Could Warner Bros. Abandon HD DVD in 2008?

[Robinson_A]

Lotus,

It seems we're mostly in agreement. What I find funny, is for someone who has been, shall we say, attacked (though you've done your share of attacking too ) for being a HD DVD supporter that you own a Blu-ray player. Interesting.

Honestly, I don't claim to be in the know about everything that's going on behind the scenes with Blu-ray and HD DVD what I find funny about this current thread is the sheer ferocity people have over the numbers and business end of things yet NO ONE is talking about the formats themselves, in regards to quality titles, good transfers, overall picture quality etc etc. Elsewhere on this forum the HD DVD or Blu-ray topics seem dominated by "who's gonna win" or "my format's better than your format" yet few are addressing the issues that ultimately matter to the consumer. After all, I believe, it's the consumer who is going to decide this war. Right now, consumers are supporting and sustaining two formats. It's now up to one side or the other to come up with that next big play,like wooing a studio into exclusivity although I don't feel that will do it either, not quite the way low prices and free next gen DVD's will. It's amazing how easily the customer can be swayed with cheap prices and free stuff. One can argue which format is better but the best format doesn't always win remember VHS.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by Robinson_A

Lotus,

It seems we're mostly in agreement. What I find funny, is for someone who has been, shall we say, attacked (though you've done your share of attacking too ) for being a HD DVD supporter that you own a Blu-ray player. Interesting.

Honestly, I don't claim to be in the know about everything that's going on behind the scenes with Blu-ray and HD DVD what I find funny about this current thread is the sheer ferocity people have over the numbers and business end of things yet NO ONE is talking about the formats themselves, in regards to quality titles, good transfers, overall picture quality etc etc. Elsewhere on this forum the HD DVD or Blu-ray topics seem dominated by "who's gonna win" or "my format's better than your format" yet few are addressing the issues that ultimately matter to the consumer. After all, I believe, it's the consumer who is going to decide this war. Right now, consumers are supporting and sustaining two formats. It's now up to one side or the other to come up with that next big play,like wooing a studio into exclusivity although I don't feel that will do it either, not quite the way low prices and free next gen DVD's will. It's amazing how easily the customer can be swayed with cheap prices and free stuff. One can argue which format is better but the best format doesn't always win remember VHS.

This is why I'm tired of being called a shill. I own a BD player and when I did work for one of the companies I worked for a BD company. I love watching BDs.

The thing is my eye and ears can't really tell the difference between the two. They both look and sound great. In fact yesterday afternoon I took part in a double blind test trying to see if the 7 of us could hear the difference between DD, DD+, and DD TrueHD.

Without a doubt the nextgen audio codecs are far superior and we could all tell the difference between DD and the nextgen codecs. We couldn't however tell the difference between DD+ and DD TrueHD.

So what is there to care about? Personally I like the fact that the HD DVD players from day one have been capable of playing special features. I like the fact that although just about every HD DVD comes with a slip of paper saying I may need to upgrade my firmware it has only been an issue ONCE. If I could say the same thing about BD!

The time to load menus! MY GOD THAT HAS TO STOP! I start to wonder if my machine is broken! Same for HEROES on HD DVD for disc 2 or 3 or whichever it was that downloaded some gigantic file that took FOREVER!

My primary arguement in this "battle," is that cheaper for the consumer means something far greater than these people are willing to admit. Gamers are going to buy their systems, but consumers are going to be slower to pay more for BD.

Toshiba is winning the hardware sales finally despite Sony and Samsung prices dropping to $300 and lower online. Best Buy still sold more $250 HD DVD players than they did the others.

Consumers really don't care about BD or HD DVD. They care about which one costs them less. Plus as Jerry mentioned most consumers know what HD DVD is and are confused about BD. They see the $250 HD DVD player and they buy it.

Toshiba sold around 30,000 players in Canada in a day with their $100 sale the other week. They stopped their plans of another $98 sale in the US because they were doing well without it!

HD DVD still has the 2M $199 Venture players sitting in Warehouses waiting for something. I know Wal-Mart didn't feel good about it in the summer, but they did really well with the Toshiba A2, so maybe we'll finally see those cheap China players.

[PRO-630HD]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Why don't you show us how many forums you post under this moniker with.
Then google mine and see how many I post with.
You continue to post misinformation such as this sentence "I now see why you have been banned from forums in the past."
Which "forums" do you speak of? Remember, forums is a plural word.
As for data, I use that which is most current, do you have something else to show differently?

The 243,000 is Nielsen/Videscan numbers, they reported 89,000 for Transformers on HD DVD.

WOW, JUST WOW!!!!! You are the definition BIAS!! I can't believe you would compare the Nielsen numbers for one title with the studio's press release figures for another!!! LOL!!! You are a riot!

Unbelievable.

So you use over 2 month old data that is CONVIENTLY based on data 5 days after the release of Transformers on hddvd and use 300 which had been on bluray for over 2.5 months. Give me a break!!!!

As of today there is no way 300 on bluray has sold more copies than Transformers on HDDVD!!! For you to use 11 week old data as current is ridiculous.

[PRO-630HD]

Originally Posted by Bob Black

Universal has released the following: The Sting (1973), The Jerk (1980), Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life (1983), The River (1984), Streets Of Fire (1984), The Last Starfighter (1985), Midnight Run (1988), Born On the 4th Of July (1989), Sea Of Love (1989), Scent Of A Woman (1990), Darkman (1990), Sneakers (1992), American Me (1992), Carlito's Way (1993), The War (1994), What Dreams May Come (1994), The Getaway (1994), Mallrats (1995), Billy Madison (1995), The Frighteners (1996), Dragonheart (1996), Daylight (1996), The Nutty Professor (1996), Dante's Peak (1997), The Game (1997), Liar Liar (1997), Patch Adams (1998), Mercury Rising (1998), Half-Baked (1998), The Big Lebowski (1998), Meet Joe Black (1998), Elizabeth (1998), Mystery Men (1999), The Watcher (1999), Being John Malkovich (1999), Bulletprrof (1999), Notting Hill (1999)

This was up-to-date as of a couple of months ago when I compiled this data. At that time, Universal's releases included 37 releases between 2000 and the present, and 37 releases that are from the 70's, 80's and 90's. As you might suspect, the average rating in PQ was considerably higher for recent films, with a 3.824 average for 2000 - 2007 films.

Contrast this with Disney that had two older catalog titles that I counted (Dinosaur and GI Jane - both from the 90's) and FOX which had 10 (Courage Under Fire, Rocky, Speed, Usual Suspects, Entrapment, Broken Arrow, Chain Reaction, Hoosiers, Robocop (remastered), Edward Scissorhands. Sony also had very few, but I have to go right now and can't post all the data. I will finish later.

Suffice it to say, however, that anyone looking at the PQ rankings with an unbiased eye can see that the BD studios have benefited greatly in your tier list due to their lack of older releases. Sony is so 2006/2007-heavy on titles that it isn't even funny!

Bingo, give that man a dollar!!!!

[1more4HDDVD]

Originally Posted by Lotus

HD DVD still has the 2M $199 Venture players sitting in Warehouses waiting for something. I know Wal-Mart didn't feel good about it in the summer, but they did really well with the Toshiba A2, so maybe we'll finally see those cheap China players.

Walmart.com finally has listings for all 3 Toshiba HD DVD models and the store locator function for the A3 shows it is in-stock at all stores around me. Certainly an huge improvement from their previous attempts to sell HD DVD hardware.

In an unrelated note: the rumor now is that the Xbox Elite SKU is being discontinued to make way for an HD DVD Xbox SKU. I guess we’ll know if it’s true in less than a week, but this is getting interesting!

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by 1more4HDDVD

Walmart.com finally has listings for all 3 Toshiba HD DVD models and the store locator function for the A3 shows it is in-stock at all stores around me. Certainly an huge improvement from their previous attempts to sell HD DVD hardware.

In an unrelated note: the rumor now is that the Xbox Elite SKU is being discontinued to make way for an HD DVD Xbox SKU. I guess we’ll know if it’s true in less than a week, but this is getting interesting!

Replacing the Elite is one thing, but replacing the Pro unit (their top selling unit) is where it would be extremely good news for HD DVD.

Of course the Elite would be good news but not the kind of news the $349 unit would cause.