The Format War

[L.A.]

Stand Alone players do, though are about 1000 dollars. a 500 dollar standalone player is coming soon apparently.

Is that the only thing the PS3 BR cant do compared to the Stand alone player?

 

[BatMatt]

Is that the only thing the PS3 BR cant do compared to the Stand alone player?

Correct, and as a Blu-Ray player it's rated very highly

 

[Duende Verde]

Sweet, I'll get Rocky Balboa, Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and Spider-Man 3!

Good Luck with that, none of the studios that made those movies (MGM, Disney, Sony) back HD-DVD.

 

[BatMatt]

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8NHIQL80.htm

This should help some

 

[imdaly]

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8NHIQL80.htm

This should help some

Except that Toshiba has it's own $599 1080p HD DVD player coming out (the HD-AX2) in the next couple months, well ahead of Sony's player, which will still be as expensive as it's high-end PS3.

And let's not forget the very real posibility of the HD-A2 going down to $399 MSRP in time with the release of the HD-AX2.

 

[BatMatt]

I didn't look at this new BD player has something to turn the course of the format war, however it'll be much easier for Sony to sell a $599 player than one for $999

 

[SpiderFan17]

I'm not necessarily sure that this is a good idea. The blu-ray player inside of the PS3 is comparable to standalone players, so public perception could vary based on this device. Is the PS3 inferior to this stand alone device? Or, what about the reverse, the PS3 being seen as a much better deal than this. If it had launched prior to the PS3, it would have been a huge hit for sure. However, at this point, it seems almost useless with PS3's in plentiful supply, and the added bonus of gaming (as seen from the perspective of someone buying the ps3 as a cheap blu ray player).

 

[Fading]

Honestly I think it's a great idea. If they made that BR player cheaper than a PS3 then it would make the PS3 feel like a more expensive BR player, and at the same time drive ppl who want BR players away from buying a PS3. Keeping them at the same price for a bit makes sense, and they can alway just lower the PS3 and the player later on. Seeing as how most ppl won't switch over for a bit they have time to refine the process a bit, BR players are already getting way cheaper than when they started out.

HD-DVD's basically use a modified process of DVD manufacturing so it doesn't surprise me that they'll reach a cheaper price first on players, but BR discs are already matching HD-DVD prices. That just shows me that BR is in a hurry to drive down the price, and in under a year have found a way to halve the player price, and drive their disk price to almost DVD prices.

 

[RedIsNotBlue]

Well I just recently started to look into blu-ray and HD since my friend just but a big screen HD tv. Can someone explain to me in a tiny paragraph what is the difference?? Should I just give up on dvds and switch over?

 

[Fading]

Well I just recently started to look into blu-ray and HD since my friend just but a big screen HD tv. Can someone explain to me in a tiny paragraph what is the difference?? Should I just give up on dvds and switch over?

You won't really need to switch for a bit longer as DVD's still work fine. More or less Blu-Ray holds up to 200GB per disk and has far more backers. HD-DVD at first had an edge on graphics, but reports are saying BR has caught up (but I can't answer that myself). HD-DVD only has one exclusive backer in Universal, while Blu-Ray has Fox, Disney and others. Their actual movies are neck and neck in price now, but HD-DVD will probably put out a cheaper player first. I'm a bit biased as I have BR player in my PS3, but say go with BR if you have to go with one right now as it has more backers, more space, java support is coming soon, and ppl are saying on sites that is has equal graphics now, plus it's pulling ahead in sales by quite a bit lately.

Also wanted to toss in movies like Spiderman, Starwars, any Disney movie, AVP, and tons of others will only come on Blu-Ray, tho HD-DVD has some good exclusive movies too.

 

[RedIsNotBlue]

Well the main thing for me is the quality of the picture. I mean is there any real difference because it doesn't seem it. But it sounds like I can wait until Xmas or sometime next year before I even have to think about switching until prices drop and it becomes more established. I don't even have an HDTV yet. I see they are starting to come out with blank blu-ray discs I wonder if you could copy HD movies onto those?

 

[Fading]

Well the main thing for me is the quality of the picture. I mean is there any real difference because it doesn't seem it. But it sounds like I can wait until Xmas or sometime next year before I even have to think about switching until prices drop and it becomes more established. I don't even have an HDTV yet. I see they are starting to come out with blank blu-ray discs I wonder if you could copy HD movies onto those?

Honestly I never noticed a difference. Some on these boards have said the early HD disks were way better, but when I watched BR and HD movies playing side by side in stores it was hard to tell if there was a difference inbetween the two. Now most reviews are saying BR and HD are delivering equal quality inbetween the two, so if HD did have an advantage on that it's gone. I've seen some die hard HD fans say HD is still superior, but not from what I've seen.

Personally I'm very happy with BR. Tons of movies coming out, the picture quality is great, and more movies are always on the way, while HD seems to be slowing down on what movies are being announced from Universal. Most ppl's complaints were about M-PEG 2 being used, but it's honestly fine it just takes up more space with BR has plenty of.

It won't hurt you tho to wait a year just to make sure tho, player prices will have dropped more, $1000 players are already dropping to $500. As for copying HD movies onto BR disks, I'm not sure. BR and HD both have a lot of copy write protection, but rumors are going that it's been cracked for both already. I'm guessing if you had an HD drive for your comp, and a BR burner you could as size isn't an issue (HD is 15GB to BR's 50GB avg not counting triple layer 50GB HD's, or 200 GB BR's that are coming out).

 

[BatMatt]

There is a difference if your HDTV can handle it. I've got The Prestige on Blu-Ray and I can honestly say it does look better than a normal DVD. Is it a large jump like the one from VHS to DVD? No, but then again I don't know if we could ever see that again.
PS-The larger the HDTV, the more you'll notice the differences

 

[RedIsNotBlue]

Well I think the size of my friends HDTV is like 63 inches its ****in huge. But yeah thanks for the information FadingCB I appreciate it. I have an XBOX360 but right now if I had to choose I would probably go with blu-ray.

 

[BatMatt]

Well I think the size of my friends HDTV is like 63 inches its ****in huge. But yeah thanks for the information FadingCB I appreciate it. I have an XBOX360 but right now if I had to choose I would probably go with blu-ray.

Plenty big enough

 

[SpiderFan17]

More or less Blu-Ray holds up to 200GB per disk
That's something in the works. Until it hits market, it's unfair to claim it as an existing product. Otherwise, I could be claiming right now blu-ray has no advantage since HD-DVD can do 3 layer 50 gigs.

HD-DVD only has one exclusive backer in Universal, while Blu-Ray has Fox, Disney and others.
Weinstein company, Bandai America as well, and for the time being, Warner brothers has released quite a few dvd's and even a TV show on hd-dvd that have NOT been announced for release on blu-ray. This is due to an incompatibility with special features

Their actual movies are neck and neck in price now
This honestly depends where you shop. Some places price combo disks of hd-dvd on par with blu-ray, some are more expensive, and in some cases, blu-rays are 5-10 dollars more than hd-dvd discs. There's no standardized pricing across the board, but everyone is still going below msrp.

Also wanted to toss in movies like Spiderman, Starwars, any Disney movie, AVP, and tons of others will only come on Blu-Ray, tho HD-DVD has some good exclusive movies too.
Good luck waiting years for Star Wars, as lucas takes forever to adopt any new formats. As far as Disney goes, don't expect their animation studio to start releasing old movies onto blu-ray until late next year at the earliest. They are waiting for the market to be more kid friendly (ie: parents with kids who adopt the format). There's no need to spend tons of money remastering a cartoon in HD if the market isnt there just yet. They are releasing their cg movies, however, later this year.

Not trying to knock down blu-ray or prop up hd-dvd, just trying to balance things out since you said it yourself that you're pretty biased. Best advice I can get the guy is go to a best buy and look at the selection of both, and the prices, and see what hits your interest. As well, you mentioned you have a 360, so all it would take to jump into hd-dvd would be a 200 dollar investment in the external player, which comes with King Kong right off the bat

 

[Zenien]

When there's a format war looking to the future is exactly what needs to happen. Sure Picture in Picture isn't out now, but it will be, and that removes yet another card from HD-DVDs deck, those TV shows and titles that were released only on HD_DVD aren't helping them NOW and it will help them even less when Warner goes total HD.

Disney releasing their old classics will eb good yes, but it's clear that day and date releases of BLu Ray copies of their new movies, do well. Sure Blu Ray doesn't haev the benefit of Cinderella now, but it will eventually, even if it never gets it Blu Ray doesn't need to lean on that for its survival like HD-DVD does with speculating on the impact of low cost players and porn.

New sales chart for last week.

Even though both HD DVD and Blu-ray received Departed and Babel - two of the top selling movies, Blu-ray had another strong week (again) selling 67.6% better than HD DVD. So the question begs, Blu-ray will cream HD DVD with exclusive new releases (and this is a proven fact), and if HD DVD can't even match it when it comes to weeks where both sides have roughly the same content, how does it expect to survive?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=76775

 

[imdaly]

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=76775

New Releases for the week represented in the chart (Feb. 19-25):

HD DVD
Babel

Blu-ray
Babel
Destiny's Child: Live In Atlanta
The Prestige
Vertical Limit


4x the new releases
~1million Blu-ray players out ther (PS3 and standalones) compared to ~400,000 HD DVD players

And Blu-ray only sold 2x the number of discs.

I'm sorry if I'd expect Blu-ray, with more new releases and more people out there with players, to do better than a simple 2:1 sale ratio.

Not to mention...how many discs were sold these weeks? Until we know the actual sales numbers, nobody has any idea how much weight to put behind percentage numbers.

 

[Zenien]

Vertical Limit and Destiny's Child sure are system sellers. Blu Ray has more movies, though go figure. That's a strength of the format.

You forgot to mention that Blu Ray copies of the Departed and Babel are rated higher then their HD-DVD counterparts in terms of sales.

Whatever though, Imdaly you can't just count the PS3 and a dedicated Blu Ray player when it suits you to do so. Not everyone is buying it and using it for Blu Ray movies, though it's a clear a percentage is and that percentage IS profound enough to make an impact on the next gen media war as it were.

 

[Fading]

Not trying to knock down blu-ray or prop up hd-dvd, just trying to balance things out since you said it yourself that you're pretty biased. Best advice I can get the guy is go to a best buy and look at the selection of both, and the prices, and see what hits your interest. As well, you mentioned you have a 360, so all it would take to jump into hd-dvd would be a 200 dollar investment in the external player, which comes with King Kong right off the bat

NP, debates are only good when 2 sides are represented. With the Disney comment and all tho that's just talking about the future. Disney chose to be exclusive, I have a hard time imagining that they'd wait years to release anything good, heck in this thread we already talked about them releasing Pirates 2 and going crazy on it releasing 75+GB worth of info.

As for the 200GB thing, that's something they announced awhile back. If they don't have a disk that can, then they atleast have one in the works. I personally think it's because nothing has came up that needed to be 200GB's, when a movie comes along that needs that much we'll be more than sure to hear about it. At the very least if HD can triple layer to 50GB, I'm sure they can use a similar technique with BR to reach 150GB.

As for the $200 360 add-on I do have a question. Now this honestly isn't an X-box slam, but something I've been reading on the net. A lot of ppl have been saying that it's very low end for HD players, anyone have one that can confirm that? I was just curious because to me it would be better buisness to give a good add-on player to get ppl hooked instead of a so-so one that could drive ppl away.

 

[L.A.]

Damn its soooo tempting to buy a PS3 again...But I gotta wait until I hear if MGS4 will stay a PS3 exclusive.

 

[SpiderFan17]

NP, debates are only good when 2 sides are represented. With the Disney comment and all tho that's just talking about the future. Disney chose to be exclusive, I have a hard time imagining that they'd wait years to release anything good, heck in this thread we already talked about them releasing Pirates 2 and going crazy on it releasing 75+GB worth of info.

As for the 200GB thing, that's something they announced awhile back. If they don't have a disk that can, then they atleast have one in the works. I personally think it's because nothing has came up that needed to be 200GB's, when a movie comes along that needs that much we'll be more than sure to hear about it. At the very least if HD can triple layer to 50GB, I'm sure they can use a similar technique with BR to reach 150GB.

As for the $200 360 add-on I do have a question. Now this honestly isn't an X-box slam, but something I've been reading on the net. A lot of ppl have been saying that it's very low end for HD players, anyone have one that can confirm that? I was just curious because to me it would be better buisness to give a good add-on player to get ppl hooked instead of a so-so one that could drive ppl away.

The player itself isnt low end, the problems are in the fact that it outputs through component, which naturally looks "worse" (although barely noticable, as seen firsthand in side-by-side comparisons) than HDMI. There are plenty of people who have hooked up the player via USB to their computers, run HD-DVD playing software on compatible hardware, and output the video into an HDCP-compliant monitor, and say there is no discernable difference. However, it is correct that the external player is "lesser" compared to standalone units. That goes for almost anything, however. It is still a good investment for the cost of 200, however. Likewise, I'd say the same about the PS3 if it were 200 as well.

imdaly does have a point in releases. We have not yet seen the newest waves of HD-DVD's hit. We're in a small drought, for sure, and blu-ray is finally hitting its stride and competing well. I still think its far too early to declare victory over a very short period of dominance, considering that if Toshiba had done the same when Batman Begins was in the top 10 on amazon, and the highest blu-ray was in the 1000's, they would have been seen as jumping the gun. Like it or not, we're a long ways off from this format war ending, so anyone prematurely declaring victory instead of simply enjoying meeting sales goals comes off as arrogant.

Universal's list of q2 and q3 releases on hd-dvd has supposedly been leaked over on high def digest. If even half those titles are legit, then this spring/summer will be a high point of competition between the formats.
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/s...ersal_2007_HD_DVD_Release_Schedule_Leaked/498

 

[Zenien]

You have to wonder though, with Universal pretty much emptying their library in a bid to overtake Blu-Ray during the summer, where does that leave them if it isn't successful.

The argument has been Universal says as long as they get good sales on HD-DVD why bother going neutral right? Well the same applies for the studios backing Blu Ray, and unless the situation changes (content wise) I don't think HD-DVD is in a situation of long term survivability.

 

[SpiderFan17]

The argument has been Universal says as long as they get good sales on HD-DVD why bother going neutral right? Well the same applies for the studios backing Blu Ray, and unless the situation changes (content wise) I don't think HD-DVD is in a situation of long term survivability.

Ultimately, the formats wont hinge on titles, they will hinge on HDTV adoption, and consumers finding whatever format(s) survive to be worth it. Right now, ask anyone if they think 24.99 for Little Man on blu-ray is worth it. Ask anyone if they think 24.99 for clerks 2 on hd-dvd is worth it. It's not, because the VAST majority of people don't care yet. Gaming going into HD is a big deal. Quite a few people don't see the benefit of watching movies in HD.

Even if some do, you have to admit many of the titles being put out for both would be nothing spectacular on regular dvd, yet they'd sell so many more just due to how cheap they are. See No Evil was a top rental film, and did well on dvd. How much do you honestly want to bet it'll even have HALF the success it did if it were to hit blu-ray? Winning a niche war still means you have a niche audience. Sony and Toshiba need to work on THAT before trying to outdo each other, or else we will ALL own the next laserdisc..

And yes, this DOES go for those who bought the 360 drive and who own PS3's. You may have the machines, but if consumer confidence isnt on their side, it'll be a cool bonus and nothing more.

 

[Zenien]

I agree with both those points, and to address them in some capacity without writing stuff out:

http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6422898.html

ARCH 9 | Blu-ray Disc movies continued to outsell rival HD DVD through the month of February by a two-to-one margin, industry sources said as the first final numbers for the month began to trickle in.

Consumers bought around 250,000 units of Blu-ray movies during the month, compared to the estimated 125,000 units of HD DVD movies, according to industry sources.

Warner Home Video’s The Departed and Superman Returns were top-sellers on both formats. The Departed debuted Feb. 13 and had one of the highest first-week sales totals for either format, surpassing 20,000 units on Blu-ray and 13,000 on HD DVD, sources said.

Blu-ray sales also outpaced HD DVD by a two-to-one margin in January.

But the top January releases sold less than half of what February releases did. Lionsgate’s Crank sold 7,500 units on Blu-ray in January, compared to HD DVD’s top seller for the period, Warner’s Batman Begins, which sold through 4,100 units, according to studio sources.

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“Every week it grows,” said Rich Marty, VP of new business development at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, a Blu-ray backer. “It’s growing faster than DVD did. Each month it just looks more and more promising.”

Blu-ray’s lead has been attributed to sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3, which is in more than 1 million homes. Sales of set-top Blu-ray and HD DVD players were about equal in February, studio sources said.

Marty predicted the gap over HD DVD would continue to widen helped by a big-budget movie slate headed to Blu-ray, including next week’s Casino Royale from Sony.

However, execs at other studios said the numbers are still very small and either format could win over consumers.

“When they start talking about numbers, two-to-one, that’s really about the release schedule,” said Ken Graffeo, executive VP of marketing and head of high definition at Universal Studios Home Entertainment, the only major studio to exclusively support HD DVD.

Studios released about twice as many movies on Blu-ray during January and February, Graffeo and others noted. HD DVD studios will be releasing more movies in coming months, about equal to the number their Blu-ray counterparts are putting out.

During the first half of the year, Blu-ray studios are planning to release 265 movies on the format, while HD DVD studios have 257 movies planned for release.

“You can’t look at the last two months as a trend or as what the consumer wants to do in this format,” Graffeo said. “It’s really an artificial, short time period.”

Graffeo said Blu-ray numbers also are getting a boost from two-for-one specials offered by retailers and Blu-ray studios and noted that Amazon has halved the price of Blu-ray movies.

Total disc sales since the debut of both formats remains close. About 650,000 HD DVD discs have been sold since the format’s April debut compared to more than 675,000 Blu-ray discs sold, according to one studio source.

JUPITERRESEARCH FORECASTS HDTV SALES IN THE U.S. WILL GROW DRAMATICALLY OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS, CONSTITUTING 70% OF ALL TV SALES BY 2010
(New York, NY - October 6, 2005) - JupiterResearch, a division of Jupitermedia Corporation (Nasdaq: JUPM), today announced the publication of its HDTV forecast for the U.S. entitled "U.S. HDTV Forecast 2005 to 2010: Managing Consumer Perceptions to Gain Market Share," which presents JupiterResearch's latest projections of the growth of HDTV and specific display technologies in the American market. According to the report, HDTV will experience significant growth in the United States over the next five years. By the end of 2004, HDTV sets made up 21% of overall TV sales; that number will rise to 70% of overall TV sales by the end of 2010. Additionally, 63% of U.S. TV households will have an HDTV set by 2010.

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The complete findings of this report are immediately available to JupiterResearch clients online at www.jupiterresearch.com. For additional information on the report or JupiterResearch's Home Theater service visit www.jupiterresearch.com or contact Kieran Kelly, Vice President of Global Sales and Client Service, at 1-800-481-1212 or [email protected].

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