Blu-ray Dominating Parts Of Europe By As Much As 4 To 1

[Ian]

These numbers are coming from the BDA so take them with a grand of salt.

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/assets/downl ... -13747.pdf

The Blu-ray Disc Association European Promotions Committee has released market statistics that show the format to be establishing itself in Europe more rapidly than predicted. Importantly, the latest market intelligence shows BD to be increasing in popularity relative to its rival HD DVD format in key European markets and industry sectors.

Earlier this month at IFA Berlin some 14 CE brands showcased Blu-ray Disc players and collectively offer significantly wider choice in both functionality and price when compared with HD DVD. Importantly, a number of CE manufacturers announced plans to introduce BD recorders into the European market in the near future.

At the same time the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has announced that Blu-ray Disc movie sales across European territories are continuing to move ahead of HD DVD. For example, in the UK market figures show BD to be outselling HD DVD by a margin of 4 to 1.

[Grain]

Seems to be a lot of disinformation coming out recently from both HD camps. Where I shop for electronics and software (both a large and a small city, numerous different shops), both HD formats have poor support from the retailers, ie poor software supply and even poorer hardware supply. Really reminds me of the small shelves of DVD-A and SACD I used to flip through, but are now gone . Using this as a test meter, both formats are so far white elephants.

[dolphinius_rex]

Yup, Hi-Def adoption is really screwed up unfortunately.... unless this war ends soon, we can kiss both formats goodbye.

Personally, I blame Paramount.

[MediumRare]

4 to 1? I don't see this in local stores in Frankfurt. In one (Saturn) they're about 50/50; in another (WOM), HD-DVD has about 3x as many titles on display as Blu-Ray.

This doesn't mean much, though, because combined they have about the presence that Bollywood has.

This hasn't changed all that much in the last few months either.

G

[Wesociety]

They also forgot to mention that when they say 4 to 1, they mean it literally. As in, 4 Blu-ray Disc players have been sold in Europe total, compared to 1 HD DVD player total.

[dolphinius_rex]

They also forgot to mention that when they say 4 to 1, they mean it literally. As in, 4 Blu-ray Disc players have been sold in Europe total, compared to 1 HD DVD player total.

LOL

Common, you so stole that joke from Highdefdigest

[Wesociety]

LOL

Common, you so stole that joke from Highdefdigest

Did not! But it doesn't surprise me that someone else said the same thing.

[vinnie97]

Personally, I blame Paramount.

mm hmm...the prices wouldn't be competitive without such actions from the likes of Paramount. And I suppose you're not putting any blame on the purported profile issues and yield rumblings on the side of Blu?

Me? I'm anxiously awaiting the coming Samsung DF playa'...if for Lost Season 3 alone. PS3? No way in hell.

[dolphinius_rex]

Personally, I blame Paramount.

mm hmm...the prices wouldn't be competitive without such actions from the likes of Paramount. And I suppose you're not putting any blame on the purported profile issues and yield rumblings on the side of Blu?

Me? I'm anxiously awaiting the coming Samsung DF playa'...if for Lost Season 3 alone. PS3? No way in hell.

Blu-Ray doesn't care about HD DVD's price advantage... it hasn't won HD DVD a single week of sales this year has it? And Blu-Ray has enough internal competetion within it's own format to move it forward. Paramount's decision to screw over 2/3rds of their HiDef customers only served to scare off potential HiDef adopters, and show the general public that HiDef was not ready yet for mass consumption.

As for the whole profile thing, it's over rated. PiP can be done without it with a few tricks, and net content is not really ready yet anyways. And we all know that when net content is ready for the mainstream, it will be Disney paving the way with content and value-adds.

And the yield rumblings? It's complete BS. I have worked with both Cinram and Sony's manufacturing plants as a broker, and spoken with both of them on a couple of occasions about HD DVD and Blu-Ray replication. I also know that Panasonic's Blu-Ray BD-50 replication is by far the most capable of any so far, and certainly does not hold true to the claims coming from a few people.

[vinnie97]

Blu-Ray doesn't care about HD DVD's price advantage... it hasn't won HD DVD a single week of sales this year has it? And Blu-Ray has enough internal competetion within it's own format to move it forward. Paramount's decision to screw over 2/3rds of their HiDef customers only served to scare off potential HiDef adopters, and show the general public that HiDef was not ready yet for mass consumption.

Blu-Ray *should* care about that price advantage...HD DVD hasn't won over Blu-Ray because there aren't legions of bored PS3 fans on the HD DVD side who need something to tide them over until the games get here. And about hidef being ready for mass consumption, at least HD DVD is ready: http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr ... B000W7O43U (copy and paste into browser)

Price does matter in terms of mass market adoption as Q4 will reveal. BD can ignore that decision at their own peril. You act as if Paramount screwed over some great multitude of folks, lol. Seriously, have you seen their HDM sales? They were pitiful for both formats.

If HD DVD can push enough standalones, media should obviously reflect a changing tide AND Warner will need little more justification to switch to red.

As for the whole profile thing, it's over rated. PiP can be done without it with a few tricks, and net content is not really ready yet anyways. And we all know that when net content is ready for the mainstream, it will be Disney paving the way with content and value-adds.

The studios don't think it's overrated, why do you think Warner has delayed so many releases for Blu-Ray that have already appeared on Blu-Ray? They're waiting for this profile mess to be wrapped up. HD DVD has the interactivity down pat now. The Heroes HD DVD box set is proof enough of that.

And the yield rumblings? It's complete BS. I have worked with both Cinram and Sony's manufacturing plants as a broker, and spoken with both of them on a couple of occasions about HD DVD and Blu-Ray replication. I also know that Panasonic's Blu-Ray BD-50 replication is by far the most capable of any so far, and certainly does not hold true to the claims coming from a few people.

Complete BS, eh? Why has Warner and Fox had purported difficulty getting some of their Blu-Ray titles out in time? Close to half of all Blu-Ray releases have only been pressed on 25GB discs in any case. It's great you've had some direct communication with some manufacturing plants insiders (with Sony's tendency to outright lie and smear, however, I take it with a thick grain of salt) but it will take more than that anecdotal evidence to convince me of how robust they really are.

EDIT: Here's a supposed insider who has chronicled obtained information from the various plants: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... st11516620

[dolphinius_rex]

Blu-Ray doesn't care about HD DVD's price advantage... it hasn't won HD DVD a single week of sales this year has it? And Blu-Ray has enough internal competetion within it's own format to move it forward. Paramount's decision to screw over 2/3rds of their HiDef customers only served to scare off potential HiDef adopters, and show the general public that HiDef was not ready yet for mass consumption.

Blu-Ray *should* care about that price advantage...HD DVD hasn't won over Blu-Ray because there aren't legions of bored PS3 fans on the HD DVD side who need something to tide them over until the games get here. And about hidef being ready for mass consumption, at least HD DVD is ready: http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr ... B000W7O43U (copy and paste into browser)

Ok, please tell me you're not serious... that thing costs more then the low end Toshiba model, and doesn't qualify for 5 free HD DVDs even. On top of that you can expect build quality and firmware support to be worse then from Toshiba. That is *NOT* a serious option for consumers
(Edit: Toshiba HD-A2 player at Amazon, currently $237.88, with Mail in 5 free movies offer, the Venturer is $249.99 and doesn't give you free movies...which would YOU choose??)

HD DVD hasn't won because they offer a mid-level (interim) product at best, with insignificant industry support. It's half assed technology that can't even get it's recordable drives/media working properly Throw on top of that the lackluster studio support (even with Paramount's buy-out), and you've got yourself a dead end format... at best it will continue to struggle and survive by the skin of it's teeth, which will do little more then destroy HiDef media/content in general, forcing both formats to stay as nothing more then niche products for people with too much money on their hands (who don't mind paying $5-$10 more for a movie).

Oh and by the way, do you seriously believe that people who own PS3s are going to stop watching Blu-Ray movies when 'x game' comes out? I don't know a single owner of a PS3 who's not into Blu-Ray movies, and I certainly don't know any gamers who don't watch a fair chunk of movies just in general. I mean common, do you REALLY believe this stuff??

Price does matter in terms of mass market adoption as Q4 will reveal. BD can ignore that decision at their own peril. You act as if Paramount screwed over some great multitude of folks, lol. Seriously, have you seen their HDM sales? They were pitiful for both formats.

Nice to see you've got your crystal ball out.... unfortunately, all the wishful thinking in the world (which let's be honest here, HD DVD really only has any fan base in North America, so it's not really "the world") hasn't given HD DVD a winning week of media sales. That's the reality of it. And nothing has shown that this is going to change. The best bet HD DVD has of winning a single week in Q4 is going to be when Transformers is released.

And yes, I saw Paramounts sales on HiDef... they were incredibly lame it's true. 2x as lame on HD DVD mind you, since Paramount sold a little more then 2x as much on Blu-Ray (their own admission, as well as backed up by Nielsen's Videoscan Ratings supplied by Home Media Magazine). The point I'm making is that people took a step back from HiDef adoption because Paramount decided to screw over 2/3rds of their customer base. When a company makes such sudden and random decisions that go completely against their own reported sales figures, it doesn't exactly instill much faith into people looking at getting into HiDef.

If HD DVD can push enough standalones, media should obviously reflect a changing tide AND Warner will need little more justification to switch to red.

Do you actually read anything Warner Brother's writes? They have no intention of switching sides anytime soon. They're the only company making any kind of real money right now in HiDef sales. And unlike Paramount, I don't think they're going to throw away 2/3rds+ of their sales volume (which I will remind you actually *IS* a little more significant in this case). And you're really basing this whole argument on a hope and a prayer that Toshiba will sell more players (sure, let's add the overpriced, under-supported Venturer in there too, why not), then the BDA will sell Blu-Ray players + PS3s that get used as players also.

And let's not forget that all those "over priced" profile 1.0 Blu-Ray players have been outselling HD DVD players in the last couple of months, as reported by Sony, and accidentaly comfirmed by Toshiba

As for the whole profile thing, it's over rated. PiP can be done without it with a few tricks, and net content is not really ready yet anyways. And we all know that when net content is ready for the mainstream, it will be Disney paving the way with content and value-adds.

The studios don't think it's overrated, why do you think Warner has delayed so many releases for Blu-Ray that have already appeared on Blu-Ray? They're waiting for this profile mess to be wrapped up. HD DVD has the interactivity down pat now. The Heroes HD DVD box set is proof enough of that.

It's true, Warner has held off some of their titles from being on Blu-Ray. A few have already been leaked to be coming this Q4, and the rest are expected early 2008. I can be patient, especially since I'm expecting better bitrates and lossless sound

I'll admit, I'm a little jealous over the Heroes boxset. But like I said above, I can be patient... and if things don't improve quickly for HiDef in general, both formats will die anyways.

And the yield rumblings? It's complete BS. I have worked with both Cinram and Sony's manufacturing plants as a broker, and spoken with both of them on a couple of occasions about HD DVD and Blu-Ray replication. I also know that Panasonic's Blu-Ray BD-50 replication is by far the most capable of any so far, and certainly does not hold true to the claims coming from a few people.

Complete BS, eh? Why has Warner and Fox had purported difficulty getting some of their Blu-Ray titles out in time? Close to half of all Blu-Ray releases have only been pressed on 25GB discs in any case. It's great you've had some direct communication with some manufacturing plants insiders (with Sony's tendency to outright lie and smear, however, I take it with a thick grain of salt) but it will take more than that anecdotal evidence to convince me of how robust they really are.

It couldn't POSSIBLY be because Blu-Ray sells 2x as much content as HD DVD right? So not only are neutral titles needed to be manufactured in larger volumes, but don't forget there are actually more titles available on Blu-Ray in general, which again means a lot more time needed on the replication equipment (setup time takes longer then replication time)... but no way could THAT be an issue right? And of course there is also the whole PS3 game thing which *ALSO* takes manufacturing time on the lines...

Edit: And if that didn't convince you... then how about this?
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/071002/nytu021a.html?.v=3
Yield rates of BD-25 at 85%, and BD-50 at 75-79%. (and although it isn't mentioned, I'm told that Panasonic's yield rates are higher still). By comparison, DVD9 yields are usually in the 92%-95% range if a plant is good. Double sided stuff is worse... and don't ask about DVD-18, it's just bad... (*cough, HD DVD/Combo discs, cough*)

[vinnie97]

ugh, continually showing your true blue colors.

Ok, please tell me you're not serious... that thing costs more then the low end Toshiba model, and doesn't qualify for 5 free HD DVDs even. On top of that you can expect build quality and firmware support to be worse then from Toshiba. That is *NOT* a serious option for consumers
(Edit: Toshiba HD-A2 player at Amazon, currently $237.88, with Mail in 5 free movies offer, the Venturer is $249.99 and doesn't give you free movies...which would YOU choose??)

the player isn't even shipping yet! My crystal ball says it will drop to $200 once in stock and perhaps even to $150 on Black Friday and other similar crucial shopping dates.

HD DVD hasn't won because they offer a mid-level (interim) product at best, with insignificant industry support. It's half assed technology that can't even get it's recordable drives/media working properly Throw on top of that the lackluster studio support (even with Paramount's buy-out), and you've got yourself a dead end format... at best it will continue to struggle and survive by the skin of it's teeth, which will do little more then destroy HiDef media/content in general, forcing both formats to stay as nothing more then niche products for people with too much money on their hands (who don't mind paying $5-$10 more for a movie).

Meh, Blu-Ray was already on its way to self-destructing with the price of the hardware and the uncertainty regarding the evolving profiles. I'm really amused at how half-assed you think HD DVD is even when the spec is complete, including the interactive/internet features that are ready and working now. The same cannot be said for Blu-Ray (having 2 separate video streams in order to enable PiP is also what I'd call half-assed).

Oh and by the way, do you seriously believe that people who own PS3s are going to stop watching Blu-Ray movies when 'x game' comes out? I don't know a single owner of a PS3 who's not into Blu-Ray movies, and I certainly don't know any gamers who don't watch a fair chunk of movies just in general. I mean common, do you REALLY believe this stuff??

Yes, because those who might have originally picked up the PS3 for games may have come to the realization that the goods weren't coming so they supplemented their free time with Blockbuster movie rentals and the sole movie purchase here and there. Hardcore gaming (the kind which I thought the PS3 was intended to offer) takes up far more time than watching a film. To throw some anecdote back in yo' face, I don't know anyone with a PS3 because none in my circle finds it to be of any relative value.

Nice to see you've got your crystal ball out.... unfortunately, all the wishful thinking in the world (which let's be honest here, HD DVD really only has any fan base in North America, so it's not really "the world") hasn't given HD DVD a winning week of media sales. That's the reality of it. And nothing has shown that this is going to change. The best bet HD DVD has of winning a single week in Q4 is going to be when Transformers is released.

And yes, I saw Paramounts sales on HiDef... they were incredibly lame it's true. 2x as lame on HD DVD mind you, since Paramount sold a little more then 2x as much on Blu-Ray (their own admission, as well as backed up by Nielsen's Videoscan Ratings supplied by Home Media Magazine). The point I'm making is that people took a step back from HiDef adoption because Paramount decided to screw over 2/3rds of their customer base. When a company makes such sudden and random decisions that go completely against their own reported sales figures, it doesn't exactly instill much faith into people looking at getting into HiDef.

A Sony media monopoly shouldn't be too faith-instilling for those looking to getting into HiDef either (please don't mention Panasonic and Samsung, who has a dual format player planned and recently scrapped plans to release their coming Blu-Ray player). This current media sales ratio is not THAT significant when you compare the number of Blu-Ray units to HD DVD units in consumers' homes today and, in fact, doesn't paint a favorable picture for Blu-Ray and is the exact reason HD DVD has a fighting chance to win this war (it's not going anywhere as much as that would make your day). Paramount's decision was based upon more than just the end-result sales figures but also on the cost involved (and yes, the incentives also had a role) but for you to call Paramount out-and-out liars reveals your bias clearly.

Do you actually read anything Warner Brother's writes? They have no intention of switching sides anytime soon. They're the only company making any kind of real money right now in HiDef sales. And unlike Paramount, I don't think they're going to throw away 2/3rds+ of their sales volume (which I will remind you actually *IS* a little more significant in this case). And you're really basing this whole argument on a hope and a prayer that Toshiba will sell more players (sure, let's add the overpriced, under-supported Venturer in there too, why not), then the BDA will sell Blu-Ray players + PS3s that get used as players also.

ACTIONS speak louder than words and Warner has shown favor to HD DVD (after all, they were once exclusive before being "bought") by merely releasing many catalog films on HD DVD that have yet to make appearances on Blu-Ray and this is most likely due to the fact that Blu-Ray is in a state of flux at the moment. Didn't Paramount have some favorable things to say about their Blu-Ray support shortly before dropping the atom bomb on us in August? You can't predict anything in this war based on PR and public statements. And please stop assuming that Venturer will stay at $250...it's not shipping for another possibly 6 weeks.

And let's not forget that all those "over priced" profile 1.0 Blu-Ray players have been outselling HD DVD players in the last couple of months, as reported by Sony, and accidentaly comfirmed by Toshiba

Um, which was clearly an incident of more Sony FUD that you fell for. That graph notated sales in terms of money generated, NOT units...more bogus fluff. At most, 1 or 2 weeks of sales of Blu-Ray player standalones outnumbered HD DVD as far as one can fairly ascertain (if not, it would reveal a never seen before consumer trend of paying more than necessary for a luxury that can be had for less with nothing sacrificed).

It's true, Warner has held off some of their titles from being on Blu-Ray. A few have already been leaked to be coming this Q4, and the rest are expected early 2008. I can be patient, especially since I'm expecting better bitrates and lossless sound

I'll admit, I'm a little jealous over the Heroes boxset. But like I said above, I can be patient... and if things don't improve quickly for HiDef in general, both formats will die anyways.

Lossless sound, yawn. The average move fan doesn't give a darn and neither do I really (not that lossless sound isn't impossible on HD DVD). DD+ is already 320 kbps per channel and I would love to hear you successfully ABX (double blind) the lossless versus the DD+ encode. Just take a look at how transparent (undetectable from the uncompressed version) 128 kbps was in 2005 (5 being completely transparent or nondetectable from the uncompressed)!

Double this bitrate and just imagine how much more difficulty one would have.

VC-1 does marvelously well at lower bitrates and slightly raising said bitrate is apparently not offering significant or even noticeable gains (diminishing returns and compression only gets better as time marches on). Blu-Ray is still utilizing lots of MPEG, which simply requires more bandwidth to provide equivalent quality to VC-1.

I agree that HDM has stagnated and that they both may in trouble (VMD might even sneak by them as they scuffle on :p) but I don't think the blame solely rests with Paramount for that.

It couldn't POSSIBLY be because Blu-Ray sells 2x as much content as HD DVD right? So not only are neutral titles needed to be manufactured in larger volumes, but don't forget there are actually more titles available on Blu-Ray in general, which again means a lot more time needed on the replication equipment (setup time takes longer then replication time)... but no way could THAT be an issue right? And of course there is also the whole PS3 game thing which *ALSO* takes manufacturing time on the lines...

Edit: And if that didn't convince you... then how about this?
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/071002/nytu021a.html?.v=3
Yield rates of BD-25 at 85%, and BD-50 at 75-79%. (and although it isn't mentioned, I'm told that Panasonic's yield rates are higher still). By comparison, DVD9 yields are usually in the 92%-95% range if a plant is good. Double sided stuff is worse... and don't ask about DVD-18, it's just bad... (*cough, HD DVD/Combo discs, cough*)

Yes, I saw that damn newsbyte right AFTER I posted, grr. So that fellow had misinformation or the situation has improved drastically since his communication with them. Still 75% is nothing to take lightly, 1/4 goes to the can (and that report also says nothing of the time per cycle)...also, the fact that it's a Sony PR release automatically makes it suspect and in need of close inspection based on their history.

We could go on all day...I should have been off this computer hours ago.

[dolphinius_rex]

ugh, continually showing your true blue colors.

I'm a dolphin for goodness sakes, of course I'm blue Also I love optical recordable media, so there really isn't any competition in HiDef.

the player isn't even shipping yet! My crystal ball says it will drop to $200 once in stock and perhaps even to $150 on Black Friday and other similar crucial shopping dates.

$150 still isn't low enough. You have to seriously compare it against Toshiba's offerings, and also consider the 5 free HD DVD movie deal. And I could be really mean and compare it with the Bestbuy 9 free HD DVD movies deal too, but I'm not doing that

This player needs to be $150 normally, and $99 on crazy sale dates. Seriously.

Meh, Blu-Ray was already on its way to self-destructing with the price of the hardware and the uncertainty regarding the evolving profiles. I'm really amused at how half-assed you think HD DVD is even when the spec is complete, including the interactive/internet features that are ready and working now. The same cannot be said for Blu-Ray (having 2 separate video streams in order to enable PiP is also what I'd call half-assed).

The HD DVD spec is not complete, and frankly it's not very good... the way that it handles error correction is a joke, and it's going to end up killing HD DVD-51 from ever being a viable option for replication purposes (HD DVD-51 is why the spec isn't complete FYI). The recordable media side of HD DVD-51 will be killed as well, because even Toshiba can't get the recording to be within spec on single layer media from Verbatim (according to C't), and recording on HD DVD-RDL media is even worse (much worse actually!). So I don't think HD DVD-RTL media would even complete the burn process the way things are going (let alone be playable in anything...). What a really great spec for a format... gee, maybe they should have asked Philips for help since they're so good with that kind of technology... oh wait, Philips was too busy with their own format of choice... Blu-Ray.

Yes, because those who might have originally picked up the PS3 for games may have come to the realization that the goods weren't coming so they supplemented their free time with Blockbuster movie rentals and the sole movie purchase here and there. Hardcore gaming (the kind which I thought the PS3 was intended to offer) takes up far more time than watching a film. To throw some anecdote back in yo' face, I don't know anyone with a PS3 because none in my circle finds it to be of any relative value.

Well, if they're just supplimenting their time with blockbuster movie rentals, then it's obvious it wouldn't be affecting the NIELSEN VIDEOSCAN RATINGS *SALES* FIGURES.... but really, if you HONESTLY believe that's likely to be happening I don't think I can do much to convince you otherwise. In the meantime though, I'll let my friend Andrew know your sentiments, I'm sure it will keep him amused while he's competing in a European gaming tournement he received an invite to (despite living in Canada). Top prize is only $7000, but hey, it's more then I've made with gaming I guess I'll bring it up to him on our next movie night

A Sony media monopoly shouldn't be too faith-instilling for those looking to getting into HiDef either (please don't mention Panasonic and Samsung, who has a dual format player planned and recently scrapped plans to release their coming Blu-Ray player).

It's no fun when you make it this easy to smack down your arguements... right now you're at about a 3, I'm going to need you at around a 7.

let's see, who are the big Blu-Ray companies? #1) Panasonic
#2) Sony
#3) Pioneer
#4) Sharp
#5) Philips

Now granted, that's my own personal opinion, but it's based on how much influence and power they have over the Blu-Ray format, and not just which one of them happens to be the loudest with scandles and marketing.

But yeah, let's talk about Panasonic.... since it seems you have a wonderful habit of posting stuff right before news comes out that I can easily grab to smack down your inaccuracies with. Panasonic does not have a dual format player coming out. They NEVER have had anything like that planned, and in fact, a high level exec a Panasonic (well, Matsushita Japan) went on record saying such ideas were "stupid stupid". There's reference to it here, in this nice little article where Panasonic claims the war will be decided by new years or at least the end of January, before lingering on for one final year:
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-978939 ... 47-1_3-0-5

But back on topic... you want to talk a monopoly? Look at HD DVD and Toshiba Who holds power in HD DVD? Toshiba.... and?? And then look at Blu-Ray... who holds power? Panasonic, Sony, Pioneer and Philips.

This current media sales ratio is not THAT significant when you compare the number of Blu-Ray units to HD DVD units in consumers' homes today and, in fact, doesn't paint a favorable picture for Blu-Ray and is the exact reason HD DVD has a fighting chance to win this war (it's not going anywhere as much as that would make your day). Paramount's decision was based upon more than just the end-result sales figures but also on the cost involved (and yes, the incentives also had a role) but for you to call Paramount out-and-out liars reveals your bias clearly.

So now you're falling back to the old 'attach rate' argument? Is that where every PS3 is considered a Blu-Ray player so that it looks like people who buy into Blu-Ray only buy like 0.5 movies each... but 5min later the PS3 doesn't count as a Blu-Ray player when player sales are going head to head? Please tell me you're above that....

Still, argueing with you is becoming tiresome. It seems you look at only one side of this format war, and don't bother yourself with facts from both sides. The fact that you don't even know the significant parties in the BDA alone shows this I'd also be interested in seeing exactly where I called Paramount a liar.

ACTIONS speak louder than words and Warner has shown favor to HD DVD (after all, they were once exclusive before being "bought") by merely releasing many catalog films on HD DVD that have yet to make appearances on Blu-Ray and this is most likely due to the fact that Blu-Ray is in a state of flux at the moment.

Oh I couldn't agree more... actions speak louder then words So I hate to break it to you, but the whole reason that Blu-Ray didn't utterly fail in terms of movie and studio support is because of Warner Brothers. It is their influence over Cinram that forced Cinram to offer Blu-Ray replication. Without Warner's CONSISTANT efforts and demands on the part of Blu-Ray, Cinram would be HD DVD exclusive... and Cinram is the largest replication company in the world, and feeds most of the major and minor movie studios. Really, you have no idea how much Warner saved Blu-Ray's ass. And Warner is also a huge player in the BDA I'd love to say they will go Blu-Ray exclusive also... and really they have a lot of justification for it (a lot more then for going HD DVD exclusive), but it's just too contrary to their business plan. Warner will be neutral for a while yet for sure.

Didn't Paramount have some favorable things to say about their Blu-Ray support shortly before dropping the atom bomb on us in August? You can't predict anything in this war based on PR and public statements. And please stop assuming that Venturer will stay at $250...it's not shipping for another possibly 6 weeks.

Most of Paramount didn't know about the decision to go HD DVD exclusive until the day it happend... and you would know that if you paid attention to the insider's threads on any major HiDef forum... they were mastering Blu-Ray movies up until the night before the announcement was made. It was a very rushed decision. Warner is not like that, they have a good position and can take time and think things out carefully. They're not in so bad a position they'd need to jump on $150million if it was offered to them.

And common.... the Venturer is listed at $249... it's not an assumption it will sell at that price Of course it's likely to go down when it goes on promotion.... the same is true for Toshiba HD DVD players.

And for the record, who says I'm predicting this war based off of PR and public statements? You underestimate me greatly if you think even half of my info is coming from publically stated announcements

Um, which was clearly an incident of more Sony FUD that you fell for. That graph notated sales in terms of money generated, NOT units...more bogus fluff.

Do I need to actually write stuff, or can I just show the picture?

From here:
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/sho ... =3084&p=10

At most, 1 or 2 weeks of sales of Blu-Ray player standalones outnumbered HD DVD as far as one can fairly ascertain (if not, it would reveal a never seen before consumer trend of paying more than necessary for a luxury that can be had for less with nothing sacrificed).

Really? only 1 or 2 weeks? I counted 9 on that graph. And I should remind you those are NPD numbers, and Sony would be sued if they mis-represented them.

Since I'm a nice guy, and I actually READ both sides news, I'll post the Toshiba rebuttle:
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/ ... inance/943

You'll note they reference "year to date" in there, and not "weekly sales units" so that they can still come out on top Of course I have no difficulty admitting that this information is outdated now. But considering that Blu-Ray players are coming down in price and more and more Blockbuster movies are coming out on Blu-Ray only, or are format neutral, I think it's not entirely unlikely that the trend is continuing.

Lossless sound, yawn. The average move fan doesn't give a darn and neither do I really (not that lossless sound isn't impossible on HD DVD). DD+ is already 320 kbps per channel and I would love to hear you successfully ABX (double blind) the lossless versus the DD+ encode. Just take a look at how transparent (undetectable from the uncompressed version) 128 kbps was in 2005 (5 being completely transparent or nondetectable from the uncompressed)!

Double this bitrate and just imagine how much more difficulty one would have.

The average movie fan doesn't care about HiDef in general... but HiDef fans tend to want to get the best bang for their buck. Of course HD DVD and Blu-Ray both support the exact same codecs... but the space limitations with HD DVD often create situations where lossless audio is not available. An example of this would be KingKong. I know a lot of neutral HiDef adopters who complain about that one in particular.

Personally, I don't have a receiver or speaker set worth of lossless sound. Yet. But it's very high on my list of things to get

VC-1 does marvelously well at lower bitrates and slightly raising said bitrate is apparently not offering significant or even noticeable gains (diminishing returns and compression only gets better as time marches on). Blu-Ray is still utilizing lots of MPEG, which simply requires more bandwidth to provide equivalent quality to VC-1.

Really, Blu-Ray is still utilizing MPEG? Maybe MPEG4... but that doesn't count Seriously, *READ CURRENT NEWS* that whole MPEG2 argument is about 8 months old, and rather outdated. And MPEG4 (which I'll refer to as AVC from now on) is my favourite codec of the 3 video codecs anyways I don't actually have any problems with VC-1, but I don't prefer it over AVC (but I do prefer it over MPEG2).

I agree that HDM has stagnated and that they both may in trouble (VMD might even sneak by them as they scuffle on :p) but I don't think the blame solely rests with Paramount for that.

Agreed, it's by no means 100% Paramount's fault. But it certainly didn't help things in the eyes of consumers!

Yes, I saw that damn newsbyte right AFTER I posted, grr. So that fellow had misinformation or the situation has improved drastically since his communication with them. Still 75% is nothing to take lightly, 1/4 goes to the can (and that report also says nothing of the time per cycle)...also, the fact that it's a Sony PR release automatically makes it suspect and in need of close inspection based on their history.

It wasn't mis-information specifically... it was heavily heavily spun, and outdated. This sort of thing crops up from time to time from both sides, and regardless of a person's alliegience, it's important (in my opinion) to be aware of what the facts are.

For the record, the failed discs from replication runs get recycled on site, so the losses involved are much smaller because of this. It's the same way with CD/DVD/HD DVD as well. Pretty common practice

We could go on all day...I should have been off this computer hours ago.

God... that's the truth!

[Ian]

Most of Paramount didn't know about the decision to go HD DVD exclusive until the day it happend... and you would know that if you paid attention to the insider's threads on any major HiDef forum... they were mastering Blu-Ray movies up until the night before the announcement was made. It was a very rushed decision. Warner is not like that, they have a good position and can take time and think things out carefully. They're not in so bad a position they'd need to jump on $150million if it was offered to them.

It must have been very last minute considering the Blu-ray version of Blades of Glory actually leaked out in to stores. They were going for a pretty penny on eBay.

[vinnie97]

Not going to quote you but I'm already aware of the 51GB disc waiting for approval. So far, they've proven largely unnecessary with regards to movie viewing. And obviously, the recorders have been slow to market. I'm not hedging my bets on a recording format at the moment as those details can be sussed out...right now it's viewable media. How do you know the Venturer will require to be $99 to make an impact? I say wait it out and let the market decide.

Re: the PS3 and Nielsen figures. With the several million figure of PS3s in the market, *of course* they're going to affect those sales. Did you *not* read my "sole movie purchase here and there" remark? The math points to a rather low attach rate since the PS3 owners are renting far more than they're purchasing (if they were actively purchasing, the sales media sales ratio would be more like 8:1, ffs).

You messed up the quotes with your BDA remarks...I really don't care who else is involved with the BDA and I'm already aware of those other CEs (I'm not *that* dull). As far as I'm concerned, though, Blu-Ray is Sony's baby...NO ONE is hedging their bets on this format like Sony has (hello PS3). Panasonic's decision is ridiculous and smacks in the face of reality, just like many BDA announcements (the war is over, etc.). And of course they're predicting the end of the format war AGAIN! Cry wolf enough times and you'll eventually be ignored.

Re: monopoly, do you think Panasonic, Sharp, Pioneer or Philips made efforts to sway studios like Warner, Paramount, Fox and Disney in the early stages like Sony did when fishing for studio support? Maybe I'm off-base here but was Sony not the most prominent role-taker in winning over these studios? It wasn't out of the goodness of their corporate hearts that they joined.

Re: the PS3 counting as a Blu-Ray player...can you find this device in the home theater section of most, if any, retail stores? No, it's *still* marketed as a toy aka gaming device in brick and mortar stores and even categorized as such on the likes of Amazon. Therefore, giving its sales the same amount of weight as standalones with regards to HDM is indeed disingenuous when standalones are purchased for one purpose and one purpose alone. There's a large percentage of PS3 owners without an HDTV, ffs.

And I was unaware of Warner's involvement behind the scenes with regards to Blu-Ray (of course, some proof would be nice ). They are clearly on the fence and calling the shots. If they would simply pick sides sooner rather than later, we could actually finish this war like BDA members so commonly forecast and have the tendency to push back.

Re: lossless audio, funnily enough, Rush Hour 3 won't be in lossless in *either* format. Explain that one. :p (Chris Tucker's screech might be the reason actually!). I'm pretty sure the re-release of Troy on HD DVD features lossless audio and that film is similar in length to King Kong. Anyway, the need for lossless audio is largely based on home theater buffs who think they need it but in reality have nil capability of detecting the difference between high bitrate lossy and lossless.

Re: mpeg2, still over 40+% of Blu-Ray's total releases are in that format but I *do* see that AVC has largely taken over with only one MPEG2 release being made last month.

[dolphinius_rex]

Re: monopoly, do you think Panasonic, Sharp, Pioneer or Philips made efforts to sway studios like Warner, Paramount, Fox and Disney in the early stages like Sony did when fishing for studio support? Maybe I'm off-base here but was Sony not the most prominent role-taker in winning over these studios? It wasn't out of the goodness of their corporate hearts that they joined.

Panasonic was absolutely vital (and still is) to whole studio negotiations part of things. Why do you think Panasonic's Blu-Ray authoring facility is located in Hollywood?

Pioneer and Sharp on the other hand are working very hard with supplying Blu-Ray player componants to other third party CE manufacturers.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what Philips is doing in the background, but they tend to control the licensing side of things, so their focus is probably there, and recording technology as well.

[Grain]

Anyway, the need for lossless audio is largely based on home theater buffs who think they need it but in reality have nil capability of detecting the difference between high bitrate lossy and lossless.

Not sure where that statement is coming from, there's a noticable difference on quality equipment. HD-DVD has been using Dolby TrueHD on many discs, and it generally get's as good a rating as BD's PCM audio ie it is for all intents and purposes lossless.

[dolphinius_rex]

Anyway, the need for lossless audio is largely based on home theater buffs who think they need it but in reality have nil capability of detecting the difference between high bitrate lossy and lossless.

Not sure where that statement is coming from, there's a noticable difference on quality equipment. HD-DVD has been using Dolby TrueHD on many discs, and it generally get's as good a rating as BD's PCM audio ie it is for all intents and purposes lossless.

Yup, compressed audio doesn't mean it isn't lossless

[vinnie97]

Anyway, the need for lossless audio is largely based on home theater buffs who think they need it but in reality have nil capability of detecting the difference between high bitrate lossy and lossless.

Not sure where that statement is coming from, there's a noticable difference on quality equipment. HD-DVD has been using Dolby TrueHD on many discs, and it generally get's as good a rating as BD's PCM audio ie it is for all intents and purposes lossless.

I never said TruHD *isn't* lossless, did I? That was your insinuation.

Anyhow, have a look at this:


This is 128 kbps in 2005 across a number of quality compression formats and look how well it's doing (a rating of "5" equates to total transparency, fully undetectable from the uncompressed version). I regard with suspicion anyone on the net who claims they can detect the difference between DD+ (1.5 Mbps, which provides 320 kbps per channel) and lossless (or uncompressed). Bias is simply too great of a risk without conducting a rigorous double blind test to truly verify such claims, which would require equipment in the tens of thousands of dollars since we're dealing with a wider soundstage. There's also that whole can of worms with regards to dynamics compression being different across different encodes of the same film. This is why I don't take film reviews with regards to subjective quality comparisons at face value.

However, good ole' stereo results in the above tests are telling enough. And psychoacoustic compression has only improved since that time.

[Grain]

I haven't done a head to head w/ the new HD codecs, but if you compare a half bitrate DTS track (768) with a full bitrate (1.5Mbps) DTS track, there is a large difference. If were to be played back on a small system with little bookshelf speakers, then I can't say, but w/ large speakers and a relatively powerful amp the difference is very noticable. DD+ (640 & 1.5 Mbps) has similar bitrates to old DTS, DolbyTrue doubles or triples that. I'm not trying to convice you of anything, the main reason for my original post was to state that both BD & HD-DVD already have lossless audio, and for all intents and purposes are equal audio/video wise. The fact that non-biased reviewers won't pick one above the other on most BD vs HD-DVD dual format movie releases (when the same/equal to audio/video specs are used) has me not really caring which format survives, just as long as at least one does. My great concern is ending up with good hardware and no new software, I'd love to be able to buy more SACD's and DVD-A's, but they are hens teeth. Long before that (bot it in 1990) my LD player was heads and shoulder's above VHS, but movies.....