News Blu-ray takes early lead in HD Format War

[Tim S]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/04...hd_format_war/

[DougEdey]

You're missing some vital information here I think.

1) What country was the survey taken in? (I'm going to assume the US)

2) It was a survey, when people say that they bought a disc, did they mean that they bought a player with a disc bundled? Or did they buy a disc separately? (I see you noted this aswell for PS3s)

3) Where is the actual figures? The link is just to second hand values with no definitive source.

[supermonkey]

We've seen from the VHS/Beta war that consumers won't necessarily adopt the highest quality format; price and availability is more of a concern for the average John Q. Public.

I read the other day that Wal-Mart will now begin carrying HD-DVD titles in its stores. I think that's going to have a huge impact to the market. Wal-Mart works very closely with the music industry, and it's known that whether or not Wal-Mart chooses to carry a particular artist can mean the difference between pop star and one-hit wonder. does this translate to the video industry?

Given Wal-Mart's ability to define a market, I wonder what impact this will have on home video sales. Will consumers continue to purchase Blu-Ray discs, or will people start buying HD-DVDs on the mere fact that they recongnize the letters, and because the discs are cheaper? Hey, it says "HD-DVD," so it must be better, right?

-monkey

[UnkleRosco]

Well over here its fairly hard to find HD-dvds... There's BR nearly everywhere. I think thats all to do with the PS3, anywhere that sells the PS3 sells the BR discs...

In honesty there's hardly anything decent enough to warrant a purchase, i'm waiting for the BBCs Planet Earth to come out on HD. Its the only title i've wanted to get since i got the player..

[Flibblebot]

Originally Posted by supermonkey

We've seen from the VHS/Beta war that consumers won't necessarily adopt the highest quality format; price and availability is more of a concern for the average John Q. Public.

I read the other day that Wal-Mart will now begin carrying HD-DVD titles in its stores. I think that's going to have a huge impact to the market. Wal-Mart works very closely with the music industry, and it's known that whether or not Wal-Mart chooses to carry a particular artist can mean the difference between pop star and one-hit wonder. does this translate to the video industry?

Given Wal-Mart's ability to define a market, I wonder what impact this will have on home video sales. Will consumers continue to purchase Blu-Ray discs, or will people start buying HD-DVDs on the mere fact that they recongnize the letters, and because the discs are cheaper? Hey, it says "HD-DVD," so it must be better, right?

-monkey

Not only are Wal-Mart going to start carrying HD DVD titles in their stores, they're also going to start selling cheap (about $299) HD DVD players too (although there is some confusion about the press release from the Chinese manufacturer as to whether they mean HD DVD or BluRay).

Wal-Mart have a massive effect - their Black Friday, post-Thanksgiving sales drive of the 42" Panasonic plasma screen (where they sold the screens at sub-$1000 prices) has been cited as a factor for Circuit City closing stores and laying off staff.

[Tim S]

You're definitely right... Wal-Mart will have a massive impact.

[bilbothebaggins]

Originally Posted by article

... the HD Format War is still in its early days, so it's hard to pick a long term winner ...

Haven't all three sides already lost by starting this war in the first place?
At the rate we have seen the past years, I rather doubt there will be any long term victory to be had, because we will see the next format soon enough

br,
-btb-

[LVMike]

Originally Posted by UnkleRosco

Well over here its fairly hard to find HD-dvds... There's BR nearly everywhere. I think thats all to do with the PS3, anywhere that sells the PS3 sells the BR discs...

In honesty there's hardly anything decent enough to warrant a purchase, i'm waiting for the BBCs Planet Earth to come out on HD. Its the only title i've wanted to get since i got the player..

Amazon listed it at 69$ for HD-DVD and blu-ray. the Discovery Channel listed it at 80$ ( for the Disocvery Branded discs) Who does the naration in the BBC version? This has to be one of the best series ever relieased on HDTV.


im just going to get a hybrid player, that way i wont worry

[rupbert]

As far as I'm aware there were only two HD-DVD movies released between February and March; that would be a big factor for low sales...

[Veles]

All these studios were all bitchy about the disks needing DRM and then they go and not put stuff on the bloody things XD

[valium]

Can we not post 1 sided un-proven format war FUD on Bit-Tech? There was an article on /. just yesterday about HD-DVD outselling blue-ray due to Wal-Mart making the push for HD-DVD.

Bit-Tech is better than this.

[aggies11]

I don't care who wins the format war, so long as there is indeed a winner, and the market settles on something.

That being said, looking atThis recent ars technica article you can see that the "2:1" angle is being pushed for a reason.

If blu-ray only sold 3 discs, and HD-DVD 1, then that'd be 3:1. Obviously "outsold" by 3-1 sounds better than "we beat them by only 2 discs". When the absolute numbers are low, it sounds better when you use percentages and ratios. It makes the lead seem bigger than it is.

So while discs to date, blu-ray has a lead of several hundred thousand, the best selling dvd of the week, moves 4million units. Thats one single title. Something like Peter Pan, which is not even a hollywood blockbuster, will do 2million units.

Taking the context into perspective and we see that these early sales numbers are too small to matter much. If we imagine that next-gen discs get 10% of the market that DVD's do, then all it would take is one single title, to sway the lead in either direction. And we aren't even there yet.

When the total sales of next gen discs to date, don't equal 1 week sales of a regular DVD, the numbers are just too small to get any real perspective.

Aggies

[Phil Rhodes]

Ya-haaawn.

Someone wake me when this **** fit is over.

Phil

PS - Oh, puhleease, we're censoring?

[devdevil85]

IPTV will ooooowwwwwnnnnnzzzzzz all!

[ỒĊBłůē]

Originally Posted by LVMike

Who does the naration in the BBC version?

David Attenborough; one of the World's best loved naturalists, and arguably unrivaled when it comes to the presenting and narration of nature programs.

I happened to see some of 'March of the Penguins' recently, and why they didn't get him to narrate the English language version I'll never know.

[/soapbox]

[Breach]

Yeah...a few thousand discs is not what i would call a major commercial success for either. Blu-Ray has in no way beaten anything. Obvioulsy Sony made their own advantage selling game consoles with the player in it to spur the Blu Ray revolution. HD-DVD didnt have that advantage.

Both formats could still share the same fate as Laserdisc and BetaMax, they both had some numbers too at first.

[Colonel Sanders]

According to this link Only two studios (Universal and Weinstein) support HD-DVD alone. Weinstein is not one of "the big seven studios" so simply put, I kinda doubt they Weinstein will have much effect.

This is opinion alone, I don't feel that Universal is a great studio - I mean there are some great Universal movies, but my DVD collection is quite lacking in Universal movies.

I simply hope this format war ends soon. I'll admit, I'm biased, I love Sony, and the PS3, and I dispise MS, Bill Gates, Windows and all things related to the X-Box 360. BUT I think the current studio support is pretty strong for Blu-Ray.

L J

[glaeken]

It also helps when you are a major motion picture company...

[valium]

Originally Posted by Colonel Sanders

According to this link Only two studios (Universal and Weinstein) support HD-DVD alone. Weinstein is not one of "the big seven studios" so simply put, I kinda doubt they Weinstein will have much effect.

This is opinion alone, I don't feel that Universal is a great studio - I mean there are some great Universal movies, but my DVD collection is quite lacking in Universal movies.

I simply hope this format war ends soon. I'll admit, I'm biased, I love Sony, and the PS3, and I dispise MS, Bill Gates, Windows and all things related to the X-Box 360. BUT I think the current studio support is pretty strong for Blu-Ray.

L J

I think you highly underestimate the Weinstein company, they are actually quite big and have their interest in a lot of shows, movies, etc.

[DougEdey]

Weinstein as in Harvey Weinstein?

IIRC they make a lot of TV.