Quoting twojayz:

Quote:


The questions are this:

How will any of these single titles impact the war and what will the impact be collectively?

Hardware sales for HD players (stand alone) are expected to top the 400,000 mark through the holiday season. Will these three titles impact player sales?

I look forward to the replies, mostly...

I don't think any titles currently released or furture releases will impact the war alll that much. Maybe if Star Wars were to be released then maybe.

Hardware sales will be much more of factor than software. I really don't think many consumers will quite have all the facts of which titles are supported by which format so the cost of the players will be much more relative. So the influx of players purchased will more than likely impact sales of a given format.

The bigger question is how will the PS3 sales this holiday affect the formats. I dont' really think stand-alone blu-ray players are at the price point to do any damage where as HD-DVD players are. I think if I were to buy an entry level blu-ray player it would be a better bet to buy a PS3. So if retailers are smart they could do this. In other words low end blu-ray players shouldn't sell all that well with the shift going to the PS3.

After the holiday season the sale of HD-DVD discs should come much closer to blu-ray discs if the above holds true.

Quoting Mark Harrison:

Quote:
I'd like to go back to the average PQ/AQ scores for a minute.  I was curious to compare the production years on the releases.  After all, it stands to reason that newer material has a better chance of blowing away a reviewer than older material.  Good reviewers should take the age of the film into account when reviewing, but I'm sure that doesn't always happen.

So I created two new databases (HD DVD & Blu-ray) and entered every R1 profile.  I didn't do any type of filtering for duplicates (and there are duplicate profiles out there) or anything else.  I just took the easy way out and grabbed everything.  I ended up with 375 HD DVD profiles and 395 Blu-ray profiles.  Then I exported the production years to Excel and started playing.

First of all the difference between the two was much closer than I expected.  I would guess WB has a lot to do with that.  But there goes the theory that HD DVD appeals to the old crowd.  Still, there were differences.

              HD DVD              Blu-ray
1930's        1                      0
1940's        1                      0
1950's        6                      2
1960's        10                    7
1970's        17                    14
1980's        40                    35
1990's        67                    56
2000's      233                    281

Pre-2000's HD DVD has 142 vs. 114 Blu-ray.

The average production year for HD DVD is 1997.5 and for Blu-ray it's 1999.7.

So, there's a lot less difference than I expected.  Still, there is a difference and it might have some bearing on the minute differences in PQ/AQ.

I guess the point is, those's numbers look good for the Blu-ray side, but in the end, they're basically useless as raw values like that.  There's just not enough context around them to give them any real meaning.

I'm SOOO glad we numbers to work with here!  NOW, we are going somewhere!  Good job, Mark!  NOW all we need to do is get the PQ/SQ rating for the older titles!  If the older titles have great PQ ratings (like Casablanca), it would not help your theory at all.  Remember, a lot of the older B&W films were shot on 35mm and even 70mm film!  B&W pictures do not really degrade when compared to color pictures/films.  The SQ rating would probably be rated lower for those older titles. 

Would you like to take on that task as well, or would you like me to do it?

I hate numbers but am relatively, sort of, almost kind of happy about using them here. Numbers don't lie, do they? Wait, yes they do....1.02 is a wide margin compared to 1.00...Nevermind, that is interpretation of the numbers, not the numbers themselves. 

It's hard to disagree with the idea that hardware sales will lead to software purchases. I don't know if the three releases alone will convince anyone to buy a player but I dont think it hurts that the HD camp has them leading up to the holidays, and spread through the entire quarter for that matter. Transformers in October, Shrek in November and Bourne in December. The timing coudn't be better. The same is said for the third gen players debuting in a couple weeks. Entry level players will be $299 with second gens available for even less than that. It's either one hell of a coincidence or a giant middle finger aimed straight at the BDA. I have to think that they know what they're doing it's more the latter. It's a ballsy move that might just work.

Mark, you are correct about my post. That was a generalized average scoring of all releases. However, I did previously point out 9 or 10 dual format titles that had direct comparisons. In those particular cases the results were basically the same. There were 2 (I think) that gave the HD DVD version a slight edge, not including I think 300 which also gave HD DVD a nod for the extras which were not available to the BD version because of hardware restrictions...

Not quite in the air yet... almost.

Found this on Yahoo! and thought I'd share. It's a couple weeks old but interesting anyway if you haven't seen it...the full article is here: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070905/new135.html?.v=8


"Warner is excited to offer consumers who purchase the new Toshiba HD DVD players the opportunity to own '300'," said Dorinda Marticorena, SVP Worldwide High Definition Media, Warner Home Video. "Not only is it the best selling HD DVD title to date, but it is also one of the most advanced titles with regard to new and innovative Hi Def features, both on the disc itself and through web connectivity. We believe that with the initial sales of "300", and this promotion, more than a half million consumers will own "300" on HD DVD by the end of this year."

Momentum For HD DVD Continues to Grow

This fall, with the availability of Toshiba's third generation players, and a significant increase in the rollout of HD DVD movie titles -- expected to increase from 300 to 1,000 titles by the end of the year -- momentum for HD DVD is undeniable. "With the recent announcement by Paramount and DreamWorks Animation SKG to exclusively support HD DVD, in addition to studio support from Universal and Warner, New Line Cinema and HBO, consumers now have even greater reason to supplement their HDTV purchase with a high def HD DVD movie experience," said Yoshi Uchiyama, Group Vice President, Toshiba America Digital A/V Group. "New players, new promotions, new movie titles and new studio partners are all evidence that HD DVD is delivering the ultimate high definition experience to the broader consumer market."

Quoting twojayz:

Quote:
Found this on Yahoo! and thought I'd share. It's a couple weeks old but interesting anyway if you haven't seen it...the full article is here: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070905/new135.html?.v=8


"Warner is excited to offer consumers who purchase the new Toshiba HD DVD players the opportunity to own '300'," said Dorinda Marticorena, SVP Worldwide High Definition Media, Warner Home Video. "Not only is it the best selling HD DVD title to date, but it is also one of the most advanced titles with regard to new and innovative Hi Def features, both on the disc itself and through web connectivity. We believe that with the initial sales of "300", and this promotion, more than a half million consumers will own "300" on HD DVD by the end of this year."

Momentum For HD DVD Continues to Grow

This fall, with the availability of Toshiba's third generation players, and a significant increase in the rollout of HD DVD movie titles -- expected to increase from 300 to 1,000 titles by the end of the year -- momentum for HD DVD is undeniable. "With the recent announcement by Paramount and DreamWorks Animation SKG to exclusively support HD DVD, in addition to studio support from Universal and Warner, New Line Cinema and HBO, consumers now have even greater reason to supplement their HDTV purchase with a high def HD DVD movie experience," said Yoshi Uchiyama, Group Vice President, Toshiba America Digital A/V Group. "New players, new promotions, new movie titles and new studio partners are all evidence that HD DVD is delivering the ultimate high definition experience to the broader consumer market."

Two things...

1. They are really hoping for a huge surge in HD DVD owners to hope for over 500,000 units of "300" to be sold.  "300" on HD DVD hasn't crossed 150,000 units, last I checked.  That would have to mean that it's not just previous HD DVD owners buying the next-gen HD DVD players this time.  It would be interesting to see.

2. HD DVD titles are expected to go from 300 to 1,000 by the end of the year?  I thought Universal said they will have 125 titles release in the 4th quarter.  That adds up to 425 titles by the end of the year.  That would mean Paramount and Warner needs have to come up with 575 titles in the 4th quarter.  Do people think that will be true?  I'm just saying...



Blu-ray to get Rush Hour 3, Dec. 26...HD DVD to follow sometime in 2008 due to no region encoding.

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New Line is apparently planning a next gen release for 'Rush Hour 3,' with the Blu-ray expected just after Christmas, and the HD DVD to follow sometime in 2008.

Although it was critically reviled, the third film in the Jackie Chan-Chris Tucker franchise has grossed $133 million in the five weeks since its theatrical release in early August.

Now, according to information published by Home Media Magazine, New Line is planning a next-gen release for the film, with the Blu-ray edition hitting stores on December 26, day-and-date with the standard-def DVD (a rare Wednesday street date).

This seems like this might happen for ALL day & date releases from New Line.