HD DVD Players Outselling Blu-ray Alternatives

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For those of you that enjoy following the back and forth monthly battle between the two high-def DVD camps, the news this week is that HD DVD is beating Blu-ray. If you are a Blu-ray fan, have no fear, I’m sure they’ll waste no time responding with numbers of their own declaring themselves the winner.

Supposedly, standalone HD DVD players now hold 60-percent of the market share amongst standalone high-definition disc players, and the recent "aggressive spring retail and marketing campaigns" are to thank. Unsurprisingly, Toshiba's heavily (albeit momentarily) discounted HD-A2 was dubbed the "best-selling next-gen DVD player model to date," and we were even told that over 75,000 HD DVD titles were sold in the final week of May alone.
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There is no spin needed. Media sales are where it's at, recurring revenue. I'm surprised that HD DVD only comprises 60% of Standalone HD DVD players however. I thought it was more, with the PS3 comprising most of the BD players and not being counted as a standalone. I was thinking 85% or more seriously.
 
Well now that HD-DVD has much cheaper standalone players availablethey are certain to sell more. Until BD players compete in price they will lose market share, and in this kind of market whoever wins first often wins overall (look at the iPod and Microsoft).
 
not to nitpick but ... of course who ever wins first wins overall, they already won!;)
 
They could have the market share in STANDALONE players but BD's got all the good movies, wonder why they forgot to mention that?
 
As someone who in the next month is buying an HDTV... I've been watching all of this very closely.

I have been saying all along that as long as a reasonably priced ($500 and below) hybrid player (that can play both formats) comes to market before Christmas I'll buy in... but not before then.

Well... when the HD-A2 dropped in price recently, I think I've changed my mind. You can get it from Amazon for $300 with free delivery... This to me is the sweet spot for all the HDTV people out there... I'm spending $3000 on the TV I want, so another $300 to watch stunning video on it isn't that big of a deal.

I have a feeling that not too long after I get my HDTV I'll be picking one of these up myself. At this point, I don't see any reason to wait for hybrids... and unless Blu-Ray comes out with a similarly priced player I have a feeling they are going to be on the losing end of this battle.

Friedmud
 
I am telling you, in this world, he who is cheapest wins. HD-DVD has got the $250 Toshiba standalones for traditional viewers and the $200 Xbox HD-DVD drive for the gamer and HTPC crowd. The cheapest player the BD camp can muster is the $500 (20GB) PS3. The price gap is literally half, who do you think is going to win?!
 
Eden said:
They could have the market share in STANDALONE players but BD's got all the good movies, wonder why they forgot to mention that?
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Because quality of titles is subjective. Clearly we know which side of the fence you sit on. Its pretty damn telling however that even with "all the good movies" HD DVD players are still out selling Blu-Ray. Be the cheapest and they will come.
 
Nice they are completely fudging the numbers by not including the PS3 also a story very similar to this was posted 2 weeks or so.
 
Also "HD" has a better name, as people can relate HD to High Def while Blu-Ray = wtF? So people who haven't done their homework and buy a HD TV will probably go for the HD player over the Blu-Ray even though they might be priced the same (yes I know there are cheaper HD players out there atm). You don't see "Blu-Ray TV!".

Anyway, hopefully neither will win and prices will drop to $100 for the players so the consumer wins.
 
Well, atleast someone is winning. However it's not great enough of a margin for me to actually go out and buy a HD-DVD....
This media format war is so much crap.
 
jmackay said:
Also "HD" has a better name, as people can relate HD to High Def while Blu-Ray = wtF? So people who haven't done their homework and buy a HD TV will probably go for the HD player over the Blu-Ray even though they might be priced the same (yes I know there are cheaper HD players out there atm). You don't see "Blu-Ray TV!".

Anyway, hopefully neither will win and prices will drop to $100 for the players so the consumer wins.
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Because this worked so well with Super-VHS vs. DVD right?
 
Skrying said:
Because quality of titles is subjective. Clearly we know which side of the fence you sit on. Its pretty damn telling however that even with "all the good movies" HD DVD players are still out selling Blu-Ray. Be the cheapest and they will come.
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What I was referring to is this:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070202-8760.html
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/show/514
http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/580
http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/8933.cfm

Quality might be subjective, but actual sales figures are far from it. It is from February but I'm pretty sure it hasn't tipped back to HD-DVD or else they would've been the one to point that out.

Skrying said:
Its pretty damn telling however that even with "all the good movies" HD DVD players are still out selling Blu-Ray. Be the cheapest and they will come.
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And your above statement is wrong since you didn't limit it to STANDALONE players only as the press release did.
 
Well we already had CDs so DVD wasn't much of a stretch. And if TVs were called Super-VHS Screens or something then Super-VHS probably would have done better :p

I'm not buying either for a while anyway, so I really don't care who is beating who right now.
 
jmackay said:
Well we already had CDs so DVD wasn't much of a stretch. And if TVs were called Super-VHS Screens or something then Super-VHS probably would have done better :p

I'm not buying either for a while anyway, so I really don't care who is beating who right now.
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well then to be fair Blu-ray is simply BD. :p

I could care less who wins but with all but one major studio supporting BD, I don't see exactly how HD DVD will win. Manufacturer support on BD is also pretty damnn overwhelming. It's not always about price (in response to other posts).
 
friedmud said:
I have been saying all along that as long as a reasonably priced ($500 and below) hybrid player (that can play both formats) comes to market before Christmas I'll buy in... but not before then.

Friedmud
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I'm with you on this one, but the LG Dual player has been getting panned in all the reviews I've seen of it, because it misses out on being able to perform some special feature and menu functions, I guess as a comprimise being able to play both formats.

This whole war blows, and I just wish someone would hurry up and win.
 
Can anyone actually tell the difference between standard DVD format and HD/BD? With PS2/Xbox, 1080p is hugely noticeable in supporting titles.... with BD movies, I honestly can't tell the difference. Could it be the PS3? Could it be my set is only 42"? Perhaps with 108" projection screen, maybe HD movies would be worth the fuss. As, and expensive gimmick if you ask me.
 
Neither is selling for shit, since they are not worth more than $60.... yeah, the HD./BR electronics costs no more than 10-20$ more than your run of the mill DVD burner.
 
BlueF said:
Can anyone actually tell the difference between standard DVD format and HD/BD? With PS2/Xbox, 1080p is hugely noticeable in supporting titles.... with BD movies, I honestly can't tell the difference. Could it be the PS3? Could it be my set is only 42"? Perhaps with 108" projection screen, maybe HD movies would be worth the fuss. As, and expensive gimmick if you ask me.
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Er... meant to say PS3/Xbox360...
 
So, what's the two main arguments?...
Is it, like,

1. HD DVD will win simply because of its name recognition alone: people know what DVD means, and HD is just a better kind.

2. Blu-ray will win because of overwhelming studio support and the PS3 install base as a supporting factor.

ARRGH! I don't even know what to choose now.
 
Well, I bought a Toshiba hd-xa2 player about a month ago. I really like it. It uses a Reon video processing chip, supports the high def audio formats, upconverts existing dvd's as good or better than anything else out there.

As far as who has the good movies.... well alot of the movies are on both formats. And, there are only certain older movies I would bother re-buying in HD anyway. There's only 2 USA blu-ray exclusives I would bother re-buying in HD, Pirates of the Carribean series, and Underworld. And lo and behold I have Underworld evolution on HD DVD, an import that basically cost me within $5 of buying it locally (a USA company sells them). This is thanks to 2 things, HD DVD has no region coding (blu-ray does) and the company that owns distribution rights overseas supports HD DVD not blu-ray. I wouldn't be suprised if the same thing happens with Pirates. Other good movies I've recently liked, that I want on HD are Batman begins, Superman returns, Bourne Identity. Bourne and Batman Begins are HD DVD only. Superman returns is on both formats. (It's possible Batman Begins is on blu-ray overseas, but those discs are region coded....). HD DVD is also getting Heroes season 1, Battlestar Galactica, and House to name a few good tv shows.

At first I was on the fence, but have since become an HD DVD fan. If you read up on both formats, read comparisons of video quality on both, they are either equal or the HD DVD version is rated a bit higher. Audio should be adequate on both (even tho all HD DVD players from day 1 have been required to contain the decoding chips for the high def audio formats.. blu ray had no such requirement and many of the older players cannot play the new audio formats even with a firmware update, since the actual dsp needed isn't present. Mind you these players cost more than the HD DVD players. I will note that to my knowledge the PS3 is the only blu-ray player that currently can play the newer audio formats, at least the only one in any reasonable price range)

Go read on www.avsforums.com and once you get past the fanboi posting and find those who have both formats, who make their comments, you'll come to an informed decision.

Don't believe these common misconceptions:

blu-ray disc holds more, therefore will look better. Truth: most HD DVD movies use the VC-1 codec, most blu-ray MPEG2 (the codec for DVD). The VC-1 has been shown many times over to produce a better picture, and uses less space to do it.

blu-ray has uncompressed (loss-less) PCM audio, so it sounds better. Truth: The original blu-ray players had no DSP chips for the high end audio codecs like Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD, therefor they HAD to use uncompressed audio of some form (if the studios releasing blu-ray movies want the movie to play on the older blu-ray players). All it really did was take up (require) more space. the high end HD formats from dolby and DTS decompress into bit-for-bit duplicates of the original theatrical audio tracks, i.e. they are loss-less audio as well. They also take up a fraction of the disc space compared to uncrompessed PCM. To be honest once you get past 1.5mbps audio, I can't tell a difference. They both sound good. It's just one is technically the smarter, more efficient way to do it. blu-rays audio problems, as well as poor video codec choices can be blamed on Sony rushing it out, since HD DVD had beat them to market.

The good thing for us is that it sparked a price war and the HD DVD players became cheaper alot faster than they might have otherwise.

Go look on www.amazon.com see what the highest selling dvd players are...

Under Movies (DVD, blu-ray, and HD DVD), one really good series: Planet Earth (which I own on HD DVD and recommend) is the #1 selling DVD on amazon. #3 is the HD DVD version, #16 is the blu-ray version.

Under Players:
#1 DVD (or blu-ray or HD DVD player) is the Toshiba HD-A2 (HD DVD).
#2 is an Oppo regular DVD player.
#3 is a Toshiba HD-A20 (HD DVD)
#4 is a Toshiba HD-XA2 (HD DVD)
#5 thru #9 are low cost regular DVD players.
#10 is the Sony blu-ray player (the cheapest one out)

The numbers are there. The big players in the market see whats happening. IMHO there's no need to wait any longer to jump into the HD format, if you own an HD capable TV.
 
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Well, no one can deny that HD DVD players are cheaper, that's definitely given me some pause. But over here in North American continent, many of the movies I personally like are *only* on Blu-ray. As far as the codec issue goes, I was under the impression that there's no reason for BD's to use mpeg2 and they are moving to better ones now. (I am not that technical on the differences, though, other than of course that better quality in lesser filesize = good, etc.)

This stuff is why I can't decide, thus have decided to wait.
 
capable heart said:
Well, no one can deny that HD DVD players are cheaper, that's definitely given me some pause. But over here in North American continent, many of the movies I personally like are *only* on Blu-ray. As far as the codec issue goes, I was under the impression that there's no reason for BD's to use mpeg2 and they are moving to better ones now. (I am not that technical on the differences, though, other than of course that better quality in lesser filesize = good, etc.)

This stuff is why I can't decide, thus have decided to wait.
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Exactly, I'll wait until the fix any problems and they make them cheaper as well.
 
lol BlueF.. are you actually being serious, or are you joking? Internet sarcasm is hard to sense sometimes.
 
No matter...

The only ones who win in this fight are the manufacturers.

The ones who lose?

The consumers.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
Neither is selling for shit, since they are not worth more than $60.... yeah, the HD./BR electronics costs no more than 10-20$ more than your run of the mill DVD burner.
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Winner!

I'm not touching any of that crap until I see $49.99.
 
The biggest problem with this war is once it is won, it will continue on for some tim,e thansk to all the alliances that were forged to fight it. Exclusive titles, hardware support, it is all limited, to the detriment of the consumer. Though HD-DVD is starting to look very tempting to me - $180 for the xbox drive is much easier to stomach than the $400-$500 for a blueray drive (have to go with computer based players, since my monitor is the only high def display in the house :) )
 
Exclusive titles is what I dont like. No matter which one you waste money on, you are missing out.

Format wars such as this shouldn't be allowed. If there was only one format, a whole lot more players and movies would've be in more homes since there would only be one choice. Prices wouldn't be too high since we would have manufacturers competing.
 
You know, when you combine this format war with the whole HDMI 1.3 schpiel? (something of which I still can't seem to get clearcut answers on as to what makes and models of equipment actually use it, if any are even out right now)

It doesn't seem to really be a good idea to jump on the HD bandwagon at this time. It aggravates me because I have been wanting to get an HDTV so I could play on my 360 in high def. But obviously I'm not going to plunk down $1000 or more on a display just so I can play a console. It seems like if that's the only reason I'm going to get one, it's pointless. I would be better off just using my 2407 for everything the way I have been.

So hell with it. I'll sit this one out until one gets phased out in favor of the other completely. Hopefully by then it'll be worthwhile to get into HD.
 
SamuraiInBlack said:
You know, when you combine this format war with the whole HDMI 1.3 schpiel? (something of which I still can't seem to get clearcut answers on as to what makes and models of equipment actually use it, if any are even out right now)

It doesn't seem to really be a good idea to jump on the HD bandwagon at this time. It aggravates me because I have been wanting to get an HDTV so I could play on my 360 in high def. But obviously I'm not going to plunk down $1000 or more on a display just so I can play a console. It seems like if that's the only reason I'm going to get one, it's pointless. I would be better off just using my 2407 for everything the way I have been.

So hell with it. I'll sit this one out until one gets phased out in favor of the other completely. Hopefully by then it'll be worthwhile to get into HD.
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Get a 24"-27" monitor. That way you can play your console in 1080p and also have an awesome monitor for ur pc.
 
I was browsing around on Amazon, looks like "300" is coming to HD DVD! Yes! I loved the action in that movie. There's some old movies out too like Road Warrior, mission impossible, tomb raider, etc. For myself I'm mostly just getting new stuff on HD DVD.

But if you don't own a new(er) tv, there's no point. But if you do... at first I didn't notice a big difference watching a movie in HD DVD. It was when I went back to a regular DVD, all the sudden I was noticing the macro-blocking, the shimmering effect around moving objects....

If you dont think you'll like it, just buy a cheaper player once they come out and try it for 30 days. You can always take it back if you dont like it... Hell, on Amazon you get 7 free movies (about $175 worth of movies) when you buy a toshiba player along with the Matrix. It really is a good deal.
 
GoodBoy said:
Go read on www.avsforums.com and once you get past the fanboi posting and find those who have both formats, who make their comments, you'll come to an informed decision.

Don't believe these common misconceptions:

blu-ray disc holds more, therefore will look better. Truth: most HD DVD movies use the VC-1 codec, most blu-ray MPEG2 (the codec for DVD). The VC-1 has been shown many times over to produce a better picture, and uses less space to do it.

blu-ray has uncompressed (loss-less) PCM audio, so it sounds better. Truth: The original blu-ray players had no DSP chips for the high end audio codecs like Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD, therefor they HAD to use uncompressed audio of some form (if the studios releasing blu-ray movies want the movie to play on the older blu-ray players). All it really did was take up (require) more space. the high end HD formats from dolby and DTS decompress into bit-for-bit duplicates of the original theatrical audio tracks, i.e. they are loss-less audio as well. They also take up a fraction of the disc space compared to uncrompessed PCM. To be honest once you get past 1.5mbps audio, I can't tell a difference. They both sound good. It's just one is technically the smarter, more efficient way to do it. blu-rays audio problems, as well as poor video codec choices can be blamed on Sony rushing it out, since HD DVD had beat them to market.

The good thing for us is that it sparked a price war and the HD DVD players became cheaper alot faster than they might have otherwise.

Go look on www.amazon.com see what the highest selling dvd players are...

Under Movies (DVD, blu-ray, and HD DVD), one really good series: Planet Earth (which I own on HD DVD and recommend) is the #1 selling DVD on amazon. #3 is the HD DVD version, #16 is the blu-ray version.

Under Players:
#1 DVD (or blu-ray or HD DVD player) is the Toshiba HD-A2 (HD DVD).
#2 is an Oppo regular DVD player.
#3 is a Toshiba HD-A20 (HD DVD)
#4 is a Toshiba HD-XA2 (HD DVD)
#5 thru #9 are low cost regular DVD players.
#10 is the Sony blu-ray player (the cheapest one out)

The numbers are there. The big players in the market see whats happening. IMHO there's no need to wait any longer to jump into the HD format, if you own an HD capable TV.
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You say go to avs, read past the fanboi comments, and don't believe the misconceptions, then immediately go on to spew fanboi misconceptions.

VC-1 is used on both HD DVD and Blu-Ray, at first BD was using Mpeg-2 which is not automatically worst, but they were inferior. Not anymore.

Your rant on the audio is irrelevant to the space argument, of which BD has more, plain and simple. It's the studio's choice whether to include PCM, DTS-HD or TrueHD. Some may include one or two, not sure about all three, and this applies to both formats.

Nice of you to declare HD DVD the winner at the end of your post. Oh wait you used Amazon sales numbers to do that? I'll stick with Nielsen VideoScan numbers instead.
 
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I honestly dont see a format winning. They both got there pro's and con's. Only thing I see winning is a true combo player that will do both. Hell even, if they have a player that has two disk trays, one for blu ray and one for HD DVD I will get it. Im mostly likely going to get the HD DVD addon for my 360. HD DVD does have a good selection of movies im interested in, but Blu Ray defenetely has more that interest me, but I can justify the price.

Until a combo player comes out that does both without any problems, no format is going to win. Once that combo players comes out, then neither is going to win and some comprimise will probably happen.

I would like to give thanks to Sony for making this so complicated in trying to make there own format........again. HD DVD just alone sounds alot better as it describes what it is perfectly. Blu-ray? I just dont like that name as its desribing the laser in which I seriously doubt anyone cares what color there laser is that reads the disk. As with HD DVD, its a DVD and its in HD, like I said describes it perfectly. Ill end my rant now, sorry.
 
god... its always the same crap in the BD vrs HD threads, there should be one thread and not one more...
 
Spin, spin, spin. The format war is already over. Universal is the only movie house that matters that's sticking to HD-DVD only; everyone else that matters has gone Blu-Ray.

Did you notice that the engadget article doesn't actually mention sales numbers? I actually went to the North American HD DVD Promotional Group's web site to look for the press release engadget is reporting about. It's not there. I had to use wikipedia to find out that it was actually reported by TG Daily, reporting that Toshiba reported that 100,000 stand-alone HD-DVD players (not counting XBox360 drives) had been sold as of April 19, 2007. That article can be found here. This is two month old news...

Anyway, in case you lost count, let's do the math:

60 percent of standalone players = HD-DVD = 100,000
Total number of standalone players must then be 166,666 which must then mean Blu-Ray sold 66,666.

Oh wait... that's 66,666 plus 5.5 million PS3 sales.
In all fairness, the addon HD-DVD drive for XBox360 has sold 100,000 units.

Soooooo, by my count, we're at 200,000 HD-DVD players versus 5,566,666 Blu-Ray players.

/golfclap for HD-DVD
 
WicKeDcHilD said:
god... its always the same crap in the BD vrs HD threads, there should be one thread and not one more...
Click to expand...

Notice that the two biggest advocates of Blu-ray are noobies. They are probably part of another one of Sony's viral marketing campaigns. No one with half a brain could declare HD-DVD dead, only someone being paid would say something that stupid.

Here's the Wikipedia list of exclusive HD-DVD supporters.
In terms of major studios In North America, HD DVD is currently exclusively backed by Universal Studios (including subsidiaries Rogue Pictures, Focus Features and Polygram Filmed Entertainment) , The Weinstein Company/Dimension Films (through Genius Products), and First Look Studios.
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Something else interesting.
(Although it should be noted that a number of Warner's titles--Batman Begins, V for Vendetta, The Perfect Storm, Troy, Poseidon, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines--are HD DVD exclusive till further notice)
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Here's a real important point that the Sony's viral marketers won't mention.
HD DVD does have more studio support worldwide, especially in Europe. HD DVD is currently exclusively backed by several adult-movie/pornography studios/publishers, including Wicked Pictures, Pink Visual, Bang Bros, Digital Playground Inc. and ClubJenna Inc. (which on 22 June 2006 was acquired by Playboy Enterprises), and HD DVD is also non-exclusively backed by Vivid Entertainment.
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The porn industry is something like a 12 to 13 billion dollar industry in this country. If they go HD-DVD would anyone but a Sony spokesperson say that Blu-ray can beat porn?

Sure Blu-ray has Disney, but what adult male, other than Richard Gere, prefers a mouse to breasts?
 
BladeVenom said:
Notice that the two biggest advocates of Blu-ray are noobies. They are probably part of another one of Sony's viral marketing campaigns. No one with half a brain could declare HD-DVD dead, only someone being paid would say something that stupid.
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OH NOES! I'm a noobie, so I'm prolly not as smart as someone who's a gawd. lol

BladeVenom said:
Here's the Wikipedia list of exclusive HD-DVD supporters.
Click to expand...
Universal Studios, The Weinstein Company vs MGM, Disney, SONY Studios, Columbia pictures, 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate. Yep Universal wins alright damn straight.

BladeVenom said:
Something else interesting.
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The two biggest movies of this summer, Spider3 and Pirates3 might be permanently exclusive to Blu-ray, but that's ok since HD-DVD gets Batman Begins, V for Vendetta, The Perfect Storm, Troy, Poseidon, Terminator 3 exclusively for the time being.

BladeVenom said:
HD DVD does have more studio support worldwide, especially in Europe. HD DVD is currently exclusively backed by several adult-movie/pornography studios/publishers, including Wicked Pictures, Pink Visual, Bang Bros, Digital Playground Inc. and ClubJenna Inc. (which on 22 June 2006 was acquired by Playboy Enterprises), and HD DVD is also non-exclusively backed by Vivid Entertainment.
Click to expand...
The porn industry is something like a 12 to 13 billion dollar industry in this country. If they go HD-DVD would anyone but a Sony spokesperson say that Blu-ray can beat porn?

Sure Blu-ray has Disney, but what adult male, other than Richard Gere, prefers a mouse to breasts?
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Wait WTF? Is this the same guy that asked me if I was 12? Dude did you just hit puberty or something?
Are you stuck on the fact that porn was the deciding factor on the VHS/Betamax war? Don't expect the same result man, back when it was still VHS/Betamax, the only way to watch porn was in public, and VHS capitalized on that by letting people watch it in private. READ: VHS was the most convenient way to get porn. Today, internet porn is more convenient, readily available, free.

BladeVenom said:
Sure Blu-ray has Disney, but what adult male, other than Richard Gere, prefers a mouse to breasts?
Click to expand...
No I guess I can't expect someone who just hit puberty to appreciate the complexity of the latest Pirates or the Carribean.
 
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