The real problem that I noticed in the reports is that none of the retailers seem that interested in either format because it wasn't mentioned much if at all. I don't know if that bodes well in the long term or not.

I will keep you posted as I'm sure I'll be hearing a lot more once we get down to the nitty gritty when PS3 is released.

What surprises me is that Circuit City and Best Buy haven't made any attempts to "own" Hi-Def. With both of them doing a fantastically shitty job of promoting the format, I'm surprised not one of them has tried to take the lead. Amazon is doing a pretty good job of it, and I never really shop for DVDs there, but they're my #1 online HD DVD retailer right now. I've probably spent more with them since HD DVD came out than I did most years.

It doesn't take much more floor space or resources to change what either shop is doing right now. Put a demo kiosk somewhere between the DVDs and the home theatre section. Set up two TVs, one running a HD film, the other running the same film over composite cable (hell, make it full screen). Have a TV for Blu Ray with the demo running.

Set up big displays with the movies front-facing. It makes such a difference. A CC near me had all the HD DVDs front facing on one rack. When I stopped in, I was amazed by the number of movies. They probably had all 40+ that had been released so far. As I picked up Good Night & Good Luck, I thought to myself: I need to come back here and buy more movies! I did come back later that week, but the movies had been cast aside, showing only their spines. I didn't get the same feeling of a huge library available and I had to scan by name from memory, not by looking at the covers.

Retailers can't be surprised that a product is barely moving when so few of the employees are aware of it and the system is relegated to the dusty corner where the VCRs are.

In the past few months, I've met two people who even knew what they were talking about; one was at BB, the other at Wal-Mart. Both were pretty young and you could tell that they read up on it externally, and one of them (the BB employee) even said Blu-Ray wasn't really "ready"... Meanwhile with most employees when I ask about HD DVD or where the "Hi Def DVDs are" I get a look like I'm from The Future.

Place the player(s) near some TVs that can show it off. If someone's shopping for an HDTV, lo and behold, here's an HD DVD player. If you keep playing a scene from Sahara on loop it's bound to look and sound better than anything piped over the closed circuit cable loop or any DVD.

Place the player(s) in the actual DVD player section! Don't put it next to the VCRs, or the mobile DVD units, or the $20 players. Put it somewhere near the $200 or $300 upconverting units. Make it easier for someone to see it as not a $500 (or $1000) cost but spending $200 (or $800) more to see some HD stuff on disc.

Retailers have no one blame to but themselves. Wait, no. Studios and electronic companies. Blame them for not getting a unified format in the first place. But then blame yourselves, retailers.

My BB has one shelf section on the same aisle as the 'new releases' and right next to the UMD disks with HD and BD disks, mostly front-facing; they also have a cardboard standee with one of them [I forget which.] They have the BD player set up over by the dvd players on and endcap, and the HDA1 over on an aisle next to the portable dvd players and some random Superbit titles. They had a sign saying "See this in action, on this aisle", and when I asked somebody, they said they didn't have it set up anymore, just the BD, which he started nudging me toward, when I looked somewhat hesitant, he said "Yeah, we're not sure how that one is going to do, I think the HDDVD is better." And it actually took me two or three trips to even find the HDA1.
I walked all around the HDTV and big-tv section, the only HD content was from DTV and TWC.
It's not how I would have set it up. But they're spending lots of shelf space and endcaps toward pushing DirectTV and their 'total HD solution'.

Guys, seriously. This is the most direct quote so I posted it, but this entire week so far is all this discussion on specific pricing and timing....This war will not be won this year. It can't be. Both products are dependent on HDTVs, and they aren't in every home. Each year sees more and more TVs sold, and will see more and more HD players sold. And prices will drop. In a couple years, player prices will be the same on HDDVD and BD, assuming BD actually gets DL discs and other shit working. So, fairly soon, all the $500 vs $1000 comments will be meaningless. It is a non-issue for longevity of either tech, or the outcome of the war. And before somebody rips on me yet again for injecting reality, I understand that it matters to you and your wallet. But don't try to translate your one wallet into the war's outcome.

Also, people keep wanting to compare this rollout to DVD. For the same reason, it just doesn't work. It has to be a slower pace than DVD managed due to the number of HDTVs, so some stamina is needed by the supporting companies.

While I agree that it probably will not be won this year, Q4 will be VERY important. It could sway stuidos into supporting BD or HD-DVD (Disney, Fox, Universal, New Line).

So, sales this year will be very important in this format war.

Not if they have a clue.

We could start a little contest. Guess how many individual DVD titles will outsell the entirety of BD/HDDVD catalogs in 2006.

BD = drop
HDDVD = slightly bigger drop
DVD = bucket

Exactly. But, by your own estimates, HD DVD has the 'slightly bigger drop'. Why should studios like Fox and Disney ignore that?

And, if studios like Fox and Disney decide to start supporting HD DVD (to get the $$$ from those bigger drops), why do we need two formats? Isn't the war over at that point?

Sales in Q4, while pathetic compared to standard DVD, could go a long way towards deciding the direction that this 'format war' takes.

Because creating another format disc for a movie takes up time and money, takes up inventory, and takes up store space. I wonder if discs on either format are actually recouping their investment at this point, probably not. If you figure a studio would release almost all their titles in both formats, like Warner, that means that they're releasing less titles with their resources than they could if they were exclusively one format.

Sony Columbia will stay exclusively BD until the bitter end. The others that are currnently releasing in exclusively one format are doing so with the expectation/hope that it will be the only one of the two formats they will ever have to release on.

Also, if you were a studio, would you rather sell a title like Troy for $7.50 in the bargain bin...

Or sell it for $22-$25 on HD DVD?

OK. But, say you're Fox or Disney. You're exclusively BD. BD is not meeting any of their promises. Sales are slower than HD DVD. The promises of BD50 are not coming to fruition. Even the highly-touted PS3 launch is turning into a dud.

Aren't you asking yourself why you're exclusive to this turkey of a format? If you're going to pool your resources into one format only, why are you picking the one that has lower sales?


From a consumer perspective: Big. Freaking. Deal.

If you have Warner, New Line, Disney, Fox, and Paramount releasing on both formats, the fact that Sony is exclusive to one becomes trivial to the extreme.


I still argue that if Fox and Disney decide to support HD DVD tomorrow, this format war is over. The ONLY thing that BD has going for it at this point is Fox and Disney exclusives. And that could change tomorrow, quite literally.

Is Sony not subsidizing Fox and Disney's entry into the format? I find it hard to believe they're funding this movement out of their own pockets when they have no vested interest in either format. If they truly were expecting BD50 and the PS3 be the heroes of the BD format, why not just wait until those come to fruition before devoting any capital?

The rumor mills are going crazy right now...

Apparently,
...which means there may not even be enough for a release of the (how many?) players this fall.

The problem is this: people are waiting for big titles to be out before they jump in and some studios are waiting for people to jump in before they put out their big guns. This whole situation is a chicken-egg conundrum. Well, if we're not careful, we're not having chicken or eggs for dinner, just a dry-ass roll. And maybe some green beans.

I think Q4 will solve a bit of that, for sure.

King Kong, Superman Returns, Batman Begins, Harry Potter 4, X-Men: The Last Stand all should be out in quarter 4. Those are big titles that should help sell players. Isn't the first Pirates of the Caribbean also coming in Q4?

Alternate theory: The only smart studios are Warner and Paramount. Investment into putting a movie into BR or HD-DVD (just the movie, not special extras, etc) is minimal once you've done it for the other format. Sure, Rumor Has It... isn't a barnstormer, but it makes some sales. It's better than taking a crappy movie no one cares about (Stealth) and putting it out on one format only.

I wonder when, if ever, studios will debut a movie on HD/BR before it comes out on DVD.

Someone suggested this on avsforum (maybe it was you..I dont remember). It sounds like a GREAT idea. They could really push the format with giving this incentive to early adopters.

I'm with you except for X-Men 3 and Pirates 1. I haven't heard anything about those coming in Q4. Are you sure?

yes to both.

Interesting...

I remember the Pirates announcement for overseas on BD, but where was the X3 announcement?

The only thing I read about X3 coming to BD was from DVD File. They had a little mention a couple of months back about the Fox BD demonstration and said that it would be included in their first 20 or so titles this Fall.

Yeah, I remember Garfield 2 was another title that was mentioned.

I also think that retailers don't want to get burned like they did with Beta/VHS war. Maybe they are taking a more wait and see approach, but at the same time they should have just said look we aren't going to support either of you guys unless you can come up with a unified format. If Walmart did that, since they obviously have the most clout then I doubt you would have seen a format war at all.

Wait wait wait WHAT? Garfield 2 is coming to BD?!

That's it, guys, format war over. Adam, if you could please close all HD DVD related threads. Thanks. I'm off to go buy a Samsung.

Is wal-mart even selling BD players? I thought it was all HD DVD.

I don't know about that but they do sell blu-ray movies.

I've only seen BD films.

I don't forsee Walmart selling 1,000 dollar dvd players anytime soon - it's just not something that you would find there.

No, they'd price them at $996.88 forcing out all the local Mom n' Pops.

You're not serious!?? SACD had a "slightly bigger drop" in its war. But it never got bigger, and then DVD-A started catching up. Didn't matter, they are both barely even niche groups. Even Chesky (wacko audiophile studio) went back to CD and has almost completely dropped SACD.

The war can't be won until one or the other becomes big enough to see in the proverbial bucket. If that never happens, they will either both fail or both hang on in the background like LD. I'm not actually sure which would be worse. Probably the hanging on since it would hinder the next tech generation, whatever that will be.

Yes, for sure. But that will be next year at the earliest. Not in September, 2006. That's all I'm saying. People here are trying to come up with a winner by tomorrow, or November at the latest. Silly notion.

I'd say at least 2 holiday seasons have to come and go before big changes happen, either in studios or player manufacturers. (ignoring Sony in both fields)

Of course, this is presuming that both formats are allowed to mature. There are other factors that could shift the landscape. For example, if the PS3 tanks, it would really hurt Sony's bottom line and might force them to reprioritize.

Isn't it thought that either Fox or Disney, or both, are interested in BD for the additional DRM? If they're concerned that much about security of their information, they may be willing to stick with it through these early hiccups.

That's a big if. Conversely, if Universal releases on both formats, then BD will have all major studios supporting it, which would be a huge advantage.

Even if that did happen, BD wouldn't be out of the picture so quickly, especially since your talking about dual-support. To the average forum member here, the superior format currently is clear, but it's not so clear to the average layman, if they're even interested in an HD disc format at this point. By the time they are, BD may have made enough improvement to keep it in the game as long as Sony was able to keep Betamax in the game, which was over a decade.

How did retailers get burned by Beta vs. VHS? They sold both devices for over a decade until VHS won out, then sold exclusively that. Aside from dumping their unsold Beta stock I don't see how they got burned, especially since they then got to sell VHS to all the Beta buyers that did get burned.

That's a mighty big if. Sony could lose this generation's platform war and still sell a whole lot of PS3s. Hell, Nintendo has been able to stay in the game even though they haven't had a winning platform since SNES.

Yes, but Nintendo's first party games are guaranteed best sellers, whereas Sony only has a few name titles, and a good portion of them are third-party, so they may not remain exclusive if the PS3 tanks. And Nintendo never sold a $600 system. Nintendo's also made a killing in the handheld market, another area where Sony is struggling.

Besides, that's not the only factor that could change the war, it was just the first one that came to mind.

In response to your comment about Disney and Fox staying with BD for DRM, we know Fox is staying for the extra layer of copy protection. Disney is supposedly staying for more space, but they're definitely not staying for the extra copy protection (which I believe is called BD+, not DRM on this format).

Sony is definitely not struggling in the handheld market. They've sold quite a few PSPs.

Not nearly as many as Nintendo has sold DS systems. Plus UMD got canned, and that was one of the selling points of the system. I certainly don't call that a rousing success.

Disney has not mentioned BD+ as a reason for them to support Blu-Ray. They kept pointing a finger at BD50 being the reason, yet never responding to Toshiba about TL45. This was before HD-dvd was released and it could have been in spec before hardware launches.

As for Fox, they still feel they got burnt on dvd's encryption scheme because of W-B so I think it's going to take some mighty impressive sales numbers to swing them.

Agreed ... but Universal is probably going to be harder for Sony to swing then Fox would be for the HD-dvd group. Two reasons.

A. The strong business ties created between Toshiba, GE, Microsoft & Universal.
B. Sony not allowing them to press discs in house, thus having a major competitor in the movie industry knowing their plans months to years ahead of time. Remember Fox has their Blu-Ray discs coming off Sony's replication line for BD50. Fox uses Cinram for dvd production. :)

Lastly, the studios compete with each other but they are all united in the same business. Anyone think that Universal was the designated hitter for HD-dvd? What would the studios do if they all supported Blu-Ray from day one and Sony screwed them all? Universal is releasing the majority of HD titles on any format and, unlike Fox, Disney, WB, or Paramount, they really havn't even made mention that they know Blu-Ray exists.

I don't see Blu-Ray going anywhere regardless of its quality. It's always going to be viable for PCs and the PS3. The problem is that they messed up their launch badly. Bad press and broken promises are killing them. Hell, if they had just decided to not launch anything at all, until November, I bet 50% of us wouldn't have bought Hd-dvd thinking Blu-Ray would be superior. Most of us where just looking at tech specs on paper. Now it has snowballed into both formats having a chance at sharing the market for the next few years.