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NPD Group Says "Wait! HD-DVD Isn't Dead Yet"
The NPD group, owners of the not-quite-as-popular-as-they-had-hoped HD-DVD format, attempted to battle back against the tide of "naysayers" who claim that the format war is over and have declared Blu-Ray Disc the winner. "While select articles have implied that HD-DVD as a format is doomed and the sky is falling for the format's supporters, the NPD Group this afternoon reinforced that sales results from a single week do not necessarily indicate a trend, and that the week in question had several intriguing variables that have gone unreported."
The summary is partially incorrect. The NPD Group is a research firm, they do not own the HD-DVD format or anything close to it. The closest thing to HD-DVD's owners would be the DVD Forum, which is a consortium of companies.
The reason NPD is involved in this is because they are one of the big research firms for tracking sales data. NPD is the firm that released the earlier reporting talking about HD-DVD hardware sales slowing and this is a clarification of that. They are pointing out that one week's results can not be extrapolated to argue that HD-DVD is dying/dead like many people did, it's too short of a time period in a week with several unusual variables.
NPD group is not an owner of the HD-DVD format. They are just a bunch of market analysts who provide information to retailers. See their website : http://www.npd.com/corpServlet?nextpage=profile_s.html
There are two kind of people, those who win and those who whine
In the UK, I recall seeing this on the Beeb (six o'clock news) and I'm pretty sure Sky news. Mainstream media may be slow but something like this is quite major.
I'm trying to work out why the submitter thinks the NPD group has anything to do with HD DVD at all, let alone that they're the supporters. You appear to think the same thing. NPD is a market research firm. They, amongst other things, collect tallies of sales figures and pass this on to analysts and industry. They're complaining that various outlets misinterpreted their latest figures showing an immediate drop in HD DVD player sales just after the Warner announcement. One of those outlets was Slashdot, yesterday. They're not "supporters" of HD DVD, any more than they're "supporters" of Blu-ray.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I agree both formats are probably dead, but not for the reasons you state:
Here's the more probable reason why both formats will likely fail:
The studios are largely backing Blu-ray. That means HD DVD will likely fail unless Toshiba can get a hell of a lot of players out in the next six months.
Blu-ray cannot succeed either. The players are expensive and unlikely to come down in price. Most of the players on shelves right now are obsolete. The only player worth getting is the PS3. The PS3 is sufficiently powerful enough that the upcoming changes to the Blu-ray spec are just a matter of updating the firmware. Many standalone Blu-ray players have no internet connectivity (required for recent Blu-ray spec changes), and nothing like enough storage capacity.
HD DVD, interestingly, doesn't have this issue. Much of the recent revisions to Blu-ray have to do with bringing it up to spec in capabilities to HD DVD. But the studios seem to be going Blu-ray. So it doesn't matter.
I don't think consumers are going to go for either. For Blu-ray to take off, it needs cheap players - sub-$200 before there's any chance of mass market starting to take off, with sub-$100 players to truly achieve DVD-like penetration. it certainly isn't going to work with $300-500 players that you already know you'll need to replace within the year. That'll piss people off, especially when they start playing DVDs and HD discs back to back and notice that the visual quality they paid $300 for isn't that dramatic after all. Oh, sure, 2001 and Blade Runner look awesome. But anything action based isn't, and who cares if a romantic comedy is high definition?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Except that by buying HD-DVD player you get cheap upscaling DVD player that can play HD discs as a bonus.
Not much bravery required. It's not like the player stops working if some studio stops supporting it.
HD-DVD was a format that mediated between the needs of consumers and media companies. Blu-ray is designed entirely and only for media companies (what do you know - Sony also has a significant media arm...can't see any problem with that?) My original assertion still stands. He has never ripped a copy of HD DVD. Your article was from 2005, stating they wanted to support managed copy. As of yet nothing exists to do this.
Managed Copy?
No Managed copy now?
Both may get Managed Copy?
Still not here
Managed copy? Not right now.
basically it does not yet exist but both camps proclaim it will happen someday. I'm sure it will because the day hackers breech the protection schemes in a complete and easy to use way managed copy will be right there. Until theyn it'll be "out later this year", "soon", "out key feature we intent to implement". So basically you're just full of shit, but decided to add you "wisdom" regardless. Umm.. hmmm... I think someone needs to do some more research.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
"An undecided buyer would have to be pretty brave to bet on HD-DVD at this point."
Why is that? You can get an HD-DVD player now with 7 films for the same price as 7 bluray films without a player here in the UK. The Bluray player costs an extra £250 on top so that's a pretty big difference for now. Even if HD-DVDs stop being produced you've still got 7 high def films and a nice upscaling DVD player.
Even if HD-DVD is dead, the current deal on Toshiba's low end player is hard to argue against because you don't actually lose anything by going for the offer, but you gain arguably the cheapest entry option into true HD content.
It's one of those things you can buy if you're interested in high def and win or lose, it doesn't really matter. Even when the system eventually dies if HD-DVD is gone then you'll have still got a nice life out of it and the free DVDs will be cheap enough to re-buy in another format for a couple of £ or so if you liked them enough. It'll probably also be enough to keep you going until Bluray drives become more reasonably priced even if you rent movies.
Essentially the current cost of Toshiba's HD-DVD drive and the free HD-DVDs can act as a no-risk bridge for those wanting high-def content but not being willing to buy a Bluray drive right now.