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

[Dave Moritz]

One thing that Sony has over Toshiba marketing wise. Is that when you see an advertisement for a movie. Sometime you hear ether coming soon or available on DVD and Blu-ray. I can't say I have seen or heard a comercial for a movie where they even mention HD-DVD at all. On top of that there is a local retailer Showcase Home Entertainment. They are playing comercials advertising HDTV's and Samsung's Blu-ray. So I don't think Toshiba is doing alot of radio adds or telivision adds.

 

[Larry Sutliff]

And if BD continues to be inferior to HD DVD, how is this good news for anyone other than the bean counters and stockholders?

This has gone beyond wanting a superior format and has turned into "right at all costs" for a lot of the BD supporters.

 

[Pete T C]

Bingo!

 

[Harminder]

I remember just last month how Blu-Ray supports would say, "just wait until BD50 comes out, it'll go head-to-head with HD-DVD and then some!" Suddenly now BD25's are a non-issue?

10% of North American consumers have an HDTV. An even lower percentage have an HDMI capable HDTV. Now to play Blu-Ray at its full potential on a PS3 (full potential as in eventual copy-protected Blu-Ray movies and upconversion of SD-DVD's) you need to buy the more expensive $699 PS3 model which has HDMI output. IMO PS3 is going to be a non-issue when it comes to Blu-Ray movies. $70-80 for a PS3 game PLUS $25-30 for a movie? When I was a student in university I had a hard time paying for my SD-DVD's by themselves let alone buy games for my XBOX as well.

Fox can spin the news all they want, but I don't think consumers are going to launch Blu-Ray to the finishing line with PS3.

 

[PeterTHX]

Irony is that the HD DVD supporters turn out in force to turn a BD thread into another flamewar. :frowning:

 

[Rob_Walton]

I'm curious why HDMI is considered an issue with the cheaper PS3 but not apparently with the Tosh HD-A1.

Unless HD DVD can get some major new announcements of support from CE companies and movie studios over the next few months the game may be up for that format. By the end of the year all the studios bar one will be releasing movies on BD, and there will be multiple players from the top CE brand names, plus the PS3. HD DVD needs to start making deals now to have them in place come Christmas time.

From a studio perspective things are looking pretty bleak for Toshiba's format: here's another Studio President fully behind Blu-ray - Bob Chapek, President, Buena Vista Home Entertainment

 

[Robert Crawford]

Just to balance that argument, if you read the pages 3 and 4 of that same linked article you will see comments from Stephen Nickerson from Warner espousing the virtues of HD DVD.

It never ends, the spin control and the war of words between the two groups. In the end, the industry can only do so much, but it's going to be the consumers who will choose the winner of this format war. However, that won't happen until a good long while after this year's Holiday season and the war's effect could be rather damaging to the market penetration for whichever format finally gets the final upperhand.





Crawdaddy

 

[Joseph Bolus]

Actually, the Tosh HD-A1 *does* provide for full support of current HDMI standards. In fact, without the HDMI it wouldn't be able to easily provide for the good upconverting of SD-DVD that it's touted for.

OTOH, the basic version of the PS3 will not provide for *any kind* of HDMI support. And this is the version of the PS3 which will make up the bulk of the "millions of installed players" that the Fox executive is talking about here.

As far as the studio support: That, admittedly, is the part of the equation that could ultimately spell doom for the HD-DVD format. It's still hard to believe though that a format that is providing better quality than the opposition at a significantly lesser price point would be immediately obliterated in the marketplace just due to a lack of software support. I guess we'll soon find out, though! There is actually no real basis of comparison for this that I can think of in the recent history of "gadget-based" free commerce. In the case of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, it was a better product than the PC, but it also cost significantly more initially. More importantly, it didn't have decent software development tools available for third party developers. The Betamax machine in 1979 provided slightly better video than VHS; but, again, cost about the same or more than its VHS counterpart. And VHS had the edge in recording time (four hours at LP speed on standard T-120 tapes.) The consumer wanted and needed longer recording times for the time delaying of over-the-air broadcasts which was the main selling point of the video tape formats back then. HD-DVD has the better price point, the current better video quality, the developer tools (VC-1 encoding), and the current support of the majority of the early adopters; and yet this executive from Fox is claiming that "the format war is really only going on in the press."

One thing is for sure: This is going to be very interesting!

 

[Robert Crawford]

Really? Actually the discussion turned in another direction about Fox and Blu-ray because somebody provided an article in which Fox executive made some assertions about the outcome of the format war in which many members disagree with them. Now, you might not agree or like what they have to say, but people are just responding to those comments even if some of them are crude humor to say the least.

After further reflection, since the discussion has changed from being about Fox's initial Blu-ray releases to a Fox executive's public comments about Blu-ray winning this format war, I think those posts should be placed in their own thread.




Crawdaddy

 

[Rob_Walton]

There are a number of other things which seem likely to change by Christmas, not least of which is the use of VC-1/AVC to encode BD discs. That should rectify any disparity in PQ while the advent of BD50s (which can't be too far off if their recordable varients are already on the market) may usher in some of these fancy new extras studios have been hyping up. As you say, though, we'll see what actually comes to pass.

 

[Rob_Walton]

Very true, but on the other hand Steve has been forced to support BD almost immediately after launch, while Fox's last word on HD DVD was that they had "no plans to release on that format". (I'd post the link if I could remember where it was). Regardless of the press copy, or spin control as you say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And right now Toshiba's industry support sits at exactly the same level as it was before they launched their product, despite a generally favourable press. In terms of momentum, and with their competition looming ever larger on the horizon, that's not moved them into a particularly strong position. Remember that the HD DVD format was predicted (mainly by Toshiba) to be alone on the market for 6months to a year, which has now not been realised. That means they have less time to convince the various studios and CE companies that their baby is worth taking a punt on. Articles such as the one for this thread and the Fox one (not to mention Sony/MGM) don't suggest studios are being pursaded to jump on the HD DVD bandwagon.

Without more support it seems unlikely the general public will back the HD DVD format over its competition, or even over standard def.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Let's be candid without the cheerleading of our preferred format. The studios are waiting for the clouds to clear a bit in spite of what they're saying publicly about this format war. During the first quarter of 2007, both, the manufacturers and studios will have completed some market analysis which either supports HD DVD making some inroads into gathering greater industry support or not getting such support in which case the war will be decided by attrition in Blu-ray's favor. The sales of software and standalone players beyond game machines will factor into whether those companies stay the course or change their direction. To make use of an old quote, the companies will follow the money and we, the consumers will blaze that trail for them with our dollars.




Crawdaddy

 

[Rob_Walton]

Many studios have already made investments in new authoring technology, and/or new masters for their movies, not to mention the HD extras Disney has been suggesting it'll have on BD. The time for initial market research has already passed, and we're reading the studio reactions to that information in these articles. Of course there'll be on-going monitoring of the situation, which certainly doesn't have to wait for the 1Q '07 to get started, my guess is it's already happening. If the CE companies wait untill then to conduct some analysis of the situation we won't be seeing any (unique) new players for a very long time! As to studios following where the consumer dollars lead them, that's a circular argument since many consumer dollars will travel where the studios lead them. "It's about the movies!" DVHS illustrates this pretty well.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Companies continously conduct market analysis, but the market is too green at the moment to tell them if consumers are buying into one format or the other. So the next 2-3 quarters will offer them even more insight into answering that question more correctly, thus possibly affecting their future marketing plans. Also, don't underestimate the power of the consumers because the studios can lead us to water, but that doesn't mean we will drink what they're currently serving us. There's been too many documented business cases when companies made mistakes in supporting one business model over another and then have to reverse their field to give the buying public what they're actually buying. As an automotive manager for 30 years I've seen it happen more times than I care to remember.

 

[RobertR]

Did you REALLY think that people wouldn't comment on/challenge the statement from the Fox exec? Do you really think people are somehow unreasonable for doing so?

 

[Rob_Walton]

New Coke would probably be the classic example I guess (and right now possibly Coke Zero). This is a slightly different situation though, since the public have shown for many decades their desire to watch certain movies, and now some of the extras associated with them. What is unclear is how much interest there is in higher quality reproductions of these titles and how much more the consumer is willing to spend to obtain these advantages. But if you start from base assumptions that the consumer wants to watch the movies they enjoy it follows that companies refusing to put those movies on a particular format will ensure some/many consumers will not buy into that format. Which is a vicious circle, since the fewer buy in the less incentive there is for the studio to release for such a small market. HD DVD neads to create a virtuous circle where more and more people buy into their format and more and more movies are released for it. So far there's no indication that the numbers buying in are sufficient to alter the course of the format dispute, since no new studio has announced releases for that format. And these press releases seem to indicate the other studios are not looking to jump into the HD DVD format any time soon.

 

[Pete T C]

Sounds like DIVX all over again! Fox picking sides because of more restrictive copy protection (BD+) once again. Like Standard DVD, I am guessing Fox will be the last to join HD DVD.

 

[Marc Colella]

Pete,

love the signature!

I fully support it and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

[Pete T C]

Ha! I actually will be starting a blog-type page, which will launch by 8/16/06 - I'm sure you can guess the theme. I'll keep you posted

 

[Sean Bryan]

I thought the two PS3 prices were $499 and $599? Is the HDMI PS3 actually $700? That would be nuts as $600 is really pushing it too far for most.