Big retailers launch HD DVD price war

Funny how the BluRay camp say the one sided hard coating discs give them an advantage over the HD-DVD and DVD double sided discs because it’s more durable. It is the total opposite! in fact.
With dual sided HD-DVD and DVD disc’s, if one side is scratched by a freak accident, then at least you can still watch the movie on the other side. But with BluRay’s hard coating (needed because of pits are very close to surface) even though it is resistant to scratches, hard surfaces are less flexible. So in actuality these discs will start cracking easier. See all the info online about how almost all rented BluRay discs from netflix arrive cracked when sent through the mail, while others aren’t.
Also an HD-DVD CAN be resurfaced, and regain functuality after deep scratches, a BluRay disc, can NEVER be resurfaced. So you can never polish out any scratches, the disc is shot if the coating is polished cause info is too close to surface.
So what seemed to be the better idea turns out more fragile, amazing isn’t it?

Missinformation is all anybody seems to spew out of thier mouth about bd vs. hd dvd. Production costs on bd disc’s are only pennies more on 25,000 or more units produced. All i hear about is how hd dvd players cost less and how price will affect the format war. If people will read the specs on the cheap hd dvd player they will see its only capable of 1080i not 1080p. Those hd dvd players that will produce a 1080p picture start at 299.00 and go as high as 399.00. Sony sells a 1080p bd player for 479.00. Most higher end hd tv’s produce a 1080p picture which seems to be becoming a standard for high def. To compare 1080i and 1080p, it is important to compare framerates. Due to interlacing, 1080i has twice the frame-rate but half the resolution of a 1080p signal using the same bandwidth. As far as how many units are sold, a ps3 units basic function is to play a bd disc and should be considered in the overall sales of bd players as should xbox hd drive for the 360. When it comes down to construction of the disc’s themselves bd disc win hands down because of thier storage capabilities and durability. Hd dvd’s are produced with both the standard dvd copy on one side and the hd copy on the other, which to me that in a real world situation means that hd dvd’s are more likely to get damaged than a bd disc which is one sided and has a super hard coating over its iformation layer. i own 3 bd playes(bd-rom,ps3, and panasonic stand alone) along with a hd-dvd player and can say that bd and hd are both great formats but i will have to choose bd.

I have a playstation 3 and a hd-dvd player. It not so much the cost of the players, as it is the cost of the movies. Even having both i still find myself buying regualr dvd’s when i can use the hd-dvd players upconversion and it is awsome. I bought the regular for 14.99$ while the blueray and hd-dvd movies are 29.99-39.99. To me its the price of the movies not so much the cost of the players.

@ Kevin H.

To quote the da vinci code “the mind sees what it wants to see”…

1. your post infers that toshiba just can’t crack or isn’t capable of 1080p. do a product search and you will find HD DVD players that are capable of such.

2. More importantly, your post shows you how powerful marketing is. There is virtually no difference with any content you currently own between 1080i and 1080p. That more vivid and crisp picture you see is all in your mind. Nearly all content on a high-definition disk was shot on film or in high definition video at 24 fps. Because most HD screens use a refresh rate of 60 fps (or some multiple thereof), a process called 3:2 pulldown displays one frame twice, and the next frame three times. So whether you’re watching 1080i or 1080p, that same 24 frames are being temporally “stretched” to accommodate the native frame rate employed by HD displays. The result is that 1080p doesn’t show more information than 1080i because both are starting with material acquired at an even lower frame rate than either.

3. Lastly, with #2 in mind, there is no other source of content that provides 1080p resolution. All current network HD offerings (to my knowledge) are either 720p or 1080i so other than downloading 5 minute clips on the internet, there isn’t a source for true 1080p enjoyment on your 1080p capable set. I’d be willing to bet you a buck that if you popped in your 1080p movie and compared it with the live Sunday afternoon NFL game in 1080i or even 720p, the picture quality of the game would blow away that of the movie you put in…if you were honest with yourself.

I would have already bought a BlueRay player except I found Sony in all their cleverness, decided that I if I owned a Region 2 disk or an All Regions disk here in America it must be because these are pirated DVDs.

They are fools setup a company policy that treats paying customers like common criminals.

And yes I have gathered and used the information I need to remove Regions, Encryption, and Macrovision from all of the DVD standards and have applied that knowlege when neccessary. This is something I wouldn’t have bothered with but you know what they say: people will always behave in the way that you expect them to.

The sad thing about this is that the longer the HD format war goes on, the less likely it is that either medium will be a huge hit. HD-DVD makes more sense to me. It will be easier for many of the smaller independent studio to get HD content out because its easy for even the smallest DVD replicators to get their existing plants converted, whereas BluRay production facilities have to be build from the ground up. 80% of DVD content now come from the independents, so in the long run, HD-DVD means much more content availability. Jeffrey Stockton

i work for at&t. my thought process says “why would people pay $600 for an iphone when i can have another phone that does the same stuff?” the answer is simple pitch it hard enough and claim its the greatest thing since sliced bread and people will buy it. now i personally know the iphone sucks. people still bought it in record numbers and still want it now that it has dropped off some. again people will buy anything you want them too regardless of price if they think their need is great enough. salesmanship 101 baby!!!

1080i v 1080p its a arguement of quantity vs quality. does neone here even know what the “i” and “p” stands for and how pixels reprduce images? neone know the structure of a tv now. lol i bet alot of ppl still think signing up with cable gives them all hd channels? the stupidity of this blog is high.

trust me when i say this but microsoft had no choice when they had to go to hd dvd … theyre major competition is sony. why would they join the ps3 camp when theyre at each others throat with the gaming console war. Todd, Broomfield, Colorado said microsoft picked hd dvd b/c of quality; wrong it was because they had too.

what you guys dont understand or havent seen is the true quality of 1080p! 1080i is more lines but strung together. 1080p is more vivid and crisp and is worth the $280 dollar different. you guys have not seen 1080p on a samsung with 120hz refresh using blu ray… i know u havent because it is unreal. its like looking into glass. what is toshiba going to do when 1440p comes out????? argue then 1080p is the same? not true. the idea behind television now is to reporduce the image as if u were looking at it with your own eyes bringing u too places u never been. did u know that the sony ps3 is only a firmware upgrade away from processing 1440p????!????!?!? long term there!

@ Bill S.: Wow…where do I start…

“While Blu-ray disc replication is indeed more expensive (today) than HD DVD disc replication, the disparity in player prices isn’t due to the cost of the player technology, but simply due to strategy… …Want proof? Nearly 1 1/2 years after format launch Toshiba remains the sole vendor on store shelves. Meanwhile the Blu-ray camp has players available from multiple top-tier vendors with many more models and manufacturers in the pipeline.”

So either 1) You actually don’t know the cost structure of your own product vs. its competition OR 2) Your saying all the ‘multiple top tier vendors’ have gotten together to collude and illegally keep the price of Bluray players artificially high to profit at the expense of consumers OR 3) Toshiba is stupid enough to think that consumers like lower prices and take less money (or subsidize) their players to ensure that HD DVD technology gets to as many people as possible and not solely to enrich big companies. Hmmmmm…I’m going to guess you’re going to pick the latter. If so, I don’t need to remind you that this format war that you guys are waging isn’t about the extra $100 bucks or 20 more players you can sell. Its about the billions of dollars in royalties that are at stake with the next generation DVD format. And if subsidizing hardware for software sales is bad, you might want to call up Sony too and tell them that their Playstation strategy is just flat out wrong…that its too early in the tech curve to achieve the necessary profit margins and that they should raise the price of the PS3 to a profitable level.

“While this might boost marketshare in the short term, it is clearly destructive in the long-term.”

To who? Big CE companies? NEW FLASH: I DON’T CARE. I don’t care about Sony’s profit margins. I don’t care about Toshiba’s profit margins. I care about my profit margins. What I do know is competition that drives the cost of products down to a place where the mass market can buy it is a good thing for consumers. High definition is high definition. In my area, Fox HD is 720p but NBC HD is 1080i. You know what? I haven’t called to complain yet and both look damn good. DirecTV didn’t get my HD business until they showed me the value for my money.

“Even with the price disparity Blu-ray standalone player sales have at times exceeded those of HD DVD.”

Complete hogwash. If you were at least honest in this discussion, you wouldn’t even make this claim. You know that standalone HD DVD players from one single company has consistently outsold standalone Bluray player from ‘multiple top tier’ companies from the outset. There are more Bluray capable players out there by virtue of the PS3…no argument there (I wish you would be fair and include HP, Acer, and Toshiba (the #1, #2, and #4 worldwide notebook vendors respectively) HD DVD capable notebooks in your count if you are going to include PS3s…but I digress) Just because 1 more Bluray player than HD DVD player was sold on July 14, 2006 or whatever day you selectively pick doesn’t make this a great argument.

“Todd of Broomfield claims studio support is 50/50. It is not; as measured by studio box office, Blu-ray has roughly 2/3 of the overall studio support…”

Again with the selective arguments to make a point. major studio support is about 50/50. Measuring by box office receipts is lame. Every studio puts out a turkey from time to time and every studio kills it from time to time. Saying that Paramount got lucky with Transformers is just sour grapes. Here’s the breakdown:

Bluray supporting studios:
Sony
Columbia (Sony owned)
MGM (Sony owned)
Disney
Fox
Warner Bros.
Image Entertainment
New Line Cinema
Lions Gate
Magnolia Pictures
Studio Canal
HBO

Studios Supporting HD DVD:
Dreamworks
New Line Cinema
Paramount
-Paramount Vintage, Nickelodeon Movies, MTV Films
Universal
-Rogue Pictures, Focus Features, Polygram Entertainment
Warner Bros.
Weinstein Co./Dimension
HBO
First Look Studios
Image Entertainment
Magnolia Pictures
Studio Canal
Nearly every Porn studio

Looks pretty even to me.

Efforts to drive sales of HD DVD vs. Blu-ray can also have a bigger than normal impact at stores like amazon.com where sales are tracked and used as a yardstick for the ongoing war…

eProduct Wars DVD War is just one example of a site that tracks this

I am surprised at how much emotion is coming out in some of the comments…

My observation is that the big retailers seem to push blue-ray very hard. I see that as an explanation for the sales lead (if there really is a decisive difference), but agree with the many posters who believe that HD and lower pricing will win in the end.

A different thought: I am not sure that hidef (TV or DVD) is all that great yet. I now see recording artifacts (e.g. depth of focus and pixelation in rapid movement) which are annoying and make regular DVDs seem “better”. I suspect that real enjoyment will come (for me) only with much improved recording quality.

Its all about content. Until HD-DVD gets movies from the major studios that are now exclusive to Blu-Ray, all the technology and pricing in the world won’t mean squat. What good is having a $150 HD-DVD when you can’t watch most of the movies that are only being put out on Blu-Ray?

- Joe

What difference does it make to have all those movies but NO ONE wants to pay those prices for the hardware. Movies can easily switch alliances.

HD DVD is not region locked like Blu-Ray. Just because a movie is exclusively Blu-Ray in this country, doesn’t mean its Blu-Ray everywhere else. You can get movies such as Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Underworld, which are Blu-Ray only in the U.S., in HD DVD from other countries, and they’re subtitled not dubbed.

Its all about content. Until HD-DVD gets movies from the major studios that are now exclusive to Blu-Ray, all the technology and pricing in the world won’t mean squat. What good is having a $150 HD-DVD when you can’t watch most of the movies that are only being put out on Blu-Ray?

- Joe

this article has a lot of spin in it.

Sorry guys, the consumer does NOT want to buy a 500 player. Dvd players vcan be had for less than 50 bucks and you want an average consumer to spend 10 times that on blu ray? HA! Most people are NOT hardcore video fanatics like you guys and when you put two players side by side that the average consumer can’t tell the difference. PRICE wins every time.

well i said to hell with it and bought a ps3 and a hd dvd player. why not have the best of both worlds???

There’s a lot of misinformation here, mostly in the comments but also a bit in the story.
In the story the statement is made “Blu-ray technology, which was created by Sony (SNE), is more expensive to produce than HD DVD.” While Blu-ray disc replication is indeed more expensive (today) than HD DVD disc replication, the disparity in player prices isn’t due to the cost of the player technology, but simply due to strategy. HD DVD doesn’t have the vendor or studio support Blu-ray has, so they have used price as their primary competitive tactic from the day the players launched. While this might boost marketshare in the short term, it is clearly destructive in the long-term. Once players are below $200 you don’t have the opportunity to go back to higher-priced players, and it’s too early in the technology curve for other manufacturers to achieve necessary profit margins when Toshiba is quickly driving the price down to rock-bottom margins through their own subsidization. Want proof? Nearly 1 1/2 years after format launch Toshiba remains the sole vendor on store shelves (and other vendors like Onkyo who have announced players are basing them on Toshiba designs). Meanwhile the Blu-ray camp has players available from multiple top-tier vendors with many more models and manufacturers in the pipeline. Even with the price disparity Blu-ray standalone player sales have at times exceeded those of HD DVD.
In the comments, many refer to Blu-ray as a Sony technology. While Sony indeed developed much of the technology, Blu-ray is far from a Sony-only product; the “Beta analogy” simply does not apply. Matsushita, Philips, Pioneer, Sharp, Hitachi, and many others are also strongly committed to its success. HD DVD can claim no other major CE vendors solely investing in HD DVD support.
Todd of Broomfield claims studio support is 50/50. It is not; as measured by studio box office, Blu-ray has roughly 2/3 of the overall studio support, and if not for Paramount’s atypically big year (Transformers and Shrek) it’d be far higher.
The fact remains that Blu-ray disc sales continue to lead HD DVD by a 2:1 ratio. Consumers simply have more confidence in the Blu-ray community than the HD DVD community and are (thankfully) unwilling to take the bait of artificially low player prices.

Mr. Smith of Detroit… Hogwash! Where do I begin? I’ll believe Lucas and Spielberg go bluray exclusive when I see it - they’ll do both formats because they have no reason to cut their own throat. You provide no citations for your info on that AND 20th Century does not OWN rights to Lucasfilm - check it. HDDVD will not be discontinued - there will be both for a long time and lately HDDVD is pulling ahead in sales. Oh, there is a little company called Microsoft backing HDDVD only on both PCs and XBOX360 with a little game called HALO 3 - kicking PS3 rear. Sony is overpriced and LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Pioneer are junk. The HDDVD Specifications are in fact not inferior - interactive menuing etc, that bluray does not have. And multilayering makes capacity a non issue, not to mention movies are only taking up part of the capacity available on either format, so you’re pretty much wrong all the way around. Beta lost, good luck with your bluray.

This will be the last Christmas shopping season for HD-DVD. Consumers, don’t waste your money on a cheap HD-DVD player and movies. There’s a reason why they’re blowing them out so cheap - it’s called a FIRE SALE! I would hate to see people throw away hundreds of dollars for a format that will be discontinued next year. BLU-RAY is destroying HD-DVD in sales, and is the much better format. More disc storage space and a higher bitrate means better picture and sound quality. BLU-RAY is the only format where you will see Walt Disney movies and movies from 20th Century Fox. That means STAR WARS WILL ONLY BE ON BLU-RAY. Even Steven Spielberg wants his films to appear exclusively on BLU-RAY, because he knows it’s better. BLU-RAY is backed by many manufacturers - Sony, LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Pioneer. HD-DVD is backed by one manufacturer - Toshiba, which happens to be the founder of the format. HD-DVD is inferior to BLU-RAY in every way, and the consumer is speaking loud and clear that BLU-RAY is the consumer’s choice for the next generation home video format.

Jon of Honolulu’s list of Movies on BR or HDDVD is incomplete and wrong. King Kong, PitchBlack/Riddick and Transformers are on HDDVD only - just a few that come to mind. You need to see a list online or go to a store to see the different titles on each.
For standard DVD vs HD questions - you’re going to see more of a difference the bigger the tv screen. I can’t go back to standard digital now - it’s horrible compared to HD. The HD players upconvert standard DVDs to almost HD quality - I can still see the difference but it’s better than standard at least. Also, you need the 1080p tv to see the 1080p hi def output of real hi definition - you will see a dramatic difference.
One more thing - for NEW MOVIES - prices are only $5 or $10 more for HD ($30 vs $25) for instance. It matters because do you keep getting DVD or start getting HD for your collection???!!!

The is the worst and most biased article I’ve seen on HDDVD vs BluRay yet. The Toshiba A30 and A35 output in 1080/24p - which is full hd and as good as it gets. Those players also have incentives with free dvds that reduce their prices further over bluray. In September the XBox360 outsold PS3 5 to 1! There are NOT MORE MOVIES ON BluRay - it’s a stalemate there with half of the studios backing one or the other and a few that release on both formats. Sony’s studios and Disney(for now) are the only ones exclusively on BluRay discs. If Sony wins this battle there will be higher prices for hd period - bluray discs are more expensive because they use a different apperature size and need a thinner/stronger surface coating than hddvd. HDDVDs are made the same as DVD - reducing costs. Neither is better visually - HD 1080p or 24p (cinematic digital standard) is the same on either disc.

Betamax, anyone?

To me: its the 30++ dollar media which is the problem. Its hard to grasp paying 2x the cost of a standard DVD. Lower the cost of the media and I’m there.

What really gets me is how HD-DVD spins their numbers. They say that HD-DVD players outsell Blu-Ray. They do not count the PS3 because it is not a dedicated player.

Yet, when they talk about how many BR movies are sold compared to the number of players, they include the PS3 in the counts to reduce the “attach” rate to each player.

With all that number spinning, B-R movies still outsell HD-DVD by 2:1, even after Paramount and Dreamworks went HD exclusive.

The fourth quarter releases on BR will only increase the sales lead. BR has the Die-Hard quadrilogy, Disney’s Ratatouille, Cars, Pirates of the Carribean 3, Spiderman trilogy, CE3K, Mr & Mrs Smith, Independance Day, Castaway, Superbad, I Robot and Hairspray coming out.

Meanwhile, HD-DVD only has Shrek 3, I pronnouce you Chuck and Larry, Bourne Ultimatum dedicated to their format.

Also, Warner seems to be reconsidering their HD-DVD stance according to Home Media Magazine. They report that Blu-Ray sales is still better than HD-DVD and that they are re-evaluating their market position this quarter.

No, a blu-ray disc will only play in a blu-ray player and a HD-DVD will only play in a HD-DVD player. Niether will play on a regular DVD player. You must upgrade to either a blu ray or HD-DVD, but both will play your standard (non-hd) DVD’s.

Novice here. Will a blue ray disk play on a regular and HD DVD player? Will it play as if it were a regular (non-HD) DVD? Will an HD DVD play in a Blu-Ray and regular DVD Player? Will it play as if it were a regular (non-HD) DVD?

What if neither really wins because no one really cares? The improvements from switching from VHS to DVD were much larger than those garnered by switching from DVD to HD DVD or Bluray.

The changes from VHS to DVD amounted to a physical change with the disc, a usability change in that rewinding a movie was not required and a user could easily jump to any part of the movie, the menu system, the extra features, and an improvement in sound and picture quality. Users won’t get all that by switching to HD DVD or Bluray.

The only benefit to switching from DVD to HD DVD or Bluray is a slight video enhancement. I say slight because most people for most movies won’t think the change is all that noticable. And the audio improvement? Users will notice that improvement even less in my opinion.

The mainstream non-audio/videophiles do not have that great a reason to switch to an HD format. While I personally prefer Bluray, I worry that HD DVD will win out simply on its price. Although software sells hardware, which is where Bluray shines right now.

will SONY win with a higher priced, proprietary technology? ONE WORD … BETA

ANYTHING SONY TOUCHES recently has been equated with HIGH PRICE and poor return on investment. Take the PS3.. big game console price tag, few great games, high game prices (overall). Same with BLUE-RAY.. SONY isn’t about to get into a pissing content with price cuts because they’re already over 1 BILLION in the RED from the rush to market with the PS3. Blue-Ray will slowly bleed to death it’s blue blood, while HD-DVD (MOST CONSUMERS can identify anything named DVD). Also if the backers of HD-DVD have their way.. they’ll just grab shelf space, lower the price and just move into a defacto standard, making BLUE-RAY a beta-max.. sure, the superior technology made obsolete by consumer choice. Hate to say history is repeating itself… but too bad SONY.
File chapter 11 and start over, your due for a comeback anytime now.

$200 players mean nothing when Disney, Sony, Lionsgate, MGM, Fox, Starz,etc. all support Blu-Ray EXCLUSIVELY!!!!!!! You go to any store and half the movies on the shelf, for HD-DVD, are Universal movies…..yawn!!!!!

I also love how Bluray backers always like to point to the PS3 as proof of the technology’s dominance in the market, while never mentioning the #1 and #3 notebook maker’s (both WW and US) full support of HD-DVDs in their notebooks. HD-DVD price points have dropped to sub $1,000 notebooks and these two are probably on a run rate to probably ship hundreds of thousands if not millions of HD-DVD capable notebooks a year…a number that would definitely match PS3 shipments. I would argue that more movies are watched on notebooks than gaming consoles but both are still secondary applications and in a fair analysis should not be ignored. The 1080i v. 1080p argument is also nearly irrelevant. I would bet you if you were put to the test to pick between the 1080i or 1080p resolution on identical TVs, most would get it right about half the time. At a certain quality level, the returns are just not there. So here’s a thought for you to kick around. You ask most people that are aware of the format battle, are they going to pick today. Most will tell you no…they will wait. But if ask these same people if they could give the GIFT of high definition for the holidays affordably to their loved ones, would they. The answer is YES. Your a hero to your dad, mom, brother, sister, grandfather, or aunt, etc. etc. and you’re only out $200 bucks? Where do i sign up? i’m giving 2 HD-DVD players to family members this Christmas…

I get it, JF is talking about the PS3 while everyone else is talking about BDA’s stand alone player. Funny in a sad way how those who faver BR wish to ignore or not address the stand alone player over the PS3. But truth be told there has been no news from Sony informing anyone that PS3 will be updated to Profile 1.1 let alone any current stand alone player.

Sorry Randy, I misread. That response is directed at JF.

Jon, Blu-Ray players do not have dual tuners for PiP, nor Ethernet ports for web connectivity. They also do not have the memory required to upgrate to BD 1.1 or BD 2.0. All current stand-alones are BD version 1.0 and almost zero have the hardware requirements to be upgraded.

jf: Not true. Blu-ray players accept software updates that add new features.

Sooooo a firmware update can add a secondary video decoder, and network port?!? Howzat work?

Well Randy didn’t realize those updates include hardware, a soldering kit and a stick of memory. That’s what would be required to get the web connectivity and extra features already available on HD DVD. Maybe you should read up on profile 1.1 for Blu-Ray.

HD DVD also offers web connectivity and other more advanced features than Blu-Ray.
Blu-Ray promises to match these features in the future, but zero of their current stand-alone players will be able to support them (IF Blu-Ray even ever adds them). You will have to buy a new Blu-ray player.

jf: Not true. Blu-ray players accept software updates that add new features.