Blu Ray outsells HD-DVD

here's what the #'s mean.

bluray sells roughly 100k more discs a month more (that's right HDM sells a total of around 300-400k units a month....  still in its infancy)  despite having up to* 10x the hardware as an installed base right now.  of course, since surveys indicate that at least half of ps3 are connected to SDTV's, lets call it 5x the hardware base.

so with 5x the hardware, they sell 2x the software.   not impressive.  poor attach rate (which is what movie studios will care about down the road)

the discs cost much more to make, and a lot of those sales come on BOGO specials that Sony sponsors so they can claim their 'we have sold more every single week this year' nevermind that sony is in the hole at least $1B on bluray right now (by some estimates up to $3B) , and every ps3 sold puts them another $100+ in the hole. 

bluray has the advantage right now, but if they can not improve manufacturing (sub 80% yields on dual layer discs, and only 1 manufacturing plant achieving that ... owned by ...guess who.... sony)  they will continue to lose $ on every disc sold.   yet they have to do this because their whole strategy was for a quick elimination of  hd-dvd  via the ps3.   unfortunately for them the p3s is getting destroyed by the xbox360 and the wii.  so the 'war' is on.     

hd-dvd will have toshiba players in walmart under $200, and a chinese player for probably $150.    bluray is in no position to counter that this holiday.     if people buy in , the 'war' will at worst be a stalemate for hd-dvd, and at best a quick reversal and win.



btw, what BD  fails to advertise in all their press releases:

region coding

4 layers of ridiculous copy prevention that requires routine firmware updates

current 1.0 players can't firmware update via ethernet as they have no ethernet

1.1 players will make new copy prevention technology come about that will make 1.0 players (excluding the ps3) unable to play new releases that have this technology equipped. that's right, many non-ps3 current blu ray players  will be useless to new releases in 2008 on!

the ps3 accounts for 90% of all br hardware out there now.  and it is an abysmal failure (sony has issues at least 4 press releases declaring the war is over... yet it is not)  they must bank on the p3s.  however, to get it in the game more, they must sacrifice it at price (and lose $$$$) or sacrifice it as a gaming machine.   


in those 9 months, several software and hardware companies have either gone neutral, or jumped off the BR exclusive bandwagon entirely.  no hd-dvd affiliated companies have done the same









all that said, I will buy a BD player if the war is still on (which is what i see) or if they win(which I can't see) in 6-12 months when 1.1 players or  1.1 equivalent DF players are on the market for $300 or so. .... that aren't! made by sony.  until then, I will keep importing hd-dvds of most BD exclusive titles I care about since hd-dvds  consumer friendly  NO REGION CODING  spec is what sold me on it to begin with.  that, and the fact that as of right now*  there are about 5 hd-dvd domestic releases for every 1 BD  release I care about.     BD looks more like a rental hardware player to my tastes right now. 

take this for what it's worth

oct 31, expiration date of  warner bros' contract with BD.  no formal announcement of renewal. you'd think if they were happy with BD sales progress it would be renewed. (bear in mind they hold some patents in dvd/ hd-dvd) . also bear in mind  why would any studio want a rival studio (aka sony alone + some CE's) controlling the technology their films are released on.   

I'm in the same boat in that I jumped in before HDMI.

I'd go with an HDMI to UHF adapter, but then I'd have to unhook it each time I wanted to play Atari.

Now how can I use RCA cables on my Phillips-Magnavox?  That's just plain silly.