HD DVD and Blu-ray releases on October 16th, 2007
Another week for Blu-ray to creep up on HD DVD titles count lead, but the big news this week is Transformers. Not only is this one of the biggest titles to hit the HD movie world, but it's the first big Paramount exclusive since they decided to jump off the fence. You'd think the BDA would want to have a great title up against it, but they don't and instead have a few other so-so titles. Warner brings a couple horror titles to both formats this week as well, that we're sure someone is waiting to see. Looking forward, HD DVD looks to lose it's lead by the end of October, about the same time as Sony's big title Spiderman 3 is released. One thing is for sure, if HD DVD doesn't win the Nielsen numbers next week, we wonder if they ever will.HD DVD 310 vs Blu-ray 304 *
Blu-ray
- AC/DC: Live at Donington (Sony BMG)
- Hollow Man (Director's Cut) (Sony)
- The Invisible (Buena Vista)
- Masters of Horror: Season One - Vol. One (Starz)
- Masters of Horror: Season One - Vol. Two (Starz)
- The Reaping (Warner)
- Return to House on Haunted Hill (Warner)
- A Mighty Heart (Paramount)
- The Reaping (Warner)
- Return to House on Haunted Hill (Warner)
- Transformers (DreamWorks)
*Blu-ray total does not reflects 32 Paramount titles that were previously available.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Liam Gladdy @ Oct 15th 2007 11:04AM
October 16th, you mean? :P
Kenzo @ Oct 15th 2007 11:10AM
I'm an HDDVD owner and supporter, but I don't think Transformers will do much for HDDVD. Reason; the movie wasn't that good. I'd like to imagine HDDVD owners are very discerning. Now if it was on Bluray, I'm sure it'll do very well. The PS3 demographic will gobble up anything (Spiderman 3 & Fantastic 4 anyone?).
TrentD @ Oct 15th 2007 11:38AM
You're wrong. Not about the movie, necessarily - you're certainly entitled to your opinion there. You're wrong about the impact Transformers will have. It's been in the top sellers on Amazon almost since the pre-order was announced. It's also a very HD-friendly film, with excellent special effects and lots of explosions.
Many people at AVS who didn't like the film said they'll be buying it only as demo material. How many more will buy it because they liked it? This is one of the highest grossing movies of the year, and it will fly off the shelves.
domerdel @ Oct 15th 2007 11:44AM
It will be a great movie for HD-DVD... but I'll prob. get the torrent so i can watch it on my PS3 :) lol.
zik @ Oct 15th 2007 12:03PM
Blu-ray may not have a blockbuster title but they are giving steep discounts on their titles this week to counteract the transformer effect. You can get Blu-ray movies now for under $10 and just from anecdotal evidence (ymmv) some folks are picking up 5, to 10 at a time. Blu-ray is willing to lose money in order to keep the numbers.
Dave @ Oct 15th 2007 12:33PM
Soon soon! :)
Landlocked @ Oct 15th 2007 1:24PM
Hollow Man (Director's Cut) -- now THERE'S a winning flick.
It makes yome wonder who cut the film the first time around?! :)
A1 @ Oct 15th 2007 1:27PM
Buy one get one free Blu Ray at lots of Retailers
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/Circuit_City/Best_Buy/Amazon/High-Def_Retailing_(30_posts)/Retailers_Offer_Two-For-One_Deal_on_Select__Disney_Blu-ray_Discs_/1065
http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=amb_link_5653202_1/103-0805823-0451026?ie=UTF8&docId=1000146321&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=special-offers-1&pf_rd_r=1BRJYF918DRK45N7HKM3&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=316728801&pf_rd_i=B000N6UERA
Xyzzy @ Oct 15th 2007 1:41PM
All of the Buy one, get one free promos are obviously an attempt by Sony/BDA to combat the Transformers numbers. How much money is the BDA willing to bleed away to win this war? To me, that's more reason to avoid BD -- if BD wins, they're going to want to recoup their money somehow, and it won't be with lower prices....
AG23 @ Oct 15th 2007 1:56PM
@Xyzzy
Really! Biased against Blu-Ray much.
The point you just made against Blu-Ray is what Toshiba and company have been doing since HD-DVD began. So by your logic, if HD-DVD wins, they "also" will want to recoup their money.
If you would stop commenting with such negative Blu-Ray posts you wouldn't look like an obsessive HD-DVD fanboy.
BigG @ Oct 15th 2007 2:13PM
I think you should be including Blu-ray titles from paramount in your total disc count if they are still in stock at major retailers, like say amazon. Many of them are so it's not really fair to discount them since they are available right now to anyone who wants.
ryan @ Oct 15th 2007 3:10PM
All of the imports for HD-DVD are readily available to anyone that wants them as well, should he include those as well?
Mark Gillespie @ Oct 15th 2007 3:40PM
"*Blu-ray total does not reflects 32 Paramount titles that were previously available."
Talk about trying to cook the books.
The fact you can walk into a store an still buy these 32 Paramount titles (they were not withdrawn), means it's valid to count these titles as available titles.
Cam @ Oct 15th 2007 6:30PM
Well...you're gonna have to take them out at some point
glocks out @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:07PM
Yeah, why are they not valid? They were released on Blu-ray so they count as Blu-ray releases.
Smee @ Oct 15th 2007 9:05PM
What would you rather own/run?
A business with 60% HD market penetration, which equates to about .6% of total disc sales and losing millions of $ daily, ....................OR a business that has 40% of HD sales equating to about.4% total penetration, but because of substantially lower manufacturing costs for hardware and software, plus, having a much smaller business consortium, will certainly be losing much less money.A profit will be able to be made at a MUCH earlier point.
The break even point for HD DVD, and the sustainability point for HD DVD is probably not that far away.
Different story for camp blu, if they don't get some serious market penetration and fast, the point at which they will have to "cut and run", particularly for some of the CE partners, is getting closer everyday.
It is business, you can only substantiate losses for a limited period of time before drastic decisions must be made.
I for one would rather own a profitable business with 20% market share, then be losing money with a business that has 80% market share.
jling71 @ Oct 19th 2007 11:31PM
The big joke as far as I am concerned about HD DVD is when they get a title in which they can run with like Transformers they don't have enough space to fit an HD audio track. To me that a joke. The promos that blu ray are giving off on and are smart they are trying to get more and more people to buy their products. I have not once seen HD DVD do this. Also go into the store and on average you will find HD DVD titles about $5 more. This is for the same title. No matter what anyone says at this point Blu ray has more disks space and always will have. As well if you want and HD DVD players is there any company besides Toshiba for an HD only player no. This was the downfall of Sony in the 80's. People will say that HD DVD is cheaper but look at the difference in hardware. Yes the HD DVD player at low and mid range are cheaper. But they are also made cheaper. The fact is Toshiba thought they could get away with old technolgy with a new laser. The problem is they can't get the same storage capacity as blu ray. HD DVD is an old dinosaur.