Warner and Blu ray?

01-26-08: Rugyboogie
Local retailers are advertising their HD DVD players for $99 plus get 3 movies for free. At this price point you know who is going to buy this price. The local A&B Sound says that they have sold over 300 in just 2 days. Maybe it is not too late for HD DVD.

The missing piece of this puzzle is that owners of HD DVD players need to pressure the video vendors to carry the HD DVD titles. There are almost as many titles available in HD DVD as there are in Blu-ray, but you'd never know it from a visit to your local Blockbuster, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, or Target (who, to be fair, carries a decent selection). If there is a formidable demand for HD DVD software, the vendors will realize that their attempt to manipulate consumer preference is costing them money and will stock them.

From there, if big vendors such as Blockbuster and Wal-Mart pressured Warners and others to continue making HD DVD transfers, I'd think they'd have to listen.

Such a consumer revolt would be sensible: After all, you can get into HD DVD for $99-128. For that price, you get HD DVD with ethernet port for upgrades and web-based interactive features, HDMI 1.3, ability to decode the lossless audio codecs, and many discs that feature TrueHD and interactive features. For $100 more you add 1080p/24 vido output, and 5.1 analog output of decoded hi-res soundtracks. Even a $1500 Blu-ray player doesn't offer all that, and the Blu-ray adopters will have to wait a year or so to get them (assuming the development pace doesn't slow down with less competition from HD DVD). And unless their machine is a PS3, they'll have to buy another machine to get those features.

Right now, my local Sam's Club carries the Toshiba HD-D3, but only carries three HD DVD titles vs. at least 50 Blu-ray. That's just wrong. And no, it's not beause they can't keep HD DVD in stock, it's because they're only stocking the HD DVD titles that are too big to ignore--Shrek the Third, Bourne Ultimatum, and Transformers.

The only revolt you are likely to see is that of HD DVD player owners when Paramount and Microsoft finally throw in the towel.

According to reports, since Warner's announcement sales of Blu Ray players have outstripped HD DVD 93% to 7%. If HD DVD isn't dead, it's on life support.

The report the previous poster is referring to has been retracted due to flawed data, quite an embarrassment for the organization that employs the person responsible.

That data doesn't include online sales ( like Amazon) as well as Walmart, which doesn't report this type of data at all.

AS an FYI, Blu Ray should basically ALWAYS outsell HD-DVD, by about 70:30 based on US studio splits as it stands. The question is; does that mean dual players? A true victory for Blu ray? A delayed result so that it becomes all about downloadable movie titles ( Hi Def) in 3-4 years so that no one "wins'?

These are some of the real questions.

I didn't trust that 93% figure either, as it was on www.blu-ray.com, and I found it hard to believe that Blu-ray player sales would double immediately after the Warner announcement, given that $150 HD DVD players were suddenly flying out the door in response to Toshiba's price slashing. Entry price on Blu-ray players is back up to near $400.

At least people who buy a $99 player will not have much to complain about if HD-DVD media does die out....that is really a bargain...the only issue would be all those unplayable media discs....perhaps PC's will support HD-DVD and you can continue to watch them on a PC (the merge between TV and PC is coming closer)?