HD-DVD Beating Bluray in Europe

[Kamalot]

Next-gen.biz is reporting that HD-DVD is winning the HD movie format war in Europe (http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5168&Itemid=2) instead of the rival Bluray technology according to a Financial Times report (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5ab0e0e2-e636-11db-9fcf-000b5df10621,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=htt p%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F5ab0e0e2-e636-11db-9fcf-000b5df10621.html&_i_referer=) on the subject. Reasons cited for the HD-DVD preference include, "a strong support programme by the HD-DVD camp and concerns over the price of Blu-Ray technology."

...a Financial Times report claims that HD-DVD appears to be winning the next generation format war in Europe, where 35 films from independent studios such as Studio Canal, Pathe and Filmax have been released on HD-DVD, opposed to just 10 released on Blu-ray.

While admitting that there is a long way to go before a clear victor emerges, Rodolphe Buet, Studio Canal's chief marketing officer, states that the marketing strategies employed by HD-DVD backers were far superior to those of Blu-ray manufacturers.Could it be possible that Bluray wins in one region while HD-DVD is dominant in other regions?

[Gorvi]

So far HD-DVD seems to be winning only in Europe. I'm not sure about other regions, but I know that BR is pretty much the only HD format in Japan, a lot of Australian retailers aren't even selling HD-DVD, and BR pulling ahead pretty steadily in the US. Europe is a pretty big market, though, good for the HD-DVD guys.

[IrishWhiskey]

Read a story recently about how even when people are taking about one format "beating" the other for the month, its a success measured in a few hundred titles or less, not a few thousand or tens of thousands.

In other words both formats still exist only on the fringes, and given how small the numbers are, a numbers advantage by either is hardly an endgame. PS3 alone is not enough to ensure the dominance of BluRay, nor are these figures for HD-DVD. So in short, I'm going to do what 99% of people are doing. Which is to ignore both.

[torrefaction]

That would be the absolute worst scenario I could possibly imagine.

[fitbabits]

I vote we wait till Fall/Winter 2007 before we declare a "leader". By that time, all the summer blockbuster hard hitters will have been released on their respective format (HD-DVD, Blu-ray) and there will (hopefully) be a better install base of players, from the standalone HD-DVD players (or the Xbox 360 add-on) to the PS3 with it's Blu-ray player. The month-to-month figures are not really a reliable indicator.

[Kamalot]

I vote we wait till Fall/Winter 2007 before we declare a "winner". By that time, all the summer blockbuster hard hitters will have been released on their respective format (HD-DVD, Blu-ray) and there will (hopefully) be a better install base of players, from the standalone HD-DVD players (or the Xbox 360 add-on) to the PS3 with it's Blu-ray player. The month-to-month figures are not really a reliable indicator.
I plan on waiting a LOT longer than this fall before I jump on one of these Laserdisc formats.

[Flatpicker]

Could it be possible that Bluray wins in one region while HD-DVD is dominant in other regions?

Wouldn't be the first time.
Didn't VCD take off in Asia as a DVD alternative?

[fitbabits]

I plan on waiting a LOT longer than this fall before I jump on one of these Laserdisc formats.
I already have the HD-DVD add-on and am loving the quality of the discs I own (Batman Begins, Bourne Supremacy, King Kong, etc.), but I'm waiting for a PS3 price drop before I invest in Blu-ray.

[tacitus]

I vote we wait till Fall/Winter 2007 before we declare a "winner". By that time, all the summer blockbuster hard hitters will have been released on their respective format (HD-DVD, Blu-ray) and there will (hopefully) be a better install base of players, from the standalone HD-DVD players (or the Xbox 360 add-on) to the PS3 with it's Blu-ray player. The month-to-month figures are not really a reliable indicator.
I think the wait period should be Fall/Winter 2008 or 2009 at the earliest - neither one are setting the world on fire. I probably won't get a next gen player until 2012 or later.

[fitbabits]

I think the wait period should be Fall/Winter 2008 or 2009 at the earliest - neither one are setting the world on fire. I probably won't get a next gen player until 2012 or later.
Darn it, I meant to write "leader", not winner. I'll edit my post.

[Housemixer]

I think the title is a bit misleading. The news post sounds more like HD-DVD is the format the consumer prefers, when in fact it's only about some studios chosing to release their stuff on HD-DVD. When you go into a store today you'll get about the same amount of BD/HD-DVD movies. In the end the consumer decides what format takes off (but like many others I think HDDVD/BD will go the way of the laserdisc).

[Limech]

For many weeks now, for what I can remember, the 2 big electronic stores here in Canada (Best Buy and Future Shop, owned by BB) are not advertising any HD-DVD titles in their flyers but plenty of BR titles.
http://bestbuy.flyerservices.com/cached_pages/BBUY_PU133E_120_eng_PG0005.asp?h=yrfmPp6OxDWZXNhvM btI8lS8Ezdehg%253D%253D&Ref=../cached_pages/BBUY_PU133E_120_eng_PG0004.asp&T=2&SID=456335465&C=k2m2v7

I suspect this plants the idea that Blue-ray is the only player in town in many people reading those, even if they have no plan in buying any for a long time to come.

[fitbabits]

For many weeks now, for what I can remember, the 2 big electronic stores here in Canada (Best Buy and Future Shop, owned by BB) are not advertising any HD-DVD titles in their flyers but plenty of BR titles.
http://bestbuy.flyerservices.com/cached_pages/BBUY_PU133E_120_eng_PG0005.asp?h=yrfmPp6OxDWZXNhvM btI8lS8Ezdehg%253D%253D&Ref=../cached_pages/BBUY_PU133E_120_eng_PG0004.asp&T=2&SID=456335465&C=k2m2v7

I suspect this plants the idea that Blue-ray is the only player in town in many people reading those, even if they have no plan in buying any for a long time to come.
It's different in the USA, then, as evidenced by this page (http://tinyurl.com/2c2r63).

Worth noting is that Best Buy ran a similar promotion with Blu-ray a while ago which resulted in an upsurge in Blu-ray sales.

[silv]

It's worth noting that the sales of these formats is extremely low. A shift of a few hundred titles either way is enough to significantly alter the charts. (Especially the Weekly charts)

I would say that with volumes this low it is way too early to start declaring any sort of winner.

[Yeti2005]

This war will unfortunately last for years (I'm predicting at least 2-3 before a clear winner). Either format isn't going to truly take off (like DVD) until Joe Average can go into Walmart and pick up a player for $100-150.

[Zacharai]

I already have the HD-DVD add-on and am loving the quality of the discs I own (Batman Begins, Bourne Supremacy, King Kong, etc.), but I'm waiting for a PS3 price drop before I invest in Blu-ray.
I'm very much regretting getting the HD-DVD attachment. There are so few movies out in HD that I'd like to own (the three you mentioned were rentable, but since Franka Potente dies in Bourne Supremacy, it's pointless to watch any more), and old movies just aren't getting converted to HD format.

Right now Blu-Ray is simply doing better because of Sony's strategy of packaging it in with the PS3. This is extremely disappointing for me to acknowledge.

[Kamalot]

Right now Blu-Ray is simply doing better because of Sony's strategy of packaging it in with the PS3. This is extremely disappointing for me to acknowledge.
PS3 is a help to Bluray, but is Bluray a help to PS3?

[Rogue_hunter]

having just traveled to London for spring break, i can say that i never saw ANY HD-DVDs in the multitude of game/music/movie shops, primarily HMV, that i went into (i was trying to find a boxed copy of DEFCON, but no luck :( ). blu-ray and Sony were everywhere, with a few promotions for blu-ray.
inquiring about HD-DVD led to blank stares, or a response like "you mean blu-ray, right?", with none of the store employees that i encountered even registering that there is an alternative format to blu-ray. i can also say that i saw, first hand, people buying blu-ray movies, along side the regular dvds.

(total side note, everything is total rip-offs compared to US prices. cds were in the ₤10, and dvd/blu-ray at ₤20-30. games were all ₤40 and up, with all the 360 games i saw at ₤60. after converting to US Dollars at roughly $2 to ₤1, most stuff was double what we pay here. what is even more puzzling is how people can actually live there with, from what i've read and what friends that live there have told me, reduced salaries.)

this article seems counter to what i've personally seen, but again, i don't live there. the quote in the original post only says how many movies have been published recently, not sold. and the article is only for subscribers, so this really seems like speculation, and not actual sales numbers or any solid information. and still, it's too early to declare any "winner", purely speculatory.

[KoenigMKII]

PS3 is a help to Bluray, but is Bluray a help to PS3?

Not in the UK.

RFOM and Motorstorm dropped out of the UK all software Top ten. Since they are the banner titles for the PS3 in the UK after the recent launch here you can make a reasonable deduction that the PS3 suffered another heavy drop in sales in the week ending 7th April.

Chart-track won't be telling us the numbers for the console, but the same pattern of a declining sales on a slow exponental downward track that occured in Japan and the US is now being replicated in the UK.

The PS3 is tanking in terms of sales just as the 360 is entering a golden period of classic titles, like Mass Effect.

A console with a $200 price premium due to Blu-ray, and no exclusive titles for the next 5-6 months? Dead in the water.

Sony has to fund this campaign, and its going to abolutely cripple them financially. Their financial figures for the first calender quarter of 2007 are going to scare the hell out of their US share holders.

The competing Toshiba players A2 and AX2 both have a 5 HD-DVD free coupon claim offer on Amazon lasting till the end of July, and are about 7 and 14 in the DVD player sales ranking. They are about 120 (for the cheaper A2) on the electronics sales rank, the nearest Blu-ray player is 1,200.

Zacharai, hold onto that HD-DVD add on, and wait before you pony up cash on a PS3 or Blu-ray stand alone. The whole Sony house of cards is built on sand foundations.

[Jack B]

Has anyone any monthly sales data comparing VHS, DVD, Digital Downloads, HD-DVD and BluRay?

I'm still betting digital distribution slows the adoption of HD-DVD and BluRay to the point where the HD format may peak in about 2-3 years and never actually catch up to traditional DVD's.

[bapenguin]

So far HD-DVD seems to be winning only in Europe. I'm not sure about other regions, but I know that BR is pretty much the only HD format in Japan, a lot of Australian retailers aren't even selling HD-DVD, and BR pulling ahead pretty steadily in the US. Europe is a pretty big market, though, good for the HD-DVD guys.

From what I've heard the sales numbers for March are a flip flop of the previous. Of course, HD-DVD had more releases during the month. You can't really judge anymore because the sales all depend on who releases what during the month. Honestly I don't think there's ever going to be a clear winner.

[Vandenh]

Both formats are totally dead at the moment compared to DVD. It will take 5 years before we know who is selling well on these "next gen" formats. The only Bluray or HD-DVD disk I have seen in Europe have been more for show than for anything else.

[Fubl]

also to not that most of these numbers fluctuate depending on who has the bigger release. Im sure after the 25th of may there will be a huge upswing in HDdvd: matrix trilogy, flag of our fathers. Course Blu ray is putting uot the first two Pirates of the caribean movies to go head to head. Also i think that With DVD we had DVDs that sold DVD as a Format with advanced look compared to the Vhs. I dont think there has been that WOW factor for the newer formats

[maja]

If it where not for the mere fact that the 360 HD DVD add on only cost $200 I would probably be sitting on the fence waiting for the prices of the HD and BD players to go down. But $200 really isn't that much for me to spend concidering the wife and I watch a lot of movies at home and we have an HDTV. So I went ahead and bought the add-on and signed up to NetFlix where I rent the HD DVDs. Up to now I am very satisfied with my purchase. If Blue Ray had a player for $300 I would buy it, too. But I'm not spending $600 on a PS3 just to watch movies. And I don't need another game system either. I'll just have to wait for some cheaper BD players to come out down the road. Oh and I'm really excited about the Matrix on HD DVD! Can't wait!

[Johan]

This whole format war is a waste of money. Amazingly enough, it's only been in the past few years that DVD even passed VHS. The vast majority of consumers are concerned with ONE thing above all else; PRICE.

It's a lot cheaper to get a SD CRT TV (a big one for a few hundred dollars) and play DVDs (which look just fine, thank you, for most people). Yes, HD TVs are selling in increasing quantities, but the vast majority of people are price conscious above all else.

[Tyrant]

It's worth noting that the sales of these formats is extremely low. A shift of a few hundred titles either way is enough to significantly alter the charts. (Especially the Weekly charts)

I would say that with volumes this low it is way too early to start declaring any sort of winner.

This Sony sponsored research report (http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/564) seems to back up your statement with regards to sales. I mean, when all it takes is ~1000 copies sold to hit the top ten list for a given week, things don't like too bright in the land of HD media.

[Schnoogs]

Laserdisc formats.

Laserdisc format? I know what you mean but to be honest NOONE refers to them as that.

[KingGorilla]

Laserdisc format? I know what you mean but to be honest NOONE refers to them as that.
Totally...they are Beta max.

[Schnoogs]

Amazingly enough, it's only been in the past few years that DVD even passed VHS..

Actually 2001 was the last year that VHS outsold DVD. Thats about 5-6 years after DVD debuted.

So perhaps in 2012 we'll see HD discs outsell DVDs. Who knows though...maybe by then I'll have a 100megabit internet connection and a petabyte storage device to download and store all of these movies :p

[Jack B]

Actually 2001 was the last year that VHS outsold DVD. Thats about 5-6 years after DVD debuted.

So perhaps in 2012 we'll see HD discs outsell DVDs. Who knows though...maybe by then I'll have a 100megabit internet connection and a petabyte storage device to download and store all of these movies :p

Hmmm, we had this discussion about 1 year ago and I was shocked to find out it was around 2004. Whoever found the info had a link. I remember it being around 10 years after VHS came out.

Do you have a link? My memory isn't perfect, but I'm pretty sure it was around 2004.

[Schnoogs]

Hmmm, we had this discussion about 1 year ago and I was shocked to find out it was around 2004. Whoever found the info had a link. I remember it being around 10 years after VHS came out.

Do you have a link? My memory isn't perfect, but I'm pretty sure it was around 2004.


Heres the article (http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/01/07/daily34.html) I read.

Consumers spent $4.6 billion buying DVDs, 2.4 times more than in 2000, an increase that put DVD purchases ahead of VHS purchases for the first time despite an installed player base of 25 million DVD households versus a VCR installed player base of 96 million households, it says. Consumer spending on DVD purchases and rental combined was $6 billion, 2.4 times more than in 2000. Rentals of VHS tapes still exceed rentals of DVDs, however.

[Jack B]

Heres the article (http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/01/07/daily34.html) I read.

Thanks for looking that up. It might have been 2004 for unit sales of DVD's to pass VHS.

The gist of the discussions we had last year centered around DVD was a significantly bigger advancement vs VHS tapes than HD discs over DVD discs. Whatever the adoption rate for HD discs it would likely be lower (ie slower) than for DVD's, because the leap in convenience/technology etc, isn't as great and DVD's didn't have the competition of digital downloads either.

[Vanthar]

I think this article is really reaching. Some independent studios released a bunch of movies for HD-DVD and not Blu-Ray. The major studios are still behind Blu-Ray. This has nothing to do with sales either so it's really hard to say HD-DVD is beating Blu-Ray.

[NeoSuplex]

HD-DVD is only ahead because the PS3 just came out there... Wait for it.
Meh... The Internet will win the format wars anyway.

[roboninja]

I think neither camp is winning by any significant margin as the actual numbers are too low. They are trying their hardest to create another DVD gold rush, getting us to rebuy all our movies, but this will not work. These discs do not have the same amount of wow factor over DVDs as DVDs had over VHS. I expect it will be the next big tech that will cause users to switch. These players will just fragment the current movie market.

[tacitus]

I think neither camp is winning by any significant margin as the actual numbers are too low. They are trying their hardest to create another DVD gold rush, getting us to rebuy all our movies, but this will not work. These discs do not have the same amount of wow factor over DVDs as DVDs had over VHS. I expect it will be the next big tech that will cause users to switch. These players will just fragment the current movie market.

Yes the really stupid thing is that it might have worked had they not limited most HD output to HDMI - I have a HD-TV with 1 HDMI and like 4 component inputs. Frankly I don't want to deal with an HDMI switch so my HD usage has been limited to attempting to plug a computer into it to act like an overtheair TIVO. So, an upconverting DVD player and an HD cable box are not yet being consumed (as well as any next gen format) - so paranoid corporations are not getting more my money at least for now - Good.

[Trazzlo the Magnificant]

I think neither camp is winning by any significant margin as the actual numbers are too low. They are trying their hardest to create another DVD gold rush, getting us to rebuy all our movies, but this will not work. These discs do not have the same amount of wow factor over DVDs as DVDs had over VHS. I expect it will be the next big tech that will cause users to switch. These players will just fragment the current movie market.
I agree. What will the next update of plain old red laser DVD have? It could be that it is like 3xDVD (triple layer, HD DVD compatible format, red laser only, 15GB per side, cheap media and cheap to manufacture).

I think about all those high def camcorders coming out, where you can do home videos in 1080p. As the HD televisions become norm, I would think the camcorders will follow as well. But, do you want to burn those to Bluray or HD DVD, when there is a cheaper and simpler system? That's the system that might win, and then it's up to the content companies to decide if they want to support the equipment that the consumers have voted on.

And, then there is porn ....