By now, I'm sure you've read a dozen articles like this one. In fact, I debated about whether or not to title it as such, as I was afraid most of you would skip it over. Obviously that is not the case if you are now reading these words.

If you are withholding your Next-Gen DVD player purchase until this so-called format war has a winner, it won't help ... there likely won't be one ... and there definitely won't be one any time soon.

Read the Full Article

Good article, Shane. With one exception...

"The predominant size for HD DVD is 30GB, while Blu-ray is 50GB"

I'm not sure this statement has any justification, considering that so far (and for the foreseeable future) NONE of the movie releases on Blu-ray are on DL 50 GB media. They're all 25 GB SL, due to manufacturing issues that Sony poo-poo'ed, yet still hasn't overcome yet. And combined with their stubborn retention of MPEG-2 encoding, this has really hurt their PQ.

- Tim

You are correct. But, I am referring to format capacity currently on the market, not necessarily movies only. This, of course, applies specifically to the PC side, or the "burning" market, and not the "pressing" market.

- Shane

Hi,

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I was hoping that both camps would immediately attach 6 & 7.1 discrete sound tracks to every release.

For those of us that already scale our significant collection of dvds and are not yet in the 1080p display crowd I wonder if theres' enough on either bone outside of PC based tools.

Personally, the fact that I can now add as many outboard SATA hrd/drvs as I want to my SA8300hd cable HD decoder/pvr, which at todays prices equals a $6.00cdn investment for a 2hr 1080i movie. This makes sitting on the side lines even easier.

Peter M.

Two points...

Bluray has not out sold HD DVD in the US market based on stand alone players. The only way that figure can be true is if they are including Bluray worldwide along with PC applications. Being an HDTV website I don't see how that has anything to do with our concerns or our US market.

Bluray has a lower minimum required performance envelope than HD DVD such as the fact that Bluray players are not required to provide HD audio bitstreams or decoding; that is at the option of the manufacturer.

Considering that both are technically equal in potential performance Bluray's introduction has been disappointing to say the least.

Sony does not appear to be the same company they were as they struggle financially along with pushing a new format. In the past Sony excelled at providing performance hardware and software for their new formats out of the gate with the most recent example of SACD. An interesting parrallel since SACD killed the DVD Audio format on introduction by meeting those two performance goals yet with Bluray Sony is acting like the DVD Audio camp tripping all over themselves and lowering performance standards while Toshiba does the unexpected by providing software and hardware up to the task of making us go WOW on every front, video and audio!

It will be interesting to see what happens as the Sony and Pioneer players hit the market. While we certainly do not expect them to be the wreck Samsung provided it does not change the fact that HD DVD audio is HD audio outperforming Bluray in that respect.

HD-DVD Delivers Another Knock Out Blow...
http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=87

While Sony is counting on PS3 to give them the boost it will be interesting to see what they actually deliver compared to all the performance promises they have made over the last 2 years for the platform.

Top that off with the fact they have been losing money for over a decade with their new formats that failed and a new president who purposely does not come from the Japanese Sony culture and has stated that Sony is going to concentrate on production and profit rather than pushing the performance envelope

So far the performance gurus are lined up in the HD DVD camp...

I didn't just pull those figures out of my a$$. It comes from sell-through data from retailers. Specifically, it says that Blu-ray players outsold HD DVD players ... comparing ONLY the last six weeks ... when BOTH were available on the market (i.e. ignoring the 2 month HD DVD lead).

It has nothing to do with the PC market.

- Shane

I never thought you made them up...

But as you know there are so many ways to take facts and manipulate them towards what they want you to express.

So since the introduction of bluray it has exceeded the sales of HD DVD over the same time period yet fails to account for HD DVD player sales two months prior, the peak! Sounds like manipulation to me.

It is unfortunate that so many questions have to be asked to make sure the data one is given is going to have real value and represent reality.

I know this much, I have not read about the first HD DVD player being returned yet have read about at least five folks returning the Samsung Bluray... Another point they are likely not taking into account, returns...

That is true, but next time I would appreciate you verifying the facts before presuming they are flawed or slanted. I am not the only one reporting these figures, and a little research on your part would have shown this.

I stated very clearly in the article that it is "too early to tell" who has the lead based on unit sales because there is not enough market data. And the way it was presented in the article left no ambiguity:

Too early to tell. Comparing sales over the past 6 weeks, when both players were available, Blu-ray leads slightly in unit sales ... but HD DVD is gaining.

No manipulation, only reporting facts as presented. And if you still have doubts, here are the other sites reporting on this same data:
http://www.homemediaretailing.com/index.cfm?sec_id=2
http://www.tgdaily.com/2006/08/18/hddvd_bluray/
http://www.movieweb.com/dvd/news/57/14157.php

- Shane

Richard commented:
> as you know there are so many ways to take facts and manipulate them... <

That's certainly true, though I thought Shane qualified it quite well. I.e., with only 6 weeks overlapping, where both were on the shelves, you don't really have a good enough sample to draw conclusions from. And that's exactly what he said. And a 54% share of units sold is "leading slightly". Lastly, "but HD-DVD is gaining" reflects the reality that Blu-ray outsold only during the first 3 of those weeks, with the Toshiba format taking over in the last 3. So Shane nailed it pretty well.

The only major fact from the industry pubs left out was that HD-DVD performed a substantial 33% better during it's introduction period than Blu-ray did during its intro.

But here's the thing about manipulation. Nobody is reporting that in many of the retail environments the Toshiba-HD is now being pushed off into a corner somewhere, while the Blu-ray is out front and center. I'm sure profit margins have nothing to do with that scenario.

And out of the sales that Blu-ray has made, how many of those units have come back to the store? Enough that Best Buy revised their return and restocking policies just for them. I don't know a huge number of people with HD players yet, but of those I do, most of them kept their Toshiba players, and NONE kept their Blu-ray player.

So the early results in the movie arena for Blu-ray demonstrate that Sony has done a disappointing job with their film releases, and Samsung hasn't impressed anybody with their players.

In the long run though, when these things start selling in enough volume to really matter, the prices will have come down on Blu-ray (or they simply won't be selling), and Sony will either switch to better codecs or resolve their issues with the 50G disks so the quality will be there (or word of mouth will kill them).

And the question will then come down to: what movies are available that people really want, and what will they need to buy to be able to watch them? Then we'll see which way the wind is really blowing.

- Tim

Hi

Sony may be able to claim higher sales from a dollar perspective since their hardware can be double per unit cost compare to a HD-DVD.

Peter M.

You are correct, and that is exactly how it stands now. In each formats first 6 weeks of sales, HD DVD outsold in units, while Blu-ray outsold in revenue.

Sony may be able to claim higher sales from a dollar perspective since their hardware can be double per unit cost compare to a HD-DVD.

Remember, it's Samsung that has the player out right now, not Sony.

Another subtlety burried within your comment (and as videograbber pointed out) is that Blu-ray appears to have much higher margins for the retailer ... thus the reason most retailers appear to be pushing Blu-ray while HD DVD is burried off to the side.

- Shane

Too early to tell. Comparing sales over the past 6 weeks, when both players were available, Blu-ray leads slightly in unit sales ... but HD DVD is gaining.

That is true, but next time I would appreciate you verifying the facts before presuming they are flawed or slanted.

Yet that fact is flawed and slanted in even more ways than I was aware of based on the responses that followed... I am not accusing YOU of misrepresenting the facts that you found or were given. I guess I questioned what purpose did it serve to report it?

Hi,
Its been proven over and over that software sells hardware.

Were not going to see any meaningful #s until the studios drop the other shoe. DVD was a huge success in part because the PQ was leaps an bounds over vhs.

Theres a whole world out there that is more intersted in a films content than (in relative terms) a very expensive incremental increase in PQ.

Peter M.

I certainly would not consider it an incremental increase in picture and sound quality... seems pretty huge on my end and after so much HD, SD DVD is finally looking like SD rather than near HD. A huge point on my end is having a display that can do the numbers and using a critical viewing distance of 3 screen heights. With HD DVD players at less than $500 it is not pricey either but with Bluray starting at $1000 that I agree is an expensive proposition unless you are an enthusiast with money to burn.

I grant you that most do not have a top performing display and sit too far away which would create the performance response you have stated, incremental. Being out in the field though you would be shocked how so many people set up their DVD players wrong and use the worst video connection it has. For them going HD DVD or Bluray would not be incremental since it will force them to setup correctly; yet another fly in the performance perception ointment...

As for software selling hardware... That is the burr in my hide! I was looking forward to the HD version of 5th Element, it would have motivated me to buy a bluray player and what do I find out? The audio is no better than my Superbit version and the video is only marginally better due to poor mastering by Sony. I am not happy with them...

The Retailing Of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray...(Good Read)
http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6320