HD DVD: 800 titles by the end of 2007? (1 Viewer)

According to the Home Media Magazine, 800 HD DVD titles will be shipped this year.

20 releases in May, 29 in June, 73 in July, 57 in August, 77 in September, 115 in October, 185 in November and finally 240 titles in December!


http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques...2007/index.php

(Page 32)

As someone in another forum pointed out, 240 movies in December is 60 movies a week. Does anyone find that very likely?

Maybe if they're counting worldwide releases - and, say, the US/UK/French/Japanese/Australian/German/Spanish editions are each counted separately.

I have $5 that says "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA No"

800 titles would be fantastic but I think anyone counting on this is in fantasyland.

That's fuzzy math.

I think they're talking about actual units per month!

I'm guessing that 800 is more like 80, someone added the extra "0" by accident.

did they get these numbers from replicators?
I would assume that the studios book line time well in advance of actual production, so it would seem that it would be fairly easy to get a close estimate of how much is coming, if you have access to a source inside.

as someone on another forum suggested, this would also seem to indicate advance knowledge of another studio (or studios) begining to release product as well.
Decembers numbers look suspect, but I would think Aug thru Novembers should be pretty close to the mark. And the entire 800 might end up being very close when you factor in porn, multiple foreign editions of the same film/content, anime, documentaries and other 'quickie' releases.

Given their record, I don't doubt Universal compared to some other studios. The extra studios theory makes sense.

Bring it on! Price drops are in order.

This makes me wonder if the production lines are convertible back and forth from DVD to HD DVD. This might explain the ability to produce discs in the capacity described in the story. I know HD DVD has been described as being an easy install from a standard DVD line, but maybe it's a fairly quick and easy switch to make from one to the other.

Doug

Sounds like there taking counting lessons from Sony.

a very informative thread on the current realities of Bd 50 replication and HD DVD replication

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...&#post10579228

Impossible, because May releases would then be way over 20 (I'm counting 22 HD DVD releases in North America in May).

My bet is that there will be no way they will be even close to 800 HD-DVD titles! What kind of crack are they smoking anyway?

I have my doubts also, but having heard now that all they have to do to switch a line from DVD to HD DVD is push a button, it seems a little more plausible. The real question is how many actual DVD lines have been converted to be able to run HD DVD. And how many more will be converted by the winter.

Doug

I emailed the author of the article, and he replied that "800 titles seemed high to me too but that was the amount of releases spelled out on a monthly chart presented by Richard Doherty for the HD DVD Promotions Group at last week’s Media-Tech confab in Long Beach, Calif."

The Media-Tech event page contains links to several BD and HD DVD presentations. Among them, the presentation by Richard Doherty.

And sure enough, slide 4 is as follows:



First of all, The HMM writer made a mistake transcribing the numbers. They are as follows:

April 6
May 20
June 29
July 43 (not 73 as on HMM)
Aug 57
Sep 77
Oct 115
Nov 185
Dec 240+

So you see continually increasing numbers. Also, the April figure is way low for last April (there were over a dozen HD DVD titles released in April 2007 in the US only). Also a list that begins in April with a 6 instantly points to... where? Yes, my friends, to last year. Come on, I bet most of you know by heart the six HD DVDs that got released in April (Last Samurai, Serenity, Phantom of the Opera, Million Dollar Baby, Apollo 13 and Doom ).

The conclusion: those are


CUMULATIVE
WORLDWIDE
2006
NUMBERS


The target for 2007 is unchanged at "600+ worldwide" (see slide 5).

I'd love to know how they're intending to maintain quality standards when they're releasing sixty titles a week!

(Of course, this won't be an issue for Studio Canal, who don't have any quality standards).

Don't forget Ban Dai 'Now using 50gig disks to fit 300 episodes of DragonBall Z at 210i resolution'

Oh, I get it!
It's cumulative, ala 9 in Jun., 20 in Sept., & 70 in Nov. for a 240+ total in Dec. ;-)

Thanks Juan.