HD DVD Rallies Consumer Audience in 2007 Driving Nearly One Million Dedicated Player Sales in North America

[akirby]

Cheap players and free movies were nothing more than bribes in an effort to win market penetration and win the format war. There is no way it could have continued. At some point one format was going to win or they would have resolved to support both formats - either way the bribes would not have continued and prices would return to normal (in other words - high).

Maybe now they can take all that money (including studio and distributor/retailer payouts) and start ramping up blu-ray players, disc manufacturing and new features.

It worked perfectly fine for standard DVDs. How is this any different?

[Shane]

I think we need to agree to disagree on this.

I don't think anyone here will argue against "more competition is better". Did the consumers want one format from the start? Sure. Will there be enough competition within the Blu-ray camp to keep prices dropping? Sure. Could the movie industry support two formats if all studios were on board? I think so.

Does anyone here think there would have been a format war if all studios released in both formats from the beginning?

I still believe HD DVD is the more consumer-friendly format, but I can't say that I'd recommend it to anyone now with the way studio support appears to be going.

My $0.02,

- Shane

[Dale]

The only problem with the dual format -- one format on each side -- is that the medium for each is not the same. You would need to bond two separate disk pressings together if you sold it as one disk (and there is a warping issue due to the materials used that is not trivial) in one box. You add one more pressing cost for everyone forever. Ok, so you don't do it that way and make two separate pressings to be in one box (very confusing) or two boxes and put them into the marketplace side-by-side as is now seen at Hollywood Video and other retailers. It is still a cost to do that which is going to be passed on somehow to the end users. It could be done. If the two million or so HD DTV machine owners demand it with enough dollars it will be there. I suspect that there will be a business person who will see that there are a few million of these machines around the world begging for content and he or she can make a business out of product specifically made for that installed base. Looking to the brighter side of this dilemma it could even be that the installed base of HD DVD players is the basis for a first run limited edition movie distribution network. _Dale

[free2speak]

The game industry supports Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3. The game industry just had another huge year with multiple formats. How many games would they sell if all games were multi-platform? The only things that hurts consumers is "exclusive" titles. Video games are much more complicated to develop then it is to burn the same VC-1 and HD audio codecs to both Blu-Ray and HD DVD.

[stevekaden]

Don't forget the menu systems (and maybe other things) are different in each format. HDi vs. BDJava language. Maybe there are already porting tools - that would only work if they were identical. Thus there is a cost to produce each format, just as there is to games.

Also the compression levels may be different in each format - even if using the same codec. That is a supposed selling point to BR, that it has more capacity and bit rate. You'd think it'd be used if it could.

[free2speak]

Again HDi v BDJ is not as complicated as developing Xbox360 and PS3.

[stevekaden]

I've developed a lot of software in my days. Not this stuff but there is an old axiom that works here too - there is no such thing as a free lunch. Software is a pain in the rear...and even if stupidly easy to just port it, it still has to be specified, implemented well, configuration managed, quality assured, and business process managed. Otherwise no matter what you do you have chaos.

We're on the same side. I am invested in HD DVD alone, up to my neck. Heck I'm so foolish I just bought another one (that's 5 including XA1, and XA2s - I've spent some money here). But it's just crazy to argue for HD DVD anymore - as much as I am addicted to reading this and other forums. The market has been stomped. Sales of players were just shown to have dropped massively, even with price drops. I can't imagine Paramount/Dreamworks staying exclusive and the rest will probably backburner HD DVD if produce at all.

We're niche at best now. I'm used to it, I bought a ton of Laserdiscs at the end - I lived near Evolution Audio Video - they had the entire worlds remaining stock and it was cheap. It took me years to watch all the movies and I still have the best of them. That is where my head is...except there are not so many HD DVD titles. I'd hope there is at least a trickle

[free2speak]

Developing a full game in 3D and programming it trump burning a movie with VC-1 and HD audio to a disk. You know this is true even if you have to program a few menus.

[Shane]

I'm wondering if anyone on this forum knows what is involved in porting a game from Xbox 360 to PS3 or vice-versa. I doubt you would have to re-write the entire game, but I'm not sure how much could be ported as-is ... anyone?

- Shane

[DavidEC]

Many Warner Brothers Movies use the same encoding for both 'HD' disc formats VC1.. and there are already user friendly menu porting programs from ULead{Corel} and CyberPower, which will take an encoded file and burn to the correct format, with menu's. It seems to be the 'Extra Feature' branching and 'in movie' PiP where HD-DVD currently needs extra programing as currently 'Blu' does not support these features and none of the current {settop} players {yes I know the PS3 has been DEMO'ed but read where it was really just a video playing and not a real michine demo} can be update to support the future 'Java/Blu-Live' feature.... But if I had a choose between no extra feautures and like many 'Blu' disc's have and still being able to view 'HD' movies from Warner on my 'HD-DVD' player.. give me the bare bones movie! And it has been reported in many forums where 'Blu-Ray' disc have not used more then 25gb of disc space? Using less disc space than the same HD-DVD movie from Warner due to the lack of extra features.