Also: http://www.dvdempire.com/Content/Features/hidef_wars.asp?view=1
Posted on 01/25/2008 1:49:35 PM PST by E-Mat
Warner Home Video's defection from the HD DVD camp may have put a damper on hardware sales (see " Warner's Blu-ray Disc move has industry buzzing").
In the week since the studio's surprise early-January announcement that after May it will support only the rival Blu-ray Disc format, sales of HD DVD players ground to a virtual halt, giving Blu-ray hardware a whopping 93% sales advantage, according to data from the NPD Group.
According to raw retail data collected by NPD, consumers bought just 1,758 HD DVD players the week of January 12, down from 14,558 players the week before. In contrast, consumers bought 21,770 Blu-ray Disc machines, up from 15,257 the previous week.
... while the Warner defection might have had an impact on HD DVD player sales, other factors also may have come into play, including an aggressive promotion by Sony and Sharp in which HDTVs were bundled with Blu-ray Disc players.
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
Game, Set, and Match!
HD-DVD is sinking faster than Rudy’s presidential candidacy.
HD DVD = Sony Betamax
Ping
Thanks.
Whoever is still waiting for the market to shake out... It just shook.
Next time somebody comes out with a video storage format with over four times the capacity of the previous format, there ought to be some way to backup and consolidate onto the new format.
Bah. I just bought my brother an HD-DVD player for Christmas. Ah well, it still serves pretty well as an up-converter. Plus maybe now all of the movies that are out on HD-DVD will drop to a more reasonable price.
ping
Hitler loses the format war
But Microsoft backs HD-DVD, in fact , I heard they are going to putit in the Zune Pro, running Vista Me with a Bob Interface and free MS-Works.
Yep, sure enough the week after (after Christmas) I bought a new Sharp HDTV, I look in the paper on Sunday and Circuit City had a free Sharp Blu-Ray with the purchase of a Sharp HDTV. IF I would have waited just one week , I could have bought the TV for the same price and a free Blu-Ray. Always happens like that.
I used to own a sony betamx player that I bought in 1979 for $840.00 and blank tapes were $14.00 ach - OUCH!!
I guess one good thing is that HD-DVD movies should drop in price.
Because of the way AACS is built into the BluRay model, if a small company or corporation wants to have a BluRay title replicated, the added cost for the licensing and AACS can add more than $6,000 to the cost of a small run replication job. That makes it difficult to make the decision to have a BluRay title replicated if you only need, say, 1,000 copies or less.
HD DVD is much friendlier to that sort of client.
So, I predict that HD DVD will be the choice of those who need to have their discs replicated in small runs, while BluRay will get all the very large orders, like for Hollywood titles.
I don't have either one yet and it will probabaly be a while before I buy one. That being said, my local Hollywood Video outlet doesn't even get the Blu-Rays at their location yet they are in an "income enhanced" locality while all the other outlets in not so economically enhanced areas are receiving all the HD-DVD's and the Blu-Rays........
When I asked the manager about this she said she can't figure it out either and suggested I call Hollywood Video and voice a complaint. If enough folks complain then maybe they'll start getting these new formats in.
but for the the record, she said rentals of these HD-DVDs and Blu-Rays are averaging about $2 more per rental.....
ping
Since you have both, which is better at upconverting your DVD’s?
Naw, Sony would never lie about numbers...
NPD: Free Blu-ray player deals led to boosted sales this month
A report from NPD Group claimed Blu-ray standalone player sales accounted for 93 percent of the high-def market for the week ending January 12, but NPD itself won't stand behind the numbers, saying they were leaked and that weekly sales data is not a long-term indicator.
According to Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for NPD, the data "came from an NPD subscriber" and "wasn't approved for release from NPD." He added that the firm typically sees big fluctuations in sales volumes each week, and never makes long-term judgements based on weekly data.
"It reflects what was going on during that week," Baker said, adding that it wasn't smart to "extrapolate that out for six months."
So what went on the week ending January 12 that led to such high numbers in Blu-ray standalone player sales? Bundling deals with HDTVs, explained Baker. Sharp Blu-ray players accounted for over 30% of sales, as they were offered free to buyers of the company's LCD televisions.
Sony -- also accounting for one-third of sales -- had a similar $400-off deal for Blu-ray players when buying a Sony HDTV.
Panasonic, like Sharp, offered a free Blu-ray player and made up for the remaining third of units sold. Samsung Blu-ray sales were almost non-existent, as the company did not offer any special deals to TV buyers.
The NPD figures did not include Sony's PlayStation 3 or Microsoft's HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 -- only standalone players.
Baker wouldn't get specific -- since NPD normally never even comments on weekly sales data -- but said there was some drop in HD DVD player sales. For its part, the HD DVD Promotional Group told BetaNews the weekly sales data was from before the HD DVD player price drop Toshiba announced last week.
Baker did provide BetaNews some insight as to how NPD counts sales. It receives its data from point-of-sale systems from a number of retail outlets across the United States. He would not say how many retailers send data to NPD, but said it was "double digits."
NPD's numbers do not include online sales from the likes of Amazon, where Toshiba's HD-A3 HD DVD player is the number one seller in the DVD player category and number 14 in all of electronics. By contrast, standalone Blu-ray players do not make the electronics list.
Hitler has had a very bad day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYvZnTFpip0
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