[N.B. Forrest]

After reading Jason Unger's interviews with both camps (thank you, Jason) it appears to me that the crucial battle in the HD wars will be fought over studio support and both sides will be spending the majority of their time and effort in this area on that aspect.


As I understand it, BluRay currently has Sony, Lion's Gate, Fox, MGM, and Buena Vista behind it, HDDVD has Universal, and Warner's is supporting both. Because of this greater support, BluRay is seen as having the current advantage over HDDVD with its cheaper players.


For me, the majority of films I would be willing to buy in the HD format have been produced by the studios with the most extensive libraries - MGM, Fox, and Warners. It seems to me that the fight will turn on whether BluRay can continue that unification or whether HDDVD can somehow coerce or sweet-talk any of the major BluRay studios such as MGM or Fox into switching camps or at least becoming neutral, like Warner's. IMHO, if MGM/Fox alter their current positions then the advantage goes to Toshiba, because most people will want to tap into the greater variety that MGM, Fox, Warner's, and Universal provide than Sony, Lion's Gate, or Buena Vista & watch them on the cheaper player.


Just my view of the situation.

 

[hmurchison]

Everyone has a price.


How many HD DVD sales will it take for BD exclusive studios to move neutral? How many BD player sales will it take for Universal?


Content vs Price is a good battle. I look forward to seeing which of these advantages will resonate with consumers most.

 

[Big J]



Quote:
Originally Posted by N.B. Forrest /forum/post/0


After reading Jason Unger's interviews with both camps (thank you, Jason) it appears to me that the crucial battle in the HD wars will be fought over studio support and both sides will be spending the majority of their time and effort in this area on that aspect.


As I understand it, BluRay currently has Sony, Lion's Gate, Fox, MGM, and Buena Vista behind it, HDDVD has Universal, and Warner's is supporting both. Because of this greater support, BluRay is seen as having the current advantage over HDDVD with its cheaper players.


For me, the majority of films I would be willing to buy in the HD format have been produced by the studios with the most extensive libraries - MGM, Fox, and Warners. It seems to me that the fight will turn on whether BluRay can continue that unification or whether HDDVD can somehow coerce or sweet-talk any of the major BluRay studios such as MGM or Fox into switching camps or at least becoming neutral, like Warner's. IMHO, if MGM/Fox alter their current positions then the advantage goes to Toshiba, because most people will want to tap into the greater variety that MGM, Fox, Warner's, and Universal provide than Sony, Lion's Gate, or Buena Vista & watch them on the cheaper player.


Just my view of the situation.

Taken from another thread:


The total United States film catalog (distribution rights for US only).


Number of Titles

Sony Pictures 336

Columbia Pictures 4224

Tri-Star Pictures 241

MGM/United Artist (Purchased By Sony) 1945

Paramount 5370

Universal 5157

Warner Brothers 3019

Warner Brothers MGM Titles via Ted Turner 2572

New-Line Cinema 521

Lionsgate 472

Disney 238

Buena Vista 812

Miramax 93

20th Century FOX 477

Dreamworks 104

Anchor Bay has 596 (not in any camp yet)

Orion around 223 (don't know where they stand)

Touchstone 68 (Disney)


BR = 20,424

HD-DVD = 16,743


J

 

[Deja Vu]

My theory is that anyone buying a BD standalone can afford an HD DVD player and watch Universal's content. Many of those who have a PS3 to use for movies already have an HD DVD player (bought it first because of PQ and of course, price) and therefore are buying Universal content. Universal staying exclusive costs it very little in lost HD sales and it still gets to promote HD DVD, which was its format of choice.


Cheers,


Grant

 

[fa8362]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Big J /forum/post/0


Taken from another thread:


The total United States film catalog (distribution rights for US only).


Number of Titles

Sony Pictures 336

Columbia Pictures 4224

Tri-Star Pictures 241

MGM/United Artist (Purchased By Sony) 1945

Paramount 5370

Universal 5157

Warner Brothers 3019

Warner Brothers MGM Titles via Ted Turner 2572

New-Line Cinema 521

Lionsgate 472

Disney 238

Buena Vista 812

Miramax 93

20th Century FOX 477

Dreamworks 104

Anchor Bay has 596 (not in any camp yet)

Orion around 223 (don't know where they stand)

Touchstone 68 (Disney)


BR = 20,424

HD-DVD = 16,743


J

That Fox number is way off.

http://us.imdb.com/company/co0000756/

 

[Wesley5]



Quote:
Originally Posted by fa8362 /forum/post/0


That Fox number is way off.

http://us.imdb.com/company/co0000756/

Well, looking at link you provided, many movies Fox seems only to have right to distribute in theaters or in some region.


Besides, even if you count all movies in that list, the difference is still small potato compared with those of Universal's

 

[majortom]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Deja Vu /forum/post/0


My theory is that anyone buying a BD standalone can afford an HD DVD player and watch Universal's content.

Your theory is not based on fact. Many people are not interested in owning two players and will just choose to wait on Universal Studios content.

Quote:
Many of those who have a PS3 to use for movies already have an HD DVD player (bought it first because of PQ and of course, price) and therefore are buying Universal content.

You base this on what data? There are about 1 million Playstation 3 owners, at most 175,000 of them can be HD DVD owners. Do you have any evidence that many Blu-ray owners are dual format? I have seen nothing from any source that supports this.

Quote:
Universal staying exclusive costs it very little in lost HD sales and it still gets to promote HD DVD, which was its format of choice.


Cheers,


Grant

Your argument is that Universal content is worth so much to people that they will spend a minimum of $400 to get an HD DVD player just to watch it. Seems like an unlikely proposition. If there were 40 Universal titles that I wanted, it still adds $10 to every disk, as well as makes my environment more complex (and requires another HDMI port that I just do not have available).


I have 75 Blu-ray titles right now, and am adding more every week. Looking at all 64 Universal Studios, there are about 15-20 that I would buy, but none are titles that I really must have today. Like many, I am perfectly happy to wait until this war is over or until Universal Studios releases them on Blu-ray.


/carmi

 

[fa8362]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Wesley5 /forum/post/0


Well, looking at link you provided, many movies Fox seems only to have right to distribute in theaters or in some region.


Besides, even if you count all movies in that list, the difference is still small potato compared with those of Universal's

Maybe you should look at the list again and then compare it to what Fox has already released on DVD and BD.

 

[Wesley5]



Quote:
Originally Posted by fa8362 /forum/post/0


Maybe you should look at the list again and then compare it to what Fox has already released on DVD and BD.

Well, I will happily leave that task to you, since you were the one who brought it up. I did check a couple of titles, for example, DVD right of What Lies Beneath in North America actually belongs to Universal

So it tells me not all movies on that list belong to Fox exclusively.

 

[fa8362]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Wesley5 /forum/post/0


Well, I will happily leave that task to you, since you were the one who brought it up. I did check a couple of titles, for example, DVD right of What Lies Beneath in North America actually belongs to Universal

So it tells me not all movies on that list belong to Fox exclusively.

And if you spent 30 seconds checking Amazon, you'd see that Fox has already released thousands of DVD titles.

 

[Connavar]

The thing about universal : most of their movies are very old and not adequate for HD content, they have 1213 movies made since 1960 (and 4028 between 1912 and 1960, actually half of their movies have been made before 1939!) while fox has 1288 made since 1960.


fox : http://us.imdb.com/company/co0000756/

universal : http://us.imdb.com/company/co0005073/

 

[Wesley5]



Quote:
Originally Posted by fa8362 /forum/post/0


And if you spent 30 seconds checking Amazon, you'd see that Fox has already released thousands of DVD titles.

You are changing subject now

You have a dispute with another poster about number of movies Fox owns DVD (and BD I guess) right (in US). You linked a list as evidence, I looked at that list and found some movies there Fox don't necessarily have DVD rights. It's a distribution right list.


I have no idea the exact number of titles Fox does own DVD/BD right (in US), if someone comes up with a credible number, I would like to know.

 

[Deja Vu]



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


Your theory is not based on fact. Many people are not interested in owning two players and will just choose to wait on Universal Studios content.




You base this on what data? There are about 1 million Playstation 3 owners, at most 175,000 of them can be HD DVD owners. Do you have any evidence that many Blu-ray owners are dual format? I have seen nothing from any source that supports this.




Your argument is that Universal content is worth so much to people that they will spend a minimum of $400 to get an HD DVD player just to watch it. Seems like an unlikely proposition. If there were 40 Universal titles that I wanted, it still adds $10 to every disk, as well as makes my environment more complex (and requires another HDMI port that I just do not have available).


I have 75 Blu-ray titles right now, and am adding more every week. Looking at all 64 Universal Studios, there are about 15-20 that I would buy, but none are titles that I really must have today. Like many, I am perfectly happy to wait until this war is over or until Universal Studios releases them on Blu-ray.


/carmi

You're right, I have nothing to back my theory up with but pure speculation on my part. Just like your pure speculation that Universal will one day release any movies that it controls on BD and better yet, your tacit assumption that BD will snuff out HD DVD. Your feeling about Universal's releases on HD DVD mirrors my feelings about all BD releases - not one (except Casino Royale) that I want to own! In fact there are very few HD DVDs that I would normally buy - I just buy them to support the format. I'll just watch Casino Royale upconverted or see if it's possible to import on HD DVD.


Cheers,


Grant

 

[CKNA]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Deja Vu /forum/post/0


You're right, I have nothing to back my theory up with but pure speculation on my part. Just like your pure speculation that Universal will one day release any movies that it controls on BD and better yet, your tacit assumption that BD will snuff out HD DVD. Your feeling about Universal's releases on HD DVD mirrors my feelings about all BD releases - not one (except Casino Royale) that I want to own! In fact there are very few HD DVDs that I would normally buy - I just buy them to support the format. I'll just watch Casino Royale upconverted or see if it's possible to import on HD DVD.


Cheers,


Grant

You won't be able to import Casino Royale on HD DVD from anywhere, as it is distributed by Sony worldwide.

 

[fa8362]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Wesley5 /forum/post/0


You are changing subject now

You have a dispute with another poster about number of movies Fox owns DVD (and BD I guess) right (in US). You linked a list as evidence, I looked at that list and found some movies there Fox don't necessarily have DVD rights. It's a distribution right list.


I have no idea the exact number of titles Fox does own DVD/BD right (in US), if someone comes up with a credible number, I would like to know.

What Big J posted is a distribution rights list (numbers only) and he marked it as such! I noted that the number (477) for Fox was way off and linked to a US distribution list with titles. Then you came in, arguing that Fox only had theatrical distribution rights for some of the films, implying that the list is suspect. I then told you to check it against what Fox had already released on DVD. If you had done that, you'd see that Fox has already released the vast majority of those films on DVD. Since you don't seem inclined to do that, instead, please explain how Fox has 2260 DVDs listed at Amazon. Probably a couple hundred are TV DVDs, but the vast majority are films...and those are only what Amazon currently carries.

http://www.amazon.com/Fox-Titles-DVD...F8&node=908716

 

[majortom]



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


Everyone has a price.


How many HD DVD sales will it take for BD exclusive studios to move neutral? How many BD player sales will it take for Universal?

Fox and Disney are both concerned about Content Protection. As long as they feel that BD has much stronger CP they are unlikely to be swayed.


/carmi

 

[rdjam]

It would seem that the PS3's attach rate is one tenth of HD DVD players. I posted my thoughts on the manufacturer strategies here http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&post9567491

but I'll requote:


First off - the PS3 has not done as well as was expected. I believe that this is apparent, since the BD camp expected it to "wash over" HD DVD in one fell swoop. Instead, BD disc sales are now neck and neck with HD DVD, each side swapping a slight lead day to day.


Second - the PS3 was only able to "catch ip" based on getting 2 million players (according to some reports, they have only sold 1.5 million) into the market. If one examines this rationally, one is forced to conclude that the movie "attach rate" for the PS3 is about 1/10 (one tenth) to 1/7 the attach rate of the HD DVD players in the market.


Third - and most worrying for the Bluray side, I would think. The PS3 was able to get over a million players out around the holiday season, but now sales have slowed dramatically and units are reported to be available almost everywhere. It's starting to look a LOT like the initial sales were mostly "pent-up demand" for the unit and that there wasn't enough demand to satisfy the limited supply that continues to make it into shops.


Fourth - IF this turns out to be the case, then you will see HD DVD movie sales start to gradually pull ahead of Bluray again over the next couple of months, as new 2nd Gen HD DVD players and the Xbox add-on continue to sell strongly.


Fifth - This leaves Sony and the Bluray camp in a bit a quandary. Demand does not look like it is strong enough to sustain the required growth in Bluray movie sales, yet it would look INCREDIBLY bad if they cut the price of the PS3 in the US so close to its launch. But without lower prices, they will likely not get the neccesary sales.


Sixth - I believe that Sony made a mistake when they decided to launch the PS3 with over 80% of the mix as the 60 Gig version. I can understand WHY they did so, since they lose an even more horrendous amount of money on the 20 Gig version than they do on the 60 Gig version. And I assume that they also felt demand would be stronger than it is proving to be. However, the price point of the 60 Gig version at $600, couple with the bundling tactics of retailers (typically $800 or more) has hurt sales. They can (and probably will) change the mix and supply more of the 20 Gig versions to the market, but this will take time to implement and the benefits may be too little too late.


Seventh - which brings us to the price cuts. I strongly believe that there will be price cuts both for the PS3 and for Bluray players. I feel that Sony and others are afraid to admit this since it will effectively *kill* short-term sales figures, while people wait for the lower prices, and I feel that this statement of mine will probably be argued against the hardest by some here as a result of that risk. I think they will cut prices by the end of April, but will try to play tricky with the way they make the PS3 more "affordable" so as not to give Wall Street the impression that they have had to discount so soon.


In the mean time - I expect to see HD DVD movies building a lead again over the next two months.

 

[darinp2]



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


Second - the PS3 was only able to "catch ip" based on getting 2 million players (according to some reports, they have only sold 1.5 million) into the market. If one examines this rationally, one is forced to conclude that the movie "attach rate" for the PS3 is about 1/10 (one tenth) to 1/7 the attach rate of the HD DVD players in the market.

Looking at this rationally and not just using numbers in a completely bogus way (like counting shipments or sales in Japan as if they were in the US), how do you come to your 1/10th to 1/7th number? Right now sales on dvdempire.com and sales rankings on amazon.com have Blu-ray ahead for run rate. I don't know what the real sales numbers are, but vgcharts.org shows about 610,000 PS3s sold in Japan and about 940,000 in the US as of about now (not end of year). Please show us your numbers for your calculations.


BTW: The Japanese version of thedvdwars.com here ( http://nolist.jp/bdvshddvd/ ) shows HD DVD getting trounced for sales rankings on Amazon there. I'm not sure what the HD DVD camp has planned to try to turn that around and get the Blu-ray studios to want to release on HD DVDs in Japan.


--Darin

 

[rdjam]



Quote:
Originally Posted by darinp2 /forum/post/0


Looking at this rationally and not just using numbers in a completely bogus way (like counting shipments or sales in Japan as if they were in the US), how do you come to your 1/10th to 1/7th number? Right now sales on dvdempire.com and sales rankings on amazon.com have Blu-ray ahead for run rate. I don't know what the real sales numbers are, but vgcharts.org shows about 610,000 PS3s sold in Japan and about 940,000 in the US as of about now (not end of year). Please show us your numbers for your calculations.


BTW: The Japanese version of thedvdwars.com here ( http://nolist.jp/bdvshddvd/ ) shows HD DVD getting trounced for sales rankings on Amazon there. I'm not sure what the HD DVD camp has planned to try to turn that around and get the Blu-ray studios to want to release on HD DVDs in Japan.


--Darin

With respect, Darin, you're mixing your comparisons, here, by introducing Japanese sales numbers. In Japan, there has never been any question that Bluray standalone hardware has outsold HD DVD standalones, so there's no question the software sales would be higher too.


However, for the USA, even with the low end numbers available of, say, 1,000,000 Bluray players (with say 35,000 standalone) and 200,000 HD DVD players, there are still five times as many "bluray capable" players on the market.


With movie sales neck and neck, that shows quite clearly that the attach rates for the BR side are at least 5 times lower, or one fifth (1/5) HD DVD.


One has to imagine that the BR standalone players should have equivalent attach rates as the HD DVD players, so the PS3 would be dragging it down, say at 1/6th HD DVD.


And that's a best case scenario for the PS3...

 

[darinp2]



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


With respect, Darin, you're mixing your comparisons, here, by introducing Japanese sales numbers. In Japan, there has never been any question that Bluray standalone hardware has outsold HD DVD standalones, so there's no question the software sales would be higher too.

While I agree that Blu-ray looks like it is outselling HD DVD for standalones (without the PS3 even included), I doubt that it would look like such a trouncing on Amazon over there without software sales that will be played on the PS3.

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


One has to imagine that the BR standalone players should have equivalent attach rates as the HD DVD players, so the PS3 would be dragging it down, say at 1/6th HD DVD.

So we've gone from your position being that looking at it rationally means 1/10th to 1/7th to now 1/6th.

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


And that's a best case scenario for the PS3...

Speaking of looking at it rationally, why did you claim that was the best case scenario? Hopefully you have a reason other than you just want it to be a best case scenario. What different numbers would a worst case scenario use and what would it result in for the attach rate ratio?


I recall you saying in the past that the number of people using the PS3 for Blu-ray movie playback would be poor while the percentage buying the XBOX360 add-on would be very good. How do you think that is working out so far?


--Darin