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Originally Posted by Paul Arnette
I've seen it touched upon, not necessarily here mind you. In fact, Warner Bros. even mentioned it as part of their reason to choose a format, although I am not sure I entirely followed their logic.
There is a bit of a counter-arguement to the recession talk however with respect to HDM purchasing. Buying a movie is still far cheaper than taking a vacation, etc. High gas prices may force families to spend more of their leisure time at home. I don't think it is necessarily going to counter-act a ression as much as it may mitigate it a little. However, I do see such a scenario coupled with people not wanting to re-buy their movies putting even more of an emphasis on new titles, which means studio support becomes more of an advantage. |
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Originally Posted by Paul Arnette
And yet it has been widely reported that Best Buy has the most volume in terms of HDM sales. This is just another example of how the "HD enthusiast" differs from the "average consumer", and it reinforces my belief that everything that occurs this year in terms of HDM is driving toward eliminating as much HD confusion as possible for the "average consumer" come Q4 of 2008.
I have no doubt HD DVD will live the longest via the e-tailer, but, and I cannot stress this enough, all the shifting allegiances at the studio and retailer level have nothing to do with us, the HD enthusiast, and everything to do with spurring additional adoption. Notice the careful avoidance of the phrase "mass adoption". I do this because not only do I believe consumers as a whole are not ready to mass adopt this technology, but I also believe studios and retailers realize this as well. |
), they want to conserve time and engage in one-stop-shopping, money's no object, and the list can go on and on. And, these factors could form someone's decision whether they are a 50-year-old major HT enthusiast or a college kid who wants to pick up the latest National Lampoon release to watch on his laptop.
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Originally Posted by RickER
Even during the Depression and WWII people still went to the movies. You have to have some fun, and not feel like your just working to live! But yea, i pay my bills and buy food before i buy my DVDs or Blu-ray discs.
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Originally Posted by Mike Frezon
My point is that I think whether someone is an "HD enthusiast" or "average consumer", they can still be a discriminating shopper and make purchases based on a number of different rationalizations.
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Originally Posted by Paul Arnette
The average person isn't into this as much as we are. Therefore, if you're buying 10 HDM a month vs. 1, the average cost of HDM becomes more important. If the average cost is more important, you become a more discriminating shopper.
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Originally Posted by nolesrule
Toshiba wasn't the only brand of first gen players that could not pass or decode DTS. My Panasonic couldn't either.
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Originally Posted by Mike Frezon
I am fascinated by this part of the equation/discussion, Paul.
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| While I would suppose that what you say makes sense at one level, you would then further suppose that most HTFers would therefore be discriminating shoppers...but I'm not so sure about that. To me, it always seems like the same small band of HTF members who post about various on-line or B&M sales...or post in those threads. And, depending on the kind of quality "new release" week that it is, the Weekly RoundUp usually draws only two-to-three-thousand views....and I gotta believe many of them are coming from non-members. |
-- and indeed, much kudos to you guys for all the work w/ that -- but I'm not sure that's a good gauge for this. I for one hardly ever bothered to check the Bargains section for bargain info until I started looking at HDM bargains in the past month or so. I've always used other resources for that kind of stuff before (and HDM and hardware bargains often show up in the regular HD discussion sections anyway ).|
Originally Posted by Stephen_J_H
But that's just it: Getting the vast majority to buy into HD is a major investment tantamount to taking a vacation. Even if you lowball it, $500 for a 720p display, $400 for a PS3, min. $20 a pop for movies. This can't be easily compared to the Depression, when you could get into movies for a nickel. Given the options, if a person is strapped for cash, they're going to stick with SD for now.
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Heck, that was partly why I bought into HT w/ DVD myself. 
| I could supply all kinds of anecdotal evidence of people I know--with a lot more money than me--who are always looking to save a buck. |
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Originally Posted by Dennis Nicholls
News flash: President Bush and Speaker Pelosi have hammered out an agreement to give $600 cash per person to go purchase an HD-DVD player and a BRD player in order to stimulate the economy. Best Buy immediately announced a sale where they will accept the fed's check for a package deal including a Toshiba HD-A3, a Sony PS3, and an HDMI switch with cables.
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Originally Posted by BrettB
A Blu-ray player in every living room.
Beats the hell outta that chicken in a pot thing. |
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Originally Posted by Dennis Nicholls
Hey!
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Originally Posted by RobertSiegel
Player sales numbers have been confirmed:
NPD Confirms Huge Blu-ray Share Jump - 1/23/2008 9:40:00 AM - TWICE |
| But at least back then you were sure the chickens were fully up-to-spec at the time of release |
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Originally Posted by Mark Booth[B
]With Toshiba's HD DVD players continuing to sell incredibly well since Toshiba lowered the price[/b]s, I suspect the NPD data for the week ending January 19 won't be quite as lopsided toward Blu.
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Originally Posted by Clinton McClure
If you've ever performed a firmware upgrade on a chicken, my hat's off to you.
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Originally Posted by BrettB
I think that's illegal in most states.
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Originally Posted by Jesse Blacklow
Planet Earth, the "go-to" title for new owners, sold so little on HD DVD that it was counted as 0%.
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I wonder if that's either a mistake or the title suffered a lot of returns?|
Originally Posted by Paul Arnette
I wonder if that's either a mistake or the title suffered a lot of returns? |
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Originally Posted by Mike Frezon
Not if you marry the chicken shortly afterward.
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Originally Posted by Dennis Nicholls
Actually the chicken is the software and the pot is the hardware, so you should be making the firmware upgrade to the POT.
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Originally Posted by Mark Booth
But, seriously, there wasn't squat for HD DVD releases for the last week. More HD DVDs will sell once we get some new titles. I look forward to hearing what Paramount and Universal officially have in store for us in 2008!
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Anyway the other customers asked me some questions and two of them had Toshiba HD-A35's in there shopping carts. One thanked me for the info and said he was going to put the player back and buy a Blu-ray. The second person said he was not going to buy his A35 ether but he was going to wait a few weeks and go Blu. A third was not to happy about the shrinking number of studios and said he would most likely get a Blu-ray player around summer time. The couple that I was talking to ended up buying a Blu-ray player and buying 7 movies. Maybe I should get a job as a rep for Blu-ray. |
Originally Posted by Dave Moritz
I am actually running into more people that are hearing about WB going Blu. And that they have slim choices with HD-DVD and better choices with Blu-ray, and they feel that Blu-ray is going to win.
Today I was looking over the HD titles looking for something to watch tonight. All I was going to do was run in and grab a movie. Well I did not get out of the store as fast as I wanted but it was actually a cool incedent that transpired. After getting into a conversation over the Blu-ray titles with another customer. I went back to looking for something to buy when a couple came into the HDM isle and started talking to the gentleman I had just got done talking to. Before I know it I see the guy pointing at me and the couple came over and asked me which one is better. They had one HD-DVD and one Blu-ray in there hand. After talking to them and being fair to both sides, but also letting them know that after May they would only be able to get movies from Paramount and Universal on HD-DVD basically. I also explained to them if they wanted the top tier audio that most of the Blu-ray's included it and only a smaller percentage of the HD-DVD did. When I turned around there was about 5 other customers listening to what I was saying to the the couple. I kinda felt like a Sony Blu-ray rep for a brief moment. Anyway the other customers asked me some questions and two of them had Toshiba HD-A35's in there shopping carts. One thanked me for the info and said he was going to put the player back and buy a Blu-ray. The second person said he was not going to buy his A35 ether but he was going to wait a few weeks and go Blu. A third was not to happy about the shrinking number of studios and said he would most likely get a Blu-ray player around summer time. The couple that I was talking to ended up buying a Blu-ray player and buying 7 movies.The funny thing is I did not work for the retailer, and all I went there to do was buy a movie. Do you think I should have gotten comission or a discount? Maybe I should get a job as a rep for Blu-ray. But over all I notice more and more people in line buying Blu-ray movies and players. It is not a huge number of people but there is a definant increase in people buying. I hope that Toshiba will accept that Blu-ray sales has accelerated and victory is now out of reach. And that they really need to stop and talk to Sony about ending the war. I guess I could allways do my part when shopping like I did earlier today. |
| Best Buy has told us we need to tell the consumer the facts, about the Blu-ray players which have/don't have 1.1, and which are coming with 2.0. |
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Originally Posted by Adam Gregorich
I am glad to hear that, but the cynic in me says that with the 1.0 player prices coming way down to compete with the Toshibas, stores just want to sell the newer, higher margin players, but then again the PS3 has no margin, so maybe the cynic is wrong. I guess it's all irrelevant if customers are being given the information to make the correct choice for their needs. Good for you guys!
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