Amazon, B1G1 HD DVD titles
 

HD DVD B1G1


oh, and the aforementioned.....

Blu-ray B1G1

I think there are already a few established threads on this. Irritating that HD only gets 34 titles and BR gets 3 times that many..........

Why does Blu get so many more choices compared to HD?

Fuck if I know. 96 titles versus the same 34 haggard, tired, recycled, and pooper-shoot HD DVD titles I've been seeing for months. I mean really, this is getting old. I emailed Amazon. All HD DVD-challenged people should as well.

Maybe Amazon wants more people to go neutral. Because I might just buy some Blu-ray titles for the hell of it. :lol:

Yeah, and I stupidly keep clicking on the link hoping that they added a few titles back.

(Speaking of which: why does Amazon always shrink the title list on these offers instead of grow it?)

The only thing I can think of is some movie studios are being relunctant to allow the price breaks. But I haven't compared titles per studio, so I could be totally wrong. Best Buy pulled their list of titles available for their pathetic B3G2 sale, which was odd.

Considering the economy, this isn't a good idea to keep your stock locked away in a warehouse at regular prices. Get that shit in consumer's hands.

I don't even own a Blu-ray player and the Amazon sales got me to purchase over 40 Blu-ray titles so far. I'm rapidly catching up to my HD-DVD collection. Now I'm in the market to get a player so I can actually watch them. :lol:

The HD-DVD sale started on 12/26, there were better titles including 4 Harry Potter flicks. Also, Amazon is the only place that has ever offered a BOGO for HD-DVD.

There was a B1G1 offer from Amazon further back than 12/26. And many of those titles offered back then...were offered on the 12/26 sale, except for the HP titles and Hot Fuzz (which I remember was not on the last B1G1 sale either).

Ever stop and think it might not have anything to do with what Amazon wants to offer?

Me too :(

Good point: http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showpost.ph...93&postcount=6

I wish they would include the Harry Potter films in the HD-DVD sale again... and some Kubrick films. I already own them anyway, just on regular DVD's... I would buy them if they were on sale. I was stupid and missed out on Harry Potter when Amazon had the HD-DVD's included in the sale earlier.

The post you linked to sums it up exactly.

The BOGOF offer was limited to discs in stock, as they depleted their stock they dropped titles from the sale (and added some back for a time as they acquired more stock). The HD DVD Harry Potter titles sold so well that they ranked in the top 10 for all DVD sales, which is almost unheard of for High Def titles. It is probable that Amazon severely depleted their stock of those discs, so it made no sense to continue to offer them in the sale. There might also have been a limit to the number of HD DVDs that were being subsidized in price.


These BOGOF promotions are probably paid for by the studios or the marketing organizations for the formats. There have been many more Blu-ray Disc BOGOF sales because they were attempting to keep sales numbers up in the face of a concerted effort by Toshiba to sell low priced HD DVD players. The BD side also tried (successfully, reports suggest) to swamp out sales numbers for a few high profile HD DVD only releases, such as The Transformers, The Bourne Ultimatum, and Shrek 3. In December, the HD DVD side belatedly tried to play catch-up and had a couple of BOGOF sales of its own, albeit with a shorter slate of qualifying titles.

What is actually going on behind the scenes I couldn't say but it appears that each side is trying to impress certain studios, perhaps WB, with the viability of its format in sales numbers. The HD DVD side is trying to do this with sales of players and a significantly higher attach rate. The BD side is trying to show greater gross disc sales numbers, due primarily to the huge numbers of PS3 machines that have been sold.

How this will shake out remains to be seen but for us it has meant bargain disc prices that I certainly didn't expect to see for several years, at least. Complaining about the limited selection seems churlish to me. If we are patient it is likely that at other titles will come down in price as the format war continues.

Now is certainly NOT the time to have HD DVD studios be relunctant to allow titles for their sales.

This is hardly a churlish statement to make, especially in the heat of this competitive format situation.

If HD DVD wants to make a point, now is the time to do it. Not later when Blu-ray sales are stamping them out. Several months down the road when Paramount, Universal (although they apparently have most of the titles on the current B1G1 Amazon offer), and WB look back and say, "What the fuck happened?", I'll give them a nice response: "Well, you should've participated more in HD offers." :lol:

It's a simple thing. Lower prices will determine the survivalist. You can't lower prices on only the hardware, and expect software sales to compensate. Just like Sony can't expect software sales to compensate for hardware sales, although if they have enough software sales, it just might--which is apparently becoming their strategy. So, Toshiba et al better figure something out, because now is the time to play ball. Not a few months from now when a lot of people have already spent money for the holiday season.

People have bought a shitload of HD DVD players. So let's give them something to get excited about.

So, come on HD DVD studios. Show your interest. A $100 HD DVD player is great, but with few titles to play it with, don't mean squacky doo-doo.

Of course, maybe Warner Brothers did participate in the sale, but Amazon was on the fuckin' phone with Felix (love the way that just roles off the tongue), trying to figure out where their goddamn stock was! :lol:

Agreed, but I still want to whine because I missed out on Amazon's Potter titles as well :grumble: Hope that's cool with you guys.

Best Buy may have pulled their list but it still works on any title that you add to your cart right now(except for preorders).

The true winners will be the first manufacturer to come out with a sub $500 combo player that works.
LG and Samsung both have units in the $750 to $1000 range that play both formats.
I am purple. I had to have both.

And I hope the LG and Samsung units last more than a few months without falling apart. That's another problem.

I'm guessing this is Blu's form of attack, and cheap HD-DVD hardware is HD's form of attack. Blu is still winning in my book for technology and title selection. I support both but would like to see more of those universal and paramount titles at half price on HD-DVD...

Acutally, I've always thought it was due to Blu Ray having Disney in it's back pocket...personally, it's the Disney stuff that makes me want to have a Blu Ray player (I'm only with HD right now).
So, I just wanted to make sure I knew what all Disney has under their belt, and here's the shortlist:
1) Buena Vista Motion Pictures/Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group
2) Walt Disney Pictures
3) Touchstone
4) Hollywood Pictures
5) Miramax
6) Pixar
7) Walt Disney Animation (they merged this with Pixar, but still consider it a seperate entity...whatever)

Blu Ray also has the exclusive with Sony (which includes MGM/Columbia Tristar) and 20th Centry fox. That gives Blu Ray 3 big Studios (more if you count their subsidiaries).

Paramount (I believe this includes Dreamworks?) and Universal are HD DVD exclusive. So, (I coudl be wrong, so please don't kill me in the forum) one could say that the Blu Ray to HD DVD exclusivity ratio is 3:2.

This is why many are talking so passionately about Warner possibly going exclusive to one format in 2008. If they go HD exclusive, it would be "level".

As for your comments on their competing strategies, it's all due to interpretation at this point. From what I'm reading, one either purchased an HD player straight up for under $200 or got a PS3. I didn't seek out a title, find what format it was available in and then buy a player (probably the smarter move) but I wanted to be in the Hi Def DVD game, and the $199 player (with 10 "free" discs) was my ticket in. Others here would probably confess the same story.

As for the technology, you can read elsewhere that while Blu Ray has the CAPABILITY to store more information, no current releasees have any technical edge over the other (biases aside).

My personal opinion is that Sony has made a ton of dough by making the PS3 the "cheapest" Blu Ray player on the market (I do believe there are current deals that would negate this). I also believe that they used this as the way to attract buyers - you get a game system AND a hi-def DVD player. That's their form of "value". So, it's really not all about quality at that point. Again, my opinion.

HD, in order to compete, dropped the price of the players in 2007. Me, having little interest in a game system, took the bait. Plus, I don't want to watch movies on a game system (personal opinion), and I've heard about problems with viewing on the playstation dating back to the PS2....this contaminates my opionon, but there it is nonetheless. Should Blu Ray put out a player under $200 with 10 free DVD's, you'll see most everyone here with an HD player buy one and go dual - no loyalty.

So, 3 closing points.
1) Both HD and Blu Ray are attempting to attract our business with "Value". Blu Ray supporters don't own up to this statement, but let's seperate "cost" and "value". The Blu Ray values is a combo game console/hi def DVD player.
2) I see very little difference in the cost to purchase a title on either format (both stagger somewhere around $29.99, without an BOGO type of deal), nor have I read anything that confirms that Blu Ray is encoding the movie at a higher bit rate or anything else that would give them an edge in quality over HD.
3) The title selection is a biggie for both, and not a strategy for just Blu Ray. This is really the bottom line, and it's being affected in many ways (studios receiving "incentives" to go exclusive, etc.). If the studio doesn't make enough money for it to be worth it, they will drop the one format and go dual or the format will have to give the studio "incentives" (*cough* money *cough*) to stay with them.

Personally, I think this is going to go on for a while. I've read that Target and some other stores are going Blu Ray exclusive, but I can't imagine why any store would drop a product if it sells out. Try looking for a copy of "Transformers" or "The Kingdom" on HD DVD....it's scarce to not-available in the Tampa Bay area. So, I'd say there is equal support for both formats and only time will tell. Hang on for the ride!

You make good points, Travis. However, if you think about it, if Warner choses a side in this format war, and it is HD DVD, it hardly makes anything level. If anything, it tips the scale, HEAVILY, in favor of HD DVD.

While Columbia/MGM, and all studios have great titles, it's going to be hard to argue Warner has, by far, the deepest catalog of titles. We are talking about a studio who, at times, dominated the motion picture industry. With catalog titles like 'Wizard of Oz,' 'Casablanca,' and 'Citizen Kane,' their format side matters a little more (I think) than others.

My opinion, IF Warner choses a side, that side wins. Period.

Many of the BD titles are featureless Fox releases that are way overpriced to begin with. Makes me wonder if the double dips aren't coming.

*raises hand* I'll confess to that. You have to start somewhere, and $178 from Amazon with 10 titles worked for me.

Part of my brain doens't understand why there's competition. Why not just accept them as different software formats, the way Java and Flash both work fine when I browse the web and neither is trying to bury the other. But I digress....

Looking at titles is interesting, though. It seems to me that the majority of BD titles are things that seem appropriate to a gaming system - animated movies, comic book heroes, brainless action. BD feels like pitching a version of PSP's UMD. So I wonder how much the sales numbers are skewed by different audiences.
I'd be very interested to see HD vs BD sales numbers on the titles that exist in both formats. Anyone know where I can find that info?