HD DVD VS. BLU RAY...why pick HD DVD? - Page 9

Originally Posted by BIG ED

I would like to personal thank The Powers That Be (The Mods) for re-opening this thread specifically & keeping things orderly in general here at AVS Forums.
A BIG thank you to all!
&
Congrats Jay!

Originally Posted by suffolk112000

As much as I hate to say it, I think BD will ultimately win this battle. It may take three or four years, but when the dust settles, Blue Ray will come out on top.
When it comes right down to it, one of the biggest deciding factors was Sony's decision to pay off Best Buy to market the Blue Ray format. I was in Best Buy today with my son and was looking at the HD-DVD and Blue Ray discs and a couple walked by very quickly. "Blue Ray... what the heck is Blue Ray..." Shortly there after I was rounding up my family to leave the store and I saw that same couple approach a BB clerk. You could almost read their body language asking the clerk what the two formats were. Of course we all know where the employee led the couple... you guessed it. Right over to the Blue Ray endcaps.
Then you look at Toshiba's marketing approach... (if that is what you want to call it) and some times you wonder if Toshiba even cares if it wins the format war. This actually is one of the reasons I have not bought a player. Since last Christmas, when Toshiba decided to give Blue Ray the Christmas present of its life by not putting players on the shelves during the biggest shopping season of the year, it has been all down hill.

Hopefully Toshiba will survive long enough before its last gasp to force Blue Ray prices to levels we are currently seeing with HD-DVD.
I think what those of us in the HD-DVD corner should do is publicly voice our opinions on public threads like this one that Toshiba needs to drastically change the way it has approached the marketing of HD-DVD. Perhaps we would get lucky and someone from Toshiba who has some influential clout might notice some of these comments. If they see enough voicing about the current marketing strategy, maybe it might cause someone to re-evaluate things. I will say that things have gotten better over the past couple of months for HD-DVD from a marketing standpoint from Toshiba, but not by much. Heck it wouldn't take much to improve on what Toshiba was doing previously.


Craig

Originally Posted by 5thDanMaster

Great news. HD DVD just gained 71% of the Euro market.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=873882

Originally Posted by darinp2

As long as they only count standalones players and don't say what percentage of the market they have for disc sales. Using the same method in the US they could say that they have over 60% of the market, but yet they haven't won a week for disc sales by Nielsen count yet this year. I think it is quite misleading for them to say that they have 71% of the market when they've conveniently discounted most of the market the other side has (by counting PS3s as zero).

--Darin

Originally Posted by suffolk112000

... When it comes right down to it, one of the biggest deciding factors was Sony's decision to pay off Best Buy to market the Blue Ray format. ...

Craig

Originally Posted by HDTVFAN0001

Quote:
Originally Posted by suffolk112000
... When it comes right down to it, one of the biggest deciding factors was Sony's decision to pay off Best Buy to market the Blue Ray format. ...

Craig

Actually, I've seen a sudden and pretty drastic turnaround towards HD DVD displays and media presentations at 3 area Best Buys the past 10 days. Blu Ray is still there, but no longer the solo front for HD disks...HD DVD installed equipment, demos playing, and signage are all ramped up.

Walmart - they have a subcontracted vendor for their media and displays, and they still don't even understand high def - that's from a close insider.

Originally Posted by bourke

You would be surprised how many people spell it 'Blue-ray'!

And in the English language at least, technically the phease 'Blu-ray' can only be pronounced as 'Blur-ray'!

Which is quite fitting really :-P

Originally Posted by HDTVFAN0001

Old news. In the 19 area stores, there are only 6 players in stock, and about 225 disks altogether - that's less than 1 player for every 3 stores and 11 disks per store - whoopee....

On the other hand....I found a stack of 6 players at one store alone, and about 40 disks. You can only sell what you have in stock.

More important...as I said before...the 3rd party merchandiser who handles all their media stock, including HD DVD and Blu Ray, has no plans for any real surges or changes to inventory the next month, and quite frankly no clue about what this media is all about. That runs all the way up to the 7 state regional manager level. No disrespect, but their info comes from the top.

That said, my same inside source (family member) tells me a newer low cost HD DVD player is, in fact, in the plans soon for all their stores. When that comes, they also plan to ramp up their HD DVD disk inventories.

See you in the rear view mirror Blu Ray....

Originally Posted by HDTVFAN0001

Actually...they're just confirming what I've read 4-5 other places.

Since my source has direct access to advanced promotional materials, I just found it interesting that it was actually documented someplace.

Anyway...since I had to go into 3 stores for an unrelated reason yesterday, I also wanted to report that they still have only 3 Blu Ray players in stock between the 3 stores and also only a nominal # of disks (they only got 1 box of new BD disks this past week between the 3 stores combined.

HD DVD disk sales, on the other hand, are doing better than BD and running at a steady clip. They sold 9 HD DVD players between the 3 stores this past week.

These numbers mean little on a grand scale, but are still interesting just to see things at a local level.

I did witness a humorous little "episode" yesterday at one of my 2 nearby Blockbuster stores....there were 3 people who waited in line in front of me, and then went to the counter where the store manager was manning that area. Almost in unison, they said, "We want to close our Blockbuster account in protest because Blockbuster is only supporting Blu Ray". The expression on the face of the manager was a Kodak moment...jaw dropped and all. The 3 people left quietly after turning in their cut up cards, and the manager seemed to then write down something before helping the next customer. When my turn came up at the counter, I commented "that was interesting about those 3 people"...his response..."they're not the first ones to cancel over Blu Ray, but it's the first time more than one came in at a time together". I told him I agreed with the 3, and was thinking of canceling myself. He said "No please don't...I'm writing a letter this weekend to corporate to let them know this is happening more and more, and they need to rethink all that".

Interesting indeed.

Originally Posted by robnaz

Boycotting Sony is only one step. But they're never going to listen anyway. In my original post I suggested boycotting Fox, Disney, Blockbuster, and anyone else who supports Blu-Ray, but not HD-DVD. I think they are the ones we should try to send a message to.