Format war to end imminently?

Butters · 19 Jan 2008 at 12:40

A few close sources have revealed some interesting information backed up today by my visit to some large music stores in Cardiff.

The statements issued by Universal’s Ken Graffeo saying his studio is holding firm, was, in itself, a rumour.

In a technology conference this week, Both Paramount and Universal declared they would not be renewing contracts for HD-DVD and will remain open to both formats.

Shortly afterwards, Toshiba HD were due to hold a press release. This was cancelled.

Yestday, an email from Toshiba Ireland states that there are planned price reductions across their range of HD players.

HD-EP30 @ €94 trade.

HD-XE1 @ €334 trade.

One of these come with 7 HD titles and the other 5!!

I appreciate that could either be bowing out, or flooding the market.

Today, Virgin Megastores (Cardiff) & HMV (Cardiff):

Both stores are now only provisioning 1 metre wide stands for HD-DVD titles and upto 6 metre wide stands for Blu-Ray.

I rolled in as delivery boxes were being unpaced. Every box was BR titles, no further HD titles to be stocked but can be ordered.

This was the same in both stores.

the_dead_parrot · 19 Jan 2008 at 14:33

Well today on the net I have seen the EP-30 advertised for £125 which is a mega pricedrop. Its really hard to see HD-DVD coming back from the position it is currently in. Every high street store I have been in always seemed to have more BR that HD-DVD, though they are still all overpriced unless bought online.

wibble1 · 19 Jan 2008 at 15:55

Think it got hit hard at CES show this year with the announcement of studios dropping the HD and signing up with Blue-Ray...

Can't see it coming back from this one..

chaparral · 19 Jan 2008 at 21:32

Butters said:
Today, Virgin Megastores (Cardiff) & HMV (Cardiff):

Both stores are now only provisioning 1 metre wide stands for HD-DVD titles and upto 6 metre wide stands for Blu-Ray.

I noticed that HMV over here (in guernsey) were stocking about 4 times as many blue-ray movies compared to HD-dvd movies about 3 months ago .... (6 lines of BR movies vs 2 lines of HD movies)

Luke · 20 Jan 2008 at 00:11

Huzzah... I bought Betamax

Scrutinize · 20 Jan 2008 at 00:21

As long as the prices drop on Blu Ray thats great. Problem is for the price of 1 BR you can get 3-5 dvds. For the average person the cost of the BR player = 50-100 DVDs. Then you have to get the BRs.

Butters · 20 Jan 2008 at 00:23

Prices are dropping all the time tbh. Its not like Sony to get the right format first time round either!!

The PS3 was the real winner for home users. Plus, BR players are £70 for PC users.

Agreed though, prices do need to drop slightly, but if they have won the war, why should they bother?

Scrutinize · 20 Jan 2008 at 00:31

Butters said:
Prices are dropping all the time tbh. Its not like Sony to get the right format first time round either!!

The PS3 was the real winner for home users. Plus, BR players are £70 for PC users.

Agreed though, prices do need to drop slightly, but if they have won the war, why should they bother?

They take the same attitude with the PS3 and look how far behind they are in sales. Its not like DVD is a hugely inferior format (unlike VHS < DVD transition). It could be a slow uptake to BR at this rate with it remaining an enthusiast format.

Even kids with the PS3s would probably think twice at paying out for the BRs over DVDs.

divine` · 20 Jan 2008 at 00:33

mrk1@1 said:
[/b]

They take the same attitude with the PS3 and look how far behind they are in sales.

Comparing like for like sales since launch dates, the PS3 is selling at pretty much exactly the same rate as the XBox 360 did. It's only behind because it's been out half as long.

Dolph · 20 Jan 2008 at 08:15

Butters said:
Prices are dropping all the time tbh. Its not like Sony to get the right format first time round either!!

The PS3 was the real winner for home users. Plus, BR players are £70 for PC users.

Agreed though, prices do need to drop slightly, but if they have won the war, why should they bother?

The war was never about the consumer or consumer choice anyway, it's always been about the studios and the manufacturers. If it was about consumer choice, everything would have been released on both formats for a couple of years and the choice made from sales figures...

The studios have the technology they wanted, and you can be sure that's not because they thought it was better for the consumer.

FrankJH · 20 Jan 2008 at 09:14

Dolph said:
The war was never about the consumer or consumer choice anyway, it's always been about the studios and the manufacturers. If it was about consumer choice, everything would have been released on both formats for a couple of years and the choice made from sales figures...

The studios have the technology they wanted, and you can be sure that's not because they thought it was better for the consumer.

The sales figures ARE exactly what caused Warner to go blue only as its been consistantly outselling HD-DVD for nearly a year - surely thats as good an indicator as any

Anewbe4u · 20 Jan 2008 at 10:56

Its about time this came to an end to be honest. Now I can start buying Blu-Ray and not worry I'm buying a dud.

Butters · 20 Jan 2008 at 13:38

mrk1@1 said:
[/b]

They take the same attitude with the PS3 and look how far behind they are in sales. Its not like DVD is a hugely inferior format (unlike VHS < DVD transition). It could be a slow uptake to BR at this rate with it remaining an enthusiast format.

Even kids with the PS3s would probably think twice at paying out for the BRs over DVDs.

I thought this until I tried an experiment.

Gone in 60 Seconds on VHS (yes, I know). Gone in 60 seconds on DVD.

Actually, very little in it really. The DVD was ahead on sound quality without any doubt.

Gone in 60 seconds on BR. Visually noticeably different (and audiably). Stunning picture which knocked the DVD off its socks.

daz · 20 Jan 2008 at 14:03

Butters said:
I thought this until I tried an experiment.

Gone in 60 Seconds on VHS (yes, I know). Gone in 60 seconds on DVD.

Actually, very little in it really. The DVD was ahead on sound quality without any doubt.

Gone in 60 seconds on BR. Visually noticeably different (and audiably). Stunning picture which knocked the DVD off its socks.

You realise that VHS is about half the resolution of DVD, (something like 320 pixels horizontally) which means it has about a quarter of the data of a DVD... then you're not even thinking about the advantage when it comes to no-rewinding, as well as extra features etc. Either way, standard def DVD to Blu-ray/HD-DVD isn't as big a leap forward for the average user as VHS to DVD.

badbob · 20 Jan 2008 at 14:07

Butters said:
I thought this until I tried an experiment.

Gone in 60 Seconds on VHS (yes, I know). Gone in 60 seconds on DVD.

Actually, very little in it really. The DVD was ahead on sound quality without any doubt.

Gone in 60 seconds on BR. Visually noticeably different (and audiably). Stunning picture which knocked the DVD off its socks.

Please list your audio/video parts. Pre-recorded video tapes look very blurred, and sound is dull. I can apply Logic 7 DSP onto Pro-Logic which helps, but still it's way behind discrete multi-channel audio.

Saying that pre-recorded tapes have lousy picture, I've made a copy of a region free PAL DVD onto a cheap VHS cassette and the picture was far higher quality than the other pre-recorded movies.

Dolph · 20 Jan 2008 at 22:14

FrankJH said:
The sales figures ARE exactly what caused Warner to go blue only as its been consistantly outselling HD-DVD for nearly a year - surely thats as good an indicator as any

*woosh*

Read what I said again.

If it was about consumer choice, everything would have been released on both formats for a couple of years and the choice made from sales figures...

That didn't happen, instead we had exclusive deals and so if people wanted to buy certain films, they had to buy a certain format.

Because of this, claims of higher sales are not indicative of consumer format choice in the slightest.

Hen_Dawg · 21 Jan 2008 at 11:15

the_dead_parrot said:
Well today on the net I have seen the EP-30 advertised for £125 which is a mega pricedrop.

Seen it for under £120 in a couple of places with 7 free HD-DVDs as well. They are practically throwing them away

Gimpymoo · 21 Jan 2008 at 11:46

I still detest Sony for what they did to Lik-Sang, HOWEVER, I personally believe the better format won this occassion.

If they try to stifle prices, you will see an uptake of DVD sales again with people sticking to DVD's and the studios realising they need to release HD-DVD content as well so they cannot get complacent.

jas72 · 21 Jan 2008 at 12:17

Anewbe4u said:
Its about time this came to an end to be honest. Now I can start buying Blu-Ray and not worry I'm buying a dud.

I was trying to work out what a DUD stood for. After reading DVD for so long.

I've been scanning the TV stores for months now and some show HD pictures and some are showing DVDs and to be honest I can't see a remarkable difference. Sure someone can say it's sharper etc but until HDDVD are the same price as DVDs I'll stick to the latter.

the_dead_parrot · 21 Jan 2008 at 13:20

Hen_Dawg said:
Seen it for under £120 in a couple of places with 7 free HD-DVDs as well. They are practically throwing them away

Cant believe its so low, but its just too late. If they had done this months ago and also spent money on advertising (of which I have seen none) then they may have had a chance.

jas72: The problem is that your viewing these in TV stores in very bright conditions, on uncalibrated sets with the feeds being split between numerous TV's. Some HD material do have poor transfers, but most are a remarkable difference.