Interview article with Amir

[Rio]

Here is the translated interview article with Amir from AV Watch.
We are seeing many points that we are very familiar with
Have a fun
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[I: Interviewer, A: Amir]

I: How's going about Xbox360 HD DVD player sales?

A: There are quite huge demand (for HD DVD add-ons), and great feedback. What important is that those who purchasing add-on are not the people so called "early adopters", they are "second generation" people, I mean, general public people. Widening the market (by general public people) is the important factor.

I: How many units has been sold?

A: I cannot disclose the accurate number, however, the sale number is certainly above our expectation. We've received feedback like it being very cheap considering the $200 price with the remote and "King Kong".
Although PS3 has a capability to playback Blu-ray Disc, it seems not affecting big enough for BD movie title sales (as of Dec. 6). BD title sales is still keeping low level compared to HD DVD. According to the "The DVD Wars" site, which is tracking the sales of Amazon.com, it indicates that HD DVD has better sales.

Sure, PS3 is a great player and it's $500. But players from Sony and Panasonic cost around $1,000 to $1,500. Then, why consumers need to buy expensive players? That's the issues for them.

I: If there is sales difference, then why HD DVD sales is better?

A: There are some reasons. First, consumer satisfaction was low for BD titles because of its quality. Compared to BD, HD DVD has better quality, with regard to not only audio and video but also interactivity. And, it's a big factor that more player has been sold. Samsung's BD player has not selling well, while Toshiba's selling much better.

I: But, considering the sales number of PS3, hasn't the number of BD players already surpassed the number of HD DVD players?

A: That is the difference between "Paper Spec" and the reality. People those who made lines to buy PS3 want to play games. They don't watch BD movies. On the other hand, Xbox360 HD DVD player is a "movie only" equipment. The number of people who purchase movie title is far more than the ones of PS3. Also, after getting PS3, HDMI cable and game titles, they run short of moeny for buying movies (). There are 7 million people who already own Xbox 360. They can play HD DVD movies paying only $200. So, there is no need to "give up buying games for movies".

Let me show another reason. We are bundling "King Kong" to Xbox360 player. It's very good not only its content but also picture quality. On the other hand, PS3 bundles "TALLADEGA NIGHTS" (to initial 500,000 shipment for US), its picture quality is bad and also content itself is not good. Also there is an issue that user has to use the controller instead of the remote.

I: Then, the number of shipment of Xbox360 player becomes more important. If giving the number is difficult, could you give us a hint? Is that at least the order of 10,000?

A: Much more ()

I: How do you think what will Xbox360 player take the position in entier HD DVD?

A: It's merely an option for "person wanted to watch hi-def movies". Those who want to watch might as well buy it, or might not buy it.
I: There is a "theory" so far, that "add-on for the game console will not sell". I think Xbox360 HD DVD player seems overturning this theory, what do you think about the reason of this?

A: Sure, HD DVD player is the most selling accessory for Xbox360. The reason is simple. It's not for gaming. In the situation that some games require add-on and some others don't require, it gives developers as well as users anxiety, so it won't sell. But HD DVD player does not. Because, only person who wants to watch movies buys it, and the one who doesn't care does not purchase it. Also, there is no complexity, since it can play all HD DVDs.

I: I have one complaint as to hardware. When I push "eject" button on the remote...

A: Yes (),

I: It opens the disc tray of the Xbox360 console, instead of HD DVD player's tray. Even with the remote bundled to the HD DVD player. Isn't there any solution for this?

A: I don't know the solution right now, but our development team recognized this issue. We want to follow up about this.

I: It is said that Microsoft will add some improvement about audio output, what is the specific content of this?

A: Since playback function of Xbox360 HD DVD player is all software based, update can be done quickly and easily. Our current plan is DTS eocnding output.

DTS has higher bit rate of 1.5Mbps against Dolby Digital 640Kbps, it allows output better audio quality. We are now in the final development stage for this. I'm not sure when the Xbox Live update will start, however, component development itself has almost been finised.

I: I'd like to ask the picture quality of movie titles. Certainly, initial BD titles released in US had not good quality. While it's true that HD DVD titles had better quality. However, BD titles which are quite good quality have increased recently. Considering this trend, won't difference about quality between HD DVD and BD titles be gone? Do you agree on this? If so, what else is the good points of HD DVD?

A: Certainly. BD's quality has reached certain level where "some of them are good". However, it is still "same level", and not "better". If the quality is just equal, why do we need to use higher priced discs or expensive players? On HD DVD, functions like interactivity and picture in picture, which are not supported in BD, are already supported, since those are mandatory from the beginning. There is zero BD title out of 89 titles (as of interview held) which has PiP, while there are many on HD DVD.

I: But, BD camp's claim "bigger the bandwidth can be used, better the picture/audio quality will be" seems making sense. How do you think about this?

A: Yes, if wider bandwidth is used, quality will be raised. However, if the quality has reached certain level by compression technology, the return from the high bit rate will not be recognized. Even the bit rate is doubled, it won't be big difference.

The BD camp may claim "bandwidth is still not enough", but watching the title's situation, it's not the real case. Especially, in case of leveraging excellent compression technology like VC-1 and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC. Otherwise, existing titles would not have such a good quality. Ah, their claim may be valid when using MPEG-2.

And, we keep improving VC-1 encoder all the time. The efficiency has increased 30% during last 6 months. I think there are many things can be improved, we could lower the data rate much more.

[continue]