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Blu-ray and HD DVD Missing Early Projections by Almost 60%

hdblu.com — While there has been much focus on the developing battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD, it seems that both formats are underperforming with consumers in the early going. Thus far, only $30M has been spent by consumers on the new formats, $25M on hardware and $5M on software, as reported by Reuters.

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chrisek 2 years 4 days ago, made popular 2 years 4 days ago

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Lumiras, on 10/12/2007, -2/+30Does this surprise anybody?

People have been predicting the demise of these formats since they were announced, and it's only coming true. Consumers just aren't ready for it.
- Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32Laserdisc 2.0
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -16/+4I think consumers are more ready for it than streaming.
  Streaming is just not yet practical for everyone, as not all have high speed internet, then we have to worry about the storage mediums.
- CiXeL, on 10/12/2007, -8/+28Helloooooo. most of us are simply trying to feed ourselves and survive in this crap economy rather than worry about buying a HD DVD or Blu ray player.
- mikelikespie, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14@tenlaw
  I'd estimate that more people have broadband internet than HDTVs.
- MillenniumGuy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I am ready for an HD media standard format for delivery of HD from a store to my house. I just refuse to pay until a standard is decided. Also I need to be sure that whatever format is available can be played on all of the devices that I want to be able to view my paid content.
  
  I have been paying for HD content delivered to my house (Via VOOM Network until they collapsed and now via DISH NETWORK) for over 2 years now. I have been waiting for some way to get HD movies into my house, but the market has not yet provided an acceptable transport.
- Pharaoh777, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11It's hard to sell players when they're not on the shelves.
- dr00, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7i'm not surprised at all.
  
  especially since dvd's perform just fine.
  not only are people not ready, it's just not needed, especially given the cost of upgrading
- Americruzan0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21Yeahm really, was this news to anybody. You dont even have to ask yourself why these things aren't flying off the shelves.
  
  $1000 hardware
  $40 movies
  marginal upgrade in quality
  50/50 chance that a year from now you're $1000 hardware is sitting on the shelf of a thrift store next to a box of betamax movies.
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1@ mikelikespie,
  I think you meant me first of all
  second, yes that is a true estimate. But you are not counting storage mediums. how many people do you know download movies and save them on their computer forever?
  Not everyone has a TB sitting around. What if you want to goto a friends house? what do you do then?
  options:
  a: burn a 20GB(being fair to both HD and Blu) movie to a 9GBDVD, to watch it on their computer to TV hookup.
  b: put ithe 20GB on your 4GB flash drive
  c: bring the HD
  or:
  D: Burn it to an HD-DVD, or Blu, along with another movie for the hell of it since it was lying around(for Blu anyway)
- tastycheese, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Does this surprise anybody?"
  
  Aparantely, it must surprise the people who made those "early projections"... otherwise their projections would have been more accurate.
- dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Early sales never accurately show final sales... I know very few people who are likely to buy something like this when there are only 3 different players on the market for two different, currently non-compatible standards. And given that there is a fairly high chance of getting players that will play both, or even the demise of one of the formats, buying one now is high risk, and VERY expensive.
  I'd imagine MOST of the sales for this sort of thing will come in once the market is more stable. I sure as hell don't plan to pay thousands of dollars for something that will only play one of the two competing formats, particularly when there is no competition in the market when every option you have for each of the two media types comes from one company. I give it a few months before the prices are roughly halved, possible a bit longer till there are dual-format players, and before long after that the prices will start to plummet, and anyone who paid thousands of dollars for something that is so totally obsolete, just to be one of the first to see movies at a slightly higher resolution will either be happy that they have more money than they know what to do with, or stupid for wasting so much money... (And while I'd like to be in the former category, I'm a nearly broke student, and I certainly don't have more money than I know what to do with.)
- masamunecyrus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I really don't want everything to replaced by the internet. It's fine and all for places like Japan and South Korea, but we just don't have the capabilities here in America and we won't for the forseeable future unless somebody really steps up as a leader in broadband.
  
  Rather, until that time comes, I'd like to see the end of disc video formats. There's no reason for discs to have a specific resolution and specific codec. Rather, all DVDs should be data discs, and the players should simply read many types of formats and be updatable. That way, you can run a 100x100 video or a 8000x8000 video if you want, just as long as it physically fits on the disc and as long as your player supports the codec. And if the player doesn't support the codec, then you could go online, download some updates, burn them to a disc, and stick the disc into the player and the player will update itself.
  
  Granted, Hollywood would never allow such a thing, but if a company could make such a product for a mass market price, I think it could become the next big innovation in electronics.
- Bopple, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm ready for it, but so far this crap is way overpriced for what it is. Plus, I don't want to get stuck with whichever ends up being the betamax format. (I know, BetaMax is a much better format than VHS, but it never made it in the consumer market, only the professional market).
  
  Plus, only a choice of 2 HD-DVD players and 1 Blu-Ray player right now?
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1At least answer my question if you Digg me down.
  
  damn
chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Well, add $240M to Blu-Rays hardware total when the PS3 launches (400,000x$600).
- kirashira, on 10/12/2007, -9/+8Can't forget those Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on drives.
- Tenlow, on 10/12/2007, -4/+24In other words Blu Ray is risking its entire existance on the PS3 not sucking.
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Tenlow:
  Yes. for the most part. depends on who makes it to 100$ each and cheaper movies than the other.
- stonr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5@whereami
  I agree. Price is THE factor for the bottom line which may end up being the biggest volume of sales in movies. I just don't see that many buyers out side of digg backing up HDDs much less knowing how to.
  
  What I am wondering about is when the PC companies are going to start shipping these things ( 18-20 months is my guess )
- chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9I would be very surprised if the even get a 5% add-on rate for the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive. I have a 360 and have no intention of getting that drive because my PS3 will play Blu-Ray discs if I want to watch high-def movie. If it's a numbers game, Blu-Ray is going to FAR outpace HD-DVD players simply because of the number of PS3s that will sell. I think only about 20,000 of those Toshiba HD-DVD players have sold, meaning that on November 17th, there will already be 20X as many Blu-Ray players in households than HD-DVD players.
  
  PS3 also sets the high bar for Blu-Ray players at $500 (low end PS3). Meaning that stand-alone Blu-Ray players will quickly drop into the $300 range IMO.
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3kirashira
  We cannot count them without another survey, as 360 owners do NOT have to buy the attachment.
  In other words, look at chriskzoo. He stated he has no intention of getting that drive. He is not the only one.
- RRJackson, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3The PS3 looks great, but the games look really lame for the most part. There's no Halo to launch this console. Of course, there was no Halo to launch the Xbox 360, either. If either console eventually has a few worthwhile games it won't be so hard to call the race anymore. I think it's amazing how much effort has been put into the hardware with no apparent focus on content. What's the motivation to buy?
- SrLnclt, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2"I just don't see that many buyers out side of digg backing up HDDs much less knowing how to. "
  
  @stonr
  Hard Drives are cheap. Just get another HDD and either a cheapo removable drive tray for one of your 5-1/4" bays or an external firewire/usb2 case. Backup as much as you want, as often as you want, and in a fraction of the time of almost every other backup media. No need to have stacks of small removable media or a handful of disks and some overpriced hardware just for backups.
- chriskzoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3>"I think it's amazing how much effort has been put into the hardware with no apparent focus on content."
  
  Uh, I assume you are referring to everything BUT the 200 or so games in development for the PS3...
mikelikespie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9It's obscenely expensive, and not that many people can even enjoy it. I don't know how many people I have seen with wide screen HDTV's that just stretch the normal picture to fit the screen so everything is out of perspective (this is a huge pet peeve of mine). It just shows how little people can care about picture quality.

DVD's seem fine for most people's general usage. I remember when they came out they were expensive, but a huge deal. Why? Because VHS sucked. DVD's really don't suck all that much, and there is very little incentive for people to switch over unless they are videophiles or have lots of cashmoneys.
- Stopher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Exactly. The players run at least 500 and you would need an HDTV to see any benefit. People are pretty happy with the dvd experience right now. Add to that the fear of buying the player that is destined to be the dead format and is this any surprise?
WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I am surprised it has made that much myself.
halosniper7, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1530million-so they sold 2?
BMW7Series, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7To me, it seems like another money-grabbing opportunity by those media conglomerates, forcing us to re-buy all of our movies on yet ANOTHER format.
skellener, on 10/12/2007, -8/+9Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahaha!!!
WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I know that some people that buy a PS3 plan on buying Blu-Rays, as those some also have HDTV's.
The ones with a 360 also will get a PS3, as I have found. There was enough time to get both for them. And they will not be buying the HDTV attachment for the 360, since they have Blu-Rays.
- macemoneta, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Well, folks THINK they have HDTVs; that's the next round of disappointments. Every single HDTV I've seen in someone's home has a native resolution of 1024x768, not 1920x1080. And they are connected via RCA cables. And they are watching 4:3 content on a 16:9 setting.
  
  If you look at real HDTV market penetration, I'd bet it's a tiny fraction of the units shipped. You could sell these folks a Betamax VCR and tell them it's HDTV and they'd buy it. Yay capitalism.
- Galroc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+21280x720 is 720p
- darksheer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31080p is not the ONLY HD out there. 99% of HD content is only 720p...and most HDTVs sold are capable of reproducing 720p
Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I want to spend $1000 on lame-duck technology that won't be compatible with second generation equipment (if it survives that long), but I'm fresh out of million dollar bills.
schwit, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3These formats have no redeeming value. The electronics manufacturers and Hollywood are out of business if they can not convince you to buy newer electronics and newer versions of the movies you already own. The only way to do that is to try and change standards every few years no matter how adequate the current standards are.

The fashion industry has been doing this forever by telling you your clothes are out of style and you are inadequate if you keep wearing them. It's nothing more than an attempted money grab.

Their next step is for them to lobby congress or the FCC to outlaw the selling of DVD format movies and electronic so we have no choice but to buy the newer stuff.
- aiken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Er, are you suggesting that there is no material difference in picture or audio quality? Because if so, you're flat out wrong.
  
  It may be that the improvement isn't worth it, or that the formats are doomed, or whatever. But to say there's no difference between Bluray/HDDVD and plain old DVD is just silly. Or am I misinterpreting "no redeeming value"? To me, that means "worthless."
- zybch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2aiken, I think he means that the minor increase in pic/sound quality in no way justifies the massive prices. Add to that the additional cost of a real HD capable TV and its no wonder people haven't started buying HD or bluray in any appreciable amounts.
  
  I seriously think that both formats are going to end up like Laserdisc. The insane-o-philes will buy them, but everyone else will be more than happy with their regular DVDs or internet downloads for quite some time to come.
  There just isn't any compelling reason for the vast majority of ppl to chose either of the HD formats over what we already have right now.
WhiskerTheMad, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Bottom line is, people don't see a real reason to move to the new format. DVD was a quantum leap beyond VHS in almost every way, these new formats are like... what, DVD plus?

Who cares? Who wants to buy umpteen-jillion dollars worth of new equipment for DVD plus? What's the benefit? DVDs work fine, and I can get a $20 player from Wal-mart, along with four movies for another $20 (admittedly, these movies will suck, but still).

It may just be that the manufacturers have done a poor job of educating consumers about benefits of the new format(s), but that doesn't change the fact that people see no reason to upgrade.
clownbaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I don't plan on buying into any of this crap. I know that if I do, I will only be sorry for the waste of money later on. Neither Blu-Ray or HD-DVD will become the next video format. It's like laserdisc all over again. I'm all for a new HD video standard... later on down the road. They really need to bring prices down ALOT on HD devices if they want to see it become a standard. But yeah.. I'm fine with my regular DVD collection at the moment. Hopefully we will see something good take it's place. But HD-DVD and Blu-Ray were doomed the day they were conceived.
FishyJoe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Most people don't even have HDTVs. DVD gained quick adoption because every tv was capable of taking advantage of it. The same case can't be made for these new formats.
- crombenevolant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Actually DVD's sat on the shelves with a minority market share before they really took off. For those of us who were early adopters it was impossible to find DVD's to buy in the first year or so, let alone rent.
  
  In this case however, the competing formats will effectively kill each other out and they will battle for a niche market until something better (ie simpler, cheaper) comes along (like Toshiba's 5 layer DVD's).
deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Doesn't surprise me a bit. I've been going out of my way to discourage people from investing in either format. Normally I wouldn't give a ***** what people wasted their money on but I feel like it's my moral obligation to inform people about the dangers of DRM, format wars and image restraint tokens.
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4DRMs can be broken, hell you should be happy
  a whole new adventure!
KayinNasaki, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7DVD had a massive advantage over VHS. No video degrading, no tracking issues, multiple sound and language options, no rewinding, bonus features and extras.... Atop better quality.and longer play times.

What does Blue Ray offer? .... Better quality. Quality that 90% of people won't notice because they don't have a good enough TV to see it.

Even though it's not practical now, I'm pretty sure Streaming will be the next step simply because it'll be the next thing that can introduce more improvements then simply quality.
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3right, streaming will be the next step after this, and people will use Blu's to store stuff, as according to you, Blu's have better quality. you never said anything about HD.
- crombenevolant, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I have seen both blu-ray and HD side by side and HD actually looks better. I don't know if it was the player, the manufacturing problems they have had with the discs or the fact that they are still using the same compression as DVD (versus using more modern compression like HD), but it was un-impressive.
  
  But regardless of that, the difference between DVD and either was very minimal. Due to the high price people won't buy due to the lack of difference. Without higher volumes the price can't come down. Thus in the great tradition of Sony I dub this a valid successor to the beta, laser disk, mini disk, umd legacy.
WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3[23:13] Tom: I've got a question: Would you rather buy a movie online, and have to save it on your computer, and this would be a big HD movie, then really not have the ability to save it anywhere since hypothetically Blu and HD dont exist
[23:13] Tom: or just buy it on Blu or HD, depending your system
[23:14] -Nick-: depends...if i had the space on my comp, maybe...but probably on disc
[23:14] -Nick-: why?
[23:15] Tom: because Diggers think that hard copies suck and people would rather buy it and save it on their computers
[23:15] Tom: what would you do if you wanted to watch it at a friends house?
[23:15] -Nick-: yeah
[23:15] -Nick-: or what if your comp. just sucked ass?
[23:16] -Nick-: there's just too many things that could go wrong
[23:16] Tom: yeah thanks for being normal
[23:17] -Nick-: lol no prob
- PFS1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@WhereAmI- I dugg you up...you make a excellent point. Right now, that would be a pain in the ass for the average person. But I would say that the pains in the ass with downloading- and the "too many things that could go wrong"- could easily be solved by the right killer app.
  
  MP3 players were intimidating to the average computer user, and largely a niche market, before the iPod and iTunes came out and made it mainstream. It made it easy for anyone- not just technophiles- to rip, convert, and organize the tags of, and even BUY all the digital music they wanted. Before then, I'm sure people would have been intimidated by the processes involved with doing all those things.
  
  So I think you are right in the meantime, but I think with the right killer app, people would benefit more from the advantages of online/streaming content than from the adantages of HDDVD/blu ray. The iTunes movie store is a start, but there's a lot more room to go in quality and variety of playback devices. It's a market waiting to be blown wide open, and when it is, the next gen discs will be put to death.
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Thanks for responding,
  No one cares, I even put it in ABCD answers above, and they just dugg me down :(
  assholes
purplegang, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Just six years ago I bought my first DVD-R recorder for about $1100.00. The blank disks cost $10.00; a month before I bought my first disk the blanks cost $16.00. I was able to make exactly zero usable disks with that system. This was the year 2000, but the hardware wasn't all that great, and the software was worse. A few years later the recorders that worked were $250.00 each and the disks were a buck. Also by 2003 there was a plethora of decent software that worked. Now the machines, disks, and software are practically given away for free.
Anyway to the point, I'll probably buy a HD-DVD or Blu-Ray recorder some day, but I'm going to let some other sucker lead the parade this time.
bowels, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The HD disc formats need to overwhelm us with titles. DVD is more appealing to me now because even obscure titles are rolling out every week. HD barely has any titles, let alone obscure ones. HD discs would really shine over DVD with release of music concerts - which have more re-watchability than movies. If some of the Rolling Rock concerts were released on HD disc, I would buy a system tomorrow.
- crombenevolant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4For the majority of consumers and even early adopters it is not the titles but the pricing. When Xmen3 came out last week I bought the widescreen version for 14.99. I could of chunked out 500-1000 on a HD/BluRay player and then payed 40 bucks for the same movie. And yes that movie would have looked slightly better than the upscaling my progressive scan player does.... But on the other hand the DVD looks pretty damn good and I've got enough money left over to nearly buy two more movies....
slaystench, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I'm in total shock!
zeppo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I would say its also because no recent major blockbuster movie has been released on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray yet. In fact Batman Begins was only released for the HD DVD format on October 10 and King Kong won't be released til November 14.
- aiken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4And V for Vendetta Oct 31, that will be a big one for showing of HD.
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I agree. What is the point of having the newest technology without the newest movies?
  However Underworld:Evolution was a bit back.
  oh and a couple points could be its your favourite flick, or its just a good movie.
aiken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Perhaps the most interesting thing about these numbers is the ratio of player revenue to media revenue. To me, it says that people are willing to shell out $500 for a player, but are using netflix for the movies (which makes perfect sense). Heck, I wonder how much of that $5m *is* netflix?
brindon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Will i be able to upgrade my mac duo or a mini to play blu ray? I think my mac would be a perfect movie machine then
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Apple supports Blu-Ray
  I would not be surprised if the next upgrade includes Blu Ray players.
  I guess you could buy a new one and put the drive in the old one if you want to.
zeppo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5While the mac mini and related macs are fast enough for HD DVD or Blu-Ray they wont exactly be compatible because they don't have HDCP compliant video cards

oh forgot to mention in my previous post here is the list of HD DVD and Blu Ray release schedule so far

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7460494&&#post7460494
n00bst3r, on 10/12/2007, -6/+2I'm not buying until HD-DVD wins
Shatneresque, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Even though I'm not really planning to invest in either format, I'm still very disappointed to hear this. I think it's very likely the industry will forever point to this as "proof" that people don't want higher quality. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want to be stuck with NTSC/PAL forever.
- zybch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The best thing about these new formats (okay, the ONLY good thing) is that we'll finally get some format standardization. 1080p is 1080p no matter where you live. Not the 480 lines of NTSC compared to 576 lines of PAL type stuff.
  Who knows, the US might even eventually switch to the superior 240V power system instead of lossy 110V :)
nytechy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I will adopt a High Def format when the players are 29USD.
vuke69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I already know which format will win...

Whichever one DVD Jon cracks first.
298th_Scat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I demod both HD and Blu ray.. The TV's however were 42" I couldn't really see that much of a difference.. However the one thing I couldn't stand is the speed..

They are both insanely slow.. Proccess is this

Insert Disc..
wait 30 seconds.. .. .. ..
Menu may or may not start to load.
Hrm.. Maybe I need to reinsert the disc.. Hit eject button..
Wait 30 seconds... .. .
Disc may or may not eject..
- WhereAmI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It will get faster read times as time goes on, however the general public will not notice +/- 10 sec on each without one bragging.
tmcdigg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The DRM aspect torpedoed the formats while they were hatched! Windows vista style "deactivation" is a non-starter for records/players worth their weight in lead (as in PAPERWEIGHT), not gold...
Add to that, an ultra greedy introduction price that has not halved, since the transformation to a manufactured product (many months),etc.. and you might as well create a new version, "stripped down" without drm, as that will be the only way consumers will want to "see the light" whether that be 'blue' or high density red/green, hehe

Another problem is that high density HD video standards and TVs are not quite yet settled... many people don't have hdtvs... speeds for recording the media are not even close to reasonable yet either.. so its really not ready for prime time..

Until these quirks get worked out in the consumer's favor-- its a hunk of junk
zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The players are really expensave.
Theres nothing to play on them.
They firmware they use is really flakie.
I have over 500 standard DVD's .

The few movies that are on HD and blue ray suck.

did I miss anything?
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Blu-ray and HD DVD Missing Early Projections by Almost 60%

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