Blu-ray vs. HD DVD (2007) - Page 101

Originally Posted by Fishyesque

Warner Officially Goes BluRay Exclusive

Originally Posted by marzetta7

That's pretty f'd up! You did make me look!

Originally Posted by Galley

Welcome to page 100, everyone!

Originally Posted by emig647

For now 42" is plenty. I live in a duplex so it's not a huge living room. We are looking for a house. I figured the 42" would be a great tv for 2-3 years, then I can retire it to the bedroom and go with a bigger / better tv when HDTVs get ironed out a little more.

Originally Posted by Guartho

I'm forming a similar plan, only I'm looking at 32" displays. I've finally concluded that I'll be waiting a lot longer if I go for anything bigger than that. Plus if I get much bigger than that I'll want 1080p which is another nice jump in price.

Originally Posted by json

Both systems can store a lot of data (enough). Currently Blu-Ray can store 50GB to HD-DVD:s 30, but when three layer HD-DVD:s become available it will give HD-DVD the same (or actually even a bit more) storage, that is, both system will store enough for all movies.

Originally Posted by emig647

No I'm not sure if it was due to HOW the movie was shot. I just know that certain scenes in the movies are pretty dirty. I'm not sure why or how it's like that, I just know it's the movie.

Originally Posted by Guartho

I'm forming a similar plan, only I'm looking at 32" displays. I've finally concluded that I'll be waiting a lot longer if I go for anything bigger than that. Plus if I get much bigger than that I'll want 1080p which is another nice jump in price.

Originally Posted by Galley

Blu-ray Disc can theoretically support 8 layers, for a total of 200GB.

Originally Posted by Walter Slocombe

Whats your viewing distance going to be?

Originally Posted by json

Yes you are of course correct! I should have been more clear. What I meant was that when 3 layer HD-DVD:s become the "norm" both systems have enough storage space for most, if not all, movies, that is, the storage space point is not of concern for the future.

As far as I know, the only thing that cannot (easily) be improved is the maximum bit rate, and there Blu-Ray has the advantage, at least of these two systems.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has revealed that the Blu-ray release of 'Spider-Man 3' sold 130,000 copies the first six days at retail, 15,000 more copies than the Transformers HD DVD was reported to have sold its first week on store shelves. Having shipped 400,000 copies to retailers, this represents a 30% sell-off for the title.
David Bishop, President of Sony commented, "We are well-placed for the holidays. We got in before the key shopping season, and now you'll have more people getting into the market, as new players are launching from Sony, Sharp, Panasonic [among others]. It's our hope that they walk out with a player and Spider-Man 3."

The 130,000 sold does not include copies given away as part of a Sony promotion to provide the title to those who purchase a 40GB PS3. Sony expects demand to increase throughout the holiday season, with 'Spider-Man 3' to remain a top seller.

Originally Posted by marzetta7

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has revealed that the Blu-ray release of 'Spider-Man 3' sold 130,000 copies the first six days at retail, 15,000 more copies than the Transformers HD DVD was reported to have sold its first week on store shelves.

Originally Posted by Cory Bauer

That of course depends on whose "report" one believes. Paramount is sticking to their guns on the 190,000 figure reported for Transformers' first week of HD DVD sales, saying they have double-checked the numbers.

Regardless, everyone knows there are more Blu-Ray players/owners in the world than HD DVD players, and thusly Blu-Ray sells more movies each week. It's not rocket science, and there won't be a significant upswing in either side's sales figures until players become (and stay) at the $99 - $199 price range. Oh, and it wouldn't hurt if most people actually owned HDTVs, too

Originally Posted by marzetta7

The problem with HD DVD and their "norm" TL 51 disc is that it doesn't appear to be compatible with current HD DVD players. That's right, all current HD DVD owners would get the shaft if this were the case and movies began to be distributed on this new disc. "Further testing" was cited as to what needs to be done in order to confirm this--working on exiting equipment--or not. Regardless, HD DVD doesn't even have a working prototype yet and by the time they do and actually are capable of producing this disc in mass quantities, this war may be well over.

Originally Posted by Cory Bauer

That of course depends on whose "report" one believes. Paramount is sticking to their guns on the 190,000 figure reported for Transformers' first week of HD DVD sales, saying they have double-checked the numbers.

Regardless, everyone knows there are more Blu-Ray players/owners in the world than HD DVD players, and thusly Blu-Ray sells more movies each week. It's not rocket science, and there won't be a significant upswing in either side's sales figures until players become (and stay) at the $99 - $199 price range. Oh, and it wouldn't hurt if most people actually owned HDTVs, too

Sony Pictures Home Entertainments Spider-Man 3 swung to the top of the studios Blu-ray roster, selling 130,000 high-def units in its first six days on shelves, according to the studio.

The studio shipped about 400,000 Spider-Man 3 Blu-ray units to retail for the titles Oct. 30 bow, said Sony, making first-week sell-off about 30%. Sony said that does not include units bundled with the new $399 PlayStation 3.

That street week sell-off bested the comparable kick-off frame for Casino Royale on Blu-ray by more than three times. Casino Royale, which sold 40,000 Blu-ray copies in week-one sales, had been Sonys No. 1 performer in the format to this point.

The top-opening Blu-ray title across studios is believed to be Warner Home Videos 300, which the studio reportedly sold 250,000 units on the HD DVD and BD formats combined. Its believed about two-third, or 165,000, of 300 units were Blu-ray.

On the HD DVD side, Paramount Home Entertainment touted selling 190,000 HD DVD units of Transformers in the week after its Oct. 16 bow. Many industry sources wound up disputing that figure, however, believing it was actually tens of thousands lower.

Sony executives said Spider-Man 3 Blu-ray is doing a bang-up job at retail.

We are well-placed for the holidays, said Sonys worldwide president, David Bishop. We got in before the key shopping season, and now youll have more people getting into the market, as new players are launching from Sony, Sharp, Panasonic [among others]. Its our hope that they walk out with a player and Spider-Man 3.

Bishop said the title sold millions of standard-definition copies during street week but declined further comment. Industry sources, however, estimated the standard-DVD version sold 4 million to 5 million copies overall in its first week.

A number of retailers did note that Transformers sold at a brisker pace than Spider-Man 3 when comparing their first few days of sales across all formats. Paramount reported 8.3 million first-week units sold for Transformers.

Despite Spider-Man 3soutstanding $337 million U.S. box-office gross, Bishop said the studio was somewhat tempering its home entertainment expectations.

We have a lot of historical data that says that when you get to third in a series, that correlation between box office and DVD is not going to be the same, he said. We took that into consideration with our shipment numbers [in standard-def]. And the sell-off is as expected. Its a very solid performer.

In contrast, Sony more liberally shipped Blu-ray units of Spider-Man 3 versus anticipated first week sell-off.

We are in the phase of filling the [high-def] pipeline and have to anticipate demand, said Bishop. We are getting in front of the demand of the players. On standard-definition, the demand is more set."

Originally Posted by emig647

First of all, they keep going back on forth on that...

Second of all, they are saying IF the players aren't compatible a firmware update will fix...

please keep fud to minimum

In other news for the HD-DVD camp, just two days after Sony DADC announced that they'd replicated their milestone 10 millionth 50GB Blu-ray Disc (click here for the Video Business story), the HD-DVD Promotions Group quickly countered with a little damage control, making sure everyone knew that the DVD Forum was close to approving the spec for a triple-layer 51GB HD-DVD disc (click here). However, industry sources are telling us that NONE of the existing Toshiba HD-DVD players and drives are currently capable of reading them. Indeed, the Video Business story indicates that once the spec is finalized, "compatibility with current HD DVD player and recorders can be investigated." According to reports from Bits readers who were on at CEATAC this weekend, Toshiba reps confirmed to attendees that the triple-layer disc configuration would require a hardware change, meaning that the existing drives are not firmware updatable.

JL: Let's talk about Blu-ray!

PH: Yeah, because "Cars" is coming out on Blu-ray next Tuesday, a week from today.

JL: I've been working with pure animation since 1981. And one of the things that we've always been pioneering at Pixar is high resolution, high-definition of everything that we've done because that's the way that you really want to see this stuff. And finally, as of Tuesday, Pixar Films are available to [consumers with the capability to] see the film on Blu-ray discs the way that we see them at Pixar for the very first time. I'm so excited. You cannot believe the amount of detail that we put into our films that you've never been able to see on DVD before.
I had to turn my back to the monitor when "Cars" was showing since I kept getting sucked into the movie because it looks so good on the Blu-ray. I love Pixar. I love the films that we make.
It's really fantastic. And you have the almighty pause button! So you can actually pause [the film] and you can go back to the beginning and ask, "Is that what I saw?" and actually see it. I'm so excited that we have "Ratatouille," "Cars" and the Pixar short films finally on a DVD and on Blu-ray all together on the same day.

PH: Right. Its something you didnt have before.

JL: In "Cars," its a world where there are no people in it. And we had to make this world believable. So we had to populate the movie "Cars" with all these [characters] in the background. We just kind of drive by them in the movie. So we created this game where you can sit and watch the movie and play the game while "Cars" is on. In this game you can select 217 different background [characters] in the movie "Cars" and learn about them - what their names are, what their background stories are and what kind of horsepower they have.

PH: Wow. It's taking on a whole new dimension.

JL: Yeah, it's really fun. And theres a little more interactivity.

PH: Now, you seem totally committed to the Blu-ray format, but we know there's a format for what's going on

JL: We all remember VHS and Beta and we thought it best not to do it that way. I think Blu-ray is far better technology, and when you see "Cars" and "Ratatouille" on Blu-ray you'll see what I mean. It's so beautiful and the amount of data that you can have on the disc [is great] to do your own special thing. And the other thing I loved about it is that theres commentary. You can have these incredible commentaries in the midst of the film and they become documents for the rest of time.

Format backers say the total number of standalone HD DVD players sold is poised to hit the 500,000 mark by late November.

That's according to a report published late Thursday by Home Media Magazine, which places the current total household penetration for HD DVD standalones at about 420,000 units.

This news comes on the heels of reports earlier this week that roughly 90,000 HD DVD standalones were sold last weekend alone, following highly-publicized price drops for Toshiba's HD-A2 HD DVD player.

While passing the 500,000 unit mark would certainly seem to cement the HD DVD camp's overall lead in standalone player sales, it still pales in comparison to the installed base of Sony's PlayStation 3 game console, which comes with a built-in Blu-ray player. (According to the website vgchartz.com, over 2.2 million PS3s have been sold in the US to date).

Of course, as HD DVD backers will be quick to point out, the majority of PS3 owners are said to not use the console as a Blu-ray player.

What effect all of this may (or may not) have on next-gen disc sales remains to seen. As we've previously reported, year-to-date figures from Home Media Research gave Blu-ray a 1.85:1 disc sales advantage for the first nine months of 2007.

Originally Posted by marzetta7

HD DVD Standalone Player Sales Nearing 500,000 Milestone

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...Milestone/1156

500,000 milestone? I thought the HD DVD group said they were going to sell 2 million players this year...pfffffffft! A far cry from that number, and further proof of HD DVDs craw-like momentum for all of 2007.

Originally Posted by marzetta7

Spider-Man 3 Sells 130K in Six Days on Blu-ray

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=655



The sales numbers tomorrow ought to be interesting.

Originally Posted by bitemymac

Well.. HD-DVD players are comprised of:

1) Standalone HD-DVD Players
2) xbox360 HD-DVD AO
3) Toshiba computers with HD-DVD drives.

So, keep counting. There will be more standalone HD-DVD player promotions coming for the holidays. Well, the HD-DVD side already demonstrated the high demand for the format with walmart specials and I think there maybe more specials coming from HD-DVD marketing group real soon.

Originally Posted by emig647

Everyone is using 25gb blu-ray (for the most part),

Originally Posted by Walter Slocombe

now that actually IS fud

Originally Posted by Guartho

We haven't decided how our living room is going to be laid out yet. It could be anything from 6 to 18 or so feet.

Originally Posted by json

Yes you are of course correct! I should have been more clear. What I meant was that when 3 layer HD-DVD:s become the "norm" both systems have enough storage space for most, if not all, movies, that is, the storage space point is not of concern for the future.

Originally Posted by Walter Slocombe

oooo {breaths in through teeth like a builder} I wouldn't like to watch a 32" display at 18 feet.

Originally Posted by Guartho

Well, 18' is just my guestimate of the length of the room. Happily, to a certain degree, I can tailor the layout to the TV. It really is a budget issue. I shouldn't be looking at HDTVs at all. But stupid me discovered that I can do 6 months same-as-cash on a 5 month schedule pretty easily starting next month when a couple of things get paid off. I figure I'll save the 42" plasma that I really want as a reward for a few years down the road when all the major house things my wife and I want to do are done and paid for.

I know what you mean about shrinkage. My Dad's 37" seemed positively huge when he got it last Christmas. In our smallish room I think 37 would be good, but in the line-up at Wal-Mart I didn't really notice a size difference between the two and I think 32 makes 720p less likely to be noticed by my eyes.

What would you suggest is a good viewing distance for 32"?

Originally Posted by mania

http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/11/09...e-a-stalemate/

Originally Posted by Cory Bauer

What a bizarre thing to say \

Originally Posted by Cory Bauer

What a bizarre thing to say \

Originally Posted by backtomac

I think he's smelling the coffee. When the head of Sony says something like this, I think you can rest assured that both formats will survive and no clear winner will emerge.

Originally Posted by Guartho

Maybe he's just trying to lull the HDDVD camp into a false sense of security.

Originally Posted by backtomac

Yeah, Sony is about to release a $79.00 Blu Ray player with a $99.00 mail in rebate and 10 FREE Blu Ray movies.

That'll show em.