Post-XMAS HD DVD Sales Surge: #8 ranked HD DVD surpasses #1 Blu-Ray in sales

[Capeta]

Sales rankings says that either was not enough or it is not true.

It seems you don't quite understand what's going on. I'll use an analogy here. The attach rate of games for X360 has stayed stagnant right? So? Does that mean nobody has been buying games or consoles? The fact sales of HD DVD is stagnant means squat.

I've explained it later in that post. Simply put, it's is virtually impossible for only a small percentage of PS3 buyers to buy Blurays. It is likely very to be rather significant.

If you're so confident with made up figures, why don't you give us some figures?

And yet it is still $500-600 right now.

Yeah because they're trying to get rid of it.

No one makes a completely barebones disk drive for Bluray.

And I wonder why that is...if they could then why not? Doesn't make sense does it?

Again, one producer versus many cannot sustain a lower price forever.

Sorry that doesn't compute. If Toshiba reaches the magical $200-$300 pricepoint by themselves why would they need other HD DVD player makers to drive down prices through competition?

They pray tell, what are the sales? Amazon rankings are all we got right now, and they're pretty definitely showing a rapid closing of the gap.

Again if you want to use Amazon then you need to understand what it means. To do that you need to accept my X360 attach rate analogy.

That's as big of a non sequitur as any I've seen. Perhaps when there is a clear winner, PC makers will move millions of that format in their systems and not any earlier.

You just don't understand the analogy. Both PS2 and PCs uses the same movie format which is DVDs, but there are many more PCs worldwide with DVD drives than there are PS2s. How can the percentage be the same for movie watching between these two markets when one market has more than 3 times the users? And please don't give me the old excuse that PS2s are hooked up to tvs therefore it's more likely to be used for DVD movie watching than PCs. That's just a cheap copout.

At the end of the day you dont know how significant the PC is for HD movie watching so please don't pretend to do so.

Marketwise I mean.

Your prediction is just as good as the guy down the street which doesn't amount to much.

 

[Babel-17]

Do either of the players support upconverting DVD's over component?

I was reading a Best Buy ad for a HD DVD player, the Toshiba HD-A2, and it seems to imply it upconverts only over HDMI.

Delivers greatly enhanced video performance with standard DVDs by upconverting their video resolution to HDTV-compliant 720p or 1080i via the HDMI interface

If neither supported upconverting via component then either would gain an advantage by changing their policy.

I've never understood this policy when it applied to the upconverting DVD players.

Another question: What's the outlook for burners?

Last question: Does either player support a codec/format that the other doesn't? Seems like a lot of people are capping their HDTV shows, (sometimes legally, sometimes not) and over in Europe some providers have switched to using some form of h264.

What happens when peeps want to burn these caps to disk?

Will there be software that authors to either format?

Some of the most popular DVD players are the ones that support things like both PAL and NTSC and some forms of mpeg 4 and vcd and svcd and even just plain mpegs burned to disk.

I have no idea what type of contracts written in blood have been drawn up between the different groups and the studios. But if either format is significantly more friendly to home authoring it will play a big difference in mind share imo.

Regarding "mind share" in this instance: It filters down from the uber-geeks to the peeps working the retail stores. Some of them will be biased to steering people to the "cooler" format, the one that does more.

 

[nonamer]

It seems you don't quite understand what's going on. I'll use an analogy here. The attach rate of games for X360 has stayed stagnant right? So? Does that mean nobody has been buying games or consoles? The fact sales of HD DVD is stagnant means squat.

Relative to Bluray it is stagnant. I.e. If HD-DVD sales are growing, then Bluray sales are growing faster, or HD-DVD sales are not changing at all, then Bluray sales are still growing. How hard is that to understand?

If you're so confident with made up figures, why don't you give us some figures?

Neither of us have any figures. However, it's irrefutable that a vast majority of all Americans buy, watch, or rent movies. Bluray sales on PS3s will not magically fall way short of the general percentages. It's vague, but it's a good argument. To argue otherwise would imply that some 80 or 90 percent of PS3 buyers will immediately stop purchasing movies altogether or continue to buy inferior DVDs, both of which are totally absurd beliefs. However, they may be more casual watchers than HD-DVD watchers, which should slow uptake.

Yeah because they're trying to get rid of it.

So if you admit they're already in the $500-600 range, what's left to argue?

And I wonder why that is...if they could then why not? Doesn't make sense does it?

Cost-wise you're already getting a $200 Bluray drive in the form of the PS3. The HD-DVD is the same except it is a seperate drive. No company has any incentive to produce a purely barebones standalone drive for Bluray.

Sorry that doesn't compute. If Toshiba reaches the magical $200-$300 pricepoint by themselves why would they need other HD DVD player makers to drive down prices through competition?

You're assuming the $200-300 pricepoint will be achieved by Toshiba before anyone else. Even so, they cannot maintain a lower price then everyone else forever. Cost parity is inevitable given the manufacturing advantage here.

Again if you want to use Amazon then you need to understand what it means. To do that you need to accept my X360 attach rate analogy.

Your argument doesn't make any sense because it makes a critical flaw in its analogy. Sales rankings measures total sales, not sales per player. Hence, total sales of HD-DVD in relation to total Bluray sales are losing ground.

You just don't understand the analogy. Both PS2 and PCs uses the same movie format which is DVDs, but there are many more PCs worldwide with DVD drives than there are PS2s. How can the percentage be the same for movie watching between these two markets when one market has more than 3 times the users? And please don't give me the old excuse that PS2s are hooked up to tvs therefore it's more likely to be used for DVD movie watching than PCs. That's just a cheap copout.

I'm not sure you even thought your argument through at all. PC makers are moving absolutely tiny numbers of HD-DVD capable systems right now, and this is likely not to change until there's a winner or a few years down the road. Also, Bluray capable PCs also exist, and are shipping in similar tiny quantities. Right now, PS3 trumps them all by a very wide margin.

At the end of the day you dont know how significant the PC is for HD movie watching so please don't pretend to do so.

And I've said repeatedly it's absurd to think it's a small percentage.

Your prediction is just as good as the guy down the street which doesn't amount to much.

Same goes for you.

Anyways, I'm rather confident of my prediction, so I'm willing to wait to see if I'm right. I suspect I am mere weeks away from being proven right, if not days. I can also point out a faster updating version of amazon rankings here: http://www.hdgamedb.com/amazon/versus.aspx

As you can see, as of right now (2:30 PM Jan. 2), the gap has closed even further. It's 950 vs. 1198 for HD-DVD and Bluray respectively. There are the same number of disks in the 1000 for both formats. We are very close to the crossover point, and we don't have long to wait to see who's right.

 

[Capeta]

Relative to Bluray it is stagnant. I.e. If HD-DVD sales are growing, then Bluray sales are growing faster, or HD-DVD sales are not changing at all, then Bluray sales are still growing. How hard is that to understand?

If you start out at the bottom you can only go up.

Neither of us have any figures. However, it's irrefutable that a vast majority of all Americans buy, watch, or rent movies. Bluray sales on PS3s will not magically fall way short of the general percentages. It's vague, but it's a good argument. To argue otherwise would imply that some 80 or 90 percent of PS3 buyers will immediately stop purchasing movies altogether or continue to buy inferior DVDs, both of which are totally absurd beliefs. However, they may be more casual watchers than HD-DVD watchers, which should slow uptake.

Again you're talking about some far away future which by then wouldn't really matter when you have millions of HD DVD players already out there.

So if you admit they're already in the $500-600 range, what's left to argue?

It's not "they", there is only one standalone BR player selling for $600 and it's at that price because nobody wants it. It doesn't prove that BR players across the boaard are getting cheaper. It's one fluke machine that's not even worth mentioning other than desparation.

Cost-wise you're already getting a $200 Bluray drive in the form of the PS3. The HD-DVD is the same except it is a seperate drive. No company has any incentive to produce a purely barebones standalone drive for Bluray.

Why would there be no incentive? You don't think people would buy them for their PCs? Doesn't compute.

You're assuming the $200-300 pricepoint will be achieved by Toshiba before anyone else. Even so, they cannot maintain a lower price then everyone else forever. Cost parity is inevitable given the manufacturing advantage here.

Toshiba will get to $300 before any of the BR manufacturers by end of 2007. They've already said this and they haven't lied before. There's no way standalone BR players will be at $300 by end of 2007 without losing money. To think so is just wishing thinking.

Your argument doesn't make any sense because it makes a critical flaw in its analogy. Sales rankings measures total sales, not sales per player. Hence, total sales of HD-DVD in relation to total Bluray sales are losing ground.

You keep saying total sales but it isn't. Amazon isn't the only one selling HD DVDs. Regardless it tracks individual titles and the HD DVD titles are selling better than their respective BR titles. Again if you start from the bottom the only way is up.

I'm not sure you even thought your argument through at all. PC makers are moving absolutely tiny numbers of HD-DVD capable systems right now, and this is likely not to change until there's a winner or a few years down the road. Also, Bluray capable PCs also exist, and are shipping in similar tiny quantities. Right now, PS3 trumps them all by a very wide margin.

That wasn't my point. My point was to show how consoles and PCs don't necessarily have to have the same movie watching percentages even when they share the same movie format. Many of the people who bought the HD DVD addon will also definitely use them for PCs. That's just common sense. This will only continue moving forward. This is how DVD drives for PCs became cheap and widespread.

And I've said repeatedly it's absurd to think it's a small percentage.

It's no more absurd than thinking it'll be large.

Same goes for you.

Well my prediction is based on costs which is fact. It's not based on a small Amazon sample where BR starts out at the bottom and can only move up.

As you can see, as of right now (2:30 PM Jan. 2), the gap has closed even further. It's 950 vs. 1198 for HD-DVD and Bluray respectively. There are the same number of disks in the 1000 for both formats. We are very close to the crossover point, and we don't have long to wait to see who's right.

Like I said if you start out from near zero there's only one way to go..up. Nobody was buying those expensive BR players eg most of the hardcore movie watchers were waiting out for the cheaper PS3. This was known a long time ago by reading the AVS Forum. This does not mean the casual PS3 buyer will be consistently using their console to watch BR. I suspect the increase in sales is due to those waitng hardcore movie watchers which make up the majority of PS3 sales. Once those people have their PS3s, sales are going to level off for BR.

HD DVD has shown consistancy, while BR has shown that most of the hardcore movie watchers were waiting for the PS3 to make their BR movie purchases.

 

[glocks out]

And you know this how? You have sales numbers?

As he said, HD DVD sales are stagnant relative to BD sales. This means BD sales are closing in on HD DVD and if the trend continues will inevitably surpass them.

What are talking about? standalone BR players are $1000 and up. The cheapest one out now is the crappy Samsung player that has a retail price of $1000. Only reason why the price is $600 now is due to the fact nobody wants to buy it since it's so crappy.

Do you even keep track of what's going on? The Philips player is on Amazon right now at $699. The The Samsung is $549 and it isn't crappy because it's fixed the problems. It does have the stigma though so it could be affecting sales and Samsung would be smart to release a new one. Toshiba's first couple of players sucked ass too so they released new models (same thing with a firmware upgrade).

Oh yeah, none of the Toshiba players are 1080p yet. The 1080p player will be released at $1000. If you were to compare feature for feature, BD would have the price advantage then. We can call this a draw.

Toshiba has 4 models out now and there is also the RCA model. Sure the RCA is just a rebadged Toshiba but people don't really care as long as it's cheap and gives them great HD video and audio.

You could have 10 companies with BR players out there but nobody cares if they're all $1000 and up.

Toshiba will release one or two more models in Q1-07. If Sony, Pioneer, Philips and Panasonic released one additional model each they would already overwhelm the market with players.

It's interesting when the Best Buy here has three BD displays up and no HD DVD displays anywhere prominent. Behind the returns counter was a couple of returned Toshiba units as well.

That's irrelevent because like I said not everyone who buys a PS3 will use it for watching BR movies. Everyone who buys a HD DVD player or HD DVD drive addon will use it for HD DVD movies.

This doesn't really matter much because the studios look at how many potential customers they can reach with their media. Disney hasn't released a BD yet because there wasn't enough players out yet, but with over 1,000,000 PS3 units in homes by now it's easy to see the potential market for BD is much greater than HD DVD. If one quarter of all PS3 owners bought one BD movie from a studio, it would still be over 100,000 more units sold than if every owner of an HD DVD player bought it. This is incredible.

I can get a HD DVD drive for $200 and a standalone HD DVD player for $400.

$100 dollar advantage either way. Stand alone drives also don't account for much because there are no video cards with HDCP support yet, so you can only use it for data. This is why everyone is sticking drives in laptops.

I don't really know why people get so emotionally involved in this war. Back whatever you will, but there's no need to lie, mudsling, etc in favor of whichever you chose. Both formats have repeatedly been shown to be equal with one another in picture and sound quality, so no matter which format wins, the consumer gets the benefit of HD quality movies and TV shows for posterity. Early adopters get the shaft always (laser disc, SACD, quadraphonic, et al). I have a PS3, and I would not have a HD player otherwise. If BD died, I am not at a loss because it's still my gaming system.

 

[Capeta]

As he said, HD DVD sales are stagnant relative to BD sales. This means BD sales are closing in on HD DVD and if the trend continues will inevitably surpass them.

You registered just to post a rebuttal? What did you say about getting emotionally involved?

Again since you ignored what was said, if you start out at the bottom you can only go up.

Do you even keep track of what's going on? The Philips player is on Amazon right now at $699. The The Samsung is $549 and it isn't crappy because it's fixed the problems. It does have the stigma though so it could be affecting sales and Samsung would be smart to release a new one. Toshiba's first couple of players sucked ass too so they released new models (same thing with a firmware upgrade).

Actually the Toshiba player after the various FW updates outperforms the Samsung at the things that count, audio video quality and upscaling. The Samsung is still a crappy BR player that is more expensive the the Toshiba.

Oh yeah, none of the Toshiba players are 1080p yet. The 1080p player will be released at $1000. If you were to compare feature for feature, BD would have the price advantage then. We can call this a draw.

1080p is a red herring.

Toshiba will release one or two more models in Q1-07. If Sony, Pioneer, Philips and Panasonic released one additional model each they would already overwhelm the market with players.

Too bad they won't be $300 by end of 2007.

It's interesting when the Best Buy here has three BD displays up and no HD DVD displays anywhere prominent. Behind the returns counter was a couple of returned Toshiba units as well.

You must have not followed the AVS Forum posts about the majority of BR buyers returning BR players while the majority of HD DVD buyers keep their players hence to need to inject your own anecodal evidence.

This doesn't really matter much because the studios look at how many potential customers they can reach with their media. Disney hasn't released a BD yet because there wasn't enough players out yet, but with over 1,000,000 PS3 units in homes by now it's easy to see the potential market for BD is much greater than HD DVD. If one quarter of all PS3 owners bought one BD movie from a studio, it would still be over 100,000 more units sold than if every owner of an HD DVD player bought it. This is incredible.

And if 1% of PS3 users buy BR movies on a consistent basis, there is no advantage. We can pull numbers out of out @ss all day.

$100 dollar advantage either way. Stand alone drives also don't account for much because there are no video cards with HDCP support yet, so you can only use it for data. This is why everyone is sticking drives in laptops.

The point is the drives are cheap and people are buying it. Do you actually believe people are buying them to watch DVDs and VCDs or to view data on them??

I don't really know why people get so emotionally involved in this war. Back whatever you will, but there's no need to lie, mudsling, etc in favor of whichever you chose. Both formats have repeatedly been shown to be equal with one another in picture and sound quality, so no matter which format wins, the consumer gets the benefit of HD quality movies and TV shows for posterity. Early adopters get the shaft always (laser disc, SACD, quadraphonic, et al). I have a PS3, and I would not have a HD player otherwise. If BD died, I am not at a loss because it's still my gaming system.

It doesn't take much logic to back the format that has the cheaper players and consistent audio/video quality. The studios will eventually release on whatever format that makes them money. By the end of next year I will have two HD DVD players, one for the living room and one for the bedroom. This wouldn't be possible if they were expensive as BR players.

 

[glocks out]

I'm looking forward to what each side has to say at CES.

I am eagerly awaiting both the Jan 7th HD DVD and the Jan 8th Blu-ray Disc conferences. Should be quite interesting.

 

[glocks out]

Actually the Toshiba player after the various FW updates outperforms the Samsung at the things that count, audio video quality and upscaling. The Samsung is still a crappy BR player that is more expensive the the Toshiba.

I addressed your comment on prices and you ignore it completely and go back to saying the Samsung is crappy. Real classy of you there. Besides the fact that all reviews of the latest version of the Samsung player put it on par with all other players, Toshiba or Sony, you have awful tact.

1080p is a red herring.

Not for people with 1080p sets. Again, you also ignore the issue.

Too bad they won't be $300 by end of 2007.

And you blame nonamer for conjecture? Please. How do you know they won't have players at $200 before Q3-07? All they have to do is cut out important features like HDMI and 1080p support and they can have a player on equal with the cheap Toshiba that does the same.

You must have not followed the AVS Forum posts about the majority of BR buyers returning BR players while the majority of HD DVD buyers keep their players hence to need to inject your own anecodal evidence.

Majority of buyers? Sorry, this isn't the case. Maybe it is of users on a certain message board, but it is clearly not indicative of the industry as a whole.

And if 1% of PS3 users buy BR movies on a consistent basis, there is no advantage. We can pull numbers out of out @ss all day.

Yes, if 1% of all PS3 users bought BD movies, they would still account for nearly a third of HD DVD players. Again, you ignore the point addressed. The studios look at potential market. The potential market for BD is vastly larger than for HD DVD.

The point is the drives are cheap and people are buying it. Do you actually believe people are buying them to watch DVDs and VCDs?

First, the same can be said of the BD drives sold. How well are they selling?

It doesn't take much logic to back the format that has the cheaper players and consistent audio/video quality. The studios will eventually release on whatever format that makes them money. By the end of next year I will have two HD DVD players, one for the living room and one for the bedroom. This wouldn't be possible if they were expensive as BR players.

It also doesn't take much logic to see one movie format with 90% of Hollywood backing it has a major advantage over the one with only 30%. It also doesn't take a genius to see one format has a vast majority of CE and PC support.

But like I said, I'm risk free because with the PS3 you don't have to worry about who wins. If BD loses I've lost nothing, but if HD DVD loses, you've got an expensive player for what movies you already have. I'm not buying any software either, I'm just using Netflix.

 

[RobertR1]

People have such short memories......

Here's a recap of "HD DVD don't do 1080P!!!"

They do. It's just that they send the 1080i frames to a 1080P TV which then puts them together to give you a 1080P image. This is fine because the souce is 1080p on both BR and HD DVD. A lot of the BR players (except Pioneer and Sony 'Pioneer is OEM for Sony, btw') are doing this in the player. They take 1080i and process it internally and shoot out a 1080P stream. This is no different than letting your TV handle it.

If you really care about 1080P, make sure your player does true 1080p/24 without any internal processing. Passes it onto the TV that can handle 1080P/24 sources (such as a new Pioneer plasma and others) and then they do a 3:3 pull down for the image output to be at 72. This eliminate the infamous 3:2 pulldown "judder" and gives you a clean image.

The Samsung, Phillips (Samsung is OEM), Panasonic and the PS3 all perform internal processing to give you 1080P. They could only do 1080i out the player and it would be no different to a 1080P set.

 

[glocks out]

People have such short memories......

Here's a recap of "HD DVD don't do 1080P!!!"

They do. It's just that they send the 1080i frames to a 1080P TV which then puts them together to give you a 1080P image. This is fine because the souce is 1080p on both BR and HD DVD. A lot of the BR players (except Pioneer and Sony 'Pioneer is OEM for Sony, btw') are doing this in the player. They take 1080i and process it internally and shoot out a 1080P stream. This is no different than letting your TV handle it.

If you really care about 1080P, make sure your player does true 1080p/24 without any internal processing. Passes it onto the TV that can handle 1080P/24 sources (such as a new Pioneer plasma and others) and then they do a 3:3 pull down for the image output to be at 72. This eliminate the infamous 3:2 pulldown "judder" and gives you a clean image.

The Samsung, Phillips (Samsung is OEM), Panasonic and the PS3 all perform internal processing to give you 1080P. They could only do 1080i out the player and it would be no different to a 1080P set.

This is incorrect. All BD and HD DVDs are 1080p on the disc. The players interlace the image to 1080i for component output or if the TV does not support 1080p input. The Toshiba players to date do not output the original 1080p image, they only support 1080i output, even through HDMI. The Samsung player uses the same interlacer the Toshibas do, but it also included an interlacer on the other side to bring it back to 1080p. This was obviously a cost saving measure, but it kind of sucks because your TV would do this just fine.

If you have a newer TV with 1080p inputs, the BD players (except the Samsung) will offer 1080p direct without scaling it, interlacing it, or deinterlacing it. The Toshiba XA2 will do the same and sells for $1000.

1080p/60 is what is on most disks. 1080p/24 is the best of the best though there are only a few TVs/projectors that handle this.

 

[Arwin]

1080p/60 is what is on most disks. 1080p/24 is the best of the best though there are only a few TVs/projectors that handle this.

You mean the other way around, right?

 

[glocks out]

yeah, sorry. 1080p/24 on the disk.

 

[Gubbi]

If you really care about 1080P, make sure your player does true 1080p/24 without any internal processing. Passes it onto the TV that can handle 1080P/24 sources (such as a new Pioneer plasma and others) and then they do a 3:3 pull down for the image output to be at 72. This eliminate the infamous 3:2 pulldown "judder" and gives you a clean image.

Wrong, 3:2 pulldown is used to convert 24fps material (like movies) into a 60Hz interlaced stream. Even frames are converted to 3 fields, odd frames to 2 fields. This uneven display time for alternating frames is what is called judder. It drives some people nuts.

Luckily all modern TV sets worth their salt (or $$) can reassemble a 3:2 pulled down interlaced signal back into the original progressive contents. So unless some filtering (like anti-flicker filtering) was performed in the interlacing of the original stream you'll end up with the exact same stream.

Once re-assembled there is zero point at driving the display at 72Hz with 24fps material, since 2 out of 3 refreshes would display the exact same frame. Except of course it might fit better with the panel electronics.

Cheers

 

[RobertR1]

Wrong, 3:2 pulldown is used to convert 24fps material (like movies) into a 60Hz interlaced stream. Even frames are converted to 3 fields, odd frames to 2 fields. This uneven display time for alternating frames is what is called judder. It drives some people nuts.

Luckily all modern TV sets worth their salt (or $$) can reassemble a 3:2 pulled down interlaced signal back into the original progressive contents. So unless some filtering (like anti-flicker filtering) was performed in the interlacing of the original stream you'll end up with the exact same stream.

Once re-assembled there is zero point at driving the display at 72Hz with 24fps material, since 2 out of 3 refreshes would display the exact same frame. Except of course it might fit better with the panel electronics.

Cheers

24 itself is too slow the it's better displayed at a high refresh such as 48, 72, or 120. The point of having a TV that can accpet 1080p/24 is to eliminate 3:2 all together.

There was quite a lot of good info in a specific thread on AVS (i'll link it here if I can find it) with a number of insider arriving at a similar conclusion, which is generally pretty rare on there.

 

[Capeta]

I addressed your comment on prices and you ignore it completely and go back to saying the Samsung is crappy. Real classy of you there. Besides the fact that all reviews of the latest version of the Samsung player put it on par with all other players, Toshiba or Sony, you have awful tact.

I'll put it this way, the revised Samsung is less crappy than the unrevised version which isn't saying much. It still costs more than a Toshiba and its upscaling is crap compared to the Toshiba nor can it upsample CDA. It doesn't have built-in multi-channel decoders.

Not for people with 1080p sets. Again, you also ignore the issue.

And how many people own 1080p sets? 3?

And you blame nonamer for conjecture? Please. How do you know they won't have players at $200 before Q3-07?

Common sense. PS3 is the cheapest BR player. You think SONY will drop the price to $300 in 2007? I think not.

All they have to do is cut out important features like HDMI and 1080p support and they can have a player on equal with the cheap Toshiba that does the same.

HDMI and 1080p doesn't cost that much to add so dropping them aren't going to significantly lower the price.

Majority of buyers? Sorry, this isn't the case. Maybe it is of users on a certain message board, but it is clearly not indicative of the industry as a whole.

Well you brought up your Best Buy anectodal evidence so I pointed to a valid group of people HD movie enthusiasts that prove you wrong.

Yes, if 1% of all PS3 users bought BD movies, they would still account for nearly a third of HD DVD players. Again, you ignore the point addressed. The studios look at potential market. The potential market for BD is vastly larger than for HD DVD.

MS is selling a lot of HD DVD addons which will ALL be used to watch HD DVDs. There's your potential market.

First, the same can be said of the BD drives sold. How well are they selling?

There aren't any BD-ROM drives that can be bought for $200 for PC.

It also doesn't take much logic to see one movie format with 90% of Hollywood backing it has a major advantage over the one with only 30%.

It's obvious you like to pull numbers out of your @ss. How do you get 90% and 30%?

I sense an emotional attachment fromt he tone of your posts.

It also doesn't take a genius to see one format has a vast majority of CE and PC support.

Where are the rest of the BR players from Sharp, JVC, etc. etc.? Where are the BR drives from Apple? It doesn't take a genius to see that money talks and BS walks.

But like I said, I'm risk free because with the PS3 you don't have to worry about who wins. If BD loses I've lost nothing, but if HD DVD loses, you've got an expensive player for what movies you already have. I'm not buying any software either, I'm just using Netflix.

Why are you telling us this? I don't think anyone here cares.

 

[Geo]

This thread is going to get more depersonalized right quick, or some vacations will be forthcoming.

For one thing, are there any studios that are supporting *both* formats? Because I think there are, and that would explain an overlap in percentages. For instance, Paramount has announced support for both. Warner Bros has announced support for both as well. That's just off the top of my head, and not intended to be a complete list of the overlap.

Tho even "studio counts" would not be nearly as good as counting up the library they control, by say counting their percentage of total DVD sales in the last year.

 

[Graham]

http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home...t-cheaper-hd-dvd-players-next-week-225332.php

CES shall be interesting to watch.

 

[Gubbi]

24 itself is too slow the it's better displayed at a high refresh such as 48, 72, or 120.

Well, you're correct for DLPs and CRTs. For LCDs and PDPs, it doesn't matter at all.

Cheers

 

[glocks out]

I'll put it this way, the revised Samsung is less crappy than the unrevised version which isn't saying much. It still costs more than a Toshiba and its upscaling is crap compared to the Toshiba nor can it upsample CDA. It doesn't have built-in multi-channel decoders.

You once again ignore the point and go after the Samsung player. Fantastic.

And how many people own 1080p sets? 3?

Anyone that bought an LCD TV in the last 9 months, and that's a lot of people, including the cleaning lady here who is hardly rich. Or anyone who bought a DLP set in the last 9 months. Or anyone who bought and LCoS display in the last 9 months. Are you this out of touch with the market?

You think SONY will drop the price to $300 in 2007? I think not.

Conjecture. First you posit that HD DVD will have players under $300 and then that BD won't have any players at a consumer level?

HDMI and 1080p doesn't cost that much to add so dropping them aren't going to significantly lower the price.

But adding them certainly added quite a bit of money to Toshiba's line. The 1080p Toshiba is $1000.

MS is selling a lot of HD DVD addons which will ALL be used to watch HD DVDs. There's your potential market.

They're not selling that many. They sold out the first bunch and now they're cutting the price on the thing. If you want to use your argument for why things drop in price that you used for the Samsung, it's because nobody wants it. But we know this isn't true, so you can shove that argument back where you pulled it from. Look at the number of players out in HD DVD and you can see it's about as many PS3s sold in a day.

There aren't any BD-ROM drives that can be bought for $200 for PC.

You're going to have to help me out here, i looked for this ROM drive you speak of and can't find it. I found HP announced a USB drive for the future but no price. PC drives also don't really matter because no video card supports HDCP yet.

It's obvious you like to pull numbers out of your @ss. How do you get 90% and 30%?

numbers out of my ass? How about this: 30% of Hollywood studios support HD DVD and 90% support BD. It's easy math. No, it doesn't add up to 120% because 3 studios have non-exclusive agreements.

Where are the rest of the BR players from Sharp, JVC, etc. etc.? Where are the BR drives from Apple? It doesn't take a genius to see that money talks and BS walks.

Where are the HD DVD drives from ... oh yeah, nobody else but Toshiba will be making one. NEC and Sanyo have not even announced any.

Why are you telling us this? I don't think anyone here cares.

Because it's an important point that has to be made. the PS3/Netflix combo is a risk free way to enjoy high-def movies. If HD DVD wins, you change Netflix to HD DVD and buy a player (which I'll do if it happens).

 

[Geo]

First off, I'll reiterate what I said upstream to the other guy --back off the hostility dial a notch, or there will be consequences.

Secondly:

PC drives also don't really matter because no video card supports HDCP yet.

Excuse me? There are several recent cards that do, from both major IHVs, so far as I understand it.