BR/HD-DVD Thread

[KnightBreed]

I don't know what the penetration is for HDTV but the adoption rate will probably be small compared to the adoption rate of PS3s, Xenons, and Revolutions. Just a wild guess but maybe 1 HDTV owner for every 10 consoles sold.

That is a reasonable, perhaps a tad conservative, estimate.

http://www.hometheatermag.com/news/120303hdtv/

For the year-long period ended September 30, more than 2.4 million HDTV sets were sold in the US, NPD researchers determined. The figure is 50% more than were sold in the previous year and three times the number sold two years ago.

2.4 million in the US alone is pretty significant and that number is expected to substantially rise again for 2004. I think both consortia realize that Japan and US will be the biggest and probably only markets for the next generation media. That is until the rest of the world gets off it's ass and pushes HDTV.

 

[London Geezer]

I don't know what the penetration is for HDTV but the adoption rate will probably be small compared to the adoption rate of PS3s, Xenons, and Revolutions. Just a wild guess but maybe 1 HDTV owner for every 10 consoles sold.

That is a reasonable, perhaps a tad conservative, estimate.

http://www.hometheatermag.com/news/120303hdtv/

For the year-long period ended September 30, more than 2.4 million HDTV sets were sold in the US, NPD researchers determined. The figure is 50% more than were sold in the previous year and three times the number sold two years ago.

2.4 million in the US alone is pretty significant and that number is expected to substantially rise again for 2004. I think both consortia realize that Japan and US will be the biggest and probably only markets for the next generation media. That is until the rest of the world gets off it's ass and pushes HDTV.

*Starts jumping, waving his arms in the air*

WE'RE HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IN A COUNTRY CALLER UNITED KINGDOM!!!!! WE SPEAK ENGLISH TOO!!!!!

 

[wco81]

The HDTV adoption curve is very steep now and will get steeper still. By the end of the decade, we'll be approaching 100 million just in this country alone.

Sen. McCain is currently working on a bill to push adoption so that the analog TV spectrum could be reauctioned for things like WiMax. He wants to turn off analog transmissions by 2009.

We'll have 10 million installed base by the end of this year. Most of them are HDTV sets. Sure there are some EDTV flat panels, mostly plasmas, sold so that people could hang sets on their walls without paying through the nose.

Most Xbox and GC games support at least 480p. A lot of PS2 games also support 480p. Those games can only be viewed in progressive mode on digital TVs, which in this country is mostly HDTVs.

If only 1 in 10 game console owners are using HDTVs, there sure is a lot of support for 480p. HDTV support in the next generation should be even greater, especially when developers realize that BD-ROM drives on PS3 will spur further HDTV adoption.

 

[London Geezer]

^^ Yeah, tell the EU Commission Minister of all things electrical that now have to go through them for approval, regardless of the identity of one country even if it's about making pizza or whoever handles this kind of thing...

 

[function]

Europe has had higher definition TV than NTSC regions for decades. If Europe is now a few years behind the US and Japan in adopting new HDTV standards this is possibly a reflection of Europe not needing it as much rather lacking the ability to 'get off its ass'...

 

[Deepak]

HD-DVD approved by DVD Forum

The DVD Forum has approved the physical disc specifications for the rewritable version of HD-DVDs (High Definition/High Density-DVDs), taking the format an important step nearer to mass production.

At a meeting in Taiwan on September 22, the association approved version 1.0 of the HD-DVD-RW physical specification, which covers a single-layer disc with a capacity of 20GB, Junko Furuta, a Toshiba spokesperson says.

 

[PC-Engine]

I'm curious as to what the single layer 20GB HD DVD-RW media will cost...

 

[jvd]

I'm curious as to what the single layer 20GB HD DVD-RW media will cost...

most likely double what the single layer dvd rws cost now but hey 4bucks for 20 gigs isn't that bad

 

[PC-Engine]

I'm curious as to what the single layer 20GB HD DVD-RW media will cost...

most likely double what the single layer dvd rws cost now but hey 4bucks for 20 gigs isn't that bad

Actually for $4 you could get about 5 DVD-RWs which equals ~ 25GB, however, with HD DVD-RW you get the convenience of a single disc. Don't know how the write speeds would compare between DVD-RW and HD DVD-RW though. DVD-RW will be up to 6X next year.

 

[cthellis42]

9.4GB DVD-RAMs still run around $10 a disk, and other dual-layer options seem to run about that as well. (At least for re-recordable media. I've seen some DVD-R's from Verbatim for more like $6-7 per if you buy them in 50-packs. But even with them, the smaller packs will run up to $10 as well.)

...and these are only offering twice of what DVD does now.

It's doubtful that we'll see anything near $4 disks until much more mass scale sales is going on, as the market knows it can command an easy premium in the beginning. Since it took dual-layer DVD so long to come out and isn't burning through the racks it's doing that right now. With all likelihood HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and whatever follows will do the same--and certainly they can command a higher price point that dual-layer DVD, which itself isn't falling very fast. (Which is really weird, since you'd kinda have to be an idiot to pay 10x the price or more for only 2x more data.)

 

[PC-Engine]

The actual cost of manufacturing a single layer HD DVD-RW is similar to a DVD-RW maybe two times at most, however, what the disc manufacturer will charge for these discs is up to them. I doubt they'll be charging $30 a disc though.

 

[cthellis42]

I doubt they'll be charging that either. But for sure manufacturing cost has nothing to do with the price point companies will push. Do dual-layer DVD's possibly cost that many times more than single-layer?

Blu-Ray disks are already under $30 (though they started out above and many still command it), so that point is already "used up" as it were (For the ~25GB ones. ~50GB can push past $60)--it will drop.

But I rather expect things to start in the $15+ range--with dual-layer DVD's dropping down some--to start off with. It may get to $10 reasonably quickly, but it will probably hover there while the players are still rolling out. Dual-layer DVD's will hit the $4-5 level and be much more commonplace for a while, but this will take place over an extended period of time. I figure HD-DVD will probably remain 2x the cost of dual-layer DVD's (they are 2x the storage, after all) and hover there for an extended period while the tech rollout passes the first few stages.

 

[max-pain]

20th Century Fox to adopt the Blu-ray Disc format

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10616

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp, a major U.S. movie distributor, will adopt the Blu-ray disc standard for next-generation DVD players developed by Sony Corp and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and other companies, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Sunday.



The economic daily said Twentieth Century Fox's move may give the Blu-ray disc standard an advantage over HD DVD, another format for DVD players developed by Toshiba Corp, NEC Corp and other companies.

 

[Farid]

20th Century Fox to adopt the Blu-ray Disc format

Star Wars... War is over if true, and if Fox do not plan to support HD-DVD at all, of course.

 

[wco81]

Who has Lord of the Rings?

 

[Farid]

Who has Lord of the Rings?

New Line Cinema, which belongs to Time Warner.

 

[Psychogenics]

The actual cost of manufacturing a single layer HD DVD-RW is similar to a DVD-RW maybe two times at most, however, what the disc manufacturer will charge for these discs is up to them. I doubt they'll be charging $30 a disc though.

Won't Blu-ray disc cost up to 10% less than todays DVDs in mass production?? Didn't Sony announce a new smaller space saving Burner for Blu-ray. I think that HD-DVD is fighting a lossing battle.

Space + Cheaper in Mass production = New standard format.

Besides will HD-DVD be as scratch resistant as Blu? DVDs are soo sensitive to scratches.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

I hope these new discs won't all be rotten within 10 - 15 years, like some of the cd's I have here...

 

[cthellis42]

Won't Blu-ray disc cost up to 10% less than todays DVDs in mass production?? Didn't Sony announce a new smaller space saving Burner for Blu-ray. I think that HD-DVD is fighting a lossing battle.

Space + Cheaper in Mass production = New standard format.

Besides will HD-DVD be as scratch resistant as Blu? DVDs are soo sensitive to scratches.

All the details are as yet unknown, and of course there can be differences between what "is said" and what can be done. Suffice it to say that the major publishing houses will be looking at ALL of the details before making their decisions. (And are probably browbeating both camps a bit to make sure they get what they want.)

A complete cost analysis is not something we could manage ourselves, of course.

 

[Wunderchu]

"Sony Eyes 200GB Blu-ray Discs"

20th Century Fox to adopt the Blu-ray Disc format

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/10616

Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp, a major U.S. movie distributor, will adopt the Blu-ray disc standard for next-generation DVD players developed by Sony Corp and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and other companies, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Sunday.



The economic daily said Twentieth Century Fox's move may give the Blu-ray disc standard an advantage over HD DVD, another format for DVD players developed by Toshiba Corp, NEC Corp and other companies.

quite big news, IMO ..







other Blu-ray related news:

"Sony Eyes 200GB Blu-ray Discs"

http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117867,00.asp





(I first found out about this news from this thread in the AVS Forum:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=434021 )