Fox Executive's prediction on Blu-ray! (1 Viewer)

Fox's Dunn Bullish On DVD and Blu-ray
http://www.hive4media.com/index.cfm?sec_id=2


really ? i got the impression it was the other way around.

He goes on to state:

Obviously he's talking about the PS3, the assumption being that millions of game players are also going to buy BD movies. It remains to be seen:

1. How many PS3s will be sold

2. The PQ and features as a BD player

3. How many gamers will run out and buy BD movies (and KEEP ON buying them) after shelling out 70 to 100 bucks apiece for games.


By the way, millions of SACD and DVD-A players have been sold, yet those formats are essentially dead for some reason ....

It's never been more obvious that the "PS3 will guarantee millions of movie sales" sales pitch is the primary carrot Sony used to get studio support.

Don't forget that there are millions of PSP's purchased... yet the UMD format is getting it's ass kicked.

Fox really needs to get a clue.

The prices need to go down and the quality needs to go up for Blu-Ray before Fox writes off HD DVD.

Dunn: "First of all, the format war is really only going on in the press."

I think more than a few of us might disagree with this statement.

It feels like Dunn use to work at Best Buy since what he's saying is wrong and/or over hyped.

Millions of households for Blu-Ray and less than 100,000 for HD-DVD? I find that VERY hard to believe considering how many people are adopting HD-DVD so far.
If he is counting PS3, than he should look at the forums and see how many people are complaining about the price of the HDMI enabled PS3. I think 90% of gamers are buying PS3 for the GAMES not Blu-Ray movies.

On a side note, I was SHOCKED to find that my local Busted Buy has HD-DVD RIGHT UP at the FRONT of the home theatre section hooked up to a 32" Samsung LCD and Blu-Ray is unplugged and to the side! Hmmmmm...

Yes, it's become obvious to me that it's all about PS3. He is not the first content provider who has made such statements (please don't ask for links, but I do remember some porn content provider saying almost the same thing). I am curious how this will work out, and what Microsoft will do to try to counteract it.

Yeah, I just read the Dunn thang....if he'd just drop his drawers, all the world would know he's got nothing but poppycock. He's so full of himself.

LOL, Rachael--I think that just about sums it up. Amen.

I don't find it hard to believe, in fact that's the way I expect it to play out.
Some of us have been saying for a while that while specs on paper may tout the technical advantages of Bd, that's not the reason they have overwhelming studio support (and attendant CE support).
You then have to wonder just how committed that format as a whole is going to be to a/v excellance, when they know full well that the greater majority of their customers are playing the discs off of a game console.

Paul, why are you threadcrapping in a BD thread?

20th Century Fox has great product. They know what they're doing.

You mention PS3. How about Panasonic, Pioneer, and Sony all set to unload their players Sept thru Nov.

Rachael, just because you disagree with Dunn doesn't mean you need to personally degrade him.

It's not an UMD situation with a single provider providing the hardware, who's initial success had the studios thinking it would be the next big thing (that should sound uncomfortably familiar to supporters of a certain competing format).

That is huge market potential. As prices fall over the next year the wider availability of software will be critical.

Paul, you raise a great point. If gamers are well over 90% of the buyers of a format, even in the early stages, why wouldn't studios cater to what they want, instead of the "tiny percentage" of standalone buyers?

Because a "tiny" percentage of the game buyers will realize that they have a high-def disc player and buy movies for it. That's a few hundred thousand.

Which outnumbers the other format.

If it's a "tiny percentage", then it's not the "millions and millions" the Fox exec claims. You can't have it both ways. Either the PS3 sells "millions" as a BD PLAYER, or only a "tiny percentage" will be used that way (including much smaller PS3 sales than Sony hopes for).

Peter, I didn't think that was a thread crap, but a valid question that should be sending up a warning flag for a/v-centric Bd supporters.
Just who is this format going to be optimized for- the tens of thousands who will have a $1000+ stand alone player, or the several million that will have a PS3?

Fox has put out some damn good stuff, even just recently I've been very impressed with their sd content, but they aren't Bd by themselves- and you will also notice that his response to the question of how Bd competes with other technologies is not to come out with "we'll have access to Bd 50s with superior bandwidth and capacity for superior performance with advanced codecs...etc, etc"
It's merely, "there will be more players, in more forms, and that is why it will become the defacto standard"

This is why I said before, Bd 50s don't EVER have to get here, because the real attitudes at these studios are seen in that Fox interview. Sell high quality discs to several hundred thousand customers who would be eager for your product...Why bother? They can sell several million bd25 discs with whatever codec is expedient.. PS3 owners(expected to be the biggest buying block, acording to interview) aren't likely to notice or care one way or the other.
Or do you think PS3 buyers are going to be very picky with a/v quality?

But like Robert said earlier, its not how many players are out there, its the buying habits of the owners of those players- and that will be interesting to see come a year from now.

and Peter, because you thought I was threadcrapping earlier, I 'll end with this- the Glory Days of Blu-ray are coming very soon. You guys will have many positive news reports to rejoice over before the year is out.

cheers

Well, I tend to believe so, at least the early adopters. The biggest selling points for the PS3 are bringing the PlayStation faithful into the HD era (which Microsoft exploited fairly well with the 360) and having a Blu-ray drive.

Word around the industry (and those with actual production units in hand) are saying the PS3 is a very, very good BD player. When the NDAs expire (probably late-October to mid-November) you'll start seeing a LOT of press about the PS3's Blu-ray capabilities, upconversion quality, etc. It's a steal at $599.

For Fox, indications are they will use H264 or VC-1. BD25s for them won't be a quality issue.

That strategy sounds similar to the SACD strategy of stealth marketing of hybrid discs and players that play SACDs. We know how that turned out.

I think the studios will realize that this tiny percentage of gamers who purchase Blu-Ray movies will be smaller than they thought.
Don't know how many people will purchase Blu-Ray movies for their PS3 when they just dished out all that cash for the console and have to purchase expensive games as well.

Nevermind the fact that many people who own a PS3 won't have a HDTV, and the households that do have HDTV probably one have one in the family room which relegates the kid to connecting the PS3 to his crappy little TV in the bedroom.

Hope Fox doesn't have a problem with this incredibly small market.

Which really doesn't apply here because BDs can't be played on DVD players.

The studios WILL be able to see just how many titles they will sell.
Point is that with players out from a wide variety of companies that software sales will increase because more people, via the PS3, will have something to them play on.

I've no doubt the Sony marketing blitz will go into high gear about the PS3. What I do doubt is that many people interested ONLY in a movie player would have any interest in buying a game console for their A/V rack to show those movies.