Topic: Well, this could have major implications in the HD DVD/BR format war

[gpw11]

Walmart picks a side

Sony had better do something quick.

[idolminds]

Too late, WalMart will decide it.

[scottws]

Wow, that's a surprising development.  I was starting to think that Blu-Ray was going to win.

[Pugnate]

Yea I heard the news a while back.

I like how he took one story, and wrote a whole lot of speculation on it, then tried to pass that off as fact as well. It is funny how anyone can become a paid writer these days.

The title of that article is highly misleading as well. It isn't that they've picked a 'winner' or even picked one side to stick with... they did it because currently they've found a cheap Chinese company able to sell them HD DVD players that they could sell at $200-$250. I am sure if they find a cheap manufacturer of BR players, they will offer those in the future as well.

Wal-Mart sees the new high definition formats as a way to bring in store traffic again but they realized that won’t happen unless the players are affordable and there is only one standard. They recognized their own power in being king maker previously and are now using that power to drive the format that works best for them. They could care less about the technology as this is all about making money and they (like every other retailer in this space) know that two formats won’t allow the market to move outside of the fringes and the dual-mode players are simply way too expensive.

So they need one standard and a lot of players in market before their DVD customers wander off to download land and stops coming to Wal-Mart for movies.

What a load of bull. Is he sitting at the board meetings? He is just speculating based on the fact that Wal-Mart is going to be selling cheap Chinese HD DVD players.

So, if this move by Wal-Mart is true , and it appears to be (but we won’t know for sure for a few months yet), the format war is likely over and Wal-Mart has declared the winner.

Oh man I just want to slap this guy on the face, or at least his employer. What a moron.

Sony owns what, 40% of the movies that are coming out? Those movies will never hit HD DVD, so the Blu Ray format can't die. A $250 HD DVD player is no good, if half of the movies don't show up for your player.

Secondly Disney has gone exclusive with Blu-Ray. Others are expected to follow suit.

No Disney movies on HD DVD... think about that. Actually that's probably good thing, screw Disney.

But here is something very telling:

http://www.homemediaretailing.com/news/html/breaking_article.cfm?article_id=10559

Blu Ray outsells HD-DVD 7-3, and the gap is apparently widening.

edit:

I am going through some of the responses, and will post some of what I agree with. But seriously, who the fuck hired this guy? What an idiot. And I dislike Sony. I just sold my K800i, 3.2MP my ass.

The press release you based this entire story on has not been confirmed and even the translation is somewhat in contention. This is a great case of amateur journalism. Some have speculated they might indeed be Blu-ray players and others have said a price analysis indicates these players are being bought for about $50/unit. A better title for this article would have been "Walmart names HD DVD the winner, but maybe Blu-Ray, or perhaps neither"

"According to the figures, consumers purchased nearly 1.2 million high-definition discs in the first quarter of 2007; of those, 832,530 were Blu-ray titles and 359,300 were HD DVD discs. Home Media Magazine says Blu-ray took the sales lead on February and that, by March, the format accounted for nearly three out of every four high-definition discs sold, racking up 335,980 disc sales compared to HD DVDs 119,570 discs. "

3 out of 4 HD discs were Blu-Ray man. Plus with Disney showing support for only Blu-Ray, the gap is going to widen even more. And like the article I linked to points out, once Prates of the Caribbean comes out, it will all be over. Other than the price point of their player, HD DVD has nothing going for it. It's about the content here...not the price IMO.

Someone's trying to build hits for their website.

How you manage to put words into Wal-Mart's mouth is beyond me. Please show me where they are saying they will not support Blu-ray later this year? Obviously, this is nothing but an HD-DVD fanboy writing about a wet dream.

Wal-Mart didn't name anything. You have no source of Wal-Mart saying this -- the source is yourself.

Woodward and Bernstein had to get two sources. You don't have to get any. You are your own imaginary deep throat and a journalist wrapped-up into one.

 

[iPPi]

Hurray.

[idolminds]

Early disc sales don't really matter.

Compared to sales of movies on DVD—by far the most popular format—the numbers for the next-generation discs are a mere drop in the bucket. The top selling DVD for the week ending March 30 was Happy Feet, which moved over 4 million units that week alone. For the week ending March 11, Borat was the big winner, and the number two title, Peter Pan, sold 2.2 million discs.

If you do the math on Happy Feet and the Blu-ray version of Casino Royale, the latter title took three months to sell just under 1.5 percent of what Happy Feet was able to sell in its first week. Another dose of perspective: in the seven days after its release on DVD, Borat sold more discs than all HD DVD and Blu-ray titles combined since the launch of two formats last year.

In short, when we discuss HD DVD and Blu-ray at this point in time, we're talking about really small numbers. When sales are in the tens of thousands and not the millions, the market is especially susceptible to changes. It is true that Blu-ray has been building momentum this year, not unlike my three-year-old son working up a head of steam on his tricycle. Just as a big crack in the sidewalk can cause him to slow down or even wipe out, an unanticipated change in the market could have the same effect in the battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD.

If the walmart report is true, it'll be huge. Lots of people shop at walmart, they will get cheap hddvd players, and all of them will want hddvds. All those studios that are bluray exclusive will change their tune pretty damn quickly.

[MysterD]

Well, if Blu-Ray's out-selling HD-DVD 7-3, that's not good.
Maybe Wal-Mart can help out HD-DVD, if they are only going to support *that* player of the two.

Let's just say, for the hell of it, Wal-Mart will support HD-DVD only...
...Does this mean Target will support Sony's Blu-Ray ONLY?

[gpw11]

"What a load of bull. Is he sitting at the board meetings? He is just speculating based on the fact that Wal-Mart is going to be selling cheap Chinese HD DVD players."

He's actually pretty close to the truth on that one part.  It's been pretty well known that Walmart sells DVDs at about cost in order to bring people in the doors.  A lot of the big electronics retailers do the same to a lesser extent, but have more of a vested interest since they're trying to sell you the hardware as well. 

I don't see why it would be any different with HD-DVD/BR.   

Either way, I couldn't care less and I kind of hope they both fail.

[Quemaqua]

Either way, I couldn't care less and I kind of hope they both fail.

I think you're channeling me.

[Cobra951]

This is where HD DVD shines, not only had Toshiba agreed to license to low cost manufacturers early on, but HD DVDs are pressed on the same lines that regular DVDs are, they require no major equipment change out and the blanks, when compared to Blu-Ray are less expensive as well.

This made the decision simple, Blu-Ray was just too expensive to make this work and any technical advantages were insignificant . . .

That's what I found most significant, because it isn't restricted to Walmart or any one retailer.  If there is a longstanding cost difference between the formats, the expensive one will lose, because the quality difference is simply not worth any other result.

Pug, Sony not only dropped Betamax as a consumer VCR format, but even came to offer VHS equipment.  The VCR format war was much longer and bitter than the current disc war has gotten a chance to be yet.  When a format wins, it wins.  Sony isn't going to hold its breath and turn blue, if their format loses.  They're going to release that 40% of the movies coming out in whatever sells.

[idolminds]

Also, there is little difference between the formats since they both use the same codecs. BluRay can hold more data and in theory offer better image quality by using less compression, but the difference isn't large enough for anyone to care. Its kind of like how millions of people buy music from iTunes despite the quality difference compared to CD. Its close enough, and they like the convenience more than the audio quality.

[scottws]

I just found out that surprisingly HD-DVD titles primarily use the VC-1 codec vs. H.264/AVC.  VC-1 is a derivative of WMV9.  I thought everyone would be using H.264/AVC or even MPEG-2.

[Pugnate]

That's what I found most significant, because it isn't restricted to Walmart or any one retailer.  If there is a longstanding cost difference between the formats, the expensive one will lose, because the quality difference is simply not worth any other result.

Pug, Sony not only dropped Betamax as a consumer VCR format, but even came to offer VHS equipment.  The VCR format war was much longer and bitter than the current disc war has gotten a chance to be yet.  When a format wins, it wins.  Sony isn't going to hold its breath and turn blue, if their format loses.  They're going to release that 40% of the movies coming out in whatever sells.

Hey Cobra, I actually don't know much about Betamax, but did it outsell VHS for a few years?

I see what you are saying. I am sure that eventually whatever is the winner will be the format adopted by all studios, no matter what the personal stakes. I am just saying people are quick to let their hatred cloud their judgment.

Master Yoda talked about this in Phantom Menace.

Latest on the war:

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7017

Personally I'd rather go for the player that is cheaper. I really can't afford to spend more dough than necessary. Also I like how there are combo options with HDDVD movies, where you get DVD and HD DVD. That's a big thing for me, because they cost about the same, and in the end you can watch the same movie on HDDVD when you get a player for it later.

Anyway the walmart thing apparently wasn't perfectly translated. People still aren't sure if those cheap Taiwanese players are Blu-Ray or HD DVD.

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7017

Casino Royale and The Departed continue on HD movie tear

As part of what appears to be a continuing trend since the beginning of 2007, sales of Blu-ray Disc titles have once again been ahead of those of HD DVD for the month of March. Sony Pictures’ Casino Royale held on to the top spot again for the month, selling more than 59,000 units. In contrast, the top selling HD DVD was this year’s best picture winner, The Departed, with 16,000 units sold.

“We think retailers will start to dedicate more space to Blu-ray, rather than split it half and half,” Sony worldwide president David Bishop said to Video Business. “That will further send a signal to consumers that it is the dominant format.”

One of the reasons cited again for HD DVD’s lag in sales is due to the format’s lack of exclusive, blockbuster titles thus far. The HD DVD-only Children of Men released late March is expected to help bolster its format’s numbers, though the movie was released with several compatibility issues.

Universal remains undying in its support for HD DVD, though the studio’s VP marketing Ken Graffeo said that Blu-ray is likely to continue its sales lead until the fourth quarter, when HD DVD see the holiday releases of summer blockbusters. “Fourth quarter is really going to be a telling time,” he said.

Price could continue to be a deciding factor in swaying consumers towards HD DVD. The Toshiba HD-A2 retails for $399 and is currently cheaper than any Blu-ray player on the market. HD DVD will continue to hold the price advantage even after Sony releases its $599 BDP-S300 this summer.

Furthermore, sub-$300 players from Wal-Mart may be a big factor in penetrating the mainstream market, although it is still unclear which format the upcoming machines will support. “It comes down to bringing it to the general audience at a price that they’re willing to pay,” Graffeo said, underscoring the importance of the mass market.

The Blu-ray Association announced earlier this week that it had reached a one million units sold milestone in less than a year, while the HD DVD Group was proud to announce that it has sold over 100,000 standalone players in its first year of inception.

[Cobra951]

Here's 2 links I found rather quickly.

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/format/compare/betamax-vhs.html

I immediately found one silly factual error.  VHS tapes were never 3 hours at the original SP (and in fact, I know of no 3-hour tapes at any speed--they were 4 hours at LP and 6 hours at EP, and later a longer thinner tape came out at 2:40 at SP, and you do the math from there).  They were 2 hours compared to Beta's 1 hour, a big difference, crucial in the context of recorded movies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax

This is centered on Beta, but it's still very informative in relation to our conversation here.

[gpw11]

I  wonder how many of those units sold are being played on PS3s.  Probably a good move by Sony. 

On the flip side, if you look at the folding@home numbers it becomes very apparent that a ton of people aren't playing games on their PS3 at all...and who can really blame them at this point.

[Pugnate]

Well there isn't really anything to play. Sony have lost so many exclusives too.