HD DVD Sales Staging Comeback-'Planet Earth' Breaks New Amazon Record. (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

There is an added reason: he's *pissed off* by the format war, and is holding off on principle (in addition to wanting to avoid investing in another dead-end format).

He bought D-VHS *knowing* it was dead-end but decided to anyway to enjoy HD when there was no other way.

Now his frustration is that, just when he's finally got optical HD media, there's a damn war messing up what could have been an ideal picture.

I've tried to reason with him that he could always buy a PS3 and re-sell it later, or just rent netflix HD movies while he waits to actually purchase software (his Lumigen scaler is amazing so he doesn't need the upscaling of the Tosh players, which might have been an added incentive to buy an HD DVD machine)... but he's serious about holding off until one side caves or it's 100% clear which format is dead and out the door (naturally we all have a different subjective perception of how to determine that!).



BTW, keep in mind that regardless of hardware prices, no one wants to be saddled with $$$ of discs that might become obsolete within a year or so. Every time I look at my laserdisc collection I think "darn, waiting too long before putting those up on ebay...). My laserdisc player has been repaired more times than I care to remember... and that would be my concern with legacy/obsolete HD media discs as well... how long will the hardware that plays them be around?

 

[ReggieW]

Doesn't Onkyo have an HD-DVD player coming?

They're announcing their new AVR line which'll include DTS-HD MA and Dolby THD processing, so I believe their player will be announced within the next month or two.

....We'll just see how many companies market stand alone HD-DVD players in the coming months and see how things balance out then.

I would not be surprised to see both formats equal by the end of the year (as far as CE manufacturer support goes).

 

[Chris S]

Good point, I hadn't thought about that before. It really wouldn't surprise me if it were true either.

 

[MarekM]

they are waiting who will win......... they are not going to announce anyhing in next two months... and there are several companies announcing AVR lines with DTS-HD MA and DolbyTrueHD like Denon or Yamaha, so you can't count anouncing AVR line that blu-ray or hd dvd player is here in 1-2 monhts...

equal CE manufacturer suppor ? no chance.......

Marek

 

[Adam Gregorich]

CEDIA will be an interesting show this year. Ron, Parker, RAF and myself will be there this year...

 

[ppltd]

Nothing lasts forever. I got over 20 years of enjoyment out of my many LD players I have owned since the 70's. I still have a handful of LD's that I either have not given away, or have not died from the dreaded LD rot (remember that?). And I am sure, sooner or later, the DVD format will die and I will left with a 1000 or so disks and nothing to play them on.:frowning: So it goes with any product released from the electronic industry. The computer I paid 5K on 5 years ago can not be given away today, and much of the software I own will not function without costly upgrades on the newest OS. So it goes. You just bite the bullet if you want the newest, no different with the HD formats. Although some us are hedging are bets by buying into both formats, even though both may die before they get a start.

 

[ppltd]

All conjecture both ways. I am certainly not sure that Oynko will release a HD player in the next few months (I tend to doubt they will jump into the mix this soon as they seldom release products for new formats this soon). Will HD have equal support from manufacturers by the end of the year? That is another question entirely. If the trend continues to rise in stand alone sales, it is a possibility, as unlikely as it might seem today.

I do believe by the end of the year HD will continue have players from Toshiba (one high end and one lower end player) and LG, and should see the release from Samsung and at least one of the rumoured low priced Chinese manufacturers on the market. That should go along way in equalizing the hardware between the formats.

 

[ppltd]

I agree with you that it will be interesting, but I am just not sure we are going to be able to read much from it. I will be waiting with baited breath for all of your reports from CEDIA, as I will not be able to attend. :frowning:

 

[Marc Colella]

The early adopters (especially at the generally low price of the players) should be picking a side (or both sides) but they aren't and I think the format wars have little to do with it. You make it sound like there are millions of people sitting on the sidelines waiting for the war to end, but my estimation is that there are only thousands.

The average consumer will never embrace these formats, and the HT ethusiasts are luke-warm regardless of the format war. The way I see it, BR and HD-DVD are both 10 years too late AND 10 years too early. It's too soon to jump to another format, they should've released HD instead of DVD in the first place. Now DVD is entrenched as the video standard and BR/HD-DVD will be lucky to get 5-10% of DVD sales. This of course is all my opinion, but I really believe those who are waiting for mainstream success are going to be very dissapointed.

I think the industry will use this Christmas as the deadline to determine if HD has a chance or not. There'll be more than enough BR players in homes (mainly the PS3) to drive decent BR sales. Right now with 3million PS3s out there, we're seeing dismal BR software sales (not that HD-DVD is doing any better).

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I do agree that this next holiday season will be a very "telling" time for industry supporters of both camps.

 

[ppltd]

That certainly would not explain why the 2.8 million PS3 buyers are not jumping into the fry. They have a product that they do not need to worry about obsolescence, as it is a core part of the system. Even assuming that the majority of the PS3's are being bought by gamers, not movie collectors, as many of us summized prior to the PS3 release, it stands to reason that the format war would not play a part in their decision as the decision was made for them.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

gamers who by the PS3 as a gaming console and have yet to purchase blu-ray are a different market animal from the "HT enthusiast" that has been the context of all our discussion. We can talk about them but let's not diffuse a meaningful conversation by trying to mix the two groups as though they react to the same market concerns or motivations.

Do all PS3 "gamers" even have an HDTV? I bet that an enormous number of PS3 sales are to gaming youth who don't even have it connect to a high-def set. If anyone can dig up numbers about that I'd be interested.

With time, however, that "trojan horse" plan may start to take root. Especially as young gamers begin to upgrade their displays to HD and appreciate the improvement of HD quality.

 

[ppltd]

When talking about the average video consumer, they fall right into the batch. They are little different then any other average buyer of video content. Having had the HD decision made for them, the format war is a non-issue. They are most assuredly part of this discussion, as they are the holder of 90 % of all HD players. To dismiss them is a mistake and is in itself 'diffusing' the conversation.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I'm sure that they do fall into the batch of the average video consumer (somewhere in that rather large and comprehensive group, there's room for a lot of sub-categories).

My last several posts have focused particularly on the HT enthusiast, so those comments weren't intended to reflect the issues of any other group.

I'm suggesting that the rationale and motivations are different for the "average consumer" versus the "HT enthusiast". Therefore, let's have discussion about it all, but be sure to keep our comments clear regarding which group we're talking about (ie, not quoting comments spoken about one group and applying them to another).

I never dismissed them. I simply stated let's keep our conversation clear regarding what we're talking about, and not artibrarily apply comments intended for one sub-group to the other.

 

[Jonathan Kaye]

As soon as one or other set of fanboys tries to manipulate the figures with organised buying, then they instantly invalidate that statistic. It now has no meaning whatsoever which title or format has the highest ever sale on Amazon, because clearly the figures can be skewed at this early stage of either format's life by an organised internet campaign. If ever there was evidence that high-def discs are way off becoming mainstream, it's this.

Add me to the "couldn't care less" about the format war continuing or not. I want to be able to play all high-definition releases from all studios on my projector, with lossless sound to my non-HDMI receiver, no region restrictions, and at a cost that is reasonable (which to me would be about 500 GBP). Neither format can offer me that at the moment, so until then let competition reign supreme as far as I'm concerned.

 

[ReggieW]

Why is Onkyo releasing an HD-DVD player far-fetched when they have a press release on their website saying that it's in development? My time frame may be off, but nonetheless, Onkyo appears to be releasing an HD-DVD player at some point.

I saw nothing that stated they were "waiting for a winner to emerge."

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Reggie,

they didn't say they were waiting for a winner. They said something to the effect that they'd consider releasing HD DVD product when "consumers demanded it". I'll try to find the source...

 

[BrettB]

HD DVD Sales Staging Comeback-'Planet Earth' Breaks New Amazon Record.

It's the new

Blu-ray / HD DVD War...the end is near:

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Perhaps we'll have to have weekly "order offs" where supporters of each camp start AVS threads to rally everyone to pre-order specific titles in their chosen format to keep the Amazon numbers bouncing up...

 

[PeterMano]

You were wrong in your assessment before, you're wrong now, and you'll be wrong in the future. The profit on movie media is relatively risk free. Most games lose money, development and marketing budgets have skyrocketed. Game development is a high risk proposition. The entire notion that you seem to cling to, that the profits on game software are so high that losses on hardware can easily be recouped would get you laughed off any videogame message board on the net. You'd be greeted with derisive "noob" comments.

The relativley risk free part of sony's revenue stream from gaming is collecting royalties from third party publishers. But with the ps3 base as small as it is, and third party sales as weak as they are, its going to be a long time before these revenues offset the steep hardware losses and the various expenditures related to bringing the ps3 to market.

Toshiba, on the other hand, sells relatively few players, whatever losses they're taking on the hardware are not going to imperil the company financially, not by a long shot.