HD Disc Format War Not Over By a Long Shot

[kennyt]

While the buzz around the country is that HD DVD is dead, in my area the local BB has only increased the shelving space relative to Blu-ray, and with the HD DVD players prices in the toilet, maybe they are doing it to get rid of the players and software or maybe they are being encouraged, I don't know but the relative size of the HD DVD rack is much larger than the 2:1 BD:HD it was just a month or two ago. It was almost 1:1 now.

[jpcos]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

However, at this moment in "HD disc" lifecycle (both formats combined sales), HD media is producing higher sales than DVD produced at this same phase in it's own life-cycle.

In other words, side-by-side with DVD's growth curve, HD media is actually doing better.

That's a good sign of things to come for the future, given the tremendous sales increases we saw with DVD as time went by (even if HDM never reaches the same sales level, it has a lot further to go).

Although HD media's current growth curve is doing better than DVD's at a similar point in time, I feel there are problems with comparing the two.

For one, when DVD came on the scene, only laserdisc owners had been purchasing movies on disc. Most had tape for their movies. With tape they could record, and many did. Ownership of movies was not as widespread as it is now, so developing a decent sized selection of movies was not a mainstream occurrence as it is now, and transitioning to a read-only format with a different form factor was something that initially was not that appealing to a larger majority of the population. Now, all HD players play our old DVD media, and in many cases, they play it better. I think these factors, along with the PS3 integration of Blu-ray, create a situation where initial adoption should be expected to be faster for HD media. One only has to consider how much larger the home video market is now to see that.

There are other factors that make it seem highly unlikely that HD media will continue to grow at a rapid rate. First, all of those SD DVDs are out there, and they meet the needs of a strong majority of people, so double-dipping to replace SD collections will likely be a fairly rare occurrence. Also, DVD sales plateaued and then began to drop, IMO, because of more competition for our entertainment dollars and because many realized that they weren't getting great value out of movies sitting on their shelves. Once we get past the enthusiast stage, I expect the purchasing of hard copy media to decline in relation to the overall population, whether they are purchasing HD or SD.

And then of course there's the fact that you need an HDTV of a decent size to see the benefits of HD media, and there are all of those computers, car players, and portables that need to access purchased media.

There's more to this than I have mentioned here, but I think it's clear that this is a different time for media, with different habits and many more options. HD media is selling faster than SD DVD, but IMO, the ground was much more fertile for SD DVD to take hold and continue strong growth at the end of the 90s.

[TheMoose]

Originally Posted by PRO-630HD

Why is it doing better? Answer the format war.

All I have seen now is no more BOGO, no more 5 free titles with a new bluray player, Only 1 1.1 compliant SAP on the market, no 2.0 players till fall, a $100 increase in SAP and the 80 gb PS3 about to disappear and be replaced with the 120gb model for $100 more. In other words the BDA is in arrogance mode again after the Warner announcement and with streamable hd content right around the corner.

The 5 free movies & BOGO were holiday specials, the holidays are over!!
If the 80G PS3 is replaced with the 120G it will be the same price, just like when the 80G replaced the 60G.
The only arrogance I'm seeing is people that think they know how to make decisions better than multi billion dollar companies.
It seems the BDA has been doing pretty good so far in the decision making process.


If Toshiba doesn't turn things around very quickly there is no way they'll be able to keep what little studio support they already have.

As for HD downloads that may work for some early adopters but for the most part Joe 6 pack won't be jumping on that boat when he has 2mbps internet speeds & no interface between his TV & computer.
That's still 5 years away from being a mainstream product at a minimum.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by DaViD Boulet

However, at this moment in "HD disc" lifecycle (both formats combined sales), HD media is producing higher sales than DVD produced at this same phase in it's own life-cycle.

What?

4.5M units sold vs 3.5M units sold.

How is 3.5 bigger than 4.5?

DVD also had its first 1M unit shipped title at the 24 month mark (and 3 by the 30 month mark). We're 22 months in on HDM and there isn't a 1M unit mark in sight. At the 2 year mark DVD had sold 6M titles. HDM will likely be at 4M.

DVD was at 18M units sold by 31 months in.

HDM does not have a better "growth curve," unless you predict the same "explosion," that DVD had around it's 30th month.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by TheMoose

The 5 free movies & BOGO were holiday specials, the holidays are over!!.

The BOGOs in October were for Halloween right?

I think there should be one for Valentines Day too.

The free movies back in September were for Labor Day right?

I think the arguement that they were there to get BD bought and to fight HD DVD is a little more accurate than holiday specials.

[Vinyl Rules!]

Originally Posted by Lotus

Software sales are so incredibly low right now on both sides it's quite comical. To me the most interesting statistic is that "since inception," ratio hasn't changed. That means that the software just isn't selling right now at all on either side. HD-DVD is dead in software sales right now though.

You are soooo right about the incredibly low software sales for both formats.

Hollywood just cannot come to grips with the fact that Joe and Susie Sixpack, whose demographics and psychographics account for over 90% of regular DVD sales, ARE NOT GOING TO PAY DOUBLE THE PRICE for hi-rez DVD software that looks no better to them on their $ 1,299 42" HDTV.

It really doesn't matter how many new titles each side releases: The market's future growth is in downloads, not "discloads."