $199 wins.

Quote:
Originally Posted by shendley
Obviously Blockbuster could have a big impact. But the bottom line for me is that neither system has reached a mass market and until one of them does just about anything is possible. Also, intuitively, I think all the BB decision will do is put Blu Ray to the top of the list in BB customers' heads if they think about taking the plunge into hi def DVD. When they go to Best Buy or Amazon and compare the prices, the decision stops being a no brainer in favor of Blu Ray as long as Toshiba can keep a $200 price differential between their machines and the Blu Ray machines and, especially, if Toshiba can find a way to get Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. to market their machines at the magic price of $199.99. I'll go out on a limb: the first machine to that price wins!

Disagree - as the market continues to show Blu-ray being the winner the person browsing will also hear about how much more chance Blu-ray has of sticking around. Put that HD DVD player at $10 if you want, but when a salesperson tells uninformed shopper that HD DVD could be dead by this time next year that person will balk and drop the extra $50 for the Blu-ray player, providing the Blu-ray player isn't already cheaper by that time.

The Chines consumer electronics show is from July 6th to July 9th and I don't see the HD DVD Promotions GRoup or Toshiba trhere. I do see the BDA and Sony (CHINA) there.

With a cheaper Japanese unit on the way AND likely a cheap Chinese Blu-ray player on the way which players will be cheaper is anyone's guess.

Toshiba can only bleed so much.

Who are you kidding? Kids have zero expenses and take their $7/hour jobs and buy loads of things. In fact the teenage market is EXTREMELY lucrative - not due to their parents, but the fact that all their money is discretionary.

Drugs, music, and cars, that is what all my income used to go to. See no reason for it to be different today.

That is until my kids have their own income, no way they will be taking drugs ;)

It has been posted that Columbia House will offer both Blu-ray and HD DVD beginning this fall. Although that isn't big, it is certainly a positive for HD DVD and news worthy when it happens. I understand members can log into Columbia House and see the news now.

Chris

I thought you said Columbia Pictures.

Any outlet like Columbia House providing both is a non-issue. The jump to exclusive is what will make a difference.

HD DVD needs more exclusive titles, distributors, studios, everything, to survive.

Blu already has the lion's share of those exclusives, and any universals makes their side stronger, since going blu will not deprive like going HD DVD will.

Was the HD DVD Promotional Group's June 11th press release exclaiming, "Consumers Drive Record Sales of HD DVD Players to Capture 60% of HD Set-Top Market" a preemptive strike against Blockbuster?

It's like the Promo Group knew this was coming and needed to soften the blow. So they issued the press release beforehand so they'd have something to point to when the sh*t hit the fan.

Here is the press release. (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/06-11-2007/0004605296&EDATE=)

Here is Microsoft's response to Blockbuster's announcement. (http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/116828.asp?source=rss) "The HD DVD format continues to lead in both sales of standalone players as well as the attach rate of movies to owners of high definition movie players. This is important, since over time, high definition DVDs will be an owner's market, not a rental market -- just like they were for DVDs. To date HD DVD leads the market with over 60% of high definition standalone players sold as well as a 4 to 1 advantage over Blu-ray for sales of high definition movies per household. Simply put, there is a key difference between performance in a rental test market and the actual movie sales at retail, an area that HD DVD continues to lead in. Finally, HD DVD delivers the best value in high definition movie experiences with over 300 HD DVD releases in the market and standalone players starting at $299 or as low as $199 for the Xbox 360 HD DVD player accessory."Isn't that the standard answer? It seems that the HD DVD camp has quoted the "statistics" from their press release in all interviews and requests for comments to the Blockbuster story...60/40 standalone...4-1 attach rate...And then there's that weird mandatory internet connectivity comment from Warren Leiberfarb (sp?).

This one how one financial analyst sees it:It's pretty clear they just declared Blu-ray the winner," said Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst, via phone this morning. They can always change their minds, Pachter acknowledged, but Blockbuster plans to expand Blu-ray to 1,700 stores, and it will require a lot of capital to build up that inventory.

HD Downloading is getting stronger and stronger every week on the Xbox360. I expect it to be 10 years away from having 'every movie at your fingertips', but the progress that they are making is remarkable.

What is most interesting to me (from this thread), is the notion that BR discs are more scratch forgiving. That is a big plus. If BR does win out, that is a plus for me.

What I am confused about is the 'other' industry, and it selecting HD-DVD. I thought that was supposed to mean that HD-DVD would win out. But, now with the Blockbuster news (who I did not know was going to decide the war), has totally blown the other "deciding" factor out of the water. Very confusing.

And, it used to be that HD-DVD had the better compression software algorithms. But, now I see that BR is using the same, so that is a wash. If BR can come up with the same interactivity, which was another HD-DVD advantage, that will be good. And, lastly, the whole DRM issue. As long as I can buy a disc and legally watch it on my computer, portable device, and television - I will be very happy. But, that might be asking too much.

It is still very much wait and see. At least I have XBLM.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=25509

I could not post a link on my 5th reply. But, this is a good article about XBLM and how it is doing.

"Nightmare scenario" is exactly right! My niece asked me to listen to a song/new group that she really liked on her iPod. I couldn't believe how crappy it sounded! Downright shrill. :eek:




SO true, Rob!

My fiancee's cousin and her friends are college age and they almost NEVER buy CDs. Just download. I have been to parties where someone has their ipod jacked into a stereo (often one of those ridiculously overpriced and underperforming "dock" thingies) and the sound is SO utterly horrible. Like nails on a chalkboard, yet everybody there thinks it's just swell.
When I record my own music (Cd coming out this summer, btw..!) and I have to make a 192kps mp3 from my master to upload to my MySpace page, the sound quality difference is HUGE.

Yet, everybody loads up their mp3 players with the most songs possible at the lowest bitrate. They also use those crap earbuds.
Many wouldn't know how a record is supposed to sound or even what good sound quality really is if it mugged them in a dark alley.

This won't happen overnight. Standard DVD has been around for 10 years and I suspect that BD/HD will have a similar lifespan before we even start to go down this road.

I think a lot of people will be surprised when it happens sooner.

google's been buying up a lot of dark fiber (all of it??)
There is FIOS, but that's slow.

Compare broadband penetration in US with almost anywhere else.
We're behind. It's because telcos,cablecos like their ridiculous profits right now, as-is. Why spend billions on rolling-out something new?

They will be forced when the dark fiber starts to light up.

I think a lot of people will be surprised when it happens sooner.

google's been buying up a lot of dark fiber (all of it??)
There is FIOS, but that's slow.

Compare broadband penetration in US with almost anywhere else.
We're behind. It's because telcos,cablecos like their ridiculous profits right now, as-is. Why spend billions on rolling-out something new?

They will be forced when the dark fiber starts to light up.

Somebody help me out please. FIOS will be coming to my neighborhood in the next few months and I've been very happy at the thought of telling my cable company to jump in the lake. What is "dark fiber" and is there another name for it? Here I thought Verizon was going to be giving me "state of the art" subscription television.

Somebody help me out please. FIOS will be coming to my neighborhood in the next few months and I've been very happy at the thought of telling my cable company to jump in the lake. What is "dark fiber" and is there another name for it? Here I thought Verizon was going to be giving me "state of the art" subscription television.


"FIOS: Reality vs. Marketing" could become a 2,000 post thread...

Somebody help me out please. FIOS will be coming to my neighborhood in the next few months and I've been very happy at the thought of telling my cable company to jump in the lake. What is "dark fiber" and is there another name for it? Here I thought Verizon was going to be giving me "state of the art" subscription television.

someone correct me if I am wrong (I have no doubt that will happen)

I think dark fiber is just fiber that is not currently being used, installed but currently unutilized fiber facilities.

"Nightmare scenario" is exactly right!

The quality of the encoding matches the quality of the content?

I was listening to a "Yes" album the other day, a classic live album.
And it's still so good and yet I hear nothing today that's even close to what they did in the early 70's regarding the content. I burned it from my original cd which was a re-master of the original recording, BTW.

My point is that people will always want quality encoding/recording and they will always prefer quality content. The fact that kids tolerate poorly encoded material just means that they are, well, kids. Their tastes for quality will mature in all things. Right?

Back ot original thread.... Netflix, et.al. are all trying to get the copyright holders to get a frigging clue. Old ways die hard. Physical distribution adds enormous costs to the final price. But who's going to pocket the profit eh?
That's the battle. But we as consumers don't care. We want convenience and fair prices and fair use policies that are civilized and practical.

someone correct me if I am wrong (I have no doubt that will happen)

I think dark fiber is just fiber that is not currently being used, installed but currently unutilized fiber facilities.

Correct

From Wiki:

In fiber-optic communications, dark fiber or unlit fiber (or fibre) is the name given to individual fibers that have yet to be used within cables that have been already laid. They are hence not yet connected to any device, and are only there for future usage.

The term was originally used when talking about the potential network capacity of telecommunication infrastructure, but now also refers to increasingly common practice of leasing fiber optic cables from a network service provider.

The term was originally used when talking about the potential network capacity of telecommunication infrastructure, but now also refers to increasingly common practice of leasing fiber optic cables from a network service provider.

At work we lease dark fiber as our connection between the two buildings, not that that really matters, but there you have it ;)

\I think dark fiber is just fiber that is not currently being used, installed but currently unutilized fiber facilities.

Yep, the cable's been put in the ground, on the poles, on the ocean floor but it's not been "lit". An interesting read....Neil Stephenson (author:Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon, et.al.) wrote a Wired article about the crazy days 10 years ago or so, when companies were putting cable in all over the globe. Great article.

Oh in case no one knew, google.com bought YouTube AND as I said they are buying and have bought much of the dark fiber.

(also earlier I said FIOS is slow, I meant slow rolling-out)

Correct

From Wiki:

In fiber-optic communications, dark fiber or unlit fiber (or fibre) is the name given to individual fibers that have yet to be used within cables that have been already laid. They are hence not yet connected to any device, and are only there for future usage.

The term was originally used when talking about the potential network capacity of telecommunication infrastructure, but now also refers to increasingly common practice of leasing fiber optic cables from a network service provider.


Frosted Mini-Wheats *** now with 20% more Dark Fiber***

I have been saying this for awhile now. It appears that BD is shooting its wad early. They only have so many blockbusters in their arsanal. What happens when they are gone...and I mean by the end of this year. I don't expect Lucas to be releasing Star Wars anytime soon either.Here is a website where you can look up the top grossing movies for each year.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2007&p=.htm

Just change the year in the link or follow their links to get to different years. Feel free to go find years where the studios supporting Blu-ray exclusively wouldn't have had big titles and what they would have available non-exclusively. That is how it works when you have the big majority of the studios.

As far as shooting wads, if you look at those lists you can see that for 2005 and 2006, out of the top 5 movies at the US box office for Universal, they have already released 9 out of 10 of those. Inside Man is the only one they have left. And for the previous 2 years before that they have already released the majority. One more will be gone with Meet the Fockers in August. Looks to me like for those 20 titles for the last 4 years they will have 3 left after MtF.

Of course Universal has good older titles. But we've seen the job they've done on some older stuff and how older stuff tends to sell. They could dig deeper and maybe they will, but I don't see any one of the 6 most major studios shooting their wad early as much as Universal.

Blockbuster is probably keeping in mind how the exclusive Blu-ray studios have done as far as producing big selling (and renting) movies and that they can get the neutral stuff with this decision too.

--Darin

Let's not forget the impact of the BB announcement on the HD DVD exclusive studio executives. Can you imagine ignoring a large segment of the population just because you want to be exclusive to a certain format? It's not the format, but the content you are selling them, and why tie one of your hands behind your back?

Like it or not, the best HD DVD exclusive titles will sell at least double by going neutral - guaranteed.

Let's not forget the impact of the BB announcement on the HD DVD exclusive studio executives. Can you imagine ignoring a large segment of the population just because you want to be exclusive to a certain format? It's not the format, but the content you are selling them, and why tie one of your hands behind your back?

Like it or not, the best HD DVD exclusive titles will sell double by going neutral - guaranteed.

Correction: At least double.

Carry on

Thanks :p

Let's not forget the impact of the BB announcement on the HD DVD exclusive studio executives. Can you imagine ignoring a large segment of the population just because you want to be exclusive to a certain format? It's not the format, but the content you are selling them, and why tie one of your hands behind your back?

Like it or not, the best HD DVD exclusive titles will sell double by going neutral - guaranteed.

Ken G. of Universal said this about HD DVD and how it impacts Universal:

1. Represents .01% of rental revenue

2. Represents 0% of profit

This will be the same for any of the studios. HD Disc is just too small a market to even consider any switching of status (exclusive to neutral or neutral to exclusive) until the market matures.

When you see numbers like this, that put the format war and HD Disc in prospective - you begin to understand that we have a looooooong way to go before executives look at HD Disc as anything more than a potential for the future.

Go to your neighbor lake - now spit in it - there - you just added HD Disc.

Ken G. of Universal said this about HD DVD:

1. Represents .01% of sales

2. Represents 0% of profit

This will be the same for any of the studios. HD Disc is just too small a market to even consider any switching of status (exclusive to neutral or neutral to exclusive) until the market matures.

When you see numbers like this, that put the format war and HD Disc in prospective - you begin to understand that we have a looooooong way to go before executives look at HD Disc as anything more than a potential for the future.

Go to your neighbor lake - now spit in it - there - you just added HD Disc.

Hell, and he is promoting it!

Great job Mr. PR Man, be glad you don't work for me.

Please note I edited my post to reflect what Ken said about the impact of the BB on Umiversal

Hell, and he is promoting it!

Great job Mr. PR Man, be glad you don't work for me.

Yes - he probably didn't have the PR guys that Sony had to explain how losing $2 billion, so far, is good for the company

The reality is that until HDTV's became ubiquitous HD content was no better than DVD.

Remember the first "progressive-scan" dvd players? It's funny to laugh about how that supposedly made a huge difference on 27" crts at fifteen ft. viewing distance. :o

BUT, there is a lot of money to be made on the consumer who just bought their 50" lcd at Costco or Best Buy.

The dvd doesnt' have the same pop as hd programming. All those DVD's and superbit dvd's will go the way of the shelves filled with stacks of VHS tapes.

HD discs will 'force' many of those consumers to throw out perfectly good dvd's and replace them with HD that really now will make their new TV investment shine.

Mark my words, Universal knows full well that if Blu wins they will make alot of money again on consumers that buy what they already had in an inferior medium.

Please note I edited my post to reflect what Ken said about the impact of the BB on Umiversal

Do you have a link?

Isn't that the standard answer? It seems that the HD DVD camp has quoted the "statistics" from their press release in all interviews and requests for comments to the Blockbuster story...60/40 standalone...4-1 attach rate...And then there's that weird mandatory internet connectivity comment from Warren Leiberfarb (sp?).


They keep quoting the same stats because they are the only positive stats they have and they hope that people won't realize just how meaningless those stats are.

Go to your neighbor lake - now spit in it - there - you just added HD Disc.

Yes, but from this spit, there will be a ripple that will travel a thousand miles, and in that journey, the ripple will touch the lives of millions of potential renters. :D

Ken G. of Universal said this about HD DVD and how it impacts Universal:

1. Represents .01% of rental revenue

2. Represents 0% of profit

This will be the same for any of the studios. HD Disc is just too small a market to even consider any switching of status (exclusive to neutral or neutral to exclusive) until the market matures.

When you see numbers like this, that put the format war and HD Disc in prospective - you begin to understand that we have a looooooong way to go before executives look at HD Disc as anything more than a potential for the future.

Go to your neighbor lake - now spit in it - there - you just added HD Disc.

Yeah, that's what Ken Sr. said about the impact of the new format called DVD's on VHS sales about five years before he was canned :D

Ken G. of Universal said this about HD DVD and how it impacts Universal:

1. Represents .01% of rental revenue

2. Represents 0% of profit

This will be the same for any of the studios. HD Disc is just too small a market to even consider any switching of status (exclusive to neutral or neutral to exclusive) until the market matures.

When you see numbers like this, that put the format war and HD Disc in prospective - you begin to understand that we have a looooooong way to go before executives look at HD Disc as anything more than a potential for the future.

Go to your neighbor lake - now spit in it - there - you just added HD Disc.

Although I don't dispute the numbers, executives must be looking more long-term to determine what to do with their content. If they weren't, they wouldn't even bother to put any product out at all.

Mark my words, Universal knows full well that if Blu wins they will make alot of money again on consumers that buy what they already had in an inferior medium.

Your point about Universal may be well taken but I would not refer to HD DVD as "inferior".

Both formats are very capable and would meet our needs. To me, the issue is that we only need one of them.

My point is that people will always want quality encoding/recording and they will always prefer quality content. The fact that kids tolerate poorly encoded material just means that they are, well, kids. Their tastes for quality will mature in all things. Right?



I don't know...
The people I was referring to are in the early 20's tp early 30's range. Hardly "kids", and they all love their damn mp3 players.
When I was a "kid", I cared about sound quality. I even spent $750 in mid 80's dollars for a VHS HiFi machine because the sound was better when hooked through my stereo...

71 PAGES!!!???

GOOD LORD!!!

Sorry, I don't have the kind of time required to read all the posts so forgive me if this has been said, but I was thinking that a good move by Netflix, at least for the short term might be to stock up on HD DVD and really go after that market, beings how so many fans are speaking of dropping BB.

I don't know...
The people I was referring to are in the early 20's tp early 30's range. Hardly "kids", and they all love their damn mp3 players.

Well thne it's a problem of not experiencing true quality, yet. Maybe they never will. Something spurred you onto a Hi-end VHS.

But when we have GB speeds to the home and copyright holders get a clue then the 20-30 yr. olds may have a better chance of experiencing higher quality encoding/recording. They will be able to tell the difference, whether they really care or not, who knows. Some people can buy a cheap display and be happy with it while someone else can see all the flaws.

Back to original thread.....give the people bandwidth not format wars!

71 PAGES!!!???

GOOD LORD!!!

Sorry, I don't have the kind of time required to read all the posts so forgive me if this has been said, but I was thinking that a good move by Netflix, at least for the short term might be to stock up on HD DVD and really go after that market, beings how so many fans are speaking of dropping BB.
Here's the condensed version of the preceding 71 pages.

Event : Blockbusters after X months of field trials in 250 stores finds that 70%+ of HDM rentals are BD. Decides to roll out the next phase only for BD. (Major stores in Major metropolitan centers only).

1. Blu-guys : Alright, finally someone picked our choice. We're the coolest cos we picked the right color. Theme song : Carpenters' We've only just begun.
2. Red-guys : BB who? Who cares. Netflix is like 1,000,000,000 times cooler, and BB-online still carries red disks, and the 250 stores still carries red disks. Theme Song : Carpenter's Superstar.

3. WSJ, IBD, Forbes, CNN, TV-Guide, all newspapers starts to report on this.

4. Blu-Insider : Pssst, did you hear about that store with the Bull's Eye? They're going to go do the nasty deed soon. But you didn't hear it from me.
5. Red-Insider : This is really a non-event, of course PS3 people rent more movies, they're geeks, geeks don't have money to buy movies, and sales is where the money is at. It's so much easier to rebut when the reports are false. (not ALL BB will have blu-disks, only the biggest ones in major metropolitan centers will).

6. Blu-guys : Yes! Yes! Yes!!!! Boy we so are like really really smart. Theme Song : Bill Conti's Gonna Fly Now
7. Red-guys : OMG. OMG. Serenity now, Serenity now, this really is a non-event. Look at the attach rate. Look at PS3 sales. HD DVDs are cheaper to make. It's just a flesh wound. Medic!! Theme Song : Bee Gees' Words

8. Amazon Watchers : Hey what gives with those bogus amazon rankings? Something is happening.
9. Amazon Skeptics : Amazon's immaterial. It never correlates with nielsen.
10. Blu-Armchair CEO : Give the genius who dreamt up this dastardly deed a raise.
11. BDA people : Who? What the heck just happened. Theme Song : Beatles' Yellow Submarine.
12. Red-Armchair CEO : It's time for plan C. We will stop DVDs and make only combos and we will sell them at DVD prices and do away with these pests once and for all. And by Friday night, we will do whatever we do every night. Plan to take over the world. Muah Hah Hah!!!!
13. HD DVD PG : Blockbuster acted prematurely. But otherwise, Hush now, keep our heads down until next week. Theme Song : Annie's Tomorrow.

-------------

:D

Here's the condensed version of the preceding 71 pages.

Event : Blockbusters after X months of field trials in 250 stores finds that 70%+ of HDM rentals are BD. Decides to roll out the next phase only for BD. (Major stores in Major metropolitan centers only).

1. Blu-guys : Alright, finally someone picked our choice. We're the coolest cos we picked the right color. Theme song : Carpenters' We've only just begun.
2. Red-guys : BB who? Who cares. Netflix is like 1,000,000,000 times cooler, and BB-online still carries red disks, and the 250 stores still carries red disks. Theme Song : Carpenter's Superstar.

3. WSJ, IBD, Forbes, CNN, TV-Guide, all newspapers starts to report on this.

4. Blu-Insider : Pssst, did you hear about that store with the Bull's Eye? They're going to go do the nasty deed soon. But you didn't hear it from me.
5. Red-Insider : This is really a non-event, of course PS3 people rent more movies, they're geeks, geeks don't have money to buy movies, and sales is where the money is at. It's so much easier to rebut when the reports are false. (not ALL BB will have blu-disks, only the biggest ones in major metropolitan centers will).

6. Blu-guys : Yes! Yes! Yes!!!! Boy we so are like really really smart. Theme Song : Bill Conti's Gonna Fly Now
7. Red-guys : OMG. OMG. Serenity now, Serenity now, this really is a non-event. Look at the attach rate. Look at PS3 sales. HD DVDs are cheaper to make. It's just a flesh wound. Medic!! Theme Song : Bee Gees' Words

8. Amazon Watchers : Hey what gives with those bogus amazon rankings? Something is happening.
9. Amazon Skeptics : Amazon's immaterial. It never correlates with nielsen.
10. Blu-Armchair CEO : Give the genius who dreamt up this dastardly deed a raise.
11. BDA people : Who? What the heck just happened. Theme Song : Beatles' Yellow Submarine.
12. Red-Armchair CEO : It's time for plan C. We will stop DVDs and make only combos and we will sell them at DVD prices and do away with these pests once and for all. And by Friday night, we will do whatever we do every night. Plan to take over the world. Muah Hah Hah!!!!
13. HD DVD PG : Blockbuster acted prematurely. But otherwise, Hush now, keep our heads down until next week. Theme Song : Annie's Tomorrow.

-------------


Hhaha. That's great!

The more I think about the more it makes sense for BB. I can see that rentals of HD media are going to grow over the next few years while sales of HD media remain small.

Why?

Simple, how many avg consumers are going to buy media that works in ONE of the several players they have in the house?

My answer = few, they'll rent them for "movie night" & they'll buy movies that work in all the players.

The more I think about the more it makes sense for BB. I can see that rentals of HD media are going to grow over the next few years while sales of HD media remain small.

Why?

Simple, how many avg consumers are going to buy media that works in ONE of the several players they have in the house?

My answer = few, they'll rent them for "movie night" & they'll buy movies that work in all the players.

The price of hardware has & will continue to drop rapidly. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but currently it seems like its dropping 50% in one year's time. By that estimate, it should drop 25% or so by this christmas. Maybe the cheapest BD player will be $375 MSRP; cheapest HD player $225 MSRP (excluding the add-on).

A few more years, and the prices will be much lower. I'm guessing the cheapest players should be in the low $100 (MSRP).

The prices of hi def media should drop to dvd levels by that time as well.

The advent of online movie rentals through the mail had more to do with the boom of DVD rentals than the prices of players player & movies (both of which came down tremendously). The trend is probably going to continue, as more and more people find renting convenient this way.

The price of hardware has & will continue to drop rapidly. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but currently it seems like its dropping 50% in one year's time. By that estimate, it should drop 25% or so by this christmas. Maybe the cheapest BD player will be $375 MSRP; cheapest HD player $225 MSRP (excluding the add-on).

A few more years, and the prices will be much lower. I'm guessing the cheapest players should be in the low $100 (MSRP).

The prices of hi def media should drop to dvd levels by that time as well.

The advent of online movie rentals through the mail had more to do with the boom of DVD rentals than the prices of players player & movies (both of which came down tremendously). The trend is probably going to continue, as more and more people find renting convenient this way.

But will that $375 Blu-ray player support Profile 1.1? Or will that one cost $700 and force us to wait yet *another* year to get something mainstream?

I posted this in another thread, but I think it is appropriate here:

I think we should consider how rentals affect sales. Even if rentals didn't bring any income to studios, they can have a big impact on sales. As Nescio mentioned, having rentals available can make sales go down in the short run. But in the long run I think they are important. And with the subject of catalog titles not selling well coming up again, I'm thinking that this all ties together.

Here is my theory with some assumptions layed out (some repeats of what others have said). There are many people who will buy day-and-date releases, but very few catalog titles. But, if they know what is going on they won't buy a player unless they can rent catalog titles (and some day-and-dates that they don't care enough about to buy). So, in order for the studios to sell lots of their day-and-date titles to this group, they need to release catalog titles and have them available for rent.

I'm thinking that the Blockbuster announcement could end up being important after the point that people go in there and see the titles, along with any advertising that targets them as far as letting them know about the Blu-ray rentals being available. For many people who buy a player based on that they could start out renting for a while and it may take a while for the disc sales to follow from them. But they should follow at some point, even if not with the same attach rate as for people who's main reason for getting in wasn't because rentals were available at their local store.

To add one more thing. Having rentals available shouldn't hurt a format's chances of selling players to people who only buy, but it should help them get some sales from people who rent some and buy some.

--Darin

Over the last 2.5 years, sales of DVD have been flat (now down actually*) while rentals are up 32%. This does not appear to be changing as we move forward in time. More and more people are renting movies as opposed to buying them.

If you are in the rental business - this could be good times a comming. If you are in the sales only business - you are not doing that well because you haven't grown your business and competition gets fierce when growth evaporates.

*http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6453579.html

Over the last 2.5 years, sales of DVD have been flat (now down actually*) while rentals are up 32%. This does not appear to be changing as we move forward in time. More and more people are renting movies as opposed to buying them.

If you are in the rental business - this could be good times a comming. If you are in the sales only business - you are not doing that well because you haven't grown your business and competition gets fierce when growth evaporates.

*http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6453579.html

DVD sales flattening out tells the Studios that they need a new vehicle to sell to people - not necessarily more material, but the same material improved.

People will not buy in droves until they are confident the format is here to stay - i.e. the winner of this war. Until then, DVD sales AND HD sales are seen as somewhat risky!

DVD sales flattening out tells the Studios that they need a new vehicle to sell to people - not necessarily more material, but the same material improved.

People will not buy in droves until they are confident the format is here to stay - i.e. the winner of this war. Until then, DVD sales AND HD sales are seen as somewhat risky!

That is definitely one way to look at it.

Another is that people may have less disposable income or wish to spend it elsewhere like the purchase of an HDTV, or filling their car up with gas, and are choosing to rent rather than buy.

They still get to see the movie - they just don't own it.

Barnes and Noble sells tons of books, like other book sellers. But if all you want to do is read a book - you can go to your public library and rent it out (for free) and read it and return it.

Only difference -ownership

That is definitely one way to look at it.

Another is that people may have less disposable income or wish to spend it elsewhere like the purchase of an HDTV, or filling their car up with gas, and are choosing to rent rather than buy.

They still get to see the movie - they just don't own it.

Barnes and Noble sells tons of books, like other book sellers. But if all you want to do is read a book - you can go to your public library and rent it out (for free) and read it and return it.

Only difference -ownership

Those who buy also rent. Those who buy do so and don't see it as rent or buy. People do not go into Barnes and Noble to find out which book to check out at the library. Unfortunately for me, my wife doesn't see the difference. :confused: As much as I explain that once the Oprah book club book is read, it just sits around for eternity collecting dust. Same for the dvd buyers.

Those who buy also rent. Those who buy do so and don't see it as rent or buy. People do not go into Barnes and Noble to find out which book to check out at the library. Unfortunately for me, my wife doesn't see the difference. :confused: As much as I explain that once the Oprah book club book is read, it just sits around for eternity collecting dust. Same for the dvd buyers.

This could be a very good reason to explain why sales are flat and rentals up 32%

And many do exactly what you described - go to B & N to see what is new than rent it at the library, I do it all the time and I am not unique.

From the Associated Press

One other thing to note, lookup BBI's share price on yahoo
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=bbi
Click on 5yr (on the right below the smaller graph)
then compare to DOW, S&P, NASDAQ

definite downward trend, smart money's steering away from B&M stores that hold plastic discs of bits. Think Tower records closures. The format war has been won.
MPEG4 rules. Blockbuster's announcement is just to get some press, any press.
Netflix, apple, tv networks, google-youtube, etc.

Wouldn't you like the ability to hand in the movie you just watched for a free HD DVD rental?

I know I hope my local store starts carrying BD, and considering that 1450 stores are getting them I am cautiosly optimistic.

Nope!

There are so many SD DVDs that I have not yet watched that I will only rent HD DVDs from BB online.

The in-store lack of HD DVDs is a non-issue..... nuff said! :cool:

This could be a very good reason to explain why sales are flat and rentals up 32%

And many do exactly what you described - go to B & N to see what is new than rent it at the library, I do it all the time and I am not unique.

Maybe not, but come holiday time I don't see many lines at the library.

This could be a very good reason to explain why sales are flat and rentals up 32%

And many do exactly what you described - go to B & N to see what is new than rent it at the library, I do it all the time and I am not unique.

I do recall that a great many people said on this forum that they were going to buy a player but then rent the disks in order to avoid building up a big investment in a possibly disappearing format.

If this is actually happening, another reason why the studios should want to end the format war.

There is no way hd-dvd will win the war with this. It was almost impossible before and now is 100% impossible.
Go Blu!

The most HD-DVD could have hoped for is to co-exist.

This is my local Blockbuster's section.
You can see 5 titles per row for HD DVD with several repeats.
6 titles per row for Blu-ray with no repeats at all and the staff acknowledge that they'll need anothe Blu-ray slot very soon.

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/128/bb3sot2.jpg

Mine looks like that, except that Bluray has two shelves and HD-DVD has maybe 1 full shelf. Plenty of repeats.

I wonder why they don't just stock the catalog titles...People will rent those too, ya know.

This is my local Blockbuster's section.
You can see 5 titles per row for HD DVD with several repeats.
6 titles per row for Blu-ray with no repeats at all and the staff acknowledge that they'll need anothe Blu-ray slot very soon.

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/128/bb3sot2.jpg

Well then ... it's no wonder that it's a 70/30 split ... they are hardly being fair with what they make available.

If I put 30 'Blue' titles on one shelf, and 10 'Red' on another, and then declare that the 'Blue' titles are moving much better ... uhm ... I would expect them to.

Unfortunately, people might get the idea that those 10 are all that are available, and therein lies the problem.

We know that are way more movies available in HD DVD than what is shown in that picture ... perhaps Blockbuster does have a little bias afterall ... maybe they get a discount on all SPE titles or something. :p

The most HD-DVD could have hoped for is to co-exist.

Fine by me. I have no problem with that scenerio.

Well then ... it's no wonder that it's a 70/30 split ... they are hardly being fair with what they make available.

If I put 30 'Blue' titles on one shelf, and 10 'Red' on another, and then declare that the 'Blue' titles are moving much better ... uhm ... I would expect them to.I see 42 vs 30 for unique titles, so not sure why you found it necessary to exaggerate so much. According to eproductwars.com there are 308 BDs that can ship today and 237 HD DVDs. That is a 1.3:1 ratio. 42/30 is a 1.4:1 ratio. 70+/30- is at least 2.3:1 ratio.

How is the over 70/30 split "no wonder" again (without the exaggeration)?

--Darin

Fine by me. I have no problem with that scenerio.

I do. HD-DVD is like the Ralph Nader of video formats. Its a spoiler which risks the future of HD media.

I see 42 vs 30 for unique titles, so not sure why you found it necessary to exaggerate so much. According to eproductwars.com there are 308 BDs that can ship today and 237 HD DVDs. That is a 1.3:1 ratio. 42/30 is a 1.4:1 ratio. 70+/30- is at least 2.3:1 ratio.

How is the over 70/30 split "no wonder" again (without the exaggeration)?

--Darin

What would the numbers be if it was 42:42? That was the part of my point ... why did Blockbuster not stock the most recent titles that would have the most propensity for being rented?

With these small number of titles available, in general, it's quite easy to get a 70/30 skewed result ... or even a 50/50 skewed result for that matter.

I do. HD-DVD is like the Ralph Nader of video formats. Its a spoiler which risks the future of HD media.

But it was voted, by the menbers of the DVD Forum on November 19, 2003 that HD DVD was to be the successor of DVD - originally caled AOD (Advanced Optical Disc) and when voted - became HD DVD for the name recognition. The major patent holders for HD DVD are Toshiba and NEC. - WIKI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD

What would the numbers be if it was 42:42? That was the part of my point ... why did Blockbuster not stock the most recent titles that would have the most propensity for being rented?I see 2 copies of Letters from Iwo Jima and Smokin' Aces on the HD DVD side. It is possible that the first 250 stores won't be getting new HD DVDs, but I couldn't tell from what Blockbuster has said (they made it clear that online would get new releases). If it is like the Hollywood Videos near me, maybe they have started to skew their inventory toward Blu-ray after having them pretty even. There is the chicken and egg issue and if Blu-rays were renting better and so they started getting more on that side, I don't see how they can be blamed.

But yes, 70/30 likely did result partially from more BDs available and more day-and-date BDs available (just like has happened for rent).

And if HD DVD is releasing less titles (especially less day-and-date titles), why should Blockbuster have had to go deeper into what HD DVD released? Would you consider it unfair if Blockbuster just got the day-and-date releases for each format? It isn't their fault that HD DVD has been releasing less. Would you feel the same way about VCD (or whatever that 720p format is)? That they should get as much space as HD DVD or Blu-ray?

--Darin

I do. HD-DVD is like the Ralph Nader of video formats. Its a spoiler which risks the future of HD media.

So if HD DVD goes away and we're left only with Blu-ray, then suddenly mass adoption will take place (sometime in the future when player prices reach levels that average consumer will be willing to purchase at) ?

Why not make Blu-ray go away since the HD DVD players are that much closer to that price threshold? Many have said that they are 'on the fence' because of the format war -- and I'm sure that's where fuel for your argument comes from. But, what many of those have also said is that since they don't know where it's heading *AND* Blu-ray player prices are so high, that they'll just wait. If HD DVD was crowned the winner now, those people would surely buy into HD sooner.

The longer it takes to get mass adoption, the higher risk of the future of HD media, right? If all studios were neutral, consumers are more likely to purchase the more inexpensive, more complete, $243 player, are they not?

Sure, if HD DVD goes away, in a year or two, Blu-ray prices should come down ... but that's another year or two we're risking the future of HD Media, no?

If anything, Toshiba's recent promotion shows that if the price is low enough, people will buy in ... surely that's the quickest way to mass adoption and securing the future of HD Media. ;)

I see 2 copies of Letters from Iwo Jima and Smokin' Aces on the HD DVD side. If it is like the Hollywood Videos near me, maybe they have started to skew their inventory toward Blu-ray. There is the chicken and egg issue and if Blu-rays were renting better and so they started getting more on that side and I don't see how they can be blamed.

And if HD DVD is releasing less titles (especially less day-and-date titles), why should Blockbuster have had to go deeper into what HD DVD released? Would you consider it unfair if Blockbuster just got the day-and-date releases for each format? It isn't their fault that HD DVD has been releasing less. Would you feel the same way about VCD (or whatever that 720p format is)? That they should get as much space as HD DVD or Blu-ray?

--Darin

But we're still talking such small numbers and such a small window of time. HD DVD is releasing many more titles just this week (16:2) ... that alone would have balanced out the wall. Sure, they're not all day and date, but there are bunches of catalog titles on the BR side as well.

It just seems like a knee-jerk reaction to me ... frankly, it would make sense based on Blockbuster recent track-record and dwindling stock price ... but if their goal is to turn it around, they should drop both HD formats and use the wall space for DVD. *shrug*

btw, does anyone have any numbers on the Blockbuster HD Side? We hear it's a 70/30 split ... but what are the actual numbers of rentals over that 3 month (6?) trial period? What could we possibly be talking here? 700/300 discs? 7000/3000 discs? It seems insignificant to DVD and surely not enough to base the future on.

It seems insignificant to DVD and surely not enough to base the future on.Every great oak was a sappling at some point. What should they base their decision on and again, would you apply the same kind of rules to VCD? That is, they should go ahead with it even if they test it and it doesn't rent more than about 40% of what HD DVD rented or 20% of what Blu-ray rented.

If HD DVD does take off they can stock them in the 2nd phase stores. It is possible that just looking at the HD DVD rental figures they wouldn't have expanded it to do the 2nd phase now even if not looking at the Blu-ray numbers (and possible that they would have). There is likely to be some kind of cutoff somewhere when doing a test. This test looks like it lasted more than 6 months.

--Darin

So if HD DVD goes away and we're left only with Blu-ray, then suddenly mass adoption will take place (sometime in the future when player prices reach levels that average consumer will be willing to purchase at) ?

Why not make Blu-ray go away since the HD DVD players are that much closer to that price threshold? Many have said that they are 'on the fence' because of the format war -- and I'm sure that's where fuel for your argument comes from. But, what many of those have also said is that since they don't know where it's heading *AND* Blu-ray player prices are so high, that they'll just wait. If HD DVD was crowned the winner now, those people would surely buy into HD sooner.

The longer it takes to get mass adoption, the higher risk of the future of HD media, right? If all studios were neutral, consumers are more likely to purchase the more inexpensive, more complete, $243 player, are they not?

Sure, if HD DVD goes away, in a year or two, Blu-ray prices should come down ... but that's another year or two we're risking the future of HD Media, no?

If anything, Toshiba's recent promotion shows that if the price is low enough, people will buy in ... surely that's the quickest way to mass adoption and securing the future of HD Media. ;)

Great idea...except none of the market factors are moving in HD-DVD's direction. That's nice that you suggest we go HD-DVD since the costs are lower, but have fun trying to convince everybody that would need to be convinced to do it. We want one format, and the BDA is doing a solid job of positioning itself to be that format. And that's why I picked it...because it has the momentum to win. As you said, the longer it takes...and quite frankly, I see no possible way HD-DVD can win in any short amount of time...BD though? Absolutely. Of course, there are ways...but they involve rather absurd ideas like Sony just giving up.

Since that's never going to happen, I pick Blu-Ray. I can't just ignore all the things going on in the market.

This is my local Blockbuster's section.
You can see 5 titles per row for HD DVD with several repeats.
6 titles per row for Blu-ray with no repeats at all and the staff acknowledge that they'll need anothe Blu-ray slot very soon.

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/128/bb3sot2.jpg

Nice picture. Now imagine what it will look like after they stock up with 170 Blu-ray titles (to start) on the expansion locations plus the original 250 "test" stores. It will be a VERY pretty picture. I can visualize it now with happy families & individuals browsing the Blu-ray racks.

So if HD DVD goes away and we're left only with Blu-ray, then suddenly mass adoption will take place (sometime in the future when player prices reach levels that average consumer will be willing to purchase at) ?

Nobody said "suddenly". But mass adoption will begin to develop after the format war is sorted out and there is a winner, yes.

Why not make Blu-ray go away since the HD DVD players are that much closer to that price threshold? Many have said that they are 'on the fence' because of the format war -- and I'm sure that's where fuel for your argument comes from. But, what many of those have also said is that since they don't know where it's heading *AND* Blu-ray player prices are so high, that they'll just wait. If HD DVD was crowned the winner now, those people would surely buy into HD sooner.

The problem is too many "ifs". HD-DVD simply does not have enough support (studios or CE companies) or software sales to be the one to win at this point, so it seems logical that HD-DVD should be the one to "go away", despite their single advantage of lower priced Toshiba players.

The longer it takes to get mass adoption, the higher risk of the future of HD media, right? If all studios were neutral, consumers are more likely to purchase the more inexpensive, more complete, $243 player, are they not?

More "ifs" that have nothing to do with current reality. The reality is that all studios are not neutral, and are not going to be anytime in the near future.

Sure, if HD DVD goes away, in a year or two, Blu-ray prices should come down ... but that's another year or two we're risking the future of HD Media, no?

No. If HD-DVD went away, more people would start buying into Blu-ray immediately, even at current player prices. Once prices come down further, even more people will buy in to the (winning) format.

If anything, Toshiba's recent promotion shows that if the price is low enough, people will buy in ... surely that's the quickest way to mass adoption and securing the future of HD Media. ;)

That could be said for anything, couldn't it? But if another product has more to offer, it isn't unreasonable to expect that it will cost more.

What would the numbers be if it was 42:42? That was the part of my point ... why did Blockbuster not stock the most recent titles that would have the most propensity for being rented?

With these small number of titles available, in general, it's quite easy to get a 70/30 skewed result ... or even a 50/50 skewed result for that matter.

I think if you look at the titles you see most of them are new releases.
If HD DVD had as many new releases as Blu-ray, they'd probably have more titles.
I'm not sure how that is Blockbuster's fault, but I'm sure you'll be able to explain it to me.

This is from USNews, the most unbiased news source in america.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/070624/2dvd.htm

The move gave weight to predictions by Blu-ray backers that stores would begin to have a say. "Retailers are ultimately going to weigh in, because they only have a limited amount of shelf space," Disney CEO Bob Iger told analysts in May.

But it was voted, by the menbers of the DVD Forum on November 19, 2003 that HD DVD was to be the successor of DVD - originally caled AOD (Advanced Optical Disc) and when voted - became HD DVD for the name recognition. The major patent holders for HD DVD are Toshiba and NEC. - WIKI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD
Have you even wondered why it is that a large majority of the CE and studio members of the DVD forum decided to adopt BD instead of continuing on under the DVD banner?

I mean other then NEC and Sanyo staying quiet, Toshiba is the only CE company doing any real player development, while we know what every other CE company chose.

We also know the current breakdown of the studio choices. So what does it say about a standards body when the majority (we're not talking about a small majority, but an overwhelming one where 3 CE companies were isoated by all of the others) of the members decided to start something else?

Have you even wondered why it is that a large majority of the CE and studio members of the DVD forum decided to adopt BD instead of continuing on under the DVD banner?

I mean other then NEC and Sanyo staying quiet, Toshiba is the only CE company doing any real player development, while we know what every other CE company chose.

We also know the current breakdown of the studio choices. So what does it say about a standards body when the majority (we're not talking about a small majority, but an overwhelming one where 3 CE companies were isoated by all of the others) of the members decided to start something else?

I think you are using the current situation and trying to go back in time and apply it. I believe that the number of companies, represented at the DVD Forum, that were there in November 2003 was near 100. So you are saying 65 of them decided to follow Sony and the BDA to back BD? ("overwhelming majority")

I think you are using the current situation and trying to go back in time and apply it. I believe that the number of companies, represented at the DVD Forum, that were there in November 2003 was near 100. So you are saying 65 of them decided to follow Sony and the BDA to back BD? ("overwhelming majority")
Neo1965 is referring to the DVD Forum Steering Committee, which were the two dozen or so companies that held the votes that mattered in this case. While there are many members in the DVD Forum, only the Steering Committee got to chime in on this vote.

Topics merged.

Nice picture. Now imagine what it will look like after they stock up with 170 Blu-ray titles (to start) on the expansion locations plus the original 250 "test" stores. It will be a VERY pretty picture. I can visualize it now with happy families & individuals browsing the Blu-ray racks.
Well this is probably what the 'test' stores will look like. You can guess what the expansion stores will look like. :D

http://www.lynxfx.com/forumpics/bluraystand.jpg

*This is just a joke, it is the weekend afterall. ;)

Well this is probably what the 'test' stores will look like. You can guess what the expansion stores will look like. :D

http://www.lynxfx.com/forumpics/bluraystand.jpg



*This is just a joke, it is the weekend afterall. ;)

Did you do that with photoshop very funny. :)
Rob

Nobody said "suddenly". But mass adoption will begin to develop after the format war is sorted out and there is a winner, yes.


I'd say this would have to occur along with much lower hardware prices.


The problem is too many "ifs". HD-DVD simply does not have enough support (studios or CE companies) or software sales to be the one to win at this point, so it seems logical that HD-DVD should be the one to "go away", despite their single advantage of lower priced Toshiba players.


There are plenty of IF's and 'Potential' and 'Later on' statements in the BDA repetoire as well. HD DVD has more Studio Support if you count Indy's and Adult, and the CE Company Support is getting to be a moot argument. The most inexpensive player(s) on the BDA side are all Sony units. Not a single CE is able to compete with that. In fact, several CE's who were Blu-ray exclusive are now selling Universal Players so they can grab a piece of the market. Besides, if Blu-ray went away tomorrow, and HD DVD was all that was left, Studios would immediately begin to release content on HD DVD, no?


More "ifs" that have nothing to do with current reality. The reality is that all studios are not neutral, and are not going to be anytime in the near future.


Perhaps, but their content is becoming more and more neutral. I don't care what Disney's PR says if I can get Disney movies on HD DVD ... which is apparently the case for some titles already.


No. If HD-DVD went away, more people would start buying into Blu-ray immediately, even at current player prices. Once prices come down further, even more people will buy in to the (winning) format.


I can't disagree because if (1) person goes and buys a player, then you are right ... more would buy immediately. I don't think that HD DVD going away, in and of itself, would create mass market adoption. We'd need prices to come down to where HD DVD players are today. Sooo ... if Blu-ray were to go away, we'd be that much closer to mass adoption, because we don't need to wait for the pricing to come down. :p


That could be said for anything, couldn't it? But if another product has more to offer, it isn't unreasonable to expect that it will cost more.

But that's just it ... it doesn't offer more ... I get less bang for my buck with a $434 Profile 1.0 player than I do with a $243 HD DVD player that fully confirms to the spec.

I think if you look at the titles you see most of them are new releases.
If HD DVD had as many new releases as Blu-ray, they'd probably have more titles.
I'm not sure how that is Blockbuster's fault, but I'm sure you'll be able to explain it to me.

Well, all the releases are new if they're on Blu-ray or HD DVD since the format is less than a year old. What would you consider a new title? Something that made it to DVD in the last 6 months? 12 months? Then we can look through and see who has what. I see several titles there in 'The Guardian' and 'Invincible' and Fantastic Four' that I would hardly consider 'new releases'. But that's just me.

I see several titles there in 'The Guardian' and 'Invincible' and Fantastic Four' that I would hardly consider 'new releases'. But that's just me.
The Guardian and Invicible were both day and date releases with their DVD counterpart. That's as 'new release' as you can get.

Lee Stewart - Fine by me. I have no problem with that scenerio.


Again, Solomon faced with the baby crisis and the pretend mother saying, "fine by me, split the baby in two."

As long as HD DVD goes the way of SACD and Universal goes Neutral, then all we'll see are Blu in retail, and HD DVD will be internet only niche. That's fine by me. :p

by the way, how do you post two quotes properly in the same thread?

There is no way hd-dvd will win the war with this. It was almost impossible before and now is 100% impossible.

Ya Gotta Believe! Of course if's possible, and in fact, many reasonably possible scenarios exist that could reverse HD DVD's fortunes.

Of course, admittedly, Blu-ray holds a commanding lead.


But remember, the lead they hold is in a market of only 1-1.5% of DVD sales. The lead they hold is in a market where virtually no one currently knows or cares about highdef media. The lead they hold is in a market where certain studios they are counting on are virtually absent. The lead they hold is partially anchored by several CE's making obsolete machines.

There is still a lot of game left.

*This is just a joke, it is the weekend afterall. ;)

Ha, ha. Well played.

Ya Gotta Believe! Of course if's possible, and in fact, many reasonably possible scenarios exist that could reverse HD DVD's fortunes.

Of course, admittedly, Blu-ray holds a commanding lead.


But remember, the lead they hold is in a market of only 1-1.5% of DVD sales. The lead they hold is in a market where virtually no one currently knows or cares about highdef media. The lead they hold is in a market where certain studios they are counting on are virtually absent. The lead they hold is partially anchored by several CE's making obsolete machines.

There is still a lot of game left.

I am not sure it is that high:

DVD 2006: $19 billion in sales . . . . $7.5 Billion in rentals - $26.5 Billion total revenue

HD Disc - SID - $55 million in sales . . . . $22 million* in rentals - $77 million total revenue

* Formula used to equate rentals using 2006 DVD stats

My calculator doesn't go up that high. What is the percentage of $77 million to $26.5 billion?

I get .003% . . . is that right?

The Guardian and Invicible were both day and date releases with their DVD counterpart. That's as 'new release' as you can get.

But they're older movies ... I wouldn't consider them 'New Releases' anymore.

And how come Day and Date Titles for HD DVD don't appear on the Blockbuster Shelf? hmmmm ...

And how come Day and Date Titles for HD DVD don't appear on the Blockbuster Shelf? hmmmm ...

The Departed
Children of Men
Alpha Dog
Dreamgirls
Flags of our Fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
Smokin' Aces

:confused:

Am I missing something? Your statement is confusing.

Also it should be noted, this store is in Ontario, Canada. (Lake St., St. Catharines)
~just in case anyone was wondering

My calculator doesn't go up that high. What is the percentage of $77 million to $26.5 billion?

I get .003% . . . is that right?
forgot the *100 => you get 0.3%

But they're older movies ... I wouldn't consider them 'New Releases' anymore.

And how come Day and Date Titles for HD DVD don't appear on the Blockbuster Shelf? hmmmm ...
They aren't old, they are new video releases from late December and January. They are still on the main wall of BB signifying that they are recent releases. Movies on video tend to have a longer shelflife than they do at theater nowadays.

There are plenty of new releases on the HD side of that picture as well. From what I can see:

Alpha Dog, Babel, Children of Men, The Departed, Dream Girls, The Good Shepard, Flags of our Fathers, Letters from IwoJima, Smokin Aces.

Not as many on the BD side, but it looks like all the major new films are there. Don't blame BB if most of HD DVD's 'new titles' are catalog titles.

How much are Blu-Ray players?

Picked up the Toshiba HD DVD D2 because I needed a new DVD player and figured why not get one of the new formats as well. Blu-Ray was over my budget.

If they come out ahead at the end, I'll pick up a Blu-Ray. ( Hopefully a PS3 for $300 or so. ;) )

I didn't lose anything by going HD DVD first, especially since Blu-Rays spec isn't finalized. Who knows how much better the players will be.

I should also mention that I don't think this is one of the 250 test stores as the Blu-ray/HD DVD sections only opened up about 5-6 weeks ago.

How much are Blu-Ray players?
Picked up the Toshiba HD DVD D2 because I needed a new DVD player and figured why not get one of the new formats as well. Blu-Ray was over my budget.
If they come out ahead at the end, I'll pick up a Blu-Ray. ( Hopefully a PS3 for $300 or so. ;) )
I didn't lose anything by going HD DVD first, especially since Blu-Rays spec isn't finalized. Who knows how much better the players will be.
If you don't care about BD-Java PIP, you can currently pick up a Samsung BD-P1000 on eBay from several sellers for around US$300
But you're probably better off waiting until you can grab a PS3.

I should also mention that I don't think this is one of the 250 test stores as the Blu-ray/HD DVD sections only opened up about 5-6 weeks ago.

I think Canada had a different test bed of about 75 stores ...

Photos from my Blockbuster test store. They are a bit old, taken not long after my store got going with the HD stuff, but you get the point. Note that things have changed slightly since these photos were taken. The HD DVD has one whole column now but the BD section has more movies and a better selection. BD has at least 18 more movies than the HD DVD section today.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d106/adamgriphoto/DSC00262.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d106/adamgriphoto/DSC00261.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d106/adamgriphoto/DSC00260.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d106/adamgriphoto/DSC00258.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d106/adamgriphoto/DSC00257.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d106/adamgriphoto/DSC00256.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d106/adamgriphoto/2a.jpg

Note that the section is located directly across from the front door that you come in the store with - therefore it is in what you might call the "most directly visible" location in the store, among the crowd of other movies though.

forgot the *100 => you get 0.3%

Thank you.

Think anyone will pay attention to the fact that HD DVD and BD represent .03% of the video disc marketplace as far as revenue?

Nah . . . .

Boy did I pick an approporate signature or what? :D

No, I didn't. For some reason I thought it was a Universal title. I am still in awe at how few "must have" titles Universal has put out over the last 10 years. The Bourne movies, King Kong and maybe the Mummy movies. They've had some big comedy's but rent comedy's, I don't buy them (unless they're kids movies, then they watch them ten times and its cheaper to buy them).

Well, my decision to go Blu, just keeps looking smarter and smarter.


Well, I bought into HD-DVD and fully supported them at launch and even after Blu-Ray first came out. I was not going to buy into Blu-Ray during the first few months of their launch because they did not impress me with their BD25 launch line-up at all and their player was too expensive. Since I am a gamer, I pre-ordered a 20Gb Ps3 at Gamestop and got one the day the Ps3 came out. Since then, Blu-Ray has matched HD-DVD quality and surpassed it with the latest 50GB disc titles from Sony and Disney. I will still keep my HD-A2 and hopefully some exclusive's from Universal are still on the horizon along with all of their TV series's they have the rights to. Rumor has it that Star Trek the original series remastered will be HD-DVD exclusive, however they will be released on combo discs which I have vowed never to buy again.. However in this case, I might make an exception and test each disc out carefully the day I buy them. However it will be a pain in the but if I order them from amazon to get a discount over Best Buy and they do have problems..

The most HD-DVD could have hoped for is to co-exist.


Once the HD-DVD insider's started talking about "dual-format players" being something they look forward to seeing, I knew then it was all over in their minds that they had a chance to win this. You have to have a "there can be only one" attitude" up until the bitter end. I just went to my Blockbuster store and they have lots of Blu-Ray titles with a large display telling people what the Blue discs are and so forth. It's only a matter of time now before this is all over...I'm betting that by Christmas of this year, which is arguably HD-DVD's last stand, will place HD-DVD so far behind that it would be impossible for them to make a come-back.. Especially considering this Blockbuster deal which until then, I was seeing HD-DVD have a surge with the discounted players. However all that fizzled once the Blockbuster announcement and they have lost all momentum they had gained these past few months with the players sale.

Thank you.

Think anyone will pay attention to the fact that HD DVD and BD represent .03% of the video disc marketplace as far as revenue?

Nah . . . .

Boy did I pick an approporate signature or what? :D

When the Hi-def market is experiencing exponential growth and the DVD market is flattening out (soon to be decreasing), I think they will pay attention. If anyone in the business does not, it's to their own peril.

I think Canada had a different test bed of about 75 stores ...

The staff said they were the only store in Canada, but I knew that was a load of rubbish. They also said amongst the reasons why Blu-ray is better than "HD DVD is so expensive"
I chuckled to myself and bid them adieu.

The staff said they were the only store in Canada, but I knew that was a load of rubbish. They also said amongst the reasons why Blu-ray is better than "HD DVD is so expensive"
I chuckled to myself and bid them adieu.

For any rental company, HD-DVD's can very well be more expensive than Blu-Ray's if the discs become unplayable because of scratches that seem to be a larger problem on HD-DVD's than SD-DVD's because they are more sensitive to it. Rental companie's would therefore have to replace discs faster with newer copies after being rented so many times at a faster rate they already have with SD-DVD's. I remember Amir touting how HD-DVD has a wider range for its laser making it able to go around scratches easily while Blu-Ray's laser's are so thin that even the tiniest scratch would make them unplayable;e. It turns out that the Blu-Ray discs don't get scratched, even with a Brillo pad, and I've never had any trouble playing any of my rental Blu-Ray's so far while about half of my HD-DVD rentals have issues being played (glitches) and others don't play at all..Every time it looks like either scratches are involved, or it is a combo disc...I wonder why HD-DVD hasn't adopted the same type of protective layer to go on "rental" discs at the very least. Oh well, it is all hind site and too late to do anything about that now that Blockbuster has gone Blu...

Ruined discs - no big deal. Just send them back to the studio and request some more. BB and NF don't buy the discs - they get them for free. They have a revenue sharing program with the studios.

For any rental company, HD-DVD's can very well be more expensive than Blu-Ray's if the discs become unplayable because of scratches that seem to be a larger problem on HD-DVD's than SD-DVD's because they are more sensitive to it. Rental companie's would therefore have to replace discs faster with newer copies after being rented so many times at a faster rate they already have with SD-DVD's. I remember Amir touting how HD-DVD has a wider range for its laser making it able to go around scratches easily while Blu-Ray's laser's are so thin that even the tiniest scratch would make them unplayable;e. It turns out that the Blu-Ray discs don't get scratched, even with a Brillo pad, and I've never had any trouble playing any of my rental Blu-Ray's so far while about half of my HD-DVD rentals have issues being played (glitches) and others don't play at all..Every time it looks like either scratches are involved, or it is a combo disc...I wonder why HD-DVD hasn't adopted the same type of protective layer to go on "rental" discs at the very least. Oh well, it is all hind site and too late to do anything about that now that Blockbuster has gone Blu...

But Blockbuster doesn't buy their copies of discs anyways ... how is this more expensive? :confused:

btw, maybe they can visit 'protective layers' again when HD DVD gets a bigger share at those 250 locations (or Blockbuster sees them take off online). Did the press release mention scratches or 70/30? I forget. :cool:

Oh, yah, I forgot ... I'm still waiting for that store number. Heck, just a general address and zipcode is all I need ... I can look them up online.

Ruined discs - no big deal. Just send them back to the studio and request some more. BB and NF don't buy the discs - they get them for free. They have a revenue sharing program with the studios.

Well, it may not cost them more $$$ in terms of re-buying discs... but it still costs them. Wasted time and effort by both blockbuster and the consumer, customer satisfaction drops. Then you have to account for BB giving the consumer compensation for their time, plus lost customers... etc.

Maybe this whole BB announcement has to do with what Universal's Ron Meyer said about Sumner Redstone on Sunday Morning Shootout last October:

http://defamer.com/hollywood/universal/universals-meyer-finds-redstones-recent-executive-moves-a-little-*******+y-207890.php

Ruined discs - no big deal. Just send them back to the studio and request some more. BB and NF don't buy the discs - they get them for free. They have a revenue sharing program with the studios.


If this is true I learned something new today. I always thought such a policy was only in place for discs with a manufacturers defect and not rental abuse. If the rental discs are not owned by Blockbuster but are on a loan, how does that explain Blockbuster selling the used discs for a discount after they've been rented so many times? So is it a loan and then buy option or something else? In either case, Blockbuster does not want 20% or more of their customers coming back and telling them their discs do not play or freeze. People like me who rent HD-DVD's have gotten tired of getting discs that don't play. This doesn't happen with Blu-Ray discs to the same degree as my friends and I have never had a blu-ray disc not play in our PS3's while many HD-DVD's skip and freeze while some combo's don't even play. The rental company may not lose money on the discs sending the scratched disc back to the studio and getting a replacement however we as customers do lose faith quickly the more times this happens so the rental companies will lose customers who get tired of getting scratched up discs and employees of the stores will have to explain to people that HD-DVD's when scratched are more sensitive than regular DVD's and so forth and eventually just tell the people that Blu-Ray is more scratch resistant and has less problems.. Of course this is all hindsight since Blockbuster already chose Blu-Ray for the majority of its stores and will phase out HD-DVD once Universal goes neutral or a formal announcement of the loss of the format war occurs..

Well this is probably what the 'test' stores will look like. You can guess what the expansion stores will look like. :D

http://www.lynxfx.com/forumpics/bluraystand.jpg

*This is just a joke, it is the weekend afterall. ;)

But there are two copies of Smoking Aces, HD-DVD wins :o

Love the Spiderman effects :D

If this is true I learned something new today. I always thought such a policy was only in place for discs with a manufacturers defect and not rental abuse. If the rental discs are not owned by Blockbuster but are on a loan, how does that explain Blockbuster selling the used discs for a discount after they've been rented so many times? So is it a loan and then buy option or something else? In either case, Blockbuster does not want 20% or more of their customers coming back and telling them their discs do not play or freeze. People like me who rent HD-DVD's have gotten tired of getting discs that don't play. This doesn't happen with Blu-Ray discs to the same degree as my friends and I have never had a blu-ray disc not play in our PS3's while many HD-DVD's skip and freeze while some combo's don't even play. The rental company may not lose money on the discs sending the scratched disc back to the studio and getting a replacement however we as customers do lose faith quickly the more times this happens so the rental companies will lose customers who get tired of getting scratched up discs and employees of the stores will have to explain to people that HD-DVD's when scratched are more sensitive than regular DVD's and so forth and eventually just tell the people that Blu-Ray is more scratch resistant and has less problems.. Of course this is all hindsight since Blockbuster already chose Blu-Ray for the majority of its stores and will phase out HD-DVD once Universal goes neutral or a formal announcement of the loss of the format war occurs..

Lee is mistaken in his thinking that rental stores don't own their discs. Netflix has been known to get a large percentage of their library from Amazon. What will happen is that (popular) discs are sold directly by the studios to the stores at a discounted rate and for that the rental stores will give a percentage (the size depends on how good you are at getting a deal with the studio, large chains will get a good deal whereas the local independent won't) of their rental earnings to the studio of that certain title or batch of titles. The only way that the rental store will get free replacements is if the discs are defective (see recent disc-rot and boiling discussions about various HDM discs), or they are deemed damaged through normal rental use (again that is quite vague and up to the chain to negotiate with the studio, so it really depends on their negotiating skills).

If HD DVDs are easily damaged then rental chains will have it written into their contracts that they receive free replacements more often than they do with DVDs, but is seems unlikely that the studios (especially Universal) are interested in hearing that HD DVDs have a flawed design and will need replacing often. The easier thing for rental chains to do is just drop them completely (or not expand their current offering like Blockbuster) and incur less expense in replacements.

If this is true I learned something new today. I always thought such a policy was only in place for discs with a manufacturers defect and not rental abuse. If the rental discs are not owned by Blockbuster but are on a loan, how does that explain Blockbuster selling the used discs for a discount after they've been rented so many times? So is it a loan and then buy option or something else? In either case, Blockbuster does not want 20% or more of their customers coming back and telling them their discs do not play or freeze. People like me who rent HD-DVD's have gotten tired of getting discs that don't play. This doesn't happen with Blu-Ray discs to the same degree as my friends and I have never had a blu-ray disc not play in our PS3's while many HD-DVD's skip and freeze while some combo's don't even play. The rental company may not lose money on the discs sending the scratched disc back to the studio and getting a replacement however we as customers do lose faith quickly the more times this happens so the rental companies will lose customers who get tired of getting scratched up discs and employees of the stores will have to explain to people that HD-DVD's when scratched are more sensitive than regular DVD's and so forth and eventually just tell the people that Blu-Ray is more scratch resistant and has less problems.. Of course this is all hindsight since Blockbuster already chose Blu-Ray for the majority of its stores and will phase out HD-DVD once Universal goes neutral or a formal announcement of the loss of the format war occurs..

Just for the record, Blockbuster Chose SD-DVD for the Majority of it's stores. Even with the expansion, it leaves something like 5000 stores with neither format.

And it's not really hindsight, because Blockbuster has said it is continuing to monitor the market and does not preclude itself from expanding the HD DVD offerings in the future.

That Target annoucement is supposed to be this week, right? And I guess the 'huge' annoucement from the 20th of June was the release of BD+?

Well this is probably what the 'test' stores will look like. You can guess what the expansion stores will look like. :D

http://www.lynxfx.com/forumpics/bluraystand.jpg

*This is just a joke, it is the weekend afterall. ;)Non-US markets around the world already look like that, no joke :cool:

Lee is mistaken in his thinking that rental stores don't own their discs. Netflix has been known to get a large percentage of their library from Amazon. What will happen is that (popular) discs are sold directly by the studios to the stores at a discounted rate and for that the rental stores will give a percentage (the size depends on how good you are at getting a deal with the studio, large chains will get a good deal whereas the local independent won't) of their rental earnings to the studio of that certain title or batch of titles. The only way that the rental store will get free replacements is if the discs are defective (see recent disc-rot and boiling discussions about various HDM discs), or they are deemed damaged through normal rental use (again that is quite vague and up to the chain to negotiate with the studio, so it really depends on their negotiating skills).

If HD DVDs are easily damaged then rental chains will have it written into their contracts that they receive free replacements more often than they do with DVDs, but is seems unlikely that the studios (especially Universal) are interested in hearing that HD DVDs have a flawed design and will need replacing often. The easier thing for rental chains to do is just drop them completely (or not expand their current offering like Blockbuster) and incur less expense in replacements.

Max:

2 articles concerning rental revenue sharing

Hollywood Video:

The company's bricks-and-mortar Hollywood Video division earned $8.8 million, up 45% from last year, on $256.2 million in revenues, an increase of 39%. Results were driven by growth in same-store sales, attributed to rental copy depth achieved through its revenue-sharing agreements with movie studios.

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA611458.html?q=studio+rental+agreements

Kozmo

In addition to agreeing to share VHS and DVD rental revenue on Warner, New Line and HBO titles with Kozmo, Warner holds 1.3 million shares in the company valued at an estimated $10 million. Executives familiar with the situation said that although the investment is Warner's first in a retailer, it does not represent a strategic direction for the studio, which is simply interested in Kozmo's business model.

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA621242.html?

Lee

There is revenue sharing, but it's been stated that the large rental companies get their discs for free. If that's the case, why would my local Hollywood be overflowing with previously viewed discs for sale? Same with Netflix.

There is revenue sharing, but it's been stated that the large rental companies get their discs for free. If that's the case, why would my local Hollywood be overflowing with previously viewed discs for sale? Same with Netflix.

Two different agreements:

Rental Revenue Shariing - studio provides the discs - no up front charge - share in the revenue stream during rental period.

Sales of Used Discs - either the renter can buy them for a specific price OR they sell them off and once again split the money with the studio

BB Store #1200 - gets 50 copies of Black Smake Moan (DVD) - each disc goes through the POS system so revenue can be tracked. Same thing with warehouse (and NF) for mail order rentals (but different because studio gets cut of customers month sub rate in relation to the number of titles provided).

60 days later - they start thinning down the inventory - 30 put up for sale - then more for sale until only one left.

Lions share of a DVD's revenue is generated in the first 30 days after release date.

As far as rental - the companies like BB and NF and HY have become outlets for the studios - as would anyone who rents DVD's in quanity.

Mom and Pop - can be different - I don't know and they are too samm to matter - less than 1% of market.

Of the rental business:

Blockbster - 76.4%
Netflix - 13.6%
Hollywood Video - about 7%
All others - 3%

First of all I watch too many movies. I walk into blockbuster with my free online rental and there is nothing to see. If I do not own the sd release than I have already seen the movies on the new release wall. I am an online member with a one day disc turnaround (three discs at a time) and have seen about everything in a few months.

I currently just return my envelope and use them to rent HD-DVD's (Huntington Beach store) whether i have seen the film or not. Most of the time I have no intention of watching the movie but instead of just mailing back the envelope I am attempting to generate more volume for HD-DVD. If more folks adopted this strategy it could make a meaningful difference

First of all I watch too many movies. I walk into blockbuster with my free online rental and there is nothing to see. If I do not own the sd release than I have already seen the movies on the new release wall. I am an online member with a one day disc turnaround (three discs at a time) and have seen about everything in a few months.

I currently just return my envelope and use them to rent HD-DVD's (Huntington Beach store) whether i have seen the film or not. Most of the time I have no intention of watching the movie but instead of just mailing back the envelope I am attempting to generate more volume for HD-DVD. If more folks adopted this strategy it could make a meaningful difference

I don't think this would work ... aren't they only tracking the in-store stuff? Or can you rent from the B&M's using Total Access?

Either way, I'm sure if someone tried this, it would be easily countered -- if it's not being done already. ;)

First of all I watch too many movies. I walk into blockbuster with my free online rental and there is nothing to see. If I do not own the sd release than I have already seen the movies on the new release wall. I am an online member with a one day disc turnaround (three discs at a time) and have seen about everything in a few months.

I currently just return my envelope and use them to rent HD-DVD's (Huntington Beach store) whether i have seen the film or not. Most of the time I have no intention of watching the movie but instead of just mailing back the envelope I am attempting to generate more volume for HD-DVD. If more folks adopted this strategy it could make a meaningful difference

Wow, that's pretty desperate. :p

I currently just return my envelope and use them to rent HD-DVD's (Huntington Beach store) whether i have seen the film or not. Most of the time I have no intention of watching the movie but instead of just mailing back the envelope I am attempting to generate more volume for HD-DVD. If more folks adopted this strategy it could make a meaningful difference

Say what? You rent movies but just send them back without watching them, in order to try to help make HD-DVD look like its sustainable??

Say what? You rent movies but just send them back without watching them, in order to try to help make HD-DVD look like its sustainable??
Desperate times.... desperate times.

:p lol

Wow, that strategy isn't in my official Phase Hydrallics handbook!! You must be compensated nicely for your efforts.

Sounds a bit premature of Blockbuster to make that decision when Toshiba's standalones are currently selling well.

70% is for Blu-Ray? Probably from PS3 owners trying to justify their $600 purchase since there isn't many PS3 games available.

I'd like to see Netflix's HD rental ratio.

You HD-DVD guys get over it. Everybody I know with a PS3 plays Blu-ray discs on it. It's a great player.

Dan

Say what? You rent movies but just send them back without watching them, in order to try to help make HD-DVD look like its sustainable??

Heh . . you got to give him credit. He has come up with, in his mind, something that he can do to try to influence BB. He feels that if others follow his lead, then 2 becomes 4 which becomes 16 . . . .

At least he "gave it a shot" and actually did something .. . . .

As opposed to just talking about it.

I didn't see any ad in my newspaper back in April that said that HD DVD was going to celebrate it's first Birthday and all HD DVD owners should buy at least 1 movie. That started right here and carried over to other forums where it was agreed - good idea. Last I heard , Amazon was very happy with the business.

So don't be so fast to "dump" all over an idea.

Heh . . you got to give him credit. He has come up with, in his mind, something that he can do to try to influence BB. He feels that if others follow his lead, then 2 becomes 4 which becomes 16 . . . .

At least he "gave it a shot" and actually did something .. . . .

As opposed to just talking about it.

I didn't see any ad in my newspaper back in April that said that HD DVD was going to celebrate it's first Birthday and all HD DVD owners should buy at least 1 movie. That started right here and carried over to other forums where it was agreed - good idea. Last I heard , Amazon was very happy with the business.

So don't be so fast to "dump" all over an idea.

Buying/renting movies because you like the movie is one thing (enthusist), doing it because you want to show your support for your format is another (fanboy).

A lot of people here have lost sight of that, which is why most of the discussions on this forum are petty bickering.

I find most of it pretty amusing.

Buying/renting movies because you like the movie is one thing (enthusist), doing it because you want to show your support for your format is another (fanboy).

A lot of people here have lost sight of that, which is why most of the discussions on this forum are petty bickering.

I find most of it pretty amusing.

Oh . . I see . . .

Showing support for your format choice is considered "fanboyism" by pulling out your wallet and putting your money where your mouth is.

OK . . you can have all the enthusists and HD DVD will take all the "fanboys."

Seems like a good deal to me. :cool:

Oh . . I see . . .

Showing support for your format choice is considered "fanboyism" by pulling out your wallet and putting your money where your mouth is.

OK . . you can have all the enthusists and HD DVD will take all the "fanboys."

Seems like a good deal to me. :cool:


If people are willing to do this

"I currently just return my envelope and use them to rent HD-DVD's (Huntington Beach store) whether i have seen the film or not. Most of the time I have no intention of watching the movie but instead of just mailing back the envelope I am attempting to generate more volume for HD-DVD. If more folks adopted this strategy it could make a meaningful difference "

to support their format, I do think it's a bit rediculous. But, as you said above, it's their choice, their time, and their money. I'm just laying my opinion out there, which like @ssholes.... everyone has one. :)

Decided to swing by my local BB to see if they would be one of the 1700 stores. They never even heard of the press release. One guy said that there was a 'rumor' going around that BB might support Blu-ray. lol Anyway, I explained that there was a press release last week etc. They haven't a clue.

What is funny is the stuff they did start to claim. The one guy said that BB wants to replace all of their DVD's in the store with Blu-ray by the end of next year. I love Blu-ray as much as anyone else, but yeah right. The other was that BB wants to get as many people renting online as possible as that is where their business model is moving. That I can see but I think the store will always have a presence.

Shot off an email to corporate asking if the closest store near me will actually be getting Blu-ray discs in July.

Buying/renting movies because you like the movie is one thing (enthusist), doing it because you want to show your support for your format is another (fanboy).

Oh . . I see . . .

Showing support for your format choice is considered "fanboyism" by pulling out your wallet and putting your money where your mouth is.

OK . . you can have all the enthusists and HD DVD will take all the "fanboys."

Seems like a good deal to me. :cool:

If you dont understand joe_six_pack, he is saying..... If you buy HD/BD movies, because you love movies, then you are an enthusiest. If you are buying HD/BD movies to support a format, then you are a fanboy.

I dont understand why people feel the need to Pad numbers with "Buy from Amazon Days" or that terrible rental idea. If your format is truly worthwhile, then the customers will buy it and the numbers will reflect that.

At the end of the day, isnt that what everyone has been advocating. Competition, let the customers decide.... etc. If you pad the numbers, then you dont really believe in your format.

I currently just return my envelope and use them to rent HD-DVD's (Huntington Beach store) whether i have seen the film or not. Most of the time I have no intention of watching the movie but instead of just mailing back the envelope I am attempting to generate more volume for HD-DVD. If more folks adopted this strategy it could make a meaningful difference

Wow, that is pretty funny! It's unbelievable how desperate some of the HD-DVD fanboys have gotten. At this point I don't blame them. The outlook for HD-DVD is looking dim.

BTW, this is not the HD-DVD forum, rather the Blu Ray and HD-DVD area.

Iggster the original format that was proposed by Warner and Toshiba was red laser with newer CODECs (actually AVC). The companies that wanted blue laser finally had enough because nothing was getting done in the DVD forum and so created the Blu ray Founders to develop a real HD format. That is when Toshiba changed plans and came back with AOD and blue laser


Exactly right :) wish we had more people like you on here with some common sense... I'm glad to see you give the teenagers a free lesson or two from time to time as well :).

You HD-DVD guys get over it. Everybody I know with a PS3 plays Blu-ray discs on it. It's a great player.

Dan

that's nice to hear, but i ain't dropping $600 for it.

Has anyone noticed that "Blu-Ray DVD" has just recently been added as a top level category for the Blockbuster online service. Note that they have not added HD-DVD to the top level as of yet (but one can view both Blu-ray lists and HD-DVD lists from the "Collections" category).

Categories
Movie Collections
Collections
New Releases
Top 100 Online Retails
Award Winners
Blu-Ray DVD

I wonder if this is a sign that even the online service might be leaning a little Blu?

Has anyone noticed that "Blu-Ray DVD" has just recently been added as a top level category for the Blockbuster online service. Note that they have not added HD-DVD to the top level as of yet (but one can view both Blu-ray lists and HD-DVD lists from the "Collections" category).

Categories
Movie Collections
Collections
New Releases
Top 100 Online Retails
Award Winners
Blu-Ray DVD

I wonder if this is a sign that even the online service might be leaning a little Blu?

I see that too, also in bold at the top of the Blu-ray screen is "Blu-ray disks now available in over 1700 BLOCKBUSTER store locations.

Has anyone noticed that "Blu-Ray DVD" has just recently been added as a top level category for the Blockbuster online service. Note that they have not added HD-DVD to the top level as of yet (but one can view both Blu-ray lists and HD-DVD lists from the "Collections" category).

Categories
Movie Collections
Collections
New Releases
Top 100 Online Retails
Award Winners
Blu-Ray DVD

I wonder if this is a sign that even the online service might be leaning a little Blu?

Good catch !
It is definitely showing a preference on the side of blockbuster.
Call it bias if you will. Blockbuster is definitely showing its true blu colors more and more.
Although they should rename it to "Blu-Ray Disc"

Also I looked at number of discs and there is about one more page of blurays(when showing 50 at once) than hddvd.
Sweet !

Good catch !
It is definitely showing a preference on the side of blockbuster.
Call it bias if you will. Blockbuster is definitely showing its true blu colors more and more.
Although they should rename it to "Blu-Ray Disc"

Did not BB announce that they choose BD over HD DVD? What bias? They made a choice of formats - they are going to aggressively persue that decision because they feel at this time that BD will make money for them (bottom line - business - always money)

So how can you question anything they do to promote BD?

Good catch !
It is definitely showing a preference on the side of blockbuster.
Call it bias if you will. Blockbuster is definitely showing its true blu colors more and more.
Although they should rename it to "Blu-Ray Disc"

Also I looked at number of discs and there is about one more page of blurays(when showing 50 at once) than hddvd.
Sweet !

BD - 268

HD - 246

Many of those could be 'Coming Soon' so actual availability could vary greatly.

BD - 268

HD - 246

Many of those could be 'Coming Soon' so actual availability could vary greatly.

Where did you get these numbers from?

The total movies released on HD Disc is:

BD - 261

HD DVD - 238

This info come from the Digital Bites - Titles released as of 6/21 and High Def Digest - titles streeting today.

The ONLY titles you can count are those that are available for purchase today.

Where did you get these numbers from?

The total movies released on HD Disc is:

BD - 261

HD DVD - 238

This info come from the Digital Bites - Titles released as of 6/21 and High Def Digest - titles streeting today.

The ONLY titles you can count are those that are available for purchase today.

I just counted the ones in the 'Collections' on Blockbuster's website, it was mentioned that there was an extra page of blu-ray when you set the # at 50, and while there is another page it is only because of 23 titles.

Wow, that's pretty desperate. :p


I wouldn't say desperate but just doing what one can to make sure the "Best" format wins and when i say best i mean in terms of quality, price and costumer service :)

Wow, that is pretty funny! It's unbelievable how desperate some of the HD-DVD fanboys have gotten. At this point I don't blame them. The outlook for HD-DVD is looking dim.

BTW, this is not the HD-DVD forum, rather the Blu Ray and HD-DVD area.
What he's doing is far less onerous than the maliciously defaced HD-DVD's that have been received from NF.

unstuck

What he's doing is far less onerous than the maliciously defaced HD-DVD's that have been received from NF.

I thought Stranger Than Fiction was a blu-ray exclusive? Wayne seems to have it and he is obviously not a blu-ray supporter.

What he's doing is far less onerous than the maliciously defaced HD-DVD's that have been received from NF.

Well, the way I look at it is that there wouldn't be so much malice from BD supporters if they weren't frightened that HD DVD actually has a shot at winning.

Will Blockbuster also go exclusive Blu-ray for their sales?

Well, the way I look at it is that there wouldn't be so much malice from BD supporters if they weren't frightened that HD DVD actually has a shot at winning.


At this point I don't think there are any Blu-Ray supporters that feel they are in any danger of losing this format battle. If there is anybody feeling that is would be those trying to play down this Blockbuster going Blu freight train of an announcement. OR in another thread trying to spin this gargantuan event as something that is a negative for Blu-Ray... The fact of the matter is Blu-Ray supporters have to come in here and respond to such claims based on nonsense for the sake of keeping the discussion accurate and based on facts.

At this point I don't think there are any Blu-Ray supporters that feel they are in any danger of losing this format battle. If there is anybody feeling that is would be those trying to play down this Blockbuster going Blu freight train of an announcement. OR in another thread trying to spin this gargantuan event as something that is a negative for Blu-Ray... The fact of the matter is Blu-Ray supporters have to come in here and respond to such claims based on nonsense for the sake of keeping the discussion accurate and based on facts.

Yes, that certainly explains all of the "only an idiot would buy HD DVD" or "suck it HD DVD fools" posts from the teenage PS3 fan crowd.

Yes, that certainly explains all of the "only an idiot would buy HD DVD" or "suck it HD DVD fools" posts from the teenage PS3 fan crowd.
Sorry, but the level of infantile posting has seen its fair share from both sides of the fence (if you don't believe me, go dig into the archives here from back around September or so - the situation was exactly the same, only with the winning side being flipped).

Besides, you'd be surprised how old the PS3 ownership base really is. Teenagers generally don't have $600+ to just toss at a console. I own a PS3 and my teenage years are barely a memory. :)

this thread was unstuck because we see the quality of posts declining

challenge the post: never the poster

no need to insult a fellow member

post (s) deleted

Sorry, but the level of infantile posting has seen its fair share from both sides of the fence (if you don't believe me, go dig into the archives here from back around September or so - the situation was exactly the same, only with the winning side being flipped).

Besides, you'd be surprised how old the PS3 ownership base really is. Teenagers generally don't have $600+ to just toss at a console. I own a PS3 and my teenage years are barely a memory. :)

Agree ... there's definitely too much 'neener neener' garbage -- from both sides.

And, I'm not so sure age is that big a factor anymore ... it's more the maturity level.

And, I'm not so sure age is that big a factor anymore ... it's more the maturity level.

Yep, $600 on a console is not for every kid in town -but for many (even not in %) it still is.

But when coming to ages of 30+ then the PS3 is NOT so attractive anymore due to family demands. This is why I think HD DVD really has a chance. And since the 30+ consumers are generally more wealthy than the younger ones I expect they buy more movies. And the format witch gets more bought not rented wins -in the long run.

Yep, $600 on a console is not for every kid in town -but for many (even not in %) it still is.

But when coming to ages of 30+ then the PS3 is NOT so attractive anymore due to family demands. This is why I think HD DVD really has a chance. And since the 30+ consumers are generally more wealthy than the younger ones I expect they buy more movies. And the format witch gets more bought not rented wins -in the long run.

I think you might be wrong on this one. My Playstation 3 sits in the middle of my living room as a complete entertainment hub. My wife likes the BD player part of it, my young son likes the music, pictures, videos and game demos, and late at night I get to kick back on the couch for an hour or so of gaming. Everybody wins.

I think you might be wrong on this one. My Playstation 3 sits in the middle of my living room as a complete entertainment hub. My wife likes the BD player part of it, my young son likes the music, pictures, videos and game demos, and late at night I get to kick back on the couch for an hour or so of gaming. Everybody wins.

Well, if the sales numbers are an indication, $599 is still a bit too much to pay for this "complete entertainment experience".

This Xmas should be interesting to say the least.

Yep, $600 on a console is not for every kid in town -but for many (even not in %) it still is.

But when coming to ages of 30+ then the PS3 is NOT so attractive anymore due to family demands. This is why I think HD DVD really has a chance. And since the 30+ consumers are generally more wealthy than the younger ones I expect they buy more movies. And the format witch gets more bought not rented wins -in the long run.I completely disagree. The average US gamer is 33 years old (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9342) and on top of that women gamers outnumber men in the 25-34 age group. (http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=12424) This means that the PS3 is very attractive for those young parents in their 30s who are looking for a highdef player.

Going to the movies - demographic aspects of movie attendance
American Demographics, Dec, 1996 by Shannon Dortch

"Adults aged 18 to 24 are significantly more likely than average to go to the movies at least once a month, at 34 percent, compared with 20 percent for all adults. They are often more than twice as likely as the population as a whole to have seen specific movies in the past six months, according to Mediamark Research. They also make up disproportionate shares of the audiences for most films viewed in theaters. People aged 18 to 24 are 13 percent of Mediamark's sample population, but 34 percent of those who go to the movies at least once a month.

"Movie makers know who butters their bread, and they make movies aimed to please young audiences. Natural Born Killers, whose name says it all, was seen by 9 percent of adults aged 18 to 24 in the six months before Mediamark's Spring 1996 survey. Only 3 percent of all adults saw the film in theaters. Even films designed to have broader appeal, such as Batman Forever, are much more popular with 18-to-24-year-olds than with adults as a whole. Eighteen percent of young adults saw the picture, compared with 8 percent on average.

Young adults have significantly lower incomes than their older counterparts, but they also have fewer financial responsibilities."'Under 35' is the important demographic for studios. Those are the people that see and buy the most movies.

HD DVD's audience is older since IMO Universal is almost an arthouse studio with films comparable to Fox Searchlight and Picturehouse. And the majority of their films appeal to the 40+ crowd who don't see or buy films in droves.

Well, if the sales numbers are an indication, $599 is still a bit too much to pay for this "complete entertainment experience".

This Xmas should be interesting to say the least.

The PS3 is pretty much, as a home entertainment system, in cost

a. less than a computer - internet browser for the living room
b. not much more than a media streamer - ethernet, picture, video, music streamer
c. not much more than a high quality DVD upscaler (108024p capable)
d. more than a high quality gaming system (
e. constantly being upgraded with new capabilities.
f. the same cost as an average BD player

Combined you can see it is not too much to pay all this in one unit.

I completely disagree. [URL=http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=9342]

Quote from your link:

with 31 percent under eighteen years of age, 44 percent between eighteen and forty-nine and 25 percent fifty years or older. The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is forty years of age.

So the average is counted on the basis of 3 groups - under 18, 18-49, 50+. I don' t see it correct to count 18-49 it's just not fair to compare such a big difference in ages and only count the average as forty years of age?

However, the report, which can be read in full on the ESA’s website and also includes sales data and a top ten list for 2005, makes no distinction between traditional retail-purchased console and PC games and casual Web games.

This is most obvious in the breakdown of game types for the online survey, which shows that 52 percent of all games played on line are puzzle/board/game show/trivia or card games. This compares to 22 percent for action/sports/strategy/role-playing games, 9 percent for browser based games and 7 percent for persistent online worlds.

Ok, so they counted all casual puzzle/board/game show/trivia or card gamers. My relative (over 60) also likes to play them but I can't think of counting her as a potential PS3 buyer, no never :)

Yep, $600 on a console is not for every kid in town -but for many (even not in %) it still is.

But when coming to ages of 30+ then the PS3 is NOT so attractive anymore due to family demands. This is why I think HD DVD really has a chance. And since the 30+ consumers are generally more wealthy than the younger ones I expect they buy more movies. And the format witch gets more bought not rented wins -in the long run.

It will be interesting to see if we have to wait for Christmas for PS3 sales to spike. With the short SonyStyle sale that is effective July 1, you get a 60gb PS3, 2 free games, a $50 gift certificate and 5 free Blu-ray movies. Pretty darn attractive. If I didn't already have a PS3 I'd certainly bite.

And I'm well over 30, a family man and a big fan of Blu-ray movies and the PS3.

Agree ... there's definitely too much 'neener neener' garbage -- from both sides.

And, I'm not so sure age is that big a factor anymore ... it's more the maturity level.This thread was un-stickied because is was driven off topic time and again by a bunch of HD DVD fanboys hellbent on burying this Blockbuster story. The title of the thread was changed numerous times since HD DVD fanboys, or one very persistent fanboy, was not happy that the title favored Blu-ray. Evan forbid someone should wander into the HDTV media forum and see that Blockbuster supports blu-ray.

HD DVD fanboys have even started different threads all related to Blockbuster to look at different angles of the story trying to find out how they can spin this in favor of HD DVD. As if Blockbuster renting only Blu-ray is really bad for Sony because people will just stop buying blu-ray movies. And spreading tall tales like Sony paid over $700 Million to Blockbuster for the exclusive!!! (http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=9804)

Just like the lies they spread that VC-1 is superior to AVC and transparent to the master and that Blu-ray's high bitrates are useless because VC-1 reaches transparency even before maxing out HD DVD's low bitrate. A claim so obviously false on its face I wonder how all those fanboys could have possibly believed it.

Unfortunately, the HD DVD fanboys have succeeded in getting this story out of the top thread spot and out of the significance that it truly deserves. This story was and is a major blow to HD DVD. Anyone, immature or not can plainly see that.

This thread was un-stickied because is was driven off topic time and again by a bunch of HD DVD fanboys hellbent on burying this Blockbuster story. The title of the thread was changed numerous times since HD DVD fanboys, or one very persistent fanboy, was not happy that the title favored Blu-ray. Evan forbid someone should wander into the HDTV media forum and see that Blockbuster supports blu-ray.

HD DVD fanboys have even started different threads all related to Blockbuster to look at different angles of the story trying to find out how they can spin this in favor of HD DVD. As if Blockbuster renting only Blu-ray is really bad for Sony because people will just stop buying blu-ray movies. And spreading tall tales like Sony paid over $700 Million to Blockbuster for the exclusive!!! (http://forums.highdefdigest.com/showthread.php?t=9804)

Just like the lies they spread that VC-1 is superior to AVC and transparent to the master and that Blu-ray's high bitrates are useless because VC-1 reaches transparency even before maxing out HD DVD's low bitrate. A claim so obviously false on its face I wonder how all those fanboys could have possibly believed it.

Unfortunately, the HD DVD fanboys have succeeded in getting this story out of the top thread spot and out of the significance that it truly deserves. This story was and is a major blow to HD DVD. Anyone, immature or not can plainly see that.

It's clear that the immature one here is you, feeling the need to refer to people as "fanboys" five times in the same post.

And for the record, if professional reviewers have a hard time choosing between VC1 and AVC encodes of the same film I have a hard time that the majority of the people here can do any better.

It's clear that the immature one here is you, feeling the need to refer to people as "fanboys" five times in the same post.

His post appeared to be right on the mark to me regarding the use of the term "fanboys". ;)

And for the record, if professional reviewers have a hard time choosing between VC1 and AVC encodes of the same film I have a hard time that the majority of the people here can do any better.

I certainly agree with this. But this does not contradict any point that he was making. He was saying how HD-DVD "fanboys" argue that VC-1 is superior to AVC, which is obviously not true.

His post appeared to be right on the mark to me regarding the use of the term "fanboys". ;)



I certainly agree with this. But this does not contradict any point that he was making. He was saying how HD-DVD "fanboys" argue that VC-1 is superior to AVC, which is obviously not true.

Well I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I've seen both sides "fanboys" and I've seen quite a bit more maturity from the HD side of the aisle. I guess when your format is considered the "underdog" you tend to be a little bit more reserved.

As far as the PQ differences, I'm not sure that it's just the "fanboys" stoking the argument. I believe that many of the PQ claims for VC1 have come direct from MS representatives in these forums.

Additionally the encodes we have seen of the same films with VC1 and AVC have typically been able to throw a helluva lot more bits at the BD AVC side of things since those have all been (to the best of my understanding) done with BD50's.

Personally, I think that the PQ is close enough in the two formats that it's really not an issue. I do think that the longevity of optical media IS in question and I think that HD DVD with its HDi capabilities has more legs to it than BD which seems to be taking forever to get the next gen type features even working.

It's clear that the immature one here is you, feeling the need to refer to people as "fanboys" five times in the same post.Did you complain about the thread title too? And does anyone take offense with the term 'fanboy' nowadays? I know I don't. It stopped being offensive awhile ago.And for the record, if professional reviewers have a hard time choosing between VC1 and AVC encodes of the same film I have a hard time that the majority of the people here can do any better.The point is VC-1 was put forth as being BETTER than both high bitrate mpeg2 and AVC at the same bitrate. Not just equal but BETTER. Clearly this is not the case.

VC-1 was constantly trumpeted as the reason HD DVD had and would always have BETTER picture quality than blu-ray since the blu-ray studios were taking a pass on VC-1 for the most part. People who disagreed were asked to back up their assertions with proof that high bitrates really matter and proof that VC-1 wasn't as good as microsoft said. Afterall they had seen the masters and the result and said they were transparent. And people like you called them 'fanboys' for doubting microsoft's claims. Totally ridiculous.

There were also swipes by the HD DVD 'camp' (is that enough of a PC term for you?) that blu-ray wouldn't be able to put out BD50s. So the HD DVD 'camp' claimed they had higher storage capacity. Then when BD50s came out they claimed Toshiba had HD DVD-51 all ready to go. They're willing to stop at nothing to push their format and force a stalemate even if it means both HD formats fail to reach mass adoption.

Well I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I've seen both sides "fanboys" and I've seen quite a bit more maturity from the HD side of the aisle.

http://www.rx8club.com/images/smilies/yelrotflmao-vi.gif

Thanks for that. That is the funniest thing I have heard in a long time!

I guess when your format is considered the "underdog" you tend to be a little bit more reserved.

You might think that would be the case, wouldn't you? But it clearly is not.

As far as the PQ differences, I'm not sure that it's just the "fanboys" stoking the argument. I believe that many of the PQ claims for VC1 have come direct from MS representatives in these forums.

Correct. And that certainly doesn't make it better!

Additionally the encodes we have seen of the same films with VC1 and AVC have typically been able to throw a helluva lot more bits at the BD AVC side of things since those have all been (to the best of my understanding) done with BD50's.

Sure. That's one of the advantages to Blu-ray. Why not use it if ya got it?

Personally, I think that the PQ is close enough in the two formats that it's really not an issue. I do think that the longevity of optical media IS in question and I think that HD DVD with its HDi capabilities has more legs to it than BD which seems to be taking forever to get the next gen type features even working.

I agree that overall PQ can be superb on either format. But I think the better overall specs, including storage space etc. will make BD the better format long term.

Has Toshiba made any progress at all on the TL51?

I won't drag this any further off topic, lets just say that I would be happy if we could discuss the topic at hand without every other post having to be a swipe or put down.

the better overall specs, including storage space etc. will make BD the better format long term.
In the long term (as stated by an economist) we're all dead. In the meantime, we have a new urban myth http://www.rx8club.com/images/smilies/yelrotflmao-vi.gif

I was in the middle of an Alaskan cruise when CNN used this BB/BD news as a lead in before commercial break in one of the many on board drinking establishments.
I can't say I was shocked but maybe a bit suprized. I thought we would see these kind of moves early in 08 rather than now.

If this does end up leading to a domino effect, I see this as great news because the sooner there is one dominant format, the sooner those waiting on the side lines will join in and the real war vs sd dvd can commence.

http://www.rx8club.com/images/smilies/yelrotflmao-vi.gif

Dude, don't even think of stealing my rotfl smiley face icon!!!

I won't drag this any further off topic, lets just say that I would be happy if we could discuss the topic at hand without every other post having to be a swipe or put down.

I hope you were not referring to me.

Seriously, I thought you and I were having a perfectly respectable discussion, and I have agreed with several of the points that you have made. Don't take the fact that I thought your perception of HD-DVD supporters being the more "mature" being hilarious as a "swipe", it is just that my perception is 100% the complete opposite! Obviously perception on that issue will vary depending on which format you prefer.

Isn't it about time for another obligatory title change ;)

Kidding folks :) This forum has gone thru some of its worst times these past few weeks ever since the whole "Tier thread" debacle and this Blockbuster news didn't help the situation out much since the same people arguing over the tier thread simply moved here (present company included). My observations of this forum have been there are a larger percentage of HD-DVD supporters since most people on this forum are early adopters who bought an HD-A1 and all the launch titles they could get their hands on. Blu-Ray came into the picture with an overpriced player and very poor launch title quality. I would say during those times 90% of the forum discussions were peaceful as most people were agreeing that HD-DVD was better for multiple reasons and most people had good reason to be upset at Sony and Blu-Ray (present company included). At that time HD-DVD not only had early adopter support, but they also had momentum while Sony started out with an even steeper uphill battle than they could have possibly wanted. Everyone was second guessing Sony saying it was a mistake delaying the Ps3 for Blu-Ray and making it cost way too much. I was even saying that in numerous posts back then. People were calling me HD-DVD fanboy and a Sony hater back then since I was creating topics about how bad it was that Sony was using mpeg2 which was clearly inferior to VC-1 on a disc space that was 5GB less than HD-DVD.. It is amazing looking back how Blu-Ray has jumped back from being so far behind to not only take the lead in sales and picture/sound quality but do it in a commanding fashion. HD-DVD with VC-1 can look great, as we have seen with King Kong and THe Matrix, and I would be very happy with that type of level of quality if nothing better existed at this point in time. However Blu-ray has proven itself to be better than HD-DVD with its latest releases (even if video/sound enthusiasts are the only ones to tell the difference). At the moment I am content with the quality of POTC: DMC as setting a standard that HD-DVD has not been able to match yet. Either way, the extra space that Blu-Ray has an extra bandwidth and bitrate to play with makes it a no-brainer for me to choose it as the format I want to win considering they have already talked the talk with the latest Disney and Sony titles. I'm actually looking forward to "The Fifth Element" re-release knowing it should look as good as Casino Royal at the very least which is not as good as POTC: DMC but it is still very good to say the least....

What Blockbuster is going to do next after getting some "insider" information from a few friends is they will be getting a large shipment of Blu-Ray's July 10th and be placing them in a section of the store where the older "classics" section currently resides. They will have signs up that will be easily visible from across the store and catch people's eye. Their plan is to phase out SD-DVD's in the same manner as SD-DVD's phased out VHS. I was told that all the 1700 Blockbuster stores going Blu-Ray will be getting all of the new releases on Blu-Ray in-store. So basically how quickly Blu-Ray takes over SD-DVD's depends on how fast the adoption rate occurs. The next milestone will be when a 50%/50% split between Blu-Ray vs SD-DVD occurs nationwide at Blockbuster. I'm sure by that time HD-DVD will become like Laserdisc and hopefully Universal has gone Blu so we can all move on from this battle and on to greater discussions on this forum. Like "Picture and Sound" quality on every release and demanding that studio's give us the best and use the most space with the best codecs and uncompressed sound.. Hooah...

Isn't it about time for another obligatory title change ;)

Kidding folks :) This forum has gone thru some of its worst times these past few weeks ever since the whole "Tier thread" debacle and this Blockbuster news didn't help the situation out much since the same people arguing over the tier thread simply moved here (present company included). My observations of this forum have been there are a larger percentage of HD-DVD supporters since most people on this forum are early adopters who bought an HD-A1 and all the launch titles they could get their hands on. Blu-Ray came into the picture with an overpriced player and very poor launch title quality. I would say during those times 90% of the forum discussions were peaceful as most people were agreeing that HD-DVD was better for multiple reasons and most people had good reason to be upset at Sony and Blu-Ray (present company included). At that time HD-DVD not only had early adopter support, but they also had momentum while Sony started out with an even steeper uphill battle than they could have possibly wanted. Everyone was second guessing Sony saying it was a mistake delaying the Ps3 for Blu-Ray and making it cost way too much. I was even saying that in numerous posts back then. People were calling me HD-DVD fanboy and a Sony hater back then since I was creating topics about how bad it was that Sony was using mpeg2 which was clearly inferior to VC-1 on a disc space that was 5GB less than HD-DVD.. It is amazing looking back how Blu-Ray has jumped back from being so far behind to not only take the lead in sales and picture/sound quality but do it in a commanding fashion. HD-DVD with VC-1 can look great, as we have seen with King Kong and THe Matrix, and I would be very happy with that type of level of quality if nothing better existed at this point in time. However Blu-ray has proven itself to be better than HD-DVD with its latest releases (even if video/sound enthusiasts are the only ones to tell the difference). At the moment I am content with the quality of POTC: DMC as setting a standard that HD-DVD has not been able to match yet. Either way, the extra space that Blu-Ray has an extra bandwidth and bitrate to play with makes it a no-brainer for me to choose it as the format I want to win considering they have already talked the talk with the latest Disney and Sony titles. I'm actually looking forward to "The Fifth Element" re-release knowing it should look as good as Casino Royal at the very least which is not as good as POTC: DMC but it is still very good to say the least....

What Blockbuster is going to do next after getting some "insider" information from a few friends is they will be getting a large shipment of Blu-Ray's July 10th and be placing them in a section of the store where the older "classics" section currently resides. They will have signs up that will be easily visible from across the store and catch people's eye. Their plan is to phase out SD-DVD's in the same manner as SD-DVD's phased out VHS. I was told that all the 1700 Blockbuster stores going Blu-Ray will be getting all of the new releases on Blu-Ray in-store. So basically how quickly Blu-Ray takes over SD-DVD's depends on how fast the adoption rate occurs. The next milestone will be when a 50%/50% split between Blu-Ray vs SD-DVD occurs nationwide at Blockbuster. I'm sure by that time HD-DVD will become like Laserdisc and hopefully Universal has gone Blu so we can all move on from this battle and on to greater discussions on this forum. Like "Picture and Sound" quality on every release and demanding that studio's give us the best and use the most space with the best codecs and uncompressed sound.. Hooah...

I have no doubt that at this time Blu-ray is getting a serious push that could push them over the edge.

I have had a couple of problems with Blu-ray from the beginning. Initial BD releases were horrible. I have a buddy who still works at a local upscale retailer where I used to work 11 yrs ago, he lent me an open box Samsung player and a few discs. Since this was the first time I was going to see HD optical in my home I planned to be amazed. Instead I was let down. Crushed is more like it.

Initial BD releases and still some of the new BD25 releases fall short in the AQ/PQ department. On the whole though I would say that there is now parity in this area with a slight nod going to BD on their top shelf AVC encoded BD50 discs. Without competition from HD DVD though we might not continue to see this high level of treatment for films.

My 2nd issue with BD is that it still hasn't caught up to the features that HD DVD has had since launch. People can roll their eyes all they want, but I like having solidified next gen specs in an optical medium that has to take us through to the 100% download age. I believe that BD is at least six months, maybe a year to delivering on this. I actually get a kick out of the animated menus and some of the special features. Friends say "oooh, what is that" when they see the animated title bar in HD DVD. I am very much looking forward to the blue screen IME features on '300' coming out next month.

My 3rd issue with BD is the PS3. I'm not a Sony hater (I have quite a few Sony products including the crown jewel of my humble home theater, a 60" SXRD) but I guess you could say that it really irks me that nearly all of blu-rays success can be attributed to the sluggish sales of an overpriced, underdelivering game console.

In any event, everything you say is true. HD DVD is currently on the ropes. If Toshiba and Company can't come out swinging this fall they are going to be in serious trouble. I had previously thought that there was no chance that combo devices would become the mainstream but now I'm not so sure.

If Tosh and friends can move the 1M HD DVD players this year and Universal does not announce neutrality in early 2008 then I expect that the eventual price reduction in combo players will be the ultimate resolution to this war. Universal can continue to release in HD DVD (along with small companies that don't want to pony up the bucks to set up a BD line) and the rest can do BD. Eventually Universal quietly starts making BD discs in a few years and Toshiba builds HD DVD playback capability into all of their future BD players.

On the flip side, there IS the possibility that HD DVD can win this thing, although it's a long shot. $149-$199 players that are heavily marketed with a free Tier0 title in the box will sell like crazy and might put enough HD DVD players in homes that Disney or Fox gets greedy and decides to go neutral. That would be a serious blow to Sony.

People say that Toshiba has already played the low priced player card, but I don't know if we've really seen their hand. They could really pull the stops out and based on how well the pallet fulls of D2s sold at my local Costco I wouldn't be surprised if a $199 HD player sold into the hundreds of thousands in a short period of time.

If Q1 2008 there are well over 1M HD DVD players in homes the war isn't going to be as clear cut as it seems to be today.

Their plan is to phase out SD-DVD's in the same manner as SD-DVD's phased out VHS. I was told that all the 1700 Blockbuster stores ....

Ha, yeah by that time blockbuster will be an online entity only. And maybe not even exist at all. Any blockbuster shareholder has got to be wondering what blockbuster are doing to give value to their shares. The answer? Offering blu-ray. Hooha indeed.

Will Blockbuster also go exclusive Blu-ray for their sales?

This will happen for sure. I hope its sooner :)

I have had a couple of problems with Blu-ray from the beginning. Initial BD releases were horrible. I have a buddy who still works at a local upscale retailer where I used to work 11 yrs ago, he lent me an open box Samsung player and a few discs. Since this was the first time I was going to see HD optical in my home I planned to be amazed. Instead I was let down. Crushed is more like it.

Since you weren't a part of the early adopter HD-DVD crowd. How long after this incident above with Blu-Ray's launch titles was it that you first got into HD-DVD?


Initial BD releases and still some of the new BD25 releases fall short in the AQ/PQ department. On the whole though I would say that there is now parity in this area with a slight nod going to BD on their top shelf AVC encoded BD50 discs. Without competition from HD DVD though we might not continue to see this high level of treatment for films.

Things didn't look so great for the first few months Blu-Ray was released, however after the BD50's arrived which if you remember were "just a myth" and "couldn't be done" by the biggest HD-DVD insider Amir in this forum not long before... You could visually see a change in the quality level of movie's on the BD side. Granted, Tears of the Sun is an exception to the rule being an excellent mpeg2 BD25 title.


My 2nd issue with BD is that it still hasn't caught up to the features that HD DVD has had since launch. People can roll their eyes all they want, but I like having solidified next gen specs in an optical medium that has to take us through to the 100% download age. I believe that BD is at least six months, maybe a year to delivering on this. I actually get a kick out of the animated menus and some of the special features. Friends say "oooh, what is that" when they see the animated title bar in HD DVD. I am very much looking forward to the blue screen IME features on '300' coming out next month.

I haven't seen one HD-DVD with an animated chapter search menu. They look like still thumbnails to me...hardly impressive...
Animated menu's on the Star Wars SD-DVD's look more impressive to me than the one found on King Kong and The Matrix. Take a look at SD-DVD's use of PIP with The Goonies and Planet of the Apes and they are more impressive than HD-DVD's latest offerings. The only menu that has impressed me so far has been the Pirates of the Carribean menu's being played on my Ps3 out of all the top tier HD-DVD's and Blu-Ray's I've watched..


My 3rd issue with BD is the PS3. I'm not a Sony hater (I have quite a few Sony products including the crown jewel of my humble home theater, a 60" SXRD) but I guess you could say that it really irks me that nearly all of blu-rays success can be attributed to the sluggish sales of an overpriced, underdelivering game console.

The PS3 is not underdelivering by any means. In fact it has already impressed me very much with all that it can do and how stable it is. Not once have I had any freezes while watching any movie's and all the games I play are rock solid. I lvoe Resistance and Motorstorm and definately got my money's worth. I am looking forward to HOME as well as all the future games like MGS4 and Lair. If you want to talk about under-developing a console, the 360 has had its fair share of problems with overheating which is surprising to me considering that was the same problem the first generation X-Box suffered of. This guy below has had his console sent back 12 times and to prove it he had to tape his conversation with Microsoft tech support so people in forums would believe him.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/red-ring-of-death/a-dozen-xbox-360s-one-mans-tale-of-woe-272602.php

I am thankful my PS3 has worked perfect since day one and it has over-achieved in Blu-Ray and most recently SD-DVD upconversion playback which matches what the Silicon Reon chip can achieve in my opinion....I stream video's off my PC to it and use the Music and Photo Screensavers frequently when guests are over. This truly is a bargain machine considering how stable it is and what it can do...


In any event, everything you say is true. HD DVD is currently on the ropes. If Toshiba and Company can't come out swinging this fall they are going to be in serious trouble. I had previously thought that there was no chance that combo devices would become the mainstream but now I'm not so sure.

Combo discs were dead the day they arrived thanks to poor planning and testing of them. How could all of the combo discs released so far have issues being played on all of the HD-DVD players. I could understand if there were more than one company making the players or if there were more models than there are which eluded a testing phase...However making them a little more expensive than their Blu-Ray counterpart of the same film, not having cover art, and most improtant being problamatic for playback makes them dead on arrival in my book since I decided I would not purchase them anymore..


If Tosh and friends can move the 1M HD DVD players this year and Universal does not announce neutrality in early 2008 then I expect that the eventual price reduction in combo players will be the ultimate resolution to this war. Universal can continue to release in HD DVD (along with small companies that don't want to pony up the bucks to set up a BD line) and the rest can do BD. Eventually Universal quietly starts making BD discs in a few years and Toshiba builds HD DVD playback capability into all of their future BD players.

Combo player adoption seems to be the only thing that can save the HD-DVD format from extinction. However Universal should know they would be missing out on making a whole lot more money at that point in time since those combo players will probably be mroe expensive than the stand-alone Blu-Ray players and probably under-perform in comparison as well.. I just don't see your scenario becoming a reality even though it is the only way for HD-DVD to stay alive at this point..


On the flip side, there IS the possibility that HD DVD can win this thing, although it's a long shot. $149-$199 players that are heavily marketed with a free Tier0 title in the box will sell like crazy and might put enough HD DVD players in homes that Disney or Fox gets greedy and decides to go neutral. That would be a serious blow to Sony.


This was already tried with King Kong and the HD-DVD 360 add-on. Unfortunatly the add-on was not equipped with HDMI and gave a fuzzier picture when compared with the HD-A1 and an HDMI cable. So most people with the add-on and an HD-DVD standalone player still use the player. Currently Toshiba had a $100 off promotion including 5 free HD-DVD movie's which to me is a better deal than including one tier 0 title (since the HD-DVD tier thread doesn't exist anymore on here thanks to HD-DVD fanboy's, it is ironic you are asking for a tier 0 title instead of using Iggster's thread..lol..)


My opinion on all of this is that HD-DVD had its chance to maintain the lead and grow back when Blu-Ray was at its lowest point only a few short months after it launched. At that time more people knew what HD-DVD was.

You seem to be worried in the post above that Blu-Ray's title will not continue to be BD50's encoded with AVC and have ucompressed audio if this competition with HD-DVD fades away. I wholeheartedly disagree with you on that one. It is true this format war has brought out the best of Blu-Ray, however now that the best has been seen it will be demanded every time for every movie by people like me on forums. And as we have seen with Fifth Element, our voices have spoken and were heard.. Incase you don't know, The Fifth Element on Blu-Ray is having a re-issue where anyone with the original Blu-Ray can get it exchanged for the small fee of postage and handling. Two stamps... What I have seen is HD-DVD's Universal releases have gone down in quality since the launch titles. Take a look at Universals latest offerings and compare them with the original launch discs..No contest to me which are better.. Universal needs to re-master and clean up all of their old catalog titles instead of rushing on them to get them out in a hurry..

Blockbuster going Blu has only solidified the lead Blu-ray has already had for quite some time now.. And at the moment HD-DVD has not done anything to fight back. The Last Starfighter is the only title Universal has announced which has gained my interest and that isn't going to tip the scales....

...I like having solidified next gen specs in an optical medium that has to take us through to the 100% download age.Downloads will never have solidified specs. Codecs and software players change quicker than the seasons. Hardware specs are in a constant state of flux. Already machines from HTPCs, laptops, linux boxes, AppleTVs, ipods, Zunes, Xbox360s, PS3s, to iPhones and beyond vary greatly from OS, storage size, download speeds, screen size, processor speeds, graphic chips, ram, etc.

...it really irks me that nearly all of blu-rays success can be attributed to the sluggish sales of an overpriced, underdelivering game console.That's quite ironic considering the xbox360 add-on has outsold all dedicated HD DVD players combined.

...there IS the possibility that HD DVD can win this thing...We are beyond the point where HD DVD can win. Unless you consider forcing a stalemate to be a win.

Retailers, including Walmart, Blockbuster, Best Buy and Circuiy City, have said they'll let consumers decide the format war. Well, consumers are choosing Blu-ray by a wide 40% margin.

Retailers, including Walmart, Blockbuster, Best Buy and Circuiy City, have said they'll let consumers decide the format war. Well, consumers are choosing Blu-ray by a wide 40% margin.

Actually, consumers are choosing neither HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray by a much wider margin. How many people have neither? 9 out of 10? Much more? What percentage of people who own a DVD player have neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? I'm going to guess that the number is somewhere around 95%, if not more. Just because Blu-Ray is outselling HD-DVD doesn't mean that it's winning the format war. Blu-Ray doesn't win until it gets the cost of its players below $150. HD-DVD can't win until stores such as Blockbuster carry its titles in bulk. Until then, there are no winners. Only two camps battling in a fringe market.

Actually, consumers are choosing neither...People who haven't bought into HD are not HD 'consumers'.

How many people have neither? 9 out of 10? Much more? What percentage of people who own a DVD player have neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray?The large majority of people don't have an HDTV. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Just because Blu-Ray is outselling HD-DVD doesn't mean that it's winning the format war.Yes. It does.

Blu-Ray doesn't win until it gets the cost of its players below $150...Until then, there are no winners.This makes no sense.

HD-DVD can't win until stores such as Blockbuster carry its titles in bulk. Until then, there are no winners. What? Many stores already carry both Blu-ray and HD DVD in bulk.

Only two camps battling in a fringe market.The markets, including pre-recorded home video, PC and video game storage, time-shifting TV, and pro-sumer video are HUGE.

Since you weren't a part of the early adopter HD-DVD crowd. How long after this incident above with Blu-Ray's launch titles was it that you first got into HD-DVD?

Actually I had an A1 within 90 days of launch so I would say that I was part of the early adopter HD DVD crowd. I also tested BD on my setup and wasn't very impressed.

Things didn't look so great for the first few months Blu-Ray was released, however after the BD50's arrived which if you remember were "just a myth" and "couldn't be done" by the biggest HD-DVD insider Amir in this forum not long before... You could visually see a change in the quality level of movie's on the BD side. Granted, Tears of the Sun is an exception to the rule being an excellent mpeg2 BD25 title.


Unless you have new information, Sony is still subsidizing all BD50 discs. Are they doing this at a loss? We simply don't know since noone else is making these. Does Sony really have the capacity to crank out 100's of millions of BD50s and make it cost effective? I'm not sure if we know. We do know that HD30 is relatively cheap to manufacture and can be done on upgraded DVD lines.

I haven't seen one HD-DVD with an animated chapter search menu. They look like still thumbnails to me...hardly impressive...
Animated menu's on the Star Wars SD-DVD's look more impressive to me than the one found on King Kong and The Matrix. Take a look at SD-DVD's use of PIP with The Goonies and Planet of the Apes and they are more impressive than HD-DVD's latest offerings. The only menu that has impressed me so far has been the Pirates of the Carribean menu's being played on my Ps3 out of all the top tier HD-DVD's and Blu-Ray's I've watched..


Come on now, how do you expect us to take you seriously when you make light of next gen HD DVD features like U-control (Tokyo Drift) and IME (Batman Begins)? The cheezy animated menus in the Star Wars DVDs? Come on now!! :rolleyes:


The PS3 is not underdelivering by any means. In fact it has already impressed me very much with all that it can do and how stable it is. Not once have I had any freezes while watching any movie's and all the games I play are rock solid.

So your response to abysmal PS3 sales is to provide a link to some poor slob who managed to fry a bunch of 360s? :rolleyes:

Again, you are ruining your credibility with these tactics. The reality is that PS3 is underperforming in the console market by HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF UNITS per MONTH.

The reality is that Xbox 360 and Wii are outselling the PS3 handily. Obviously most people aren't having horrible problems with their 360s.

You luv your PS3, we get that. Sadly most people don't seem to love the $599 price tag.

PS, there are plenty of reports of people having their PS3 lockup or hiccup during BD playback, glad you haven't had those issues.

I am thankful my PS3 has worked perfect since day one and it has over-achieved in Blu-Ray and most recently SD-DVD upconversion playback which matches what the Silicon Reon chip can achieve in my opinion....

When did you do this testing? The overwhelming majority of XA2 and PS3 owners indicate that the XA2 upconversion blows the doors off of what the PS3 can do. Which product with a Reon did you test with or is this more FUD from you cloaked as fact?


Combo discs were dead the day they arrived thanks to poor planning and testing of them. How could all of the combo discs released so far have issues being played on all of the HD-DVD players.

I was (obviously) referring to combo players instead of combo discs.


Combo player adoption seems to be the only thing that can save the HD-DVD format from extinction. However Universal should know they would be missing out on making a whole lot more money at that point in time since those combo players will probably be mroe expensive than the stand-alone Blu-Ray players and probably under-perform in comparison as well.. I just don't see your scenario becoming a reality even though it is the only way for HD-DVD to stay alive at this point..


The cheapest BD player is currently $499 so I think it's a bit premature to start speculating on how much combo players will sell for a year from now or how they will perform. I've always suspected that the "loser" in the format war will still have their format survive on for early adopters in the form of Combo players.


This was already tried with King Kong and the HD-DVD 360 add-on. Unfortunatly the add-on was not equipped with HDMI and gave a fuzzier picture when compared with the HD-A1 and an HDMI cable.

Apples and Oranges. The Xbox add-on only appeals to people with an Xbox 360 and an HD TV.

A cheap standalone appeals to anyone with an HDTV. We don't know what the sales numbers were yet for June but based on how fast the $249 D2 Toshiba models seemed to be flying out of the local Costco and Sam's Club stores I would say that the market is definitely saying they would love to buy a low cost HD player regardless of whether it is BD or HD DVD.

A better plan would actually be for them to include a coupon like Sony did so that the discs purchased at retail count in the Videoscan numbers.


Blockbuster going Blu has only solidified the lead Blu-ray has already had for quite some time now.. And at the moment HD-DVD has not done anything to fight back. The Last Starfighter is the only title Universal has announced which has gained my interest and that isn't going to tip the scales....

Most people don't know anything about either format. Yes, BD has more momentum but both of these companies are fighting over crumbs at the moment.

The hardest time I have with your arguments is that you take your own opinions (about the PS3, Universal releases, movie tastes, etc) and try to extrapolate them out to the greater buying public without realizing that not everyone looks at things the way you do . I'm sure that there are plenty of people over the age of 35 who are interested in Universal titles other than TLSF that have been announced for the summer. If anything the BD catalog looks very thin right now.

You should really try to be a bit more objective if you want people to take your opinions seriously.

Actually, consumers are choosing neither HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray by a much wider margin. How many people have neither? 9 out of 10? Much more? What percentage of people who own a DVD player have neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? I'm going to guess that the number is somewhere around 95%, if not more. Just because Blu-Ray is outselling HD-DVD doesn't mean that it's winning the format war. Blu-Ray doesn't win until it gets the cost of its players below $150. HD-DVD can't win until stores such as Blockbuster carry its titles in bulk. Until then, there are no winners. Only two camps battling in a fringe market.

I'm sure the numbers are even worse than 9 of 10 or 95%. The format war will not be decided when 20% players are BD or HD DVD. The format war will be decided when the general public sees one of the two as the obvious successor. The price of player is less than significant here, assuming prices fall below the 300-400 range - since Blu players are rapidly approaching this number.

We are approaching the point where one format is swimming upstream, and the stream is turning into a river.

Actually, consumers are choosing neither HD-DVD nor Blu-Ray by a much wider margin. How many people have neither? 9 out of 10? Much more? What percentage of people who own a DVD player have neither HD-DVD or Blu-Ray? I'm going to guess that the number is somewhere around 95%, if not more. Just because Blu-Ray is outselling HD-DVD doesn't mean that it's winning the format war. Blu-Ray doesn't win until it gets the cost of its players below $150. HD-DVD can't win until stores such as Blockbuster carry its titles in bulk. Until then, there are no winners. Only two camps battling in a fringe market.

I think the best thing to do at this point is just ignore the thread and let it scroll off in peace. The topic has been discussed and beat to death, and we're digressing into conversations better suited for the Format Battle thread.

I'm sure the numbers are even worse than 9 of 10 or 95%. The format war will not be decided when 20% players are BD or HD DVD. The format war will be decided when the general public sees one of the two as the obvious successor. The price of player is less than significant here, assuming prices fall below the 300-400 range - since Blu players are rapidly approaching this number.

We are approaching the point where one format is swimming upstream, and the stream is turning into a river.

Falling below the $300-400 range won't be nearly enough. Not even close. I think a lot of you are having a hard time seeing the big picture because you're so close to the situation. Speaking for myself, if one of them emerges as the obvious successor and the prices of players are still too high, I'm not going to buy a player, and I'm guessing that the vast majority of people feel the same way.

It's not a fringe market? Okay, then tell me: What percentage of people who own a DVD player own either a Blu-Ray (PS3 included) or HD-DVD player?

The hardest time I have with your arguments is that you take your own opinions (about the PS3, Universal releases, movie tastes, etc) and try to extrapolate them out to the greater buying public without realizing that not everyone looks at things the way you do . I'm sure that there are plenty of people over the age of 35 who are interested in Universal titles other than TLSF that have been announced for the summer. If anything the BD catalog looks very thin right now.

You should really try to be a bit more objective if you want people to take your opinions seriously.

It's not just that, his statements are made as if they are complete and absolute fact. He recites antecdotal evidence and is unable to back up the majority of his claims -- for example, I wanted to call the Hollywood Video store that was going to throw out their HD DVD catalog because they wanted to be like Blockbuster to see what they had to say ... but I never heard back, after repeated requests for the store # / address (even after he posted he would send me the number).

And, again, we digress ... this really belongs in the Format Battle Thread where others can partake. The Blockbuster annoucement thread has run it's course, imo, as the topic has obviously been beat to death. ;)

It's not a fringe market? Okay, then tell me: What percentage of people who own a DVD player own either a Blu-Ray (PS3 included) or HD-DVD player?

Fringe isn't the right term, emerging is more accurate. Fringe market things don't show up at places like Blockbuster.

Unless you have new information, Sony is still subsidizing all BD50 discs. Are they doing this at a loss? We simply don't know since noone else is making these. Does Sony really have the capacity to crank out 100's of millions of BD50s and make it cost effective? I'm not sure if we know. We do know that HD30 is relatively cheap to manufacture and can be done on upgraded DVD lines.You know "HD30 is relatively cheap to manufacture"? Compared to what? BD50? You made it pretty clear that you don't know how much BD50s cost. :rolleyes:

And all I've read about the HD DVD lines is that they are building new lines rather than upgrading the existing DVD lines.

So your response to abysmal PS3 sales is to provide a link to some poor slob who managed to fry a bunch of 360s? :rolleyes:

Again, you are ruining your credibility with these tactics. The reality is that PS3 is underperforming in the console market by HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF UNITS per MONTH.The PS3 is responsible for the 2:1 sales advantage that Blu-ray enjoys in the States. I believe it is also responsible for Blu-ray taking Japan and Australia and why Blu-ray will grab Europe. Some posters think Warner and Paramount were lured over to the Blu-side by the potential PS3 hardware sales. Blu-ray means more to Sony than the PS3 does. They were willing to jeopardize the PS3 to push Blu-ray. I would say the PS3 is delivering very well on the Blu-ray front for Sony.

The reality is that Xbox 360 and Wii are outselling the PS3 handily. Obviously most people aren't having horrible problems with their 360s."On initial launch, it was close to 30 per cent of our [Xbox 360s] were coming back faulty". (http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13177/532/) A Sydney retailer said "Out the Nintendo Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360 the Microsoft product is the only one that we have had constant problems with. In fact when we sell the Xbox 360 we tell customers to contact Microsoft if they "Ever have a problem".

IIRC, an EA employee said their 300 or so Xbox360 units had a 20%-50% failure rate.

It makes me wonder how many Xbox360s MS really has out there. A lot of units have been sent in for repair/returned/discarded (and still counted among their sales) and new units were bought to replace them. Maybe Xbox360's hardware sales lead isn't as large as it appears.

PS, there are plenty of reports of people having their PS3 lockup or hiccup during BD playback, glad you haven't had those issues. The PS3 does not have any more than the normal console (excluding the 360)failure rate (unless you have something to back up any claims that it doesn't).

A cheap standalone appeals to anyone with an HDTV.Cheap doesn't appeal to people. Value does. That's why marketeers say something is 'inexpensive' rather than 'cheap' and 'you get what you pay for'. The lowest priced item does not always provide the best value.

Sony spent money to acquire MGM's library to increase Blu-ray's value. Blu-ray having the exclusive support of Fox and Disney increases its value. Being able to walk into a Blockbuster store to rent the movie I want in highdef increases Blu-ray's value.

Whereas, Toshiba is spending money to cut prices. They didn't pay Warner and Paramount enough to keep them exclusive. And Toshiba, in partnership with Time Warner, didn't put up enough cash to buy MGM.

Seems to me that Sony's strategy of providing more at higher cost is working better than Toshiba's cheap barebones approach.

As far as BD50 cost goes.... only Sony can make them right now. That's the rub, right? We don't know what they actually cost. They could cost 10 cents for all I know, but it is well substantiated that at least initially Sony had serious yield problems and that Sony is the sole supplier of BD50. I would hope that if costs are as low as you indicate that we will see other BD50 suppliers jumping in.

Also, if BD50 is so cheap and easy to produce in quantities then why are we still seeing new releases come out on BD25? It just doesn't make a lot of sense, after all, the materials costs of that extra layer is about one cent (since it uses similar materials to SD DVD).

As to Xbox If MS has sold 10M X360's and they had the failure rate you cite from your quality source (some minimum wage guy at an EB Games in Australia) not only would there be a huge public outcry, there would be class action lawsuits a'plenty.

MS is a big cash cow and if there were such serious problems with X360 failure rates or major design flaws that could be substantiated in a court of law they would be getting sued into the stone age.

I actually find it rather humerous that Playstation fans have been dissing the Xbox 360 since it came out and now have to dig out the kind of stuff you cite to explain why it is continuing to trounce the "cutting edge" PS3.

I can't believe you even bring up "value" and "blu-ray disc" in the same sentence. $500-$600 for a 1st gen BD player that won't even comply to the 1.1 spec coming in October (and sub-par upscaling to boot). Now that's what I call a bad value, pretty much any way you cut it.

As far as BD50 cost goes.... only Sony can make them right now. That's the rub, right? We don't know what they actually cost. They could cost 10 cents for all I know, but it is well substantiated that at least initially Sony had serious yield problems and that Sony is the sole supplier of BD50. I would hope that if costs are as low as you indicate that we will see other BD50 suppliers jumping in.
According to this article back in March, new BD50 production lines from Oerlikon and Singulus should be in operation by around this time:
http://www.oto-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=279&Itemid=43

Also, if BD50 is so cheap and easy to produce in quantities then why are we still seeing new releases come out on BD25? It just doesn't make a lot of sense, after all, the materials costs of that extra layer is about one cent (since it uses similar materials to SD DVD).
Probably due to lower yields. The more complex the disc, the higher the production failure rate.

Doesn't seem "that" difficult to produce though; Sony was able to ship 500,000 free copies of Casino Royale BD50s to Europe for their PS3 promotion, which means there are probably half as many BD50s in the wild today as there are HD DVDs of any type as a whole.

As to Xbox If MS has sold 10M X360's and they had the failure rate you cite from your quality source (some minimum wage guy at an EB Games in Australia) not only would there be a huge public outcry, there would be class action lawsuits a'plenty.

MS is a big cash cow and if there were such serious problems with X360 failure rates or major design flaws that could be substantiated in a court of law they would be getting sued into the stone age.

Oh?

Why does this self-professed Xbox 360 fan have TWELVE malfunctioning units since launch then?

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160603

Take a look around at gaming forums and you'll see story after story about everyone who knows someone who has a broken 360.

I actually find it rather humerous that Playstation fans have been dissing the Xbox 360 since it came out and now have to dig out the kind of stuff you cite to explain why it is continuing to trounce the "cutting edge" PS3.
The Xbox 360 runs some fantastic gaming software. What the PS3 lacks is an appropriate price point and better games. Sony promises to fix both of those soon (my copy of Ninja Gaiden Sigma arrives next week, for instance).

I can't believe you even bring up "value" and "blu-ray disc" in the same sentence. $500-$600 for a 1st gen BD player that won't even comply to the 1.1 spec coming in October (and sub-par upscaling to boot). Now that's what I call a bad value, pretty much any way you cut it.
By the same reasoning the PS3 is struggling in "value" as a game system due to insufficient software, HD DVD struggles with similar content.

People generally want to buy new titles, but let's look at 2007 for instance:

From BoxOfficeMojo.com, 2007 current movie revenues as of this posting:
1 Spider-Man 3 Sony $332,832,534
2 Shrek the Third P/DW $309,452,117
3 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End BV $288,951,288
4 300 WB $210,427,639
5 Wild Hogs BV $166,471,706
6 Blades of Glory P/DW $117,610,885
7 Ghost Rider Sony $115,802,596
8 Knocked Up Uni. $112,372,180
9 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Fox $102,050,188
10 Meet the Robinsons BV $96,384,206
11 Norbit P/DW $95,360,247
12 Ocean's Thirteen WB $93,872,922
13 Bridge to Terabithia BV $82,234,139
14 Disturbia P/DW
15 Stomp the Yard SGem
16 TMNT WB $54,149,098
17 Music and Lyrics WB $50,572,589
18 Are We Done Yet? SonR $49,431,658
19 Surf's Up Sony $49,262,249
20 Premonition Sony $47,852,604
19 of 20 titles will appear on Blu-ray, 10 are exclusive.
10 out of 20 titles will appear on HD DVD, 1 is exclusive.

Half of recent blockbusters available for purchase is "value"?

EDIT: Fixed my math.

According to this article back in March, new BD50 production lines from Oerlikon and Singulus should be in operation by around this time:
http://www.oto-online.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=279&Itemid=43

The partnership was announced in March. I would be very surprised if they have already gotten production turned up, but maybe they have. All BD releases should be BD50 unless they are short films since BD was promised from the outset as a 50GB medium.


Probably due to lower yields. The more complex the disc, the higher the production failure rate.

Doesn't seem "that" difficult to produce though; Sony was able to ship 500,000 free copies of Casino Royale BD50s to Europe for their PS3 promotion, which means there are probably half as many BD50s in the wild today as there are HD DVDs of any type as a whole.


A DVD line can produce hundreds of thousands of discs in a day. I would expect a BD line to be able to do the same. Even if the yields were 10% they could produce all of Casino Royale needed in a 10 day run or less.


Oh?

Why does this self-professed Xbox 360 fan have TWELVE malfunctioning units since launch then?

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3160603

Take a look around at gaming forums and you'll see story after story about everyone who knows someone who has a broken 360.

Are you PS3 fans so desperate that you will continue to dredge things like this up? Who the hell knows what this guy's problem is. Maybe he has the damn thing in some non ventilated enclosure, which if I remember correctly was causing some PS3 failures as well. :rolleyes: Here's some anecdotal evidence for you, I know 12 people with X360's and none of them have had a failure.

And guess what else? The "high failure rate" of the 360 doesn't seem to be hurting the sales ass whooping it's putting on the PS3.


By the same reasoning the PS3 is struggling in "value" as a game system due to insufficient software, HD DVD struggles with similar content.

There is little question that content and studio support are the two biggest problems that HD DVD faces right now.

As far as BD50 cost goes.... only Sony can make them right now. That's the rub, right? We don't know what they actually cost. They could cost 10 cents for all I know, but it is well substantiated that at least initially Sony had serious yield problems and that Sony is the sole supplier of BD50. I would hope that if costs are as low as you indicate that we will see other BD50 suppliers jumping in.Sony's BD-50 production currently exceeds demand. I've read that they have the capacity for 60K discs per day. Not much compared to DVD numbers but still more than is needed ATM.

Also, if BD50 is so cheap and easy to produce in quantities then why are we still seeing new releases come out on BD25? It just doesn't make a lot of sense, after all, the materials costs of that extra layer is about one cent (since it uses similar materials to SD DVD).I never said it was cheap or easy. Just that the actual cost versus HD30 is not known. One blogger on wesleytech.com had compared prices and estimated that 5,000 BD-50s would cost about $12,250 versus about $9,500 for HD-30. The costs were closer for larger runs.

As to Xbox If MS has sold 10M X360's and they had the failure rate you cite from your quality source (some minimum wage guy at an EB Games in Australia) not only would there be a huge public outcry, there would be class action lawsuits a'plenty.

MS is a big cash cow and if there were such serious problems with X360 failure rates or major design flaws that could be substantiated in a court of law they would be getting sued into the stone age.There were three lawsuits filed that I'm aware of. Two class actions suits and one suit regarding someone's baby dying. Because they have so much cash Microsoft can easily settle these things out of court. One class action lawsuit was dropped by at the plaintiff's request. The settlement details are unknown. The other class action is supposed to be heard in 2008. Lots of time for Microsoft to settle that one too. The European Union is also investigating complaints of Xboxes scratching discs and could require that Microsoft replace all their european units. Lawsuits and investigations aplenty! And it's been out what? A year and a half?

One of their responses to the lawsuits and petitions was to extend the warranty from 90 days to one year. Another response was to design a new large heat sink that they stick in units that are sent in for repair. Their worst response is touting their great customer service while ducking all questions regarding their actual failure rates.

I actually find it rather humerous that Playstation fans have been dissing the Xbox 360 since it came out and now have to dig out the kind of stuff you cite to explain why it is continuing to trounce the "cutting edge" PS3.The people dissing the 360 are 360 owners. One xbox fan site did a poll and found 61% of 360s were defective. They complain about the overheating, noise, being able to transfer downloaded games between units, and scratched discs among other problems. How would PS3 owners even know about those things if not for all the complaints by 360 owners?

It's funny that HD DVD posters are dissing Blockbuster and switching to Netflix because of this announcement. Neither of them changed their support for HD DVD.

I can't believe you even bring up "value" and "blu-ray disc" in the same sentence. $500-$600 for a 1st gen BD player that won't even comply to the 1.1 spec coming in October (and sub-par upscaling to boot). Now that's what I call a bad value, pretty much any way you cut it.Doesn't The Descent already do pip? Value like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think Blu-ray is the much better value because of it's greater studio support, higher storage capacity and higher bitrates.

Are you PS3 fans so desperate that you will continue to dredge things like this up? Who the hell knows what this guy's problem is. Maybe he has the damn thing in some non ventilated enclosure, which if I remember correctly was causing some PS3 failures as well. :rolleyes: Here's some anecdotal evidence for you, I know 12 people with X360's and none of them have had a failure.

And guess what else? The "high failure rate" of the 360 doesn't seem to be hurting the sales ass whooping it's putting on the PS3.
Anecdotal evidence one way or the other isn't the issue. Do you know that Xbox 360 owners actually have an acronym? It's the RRoD. Red Ring of Death. It's the sign that their Xbox 360 has died in an irretrievable way and has to be sent back for repair.

This sort of common consciousness meme wasn't started by PS3 fans. It has been around long before the PS3 was even released.

You can certainly say it hasn't caused sales to flop for the Xbox 360, since it's still selling decently, but to simply dismiss the issue as irrelevant is wrong. The QC problems have cost Microsoft at least one 360 sale - me. I own a PS3 and a Wii, but working with Microsoft products on a daily basis as part of my work has left me quite untrusting of their workmanship, especially in an arena that isn't their core competency (software). The 360 games are great, and it's a fantastic unit when it works, but Microsoft desperately needs to fix their QA issues or this thing will hang on their console like a bogeyman forever.

When it rains, it pours:

Video Business: Blockbuster adds bigger Blu-ray section online (http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6455944.html)


JUNE 27 | Blockbuster has added a Blu-ray Disc area to Blockbuster.com.

The section lists more than 250 Blu-ray titles available for rent and features a guide to Blu-ray and a search function to find out which local stores carry the format.

The site contains a similar area for HD DVD, but it is not positioned as prominently.

Blockbuster announced last week it would expand Blu-ray to 1,700 stores but keep HD DVD contained to the original 250 test stores and online.

When it rains, it pours:

Video Business: Blockbuster adds bigger Blu-ray section online (http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6455944.html)

Now that is news that actually has a direct impact on me since the only Blu-ray rentals I can find living in Little Rock are online. I may go back to the unlimited total access plan if it means I won't have to put crap like "Employee of the Month" in my queue.

Chris

When it rains, it pours:

Video Business: Blockbuster adds bigger Blu-ray section online (http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6455944.html)


I mention this in a post a few days ago. Blockbuster is going to expand their Blu-Ray section to not only on the side wall next to the register in the "new release" wall where everyone going to pay will see it but will also be placing it in the middle of the store replacing the "older classic movie" section with "older catalog titles" from Blu-Ray. This might attract the older crowd into buying a blu-ray player.

Blockbuster response to my e-mail regarding their "decision".

Hello Michael,

Thanks for contacting Blockbuster Online Customer Care.

I apologize for the inconvenience this has caused, Michael. To inform you, we are not switching only to Blu Ray movies. We will still offer HD DVD's and other formats as well.

I truly appreciate you patience and understanding, Michael. Please let me know if there is anything else I can assist you with today.


Always glad to be of help,

Aristotle
Customer Care Associate
Blockbuster Online

Blockbuster response to my e-mail regarding their "decision".

Actions speak much louder than a diplomatically worded e-mail designed to placate angry HD DVD supporters.

Blockbuster do still support both formats online and in 250 stores. They have not gone Blu-ray exclusive (yet).

However, Blockbuster have decided to expand their HD disc library to cover an additional 1,450 stores. These 1,450 stores will stock only Blu-ray titles (at least 170 titles per store).

I think this real-life action puts the 'pacifier' e-mail you receieved into persective.

What is unclear to me - will Blockbuster continue picking up new HD-DVD titles for the online and/or limited 250 shops?

If Blockbuster has stopped acquiring new titles, then really HD-DVD is already dead at Blockbuster - the existing collection of HD-DVD discs eventually becomes stale and limited while the Blu-ray selection grows over time.

Given time, stale is the same as dead.

On another note, I'd like to stress that these sites and annecdotes about failed units (be they PS3, XBox, or TRS-80s) are completely silly. Do you visit a fansite and participate on a poll when you're enjoying your perfectly operating game console? Of course not! But you might start googling for console failure rates in a rumbling rampage if your console failed right when you'd invited some friends over to have some fun!

I wonder how many of us have ever worked in customer service. If you sell two dozen units, and two people come back to hop up and down about some trouble they've had, its those stressful encounters you'll remember - not the 22 guys that came in, bought the box, and never came back.

I further wonder what in the world console failure rates has to do with Blu-ray or HD-DVD! With respect to checking our Format War Scoresheets, all we should care about is the number of deployed, working units. Worse, how do we know how many PS3 owners are actually enjoying Blu-ray?

I'd hazard that the only worthy metric is the number of movies being bought or rented. Hardware sales are just a means to software profits, after all.

I don't care about Blu-ray vs HD-DVD production costs. Those costs are likely insignificant in the long game. Economies of scale as well as manufacturing improvements. They're perhaps only relevant now in terms of how big a hit companies may need to take to subsidize the format now. Still, the production costs now compared to the size of the DVD market? If I was Sony, or Toshiba, I'd be subsidizing as much as I dared! You've got to get that key market penetration by hook or by crook to the critical mass level.

Yes, Blockbuster online is adding new HD DVD to the online store. I just added "The Big Lebowski" to my rental queue and that one just came out this week.

It's just more PS3/Fandork FUD that HD DVD is not getting new additions at Blockbuster.

Yes, Blockbuster online is adding new HD DVD to the online store. I just added "The Big Lebowski" to my rental queue and that one just came out this week.

It's just more PS3/Fandork FUD that HD DVD is not getting new additions at Blockbuster.

I think Blockbuster is smart to continue adding some HD DVD titles. Why force HD DVD customers to go to your competitor. Online rentals are easier to implement. In store rentals do need more thought - endcaps and shelf space are limited.

Yes, Blockbuster online is adding new HD DVD to the online store. I just added "The Big Lebowski" to my rental queue and that one just came out this week.

It's just more PS3/Fandork FUD that HD DVD is not getting new additions at Blockbuster.

I think that some of the Blu-ray fanboys were speculating about stockage levels of HD-DVD at the 250 brick & mortar Blockbuster stores that currently carry HD-DVDs.

I think that some of the Blu-ray fanboys were speculating about stockage levels of HD-DVD at the 250 brick & mortar Blockbuster stores that currently carry HD-DVDs.Blockbuster integrates its online and store-based operations and fulfills some online orders through its stores. They have around 23 distribution centers and supplement those centers by using some of its stores as mini-distribution centers to improve delivery times and increase available stock.

I'm guessing some, if not all, of those 250 test stores are used for online distribution which means those stores should keep getting new stock.

By the same token, Blu-ray delivery times and stock levels should be excellent.

People generally want to buy new titles, but let's look at 2007 for instance:

From BoxOfficeMojo.com, 2007 current movie revenues as of this posting:
1 Spider-Man 3 Sony $332,832,534
2 Shrek the Third P/DW $309,452,117
3 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End BV $288,951,288
4 300 WB $210,427,639
5 Wild Hogs BV $166,471,706
6 Blades of Glory P/DW $117,610,885
7 Ghost Rider Sony $115,802,596
8 Knocked Up Uni. $112,372,180
9 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Fox $102,050,188
10 Meet the Robinsons BV $96,384,206
11 Norbit P/DW $95,360,247
12 Ocean's Thirteen WB $93,872,922
13 Bridge to Terabithia BV $82,234,139
14 Disturbia P/DW
15 Stomp the Yard SGem
16 TMNT WB $54,149,098
17 Music and Lyrics WB $50,572,589
18 Are We Done Yet? SonR $49,431,658
19 Surf's Up Sony $49,262,249
20 Premonition Sony $47,852,604
19 of 20 titles will appear on Blu-ray, 10 are exclusive.
10 out of 20 titles will appear on HD DVD, 1 is exclusive.

Half of recent blockbusters available for purchase is "value"?

EDIT: Fixed my math.

fwiw, Bridge to Terabithia and Ghost Rider are being released across the pond on HD-DVD, so that's two less exclusive. Take out Fox as well, because they're neutrally not releasing anything ... and then factor in the liklihood that not all 20 of those titles will see HD releases ... and the numbers are a little closer. ;)

That said, imo, the HD DVD players provide more value ... as those move, the content will follow.

In any case, this is way off topic and likely belongs in the Format Battle Thread ... ;)

Sony's BD-50 production currently exceeds demand. I've read that they have the capacity for 60K discs per day. Not much compared to DVD numbers but still more than is needed ATM.


Link to the capacity? I didn't think it was that high for BD50, at least not actual yields.


There were three lawsuits filed that I'm aware of. Two class actions suits and one suit regarding someone's baby dying. Because they have so much cash Microsoft can easily settle these things out of court. One class action lawsuit was dropped by at the plaintiff's request. The settlement details are unknown. The other class action is supposed to be heard in 2008. Lots of time for Microsoft to settle that one too. The European Union is also investigating complaints of Xboxes scratching discs and could require that Microsoft replace all their european units. Lawsuits and investigations aplenty! And it's been out what? A year and a half?


C'mon now, this is a litigious society ... several class actions have been filed against Sony for the PS2 as well. Who cares?


One of their responses to the lawsuits and petitions was to extend the warranty from 90 days to one year. Another response was to design a new large heat sink that they stick in units that are sent in for repair. Their worst response is touting their great customer service while ducking all questions regarding their actual failure rates.


At least they extended the warranty ... it's more than what others have done.


The people dissing the 360 are 360 owners. One xbox fan site did a poll and found 61% of 360s were defective. They complain about the overheating, noise, being able to transfer downloaded games between units, and scratched discs among other problems. How would PS3 owners even know about those things if not for all the complaints by 360 owners?


Fan site polls are ridiculous as they are generally skewed by trolls from the opposing view. I wonder how many people voted negatively that never owned an Xbox 360 or PS3.


It's funny that HD DVD posters are dissing Blockbuster and switching to Netflix because of this announcement. Neither of them changed their support for HD DVD.


Not according to what some BDA Supporters have said in this same thread.


Doesn't The Descent already do pip? Value like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think Blu-ray is the much better value because of it's greater studio support, higher storage capacity and higher bitrates.

No, the Decent does not do PiP, the Descent contains two encodes of the same movie, one with a permanently overlayed video. Menus don't work, you cant swap images, you can't reposition the screen, and you can't turn it off/on when you want to. So, no ... it's not PiP ... it's 'Pseudo-PiP', at best.

Blockbuster integrates its online and store-based operations and fulfills some online orders through its stores. They have around 23 distribution centers and supplement those centers by using some of its stores as mini-distribution centers to improve delivery times and increase available stock.

I'm guessing some, if not all, of those 250 test stores are used for online distribution which means those stores should keep getting new stock.

By the same token, Blu-ray delivery times and stock levels should be excellent.

Yay! Finally a post that is back On-topic. :)

fwiw, Bridge to Terabithia and Ghost Rider are being released across the pond on HD-DVD, so that's two less exclusive.

Wow, so blockbuster/netflix will have Bridge to Terabithia and Ghost Rider available for rental, including them being for sale at best buy, frys and circuit city! This is great news for hd-dvd!!! Oh wait, no, that wont be happening. Scratch that. Its great news for people willing to spend double or triple for a movie that will be available for normal price in the US on the format selling the most movies/players every month after month.

On another note, I'd like to stress that these sites and annecdotes about failed units (be they PS3, XBox, or TRS-80s) are completely silly.

I just wanted to say, for the record, that my TRS-80 still works perfectly, although my attempts to play Blu-Ray disks on it have failed thus far.

Does anybody have a link to the list of Blockbuster stores that will carry the Blu-Ray disks?

Thanks

At least they extended the warranty ... it's more than what others have done.


The least they could do is to admit the problem, and maybe even try to fix it properly :) The reports are rampant, and disproportionate to the other two consoles.

Wow, so blockbuster/netflix will have Bridge to Terabithia and Ghost Rider available for rental, including them being for sale at best buy, frys and circuit city! This is great news for hd-dvd!!! Oh wait, no, that wont be happening. Scratch that. Its great news for people willing to spend double or triple for a movie that will be available for normal price in the US on the format selling the most movies/players every month after month.

I find it funny that the best thing about HD DVD is the price but the ability to pay $40-50 for a movie that costs $20-25 on blu-ray is considered a feature.

I find it funny that the best thing about HD DVD is the price but the ability to pay $40-50 for a movie that costs $20-25 on blu-ray is considered a feature.

You have some movies in mind that show this large of a price difference?

You have some movies in mind that show this large of a price difference?

The price difference on The Prestige from amazon.com (BD) and amazon.co.uk (HD DVD) is $23 to $38, so not 20-40 but not exactly far from that.

$15 on one title is a huge difference, especially since you are already paying a premium over standard DVD.

Think about how that $15 when ordering from a foreign website will matter when the savior of HD DVD is supposed to be Wal-Mart.

The price difference on The Prestige from amazon.com (BD) and amazon.co.uk (HD DVD) is $23 to $38, so not 20-40 but not exactly far from that.

$15 dollars on one title is a huge difference, especially since you are already paying a premium over standard DVD.

But you are comparing a USA release to an import aren't you?

ALL imports are going to be more expensive

But you are comparing a USA release to an import aren't you?

Yes I am talking about the BD exclusives that are available on HD DVD in other countries, sorry, thought that was clear.

edit: I was responding to a post about Ghost Rider and Bridge to Terabithia on HD DVD, so it was clearly about imports.

Yes I am talking about the BD exclusives that are available on HD DVD in other countries, sorry, thought that was clear.

edit: I was responding to a post about Ghost Rider and Bridge to Terabithia on HD DVD, so it was clearly about imports.

But I just checked Amazon UK and Superman Returns is more expensive in BRD than it is in HD DVD - 17.97 versus 15.97 (in UK money)

Imports have no bearing on sales of discs in the USA. Only a small handful of people are going to buy them.

Imports have no bearing on sales of discs in the USA. Only a small handful of people are going to buy them.

I think this post should be a reply to jdg345 based on this post:

fwiw, Bridge to Terabithia and Ghost Rider are being released across the pond on HD-DVD, so that's two less exclusive.

Pushing expensive imports as a feature of HD DVD is a bit of a stretch, it seems you agree.

Pushing expensive imports as a feature of HD DVD is a bit of a stretch, it seems you agree.

"Seems" . . . not strong enough . . . 100% agree!

The fact that it is available is one thing - how many will buy them is a totally other issue.

Think J6P even knows they exist? . . . . .nope

Blockbuster's CEO was fired today: http://www.forbes.com/2007/07/02/icahn-blockbuster-closer-markets-equity-cx_af_ra_0702markets36.html?partner=yahootix

"Seems" . . . not strong enough . . . 100% agree!

The fact that it is available is one thing - how many will buy them is a totally other issue.

Think J6P even knows they exist? . . . . .nope

So lack of Region Coding shouldn't be considered huge? While I agree that the average consumer doesn't know much about the availability of imports, I'd also think that the average consumer doesn't know much about BR and HD DVD.

That said, I think for the people on these forums, for the enthusists, the fact that you can get 'exclusive' Blu-ray titles on HD DVD across the pond is pretty important. It goes to show you how 'exclusive' things really are. *shrug*

Does the average consumer know the difference between a BD25, a BD50, and an HD30? Since they won't know what the media is by looking at the package, I guess the capacity differences between formats is moot too ... as long as the PQ/AQ is on par. *shrug*

Most importantly, this has nothing to do with Blockbuster and is completely offtopic. This should be a conversation for the Format Battle Thread. This one has pretty much run it's course ... the horse is dead. We'll see if there are any changes in strategy now that Blockbuster has a new CEO.