Source: www.thedigitalbits.com

While I'm sure the BD group's marketing department will latch onto 2 or 3 to 1 sales ratios for BD movies, I have to seriously wonder how happy the BD group is behind closed doors. With about a 5 to 1 player ratio (counting PS3 of course), almost no HD DVD releases in Jan (thanks HD DVD studios) and a plethora of new BD releases, wouldn't sales in the 5-7 to 1 range be more expected?

HD DVD looks like they'll be really picking up the release schedule fairly soon and Toshiba's HD DVD players are still outselling stand alone BD players by a good clip (I think on Amazon recently the A2 was ranked #12 in DVD player sales, with the closest BD DVD player coming in at #49).

I still think the whole thing is silly and all studios should have simply released on both formats. Let the consumer decide.

What's more likely than a higher-quality format is a move away from using plastic discs to distribute video content. Consumers aren't buying either kind of HD player in significant numbers because of the two competing formats, as was predicted by those who warned the industry not to let this split develop. This leaves a gaping hole for some other distribution method to become more commonplace, most likely via the internet.

Consider that consumers are alredy used to sharing their digital photographs online and via email, plus now short video clips as well (e.g. YouTube). Now extrapolate for the spread of broadband internet connections, HD DVRs and multimedia computers attached to large monitors, and we have a plausible scenario for bypassing HD discs altogether. Bill gates predicted a couple of years ago that we would move away from physical media distribution within ten years, and while that sounded odd at the time it's starting to make sense now.

We're not even close to moving these media formats through the web in high numbers at this point; the bandwidth just isn't there. It will be, but expecting it to happen now or in a couple of years is not realistic. New codecs are constantly in development, but for the moment, AVC is the most efficient form we've got.
Consumers weren't expected to buy the HD playback systems in great numbers at this early date. Xmas 07 is the target for large scale purchasing. Purchases of HD displays was/is ahead of schedule, which might fuel the fire, but currently, I'll wager that at least 90% of consumers in the "real" world have no clue what HD DVD or Blu-ray is or means to them. The hard-core marketing of these products is just beginning. When you see BD on shelves in Walmart/Target/Sears, etc in number, then you'll know the time has come to expect massive sales.

I have to say that this seems very logical to us here, sitting at our powerful high speed video editing systems. But, the truth is that very very few people own the powerful computers that are needed for a straight jump to on-line distribution. And the vast majority use use AOL phone service for access, sick people! :) And, how are you saving what you bought for that matter!

I know many people with computers who share their great photos and all, but who don't have clue about what they are doing. They are using whatever software came with their computer or some third party stuff like Kodak or Epson or Canon. Their computers are a mess and they have no clue what to do.

I would guess that amoung those on this forum, 90%+ are pretty computer savy. Out in the real world it just is not that way.

DVDs will be around for a long time yet, for better or worse, and this war does mean something. Where are you going to store that nice HD movie you just downloaded?

This is just my opinion, but ask around. You see that the average person, who must be included in this revolution, is not yet ready.

Mike

For reasons Mike Teutsch mentioned I think media center appliances (like the AppleTV or Xbox 360) are how TV over the internet is going to reach the masses. Microsoft already offers HD movies via Xbox LIve and announced a partnership w/major telecos at CES 2007 to have the 360 also function as the "cable box" for IPTV.


-A

Verison is already putting fiber optic lines around the US so what’s to say that manufactured disc movies will be going strong in the next several years. A big percentage of people are already getting their music from the internet because of the iPod and it’s already destroying CD sales. I predict in 5 to 7 years at the most, the same thing will happen to movie sales. As far as having a hard copy, you can always put your movie on a blank disc.

Internet movie downloads are going to be bigger than a lot of you think. You have Sony, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Divx, Verizon, Amazon, NetFlix and others with extremely ambitious online distribution plans.

As long as the internet is not privatized within a few years, Independent Producers, will have a much better chance of getting their stuff shown and making money then ever before and Google is making sure that happens. They are already allowing select Producers to sell their programs on Google Video and Google only takes 30% commissions. Within the next several months this service should open up to more independent Producers.

Music is sooooo much smaller in file size! Now try it with a HD Movie.

As to puting your HD movie on a blank, you are making my point----what disk?

Mike

Mike Teutsch,
What I meant was that instead of going to a store and buying your movie that is already on a disc, you can always download it to your computer and store it on anything you like rather it’s a Blu-Ray/HD-DVD disc or Hard Drive.

Verizon FiOS goes up to 50MBPS, so imagine how fast the speeds will be 5 to 7 years from now.

Understood that not everyone will be able to stream HD content live via the internet in the near future, but that's not the point. The question is whether either high-definition disc format can gain any real traction against an onslaught of alternative delivery options, including cable/satellite HD channels and internet downloads - plus good old SD DVDs. Time will tell if people are going to buy HD-DVD or Blu-ray players in large numbers, but I wouldn't bet much on either format right now.

The main thing DVD-style discs have going for them is that most people are used to watching movies that way, and most aren't hooking up their computers to their TV. But extrapolate current trends 5-10 years into the future, and it's not so clear whether that will still be true then.

The amount of special interest HD DVD's alone will make the format grow.
This NAB look for a slew of HD DVD/Blu Ray authoring and burner packages.
The Discovery Channels of the World can only carry 24 hours a day of programming per channel. Most are supported by on air advertising which is decreasing everyday. The good content and talent will find a home on a disc. In 5-10 years the broadband market will again be controlled by the big "networks" this time AT&T and Verizon.

How many DVDs do you or most people have? How many hard drives do you need to store them, and what if that drive fails? Hard copies will be here for a very long time.

JMHO----Mike

I'm thinking / hoping that the world will move to a system where my media is always available. That includes bought media. This will work great with downloadable movies if I can hit play and it plays (reliably) in HD and just works.

In my opinion that will at least take a couple of years (probably 5+?) to fully get there. The internet lines just aren't fast enough now, nor are the backbones of the internet.

The question becomes are you going to buy a movie or pay per view. I like to own movies. But the main reason for that at the moment is that I can watch it whenever I want, including all extras (which rental dvd's tend to not have these days [at least here]). I want my Lord of the Rings *extended* trilogy with all the extras.

Once that is reliably available through an internet connection I think we'll move to a pay per view. No real reason to own it anymore if you can start watching it *instantly* (important keyword there). Of course prices need to be good for that (I'm not going to pay the same amount per view as I pay for a DVD now).

I have 200 (bought) dvd's in the house here which is starting to look a bit bad now that Blu-ray / HD DVD are around the corner (assuming either one will break through and become the next big thing).

At the moment I'm doing the wait and see thing. Both on buying (a lot) of dvd's as well as investing into Blu-ray & HD DVD players & movies.

I think movies are a lot different then music. The reason why most of us now buy music to download is because it is usually easier and faster. Plus many times we may only like a certain song off of an entire CD. I can download a song faster then I can get in my car let alone drive to the mall and dive through the people. With movies you don't just want to buy and download a single chapter but you want the entire movie with the extras and special features. Also with music there isn't as much of a need for great presentation. You just sit there and listen to it. Movies on the other hand people directly focus on and they like to have all the presentation materials that go along with the movie to make the experience special.

It is hard for us to even download a SD movie right now let alone a HD movie. Some people even have trouble with HD movie trailers and must download them first. I'm not saying that we will never get the level of broadband needed but it is not going to happen over night. I know a lot of people living outside of cities that still use dialup and those people will need choices. I mean it is only getting to the point now where most people can watch small streaming videos. Many of these videos are not even SD resolution yet. A lot of clients I have in fact have to watch the bigger streaming files at work where they can use a T3 connection. I'm sure companies will not like it if people start watching or downloading movies at work. Yes some of us have some pretty fat pipes but we really are in the minority.

As for burning the hard copy disk. What makes you think they will let us do that? Look how strict the music industry if getting. If they all had their way we would never ever be able to burn a hard copy of the movies we download. If they didn't care then they would let us copy HD-DVD's or Blu-Ray disks which we all know they frown upon. What if our hard drives fail with all our movies? Will we have to buy them all over agin? If we do not have to buy them we still have to download them all over again. How many of us would however? I mean it's not like we sit down and watch every movie every day. Many of us would just say forget it until we felt like watching a specific movie which at that point we would have to wait again to download it. By the time it was finished perhaps we would no longer feel like watching it. Or the other option would be to say forget it and drive to Blockbuster and rent the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD hybrid disk.

You see our music libraries are something many people may listen to everyday when they are at the gym or at work or maybe even in the car. It makes sense to take the time to download and but the songs you like because you know you will get great use out of it. Unless someone wants to make an Ipod device that plugs directly into my brain that can feed me movies everyday while I work or drive then I do not ever see movie downloads becoming any where as large as music downloads. They are two totally different beasts.

Sorry to truncate your post so much Thomas , but I couldn't help it, it was too perfect.

When you can walk around with 3000 songs on your Ipod, you don't need much else in the way of music availability.

Many people, just like Rob, have literally hundreds and hundreds of DVD movies. People want to hold them in their hands and take pride in their collections. I don't have that many DVD movies, but I had a big VCR library and felt that after that I would hold for the next generation of disk. Probably a good thing I did. I will, however, buy HD DVD or BR when the war is over or at least one or both look to be here to stay. It is too bad they could not have come to a compromise. If they had, think where we could be right now. I could probably be building my new library right now!

OK, the tornado warning just ended here, and I'm off the get more things done. :)

Mike

I don't think streaming/downloads will mean the end of purchasing a physical product. It will just be an alternative way to get a movie, and it will probably have the biggest impact in the rental market. Just like w/music sales some people are fine w/buying a song from iTunes while others want the higher audio quality, booklet, and physical product that comes w/buying a CD.

Paulo Teixeira,
Even though legal music downloads are "hot, hot, hot" they still account for a small percent of total music sales. I wouldn't exactly call that "destroying." ;)


-A

I based that conclusion on many articles stating that WallMart aren’t selling as much CDs as they used to and I saw a program on TV about a lot of Music stores going out of business because of people choosing to download their music is stead.

here's what I'd like to see....

I spend;
$90 a month for dish with HD ( cable wanted $24,300.00 to install to my house... 3500' driveway )

$75 for broadband

$19 for netflix

$20-60 for itunes purchases....

so...
I'd gladly pay $200 a month for a wimax (400Mps ) service that includes unlimited streams... I don't care to store them as long as at any point in time, I can stream HD content and have enough bandwidth for my other uses... ie; ftp.... in fact..... I'd even take advantage of unlimited server storage if it was offered at $100 a month. ( I pay $170 a year for 20GB now )

I'm sure a service like this would free up a bit of my time that I spend archiving and burning....

unfortunatly for me.... I'm in rural kentucky.... a wonderful place to live.... but slow to hi-tech progress.

Not even close to accurate, Andrew. By far, the majority of my music sales are online, and according to a recent ASCAP newsletter to it's artists (of which I am one), online sales eclipsed in-store record sales for all but the largest labels in the last quarter. Look at Apple's recent iTunes press release for more information.

Online sales of media will continue to escalate in the music side, and will slowly gain ground in the visual media, but as a simple matter of bandwidth and convenience, we'll continue to see sales of BD, HD DVD, and other formats as they come available, for at least the next 7-12 years. The big research companies say 15 years before downloading movies is commonplace, but I disagree, feeling it will come sooner than that. But I reserve the right to be wrong.

I’ve already said that Verizon is offering fiber optic lines that has speeds of upto 50MBPS. Is that not fast enough?

Also a lot of companies will indeed allow you to download copies of a file you just bought. Google and Apple is already allowing people to do that although in Google’s case you have to be on the internet to view a file from a Producer that choose to use DRM. The codec is sent to your computer every time but it’s destroyed every time you X out the file. They are currently working on a solution where you wouldn’t have to be on the internet to view a file that is already on a computer.

Besides I never said online distribution will surpass Blu-Ray or HD-DVD right away. In 5 to 7 years it will dramatically affect the sales.

I didn’t get to read the post from Douglas Spotted Eagle before I wrote my previous post but I will also add that Sony have mentioned that the next PlayStation may not use discs for future games. You may get them strictly from downloading off the internet.

Games are also slightly different then movies. Games are usually played many many times making a download worth it. Downloading games isn't all that much different then many of us buying and downloading software. These like music are items that are mass used everyday by the person who buys them. Movies on the other hand some people only watch once or maybe once every few months.

I agree with Spot that it could and maybe will happen but not for another 12 years.

As for the 50MBPS pipe. I will believe it when I see it actually working. I'm not saying it will not work just that I don't usually hold my breath for things that cannot happen yet. I try to live with what I can do now and not what I can do in 7 years. Verizon may be laying the optic foundation now but how long is it going to take for that to start up and become mainstream?

I think a more realitic option in the future if we have that much bandwidth is to just forget buying movies and have an advanced form of cable's on demand video where we could choose to watch every single movie or show known to man right over the network whenever we want and all we have to pay is a monthly fee for the service. That would beat the pants off of downloading movies because it goes back to the "how often do people watch the same movie?" Remember cable will want to play a big part in how movies are watched as well. Hollywood may prefer this option because it would be easy to control illegal duplication. Very few people would even want to make illegal copies because there would really be no reason to since you could watch whatever you want whenever you want. Why have a copy of Star Wars when you could just turn on your nice new ultra definition TV and select it from an Amazon.com type list and watch it within a few minutes?

Maybe I'm just not understanding the context of what I'm reading then.
According to info from the IFPI, "Digital sales now account for around 10% of the music market as record companies experiment and innovate with an array of business models and digital music products, involving hundreds of licensing partners."
http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_...ic-report.html
Am I'm reading about revenue generated and you're reading about "units" sold (# of downloads vs # of CDs)?

Paulo Teixeira,
I wouldn't be surprised at all to see the use of physical media in video games severely decline (if not flat out disappear). Many users user hardware and/or software means to retain playable copies of their games on their console or computer HDDs and never touch the disc except for the initial install. The waters are already being tested, so to speak, and the XBL Arcade and Wii Virtual Console are two of the biggest draws for those respective consoles.


-A

It ends up being shipped afterall.

LG ships first HD-DVD/Blu-ray hybrid player
http://www.computing.co.uk/vnunet/ne...hd-dvd-blu-ray

Sorry about this late reply but this is exactly what I mean about online distribution.

When we talk about streaming media, we need to distinguish movies from more episodic video series'. Everyone keeps saying that it is much easier to download a song than go to a store to buy it. But when it comes to a movie, it still takes a while to get them. If streaming, nothing would tick me off more than losing the connection (for whatever reason) 10 minutes before the ending. And nobody is going to like watching commercials because they are accustomed to uninterrupted viewing in the theater. A movie streamed will not have much value added.

So take a look at it from the other perspective. The media companies will focus on what they can add value to, repackage, and sell. They already started this with being able to download tv episodes from the broadcast company's website minutes after it has aired. They've realized that they don't have to be locked into a broadcast schedule and can sell the same ad space with an on-demand type of service.

Keep a close eye on the X360 and its strong internet model. Microsoft has distracted Sony with its cheap HD addon and is poising to flank the format war with IPTV.

Microsoft is a huge backer of HD-DVD since they are helping with the development of future HD-DVD players.

News video about the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format war
 

Replication prices: Blu-Ray verses HD-DVD
 

http://wesleytech.com/blu-ray-vs-hd-...osts-revealed/

Also click part 2 when you’re done reading.

Did anyone else catch some of the numbers that have come out for sales? Apparently in the first three weeks of January, Blu-Ray's number 1 movie was "Crank" which sold.. drum roll please..... 7,500 copies. Yup, with about a million players in the market (and yes, Sony absolutely considers the PS3 to be a player), three-fourths of one percent of Blu-Ray customers purchased the format's most popular film over a 3 week period.

Here's a write up (seems slighly biased to me, I'm not sure how anyone can keep a straight face and call 7,500 sales a good thing):

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/sh...ar_is_Over/468

The per/Gig cost becomes important for data or video storage, definitely. Referring specifically to movie replication costs, it becomes a bit of a different animal.

Honestly, I like a lot of things about HD DVD and it's my current HD format at home, but the whole "replication cost" thing seemed like a pretty goofy marketing point. Hey, if its cheaper to replicate, why isn't the MSRP lower? If Warner saves 10 or 20 cents on printing a copy of some movie on HD DVD vs BD, what's the consumer advantage again when its priced the same??

Anyway, the point of the article is this:

EVERYONE uses cost per gig of storage as a means of measurement. Whether it's authoring, storing, or recording to a medium, the cost is virtually *always* based on storage capacity. It has nothing to do with Sony, Toshiba, or anyone else. I'm not understanding how you draw that distinction.

~P2 costs XXX per gig. (about 165.00)
~XDCAM costs XXX per gig (about 1.00)
~Infinity costs XXX per gig (about 1.30)
~HDD (Think Firestore) costs XXX per gig. (about 24.00)

That's the *only* logical means of measurement when you're discussing different formats of differing sizes. HD DVD has a max of 54 gig. Blu-ray has a max of 200 gig. How can you talk about the two formats without looking at the cost per gig? Both discs cost about the same in a bulk format, so you have to delineate the differences one way or another.
BTW, I have *no* affilation of any kind with Sony Electronics, the division of Sony responsible for duplication, manufacturing, and reselling of BD. Other than knowing one guy in their laptop division, I have no relationships over there at all.

Sony didn't create the cost-per-gig benchmark, that was done long, long ago by others. Notice I'm not saying BD is better, HD DVD is worse, or anything else that might qualify as a marketing opinion. Quite the opposite; cost per gig allows for factual comparison.

~HD DVD=(max size) 54GB or about .03 cents per GB.
~BD=(max size) 200GB or about .008 cents per GB
~P2=8 GB or about 165.00 per GB.

Is that a fair comparison? Of course not, because they're different formats, 2 delivery and one acquisition. But this is where comparisons of cost per gig becomes important.

It costs nearly triple to author a full BD disc compared to a full HD DVD disc, because the storage is significantly greater. Which costs more at the store, a 300GB HDD or a 500GB HDD? If cost per gig doesn't matter, why aren't they the same price? Whether it's a Western Digital, Maxtor, Toshiba, whatever brand you want...more GB costs more to buy, store, author, deliver.

The main focus of that article was not really about which format cost more per gig since they also showed an example of a 15 gig HD-DVD costing 1.69 and a 25 gig Blu-Ray costing 1.99 but like I quoted earlier, its to show that Blu-Ray discs does not cost significantly more than HD-DVDs. There are a lot of reports of Blu-Ray costing 3 to 4 times more to replicate. This was only to prove them wrong.

I didn’t mean for this thread to be in a middle of a War since I left the U.S Army in 2003 and I was only there for just a little over 3 years.

To be fair, Paulo, when BD was initially announced, a lot of replicators were pretty upset, because it was clear they'd have to buy new gear that was considerably more expensive than the HD DVD counterpart, and the SD counterpart. However, that equipment was brought down in cost very rapidly (I believe it was subsidized). Initially, replicators were saying they'd pass the higher equipment cost on to the customer (us).
So, now the costs are pretty equal as a replicator and as a customer.
I don't think we've a "war" on here, but rather a couple of very strong viewpoints, that at the end of the day are saying *almost* the same thing.

As far as only 7500 units, maybe you should be reading Billboard. That's pretty respectable for what it is. You know that the total sales of CDs in the first year were less than 100,000 units?
Besides, "Crank" is terrible, IMO. :-)
I'm really glad I didn't sit through it at the theatre. The editing style on my wall display gave me a headache.

I have a PS3 which my wife and I bought on Jan. 1st, and as far as I'm concerned it's a fine choice for an HD movie player plus game machine plus digital photo reader, etc. I also have one client who's specifically asked for a Blu-ray copy of his wedding video this summer, and I've told him I'll sort that out with him once I determine what it's going to cost to produce. If burner prices haven't dropped enough by then I figure I'll farm the authoring out to someone who's already made that investment, so either way I'm covered. Same principle applies if someone asks for HD-DVD.

Regarding disc capacity issues, Blu-ray has a definite advantage because a single-layer disc can hold a useful amount of content in MPEG2 format, which is significantly easier to encode than the MPEG4 I'd have to use to squeeze my projects onto a single-layer HD-DVD. Given a choice I'd rather not use multi-layer discs of any format, as even mainstream (Hollywood) DVDs seem to have trouble with skipping at layer breaks. So if I can render a 90-minute video to MPEG2-TS in under 3 hours and have that authored and burned on a single-layer disc the same day, that makes more sense to me than waiting overnight just to render one of my projects to AVCHD or VC1 so I can fit it on an HD-DVD.

I read somewhere that Blu-ray disc sales were running slightly behind HD-DVD until January of this year, when they suddenly surged to roughly double the volume. That's almost certainly a result of widespread sales of the PS3, so if that trend continues Blu-ray appears to have an obvious edge over HD-DVD for the foreseeable future. The HD-DVD group has basically blown their head start on shipping standalone players, so unless they get something going by slashing prices they may be done. Or we may muddle along with two competing formats until they both get buried by something more convenient, but for now it's Blu-ray by several lengths going around the second turn of the track...

Here is another article for anybody who is interested in reading.
http://www.eproductwars.com/dvd/

Blu-Ray may be winning at the moment but for a while now, me and others have been predicting that Microsoft may release an X-BOX 360 with HDMI and built-in HD-DVD player by the end of this year. If they release such a player for 400 dollars then HD-DVD will have a chance of competing again. That would be 2 killer game systems, A PS3 that plays Blu-Ray movies and an X-BOX 360 that plays HD-DVDs and both having an HDMI output. With that combination, it wouldn’t be a good idea to purchase that LG combo player.

Speaking of video games consoles, Sony will give away a free Blu-Ray copy of Casino Royale to the first 500,000 Europeans to register their PS3 online. I fully understand Sony's business strategy in this rather than just including it in the Box. They will be able to get quicker sales this way.

Now this is News
A major Australian retailer who backs Blu-Ray refuses to stock HD-DVDs.
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/9548/52/
http://blogs.theage.com.au/screenpla...es/005081.html

Interesting. I'm surprised to see a retailer take such a hardline stance.


-A

I guess that's one way to eliminate consumer confusion. Give only one choice!