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Hardware Sony Releases Report on Blu-ray vs HD DVD
Marcus Yam (Blog) - April 10, 2007 8:56 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 69 comment(s) - last by spartan014.. on Apr 19 at 12:33 AM

Chart of one week top ten and since-inception top ten HD DVD and Blu-ray

Information on the top 25 Blu-ray and HD DVD sold in 2007

Movie studios compared across the formats as of the week ending March 18

A comparison of HD DVD and Blu-ray over both formats' lifetime - All figures provided by SPHE
Latest sales figures show Blu-ray Disc outselling HD DVD seven to three

Sony, a clear backer of the Blu-ray Disc, has released a special report on the next-generation format’s current lead over HD DVD. Although the source of the report leads to immediately brings up the issue of obvious bias, the numbers cited come from reputable retail point-of-sake statistics source Nielsen VideoScan.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment was likely spurred to release the report based on the success of Casino Royale on Blu-ray Disc. The latest Bond flick debuted at the top of the next-gen format sales charts with 28,233 units, making it the fastest selling high-def disc to date. The release of Casino Royale also boosted Blu-ray sales 74.4 percent for the week ending March 18 as compared to the previous week. In comparison, HD DVD sales fell 14.1 percent compared to the week before that.

Blu-ray’s strong sales since the beginning of 2007 have given it a 7 to 3 sales ratio versus HD DVD. Year to date sales of Blu-ray are 549,730 units and for HD DVD 249,451 units.

Blu-ray’s lead isn’t as strong, however, when looking at cumulative sales since each format’s inception. Total sales for Blu-ray Disc are around 844,000 and for HD DVD an approximate total of 708,600 units. Blu-ray surpassed HD DVD in total units sold during mid-February.

In terms of movies, seven out of the top 10 best selling high-def movies of all time are Blu-ray titles. For the week ending March 18, nine out of 10 were Blu-ray titles. The only HD DVD to crack that week’s is The Departed in fifth place, while the Blu-ray version held second place.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment also broke down the high-def format unit market share. For Blu-ray, Sony leads with 32.2 percent, followed by Warner at 19 percent and Fox at 13.7 percent. For HD DVD, Warner accounts for 47.3 percent, followed by Universal with 38.3 percent and Paramount at 12.1 percent.

Although Nielsen VideoScan statistics are generally indicative of market trends, they do not include Wal-Mart and some online merchants. Sony’s choice to publish its findings after analyzing the latest numbers is a clear indication of the confidence that Blu-ray Disc has in winning the format war. Still, Blu-ray only took the lead from HD DVD in 2007, which HD DVD supporters blame on their format’s relatively sluggish recent months. With high-definition movie sales figures being insignificant when compared to the numbers that DVD sells, both HD DVD and Blu-ray have a ways to go before either one can truly be declared a winner.

For Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's full report, download the PDF document here courtesy of Digital Bits.

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D. None of the above
By wrekd on 4/10/2007 9:54:35 AM , Rating: 4
Do people really want another "hard" media collection? I don't. I'm tired of storing them, organizing them, moving them and of course losing/damaging them.

LP, VHS, CD, DVD, HD Bla Bla Bla

I realize hard media is a huge industry that employs many people world wide, but isn’t it time to drop the disk and the player? How many plastic disks and cases have been produced worldwide? Now add in VHS, LP and the others. How many now?

Terabytes are on the cheap, DRM is on shaky ground and IPTV is more sought after than the Holy Grail. Personally I hope both formats tank in favor of a fault tolerant data storage solution.




RE: D. None of the above
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/07, Rating: 0
RE: D. None of the above
By DingieM on 4/10/2007 10:37:40 AM , Rating: 2
Seems you have a big problem heh.


RE: D. None of the above
By wrekd on 4/10/2007 10:41:18 AM , Rating: 3
Well you are a different breed of consumer if you have 1000 DVDs so try not to lump yourself in with the rest of us paupers ;)

I think if you take the average consumer and look at the number of titles purchased yearly (for personal use, not gifts to others), then a fault tolerant RAID system of acceptable capacity would be within reach.

And 30GB is with all the extra "stuff". Most only need the movie and if store on personal resources most would only choose the main feature. The Extras could be purchased separately as they are now just tools to inflate the price.

Your physical collection takes up as much space today as it did yesterday and will tomorrow. A data only collection will continuously be easier to store over time.


RE: D. None of the above
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 10:55:13 AM , Rating: 1
Did you actually say "average consumer" and "fault-tolerant RAID" in the same sentence? The average consumer doesn't even have broadband yet. Without a disc, how are you going to get a movie to him, much less permanently store it?

Still, the storage is the real problem. HD films are just too big for any reasonable collection to be stored on disc. (despite your belief, many of them do approach 30GB with little to no extras). In a few years that won't be true...but then higher def formats will be on the horizon.


RE: D. None of the above
By SunAngel on 4/10/07, Rating: -1
RE: D. None of the above
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 1:56:36 PM , Rating: 2
I believe I understood. He wants the average consumer to buy a Raid-based media server, manage both it and backups for it, and download and hold their entire media library to it without the use of any sort of optical disk or (in the case of the 'average' consumer) without even the use of a broadband connection.

If I've misunderstood, please advise.


RE: D. None of the above
By wrekd on 4/10/2007 3:11:02 PM , Rating: 2
You missed it. I don't care about RAID-based media servers. That was just a means to an end. I don't know what the future will bring; I only know what technology we have today. Hell in a few years we could all be using wireless Fibre channel to access our 30TB Gmail accounts.

I care about the content not the container. I'm tired of scratching discs and it has nothing to do with how I personally handle the media and everything to do with the media itself. The Industry loves it when consumers scratch discs.


RE: D. None of the above
By Oregonian2 on 4/10/2007 6:27:27 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
You missed it. I don't care about RAID-based media servers. That was just a means to an end. I don't know what the future will bring; I only know what technology we have today. Hell in a few years we could all be using wireless Fibre channel to access our 30TB Gmail accounts.


In a few years? Massive people will still be using 56K modems.

Okay I want to go to the coast next weekend and bring some of our favorite movies with us to watch while we have the ocean sounds in the background. How do we bring them? Assume this fiber (that's much faster than FIOS) is hooked up everywhere an they've massive storage there? Oh, by the way. These files will have DRM on them too obviously, how will it allow us to play it there? will it have to be deleted from our local server to move the copy to the hotel?

Yes, it'll probably happen, but nowhere near "in a few years". Maybe in twenty at best. At very least the fiber to the home that they're putting in now will have to be replaced with something faster, and the ground will have to be dug up for that and the entire country's infrastructure that'll cost money in insane quantity will have to be paid out a couple times over (and be profitable for it to be done -- remember).

So the fundamental question is: "how will this be cheaper than distribution by discs" and/or "why will people pay the added costs for things to go that way"?

Also how will it be backed up? Each movie on a disc? :-)


RE: D. None of the above
By spartan014 on 4/11/2007 12:13:15 AM , Rating: 2
Priceless!!!

Wireless fibre channels??

LOL!!


RE: D. None of the above
By wrekd on 4/12/2007 8:55:58 AM , Rating: 2
If you don't know, don't post

1. Look up iSCSI
2. Pay attention to the part that says TCP/IP and Ethernet
3. Research wireless technologies
4. Shut you piehole with your "Priceless LOLs"


RE: D. None of the above
By spartan014 on 4/19/2007 12:33:17 AM , Rating: 2
If it is wireless, what is the need to say fibre or copper? What you probably meant was wireless channels with the bandwidth of a fibre channel. But the term you used was an oxymoron. If you can't accept that, its your problem..


RE: D. None of the above
By BMFPitt on 4/10/2007 3:12:48 PM , Rating: 2
As painful as the thought of defending a SunAngel comment is, I have to say that you are making out the difficulty of implementing this to be way more than it is.

This could be done in a set top box with a simplistic interface with no technical expertise. Backups wouldn't be required because you would have the right to redownload using your account on whatever service provides the content.

Yes, this means your 'average' consumer would need a broadband connection. If by 'average' you mean the purchaser of a beyond-next-generation media device.

(With the exception of a big enough RAID array, XBox360 and PS3 pretty much fit his description.)


RE: D. None of the above
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 3:18:36 PM , Rating: 2
> "Yes, this means your 'average' consumer would need a broadband connection"

There are some 45 million broadband subscribers in the US. That means most don't have it...and even that 45 million figure counts connection like basic 256K DSL, which is pretty much useless for downloading HD content.

Even once you cross that hurdle, you have issues with access rights, customer perception of ownership for intangible data, and a hundred other problems. They'll all be solved one day...but it won't be anytime in the next 5 years, possibly 10.

I stand by the remark. Such a system is not practical for the mass market yet.


RE: D. None of the above
By BMFPitt on 4/10/2007 3:51:37 PM , Rating: 2
That was great the way you took out the second part of that statement. I'm sure nobody noticed.


RE: D. None of the above
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 4:22:57 PM , Rating: 1
I'm sorry if you felt I took your statement out of context. But while HD-DVD and BD are 'next-generation' today, they won't be for long...not if their backers have anything to say about it. They're aiming for the mass market, not the bleeding edge.


RE: D. None of the above
By Andypro on 4/10/2007 4:22:49 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Still, the storage is the real problem. HD films are just too big for any reasonable collection to be stored on disc.


I've posted on this topic in a past article. The reason that HD films on HDDVD and Blu-ray take up that much space is because all the movie studios are still using their old equipment to transcode their feature films using MPEG2. This is simply due to costs and in no way does it indicate how much space is "required" for a film. H.264 encoding can easily slice the size by 2/3rds.

Once the studios switch their setup over (or once we get established online access to films in HD), they will move to H.264 and you will have no problem storing 100 films in a terabyte.


RE: D. None of the above
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 6:02:31 PM , Rating: 2
> "The reason that HD films on HDDVD and Blu-ray take up that much space is because all the movie studios are still using their old equipment to transcode their feature films using MPEG2..."

I'm sorry, but this isn't true. None of the HD-DVDs are done in MPEG2 (Warner is strictly VC-1), and the films take anywhere from 15GB to 27GB each. Some of the early Blu Ray releases were done in MPEG2 on BD25, but they suffered from image quality issues as a result.


RE: D. None of the above
By wallijonn on 4/11/2007 4:23:17 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The reason that HD films on HDDVD and Blu-ray take up that much space is because all the movie studios are still using their old equipment to transcode their feature films using MPEG2. This is simply due to costs and in no way does it indicate how much space is "required" for a film.


If it is a matter of costs, then why would any game developer in his right mind want to buy new equipment just to press Blu-Ray games? Wouldn't it be much simpler to use the old equipment which presses DVD and DVD-9 discs?

And, perhaps, that's one reason why many game developers are swinging towards the XBox .


RE: D. None of the above
By James Holden on 4/10/2007 4:59:32 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Did you actually say "average consumer" and "fault-tolerant RAID" in the same sentence?

I just printed that out and put it on my cubicle.


RE: D. None of the above
By Noya on 4/11/2007 12:42:07 PM , Rating: 2
Do you honestly think formats with resolution greater than 1080p are on the near horizon?

It's taken how many years to jump from NTSC to HD? 50 years or the likes? Not to mention human eyes can't distinguish between 720p and 1080p unless the screen is huge (90"+) and/or the seating distance is close (I recall something like 1.25 screen width).

Granted there's already 4k displays available, but price is prohibitive to the average consumer and content is close to none.


RE: D. None of the above
By masher2 (blog) on 4/11/2007 1:17:51 PM , Rating: 3
> "Do you honestly think formats with resolution greater than 1080p are on the near horizon?"

They will be soon. Within less than 10 years is a safe bet.

> "It's taken how many years to jump from NTSC to HD?"

You're talking government-mandated broadcast standards...which DVDs and their descendants don't use. A much better comparison is looking at how long it took to go from 240i (VHS) to 480i (DVD) to 480p (p-DVD) to 720p (HD) to 1080p (Full-HD). Each of those steps took anywhere from 4 to 20 years. And the longest of them (VHS) was well before media convergence began taking place. We already have monitors capable of resolutions well above 1080p. Players too, if you count a computer as one. Certainly within 10 years, there will be content and probably a new format standard as well.

> "human eyes can't distinguish between 720p and 1080p unless the screen is huge or the seating distance is close..."

That's just my point. Current video distances force the screen to subtend only a small portion of your total field of view. As resolutions increase, people will sit closer (or the screens will grow larger), so the entire experience will become more immersive.

As for 'huge screens', I'm already watching DVDs on a 103" FP system. I could use the additional resolution right now. Systems beyond 1080p aren't as far away as you think.


RE: D. None of the above
By Visual on 4/10/2007 1:32:38 PM , Rating: 2
Online storage would be the best for cases such as yours. And no, I'm not saying that you should rip and upload all of your content yourself.

Imagine if the content providers kept an electronic database of the movies you've payed license for, and you can download any one of them any time you want, anywhere you want to watch it. Yes I know waiting to download 30 or 50GB whenever you want to watch something isn't a great idea with current connection speeds, but they're getting faster and faster with time... some day soon?


RE: D. None of the above
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 2:35:32 PM , Rating: 3
> "Yes I know waiting to download 30 or 50GB whenever you want to watch something isn't a great idea with current connection speeds, but they're getting faster and faster with time... some day soon? "

True. But my point was, by the time thats feasible for the average consumer, we're going to have formats much larger than 30GB. So don't hold your breath for optical discs to disappear soon.


RE: D. None of the above
By jtesoro on 4/11/2007 5:38:28 AM , Rating: 2
There's going to be some limit where higher quality formats will hit significant diminishing returns in movies. Part of this will be attributed to practical size limits in TVs (e.g. for space reasons, most TVs won't be monster 100-inchers even if people could afford them). Another part will be the fact that most people can't notice the difference in HD resolutions even today (e.g. 720p vs 1080p in a 32 inch LCD).

So while there will be a place for the super high-res, high-bitrate content that is best fulfilled by optical discs, the market for lower quality, easy-to-access downloadable/streamed movies will come. Not soon, but maybe not too far off either.


RE: D. None of the above
By CorrND on 4/10/2007 2:53:44 PM , Rating: 2
I can't wait for the day when this will be true, but my guess is we're looking at at least five years until someone even thinks of doing this. At current peak broadband connections (10Mb/s = 1.25MB/s), downloading a 30GB HD movie would take:

30,000MB / 1.25MB/s = 24,000s = 400min = 6hrs 40min

And that's only if a content provider could consistently provide you data at that speed, your ISP could consistently provide you that much bandwidth, and your ISP doesn't have download caps!

Bandwidth to your house will probably need to be 2 to 3 times faster before downloading HD movies becomes reasonable and probably 6 to 8 times faster before streaming becomes possible.

I think we've got some waiting to do...


RE: D. None of the above
By Axbattler on 4/10/2007 1:33:48 PM , Rating: 2
Then again, there will probably be a time where people are no longer interested in higher definitions because they find it too hard to differentiate. Technology has improved faster than our own evolution, and I'd say that improvements will get more subtle. For audio, many seems to feel happy even with a good lossy codecs. SACD and DVD-A hasn't really picked up, when compared to lossy format.

Obviously, movies will always take more space, given that it is audio and video data. But I must wonder if people would not eventually give up ever growing definitions in favour of being able to store their entire movie collections in their multi-TB HDs.

[Whether it is a good thing is another thing - I still rip/encode to lossless for my music collection - but I also recognise that most people are probably happy with MP3s]


RE: D. None of the above
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 2:41:49 PM , Rating: 3
> "For audio, many seems to feel happy even with a good lossy codecs..."

Because we're near the limits of human perception with audio. With video, we're nowhere near. 1080p isn't too far off...but only if you sit far enough away so the screen subtends only a small percentage of your total field of view.

At some point, movies are going to encompass close to a 180-degreee field of view, horizontal and vertical. And that's going to require 100X or more the pixel count of current HD films.


RE: D. None of the above
By akugami on 4/11/2007 1:15:21 PM , Rating: 2
I think you're looking for something like those Omnimax theaters. Simply an awesome experience even if it's pretty much edutainment playing on it.


RE: D. None of the above
By mezman on 4/10/2007 3:11:23 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
isn’t it time to drop the disk and the player?


No way Jose. Discs are light weight, fault tolerant (it takes a pretty good scratching to ruin a DVD, I assume the HD formats are similar in their survivability.) and relative inexpensive.

I can easily take a movie over to a friend's house to watch with a disc. It would be much more of a pain to haul a RAID-5 array over.


RE: D. None of the above
By cochy on 4/10/2007 10:05:48 PM , Rating: 2
I have a great solution for you. If you don't like "hard" media then just rip your content onto your hard drives and serve it up to your media player from there. The problem of having a backup is automatically solved by the fact that you've purchase a "hard" copy of the media before hand. Just toss them all in a closet and never see them again. No RAID required.


RE: D. None of the above
By geddarkstorm on 4/11/2007 1:41:53 PM , Rating: 2
I'm totally with Masher on this one. Such things as "on-line" storage and harddrives will never, and can never, replace hard media. Infact, if our society started to move towards those transient technologies for backup, we'd be screwed.

All magnetic storage demagnetizes over time; also what about compatibility issues? Hardware, wire compatibilities? These formats are changing constantly, whereas hard media like disks haven't. You can still play a CD in any optical drive I know of. Backwards compatibility is something that doesn't fully exist in the harddrive world (if you don't have an IDE controller motherboard, as the modern ones are without, how would you use your IDE harddrive backup? And oh, how easy it is to screw up a harddrive's data; alot easier than a physical disk).

Heck, we haven't even talked about portability yet. Look at how small CDs are; no other storage comes close to their size to capacity ratio (though RAM sticks are fast on the rise, and they may replace disks eventually, though they would then be "hard media" in ROM format :P).

And the internet? The internet is horrendously unreliable; error prone, transient, and simply not suitible for long term storage. All you need is a good server side power outage (or hardware trouble) and you're screwed (along with a ton of people all at once who depend on it, and that's a striking feature only applicable to the internet), even if you are in a place with full power. All you need is internet trouble, or a simple fault when uploading your file, and everything's trashed. I've had it happen before, it's no fun.

There's enough trouble already for the government and accademic bodies in trying to find a suitable format that will still be read 30 years down the road; things like the internet and harddrives have already been rulled out because they will fail: in the end, paper still wins for most long term storage for anything that's actually, truly important and irreplacible.

Hard Disks are a wonderful thing in the long term scope of things. Yes technology is amazingly innovative and eventually hard disks will somewhat, or at least in the form they are now, disappear and go the way of the dodo; but that isn't today and that isn't any time soon.


7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 9:12:44 AM , Rating: 3
According to the latest sales figures at DVD Empire:

- BD: 54%
- HD-DVD: 46%.

This site was showing BD selling nearly 3-1 back in February, when the Christmas PS3 rush was still strong. Since then, HD-DVD has been gaining ground back.




RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 9:16:46 AM , Rating: 3
I should also make my standard point that the sales figures for both formats are still abysmal. 1.5M units combined total, since both formats were first released? Some single DVD releases do that well all by themselves. Even VHS tapes are still selling better than that.


RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By tuteja1986 on 4/10/2007 9:45:43 AM , Rating: 2
Is Sony including the free Blu-ray copy of casino royal given free with PS3.


RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By deeznuts on 4/10/2007 2:11:13 PM , Rating: 2
Nielsen VideoScan is POS salethrough numbers, so I doubt it. Couple that with the fact that Casino Royale was given away in Europe, and these I think are N.A. numbers, I really doubt it lol.


RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By DOSGuy on 4/11/2007 1:42:30 AM , Rating: 2
Actually, according to Daily Tech, these are "point-of-sake" numbers.

(Sorry for complaining about the constant errors in these articles, but honestly.)


RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By OxBow on 4/10/2007 9:49:07 AM , Rating: 2
Statistics don't lie, statisticians do.

You can look at these numbers any number of different ways and draw different conclusions. They could be considered neck and neck, HD-DVD ahead or Blue-Ray ahead, depending on which trends in the sales you want to highlight.

It's way to early to pick a winner, but it does seem clear that Blue-Ray is gaining ground. I'm sure that Sony could have included a fair amount of information regarding Wal-Mart and online sales in this report, had they chosen to, but by sticking with Nielsen numbers, this report carries more credibility, and that's not a bad thing.


By encryptkeeper on 4/10/2007 1:41:06 PM , Rating: 3
Statistics don't lie, statisticians do.

I couldn't agree more. Taking this information (provided by Sony) is like taking information on how smoking affects your health (provided by the Tobacco Institute). This is still going to be a long race, and Sony is still trying to advertise the Blu Ray like crazy. The fact that overall sales are very close is a sign that HD DVD isn't going anywhere. HD DVD players are dropping much faster than Blu Ray players, so eventually HD movies will catch up before Blu Ray has a lead. It will come down to lower prices for the players and better movie selection. Whoever can get both will win, but it will take a LONG time. Years. Maybe a decade.


RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 4/10/2007 9:19:13 AM , Rating: 4
I may be wrong here, but DVD Empire is just one retailer, right? How can you compare the results from a single retailer to Nielsen VideoScan?


By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 9:29:22 AM , Rating: 1
They correspond fairly closely with the sales figures for my local Best Buy which (according to the manager I spoke with) has BD about 1.5 to 1.

And actually, now that I read your article closer, I think your summary line is wrong. It says 7-1, but the source text says 7-3 . And even those figures are old data, current only to March 18...and thus still bouyed up by the PS3 launch.


RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By Houdani on 4/10/2007 9:25:06 AM , Rating: 2
I'm sure that's a typo, since none of the numbers in the charts support any sort of 7:1 ratio.

Hey editors! While you're changing the title, take another pass at the first paragraph too.


RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By wrekd on 4/10/2007 10:01:39 AM , Rating: 2
Agreed

quote:
Sony, a clear backer of the Blu-ray Disc


Sony is Blu-ray.


RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By caqde on 4/10/2007 1:12:04 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Sony is Blu-ray.


Sony is NOT Blu-ray... http://www.blu-raydisc.com/general_information/Sec...

The companies listed at the top are Blu-ray.. Sony is a major contributor of Blu-ray and one of the companies that is on the board of directors for the Blu-ray Association but they are not Blu-ray.


RE: 7 to 1? I rather doubt that
By wrekd on 4/10/2007 2:10:09 PM , Rating: 1
Sony has been pushing its own media formats for decades. Tapes, disks and memory sticks. This is no different. They couldn't go fully prorietary in something this important so they joined an "Association".

How did the majority of the blue diodes go into the PS3? Hell, why are the other members not posting blu-ray factiods, stats and reports every week. Were Blu-ray to fail, history would list it as another Sony format failure and not a Blu-ray Association failure.

I stand by my statement.


Blu-Ray in Europe
By Tarfman on 4/10/2007 10:48:23 AM , Rating: 2
DingieM says that Europe is not fond of Blu-Ray - not so I am afraid. The PS3 is only available here in Europe since March 22nd and Blu-Ray titles are very thin on the ground. I know a number of people who have PS3 consoles who are only receiving their Casino Royale freebies about now. They are all very enthusiastic about buying and viewing Blu-Ray discs as many people here have HD televisions but have little access to HD content. The PS3 has done incredibly well sales wise in the UK and Ireland and Blu-Ray sales will pick up quickly as soon as the shops stock the titles. The roll out of titles has been very slow in the shops and soon as it ramps up sales will take off. If Europe is going to be quoted at people please look at it in the proper context of a delayed launch window from Japan and the US and please stop using it for HD DVD spin. The rollout of the PS3 is the stalking horse that will win the race and this looks increasingly inevitable by year end. This battle will further be accelerated to a swift conclusion as affordable 1080p screens come to the market. In this context the PS3 is a hugely attractive all round 1080p solution which will be extremely difficult to beat even if it is not obvious right now to those blindly wedded to HD DVD right now.




RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By Lakku on 4/10/2007 11:20:14 AM , Rating: 2
While I can agree with most of what you say, I don't think 1080p screens will matter in the HD war, not counting the fact people listen to marketing far too much. Unless your screen is going to be over 60 to 70 inches, you won't get much benefit from 1080p. Now a days, I suppose most good TVs will just support it anyway, but the human eye can't discern, from a resolution standpoint, the difference between 1080p and 720p from more then about 8 to 10 feet away on a 55 inch screen, all things other then resolution being equal. That's a normal viewing distance in most homes. In other words, if you have a 37 inch TV you don't NEED 1080p.... then again, until the PS3 can output BD at 720p like all other players, you do have a point I guess. :-P


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By Tarfman on 4/10/2007 11:52:26 AM , Rating: 2
Don't know about you but I can see a difference between 720p and 1080p when standing back a bit from 50" screens and using a proper 1080p source. Maybe its just me but I didn't think my glasses were that good! Have you done a back to back comparison? I will definitely be going 1080p plasma and it is matter probably of Panasonic 1080p vs Pioneer Plasma 2.0 when they come out mixed in with price - ie will the Pioneer be affordable and if so will the premium over the Panasonic be worth it?


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By BMFPitt on 4/10/2007 12:26:11 PM , Rating: 2
Sure you can tell the difference between the two TVs side to side. But how much can you tell when they're not?

Except for the "money to burn" crowd, most people who already have an HDTV won't buy a new one just for 1080p, and even when buying one anyway only if the price difference is less than 10-20%.

I can't imagine getting rid of my 57" 1080i Toshiba rear projection within the next 5-7 years unless I see significantly better (and much thinner) sub-$1000 TVs.


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By Hawkido on 4/10/2007 6:13:34 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
until the PS3 can output BD at 720p like all other players, you do have a point I guess


Correct me if i am wrong... There is no problem with the PS3 displaying at 720P... ever. You are thinking of the TV upscaling scandle where the HDTV's that only support 1080i and not 720P, caused a problem for Games that only supported 720P and lesser resolutions on the PS3, not movies which are encoded at 1080P then downscaled to the nearest rez if needed. I guess the "Other Players" you mentioned can add the 720P function to older HDTVs? Can they make my SDTV do 1080P? Okay, all sarcasm aside.
If you are going to make fun of the PS3, you shouldn't have to make stuff up about it, there are lots of things wrong with it without using your imagination!


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 11:34:14 AM , Rating: 3
I have no clue what you're trying to say. BOTH BD and HD-DVD are 1080p. How in the world do you think "1080p screens" are going to have any effect whatsoever on who wins the format war?


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By BMFPitt on 4/10/2007 11:45:50 AM , Rating: 2
I think he's trying to say that people will start buying a bunch of 1080p TVs, and thus will want to buy one format or the other. They will see the PS3 as a good deal (i.e. a Blu-Ray player with gaming capabilities.)

As far as I'm concerned, 1080p TVs will have minimal impact on the adoption rate. Either format will look just great on a 720p or 1080i, and most people who already have an HDTV won't see a reason to upgrade.

This war won't begin until the prices drop.


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By CorrND on 4/10/2007 3:06:52 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
This war won't begin until the prices drop.

We're SO close! Pricegrabber is showing the Toshiba HD-A2 going for $311 today, down from around $340 last week and $370-ish before the MSRP drop by Toshiba. I'm guessing the online price is going to settle just below $300 in the next couple weeks.

That's starting to look awfully attractive to the average consumer.

Once HD hits $200 -- probably fall, heading into the Christmas season -- this baby is really going to heat up!


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By staypuff69 on 4/11/2007 4:43:59 AM , Rating: 2
wow really???? lmfao

Where I am a Sony PC Blue Ray player went from $899 to $449 in just 6 weeks.... I think HD DVD is in for a long fight...

Oh and converting that to US funds thats about $399.... so much for the price cuts on HD DVD.... LOL


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By CorrND on 4/11/2007 11:44:23 AM , Rating: 2
You're comparing apples to oranges. If you want to compare PC drives, I point you to the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive which can be had for only $187 according to pricegrabber. That's less than half the cost of the Blu-ray drive you're quoting.

Getting back to actual players, Blu-ray only has a competitive player-price right now because of the PS3. People are willing to pay a slight premium to get the PS3 because there's so much more functionality. Once the HD-DVD players get down around $200, that slight premium becomes a HUGE premium and their advantage disappears.

Since Sony is already taking a loss at the current selling price of the PS3, there's no way the PS3 is going to drop in price to match HD-DVD players around $200. Sony's only hope is for their set-top players to come down in price, but their cheapest players have consistently been 50-100% more expensive than Toshiba's HD-DVD players.


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By DingieM on 4/11/2007 3:42:08 AM , Rating: 1
Do not forget that the second sales week in the UK the PS3 sales plummeted with 82% down.
That is huge.
How come?
Too expensive?
Whats the deal with 600 euro's costing hardware when HD-DVD players from for example Toshiba are dropping down sharply in price, and coming down way below that of the PS3? Don't expect a price-drop in the near future because $ony is losing hundreds of dollars/euro's per console while the Xbox360 is making profit on a console since last december.
Added capabilities for playing games is not really added value since many people still won't play games...
The PS3 can be successful because it floats on the immense success of the PS2. People are ofcourse expecting a lot from the PS3 because of its predecessor.


RE: Blu-Ray in Europe
By jadedeath on 4/15/2007 1:38:19 AM , Rating: 2
Please don't tell me that you're this blind.

The 82% is due to supply and demand, they simply ran out of PS3's across Europe in the second and 3rd weeks.

Furthermore the Sony execs are probably laughing all the way to the bank, they might lose money per PS3, but with titles like Casino Royale and others soon to be released on BD they're going to be making money hand over fist.

In the long run they lose a few hundred on the PS3, but they gain more than that back per-game and per-BD sold. Considering they own MGM, and Columbia-Tristar that means they get ALL the profit from those releases they're most likely sitting pretty happy at where everything stands right now.

Logan


Omissions
By deeznuts on 4/10/2007 2:08:49 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Blu-ray’s lead isn’t as strong, however, when looking at cumulative sales since each format’s inception.

quote:
Still, Blu-ray only took the lead from HD DVD in 2007, which HD DVD supporters blame on their format’s relatively sluggish recent months.


DT I'm dissappointed, you brought up two argument defending the statistics in favor of HD DVD, but NOT ONE mention of the fact HD DVD was available months before Blu-Ray, which makes the numbers even more favorable to Blu-Ray.

Why is that?




RE: Omissions
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 2:45:47 PM , Rating: 2
Well they also fail to mention that BD has lost ground to HD-DVD in recent weeks...it was at one point selling nearly 3-1. The March data is (by this article) down to 7:3, and the April data looks like its going to come in at about 7:5.

And, given the tagline and first three paragraphs are all pro-BD, I think we can dismiss any possibility of calling the article biased in favor on HD-DVD.


RE: Omissions
By deeznuts on 4/10/2007 3:31:49 PM , Rating: 2
Well considering the article is about a press release pro-BD, the article can't help itself to be anything but pro-BD talking about the release lol.

But adding your own defenses, on one side, does show a bit of a skew. Doesn't it? Why not talk about the press, which is Pro-bd, then add arguments from both camps to present a fair and balanced article?

Lol, I don't even know if Marcus is biased or not, and don't care. Just pointing out the minor omissions.

Where are the numbers for april that you are talking about anyway? I'm interested to see them.

The 7:3 ratio was YTD, the weekly sales ending Mar 18 (when the report was prepared apparently) showed a 9:2 advantage. That 3-1 ratio you quoted must be takin into context to, was that YTD, weekly rate, monthly rate, etc.


RE: Omissions
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 4:28:30 PM , Rating: 2
> "That 3-1 ratio you quoted must be takin into context to, was that YTD, weekly rate, monthly rate, etc"

Monthly. BD was being outsold until shortly after Christmas, then started climbing up sharply, peaking a bit below 3-1. Then its started back down, winding up today, at about 7:5. This is according to the DVD Empire tracking chart which is admittedly a smaller sample than the Nielsen figures...but its tracked very closely with them so far.

So in other words, the sales figures have done pretty much exactly what everyone thought they would, all the way back a year ago. Everyone knew BD would see a huge boost from the PS3. The only issue is whether or not that boost is permanent or temporary. On that the jury is still out.


$ony makes me want to puke
By DingieM on 4/10/07, Rating: 0
RE: $ony makes me want to puke
By Nyu on 4/10/07, Rating: -1
RE: $ony makes me want to puke
By masher2 (blog) on 4/10/2007 10:00:35 AM , Rating: 4
> "Sony does not make the movies, the players, and the PC burners..."

Actually, Sony makes all three. And while its technically true that many other companies behind the BD format, Sony is the lead, and by far the one pushing the format the hardest.


RE: $ony makes me want to puke
By DingieM on 4/10/2007 10:03:31 AM , Rating: 2
I know but I didn't say so, but $ony is the real pusher, and can make it or brake it. No other company is in the position to back the Blu-Ray standard this much. This is obvious because $ony doesn't hide anything and is heard many times.

One can say that its not a $ony product but $ony has very much to gain with Blu-Ray hence their relationship is far to strong to take a more neutral stance (Micro$oft).

This more or less makes it their "baby".


Long way to go yet!
By jabber on 4/10/2007 11:38:07 AM , Rating: 3
As the article said compared to DVD sales they are insignificant.

Could well be you add both the HD and BR sales together they might just make up 0.001% of the worldwide market.

Best thing to do is, chill, sit back, and see what happens. I'm keeping my hard earned pounds in my pocket for now.

After all its not our careers on the line if either or both fail. I dont remember anyone dying when SACD/HDCD bit the dust.




7 blu-ray vs 3 hd-dvd
By AkumaX on 4/10/2007 10:36:59 AM , Rating: 2
interesting that the 3 on that first list are all owned by Warner Home Video, hahaha




Thank you
By kevinoliver99 on 4/11/2007 1:21:31 AM , Rating: 2
Thanks for this information.
Flv to avi
http://www.avi-converter.net




Darn
By CKDragon on 4/10/2007 9:24:43 AM , Rating: 1
I feel gypped. This is an outrage, DT. What kind of Sony posting is this where you fail to deliver even one humorous quote from an executive?

The only explanation is a lack of trying. FOR SHAME!




"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007











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