It is all about numbers, and the ones for HD DVD don't add up!

[Maximus]

I was just thinking about the announcement from HD DVD that they have an attachment rate of 28 discs/year. So that would mean from April - December the average HD DVD consumer would have bought 2/3*28=18.66 discs/player.

Toshiba announced that they have sold 175,000 standalone players, which would lead us to believe that there were 18.66*175,000~3,270,000 discs.

Now the latest number from the HD DVD camp is that they have shipped 1.5m HD DVDs.

So which is it, 1.5m DVDs or 28 discs/year because it can't be both.

[Iceman_II]

The flaw in your logic is that you assume that they sold all 175K players at the begining of the time period.

If it were a steady rate of sales over the period, you could approximate it by using the number of units total number of units sold at the mid-point (this assumes a steady rate of sales) this mid point number would be half of the 175k, or 87.5k, the reason this works is that with a straight line increase in sales, the higher number of units later in the year balances out the lower number of units earlier in the year.

using this approximation, sales figures would be half of total you calculated, or 1,632,750 This number is less than 9% off from the claimed number shipped, of course the ACTUAL number sold is a little bit less, because of that 1,500,000 shipped, some percentage is held in stock etc.

While I like to poke holes in the HD fanboy's foolish and grandiose claims as much as the next guy, this claim is actually in the realm of statistical possibility.

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by Iceman_II

The flaw in your logic is that you assume that they sold all 175K players at the begining of the time period.

If it were a steady rate of sales over the period, you could approximate it by using the number of units total number of units sold at the mid-point (this assumes a steady rate of sales) this mid point number would be half of the 175k, or 87.5k, the reason this works is that with a straight line increase in sales, the higher number of units later in the year balances out the lower number of units earlier in the year.

using this approximation, sales figures would be half of total you calculated, or 1,632,750 This number is less than 9% off from the claimed number shipped, of course the ACTUAL number sold is a little bit less, because of that 1,500,000 shipped, some percentage is held in stock etc.

While I like to poke holes in the HD fanboy's foolish and grandiose claims as much as the next guy, this claim is actually in the realm of statistical possibility.

I thought about that too, but they were clear in saying that for every player that they sold 28 discs go with it per year. Unless of course they did a similar mid-point type of calculation to make their numbers look unreasonably high. In which case the BD attach rate should be even higher as most of the players were only sold after November.

[Iceman_II]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

I thought about that too, but they were clear in saying that for every player that they sold 28 discs go with it per year. Unless of course they did a similar mid-point type of calculation to make their numbers look unreasonably high. In which case the BD attach rate should be even higher as most of the players were only sold after November.

28 per year means that ones sold in april would account for 18.66 discs (2/3s of a year), but the players sold in November would only have one months worth, or 2.3 discs.

Trust me, the math works, while the news release is highly spun to tell the story they want to tell, it isn't REALLY wrong, and it doesn't make their numbers unreasonably high. Infact, they probably back calculated the attachment rate from sales figures, and conveniently neglecting to take into consideration recent decreases in sales. That same back calculation works in our favor to make BD numbers appear larger, because, the "attachment rate" is much higher during the first month or two, when people suffer from "disc-pression" the depressed state arising from not having enough media to play on your new player. Everyone who went out and bought 5 discs in december to go with their new PS3 registered a statistical attachment rate of 60/year.

Figures lie, and liars figure.

[Deciazulado]

Dude, Maxi, I already posted about this! Don't you subscribe to the Deci-blu news?

Now love one another, while I tend to my couch of perpetual indulgence.

[Iceman_II]

Sorry, can't help running numbers, its that whole "engineer" thing

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by Deciazulado

Dude, Maxi, I already posted about this! Don't you subscribe to the Deci-blu news?

Now love one another, while I tend to my couch of perpetual indulgence.

I must have missed your crazy set of decicalculations .

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by Iceman_II

Sorry, can't help running numbers, its that whole "engineer" thing

As in?

Scotty! I need more discs!!

Ye canna' change th' laws o' physics, Adm'ral!



Iceman_II and Maxpower1987 looking back at Admiral Craig