“Blu-ray DVD titles outsold rival HD-DVD titles by almost 2-to-1 in the first nine months of the year,” Reuters reports.
“Home Media Research, a division of Home Media Magazine, said on Tuesday total U.S. sales of Blu-ray discs, using a Sony Corp-backed technology, totaled 2.6 million units from January 1 through Sept 30, versus 1.4 million HD-DVD discs sold. HD-DVD was developed by Toshiba Corp. It is backed by Microsoft Corp. as well as film studios like Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros.,” Reuters reports.
“Tom Adams, president of Adams Media Research,predicts that for 2007 overall, consumers will spend $186 million purchasing Blu-ray discs, versus $91 million for HD-DVD. Walt Disney Co., Sony, News Corp’s 20th Century Fox, and Lions Gate Entertainment are exclusively in the Blu-ray camp.” Reuters reports.
Full article here.
Then number of discs is rather irrelevant (due to the low over all volume at this point, what percentage of these is purchases for rental stores).What I want to know is the breakdown on the difference in the number of players of the two types sold. Ultimately, this will tell which side will win.
@cw: The only good thing to come out of the Paramount HD-DVD fiasco is the release of Star Trek’s “The Managerie” into theaters. I’m sure that the new effects have been professionally done by CBS Digital. And I plan to attend one of the screenings in November at my local cinema for no other reason than I am a Trekkie. But I would have been happiest had Paramount left the original effects as they were and re-released Star Trek on Blu-ray instead of HD-DVD. I will not be buying Star Trek on HD-DVD, despite the “discounts” being given at amazon.com and elsewhere. I am also highly skeptical of Star Trek XI.
Puh-leez, in the fight between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, BitTorrent wins.
MW: justice
Why would anyone spend their bank on a Blue-Ray or HD-DVD player when the war looks to go on for years?
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Because some of us have hi def 1080p sets and want to watch hi def movies..
The likelihood of iTunes getting HD content (let alone SD content) from most of the major Hollywood studios is looking like it’s still several years away..
I’m all for Apple TV… Just don’t think Stevo is going to convice Hollywood to agree.
In the meantime.. $399 is not to bad for a PS3 that also lets you play games in HD.
What if they held a format war and nobody cared? Seriously, I asked the salesgirl at Borders if they had a BluRay section a few weeks back and she had no idea what I was talking about. And they have a huge video section. Granted, she was high, but still.
I agree with those who dig standard definition dvd upscaling through the PS3, and not just because I work in standard definition dvd encoding. Most look very good, especially Superbit, and those discs are around $5. I think most people, even those who’ve bought new HDTVs, don’t feel like replacing their beloved dvd collection and if they’ve any idea there is a format war underway they probably think it’s a bunch of pretentious nerd bullshite.
ps: Universal, if you’re listening, I’d love to own “Waterworld” on BluRay. PLEASE??? C’mon, make with the mariner already.
Samsung will soon be releasing a player (BD-UP5000) that literally plays EVERYTHING… Blu-ray, HD DVD, standard DVD with 1080p upsampling, CD, SACD, etc. etc..
Okay, some may balk at the $1200 price tag, but it pretty much plays everything and does it all WELL. Since I prefer doing the Netflix thing over buying disks, why have your media player limit your viewing options?
I have an upsampling DVD player, that looks quite good on my 1080p HDTV. It does depend on the mastering of particular disks. Criterion Collection disks look great!
Hopefully Blu-ray will win. it seems like a better format, higher capacity, NOT Microsoft backed, etc.
I spent 3 months in the US, but am from the UK. My girlfriend in the US bought a 1080p TV and my bruv bought an HD TV in the UK.
So, being form a TV background, I was very curious to see which format was better pictures. Everything on the UK set was better, broadcast TV (DVB) and DVD’s in SD. In the US, well you can send the regular cable picture straight to the trash and DVD’s don’t give that much extra.
My point? Outside of the USA, in PAL lands, I cannot see anyone even bothering about BD or HD for a long, long time. The quality of picture is way superior and looks fabulous on SD transmissions. To cap it all, put material captured in HD format then downconverted to SD on my PAL TV and the results are even more convincing.
It costs money, lots, to get the providers actually putting out HD signals, in production costs and bandwidth costs, they have a hard enough time making SD profitable.
So, I agree with many above, roll on Apple TV and HD content, it makes the rest superfluous.
Let’s not forget that the big story from Aug 20:
NY Times Confirms $150M Pay-off to Paramount for HD DVD Support
The NY Times has confirmed via two Viacom executives, that Paramount has received a $150M pay-off to support HD DVD exclusively for a period of 18 months.
When it’s over, they’ll be back with Blu-ray
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/technology/21disney.html?ei=5088&en=d4e1f285e2f41437&ex=1345348800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1187698143-B5wO3L/F+4r1NyAsum87vQ
mediocresoft and time warner are backing hd-dvd… it’s doomed to fail!
i knew microshaft had to be behind hd-dvd. i mean, look how redundant the name is… that’s def some M$ mentality there!
“Granted, she was high, but still.”
Thanks for the laugh. Man, that was funny.
I’m rooting for Blu-Ray over HD-DVD, but these counts are based on the number of sales. Since video rental stores like Blockbuster are buying Blu-Ray disks instead of HD-DVD, doesn’t that skew those sale figures?
Right, Paramount has gone exclusively HD-DVD, but I believe that there was some Microsoft payola involved in that decision. What I’m more worried about is the porn industry who as embraced HD-DVD because of its cheaper production costs. This might be the deciding factor for this technology.
It’s still too early to make the call, but this is interesting news all the same. I can still wait and see what happens, but TV is looking better all the time.
Let’s get some facts straight
Blu-ray=22-24MB/s MPEG 2 (very similiar to H.262)
HD-DVD= 20-22MB/s MPEG 4 (very similiar to H.264)
MPEG 4 is a more efficient codec so quality wise they are too close to differentiate. What is different is the quality of the player. Do you think that a $400 dollar HDMI 1.1 player is going to be better than a $1000 HDMI 1.3 player? This applies to both camps.
All that be said, image quality is the comparable to the level of player that you have purchased. I master High def discs to both formats and can’t see much of a difference on the calibrated monitor or on the big screen.
Who will win? Right now, more DVD distributors are in the HD-DVD camp (Paramount, New Line, Warner, DGM, SSO, and the like). You can have a whole slew of manufacters of the players but who cares when there are fewer DVD titles. What I see happening is HD-DVD being the format for regular titles-dramas, chick flicks, kid movies-and a higher bit rate version of Blu-ray doing the action and VFX stuff. Either way, everyone would have multi format players.
Demon said, “Or the format that can get all the porn companies to exclusively release HD porn DVD’s in their format.”
I read that Sony is/was prohibiting disc manufacturers from pressing pr0n Blu-Ray discs.
http://uk.gizmodo.com/2007/01/12/bluray_goes_limp_for_porn.html
MW: sex drive, yeah baby!