I have very little info on either of these, but could someone give me a run down of which is the favourite to win the format war? My assumption, from everything I read a while ago, was that BluRay was the front runner... but I'm seeing alot more HD-DVD moives and players in stores now.

As well the whole PS3 bonus that BluRay was supposed to get is going to take a huge hit because of the the price and limited avalibility the console is going to have with its first run... While the recent XBox announcement seems to have given a boost to HD-DVD, since they'll be approx. 10 Million 360's in homes by the end of the year.

I'm really not interested in buying any next gen format unless there seems to be a clear front runner. Any infor would be helpfull.

Thanks in advance!

What you're asking for is an opinion and everyone around here has one.

I think if you have specific questions, that might be a good place to start. With the BS that's floating around in this war, it's better to ask questions that have definite answers at the moment. It's advice...and also a warning.

Ok, sounds reasonable...

1) Who has the advantage of most players in homes and on retailer shelves right now? And by how much? And is this likely to change in the future?

2) What studios are now behind each format? Is there talk of studios jumping ship?

3) Is there a significant price difference between the players? Is this likely to change?

... I would ask which format is better, but honestly as we saw with the BETA/VHS war, that matters very little. It's market saturation that matters, not which one is techically better.

There's no official data, but it seems that HD DVD has the advantage, based on info from www.hdcharts.com and www.thedvdwars.com. (Full disclosure: hdcharts.com is mine).

Hardware: In two months, no Blu-Ray player has ever outsold the best-selling HD DVD player. Sometimes, all three HD DVD models outsell the best-selling Blu-Ray player.

Software: Today, the top ten HD DVD titles are outselling the top-selling Blu-Ray title. Looking at past data, this is not a new trend. At Amazon, at least, HD DVD seems to be outselling Blu-Ray by at least ten-to-one.

As there is no "official" information, there's no way to say you can extrapolate Amazon.com data into the entire industry. Amazon is a large, but ultimately not very significant, part of media sales.

HD DVD Studios: Universal (Focus Features), Warner Brothers (New Line), Paramount, Image Entertainment, other niche studios.

Blu Ray Studios: Buena Vista (Disney/Miramax), 20th Century Fox, Sony (Columbia), MGM, Warner Brothers (New Line), Paramount.

Weinstein Company and Dreamworks haven't announced anything formally yet, but I believe they are supporting both formats, with Dreamworks possibly not supporting Blu Ray.

Other niche studios like Janus (Criterion) and Kino Video have made no formal announcements that I am aware of.

Yes. Here's the breakdown of currently available players with their most common retail price range:

HD DVD - Toshiba HD-A1 ($349*-$499)
HD DVD - Toshiba HD-XA1 ($699-$799)
HD DVD - RCA HDV5000 ($325*-$499)
Blu-Ray - Samsung BDP1000 ($799*-$999)

There are a number of upcoming Blu-Ray and HD DVD players but as of now there's no news of a definite price drop.

Next-gen consoles will take advantage of these formats. Microsoft's Xbox 360 will play HD DVD using an add-on (est. $199) to its Xbox 360 console ($299-$399). Sony's PlayStation 3 will play Blu-Ray out of the box ($499-$599), although it may be difficult to find one in stock until after the holidays.

In the PC side, Sony notebooks with Blu-Ray and Toshiba notebooks with HD DVD have been announced and are available, although the price is very high ($2500+ IIRC). PC drives are also available, they are generally around $999 (for either format).

I expect to see price drops come Feb/March of this year and special sales or bundles for the holidays this year.

* Denote special offer or closeout, YMMV.

Technically, Blu-Ray is better (due to a larger storage capacity) but it has not used it's full potential; current HD DVD discs actually store more than their Blu-Ray counterparts. As of now, HD DVD has an edge in the technical category, with some HD DVD titles looking slightly better than their Blu-Ray counterparts and/or having better audio or features.

The first:
BD has the Samsung out.
HD DVD has 2 different Toshiba's and an RCA (which is a re-badged Toshiba).
HD DVD has more players sold by a landslide.
I'm not going to predict what will happen. This thread will be about facts. If you want speculation, feel free to suffer through the "Vs." thread

2) I'd check The Digital Bits for a breakdown of studios. It lists all major and minor studios. At the moment, BD as a majority of the major studios but others (such as Disney/LG) are rumored to be going to HD DVD as well in 2007.

3) There is a significant price difference. The HD DVD players are (for the most part) $500 and can be found for less. The 2nd generation of HD DVD players will be coming out end of this year/beginning of next. The BD players are at least 1k (although the samsung can be found for less) and will only go up. The Panasonic is 1300 and the Pioneer is $1500.

Neither camp has released specific sales figures, but most estimates and analysis put Toshiba's HD DVD players firmly in the lead. The Samsung Blu-ray player hasn't sold particularly well, and has had high volumes of returns from unhappy customers.

That balance may shift in November depending on if you count the PS3 in Blu-ray player sales. Realistically, the unit is a game console that a small percentage of owners may use to watch Blu-rays on. Sony will no doubt use console sales to inflate their Blu-ray player sales statistics, but if the majority of owners don't use it as a Blu-ray player that doesn't help the format much.

HD DVD:
Warner Bros.
Universal
Paramount

Blu-ray:
Sony
Lionsgate
Disney
Warner Bros.
Paramount (first titles later this year, duplicates of their HD DVDs)
Fox (first titles later this year)

There have been rumors that Lionsgate may move to support both formats early next year, and Disney made comments that they are likely to support both as well.

Universal is unlikely to support Blu-ray anytime soon. Likewise, Sony and Fox are die-hard Blu-ray backers.

The Toshiba HD-A1 is $499 MSRP. Their 2nd generation HD-A2 scheduled for the holidays will share that price point. They also currently have a high-end HD-XA1 for $799 and an upcoming HD-XA2 that will sell for $999.

The Samsung BD-P1000 is $999. Panasonic has a Blu-ray player coming out soon for $1,299 and Pioneer has one for $1,499. The PS3 will come in two versions: $499 and $599.

And, unfortunately, it's far too early in the game to start guessing much about current market saturation. HD DVD has been out for only 5 months. Blu-ray for only 3.

The player sales are far too low at this point to make any assumptions. After the holidays, after we see what people gravitate towards and what their price point limits are, after some of the PS3s get out and data starts showing that people do/don't buy movies to feed those machines... then you'll have a better sense.

But discussing 'market saturation' at this point won't be very enlightening.

What's the difference between first gen and second gen HD-DVD players?

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread.php?t=477579

I would check out that thread. It compares both.

Joe, with all due respect, a lot of your questions have been answered here very recently. I think we're all more than welcome (as you can tell!) to answer individual questions but I think you should spend some time lurking around and see if you can get some info from everything you read. If you still have questions after that, feel free to shout them out!

Don't forget the Sony ($1000) and Philips ($1000)

I'm not sure of your logic on that one. Surely the most that can be said is that HD DVD titles are outselling BD titles on the whole, but by an unknown margin.

Toshiba have made a number of announcements of player numbers in the marketplace. The first was 20,000 shipped a few months ago, followed by 50,000 shipped a few weeks back. Apparently around 30,000 sales have so far occured.

There seem to be no figures from Samsung to provide comparison.

True. Check out all the sticky threads.


Very true.

from 7/25/2006 to 9/3/2006:
Average Sales Rank of Top 10 HD DVDs: 1842.
Average Sales Rank of Best-Selling Blu-Ray title: 3904.

On average, the top 10 HD DVDs sell better than the best-selling Blu-Ray title.

I think everyone is so tired of what we usually talk about, no one has minded fleshing out the old details to a new guy.

Its too soon to make much of any kind of meaningfull prediction about almost any facet of HD except that its coming very soon in a big way. Keep in mind this will be the first attempt to sell normal consumers on picture quality since the 60's and the advent of color TV.

HD DVD has about a 2 month lead on hardware delivery over Blue Ray, but I am not really sure if we will be able to predict any winner or loser even AFTER the holiday selling season which hasn't even started yet.

How do you get from there to your conclusion of "HD DVD seems to be outselling Blu-Ray by at least ten-to-one" ?

There is plenty of room for the market to shift to Blu-ray's favor. I think we will have a real idea of what is going to happen by next holiday season. Basically, Blu-ray needs to keep Disney and others exclusive. They do and they could easily win the format war. Disney and others shift to full support of both formats and its going to be a long battle.

Blu-ray really needs to get standalone prices down. That is the biggest thing hurting them besides the delay in BD-50.