HD DVD selling well: Wait, What!?

Not dead yet, apparently.

CE Pro: Report Says HD DVD Still Doing Well

The Financial Times is reporting that HD DVD is still doing well in the United States, according to Pocket-lint. (via Engadget HD)The report says "aggressive" price cuts have made HD DVD an attractive option for some, adding that HD DVD players are going for $60 and movies for $10.Ryan Kugler, president of Distribution Video & Audio, says the company has already sold one million HD DVDs that were returned to the studios by big retailers."Cheap entertainment always does well in a recession or depression," Kugler says.

To be fair, $60 for a really good upsampling DVD player is a pretty good deal.

Additionally, if you happen to own a media server, like MediaMax that can rip not only DVD and Blu-ray but also HD-DVD, why wouldn't you snarf up a $10 HD-DVD from the clearance bin to load into your server, as opposed to $30 for a Blu-ray title?

As I like to say, every product has a customer, the trick is to put them together at the right price.

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Then Again, Who Needs A New Disc Format, Anyways? Pt II

It might sound like sour grapes coming from him, but Toshiba CEO Atsutoshi Nishida has been talking trash about why losing out to Blu-ray was really no big deal after all.


ContentAgenda: Toshiba: Who needs next-gen discs?

Come to think of it, you don't even really need DVD players: "Without a next-generation DVD player, PCs become an even more important part of our strategy. We couldn't connect computers and televisions before, but now there is a technology that lets us do that...That means that you can use the DVD player in your computer to watch movies on your big-screen television, and you don't even need a stand-alone player."

Aside from the fact that he's right, my first instinct was to yell "Oh sure, now you say that!"

His declaration that Toshiba will not produce a Blu-ray player is mildly surprising, but would be in-line with an on-line strategy. It will be interesting to see if they keep their promise.

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Rumor: Circuit City Feels Bad About HD-DVD, Plans To Make Amends

I haven't seen an official announcement, but it's been leaked on both Electronic House and CrunchGear that US retailer Circuit City is willing to give consumers who bought an HD-DVD player from them within 90 days of Toshiba's official throwing-in-the-towel speech a full exchange towards the purchase of a Blu-ray player.

I for one find it hard to believe, since it's a smart, sound business move full of positive PR, and that hasn't been Circuit City's style for years. We shall see, I guess.

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Casualties of the Format War

If you go to any given HiFi forum on the internet right now, HD-DVD fanboys are still foaming at the mouth about how they had the superior format.

They're like those japanese solidiers found sunstroked and half-starved on ten square foot pacific atolls in the 1950's who didn't know that the war was over.

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Toshiba Throws In The Towel On HD-DVD

Old news now, I know, but I was busy yesterday.

Yahoo!: Toshiba to give up on HD DVD, end format war: source

A source at Toshiba confirmed an earlier report by public broadcaster NHK that it was getting ready to pull the plug.
"We have entered the final stage of planning to make our exit from the next generation DVD business," said the source, who asked not to be identified. He added that an official announcement could come as early as next week

"Entering the final stages" sounds ominously like sitting in your bunker, dust in the air kicked loose from the ceiling by the bombing going on over head, staring moreosely at the little pill in the palm of your hand, but perhaps I'm being over-dramatic.

One expression that seems apt in this case is that it really is all over but for the crying: if anything, the arguments on various HiFi online forums have ratcheted up in amplitude as hardcore fans of the HD-DVD format simultaneously go through the Denial and Anger stages at the same time, telling all who will listen how unfair it all is.

Not everybody is as empassioned though. If you filter out the early adopters and the tech-geek propeller heads, the prevailing sentiment in the marketplace over the course of the format was was apathy. The Stalwart's Joe Wiesenthal displays little sentiment in his HD-DVD player's truncated future:

Truth is, I just can't get too worked up over it. In the 9 months or so, since we've had the device, we've probably watched like 10 titles in HD. Part of this had to do with availability and part of it had to do with indifference.

He's not alone by a long shot. Until the CE industry just plain takes DVD away from people, it will remain "good enough" in the minds of many consumers. Not to say that the day when that happens isn't coming...

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Wal-mart Dumps HD-DVD: That Would Appear To Be It

TWICE: Wal-Mart To Back Blu-ray

Bentonville, Ark. – Wal-Mart will back Blu-ray exclusively in its 4,000 Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores in the United States by June, the chain said in a statement on its Web site this afternoon.

Three strikes in one week for Toshiba. I don't know what else to say about this.

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Best Buy Canada Not Spurning HD-DVD, Yet

Keen CE industry watchers will be surprised to learn that despite choosing to support Blu-ray in their US stores, the Canadian division of Best Buy, as well as their subsidiary Future Shop have no plans to take sides.

Marketnews' stunningly capable editor Christine Persaud has the scoop:

Marketnews: Best Buy Next to Support Blu-ray - Canadian Update!

Spokespersons from both Best Buy Canada and Future Shop tell me that Best Buy and Future Shop stores in Canada will not be following suit at this time, and will continue to support both the Blu-ray and HD DVD high-definition DVD formats.

"Future Shop will continue to carry both formats to meet the lifestyle needs of our customers," were the exact words of a Future Shop spokesperson.

Very interesting.

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Format War, Neophobia, and Ranting

With 35 angry comments and counting on CE Pro, I'm clearly the winner of the title "Most Pissed Off Fanboys, Ever."

While we're on this topic, I just got this in my email from an industry insider:

I still think that it’s a sour victory for Bluray even if it does win over HD-DVD. Everyone that I’m talking with is looking at downloadable and apparently Apple has been getting more than a couple of enduser enquiries from Canada. When I can buy online that’ll be the last time that I’ll go for a hard copy.

I get a kick out of the people denouncing my predictions “because home connections aren’t fast enough for HD downloads.” Maybe today that's somewhat true. Tomorrow, not so much. Not to mention the people who think that just because they like having a disc in their hands, and owning it as a physical object, that the studios will always cater to that tactile need of theirs. Hmm... no physical product = vastly reduced overhead = bigger studio profits. That's a pretty simple business decision.

Know-it-alls badgering me about download speeds and how nice it is to hold a disc in your hand are clearly descended from people who a hundred years ago argued about whether pig suede or calfskin made a better buggy whip.

*Music lovers used to really like the cover art that came with vinyl albums, for all the good it did them.

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Netflix Dumps HD-DVD

No matter what I write about the format war, I get hate mail from people accusing me of being a paid anti-Blu-ray shill, and people accusing me of being a paid anti-HD-DVD shill. So make of the next item what you will:

CE Pro: Netflix to Drop HD DVD Discs, Will Only Rent Blu-ray

Netflix will stop stocking HD DVD discs by the end of the year, exclusively renting out Blu-ray movies, the company announced today. The move is a major decision for the leading online movie rental service, which until now had been promoting both formats. Netflix says that its decision is based on the fact that four of the six biggest movie studios publish on Blu-ray, arguing that the industry has picked a winner.

I for one can't wait to see how Toshiba spins this.

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Saumsung's big Blu-ray bundle

While much of the attention has been focused on using game consoles to build the installed base for either Blu-ray or HD-DVD, and while everyone acknowledges that the mass-market is what will win the format war (as opposed to high end, chi chi HiFi buyers), Samsung is the first CE brand to bundle Blu-ray playback into an inexpensive Home Theatre in a Box package.

The Retail Bridge: Samsung Intros Home-Theater-in-a-Box With Blu-ray Player

For many in the CE industry, the term Home-Theater-in-a-Box (HTiB) is synonymous with low-end equipment and mass-market, price-before-performance technologies.
...
The HT-BD2 is set to debut at CES and will ship in early 2008 at an MSRP of $1,499.

This is a significant move in the format war, and in my opinion, it won't be Playstation 3's or XBOX360's that win the war(nor even $99 players). It will be how many commoditized price point HTiB boxes that the format and it's champions can get into people's homes.

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Endgame for Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD?

With only 14 more sleeps until Christmas, the HD format war looks to be entering a new, final, and in my opinion, kind-of-desperate phase.

This week's A&B Sound flyer is chock full of HD offers. For example:

*FREE Sharp BDHP20U Blu-ray player with purchase of LC37D62U 37-inch LCD TV, only $1699!

*FREE Toshiba HD-A3 HD-DVD player with the purchase of 32HL57 32-inch LCD TV, only $1199 and NO GST!

*FREE Sony BDP-S500 Blu-ray player with the purchase of KDL40V3000 40-inch LCD TV, only $2299, and NO GST!

Prices so low they're crazy!

In all seriousness, from a retail perspective, these are astonishingly aggressive offers. In fact, were I in the market for a secondary television for a spare room, any one of those deals would make me seriously consider getting off the fence and taking a side, whether for Blu-ray or HD-DVD. For someone as hard bitten and cynical a retail hawk as me to say that speaks volumes for the appeal offers like this provide to the mass consumer.

Is the format war over? Hell no, it's just getting interesting. Who can prostitute give away enough players to reach critical mass for their installed base? Only time will tell.

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This Week in CE Pro: Custom Integration and the Format War

CE Pro: How the Format War Affects Custom Shops

Is anybody other than me tired of the endless go-around between Blu-ray and HD-DVD?

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Blu-ray and HD-DVD "stalemated", Sony backpedaling

TWICE: Stringer: Format War At Stalemate

New York — Sony CEO Howard Stringer said during a public interview Thursday the high-definition disc format war between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD is at a stalemate, according to an Associated Press report.
“It's a difficult fight,” AP quoted Stringer as saying during the interview at the 92nd Street Y cultural center in Manhattan. “We were trying to win on the merits, which we were doing for a while, until Paramount changed sides.”

If history has taught us anything, it is that when an apparatchik from Sony makes a statement that is anything other than a glowing outlook full of candy canes, unicorns and rainbows, then the situation is really, really grim.

For Stringer to speak of anything other than certain victory bodes poorly for what Sony expects from their Christmas sales figures.

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Wal-mart and Toshiba go bananas with cut-price HD-DVD player

Following up on the story of Wal-mart and Best Buy teaming up with Toshiba to offer a $99 HD-DVD player for sale in an effort to strike a blow in the format war, reports are coming in that 90,000 units went out the door.

Videobusiness: HD DVD set-top player $99 sales moves units

The HD DVD format significantly pumped its installed base over the weekend, as dueling store clearances sold an estimated 90,000 Toshiba players, according to sources close to retailers.
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That tally covers Friday to Sunday sales of Toshiba’s second-generation HD-A2 model, which Wal-Mart and Best Buy sold for about $99 on Nov. 2. That’s $200 less than Toshiba’s $299 list price and $100 off widespread retail pricing of $199.
The $99 players made up most of the 90,000 units sold, a source said.
Within three days, Toshiba corralled nearly as many sales as the best-selling stand-alone Blu-ray Disc player has sold since its launch. Sony’s dominant Blu-ray set-top, the $499 BDP-S300, has shipped about 100,000 since it bowed this summer.

It was a dirty Hail Mary ploy that reeked of desperation, but it appears to have been a winner.

Will this tip the format war's teeter-totter in HD-DVD's favor for good? Maybe.

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Panasonic uveils Blu-ray player intended to be final nail in HD-DVD's coffin

TWICE: Panasonic Bows Blu-ray Deck With "Final Standard" Features

Panasonic today introduced a next-generation Blu-ray player it said is the first with the format’s Final Standard Profile feature, and will ship it in November.
Final Standard Profile is an advanced function added to the Blu-ray standard, which Panasonic said allows new functions such as picture-in-picture and audio mixing (which allows the consumer to switch the sound between the main and sub windows).
Panasonic’s DMP-BD30 is said to be the first Blu-ray deck to also feature the inclusion of an SD card slot for playback of high-definition content recorded in the AVCHD format. The SD slot also allows for viewing of digital still images recorded to an SD card.

Sounds lovely, but I have a question. When we start seeing SD cards with 50+ gigs on them (and don't kid yourself, it will happen. We're already seeing other flash memory types in that ballpark), why will we need Blu-ray optical discs?

Going back to my previous day's metaphor comparing the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD fracas to the Great War (ie: a senseless and futile waste of resources and lives), is a bigger, better, beefier Blu-ray player the CE equivalent of the Dreadnoughts that European naval powers channelled insane amounts of funds into at the end of the 19th Century: impressive as hell, but ulitimately ineffective at attaining dominance, and obsolete before the conflict was even over?

The smart money is on hi-cap flash memory, and bigger, better high-speed downloads.

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Rogers Video Supports both Blu-ray and HD-DVD

What do you do when you're a video rental company, and you have two new disc formats competing for shelf space? Stock both of them.

Marketnews: Rogers Videos Adds More Blu-ray & HD DVD Rentals

In response to “increasing demand”, Rogers Video says it will add more Blu-ray and HD DVD rentals of top releases in 250 of its stores across Canada.
"We are witnessing increasing customer demand for high-definition movie titles," explained Michael Jacobson, Vice President, Merchandise and Distribution for Rogers Retail. "Our goal is to ensure that we are supplying our customers with choice and availability in whatever format they are after."

I can totally understand why Rogers would not want to choose a side. If you're in business to supply something to people, you need to give them what they want. That's a total no brainer.

What will be interesting to see six or ten months down the road, is how they end up weighting their mix of titles in both formats once they have some sales metrics to interpret. Which format will be more popular with renters?

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Do you do Blu?

TWICE: Blu-ray Ad Campaign Airs

Sensing the need to step up promotional efforts behind the Blu-ray Disc format heading into the critical holiday selling season, a group of hardware manufacturers and studioshave pooled their resources on a “multimillion-dollar” television, print and online advertising campaign, billed as the largest for the format so far.
The effort, called “I Do Blu,” quietly kicked off its prime-time TV portion a week ago with a spot on “Dancing With The Stars,” and will continue through the Super Bowl. Representatives working with the project declined to reveal the exact size of thebudget, but described it is the largest to date for the Blu-ray Disc format.
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“There are 35 million HDTV sets out there in U.S. homes now, and they need to be informed that if they want to maximize their high-definition movie playback they really need a Blu-ray player,” said Lexine Wong, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment marketing executive VP.

Translation: We really need you to buy a Blu-ray player! If the multi-million dollar ad campaign doesn't deliver a decent measurable result, you can expect Phase 2: a multi-million dollar grovelling campaign!

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Vox populi calling for an end to the HD format war

Everybody knows that the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war is a senseless, counterproductive conflict. But much like Britain and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1913, both sides are too proud and hidebound to avert themselves from the course they've set for disaster.

Popular sentiment against the format war is growing, as evidenced by the screed in this morning's Retail Bridge.

The Retail Bridge: Time For An HD Format Endgame?

According to a report released last week by market research firm The NPD Group, both Blu-ray and HD DVD players are popular with HDTV owners, but there are still a lot of DVD loyalists out there that are reluctant to make the switch.
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In order for high-def to succeed, Crupnick said, "there has got to be a coordinated effort between the studios, consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers to really make consumers more aware of the benefits of the formats."Finally settling the format war is key as well, he said.

I still continue to assert that this format war is not Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD, but Industry vs. Consumers, and by and large, the consumers have begun to get tired of having the latest and greatest shoved down their throats when what they own now is still pretty good.

Personally, I am absolutely, positively not going to buy a High Definition disc player until I am unequivocally certain that I no longer run the risk of buying a $500 door stop.

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Quote of the Day

Regarding the ongoing, interminable Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war:

"If anyone is winning in this format war, it's the media who
gets to talk about it."

- An industry insider who wishes to remain unnamed.

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Newsflash: Consumers perfectly happy with DVD

Below is a link to a lengthy screed on CNet.com about the apparent stalemate in the Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war, and how the unlikely winner seems to be old-fashioned DVD's.

CNet.com: False starts in race to future of DVDs

I have said from the outset that this format war is not really Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD, it's Industry vs. Consumers. As I've noted all along, it seems that the buying public is just not rising to the bait this time.

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