GolfHos

http://charts.highdefdigest.com/history.aspx

 [sm_beertoast] :watchingyou:

I spent maybe a minute poking around in this. 

Seems to me:

A) Huge post christmas sales bumps in both formats, seems like Santa upgraded lots of folks to a high def player

B) Sales of the Harry Potter franchise, which is 4 or 5 movies, seem to be the major driver of the HD-DVD stuff

you are certainly right about both points...   but you also need to view it in light of the whole sales phemomena this year has seen

blowray has about 5:1 USA hardware capable* (50% of ps3 owners don't know it plays BD  LMAO!!!)  so let's make it approximately 2.5-3 : 1 hardware base  and has most of this year sold 1.8:1  software.   routinely offering  BOGO sales at multiple retailers simultaneously.  all this data to me shows is that when*  there are great hd-dvd sale prices,  the hardware owners actually buy far* more movies than at normal price (duh!) and perhaps (likely) far more movies than BR hardware owners (no BD movie has ever hit amazon #1 in total DVD rank, and BD has certainly never held #1,2,3,4 simultaneously in the amazon total DVD ranks.  of course, amazon is just a small chunk of the pie,  but I guess my point is  that  it certainly represents the the major chunk of online sales, and it should show (to the hd-dvd promotions group)  exactly what the BD BOGOS show.  you can drive sales #'s anytime you want by lowering prices/giving things away.    a similar result is that Warner Bros titles seem to sell about the same on both formats  right now , certainly not the disparity seen in the summer.    with 2007 coming to a close,  BR has seen it's major 6 month push of blockbusters come to a close. 2008  likely* (again who knows, but projected 150M+ theatre expected) blockbusters are about 80-20% split between hd-dvd and br  exclusive studios.   it's going to be an interesting 2008.   i think both sides will be around a long time.   :)

I counted 4 Asketerisks in one post. That's got to be a record.

  :o [sm_shock]

Six of that Amazon HD-DVD number are mine.

Other than the unadvertised Circuit City BOGO in October there hasn't been a compelling reason to load up on HD-DVD movies until now.  Blu-Ray has had three or four good deals in that time.  (Edit: there have been HD-DVD deals during that stretch but never for new releases or other five star titles.)  The Red camp seems to have focused on blowing out hardware leading up to the holidays.  Hopefully now they're switching to software and all those people (including me) who have recently bought players will go crazy. 

As I mentioned yesterday, even with Best Buy's current 3-for-2 sale (not floating my boat really given MSRP base) they're down to nine titles in stock at the store down the street.

The tough thing about this war is that there's always something going on and it's really going to be tough to figure out the post-Christmas bump.  We know there were a bunch of SA HD-DVD players sold.  We know there were a bunch of PS3s sold.  Obviously the former group knows their product plays HDM.  How many of the latter know?  Difficult to say.  The PS3 media bump might be 99% games or it might be millions of movies.  I think it's safe to say the vast majority of those PS3s are owned by kids (let's say through very early 20s) and they're probably less likely to dish for movies than they are games.

To address Blader's second point,  obviously the Potter movies are driving the numbers for HD-DVD but the corresponding Blu-Ray deal includes the Pirates movies.  Accounting for the 4:3 ratio in titles between the two franchises and, for the sake of discussion, assuming everything else is equal I would expect yesterday's numbers to be closer.  Is that just me wanting Red's hardware blitz finally to be paying dividends?  Maybe, it'll take a couple of weeks and who knows how many more BOGOs and other such deals before we really know.  Perhaps the Blu camp have already bought the Pirates movies.

6+4

Somebody stop me.

(http://www.moviemaze.de/celebs/0109/main01.jpg)

(http://www.movieactors.com/freezes-super-pages/carrey-mask29.jpg)

LMAO!   [sm_laughing] :lolspit:

what else did you get?

No BOGOs but decent prices and I had an Amazon cert to use.

Queen - Montreal/Live Aid
Blade Runner
The Fountain
Pan's Labyrinth

plus a book (always a book)

The Spirit of St. Andrews - Alister Mackenzie

there's 3 winners right there

wow @ the sound on PL,  wow @ the amazing restore on BR, and wow @ the most beautiful film of the decare on Fountian

What's a "decare"? Is that like a hectare but 66% larger?

i prefer to round to 67%.  ceiling evaluator  FTW !

Perhaps I need to re-watch/re-evaluate The Fountain, as I found it visually stunning, but a clumsily executed and generally mediocre story that seemed either too long or too short, depending on a number of plot variables.

The question is can both formats coexist together, or does there have to eventually be a clear-cut winner. With the internet, it is much easier for advocates of each format to make their opinion known, and this fuels the polarity. This seems to make it different from the VHS/Betamax war. This may be a very very long format war.

They could only co-exist if all movies were released in both formats. That being said each company will want their format to win. Win = more $. I doubt either side will settle for a draw. Consumers like things simple. They want to go buy a movie and have it play, not worry about if I should get the red or the blue box.

Chat is a good example. What is the most popular IM client. IRC, MSN, Yahoo? They all work together IIRC so the consumer doesn't have to "choose a camp".

Eventually I think there will be some decision made by the consumer and one will "win" but I don't think it will be a clear cut victory.

in 2-3 years fully functional dual format players should* be available for $200-$300 , and entry level players for each format could exist for $99       i think that's cheap enough that consumers can live with both (if they want).  the only complication would actually be having 2 boxes.

2 things more to keep in mind should these formats really start to take off:


1: hd-dvd can offer twin/combo discs, bluray cannot .  discs can be taken in car/portable player/ 3rd bedroom/relatives house/etc   and watched.

2: hd-dvds can be manufactured from a relatively simple and cheap change to dvd lines (similar to a tooling swap on sheet metal plant).   bluray discs require a completely new assembly line($3-$5M!).  there is currently the ability to bring online M/day hd-dvds at almost no cost,  there is no such thing for bluray at this time- only K/day at Sony's plant (for double layer discs) and K/day at other plants (less than 10 in the world)  single layer discs

 [sm_devil]

As I understand it, BDA (Sony??) is significantly subsidizing the manufacture of their discs.  I wonder how long they'll continue to do so if this war stretches on for years.  If they back off from that and the BDA studios have to choose between $1 and $2.50 to produce a disc they'll flip in five minutes.  (I have no idea what the actual costs are but even if differing in dimes rather than dollars it'll be a factor.)

{long term} this is an extremely good and relevant point. Follow the money, particularly the profit $'s....................

Didn't Sony learn anything from Betamax?

Good Wiki article on the Betmax vs. VHS.

the yields on bd50 are very low relative to dvd, hddvd, and cd.  sony at least until a few months ago was eating the manufacturing costs on bd50 for disney and fox  since only the sony bd50 plant was working worth a crap.  combine that with bd/sony subsidized bogos, the ps3 being still sold at a loss, and sony tv's taking a huge hit in market share to vizio/etc....  (so not able to bundle tv/bd  or tv/ps3  effectively in b+m)  and it's not looking like the landslide  victory to bluray  that was predicted in january   is gonna come anytime soon

 8)   

Sony's pockets are only so deep, sooner or later they will have to come up with another strategy to start turning a profit. By then it might be too late. They were banking on the PS2 scheme to work on the PS3. But trying to push a new format is a hard sell, PS2 had it easy, DVD was the only format (vs VHS) so it was a no brainer win. PS3 is not that easy of a choice.

I know when my dad was thinking of getting one the big hang up for him was the only one backward compatible was the 80g version, and $600 was a hard pill to swallow. Ultimately he got the boys each a DS. Hi-Def video was not important to him, at least not for that decision. 

Where was the 80 gig $600?

everywhere that sold it for $500 and is subject to sales tax and offers a warranty plan
 :o

plus the extra controler, hdmi cable,... You get the point.

at least you don't have to pay for games... since there aren't any good ones yet.
 [sm_devil]