HD-DVD Will Win the Format War!

[Deepak]

Only catch is that it was commissioned by Toshiba itself.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20060721/tc_zd/184073

Ipsos Vantis, a market research firm which predicts consumer trends, released the results of a survey last week which forecast that consumers will overwhelmingly choose HD-DVD as the format of choice in the next-generation DVD wars. The survey reported that, if all studios supported both formats, consumers were more than seven times more likely to buy an HD-DVD player than a competing Blu-ray player.

The survey conducted by Ipsos Vantis, commissioned by Toshiba, predicted consumers would overwhelmingly choose HD-DVD rather than Blu-ray. The survey took a sample of 1,341 U.S. adults and screened them down to 469 people who either owned an HDTV or planned on buying one within a year.


The respondents were then "educated," as if they would be making a purchase decision. Not surprisingly, much of the data Ipsos Vantis provided in the survey was received with guidance from Toshiba, said Stephen Bohnet, senior vice president at Ipsos Vantis.

 

[Bobbler]

That's sort of silly -- "if all studios supported both formats" sort of makes the entire thing moot... because, well, they aren't. If all studios supported both formats then the story would be different, obviously. Who the hell comes up with this shit?

 

[RobertR1]

Actually, there's a high chance of both techs becoming niche products for a very long time and might never come out of that. Customer confusion, expensive players, expensive media and a format war don't make for fun times. We're seeing clash of the ego's.

 

[Geo]

Ghod, that's a hoot. If my Uncle Fred were a woman he'd be my Aunt Frederica too. What they have proved is that consumers are rational, and that they'd rather pay $500 for a player than $1,000, everything else being equal.

Well, duh. The problem being, of course, that Sony isn't just a player maker, they are a content-controller --and a pretty major one at that. The Sony film library is very extensive.

In fact, I'd probably go one step further --the one sure sign that BRD has "lost" would be when Sony starts making HD-DVD discs of all the content they control available to consumers. That would be the incontrovertible white flag of surrender.

I tend to think Disney is the key. If Disney supports HD-DVD as well as BRD, and they have hinted they might, that might tip this war.

At the end of the day, people will buy players to play content (this is even true for PS3, it's just that content includes games), so content availability is going to be a major determiner. Content availability, of course, is going to be driven by 1) Self interest and 2) Installed base to play it. Both of those are going to favor BRD fairly majorily starting in December. Enough to end the battle? Heckifino. See you in March for a status check.

 

[Ty]

I'm guessing that after the launch of the PS3, we'll see the true direction of the format war. If BRD content providers aren't impressed by PS3's consumer adoption, then consider this war over.

 

[Geo]

I'd modify that slightly --I'd say if they aren't impresssed by the number of PS3 owners buying BRD movie discs. A subtle disctinction, but an important one in my view. It's that one further step. How successful will Sony be in marketing PS3 as a movie player to folks who aren't gamers, and how many gamers and/or their parents/sig-o's will be willing to see it as an HD movie player as well? I don't know that the model is proven; that the numbers exist to point at a similar success or failure of such an attempt to bundle when further $$ purchases by consumers are necesary to make the bundling "work" for the bundler.

It will also be interesting to see if HD-DVD players come down in price by November to cut into the "well, I don't really want to game, but that's the cheap way to get HD movies" crowd that might consider PS3 as primarily an HD movie platform. Will the HD movie enthusiasts be at Best Buy throwing 'bows with the gamers to score the available supply of PS3s during Christmas season? I don't see that, so I tend to doubt the early PS3 adoption crowd is going to be HD movie-heavy in composition (tho obviously there is some overlap anyway).

 

[Ty]

Definitely true though that is even further down the timeline than my suggestion - you have to have the potential before you can have the actual (thank you Aristoles).

 

[Colourless]

HD-DVD has something that Blu-ray doesn't, a familiar name. I can imagine a clueless consumer going into a store and asking for one of those "High Definition DVD thingies". Think about people calling DVDs CDs. It's going to be worse with the Hi Def formats.

 

[Sonic]

That's only going to confuse the consumer even more with anaming scheme like HD-DVD. Blu Ray sounds much "cooler" and nicer despite it not being familiar. It will also be on the minds of many parents because their kids will be talking about how the PS3 has a Blu Ray drive, player, or whatever in it and can play movies that look better than DVD's.

I'd say Blu Ray has a chance if players will come down to around $300 - $400 by the time PS3 arrives, that way there is no incentive of purchasing a Blu Ray player that also happens to play video games for around the same price. More bang for the buck, and you know those people going into Best Buy will be clueless on just about everything but once they see the value, it is game over.

And this was a survey paid for by Toshiba, and Toshiba provided data. That doesn't sound too bad, I wonder what would happen if Sony commisioned a similar and also supplied data.

 

[RobertR1]

I'd say Blu Ray has a chance if players will come down to around $300 - $400 by the time PS3 arrives, that way there is no incentive of purchasing a Blu Ray player that also happens to play video games for around the same price. More bang for the buck, and you know those people going into Best Buy will be clueless on just about everything but once they see the value, it is game over.

Not gonna happen for a while. The tech is too expensive.

Samsung = $1000 (no ethernet port for BD-Live)

Upcoming models due before end of year. Earliest being Sept (prices per avsforum):
Sony = $1300 (ethernet port unknown)
Panasonic = $1500 (no ethernet port for BD-Live)
Pioneer = $1500 (ethernet port confirmed)

One of them either the Panny or the Pionner might be $1800 but I'm too lazy to check

The PS3 will be the cheapest way to play BR media but it's features and such are not known.

 

[Geo]

Do we know what the royalties are like to the standard owners for both BRD and HD-DVD, both players and media?

 

[Guden Oden]

Everything being equal, BR will will win because of PS3. Since it plays BR natively, people aren't going to buy a separate HDDVD player, they'll buy BR movies instead.

Then again I don't believe everything is equal, I believe BR already has an advantage, so the reason HDDVD is even standing a chance is because MS backing it hard just to screw with sony (and the physical distribution model, since they want everything to go DRM/online instead - and undoubtedly subscription-based as well so people keep paying and paying and PAYING for the same shit).

 

[RobertR1]

Then again I don't believe everything is equal, I believe BR already has an advantage, so the reason HDDVD is even standing a chance is because MS backing it hard just to screw with sony (and the physical distribution model, since they want everything to go DRM/online instead - and undoubtedly subscription-based as well so people keep paying and paying and PAYING for the same shit).

Advantage on paper? because of right now that's all it has. Let's wait to see these paper specs materialize into a working product before making such comments, yeah?

 

[jb]

Advantage on paper? because of right now that's all it has. Let's wait to see these paper specs materialize into a working product before making such comments, yeah?

Yea I have to agree with RobertR1 as right now, HD-DVD seems to have all the cards (cheaper, more movies out, better quailty, higher customer satisfaction, ect)

 

[Rolf N]

Actually the technical difference between HD-DVD and BR is just the drive hardware itself. And it is proven that this works. There are drives, and they can read data off the discs just fine. The remainder of the guts of your typical player is practically identical in both camps. Most importantly the mandatory codecs are the same and the HDCP/ICT issue is the same.

So what part(s) of BR's paper spec must materialize?
Practical studio support/movie selection/choice of codec is poor, yes, but that's not something I'd call "spec".

 

[RobertR1]

Actually the technical difference between HD-DVD and BR is just the drive hardware itself. And it is proven that this works. There are drives, and they can read data off the discs just fine. The remainder of the guts of your typical player is practically identical in both camps. Most importantly the mandatory codecs are the same and the HDCP/ICT issue is the same.

So what part(s) of BR's paper spec must materialize?
Practical studio support/movie selection/choice of codec is poor, yes, but that's not something I'd call "spec".

It's not the drives, it's the media and software that's far behind. When we see 50GB ROM discs in mass production and used on majority of the titles, then it'll have it's advantage. So far, not one 50GB title has been announced.

Also, BD Live is no where close to being ready. Proof of this is that the Samsung and the upcoming Panny BD players do not even have an ethernet port for BD Live capabilities. This is scary because you'd think the IHV's would have a clue as to when they can expect BD Live and Panny releasing a $1500 in a couple of months without an ethernet port tells me they're still quite a ways away.

Also, they do no support PiP/IME currently and no clue when this will happen.

With 25GB discs the higher bandwidth benefit cannot be used because you'd fill up space even faster, especially using Mpeg2 and PCM lossless audio. The one of the reason you don't see any extra's on BR titles.

It's not a very rosy situation for BR right now and a lot has to take place for it to change. You don't just wake up one day and 50GB ROM media is widely avaiable, optical pick up units are cheaper, BD Live and IME is fully fucntional...etc......

Please don't take this as "it's over for BD." It's not, by any means but there is quite a lot they have to do in order to catch up and pass HD DVD. If they want to be considered THE format then they need to produce first and talk second.

 

[Rolf N]

Ah, okay then. I can agree with basically all of that.
It seems I was misunderstanding what you actually meant.

Even so, you reminded me of the 50GB discs (which is a paper spec aspect yet to materialize ... AFAIK).

 

[Moloch]

Wow.. I didn't realize that hd-dvd was already on dual layer (30gb) So 30GB with H.264/VC-1 will obviously look better than mpeg2 on 25GB

 

[RobertR1]

Wow.. I didn't realize that hd-dvd was already on dual layer (30gb) So 30GB with H.264 will obviously look better than mpeg2 on 25GB

Nah, 30GB with VC-1

 

[Moloch]

Nah, 30GB with VC-1

I edited