Oh it did indeed. It wasn't the support that HD DVD and Blu-ray has, but it had its share of fanboys for the brief time it was relevant. The DVD newsgroups could get just as vile as AVS forums do now.
They were the ones "smart" enough to get the players that supported both and the dumb DVD only supporters would be left in the cold with no Disney or Fox discs.

Yes, people with a collection of pan and scan discs they had to pay for every time they wanted to watch them called the rest of foolish. Good times.

I remember this very vividly. I was an early adopter of DVD, buying the $1000 Sony 1st gen player just 6 months after DVD hit the shelves ... and that was long before any B&M stores were carrying them. DIVX was anti-everything I wanted in a new format.

At that time, Circuit City had a HUGE stake in DIVX, and they were the primary supporter. They made such a stink about it that I boycotted them and didn't set foot in a Circuit City store until just a few years ago. (Not that my lost business did anything for them.) Only once Best Buy's Customer Service started to tank, and I was reading about Circuit City's change in Customer Service policies did I go back.

I have a friend that I work with, and the joke is that whatever technology he buys is doomed to failure, the list begins with a Divx player, a 4:3 HDTV, and Voom, just to name a few. Although I am format neutral, I have been joking with him about picking a next gen HD disc format, so I can start buying loads of HD discs in the opposite.

I've been thinking the same thing, and thought about bringing it up myself. Everybody assumes that WB will look at overall software sales, but why should they? Blu-Ray has had an unfair adantage with the B1G1 sales and the fact that they have the heavyweights when it comes to movie releases. HD-DVD has only had Transformers, Shrek the Third, and now Bourne Ultimatum, but Blu-Ray has had Spider-man 3, Ratatouille (and Cars), Pirates 3, and Die Hard. I think, if WB were to look at software sales, they would look at their own sales between HD and BR. But it seems to me that they have been leaning HD for a while, being that they seem to have several HD exclusives, but little to no BR exclusives. I do think that the sales of Harry Potter can be a determining factor. That's why I made sure to snatch up an HD version with BB's B1G1, in order to get my vote in. I'm just glad that HD finally has a good B1G1 sale. But either way, HDM will not grow as fast as the studios want as long as the prices are so high.

Wow! I totally forgot about Divx. I've been thinking about the complaints about the format war and realized that we're just spoiled. When DVD came out, it was a rarity that something without a main competitor could take off and be accepted as quickly as it did. It may have taken a few years to get off the ground, but once it did, it boomed. Mainly due to cheap players and eventually movies. The only reason that we're getting the prices/featuers that we have from HDM, right now, is because of the format war (much like VHS lowering their cost to win against Betamax). But DVD knew how to get the attention of the casual consumer without competition...bring down the prices. But, yeah, I forgot that DVD did have a "competitor." But I put that in quotes, because Divx wasn't really a true competitor. I do remember, when DVD players were first being released, that there were directors and studios who refused to release on anything other than Divx, and there was that fear. But no consumer wanted Divx, and it only lasted about 6 months. I do remember thinking it could be a good idea if done properly (i.e. bring down the "rental" fee gradually until it's eventually free...which would help those who don't watch their movies that often), but I knew it wasn't going to be. I think it's funny, and I'm probably going to have to go back and look at it, but weren't some of the same people that supported Divx supporting Blu-Ray (i.e. Spielberg)

I disagree. There are plenty of WalMarts around here that have no problem putting the new release skids out at no price reduction for the first week. They have their "bonus" versions sitting next to the regular releases at the same price, and these skids empty out.

The price-conscious consumer is a minority.

I don't think that anyone is saying the numbers are bad, just that 2:1 sounds a lot better than 50,000:100,000, especially when DVDs sell into the millions.

It seems like a joke now, but DivX was a real competitor to DVD when the format launched. There were studio holdouts on DVD just like there are studios exclusive now. DivX helped make DVD aggressive with pricing, titles and features. BD and HD DVD are doing that for each other now.

Just curious - why do you think these are "unfair" advantages?

HD DVD PRG could have sponsored B1G1 any time they wanted to counter, but the reality is they seem to be very stingy with their software promotional sales.

As far as studio support, well that's the way the cookie crumbled. Uni and Paramount could have come up with some bigger releases for the last six weeks of 2007, but aside from Bourne Ultimatum and Shrek 3 what did they schedule? Stardust? Timecop? Cat People???

It's cool that they are rushing out day-and-dates like Eastern Promises and The Kingdom (both of which I am happily buying), but IMO HD DVD either didn't care about the software battle this quarter or couldn't do anything about it. Who knows - maybe that is their strategy. Maybe they know WB will be looking harder at hardware sales.

Didn't they have this issue last year this time, too? They had a huge jump leading into Christmas and CES and didn't capitalize with any titles.

I don't think it's an "unfair" advantage.

Like I said before, I think it's hurts the studios as the consumer gets used to paying $15 or less per disc, and when a new title comes out in store for $20 or $25 dollars, they won't buy it as it's "too expensive".

I can understand that, but honestly, the first two POTC films being on frequent B1G1 don't seem to have hurt POTC3's sales.

On an unrelated note, I was at Fry's this morning, and they didn't have any copies of Stardust out on DVD or HD DVD. My copy shipped from Amazon thankfully.

While the recent BOGOF sales may change the mental price points for those of us who were aware of them and took advantage of them, I think there are many HDM customers who aren't aware of the sales. They view HDM prices as what they see on the store shelves and those tend to be pretty high most of the time. (I often go into Target and see BDs and HD DVDs on "sale" for $29.95.) If BOGOF sales dry up I would guess that it won't have much effect on the majority of customers. But the high prices relative to SD DVD will slow purchases for now.

While this is anecdotal evidence to be sure, I have been scooping up BDs (and HD DVDs the last week) for resale. All of my BDs purchased in October and November have sold; the ones from the last week are still arriving from Amazon (but the first one sold last night, just hours after I listed it). Why would anyone buy a BD from me in the $15 to $20 range when they could just wait for the next BOGOF sale? I have to assume that it is because they don't know about the sales and my prices are a lot better than what they see in stores, both B&M and on-line.

the two factions are playing the same game, but with different pieces. hd dvd artificially lowered the price of their hardware, and bd has taken the same tack with their software. while the "sales" on software can be stopped, returning the items to their original prices (and annoying a small section of the market) the same is probably not possible on the hardware side. the low price points are probably there to stay now. whether this encourages enough people to take up that format, and eventually force other ce manufacturers to produced hd dvd devices is yet to be seen. but it is certainly an interesting stragegy. unsurprisingly hd dvd prg boasts about their hardware sales numbers (with cheap players), and bda boasts about their software sales numbers (with cheaper titles). Neither total is entirely "fairly" gained, and neither is worth taking at face value.

Consider the Venturer is $199, with an MSRP of $249.

It *IS* a Toshiba HD-A3

Venturer isn't losing money. Both them and Walmart MAKE money on $199 Venturer sales.


Alco (Venturer's parent company) is making the Toshiba HD-A3 for Toshiba, and part of the agreement is said Venturer player.

That leads me to believe that $199 HD-A3s are still making a profit for Toshiba, or at least breaking even.

this week, I've helped my brother, who is a self-confessed "regular joe" pick out a new HDTV (Samsung HLT6189S), and although hesitant at first about buying an HD DVD player, he's decided (on his own) to get either the Venturer or HD-A3. He hasn't decided if he wants to spend the extra $100 on 3 or 4 movies he really wants, or use the mail-in offer for 5 movies he kinda wants. He was only hesitant because of the format war, but I reiterated that it can still play regular DVDs, and it's cheap enough right now that it's low risk. Also, his current DVD player is a very cheap, very bad DVD/VHS combo. I told him he'd be disappointed with his brand new gigantic TV if he plugs that thing into it.*

Luckily, I stopped him from buying any Monster cables. I told him about monoprice, and together, we ordered 2 HDMI cables, 1 set of component cables, and 1 optical cable. All for $44 USD including express shipping. In his mind, with the price he's paying for the TV ($400 less than BB wants for the 6187), no stand (store wanted $299, but you could see it bowing under the weight of the TV), and monoprice cables, I saved him about $1000. :)

* I did suggest that the PS3 is the most reliable Blu Ray player, if that's what he wants, and he said "I don't want a f'ing gaming system."

I agree with Damned. I think that the $199 price point is still tuning a small profit, and not a loss for Toshiba and Venturer. I don't think the price is "artificially lowered" is accurate. Besides that, if we want to talk about selling hardware below costs, we can turn our gaze to the PS3.

I don't think B1G1 is "unfair," but it definitely needs to be a consideration when comparing the sales numbers of the two formats. I can't remember the last time there wasn't some type of B1G1 sale on BD.

the components required to produce an hd dvd player and a bd player are nearly identical. my point when refering to artificial lowering of the price point was not in regards to the profitability of these devices (though $199 is pushing it with ad revenue taken into account). the point is that the strategy for ce manufacturers is to make back as much of r&d on the intial high priced players, with later machines turning only the barest of profits. toshiba has decided to forgo this strategy in order to try and gain as much market traction as possible. this means they have to make back money in other areas, ie software (licence fees). venturer don't have r&d or ad (or very little) to recover and so have a different situation to play from.

as to software b1g1 plays, it is still entirely possible that these are profitable situations for the movie studios. or, for that matter, that none of the titles are turning a profit at this early stage. but assuming that venturer is making a profit on their players but fox is not making a profit on their software is a slightly biased position to take. it would be interesting to see some recent figures for authoring and mastering costs on bd/hd dvd, as well as the most up-to-date disc manufacture costs. this might allow us to judge who is likely to make a profit and at what price points.

Just curious, how do you know how much it is costing Toshiba to turn out these units?

I was always under the impression than the diodes necessary for the Bluray devices were more costly to produce.

That's funny, my buddy says the same exact thing.

they are the same diodes. it would be unrealistic for these components to be more expensive for bd since the primary manufacturer of blue diodes is a division of sony corp.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Then Sony's players are just inexcusably overpriced. Unless you'd like to provide a better parts/labor breakdown.

Ok, I don't know if this is b.s. or not but my friend told me he has a buddy that owns a video store. Long story short, he's going to CES in Jan and said he was told by someone that the big announcement is they are going to be phasing out HD-DVD and pushing Blu full force. Now, I'm an HD supporter, and I don't have Blu, but this would seriously suck since I've been buying HD DVDs for the past couple months. Anyone else think this could be a possibility?

Who is "they"?

I don't know the exact costs, but I do believe it is more expensive to make a 1080P player than a 1080I player. That could also account for some of the price differences.

Sounds like Bluboi FUD to me. I don't believe that for a second.