A retailer's comment on HD (1 Viewer)

[Austan]

Whats the estimated numbers for stand alone HD DVD and Blu Ray players?

 

[Shawn Perron]

Actually, the best estimate on Blu-Ray sales is about 75k discs per week since January, based on NPD numbers and things the various studios have reported. So Blu-Ray moved about 300k of discs in January. At the rate the software is currently selling, last years sales are pretty much not even in consideration anymore. Together Blu-Ray and HD-DVD sold more discs in about a month and a half then moved the entire year before. Basically last year is a non factor at this point. Things are likely to be even more lopsided this month since there is a 4 week period with not a single new HD-DVD release (nothing between 2/27 and 3/27).

We have no hard numbers on stand alone players sold, but last NPD reported in February Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were even on the stand alone units.

Everything is currently trending towards Blu-Ray steadily eclipsing HD-DVD. It's nice the HD-DVD is going to finally get moving again starting at the very end of March, but it's starting to approach the point where it's looking like it may be a little too late. Once the perception that Blu-Ray is doing so well that it can't lose starts to take hold, it' going to be hard to combat. As any marketing guy will tell you, perception is far more important then reality when it comes to selling a product. This is why Bose sells so well even though you can buy higher performance equipment for less money.

 

[Norman Matthews]

So that's 1.5 discs per month for those 20% of PS3 owners who are buying Blu-Ray discs...assuming no standalone owner has bought a single disc.

The numbers for recent sales trends just don't do the things that Fozziwig wants to do with them.

 

[Mark Davenport]

Personally I could care less about the format war. I'm neutral now, I picked up the HD-DVD 360 add-on for $200 and now have 70 HD-DVD's. A couple of weeks ago I picked up the Panasonic BLU-RAY player for 800$ and now have about 15 BLU-RAY movies.

I don't care who wins or if no one wins what I own now won't explode if neither catch on. Right now my investment was worth it as the vast majority of my all time Favorite movies are on one of the formats and by the end of the year all of my top 15 movies will be either on HD-DVD or BLU-RAY.

After that they could stop releasing discs in both formats and the money I've spent will still be worth it.

People get to caught up in trying to support the "WINNING" format, I don't care, my discs and players will continue to work and give me a great movie experience long after the format war is determined.

For some older catalog titles and recent movies filmed in 1080P these are the best we can possibly get at a consumer level. Most studios are not going to go back and re do their masters to a resolution higher than 1080P for catalog titles and newer films done with 1080P HD cameras can't get any higher anyway.

For me I'm investing in master quality versions of my all time favorite films.

 

[MarkHastings]

Resolution may not be an issue for now, but compression is. Sure, we probably won't be able to get anything higher resolution than 1080p for some time now, but HD compression techniques can always be improved upon.

 

[Mark Davenport]

"but HD compression techniques can always be improved upon"

The current disc technologies would allow of improvement of codecs without needing a completely new format. Even if we were eventually given a format with completely lossless raw HD video on a disc, we're talking discs that could hold 20 terabytes or more the difference would be not be night and day with current encodes using VC-1 or AVC.

 

[MarkHastings]

Yeah, but your old discs would still be using old compression techniques.

Unless I missunderstood you comment, it sounded like you were saying that the current HD releases can't be improved upon?

 

[Mark Davenport]

"Yeah, but your old discs would still be using old compression techniques."

I'll buy new discs on one of the current fomrats.

"Unless I missunderstood you comment, it sounded like you were saying that the current HD releases can't be improved upon?"

No I'm mainly saying that both HD-DVD and BLU-RAY have the capable technology with each format to give us as good as we are ever going to get for these movies on a home format.

Knowing this, both are safe investments for me. If any of the discs I currently own on HD-DVD or BLU-RAY are DRAMATICALLY improved later down the line I'll simply buy it and sell my old copy. I've double dipped in DVD because of this I'll do the same for HD-DVD or BLU-RAY.

I would suspect most of the quality upper tier titles on HD-DVD and BLU-RAY will not be improved upon enough to warrant another purchase.

 

[Fozziwig]

When you say "over the life of the format!" you make it sound like the PS3 is the old man of the console market! Impressive piece of spin, I tip my hat to you. PS3 has been in the marketplace a little over 3 months - well, Ok, 15 weeks. In those weeks Blu-ray sales have completely reversed a 2:1 HD DVD advantage to a 2:1 Blu-ray advantage and also surpassed the total volume of HD DVD.

Whichever way you want to cut it PS3 is having a significant impact on Blu-ray movie sales. Please keep in mind that more than 150,000 new HD DVD customers have arrived on the scene since December 2006. They have a choice of 200 titles (roughly same as a Blu-ray customer) so even with extra titles on the Blu-ray side sales should not be 100% higher for Blu-ray - unless those PS3 buyers come into play.

I have estimated that 400,000 PS3 owners bought Blu-ray movies, but I didn't say how often those 400,000 bought discs did I? We can play these 'attach rate' games forever, but if those PS3 owners typically buy 6 movies a year then that's only 0.5 a month (about 50,000 a week). In February 250,000 Blu-ray discs were sold. That's 200,000 to my 400,000 PS3 owners buying 0.5 each and the rest to the standalone crowd.

Now we can argue about an average of 6 a year not being 'regular' but that's another debate. Perhaps you would be kind enough to give me a typical annual Blu-ray movie purchase rate for PS3 owners that would not constitute a disastrous analysis? Is it 10, 20, 30?

Even if you dismiss my argument, illogically in my view, as disastrous then how about the 22% figure stated by the Paramount consultant? Presumably his analysis is only half as disastrous as mine? In his view PS3 owners who are Blu-ray movie buyers are presently buying at double the rate I suggest.

It's quite easy to take pot shots at figures and belittle arguments from your armchair, but if PS3 owners on average buy 6 Blu-ray movies a year (and IMPORTANTLY that only applies if sales volumes remain static at around 60-70,000/wk - what if they go up to 100,000+/wk) then I am close in my analysis on current rates. If buying rates for Blu-ray go above 100,000/wk then that would demonstrate that PS3 Blu-ray buyers have a higher annualised purchase rate than 6. But, of course the PS3 population would grow as well so that complicates the argument further.

Please post some figures that demonstrate where I am wrong. For example say something like "I think XX% of PS3 owners buy Blu-ray movies on a regular basis and XX movies a year constitutes a regular purchase pattern". Then I can take pot shots at your numbers.

 

[Norman Matthews]

Can we agree that someone who purchases a standalone player is likely to also purchase discs? Unlike with the PS3, there's no other reason to buy it, other than just liking the way it looks on your shelf. So what do you think is a reasonable number of discs to assume the average standalone owner has purchased? I don't think 3.5 discs is absurd. If anything, it's absurdly low. If you've spent up to $1000 on your player, you've probably bought at least that many discs. I say 3.5 discs, because at an estimated 100,000 standalones having been purchased, that leaves 400,000 discs to account for in Shawn's 744,000 figure. That's one disc apiece for every PS3 owner you've labeled as using their PS3 as a Blu-Ray player. One whole disc!

That's sampling, nothing more. By that logic, I'm a Taco Bell Cunchwrap Supreme consumer, even though I only tried it once out of curiosity and found it repulsive.

I don't dispute that the PS3 has had an effect -- they are, after all, a million more players out there in homes -- but the scope, scale, and longevity of that effect is yet to be determined. Your overstatement of it at this point in time is still to rise above, yes, disastrous.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Video Business Magazine has an interesting take on this whole issue. Here are a couple of pull-quotes:


"Research, not speculation..." What a concept!

Regards,

Joe

 

[Norman Matthews]

I just realized that the quote that that ~20% figure comes from actually says, "...just 22% of PS3 households purchase movies regularly."

That's not HD movies, that's just movies in general. Now they've gotta turn those movie consumers into HD consumers, just like with the DVD-buying public at large. And they're starting at only 22%.

Ever cloudier...

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

To say nothing of how reliable NPD is as a source, given that at least 70% of their repsondents report purchasing imaginary hi-def DVDs.

Did someone say, "Lies, damned lies and statistics"?

Regards,

Joe