The Format War

[Fading]

I really don't follow the blu-ray vs. hd war too often. Just for kicks I typed in "HD vs. Blu-Ray" in google and got 3 sites saying Blu-ray has taken the lead in half the time. I was wondering if anyone can chime in with better numbers, I know Amazon's numbers are a bit different, but found a few sites saying different. Also only put this in the Sony forums because a PS3 actually has a Blu-ray so it directly affects it, whereas HD is an optional add-on to 360 so not entirely directly tied.

First is from Fox -
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070108/20070108005980.html?.v=1

"We are looking forward to this pivotal year and the ultimate establishment of Blu-ray as the high-definition packaged media standard. In fact, Blu-ray sales performance surpassed HD-DVD for the first time the week of December 24 and did so by an impressive 20 per cent. What's more, by the end of the first quarter our research shows the sales gap widening to Blu-ray outselling HD DVD by a 3.5-to-1 ratio," noted Mike Dunn, President Worldwide, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

Digg's been talking about it too.

At www.dvdempire.com they have Blu-ray taking a lead too -

Format:

HD-DVD

Week:41.67%
Month:44.03%
Year:59.29%

Blu-Ray
Week:58.33%
Month:55.97%
Year:40.71%

HD has the yearly advantage according to them, but that's including that HD has been out a decent amount longer, whereas they have BR taking it weekly and monthly now.

Anyway if anyone has more info please add . It's too early to call a winner of course, but one of these two will most likely end up being the standard later on like VHS and DVD before it.

 

[Fading]

As for Amazon I just checked, guess I was wrong. Their top selling movie out of the two is a BR movie, but there are 5 BR and 5 HD in their top 10 so equal on that part.

Before tho they had HD in the lead, now it's saying Blu-ray is in the lead on the Amazon numbers which I found surprising. It looks like it took a bit, but I guess BR is finally slowly taking a lead.

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/

[SIZE=+1]Salesrank of top 10 products:[/SIZE]
Current leader:


[SIZE=+1]# in top 100:[/SIZE] Current leader:


[SIZE=+1]# in top 1000:[/SIZE] Current leader:


[SIZE=+1]# in the top 10000:[/SIZE] Current leader:


http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/


There is also http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/versus.aspx

Which has movie sales as being (overall from various sites as they are a vs. site I believe) as

BR's
#1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16

to HD's -
#2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 12, 17, 18, 19, 22

and a studio summary at the bottom showing Blu-ray with much higher numbers sold over various movie companies.

 

[kytrigger]

Nobody is really in the lead now. It's still way too close to say which will eventually win.

 

[Fading]

I agree in America it's close, but if I understand correctly in Japan BR has already won.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/live-coverage-from-bda-press-conference/

Blu-ray has 96% of the HD player market in Japan. "In terms of Japan, the game is already over there."


It would be weird if HD won here, and BR in Japan lol. Honestly tho I'm seeing more and more BR numbers being higher than HD numbers. Before it was all HD and BR wasn't even close on Amazon, now it's turning around. I guess it just took some time for word to get out or something.

 

[Fran]

Well, for those with HD-DVD, Warners is making the dual format disc.

 

[Fading]

Well, for those with HD-DVD, Warners is making the dual format disc.

Do you know if it'll be cheaper or more expensive than the current players?

It's not that I want HD to fail, I just hate tech wars and having to make a guess which to buy so it won't just collect dust on my shelf. On the other hand I do want Blu-ray to succeed. I've read about HD triple layering to 50GB, with Blu-ray being rumored to do a multi layer to a possible 200GB. Right now I have an 80GB hard drive, the thought of storing 2x my HD space on one disk, or getting an entire TV series on one disk is enough to make me drool.

On the plus side I'll have a PS3 to play the movies, and if it fails chances are they'll still make Blu-ray PS3 games so it won't be a loss. I'm just eager for a semi affordable Blu-ray burner for my comp.

 

[Fran]

Umm... Warners is making a disc with Blu-ray on one side and HD-DVD on another. No new player needed.

 

[Avalanche]

Umm... Warners is making a disc with Blu-ray on one side and HD-DVD on another. No new player needed.

How expensive would that be?

 

[Fran]

Not quite sure.

 

[TheBat812]

On IGN there are a ton of announcements of Blu-Ray titles, but nothing regarding HD-DVD titles. Interesting...

 

[Substance D]

Blue Ray player on the PS3 doesn't seem so bad anymore, huh tools?

 

[Fran]

"Tools"?

We were having a good discussion until you said that.

 

[Spidey17]

Blue Ray player on the PS3 doesn't seem so bad anymore, huh tools?

Dude, even though I'm on the Sony side of the gaming spectrum, I still think you're be a jerk for starting with the insults. Just because the 360 fanboys like talking trash all the time, doesn't mean we have to go down to their level. OK, trying to get this thread back on topic, if BR won in Japan, does it make sense that HD will win over here? From everything I've heard, the BR is starting to pull ahead.

 

[Fading]

Dude, even though I'm on the Sony side of the gaming spectrum, I still think you're be a jerk for starting with the insults. Just because the 360 fanboys like talking trash all the time, doesn't mean we have to go down to their level. OK, trying to get this thread back on topic, if BR won in Japan, does it make sense that HD will win over here? From everything I've heard, the BR is starting to pull ahead.

I just can't see new tech, especially a wide reaching disk format only succeeding in one country. From reports I've read it's not even a contest in Japan at this point, I just can't see HD winning if it's starting to lose in the US, and being trampled in Japan. I'm not trying to sound fanboyish, it's just being honest, it might last awhile but I just can't see HD putting BR out of commission.

I will say tho that at first I was a bit ticked that Sony decided to risk the PS3 on pushing BR. Now however I do think it could be a brilliant move. The only problem is that they pushed the console out before they could get costs down in order to not give HD a major head start.

BTW I've seen a lot of ppl say that no ones buying their PS3 for blu-ray, one thing to think about tho is that blu-ray disks are selling (better than HD in some places), yet the players aren't selling that well. To me that means ppl are using their PS3's to play the movies in mass or the disks wouldn't be selling far better than the players. Even if I didn't want a PS3 (which I do ), then it would still be a $600 Blu-ray player compared to the $1k + versions, and it can play games too.

 

[Spidey17]

This is true.

 

[Fading]

Well more my opinion than true lol.

edit - Forgot, was wondering if anyone can say if those Amazon numbers are arcurate or updated often? Just checked again at the link I put above and it really doesn't make sense.

Salesrank of top 10 products:

Current leader:

yet the number are

Blu-ray - 760.9
HD DVD - 583.2

It says updated every 15 mins, just wondering how they can have the leader as the one lagging almost 200 behind.

 

[Fading]

Possible bad news for HD DVD-

http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=9088

"CES: No New HD DVD Announcements from Universal

In a rather surprising move, primary HD DVD backer Universal Studios Home Entertainment confirmed today that they will be making no major title announcements at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, despite the formidable presence of all major studios supporting rival format Blu-ray.

Universal, the sole major Hollywood studio to be supporting HD DVD exclusively, was expected to bringing out its big guns for 2007 at CES — or at least make enough new announcements to dazzle the early adopters who have been passionately backing the format thus far.

But when we contacted Universal to find out if anything further is to come from the studio out of CES, they confirmed they will not be unveiling any new street dates or detailed title info at all for the duration of the show. The studio stressed that they continue to support HD DVD and are planning to announce new titles “throughout 2007.”

That could be very bad news, the only exclusive movie company they have, and it couldn't unveil any dates or info on any titles they are releasing. With Spiderman 3 being Blu-ray exclusive, and most likely a Star Wars blu-ray exclusive coming out this year that could be bad if HD has nothing to itself but shared movies.

 

[imdaly]

Remember, FadingCB, that CES is a hardware showcase, not software. The point of CES is to show off upcoming hardware for the year, and that's what the HD DVD group did.

Software's a completely seperate story.

 

[Fading]

Haven't posted in this one for awhile, but might as well bump it with updated Amazon.com numbers, it seems that it's not as close as it has been (but the numbers fluctuate up and down.)

http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/#1

[SIZE=+1]Salesrank of top 10 products:

[/SIZE] Current leader:

[SIZE=+1]Salesrank of top 25 products:

[/SIZE] Current leader:

[SIZE=+1]Salesrank of top 100 products:

[/SIZE] Current leader:

 

[Fading]

Remember, FadingCB, that CES is a hardware showcase, not software. The point of CES is to show off upcoming hardware for the year, and that's what the HD DVD group did.

Software's a completely seperate story.

Gotcha, late responding back. I was just quoting what they said, honestly haven't even heard of CES before that lol. I mean I'll follow E3 or other game deals, but I really don't care much for ones promoting movies or whatever. Thanks tho.

 

[Fran]

Jurassic Park is coming to HD-DVD.

This war is won.

 

[BatMatt]

Ha, far from it. Jurassic Park is a hell of a release but will end no war.

 

[Fran]

That was sarcasm, my friend.

But seriously, the JP trilogy is an awesome release, but won't win it.

 

[L.A.]

Its a good thing I returned my HD-dvd player

 

[Fading]

Yup, JP is a great trilogy. I heard their making a 4th movie.