Blu-ray/HD DVD Disc Sales Numbers Revealed

An anonymous reader writes "The High-Def format wars finally have a yardstick against which to measure who's winning with the first public release of VideoScan sales figures for both HD DVD and Blu-ray. The first two weeks' worth of data seem to back up what many predicted — that the Blu-ray-enabled PS3 is helping Sony quickly close the gap with HD DVD, with almost three Blu-ray discs sold for every one HD DVD during the first week of January. HD DVD still leads in overall discs sold since inception, but that lead looks to be quickly dwindling. While they do show a trend, the results from VideoScan are still fairly vague. Why are consumers being denied the information they need to make a considered choice?"

Haven't we been here before?

[alshithead]

This hurts the consumer on way too many levels. You might as well release music in several formats...Oh, wait a minute...where's my 8 track player? Ooh! I just found my Betamax VCR. Screw this DVD shit, it won't last out the year's end.

Yep...and...

[msauve]

As to the question "Why are consumers being denied the information they need to make a considered choice?," I answer: I have all the information I need. With the DRM constraints, I don't intend to buy discs of either format.

Simple...

[msauve]

I'll be patient, and TiVo it when it's on cable.

Re:Yep...and...

[alshithead]

"Download a bootleg (and consequently DRM-Free) copy off the internet. Duh!!!"

I'll take the "Duh!!!" in regards to everyday folks. But, what if you are in a position with a security clearance? The powers that be take a dim view of any legal violations, civil, state, or federal. Would you risk YOUR job and/or retirement over a movie? The option you suggest doesn't work for everybody...

Re:

[Professor_UNIX]

History has shown time and time again over the past 25 years that consumers generally do not adopt Sony's proprietary formats: Betamax, Minidiscs, MemoryStick, SACD, UMD, and now Blu-Ray. Things that they develop in conjunction with other companies like CDs and eventually DVDs gained widespread adoption. I won't buy into Blu-Ray simply because it's a stupid name. "Buy this new movie on VHS, DVD or Blu-Ray Disc". "Blu-Ray Disc" sounds retarded compared to "DVD" which rolls off the tongue.

Re:

[harks]

It might not be the best name, but it's a lot easier to say "Blu-Ray" than "HD-DVD"

Why are consumers being denied access to this data

[mknewman]

It's pretty obvious to me, the data is proprietary, so it's easier to keep it hidden than to start the "I'm selling more than you are" war.

Here's some data right in the open

[SuperKendall]

An interesting site to keep track of a few battles like this is eProductwars.com [slashdot.org]. In particular, they have a section that tracks various Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD stats [eproductwars.com] - mostly based on Amazon data it would seem. It seems to track with what the original article is saying.

It's really not at all surprising Blu-Ray would be pulling substantially ahead and growing, with every PS3 sold being another Blu-Ray player in a consumers home. I know two people at work that have bought PS3's and they moth make extensive use

being denied information

[TopSpin]

Help! Help! I'm being oppressed!

You know, the Blu-ray/HD DVD squabble is not actually important. You rights aren't being trampled on. Most people couldn't care less about it; they're happy with their DVDs and don't mind letting you *philes hash it out with your disposable income.

Get a grip.

Re:

[kfg]

. . .they're happy with their DVDs. . .

And what would make them even happier is not a new format, but a DVD "Redbook."

KFG

Re:

[MikeBabcock]

I wasn't happy with DVD when it came out. The only things I like about DVD are no artifacting and degradation with time and easy navigation of the disc (no rewinding).

DVD doesn't look great, its essentially the same quality as broadcast TV. Now if you believe broadcast TV looks great, then sorry, but we can do a lot better. I don't pay to go to the cinema to stand on sticky floors, put up with belching behind me or for the overpriced condiments, its for the higher quality sound and picture.

For the price

Re:

[Dretep]

and the floor usually isn't sticky.

You're obviously watching the wrong genre of movies - you really do need HD-DVD!

Re:being denied information

[Wdomburg]

DVD doesn't look great, its essentially the same quality as broadcast TV.

You should probably get your eyes checked or maybe buy better equipment. DVD's horizontal resolution about 720. Broadcast "quality" is 330 and VHS is 240. Even without a progressive scan display it's pretty far from "essentially the same quality".

LG will win with dual format players

[llZENll]

Dual format players will win this war. As soon as this sells below $500, all other makers will follow. Right now it sells for $1200.

"Well this is more like it. After waiting forever between the initial announcement and first retail availability of the first wave of HD disc devices, LG's BH100 really rocketed to the shelves, and has just participated in its first unboxing (that we've heard of) mere weeks after the announcement at CES. We're a little disconcerted by that big front-and-center dent on the box, but the unit itself looks just dandy, and gadgetaholic promises a full review in the coming days. But that's not what you're here for, you just wanted to see this little guy ripped from his Styrofoam cocoon and flap his little Red and Blue wings, so hit the read link for the whole event. Fly, BH100, fly."

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/22/lgs-bh100-super -multi-player-unboxed/ [engadget.com]

Re:LG will win with dual format players

[MBCook]

I have mod points and I figured this would be a good discussion, but I'll reply to you instead.

First, dual format players CAN'T WIN the war. They are not a format. Even if everyone gets a dual format player for free from the government tomorrow, consumers will still buy more of one format than the other until people stop making one format. Dual format PLAYERS may win the PLAYER WAR, but the disc format war has no real hybrids right now.

Second, these discussions constantly suppose that someone will win. I've seen one comment so far that I agree with: by the time these things reach something akin to a critical mass or become big successes, I think Internet distribution will have won the war or come very close. These things may just be failed. Too early for cheap prices and large HDTV adoption, too late to enjoy a long advantage over internet distribution.

Re:

[twistedsymphony]

Dual format player might just win the war... just like dual format burners won the war between DVD-R and DVD+R. I do agree that there's a higher probability of Internet distribution taking precedence over either format... that's more of a DVD-A vs. SACD. vs MP3 model. The big differences being that movies don't benefit from portability the same way music does.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

by the time these things reach something akin to a critical mass or become big successes, I think Internet distribution will have won the war or come very close

That is utterly impossible in a world in which no broadband provider will let you download more than about 90GB per month on a regular basis; That's what, a couple of Blu-Ray discs? Even at the rates we go through netflix, I would use that up just downloading DVD ISOs, let alone HD video.

We are going to have to see a broadband revolution in this c

PREEMPTIVE CORRECTION

[drinkypoo]

That is utterly impossible in a world in which

Of course I meant to say country. Of course, as such it applies to both the US and the UK, and most other places on the planet besides. About the only people who could pull it off right now are Japanese who live in major metropolitan areas.

Re:

[Abcd1234]

I think Internet distribution will have won the war or come very close

Sorry dude, but that's just ridiculous. Internet distribution will be (heck, already is) certainly interesting for SD material, but for HD, there is no damned way Internet distribution will make any inroads. Or did you really want to download 25GB of data?

And this is ignoring the fact that broadband penetration in the US is still relatively dismal.

Re:

[Malc]

LG's player isn't a true dual format player. It doesn't qualify for HD DVD logo-ing. I believe it doesn't handle any HDi, so it plays HD DVD advanced content titles (all Hollywood discs are adv. content, not standard content) in some manner it makes up. Take your chances.

Re:

[DrXym]

Dual format players will win this war. As soon as this sells below $500, all other makers will follow. Right now it sells for $1200.

I doubt it. Dual format players are just a way to cash-in on hesitant early adopters. Once Blu-Ray or HD-DVD wins there will be absolutely no point in perpetuating the life of the other format. As Blu-Ray looks increasingly likely to win, why waste money on a dual format player, especially when they are considerably more expensive?

From TFA

[Jonny_eh]

"According to VideoScan, during the first two weeks of January, Blu-ray discs outsold HD DVD by more than a 2:1 margin."

Why does the summary make Blu-Ray sound better by saying it outsold HD DVD by 3:1 in 1 week? Do I detect a bias?

Keyboard Error

[fistfullast33l]

Yes, it's definitely a bias as 2 and 3 never appear next to each other on a keyboard.

Re:From TFA

[drinkypoo]

Why does the summary make Blu-Ray sound better by saying it outsold HD DVD by 3:1 in 1 week? Do I detect a bias?

YES! But that's not precisely why. Here's what the FS says:

almost three Blu-ray discs sold for every one HD DVD during the first week of January

Now, here is what the FA says:

According to VideoScan, during the first two weeks of January, Blu-ray discs outsold HD DVD by more than a 2:1 margin. It should be noted that the two weeks in question saw only two new high-def disc releases -- both from Blu-ray ('The Covenant' on Jan 2, and 'Crank' on Jan 9).

In other words, this is a momentary blip on the chart, and nothing to be excited about itself, unless it continues, in which case you can call it a trend. Right now though, it's not a big deal.

I sincerely hope that these people are not paid astroturfers, but if they are, it would explain why Sony has to charge so much for the PS3. I've had more people misinterpret my posts and tell outright lies in order to discredit them in the last couple days than I ever have before, and most of those comments are responses to things I've said about the PS3 or Sony.

Save yourself some time

[dracocat]

Save yourself some time, no need to read any more comments. Here is a summary of all replies about to follow this article, in no particular order.

• Sony has never won a format war, haven't they learned their lesson? Just look at Beta and MD.
• Sony has had great sucess with their formats, can you say CD?
• There is no reason for anybody to even upgrade past DVD. There is simply no big difference between any new formats and DVD
• I simply will not buy anything from Sony after the whole DRM fiasco
• HD will win out because there will be more HD players on the market because of the cheap HD DVD add on for the Xbox 360
• There will be more Blue Ray players on the market because every PS3 comes with a Blue Ray drive
• Nobody will buy the HD DVD drive addon for the Xbox 360 because it is too expensive
• Nobody will buy the PS3 because it is too expensive
• Blue Ray disks hold more information than HD DVD disks and so Blue Ray will win
• HD DVD disks hold more information than Blue Ray disks so HD DVD will win
• What are you guys talking about? Its all about Nintendo
• Neither format will win because people will be downloading movies from here on our
• The name HD DVD just sounds better than Blue Ray
• The name Blue Ray just sounds better than HD DVD
• Movies these days are worthless I havent watched a movie in 25 years

Hopes this helps shed some light on which format is better.

Re:Save yourself some time

[aardvarkjoe]

You forgot one:

• How did you manage to misspell Blu-ray seven times in a single post when it's in the story title?

Re:Save yourself some time

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Am i missing something? Phillips brought the CD to market, and the format is not proprietary.

Re:

[Penguin's Advocate]

The CD was developed by a partnership between phillips and sony (just like Blu-Ray!)

Re:

[tepples]

Phillips brought the CD to market

Nit: Phillips makes screws [phillips-screw.com]. Philips (one L) invented CD along with Sony.

and the format is not proprietary.

Compact Disc was proprietary for its first twenty years.

25 years?

[antdude]

Wow: "Movies these days are worthless I havent watched a movie in 25 years" ... That's hard unless this guy doesn't watch any movies on DVDs, in theater, TV, etc. In fact, does he even watch TV shows? ;)

Re:Save yourself some time

[feepness]

How do I mod you Insightful, Informative, Flamebait, and Troll all at the same time?

Re:

[StikyPad]

Easy, just mod it +0.

Oh, I see you figured it out already.

Re:

[elrous0]

• HD-DVD will win because Sony won't license Blu-ray for porn.

No exactly true, but oft-cited nonetheless.

-Eric

Re:

[Johnny5000]

* HD-DVD will win because Sony won't license Blu-ray for porn.
No exactly true, but oft-cited nonetheless.

as a side-note, I just read an article about how high definition video for porn isn't necessarily a good thing, since it reveals more imperfections (zits, hair, wrinkles, stretch marks, etc.)

Re:

[Jesterboy]

Sony has never won a format war, haven't they learned their lesson? Just look at Beta and MD.

Not really... Both of these formats gained traction in Japan, just not the US/Europe/most of the world. MD players basically trumped regular CD players in Japan since their inception, and only started going away now with the addition of MP3 players and phones that can hold audio. Beta also survived in Japan, and became a standard for video cameras at least.

I imagine Sony considered these "wins".

Well, about Sony's format success

[SmallFurryCreature]

You mention it yourselve, the CD. What not everyone knows that the CD owns a lot to philips. The minidisk was a direct competitor to a Philips product, so was betamax.

Blu-Ray? Another Philips-Sony partnership. Mmmm, so by some extremely wide logic Blu-Ray must be a winner based on past performance.

Re:

[interiot]

Yeah, well, I've got mod points, but the post is at 5 already. The post should be bumped up to a 6.

Re:

[Binestar]

Please cite who this "Major video rental place" is.

Thank you

Misleading?

[Sciros]

So, how many of these Blu-ray hardware sales actually *movies*? You know, the stuff that HD-DVD is a direct competitor for? If the format becomes something that's only economically viable to be used as game media for the PS3 then it becomes as relevant as SNES cartridges in the long run.

Re:

[GodBlessTexas]

All of those sales figures are for movies, as it does not count game content on BD, nor hardware sales. BD movies are on average equal to or $5 more for native discs, with HD-DVD/DVD combo discs being $5-10 more than a similar native HD-DVD or BD. And Sony has all the major content providers on their side except for Universal, but it's debatable on whether they're a major provider with their poor performance at the box office.

Re:

[Lehk228]

including the PS3 PAck-in movie? the one put in there specifically to jack up Blu-Ray sales?

Why do the summaries ask such stupid questions?

[SeaFox]

Why are consumers being denied the information they need to make a considered choice?"

I suppose that is supposed to read informed choice? DUH. Why would a company want consumers to make a buying decision based on such metrics as popularity and facts? They would much rather have the entire process controlled by their marketing departments.

Pricing?

[WndrBr3d]

The one thought that keeps swirling through my mind when I browse through the HD movie section at my local Best Buy is, Who the HECK figures out the pricing for these things?!

How can Little Man cost $29 but the Fifth Element is only $19!?

I've owned the HD-DVD drive for the XBox360 now since it's launch and the only HD disc I currently own is the free copy of King Kong that came with it.

I'm floored that new titles aren't being released in both DVD and in their respective HD format at the same time. The studios seem too busy trying to 'catch up', releasing titles already available on DVD. I know they're doing this in hopes that people purchase both the DVD version and HD version when it's released later, in an effort to double their money.

Makes me want to vomit.

Re:

[danpsmith]

I'm floored that new titles aren't being released in both DVD and in their respective HD format at the same time. The studios seem too busy trying to 'catch up', releasing titles already available on DVD. I know they're doing this in hopes that people purchase both the DVD version and HD version when it's released later, in an effort to double their money.

What's to say that people will buy the HD version when it's released? Look, I own an HD TV, and let me tell you, DVD is pretty good for those too. I d

Re:

[drinkypoo]

How can Little Man cost $29 but the Fifth Element is only $19!?

Because Little Man is a relatively new movie, but most people who would buy The Fifth Element already have it on DVD. I'm no videophile or anything, so I don't really know how good of a transfer is, but the movie looks gorgeous on DVD. Why would I care about buying it in HD? Frankly it doesn't have any truly amazing special effects, aside from some cheesy spaceship stuff (like spaceships moving as if they were in atmosphere - how amazing) it's

Impossible for HD-DVD to win?

[asc99c]

Just for a moment, forget the consumer (everyone else is doing it...)

Whatever your feelings re PS3, you know it's going to sell 10 million units plus in a short time. In the meantime, only relatively small numbers of consumers are actually buying either HD-DVD or Blu-Ray players. DVD is good enough for most. Although the PS3 isn't primarily a Blu-Ray player, it does have that feature.

So when you're a movie studio or retailer and looking at the current / expected install base of HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray capable

Re:

[vertinox]

Whatever your feelings re PS3, you know it's going to sell 10 million units plus in a short time.

That might in 10 years after the price is below $200, but in the meantime PS3 sales are looking rather poor compared to Xbox360 and Wii. I believe we might even see a Dreamcast/Saturn-esque situation if situation does not improve.

Re:

[ivan256]

From the perspective of the average consumer with no knowledge of DRM, or even which company owns which format you've got to ask... If that person has a 1080p HD television (and that will shortly be the majority of people with HD televisions since LCD TVs are getting cheap, 1080 is the buzz, and there is no such thing as a 1080i LCD), why would they buy a format that doesn't support the full resolution of your television?

HD-DVD needs to cut over to 1080p (both the players *and* the movies. ASAP, or the form

Re:

[Firehed]

AFAIK, every HD-DVD disc released so far has 1080p content. Though I completely agree about the players.

Of course, whether it makes a visible difference is well beyond me. I'm quite content with DVD, even after watching a few HD-DVDs. It seems a tiny bit better, but I wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't very familiar with the original DVD version, and I wasn't viewing it on the same TV either. I'd bet most people would be hard pressed to notice a real difference except in a side-by-side comparison, and

Re:

[Pojut]

Forget your own point for just a moment, everyone is doing it...

Just because someone owns a PS3 does not mean they own a television that will benefit from the enhanced resolution over DVD...you forget, MANY MANY people still have standard def 480i tv's with NO hdtv's in their lives.

More like the Digg vs. Slashdot war

[heroine]

It's more like the Digg vs. Slashdot war, with most Digg stories reporting dismal PS3 sales and most slashdot stories reporting good BD sales.

One thing is certain. Only one device can play 30Mbit H.264 HD files from a network and it's a BD player.

Re:

[alshithead]

Screw teh Digg! Ise been slashdorking 4evar! I was always an anonymouse coward unktil lest year but nowse I got's edumacatioins sow's I got a intarnet handle wif slashdork...

Okay, just having some fun. But, I much prefer Slashdot over Digg. There are an awful lot of Slashdot folks who have been around a long time and actually give enough of a fuck to post intelligent thoughts.

Woo hoo!!! Off to my Pr0n collection now!!!

Recent statistics will be flawed

[the computer guy nex]

Vouchers were given inside Playstation 3 boxes for free Blu-Ray discs. Everyone who bought a PS3 simply for gaming went out and used these vouchers up.

The more interesting comparison would be the number of HDDVD's sold against the number of Blu-Ray discs sold - vouchers used.

Re:

[fistfullast33l]

Did you read the vouchers? I don't have mine on me but I think you had to buy 2 other BR discs to get one free, and it was a mail in offer. So basically, you still had to buy in order to take advantage of it.

Where are the good movies?

[maynard]

This whole Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD clusterfuck won't be resolved for me until Criterion decides to support on or the other formats. The current movie selection on both formats is pathetic. Just like with quality games driving console adoption, it's the quality movies that matter. What, I'm going to spend ~$500 so I can watch crap like _Underworld Evolution_ in High Definition? Christ, I don't want to watch that SD! (Perhaps when Kate Beckinsale rips her clothes off on camera I'll watch another one of those shitt

Re:

[rehtonAesoohC]

Um... Kate Beckinsale did rip her clothes off on camera... didn't you see it?

Oh well, you missed out.

Re:

[Abcd1234]

Wow, lighten up a little. It's trash entertainment, to be sure. But it's only that. Entertainment. And even Shakespeare new that good entertainment didn't necessarily imply high-brow.

Format War hurts consumers Helps MPAA

[acomj]

I've been thinking about this. Why are consumer electronics companies so eager to stick DRM on products (typically they dislike it, it ads to cost and slows consumer adoption).

Because the content companies (Motion Picture folks) have to buy in. If there was just one format the consumer electronic companies could say, high def disk, take it or leave it. However since there are two formats the Studios can choose the format the offers the most protection. In a way because of the format war the studios got to say "Add DRM" or we'll go with the competeing HD format here.

It doesn't help that sony owns electronics and content, and the content part is clearly running the company.

Re:

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> Why are consumer electronics companies so eager to stick DRM on products

Because Sony (the consumer electronics company) also is Sony (the movie company). Take a look at the holdings of Sony Pictures Entertainment [wikipedia.org]. They own Columbia Pictures [wikipedia.org], TriStar Pictures, [wikipedia.org] MGM [wikipedia.org], and a slew of other motion picture companies. They'll be happy to sell you a new DRM'ed copy of Singin' In The Rain [wikipedia.org] on BluRay.

Re:

[Kjella]

If there was just one format the consumer electronic companies could say, high def disk, take it or leave it. However since there are two formats the Studios can choose the format the offers the most protection. In a way because of the format war the studios got to say "Add DRM" or we'll go with the competeing HD format here.

Well, it also gives consumers the power to say "screw this", at least they did with the DivX format (which the DivX ;-) codec was a pun on). I'm pretty sure some HDTV format will win ou

But rentals may tell a different story?

[AHumbleOpinion]

My local Blockbuster carries both HDDVD and BlueRay. A couple of weeks ago I asked the guys behind the counter what customers were more interested in, they agreed that it was about 3:1 in favor of HD. Personally I think it is too early to declare a winner. PS/3's "recent" introduction may cause a spike in demand. HDDVD folks may be buying more slowly now that the novelty has worn off, and this will happen with the BlueRay "newcomers" too.

Are pornos included?

[topical_surfactant]

If not, then the sales numbers analyzed are absolutely meaningless. Revisit once the adult industry has ramped up to full production.

Re:

[sakti]

Bingo. Sony really screwed themselves by telling the porn industry to bugger off. No matter what the numbers are now, HD-DVD is destined to win as the porn industry has standardized on it. See links in previous post [1] for links to stories.

[1] http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=216742&c id=17594830 [slashdot.org]

Of course they outsell HD-DVD

[melted]

I bought PS3 specifically for Blu Ray. There aren't any games for it that I'd want to play yet, so I bought it because it was a relatively cheap, high quality DVD/Blu Ray player with HDMI output (Xbox is component only, so disks that require HDCP won't play in it). Now wait until it actually gets some games that will make it worth purchasing by gamers. Once that happens, you will see another spike in sales. It's a double whammy of sorts. Currently a lot of folks are buying it for Blu Ray. These folks will b

Anonymous Schmonymous

[Angst Badger]

An anonymous reader writes:

Yeah, an anonymous reader who just happens to work for Sony.

Almost one post

[StikyPad]

the Blu-ray enabled PS3 is helping Sony quickly close the gap with HD DVD, with almost three Blu-ray discs sold

What, like 2.4 discs sold? Somebody just dropped a Hamilton and took off with a BR?

What's that? The rest of the sentence? Oh, I just assumed...

Re:

[gfxguy]

Ha! It's not over yet, and there hasn't been a format war that Sony has won, so I wouldn't count that chicken before it's hatched.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The usual reply to your comment on Slashdot would ne "You forgot about audio CD?" or "What about 3.5" floppies?" but I'll add another format to the list: 8mm tapes. They were quite dominant before the spread of MiniDV.

PS2 won this round

[tepples]

It's not over yet, and there hasn't been a format war that Sony has won

Anonymous Coward mentioned Compact Disc Digital Audio, Microfloppy (the ubiquitous-until-recently 3.5" disk that beat Mitsumi's QuickDisk), and Video8 (beat VHS-C). In addition, how about the large-screen video game format war? In the console generation that included the PlayStation 2, Sony's format has beaten those of GameCube, Xbox, set-top Lenovo-compatible PCs, and set-top Macintosh computers in terms of number of discs sold.

Format, not platform

[Ahnteis]

Other points aside, PS2 is a platform, not a format.

Re:

[itlurksbeneath]

I dunno. Sony is doing pretty good on getting products out in a timely manner. There's been a blu-ray burner shipping since about August of '06 (BR burners are already under $700) and as far as I can tell, there's still not a HD-DVD burner shipping. Toshiba is supposed to start shipping one in volume next month and NEC was supposed to start shipping one mid last year, then August, then Christmas time, I can't find anywhere on the web where they are actually SELLING them.

Re:Surprised

[qortra]

That comment is insane for so many reasons. Not the least of which being that Blu-Ray could "beat" HD-DVD and still lose. If they 5 times as many Blu-Ray media as HD-DVD, but only sell 10,000 units per year, then they fail. From TFA:

you won't find any hard sales figures here

In other words, we have no idea how either format is doing on an absolute scale.

Re:

[DrXym]

The thing is, there are 100,000 PS3s selling in the US alone per week, plus maybe 5000 other BD players. The market for Blu-Ray is just increasing enormously and the HD-DVD market isn't. And Japan is almost entirely Blu-Ray. And Europe is neither (you'll be lucky to see BD or HD-DVDs outside of flagship stores, or airports) but will become instantly Blu-Ray when the PS3 launches.

It is really hard to see how HD-DVD could possibly win in those circumstances.

Re:

[qortra]

You completely misunderstood my post. The point is not that HD-DVD is "gonna win": the point is simply that Sony could beat HD-DVD and still fail to make a profitable product. As long as the media is pricey and not backwards compatible with pervasive existing equipment, it's going to be a tough sell. Let's remember that 5,000,000 PS3 units sold in the US (reasonable for year or so of sales) translates into about 4.5% market saturation (assuming about 110 million households in the US). That's pretty puny

Re:Surprised

[AudioEfex]

The thing is, there are 100,000 PS3s selling in the US alone per week, plus maybe 5000 other BD players. The market for Blu-Ray is just increasing enormously and the HD-DVD market isn't. And Japan is almost entirely Blu-Ray. And Europe is neither (you'll be lucky to see BD or HD-DVDs outside of flagship stores, or airports) but will become instantly Blu-Ray when the PS3 launches.

The problem with that argument is that the PS3 is not a Blu-Ray movie player, first and foremost : it is a gaming system.

The fact of the matter is that, yes, there are more Blu-Ray capable machines at the moment. But what is of question is how many of those machines is being used largely for watching films. By contrast, every single XBOX 360 add-on is exclusively for watching films, as MS has explicitly stated that no games will come out this generation that utilize the add-on. When you keep that in mind, the supposed install base numbers look much closer. Beyond that, it must be recognized how tiny the numbers we are talking about anyway - neither of them are signifigant at all at this point in terms of mass consumers.

The truth is, the format war is far from over. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are both going to remain niche formats for quite some time. Just because Sony shoe-horned a Blu-Ray player into the PS3 that most of their target audience would have bought anyway, does not a format war win. Especially since PS3's are rotting on the shelves (my local BB has signs up all over saying, "WE HAVE THEM!" and the signs are actually getting dusty they've been up for so long...), their impact over the life of the formats just may not be that signifigant.

Remember the race between the turtle and the hare?

AE

Re:Surprised

[AKAImBatman]

FWIW, Bluray is superior to HD-DVD in many ways. So it has had (and still has) a good chance of "winning" against the competing HD-DVD format. The real problem with such a "win" is that it's not much of a "win" if you claim victory in the battle, but lose the war. Allow me to explain.

Despite all the hype surrounding HD-this and High Resolution-that, there hasn't been a major push by consumers to move to the new High Definition televisions. As it would seem, the vast majority of consumers are happy enough with their TVs as they are today. The real consumer push has been a much different one than quality.

Consumers today are looking for convenience first and quality second. They want to be able to sit in their living room and chose what they want to watch (or play!), when they want to watch it. Nothing makes this more apparent than the popularity of the TIVO and other DVR players.

These players timeshift shows from their regular schedules to a time that is more convenient for the viewer. Thanks to thier ties with online TV schedules, a user can setup his DVR to record dozens of shows. When he feels in the mood to watch something, he can then chose from the options at his disposal.

However, this process does have its drawbacks. The first one is that DVRs cause a drop in show quality. In order to balance real-time recording with space constraints, these devices must throw away a lot of information about the television stream. As a result, the quality drops.

The second drawback is that these devices have limited capacity. Once they are full, you must remove some material in order to make room for more material. This biases the devices against consumers who watch television on few, rare occasions, but enjoy a wide variety of entertainment.

The solution on the horizon is not digital transmissions over the airwaves, by digital cable, or even by plastic frisbees. The solution is to stream the video directly to the consumer over a broadband internet line. This allows the consumer to access a wide variety of quality material, but without the same storage drawbacks that limit DVR devices.

So what you'll see in the future is that the Bluray vs. HD-DVD war won't matter. The real winner will be Internet ala carte providers, who give the consumers what they want, when they want it. Sony shouldn't fear HD-DVD. They should fear Apple iTunes.

Re:Surprised

[Orange Crush]

The first one is that DVRs cause a drop in show quality. In order to balance real-time recording with space constraints, these devices must throw away a lot of information about the television stream. As a result, the quality drops.

Not always. If the channel is coming in to the box digitally, it does not usually get transcoded. It's much easier for the box to record the bits directly. Video quality and ease of use are vastly superior to VHS.

Re:

[Andy Dodd]

"Not always. If the channel is coming in to the box digitally, it does not usually get transcoded."

I'd like to amend that a bit - in consumer DVRs, high-def content NEVER gets transcoded. It is always simply dumped to disc without decoding and/or reencoding. The transport stream is only decoded for playback.

Realtime high definition encoders simply do not exist, at least not at the price points needed to be put into a consumer device. The closest thing is the Slingbox PRO, but that downscales to SD before

Re:

[Junta]

Realtime high definition encoders

A further amendment. Though what you say is probably true about commercially provided DVR, and for anything in the ballpark of price for live tv watching, for recordings transcoding after the fact is not necessarily a real-time task.

My myth box, for example, transcodes the OTA MPEG-2 stream to save space after the recording is done. 90% of the time, when I watch a program it has happened to have completed transcoding.

Re:

[king-manic]

So what you'll see in the future is that the Bluray vs. HD-DVD war won't matter. The real winner will be Internet ala carte providers, who give the consumers what they want, when they want it. Sony shouldn't fear HD-DVD. They should fear Apple iTunes.

Perhaps next generation. But for this revision of video delivery, there still a monolithic population of technology impaired with too much money and too few techno savy people. There is a lack of easy to use downloaded data to TV appliances. Easy to use being t

Re:

[AKAImBatman]

There is a lack of easy to use downloaded data to TV appliances.

What, like an XBox 360 [wikipedia.org] or an AppleTV [wikipedia.org]? Not to mention those awefully convenient DVI ports [wikipedia.org] on modern TVs and computers. I think you'll find that as the market expands, there will be even more compatible devices showing up on the market.

Besides, I don't think you give consumers enough credit. They'll spend the time to figure something out (or get the kid next door to set it up for them) if they REALLY want it. It's only when they don't care about

Re:

[king-manic]

Besides, I don't think you give consumers enough credit.

I work in customer service and tech support. I am aware of exactly how much credit I need to give them. Which is slightly more then my dog.

Re:

[LKM]

On the other hand, the people who end up calling tech support are quite often not the most adept when it comes to technology. So your sample is hardly representatory.

MOD PARENT UP

[Luscious868]

You raise a very insightful point about quality and convenience. Think of the tape to CD and VHS to DVD leaps. Both new technologies had quality improvements over their predecessors but I'd argue neither would have taken off as quickly as they did (or at all) without the massive improvements in convenience. No more having to fast forward or rewind a tape or VHS movie to get to your favorite track or part of the movie, with the new format you could get where you wanted to go in a second. That was a huge factor when I moved to from tapes to CD's and it also came into play with DVD's. Rewinding a movie before you watched it or before returning it to the video store was a massive pain in the butt. You no longer had to worry about a bad player shredding the DVD or CD which was also a huge plus with both moves. Quality was more of a factor to convince me to move from VHS to DVD but you better believe that if that quality improvement didn't also include the improvements in convenience (e.g. it was still tape based or a single movie had to be split onto multiple discs) then I don't think the format would have caught on.

And Microsoft

[paranode]

They should fear Apple iTunes.

As well as Microsoft and the Xbox 360. The console is designed to also act as media access system where all you have to do is go into a menu and click on an available movie and it will start streaming it down to your TV at standard or even high definition for a few bucks. I don't know whether the PS3 does this but the 360 definitely makes it very simple.

In other words

[LordEd]

it's not much of a "win" if you claim victory in the battle, but lose the war.

In other words, "mission accomplished".

Re:Surprised

[Abcd1234]

What the hell are you talking about? For one, there is *NO* HD-DVR out there that encodes the material it's storing. None. Zero. Nada. There's simply too much video to make that realistic. Every one of these machines simply demodulates the QAM, pulls out the MPEG stream, and saves it to disk. That's it. No quality loss whatsoever.

Second, storage is a solved problem. Harddisks get bigger every single day. It's simply not an issue. Granted, existing DVRs are a little lean on storage, but that will change with time (my Myth box at home has 250GB, and there are many with 1TB+ setups).

Third, the very idea of Internet distribution of HD, which can be upwards of 7 *gigabytes per hour*, is simply laughable. There's no way in hell that would get popular enough to sway the HD-DVD/Blu-ray battle in any way whatsoever.

Re:

[AKAImBatman]

What the hell are you talking about?

About upgrading from Standard Definition. What the hell are you talking about?

Re:

[Abcd1234]

Actually, according to your post, your thesis is that "the Bluray vs. HD-DVD war won't matter". Are you changing your mind now?

Re:Surprised

[AKAImBatman]

No. I'm talking about convenience > quality. Quality is not a driving factor at the moment, save for the early adopters. Consumers would much rather have convenience with acceptable quality rather than high quality with no noticeable increase in convenience. (If anything, the high def stuff is a mild decrease.)

Thus a minor quality upgrade (e.g. iTunes is 480p) coupled with a major increase in convenience is going to win the day; not the High Def frisbees. In addition, consumers will soon be able to have their cake and eat it too. Microsoft is already showing that Hi Def downloads that take advantage of more modern compression methods are possible on the higher end of the consumer bandwidth scale. The quality isn't quite as good as a $30 frisbee, but that's not going to swap most consumers. They can get the movie or TV show they want, when they want it, and for the price they want it.

Re:

[metamatic]

FWIW, Bluray is superior to HD-DVD in many ways.

Except that it's crippled with region coding, which kills my interest in it... at least until someone releases a region-free Bluray player.

Re:

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

All the people that bought a PS3 for christmas ran out to buy a blu ray to play on it. It's a temporary bump in sales.

Re:

[DrXym]

I really thought that Sony would lose this format war, boy was I wrong!

They still could lose it (this is Sony we're talking about here). But at the end of the day they're dumping 100,000 PS3s into the market per week so pragmatism alone suggests they'd need to have a monstrous screw-up to lose at this point.

Re:

[VGPowerlord]

or they could win [wikipedia.org] it.

Re:

[DrXym]

Like I said, I reckon pragmatism alone suggests they'll win. Personally I couldn't give a crap about the formats since they're almost identicial, however since I intend to get a PS3 I would prefer if it was Blu-Ray for obvious reasons. My other remark was alluding to Sony's uncanny ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

From the Article

[HappySqurriel]

According to VideoScan, during the first two weeks of January, Blu-ray discs outsold HD DVD by more than a 2:1 margin. It should be noted that the two weeks in question saw only two new high-def disc releases -- both from Blu-ray ('The Covenant' on Jan 2, and 'Crank' on Jan 9).

Even though both movies were awful, and I secretly hope people were buying the discs to smash them in order that no one will ever be forced to watch that crap again, you tend to see a massive spike in movie/book/music sales when a pro

Re:

[ThePsion5]

You must not be familiar with Verizon.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

I see stupid people... all the time... they walk around like everyone else... they don't even know they're stupid.

Subconscious copying

[tepples]

Basically, the only people that believe information wants to be free are parasites who use that as justification for stealing stuff they have no right to, such as pirating movies.

What about the people who created something, found that someone had already created the same thing a decade ago, and had to cease and desist or (worse) pay damages? It happened to George Harrison (Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music), it happened to Michael Bolton (Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton), and it happened to Ross Williams (whose LZRW family algorithms were later found to have patent problems [ross.net]).

Re:

[Knuckles]

Information isn't sentient and as such, can't want anything. It doesn't want to be free, it doesn't care either way.

What, there are still people around who don't get the saying? Information wants to be free in the same way as water wants to leak.