CNET 2007 Tech Prediction (Blu-ray related)

[-Damien-]

With the momentum blu-ray is having, more media changed their minds for blu-ray

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-...?tag=cnetfd.mt

4. HD DVD surrenders by September
H-DVD vs. Blu-ray
OK, this probably won't happen, but it should. With sales for both HD DVD and Blu-ray stand-alone players remaining tepid throughout the year, the biggest number of players will actually come in the form of game consoles--or in the case of the Xbox 360 and its HD DVD external drive, game console accessories. According to the numbers we're seeing, there are 175,000 HD DVD players out there (with 92,000 of those being Xbox 360 HD DVD players) and around a million Blu-ray players in homes, most of them PS3s. As Sony ramps up PS3 production, we expect that 5:1 ratio to hold, and perhaps even increase. Add to that the fact that sometime very soon the number of available Blu-ray titles will top the number of HD DVD titles, with the gap continuing to widen as the year progresses, and things don't look all that good for Camp HD DVD. Personally, I don't care who wins or loses, and I'm not rooting for either format. But unfortunately, if someone doesn't bow out gracefully, both formats risk going nowhere, especially with various forms of downloadable HD content in the works. (Read Senior Editor John Falcone's "Dispatches from the format war: H-DVD vs. Blu-ray" for a complete rundown.)

[Mbbest]

With the momentum blu-ray is having, more media changed their minds for blu-ray

Thats the media, they are allways the same, first they throw BS on everything then later change their mind and say another thing.

First it was with xbox 360 and now with PS3, they say much bad things and later when sales starts grow they will write how good ps3 is.

As for BR vs HDDVD..

Its old story, Blu-Ray is advanced tech but PS3 will bring Blu-Rays in to a homes so peoples will start buy movies, now its still early for that, next year when we see much HDTVs you can expect much BR movies sold.

What will happen with HDDVD? who knows, maybe 360 save it from doom.

[videl]

blu ray is great! i like to see nice films in epic quality. go blu ray, go!

[majin]

its just so obvious at this point that blu-ray is going to win....

they have more players out there
more hardware companies support (players,disk drives in pc's etc..)
more software companies support (movies,music etc..)
soon to be more movies available (which will grow bigger and bigger as time goes on)

the only way i can see hd-dvd winning is if they take huge losses and sell hd-dvd players for under $199/£199 and movies for half the price of blu-ray, basically just agressively take the market by the neck incurring huge losses in the short time for a possible gain in the long run, this doesnt look likely to happen though, so i think blu-ray is just going to win like people have been saying since the start.

[PS3 rocks]

Well you can't argue with facts, Blu-ray has more units. More units equals more support. HD-DVD needs to sell more to stay in the game.

[WTFyoulookinat]

blu ray is great! i like to see nice films in epic quality. go blu ray, go!

Too bad a lot of Blu-Ray movies don't look better than a stupid dvd...I hope they'll use better codecs now for all BR Releases.

[majin]

Too bad a lot of Blu-Ray movies don't look better than a stupid dvd...I hope they'll use better codecs now for all BR Releases.

old news, a handful of launch releases looked terrible back when they were stuck with mpeg-2 and 25gb blu-ray disks.....now they have vc-1,mpeg-4 and 50gb disks to use.

[gcubed]

Too bad a lot of Blu-Ray movies don't look better than a stupid dvd...I hope they'll use better codecs now for all BR Releases.

welcome to 2007, or better yet, last quarter of 2006... when, prior to this, you may have known what you were talking about.

[chartwel]

welcome to 2007, or better yet, last quarter of 2006... when, prior to this, you may have known what you were talking about.

yeah, this excuse cannot be used anymore. quality of new releases have been up to, and exceeding the quality of HDDVD releases. now, with the amount of content coming up this year for blu-ray, its a no lose situation.

blu-ray was rushed to meet HDDVD head on, and the quality of the titles showed it. this is no longer relevant.

[WTFyoulookinat]

old news, a handful of launch releases looked terrible back when they were stuck with mpeg-2 and 25gb blu-ray disks.....now they have vc-1,mpeg-4 and 50gb disks to use.

Handful? Rofl...the first 30 or 35 movies used crappy codecs...the first VC1 encoded Blu Ray Titles were released in September 06, so every movie from June - September used crappy codecs.

Thank god they're using better codecs now so we can profit from it.

[sailordude1]

go blueray! so how many total HDDVD players have been sold is it really only a few hundred thousand?

[kuku]

Why do these writers and anaylist always talk about downloadable content?

It's like they should actually read the latest papers on broadband rollout, or status of the country on area deployment, or even the sad state of our increase rate. Heck dslreports.com is full of information to find.

To have any kind of bandwith to even keep up for blueray, you would be on a level most companys can't afford, and it's not changing anytime soon.

DOSIS3 is coming soon..and rollout expected 08 if we're lucky, FIOS is being stuck in muni-heck, and you have the rest fighting for dialup. WiMax is eh, and all the other wireless system are just as bad in muni-heck.

We're not realistically getting anything to the quality of the HD area for a good 3-4 years at least.

By the time downloadable content become feasiable in terms of QoS and Quality, BD wouldn't need any kind of fighting.

Muni infights are a sad state for our digtal era, and not ending anytime soon, so downloadable content is just as sad.

Best you can hope for is the continuation of HDTV on demand.

Apple knows this as well and is not playing the HD field yet, to keep their movie services on ipods, and SD and not HD hogs.

[Behemoko]

Too bad a lot of Blu-Ray movies don't look better than a stupid dvd...I hope they'll use better codecs now for all BR Releases.

*cough* hd-dvd troll *cough* apparently you have never even SEEN a Blu-Ray movie, lol. Blu-Ray look's WAY better than a normal dvd, it even looks better on a non high def tv like mine, lol.

[B.D. Sleek]

I just bought Goodfellas on Blu-ray and it looks amazing. After it was over I put in my standard DVD copy of Goodfellas and it looked like VHS after seeing it on Blu-ray. lol

By the way, whoever does not have Goodfellas, needs to get Goodfellas. I love that movie.

[TheCell]

Well you can't argue with facts, Blu-ray has more units. More units equals more support. HD-DVD needs to sell more to stay in the game.

If it was only that simple for HD-DVD. How about it needs more MOVIES. I mean NO announcements from the format's only exclusive supporter at CES?

Plus, Universal just ended #7 for total ticket sales in 2006. 7th place. That's terrible.

Guess who was 1st for the 3rd year out of the last 5 and broke their own record from 2002? Sony Pictures

And the next 5 after Sony are either bluray exclusive or dual-format supporters.

[WTFyoulookinat]

*cough* hd-dvd troll *cough* apparently you have never even SEEN a Blu-Ray movie, lol. Blu-Ray look's WAY better than a normal dvd, it even looks better on a non high def tv like mine, lol.

Not every blu ray movie looks way better than a normal dvd...you should read again what I said...

[gcubed]

Handful? Rofl...the first 30 or 35 movies used crappy codecs...the first VC1 encoded Blu Ray Titles were released in September 06, so every movie from June - September used crappy codecs.

Thank god they're using better codecs now so we can profit from it.

again, you dont know what you are talking about. Mpeg2 is far from a crappy codec. It is very useful for HD-DVD as they are space constrained, as well as the first 25gb Blurays, but now that you see 50gb blurays, you also see them moving BACK to mpeg2. Why? Its not as efficient as VC-1, it takes up more space, but if you have the space, the quality is better.

So again, stop with the silly and outdated codec argument. With 50gb discs, the best quality Blurays (which are better then anything on HD-DVD) are all encoded in Mpeg2. Again, welcome to the last quarter of 2006, when, prior to this, you may have known what you were talking about

[Steroyd]

What will happen with HDDVD? who knows, maybe 360 save it from doom.

Unless the attach ratio starts at 30% and increases as Sony sells/ships more systems, HD-DVD is as good as dead and buried.

[Darrius Cole]

its just so obvious at this point that blu-ray is going to win....

they have more players out there
more hardware companies support (players,disk drives in pc's etc..)
more software companies support (movies,music etc..)
soon to be more movies available (which will grow bigger and bigger as time goes on)

the only way i can see hd-dvd winning is if they take huge losses and sell hd-dvd players for under $199/£199 and movies for half the price of blu-ray, basically just agressively take the market by the neck incurring huge losses in the short time for a possible gain in the long run, this doesnt look likely to happen though, so i think blu-ray is just going to win like people have been saying since the start.

It was obvious that Blu-ray was going to win a year before the PS3 was even released.

I think HD-DVD is already taking a major loss on every player sold.

If it was only that simple for HD-DVD. How about it needs more MOVIES. I mean NO announcements from the format's only exclusive supporter at CES?

Plus, Universal just ended #7 for total ticket sales in 2006. 7th place. That's terrible.

Guess who was 1st for the 3rd year out of the last 5 and broke their own record from 2002? Sony Pictures

And the next 5 after Sony are either bluray exclusive or dual-format supporters.

Where did you get your numbers on the ticket sales for 2006? I have been looking for that. Do you have a link?

[-Damien-]

It was obvious that Blu-ray was going to win a year before the PS3 was even released.

I think HD-DVD is already taking a major loss on every player sold.




Where did you get your numbers on the ticket sales for 2006? I have been looking for that. Do you have a link?

here's the link to studio ranks. Sony and Disney are the top dogs year in, year out, while Universal consistently ranks in the lower tier of the big 6
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/studio/...yr=2006&p=.htm