Blu Ray delivers another blow to hd. (1 Viewer)

[Joseph DeMartino]

As others have noted, on paper DIVX seemed like the hands-down winner in the last big format war. And Sony has tried to push other formats in the U.S. market and ended up with egg on its face, so I still say it is way too early for anyone to be countin' chickens.



1) But who do you talk to, and what kind of sites do you tend to visit on the 'net? If I hang out on the "Left-handed Freshwater Fisherman's Forum" and spend all weekend fishing with my left-handed budies in freshwater lakes and streams, I could probably "prove" that the tackle industry should stop making salt-water gear altogether and that all fishing reels should be built for left-handers. But I'm not going to have any idea about the real state of the market because I've been hanging out in an echo chamber and the only voices I tend to hear are reflections of my own.

2) The plural of "anecdote" is not "data". Without large samples, demographic adjustments and careful questions you can't produce worthwhile opinion data. It doesn't matter how many people you hear something from if they're not a representative group. (See #1 above.)

BTW, Joe Schwartz is right. "In lieu of" means "in place of", and you clearly didn't mean that people were planning to buy their first HDTV instead of an XBox360 or PS3.

Regards,

Joe

 

[EricRWem]

Yup, I meant "in light of." :b

 

[Rob_Walton]

Isn't the percentage of gamers who have HD TVs of more importance than the percentage across the whole population? This is just a guess, since I don't have access to the sort of surveys the studios and CE manufacturers have based their decisions on, but I'm thinking that people who enjoy video gaming are probably a good deal more technically minded than the average joe and might be more likely to already own an HD TV. Throw in the stat that the average age of a PS2 gamer was about 27 a few years back, and you have a section of the population with disposable income and a pre-existing inclination towards using cutting edge technology. PS2 broke the 100 million sales barrier a little while ago, so Sony can probably afford to spread some of their PS3 sales on fallow ground and still expect to sell enough to take in a decent sized chunk of the 10% of US homes currently with HD TVs. Just my take on things...

 

[Bryan X]

Which is the other point I pondered. Those people you are referring to may very well have bought a stand alone BD player if the PS3 wasn't available. If that's the case, the PS3 is just taking marketshare from stand-alone BD player sales and not really creating new BD customers.

I'm not trying to say my scenerio is absolutely right. I just have my doubts the PS3 is really going to be a significant factor in all of this.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

"To use cutting edge technology" for what and to direct that disposable income where? A gamer who is a gamer first and foremost may spend all that extra income on, well, games. So even if s/he were to upgrade his television to take advantage of the graphics of that shiny new console, s/he may never spend a dime on movies, Blu-Ray or otherwise.

Making assumptions based on the number of people who are "tech savvy" makes about as much sense as guessing how many people will buy tickets to a concert based on how much of the population is "music savvy". The category is too broad and embraces too many subcategories that may not overlap at all, or overlap to a very limited extent. There may be some people who love country, hip hop, opera (German, Italian, etc.), jazz and polka all equally, but I'm betting they're a small group. You can't say that the fact that sales of opera CDs went up 20% in the city where you're playing since your last concert means that ticket sales will go up 20% because there are more "music" lovers in town - not if you're a rock band.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Benson R]

If PS3 is launching sometime this year I really don't see it comming with bluray movie support out of the box. From the press releases I have seen, Sony really only confirms that PS3 uses Bluray type media for games, it doesnt confirm movie support.

Don't get me wrong, I want bluray to win. But I see them winning after a long format war. The other factor is, I don't see much demand outside of movie enthusiasts like us for a new hd format. I think even the average person with an hd set is happy enough with dvd and not in a hurry to invest heavily in a new format. And I think this works in bluray's favor, because if its a short war I think hd-dvd would win based on lower price point and brand familiarity. But if its drawn out the costs for both format will be about the same by the time there is demand for it.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

If there is any given in this format war, it is that the PS3 will play Blu-ray movies.

 

[Rob_Walton]

That seems very likely, for a certain hardcore gaming section of the market. In my experience, though, most gamers don't fall into that hours-a-day gamer stereotype. And I can't think of any of my gamer friends, even the more dedicated ones, who never watch movies. But since I haven't tried to claim that all or even most PS3 users will automatically jump into Blu-Ray I'm not sure what you are trying to argue against.

 

[Juan C]

I had that same question, and I asked on a gamers forum (on the PS3 section) whether they would use the PS3 to watch Blu-ray movies. About 80% of those who responded said they'd buy/rent Blu-ray movies if the price was right. So even a substantial percentage of hardcore gamers will probably use their console to play BD.

Even if only 10% of PS3s sold were used to play Blu-ray, you're looking at several-hundred-thousand-unit effective installed base in a year .

 

[Ken_F]

It will be interesting to see just how Sony markets the PS3.

Will Sony market the PS3 as primarily a game machine? I read comments from one analyst who thought Sony would separately market the PS3 to two different demographics -- the gamer and the movie lover. The suggestion was that Sony not only wants to get gamers more involved and interested in movies, but they also want to get movie lovers more interested in games. Sony makes royalties off every PS3 game sold and every Blu-ray disk sold.

I personally would be surprised if Sony markets the PS3 as a dedicated Blu-ray player, especially in the first year of launch when cost will be highest and quantities will be most limited. It's been said that Sony will have to sell 6-8 games to recoup the loss they take on every PS3 sold. Blu-ray royalties are far less significant, so they'd have to sell considerably more than 6-8 movies to recoup their losses; thus, I don't see them pushing the PS3 toward consumers that are primarily interested in just movies. They need customers buying PS3 games to make money.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Kyle,

while many of your facts are correct, your "spin" is misleading.

Regarding the "15 titles per studio" for launch...one reason we're not seeing more titles is a simple matter of BD authoring issues being delayed...most dual-support studios have had longer to plan their HD releases and work out the bugs.



While Disney may have preferred to have had MS's interactive layer supported, it's not as serious an issue as you suggest. Disney has been *very* involved in Blu-ray's development and one of the key reasons they are behind the format is that higher bit-rate (allowing higher-quality video for multi-angle features) and larger ultimate storage capacity.

It's most likely that Disney is waiting for 50 gig BD before they make their big-splash since that's the storage capacity they're planning to use for all their special-feature laden BD titles.

 

[Benson R]

It looks like you got me there but I still don't quite buy it. I mean, I thought the latest timetables for the new formats put the bluray rollout comming a few months after ps3.

Plus, the first initiall cost estimates for 1st gen bluray players put it at around 1000. It would be hard to imagine ps3 selling for much more then 500.

I know Sony will be willing to sell ps3s at a loss, but how will other bluray partners feel about the fact that there may be close to no market at first for their hardware if people can buy a game machine / bluray player for half the cost.

I am probably all wrong about this, I admit that. But I never take anything Sony says at face value after the way ps2 was so overhyped.

 

[Ken_F]

On another forum, there was discussion over comments made by CE executives in Japan (from Matsushita, I believe); they don't feel there is much money to be made in the the U.S. on first-generation standalone players, in part because of the PS3. It was suggested that they wouldn't make a strong push into the standalone BD market this year -- instead, they'd wait for component costs to come down, and then focus more on less costly (to manufacture) second and third generation players. You'll still see those $1000 first-generation players released, but you may not see a lot of marketing dollars spent to promote them.

 

[Rob_Walton]

Just to clarify, the PS3 would not be able to badge or market itself as a Blu-Ray player if it was unable to decode any of the 3 codecs supported by that format. Since FMV (pre-recorded movie segments) are part of any number of video games the machine will have to output compressed video anyway. If they have the drive, video card, and the processing power already for the games, why would it cost them much more to include ROM movie playback? Incidentally the rough specs for the system (along with dev kits) have been with game developers for some time, so it's unlikely they'd be able to change them at this late date. All manner of multi-million dollar games would no longer be supported by the format!

 

[Paul_Scott]

Warner is starting to divulge some of its strategies for this year, and it sounds like they are going to be very aggressively releasing catalog product on not just DVD but HD DVD.
HDs will come day and date with DVD SEs for classics like Maltese Falcon and Forbidden Planet among others.

if we see a robust classic catalog on HD DVD- even if its primarily 90% Warner titles- coupled with sub $400 dedicated players,
i think Bd will be playing catch up from here on out.

given how aggressively Warner exploits its catalog- and how it understands and respects its audience (unlike Sony which is still releasing pan and scan scope 'classics' this late in the game) i'm just about ready to lay down money if anyone wants to wager on this




not over by a long shot

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Wow I can't wait to get Forbidden Planet in HD ! I would'nt replace all my Disks but I would buy that.

 

[Juan C]

I say the same thing I said re the CES announcement: just because Warner has announced a title on HD DVD but not on Blu-ray doesn't mean it isn't going to come out. Only that HD DVD is supposed to happen earlier. Case in point, Goodfellas.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Juan,

it's odd that we need to keep reminding HT members of that. For some reason, people see a WB title announced for HD DVD and not for BD and assume that it's never going to emerge on Blu-ray...which is not the case.

 

[Ken_F]

Several realities here, depending on who you believe...

1. Reality #1: Warner is still firmly in the HD-DVD camp, just like Universal Pictures. They are releasing just the minimum 15 titles necessary to obtain the lowest disk costs, their backup plan in the event HD-DVD loses the format war. Until then, all Warner titles except those ~15 will be on HD-DVD.
2. Reality #2: Warner will release most titles for both formats, but wants to use advanced codecs like VC-1/AVC on Blu-ray, and is just holding off on certain announcements until those codecs are available for use on the BD platform later this year.
3. Reality #3: Warner will release most titles on Blu-ray, but their format of choice is still HD-DVD, and they want public perception to reflect that. They want to give HD-DVD every chance to win, so they won't publicize much what they are doing for Blu-ray.

We don't know which is true. Some evidence for each, and lots of speculation, but no confirmation on either.

Update Feb 5: With the Warner's announcement this week, it looks like the truth lies in a combination of #2 and #3. They are releasing all titles on BD, but some titles will enjoy a brief period of exclusivity on HD-DVD.

 

[Paul_Scott]

i've said it before- I think Warner will try to make some money off of Bd releases- they will put out the movies appropriate for a demographic skewed overwhelmingly towards video game players/purchasers- because thats what Blu-ray means for the next year or two-and as Ken said, they want to have a lock on the lower royalties just in case HD DVD is ultimately unsupportable.
they are wisely hedging their bets.

and why would anyone not think that Warner doesn't still have a vested interest in making HD DVD a viable working alternative?

makes sense to sell something like Batman Begins on both platforms, just like it makes sense to tell film buffs "but if you want Forbidden Planet or Mutiny On The Bounty, you're gonna need a lower cost HD DVD player"

meanwhile Blu-ray (and Sony) is stuck with having to say "we're better...just drop $1K and you will see...or wait for the PS3...and we'll try to get you an ETA on that before you leave the store..."

Blu-ray could still end up being utilized as the dominant platform eventually, but does anyone not expect Warner to put up some kind of fight first? never mind that its not as (potentially) good as Blu-ray- there is more than just raw specs to take into consideration, when the end result is what is going to be pleasing and what is going to seem like a better value- and to that end, which studio is more likely to give you a remastered and restored film on an HD format, and which studio is more likely to dump a transfer made with inferior elements on it and call it a day?
if the quality differential is clear over standard def, and the buy-in is realtively inexpensive...why would you wait a year or two for an expensive universal player, which may never come? if you are doing it on principle...well, so be it.