Phloyd's Bold (?) Predictions for Year End

[Ascended_Saiyan]

hmurchison,

So, all the studios are suppose to go neutral except Fox, Sony, and Universal by June, huh?

I guess we will start to see who's prediction is right by April. Your's or my earlier prediction.

[zombie]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

hmurchison,

So, all the studios are suppose to go neutral except Fox, Sony, and Universal by June, huh?

I would actually have to agree with his prediction.

[phloyd]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

So, all the studios are suppose to go neutral except Fox, Sony, and Universal by June, huh?

Originally Posted by nyg

I would actually have to agree with his prediction.

Hehe - that multiquote is awesome.

I am gonna have to disagree with that one especially Disney group - but we shall see...

[darkincite]

I have to say everyone is looking at the PS3 in only one angle... and it's quite unnerving. To be honest, I think that the PS3 is going to be quite the dedicated HD player. Hell, even the company CEO has said that the PS3 is no longer a dedicated video gaming console, and has become an entertainment system. In all aspects. Not to mention the cell processor AND the nVidia graphics processor, I have no doubt the images it will create will be mind blowing. Look at trailers for the games in production right now. MUCH better than the 360 (no offense but the 360 is just a HD version of the XBOX, and I own one, so no I am not a PS fanboy.) even if everyone wants to knock the trailers as prerendered. Which they aren't.

But getting to where I am at, the PS3 is going to be the SOLE soldier to bring BD to the frontlines. And I have proof. What's that you ask? PS3 games are going to be released ONLY on BD. No DVD games. BD. Think about it. Even taking the movies out of the equation, by this time next year there will be FAR more BDs circulating in the United States alone than HDDVD. People will get interested, wanting to know what BD is. It's how I started getting in to DVDs, when I found out the "gold" PS2 games were on DVD format.

So yes, BD is going to win. Maybe not solely relying on movies. But Sony and the PS3 are going to mass market BD technology without anyone even realizing it!

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

hmurchison,

So, all the studios are suppose to go neutral except Fox, Sony, and Universal by June, huh?

I guess we will start to see who's prediction is right by April. Your's or my earlier prediction.

Yeah, that's my gut feeling. I can't get a read on Universal. They seem to take glee in ignoring Blu-Ray with the same bravado that Fox takes ignoring HD DVD.

Next year the studios will realize that the battle will not be won easily and they may as well make movies for both. As long as the copy protection holds they have little to use as Microsoft makes it pretty easy to encode to VC-1 HD DVD parameters and then convert that to fit the Blu-Ray spec better.

AVC better offer the same or they could fall behind.

Phloyd...while Robert Iger doesn't speak for Disney absolutely as the CEO he has offered his opinion that he thought Disney would end up supporting both. Disney has no animus towards HD DVD and they were one of the progenitors of the HDi interactive spec so they know what it can do. Disney "will" have HD DVD discs by Christmas of 2007 at the very latest. I'm beyond positive about this without being an insider.

darkincite

The PS3 will indeed have a positive effect on Blu-Ray but honestly I feel like any HD DVD advancements that Microsoft makes with the Xbox will neatly counteract the PS3. Vista will be delivered in a Media Centre edition that neatly leverages the Xbox 360 as an extender. Sony is an OS platform vendor like Microsoft or Apple so they can only extend their influence so far.

The battle is certainly fun to watch if you are an enthusiast like me. Until then it's fun to prognosticate about what we all see in the Crystal Ball.

Sorry to diaagre Hmurch but there is a HUGE amount of anamosity between them and ms. Do you foget Steve Jobs is now there? do you understand that apple (steve Jobs) wanted and tryed there hardest to keep vc-1 out of the BD specs.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by kevinca1

Sorry to diaagre Hmurch but there is a HUGE amount of anamosity between them and ms. Do you foget Steve Jobs is now there? do you understand that apple (steve Jobs) wanted and tryed there hardest to keep vc-1 out of the BD specs.

That's understandable. Apple is a big proponent in AVC and they're simply going to have to improve their authoring support if they want AVC to succeed. Microsoft is kicking ass with VC-1.

I personally cannot wait for NAB 2007 to see where Apple's Final Cut Studio goes. How much HD DVD/Blu-Ray interactivity are we going to be able to utilize? How many codecs will we have full encode for? We need all three really.

Vc-1 is not the greatest thing since sliced bread, It has been proven all 3 other codecs can do the same job, Personally i wish they would have took apples pick. VC-1 has been sold by a snake oil salesman and it is going to come back in someones face as talkst8ght said.

[hmurchison]

Originally Posted by kevinca1

Vc-1 is not the greatest thing since sliced bread, It has been proven all 3 other codecs can do the same job, Personally i wish they would have took apples pick. VC-1 has been sold by a snake oil salesman and it is going to come back in someones face as talkst8ght said.

AVC has the potential to be superior but the problem exists here.


VC-1 is promoted by one company(Microsoft) with much fervor. AVC is promoted by a consortium and licensed via the MPEGLA. They are notoriously slow at promoting and handling day to day stuff so while they have a potentially superior product Microsoft is beating them to the punch.

[phloyd]

Well, tomorrow the PS3 will launch here and while the numbers are not as great as they predicted, they will all certainly sell (based on the lines I have seen at all the CE stores!).

I imagine that prediction #2 will be true by noon tomorrow. But I guess we will need to see the numbers to be sure.

Also we will need to see the numbers for the 360 add on.

I am pleased to note that BD50 is coming along strong, though I would not call it commonplace as such, it is certainly no longer 'special'. That was a bonus that I was not counting on at all...

[Zvi]

Originally Posted by Ascended_Saiyan

hmurchison,

So, all the studios are suppose to go neutral except Fox, Sony, and Universal by June, huh?

Yeah And there will be no BD50 movies shipped in 2006.

Oh, and most likely Tosh. will release HD DVD 45GB which is siting there in their lab collecting the dust, as soon as the need be.

And unfortunately, BD camp will delay/defer more titles and screw up few more transfers so that we, BD enthusiasts won't forget that life is a biatch.

[phloyd]

Well, I didn't do too badly.

Only obvious error that I see is that Paramount never did do VC-1 Bluray discs. Still I don't think anyone really cares.

I guess when June comes up we will see if hmurch's predictions come true...

This one would seem to be refuted on both counts:

Originally Posted by hmurchison

The PS3 will cause an uptick in movie sales and be very popular. It's quality will be slightly below standard players. It will be loud.

This will be the interesting one

Originally Posted by hmurchison

By June Lionsgate announces neutrality. By Sept Disney/BVHE announces Neutrality. LG is shipping their BD player and Liteon is shipping their HD DVD player.

I also note that I promised (maybe on the AVS Forum) to not make any more predictions for 2006. Well, it is 2007 baby! Time for more predictions perhaps

[Blubaru]

Due to the recent hacking issues I foresee more companies going blu-ray only and companies like Universal going natural. There will be no new HD-DVD players or announcements from anyone else other than Toshiba. HD-DVD has a terrible Christmas in 07 and will go bust in 08.

[Maximus]

The studio that will suffer most from hacking is Weinstien as they make a larger proportion of their money from DVD sales when compared to bigger studios, if the BDA can show them that their content is safer on BD they will switch/neutral. Lionsgate will be deterred as they are in a similar situation to Weinstien they will remain BD exclusive throughout 2007.

Big studios will press their advantages and start double dipping (TFE anyone?), HD DVD fans will start whining when epic films are released on Warner/HBO/New Line without a lossless track but are present on BD due to increased availability of 50GB discs. Paramount follow suit. BD films from June onwards are using BD50 as standard and only short animated films and games use BD25. Alien quadrilogy is released along with Close Encounters, both prove to be incredibly successful for driving hardware sales, there is talk of Lucas okaying a release of Star Wars saga and Indian Jones trilogy (to coincide with the release of the fourth film) in early 2008 on BD, people rejoice.

Toshiba shows plans for G3 players priced at $299 but they will still only use HDMI 1.1 (to keep pricing low) so will be unable to output 1080p, Chinese companies will do the same only price at $249 - the players will be of sub-standard quality. The HD DVD add-on is reduced in price to $129. Toshiba do not release a high-end G3 as they have said that there is no need for 1080p output and advanced audio decoding aside from TrueHD which is mandatory (stereo only) for all players.

Sony release a G1 ES line model for $1299 with HDMI 1.3, DTS-HDMA, TrueHD, BD-Live and 1080p24 out of the box, they also release a G2 non-ES player without HDMI 1.3 for $799. PS3 released in EU in May, two months late. Samsung release their G2 with HDMI 1.3, BD-Live and 1080p24 out of the box, for $699, promising advanced audio decoding later. Panasonic release Firmware for G1 player for (processed) 1080p24 support and decoding of advanced audio, they see no reason to release a G2 player until 2008 so they lower the price of their G1 player to $499 by June giving Blu-ray a highish-end player for a low price point. LG announce G1 players at CES and release in Feb, no delays for $399, it is not the best of players, but it matches the low-end A2 from Toshiba and is still able to output 1080p60 but no advanced audio support and no HDMI 1.3, but it has a low enough price to justify those decisions. Sharp and JVC release players. Towards the end of 2007 a dual format capable player form an unkown Chinese company emerges, the company is sued by BDA for breaking license terms, MS support Chinese company and call for larger companies to follow suit and release a dual format player and end a war (that HD DVD is about to lose). The Supreme court rules in favour of the BDA, Sony bashers vow never to support BD.

BDA introduce MMC (mandatory managed copy) people rejoice. HD DVD won't follow as AACS is well and truly broken and Universal won't sanction MC (non-mandatory managed copy). BD is still protected by BD+ for the time being, but the hacking community is close to a workaround.

December (needs its own write-up)

PS3 in full production, sells 2.2m consoles in NA, 1.4 in EU and 1.2m in JPN. X360 sells well in NA coming in at 1.7m, but bombs in EU where it can only manage 250k. I won't talk about JPN. The big N outsells all!

Player prices come down in anticipation for holiday. In US this happens on Black Friday, in Rest of World happens just before Xmas. Pioneer's plan for CES leaks G2 BD players are seen for the Elite brand and LCD (very bold, I know) prototypes are also spotted in plans. Sony G2 player receives Top Tech award for 2007.

The next bit is a bit out-there but could happen in the right conditions,

Due to shareholder pressure Toshiba announce that they have acquired a BD license and have joined the BDA. They also say that they will be showing a prototype BD player at CES, the only company allowed to release both type of player. Toshiba tell public that they will be supporting HD DVD for the foreseeable future, secretly agree to phase out HD DVD production by Q3 2008 to the BDA. Paramount and Warner announce that they will no longer be supporting and releasing on HD DVD, but do say that for 5 films they can send in their HD DVDs and they will be replaced with the corresponding BDs as an act of good faith. Universal and MS stay silent, end up to be the only major companies still supporting HD DVD.


And those are my predictions for 2007,

Max