*** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread *See Post 957, p. 32* - Page 21

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

The State of HD DVD
1:00 PM ON THU DEC 6 2007
BY WILSON ROTHMAN

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

HMM Dec 9 - Dec 15, 2007

Titles Released Nov. 27, 2007
I Know Who Killed Me (Sony)
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (Bandai Visual)
The Omega Man (Warner)
Paprika (Sony)
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (DreamWorks)
Hot Rod (Paramount)
Mr. Bean's Holiday (Universal)
Old School (Paramount)
The Omega Man (Warner)

Percentages
BD / HD
58 / 42 Week
65 / 35 Year
62 / 38 Since Inception

Top 5 Titles
1. Live Free or Die Hard BD 100.00
2. Planet Earth HD 97.66
3. Spidey 3 BD 65.45
4. Transformers HD 57.22
5. Ratatouille BD 56.67

Number of Titles in Top 10
BD:7
HD:3

Weeks Won In 2007
Blu-ray 48 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
HD DVD 0

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

What's up with 'Planet Earth' selling nearly as many copies as LFODH?

(And the BD version was number six for the week -- it is the top selling overall title for this week. I guess it appears on lots of holiday wish lists.)

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

HD-DVD owners have less selection maybe?

(Hey, I'm format-neutral; I'm allowed to goof around!)

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

Box sets make great stocking stuffers to go with the $98 HD-A2 under the tree?

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I am hopeful that Planet Earth coming in #2 indicates a large number of new HD-DVD players in the market. Since the Blu versions didn't make it on the list, the odds (but not absolute) are new HD-DVD owners getting Planet Earth for their new player over people finally getting that relatively expensive boxed set for an Xmas present. It is a good family title that really shows off what HD can do and tends to be bought earlier rather than later in the collection.

Of course someone could have been having a firesale to convince the hold-outs but I didn't see anything about one.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

Paul I believe that Chuck was referring to Bretts top 5 list.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

So from the complete picture Planet Earth sold about 60% of HD-DVD on Blu. Seems like a good indication there are many new HDM players on the market for Xmas and that HD-DVD player's firesale prices are having some impact. Looks like the big winners are format-neutral studios, too bad there are so few.

Was there some special deal with 300 on Blu? I calculated out that Blu:HD-DVD was 72:28 (almost 3:1) but on Oceans 13 it was the normal 63:37 split (less than 2:1). Of course this could be an indication a bunch of PS3s were sold to gamers, who as a demographic, would likely buy 300 over Planet Earth.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

There is only ONE neutral studio anymore, Warner Bros.

300 on HD-DVD isn't going to sell anymore because all of the 3rd gen Toshiba players come with it in the Box.

Transformers is still a beast. Spiderman is also doing decent compared to a somewhat lackluster start for it.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

Okay. I thought Planet Earth was by another studio but I see that it is BBC Warner so I guess I should have said the big winner was Warner for being format neutral.

That makes sense of the numbers.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

new numbers are in

Week 76:24
YTD 65:35
SI 62:38

Top 10

1. POTC AWE BD 100.00
2. Superbad BD 37.46
3. PE HD 12.38
4. Spider-Man 3 BD 10.51
5. Transformers HD 7.49
6. Live Free or Die Hard 7.40
7. PE BD 6.77
8. POTC DMC 6.70
9. Ratatouille 6.69
10. 300 BD 5.36


Marek

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

from other forum....

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

HMM Dec 16 - Dec 22, 2007



Titles Released Dec. 4, 2007
20 Million Miles to Earth (Sony)
Cast Away (Fox)
Elton 60 - Live at Madison Square Garden (Universal Music)
Masters of Horror: Season One - Vol. Four (Starz)
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Fox)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Buena Vista)
Queen Rock Montreal & Live Aid (Eagle Rock)
Superbad (Sony)
Arctic Tale (Paramount)
Battlestar Galactica: Season One (Universal)
Queen Rock Montreal & Live Aid (Eagle Rock)

Percentages
BD / HD
76 / 24 Week
65 / 35 Year
62 / 38 Since Inception

Top 10 Titles
1. POTC AWE BD 100.00
2. Superbad BD 37.46
3. PE HD 12.38
4. Spider-Man 3 BD 10.51
5. Transformers HD 7.49
6. Live Free or Die Hard BD 7.40
7. PE BD 6.77
8. POTC DMC BD 6.70
9. Ratatouille BD 6.69
10. 300 BD 5.36

Number of Titles in Top 10
BD:8
HD:2

Weeks Won In 2007
Blu-ray 49 IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
HD DVD 0

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

Pirates3 with the serious smackdown.

Next week's numbers for this past Tuesday should be interesting, as you have Harry Potter on both formats, with Bourne Ultimatum on HD-DVD only. I suspect Bourne will win the week as far as format specific sales are concerned, but I expect Order of the Phoenix to take the total sales top spot when both formats are combined as one sales number.

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What is interesting is that probably the lack of choices on HD-DVD due to lesser number of titles being released, is probably actually helping individual titles on HD-DVD do better than they might have otherwise. Please, I don't mean this to be an anti HD-DVD statement, but simply something that I observed due to my own buying. Suddenly over the last few weeks there have been so many titles released on Blu-Ray, coupled in with the BOGO sales, that I have had to pick and choose the titles I buy. Titles I would have probably bought at other times, I have had to forego, simply because I felt I have been spending way too much money on HD, atleast far more than I had ever planned for. Funny thing is, other than day & date releases, every other title I have bought, except for Planet Earth, I already have on DVD.

Re: Amazon BOGO sale on HD DVDs 12/11/07

I too am puzzled regarding the staying power of Planet Earth - especially at its price point. I mean, Star Trek S1 (My local Fry's actually sold out of them), BSG S1 & Shrek 3rd aren't even in the top 10?! On the flip-side, Lost S1 didn't make the top 10 either. I guess these HD season sets are a tough sell at this point with their SD counterparts selling for AT LEAST half as much.

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I own both formats and I see alot more Blu-ray titles I have to have than HD-DVD's. I allready own the Spiderman set, Harry Potter box set and now have all 3 Pirates Of The Caribbean movies on Blu-ray. The only titles on HD-DVD I want right now is Transformers and Bourne Ultimatum. And actually Bourne Ultimatum is the only must have HD-DVD I am dieing to own. Every thing else right now is going to be on Blu-ray.

I am not suprised to see Blu-ray's software outdoing HD-DVD at such a wide margine for this sales quarter. And I suspect that it will continue in Q1 08' as well. That is not to say that HD-DVD will not or can not close the gap by offering good solid titles in Q2 08'. They could also do it for Q1 08' but so far I do not see it happening.

Blu-ray is also enjoying alot more hardware support at this time as we all know, there are alot more players out there for Blu-ray. And even though Onkyo is said to have changed there minds and it going to put out a HD-DVD player after all. It is still nothing more that a Toshiba player with the Onkyo badge on it! When is Toshiba going to get its act together in the particular area? I would like to upgrade my 1st generation player but I do not like what I see from Toshiba so far over all. I am not a big fan of low profile players and I am not crazy about the over all aprearance of the Toshiba players, IMHO they look cheap. Granted they output 1080p and can bitsteam Dolby, DTS and PCM lossless via HDMI 1.3a. But I would be more likely to buy another player if a better company was to offer a HD-DVD player. I am allready planning on upgrading my Sony BDP-S300 to a Denon DVD-2500BT after I buy a new receiver in a few months.

So far it looks like Blu-ray still has the lead and I hope there is an anouncement at CES with one studio going neutral and maybe another one going Blu-ray exclusive.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

So what you're saying is that there's a market demand for HD-DVDs?

The Blu-Studios should get on that!





(but the Red studios would only saturate the blu market, so they can stay red )

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

The figures really underscore the weakness with both formats. Sales are almost totally dependent on hits. The top selling hd was a recent hit and the second best selling movies was a smaller hit as well. POTC AWE did nearly half the business of the top 10. The top 2 sold 68% of discs. 8 out of the top 10 are hit movies. The other two slots are taken by 1 program on two different formats.

There are two reasons bluray has done so well. Bluray had more access to hit movies this quarter. In the first quarter of 2008, it looks a lot more even with neither side having any huge hits.

The second reason is that bluray has put out more catalog titles even if they don't sell very well. If you put out enough titles and sell 500 or so, it does add up.

I also wonder if warner can afford to go bluray only. It cuts down their sales of hd discs. If bluray wins, it does not mean hd-dvd owners go blu-ray. I suspect a lot of the people who bought hd-dvd during the $98 sale don't go bluray because it is more expensive.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

Combine this increase in catalog with BOGO offers. That is were they put up a lot of numbers. I have seen actual sales numbers, and it is amazing how well a catalog does when it is part of a BOGO offer compared to the week before. Usually a 1000%+ increase in sales!

I do think that the formats are shooting themselves in the foot with BOGO sales (please note that personally I love them). While they are good for numbers, I no longer buy BD unless they are in a BOGO sale. Titles like POC 3 and Superbad are discs that I figure will be part of a BOGO sale sooner or later so I can wait until they are to buy them. Some studios are going for the short lived marketing win at the expense of long term profits.

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The psychology of the bogo brings up a good point, and that makes me question the Best Buy bogo.


It's for both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD and both have quite good titles so I wonder if it's more Best Buy derived or studio competition.

If HD-DVD was going to do a bogo, Best Buy could most certainly ask Blu-Ray to match it.


Or Vice Versa, I donno, it is the holiday season so I can see Best Buy doing this on their own as well.

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I guess I'll pick up Bourne Ultimatum & The Transformers during the Best Buy BOGO. I'm really not a fan of The Transformers (or any other Michael Bay film for that matter), but it'll probably make excellent demo material for my rig.

I do agree with Adam regarding the BOGO's, eventhough I did take advantage of the one held at Amazon. I finally picked up Deliverance & the non-combo version of The Departed. What's surprsing about the Best Buy Bogo is that the titles listed are major new releases - Potter, Bourne, Transformers, etc. The inclusion of the first two is surprising since they've only been out a week!

I do expect Bourne to have a huge first week. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up up there with Pirates AWE or The Transformers.

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Although alot of people like me found out about the BOGO online, and held off.

I'm now gonna snag up Bourne and Shooter, for what I would have just got Bourne.

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Everyone seems to think that people would roll into hd if there weren't a format war but I'm not so sure. At Walmart, the bluray and hd-dvd copies of the Harry Potter movies were $29.99 and the dvd releases were $14.99. That's a 2-1 price differential. There is no way people are going to pay twice as much for hd as they do for sd. They might be willing to pay a $5 differential at most. Who doesn't want bargains? Until the price of software comes down, hd is going nowhere and might lose to sd.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

It's interesting to see the prices on the Sony & Samsung BD players drop below $300. With the exception of the Venturer & X-box add-on, BD has now nearly achieved price pairity with HD-DVD. If their (HD-DVD) price advantage evaporates, thing could really start to get a little rougher for HD-DVD in the months ahead. I would certainly hope they have something up their sleeve at CES, because BD is also starting to really pull ahead in terms of number of titles available (which is the reason why some retailers are increasing their BD space). Paramount/Dreamworks appear to be sitting on their asses and not releasing much of anything & Universal's Q1 schedule (save for new day/date releases) is pretty dismal. YES, I know catalog titles don't do all that well, but nonetheless, BD was able to muster up Close Encounters & The Die Hard films & Warner has been releasing catalog titles for both platforms like nobodys business.

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With the exception of a couple of discs that I bought used from Amazon sellers and my 10 freebies for buying the decks, my entire HD collection has been acquired from Amazon and WHV sales, mostly b1g1.

Frankly, if it weren't for those sales, my entire HD collection would consist of the 10 freebies and a few used discs purchased through Amazon sellers.

The sales are only "hurting" if the discs are actually being sold below cost.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

That I am sure they are not, ie. sold below cost. That is why I hav always believed that selling software at highly discounted (from MRP) prices makes a lot more business sense than selling hardware at below cost.

Re: *** Official HTF HD Formats Comparison Thread

Companies sell hardware below cost because they plan to make it up in profit from software sales. You can't sell software at a loss expecting to then make it up in hardware profits.

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I wonder if these BOGO sales are the result of over production on the part of certain Blu-ray software manufacturers because of miscalculation as a result of the PS3 affect eg, is it a Blu-ray player OR a gaming machine???

They, BOGO sales, have certainly been one-sided for the most part and would suggest that HD-DVD software manufacturers seem to be more accurate in their production numbers which, unfortunately, for HD-DVD supporters results in fewer BOGO sales.

Blu-ray BOGOs seem to have run their course and it would not be surprising to me if we've seen the last of them for awhile.