Blu Tide Continues to Turn: Porn Studios Ready to Abandon HD-DVD?

[Woochifer]

HD-DVD's uphill battle seems to get steeper and steeper as the news stacks up.

Wow, not too long ago, the HD-DVD proponents were declaring that porn would turn the tide against Blu-ray, arguing that porn helped VHS get over on Betamax. Given how the sales trends have gone (i.e., Blu-ray outselling HD-DVD every week in 2007), that has not happened. Even though a lot has been written about Sony not accepting Blu-ray duplicating jobs for porn titles, porn titles have already gone out on Blu-ray, so some other duplicating houses are accepting the porn jobs.

Well, now it turns out that porn studios are seeing the market shifts and might be ready to abandon HD-DVD. Apparently, the talk at the AVN porn convention (which overlaps CES) centered on studios abandoning HD-DVD. Digital Playground, purportedly the leading HD porn distributor, is apparently set to drop HD-DVD by the end of the year.

http://www.i4u.com/article14003.html

Other not-so-favorable signs for HD-DVD have also cropped up.

Aside from the persistent rumors about Universal and Paramount, Warner has already taken a subtle but significant step back in its HD-DVD support. While they have not dropped previously announced titles (a la Paramount), they have begun to stagger the HD-DVD releases while retaining concurrent release dates for the DVD and Blu-ray versions. For example, I Am Legend is due out on DVD and Blu-ray on March 18, while the HD-DVD version will not come out until "early April." Also, Twister: Special Edition comes out May 6 on DVD and Blu-ray, while the HD-DVD version hits stores three weeks later on May 27.

Also, a Home Media article refers to a preliminary tabulation of last week's Nielson sales data. Again, not a good sign for HD-DVD. Apparently, last week's sales figures show HD-DVD with only a 15% market share of HD discs. This is significant because 1) last week was the first full sales week after Warner's announcement; and 2) this is the biggest one-week sales lead that Blu-ray has had.

If this holds up in the final tabulation, then it's safe to say that the Warner announcement has already reverberated down to the retail level, in effect stopping HD-DVD sales cold. If consumers have already stopped purchasing HD-DVDs, then it won't take long before retailers begin phasing out their HD-DVD sections (if they haven't already). At that point, it won't matter what Toshiba, Paramount, and Universal decide on HD-DVD, the retailers and consumers will have already made the decision for them.

[GMichael]

Porn? Now you're talking downloading-R-us.
But yet another domino is falling.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

HD-DVD's uphill battle seems to get steeper and steeper as the news stacks up.

Wow, not too long ago, the HD-DVD proponents were declaring that porn would turn the tide against Blu-ray, arguing that porn helped VHS get over on Betamax. Given how the sales trends have gone (i.e., Blu-ray outselling HD-DVD every week in 2007), that has not happened. Even though a lot has been written about Sony not accepting Blu-ray duplicating jobs for porn titles, porn titles have already gone out on Blu-ray, so some other duplicating houses are accepting the porn jobs.

Well, now it turns out that porn studios are seeing the market shifts and might be ready to abandon HD-DVD. Apparently, the talk at the AVN porn convention (which overlaps CES) centered on studios abandoning HD-DVD. Digital Playground, purportedly the leading HD porn distributor, is apparently set to drop HD-DVD by the end of the year.

http://www.i4u.com/article14003.html

Other not-so-favorable signs for HD-DVD have also cropped up.

Aside from the persistent rumors about Universal and Paramount, Warner has already taken a subtle but significant step back in its HD-DVD support. While they have not dropped previously announced titles (a la Paramount), they have begun to stagger the HD-DVD releases while retaining concurrent release dates for the DVD and Blu-ray versions. For example, I Am Legend is due out on DVD and Blu-ray on March 18, while the HD-DVD version will not come out until "early April." Also, Twister: Special Edition comes out May 6 on DVD and Blu-ray, while the HD-DVD version hits stores three weeks later on May 27.

Also, a Home Media article refers to a preliminary tabulation of last week's Nielson sales data. Again, not a good sign for HD-DVD. Apparently, last week's sales figures show HD-DVD with only a 15% market share of HD discs. This is significant because 1) last week was the first full sales week after Warner's announcement; and 2) this is the biggest one-week sales lead that Blu-ray has had.

If this holds up in the final tabulation, then it's safe to say that the Warner announcement has already reverberated down to the retail level, in effect stopping HD-DVD sales cold. If consumers have already stopped purchasing HD-DVDs, then it won't take long before retailers begin phasing out their HD-DVD sections (if they haven't already). At that point, it won't matter what Toshiba, Paramount, and Universal decide on HD-DVD, the retailers and consumers will have already made the decision for them.

I am going to leak something here, but I can. I have strong word within the BDA itself that a certain very large big box store will be going blu as well. The deal is not inked yet, but I hear after the Warner announcement, negotiations got quite a bit more positive.

[GMichael]

I am going to leak something here, but I can. I have strong word within the BDA itself that a certain very large big box store will be going blu as well. The deal is not inked yet, but I hear after the Warner announcement, negotiations got quite a bit more positive.

I'm betting on Wally world. I haven't seen a single HD-DVD player in their store since the big $99 blow out.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Blu light specials!!!

Get it? :biggrin5:

[pixelthis]

Blu light specials!!!

Get it? :biggrin5:

Thats what I'm waiting for.
I actually went into Circuit to get a Sony Blu, but they said the sale was off, so I told them
I would wait.
If its over for porn as far as HD is concerned, thats it, nobody likes to admit it but porn is a
major driving force for any new format, the slow adoption of porn in the laser format is what killed it.
The British have an expression, "tits up" for something thats dead, a saying that certainly seems apropo in more ways than one in this situation:1:

[Ajani]

Ok.... I can't believe I'm sticking my foot in a format war thread... but here goes:

Isn't the biggest threat to either format not each other or even traditional DVD, but downloadable content?

I think both HD DVD and Blu Ray shoud be sweating now that Apple TV will be allowing consumers to buy/rent HD Movies from the comfort of their sofa. And I don't think apple wiil be the last company to provide such a service... I really think that downloads are in and physical media is on the slow crawl out (or at least to a niche market, much like vinyl)... I don't think the current MP3/4 generation is really that interested in a stack of optical discs lying around the sofa when they can just have it all stored in a tiny box attached to the tv...

As for porn.... I don't think it really matters whether HD DVD or Blu Ray adopts/doesn't adopt porn anymore... that was a major sales driver in the 80s but far less so now.... Yes porn viewing will and probably always will be a massive market, but I strongly suspect that most of the porn consumed today is downloaded/streamed (whether paid for or pirated)...

[GMichael]

AND............
WE'RE OFF...

HD-DVD takes the early lead....
Blu-Ray is coming up fast...
Downloads are threatening...

HD stumbles..
Blu takes the lead...
Downloads still trailing...

HD buys off one of the judges and pulls ahead again...
Blu stays steady...
Downloads fighting with a flicker...

HD!
Blu-Ray!
Downloads!

HD stumbles again!
Blu runs it down and kicks it on the way...
Downloads move past HD.

Blu-Ray!
Downloads!
HD trailing off...

Dust is everywhere!
Who can see who's ahead?
It's..
It's...











To be continued.

[nightflier]

Wooch,

I thought that this wasn't the porn industry's choice. Wasn't it Sony that played the prude card and said no smut on our disks? I know there are loopholes, but if Sony holds to that line, then porn may be without a hi def home - viagra for the proponents of downloading, if you ask me.

And I know, it's been said, but I just don't see people wanting their smut in hi-def. I'm guessing that most porn is "consumed" by single people who aren't really about enjoying it on a big screen with an audience. This is really one type on content that lends itself ideally to a digital, compressed, small-screen medium and not hi-def.

Maybe it would be in the BR consortium's interest to relax it's conservative stance and allow porn on it's disks, just to stem the tide to the online alternative....

[Woochifer]

I thought that this wasn't the porn industry's choice. Wasn't it Sony that played the prude card and said no smut on our disks? I know there are loopholes, but if Sony holds to that line, then porn may be without a hi def home - viagra for the proponents of downloading, if you ask me.

All that Sony said was that they would not accept any adults only jobs at their Blu-ray replicating facilities, which is nothing more than an extension of a long-standing policy that they have had in place for their DVD replicating lines. Sony's not the only Blu-ray replicator out there, and Sony exercises no control over what duplicating jobs the other Blu-ray replicators take. Apparently, plenty of HD porn titles have already rolled out on Blu-ray, so there's no shortage of takers out there.

How this got twisted into a "no porn on Blu-ray; porn on HD-DVD will win the format war just like VHS beat Betamax because of porn" story is just another example of how facts get bent when viewed through fanboi lenses.


And I know, it's been said, but I just don't see people wanting their smut in hi-def. I'm guessing that most porn is "consumed" by single people who aren't really about enjoying it on a big screen with an audience. This is really one type on content that lends itself ideally to a digital, compressed, small-screen medium and not hi-def.

Maybe it would be in the BR consortium's interest to relax it's conservative stance and allow porn on it's disks, just to stem the tide to the online alternative....

Nothing to do with a conservative stances, porn on Blu-ray is already out there and apparently outselling the HD-DVD versions. Whether or not people want to actually see porn in HD is another story altogether.

[L.J.]

I'm betting on Wally world. I haven't seen a single HD-DVD player in their store since the big $99 blow out.

I'm thinking Best Buy. The 2 near me has gone from 50/50 to 70/30 shelf space in favor of Bluray.

[Woochifer]

Ok.... I can't believe I'm sticking my foot in a format war thread... but here goes:

Isn't the biggest threat to either format not each other or even traditional DVD, but downloadable content?

Why can't you believe it? Here you are.

As I've pointed out several times, downloadable content does not threaten disc media so long as the files themselves are locked down with usage limitations and expiration dates. With those limits in place, downloads are nothing more than an extension of the PPV, VOD, and rental markets. The DVD has turned the home video market into a purchase-driven market, where consumers expect to keep the content that they purchase and have unlimited access.


I think both HD DVD and Blu Ray shoud be sweating now that Apple TV will be allowing consumers to buy/rent HD Movies from the comfort of their sofa. And I don't think apple wiil be the last company to provide such a service... I really think that downloads are in and physical media is on the slow crawl out (or at least to a niche market, much like vinyl)... I don't think the current MP3/4 generation is really that interested in a stack of optical discs lying around the sofa when they can just have it all stored in a tiny box attached to the tv...

And how different is Apple TV from any of the other PPV and VOD options currently available? There is a measure of selection and convenience that Apple adds to the market, but fundamentally they are not all that different from services that are already on the market.

Remember who holds the keys to the content -- the studios. Disc media is a high margin, low cost product with an established distribution network. Downloads are an unproven market, with lower revenue per transaction and a Balkanized distribution network with separate deals and conditions having to be negotiated with each distributor. Apple is a significant player in this market, but they're a big fish in a little pond. The 24-hour viewing limit on their new Apple TV movie downloads is an indication that they currently hold little sway with the studios, otherwise why would Apple agree to these kinds of restrictions? Until downloading can demonstrate much greater revenue potential, the studios will continue to give priority to retail sell-through products.

As far as the "tiny boxes" go, how many movies can an Apple TV unit store? In high def, an 80 GB unit will run out of space in a hurry. If consumers have to keep deleting movies in order to watch new ones, then this is no substitute for a "stack of optical discs" since those "tiny boxes" would only place a very short stack of those optical discs.

[Ajani]

Why can't you believe it? Here you are.

lol


As I've pointed out several times, downloadable content does not threaten disc media so long as the files themselves are locked down with usage limitations and expiration dates. With those limits in place, downloads are nothing more than an extension of the PPV, VOD, and rental markets. The DVD has turned the home video market into a purchase-driven market, where consumers expect to keep the content that they purchase and have unlimited access

And how different is Apple TV from any of the other PPV and VOD options currently available? There is a measure of selection and convenience that Apple adds to the market, but fundamentally they are not all that different from services that are already on the market.

Remember who holds the keys to the content -- the studios. Disc media is a high margin, low cost product with an established distribution network. Downloads are an unproven market, with lower revenue per transaction and a Balkanized distribution network with separate deals and conditions having to be negotiated with each distributor. Apple is a significant player in this market, but they're a big fish in a little pond. The 24-hour viewing limit on their new Apple TV movie downloads is an indication that they currently hold little sway with the studios, otherwise why would Apple agree to these kinds of restrictions? Until downloading can demonstrate much greater revenue potential, the studios will continue to give priority to retail sell-through products.


Agreed, but I am looking at the format war as being very long term as it will take years for a new standard to emerge. I don't expect usage limitations to be a long term issue - just take the recent trend towards non-DRM tracks on i-tunes... most likely the studios will just charge premiums for content without limitations....

Right now Apple TV may only be a rental site for HD and hence just like VOD or PPV but I suspect they will move towards actual sales just as they do with music.

Also, Expiration dates are only for rentals, so it won't be an issue with purchased content...




As far as the "tiny boxes" go, how many movies can an Apple TV unit store? In high def, an 80 GB unit will run out of space in a hurry. If consumers have to keep deleting movies in order to watch new ones, then this is no substitute for a "stack of optical discs" since those "tiny boxes" would only place a very short stack of those optical discs.

I think they have 40 and 160 GB units :)

Seriously though, you should keep in mind one other factor when talking about storage - downloaded content is not limited to the apple tv unit... it has wireless access to your computer and network storage devices.... so you can add as much storage as you want... And in-line with my long term theme, storage becomes less of an issue each year as hard-drives get larger and cheaper....

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

lol




Agreed, but I am looking at the format war as being very long term as it will take years for a new standard to emerge. I don't expect usage limitations to be a long term issue - just take the recent trend towards non-DRM tracks on i-tunes... most likely the studios will just charge premiums for content without limitations....

This format war is pretty much through now. Before the end of the year all the studio will be selling movies on bluray disc. I can tell you right now and this is a fact. Paramount is going neutral SOONER than you think. Universal may not make a move until the fall, but Paramount has essentially gotten out of its exclusive clause with the Warner move.

You will not see MOVIE content without DRM for a long while. The studio are much too deep in a piracy mindset, that I believe the trend will be toward more DRM than less. Consider the fact that BR disc are locked down with already compromised AACS, uncracked BD+, and BD watermark. The studio are just too paranoid about releasing content unlock. Unlike music, the value of film has a very long life.



Right now Apple TV may only be a rental site for HD and hence just like VOD or PPV but I suspect they will move towards actual sales just as they do with music.

It will be quite a while before the sales of downloads becomes feasible. Unlike a disc, downloads cannot be transferred between devices even after it is sold. You can play a bluray disc on any bluray player. Secondly the business stinks right now, as Google, Walmart and another download business(cannot remember the name) have all closed or gone under trying to sell downloads. A feasible business model just is not there, especially as long as discs are being sold. Remember, the culture has been buy and own since the late nineties. It isn't going to change in two years. It is going to be a while before the average person is going to be comfortable paying for downloaded non physical files.



Also, Expiration dates are only for rentals, so it won't be an issue with purchased content...

Yes, but non portability will be an issue.




Seriously though, you should keep in mind one other factor when talking about storage - downloaded content is not limited to the apple tv unit... it has wireless access to your computer and network storage devices.... so you can add as much storage as you want... And in-line with my long term theme, storage becomes less of an issue each year as hard-drives get larger and cheaper....

This really is not where the culture is at. Survey after survey the Hollywood studios have conducted shows that the public is still attached to the disc for its convience. You pull it out of the case, put it into the player, and press play. The public is not ready to maintian alot of primary drives and backup drives to keep their collections managed. Putting a Bluray disc on a shelf is much more manageable to most folks at this moment. This will change in the future as young people(who use computers from birth) become adults and bring the culture shift with them. We are just not at that threshold just yet.

[Ajani]

..... Putting a Bluray disc on a shelf is much more manageable to most folks at this moment. This will change in the future as young people(who use computers from birth) become adults and bring the culture shift with them. We are just not at that threshold just yet.

Agreed.... I expect the sale of discs to continue for many years... but eventually downloads will win out...

Also.... I'm not sure how important Blu Ray conquering HD-DVD actually will be... I still see this war much like the SACD vs DVD-A war.... pretty much going nowhere... Both SACD and DVD-A have become niche market products and neither are likely to ever replace the redbook CD as the optical disc standard.... Even if Blu Ray totally annihilates HD-DVD this year, I doubt it will be able to overtake traditional DVDs as the new standard (not unless it manages to sell both players and discs at the exact same price as standard dvds)....

[Woochifer]

Agreed, but I am looking at the format war as being very long term as it will take years for a new standard to emerge. I don't expect usage limitations to be a long term issue - just take the recent trend towards non-DRM tracks on i-tunes... most likely the studios will just charge premiums for content without limitations....

Terrence already addressed most of these issues. Within a few years, we'll know whether Blu-ray supplants the DVD format. I doubt that the download market will have taken off by that point. It's naive to think that the movie studios will take the locks off of their content if sell-through products remain their most profitable niche.

I would add that the video market has a very different orientation than the audio market. Audio has been evolving towards increasing mobility and portability for the better part of 50 years. MP3s, iPods, etc. are simply the latest incarnation of a process that began with the successive introductions of portable record players, car audio systems, boomboxes, Walkmans, cassette players, and 8-tracks.

Video by its nature does not demand portability. If you look at the current trends, it's dominated by increased screen sizes and resolution. Hardly the push towards mobility that you see on the audio side, where the iPod dominates.


I think they have 40 and 160 GB units :)

And even 160 GB can only displace a very limited number of discs when we're talking about HD. Consider that a Blu-ray disc holds about 50 GB, so that Apple TV either has to dial up the compression (and compromise the video quality), or compromise the audio quality (which they already do, as Apple TV is only now getting into 5.1 audio), or eliminate the bonus features (which they already do).


Seriously though, you should keep in mind one other factor when talking about storage - downloaded content is not limited to the apple tv unit... it has wireless access to your computer and network storage devices.... so you can add as much storage as you want... And in-line with my long term theme, storage becomes less of an issue each year as hard-drives get larger and cheaper....

But, if the content has to be registered to a playback device (like all other VOD, PPV, and other downloaded content is required to), then it won't matter how big a hard drive you have if there's no easy and open path to get that stored content over to your TV, unless you have a computer hooked up to it.

You say this is long-term, and I agree. But, I think the time frame for any kind of online setup to replace disc media goes beyond Blu-ray's shelf life.


Also.... I'm not sure how important Blu Ray conquering HD-DVD actually will be... I still see this war much like the SACD vs DVD-A war.... pretty much going nowhere... Both SACD and DVD-A have become niche market products and neither are likely to ever replace the redbook CD as the optical disc standard.... Even if Blu Ray totally annihilates HD-DVD this year, I doubt it will be able to overtake traditional DVDs as the new standard (not unless it manages to sell both players and discs at the exact same price as standard dvds)....

The tired comparisons between Blu-ray/HD-DVD and SACD/DVD-A do not apply for one critical reason -- the movie studios are solidly behind HD disc media, whereas the record companies' support for DVD-A and SACD was tepid at best. The movie studios have been scheduling concurrent day-and-date releases for their major DVD and Blu-ray/HD-DVD titles, while the record companies issued hardly any SACDs or DVD-As at the same time as the CDs. Studio support is crucial, and given how DVD sales fell for the first time last year, the studios are looking to recoup DVD sales losses by transitioning consumers to Blu-ray as quickly as possible.

I think the DVD transition will occur as people replace their old DVD players with combo Blu-ray players. Once Blu-ray players dip below $200, then the sales will pick up and at that point I think demand for Blu-ray will pick up for new releases.

[Ajani]

I would add that the video market has a very different orientation than the audio market. Audio has been evolving towards increasing mobility and portability for the better part of 50 years. MP3s, iPods, etc. are simply the latest incarnation of a process that began with the successive introductions of portable record players, car audio systems, boomboxes, Walkmans, cassette players, and 8-tracks.

Video by its nature does not demand portability. If you look at the current trends, it's dominated by increased screen sizes and resolution. Hardly the push towards mobility that you see on the audio side, where the iPod dominates.

While I agree with the comments about increasing screen sizes and resolutions being the trend in video... keep in mind that all of these increases in sizes and res have come hand in hand with decreasing costs each year... 2 years ago a 52 inch lcd projection tv and most 32 inch LCDS were selling for around $2K, now they can be had for around $1k (the new models, not used ones!). The audio market has not been nearly as advanced in pushing higher quality products at lower prices (quite possibly because audio companies often use a 5 year shelf life for their products while TV models are upgraded every year OR the audio companies are just greedy and lazy).


You say this is long-term, and I agree. But, I think the time frame for any kind of online setup to replace disc media goes beyond Blu-ray's shelf life.

That is possible, since blu-ray has already been around for a few years and if it fails to supplant standard dvds, then its shelf life may be even shorter...



The tired comparisons between Blu-ray/HD-DVD and SACD/DVD-A do not apply for one critical reason -- the movie studios are solidly behind HD disc media, whereas the record companies' support for DVD-A and SACD was tepid at best. The movie studios have been scheduling concurrent day-and-date releases for their major DVD and Blu-ray/HD-DVD titles, while the record companies issued hardly any SACDs or DVD-As at the same time as the CDs. Studio support is crucial, and given how DVD sales fell for the first time last year, the studios are looking to recoup DVD sales losses by transitioning consumers to Blu-ray as quickly as possible.

I think the DVD transition will occur as people replace their old DVD players with combo Blu-ray players. Once Blu-ray players dip below $200, then the sales will pick up and at that point I think demand for Blu-ray will pick up for new releases.

While I see the relevance of studio support and agree that the new video formats have far more studio support than the audio formats have, I think they KEY factor is the consumer and not the studios.... Blu-Ray/HD-DVD are still luxury products (since dvd is still much cheaper).... Studios can push an expensive format all they want, but it doesn't mean anything unless the customers are willing to purchase it....

I agree wholeheartedly with the point about players dropping below $200 increasing sales... but keep in mind that consumers (not all, but a very significant portion) like lower prices... so as I've said before... when HD format sell for the price of regular dvd products then they can easily take over the dvd market (as long as they accomplish that before downloads take off).

The Trend in video is a good one and hopefully will continue: better reslolution and larger scale at decreasing prices - once Blu-Ray and HD-DVD catch up with this trend (lower prices) then they may have a chance to supplant DVD before downloads takes over the market.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

While I agree with the comments about increasing screen sizes and resolutions being the trend in video... keep in mind that all of these increases in sizes and res have come hand in hand with decreasing costs each year... 2 years ago a 52 inch lcd projection tv and most 32 inch LCDS were selling for around $2K, now they can be had for around $1k (the new models, not used ones!). The audio market has not been nearly as advanced in pushing higher quality products at lower prices (quite possibly because audio companies often use a 5 year shelf life for their products while TV models are upgraded every year OR the audio companies are just greedy and lazy).

Television technology marches forward, and as it does, prices come down. As consumers buy up these things like hot cakes, the forces of economy of scale kicks in. The Walkman portable cassette and CD players benefitted from this. The video world has benefitted from this with each successive format that has come out. Whether you are taling televisions, DVD or bluray players. This only works if the industry is healthy, and the music industry is not very healthy right now. You are correct in two areas. The record companies are greedy, and that greed is fueling alot of fear, and they do use a 5 year shelf life.






That is possible, since blu-ray has already been around for a few years and if it fails to supplant standard dvds, then its shelf life may be even shorter...

Funny thing is, they said this about the DVD when VHS was king. The easist way to get the public to embrace bluray is to slowly de-emphasize the DVD. By releasing the bluray first with interactive features and other content the DVD will not have, heavily promoting this along with the fact its HD, you can get the public to gravite towards it while not endangering DVD sales to those who are not ready to make the switch. Keep in mind, the studios and the CE manufacturers have been through this transition before. This is how they did the VHS to DVD transition.





While I see the relevance of studio support and agree that the new video formats have far more studio support than the audio formats have, I think they KEY factor is the consumer and not the studios.... Blu-Ray/HD-DVD are still luxury products (since dvd is still much cheaper).... Studios can push an expensive format all they want, but it doesn't mean anything unless the customers are willing to purchase it....

VHS was much cheaper than DVD in the beginning. As the economy of scale kicked in, that change pretty dramatically. My first DVD player was a $1200 first generation Toshiba 3008. It couldn't even do Dts. In less than two years most DVD players were about $500. At CES almost all of the new models were priced under $500. You can find a Sony S300 for $268 on Amazon. That same player was $499 three months ago. You can find a Samsung 1400 for $288 online, and four months ago it was $599. As each generation comes online, the preceeding generation prices drop considerably. Interestingly enough, the price drop of bluray players has come alot quicker than the prices of DVD players at this same time in its history. Time doesn't freeze, and neither do prices of CE.


I agree wholeheartedly with the point about players dropping below $200 increasing sales... but keep in mind that consumers (not all, but a very significant portion) like lower prices... so as I've said before... when HD format sell for the price of regular dvd products then they can easily take over the dvd market (as long as they accomplish that before downloads take off).

Isn't apple a pretty sucessful company? Let's face it their computers are not cheaper than their competition, they are more expensive. But Apple is doing well, very well. The public will pay for what they want, regardless of price. HD DVD came out of the gate cheaper than bluray. Inspite of this there were more Bluray players sold in December leading up to christmas than HD DVD players. Even the bluray enable PS3 which was at one time more expensive than most HD DVD players outsold them all.

According to every analyst that covers the film and video industry says that downloading to own has years to go. The market for rentals is pretty stagnant in terms of revenue, and while demand is there for computer savvy folks, the general public has not shown much interest in letting go those disc.


The Trend in video is a good one and hopefully will continue: better reslolution and larger scale at decreasing prices - once Blu-Ray and HD-DVD catch up with this trend (lower prices) then they may have a chance to supplant DVD before downloads takes over the market.

Apparently the studio believe the latter. I know the studios( and the one I work for in particular) have done extensive research on the feasible of switching to downloading, and the research at this point is very negative and looks that way for at least 5-10 years. You just cannot erase a culture of disc purchasing(going back to vinyl) in a few short years. That kind of culture shift will take decades.

[pixelthis]

lol




Agreed, but I am looking at the format war as being very long term as it will take years for a new standard to emerge. I don't expect usage limitations to be a long term issue - just take the recent trend towards non-DRM tracks on i-tunes... most likely the studios will just charge premiums for content without limitations....

Right now Apple TV may only be a rental site for HD and hence just like VOD or PPV but I suspect they will move towards actual sales just as they do with music.

Also, Expiration dates are only for rentals, so it won't be an issue with purchased content...





I think they have 40 and 160 GB units :)

Seriously though, you should keep in mind one other factor when talking about storage - downloaded content is not limited to the apple tv unit... it has wireless access to your computer and network storage devices.... so you can add as much storage as you want... And in-line with my long term theme, storage becomes less of an issue each year as hard-drives get larger and cheaper....

the hard drive size doesnt matter , most of vod and downloads will be gone 24hrs after you watch them.
And you're right, the future of rental at least is downloading, and work is ongoing to
set up a business model whereby you can collect movies, they are just stored on servers,
you dont have to worry about "upgrading" to 2,000p, JUST GET A 2000P display
and you can choose 2000 p whenever you watch a movie.
But you will never convince sir talky of this , he is totally oblivious, which figures since he works for Sony, a company that is known for its exelent tech and lousey marketing.
You think 1080p is the end? The idea is to sell everybody a 1080p player, them when 2000p
is debuted in a decade , sell new players and discs to people, just like with DVD.
The idea is to keep selling players and discs, at least thats the idea for dinosaur companies that dont realize that the asteroid of downloading and a wired world has hit:1:

[Woochifer]

While I agree with the comments about increasing screen sizes and resolutions being the trend in video... keep in mind that all of these increases in sizes and res have come hand in hand with decreasing costs each year... 2 years ago a 52 inch lcd projection tv and most 32 inch LCDS were selling for around $2K, now they can be had for around $1k (the new models, not used ones!). The audio market has not been nearly as advanced in pushing higher quality products at lower prices (quite possibly because audio companies often use a 5 year shelf life for their products while TV models are upgraded every year OR the audio companies are just greedy and lazy).

But, you're making my point here. The trend on the video side is towards larger screen sizes and higher resolutions at more affordable price points. It further entrenches the home living room/media room as the primary viewing place for video content.

The audio side is all about mobility. The iPod sales alone more than TRIPLED the revenue for all home audio components COMBINED. The innovation there is in increasing the functionality and utility of downloaded and ripped audio content. And like I said, that's nothing more than a continuation of a trend towards mobility that's been ongoing in the audio industry for the better part of 50 years.

The video side sees no such move towards mobility. Yes, there are more portable devices that can play downloaded videos, but that capability does not drive sales, whereas larger screens and higher resolutions are driving sales.


That is possible, since blu-ray has already been around for a few years and if it fails to supplant standard dvds, then its shelf life may be even shorter...

What calendar are you reading? The first Blu-ray players came out less than 2 years ago. And the format war is only now getting sorted out, so the big market push for Blu-ray hasn't even begun yet. But, even so, it's still much further along than any of the downloading plans out there.


While I see the relevance of studio support and agree that the new video formats have far more studio support than the audio formats have, I think they KEY factor is the consumer and not the studios.... Blu-Ray/HD-DVD are still luxury products (since dvd is still much cheaper).... Studios can push an expensive format all they want, but it doesn't mean anything unless the customers are willing to purchase it....

Of course the key factor is the consumer, but without studio support, the consumers are a nonfactor.

As for Blu-ray/HD-DVD being luxury products, what's your criteria? HD-DVD players are readily available for under $200, and Blu-ray players are already below $300. When the DVD players began outselling VCRs, DVD players still cost more than $200. Were DVD players still "luxury products" when they outsold VHS?


I agree wholeheartedly with the point about players dropping below $200 increasing sales... but keep in mind that consumers (not all, but a very significant portion) like lower prices... so as I've said before... when HD format sell for the price of regular dvd products then they can easily take over the dvd market (as long as they accomplish that before downloads take off).

Of course, consumers like lower prices, but keep in mind that Blu-ray/HD-DVD price declines have already occurred at far sharper rates than when the DVD format was introduced. But, for Blu-ray to supplant the DVD format does not require that Blu-ray players to price match what DVD players cost.

If consumers perceive greater value in Blu-ray's higher resolution and enhanced features, then they will pay for it. After all, the DVD format took over from VHS when VCRs were selling for less than $100 or about half of what DVD players cost. The DVD format took over because consumers saw the extra value that the DVD format represented, and willingly paid for it.

[Ajani]

But, you're making my point here. The trend on the video side is towards larger screen sizes and higher resolutions at more affordable price points. It further entrenches the home living room/media room as the primary viewing place for video content.

The audio side is all about mobility. The iPod sales alone more than TRIPLED the revenue for all home audio components COMBINED. The innovation there is in increasing the functionality and utility of downloaded and ripped audio content. And like I said, that's nothing more than a continuation of a trend towards mobility that's been ongoing in the audio industry for the better part of 50 years.

The video side sees no such move towards mobility. Yes, there are more portable devices that can play downloaded videos, but that capability does not drive sales, whereas larger screens and higher resolutions are driving sales.

I don't think we disagree on this point. Video is mostly about 'bigger and better' with only a small emphasis on 'portable and convenient', while audio is generally the reverse (with audiophiles driving the bigger and better segment of the market).

But I'm just not convinced that this as a result of consumers being willing to pay for 'bigger and better' or whether it is as a result of the fact that 'bigger and better' keeps getting cheaper and more available.

I see it much like a consumer looking to buy a new car, imagine that you have a budget of 15K and instead of the usual Corolla and Civic options you can now get a BMW 3 Or a Mercedes C class... I think you might well just buy the BMW/Mercedes... now if the BMW/Mercedes were 30K you'd probably just stick with the Civic/Corolla...

Video has tended to be like this... I bought a 52 Inch Panasonic LCD Projection about 2 years ago... despite the fact that I've always been more into audio than video... but because of the falling prices on tvs, I found that a large screen was in my budget, so I bought it... Now had it remained at the much higher prices of just a few years before then I would have gladly settled with a 27inch tv...

I think Video is mostly about price (yes VHS is to some extent an exception, but I'll deal with that further down).



What calendar are you reading? The first Blu-ray players came out less than 2 years ago. And the format war is only now getting sorted out, so the big market push for Blu-ray hasn't even begun yet. But, even so, it's still much further along than any of the downloading plans out there.

Ok.... I'll stand corrected.... I used a few to mean 2 as I pretty much just rounded up the figure (cuz I was sure Blu Ray had been around for more than a year but was feeling too lazy to go research an exact figure...)



Of course the key factor is the consumer, but without studio support, the consumers are a nonfactor.

As for Blu-ray/HD-DVD being luxury products, what's your criteria? HD-DVD players are readily available for under $200, and Blu-ray players are already below $300. When the DVD players began outselling VCRs, DVD players still cost more than $200. Were DVD players still "luxury products" when they outsold VHS?

Of course, consumers like lower prices, but keep in mind that Blu-ray/HD-DVD price declines have already occurred at far sharper rates than when the DVD format was introduced. But, for Blu-ray to supplant the DVD format does not require that Blu-ray players to price match what DVD players cost.

If consumers perceive greater value in Blu-ray's higher resolution and enhanced features, then they will pay for it. After all, the DVD format took over from VHS when VCRs were selling for less than $100 or about half of what DVD players cost. The DVD format took over because consumers saw the extra value that the DVD format represented, and willingly paid for it.

Now as for VHS vs DVD... as much as you despise the music comparisons... it is much like Cassettes and CDs.... in both cases you were dealing with more than just an inferior picture/sound.... video/sound quality were not the only factors in making optical discs (digital) dominant over analog sources....

Digital offered significant new convenience in both audio and video:

1) Track/Scene selection -> Not having to hit fast forward/rewind to find a scene/song was a major breakthrough on the convenience front.

2) The product was more durable (analog sources tended to degrade over time) - Try watching a VHS over and over, versus watching a DVD over and over....

3) Portability/storage - it's much easier to carry a case full of cds in the car than a stack of cassettes... and a stack of dvds still takes up far less space than a stack of VHS tapes...

While HD-DVD/BLU-RAY/SACD/DVD-A Versus DVD/CD are just a case of digital versus better digital.... so it is a very different war from the earlier analog versus digital one....

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

the hard drive size doesnt matter , most of vod and downloads will be gone 24hrs after you watch them.
And you're right, the future of rental at least is downloading, and work is ongoing to
set up a business model whereby you can collect movies, they are just stored on servers,
you dont have to worry about "upgrading" to 2,000p, JUST GET A 2000P display
and you can choose 2000 p whenever you watch a movie.
But you will never convince sir talky of this , he is totally oblivious, which figures since he works for Sony, a company that is known for its exelent tech and lousey marketing.
You think 1080p is the end? The idea is to sell everybody a 1080p player, them when 2000p
is debuted in a decade , sell new players and discs to people, just like with DVD.
The idea is to keep selling players and discs, at least thats the idea for dinosaur companies that dont realize that the asteroid of downloading and a wired world has hit:1:

Hey pixel brain, are you SURE I work for Sony, or are you just guessing? I think you are just guessing because I do not work for Sony at all.

Secondly 2000p( which is really 2160p) is much more suited for movie theaters than hometheater. You need a REALLY large screen size to realize the benefits of 2160p, not to mention a huge pipeline for the signals, and ultra large storage to hold it. 2160p does not make any sense for the home.

Your last statement is stupid as hell. When you have a $42 billion dollar market in disc sales, and a $200 million market in downloads, only an idiot would chose to support downloads. Downloading as a everyday practice is not here yet, and won't be for at least a decade. Informed and knowledgeable folks know this, and some little kid doing armchair analysis need to learn this.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

HD-DVD's uphill battle seems to get steeper and steeper as the news stacks up.

Wow, not too long ago, the HD-DVD proponents were declaring that porn would turn the tide against Blu-ray, arguing that porn helped VHS get over on Betamax. Given how the sales trends have gone (i.e., Blu-ray outselling HD-DVD every week in 2007), that has not happened. Even though a lot has been written about Sony not accepting Blu-ray duplicating jobs for porn titles, porn titles have already gone out on Blu-ray, so some other duplicating houses are accepting the porn jobs.

Well, now it turns out that porn studios are seeing the market shifts and might be ready to abandon HD-DVD. Apparently, the talk at the AVN porn convention (which overlaps CES) centered on studios abandoning HD-DVD. Digital Playground, purportedly the leading HD porn distributor, is apparently set to drop HD-DVD by the end of the year.

http://www.i4u.com/article14003.html

Other not-so-favorable signs for HD-DVD have also cropped up.

Aside from the persistent rumors about Universal and Paramount, Warner has already taken a subtle but significant step back in its HD-DVD support. While they have not dropped previously announced titles (a la Paramount), they have begun to stagger the HD-DVD releases while retaining concurrent release dates for the DVD and Blu-ray versions. For example, I Am Legend is due out on DVD and Blu-ray on March 18, while the HD-DVD version will not come out until "early April." Also, Twister: Special Edition comes out May 6 on DVD and Blu-ray, while the HD-DVD version hits stores three weeks later on May 27.

Also, a Home Media article refers to a preliminary tabulation of last week's Nielson sales data. Again, not a good sign for HD-DVD. Apparently, last week's sales figures show HD-DVD with only a 15% market share of HD discs. This is significant because 1) last week was the first full sales week after Warner's announcement; and 2) this is the biggest one-week sales lead that Blu-ray has had.

If this holds up in the final tabulation, then it's safe to say that the Warner announcement has already reverberated down to the retail level, in effect stopping HD-DVD sales cold. If consumers have already stopped purchasing HD-DVDs, then it won't take long before retailers begin phasing out their HD-DVD sections (if they haven't already). At that point, it won't matter what Toshiba, Paramount, and Universal decide on HD-DVD, the retailers and consumers will have already made the decision for them.

Great info, now empty you PM box, you have mail bro bro!

[pixelthis]

Hey pixel brain, are you SURE I work for Sony, or are you just guessing? I think you are just guessing because I do not work for Sony at all.

Secondly 2000p( which is really 2160p) is much more suited for movie theaters than hometheater. You need a REALLY large screen size to realize the benefits of 2160p, not to mention a huge pipeline for the signals, and ultra large storage to hold it. 2160p does not make any sense for the home.

Your last statement is stupid as hell. When you have a $42 billion dollar market in disc sales, and a $200 million market in downloads, only an idiot would chose to support downloads. Downloading as a everyday practice is not here yet, and won't be for at least a decade. Informed and knowledgeable folks know this, and some little kid doing armchair analysis need to learn this.

How about a 51 year old man who is a veteran of "format" wars?

I REMEMBER just a few years ago , a 15in LCD was 2 grand, 1080p was a "decade"
away, and would be damn expensive then, and solid state storage of media was a fantasy
Today you can get an LCD 42IN FOR 800 bucks in some places, in between posting on this site I AM DOWNLOADING MY ENTIRE music video and CD collection onto a 320 gig harddrive I BOUGHT FOR 99 BUCKS.
And you can buy a completely solid state camcorder for 150 bucks on qvc.
And no downloading isnt the future, and we will never get into WWII (said on dec 6, 1941)

I download everyday, and so do you, you just dont see it as downloading.
Ever hear of youtube? episodes of TV you can catch up on on the networks websites?
Four years ago I had gigs of movies, tv shows , music vids, you name it, on my computer.
The world is no longer frames, musical notes, etc, its ones and zeros.
Its not silver nitrate, its silicon.
And its not a plastic disc , its a hard drive.
The world doesnt turn on a dime, but the astute can see which direction in which its going,
and the expensive process of making a disc and shipping it somewhere will seem quite silly when you can push a button and see every movie ever made, anytime you want.
Which is basically where the music industry is NOW.
And just like broadcast tv followed broadcast radio, and videocassettes followed
records and CD's, so downloading of video will follow downloading of music.
Indeed its already taking place:1:

[Ajani]

How about a 51 year old man who is a veteran of "format" wars?

I REMEMBER just a few years ago , a 15in LCD was 2 grand, 1080p was a "decade"
away, and would be damn expensive then, and solid state storage of media was a fantasy
Today you can get an LCD 42IN FOR 800 bucks in some places, in between posting on this site I AM DOWNLOADING MY ENTIRE music video and CD collection onto a 320 gig harddrive I BOUGHT FOR 99 BUCKS.
And you can buy a completely solid state camcorder for 150 bucks on qvc.
And no downloading isnt the future, and we will never get into WWII (said on dec 6, 1941)

I download everyday, and so do you, you just dont see it as downloading.
Ever hear of youtube? episodes of TV you can catch up on on the networks websites?
Four years ago I had gigs of movies, tv shows , music vids, you name it, on my computer.
The world is no longer frames, musical notes, etc, its ones and zeros.
Its not silver nitrate, its silicon.
And its not a plastic disc , its a hard drive.
The world doesnt turn on a dime, but the astute can see which direction in which its going,
and the expensive process of making a disc and shipping it somewhere will seem quite silly when you can push a button and see every movie ever made, anytime you want.
Which is basically where the music industry is NOW.
And just like broadcast tv followed broadcast radio, and videocassettes followed
records and CD's, so downloading of video will follow downloading of music.
Indeed its already taking place:1:

:thumbsup:

I think many people fail to realize just how widespread downloading is.... the issue is not whether downloading will take off (it already has) but how to move people from illegal to legitimate downloading.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Its not silver nitrate, its silicon.
And you can thank Texas Instruments for that my friend! :thumbsup:

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

How about a 51 year old man who is a veteran of "format" wars?

You are older than myself and have not learned about civil discourse without the name calling? This is not a feather in your cap.


I REMEMBER just a few years ago , a 15in LCD was 2 grand, 1080p was a "decade"
away, and would be damn expensive then, and solid state storage of media was a fantasy
Today you can get an LCD 42IN FOR 800 bucks in some places, in between posting on this site I AM DOWNLOADING MY ENTIRE music video and CD collection onto a 320 gig harddrive I BOUGHT FOR 99 BUCKS.
And you can buy a completely solid state camcorder for 150 bucks on qvc.
And no downloading isnt the future, and we will never get into WWII (said on dec 6, 1941)

This trip down memory lane has zero relevance to the topic at hand. What you are doing, what Nighliar is doing, and what I am doing does not reflect what the rest of America is doing. You have to look at the trends, and downloading software, passing music, doing research online and surfing, are not the same as downloading a movie to a hometheater and watching it. There is no trend that point to that. Downloading a television show that was free on network televsion is not the same thing. Trading bootleg files is not the same thing. Storing music is one thing(I have three hard drives full of music) but storing a movie file that has the elements of the disc is not a widespread thing. Until it becomes one, the studio will not release content this way.


I download everyday, and so do you, you just dont see it as downloading.
Ever hear of youtube? episodes of TV you can catch up on on the networks websites?
Four years ago I had gigs of movies, tv shows , music vids, you name it, on my computer.

I do not watch episodes of television on my computer. I do download youtube, but is that the same experience as looking at spidey 3 on my hometheater. I think not. Once again, what you do, and what all of America is doing is not the same. And to make the assumption its the same, is more irrogant than one can believe.



The world is no longer frames, musical notes, etc, its ones and zeros.

Its been that way since the compact disc for music, and the DVD for films. Not anything new here.


Its not silver nitrate, its silicon.
And its not a plastic disc , its a hard drive.

buggy before horse. When ALL of America has hard drives and no disc, then you can say this. To say this now means you live on another planet(which wouldn't surprise me one bit)


The world doesnt turn on a dime, but the astute can see which direction in which its going,
and the expensive process of making a disc and shipping it somewhere will seem quite silly when you can push a button and see every movie ever made, anytime you want.
Which is basically where the music industry is NOW.
And just like broadcast tv followed broadcast radio, and videocassettes followed
records and CD's, so downloading of video will follow downloading of music.
Indeed its already taking place:1:

When the austute inform themselves on what the industry REALLY is doing, and not what they THINK its doing, they know that downloading movies to own is currently a disaster. Downloading for rentals is not making any headway against renting physical disc. You guys keep comparing movies with music and they are not the same. Music has a very short window of value, movies do not. The cost of producing an album is no where near the cost of creating a movie. The market for older music is fading fast, but the market for classic movies does not appear to be that way.

When we get to 2050, then maybe you have a point. You may know about downloading, but you do not know the movie industry at all. Follow the money guys, that is what they do. And the money is not in downloads, its in disc no matter haw draconian you think that is.

[pixelthis]

:thumbsup:

I think many people fail to realize just how widespread downloading is.... the issue is not whether downloading will take off (it already has) but how to move people from illegal to legitimate downloading.


the local blockbuster used to be packed on tuesday, and if you didnt get there early you wouldnt get the latest release.
Now, with hq VOD and services like netflix the local videostores are becoming ghost
towns of a sort.
I went to rent the latest bourne movie on release day, got there in the afternoon,
they had plenty of copies, this used to NEVER happen.
My comunity is diverse in types of peoples and cultures, it has always gotten things first,
to guage the market.
If Comcast is doing a marketing experiment with their state of the art fiber optic system they have a success:1:

[pixelthis]

Sir Terrence the Terrible]You are older than myself and have not learned about civil discourse without the name calling? This is not a feather in your cap.

I just call things as I see them

This trip down memory lane has zero relevance to the topic at hand. What you are doing, what Nighliar is doing, and what I am doing does not reflect what the rest of America is doing. You have to look at the trends, and downloading software, passing music, doing research online and surfing, are not the same as downloading a movie to a hometheater and watching it. There is no trend that point to that. Downloading a television show that was free on network televsion is not the same thing. Trading bootleg files is not the same thing. Storing music is one thing(I have three hard drives full of music) but storing a movie file that has the elements of the disc is not a widespread thing. Until it becomes one, the studio will not release content this way.

Who cares about "elements" of the disc"


I do not watch episodes of television on my computer. I do download youtube, but is that the same experience as looking at spidey 3 on my hometheater. I think not. Once again, what you do, and what all of America is doing is not the same. And to make the assumption its the same, is more irrogant than one can believe.

the first time Jericho was on it was like a serial. If I MISSED an episode I went to CBS.com and caught up, sometimes I went to the TV section of my VOD AND WATCHED IT IN hd, FOR FREE.
Funny how nobodies doing this stuff but it remains available, guess these dumb corp
types arent as smart as you(even tho they can spell "arrogant")

And do I watch tv on my computer? All the time, since my 37in monitor does double duty as a computer desktop and HT screen. Convergence has happened big time in my house.
And its funny how I couldnt get anybody interested in laser, but EVERYBODY wants to
know how to hook their computer up to their TV like I do.



Its been that way since the compact disc for music, and the DVD for films. Not anything new here.

No, its not news, but you don't seem to understand it


buggy before horse. When ALL of America has hard drives and no disc, then you can say this. To say this now means you live on another planet(which wouldn't surprise me one bit)

I do live on another planet than you, its called EARTH'

All of America has hard drives, in ipods, dvd recorders, computers, PDA's, you name it.
And yes they have disc, but to say that its one or the other is kinda stupid even for you.
I listen to hard drive music, and STILL have the first record I ever got (honkey chateu)

When the austute inform themselves on what the industry REALLY is doing, and not what they THINK its doing, they know that downloading movies to own is currently a disaster. Downloading for rentals is not making any headway against renting physical disc. You guys keep comparing movies with music and they are not the same. Music has a very short window of value, movies do not. The cost of producing an album is no where near the cost of creating a movie. The market for older music is fading fast, but the market for classic movies does not appear to be that way.

Tell that to David Bowie. A few years ago he made a bond offering, based on future sales of his catalog. Sold fifty million in bonds, and hasnt had a serious hit in decades
AND the cost of producing something has no relation to its intrinsic value.
people shop and most see no difference between a CD and a movie, both are forms of entertainment. Doesnt matter how much they cost. Getting the production cost down
to where you can make money is econ 101, because people dont give a rats ass how much it costs, they still will only pay so much.
Which is why vod is gonna give you a swift kick in the netherregions, the infrastructure
is there, the cost is miniscule, and the potential profit is hugh, a paradigm shift is all that has to happen, and it will happen, if it hasnt already

When we get to 2050, then maybe you have a point. You may know about downloading, but you do not know the movie industry at all. Follow the money guys, that is what they do. And the money is not in downloads, its in disc no matter haw draconian you think that is.[/QUOTE]
Today.
Tommorrow , after the dollar futher devalues, and people are broke, most will still have some kind of computer, cable, sat dish.
VOD will be cheap, and just a buttonpush away. 2050 is a tad late, try 2010.:1:

[pixelthis]

And you can thank Texas Instruments for that my friend! :thumbsup:

I can thank General Corso for making the chip from the crashed saucer available to
TI.
These guys made the first chip, but others were working on the same thing.
They made a contribution in the sixties, and have been sitting on their ass for decades.
About the only thing they have managed to acheive is a govt boondoggle, DLP, whicch they spent the taxpayers money on, and wound up with a display device that is in BLACK AND WHITE, needs a spinney color wheel , probably invented by rube goldberg,
to produce color.
MPEG, cheap hard drives and memory, a hdtv standard, the internet, 3 gig procs, you cant thank TI for ANY of this:1:

[Ajani]

And do I watch tv on my computer? All the time, since my 37in monitor does double duty as a computer desktop and HT screen. Convergence has happened big time in my house.
And its funny how I couldnt get anybody interested in laser, but EVERYBODY wants to
know how to hook their computer up to their TV like I do.

I had a similar experience 2 years ago, when I bought a Mac Mini and hooked it up to a 52 inch Panasonic LCD Projection TV..... The first time my friends saw the setup, they were blown away and dying to try hooking up their own computers to their TVs....

Part of what has has retarted the pace of downloads taking over the market is that many people still don't realize how easy it is to hook up their computer to the TV... Once that changes, I think we'll see downloading gaining a lot more ground....

[Rich-n-Texas]

I can thank General Corso for making the chip from the crashed saucer available to
TI.
These guys made the first chip, but others were working on the same thing.
They made a contribution in the sixties, and have been sitting on their ass for decades.
About the only thing they have managed to acheive is a govt boondoggle, DLP, whicch they spent the taxpayers money on, and wound up with a display device that is in BLACK AND WHITE, needs a spinney color wheel , probably invented by rube goldberg,
to produce color.
MPEG, cheap hard drives and memory, a hdtv standard, the internet, 3 gig procs, you cant thank TI for ANY of this:1:
Pix, you make it IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to like you. I've tried time after time to get along with you but make a wisecrack in your direction and it's full-bore attack mode. You critisize people for their spelling errors but you don't even know how to quote people properly. I make a joke about TI and silicon, and your immediate response is to insult the company. Did you know that once again TI is one of the top 100 companies to work for in the states? Did you know that TI is a leader in advancing the roles of minorities in corporate America? Did you know how diverse TI is with it's hiring practices? Do you have ANY idea how many MILLIONS of products TI has devices in? TI would never hire a person as socially inept as someone like you, and that speaks volumes about your personality. But you don't care, your MO never changes.

They teach arrogance at SMU. Is that where you went to college?

[GMichael]

I can thank General Corso for making the chip from the crashed saucer available to
TI.
1:

Ding. The light came on and now everything is clear.:idea:
It all makes sense. Just don't forget to take your meds.

[pixelthis]

Ding. The light came on and now everything is clear.:idea:
It all makes sense. Just don't forget to take your meds.


there are actually people who beleive this, which I think belittles those who DID actually come up with the IC. They also think ET invented velcro and lasers.
I find this sort of nonsense fascinating.
I'm sure Rich got the joke, I mean stuff flys over his head but even him, I mean, right rich?
Rich?:confused5:

[Rich-n-Texas]

Every time I point my sarcasm detector at you Pix, it starts smoking. I'm tired of replacing it, and I'm tired of you.

STFU.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I just call things as I see them

Then you need glasses, real thick ones.



Who cares about "elements" of the disc"

The millions of people that answered the studios survey do. As expensive as they are to produce, why do you think its still on DVD's?



the first time Jericho was on it was like a serial. If I MISSED an episode I went to CBS.com and caught up, sometimes I went to the TV section of my VOD AND WATCHED IT IN hd, FOR FREE.
Funny how nobodies doing this stuff but it remains available, guess these dumb corp
types arent as smart as you(even tho they can spell "arrogant")

Who cares. This is not the habits of the american public as a whole. People in tusbucket Montana don't have VOD yet, what are they supposed to do? Alot of people do not have access to broadband or cable, what do they do? America is not 100% wired, but every home in the America has at least one DVD player. And when that player breaks down, they will get another player, likely a bluray player because it can play HD and their DVD's as well with better quality than their old DVD player.


And do I watch tv on my computer? All the time, since my 37in monitor does double duty as a computer desktop and HT screen. Convergence has happened big time in my house.
And its funny how I couldnt get anybody interested in laser, but EVERYBODY wants to
know how to hook their computer up to their TV like I do.

So just because you are doing this, does that mean everyone is doing this? No, I know no one who uses their computer screens as the basis of a HT. So are you playing DVD soundtracks through computer speakers? Hmmm, what a quality upgrade over real speakers with a relatively flat response. Covergence has happened in your house because your priorities are different financially speaking. I have a very good Sony 26" monitor I use for my home office. I do not watch movies in my office, I work there. I watch movies in my hometheater where I have paid VERY careful attention to the rooms acoustics, stray light reflecting back on the screen, the calibration of my set, and using a RTA to get a flat in room response from my speakers. I other words, it is designed for movie watching, and it would not be fun to work in there unless I was doing movie reviews.




No, its not news, but you don't seem to understand it

No, this I understand. What I do not understand is your square peg in a round hole perspectives of the American publics viewing habits. You seem to think that your cheap low budget way of doing things is what ALL of America is doing. Its not, and you need to get out in the world as see this.



I do live on another planet than you, its called EARTH'

You live on earth, in another reality than we do.


All of America has hard drives, in ipods, dvd recorders, computers, PDA's, you name it.
And yes they have disc, but to say that its one or the other is kinda stupid even for you.
I listen to hard drive music, and STILL have the first record I ever got (honkey chateu)

Does the public watch movies on their PDA? No. Does the public surf on a IPOD? No. listening on a computer hard drive is a step down from listening on CD, and a huge step down from vinyl, so that is further evidence that quality is not your first priority. We do not use these gadgets to do all of the same thing. PDA are organizing tools for your schedule, your numbers, and notes. You don't watch movies on them. DVD recorders are for copying DVD's, VHS, and programs off the television. You do not organize your schedule of store numbers on it. Your thought process is spread like peanut butter with no apparent critical thinking given to it. And guess what, it is like swiss cheese when held up for scrutiny.



Tell that to David Bowie. A few years ago he made a bond offering, based on future sales of his catalog. Sold fifty million in bonds, and hasnt had a serious hit in decades
AND the cost of producing something has no relation to its intrinsic value.

David Bowie does not own any films. You are talking about the value of ones career, not the value of a classic film. More apples and pears.



people shop and most see no difference between a CD and a movie, both are forms of entertainment. Doesnt matter how much they cost. Getting the production cost down
to where you can make money is econ 101, because people dont give a rats ass how much it costs, they still will only pay so much.

People see no difference between a CD and a DVD??? Since they're package differently and found in different sections in a store, I would think everyone would know the difference. If people want a bluray player, they have proven they will pay the cost to get one. People have proven that inspite of what a bluray disc costs, they will pay for it.


Which is why vod is gonna give you a swift kick in the netherregions, the infrastructure
is there, the cost is miniscule, and the potential profit is hugh, a paradigm shift is all that has to happen, and it will happen, if it hasnt already

This is what I mean about making assumption with no evidence. Nobody agrees with you that the infrastructure is there. And if it was there, then why are cable companies doing these kinds of things

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/time-warner-download-too-much-and-you-might-pay-30-a-movie/

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/11/comcast-sued-ov.html

If the infrastructure was there, there would be no need to limit or slow down traffic would they? The cost is not miniscule. Cable is expensive, there is no profit potential at this moment or Walmart, Google and cinemovie would not have gone out of business, and there is no indication whatsoever that folks are shifting the way they view movies. You are just plain lying, or ignorant as hell.




Today.
Tommorrow , after the dollar futher devalues, and people are broke, most will still have some kind of computer, cable, sat dish.
VOD will be cheap, and just a buttonpush away. 2050 is a tad late, try 2010.:1:

You are a plain idiot, 2010... right, most folks who KNOW what they are talking about say its at least a decade away. You are dreaming, unrealistic, and pretty damn ignorant on this whole subject. Pathetic.

[pixelthis]

Sir Terrence the Terrible]Then you need glasses, real thick ones.

ER, NO, I think I have you pretty well summed up




The millions of people that answered the studios survey do. As expensive as they are to produce, why do you think its still on DVD's?

These "surveys" are from the retired, the homeless, and anyone else with time to waste on a "survey", which I and most working people hang up on


Who cares. This is not the habits of the american public as a whole. People in tusbucket Montana don't have VOD yet, what are they supposed to do? Alot of people do not have access to broadband or cable, what do they do? America is not 100% wired, but every home in the America has at least one DVD player. And when that player breaks down, they will get another player, likely a bluray player because it can play HD and their DVD's as well with better quality than their old DVD player.

Every home has a DVD player? What about the ones that dont have a TV?


So just because you are doing this, does that mean everyone is doing this? No, I know no one who uses their computer screens as the basis of a HT. So are you playing DVD soundtracks through computer speakers? Hmmm, what a quality upgrade over real speakers with a relatively flat response. Covergence has happened in your house because your priorities are different financially speaking. I have a very good Sony 26" monitor I use for my home office. I do not watch movies in my office, I work there. I watch movies in my hometheater where I have paid VERY careful attention to the rooms acoustics, stray light reflecting back on the screen, the calibration of my set, and using a RTA to get a flat in room response from my speakers. I other words, it is designed for movie watching, and it would not be fun to work in there unless I was doing movie reviews.

Once again a statement makes a valiant effort and bounces right off of your skull.
I dont use a "computer screen" as a basis of my HT, I use my HT monitor to surf the web

AND WATCH VIDEO , and I AM USING IT RIGHT NOW.
As usual you have it backwards, I play computer audio through my HT receiver because its so much better than any computer speakers can be.
Its nice that your HT is designed for movie watching, what a friggin waste.
Mine is designed for movie watching, video watching, audio listening, web surfing, etc.
SINCE I ONLY DO ONE THING AT A TIME THAT WORKS OUT.
Its just as much fun to "work" in my HT as watch a movie or listen to an album.
Maybe you'll learn enough to expand the capabilities of yours one day



No, this I understand. What I do not understand is your square peg in a round hole perspectives of the American publics viewing habits. You seem to think that your cheap low budget way of doing things is what ALL of America is doing. Its not, and you need to get out in the world as see this.

Actually it is. I KNEW a lady who was a big deal in her church choir, and a guy who was a director on a cruise ship and cut a few albums, Both had stereos with a record changer in the top. A friend with the best Axioms you can get still has a 35in crt set.
YOU THINK WALLMART IS GOING BROKE selling all of those chintzy HTIB sets
and boomboxes? I know one thing, their marketing dept is a lot better than yours



You live on earth, in another reality than we do.

I live in reality period, splash some water in your face and join the rest of the species


Does the public watch movies on their PDA? No. Does the public surf on a IPOD? No. listening on a computer hard drive is a step down from listening on CD, and a huge step down from vinyl, so that is further evidence that quality is not your first priority. We do not use these gadgets to do all of the same thing. PDA are organizing tools for your schedule, your numbers, and notes. You don't watch movies on them. DVD recorders are for copying DVD's, VHS, and programs off the television. You do not organize your schedule of store numbers on it. Your thought process is spread like peanut butter with no apparent critical thinking given to it. And guess what, it is like swiss cheese when held up for scrutiny.

You'd better check. I think you're horse is double parked.
People are doing ALL of those things.
the japanese are forgoing conventional computers, they are using PDA'S, cellphones,
and ipods and such to download files wand watch and listen to them.
The advent of glasses you can wear to present a 40in picture in front of you will only accelerate this trend. the more portable the better, people dont like to be tied down


David Bowie does not own any films. You are talking about the value of ones career, not the value of a classic film. More apples and pears.

AGAIN you totally miss the point, you say that the "value" of music fades, well, heres someone who made millions from a music catalog composed of stuff decades old



People see no difference between a CD and a DVD??? Since they're package differently and found in different sections in a store, I would think everyone would know the difference. If people want a bluray player, they have proven they will pay the cost to get one. People have proven that inspite of what a bluray disc costs, they will pay for it.

Of course people se no difference, as far as cost, they are deciding weather to spend precious money on a CD, or DVD, and which one they want.
Ones a movie, ones music. big deal, the most important point is which one do I spend my money on?
If they want a CD they'll get a CD , DOESNT MATTER IF A MOVIE COST MORE TO MAKE OR NOT.
Indeed, some movies are cheaper to buy than CD

This is what I mean about making assumption with no evidence. Nobody agrees with you that the infrastructure is there. And if it was there, then why are cable companies doing these kinds of things

YOU dont agree with me.
Twenty years ago my cable had no stereo at all, now it has digital audio, the computers
were measured by the memory they had because they had no hard drives.
take a look around, its a different world out there





If the infrastructure was there, there would be no need to limit or slow down traffic would they? The cost is not miniscule. Cable is expensive, there is no profit potential at this moment or Walmart, Google and cinemovie would not have gone out of business, and there is no indication whatsoever that folks are shifting the way they view movies. You are just plain lying, or ignorant as hell.

The cost of the net wasnt 'miniscule" either and look at how that worked out




You are a plain idiot, 2010... right, most folks who KNOW what they are talking about say its at least a decade away. You are dreaming, unrealistic, and pretty damn ignorant on this whole subject. Pathetic.[/QUOTE]

AND FIVE YEARS AGO THEY WERE saying that 1080p was at least 10 to twenty years away. And most had CRT sets , LCD was an expensive toy.

Truth is, you dont know, and neither do I, but when you bet against something happening you are usually wrong, at least technologically.
Again, 320 gigs is 99 bucks, memory is cheap as dirt, cable modems are pretty much it.
And you are a typical corporate shill, a yes man telling people what they want to hear.

[JSE]

the local blockbuster used to be packed on tuesday, and if you didnt get there early you wouldnt get the latest release.
Now, with hq VOD and services like netflix the local videostores are becoming ghost
towns of a sort.
I went to rent the latest bourne movie on release day, got there in the afternoon,
they had plenty of copies, this used to NEVER happen.
My comunity is diverse in types of peoples and cultures, it has always gotten things first,
to guage the market.
If Comcast is doing a marketing experiment with their state of the art fiber optic system they have a success:1:

As stated before, I do think Downloads will be the future.

But.............................

Download and VOD are not the reason Blockbuster is not as busy these days. Competition like Netflix, McDonald's Red Box and the other bazillion DVD Rental vending machines in just about every Grocery Store around are a bigger reason. DVD sales are also a big reason. Many more people are just buying DVDs now instead of renting them. Also BB has online rental now. BB also has done away with "no-late fees" in most areas. No more poeple holding onto new releases for 7 days at a time. I notice in my local BB no late fees really cause a depletion in inventory levels at any given time. These things are the reason the BB stores are not as busy, not downloads.......Yet.

[GMichael]

As stated before, I do think Downloads will be the future.

But.............................

Download and VOD are not the reason Blockbuster is not as busy these days. Competition like Netflix, McDonald's Red Box and the other bazillion DVD Rental vending machines in just about every Grocery Store around are a bigger reason. DVD sales are also a big reason. Many more people of just buying DVDs now instead of renting them. Also BB has online rental now. BB also has done away with "no-late fees" in most areas. No more poeple holding onto new releases for 7 days at a time. I notice in my local BB no late fees really cause a depletion in inventory levels at any given time. These things are the reason the BB stores are not as busy, not downloads.......Yet.

Not to mention that Blockbuster also does business by mail like Netflix now.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Sir Terrence the Terrible]Then you need glasses, real thick ones.

ER, NO, I think I have you pretty well summed up




The millions of people that answered the studios survey do. As expensive as they are to produce, why do you think its still on DVD's?

These "surveys" are from the retired, the homeless, and anyone else with time to waste on a "survey", which I and most working people hang up on


Who cares. This is not the habits of the american public as a whole. People in tusbucket Montana don't have VOD yet, what are they supposed to do? Alot of people do not have access to broadband or cable, what do they do? America is not 100% wired, but every home in the America has at least one DVD player. And when that player breaks down, they will get another player, likely a bluray player because it can play HD and their DVD's as well with better quality than their old DVD player.

Every home has a DVD player? What about the ones that dont have a TV?


So just because you are doing this, does that mean everyone is doing this? No, I know no one who uses their computer screens as the basis of a HT. So are you playing DVD soundtracks through computer speakers? Hmmm, what a quality upgrade over real speakers with a relatively flat response. Covergence has happened in your house because your priorities are different financially speaking. I have a very good Sony 26" monitor I use for my home office. I do not watch movies in my office, I work there. I watch movies in my hometheater where I have paid VERY careful attention to the rooms acoustics, stray light reflecting back on the screen, the calibration of my set, and using a RTA to get a flat in room response from my speakers. I other words, it is designed for movie watching, and it would not be fun to work in there unless I was doing movie reviews.

Once again a statement makes a valiant effort and bounces right off of your skull.
I dont use a "computer screen" as a basis of my HT, I use my HT monitor to surf the web

AND WATCH VIDEO , and I AM USING IT RIGHT NOW.
As usual you have it backwards, I play computer audio through my HT receiver because its so much better than any computer speakers can be.
Its nice that your HT is designed for movie watching, what a friggin waste.
Mine is designed for movie watching, video watching, audio listening, web surfing, etc.
SINCE I ONLY DO ONE THING AT A TIME THAT WORKS OUT.
Its just as much fun to "work" in my HT as watch a movie or listen to an album.
Maybe you'll learn enough to expand the capabilities of yours one day



No, this I understand. What I do not understand is your square peg in a round hole perspectives of the American publics viewing habits. You seem to think that your cheap low budget way of doing things is what ALL of America is doing. Its not, and you need to get out in the world as see this.

Actually it is. I KNEW a lady who was a big deal in her church choir, and a guy who was a director on a cruise ship and cut a few albums, Both had stereos with a record changer in the top. A friend with the best Axioms you can get still has a 35in crt set.
YOU THINK WALLMART IS GOING BROKE selling all of those chintzy HTIB sets
and boomboxes? I know one thing, their marketing dept is a lot better than yours



You live on earth, in another reality than we do.

I live in reality period, splash some water in your face and join the rest of the species


Does the public watch movies on their PDA? No. Does the public surf on a IPOD? No. listening on a computer hard drive is a step down from listening on CD, and a huge step down from vinyl, so that is further evidence that quality is not your first priority. We do not use these gadgets to do all of the same thing. PDA are organizing tools for your schedule, your numbers, and notes. You don't watch movies on them. DVD recorders are for copying DVD's, VHS, and programs off the television. You do not organize your schedule of store numbers on it. Your thought process is spread like peanut butter with no apparent critical thinking given to it. And guess what, it is like swiss cheese when held up for scrutiny.

You'd better check. I think you're horse is double parked.
People are doing ALL of those things.
the japanese are forgoing conventional computers, they are using PDA'S, cellphones,
and ipods and such to download files wand watch and listen to them.
The advent of glasses you can wear to present a 40in picture in front of you will only accelerate this trend. the more portable the better, people dont like to be tied down


David Bowie does not own any films. You are talking about the value of ones career, not the value of a classic film. More apples and pears.

AGAIN you totally miss the point, you say that the "value" of music fades, well, heres someone who made millions from a music catalog composed of stuff decades old



People see no difference between a CD and a DVD??? Since they're package differently and found in different sections in a store, I would think everyone would know the difference. If people want a bluray player, they have proven they will pay the cost to get one. People have proven that inspite of what a bluray disc costs, they will pay for it.

Of course people se no difference, as far as cost, they are deciding weather to spend precious money on a CD, or DVD, and which one they want.
Ones a movie, ones music. big deal, the most important point is which one do I spend my money on?
If they want a CD they'll get a CD , DOESNT MATTER IF A MOVIE COST MORE TO MAKE OR NOT.
Indeed, some movies are cheaper to buy than CD

This is what I mean about making assumption with no evidence. Nobody agrees with you that the infrastructure is there. And if it was there, then why are cable companies doing these kinds of things

YOU dont agree with me.
Twenty years ago my cable had no stereo at all, now it has digital audio, the computers
were measured by the memory they had because they had no hard drives.
take a look around, its a different world out there





If the infrastructure was there, there would be no need to limit or slow down traffic would they? The cost is not miniscule. Cable is expensive, there is no profit potential at this moment or Walmart, Google and cinemovie would not have gone out of business, and there is no indication whatsoever that folks are shifting the way they view movies. You are just plain lying, or ignorant as hell.

The cost of the net wasnt 'miniscule" either and look at how that worked out




You are a plain idiot, 2010... right, most folks who KNOW what they are talking about say its at least a decade away. You are dreaming, unrealistic, and pretty damn ignorant on this whole subject. Pathetic.

AND FIVE YEARS AGO THEY WERE saying that 1080p was at least 10 to twenty years away. And most had CRT sets , LCD was an expensive toy.

Truth is, you dont know, and neither do I, but when you bet against something happening you are usually wrong, at least technologically.
Again, 320 gigs is 99 bucks, memory is cheap as dirt, cable modems are pretty much it.
And you are a typical corporate shill, a yes man telling people what they want to hear.

What makes this so pathetic is you have a old man who has never worked in the film or television industry trying to make sense of something he hasn't a clue about. This armchair idiot is challenging the information accumulated through the largest CE reporting firm in the world, and industry analyst that have been covering this industry SPECIFICALLY.

Well Pixel, this is much like your 720p is better than 1080i post. No detail, no figures or links to support anything you have said. You read stuff, and think you have a deep understanding, when it is just cursory. I do not have to argue this any further. Everyone is profoundy aware that you do not know what you are talking about.

[pixelthis]

this is funny as hell.
You represent EVERYTHING that is wrong with corporate america.
You, and an army of marketing hacks that think like you, (when they bother to think)
who will beleive the "knowledge" of a poorly done survey before the evidence of their own eyes.
And when the "evidence is correct the comprehension is low to nonexistent.
Well, at least you and the other hacks are off the streets and out of trouble.
You certainly arent going to screw this country (or planet) up any worse than it already is.
You're not even capable of that.
There have been massive changes in the market in the past few years.
We have had five music stores close where I live.
and the changes to come will be even greater.
And there you'll be, clinging to your "survey", based on what college students collected
working part time, as you go down for the third time.:1:

[hermanv]

Reading some HD/Blu-Ray updates on CNET both parties admit "off the record" that actual sales numbers of both players and disks are dismal. They would drop Hi-Def in a flash if it hadn't become a matter of corporate pride.

I also see endless discussion about the price of the players, I think it's largely irrelevant, I paid through the nose for the earliest "progressive" DVD players. So the hold up is the price of software. HD-DVD disks can be made on standard DVD equipment, so titles should sell for the $12-$15 I usually pay for DVD movie titles. My system with standard DVD is good enough to easily show the quality difference (resolution) of standard DVD. The public sees little value in upgrading to a medium that's double the price, player costs be damned. And while some Hi-Def movies are clearly excellent many are not any better than DVD payed through a decent up-converting conventional DVD player.

One other issue I have with Blu-Ray is the depth of the information layer, I have plenty of ordinary DVDs that require a quick polish to play smoothly. I can just imagine a Blu-Ray world where if your pre-teen or younger kids handle the disks, that they are ruined forever.

I know not everyone will agree with my opinion, but the members of forums such as this are not a valid consumer cross section. Some (many?) of us paid the price of a car for just stereo, for those, cost is secondary to the pursuit of excellence.

[filecat13]

Physical media is already EOLed (end of lifed) as far as I'm concerned, so I have no compelling reason to care if BR or HD DVD dominates the market or even survives. My physical media consumption has steadily declined over the decades.

I had a thousand LPs before the market and the mainstream manufacturers abandoned the format. I had a few cassettes, but skipped them and their many defects to go from LPs to CDs. I had many hundreds of CDs when SACD and DVD-A arrived then failed to penetrate. I stopped actively buying CDs once I started with multichannel stuff, and in the past two years, I've purchased maybe three DVD-A and two SACD discs that were special enough that the artist and or label deemed it worth the trouble. Otherwise, I just legally download everything I want.

For video, I rejected VHS for much the same reason as cassettes: an inferior technology with poor quality and poor longevity, and a clumsy and cumbersome user interface. However, I had hundreds of laser discs until DVDs came along and killed an already fragile market. DVDs were so much better than LDs most of the time, that going to DVDs was easy enough, but I never repurchased a movie I had on LD in a DVD format. In fact, I still only have about 150 DVDs, most of which were purchased near the beginning of the medium's life cycle. Most movies just aren't that interesting that I want to see them more than once or twice, and I certainly don't need to own them to view them a couple of times.

Also, the Blockbuster/Netflix/Hollywood Video/Vudu/whatever business model sucks. The instore or online experience is horrendous in most cases, though Netflix does better than the others. I think I bought two DVDs in Target this year as an impulse buy ($6 each), and I still kind of regret spending the money since one viewing was enough for me. I'm pretty much done with buying DVDs because as I wrote earlier, it's EOL as far as I'm concerned. The BR/HD DVD fiasco irritated me enough that I don't want to encourage these companies to continue putting consumers in the middle when they can't or won't work to reach productive agreements on media standards.

As for Walmart, Google, and cinemovie going out of the download business, infrastructure might have had something to do with it, but don't overlook the poorly conceived and executed business model and the general ugliness of their presentation platform. Did they care about anything other than trying to make what they thought would be easy money? They couldn't even copy the one clear example of a successful business model. Obviously, they had no good ideas of their own.

Most of my video watching is through HD OTA broadcast, legal download, or stream. (I've never had cable or sat.) The day that iTunes or some other service has a viable infrastructure for delivering to me the media I want in HD, I'm on board. It looks to me like that will happen this year or next, unless media companies continue to be stupid. In that case, I just won't buy their shirt (remove the "r"). There's a word that starts with "f" that reflects my regard for them.

Making business plans and decisions based on surveys is weak and inefficient. It lacks innovation, initiative, and vision. Plus, people tell you things that they think they want or they think they'll do, when in fact they will do the opposite. The biggest example of this dumbness is the BR vs. HD DVD fiasco. It's the "ultimate consumer survey" in that people are asked to make a choice that impacts their wallets. The dumb media and manufacturing companies think the "survey" is as simple as "Forced to make a choice, which will you choose, BluRay or HD DVD?" The companies and the news media think they now know the answer: BluRay.

Well the overwhelming consumer choice is actually "neither."

You'd think somewhere in these companies a decision maker would have had either Business 101 or Marketing 101.

Is Apple really the only company that's been thinking this through? Piece by piece it's built most of the hardware needed, software needed, and most of the infrastructure needed to deliver the content. If it can make it all work in the next 12-18 months, a lot of people are going to be surprised (and should be fired) for missing the obvious opening that is before them.

There are two full generations of people that have substantial market power now who will abandon physical media in a heartbeat when a digital solution truly presents itself. They are not trapped in the mentality that mourns the loss of an album cover with pictures, liner notes, and track listings on them, or that wants to have an entire second disc of useless junk that couldn't make it into the feature film or that just drags out the director/producer's ego for all to see about what a majestic thing the making of a film is--again.

Jim Morrison said it pretty well 40 year ago, "We want the world, and we want it now." That's what the majority of the kids and young adults I work with want when it comes to media, and the generation above them, which includes my own children, already passes more information (audio and video) around electronically than it does physically.

Now, if only someone would devise a business plan and marketing approach that would capture them as legal customers rather than suing them over a dead business model and crippling the content to the point of making it worthless to consumers, then they wouldn't need a pandering survey to justify screwing people with an old, indefensible business model that's costing them revenue and customers. Instead, they'd be making money and winning customers.

So I hope both BR and HD DVD die soon and die hard. I certainly won't miss them. They're the ultimate expression of the arrogance, conceit and hubris of the status quo in media and electronics.

[Ajani]

Physical media is already EOLed (end of lifed) as far as I'm concerned, so I have no compelling reason to care if BR or HD DVD dominates the market or even survives. My physical media consumption has steadily declined over the decades.

I had a thousand LPs before the market and the mainstream manufacturers abandoned the format. I had a few cassettes, but skipped them and their many defects to go from LPs to CDs. I had many hundreds of CDs when SACD and DVD-A arrived then failed to penetrate. I stopped actively buying CDs once I started with multichannel stuff, and in the past two years, I've purchased maybe three DVD-A and two SACD discs that were special enough that the artist and or label deemed it worth the trouble. Otherwise, I just legally download everything I want.

For video, I rejected VHS for much the same reason as cassettes: an inferior technology with poor quality and poor longevity, and a clumsy and cumbersome user interface. However, I had hundreds of laser discs until DVDs came along and killed an already fragile market. DVDs were so much better than LDs most of the time, that going to DVDs was easy enough, but I never repurchased a movie I had on LD in a DVD format. In fact, I still only have about 150 DVDs, most of which were purchased near the beginning of the medium's life cycle. Most movies just aren't that interesting that I want to see them more than once or twice, and I certainly don't need to own them to view them a couple of times.

Also, the Blockbuster/Netflix/Hollywood Video/Vudu/whatever business model sucks. The instore or online experience is horrendous in most cases, though Netflix does better than the others. I think I bought two DVDs in Target this year as an impulse buy ($6 each), and I still kind of regret spending the money since one viewing was enough for me. I'm pretty much done with buying DVDs because as I wrote earlier, it's EOL as far as I'm concerned. The BR/HD DVD fiasco irritated me enough that I don't want to encourage these companies to continue putting consumers in the middle when they can't or won't work to reach productive agreements on media standards.

As for Walmart, Google, and cinemovie going out of the download business, infrastructure might have had something to do with it, but don't overlook the poorly conceived and executed business model and the general ugliness of their presentation platform. Did they care about anything other than trying to make what they thought would be easy money? They couldn't even copy the one clear example of a successful business model. Obviously, they had no good ideas of their own.

Most of my video watching is through HD OTA broadcast, legal download, or stream. (I've never had cable or sat.) The day that iTunes or some other service has a viable infrastructure for delivering to me the media I want in HD, I'm on board. It looks to me like that will happen this year or next, unless media companies continue to be stupid. In that case, I just won't buy their shirt (remove the "r"). There's a word that starts with "f" that reflects my regard for them.

Making business plans and decisions based on surveys is weak and inefficient. It lacks innovation, initiative, and vision. Plus, people tell you things that they think they want or they think they'll do, when in fact they will do the opposite. The biggest example of this dumbness is the BR vs. HD DVD fiasco. It's the "ultimate consumer survey" in that people are asked to make a choice that impacts their wallets. The dumb media and manufacturing companies think the "survey" is as simple as "Forced to make a choice, which will you choose, BluRay or HD DVD?" The companies and the news media think they now know the answer: BluRay.

Well the overwhelming consumer choice is actually "neither."

You'd think somewhere in these companies a decision maker would have had either Business 101 or Marketing 101.

Is Apple really the only company that's been thinking this through? Piece by piece it's built most of the hardware needed, software needed, and most of the infrastructure needed to deliver the content. If it can make it all work in the next 12-18 months, a lot of people are going to be surprised (and should be fired) for missing the obvious opening that is before them.

There are two full generations of people that have substantial market power now who will abandon physical media in a heartbeat when a digital solution truly presents itself. They are not trapped in the mentality that mourns the loss of an album cover with pictures, liner notes, and track listings on them, or that wants to have an entire second disc of useless junk that couldn't make it into the feature film or that just drags out the director/producer's ego for all to see about what a majestic thing the making of a film is--again.

Jim Morrison said it pretty well 40 year ago, "We want the world, and we want it now." That's what the majority of the kids and young adults I work with want when it comes to media, and the generation above them, which includes my own children, already passes more information (audio and video) around electronically than it does physically.

Now, if only someone would devise a business plan and marketing approach that would capture them as legal customers rather than suing them over a dead business model and crippling the content to the point of making it worthless to consumers, then they wouldn't need a pandering survey to justify screwing people with an old, indefensible business model that's costing them revenue and customers. Instead, they'd be making money and winning customers.

So I hope both BR and HD DVD die soon and die hard. I certainly won't miss them. They're the ultimate expression of the arrogance, conceit and hubris of the status quo in media and electronics.

:cornut: I couldn't agree more.... well said....

It seems that so many corporations miss the fact that what most people want is a convenient movie watching experience, not a disc....

It seems that so many corporations miss the fact that what most people want is the convenience of listening to music when and where they want (whether on the go, in their car or through their stereo/ht setup), not a disc....

And as much as the thought hurts us 'audio/videophiles'.... many people are willing to sacrifice quality for convenience....

But the corps will hold on tight to their surveys and not realize that these are the same surveys that predicted that; a particular candidate would have a landslide win in a primary, one day before that candidate lost the primary... Surveys and statistics don't mean all that much...

They will look at the 'trend' towards bigger and better TVs and think 'betcha by golly wow, this means that what consumers really want is bigger and better discs'.... not seeing that for the same price of yesterday's tv, consumers can get a bigger and better tv....

Where consumers violently opposed to the Pentium 2? I really doubt they were, but you won't find a new computer being made with one anymore, simply because for the cost of one now you can get dual core... soon to be quad/quin/sextuple core processors.... Apart from hardcore computer gamers, most consumers really don't need all these processors upgrades but the market will keep giving it to them...

Can Blu-Ray take the DVD player market? Sure, if it follows the path of computers and tvs and so for the price of a dvd player you get a backwards compatible Blu Ray player and for the price of a standard DVD you get Blu Ray discs.... Now whether all this can happen before people embrace the convenience of legal downloading... well, that's another story...

[hermanv]

FileCat13 and Ajani:

Great points. One of the larger issues for me at least is content. Over 90% of the recent movies I've seen are crap. The bigger the budget the worse they are. The only ones that aren't crap are mostly rip-offs of small foreign films; substituting name brand actors, a reduction in intelligence and an increase in the number of things that need to explode.

I think Marketing 101 is the problem not the answer. New grads are taught to chase the latest fad for a quick buck, rather then focusing and building on a core competency. Take Detroit, they decided to go into the finance business, Their own credit cards help sell cars you know. This bled a lot of money and talent with the end result that the financing market where they had little experience got most of them in deep trouble and their core competency of building cars was suddenly under financed and under staffed. This is why Detroit builds cars with 50 year old technology and why they use a lot of money to convince government to "rescue" them and put up trade barriers 'cause otherwise no one would buy their junk at all, so much for a "market driven" economy.

Ditto the music industry, overblown piracy estimates with no hard core data to back it up (other than they are loosing sales). Obviously it couldn't be the fault of pressing consumers to buy no talent performers sold only based on looks that's at fault. Or the fact that those marketing geniuses identified 13 year olds as the biggest spenders and promptly abandoned every other customer. Or the fact that the 76 minute capacity CD is being sold with fewer and fewer minutes of music. No! We need laws, protection and bailouts.

Mediocrity rules US corporations.

[Ajani]

....... One of the larger issues for me at least is content. Over 90% of the recent movies I've seen are crap.....

LOL... So true... So true....

That's a problem with both movies and music... weak content... A couple of years ago I took the plunge and tried downloading a few songs from itunes... and what made the difference for me (despite the fact that itunes songs are compressed) was the fact that I could just spend 99c and get the 1 good song on an album... I didn't have to buy the entire album just to get one song or pray that the artist released that one track as a single (which I believe still cost more than 99c)...

At one point I kept a growing dvd library.... Having realized that I rarely ever watch a film more than once... I gave my collection to my little brother and now I just rent films...

Most of the content is disposable and overpriced.... so cheap and downloadable works for most films and modern music.....

[filecat13]

Yes, the iTunes experience really changed how I bought music. Now some content companies want to force bundles and whole albums and extra pricing on us, but so far Apple refuses to comply. Good.

Interestingly, I listen to music now more than ever, even during those halcyon days of my youth when that darned 8 transistor radio was constantly glued to my ear. Man, talk about low quality sound!

The service I use most is eMusic, which uses a similar model to iTunes (though there's a monthly fee, it's all converted to purchased downloads at about 33 cents a song and works fine with my iPods) and I believe is the second most successful download service. I probably buy twenty songs off eMusic for every one I get off iTunes, and most of the discoveries I've made have been on eMusic. I got 22 songs just last week.

There are also specialty sites where I can get downloads of genres I enjoy, like dance, trance, electronica, jazz, and classical for next to nothing.

At this point, I'd rather wait for video services to catch up than waste money on a BR or HD DVD player and discs.

[pixelthis]

Reading some HD/Blu-Ray updates on CNET both parties admit "off the record" that actual sales numbers of both players and disks are dismal. They would drop Hi-Def in a flash if it hadn't become a matter of corporate pride.

I also see endless discussion about the price of the players, I think it's largely irrelevant, I paid through the nose for the earliest "progressive" DVD players. So the hold up is the price of software. HD-DVD disks can be made on standard DVD equipment, so titles should sell for the $12-$15 I usually pay for DVD movie titles. My system with standard DVD is good enough to easily show the quality difference (resolution) of standard DVD. The public sees little value in upgrading to a medium that's double the price, player costs be damned. And while some Hi-Def movies are clearly excellent many are not any better than DVD payed through a decent up-converting conventional DVD player.

One other issue I have with Blu-Ray is the depth of the information layer, I have plenty of ordinary DVDs that require a quick polish to play smoothly. I can just imagine a Blu-Ray world where if your pre-teen or younger kids handle the disks, that they are ruined forever.

I know not everyone will agree with my opinion, but the members of forums such as this are not a valid consumer cross section. Some (many?) of us paid the price of a car for just stereo, for those, cost is secondary to the pursuit of excellence.


Nice to hear from someone on this board who knows SOMETHING.
One of the reasons I wanted this silly "format war" (two bald men fighting over a comb)
to be over was that I want a HD format for collectors, people who actually care
about quality, I think there is room in the market for such a thing.
But these nimrods actually think that these formats will replace DVD overnight,
and that aint gonna happen.
Sir talky for instance, talks about his 130in screen like thats relevant.
To him all of America is consumers with hugh screens and wallets and tastes to match,
just waiting for the latest toy, he has NO clue as to what real america is like.
For most movie watching is just a diversion anyway.
With gas 3 bucks and up, their houses devalued by as much as 50% when the housing market imploded, the last thing most consumers are interested in is a new toy.
Some are worried about paying the mortage, or a 200$ a week gas bill, because their suv is "under water", gets 18 mpg, the payoff is twice what its worth, and they live 20 miles out of town.
I know that corporations like the one sir talky works for arent worried about consumers in america anymore, thats why they moved their production offshore, to be closer to "emerging " markets like china.
Well, when these emerging markets crash when america does, then what?
Sure HD sales are dismal, these morons did the EXACT thing with highq audio, why should they expect the results to be different?
THE DEFINITION of insantity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, which is what they did, you'd think the sacd dvdaudio debacle was
practice for the hd -blu mess.
Introduce two competing formats because you're such a greedhead that you can't make a deal, market both and confuse the hell outta the public, who then go into stores,
look at poorly set up "comparsions" and cant understand why they need a Blu or HD
player when DVD is about as good, and a player is 30 bucks.
At least with high end digital audio they were trying to sell to educated consumers who wanted better sound, if these tactics will confuse THEM imagine what similar tactics will do to the great unwashed , half of who still have SD sets, most under 32in.
I will tell you this, if the rest of these guys are as hard headed as sir talky, convinced that they are "right", then they WILL go down the tubes, and will be protesting all of the way that they shouldnt, because they are "right".
Their marketing survey, probably done in beverly hills, SAY SO!:1:

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Reading some HD/Blu-Ray updates on CNET both parties admit "off the record" that actual sales numbers of both players and disks are dismal. They would drop Hi-Def in a flash if it hadn't become a matter of corporate pride.

Herman, I would hardly call 600,000 standalones, and 8 million PS3 world wide dismal sales. I would hardly call sales of disc which I believe would be about 6 million in 2007 alone terrible this early in a fomats release. Also take into consideration what happened to sales POST the Warner announcement. The format war has clearly taken its toll in the short run, but after that announcement, things changed pretty dramatically number wise.


I also see endless discussion about the price of the players, I think it's largely irrelevant, I paid through the nose for the earliest "progressive" DVD players. So the hold up is the price of software. HD-DVD disks can be made on standard DVD equipment, so titles should sell for the $12-$15 I usually pay for DVD movie titles. My system with standard DVD is good enough to easily show the quality difference (resolution) of standard DVD. The public sees little value in upgrading to a medium that's double the price, player costs be damned. And while some Hi-Def movies are clearly excellent many are not any better than DVD payed through a decent up-converting conventional DVD player.

What you are clearly fogetting here is the cost of digitally scanning and authoring the disc. The menus and interactivity are much more complex with the use of Hdi and BD-j, cost that DVD just does not have. Secondly, nobody can argue that some of the early bluray disc, and just about all of Universal disc do or did not look that good. But since those titles have been released, Bluray has been getting some of the best scores in terms of PQ and AQ over any HD DVD titles from 10 of the most popular online reviewing sites. It is not the technology, its the shape of the master that is at issue. Lastly, the cost of disc are already falling. What was closer to $30 several months ago is now about $19-25. Now that the war is over, prices will drop by economy of scale.


One other issue I have with Blu-Ray is the depth of the information layer, I have plenty of ordinary DVDs that require a quick polish to play smoothly. I can just imagine a Blu-Ray world where if your pre-teen or younger kids handle the disks, that they are ruined forever.

Go to youtube and look up bluray disc and sander. It is not as easy as you think to make a bluray disc unplayable. The disc is covered with a plastic coat designed to protect it much better than HD DVD has by a long shot. That is more of the concern for HD DVD than bluray.


I know not everyone will agree with my opinion, but the members of forums such as this are not a valid consumer cross section. Some (many?) of us paid the price of a car for just stereo, for those, cost is secondary to the pursuit of excellence.

Price falls with manufacturing gains. The next generation players will be cheaper than this generation, and so on and so on. Sony just develope a smaller laser that is cheaper to produce than the current laser in players. That will drive the next players prices down. Economy of scale drives down prices. But just like any technology, these things take time to happen.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Physical media is already EOLed (end of lifed) as far as I'm concerned, so I have no compelling reason to care if BR or HD DVD dominates the market or even survives. My physical media consumption has steadily declined over the decades.

I had a thousand LPs before the market and the mainstream manufacturers abandoned the format. I had a few cassettes, but skipped them and their many defects to go from LPs to CDs. I had many hundreds of CDs when SACD and DVD-A arrived then failed to penetrate. I stopped actively buying CDs once I started with multichannel stuff, and in the past two years, I've purchased maybe three DVD-A and two SACD discs that were special enough that the artist and or label deemed it worth the trouble. Otherwise, I just legally download everything I want.

For video, I rejected VHS for much the same reason as cassettes: an inferior technology with poor quality and poor longevity, and a clumsy and cumbersome user interface. However, I had hundreds of laser discs until DVDs came along and killed an already fragile market. DVDs were so much better than LDs most of the time, that going to DVDs was easy enough, but I never repurchased a movie I had on LD in a DVD format. In fact, I still only have about 150 DVDs, most of which were purchased near the beginning of the medium's life cycle. Most movies just aren't that interesting that I want to see them more than once or twice, and I certainly don't need to own them to view them a couple of times.

Also, the Blockbuster/Netflix/Hollywood Video/Vudu/whatever business model sucks. The instore or online experience is horrendous in most cases, though Netflix does better than the others. I think I bought two DVDs in Target this year as an impulse buy ($6 each), and I still kind of regret spending the money since one viewing was enough for me. I'm pretty much done with buying DVDs because as I wrote earlier, it's EOL as far as I'm concerned. The BR/HD DVD fiasco irritated me enough that I don't want to encourage these companies to continue putting consumers in the middle when they can't or won't work to reach productive agreements on media standards.

As for Walmart, Google, and cinemovie going out of the download business, infrastructure might have had something to do with it, but don't overlook the poorly conceived and executed business model and the general ugliness of their presentation platform. Did they care about anything other than trying to make what they thought would be easy money? They couldn't even copy the one clear example of a successful business model. Obviously, they had no good ideas of their own.

Most of my video watching is through HD OTA broadcast, legal download, or stream. (I've never had cable or sat.) The day that iTunes or some other service has a viable infrastructure for delivering to me the media I want in HD, I'm on board. It looks to me like that will happen this year or next, unless media companies continue to be stupid. In that case, I just won't buy their shirt (remove the "r"). There's a word that starts with "f" that reflects my regard for them.

Making business plans and decisions based on surveys is weak and inefficient. It lacks innovation, initiative, and vision. Plus, people tell you things that they think they want or they think they'll do, when in fact they will do the opposite. The biggest example of this dumbness is the BR vs. HD DVD fiasco. It's the "ultimate consumer survey" in that people are asked to make a choice that impacts their wallets. The dumb media and manufacturing companies think the "survey" is as simple as "Forced to make a choice, which will you choose, BluRay or HD DVD?" The companies and the news media think they now know the answer: BluRay.

Well the overwhelming consumer choice is actually "neither."

You'd think somewhere in these companies a decision maker would have had either Business 101 or Marketing 101.

Is Apple really the only company that's been thinking this through? Piece by piece it's built most of the hardware needed, software needed, and most of the infrastructure needed to deliver the content. If it can make it all work in the next 12-18 months, a lot of people are going to be surprised (and should be fired) for missing the obvious opening that is before them.

There are two full generations of people that have substantial market power now who will abandon physical media in a heartbeat when a digital solution truly presents itself. They are not trapped in the mentality that mourns the loss of an album cover with pictures, liner notes, and track listings on them, or that wants to have an entire second disc of useless junk that couldn't make it into the feature film or that just drags out the director/producer's ego for all to see about what a majestic thing the making of a film is--again.

Jim Morrison said it pretty well 40 year ago, "We want the world, and we want it now." That's what the majority of the kids and young adults I work with want when it comes to media, and the generation above them, which includes my own children, already passes more information (audio and video) around electronically than it does physically.

Now, if only someone would devise a business plan and marketing approach that would capture them as legal customers rather than suing them over a dead business model and crippling the content to the point of making it worthless to consumers, then they wouldn't need a pandering survey to justify screwing people with an old, indefensible business model that's costing them revenue and customers. Instead, they'd be making money and winning customers.

So I hope both BR and HD DVD die soon and die hard. I certainly won't miss them. They're the ultimate expression of the arrogance, conceit and hubris of the status quo in media and electronics.

I respect your opinion.

[Ajani]

........I would hardly call 600,000 standalones, and 8 million PS3 world wide dismal sales.......

I have one large problem with these figures that Blu-Ray uses to claim large sales... and that is the inclusion of the PS3... sure it can play Blu-Ray discs, but are most consumers really buying it as Blu-Ray player, a videogame sytem or both?

Would it make sense for Mark Levinson to claim to be the leader in high end audio sales, by including the sales of all Lexus with Mark Levinson stereos? I doubt that most consumers buying a Lexus are buying it for the stereo...

Should DVD-A or SACD claim brilliant sales figures based on the number of DVD/Universal Players that now play their respective formats? How many of us consumers have a DVD player that plays one/both of those formats but have never bought a DVD-A/SACD disc?

I regard the PS3 sales figures as a very poor reflection of Blu-Ray's popularity... I think the standalone players are the more telling tale and 600,000 units really isn't all that impressive.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I have one large problem with these figures that Blu-Ray uses to claim large sales... and that is the inclusion of the PS3... sure it can play Blu-Ray discs, but are most consumers really buying it as Blu-Ray player, a videogame sytem or both?

I bought my purely as a bluray player. With no good games out, most of the folks that have bought them were probably for bluray playback. And lets look at the data. Before the PS3 was released, HD DVD was outselling bluray 2-1. One month after the PS3's release bluray was outselling HD DVD 2-1. The PS3 most undoubtedly had a major impact on that. In Europe, the best selling bluray player is the PS3. Disc sales there are 4-1 in blurays favor. In Japan, the PS3 makes up 90% of bluray players sold. Disc sales there are 95-5 in favor of bluray. I am quoting from NDP latest figures. One of the reasons Warner went for bluray was the impact of the PS3. A survey was conduct on bluray.com and a dozen other gaming sites. Over 85% of PS3 owners had purchased at least one bluray disc. So clearly while not all PS3 owners are buying disc, enough are to drive sales.



Would it make sense for Mark Levinson to claim to be the leader in high end audio sales, by including the sales of all Lexus with Mark Levinson stereos? I doubt that most consumers buying a Lexus are buying it for the stereo...

Well ,this is not really a good example. High end has never been associated with cars. A bluray drive has always been associated with a PS3. You have to make the distinction of which high end your are speaking of, but that is how the market is broken down. High end home audio, High end audio for auto. Both are quite different, and deserve the distinction.


Should DVD-A or SACD claim brilliant sales figures based on the number of DVD/Universal Players that now play their respective formats? How many of us consumers have a DVD player that plays one/both of those formats but have never bought a DVD-A/SACD disc?

If these brillant claims of player sales didn't impact disc sales, then making the claim is pointless isn't it? You have 600,000 bluray standalones sold, and 800,000 HD DVD players sold. It is pretty difficult for the lower number to outsell the higher number consistantly 2-1 week after week.


I regard the PS3 sales figures as a very poor reflection of Blu-Ray's popularity... I think the standalone players are the more telling tale and 600,000 units really isn't all that impressive.

I think this is an antiquated way of thinking. Considering that the PS3 is a full profile player, capable of decoding all audio codecs, can be updated wirelessly, has SACD playback and was the cheapest bluray player at that, it was a value that bluray videophiles cannot pass up. Its SACD playback is better than 90% of the SACD players out there, and was engineered by the same guys that developed the SACD format. The PS3 happens to be the most stable bluray player as well. I have never had a single disc frozen in my player. When BD+ was implement, the PS3 handled it better than almost all of the bluray players out there. When it comes to sound and picture quality, the PS3 is always in the top tier of the bluray line of players.
No, the fact that it was such a value is a excellent reflection on the PS3 AND bluray popularity. However, the newer standalones coming out are starting to offer the same level of flexibility as the PS3(though they do not offer SACD playback), and that will definately steal some of the thunder from the PS3. There is a reason that Sound and Vision made the PS3 the product of the year last year.

[hermanv]

Herman, I would hardly call 600,000 standalones, and 8 million PS3 world wide dismal sales. I would hardly call sales of disc which I believe would be about 6 million in 2007 alone terrible this early in a fomats release. Also take into consideration what happened to sales POST the Warner announcement. The format war has clearly taken its toll in the short run, but after that announcement, things changed pretty dramatically number wise. <snip> I didn't say the sales were dismal, According to CNET both Blu Ray and HD-DVD manufacturers did.

Me I wouldn't really know where break even occurs. I am an early adapter of new (but stable) technologies, I'll wait.

[Ajani]

I bought my purely as a bluray player. With no good games out, most of the folks that have bought them were probably for bluray playback. And lets look at the data. Before the PS3 was released, HD DVD was outselling bluray 2-1. One month after the PS3's release bluray was outselling HD DVD 2-1. The PS3 most undoubtedly had a major impact on that. In Europe, the best selling bluray player is the PS3. Disc sales there are 4-1 in blurays favor. In Japan, the PS3 makes up 90% of bluray players sold. Disc sales there are 95-5 in favor of bluray. I am quoting from NDP latest figures. One of the reasons Warner went for bluray was the impact of the PS3. A survey was conduct on bluray.com and a dozen other gaming sites. Over 85% of PS3 owners had purchased at least one bluray disc. So clearly while not all PS3 owners are buying disc, enough are to drive sales.




Well ,this is not really a good example. High end has never been associated with cars. A bluray drive has always been associated with a PS3. You have to make the distinction of which high end your are speaking of, but that is how the market is broken down. High end home audio, High end audio for auto. Both are quite different, and deserve the distinction.



If these brillant claims of player sales didn't impact disc sales, then making the claim is pointless isn't it? You have 600,000 bluray standalones sold, and 800,000 HD DVD players sold. It is pretty difficult for the lower number to outsell the higher number consistantly 2-1 week after week.



I think this is an antiquated way of thinking. Considering that the PS3 is a full profile player, capable of decoding all audio codecs, can be updated wirelessly, has SACD playback and was the cheapest bluray player at that, it was a value that bluray videophiles cannot pass up. Its SACD playback is better than 90% of the SACD players out there, and was engineered by the same guys that developed the SACD format. The PS3 happens to be the most stable bluray player as well. I have never had a single disc frozen in my player. When BD+ was implement, the PS3 handled it better than almost all of the bluray players out there. When it comes to sound and picture quality, the PS3 is always in the top tier of the bluray line of players.
No, the fact that it was such a value is a excellent reflection on the PS3 AND bluray popularity. However, the newer standalones coming out are starting to offer the same level of flexibility as the PS3(though they do not offer SACD playback), and that will definately steal some of the thunder from the PS3. There is a reason that Sound and Vision made the PS3 the product of the year last year.


All good points, but what we seem to have here, is the difference between a conservative and an aggressive estimate... Not including any PS3 sales is conservative, while including all 8 million is very aggressive...

So let's see if I can come up with a more realistic estimate:

Since Blu-Ray discs routinely outsell HD ones 2 to 1 each week.... then that indicates that the PS3 is having some (but not nearly as large an impact as one would expect if 8Million PS3 owners are buying the PS3 to play Blu Ray discs)...

HD Sales = 800,000 Players
Blu-Ray Sales = 600,000 Players + 8,000,000 PS3

So basically a ratio of 1 HD player to just over every 10 Blu-Ray players...

That should transate into disc sales around 10:1 in favour of Blu-Ray, not 2:1....

Which implies that PS3 is effectively contributing about 1M Blu Ray players (HD Players (0.8M)x 2 = 1.6M.... 1.6M - 0.6 (Blu Ray) = 1M PS3 effective contribution)....

Let me know what you think...

[hermanv]

I still remember the scam where Sony hired "critics" to send press releases to national newspapers declaring a Sony movies (Columbia) to be great and with record attendance.

I frankly don't believe a word they say. Not that all other corporations don't routinely stretch the truth. The bigger they are, the greater the chance they can lie with impunity.

It would be very rare for me to base a purchase decision based on press published by the same corporation that makes the product.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

All good points, but what we seem to have here, is the difference between a conservative and an aggressive estimate... Not including any PS3 sales is conservative, while including all 8 million is very aggressive...

So let's see if I can come up with a more realistic estimate:

Since Blu-Ray discs routinely outsell HD ones 2 to 1 each week.... then that indicates that the PS3 is having some (but not nearly as large an impact as one would expect if 8Million PS3 owners are buying the PS3 to play Blu Ray discs)...

HD Sales = 800,000 Players
Blu-Ray Sales = 600,000 Players + 8,000,000 PS3

So basically a ratio of 1 HD player to just over every 10 Blu-Ray players...

That should transate into disc sales around 10:1 in favour of Blu-Ray, not 2:1....

Which implies that PS3 is effectively contributing about 1M Blu Ray players (HD Players (0.8M)x 2 = 1.6M.... 1.6M - 0.6 (Blu Ray) = 1M PS3 effective contribution)....

Let me know what you think...

I used world wide sales of 8 million players with US sales of disc. Try this.

3.7 million players sold IN AMERICA(including the PS3), and 8 million disc sold IN AMERICA. This ought to give a more accurate picture.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I still remember the scam where Sony hired "critics" to send press releases to national newspapers declaring a Sony movies (Columbia) to be great and with record attendance.

I frankly don't believe a word they say. Not that all other corporations don't routinely stretch the truth. The bigger they are, the greater the chance they can lie with impunity.

It would be very rare for me to base a purchase decision based on press published by the same corporation that makes the product.

You would have a point if Sony compiled the figures. They did not, NDP did.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I didn't say the sales were dismal, According to CNET both Blu Ray and HD-DVD manufacturers did.

Me I wouldn't really know where break even occurs. I am an early adapter of new (but stable) technologies, I'll wait.

I have not heard a single manufacturer especially of a bluray player make a claim that sales were dismal. They are furthur along than DVD was at this period in its life.

How do you know if a technology is stable if you do not own it? If you are speaking technically, my PS3 has performed flawlessly. Neither my XA-2 or A-35 have.

If you are referring to the viability of bluray itself, I would say after the Warner announcement things pretty much stablized. It is much like DVD after DIVX died. DVD player sales took off, after the Warner annoucement so did bluray player sales. On DVD disc sales took off(as did rentals) after DIVX died, after the Warner annoucement disc sales with from 71-29% in favor of bluray to 85-15% in favor of bluray. Overall volumes went up as well as the percentage of sales. Paramount will go bluray in the middle of the year, and Universal will go bluray before christmas. With all of the studio supporting bluray, it will do just fine.

[hermanv]

By CNET News.com Staff
Published: October 16, 2007 2:48 PM PDT

Listen Now

Could the smartest choice be buying neither HD format?;

HD DVD or Blu-ray? Could the smartest choice be neither of the two? The high-definition DVD formats are competing for your dollars, but the best investment may be to hurry up and wait. Sales of both formats aren't doing nearly as well as plain old DVDs, and the true future of at-home HD movies will probably be fully digital. CNET News.com's Erica Ogg explains why neither format may be in it for the long haul.

By Erica Ogg
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 15, 2007, 4:00 AM PDT

False starts in race to future of DVDs

Is all of this Blu-ray Disc versus HD DVD bickering much ado about nothing?

Many column inches and much screen space have been filled with discussions of a "war" between two rival next-generation DVD formats. On one hand, it's understandable: the opposing camps are manned by the world's leading technology companies and the biggest names in film and television: Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Dell, Intel, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, MGM and many more.

But more than 18 months after the launch of both formats, the question remains, should the average consumer care? Most would say, "not yet." Both sides are still engaged in a battle for consumer attention and dollars, while some are prematurely declaring victory. (Panasonic is the most recent to predict Blu-ray--which it is backing exclusively--will be the undisputed champion.)

There is no guarantee either of these formats will still be viable 12 months from now, so it's unclear why the casual movie fan would consider investing in either side at all--particular because the price of the players and discs are still relatively high. More importantly, many consumers think regular old DVDs are perfectly fine.

The studios and hardware makers on both sides are betting heavily on launching a new format, of course. But all the bickering and public posturing over the last year looks patently ridiculous when one considers how few discs and players these industry giants are actually arguing over.

Case in point: 300 is the fastest-selling next-generation title so far, according to Warner Bros., which says it sold 250,000 high-definition copies of it in the first week. (How fitting that the most successful next-generation movie thus far is about a group of warriors waging an unwinnable battle).

At an industry conference last week, representatives from Microsoft (HD DVD), Sony and Pioneer (Blu-ray), sniped at each other over the number of copies of 300 sold on each format. Blu-ray claims its version of the disc outsold HD DVD's by a margin of two to one in the first week. The breakdown was actually 65 percent Blu-ray, 35 percent HD DVD, according to a Warner Bros. representative.

But only when you consider that the studio sold more than 5 million copies of 300 on standard DVD does it become clear that all this posturing is over less than 5 percent of sales. On the hardware side, DisplaySearch said 5 percent of sales of standalone DVD players in September were either HD DVD or Blu-ray.

For now, both sides are priming the pump to create awareness for a technology that, currently, most consumers can't necessarily even take advantage of because they need a full high-definition (1080p) television to get the maximum effect of an HD DVD or Blu-ray movie.

"It's a different sell if you don't have an HDTV set yet," said Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research for DisplaySearch. "Most of the appeal (of a next-generation player) will come from (having) 1080p. While that may be the standard in the future, 720p is still selling very strongly."
"DVD is a victim of its own success. It's a good technology."
--Josh Martin, analyst, Yankee Group

Luckily for the backers of both formats, high-definition TV sets are selling well these days. Eight out of every 10 TVs sold in the month of August were HDTVs, according to the NPD Group. And 1080p adoption is on the upswing as well; sales of 40-inch and larger LCD TVs that output 1080p resolution have increased more than 40 percent in the last year, according to data from DisplaySearch.

But NPD uncovered a very telling statistic in its 2007 report on high-definition video: 73 percent of current HDTV owners "are satisfied with DVD and don't feel the need to replace" their current players.

Ultimately, DVDs are good enough for most people. Most consumers probably already own a DVD player. If they don't, the average price is certainly more attractive than those of either HD DVD or Blu-ray players. Though prices of both have come way down in the last nine months, the average price for next-generation DVD players is $390 more than standard DVD players.

"DVD is a victim of its own success. It's a good technology," said Josh Martin, an analyst with Yankee Group Research. Plus, the step up to DVD from VHS tapes is not analogous to the step up from DVD to high-definition discs. "Next-gen isn't redefining, it's more tweaking of the technology. Content owners think it's a bigger leap, but consumers look at (a next-generation disc), and it's a disc, and it's not worth $600 or whatever" for the player to go with it.

Some would argue the biggest roadblock in Blu-ray and HD DVD's aspirations of becoming the standard in home video actually isn't the format competition--it's inexpensive, so-called upconverting DVD players, or standard players that have the ability to take regular DVDs and translate them into 1080p, the same resolution as Blu-ray and HD DVD. Though the studios and hardware makers will argue that it's just not the same as the movies recorded and played back in 1080p, it will be good enough for the average consumer.

[pixelthis]

By CNET News.com Staff
Published: October 16, 2007 2:48 PM PDT

Listen Now

Could the smartest choice be buying neither HD format?;

HD DVD or Blu-ray? Could the smartest choice be neither of the two? The high-definition DVD formats are competing for your dollars, but the best investment may be to hurry up and wait. Sales of both formats aren't doing nearly as well as plain old DVDs, and the true future of at-home HD movies will probably be fully digital. CNET News.com's Erica Ogg explains why neither format may be in it for the long haul.

By Erica Ogg
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 15, 2007, 4:00 AM PDT

False starts in race to future of DVDs

Is all of this Blu-ray Disc versus HD DVD bickering much ado about nothing?

Many column inches and much screen space have been filled with discussions of a "war" between two rival next-generation DVD formats. On one hand, it's understandable: the opposing camps are manned by the world's leading technology companies and the biggest names in film and television: Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Dell, Intel, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, MGM and many more.

But more than 18 months after the launch of both formats, the question remains, should the average consumer care? Most would say, "not yet." Both sides are still engaged in a battle for consumer attention and dollars, while some are prematurely declaring victory. (Panasonic is the most recent to predict Blu-ray--which it is backing exclusively--will be the undisputed champion.)

There is no guarantee either of these formats will still be viable 12 months from now, so it's unclear why the casual movie fan would consider investing in either side at all--particular because the price of the players and discs are still relatively high. More importantly, many consumers think regular old DVDs are perfectly fine.

The studios and hardware makers on both sides are betting heavily on launching a new format, of course. But all the bickering and public posturing over the last year looks patently ridiculous when one considers how few discs and players these industry giants are actually arguing over.

Case in point: 300 is the fastest-selling next-generation title so far, according to Warner Bros., which says it sold 250,000 high-definition copies of it in the first week. (How fitting that the most successful next-generation movie thus far is about a group of warriors waging an unwinnable battle).

At an industry conference last week, representatives from Microsoft (HD DVD), Sony and Pioneer (Blu-ray), sniped at each other over the number of copies of 300 sold on each format. Blu-ray claims its version of the disc outsold HD DVD's by a margin of two to one in the first week. The breakdown was actually 65 percent Blu-ray, 35 percent HD DVD, according to a Warner Bros. representative.

But only when you consider that the studio sold more than 5 million copies of 300 on standard DVD does it become clear that all this posturing is over less than 5 percent of sales. On the hardware side, DisplaySearch said 5 percent of sales of standalone DVD players in September were either HD DVD or Blu-ray.

For now, both sides are priming the pump to create awareness for a technology that, currently, most consumers can't necessarily even take advantage of because they need a full high-definition (1080p) television to get the maximum effect of an HD DVD or Blu-ray movie.

"It's a different sell if you don't have an HDTV set yet," said Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research for DisplaySearch. "Most of the appeal (of a next-generation player) will come from (having) 1080p. While that may be the standard in the future, 720p is still selling very strongly."
"DVD is a victim of its own success. It's a good technology."
--Josh Martin, analyst, Yankee Group

Luckily for the backers of both formats, high-definition TV sets are selling well these days. Eight out of every 10 TVs sold in the month of August were HDTVs, according to the NPD Group. And 1080p adoption is on the upswing as well; sales of 40-inch and larger LCD TVs that output 1080p resolution have increased more than 40 percent in the last year, according to data from DisplaySearch.

But NPD uncovered a very telling statistic in its 2007 report on high-definition video: 73 percent of current HDTV owners "are satisfied with DVD and don't feel the need to replace" their current players.

Ultimately, DVDs are good enough for most people. Most consumers probably already own a DVD player. If they don't, the average price is certainly more attractive than those of either HD DVD or Blu-ray players. Though prices of both have come way down in the last nine months, the average price for next-generation DVD players is $390 more than standard DVD players.

"DVD is a victim of its own success. It's a good technology," said Josh Martin, an analyst with Yankee Group Research. Plus, the step up to DVD from VHS tapes is not analogous to the step up from DVD to high-definition discs. "Next-gen isn't redefining, it's more tweaking of the technology. Content owners think it's a bigger leap, but consumers look at (a next-generation disc), and it's a disc, and it's not worth $600 or whatever" for the player to go with it.

Some would argue the biggest roadblock in Blu-ray and HD DVD's aspirations of becoming the standard in home video actually isn't the format competition--it's inexpensive, so-called upconverting DVD players, or standard players that have the ability to take regular DVDs and translate them into 1080p, the same resolution as Blu-ray and HD DVD. Though the studios and hardware makers will argue that it's just not the same as the movies recorded and played back in 1080p, it will be good enough for the average consumer.


GEE WIZ!
This is basically what I have been saying, just to be called a "51 year old man who doesn't
know what hes' talking about" by sir talky.
This just goes to show that talky has an agenda and is pushing it, quite often at the expense of reality.
DONT underestimate the tolerance of teh American public for a crappy picture, to most
DVD IS fine, especially with a format that, like I said is more evolutionary than revolutionary.
As for Sonys credibilty , forget about the movie scam, what about putting anti-copy viruses on their CD's that screw up your hard drive? like they did mine?
Too bad that they make such exelent disc players and monitirs, or I'D toss em off completely:1:

[GMichael]

Question:

Do you want to sit back and wait for the future to get here or would you rather get involved now?

[Rich-n-Texas]

Don't ya hate it when you post a response to something on the previous page and no one knows what you're talking about? :biggrin5:

[GMichael]

Don't ya hate it when you post a response to something on the previous page and no one knows what you're talking about? :biggrin5:

Nah......
I like being on top.:ihih:

[L.J.]

Question:

Do you want to sit back and wait for the future to get here or would you rather get involved now?

You talkin' to me :cornut:

[GMichael]

You talkin' to me :cornut:

Nope, but I will if you like.

What shall we talk about? Porn?

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

By CNET News.com Staff
Published: October 16, 2007 2:48 PM PDT

Listen Now

Could the smartest choice be buying neither HD format?;

HD DVD or Blu-ray? Could the smartest choice be neither of the two? The high-definition DVD formats are competing for your dollars, but the best investment may be to hurry up and wait. Sales of both formats aren't doing nearly as well as plain old DVDs, and the true future of at-home HD movies will probably be fully digital. CNET News.com's Erica Ogg explains why neither format may be in it for the long haul.

By Erica Ogg
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: October 15, 2007, 4:00 AM PDT

False starts in race to future of DVDs

Is all of this Blu-ray Disc versus HD DVD bickering much ado about nothing?

Many column inches and much screen space have been filled with discussions of a "war" between two rival next-generation DVD formats. On one hand, it's understandable: the opposing camps are manned by the world's leading technology companies and the biggest names in film and television: Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Dell, Intel, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros., Paramount, MGM and many more.

But more than 18 months after the launch of both formats, the question remains, should the average consumer care? Most would say, "not yet." Both sides are still engaged in a battle for consumer attention and dollars, while some are prematurely declaring victory. (Panasonic is the most recent to predict Blu-ray--which it is backing exclusively--will be the undisputed champion.)

There is no guarantee either of these formats will still be viable 12 months from now, so it's unclear why the casual movie fan would consider investing in either side at all--particular because the price of the players and discs are still relatively high. More importantly, many consumers think regular old DVDs are perfectly fine.

The studios and hardware makers on both sides are betting heavily on launching a new format, of course. But all the bickering and public posturing over the last year looks patently ridiculous when one considers how few discs and players these industry giants are actually arguing over.

Case in point: 300 is the fastest-selling next-generation title so far, according to Warner Bros., which says it sold 250,000 high-definition copies of it in the first week. (How fitting that the most successful next-generation movie thus far is about a group of warriors waging an unwinnable battle).

At an industry conference last week, representatives from Microsoft (HD DVD), Sony and Pioneer (Blu-ray), sniped at each other over the number of copies of 300 sold on each format. Blu-ray claims its version of the disc outsold HD DVD's by a margin of two to one in the first week. The breakdown was actually 65 percent Blu-ray, 35 percent HD DVD, according to a Warner Bros. representative.

But only when you consider that the studio sold more than 5 million copies of 300 on standard DVD does it become clear that all this posturing is over less than 5 percent of sales. On the hardware side, DisplaySearch said 5 percent of sales of standalone DVD players in September were either HD DVD or Blu-ray.

For now, both sides are priming the pump to create awareness for a technology that, currently, most consumers can't necessarily even take advantage of because they need a full high-definition (1080p) television to get the maximum effect of an HD DVD or Blu-ray movie.

"It's a different sell if you don't have an HDTV set yet," said Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research for DisplaySearch. "Most of the appeal (of a next-generation player) will come from (having) 1080p. While that may be the standard in the future, 720p is still selling very strongly."
"DVD is a victim of its own success. It's a good technology."
--Josh Martin, analyst, Yankee Group

Luckily for the backers of both formats, high-definition TV sets are selling well these days. Eight out of every 10 TVs sold in the month of August were HDTVs, according to the NPD Group. And 1080p adoption is on the upswing as well; sales of 40-inch and larger LCD TVs that output 1080p resolution have increased more than 40 percent in the last year, according to data from DisplaySearch.

But NPD uncovered a very telling statistic in its 2007 report on high-definition video: 73 percent of current HDTV owners "are satisfied with DVD and don't feel the need to replace" their current players.

Ultimately, DVDs are good enough for most people. Most consumers probably already own a DVD player. If they don't, the average price is certainly more attractive than those of either HD DVD or Blu-ray players. Though prices of both have come way down in the last nine months, the average price for next-generation DVD players is $390 more than standard DVD players.

"DVD is a victim of its own success. It's a good technology," said Josh Martin, an analyst with Yankee Group Research. Plus, the step up to DVD from VHS tapes is not analogous to the step up from DVD to high-definition discs. "Next-gen isn't redefining, it's more tweaking of the technology. Content owners think it's a bigger leap, but consumers look at (a next-generation disc), and it's a disc, and it's not worth $600 or whatever" for the player to go with it.

Some would argue the biggest roadblock in Blu-ray and HD DVD's aspirations of becoming the standard in home video actually isn't the format competition--it's inexpensive, so-called upconverting DVD players, or standard players that have the ability to take regular DVDs and translate them into 1080p, the same resolution as Blu-ray and HD DVD. Though the studios and hardware makers will argue that it's just not the same as the movies recorded and played back in 1080p, it will be good enough for the average consumer.

This is an opinion piece, not fact.
It is also dated, much has changed since it was written.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

GEE WIZ!
This is basically what I have been saying, just to be called a "51 year old man who doesn't
know what hes' talking about" by sir talky.
This just goes to show that talky has an agenda and is pushing it, quite often at the expense of reality.
DONT underestimate the tolerance of teh American public for a crappy picture, to most
DVD IS fine, especially with a format that, like I said is more evolutionary than revolutionary.
As for Sonys credibilty , forget about the movie scam, what about putting anti-copy viruses on their CD's that screw up your hard drive? like they did mine?
Too bad that they make such exelent disc players and monitirs, or I'D toss em off completely:1:

You would jump up and down over an old dated opinion piece not built on the facts.

[hermanv]

This is an opinion piece, not fact.
It is also dated, much has changed since it was written.By golly you are right, it has been a whole 3 months since these opinions about actual sales figures were posted.

[Woochifer]

By golly you are right, it has been a whole 3 months since these opinions about actual sales figures were posted.

As T pointed out, three months is an eternity in this format war. Can't use old market data to support a current argument, especially if the market itself has shifted significantly in the meantime.

When those opinions were posted, Paramount/Dreamworks had just dumped Blu-ray less than 2 months prior, which narrowed down Blu-ray's studio support advantage. At that time, HD-DVD still had a slight advantage in standalone player sales, but with a smaller installed user base because of the PS3. Blu-ray probably would have still won out in the end, but the format war under those conditions would have persisted well into 2008 and maybe 2009.

Fast forward to January 2008, now Warner (which controls about 40% of the overall HD disc media market) has announced that it will dump HD-DVD, which effectively relegates the format to about 1/4 of the market. In the aftermath of Warner's announcement, Blu-ray's week-to-week disc sales advantage increased from ~2-to-1 to more than 4-to-1, and the sales of HD-DVD players dropped by more than 80%.

Remember that Betamax was already disappearing from retail stores before its market share dropped down to 25%. HD-DVD is already below that threshold, and like I've said many times before, if these trends hold up, retailers will stop carrying HD-DVD long before Toshiba, Universal, Paramount, and Microsoft officially pull the plug. With those kinds of market conditions, no one can make a credible argument for HD-DVD surviving as a viable format for much longer.

Talk about outdated, that article is still referring to $600 Blu-ray players. If you check the prices now, you'll see that street prices for Blu-ray players are now down to about $250. And many sources are reporting that overall HD optical disc uptake, even with this format war that has left so many consumers sitting on the fence, has occurred at a faster rate than when the DVD format was introduced.

I wonder if the analyst cited in the article was recommending 9 years ago that people stick with VHS because there was no "guarantee" that the DVD format would remain viable in 12 months and that the average consumer was perfectly happy with VHS resolution and pan-and-scan.

[bfalls]

I'm a Sony video fan and work at their DADC facility in Indiana. I purchased a PS3 at the end of September and it's performed flawlessly with both DVD and Blu-ray discs. In Novenber Walmart had a one day sale on the HD-DVD HD-A2 for $98. I purchased one thinking it can always be used for upscaling DVD if they lose the war. I also wanted to have HD versions of Transformers and the Bourne movies.

The HD-DVD hasn't performed very well at all. Twice during play it locked up and required unplugging before it would continue. I also had problems getting several SD DVDs to play. Thinking it was a defective unit, I returned it and bought the HD-A3. I should have taken the hint when first there was a warning to upgrade the firmware right in the top of the box. Another warning appeared following the initial setup in the manual. There were also warnings in each of the two movies I received with the player. Sure enough, on power-up I received vertical black and teil stripes, ticking in the audio and video dropping in and out. I performed the upgrade, but it resulted in no change.

I returned the unit and found a HD-D3 on sale and took it home only to discover the same bahavior. Checking back through my cabling I decided to run my HDMI directly to my Sony KDL52XBR5 display and video appeared. I had it running through my Sony flagship STR-DA5300ES w/HDMI 1.3, but it appears they don't communicate well with each other. Has anyone else had these experiences with their HD-DVD players? I have audio connected via optical, but I'd waited for a receiver with HDMI 1.3 and want the option of the new audio formats only available via HDMI. Any suggestions.

[hermanv]

Total sales penetration of both hardware and software is less than 5%, the current argument is whose sales are the most dismal HD or Blu-Ray. Currently there are no winners, period.

This industry can not and will not survive on 5% penetration. You may be as long winded as you wish in an attempt to squeeze just one more grain of wheat out of all that chaff, but until those sales numbers change, all bets are still on the table.

The epitaph may well read "Shortly before the formats death and withdrawal from the market Blu-Ray was declared the winner". I certainly remember all the articles about how superior BetaMax was as if that mattered, most of them were published after its' death.

Some of you made an early decision to support and adopt one format, now you seem determined to grasp any wisp of smoke to assure yourself that decision was the right one. I said I'll wait, and I am still waiting. I have a favorite, but have no problem in eventually changing to purchase the survivor if there is one, with one caveat. I still won't spend $30 or more just to buy the HiDef version of any of the junk that is supposed to pass today as a good movie.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Total sales penetration of both hardware and software is less than 5%, the current argument is whose sales are the most dismal HD or Blu-Ray. Currently there are no winners, period.

This is a horrible mischaracterization of what is happening NOW. Bluray is officially less than two years old. When it was OFFICIALLY launched(most manufacturers got players to market) didn't really occur until November of 2006. That makes this format 1 year and 1 month old. It is no small feat(DVD couldn't do it) to sell 600,000 standalone players during a format war where you are the price underdog. Your assesment assumes that the end has happened for bluray, and that is just not what is happening. It is just beginning. Since November bluray player sales are steadily increasing. Disc sales have already shown strong growth since the Warner announcement. Everyone in the film and video industry has declared bluray the winner, you need to catch up with current events



This industry can not and will not survive on 5% penetration. You may be as long winded as you wish in an attempt to squeeze just one more grain of wheat out of all that chaff, but until those sales numbers change, all bets are still on the table.

It can survive 5% market penitration this early in its life. It is a little illogical to think that everything has to happen this moment. Ever heard of growing a business?


The epitaph may well read "Shortly before the formats death and withdrawal from the market Blu-Ray was declared the winner". I certainly remember all the articles about how superior BetaMax was as if that mattered, most of them were published after its' death.

You sound just like the DVD naysayers verbatum.


Some of you made an early decision to support and adopt one format, now you seem determined to grasp any wisp of smoke to assure yourself that decision was the right one. I said I'll wait, and I am still waiting. I have a favorite, but have no problem in eventually changing to purchase the survivor if there is one, with one caveat. I still won't spend $30 or more just to buy the HiDef version of any of the junk that is supposed to pass today as a good movie.

Great, wait. But there is no need to spread poison while you are. You sound like you are justifying not purchasing, and there is no need for that. If you don't want in, don't. But what you are attempting to do is to not make a move, and convince others they shouldn't as well. I do not think that is fair or right to do this.

Not only did I buy a PS3, but I purchased over 250 movies as well. Thats how I show confidence in a format. If I had any inckling it would not survive, I would quit purchasing right then(like I did with HD DVD). But all of the information I see from NDP, all the market research done in my industry, and the trends of the market point to bluray.

Just to show you how strong bluray is relationshipship to its alternative. The final figures for 2007 came yesterday. Downloading did $123 million dollars in revenue, bluray all by itself did $290 million. It surpassed downloading in revenue in August of 2007. Downloading dropped from $212 million in 2006, with the biggest hit to VOD on cable. Apple was the big winner with 80% of that downloading revenue. So while the market for downloading and VOD shifted towards Apple downloads, the disc market shifted towards Bluray. In one year(2007) bluray blew past downloading to a little more than twice the revenue. So not bad for a format you think is dead. You are not really keeping up, the format war is over, and the market shift(and growth) has already begun.

When you look closer than from the moon, you can easily see how you are reading this quite wrong.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I'm a Sony video fan and work at their DADC facility in Indiana. I purchased a PS3 at the end of September and it's performed flawlessly with both DVD and Blu-ray discs. In Novenber Walmart had a one day sale on the HD-DVD HD-A2 for $98. I purchased one thinking it can always be used for upscaling DVD if they lose the war. I also wanted to have HD versions of Transformers and the Bourne movies.

The HD-DVD hasn't performed very well at all. Twice during play it locked up and required unplugging before it would continue. I also had problems getting several SD DVDs to play. Thinking it was a defective unit, I returned it and bought the HD-A3. I should have taken the hint when first there was a warning to upgrade the firmware right in the top of the box. Another warning appeared following the initial setup in the manual. There were also warnings in each of the two movies I received with the player. Sure enough, on power-up I received vertical black and teil stripes, ticking in the audio and video dropping in and out. I performed the upgrade, but it resulted in no change.

I returned the unit and found a HD-D3 on sale and took it home only to discover the same bahavior. Checking back through my cabling I decided to run my HDMI directly to my Sony KDL52XBR5 display and video appeared. I had it running through my Sony flagship STR-DA5300ES w/HDMI 1.3, but it appears they don't communicate well with each other. Has anyone else had these experiences with their HD-DVD players? I have audio connected via optical, but I'd waited for a receiver with HDMI 1.3 and want the option of the new audio formats only available via HDMI. Any suggestions.

My first A1 was a disaster. It hiccuped, froze, and could barely get through a movie. 4 firmware upgrade later, it became a decent player. My XA-1 was a total disaster. Returned it to get the XA-2. It function pretty well, but when they added the 24fps firmware upgrade, it continually lost dialog sync. When warner made their announcement, there was a huge dump of players on EBAY. I picked up a A-35 for $250. It has been a hit and miss on HD DVD movies, but a total kick with DVD. Toshiba just didn't not do well with its HD DVD line of players, and there were no other manufacturers willing to get in the HD DVD corner with other OEM designs. So we are all stuck with underperforming players. The PS3 has been the single best thing I have added to my hometheater in years. Excellent SACD playback, music streaming via Pandora, rock stable playback of both DVD and Bluray discs, excellent PQ and SQ, and full profile. This is a videophiles dream.

[pixelthis]

By golly you are right, it has been a whole 3 months since these opinions about actual sales figures were posted.

Nothing he disagrees with is a "fact". Probably thinks the world is flat.

AT any rate you have done it now, hes' posted another five miles of gibberish.
I don't have to read it to know thats what it is(consider the source):1:

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Nothing he disagrees with is a "fact". Probably thinks the world is flat.

AT any rate you have done it now, hes' posted another five miles of gibberish.
I don't have to read it to know thats what it is(consider the source):1:

All this from a person who makes opinions on things he never has seen, thinks the interlacing process is visible to the eye(must be tons of flickering devices in folks homes), who has supported nothing he has stated with links, figures, or supportable facts, and lives in a world that what he says is what everyone does. I guess when you are the National President of the Old People for Ignornace club, what more can you expect.

[Groundbeef]

. The PS3 has been the single best thing I have added to my hometheater in years. Excellent SACD playback, music streaming via Pandora, rock stable playback of both DVD and Bluray discs, excellent PQ and SQ, and full profile. This is a videophiles dream.

You got in on the top of the heap. Sony is now killing the 80GB PS3. 60GB has been killed. The 40 GB is all that is left.

It doesn't offer SCAD playback or PS2 B/C. It does still offer BR playback, but I have been reading that there are issues with 1.3 HDMI that it may not be able to overcome. I think your's will be ok, but it seems the 40 GB "economy" is just that. They cut out all the good stuff to make it cheaper.

[GMichael]

You got in on the top of the heap. Sony is now killing the 80GB PS3. 60GB has been killed. The 40 GB is all that is left.

It doesn't offer SCAD playback or PS2 B/C. It does still offer BR playback, but I have been reading that there are issues with 1.3 HDMI that it may not be able to overcome. I think your's will be ok, but it seems the 40 GB "economy" is just that. They cut out all the good stuff to make it cheaper.

A 120/160GB is around the corner.

[L.J.]

Well I'm glad I picked up my 60g. No problems at all. Everyone should own a PS3. I think I'm gonna pick up a 2nd one today :lol:

Oh...and Bluray is the best thing to happen ever :prrr:

[pixelthis]

A 120/160GB is around the corner.

why cant hackers put one in like they did with TIVO to increase recording time?
Or is that a dumb question?
I know it wouldnt adress the sacd, etc, but it would increase capability.:1:

[GMichael]

why cant hackers put one in like they did with TIVO to increase recording time?
Or is that a dumb question?
I know it wouldnt adress the sacd, etc, but it would increase capability.:1:

You sure can. I've seen a few threads about how to do it on other boards. Doesn't seem very hard to do. We just specify the drive size to keep each model straight in our heads. We know the 40GB has no BC or SACD. The 60 is 98% BC. The 80 is 90%. Any of these can have their drives changed but will still be the 40, 60 or 80 when trying to describe them. The 120 or 160 that may or may not be coming out may have other changes as well.

Not a dumb question at all. A very good one.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

You sure can. I've seen a few threads about how to do it on other boards. Doesn't seem very hard to do. We just specify the drive size to keep each model straight in our heads. We know the 40GB has no BC or SACD. The 60 is 98% BC. The 80 is 90%. Any of these can have their drives changed but will still be the 40, 60 or 80 when trying to describe them. The 120 or 160 that may or may not be coming out may have other changes as well.

Not a dumb question at all. A very good one.

It really is easy to do. It took me about 5 minutes to swap my 60 to a 250gb one. This is from somebody who little liar says is afraid of computers.

[L.J.]

I may have to do this eventually. I'm down to about 20gigs. My kid loves playing some of the demos so I don't delete them, but it saves me a ton of money. No need to go out and purchase the game :cornut:

I'm using TVersity to stream music(FLAC) from a 500g HD so I still got some room to grow there.

[pixelthis]

I may have to do this eventually. I'm down to about 20gigs. My kid loves playing some of the demos so I don't delete them, but it saves me a ton of money. No need to go out and purchase the game :cornut:

I'm using TVersity to stream music(FLAC) from a 500g HD so I still got some room to grow there.

short circuit had a 320 gig usb drive for 99 bucks, simpletech I beleive.
Mine plays music with no problems:1:

[pixelthis]

It really is easy to do. It took me about 5 minutes to swap my 60 to a 250gb one. This is from somebody who little liar says is afraid of computers.

What do you want, a medal?
I really dont remember when I SAID THIS if you're talkin about me, and I probably
dont beleive it.
Hell, you probably ARE a computer, an old 486 running an expert program in DOS 6.1
stashed in a closet under a pile of old clothes.
Would certainly explain your personality:1:

[Groundbeef]

What do you want, a medal?
I really dont remember when I SAID THIS if you're talkin about me, and I probably
dont beleive it.
Hell, you probably ARE a computer, an old 486 running an expert program in DOS 6.1
stashed in a closet under a pile of old clothes.
Would certainly explain your personality:1:

I belive he was talkin about NightFlier.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

What do you want, a medal?
I really dont remember when I SAID THIS if you're talkin about me, and I probably
dont beleive it.
Hell, you probably ARE a computer, an old 486 running an expert program in DOS 6.1
stashed in a closet under a pile of old clothes.
Would certainly explain your personality:1:

I am quite a bit younger than you are Commodore 64. I personally do not have time to exchange barbs with the President of the local geriatric foundation, and the founder and CEO of the old idiots society. And those are just two of you distinguished titles.

[Groundbeef]

I am quite a bit younger than you are Commodore 64. I personally do not have time to exchange barbs with the President of the local geriatric foundation, and the founder and CEO of the old idiots society. And those are just two of you distinguished titles.

It appears that Pixel and Melvin are long lost brothers. Maybe Pixel locked Melvin in the basement, and just now let him out? Think about it...

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

It appears that Pixel and Melvin are long lost brothers. Maybe Pixel locked Melvin in the basement, and just now let him out? Think about it...

Beef, you are scaring me man.....hopefully Melvin will get revenge and lock his idiotic brother in the basement.

[L.J.]

http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/2066/dsc01168le8.jpg

Wonder how long before these are going for $49.99. I may buy a 2nd one at that price.

[GMichael]

Did anyone just hear the sound of the bottom dropping out of the HD-DVD market?

[JSE]

I actually saw a commercial last night from Toshiba pimping it's HD-DVD as the next new format. It was an actual Toshiba commercial. That just seems wrong.

JSE

[L.J.]

I actually saw a commercial last night from Toshiba pimping it's HD-DVD as the next new format. It was an actual Toshiba commercial. That just seems wrong.

JSE

There's gonna be a HD DVD commercial during the superbowl as well. I guess Toshiba is hoping to reel in a few people who don't know any better. I hope these people are smart enough to do a little research.

[GMichael]

There's gonna be a HD DVD commercial during the superbowl as well. I guess Toshiba is hoping to reel in a few people who don't know any better. I hope these people are smart enough to do a little research.

There are many people who do not do research. Just look at how well Bose does.

[Woochifer]

There's gonna be a HD DVD commercial during the superbowl as well. I guess Toshiba is hoping to reel in a few people who don't know any better. I hope these people are smart enough to do a little research.

I guess that's another $3 million that Toshiba can add to its HD-DVD funeral pyre (either that or they figure it's cheaper to try selling all those unsold HD-DVD players than letting them get tossed into the landfill). At the very least, if they'd burned 3 million greenbacks, they might get a nice sized bonfire out of it! :cool: As it is, they're just stacking up another seven-figure charge onto their already sizable HD-DVD losses.

[pixelthis]

I guess that's another $3 million that Toshiba can add to its HD-DVD funeral pyre (either that or they figure it's cheaper to try selling all those unsold HD-DVD players than letting them get tossed into the landfill). At the very least, if they'd burned 3 million greenbacks, they might get a nice sized bonfire out of it! :cool: As it is, they're just stacking up another seven-figure charge onto their already sizable HD-DVD losses.



Chump change to a company the size of tosh.
Theres a lot of money in selling poorly designed unreliable junk.

STUFF LIKE THIS is planned months in advance, they probably took a bath if they cancel so why not go with it? Might sell a few more doorstops-excuse me, players, and as long as they do not concede defeat they have to keep up appearances.
REMEMBER they havent offically caved yet.
Probably still trying to figure out how to do that and save the maximum number of fingers and toes.
Not to mention how to pay all of those golden parachutes to all of those execs they will have to fire:1: