[paxi]

I still put this in the see to believe category, but like many of you I raised my eyebrows at the following story which pegged the number of (worldwide?) HD-DVD releases at 800 (instead of the peri-CES number of 300).

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom052007/


The monthly breakdown:


20 May

29 June

73 July

57 August

77 September

115 October

185 November

240 December



So, I thought I give it a shot and email the author of the article to see whether it was a misprint, miscommunication, etc. He was nice enough to send me a reply with a little bit more info and even gave me permission to pass it along. The only thing changed about the email was removing his and my contact info.

Quote:
Hi:

Thanks for the email. 800 titles seemed high to me too but that was the amount of releases spelled out on a monthly chart presented by Richard Doherty for the HD DVD Promotions Group at last week's Media-Tech confab in Long Beach, Calif.

Erik

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


Erik Gruenwedel

Senior Editor

Home Media Magazine
www.homemediamagazine.com





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

Date: Tue, 22 May 2007 07:56:44 -0700 (PDT)


Subject: 800 HD-DVD titles!?!


Hi!




One of your recent articles in Home Media Magazine quotes the HD-DVD promotion group as offering 800 titles this year.




"By comparison, HD DVD backers plan to ship nearly 800 titles this year, including 20 releases this month, 29 in June, 73 in July, 57 in August, 77 in September, 115 in October, 185 in November and 240 in December."




This quote has generated much buzz over on avsforum as is it well above previously announced figures (300, I believe_. Is this figure accurate? Can you shed any more light regarding these numbers (ie, worldwide vs. US, source, etc)




Much appreciated

 

[JJJschmitt]

Adding up the numbers I came up with 796, so I guess they aren't counting the pre-May releases. Does anyone have a running total of the Pre-May releases. Also how about, how many titles have been released in May? Maybe we could then see if the total projected matched the total actually released for May. This would be great if it pans out.

 

[bboisvert]

Well, we'll see. I still don't see how they can manage to get so many titles out. But if they can pull that off, that makes for a fantastic holiday 2007 season!

 

[xradman]

For what it's worth, counting up the titles on HDD for US HD DVD releases in May, June, and July, I get


May - 23 titles (Counting Matrix Complete and Ultimate as 3 titles)

June - 31 titles

July - 22 titles

 

[Topweasel]

Has to be wrong. According to that article, BDA is only going to release another 43 discs. Hell warner could double that number. But How am I expecting 256 discs being released in December but only 80 maybe for the rest of the year buy the Blue group.


I swear he must be looking at total available at that point and not necessarily how many are being released.


Trust me I would love to believe it, but I just don't see that happening.

 

[AZHTGeek]

Fanboi's coming in t-minus 10 seconds


Thread locked in t-minus 90 seconds

 

[bboisvert]



Quote:
Originally Posted by xradman /forum/post/0


For what it's worth, counting up the titles on HDD for US HD DVD releases in May, June, and July, I get


May - 23 titles (Counting Matrix Complete and Ultimate as 3 titles)

June - 31 titles

July - 22 titles

Those first 2 months match up close enough... but July is short about 50 titles. So, we'll be able to call b.s. to this pretty quick if there aren't a ton of July announcements forthcoming...

 

[xradman]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Topweasel /forum/post/0


Has to be wrong. According to that article, BDA is only going to release another 43 discs. Hell warner could double that number. But How am I expecting 256 discs being released in December but only 80 maybe for the rest of the year buy the Blue group.


I swear he must be looking at total available at that point and not necessarily how many are being released.


Trust me I would love to believe it, but I just don't see that happening.

I think the total available HD DVD for just the US releases will break 240 this month or next, so that's not it either.

 

[paxi]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Topweasel /forum/post/0


Has to be wrong. According to that article, BDA is only going to release another 43 discs. Hell warner could double that number. But How am I expecting 256 discs being released in December but only 80 maybe for the rest of the year buy the Blue group.


I swear he must be looking at total available at that point and not necessarily how many are being released.


Trust me I would love to believe it, but I just don't see that happening.

Yes, but it would be difficult to explain then why the title number goes down between july and august.

 

[Big J]



Quote:
Originally Posted by bboisvert /forum/post/0


Those first 2 months match up close enough... but July is short about 50 titles. So, we'll be able to call b.s. to this pretty quick if there aren't a ton of July announcements forthcoming...

According to the list at the top of this forum, Warner hasn't announced much yet for this summer. Only 2 titles for June, and 1 for July so far. If they start putting out titles (THD?), they numbers could go up a bit. I still don't beleive the figure of 800 though.

J

 

[Frank Derks]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Topweasel /forum/post/0


Has to be wrong. According to that article, BDA is only going to release another 43 discs. Hell warner could double that number. But How am I expecting 256 discs being released in December but only 80 maybe for the rest of the year buy the Blue group.


I swear he must be looking at total available at that point and not necessarily how many are being released.


Trust me I would love to believe it, but I just don't see that happening.

Why not?


With flyfishing instruction (HD) DVD combi coming out anything is possible.

There might be a lot of such independent productions under the radar.


You will also see studio's ramping up considerably because by now the workflow for releasing HD DVD titles will be optimized by now.


I assume that the list is compiled from world wide release schedules.

So there will be some double counts.

PR wise is make great sense to ramp up towards the holiday season.

 

[JJJschmitt]

Is there a count available for non-US Studio releases. Maybe the post included those numbers?

 

[paxi]



Quote:
Originally Posted by bboisvert /forum/post/0


Those first 2 months match up close enough... but July is short about 50 titles. So, we'll be able to call b.s. to this pretty quick if there aren't a ton of July announcements forthcoming...

True enough. But just to be fair 23 is just the US releases, correct? How many worldwide July titles have been announced?

 

[xradman]

23 is US releases announced so far. Typically this number would also go up significantly as many studios do not announce titles until few weeks before the actual release date. If we count foreign releases, I think we are significantly ahead of the announced numbers so far.

 

[Schils]

I seriously doubt that number, but I like their spirit (BD has thrown some real cheese out there as well - the war was over, Blu-Ray will replace SD in 3 years, etc)...


BTW, anyone have any idea "around" what number HD-DVD is at these days, release wise for this year alone I mean? They'll at least hit the 300 they said they would, no? Just curious, thanks...

 

[Topweasel]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Frank Derks /forum/post/0


Why not?


With flyfishing instruction (HD) DVD combi coming out anything is possible.

There might be a lot of such independent productions under the radar.


You will also see studio's ramping up considerably because by now the workflow for releasing HD DVD titles will be optimized by now.


I assume that the list is compiled from world wide release schedules.

So there will be some double counts.

PR wise is make great sense to ramp up towards the holiday season.

Still Pickup is slow in Japan, The US is doing well and EU its leading BD but neither even has the .25% adoption rating that we have in the US. If that number is right we would probably account for 65-70% of that release schedule. Again 800 seems like a lofty number.


If it were to really be the number it would bring up two things in favor of HD-DVD


1st Content available is more important then content possible.

2nd It underscores the the ramping capability of BD. If this report is right then it would lead to us having possibly 5 thousand titles available before BD reaches their first Thousand.

3rd No longer will I be able to Maintain about 25% of available titles in my library like i have been starting this year.


Its really going to show the discrepancy between the formats if this happens.

 

[BrynRhys]

From the presentation....FWIW

US Studios

Tier 1 and Tier 2

175+ shipping today in US

300+ announced for 2007

Studios include: Paramount., WB, Universal, HBOVideo,

HDNet, CustomFlix, Hi Def Entertainment, TFLM Elsevier,

Magnolia, DVD International, Weinstein Co., Image

Entertainment, Rhino, Eagle Rock Ent., Discovery

Japan

50+ Titles available in Japan

100+ announced for 2007

Studios include: NHK, Bandai Visual, BSi, Digital Site,

GDH, Happinet Pictures, Pony Canyon, Shochiku,

Shogakukan, Toshiba Entertainment, Video Arts Music,

+ {Warner, Paramount, Universal}

Europe

75+ titles available in EU

140+ announced for 2007

Studios include: Studio Canal, Eagle Vision, DVD

International, ILC, LCG, FTD, EMS, Imagion, Nixbu,

Cameo, Pathe, Dea Planeta, Filmax + {Warner,

Paramount, Universal}

 

[Ph8te]

well here is a link to a thread that discussed this before.......

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=849308

 

[paxi]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Ph8te /forum/post/0


well here is a link to a thread that discussed this before.......

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=849308

yep but that one got closed for the usual bickering. BTW BrynRhys posted the full HD-DVD promotion group presentation in the HD software news thread (anybody else a bit surprised how amateurish the presentation looked?). Jeez, buff it up a little

 

[bboisvert]



Quote:
Originally Posted by paxi /forum/post/0


BTW BrynRhys posted the full HD-DVD promotion group presentation in the HD software news thread

To save everyone else the effort of searching:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8#post10602058



And, yes, I agree... it looks pretty slapped together to me. That's some weak-ass PowerPoint skills.