High Def format war

[Caspian]

Re: High Def format war

Forgot to post this this weekend.

So, HD-DVD had 4 months head start on BD, and in less than a year, BD has officially surpassed HD-DVD overall sales.
Btw, this information is from Nielsen.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: High Def format war

I think the current estimate is that Blu-ray Disc accounts for something insane like 70% of HD sales at the moment. It's been consistently outselling HD-DVD on a 3:1 basis since January.

Who knows what'll happen in the next couple months. Casino Royale ships March 13th, with titles like both Pirates of the Caribbean films, both Spiderman movies, and well, the rest of Sony's massive list of #1 hits from 2006 making the way to BD this summer.

[Caspian]

Re: High Def format war

Yeah, HD-DVD really needs Universal to stay exclusive and release Jurassic Park and the Back to the Future series for this summer if they want to stay in this thing.

[Icemage]

Re: High Def format war

Yeah, HD-DVD really needs Universal to stay exclusive and release Jurassic Park and the Back to the Future series for this summer if they want to stay in this thing.

Jaws, E.T, Back to the Future and Jurassic Park are all controlled by Steven Spielberg.

Considering that The HD DVD Promotional Group was forced to publicly apologize for putting Spielberg titles in their Upcoming Releases List last month, I sincerely doubt any of these titles are going to arrive on HD DVD any time soon for Universal.


Icemage

[Caspian]

Re: High Def format war

Lol.
HD-DVD really needs something of a miracle right now. Isn't Dreamworks the other big studio with exclusive releases for HD-DVD?
I guess its also possible they're just exclusive with them in name only and are waiting to see what happens in the coming months.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: High Def format war

Spielberg and Lucas are both taking their time with their HD releases to see which format comes out on top. I dunno if either of them have any choice now though, since both their respective studios are exclusive to one of the two formats. (With a few exceptions like the Indy films, which are Blu-ray exclusive)

[Toksyuryel]

Re: High Def format war

I will not be supporting either of these formats, as they are both sharply crippled by DRM. Try looking up something called "analog sunset", you may be amazed at some of the ways hollywood is trying to control consumers. Personally, I'm gonna hold out for HVD to get cheaper (which WILL blow blu-ray out of the water when it's finally affordable).

[Raydeus]

Re: High Def format war

Personally, I'm gonna hold out for HVD to get cheaper (which WILL blow blu-ray out of the water when it's finally affordable).

By the time HVD is aviable for the average consumer you'll be looking at the next generation of Video, it's like someone saying 15 years ago that they weren't gonna buy a VHS because they were gonna wait till the DVD technology blew tapes out of the water.

But it is your call, so good luck.

[Toksyuryel]

Re: High Def format war

It's closer than you think, they should start rolling out the affordable mass-market models in about 2010 according to the information I read (although they were also supposed to roll out with some prototypes back in the tail end of 2006, and they missed those.... But I doubt we'll have to wait any later than 2012 to enjoy HVD; 'til then DVD suits me fine.) All that remains is making sure the DRM people keep their grubby little mitts off it.

[fastcart]

Re: High Def format war

All that remains is making sure the DRM people keep their grubby little mitts off it.

They won't. It's more a matter of how much grub they leave on it.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: High Def format war

2010 sounds unlikely, as that's probably when average consumers will start picking up interest in Blu-ray and HD-DVD (or maybe just one of the two). In my opinion, HVD will be too little, too late, at least to compete directly with the current three formats. If my understanding of the format is correct (and please correct me if I'm that far out of the ballpark) the high-capacity (2TB+) discs are meant for mass data storage, whereas the read-only discs will be around 100GB. Since the format's still in the R&A phase and currently costs around $120 per disc to produce, it's unlikely that it'll be a viable format for the average consumer until after 2015, and I'd guess that digital distribution would have gained enough steam to become a standard by then.

[Raydeus]

Re: High Def format war

I'd love it if digital distribution was at that point by 2015, it will all depend on how fast domestic priced connections are by then.

Still, unless there's a massive leap forward in comunications/broadband prices I think HVD technology could still be a viable mean for the next generation of media distribution by the year 2015-ish, but yep, not before then.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: High Def format war

I think it's looking too far ahead in advance, but a rivalry between HVD and Digital Distribution for mainstream standard status post-2015 seems very, very likely.

[Caspian]

Re: High Def format war

I meant to post this last week, and I'll find the link later (though its still only rumor):
Apparently some higher-ups at Universal are expressing some thoughts about maybe being HD-DVD exclusive isn't such a good idea.

Possible good news for a quick end to the format war. Now to only see if its true and they start supporting BD soon.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: High Def format war

I read about internal issues in Universal's offices, but apparently they've cleared everything up. Reports indicate that they still plan to support HD-DVD only through 2007.

They say it's because right now they have the strongest market on HD-DVD, and it doesn't appear that switching to neutral support would be more profitable. Until it becomes evident that neutrality would be more profitable than being the major supporter of HD-DVD (their sales are huge compared to other HD-DVD studios), they'll remain HD-DVD-only.

However, that's still a big change. Before, they would deny any possibility of ever going neutral. Now they act as if it's only a matter of time. When it does happen, the format war is over. No format, even HD-DVD, could hope to compete with Blu-ray if it gains support of Universal, as it'd have support of all major film studios, with exclusive support of 3 of them.