Dual Format Disc Player Announced

[YONEXSP]

what are the comparative production costs of HD DVD Vs Blu Ray Discs today for studios?

[Sean_O]

news flash, hd dvd is no longer trumping blu ray. many stores report blu-ray outselling hd-dvd software, and even amazon is showing blu-ray about to overcome hd-dvd for what thedvdwars is worth.

second, picture the market in 2008-2010. PS3 will sell tens of millions worst case. tens of millions of Blu-ray disc only playing devices. There is no way studios would exclude all those ps3 users from being potential customers by pressing hd-dvd discs.

this is assuming blu-ray is even more expensive to press in the next few years.

Where are these "stores reporting" this supposed data?

Tens of millions of PS3s sold worst case? So when is this big upswing in PS3 sales going to happen and what is going to drive it?

Please enlighten me... I want you to back up that argument here.

[tsd2005]

Originally Posted by dazzatwork

news flash, hd dvd is no longer trumping blu ray. many stores report blu-ray outselling hd-dvd software, and even amazon is showing blu-ray about to overcome hd-dvd for what thedvdwars is worth.

second, picture the market in 2008-2010. PS3 will sell tens of millions worst case. tens of millions of Blu-ray disc only playing devices. There is no way studios would exclude all those ps3 users from being potential customers by pressing hd-dvd discs.

this is assuming blu-ray is even more expensive to press in the next few years.

As far as I can tell BD has "caught up to," HD-DVD, and I don't know about outselling them in software. The Videoscan numbers for December still had HD-DVD leading, and the first week of January is always good for sales. A spike in sales for BD doesn't mean anything yet.

More importantly Sony claims they sold 1M PS3s in NA. Yet they can't win the software war? All they can do is catch up?

The truth is Studios are going "PS3 owners aren't buying enough movies!" So to them 20 million people who aren't buying movies aren't really as important as say 5M who are.

[Sean_O]

I am still waiting on the NPD numbers for December because I don't trust Sony's press releases.

[dazzatwork]

Originally Posted by Sean_O

Numbers please?

Tens of millions of PS3s sold worst case? So when is this big upswing in PS3 sales going to happen and what is going to drive it?

Please enlighten me... I want you to back up that argument here.

hmm. metal gear solid 4? final fantasy 13 (and 14 and 15)? killzone 2? gran tourismo? god of war 3 (unannounced but you know its coming)? lair? i could go on and on? hell, the playstation name alone will sell tens of millions, worst case scenario. i'll eat my shoe... no both my shoes, if we hit 2010 and there aren't at least 50 million ps3's sold worldwide. regardless if wii or xb360 have sold even more or not.

no studio would ignore that sizeable customer base.

its frustrating to argue my point with you guys because you dont seem able to look at this from a universal player dominant point of view. you're holding on to the old hd-dvd vs blu-ray thing too much. with universal players dominating the market, the two formats are going to mean much less, and little things like what im trying to explain to you will make the difference.

[dazzatwork]

Originally Posted by Sean_O

I am still waiting on the NPD numbers for December because I don't trust Sony's press releases.

sony hasnt released anything regarding ps3 numbers sold. industry standard independant market tracking firms have put ps3 numbers at about 1.3 million sold worldwide as of christmas.

[miata]

Has anybody tried a Blu-ray disc in a Toshiba HD-XA2 yet?

[Sean_O]

hmm. metal gear solid 4? final fantasy 13 (and 14 and 15)? killzone 2? gran tourismo? god of war 3 (unannounced but you know its coming)? lair? i could go on and on? hell, the playstation name alone will sell tens of millions, worst case scenario. i'll eat my shoe... no both my shoes, if we hit 2010 and there aren't at least 50 million ps3's sold worldwide. regardless if wii or xb360 have sold even more or not.

no studio would ignore that sizeable customer base.

MGS 4 has been long rumored to be going to the 360 as well as the PS3. PS3 just lost Virtua Fighter exclusivity, and Namco is expected to go multi platform with the Tekken series as well. Killzone 2? No one is looking forward to that game since the first one bombed and the E3 videos were proven as CGI target renders, and now people have seen what the PS3 is actually capable of (no more than the 360) so they have lost that mystique.

PS3 is losing exclusives left and right because the writing is on the wall and developers know he 360 is going to take this round. They also know that software attach rates are much better on the 360 than the PS3 (or any other console) and they are going where the money is.

Final Fantasy XIII won't be out until mid 2008 at the earliest, and the last Final Fantasy game sold about what? 6 million copies world wide so far on a system that currently sells for $129 US.

I am the biggest Final Fantasy fan in the world, but I won't pay $600 to play XIII ($500 PS3 + $60+ game and tax for both) an there is nothing really big due out before then that is system exclusive.

I too could go on, but in short, you are dreaming. You might want to start sautéing those shoes now so they are edible when 2010 rolls around. Ps3 will never even sniff a number like 50 million sold. If it turns out you are right, you can pass ME the shoes

[LKM466]

I might have been one of the culprits jacking up the BD's recent increase in sales after my PS3 purchase. I bought 21 BD titles in December 2006, (mostly from Buy.com and partly because of the $20 off $50 Google Checkout deals), versus 1 HD-DVD KingKong that came with the Xbox 360 add-on player. Most of my friends and families who got the PS3s also got some BD movies, but all stated because there really is no good games for the console right now. ALL OF US got the PS3 MAINLY for games, and ALL agreed to postpone getting any more BD movies for all the reasons discussed.

I was and still am very open-minded to all formats (despite knowing the history of Sony's failures with other formats). I am very impressed with KingKong in HD, despite the audio issue with the add-on player. HD-DVD has more of my favorite titles and the decoder is definitely more superior than mpeg2.

I find it hard to believe Sony would allow BD on a multi-format player, because this will NOT be good for BD's future... for at least one reason Sean_O brought up.

A duo-format player will be in my rack, soon enough...

[tsd2005]

Well I got an email from our LG rep....

1. Cost will be between $800 and $1500.

2. LG will not be releasing a BD player.

3. The player has been in the works for over a year and is about ready for release. We might be able to order them rather quickly after CES.

4. Because the player has been in the works for so long he claims PQ should be equal to anything BD has out now.

1080p/24 w/ HDMI 1.3 is also what he said he'd heard but has no specs yet.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by tsd2005

Well I got an email from our LG rep....

1. Cost will be between $800 and $1500.

2. LG will not be releasing a BD player.

3. The player has been in the works for over a year and is about ready for release. We might be able to order them rather quickly after CES.

4. Because the player has been in the works for so long he claims PQ should be equal to anything BD has out now.

1080p/24 w/ HDMI 1.3 is also what he said he'd heard but has no specs yet.

I hope it's closer to $800 than $1500 naturally. LG has definitely seemed a bit perplexed at their direction so I believe they were looking to go Universal for quite some time.

also I hope we can stop talking about the consoles. This thread is about Universal players not Playstation or Xbox 360s.

[LKM466]

Originally Posted by tsd2005

Well I got an email from our LG rep....

1. Cost will be between $800 and $1500.

2. LG will not be releasing a BD player.

3. The player has been in the works for over a year and is about ready for release. We might be able to order them rather quickly after CES.

4. Because the player has been in the works for so long he claims PQ should be equal to anything BD has out now.

1080p/24 w/ HDMI 1.3 is also what he said he'd heard but has no specs yet.

I'll take one for around $1k with features as described.

[tsd2005]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

I hope it's closer to $800 than $1500 naturally. LG has definitely seemed a bit perplexed at their direction so I believe they were looking to go Universal for quite some time.

also I hope we can stop talking about the consoles. This thread is about Universal players not Playstation or Xbox 360s.

Well 1 route is: $1,500 and say you get the price of both for the er price of both.

Another route is $1,200 and say you get both for less than the price of both.

If they price it the same as Sony units... at $1,000....

They'd have a steal.

Did I mention that LG HATES Sony?

[FremontRich]

You guys are going ga ga over nothing. Unless the price of the dual format player is equal to the Toshiba it ain't going to fly in so far as J6P is concerned and the Toshiba is too expensive for J6P. I'm an HD-DVD supporter (I own an RCA HDV5000) and neither HD-DVD or BR are going to achieve critical mass unless prices come down so the dual format player is going to be a rare beast.

[vancouver]

Originally Posted by tsd2005

4. Because the player has been in the works for so long he claims PQ should be equal to anything BD has out now.
.

wonder why he said that? Why not say he claims the PQ should be equal to anything HD DVD or BD has out now?

[tsd2005]

Originally Posted by FremontRich

You guys are going ga ga over nothing. Unless the price of the dual format player is equal to the Toshiba it ain't going to fly in so far as J6P is concerned and the Toshiba is too expensive for J6P. I'm an HD-DVD supporter (I own an RCA HDV5000) and neither HD-DVD or BR are going to achieve critical mass unless prices come down so the dual format player is going to be a rare beast.

Real simple: Buy a BD player or buy a Dual Format player for the same cost?

The HD-DVD player would still be less expensive. However chances are very good that LG will release this player very aggressively.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by FremontRich

You guys are going ga ga over nothing. Unless the price of the dual format player is equal to the Toshiba it ain't going to fly in so far as J6P is concerned and the Toshiba is too expensive for J6P. I'm an HD-DVD supporter (I own an RCA HDV5000) and neither HD-DVD or BR are going to achieve critical mass unless prices come down so the dual format player is going to be a rare beast.

No but it's an easier sell for both formats for consumers.

"Hey buy a HD DVD/Blu-ray player now and you can rest assured that your movies will last because you will have Universal player options in the future"

Sure they'll end up expensive at first but a few more years of LSI integration and reduction in costs should but a Universal player at roughly what we're paying now for good deals. $400 is my guess

[Sean_O]

sony hasnt released anything regarding ps3 numbers sold. industry standard independant market tracking firms have put ps3 numbers at about 1.3 million sold worldwide as of christmas.

Sony has only (as ever) released vague and intentionally misleading statements. "We are on target to have 1 million units in the pipeline by Christmas" Then when the actual numbers show up they can claim that they never said anything misleading. That's their playbook, and it always has been with the PS brand.

Their hope is that they can mislead people into thinking that they are selling huge amounts of hardware to keep interest up, it's any marketing person's job I suppose, but Sony are masters at it.


Here is some more stuff for you: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/752/752823p1.html

(Yesterday, 07:31 PM)

XBOX 360 leads holiday sales, partly due to decreased PS3 demand(IGN) #1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


January 2, 2007 - According to preliminary NPD data, the Xbox 360 was the best-selling console during the holiday season in the U.S. CNBC is reporting that Americans picked up two million units of Microsoft's system during the period.

But Nintendo was not far behind. In spite of limited availability, the Wii sold 1.8 million units from its launch until December 25. Sony only moved approximately 750,000 units of the PlayStation 3, due to manufacturing problems and decreased demand. Over the holidays, IGN repeatedly found PS3s available at retailers while no Wiis were in sight. The price of a PS3 on eBay has also dropped to around its MSRP, while the Wii is still selling for over twice its retail price.

NPD expects to release complete sales data for the holiday season later this month.

[tsd2005]

Originally Posted by hmurchison

No but it's an easier sell for both formats for consumers.

"Hey buy a HD DVD/Blu-ray player now and you can rest assured that your movies will last because you will have Universal player options in the future"

Sure they'll end up expensive at first but a few more years of LSI integration and reduction in costs should but a Universal player at roughly what we're paying now for good deals. $400 is my guess

Well both use a blue laser and are very close to each other in production, except the angles needed for the laser for BD.

The NEC Dual Format package is about as expensive to produce as a BD player.

[Sean_O]

also I hope we can stop talking about the consoles. This thread is about Universal players not Playstation or Xbox 360s.

Agreed. I'll stop now

[dazzatwork]

Originally Posted by Sean_O

MGS 4 has been long rumored to be going to the 360 as well as the PS3.

so even though konami came out and said that was totally false, you still use it? ok well then i heard a rumor halo 3 is actually going to be a ps3 exclusive, so that should help ps3 sales.

do you think the ps3 is going to be 600 dollars in 2008? 2009? 2010?

seriously, regardless who you think will actually win the console war, if you think the ps3 isnt going to sell 10's of millions of units by 2010, then you are not worth argueing with.

edit:
and yeah, sorry to derail. im done.

[Robert D]

I bet when this player is released the dudes at BestBuy will still be telling customers to only buy BD titles because HD DVD doesn't do 1080p.

I sure hope we get some of the specs for the LG player at CES.

[tsd2005]

Originally Posted by Robert D

I bet when this player is released the dudes at BestBuy will still be telling customers to only buy BD titles because HD DVD doesn't do 1080p.

I sure hope we get some of the specs for the LG player at CES.

Seeing as how they plan on releasing it soon, I'd say they should have the specs for us to drool over.

[lostsoldier]

Originally Posted by miata

Has anybody tried a Blu-ray disc in a Toshiba HD-XA2 yet?

Oddly enough, I've thought about this once before. Then it made me think that's it's all b.s. to get people to have to buy stuff twice. Then I realized it's a government cover-up, and it's all W's fault. The format war, the single core vs dual core, the ATI vs Nvidia, the fact that HD is less than half of the resolution of a 30" PC monitor in the same price range, the aliens that abducted me and drilled a hole into my brain, it's all W's fault. Then I realized that W was the power behind the evil empires of Microsuck and Sony.

Anyway, I tried out both formats, liked both, didn't like them enough to drop the kind of money I would have needed to get both. A dual format player would certainly have my attention, if not my money.

[miata]

I think this is great because it puts pressure on the other CE companies to do a dual format HD player, but isn't a bit of a stretch for the "LG brand" to suddenly come out with a $1000 player -- or even $800 and get real traction? I would guess $600 max. -- and most likely less. I mean, if Toshiba can do a $400 box...

[vancouver]

Originally Posted by miata

I think this is great because it puts pressure on the other CE companies to do a dual format HD player, but isn't a bit of a stretch for the "LG brand" to suddenly come out with a $1000 player -- or even $800 and get real traction? I would guess $600 max. -- and most likely less. I mean, if Toshiba can do a $400 box...

You have a point here. As much as I would love a dual format player I would have a hard time dropping 1k on player made by LG.

...but ill buy it anyway.

[Jeff Lampert]

I haven't seen anyone ask the question, so here it is. Why has the BDA agreed to give LG a license to include a Blu-ray drive in combo with HD DVD? I dont' get it.

[Sean_O]

miata, as vancouver wrote, you have a point. But I think you would agree that a great product can quickly change brand perception. Let's all hope it's a great product.

[Sean_O]

I haven't seen anyone ask the question, so here it is. Why has the BDA agreed to give LG a license to include a Blu-ray drive in combo with HD DVD? I dont' get it.

I read that was a rumor, and that sort of behavior from Sony might result in government watchdogs bringing suit against them for trying to enfore such policy. Who knew?

[HumanMedia]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lampert

I haven't seen anyone ask the question, so here it is. Why has the BDA agreed to give LG a license to include a Blu-ray drive in combo with HD DVD? I dont' get it.

They probably dont have the BDA blessing and as such may not sport the Blu-ray logos etc in marketing, but will still play the discs. Maybe they will just market it as a universal hi-def player that plays any hidef disc (and SD as well), rather than mentioning Blu-ray.