April 15th has come and gone...what's next?

[TV Casualty]

This is not an impending doom thread. I have no concerns about the format's "health." All clear? Ok.

It looks like many people have now bought or ordered almost everything they wanted for the time being. I'm wondering if sales are going to tank a bit until we get a new wave of announcements & preorders put up. Hopefully people will continue to purchase titles on a fairly regular basis (for instance, I held off on Planet Earth yesterday due to price but do plan on getting it sometime in the next few weeks), because if the end result of yesterday's binge was that no one is buying anything for the forseeable future, it didn't really accomplish much. Yesterday was pretty impressive, and shows that HD DVD's supporters seem to be as dedicated as ever. I just hope it wasn't something that is going to hurt more than help in the long term.

One thing that was a little disturbing was I noticed a small amount of people buying titles they didn't seem to want (and this wasn't just limited to HD DVD, I noticed a few "counter-attackers" doing it as well). Guys, they're video formats. Relax. Unless you are REALLY well off in life, don't start buying stuff you don't want just to support a format. Remember, in the end this is all still going to a big, evil company.

So, yeah. How about again in 6 months? Could make it a twice a year thing, every April 16th and October 16th...getting right in the midst of Spring/Summer preorders and the holiday season glut that is sure to occur.

[geko29]

I actually held off buying anything for about 6 weeks in anticipation of 4/15. Now I'll be back to my regular schedule of buying a few titles a month. There are another dozen or so that I want to pick up as finances allow, and I imagine I'll be getting a few of them for my birthday as well (ordered from Amazon too).

I would expect the pre-HD-birthday slump will turn out to be at least as low as any post slump, and by the beginning of May, we'll be back to seeing relatively accurate sales figures (minus yesterday's preorders). But they still shouldn't be as low as February's numbers because there are actually new titles available (and announced) now.

[chris4404]

I'd like to see a buy day every month, couldn't hurt to have people buying movies on a regular basis. I bought Children of Men yesterday off Amazon and I'll be picking up Smoking Aces on Tuesday.

[bruceames]

Probably be a little fall off from normal but like above poster says back to normal by May. A lot of this buy was fueled by people with catching up to do, due to the three month drought. I was one of them.

The net effect of this is huge because it shows that HD DVD has great supporters and pushing Planet Earth to #4 is amazing no matter how you look at it, and it will be discussed on all the web sites and bring positive attention to the format. A big statement was made yesterday, and I am proud to have been a part of it.

[MichaelHDDVD]

I can never order everything I want at a time. Some people did. We could have a universal (no pun intended) buy day every month. Scheduled the day of the biggest release that month

May 22 for The Matrix Box Sets for example

Obviously people can buy more than just The Matrix Box sets

[FatiusJeebs]

I am by no means finished buying. As I stated in the actualy Apr. 15 thread.....my budget constraints only allowed me to purchase Planet Earth. There are still a few movies out there that I would like to pick up sooooo....The sales (at least from my end) will continue to be there as the availability of cash shows up.

[toxic_avenger]

All of my purchases were preorders. I have quite a few older titles to grab over the next few months like NiN etc etc. I would have grabbed older titles but I just bought an XA2 from Robert earlier in the week so my wallet was begging for mercy.

[bboisvert]

What's next?

I think we have a lot of great content coming that we need to actually watch!


What's next for me is just my normal purchasing habits. I ordered a few things yesterday to celebrate the 15th... but there are still tons of upcoming things that I need to get. Dragonheart, Mallrats, Rio Bravo, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life... all kinds of cool stuff coming out in May/June.

[mchuckp]

I'm sure we will see a decline at Amazon but remember there are hundreds of thousands of HD-DVD players out there. We are big buyers but still a small portion of total owners. I wouldn't expect things to go totally sour after a big day.

Also, many say that Amazon #'s mean nothing and you need to look at Nielson #'s. Well all those pre-orders will count as sales at a later date. So Nielson #'s will likely show a blip this week but long term it will show steady sales as all the upcoming movies are released.

This is cool and it will flatten out again. But with the awesome pricepoints being found on HD-DVD players, the number of owners will continue to grow.

[SteroMAdMAn]

Originally Posted by bruceames

Probably be a little fall off from normal but like above poster says back to normal by May. A lot of this buy was fueled by people with catching up to do, due to the three month drought. I was one of them.

The net effect of this is huge because it shows that HD DVD has great supporters and pushing Planet Earth to #4 is amazing no matter how you look at it, and it will be discussed on all the web sites and bring positive attention to the format. A big statement was made yesterday, and I am proud to have been a part of it.

+1


I'm no longer format neutral. As of yesterday I am a HD-DVD owner. I am proud I can actually stand behind the format now and put my money where my mouth is, so to speak.

I only purchased A Scanner Darkly and PE yesterday. I'll be picking up King Kong @ Circuit City in a day or so and the disc's won't stop there.

It's really nice to see this many people who are as passionate about HD-DVD and can do it in the positive way that we have. The same can't be said for some others.

[nataraj]

From some of the data we have (polls here + Nielsen) - I think AVS members account for 5 to 10% of total HD DVD sales. If that is true - then we shouldn't see much of an impact going forward. Ofcourse the Nielsen data shows bigs swings from week to week naturally ...

Afterall people have been reporting accelerated HD-A2/X2 sales and that got to have some impact.

[Herzogian]

I held off buying too much yesterday, but I'm looking forward for the next two months. Universal is releasing a bunch of personal favorites, so I'm saving and planning on a spending bing during the last week of May and again in June.

I agree that Amazon numbers don't mean much, at least for me. I normally don't buy movies online, but yesterday was just way too fun to miss out!

[TV Casualty]

I'm all for occasionaly doing "buy days," but I think every month is way too much. We need to give it time so more stuff can both be released and be announced. I'm going to buy my must-have stuff right away, but the "I need to get that eventually" stuff needs some time to accumulate.

[krackhead]

Originally Posted by SteroMAdMAn

+1

I'm no longer format neutral....

welcome to the other dark side

[Snickering Hound]

I held off on some purchases and will make some more next weekend and throughout the month.

The short term impact seems to be hypersensitive blu-ray members.

This thread that had new information that quoted Samsung in saying that they are open to building HD-DVD only players was closed by the moderators due to complaints from the blu-ray crowd.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=834984

And a link to the reuters article.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/techn...519632320070416

[plazman]

While it would be nice to see the sales rank persist, IMHO, this event was an important milestone in the journey of ensuring a beach head for HD DVD and eventual success.

People who have experienced HD DVD, especially with one of the G2 players know why we want to ensure that HD DVD continues to do well. Don't get me wrong, BD movies also look great, but a well done HD DVD with TruHD, IME, U-Control, slick menu and glorious PQ is the Porsche 911 GT3 of home entertainment

[FatiusJeebs]

Originally Posted by plazman

While it would be nice to see the sales rank persist, IMHO, this event was an important milestone in the journey of ensuring a beach head for HD DVD and eventual success.

People who have experienced HD DVD, especially with one of the G2 players know why we want to ensure that HD DVD continues to do well. Don't get me wrong, BD movies also look great, but a well done HD DVD with TruHD, IME, U-Control, slick menu and glorious PQ is the Porsche 911 GT3 of home entertainment

Wow....sweet analogy!

[FatiusJeebs]

Originally Posted by plazman

While it would be nice to see the sales rank persist, IMHO, this event was an important milestone in the journey of ensuring a beach head for HD DVD and eventual success.

People who have experienced HD DVD, especially with one of the G2 players know why we want to ensure that HD DVD continues to do well. Don't get me wrong, BD movies also look great, but a well done HD DVD with TruHD, IME, U-Control, slick menu and glorious PQ is the Porsche 911 GT3 of home entertainment

Wow....sweet analogy!

[studiotan]

Personally, I only bought/preordered releases through the end of April during yesterdays buy day. Looking at the release lists I'll still have plenty to buy in May and June

[eXstasie]

I only purchased pre-orders yesterday as all of my disposable income is tied up to my European trip in May. Once I come back and figure out the total damage i'll pick up some movies that have been around for a while that I haven't had a chance to get yet!

[Snickering Hound]

I'd love to listen in on that conference call where the Phase Hydra people are being shrieked at by Sony for not doing enough to lessen the impact of the 4/15 purchase event.

[TCARCIO]

I don't post here much but I do on another forum. I just wanted to see how things were going after yesterday and by the looks of it HD DVD is very much alive and well. I purchased 4 more yeserday and I am looking forward to the 17th releases. Great job guys, I am glad to be in the HD DVD camp..........

[Chris J]

How about a day for us independent dealers. We also order our movies from the same place Amazon orders theirs.

[junehhan]

Originally Posted by Chris J

How about a day for us independent dealers. We also order our movies from the same place Amazon orders theirs.

While many of us wishes to support the independent retailers, there often isn't much of a way to judge the magnitude and volume of movies sold on a particular day. It also doesn't have as much ability to make a statement. If we end up buy 700+ movies from a smaller independent retailer, nobody in the buisness world really cares. But once you spike sales numbers on sites like Amazon that do a high volume of buisness, it all of a sudden has peoples' attention.

[junehhan]

I honestly think doing this every month or even on a quarterly basis would be too soon as there just won't be enough out. I think twice a year would be perfect with the dates coninciding with HD-DVD's birthday and also with either Blu-ray or the PS3's introduction to the market. By these dates, there will generally be a very good list of titles available both for sale and preorder. To make a difference, we simply have to drive volume.

Originally Posted by TV Casualty

This is not an impending doom thread. I have no concerns about the format's "health." All clear? Ok.

It looks like many people have now bought or ordered almost everything they wanted for the time being. I'm wondering if sales are going to tank a bit until we get a new wave of announcements & preorders put up. Hopefully people will continue to purchase titles on a fairly regular basis (for instance, I held off on Planet Earth yesterday due to price but do plan on getting it sometime in the next few weeks), because if the end result of yesterday's binge was that no one is buying anything for the forseeable future, it didn't really accomplish much. Yesterday was pretty impressive, and shows that HD DVD's supporters seem to be as dedicated as ever. I just hope it wasn't something that is going to hurt more than help in the long term.

One thing that was a little disturbing was I noticed a small amount of people buying titles they didn't seem to want (and this wasn't just limited to HD DVD, I noticed a few "counter-attackers" doing it as well). Guys, they're video formats. Relax. Unless you are REALLY well off in life, don't start buying stuff you don't want just to support a format. Remember, in the end this is all still going to a big, evil company.

So, yeah. How about again in 6 months? Could make it a twice a year thing, every April 16th and October 16th...getting right in the midst of Spring/Summer preorders and the holiday season glut that is sure to occur.

[webphilosopher]

Originally Posted by plazman

While it would be nice to see the sales rank persist, IMHO, this event was an important milestone in the journey of ensuring a beach head for HD DVD and eventual success.

People who have experienced HD DVD, especially with one of the G2 players know why we want to ensure that HD DVD continues to do well. Don't get me wrong, BD movies also look great, but a well done HD DVD with TruHD, IME, U-Control, slick menu and glorious PQ is the Porsche 911 GT3 of home entertainment

And a Porsche for the price of a Honda. Thanks to everyone in the HD DVD camp for getting it so right. We are very lucky people.

[Usual Suspect]

Same here, rather than buy everything which I planned to buy over the next weeks I held back the last two weeks. And there is still a bunch of HD-DVD's left (pre-order and released titles) which I am going to buy over the next weeks.
Some titles I bought are even blind buys, but most of them are kinda cheap anyway (compared with what you have to pay in europe) so there will be no real damage, even if some of the movies are not that good. On the other hand, High definition makes even average movies worth looking if the eye candy is there, at least I feel that way...
Sorry, I almost forgot:
I looooooove region free.......no pun intended, of course (don't bite me)

[BIG ED]

April 10, 2007:
Dog Day Afternoon (Warner)
Payback: Straight Up - The Director's Cut (Paramount)
A Scanner Darkly (Warner)

I'm looking forward to sales figures for these three titles.
No blockbusters. These are the only titles released on this date (and all on; both BD & HD DVD).
Luv to see which format has the "true" movie buying public at this time, behind it.
Not just some flashy Casino Royale title buying fans.

EDit:

AMAZON

DDA: HD DVD = 1,190 & BD = 1,591
PB: HD DVD = 356 & BD = 298
ASD: HD DVD = 237 & BD = 1,020

04-16-07 est. 5:30 PST

Of coarse, this is JUST Amazon.
Of coarse, this is with the HD DVD anniversary boost.
Of coarse, I was hoping HD DVD would be further ahead!

[jwv651]

April 15th has come and gone...what's next?

Relax and Enjoy all the movies you bought

[drsimnal]

I thought we were all going to get to enjoy a YouTube video. That's something to look forward to!