Comments on: Can anything save HD DVD?

Not likely, but there's a very slim chance that the rapidly decreasing cost of HD DVD could lure consumers to buy equipment.

[fmusignac]

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your blog is the best.. I only have to come to one place for a lot of important and interesting articles!!! I LOVE IT! Thanks for your good work!

[make_or_break]

What makes you think that MSFT...

...would necessarily want HD-DVD saved? Sure they backed the format, but that doesn't mean jack. They've always had the out available to jump formats if Blu-ray prevails. For the 360, they've already hinted that they can bring to market a Blu-ray drive for their system when HD-DVD finally calls it a life.

Besides, how long will Blu-ray actually survive? Disc-based media is a dying genotype.

[gck105]

Can $129 HD DVD Players Save Them?

HD DVD players are dropping in price like crazy. Most people attribute it to a clearance of inventory, but I think that they are trying to flood the market with HD DVD players to increase the demand for the movies. There were reportedly nearly a million HD DVD players in homes after the holiday season, how many more can they get into homes with the new lowered prices? At what point can the studios stop dismissing that number of players in homes?

[BCF1968]

I'll tell you

Because there are 4 milion blu-ray players in homes right now.

[Wes#1]

End this format war!

HD could really take off if the format war would simply end. From what I've read, Universal and Paramount have limited contracts with HD-DVD and could soon begin issuing Blu-ray (even if not exclusive). Toshiba should see the handwriting on the wall and negotiate an arrangement with Sony, with the two offering a rebate to HD-DVD owners to ease their switch-over to Blu-ray. While Toshiba still has two studios in its (torn) pocket, they should negotiate NOW.

[grmertz]

The customer gets screwed again

Early adopters of High Def looked to HD-DVD because Blueray was out of site in price. So now the Studios are going to screw the customers that bought their product in the begining. It is not about the customer any more it is how can big business make more money for their stockholders. At this point they can keep their movies I won't buy them on Blueray or DVD.

[BCF1968]

Low price players won't help HD-DVD

They tried that atfter Thanksgiving and it failed. That's why Warner went to blu-ray. They were waiting to see if all those $99 HD-DVD players would make a difference. It didn't so they bolted. So what is a $129 HD-DVD player going to do? Nothing. If HD-DVDs only hope is to scam people in to buying a dead format that they are unaware only 20-25% of the movies out there wil be available then that's just sad.

They could sell a HD-DVD player for $49a nd if they are honest and upfront and tell custoemrs "Oh by the way only 2 out of every 10 movies at the theater will actually be on this format" how many are they going to sell? Not many.

If MS actually cared about HD-DVD they'd drop the price of their HD-DVD add-on to $99 or less. They won't so that say everything.

[Renegade Knight]

It's all in what consumers buy.

If consumers buy HD-DVD because it's cheaper, or better for them, or they just like the pretty color, HD-DVD can win. HD-DVD comes with movies. Blue Ray comes with a price tag. HD-DVD has the 'name'. Blue Ray sounds like your DVDs may not work.

The battle can be strongly influnece by the movie studies but consumers make the final choice with what they buy. If we all buy HD-DVD if they want to sell movies they will get wtih the program.

Oh and HD-DVD is much more consumer friendly. Less DRM copy protection crap.

[Sciber2000]

A better question....

can anyone stop the left leaning discourse that always seems to find it's way into these "technology" blogs? Murdoch lending money to the devil? Maybe the blogger should restrict his far left comments to The Daily Kos.

[ian_torres]

A better answer to your question....

Remember this is a blog. A blog is a 3rd party diary or journal; not an editorial publication. Blogs follow stream of consciousness, so if the writer chooses to embellish or propose a challenging opinion, I'm ok with it. I don't have to agree with it, but it is appropriate to write.

[labazzo]

no format here

I don't belive in this format war. I will not buy either format any time soon. My upcovert DVD player is good enough for me. Even if Blue ray wins they would have to lower their prices to what regular DVD players go for now, for anyone to buy. Also lower the price on the DVD movies. I just need the movie on disc not all this special features they advertise. I never look at special features. As for security, there is always a way around copy protection.

[bubblebathgirl]

The better format won

It's nice to see the better format win for a change.

Congrats Blu-ray!

[ebhaynz]

HD-DVD treated this customer right!

I don't regret buying my Hd-DVD player at all. It's by far the better product, it is less expensive, and there are plenty of movies available. I don't need every movie to be in High Def and it's a real treat when I buy an HD-DVD like Children of Men or Blade Runner. If it's not on HD-DVD I just buy the DVD, works for me just fine. Only once or twice was there a movie I wanted that was available only on Blu-Ray. I also think this "Format War" was a great thing for consumers. Prices for the hardware dropped dramatically from crazy high to very reasonable (at least for HD-DVD players), and in a very short time. I just wish HD-DVD could hold for another year or two but I seriously doubt that will happen. As far as the future? In the end, DVD's and Blu-Ray will end up being a niche item (just like CD's are now) as the Internet delivery technology becomes more sophisticated. I'm not saying goodbye to HD-DVD yet, I'm just supporting them while they're on life support. Don't Die HD-DVD!

[doug20666]

Sales in Other regions

Most of the stuff I've read said that Blu-Ray was selling even better in the other regions than here in the U.S.

[tubaloth]

Start over....

HD-DVD should have realized this was coming (or close to it). Sooner or later one of the last 3 studios would think about switching. They should of done more to prevent it from happening.
I still believe that if HD-DVD burners in the home became affordable (like $120) it would help this "war." But they should have been a bigger priority at the first.
Now I don't think anything can save it. The only real thing that MIGHT save it is new enhancements/features to HD-DVD. Give something the studios really want (that blu-ray doesn't have or doesn't do very well). Almost to create a new format (that can still be played on HD-DVD players with some update). Thast the only thing I see left to save them.
MS wanted HD to win because it doesn't have to pay Sony for the Blu-ray. For Microsoft next game machine, they are going to have to go HD. Now they well have to battle Sony and pay Sony for the Blu-ray.

[DaveyD1200]

HD-DVD was already losing before this happened

I see people saying, "But but but, HD-DVD players are in 1 million american homes" or "Early-Adopters got screwed". These are the same people that backed a losing format.

Sure HD-DVD players might be in 1 million homes. Counting JUST the PS3 sales for JUST this last year, thats 2.3 million homes. HD-DVD couldn't even outsell the PS3 sales.

Don't say Early Adopters got screwed on the price. Everyone knows if you buy tech on release you are paying around double what you can get it for in a year. Look at what Apple did with the iPhone as another example. If your are adopting tech early, you know the risks. Especially when you know that there are competing formats. This isn't new (VHS vs Betamax).

HD-DVD lost because they didnt release enough titles fast enough and couldn't match the number of Blu-rays put in homes due to the PS3 alone.

The only upside to HD-DVD was it was supposed to be cheaper and faster to marker. Blu-ray was always the better quality and this fact is not debatable. Well Blu-ray got to market just as fast as HD-DVD and with more and better titles. Giving it the clear advantage.

As far as the XBox 360 and HD-DVD players are concerned, looks like they can now resell a Next-Gen DVD drive to the same customers who bought dieing HD-DVD drives. Sounds like they won too.

[iPod_Killer]

there's a flaw...

Even though the PS3 is selling, there are some people that don't realize that there's a Blu-ray player in it.
A poll was made last year about the features that are found in game consoles and (I can't remember the exact figure but...) around 60% of the people didn't know that the PS3 has a Blu-ray player and that they can buy an external HD DVD player for the Xbox.

Gamers that are not as tech savvy as us, just want to pop in their game disc and go nuts with their controller and sometimes they won't care about the other extras.

And at this point, most people are not adopting the Hi-def format because it is too confusing and they don't care.

[menotbug]

Some reasons for why Blu-Ray succeeded...

As someone who is an auditor for the movie studios in the largest retail store in the country, I can give some simple reasons for why Blu-Ray, to those in retail, always had an edge over HD-DVD. While HD-DVD was a cheaper, more straightforward/consumer friendly format, Blu-Ray, especially with its backing from Disney, was simply more savvy in its advertisement and product placement.

Here are some examples:
- The Blu-Ray Consortium (BRC) paid the retailer I work for to secure preferential placement. HD-DVD was relegated to a lower traffic area. This was implemented nation-wide.
- The BRC also was the first to, in this same retailer, rent space in the TV department specifically for a Blu-Ray display. HD-DVD acted late, and thus, was only able to, again, secure secondary product placement.
- The BRC also was first, and in this case alone, in renting out fixtures in the retailers' DVD department to showcase Blu-Ray product. In support of this, the BRC also paid my company to have us audit and ensure the merchandising of these fixtures on a weekly basis, with more time being spent during high sales times (holidays, etc.).

HD-DVD sorely fell behind on the merchandising side of things. I can only assume that they were foolish enough to think that consumers would, in today's society, be technologically savvy enough to realize the better and cheaper format would be HD-DVD. The BRC quickly realized that this was not the case, and that, as it has been for ages, consumers can be swayed with fancy but useless options that they will never need or use.

By realizing this, the BRC moved quickly to win the battle at an individual store level. Our company was eventually even contracted to Blu-Ray demonstrations for this same retailer nation-wide. These demonstrations were done for the store employees during the week and for customers during the high traffic times of the weekend. HD-DVD never contracted any outside vendor to do anything similar, nor did they ever send out their own representatives. They assumed the hardware would sell itself, and they assumed wrong.

By winning the battle at the store level, Blu-Ray was able to maintain a constant presence that HD-DVD only made an attempt at once it was too late. Blu-Ray's visibility, along with the lack of visibility for HD-DVD, severely influenced the sales representatives that interacted directly with the consumers. Too few of the consumers, along with the retailers' employees, were tech. savvy enough to realize that HD-DVD would be better in the long run. Sure, you may have less features and disk space, but the features and extra space are mainly cosmetic to begin with; the consumer would benefit far more from the cheaper cost of both hardware ad software. Nevertheless, by overwhelmingly winning the PR campaign, Blu-Ray clearly separated itself from HD-DVD. In my opinion, the tide turned when Disney sided with Blu-Ray.

Disney has the most thorough and ruthless PR people on the planet; unfortunately, those two traits allow them to take advantage of those who only listen to advertising. Which, as Apple has also proven, is those who have lots of money, but spend so much effort earning it that they only know what the salesperson tells them when they make a technology purchase.

Again, this is not to say that the way Blu-Ray won was ethical or appropriate, only that these are the facts that have led to our current result. It's sad, but at the same time, this should be a lesson for anyone thinking about implementing new technology: if you are creating a proprietary format, marketing and product placement, especially at store level, is crucial. Hopefully companies that actually desire to retail quality/cost-effective products will realize this some day.

[Slipdisc]

Don't Say Goodbye To HD DVD, Yet

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/17/don_t_say_goodbye_to_hd_dvd_yet/

[HHaller2]

Face it...

It's the studios who are running the show. Not Sony, Toshiba or Microsoft.

It didn't come down to merit, sales, hardware specs or any of the usual things we like to argue about.

Just lots of cash, going both ways.

[darcal2000]

PS3 is simply a Blu-ray hype machine

Blu-ray supporters constantly refer to the PS3 install base as the reason why Blu-ray is the winning format because consumers are purchasing more Blu-ray players (which are overwhelmingly predominantly PS3's).

The primary reason why PS3's are being purchased is to play GAMES not to watch movies. Movies are only secondary, if at all, as to the reason PS3 buyers make the purchase. It was the same situation with the PS2 when that came out. It was nice that it could play DVD's, but playing DVD's on it took a toll on its drive in the long run just as some PS3 owners will soon come to find out. It was MADE to play GAMES and is (wisely) being marketed as the ideal Blu-ray player in terms of cost which is a mistake in the long-term to people that may be uninformed enough to purchase it as their primary Blu-ray player.

I believe Sony is doing a fine job at marketing their format and using the PS3 as their main Blu-ray hype machine. If you walk into a blockbuster you will see a PS3 for sale with Blu-ray movies, which blockbuster never used to do (as far as selling hardware). Sony has used their past success with the PS2 to sell the PS3 to movie studios as a Blu-ray movie player installed in homes. While this is technically true, as it is capable of playing movies, its somewhat misleading to movie studios and consumers keeping track of the format war alike.

[webdev511]

Does it need saving?

I've got both formats and like many others prefer HD DVD releases over Blu-Ray. Even if (when) this effort to push players out the door fails, I doubt that HD DVD will go away completely. I certainly won't enjoy the titles I've purchased less just because I can't buy anymore.

If the studios can't get the price of new Blu-Ray releases below $20 (at least during release week) I don't see it (or HD DVD) becoming more than twice as popular as LaserDisc.

If the HD DVD Forum REALLY wanted the format to survive, they would offer to pickup the difference between the studio's cost of pressing a standard def DVD and combo format in return for the combo being the only way people could purchase the standard def version.

Both formats have to keep offering more titles with new releases and back catalogs.

[sommer182]

Face The Facts

Let's face it. It all comes down the COST and COST ALONE.

I waited until the $99.99 Wal-Mart special to jump up to a "next-gen" HD format, and ONLY cause I needed a new DVD player. The only HD-DVD's I have purchase are ones that will play on BOTH my HD-DVD AND my laptop / portable DVD player. I love the machine and the video experience, but my discs MUST work with every other player in my house as well.

Most of the rest of the Wal-Mart/Target/Best Buy shopping world such as myself (or 98% of the rest of the American public) will need $100 players and $5.00 to $15.00 discs before the start buying in serious quantity.

No matter HOW GOOD THE TECH IS.