Again, a product doesn't have to be "winning" its cetegory to be very successful. Of Pepsi and Coke, only one can be winning the cola wars at any one time, yet nobody would call the other cola unsuccessful. Meanwhile, RC cola keeps plugging along despite being perpetual third place.

Video on UMD got canned, UMD itself is alive and well on the platform. Also, it was video on PSP was one of the selling points, not just via UMD, and that still exists via the memorystick. Also, Nintendo suffered its own video-on-handheld mini disaster via the gameboy video cartridges.

You keep speculating that the PS3 will "tank," what exactly do you mean by that? Is selling only 2 million units by the end of the year tanking? Is selling 6 million by March while the 360 exceeds 10 million tanking? Or are you really anticipating something catastrophic, where Sony is unable to sell even its limited supply of PS3s during the holiday season?

I'm not continually speculating. I was bringing it up as a possible scenario to point out that the playing field will not stay static.

And how will it sell 2 million by the end of the year when they just cut their shipping estimates again? But that's beside the point.

Are you sure Sony doesn't allow them to press in house, or is it currently a situation where Sony has one of the only plants capable of pressing BD?

Cinram has a license for BD, but hasn't set up mass production yet:
http://www.blu-raydisc.info/licensee...ensee_list.htm

They also haven't set up HD-DVD production yet, so Fox would still have to use another plant.

Also, while Sony is all one big corporation, its home video distribution division and its BD pressing division are technically seperate entities. It may actually be illegal for it to share confidential information like pressing plans with other divisions. Besides, most studio announce titles well ahead of time anyway.

There were several other studios that were exclusively HD-DVD that altered their plans to include Blu-Ray. I'm not sure I see what's in it for Universal to keep itself out of BD.

While the technology for BD is patented by Sony, they set up an association much like the DVD Forum to handle the format. There's a board of directors that consists of many companies, one of which is Sony. Just like Sony is part of the DVD Forum and has a say in the development of that platform, but not absolute control.
http://www.blu-raydisc.com/general_i...009/Index.html

I agree that BD is a lock as far as a format just existing. I was more specifically thinking of the BD video format though.

I agree that BD mucked up its launch somthing awful. However, release timing is a double-edged sword. If they hadn't launched, some may have waited, but others would've bought HD-DVD simply because it was the only format available, while others would've been ignorant of BD existing at all, especially with HD-DVD's claims of being "the only High Definition DVD."

The point at which it snowballed is when the two formats couldn't come to an agreement for a single format. Once it was clear that both formats would be released, both with a good level of manufacturer and studio support, the likelyhood of either format dying out fast became slim to none.

Jay G

A lot of sony haters come up with terms that are just as silly as they are for how sony will fail. Sony is not going anywhere. BD is not going anywhere. And PS3 is DEFINETLY not going anywhere. I know that they all hope that a format with less space and more limitations wins (god knows why), but they are all going to end up disapointed at some point. Plus, why the pure hatred? Are you all bound by law to support anything you see blindedly? I honestly think a lot of HD-DVD fanatics need a breath of fresh air and realise that if they enjoy their format, good, stick with it. But taking every opportunity to bash and bash an oposing company... Well, i dont even know what to say.

I know guys like supermallet have no lives, work at a gamestore talking with 5th graders all day and then goes home and comes online to bash sony till he cant keep his eyes open anymore. Thats just the sad reality of some people. I advise others to live for more.

The answer is BD+. Sony is against selling the somewhere around $200K stampers to everyone who wants one. I read that they are only letting a few units out. I don't even think the replicators can resell them. The watermarking scheme on the discs should be traceable back to the individual replicator.

That being said, Sony's Terre Haute facility isn't just a short term solution to pumping out discs before Cinram is ready. Sony is now is the replication business. Pretty smart.

:) Working in a management position in a Fortune 300 Company for five years, I can tell you that management within Sony, SCEI, Columbia Tri-Star and Terre Haute all "hear" rumors of what is going on regardless of legality. That being said, never put your company in a position where a direct competitor can have inside knowledge of what you are doing. Pressing plans are one thing, release dates are another.

True. WB is supporting Blu-Ray for various reasons, probably because Time Warner wanted them to support both. Lieberfarb is openly against Blu-Ray however. Paramount is going whichever way the wind blows it seems.

If all the studios agree to not support Hd-dvd at all from day one, Hd-dvd is obviously dead. This pretty much sucks if something goes wrong with Blu-Ray, and they all know it. Nice to have an option B available.

Remember Blu-Ray studio support revolves around the PS3, BD+, and BD50(costs/yields) all being viable. That is what Fox and Disney bought into and were told by Sony they would have, not 25gb discs. They still don't have it. Having HD-dvd still around is still a good option B.

The BDA didn't make promises to Disney and Fox, Sony did. BDA is powerless if Sony goofs the actual PS3 release up. They are also powerless if something goes terribly wrong with BD+ at this point. If BD50 becomes non-viable, the BDA probably can't do anything about it. It's Sony and Panasonic that worked on the DL discs. Speaking of the BDA, what they were able to do was make it damn confusing for anyone to sue them in case the Samsung player doesn't play BD50 discs.

It certainly could survive nicely if software sales start rising a little. We are not talking about a night and day gap between the two formats. It only takes a few good events to turn things around. Last spring most of us were laughing at Toshiba.

The real fear most of us have about Blu-Ray is that if BD50 turns out to be non-viable, Blu-Ray is going to stick around and the studios are just going to save money and encode all films to fit on 25gbs, regardless of format. The same goes for BD50 as well. If HD-dvd sticks around, and BD50 is viable, the studios could do one encode to fit on DL discs for each format. If you have 50gbs to work with, use it. We will find out the file sizes when Fox releases KOH.

Depends I guess. We really don't know how HD-dvd would have done if Sony came out with a better show last summer. It has been one bad thing happening to Sony after another since launch day. The most ironic thing is that despite Sony being deadset against VC1, it might be the thing that saves them. The other studio's improvement with this codec is letting Blu-Ray get much better releases on the single layer discs, as we have seen with the recent Warner titles.

The longer both survive the better chance all studios will support both. Fox was actually making money selling 2000-4000 copies of each D-VHS title. They make money wherever they can.

If the PS3 repeats the performance of the PSP it will be a disaster for Sony. They don't need the PS3 to do decent in one territory and get murdered everywhere else like the PSP has done. They need the PS3 to dominate. Sony is not only struggling in the handheld market, most have already called the PSP a dead system. Outside of the okay showing in the US it has been a disaster for Sony especially in game sales since many are buying the PSPs for multimedia and homebrew and rarely buying games for it.

Nintendo could get by with the GameCube and N64 not being on top because they are the number two publisher of games in the world and make a ton of money there. Sony can't fall back on that. If they aren't moving a lot of hardware and making a lot of money on licensing fees they are in deep trouble.

I still think this is what will end up happening. Blu-ray still has their advantage in greater hardware and studio support, however, with the all the issues of the BD50 discs, PS3 shortages and higher standalone player costs it will take them a long time to actually put any of that advantage to use.

I think HD DVD will be established well enough by the time hardware prices are equal that it won't be going anywhere. We may have a situation where both formats end up supported for years and years to come. That may guarantee that DVD never gets replaced by either format and the two HD discs end up in a niche. I think it will be a much larger niche than SACD or LD, but still a niche.

Since a format war is likely to dampen down consumer demand for HighDef discs, it's in the CE maker's and studio's interests to have only one format. While they could potentially make a little more by supporting both in the short term they'd be risking a far larger pot of money a few years down the line. I suspect the studios are well aware of this strategy. And as of now Fox or Disney would still only be selling to (at most) 50,000 people, so they're not missing out on much of a market.

Yeah, so this swing of the ban hammer has been a long time coming.

Presumably Digifreek is next.

It is a time for celebration! Until he signs up again under a different name.

Wow, it's a good thing I ignored him weeks ago. :lol:

Thanks for looking out for li'l ol' me, Adam :)

:lol: New slogan: "Sony PSP: The RC Cola of Handheld Gaming!"

This is extremely hilarious, coming from you of all people.

No - Disney has announced that they willnot be releasing POC or Cars on Bluray this year - they said they would like to see player sales for Bluray Hidef improve first....

They meant Dead Man's Chest. The release on BR planned is of Curse of the Black Pearl. I would not be surprised if DMC is not released until April or May of next year right before At World's End.

Uh, most of us OWN one of the formats. SO, its not blindly like you support Sony. :rolleyes:

I thought that applied to part 2. I'm talking about the original.

MODERATOR NOTE

Burnt Thru and digitalfreaknyc: I really don't care for either of your posts. Yeah, this is a "free-for-all" thread, but that doesn't mean that we'll keep allowing these jabs at each other. We're trying to be as tolerant as possible, but there are limits. And you guys are awfully close to it.

namja
Moderator, DVD Talk Forums

Thank you, namja.

How likely a scenerio is the PS3 "tanking" though? I could posit a scenerio where every HD-DVD pressing plant goes up in flames tomorrow, thus causing hardship on the HD-DVD front. Sure, it's a possible scenerio, but it's not likely.

2 million PS3 units is what Sony just cut their shipping estimates to. The Xbox 360 shipped less than that last year, and had Europe to deal with as well.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060721-7321.html

Agreed. You still haven't said what you consider the PS3 "tanking" would be.

I also remember MS saying they would have 3 million by the end of last year. That didnt happen. Didnt they end up with 1 million or so??

I highly doubt we will see 2 million PS3s by the end of the year. As usual, they are being optimistic.

That's a bit different than saying Sony won't allow other studios to produce in-house. The restrictions are based on security, not exclusivity.

Sony's Terre Haute facility opened in 1983 to press CDs. It added DVD replication in 1997. Sony's been in the replication business for over 2 decades.

http://www.emedialive.com/Articles/R...ArticleID=5127
http://specials.tribstar.com/terreha...ries/DADC.html
http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/dvd.html

Release dates are known publically for months ahead of time anyway.

The studios didn't seem so worried about that when DVD came out with no option B. The advantages of a unified format probably exceed that of a "backup" format being on the market as well.

You wrote of Sony screwing studios over, not Sony screwing up. The BDA ensures Sony can't screw them over.

So it's not just Sony that has to solve the problems. In fact, other members of the BDA could look for solutions to DL.

Studios have already worked on different encodes for the two formats, although currently that's because BD was MPEG2 exclusive for a while. However, based on reports of VC-1 compression advancements, I don't see how the 25GB limit is even goig to be a factor. People are claiming that VC-1 can get HD transparency at 10Mbs, which means the video for a 2 hour film could fit on a DL DVD. The possible differences between BD and HD-DVD are more likely to be either less extras or less audio options.

Tears of the Sun, which is one of the best reviewed BD so far, is still MPEG2:
http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/tearsofthesun.html

I do think moving to VC-1, or possibly AVC, would be the better move though.

I really doubt Columbia will ever support HD-DVD unless BD tanks. I can see the other studios supporting both eventually, but that will harm overall adoption due to the two formats co-existing. At that point, unless dual-format players become the norm, consumers may decide to ignore both formats.

:hscratch:

Huh? You're the one that wants the format with less space and more limitations to win (i.e. Blu-ray). You really have to pay more attention.

Time for one of these again...
 

http://www.fantasticdamage.com/conte...s/hdchart8.gif

Now that we've got six week's worth of data, I feel a bit better about giving summaries or examining everything as whole.

HD DVD and Blu-Ray: Software

HD DVD's best-seller was ranked, on average, at ^#680. HD DVD peaked at ^#34 and the best-seller sold as poorly as ^#1783. According to TheDVDWars, the Top 10 HD DVDs sold at an average of ^#1842 during this period. That indicates, perhaps, a measly 0.54% share*. Not exactly very promising.

If you thought HD DVD was bad, Blu Ray was even worse. Blu-Ray's best-seller was ranked, on average, at #3720. Blu-Ray peaked at ^#844 and the best-seller sold as poorly as ^#8782. According to TheDVDWars, the Top 10 Blu-Ray discs sold at an average of ^#7027 during this period. That indicates, perhaps, a measly 0.14% share.

On average, the Top 10 HD DVDs had a better ranking than the best-selling Blu-Ray title. On their best day (7/26/2006), the Top 10 HD DVDs had a higher ranking (^#823) than Blu-Ray's single best-selling title (Silent Hill, at ^#844 on 8/23/2006).

Simply put, HD DVD software appears to vastly outsell Blu-Ray software on Amazon regardless of how you slice it. If DVD is the bucket and HD DVD is a thimble, Blu-Ray is a single drop of water.


<b>Hardware</b>

This warrants a bit less analysis as the numbers are cut and dry: after all, we're only talking about 5 pieces of machinery here. Here are the top ranked HD DVD / Blu-Ray players on Amazon, along with average rank:

^#00501 Toshiba HD-A1
^#07500 Toshiba HD-XA1
^#08754 Samsung BD-P1000
^#09312 Sony BDP-S1
^#11765 RCA HDV5000

Both Toshiba units are outselling any Blu-Ray CE player. And the pre-orders for the Sony unit are almost as much as the Samsung's actual sales. And I have no idea why Amazon even bothers to sell the RCA unit.


* There's no way, of course, to calculate market share. For HD DVD, I did the following calculation: ( 1 ÷ Rank × # of Titles ). Since this is a top 10, HD DVD's share is 1 ÷ 1893 × 10, or 0.54%.

<hr>

BTW, the newest version of each my charts is up at www.hdcharts.com. If anyone else can think of what else to look at, let me know. I'm not going to bother with the PC/data storage angle, as that doesn't interest me in anyway.

He's banned. It doesn't matter any more :)

But if his pro Blu-Ray message reaches just one person, that's all that matters; he's made a difference in the world.

I have not been following all 20+ pages of this thread, and I own no advanced player yet.
Admittedly, anyone here is going to be both more educated with the industry and more interested in HD/BD than 'joe six pack', so opinions on this board might not reflect 'normal' people's opinions.
But I have a few questions about the two formats.

* I'm looking here: http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/...=128896,00.gif
and based solely on this [assuming it's accurate], BD looks 'better' - more studio support, higher capacity disks [except for the hybrids], higher bandwidth; they both have lots of manufacturer support from big names; and while having BD built in to the PS3 should help, I don't think the PS3 will be as big as the PS2 or PS1, so because built-in BD/Ps3, and add-on HD 360, it might be a wash.
* It is of the general opinion, though there's certainly not 100% agreement, that HDDVD is currently 'winning' over BD, is that correct? Why is that? Certainly the fact that HDDVD players came out first has something to do with it, and apparently BD is having some difficulty with their higher capacity disks. Some of the technical things discussed in this thread, I don't understand [MPEG vs. VC1 for instance], so I don't know why one is better than the other.
Player price also makes a difference; if it's hard to spend 500 on a player, it's much harder to spend 1000.
Looking at Amazon, there are both HD and BD disks that I would like to have, and I honestly couldn't tell you the studio of half my current dvd collection without looking, so I can't say, "Oh, BD or HD has Studio X, so that's made my choice for me!"
Can someone summarize the 'war' as it currently stands, who's winning the battles, and why, in a somewhat unbiased fashion?

dtcarson...

read this. It summarizes everything.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/reta...VD_Blu-ray.htm

News from AVS:

dt: That chart is not 100% correct.

I do have a question though: Doesn't Weinstein Company own Dimension?

So far I can only remember seeing supporters of BD being banned on this forum, regardless of the behaviour of certain other members (whether baiting or insulting). Considering the prefference of the mod carrying out these actions this trend can't fail to look bad. But feel free to allow this "free-for-all" until you decide you dislike the opinions being voiced.

I found that article right before reading your post, and am reading it now :)
Very informative, and in plain language.

It's coincidence that the two members I've banned have been Blu-ray supporters. There's no grand conspiracy. The rabid HD DVD folks bug me about as much, but there haven't been any that consistently crossed the line, and I get far, far, far fewer 'report this post to a moderator...' complaints about them.

Good article. As usual, Evan does a nice, even analysis. Esp nice to see the analysis of the codecs, and why bitrate is no longer an issue.

If Universal is being told they can't produce titles in-house it doesn't really matter what the reason is. The fact is they are not being allowed to do what they want is enough not to support Blu-Ray. BTW, the little tidbit about the BD+ stampers and cost estimate was either in CED or a trrade journal last year. I'll see what I can find.

Connect the dots! :) Sony did not have the kind of sayso on who pressed CDs and dvds like they do right now with Blu-Ray. Because of their BD+ restrictions they have limited replication business to a few big players. They will make more money this way. For example, think about how much more money Pizza Hut and Dominoes would make if all the small pizza joints closed up overnight. Not only this issue exists, but it is well known that Sony is not doing replication business with every company that wants to press discs on Blu-Ray. I'll leave that in the adult forum though.

Sure, street dates and whatnot. Replicators know in advance of the press releases what orders they are getting, how many units to fill, whats on them ect ... I can see exactly why a studio woudln't trust Sony with any of their financials.

Well lets place Blu-Ray as the one and only "unified" format. Hd-dvd never came out. Sony would then have no reason to get BD50-rom working because there is no competition. Why should they subsidize discs for other studios if BD25 is the only game in town? If certain studios are really supporting Blu-Ray due to the extra storage space then they are going to be pretty upset. Thats enough reason to leave support in place for HD-dvd until BD50 is working. I will say what I have believed from day one. Time Warner can end the entire issue with one simple press release that they are dropping support for HD-dvd. Universal can't hold a format by itself.

BTW, I wouldn't say dvd didn't have an option B. Last I checked dvd WAS option B for Fox! Divx was pushed heavily by a few in the industry.

Sony screwing up the PS3 release production numbers has nothing to do with the BDA. It's all on Sony. If you make a business deal you either honor it or back out. You don't keep playing guessing games like Sony has been within the industry. If Sony tells Fox they will subsidize a working BD50 launch, and when they knew they couldn't do it, then it's all on Sony.

Thats exactly true. The problem with BD50 is it can be a complete fabrication, as Amir said, when Microsoft decided to go against Blu-Ray. Some things don't have solutions. We're not talking about a technology that just sprang about overnight. They've been fiddling around with double layer Blu-Ray discs for years. And as I said before, the BDA's solution to the Samsung player "prehaps" not being able to read the final BD50 discs was not a solution, it was a means of protecting themselve from a product that wasn't ready for launch.

It probably won't matter as Amir said long ago 30gbs is enough and the enitre subject of BD50 was pointless. If I had to choose between 25 or 30 I'd still take 30 though. I can tell you that the sweet spot for D-VHS MPEG-2 was in the 20-26mbps range. I'd prefer VC1 over 16-18mbps MPEG-2

I forgot about Columbia actually. I figure New Line will support both after Christmas and LionsGate will support both within the next year. Disney will probably come around to supporting both if BD50 doesn't work out. It's going to take a long long time for Fox . Something strange is going on with the entire deal regarding Sony and MGM are letting Fox have distribution rights to the MGM titles.

That's a really good article that summarizes the technical differences, as well as saying whether the differences are relevant or not.

However, I do have a few minor quibbles with the article. First, the author writes too much about dual-sided HD-DVDs as a feature advantage of that format. He writes about dual-sided double-layer HD-DVDs already existing, when the hybrid HD-DVD/DVD discs are actually only single-layer on the HD-DVD side. Also, I don't think there's anything preventing BD from making double-sided discs. Studios don't seem enamoured over a DL/DS HD-DVD in any case, since MI3 is going to be two discs instead of double-sided.

Also, the author is overly optomistic about the future pricing of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. There's very little to suggest that player prices are going to drop as quickly as DVD prices, since neither format is going to sell as well as DVD. On the other hand, competition between the formats might accelerate price drops a bit.

Finally, I'm not as optomistic as the author that having two formats is actually a good thing. Studios may have released FF and WS versions of DVD, but that doesn't translate to them being "happy to" do it. Consumers also aren't going to be happy either buying both formats or choosing between studios they want to watch. Even if all studios suport both formats, there's still going to be confusion on which format is "best" to buy, especially since by that point the differences may be minimal.

Give me a break. If you can't understand why the two banned members were given the boot, I don't know what to say.

The rabid HD folks can be almost as bad as the BD crowd, but certainly these two members took it further than HD v. BD into the realm of user v. user. They weren't banned because they loved BD likee Gollum loved the precious, they were banned becuase of their behavior.

Mods- you guys are doing a great job, keep it up. Those of us that are truly impartial know there is no BD witchhunt.

The Weinsteins did bring the Dimension "label" to their new company. However, it looks like all the previous films done under the Dimension label are still owned by Miramax, and thus Disney. Disney also gets a cut of any new films based on franchises established by Dimension while at Miramax.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimension_Films
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weinstein_Company
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...4193758&EDATE=

Let me make it clear that if I ever step over my bounds, a mod would let me know. However, I don't get into personal attacks over something as stupid as a format war and if I've personally offended anyone here, feel free to email me or PM me and tell me that I've hurt your feelings.

That said...there's more to life than this board.

My interest in HD DVD, as I've stated before, is not so biased that I wouldn't be able to admit that BD has actually done something good. Thus far, they haven't.

To those who clearly call me out or have some childish vendetta against me, I say "welcome to my ignore list."

Carry on.

In fairness, though, that street runs both ways; HD DVD would've been a much, much less attractive format if not for the spectre of Blu-ray.