Archived: Insiders Thread

[eat_me_cool]

Originally Posted by Beta-guy

Iwho are... well cheap (I'd use another word but I can't think of one) after all they sold around 90K when it was on sale for $98 go ahead ask the HD-DVD'ers they'll tell you with pride they sold 90k on that sale lol but those 90k players have yet to really impact sales on HD discs.

In fact Walmart sold 30K, so the total figure is not 90K. Thats according to http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom111807/ page 28

(sorry to post on the insiders thread)

[patrick99]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Unfortunately their definition of noticable difference is pretty loose. There was definitely a noticable difference on Shoot 'em Up, but I don't think they are doing separate encodes.

They don't look at HT enthusiasts as the norm, so when people talk about 120" screens with front projectors it's not them that NL are catering for with these encodes. It is the 32" 720p Vizio crowd, which by and large are HD DVD owners .

Anyway, I am going to take my chances with Entertainment in Video for my NL releases.

It's very saddening to hear that.

[richteer]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

They don't look at HT enthusiasts as the norm, so when people talk about 120" screens with front projectors it's not them that NL are catering for with these encodes. It is the 32" 720p Vizio crowd, which by and large are HD DVD owners .

And that's the really sad thing, because the 32" 720P Vizio crowd is quite happy with the SD DVDs.

If something is worth doing, it's worth doing properly. And HD DVD is NOT HD done properly. (I know I'm preaching to the choir!)

[blitz6speed]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

To follow this.

Look at what Sir Howard said recently:



This should spell everything out, what is the point in Blu-ray for anybody if they can't make any money on it. All of the companies who have a vested interest in Blu like Sony, Panasonic, News Corp. and others are interested in making money, not losing it.

For those who don't know the meaning of the term, Scorched Earth.

If Toshiba win the war, well what's the point. They won't make any money from it and all of the big boys won't bother with their own offering if it doesn't make any money so HDM will die completely.

So what will Toshiba have won?

Let us be realistic for a moment. The only people who lose if BD doesnt become the defacto standard are the A/V Purists (us), Sony (as a studio and a CE company) and most of the CE industry. I have no problem believing for a moment that toshiba has ANY problem being a one man show for the entire effort for HD DVD. Studios wont care as long as they sell discs, and we both know that. So really, it is a problem since toshiba isnt exactly hurting for cash in anyway shape or form. So really, would be very hard to see them stopping subsidized players for years just because they can and it IS helping stop blu-ray momentum atm.

Obviously some of us have concerns of the reality of it all. I support BD 100% and have bought a ton of discs at retail to do my part, heck most of my discs are still in shrink wrap to be 100% honest. But there are realities that we need to face.

[Cruyff14]

Paidgeek,

Why on earth is Sony releasing movies like Daddy Day Camp and I Know Who Killed Me on BD? Do you really think that people get into BD to buy crap like this?
Why did Taxi Driver not get a day and date release on BD when the new SD special edition was released?

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Your list of companies that lose out is too small. Think about retailers, they get to sell another generation of shitty cut down players with no margins vs Blu-ray players from Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Phillips, Denon and Marantz, and others. Studios lose the chance to get a proper try at beating the pirates, sure BD+ was hacked, but a friend of mine says it was no easy challenge and it had to be done title by title rather than wholesale cracking.

Blu-ray secures the future of optical media for another ten years, HD DVD doesn't, HD DVD won't be around for more than five years until Toshiba and MS come out with a VoD service where you never actually own movies, but pay each time you want to watch them. I would rather pay £10 for a Blu-ray which I could watch whenever I want and still use ten, twenty even thirty years from now than use the Xbox-Live style service where I pay £3 each time I watch a movie in HD-Lite.

Ditto that.

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by Cruyff14

Paidgeek,

Why on earth is Sony releasing movies like Daddy Day Camp and I Know Who Killed Me on BD? Do you really think that people get into BD to buy crap like this?
Why did Taxi Driver not get a day and date release on BD when the new SD special edition was released?

As a buyer for 60+ Blockbuster stores I think it's very important that all boxoffice titles are released on BR at this point.

For every title you don't think will sale it will have great rentability. If you want my honest opinion if my customers saw that the same titles were available to rent on Bluray as they are on DVD, you might find more people switching to the highdef format. Imagine going into to rent a Bluray title like Bratz from Liongates. You get there and find there is no Bluray version available to rent. Then you look at the movies like Waitress, Namesake, Once, Daywatch, Amazing Grace, ect....also not available but there is a DVD version. Every title is important if you want to get people to switch from DVD to Bluray.

Fox and Lionsgate atm do not release their entire boxoffice slate on Bluray. You have a lot of $1-30 million dollar movies that are not going to be released this year on highdef because of this thinking that it won't sale. They should just release them because it helps the adoption of this format quicker. Sure it might not sale to you guys but that doesn't mean most won't rent it. Maybe I'm biased because I'm a rentailer but that's what I think.

[WickyWoo]

Too true

I'm sad Death at a Funeral won't be on Blu

[blitz6speed]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Your list of companies that lose out is too small. Think about retailers, they get to sell another generation of shitty cut down players with no margins vs Blu-ray players from Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Phillips, Denon and Marantz, and others. Studios lose the chance to get a proper try at beating the pirates, sure BD+ was hacked, but a friend of mine says it was no easy challenge and it had to be done title by title rather than wholesale cracking.

If the retailers are concerned, they need to act now. They are the ones who are helping toshiba keep blu-ray at bay. If they truly are concerned about no margins, they better step up and make a stand now, dont you think? Last i checked, retailers like Best Buy, Circuit City, Amazon and others are all going along with the extra free movies per player deals. If they really DID care about their margins, they should stop ruining their market. But they don't.

BD+ was not hacked. You can watch them using players on a PC but they cannot be transcoded to any other format (such as re-encoded 720p, re-encoded to mpeg2, etc) and they only work on 2 peices of PC software, one of them has just disabled playback from hard drives, the other one isnt even released yet and will likely be patched up before it hits. Burned BD+ discs also do NOT work. So it is still a 100% secure system for what studios want.

Blu-ray secures the future of optical media for another ten years, HD DVD doesn't, HD DVD won't be around for more than five years until Toshiba and MS come out with a VoD service where you never actually own movies, but pay each time you want to watch them. I would rather pay £10 for a Blu-ray which I could watch whenever I want and still use ten, twenty even thirty years from now than use the Xbox-Live style service where I pay £3 each time I watch a movie in HD-Lite.

You are telling me things i already know. I know where toshiba/MS want this to end up as. However, if they STOP blu-ray, then all is lost anyway. So it wont make a single difference. And thats what i think people are realizing. If things dont improve, actions dont happen sooner, things are going to get worse for BD. The longer Toshibas format is around, the worse it is for Blu-Ray. End result.

I would honestly make it clear to all the big box stores like Best Buy, Costco, Circuit City and others that they need to drop HD DVD or risk losing product from Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Phillips and more. Just do a uppercut to the face and get it over with.

[Cruyff14]

Originally Posted by BluOgre

Every title is important if you want to get people to switch from DVD to Bluray.

Then why did Sony not release Taxi Driver on BD on the same day as they released the new SE?

If they think that Daddy Day Camp is a movie worth releasing on BD (1.5 on IMDB!) and not Taxi Driver then something is seriously wrong with the people who make these decisions at Sony.

[blitz6speed]

Originally Posted by Cruyff14

Then why did Sony not release Taxi Driver on BD on the same day as they released the new SE?

If they think that Daddy Day Camp is a movie worth releasing on BD (1.5 on IMDB!) and not Taxi Driver then something is seriously wrong with the people who make these decisions at Sony.

New Releases are almost always better sellers then catalog. You want people who collect to skip the DVD and start building a HD collection, and with Day/Date titles, its a lot easier for that to happen.

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

I would honestly make it clear to all the big box stores like Best Buy, Costco, Circuit City and others that they need to drop HD DVD or risk losing product from Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Phillips and more. Just do a uppercut to the face and get it over with.

Uppercut? That's like taking them behind the woodshed.

If I remember correctly Wal-Mart was going to choose ONE format last August but again, Toshiba I think showed them the money because they reversed course. I understand what you are saying but I think it's not a problem just yet. If we are out of 1st qtr 2008 and nothing has changed, I'm offically concerned. Not that HD-DVD will win but neither will. "Doing it the right way" attitude is not working if HD doesn't take some punches here in the next few months.

[BluOgre]

Originally Posted by Cruyff14

Then why did Sony not release Taxi Driver on BD on the same day as they released the new SE?

If they think that Daddy Day Camp is a movie worth releasing on BD (1.5 on IMDB!) and not Taxi Driver then something is seriously wrong with the people who make these decisions at Sony.

As was stated already, New Release Day/Date titles are the most popular. For one the movies are fresh on a customers mind because they have just came out theatrically so it's like using the marketing for the theatrical run as the DVD marketing. btw most people don't care about Catalog unless it's these huge hits like Star Wars or Matrix come out. I know you guys like to think differently but the reality is day/date boxoffice titles > cataloge for the most part.

We are a country with a short term memory. Why do you think studios try to release titles quickly to DVD from the theaters if it bombs in the boxoffice. Easy answer is no matter how bad a movie does the title is fresh on your mind. For example, expect to see "Heatbreak Kid" Dec 26th on DVD/HD(subject to change). It's coming out a whopping 2 months after it's boxoffice failure but at least people will remember the title which gives it a higher chance of success on DVD.

[Cruyff14]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

New Releases are almost always better sellers then catalog. You want people who collect to skip the DVD and start building a HD collection, and with Day/Date titles, its a lot easier for that to happen.

The new edition of Taxi Driver was released just a couple of months ago. Sony could have easily released a BD day/date with the standard release. Catalog titles may not be big sellers over night but they will pull new people in and in the long run they will sell well enough. Warner seems to be the only studio who understands that.

I'm active on a couple of classic movie forums and people on there are simply not buying into one of the HD formats because not enough classic movies are being released. They see the formats as being directed at a teenage crowd and who can blame them. At the moment the studios are selling the same type of movies to the same demographic all the time.
In my opinion this is a missed opportunity as the people who like classic movies are generally a little bit older and have more money to spend than the currently targeted demographic.

Now show me one person who is going to buy a blu-ray player because of the impending release of Daddy Day Camp.

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by Cruyff14

The new edition of Taxi Driver was released just a couple of months ago. Sony could have easily released a BD day/date with the standard release. Catalog titles may not be big sellers over night but they will pull new people in and in the long run they will sell well enough. Warner seems to be the only studio who understands that.

I'm active on a couple of classic movie forums and people on there are simply not buying into one of the HD formats because not enough classic movies are being released. They see the formats as being directed at a teenage crowd and who can blame them. At the moment the studios are selling the same type of movies to the same demographic all the time.
In my opinion this is a missed opportunity as the people who like classic movies are generally a little bit older and have more money to spend than the currently targeted demographic.

Now show me one person who is going to buy a blu-ray player because of the impending release of Daddy Day Camp.

Try the Searchers, Battle of the Buldge, Bullitt, The Cowboys, Goodfellas, Reds and the Seventh Seal to name but a few. There are titles out there for every type of fan.

[iceman]

Originally Posted by blitz6speed

If things dont improve, actions dont happen sooner, things are going to get worse for BD. The longer Toshibas format is around, the worse it is for Blu-Ray. End result.

I'm just going to cut in here and point out one very important thing that a lot of people seem to miss/forget. Time is on Blu-ray's side. Every day there are more and more PS3s in households, take a look at CE manufacturers and players/recorders/drives/writers/media, see how it looks worldwide. The whole world will be filled with BD products. Even Toshiba know they can't compete internationally and they are only doing a serious effort in the US. Blu-ray will win eventually, no doubts about it, all Toshiba/Microsoft can do is to slow down general HD adoption. Remember the big picture, be patient and relax

[Cruyff14]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Try the Searchers, Battle of the Buldge, Bullitt, The Cowboys, Goodfellas, Reds and the Seventh Seal to name but a few. There are titles out there for every type of fan.

I already have all of the above (Seventh Seal pre-ordered) and want more.

Look, I'm not asking for the release of an obscure Columbia noir like Johnny O'Clock but for the release on BD of a movie that was voted 52 on the most recent AFI 100 list. It's a sad state of affairs if a movie that is at the bottom of the IMDB is deemed more worthy of release than one of the best movies ever made.

[FourToedStatue]

Originally Posted by JackBauer24

Hi Paidgeek,

With the new Ghostbusters game coming next year: http://kotaku.com/gaming/ghostbuster...nfo-322990.php can we expect Ghostbusters 1 and 2 on blu ray as well? Thanks!

[Frode]

When Casablanca sells so badly on HD DVD that Warner isn't going to do a BD release of it I think that says a lot about the classic movie market. Being a niche fan myself (of anime) I appreciate your predicament, but niche titles will always sell to a niche market and so it's harder to justify for the studios at this stage. I suggest you buy the titles that do come out and convince others to buy them as well. If the sales figures start reflecting a healthier market for it they'll do more releases.

[frank_t]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

To follow this.

Look at what Sir Howard said recently:



This should spell everything out, what is the point in Blu-ray for anybody if they can't make any money on it. All of the companies who have a vested interest in Blu like Sony, Panasonic, News Corp. and others are interested in making money, not losing it.

For those who don't know the meaning of the term, Scorched Earth.

If Toshiba win the war, well what's the point. They won't make any money from it and all of the big boys won't bother with their own offering if it doesn't make any money so HDM will die completely.

So what will Toshiba have won?

Makes you wonder what the real agenda is here... Is it a move to kill the physical disc as we know it and go the download route?