Planet Earth HD DVD and Blu-ray sales soaring {Engadget HD}

Jun 14th 2007 7:18PM The problem with all the 'statistics' we are getting, is that they are the same as comparing apples to oranges.

Everyone knows that Blu-Ray currently has 6 of the 8 major studios as Exclusives while HD-DVD has only 1 (plus 2 companies are doing both formats).

You can't compare the sales of "Pirates of the Caribbean Blu-Ray" with "Hot Fuzz HD-DVD".

The only numbers that give relatively useful information are the discs available in both formats.

Example:
Planet Earth - HD-DVD sales have Significantly outpaced Blu-Ray on Amazon
Jun 14/07 - HD-DVD Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3 in DVD
Jun 14/07 - Blu-Ray Amazon.com Sales Rank: #17 in DVD
Note: This is 2 MONTHS after it's release.

The best way to visualize the VAST difference in number of exclusive titles is to make yourself a 'wish list' of movies regardless of format.

All the Spider-man, X-men, Pirates of the Carribean movies are all Blu-ray exclusive (as are about 95% of the comic-based movies. Asian martial arts films are almost all Blu-Ray exclusives as well. *ALL DISNEY movies are Blu-Ray exclusive. Fox and Sony are Blu-ray Exclusives (MGM is owned by Sony as well.)

On the HD-DVD side - Universal is the ONLY HD-DVD exclusive company at this point.

Warner Brothers and Paramount are releasing titles in both formats so their numbers are slightly more informative than any others, but even those are not accurate.

Blu-ray players include the PS3, so there will be some sales of certain genres of blu-ray movies, that will sell to PS3 owners even if they have not (and don't intend to) buy any other movies to use on their PS3s.

This trend can be seen on the Xbox Live Marketplace where the top movers are consistently Comedy Central and MTV shows and Movies like Poison Ivy (with Alyssa Milano nude) Taking the number one spots when they are first released. In other words a movie with a young male audience might see significant *extra* sales to PS3 owners.

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As companies move exclusivity based on sales, the picture may change. (Beta has several 'exclusive' companies that eventually switched to VHS long before the decade long war ended.)

Who will 'win' the format war? It's a tough one to call right now but some major factors are:

Number of blockbuster movie exclusives: Blu-ray wins by a landslide

Price of hardware: HD-DVD wins by a landslide

Cost to produce (which will *EVENTUALLY* be noted in cost to consumers): HD-DVD wins
(right now blu-ray AND HD-DVD are constantly on sale. Especially Sony's buy 2 get 1 free at Fry's and other discounted prices at Amazon and Best Buy.)

Combo DVDs: HD-DVD has a slight edge:
You can currently buy Dual format
HD-DVD/DVD discs with the HD on one side
and Standard Definition on the other
Great for having one disc for the home
AND car/portable DVD player/Kid's Room
with no HDTV - (I'm sure MOST people
won't have HDTVs and Players in their
cars for quite a few years :).

Capacity: Blu-ray currently leads
- 50 GB dual layer though I don't believe anything has been released on anything other than 25GB single layer...This will be a bigger deal in the computer backup market where backing up 50 Gigs (or more if 3x/4x stability rises) on one disc will be nice.
- HD-DVD is catching up with a stable 3x layer HD-DVD with 45GB capacity.

Durability: From original tech specs HD-DVD wins
- I personally haven't seen how the scratches affect the Blu-Ray Discs yet but originally there was a significant note that Blu-Ray Discs wouldn't be able to play with many 'surface' scratches due to the thin disc layer. This one will affect people with children and people who lay their discs around because if your discs stop working due to minor scratches, people will be PO'ed.

Finally name: Blu-ray has done a good job of getting their name out there, but the problem is HD-DVD doesn't even have to try. People have HDTV's, HD Radio, HD Printers, HD Cameras, (even Sony just released their HD Radio Receiver.)
Everyone knows HD. The tech crowd/early adopters/Geeks etc, know both HD and Blu-Rays name, but if you speak to your *AVERAGE* consumer, who still has 0 HDTVs and 3+ Standard TVs (or even 1 HDTV and 2-4 Standard TVs, you will find the Blu-ray name isn't as common knowledge as it is to you or I.

In fact, there are a fair number of people who use HDTVs and have never set their HD cable box to output in 1080i or even 720p and don't even know it....They are still outputting 480i signals which most TVs tend to upconvert, which is NOWHERE near the same quality.

Oh one last thing.

Region Codes: HD-DVD doesn't have region codes, so you can use HD-DVDs from anywhere in the world. This is significant when European or Asian companies own the rights to movies/content owned by Blu-Ray exclusive companies in North America...Meaning some Blu-Ray exclusives will be available on HD-DVD through Imports.

Also, a scary note is that Sony created the following:

Betamax (lost to VHS)
Mini-discs - nearly non-existant
SACD - to replace your CDs almost 10 years ago?
UMD - movies for your PSP, with no support anywhere else not even on Playstation..These sold very well when they first came out.
I think there is one or two more Sony formats which I can't recall that were going to 'take over' which are either non-existant or existant only in Asian markets.

This war is going to be a lot tougher to call if Disney or Fox or others decide to produce both discs.
Unless Disney is making some extra money on the side from Sony, I can't see them giving up profit from HD sales if the format war lasts much longer than Sony's prediction of early 2008. (If someone has a link to Sony's news conference where they announced that by 2008 Blu-ray sales will surpass *standard DVD* sales, I would appreciate it).