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Erroneous HD DVD Report Gets Tongues Wagging
An anonymous reader writes "HD DVD fans learned a valuable lesson in 'don't believe everything you read' this week, after the trade publication Home Media Magazine reported that the HD DVD camp planned to release more than 20x the number of releases planned on Blu-ray through the end of 2007. The suggestion was so preposterous that even the official HD DVD Promotions Group (which has the most to gain from the spread of such misinformation) has requested a correction. 'Contacted for comment, the HD DVD Promotional Group told us that the Home Media Magazine report was incorrect. The group says it "conservatively" projects a worldwide total of 600 HD DVD releases for the entirety of 2007, and that the error in the report appeared to stem from a slide in an HD DVD powerpoint presentation that listed the cumulative number of titles by month for 2006. The Home Media Magazine report also quoted a Blu-ray spokesperson as saying that Blu-ray-affiliated studios will release a total of 43 titles in 2007. This number also appears to be incorrect, given that 160 titles have already been announced through September in the U.S. alone.'"
If you have a TV that handles 1080p/24, Sony's 1.80 update will allow you to watch your blu-ray movies at the proper 24fps.
I got dibs on the patent.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
this is what common sense and critical reading are for. just like some of those junk magazines that say something like bigfoot father of lockness alien baby elvis or something like that.
"This number also appears to be incorrect, given that 160 titles have already been announced through to September in the U.S. alone."
The VHS camp purchased tons more titles and sealed the BetaMax format's doom way back when.
It is a good, yet costly way to gain dominance.
So they were going to release 20 titles?
"When the shit hits the fans"
"... Blu-ray-affiliated studios will release a total of 43 titles in 2007. This number also appears to be incorrect, given that 160 titles have already been announced..."
Sure the number APPEARS to be incorrect, but in actuality...
But how many of the 600 planned releases are high quality porn?
I didnt realize they had fanbois for media formats. Um, woot?
And who reads "media home" anyway? Potential fanbois, that's who.
The real question is, how do I *profit* from my complete indifference?
Quite true, and if you'd stated some facts you wouldn't be trolling, but you didn't.
What's clear is that nothing is clear. Neither format is winning. The longer this keeps up, the more likely it is that the replacement format to DVD will be unprotected video downloads. This is what's happening with music, and the motion picture studios are repeating almost every mistake the majors made.
Can we add a new "HD DVD vs. Blu-ray" category for these inane weekly "we have more titles than you" stories?
Seems to me like this magazine finally blew it's (already weak) cover. It's one thing to have advertising on every other page of a magazine, it's another when the rest of the book is all payola.
I stopped reading computer magazines a long time ago, right around the time we went from 20 mags to 200, right around the time mags started having product names in their TITLE, right around the time that all the good advertisers moved elsewhere and let the scammers fill the pages with their counterfeit system-on-a-chip-made-in-china rackets.
The only paper mag I don't knock is DDJ, and even then I thought they were running a bit dry as of late with all the regurgitated Java bullshit. Magazines have become largely obsolete, replaced by top-shelf blogs.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
What they actually mean is that they plan to sell about 600 discs. Each will be personally numbered and signed.
The real number of interest, how many titles in each format will be broken, ripped, and torrented first?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
My copy of this page is display a Blu-Ray ad...
Sounds like someone in the Home Media stable was having a bad day when they looked at the HD-DVD slide presentation. But I think some blame might have to go to the HD-DVD group for possibly spinning the truth via dubious chart presentation practices. I.e., it sounds suspiciously like they used a cummulative measure of releases over the months, instead of releases per month, just to make sure they had a chart that keeps going up! Was the the same presentation that gave Home Media the idea that Blu-Ray were only going to release 43? Perhaps another chart?
The world is full of companies spinning the truth, but still maintaining complete deniability.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Except here at
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Come on, neither format is winning?
* Blu-Ray discs, since the start of the year, have outsold HD-DVD discs by three to one margin (or higher).
* There are around 200k HD-DVD players in the US today. There are 2+ MILLION PS3's that play Blu-Ray, plus whatever standalone players Blu-Ray has managed to sell.
* Universal is the only major studio still wholly behind HD-DVD (The Weinstien Brothers have announced Hard Boiled will come on Blu-Ray, including the movie and a PS3 game).
* Funai, an HD-DVD backer just announced they will be selling a cheap Blu-Ray player later this year.
The winner is clear. I predict Universal, in a bit over two months or so, will announce they too will producing Blu-Ray titles - they cannot afford to be the major backer of a system that has a sales rate three times less than what they otherwise might get using Blu-Ray during the Christmas shopping season when the Blu-Ray press will be at its mightiest from Sony and Disney and other studios.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
100% of the people who bought HD DVD players, bought them to play HD DVD movies. I can guarantee you that the vast, VAST majority of PS3 owners got it to play games.
Say only 10% of PS3 owners use the system to play Blu-Ray discs - that's still more than the total number of HD-DVD players, by a wide margin! And the PS3 alone continues to outsell the whole group of HD-DVD players (yes, even with lower sales) meaning that lead is only increasing.
Now what happens when a really popular title actually clicks with the public? Sales that swamp any HD-DVD releases, because there are simply so many more PS3's around than HD-DVD players. Yes PS3 owners are probably a much more casual buying group but with millions more, that simply does not matter when you have millions more people buying.
Whether they'll buy enough Blu-Ray titles in the future to match HD DVD is yet to be seen.
We have been seeing it all year, with continued Blu-Ray sales of three to one over HD-DVD! How can you wave those numbers away arbitrarily when the release schedule, and player sales figures, make it obvious that ratio will only increase? What happens if as rumored Star Wars comes out later this year on Blu-Ray, and more Pixar movies as well? But even without those with a fleet of movies like Pirates and Spiderman on Blu-Ray going against the best exclusive Blu-Ray has to offer (the Bourne Identity) it's pretty clear a sales advantage will continue.
Sony bundle the PS3 with Blu-Ray movies and put this in their sale figures. Again, notice the buyers didn't have much choice. They just got it with their PS3.
The trend in such a case may have nothing to do with current sales figures.
The free movie was only with the first 500k PS3's sold. That helped spike earlier in the year but does not explain the whole year, or even anything past January. How much of the HD-DVD sales figures are the FIVE FREE movies they give away with every Toshiba HD-DVD player? Seems like your argument is easily turned on its head.
How many studios (except Sony Pictures I presume) are only behind Blu-Ray?
The other major ones are Disney (perhaps you've heard of Pixar or Pirates) and Fox (perhaps you've heard of Star wars?). Also MGM and Lionsgate...
How many more do you need? Look at what the sole remaining HD-DVD exclusive studio (Universal) can provide in movies vs the five above. That there is a war at all is simply an illusion pulled over your eyes by the many people here on Slashdot who want to see Sony fail. I don't own a Blu-Ray player. I don't own a PS3. It means nothing to me if one format succeeeds over the other - yet the winner here is obvious just from studio support alone, even inn goring technical advantages Blu-Ray has (not that pure technical advantages have ever won a format war before anyway).
Anecdotal evidence alert. Also they just saw the match is kinda even so far, so it's normal they want to sell Blu-Ray players.
How is this anecdotal? How does it mean nothing when slowly HD-DVD backers peel away to support Blu-Ray - as it continues to enjoy a three to one or larger sales margin? With those numbers and that studio support eventually the reasons to keep building HD-DVD players will wane.
But they won't stop selling HD-DVD players either.
In order to stop, wouldn't they have to start? I'm not sure we've even seen HD-DVD players from Funai yet (I can't find any at Amazon under the brand names I know use them). They were in the HD-DVD consortium but that does not mean they were making players.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's wrong to let poor later versions of a movie ruin the enjoyment of earlier versions. Someone can still enjoy the first Matrix even if they loathe the others.
In any case your point does nothing to counter my own, for regardless of your feelings of the new movies they (and the originals) continue to be big sellers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley