http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/ Engadget HD Comments for http://www.engadgethd.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadgethd.com en-us Copyright 2009 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 20th 2007 7:39AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 20th 2007 8:13AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
The observation that Bluray "dominates" in other countries might explain why the industry thinks people don't seem to want HD discs.
]]>May 20th 2007 8:57AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
Everyone keeps talking about PoTC and Spider-Man trouncing HD DVD, but this link, http://news.filefront.com/ps3-causing-sony-to-lose-massive-amounts-of-money/, says otherwise. Let's see what happens after the smoke clears this summer, when Universal (a ginormous, influential studio that isn't going ANYWHERE, in case you haven't heard) releases "Heroes" on HD DVD, featuring tons of extras and a Dolby TrueHD soundtrack. The show is a certifiable smash (NBC has ordered THIRTY episodes for next season, including six standalone "Origins" episodes). In fact, it's the kind of phenomenon that "Lost" was in its first season and could definitely be the thing that makes people buy an HD DVD player for an experience they can't get on Blu-Ray.

Or, perhaps the talking heads should remain silent until Warner releases "300" on both formats, this time with IDENTICAL video transfers (VC1) and audio (TrueHD). If there ever was a film that could showcase the uncrippled, audiovisual power of high-definition films while showing the country the level of support for BOTH formats, "300" is it. All consumers need is shielding from number-fudging, presidential-election-style tampering with the actual sales numbers, and we could have a win-win situation on our hands...at least until Digital Distribution comes along and makes everyone look stupid!

]]>May 20th 2007 9:01AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/]]>May 20th 2007 9:57AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 20th 2007 11:24AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 20th 2007 11:47AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
Blu-ray didn't mandate anything except for basic playback (i.e., codec support) and now you have profile 1.0, 1.1, and 2.0 players with some players offering a smattering of some of the advanced features - most of such players, such as panasonic's and pioneer elite's, are still above $1k. Although this is beginning to change (finally) with Samsung's BDP-1200 and any player released after October, this is way behind HD-DVD which mandates all of their players support features that are directly comparable to features that have yet to be implemented in most Blu-ray players -- BD-Java and BD-Live (with the exception of the PS3), and Dual video decoders. Even with these features, HD-DVD still cost less than Blu-ray players without such features. Sure costs are comping down, but if Blu-ray players are having to add these features just to catch up and are already more expensive than HD-DVD players, the cost of Blu-ray will not drop as fast as the cost of HD-DVD has.

And in case you think I'm just some HD-DVD fanboi, I am planning on buying a Blu-ray player to compliment my Toshiba HD-XA2 just as soon as the players get their acts together. Samsung's rumored 3rd generation Blu-ray player, supposedly coming out around Christmas, is sounding very promising. ]]>May 20th 2007 12:41PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 20th 2007 5:36PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 20th 2007 3:11PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
HD DVD players continue to fly off the shelves at Amazon, while the BD players sit -- even the "cheap" $600 ones. The only way that BD players get to $200 is during the close-out. Too much tweaky DSP and cutting edge electronics to get that 50GB.

All the sales data in the last 6 months is the PS3 "bump" as all those gameboys check out the BD movie thing in between their deathmatch marathons. So, Casino Royale, check. Pirates, sure. But the catalog titles? Not so much. That's where the real money is, and only the standalone movie crowd is interested.

Right now it's a quarter million HD DVD players vs 5.5 million PS3s -- better than 20-1 BD. And all they can get is a 2-1 sales advantage. Bet you it turns around some when the PS3-HDDVD ratio is down to 5-1. PS3s don't amount to many sales. Just a lot of them for the moment.

What is Disney going to do when 3rds quarter sales come back 3-1 HD DVD?]]>May 20th 2007 3:13PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 20th 2007 3:18PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
Moral of the story: number of studios supporting a format doesn't mean anything. There is way too much going on and no one has hit on every aspect. Probably can never hit on everything and can never allocate the proper weight of each factor.]]>May 20th 2007 4:20PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 20th 2007 4:22PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 20th 2007 6:14PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 21st 2007 1:21AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
LOL.

The top-rated tv shows get viewed by 20 million people weekly. Not only do top movies have at least twice the number of viewers, big box-office releases also generate several-fold the DVD revenue per release.

Keep grasping onto straws HD-DVD fanboys, Blu-Ray is going to trounce you and send you and the thousnads of dollars you are wasting on an inferior, less-supported format home crying to mama.]]>May 21st 2007 2:15AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
In Disc Sales BR is outselling HD (And with more selection and releases it's only likely to continue.) creating an ever growing disparity in selection with Warner only helping BR by releasing on both formats so that many titles are available on both but more are Only available on BR. Most people don't know all the Technical differences so all they see are the same movies on both formats, and more movies only in BR.

No blu-ray only Studio will be switching over to releasing HD DVD which has less sell through and inhibits their current sell through and price points by lingering in the market; it's just a bad business move, and these companies are run by business people.

Given this we can conclude that only if HD DVD disc sales increase beyond blu-ray disc sales will there be a business incentive for companies to consider going neutral or locking out blu-ray, and with there being more studios currently locking out HD DVD, as well as those studios being the biggest Studios with releases this year like the spiderman trilogy and the Pirates trilogy(both PG-something releases unlike the R rated Matrix which is due out on BR later this year.), the likelihood of HD DVD discs sales overtaking Blu-ray disc sales is grim at best.

Every day that goes by the disc selection and disparity becomes a larger and larger reason for people to choose a Blu-ray player over an HD DVD player, so the likelihood of increasing Blu-ray players sales, and Decreasing HD DVD players sales makes perfect sense.

In the average non-technical buyers mind, Disc player price point is the only reason to buy an HD DVD player, and the difference in Player prices is also shrinking every day. ($469 for a BR player on amazon last I checked.)

Oh, and the Planet Earth release, was a Campaign by HD DVD Fans for the 1 year Anniversary to support HD DVD, but guess what? the Discs are Flawed..on both Disc formats...it was found out by HD DVD people, and made it's way to Blu-ray people Early, THAT's why the Planet earth HD DVD Looks like it sells much better than the Blu-ray version. Blu-ray owners in good numbers are waiting to see if BBC is going to work with Warner to get a better version out.]]>May 21st 2007 3:27AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
By the way Matrix comes on on HD-DVD FIRST TOMORROW and i even saw the commercial for it at the theatre when i went and saw spiderman which is big audience. Also you retard omegasyde LOTR will be releasesd on both formats on the warner dual disc this summer you dork. If Blu-ray is so much better how come reviews say the HD-DVD look better and sound better INCLUDING PEOPLE, i work as best buy and i have heard more people say they prefer HD-DVD then blu-ray even when they have both.

Plus blu-ray has 10 TIMES more units and HD-DVD still is right on it's heels and even beats blu-ray movie sells. It makes it look really bad for sony and blu-ray to have that ratio so LOW and have hd-dvd sell so closely with 10 times less units. Plus like you said we have one major studio which is UNIVERSAL and they are the only one to have it's own HIGH DEF channel and Blu-ray may have more movies but HD-DVD has a BETTER SELECTION OF MOVIES. Plus Heroes is a huge series and to be a HD-DVD exclusive is really cool along with Battlestar Galactica. ALSO the STAR TREK MOVIES and just read a story of then putting old episodes on HD-DVD as well.

Plus we all know the first to drop the price below $300 will 99% chance of winning and that wil be HD-DVD seeing how HD-DVD player costs $350 and will come down below $300 for christmas just wait and see. Plus i have a friend who works at wal-mart and said the blu-ray doesn't sell worth crap and they might drop it once they sell their current stock.

Plus did you look at the sales for PS3s?

US hardware sales - April 2007

Rank - System - April sales - Lifetime US sales

1. NDS - 471,000 - 10,864,000
2. Wii - 360,000 - 2,470,000
3. PS2 - 194,000 - 38,169,000
4. PSP - 183,000 - 7,439,000
5. 360 - 174,000 - 5,401,000
6. GBA - 84,000 - 35,668,000
7. PS3 - 82,000 - 1,276,000
8. NGC - 13,000 - 11,759,000

and japan's weekly numbers are even sadder in the one place it was supposed to do that best. Seeing how Sony has owned Japan for the past 10 years.

Japanese hardware sales for May 7 - May 13:

System - Weekly sales (Compared to last week) - 2007 sales - Lifetime sales

1. DSL - 163,785 (-121,338) - 3,050,653 - 10,500,537
2. Wii - 52,544 (-48,776) - 1,504,716 - 2,424,359
3. PSP - 34,433 (-739) - 873,828 - 5,405,957
4. PS2 - 10,414 (-4,401) - 335,018 - 20,489,877
5. PS3 - 8,839 (-4,135) - 425,895 - 883,453
6. 360 - 2,105 (-1,100) - 95,655 - 360,357
7. GBM - 408 (+68) - 18,808 - 578,688
8. GBASP - 343 (+41) - 16,691 - 5,935,641
9. NGC - 315 (-79) - 7,078 - 4,176,546
10. NDS - 39 (-30) - 2,023 - 6,584,280
11. GBA - 18 (+7) - 607 - 8,823,813

the reason for the drop in everythign was because that was the week after the japanese golden week and the wii is stil suffering from supply issues nintendo probbaly stockpiled for golden week.

See the PS3 is dropping faster then bush's poll numbers. Also with the ratio of 1 movie per 3 blu-ray players Studios will look at that and say hmm why should we release all these movies on blu-ray if only the avergae person buys 1 movies per 2-3 players when HD-DVD sells like 3-5 movies per player. Plus like someone said earlier Disney supoprted that retarded DIVX DVDs which erase after a few days which died off pretty fast and they were burned by the choice to support laser disc.

So blu-ray is not going very good plus the HD-DVD players are outselling the blu-ray players. This christmas season will tell the story especially since their should be the first sub $300 HD-DVD player. Sony is losing SO MUCH money it's not even funny did you see their financials?

oh and by the way to the person who said that Planet Earth is faulty, you guys make all kinds lame excuses. We have been using that line on the PS1 and PS2 for years. They are not faulty i have the set and it's awesome and i have not seen any returned at best buy plus when you said the sales have dropped really? THen why is is still #6 ABOVE Pirates of the carribean huh? (according to amazon)

Also Matrix ultimate is #20

the blu-ray titles on the top 100 are Planet earth at 16 (10 below it's HD-DVD counterpart), pirates 2 at #8, pirates 3 at #9, and apocalypto at #26, also letter from iwo jima #66

for HD-DVD it goes planet earth #6, Ultimate matrix at #20, complete matrix at #33, and letters from iwo jima #97

see it's stil pretty close despite having 10 times more players and more titles. The war is far from over just wait until this summer LOTR will tell a big part of the story when it's released on BOTH not just blu-ray.]]>May 21st 2007 11:46AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
Truely Disney is probably the last studio an adult movie watcher cares about...so what if my 5 yr old watches Bambi upconverted to 1080I.

Im sure Disney will go to where the money is to be made...but who cares.]]>May 22nd 2007 1:11AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/May 22nd 2007 1:45AMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/
Disney give me a freaking break!]]>May 26th 2007 8:01PMhttp://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/http://www.engadgethd.com/2007/05/20/disneys-ceo-reaffirms-commitment-to-blu-ray/You guys look like fools.

Blu-Ray is trouncing HD-DVD. And the article is right. In Japan, Blu-Ray has outright won, and in Europe the format is outselling HD-DVD on a 5:1 basis. Even in Australia, their largest electronic retailer doesn't even stock HD-DVD's.

BD has been outselling HD-DVD in American too, and with exclusive summer franchises like Pirates and Spiderman, I can see that trend continuing for quite some time.]]>May 27th 2007 4:48AM