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HD DVD Player Sales Grind To a Halt
Lucas123 writes "While the news may fall under the 'Duh' category, it's still relatively shocking how quickly the death knell for HD DVD player sales came on after Warner Bros. announced they were dropping dual hi-def DVD format support in order to back only Blu-ray. According to a Computerworld story, the week after Warner's announcement, sales of HD DVD players dropped to 1,758, down from 14,558 players the week before. In contrast, consumers bought 21,770 Blu-ray Disc players, up from 15,257 the previous week."
Previously, I had heard that the total sales for blue ray players included sales of PS3 consoles. Are they included in these numbers as well? I know that there are certainly people out there who bought PS3's with the intention of playing PS3 games, and didn't really care that they could play blue ray movies as well.
That said, of course the loss of another studio from HD DVD to Blue Ray likely didn't hurt sales of stand-alone blue ray players, either.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
And as the article points out, the information from that week is useful to gauge sales for that one week only. Since Toshiba responded the following week with massive price cuts, the sales figures will be drastically different for the following weeks. Basically, these numbers will be all over the map for a while, and won't be useful for generating any sort of trend. That said, it is clear that HD DVD will be going away soon.
And that's why the rest of us wait for format wars to end.
Haida Manga
I, like I'm sure many other average-joe consumers, have been just WAITING for the decision to be made before going out and spending hard earned cash on a high-def player.
Warner Brothers moving to BluRay, along with rumors of Universal and Paramount possibly following suit, have really been a good sign.
I bought PS3 (and Rock Band!) pretty quickly after the news came out.
During the week following Warner's announcement -- a period in which the HD-DVD group went into hiding while they regrouped -- FUD went absolutely rampant. Eclipsing the damage of Warner's announcement were rumors from so-called insiders that Paramount and Universal were also jumping ship, along with the standard claims that the adult industry was going blu. If you do a news search on HD-DVD right now you'll continue to find the same FUD, blown into a life of its own by blogger referencing blogger referencing blogger, repeating the same disproven claim.
In this vacuum of information, there's no surprise that HD-DVD sales collapsed, and it isn't because of the loss of Warner's catalog.
Since then the outcome is much less certain, however. Toshiba hasn't just conceded (and they shouldn't -- just prior to Warner's announcement it was 50/50), but instead they've come out swinging, dropping the price of their units by half (obviously it has to be cheap to compete with a format that largely was acquired for "free" as an added value of a game system). This price puts a very capable HD-DVD player with ethernet, HDMI, optical audio, and so on, as cost competitive with a decent upscaling DVD player -- and the Toshiba unit is a very good upscaling player. Add the 7 or more free HD-DVD movies that'll work forever even if HD-DVD dies, and a catalog of 1000 or so HD-DVD movies already on the market, it's a hell of a deal. If someone could hack this baby to be a media head unit it would absolutely own.
Reports are that sales have been absolutely massive, and Toshiba's campaign has been a success. Warner since has extended their HD-DVD support by almost a month, and other very positive rumors have circulated about HD-DVD.
Don't write HD-DVD off quite yet.
As an aside, one thing that really pisses me off about this war are claims that the end of the format war would be good for consumers. This is as logical as saying that Windows and IE should be universal -- good for consumers. Worse, Blu-ray has so many consumer-unfriendly facets (cost, no combo discs, a standard that's still in flux, early adopters getting screwed, the nebulous DRM of BD+) that it winning can never be perceived as a consumer win. Yeah, I'm biased because I didn't choose a format to win based upon a game unit I happened to buy.
So, HD DVD lost 13,000 sales and Bluray only gained half that? I think maybe there's something else going on as well other than just the Warner deal.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Another hit against Microsoft !
I think this says it all.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
I'm no crotchety old man pining away for the the good old days, but it seems to me that DVDs are still working just fine. The format wars are a sometimes interesting diversion, but until HD TVs are the norm and DVDs leave the market altogether, the format war is largely meaningless to most. My SD TV works just fine and until it stops working and/or HD comes down in price another $500USD or so, Blu-ray vs HD-DVD is a nonissue for many if not most. Oh, and that says nothing about digital delivery making physical disks totally irrelevant.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Does it matter what kind of format Warner Bros will back up? Im still more worried about the kind of format aXXo will supply...
The folks at NPD have already said not to make too much of these numbers. Not only do they reflect a single week of data immediately following the Warner announcement and prior to Toshiba cutting prices in half, there were also free Blu-ray player promotions from Panasonic, Sharp and Sony. Easy to "sell" a lot of units when the price tag is $0.
Last time I checked the biggest feeding frenzies are right after Thanksgiving and the weeks following Christmas. Of course sales are down to a trickle, everyone has cashed in their gift cards. The local store has moved hardly any 360's, iPods, PS3's, TV, laptops, etc, etc either. Does that mean it's the death knell for all of those products too? Hardly.
Seeing as how many people just took the plunge a month ago, it's a cruel twist of fate that this should be decided now. If this came out in December, I think you would have been left with a lot more satisfied customers. My friend's parents just bought an HD-DVD player, and now those $200 or so have been completely wasted.
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
Its only a paperweight if you're stupid enough to destroy all the media you've bought to go with it.
I have a 360 HD-DVD drive and a dozen or so movies that are currently only available on HD-DVD which I routinely watch on it. If Blu-Ray wins, which appears pretty likely, I'll probably pickup a dual format player though I have the option of a cheaper Blu-Ray only player and until I feel the need to replace my HD-DVD media with Blu-Ray media I have a fully functional HD media player.
If only 20k/week (1 million / year) are being sold, and assuming that aside from PS3s it's been a relatively smooth ramp-up, then the format war has been decided before any of us have had a chance to weigh in at all. That's what, a fiftieth of the population pretty much decided for everybody?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
In this vacuum of information, there's no surprise that HD-DVD sales collapsed
In this vacuum of intelligence, you state that there's still hope for HD-DVD. There's no chance it's coming back, not when HD-DVD has 30% of the market, and publishers care more about cost of production than satisfying the needs of a very small portion of people who own HD-DVD players.
I am defenseless. Use your button. Mod me down with all of your hatred.
I was in Best Buy this past weekend and saw that they were on sale pretty cheap. Toshiba models under $200 if I remember correctly. Nobody was biting.
Or should I wait another year? I didn't buy one because I didn't want to deal with HD or Blu-Ray. Should I wait another year for Blu-Ray to finish fleshing out the market, or is now a good time?
I have a feeling that later would be better because lots of companies who were holding back or weren't producing Blu-Ray players will probably now... Any ideas?
From Beta to MiniDisc to Memory Stick, Sony never successfully pushes a format on the market. I can only conclude that BluRay will be supplanted by an as-of-yet-unrevealed third technology. My fragile worldview cannot accept any other alternatives.
One of the rationals of doing an external player was so that they could just make a blu-ray addon if HD-DVD didn't win. The main difference is that blu-ray and the PS3 are intimately intertwined. However, the 360 is just a video game machine that you can buy an add-on movie player too. Very few people (that I know of) bought the 360 as a movie player, compared at least, to the apparent many that bought the PS3 for its movie ability. So for all intent the HD-DVD addon, will suffer the same fate as a standalone player, and have little affect on the 360.
Well for one, the fact that I had the option to upgrade to the HD DVD player makes the 360 10 times better to me than Sony trying to force their format down our throats....which is why I refuse to buy a PS3. And yes I did buy the HD DVD player add on because I wanted HD DVD to win. So what will we do now? Well Microsoft has already mentioned making a Blu-Ray add-on so I will continue buying all the really cheap HD DVD's then buy the Blu Ray add-on at some point in the future.....problem solved. When it comes down to it was all about my ability to chose what I wanted to do.
Depends how much work you're willing to do, but it might be possible to do the stuff you're describing as "hacks" without cracking it at all, especially if they start doing additional persistent storage.
The trick is, you would need an AACS-encrypted disc with any of the code you'd be doing this with.
Question is, how does this compare to, say, a PS3 with Linux?
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
These numbers are for dedicated Blu-Ray players only. If you think about this this is obvious from the numbers themselves, where the PS3 even in the worst weeks last year had 80k weekly sales (and it's doing better now).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Mod parent down! Godwin's Law violation.
I know I can place it next to my BetaMax, on top of my DAC player, but under my philips CD-I.
While the media and CE companies wanted this format war, the consumer didn't. Some chose sides, most of us have been waiting for a sign of who's winning. This was appearing to be Blu-Ray earlier in 2007, which is what prompted Microsoft/Toshiba to pony up the cash to keep Paramount HD-DVD only for 18 months.... thus prolonging the war, in theory.
The Warner announcement tipped the scales, and most consumers were ready for a winner to be declared. This is the kind of thing that becomes self-fulfilling -- customers want it tipped one way or another, and if they see the tip enough, everyone goes over to that side of the see-saw as fast as possible... particularly if Sony can stop shooting themselves in the foot by redesigning Blu-Ray every three months (ok, most of the new stuff is totally optional, but it doesn't help their case to create more customer confusion).
Obviously, Toshiba will try to lure back sales by slashing prices. The most interesting thing about HD-DVD is also the problem -- Toshiba can do this, because they're running HD-DVD like it's a gaming console (whether by choice or not, I don't know)... they sell all of the hardware, they get money back on licencing fees, so they can afford to blow out systems at cost, or even below cost, just as Sony and MS do with their games consoles (at least when they're new.. eventually, they want to get profitable on the HW).
-Dave Haynie
I have a 46" 1080p Samsung LCD with a 1080p upconverting DVD player. DVDs look fantastic on this equipment. I see no value in upgrading to either high-def format - especially considering the price of the media. When I can get a brand new DVD for $15 or a gently used one for under $10 and the high-def format discs are still $25 or more, color me uninterested.
I don't think that's it's a foregone conclusion that either format is going to win out. Look at what happened to SACD and DVD-Audio.
in the short term, there will be HD-DVD copies of movies exclusively released for Blu*Ray.
PS3 sales also spiked pretty well. Remember, if you are suddenly looking for a Blu-Ray player. the PS3 is a very appealing choice - even if all you use it for is Blu-Ray, with the remote it's good as any other dedicated player (and better really since it's future proof and so easy to connect to a network connection wirelessly).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't know about you guys, but I shant be making a descision on which high definition player to purchase until the porn industry does!
this post is now diamonds!
I honestly can't decide which amazes me the most.
The fact that people are surprised that after a studio said they'd not support it, the sales fell. Or the fact that people were willing to buy the disks in the middle of a format war when they had no guarantee it would last.
I mean, really, there was uncertainty over which would win out, and what would happen to the other. I realize if you've spent several thousand dollars on your hi-def kit you want to be able to see stuff with it, but I've always thought this whole hi-def format war was something I'd wait out.
Hell, if you bought an HDTV more than a few years ago, aren't you hosed since they've changed all of the specs and the whole HDMI debacle.
With early adoption comes the prospect of a lot of pain down the road.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The newly price-reduced Toshiba HD-DVD players are currently the #1 and #4 best-selling players on Amazon.com. The best-selling Blue-Ray players are #5 and #10. I wonder if HD-DVD players are now out-selling Blue-Ray players overall.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/electronics/1036922/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_e_1_3_last
no text here
I found this quality comparison of different HD sources (Cable, FIOS, Blue Ray, etc...) to be interesting:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=962
We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
During the week following Warner's announcement -- a period in which the HD-DVD group went into hiding while they regrouped -- FUD went absolutely rampant.
The thing is about FUD (Fear, Uncertanty, Doubt) is that it can be caused by true things as well as false.
Face it, Paramount and Universal going at least neutral if not exclusive is now 100% certain. A format designed explicitly for movie playing, cannot survive when it has only 20% of titles ad not even very many good titles at that (look at the HD-DVD upcoming releases compared to Blu-Ray!). It cannot survive when media sales have fallen to the extent they have. It cannot survive when major retailors are phasing it out (take a look at the HD-DVD section in your local Best Buy and notice how many titles are flat facing outward instead of on-end...)
Reports are that sales have been absolutely massive,
Player sales - not media sales. Remember the point of this format war is not to sell players below cost, but to sell media. What were the numbers for the previous weeks sales? 83:17, for Blu-Ray. The week before that? 85:15, Blu-Ray (NPD figures). The last weeks figures include the time period of Toshiba's "massive" player sales.
People buying HD-DVD players at this point are looking for an upconverting DVD player on the cheap - nothing more. And remember that even with massive player sales from Toshiba, Blu-Ray players are still outselling hem by a huge margin if you factor in the PS3 (and realistically you must factor in the PS3 for player sales somehow).
As an aside, one thing that really pisses me off about this war are claims that the end of the format war would be good for consumers. This is as logical as saying that Windows and IE should be universal -- good for consumers.
You know what pisses me off? People thinking the format war, which kept consumers from BOTH formats. was in any way healthy. Remember that on the Blu-Ray side you have a whole ecosystem - many companies making players, many companies making media. Competition keeps prices down and quality up. But if no consumers buy into a format your supposed "competition doesn't matter because it's like having tow competing saloons in a ghost town. Would the world be a better place if we had multiple competing HTML formats, and you had to pay $300 for a browser that supported both?
I'm very sorry your format lost. But the sooner all HD-DVD supporters face this the better off the HD media industry will be as a whole. Isn't that what it's really all about, the movies? If you care at all about having HD media on a physical format prosper, you'll throw your full backing behind Blu-Ray and help to convince people it's worth while switching from DVD. It's pretty easy to do if you have a half decent setup, even 720p is so much more obviously better than upscaled content that it doesn't take much of a demonstration.
I think a major uptick for HD media will be the elimination of analog broadcast next year - people will get fed up with converter boxes and just get newer TV's (especially since you get HD programming for free). At that point HD media sales can also really take off. So it's important to have a good solid format at that point that's easy for consumers to choose.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Until HD-DVD finally bites the dust, I won't be getting into any of the new formats. I suggest others do the same.
The NPD numbers for the week after Warner, were 85:15.
The NPD sales figures for last week (13th-19th), in which the players had been reduced in price, were 83:17 (for blu ray). You don't have to be a statistician to see that player sales are making a negligible impact. Remember the players are also simply upscaling DVD players, which many people buy them for - or as had been found, people realizing the format is up are buying more plaers so they have extras for when the player they have dies.
And if you look ahead to the HD-DVD release schedule for the year compared to Blu-Ray, it's pretty easy to see where things will wind up.
The link you posted is simply more astroturfing to try and mislead consumers, notably posted the day before NPD numbers came out today) so they could claim ignorance of continuing faltered sales for HD-DVD.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I noticed today that in my local HMV they've got a sale on HD-DVDs. The blu-ray stand is right next to it. There were loads of HD-dvd's with lower price, and just a few Blu-ray, but they were spread out in the display so it looked like more to the casual observer.
Seems to me they're trying to dump their stock before the public wises up completely.
Sheer fricken poetry.
Best Slashdot Co
You're just trolling. The 360 HD DVD is an add on, not part of the Elite. You can use it on a PC too so it really has no bearing on the 360 or competing with the PS3 as a games console which it is dominating over the PS3. Most people don't give a crap about either HD DVD or Blu Ray.
Don't shed any tears on my behalf. I bought an HD-DVD player right before the big WB announcement came out, and I can't say I regret my decision. I bought it because it was cheap enough to fit my budget and there was a pretty nice selection of movies on HD-DVD *already* that I wanted to watch in HD. Even if nothing ever gets released on HD-DVD again, I now have a nice upscaling DVD player, a small pile of HD-DVDs, and a medium sized pile of HD-DVD rentals on Netflix. It was worth $200. By the time I start chafing at not being able to watch the newest HD stuff, it'll be time to upgrade to a new player anyway, and Blu-ray will be cheap by then (or replaced by downloads).
Last spring I had a request from a client to support HD-DVD as well. They had some upcoming weddings where the folks wanted it in HD-DVD. Well I recalled seeing an LG external HD-DVD burner in the fall of 2006 for $1300. DVD Studio Pro supports HD-DVD, so I went out last April to get an External HD-DVD drive. The BlueRay internals had already halved from the price I paid. I figured the same thing with HD-DVD...but wait a minute, I couln't find one.
I saw several blogs/articles about the same internal HD-DVD burner by Toshiba that never shipped. A consumer/pro-sumer grade burner for HD-DVD doesn't exist outside a few Toshiba laptops that I've found. That told me a lot right there.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
The first format to release cheap burners will be the definite winner here, it's always been that way, just check all the amazing storage devices that have already become extinct because of the lack of a cheap writing device.
Check out my blog!
I was at best buy last week just checking out what the visual difference is between LCD and Plasma displays these days, and as I was talking to a sales rep he mentioned that HD DVD was totally dead in the water and that he recommends all his customers buy a Blu-Ray player and consider the war over. If all his colleagues believe the same, then they all would be right.
Well, no-one on the BluRay team ever took HD-DVD seriously. There was no media coverage of what they were doing while all the attention was on the BD team's work with the JVM, the drives, the home networking, the fact that they were porting OCAP to a physical medium. Now there's no money for HD-DVD either.
How unfortunate for all those who purchased (and backed/manufactured the HD format).
I think the reason that blu-ray is more popular (at least in the figures) is because it sounds NEW! "HD DVD" is just a different DVD, in most people's minds. While Blu-Ray is new, and exciting, and it's blue (my favorite color).
Whoever put on the "netcraftconfirmsit" tag, 1999 called, they want their meme back! Pulverize it into hot grits and tell Natalie Portman to get off my lawn!
[
It was pretty obvious to everybody who was going to win.
What a load of pointless smugness.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Dude. You need to learn how to share. You can't handle smoking that much ..
it's in my head
Are Warner and Sony in it together? These days I wouldn't put it past these kinds of companies to do something like this and get away with it. Anti-trust in a year or few anyone?
Legalize Green Today!
I don't like HDTV, so nobody else should like HDTV.
I will challenge you to produce an HD-DVD or Blueray disc that is a dramatic improvement over an upscaling DVD player on a 42" TV. Unless you have a 60" or bigger TV you will simply not notice an improvement.
It's real and you can see it at any electronics store that has HD media playing. There's a lot of confusion because most "HD" media is still SD encoded. When you see the rare real thing you notice the difference in details for screens larger than 14".
SD really is a relic of broadcasting that should have died 15 years ago but it will live on. The slow pace of HD adoption and the onerous conditions of use prove the legislative and market power of broadcast companies. Independent producers have been putting out movies of better technical quality for years. The recall ability of "mainstream" media and devices still make HD equipment a risky purchase. Companies have been rude enough to their customers while trying to establish this shit. Just imagine what they will do once they have some sort of majority of the market.
Independent producers will have a field day, as long as they are not cut off by network filtering... oops Expect high costs for everything, broadband stagnation and all sorts of other ills to support the status quo.
There are lots of examples where backwards compatibility eased the transition to a new format:
B&W TV to Color TV
Mono TV to Stereo TV
78 RPM records to 33 1/3 RPM records
DOS to Windows 3.1 to Windows9X to WinXP etc.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
It may well be that HD DVD will be dead before the end of the year. However, that did not stop me from purchasing an HD-A3 for $129 with free shipping, no tax, and 7 HD DVDs, which I promptly eBayed for a total of $84. Thus, I acquired a device that plays "some" HD movies, and upscales most others, and plays well with my 42" LCD HDTV for a grand sum of $45. And I didn't have to give Sony a dime (like many /.ers, I refuse to even countenance Sony after their rootkit debacle). I don't feel like I wasted anything, because I guarantee you this - regular DVD isn't going anywhere anytime soon, and by the time it does, BluRay will be nowhere near the cost that it is now. Maybe then, I can feel better about having to give into Sony's dominance of the market.
How soon we forget. Oh you might point out that the CD was a dutch invention put onto the market by Philips together with Sony, but then so is BluRay.
BetaMax? The industry standard for ages in profesional video.
And for a failed format minidiscs sure managed to stick around for a long only dying out now MP3 players have taken over but before being the portable player for those who thought a CD player was to big and a cassete player was to old fashioned.
As for the memory stick, it allows sony to control the market for add on memory on its products while the other electronic giants loose those sales to third parties, oh yeah, that is failure alright.
I understand you are joking, but your comment was in the post often made deadly serious and modded up as insightfull. Says a lot that now the same comment is funny. To many people discounted sony because they wanted to see them fail (and some named the rootkit as their reason, which is why they threw their support behind an MS backed product, from the frying pan into the fire anyone?) and just made up their own reality.
Lets just hope the PS3 doesn't become a success after all, crow is not part of a healthy diet.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I am a special features addict which is why I chose HD-DVD. I can imagine some people are going to be pissed when they can't play a "BonusView" or "BD Live" disc down the road. Either way this is kind of a tempest in a teapot when you compare HD disc sales to DVD.
If you don't care why post an off topic rant?
There will be a day when new movies won't be available on DVD. Then you will care, and will have to make sure your new PC had the right kind of drive to play them. That day is a ways off though.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Strangely enough, I haven't found a good use for PiP in the 20 or so years my tv's have had them. Two football games at once are unwatchable, even on my 50" plasma. I think you are confusing product superiority with "laundry list of useless features".
I apologize if I sound like a philistine, but why would I want my next-gen disc player to connect to the internet?
Why can't you do that with Blu-Ray?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If all you want to do is watch the movie then yes it's useless to you. I loved how they did the PiP on the HD-DVD version of 300 showing before and after shots. I love the idea that commentary can now have video to go with it. Also, the menuing system is faster on current HD-DVD players than BR players, even the PS3. The BD Java is a piece of slow crap.
"Well you get 5 free Blu-ray movies when you buy a PS3" => I believe HD-DVD Players have a similar promotion as well, and so HD-DVD Players' attach rate should be at around that rate as well, isn't it? So how come it isn't? Stop deluding yourself that everyone else other than Toshiba/Microsoft are lying.
Sheer frickin poetry-
Not all it's cracked up to be.
To win the format wars, you see,
You'll need some frickin sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads
"He Who Dares Wins"
Ba-dum-bump!
Thank you, I'm here all week.
Try the veal.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
You could create a site that pushed rifftracks to your system while playing a movie, you can look up info about the movie in your PiP window, you culd create movies that are dynamic. Maybe the ending changes, maybe it's hooked into current events, maybe that can after market add new languages.
There are many things this could be used for.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I kinda feel like it wasn't the Warner Bros. announcement that did it, but more the reaction by the geek community to it. After the announcement, pretty much everyone in the geek community who cared immediately declared Bluray the winner. To me, this had way more impact than the loss of Warner Bros. Because it causes a chain reaction of "information" being spread all over the internet how HD-DVD is dead. So now, when consumers try to do some research on HD-DVD they find blogs and articles all saying Bluray is the winner. I would also imagine that this also effected sales reps in places like BestBuy where you have pseudo geek employees repeating all stuff they read on the internet to there customers.
All in all, this is a formula for a runaway sales drop in HD-DVD. Which to be honest, I am happy about, I _want_ there to be a winner (though I wish Sony didn't benefit from it...). But now I am getting to the point where I don't feel a purchase would potentially be for the losing format.
So in the end, I think that enough people said it was happening to the point where it made it happen.
Well yeah, you're right. Sony won the war, if you see it in those terms, by heavily subsidizing PS3s and free movies. Now they get to pay for it.
The customer seems to have done nicely in the deal. Early adopters pay more and take a risk, but PS3 early adopters paid less thanks to Sony (and won over the risk). The prices of all players plummeted.
this isn't that bad. Sure, numbers got skewed around, but it was clear long, long ago, that the best HD-DVD could do is stretch this war out. It's been kinda obvious they could not win, so I'm not sure that the statistic skewing were that influential. If anything, they balanced eachother out.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
It could be because the cost of Blu-ray players and drives are coming down drastically. Right now, Blu-ray DVD-ROM drives are $200 on Newegg. and Wallyworld has Sony Blu-ray player for $350.
\
I guess no one used this thing. Sony is just like other companies that hit and miss on experimental consumer technology. After all Microsoft has its own pile of hardware (and software) failures as well. In Sony's favor though, they usually go with the invention route more often because they see current technology as not satisfying some feature they think new products need for new and untapped markets. I applaud them for the sentiment of invention but cringe when it makes the price of their new products outrageous.
Nope. Samsung just announced they are discontinuing their dual-format players. And there are no new ones being announced from anyone else. HDDVD is dying such a quick death there is really no reason to ever go forward with more dual format players. Its just going to be Blu-Ray.
Format wars? Is that a movie? How does it end, I haven't seen many new movies lately. I wait for them to come out on my Betamax machine.
Not a movie, a game. You have to convince other hardware manufacturers to join your consortium, decide how much to spend on buying the allegiance of content providers, and how much to discount your player. It'll probably never come out on your ColecoVision, though.
Nintendo announces WiiHD with a build in HD DVD drive.
Critics says it's just two Wii's strapped together with duct tape, and not a true next gen console.
You can. And do. A friend of mine just took delivery of a new PC today that has a Blu-Ray burner. BD has higher data capacities than HD-DVD, too, making it more cost effective in the long run.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
True, a regular DVD-ROM can only hold 4.7 GB of data, which works out to some 20 minutes. But to play your child's stellar performance in the nativity play at the church, 20 minutes is more than most people can stand such stuff. No need to wait for a home bluray burner or hd-dvd burner.
I am sure HD-DVD will play hi-def video that is encoded in some microsoft format. But presently no camcorder creates such files. The only other way to create hi-def content in HD-DVD is to rip and pirate other hi-def sources. Which is difficult with all that secure video path cruft from MSFT.
So personally I like blu-ray because I bought a HG10 Canon camcorder.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association
"Contributors are active participants of the format creation and other key BDA activities. They can be elected to become a member of the Board of Directors. A contributor can attend general meetings and seminars, and can participate in Technical Expert Groups (TEGs), regional Promotion Team activities, and most of the Compliance Committee (CC) activities. Membership requires execution of Contribution Agreement and must be approved by the Board of Directors. Annual fee: $ 20,000"
This is the list of Contributors:
The 65 Contributors as of December 2006 are [2]:
* Adobe Systems
* Almedio Inc.
* Alticast
* Aplix Corporation
* ArcSoft, Inc.
* ATI Technologies Inc.
* Atmel Corporation
* AudioDev AB
* Broadcom Corporation
* Canon Inc.
* CMC Magnetics Corporation
* Coding Technologies GmbH
* Cryptography Research Inc.
* CyberLink Corp.
* DATARIUS Technologies GmbH
* DCA Inc.
* Deluxe Media Services Inc.
* Dolby Laboratories Inc.
* DTS, Inc.
* Electronic Arts Inc.
* Esmertec
* Fuji Photo Film Co. Ltd.
* Fujitsu Ltd.
* Gibson Guitar Corp.
* Horizon Semiconductors
* Imation Corp.
* InterVideo Inc.
* Kenwood Corporation
* Lionsgate Entertainment
* LITE-ON IT Corporation
* LSI Logic
* MediaTek Inc.
* Meridian Audio Ltd.
* Metta Technology
* Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co.Ltd.
* Mitsui Chemicals Inc.
* Moser Baer India Limited
* NEC Electronics Corporation
* Nero AG
* Optodisc Technology Corporation
* Paramount Pictures/Viacom (exclusively supporting HD-DVD as of August 20th, 2007)
* Pixela Corporation
* Prodisc Technology Inc.
* Pulstec Industrial Co., Ltd.
* Ricoh Co., Ltd.
* RITEK Corporation
* ShibaSoku Co. Ltd.
* Sigma Designs Inc.
* Sonic Solutions
* Sonopress
* Sony BMG Music Entertainment
* Sony Pictures Entertainment (Columbia Pictures, Tristar Pictures Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer).,
* STMicroelectronics
* Sunext
* Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd.,
* Texas Instruments, Inc.
* Universal Music Group
* Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.
* Visionare Corporation
* Zentek Technology Japan, Inc.
* ZOOtech Ltd.
* Zoran Corporation
It's HD-DVD that was proprietary in this case.
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
No. Why? Because Blu-Ray and HD-DVD devices already play (and even upscale) DVD discs. It's not like VHS to DVD where the new devices couldn't play the old media.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
Toshiba just started the sale several days ago, first through Amazon and it just started trickling to the major electronics sales. Your figures don't account for the sale at all.
The NPD numbers published today (83:17) are for last week, the week Toshiba's sale started. For the entire week that HD-DVD players were supposedly selling like hotcakes, media sales were almost as bad as right after the Warner announcement.
I did point that out in my post you know.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Explain how HD-DVD was ever going to win, when they always had fewer studios, had worsae media sales the entire time the public could buy Blu-Ray (usually about 2.5:1 advantage to Blu-Ray), and the Blu-Ray format had millions more players going into homes with the PS3. You had fewer consumers, fewer movies, and the only advantage - cheaper hardware - was only going to last a year or two at best as economy of scale brought Blu-Ray prices down to HD-DVD player levels.
But they you aren't here for rational discussion, you're here because you're a bitter troll. Care to expand now on how HD media sales are unimportant because downloads are the wave of the future, set to overtake everything? That is the new meme you are pushing after all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The only fanboy here is you. I have a preference for what I'd like to see, but it isn't some sort of ridiculous, somewhat pathetic army that I've joined just because I bought a game machine
I have been promoting the benefits and obviousness of Blu-Ray winning for the past year. I bought a PS3 about two weeks ago. I did not have any other Blu-Ray player before then.
I just wanted to save people some grief. I would just as happily have backed HD-DVD if they were going to win, but thanks to actions from Toshiba and Microsoft that was not going to happen.
You are incredibly boring,
Then you must be quite dull to keep reading.
your points are brilliant gems like completely ignoring when Toshiba started their sale, correlating completely unmatched sales stats
You HD-DVD people have to be the absolutely most dense people on the planet. Please tell me how NPD figures from the week of the 13th-19th do not correlate to a sale Toshiba started on the 13th. This is something I have had to point out multiple times, but I fear that HD-DVD fanboyism has such a grip on your brain you probably can't even see those words.
Get back to your PS3 site and talk about how great the cell processor is.
I enjoy the PS3 but am part of no particular site or board discussiing it (indeed the only sites I frequent have generally a rather anti-Sony stance). That would be quite boring, and I have better things to do with my time such as point out the fallacies of ignorant fools like yourself for the good of all.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There are (AFAIK) two physical cassette-shell sizes used by Betacam. The original cassette shell is identical to Betamax, layout-wise.
In fact, cassettes for the original Betacam were effectively identical to Betamax ones (supposed manufacturing tolerances aside) and they used the same tape formulation. So far so good- however, even then, although the cassette layout and tape used were effectively identical, the recorded signal was *not* interchangable. In other words, the physical format of early Betacam tapes was identical to Betamax, but the recorded signal was incompatible.
Later improved versions of Betacam used metal-particle tape. Their recordings could be played back in older Betacam machines, but despite the identical layout, attempting to use them *at all* in a Betamax machine would damage the heads which were not physically designed for metal tape.
There are still newer, digital versions of Betacam. It goes without saying that regardless of whether the cassettes fit physically, the recorded signal will not be compatible with an old analogue Betamax recorder.
There also exists a larger Betacam cassette shell used with some versions- that won't fit at all!
In short, Betacam is derived from Betamax, and there are levels of physical compatibility between some of the cassettes. But that's as far as it goes- they're not the same, they're not 100% compatible, and they never were.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Physical media is dying.
The new HD-DVD scorched earth strategy - if their format can't win, then no format will!! (cue Predator like laugh)
The reality is that there is a mixture of formats people will own in the future, some online and some physical. My thoughts are that a lot of people will go for TV online, but if they are going to buy will buy physical discs - in part because history has shown that consumers follow the path of the most open format, and currently that is physical discs. I can load someone a Blu-ray disc. If a discs is damaged, I don't lose a hundred movies at once. And I can easily use a Blu-Ray disc across a variety of devices.
I actually don't think the HD media market will ever be quite as large as DVD because online media will eat a little into that share. But the very real shortcomings of online media for the forseeable future will leave physical media plenty of operating room. (It's still the case that you can't beat the bandwidth of a station wagon loaded with physical media).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because Sony picked Blu-Ray.
But Sony was a competitor with a huge amount of money, many other companies backing the format, and also itself a huge movie studio in a format war all about movies.
The HD-DVD side had a loose consortium of Microsoft and Toshiba and Universal, with only Toshiba having much skin in the game. On top of that Sony had history of Betamax to learn from, and learn well they did. Toshiba is actually following the path of betamax quite closely making all the same tactical blunders.
So Sony picking Blu-Ray, right away gave that format an advantage over HD-DVD even before other choices were made. Sony Movies would put out more great titles because they had more motivation than Universal which was only dabbling in releasing the most popular titles. After all, they could always switch if things didn't work out. A lot harder for Sony execs to think that way since the head of Sony would have their hide to not strategically support Blu-Ray.
It just goes to show that a motivated force with tighter integration will always win out over a discombobulated opponent in the end.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
BRD is the last of the breed and it will increasingly compete with online purchases. I imagine that BRD will never achieve the success of DVD just because of this factor. Unless that Japanese super high def comes here soon.
In the week in question, HD-DVD players were just coming off of a special, while they were giving away Blu-Ray players with purchase of HD TVs, and these free Blu-Ray players were counted in the total? Lying with statistics- it's done all the time. Don't drink the Kool-aid!
I think any prenouncements of a death knell for a recording medium - BluRay or HD-DVD - that people really don't need until they buy a 1080p HDTV that has a screen LARGER than 42 inches are ... a little premature.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
No, they announced they're discontinuing a particular model of dual format player (the BDP-UP5000). The new model they demoed at CES (the BDP-UP5500) is still coming to market. Word is that the Broadcom reference design the earlier model was based on was fairly craptastic, with tons of disc compatability issues and poor support for high definition audio.
Simple reason - because if you count PS3s then you should also count HD DVD ROM drives in PCs and Laptops, which are NEVER counted in these numbers.
There are more laptops and PCs on the market with HD DVD ROM drives than PS3s in the market.
Ah the "tax" rumor in regards to the PS2 Linux kit, which is false, shows up again. To put things straight, it was Yabasic that was released for the PS2 in EU that was the attempt to evade it, not the Linux kit, which was released after the tax had been abolished.
Ah, thanks for putting me straight on that one. I'm glad I added "IIRC" and "AFAIK" :)
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
LOL (btw, you may remember me for such roles as regeya on kuro5hin.org)
I got an HD DVD player. Was going to take it back when less than a week after I bought it WB caught everyone in the HD DVD camp flat-footed at the begining of CES, but it earned a place on my rack--for now--for being a great upscaler. Better than the TV, at least, and better than other units I've tried. I really don't have huge plans to buy loads of HD DVD discs, though.
If you look at the numbers for before Christmas, Blu was outselling HD DVD (which is to say, it was 60% of 2% of the home movie market--whoopty fucking doo for both sides) and studio support was kinda divided 50-50 with Fox mulling over HD DVD and Warner planning to follow their lead.
So no, it wasn't THAT insulting, in all seriousness, but in hindsight, LOL
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Is it yours?
Pragmatic hardware review my arse. "the PS3 has been a failure for Sony from a gaming marketshare perspective"
Sorry, I know how much people wish this were true but it's nonsense. PS3 outsells XBox in Europe now.
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=174190
Sony are doing really rather well. The fact that BluRay is part of the PS3 and now the leading format for Hi Def movies is a combination that's just going to keep getting sweeter for them.
Guess you won't be buying a Blu-Ray player either, then, since the same WMV tech that's in HD DVD players is in Blu-Ray players.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Yeah, my prediction is that BD manufacturers are going to have to follow Toshiba's lead and do the deep discounts just to get their foot in the door. Otherwise, we'll see DVD hang in there for a long while yet. I mean, it doesn't take much arithmetic before the average person feels like an idiot for considering BD right now.
My guess is that if they kill off HD DVD dead in a hurry, by Christmas BD manufacturers are going to be saying, "oh crap oh crap oh CRAP what do we do NOW???" and that thing they'll do is the same desperate cuts that Toshiba made this past Christmas. And it'll work; look up eproductwars' listing on HD DVD vs Blu-Ray and you'll see that HD DVD was (barely) pulling ahead from Thanksgiving to the time of WB's announcement.
Either way, the winning camp has a much larger battle ahead. 93% of whatever small percentage high-def discs have is still a small percentage; don't roll out the barrels yet.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
and one to go.
The only reason blue is winning is because Sony is using Money and Incentives to lure Company's to go Blue... The war is not going to be won by consumer choice but by the monopolization of these Studios & retailers (Blockbuster)rentals... Blue-ray isn't any more superior then HD... (Vid/Sound quality) I have a blue-ray and HD player, i have had a few problems with blue and none with HD. HD has better support and far better players. HD is cheaper to manufacture & players, and is a simpler format. Video/Sound quality should be the same on blue and HD, but is based on how well the company's that do the hd transfer, i feel that HD in most cases does a better job at doing this. So What that blue has more capacity, blue and HD don't use any more then 25-30g of space on their discs. King Kong on HD is 182mins long. HD has a nice feature with there HD-DVD combo disks. HD has Ethernet connections. Dont get me wrong i like Sony and they do make good products (I own some), But it doesn't mean their God... I just don't like the way they are going about winning this format war by forcing us to choose a format and not by letting us make our own decision ??? If blue wins i bet you will see higher player and movies prices...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_Forum ...
OK, I got a PS3 just after they started making the 80GB model. I bought it primarily as a game system (mainly because I like the PS controller. It's just personal preference, don't kill me.) After about a week I removed the DVD player from the entertainment center and have just been using the PS3 for all of my non-PC media needs (also have most of my music moved over now.)
I am really surprised how fast the thing became the default media player in the living room. My wife loves it because she can watch movies, play music, watch Youtube and do a bit of light web surfing without changing the video/audio settings on the stereo or TV (something she hated.)
It does a fine job of playing both DVD and blu-ray movies. We can keep using our existing DVD collection (we are heavily invested in the format with over 3000 discs) and also have the option to watch Blu-ray discs. We have not bought any Blu-ray discs and only own the free ones that came with the system, but we have been renting alot of them from blockbuster. We do the whole Blockbuster online thing instead of Netflix because you get the free in-store rentals with your mail rentals. We only rent new releases from the store and tend to go every Tuesday. Alot of the time the movies we like (you know the ones that make you think or have less than 1 fart joke per minute) are already rented on DVD by the time we make it to the store. so, we have been getting the movies on blu-ray instead as these are more often still on the shelves (our blockbuster stores rent blu-ray exclusively. I do not know if this is a nationwide policy. It is also odd that they do not rent PS3 games.)
So, after a few months of owning a PS3 I think that I will probably be pretty happy with the Blu-ray format.
Another thing that most people don't seem to be talking about is the fact that as far a Sony is concerned Blu-ray disc sales are not necessarily tied to movie sales. The game discs for the PS3 are ALL Blu-ray, even stuff that doesn't need to be. Oblivion is a good example. The PC DVD has about 8GB or so on it. It would have fit on a DVD for the PS3 as well, but it's on a BD instead. All of the movie sales could go away and Sony would still have a market for the BD discs (they would not be very happy as they would have to pay the rest of the Blu-ray group for the use of the tech, but they would still be selling millions of the discs as long as the PS3 was still going. I don't think HD-DVD has this kind of alternate market going for it (I know they have PC(BTW when I say PC I mean personal computer, not Windows machine, I don't care what OS you use) drives, but the market for these must be pretty small.)
I trolled for years before I bothered to register as well...
As for the proper spelling, I'm sure I probably noticed it before and didn't think anything of it when I started this thread. I was likely typing in more of a stream-of-thought manner, and hence spelled "blue" the way that it would normally be spelled. Heck, I may have even let spell check correct me that time...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I see I raised the ire of a BR fanboy. It's not flamebait, it's the the truth. Good marketing can sink a superior product and raise and inferior one. The world is littered with examples of this.
It is the sale of movies on a format that drives its adoption and provides profits for the companies involved. I don't think you are seeing the big picture here. Your purchase of an HD DVD player with the intent to "rent" will mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. My purchase of close to 150 blu-ray titles in the period of 8 months on the other hand did count towards determining the victor in the war.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
I don't care if you waste your money on a dead format but I just don't want a lot of over consumers being led astray with FUD. Sony cannot change something without the approval of the BDA. Google the BDA yourself or look on wikipedia. I've been saying that people should check out the situation for themselves rather than relying on the opinions of others on slashdot.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Obviously you actually want Sony to fail very passionately. You should turn that passion to something worthwhile. there might be politicians on your town or drug dealers or something that deserve your hatred.
Nintendo is doing good things and making some money, but they could be doing a lot better and are not going to make the kind of money Sony makes, even with its screwups of late. The PS3 is situated to profit from large downloadable games, the Wii lacks a decent storage to do the same. The Ps3 will probably be renting movies, too. And the PS3 has won a (very conservatively) $15 billion format war. And all this time, Sony is making buckets of cash on the PS2 to offset a lot of the costs of the stumbling PS3.
Nintendo needs to learn: it's all about the games. It's offerings are few and not great, and the customers are proving it. In Japan, where the wii is outsold by the PS3, each wii attaches to 3 games (2 if you don't count wiisports). Pathetic. The PS2, which is making money long after the gamecube is dead, is a success that Sony deserves some credit for. They got arrogant, but they quickly regrouped and 2008 will see Home, Littlebigplanet, movies, DVRs, Skype, Metal Gear, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy. Without any of those things, Sony is still the worldwide revenue leader, and the PS3 is outselling the wii in many areas.
So yeah, Nintendo has done well, but could do better, and your expectations of the Playstation's demise are absurd. The PS2 profit model, to start at a loss and sell a lot of games, is the best model this industry has ever seen. There aren't anymore developers for Sony to pick off of Nintendo's third party corpse.