The sooner one format wins out over another, the sooner the price will go down overall. I understand the competition might be driving down the cost of player's, but the studios that do dual, are only going to support both formats for so long. The "backward compatability HD DVD's are also pricier. I've picked my winner, and it's blu-ray. Most recently, this IGN article says it all...
Blu-ray Holds 5 to 1 Hardware Lead Over HD-DVD
PlayStation 3 comprises bulk of install base.
by Gerry Block
June 21, 2007 - As reported by Video Business, research firm Digital Entertainment Group has compiled what would appear to be a solid breakdown of the numbers of next-generation DVD players sold in the United States. The research firm concludes that Blu-ray presently holds a 5 to 1 advantage over HD-DVD in installed hardware, primarily on the strength of the PlayStation 3.

According to DEG, 1.5-million Blu-ray players reside in American homes, broken down between 100,000 dedicated players and 1.4-million PlayStation 3s. The HD-DVD install base stands at 300,000 units, apparently evenly split between dedicated players and the HD-DVD add-on drives for the Xbox 360. Such figures are roughly in line with the HD-DVD camp's now slightly dated claim of selling 60% of all dedicated next-gen players. DEG also reported that $55-million has been spent on high-definition movies to date, the majority ($35-million) devoted to Blu-ray.

The figures reveal a not unexpected yet telling picture of the next-gen DVD business. The fact that, roughly a year after each format's launch, neither has sold an impressive number of dedicated hardware units exposes the extremely significant role videogamers are playing in the development of the technologies. PlayStation 3 owners are undoubtedly driving Blu-ray movie sales, and by dint, the entire next-gen DVD industry. What impact this will have on the health of high-definition movies sales remains to be seen, but the situation is undoubtedly unique in that fans of one media (videogames) are defining the future of another (HD-movies).

Lugoves [email protected]

This is the way wrong thread, but anyway...

I seriously dispute the accuracy of those numbers.

We all know that's an erroneous figure, because not everyone wih a PS3 has an HDTV, and not everyone with a PS3 and an HDTV wants to see Blu-Ray movies. But let's assume that the attach rate between HD DVD and Blu-Ray is about the same. If that's the case, here's what we've got:

300,000 HD DVD players generating $20 million in sales: $66.67 per person, which is probably 2-3 titles per person.

Now, we've got "1.5 million" Blu-Ray players generating $35 million in sales: $23.33 per person, so one movie.

If Blu-Ray owners spent the same as HD DVD owners, then they should've spent $66.67 per person. Out of the $35 million in sales, that means that 525,000 people were HD movie buyers. So we've got 100,000 standalone owners and 425,000 PS3 owners buying Blu-Ray.

That's around 30% of the PS3's install base, which I believe closely mirrors the HDTV numbers I've seen regarding penetration.

What's interesting is that the PS3, while it hasn't failed, hasn't been as much of a success as Sony had hoped. For every 100,000 units that the PS3 sells, they would add $2mm in software sales. Blu-Ray's lead by now could've been massive if the PS3 had met sales expectations.

HD DVD's job is a bit easier. To reach the same number, they only need to sell 30,000 units of either the HD DVD addon or a stand-alone drive.

To match Sony's lead, they only need to sell another 150,000 units. A drop in the bucket looking at historical sales, but a bit of a challenge considering they need to expand their units by 50%.

Toshiba expected to sell 1.8 million (originally) now it expects to sell 1 million. This means sales need to be at least ten-fold from now through the end of the year; we're assuming they're selling about 12,500 units a month based on reaching 150,000 in a year. Even counting the Wal-Mart players, I see this as being a bit unrealistic.

Sony sold about 81,000 PS3s in May, down from 84,000 in April. Let's say they sell 85,000/month through the end of the year (we'll get to holiday sales). Assuming their standalones sell 20,000 a month from now on (way above their initial sales, but we're factoring in price drops and offers), here's BD's new install base by the end of the year, assuming PS3 sells 85,000 a month (again, we're not counting holiday sales yet):

PS3: 2 million. Equivalent to 600,000 BD players.
Stand-alones: 240,000.

So, a total of 840,000 on the low end, and let's add 450,000 PS3s for holiday sales (unrealistic). A total of about 1 million BD players. (Remember, out of each 1,000 PS3s, 300 are BD players).

A better estimate might be to compare it to the 360 and assume it will sell an additional 1.5 million during the holiday period. So, mid-end we've got a bit under 1.3 million BD players in homes.

High-end? I don't see the PS3, even under the rosiest of forecasts, selling more than 2.5 million additional units this holiday season. This would put it near or above the stratospheric sales of the PS2 during its dominating 2001 holiday season. (Right now the PS3 is on a rough 75% pace in sales compared to the PS2). So high-end, add another 750,000 BD players and we've got a total of 2 million BD players in homes.

So, BD: low / mid / high: 1 million / 1.3 million / 2 million

I see Toshiba's HD DVD estimate of 1 million as being the high. It shouldn't be difficult to get to 500,000, so that's the low. I guess make the mid 750,000.

The other real uphill battle HD DVD has for the rest of this year is that the big box office hits of this year are all on Blu-Ray. If we take box office dollars for movies grossing $10mm+ as market share, BD has 88%, HD DVD only 48%. Of the top ten movies this year, only one (Knocked Up) won't be available on Blu-Ray.

I see our Microsoft blogger is now at High Def Digest as well.

New column, this one taking a look at many of the TV shows already available on HD/BD:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/hd/tv_on_hd.html

And another new column:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/hd/hdmi_13_and_you.html

The next one is up, with my thoughts on the Paramount move (actually written last week, but not published until now), and also a really cool HD giveaway from DVD Empire (and excuse the spelling mistakes in that section, they're not mine and they will be fixed).

http://www.dvdtalk.com/hd/the_format...eats_up_1.html

Now that's a good article... I appreciate your straight-forward approach.

Thanks! I think my thoughts echoed the sentiments of most of the people I've talked to. Obviously the hardcore format cheerleaders will disagree with me, but overall, I think most of the more moderate people will probably see eye to eye with what I wrote there.

Good luck, Dan. After my similarly-themed piece went up on HDD on Friday, I've so far got 20+ pages of complaining about it from BD fans in the forums on that site.

Oh, and a former member of this forum (long since banned, choo choo) posted on Blu-ray.com that he thought I should be stabbed. Apparently, whatever moderators they have on that site felt his remarks were perfectly appropriate.

Could you link to that thread?

It's in a 'hidden' forum. You have to be a registered user to access it.

Ah ok, damn. Sometimes I like to have a reminder of how much I take DVDTalk for granted.

Supermallet,

Good article. Relating to their dropping of Blu-ray support, however, I think one major issue being routinely overlooked is the specific sales data for Paramount's dual format releases.

We often hear about how Blu-ray disc sales are trumping HD DVD by a margin of 2:1, however, the titles which seem to be driving this gap are primarily format exclusive titles from Sony and Disney and dual format releases from Warner Bros. wherein the HD DVD is invariably a higher priced combo disc. Instances of dual format releases in which the HD DVD version is NOT a combo, however, are MUCH closer in sales, with HD DVD sales generally being stronger than BD. Coupled with the fact that the higher cost of producing Blu-ray discs in order to acheive equal to, slightly greater than, or -- as in most cases -- less than the sales of HD DVDs, just doesn't make economical sense.

The notion that Paramount's move to discontinue production of Blu-ray discs is somehow "anti-consumer" seems presumptuous and short-sighted. Whenever a business offers two competing products only to discover that one of the products is costing them more money and not performing as well as they'd hoped, said business would be foolish at best to continue offering that product which is losing money. A business relationship between a company and its customer has to be mutually beneficial, and the implication that a company should indefinitely continue to lose money on an under-performing product is, in fact, anti-business.

I realize, of course, that my response here is undoubtedly going to be interpreted by some as some sort of "fanboy hysteria". My intention, however, is not to condemn the Blu-ray format, label it somehow "inferior" nor to talk down to any of its proponents. I don't intend to provoke or promote controversy; I'd like a genuine, respectful discussion of the facts.

As for an opinion, if you disagree with Paramount's actions, what would you have done differently?

That's really nothing to be proud of.

Thanks for the response. I didn't have the exact sales data just for Paramount's titles right in front of me, which is why I didn't use it. As for my comment about Paramount being anti-consumer, it was used to make a point that any studio that's exclusive on either side can be considered anti-consumer, so either we complain about them all equally, or we shut up about it.

And I don't expect to see hordes of email complaints until tomorrow when the article gets a blurb on DVD Talk's front page.

YGM!!




just kidding

I think this is the most exciting HD Talk column yet, featuring my interview with Oliver Stone and Wolfgang Peterson. Check it out:
http://www.dvdtalk.com/hd/new_cuts_for_new_formats.html

Great read, thanks! It must be nice to be connected like that! I particularly liked this Oliver Stone quote: "It's a shame people watch DVD's with the lights on, with people wandering in and out of the room." I hear what he's saying, and it's true for the vast majority, but more & more home theaters are starting to spring up.

Yeah, Stone was clearly conflicted. We actually discussed how movie theaters are becoming more like living rooms, with ads before the movies and people chatting on cell phones and such. I asked him what he thinks a filmmaker can do to counteract this trend, and he conceded it was really difficult for a filmmaker to hold people's attention these days.

Great interviews, Dan.

Thanks! They were a lot of fun. Hopefully I'll get more opportunities for these kind of things.

The new column is up, with write-ups on my trips to ILM and Universal. Note that you can download the full ILM interviews if you'd like.

http://www.dvdtalk.com/hd/transformers_in_hd_1.html

Dan, I'm a little confused by this line:

"Both formats will offer a lossless DTS-HD MA 7.1 mix (annoyingly, only one player in each format can currently play this audio, and the HD DVD player requires a receiver that is capable of decoding the compressed signal)"

As far as I know, the only Blu-ray player that supports DTS-HD MA (the Samsung BD-P1400) also requires a receiver to decode the signal. It won't decode internally itself. Or is there another player I haven't been following?

That's my bad, I thought I had heard that the Samsung was doing the decoding internally. I'll fix it when I get a chance.