Archived: Ask the Insiders: Judgment Day Edition

[Elandyll]

Question to insiders:
nothing that wasn't unexpected from Toshiba with those latest firesales, but are there any promotions (HDTV + free player, 1.0 models at sub $250, etc.) scheduled to limit the "buzz" that Toshiba might get with those sales ?

In particular, I think that a promo HDTV + free player (or a promo price on both) would do a lot of good imho - and I'm not -just- saying that because I'll buy a HDTV + player within the next month

[kjack]

Originally Posted by Azumi

How do the BDA perceive Toshiba? Is it still a competitor, or a likely Blu-ray partner for tomorrow?

While I can't speak for the BDA, I would imagine both. Your competitor today could be your friend tomorrow. And the inverse is true. And it can flip-flop over time. That's why you should never burn bridges, and keep things professional instead of personal.

[plee]

Originally Posted by kjack

What do people expect? That they will suddenly run a white flag up the pole? Not going to happen. But keep in mind that the number of companies that decided to do a BD player as a result of the Warner announcement was staggering. Many companies that sell a DVD player today will be selling a BD player before the end of 2008.

The real question should be, are they making new units? That will give you what their plans really are, firesale or battle till the end?!?

[ezcobar411]

Originally Posted by plee

The real question should be, are they making new units? That will give you what their plans really are, firesale or battle till the end?!?

You're right. Any insiders care to share any info on this?

[Blu Titan]

A question for the insiders. In the South Florida area all of the Best Buy Stores are out of stock on the Sony 300S, and the the Samsung 1400. In addition, the Sharp BD HP-20 blu-ray player is almost sold out. In fact, most of the stores have been out of the Samsung and Sony models for a couple of weeks. How long will it be before the stock of BD players is replenished across the nation? I would hate for customers to walk in a store to purchase a player and have to leave empty handed due to availability issues.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by kjack

What do people expect? That they will suddenly run a white flag up the pole? Not going to happen. But keep in mind that the number of companies that decided to do a BD player as a result of the Warner announcement was staggering. Many companies that sell a DVD player today will be selling a BD player before the end of 2008.

The flip is that Toshiba has further locked out anyone from the HD DVD market. Blu-ray is their only choice.

Isn't the wholesale for $149 SRP below the BOM?

Gary

[zombie]

Originally Posted by plee

The real question should be, are they making new units? That will give you what their plans really are, firesale or battle till the end?!?

Agreed. If they've got no plans for an A4 then they've basically admitted it's game over.

[Scorxpion]

everyone should read it even Toshiba ,you are loosing and you should admit your loss and think of another strategy.

link:

http://www.dvdfile.com/index.php?opt...k=view&id=6483

[Azumi]

Originally Posted by kjack

While I can't speak for the BDA, I would imagine both. Your competitor today could be your friend tomorrow. And the inverse is true. And it can flip-flop over time. That's why you should never burn bridges, and keep things professional instead of personal.

Thanks for your answer, Keith!

[CptGreedle]

Originally Posted by nyg

Agreed. If they've got no plans for an A4 then they've basically admitted it's game over.

I think they are just fooling themselves with the latest attempt as "a new strategy" (which looks to me like the exact same strategy they always use: spread FUD, lower prices). The way I see it, Tosh might be in denial, but they must realize that they can not win without making at least a hybrid player.
They will have to start making Blu or they will die. The sooner they get into where the market really is, the better it will be for them to not loose even more, and look even worse.

No A4 means little to me. The A2 and A3 suck as they don't even support 1080p. Why continue to go that route when clearly people want good image and clarity over interactive web content?

[Scorxpion]

Originally Posted by CptGreedle

I think they are just fooling themselves with the latest attempt as "a new strategy" (which looks to me like the exact same strategy they always use: spread FUD, lower prices). The way I see it, Tosh might be in denial, but they must realize that they can not win without making at least a hybrid player.
They will have to start making Blu or they will die. The sooner they get into where the market really is, the better it will be for them to not loose even more, and look even worse.

No A4 means little to me. The A2 and A3 suck as they don't even support 1080p. Why continue to go that route when clearly people want good image and clarity over interactive web content?

There are more HD-DVD secondhand selling on ebay rather than a Blu-ray player .How can they sell these hardware after Warner Bros exclusivity ..Its over

[Braktastic]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

So Toshiba has decided to have a few more firesales on players and fund a few sales on discs as well. Big whoop. They did it before and it never helped so why would it this time around?

What if they couple this with going 'nuclear' (i.e. going Combo Format or DVD/HD DVD bundle-exclusive on all remaining HD DVD releases at a heavily subsidized cost for the studios resulting in near or equal to SD DVD media prices)? There are rumblings that this is where Toshiba is headed. Has the BDA considered this scenario?

[Chris Beveridge]

Hassle being boiling ones discs? Yeah, that'll go over well with the general populace.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

Unless the studios get an absolutely immense payoff I wouldn't worry about it. Studios would never risk DVD revenue by doing that, the combo format has proved itself far too unreliable to be in the hands of general consumers, early adopters don't mind a bit ofhassle with discs, consumers hate it.

When a single DVD can sell more in a week than all HD DVD has sold since inception?

Wouldn't they need to get 100x the current HD DVD replication capacity online? How much would that cost?

Gary

[spam.curitiba]

Originally Posted by Maxpower1987

A lot. An average HD DVD run is 100,000 for a big title like Transformers or the Bourne movies. Worldwide DVD sales for a big title can top 15m in a single week.

The capacity for this isn't there and nobody would be stupid enough to put it there.

especially when only you only have around 28% of the movies coming out on your format....

[Fozziwig]

Originally Posted by Paul Arnette

What if they couple this with going 'nuclear' (i.e. going Combo Format or DVD/HD DVD bundle-exclusive on all remaining HD DVD releases at a heavily subsidized cost for the studios resulting in near or equal to SD DVD media prices)? There are rumblings that this is where Toshiba is headed. Has the BDA considered this scenario?

I see this argument a lot and I find it incredible that sane people actually posit it as a valid strategy for HD DVD.

I presume that those proposing this combo-only approach would consider that 'Bourne Ultimatum' might have been a good candidate? Well, let's see what has to happen in real life.

To date BU has sold close to 6 million units on DVD. On HD DVD it has sold (estimating here) approx. 150,000 units.

So the combo-only nutters (sorry, but they have to be) expected Universal to press over 5.8 million HD DVD discs that are of absolutely no use to the consumer and (presumably) charge them extra for the priveledge? For what reason? In the vain hope that a large number of people would see the HD DVD light and rush out to buy Toshiba players? A far more likely outcome would be millions of complaints from angry consumers who won't buy the disc because they don't have one of those 'combo' players. The combo strategy is already a failure. I fail to see the argument for making it into a gigantic, hideously expensive, failure

Sorry, but the the only 'rumblings' of such a strategy must be coming from an insane asylum - or possibly David Vaughn.

[Innerloop]

Originally Posted by phansson

There was speculation that they couldn't improve the upscaling of SD DVD on the PS3. They did.

There was speculation that the PS3 wouldn't be 1.1 capable. It is.

There was speculation that the PS3 wouldn't be 2.0 capable. That has been announced.

The PS3 is a pretty amazing piece of A/V equipment. I would never doubt it being able to bitstream advanced audio eventually.

I'm not an expert in this, but I assume that bitstreaming audio is actually far easier the decompressing/decoding and streaming out HDMI. At least will all my past DVD players, bit-streaming out was always available on far cheaper players than decoding for a given codec. So this seems like just a matter of (a) not urgent and (b) bigger things to work on like 1.1 and 2.0 compatibility.

[Bombthroat]

Originally Posted by blindcat87

Also as I said in the other post, this does not make me any less certain of the ultimate outcome in this war, but the total ignorance of reality for nothing more than saving face just really galls me. How many more folks that don't really know what is going on are going to happily walk out of stores with a ticking time bomb of obsolescence in their arms?

Chris

I think it's more a case of Toshiba needing to get rid of inventory while not giving consumers a reason to return that HD Dead player while it's still within the return period they got for Christmas.

[Nooff]

Originally Posted by Kosty
HD A3 production is probably continuing full tilt at this moment , and there are 100,000s of units already built and in the pipeline. Retail orders for HD A3s are in place for 1Q 2008 that well exceed HD DVD sales for the 4Q 2007.

This pricing strategy was was probably meant for end of 1Q release, but changed because of the Warner announcement.

This is not a fire sale.

This is a direct Toshiba attempt to bypass the studio decision making and determine the outcome at the consumer and open market level and bring HD DVD economic advantages into the battle.

Specific strategy is to place HD DVD players as a market alternative to regular up converting DVD players where the last three years the average DVD player price sold in North America was between $102 and $106 according to the CEA.

In a one on one conversation with Jodi Sally on Wed, she told me specifically that based on the 4Q sales numbers "they knew what price points worked for mass market sales" and would price HD DVD units aggressively to go directly to consumers.

She also said Toshiba had that day approved a massive advertising campaign and that all retailers were still fully supportive and had not returned inventory or canceled 1st quarter orders. She told me I could not post that until the press release was on the wires.

I'm about to get back on a plane to leave Las Vegas and I've haven't read thru this thread because of meetings. So I really can't respond back until late late tonight or tomorrow.

Bottom line is Toshiba is not conceding but is fighting back and intending to take things direct to the consumer level, starting today.

We'll see how that works out soon enough.

Any insider care to comment on this? I find it highly amusing

[spam.curitiba]

Originally Posted by Nooff

Any insider care to comment on this? I find it highly amusing

LOL 28% of the market there is no way in hell you are going to make a comeback..Toshiba is just trying to get idiots to buy there players to make a quick buck before they stop making them.