Blu-ray has 70% of 1st qtr sales?
- Thread starter Random Digital
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Not only that but DVD wars.com is showing HDDVD making historic gains really. Now actually leading in many catagories which has been unseen for months. Of course, being based on amazon sales rankings it's about as unscientific as it gets.
I cant believe Sony is botching another one. I dont see BluRay players less than $600. Meanwhile HDDVD is sitting at $299 right now everywhere. With PS3 sales slowing to a standstill. at some point a crossover will be reached where stand-alone hddvd sales are outpacing PS3. If not in raw hardware, at least in disc purchasing first, as stand alone purchasers seem far more ardent movie buyers than PS3 owners.
I wouldn't be surprised if Disney starts re-examining exclusivity in the mid-near future. They could double their Hi-def sales simply by putting out a HDDVD version of titles.
I think both of these formats are, relatively, so "small" in terms of adoption that any new, important titles can make a significant difference in the apparance of these types of rankings. I'd suggest that what you are seeing here is the combined factors of Planet Earth, Matrix Trilogy and probably the pre-sales of Heroes.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I'd wager Planet Earth and Heroes are probably more to do with this than the Matrix Trilogy. People are already seeing Planet Earth in HD (absolutely gorgeous) on TV and same goes for Heroes in HD on TV.
Considering the almost cult following that Heroes has among the people I know. I wouldn't be surprised if many of them are also wanting to have it in a HD format to match the HD version they saw either on their TV or a friends TV.
And same goes for Planet Earth. I think Planet Earth has done more to make me desire high def. video content then anything I have ever seen. Absolutely breathtaking.
And the bonus here is, that HD-DVD players are almost cheap enough to qualify for Impulse Purchasing among the middle class. If HD-DVD players were 200 dollars, I'd consider it a safe bet to buy on impulse even if it later failed, I'm not out as much as a 500 or 600 dollar purchase.
Whereas a 500 dollar purchase makes me sit there for hours pondering whether to buy it or not even if it's something I REALLY want.
Personally I prefer Blu-Ray as a possible future data storage medium to replace DVD-R. However, when it comes to home video, cheaper is better in my book.
Regards,
SB
Well, I look around our shelves here and I think it's not the $500 investment in a player that I'd be deeply concerned about becoming a door stop (tho obviously I'd be somewhat concerned). . . .it's the liklihood of several thousand dollars investment in orphaned media that keeps me from pulling the trigger.
That's true. The other thing is that unlike the VHS-to-DVD transition, there's no compelling need to replace the entire library. More likely just buy new stuff as it comes out.
I can hear somebody say "you didn't need to with VHS to DVD either". But that someone has obviously never seen VHS on a 55" screen.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
After my first exposure to DVD's a VHS even on a 26" TV was rather painful.
The difference between DVD's and HD Video isn't quite as shocking. I mean things are clearer certainly but you don't have DVD's rather large improvement with regards to color bleeding that existed even with S-VHS.
The biggest thing that will help move HD-DVD and Blu-Ray into more people's homes will be...
1. They can play existing DVD titles. I'm assuming here that both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players can play standard DVD disks?
2. They are priced competitively with standard DVD players.
Better picture quality and audio won't move massive amounts of players. The majority of older people I know that have a DVD player still run it off the build in sound of the TV. Heck I have a lot of friends that at best only run DVD though a stereo receiver. Meanwhile, they have a 5.1 or 7.1 stereo setup for their computer. **shakes head in amazement**
When it comes to the mass market, IE - selling over a million players a year at least. It's not the price difference between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray that will matter.
It's the price difference between a DVD player and a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player.
Neither format is going to "win" until they can compete with DVD on price.
And then you have people like my father and relatives who are generaly late adopters who won't move to a new format until both the players and media are cheap compared to existing formats. And since my father has a DVD recorder AND doesn't have the best eye-sight in the world. HD Video really has nothing to offer him.
Regards,
SB
The difference between DVD's and HD Video isn't quite as shocking. I mean things are clearer certainly but you don't have DVD's rather large improvement with regards to color bleeding that existed even with S-VHS.
The biggest thing that will help move HD-DVD and Blu-Ray into more people's homes will be...
1. They can play existing DVD titles. I'm assuming here that both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players can play standard DVD disks?
2. They are priced competitively with standard DVD players.
Better picture quality and audio won't move massive amounts of players. The majority of older people I know that have a DVD player still run it off the build in sound of the TV. Heck I have a lot of friends that at best only run DVD though a stereo receiver. Meanwhile, they have a 5.1 or 7.1 stereo setup for their computer. **shakes head in amazement**
When it comes to the mass market, IE - selling over a million players a year at least. It's not the price difference between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray that will matter.
It's the price difference between a DVD player and a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player.
Neither format is going to "win" until they can compete with DVD on price.
And then you have people like my father and relatives who are generaly late adopters who won't move to a new format until both the players and media are cheap compared to existing formats. And since my father has a DVD recorder AND doesn't have the best eye-sight in the world. HD Video really has nothing to offer him.
Regards,
SB
I'm personally on the side of Blu-Ray just because of the capacity. If current dual-layer Blu-Ray disc can contain up to 50GB of data (and even bigger in the future), then it can obsolete external HDDs to some extent. Thinking about it, with a 50GB disk, I can backup my whole documents folder, and another disk for my whole music selection, and another for my whole picuture collection. 150GB of data in a mere 3 CDs that can be burn as needs be? Easy to backup/carry, light, small and secure than HDDs?
I know the main discussion on this thread has been SONY vs anti-SONY, but as a hardware enthusiast, I'd like to see a huge capacity optical disc that can eventually replace external hard disks (for backup).
I know the main discussion on this thread has been SONY vs anti-SONY, but as a hardware enthusiast, I'd like to see a huge capacity optical disc that can eventually replace external hard disks (for backup).
That sounds good to me. HDDVD for movies and Bluray for data...
My experience with media tells me that backing up to Bluray won't be high on my priority list any time soon though.
This battle is in its infancy and we are declaring a winner? This is like having a 60-40 split in a presidential election with .3% of precints reporting and calling the election.
I saw a thing on the history channel about the 1980s. One thing that stuck out in my mind was the VHS vs Betamax war. The deciding factor was price, lower prices drove VHS to beat Betamax. Whichever format gets to the lowest price point to drive the highest volume wins.
No that wasn't it - it was because only Sony (and a couple of minor players) was producing Betamax. Every other manufacturer was producing VHS. VHS won because initially people saw VHS as more widely supported because of this, and later the larger scale production and competition drove prices down.
That sounds good to me. HDDVD for movies and Bluray for data...
My experience with media tells me that backing up to Bluray won't be high on my priority list any time soon though.
For data backup Bluray is an easy win. People doing corporate data backups don't like splitting data onto multiple disks, so the largest capacity always wins every time, even if it costs more.
I will be surprised if many corporate backup envrionments are burning to a blu ray disc when you can span it over multiple tapes with a robot or in some cases, put it all on a single tape. For instance here we have a drive capable of writing 160Gb to a single tape. And there is a better verion that can do 320GB. I am sure over the next couple of years that will expand to 640GB or more, if it hasnt already.
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You can also split up backups onto multiple optical disks, but the point is that whatever you look at, tapes or optical disks, corporations always go for the largest size possible. If you can get a backup onto one disk or tape, or the fewest tapes possible, that is a huge benefit. Multiple tapes or disks are a hassle to handle, and increases the chances of one being lost or misplaced.
BD is much faster, and cheaper than tape (both drive and media). A 100GB 4 layer BD R drive (when it is available) should be able to hold a 400GB partition (assuming compression and 50% usage) and it is plenty for backing up individual filesets ) eg. database snapshots.
Where you would need tape is of course for frequent read write backups, but an alternative is to use extra hard drives for backups or redundancy and in addition use optical read only drives for permanent archives would be a good (and cheaper alternative), since tapes are cumbersome, slow and expensive compared to anything else.
Well, DLT2/3 media is a LOT cheaper per GB than writable blu-ray AND it's 200/400GB native. Sure the drive costs more, but blu-ray is not feasible as a backup media. Never has been and never will.
When CD-R came it was bigger than average hard drive but now blu-ray is about 1/10:th of normal hard disk. Too little too late for backupping.
When CD-R came it was bigger than average hard drive but now blu-ray is about 1/10:th of normal hard disk. Too little too late for backupping.
I could not see myself using optical disks to backup our current data storage solutions. we're talking about terabytes here for weekly/monthly backups.
Sure the daily backups can be done with smaller tapes but I'd rather have the comfort of 4 or 800GB tapes than 100GB disks.
Sure the daily backups can be done with smaller tapes but I'd rather have the comfort of 4 or 800GB tapes than 100GB disks.
inefficient
Veteran
Even with CDRs the advantage wasn't it's size. It was the fact that CD-ROM reader drives and CD music players were very prevalent even when the writers were about $500.
It was basically a economical data distribution format for home use. You could make music compilation discs for friends, or send assorted data to them, and you knew they would be able to play them. You could also play discs you burned on several of the other devices in your home that you already owned.
There is always going to be cheaper per GB solutions. Tape was still much much cheaper than CDs back then too. Just as it is now. But with CDs you got convenience and were not locked down to just one device you owned.
Hypothetically I will own a BRD writer some time down the line and will be able to play back those discs in various devices I already own, not to mention pass them around my friends. And I might as well use it for personal back up purposes as well since 50GB is still nothing to sneeze at. I have no need for a specialty back up centric solution. Versatility and knowing the format has staying power in CE devices for years to come is more important.
It was basically a economical data distribution format for home use. You could make music compilation discs for friends, or send assorted data to them, and you knew they would be able to play them. You could also play discs you burned on several of the other devices in your home that you already owned.
There is always going to be cheaper per GB solutions. Tape was still much much cheaper than CDs back then too. Just as it is now. But with CDs you got convenience and were not locked down to just one device you owned.
Hypothetically I will own a BRD writer some time down the line and will be able to play back those discs in various devices I already own, not to mention pass them around my friends. And I might as well use it for personal back up purposes as well since 50GB is still nothing to sneeze at. I have no need for a specialty back up centric solution. Versatility and knowing the format has staying power in CE devices for years to come is more important.
Gee I dont know, how fast are these things expected to write? We spec'd out a machine in 05 with a library that was supposed to be able to do 70MB\sec.
I just dont see optical discs unless a huge jump in technology happens becoming a backup medium. Tape is cheap, fast, easy to use, and rewritable.
To disk backups are fine but most corporations have a requirement for some form of off site backup for disaster recovery. So disk is great for easy retrieval, tape isnt going away due to off site requirements.
And most important I doubt being a backup medium will drive BluRay, movies will