Gotta respect Bill Hunt

[The Big Blue]

Putting it all out there knowing the HD crybabies will be doing everything in their power to make his life as miserable as possible.

Rock on Bill! Truth to Power!

What all this means to you, is that Blu-ray is rapidly becoming the clear choice. In our opinion, there's just no chance that HD-DVD is going to win this format war, and the HD-DVD camp's increasingly desperate moves now should make that obvious to all.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

[mtmw1863]

Agreed. This does look the beginning of the end.

[bluflu]

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

"

And around the Net today, here's an indication of just how bitterly this high-def format war is being fought (and how desperate the HD-DVD camp is becoming in battling Blu-ray Disc). The Wall Street Journal today has a story on how the European Union's European Commission is investigating the HD format war. Specifically, Microsoft and Toshiba have asked the EU to investigate the Blu-ray camp for anti-trust violations (a tactic they've tried unsuccessfully here in the U.S. in the past as well). Here's the relevant text from the story: "The HD DVD camp has been lobbying the commission to draw attention to Blu-ray's tactics in the movie capital in a bid to force more studios to put their product on HD DVD, according to people familiar with the situation." In other words, the HD-DVD camp can't seem to win this war based on consumer sales alone, even after slashing their hardware prices, so now they're trying other measures to try to force the many Blu-ray exclusive Hollywood studios to support their format too.

This is what you need to know: The Christmas shopping season this year is almost certainly going to make or break HD-DVD. The HD-DVD camp knows this as well as anyone. (We suspect that this is one of the reasons Warner has delayed their TotalHD combo plans until early next year - after the holidays to see how things play out.) The HD-DVD camp's media rhetoric seems to have shifted dramatically in recent months from how they're going to win to how they're going to survive. They must know that if software sales trends continue the way they have so far this year in favor of Blu-ray, many other retailers are going to follow Blockbuster in favoring that format alone. So the HD-DVD camp is doing everything they can just to stay in the game, from additional hardware price cuts, to announcements like "HD-DVD gets 1000 movies from Amazon" (except not really because they haven't been made yet and the deal - according to Amazon - is non-exclusive and open to Blu-ray as well) and on and on. But here is the reality: According to Tom Adams, president of Adams Media (from the WSJ story), 105,000 stand-alone Blu-ray players have sold to date compared to about 150,000 HD-DVD players. However, 1.5 million PlayStation 3s are in the hands of consumers (which can all play Blu-ray movies) compared to 160,000 who have purchased HD-DVD add-on drives for the Xbox 360. So the market right now is roughly 1.6 million Blu-ray capable machines compared to 310,000 HD-DVD machines. Even if only a small fraction of PS3 owners are watching movies (and given the 2 or 3 to 1 Blu-ray software sales edge despite the smaller number of stand-alone Blu-ray machines in the market, at least some MUST be), there's still no contest. Compounding the HD-DVD camp's problems, their stand-alone hardware sales forecasts are being downgraded even despite dramatic hardware price cuts, while Blu-ray stand-alone hardware prices are slowly but steadily dropping too. In other words, price is the only advantage the HD-DVD camp has left... and by this time next year that advantage is likely to largely evaporate. (Though we wouldn't be shocked to see Toshiba cut their player prices to $199 or even lower for the holidays in a last ditch attempt to move large numbers of units.)

What all this means to you, is that Blu-ray is rapidly becoming the clear choice. In our opinion, there's just no chance that HD-DVD is going to win this format war, and the HD-DVD camp's increasingly desperate moves now should make that obvious to all. With Blu-ray hardware prices dropping, and with Fox and MGM about to start adding their catalog titles to the BD exclusive title slate of Disney, Sony, Lionsgate and now Anchor Bay/Starz (not to mention all the great BD titles coming from Warner and Paramount), if you've been thinking about getting into high-def discs, now's a great time to jump in with Blu-ray. And if you'd rather wait a little longer for lower prices and greater hardware and software selection... there's still nothing wrong with existing DVD in the meantime. Regardless, we've said from the very beginning that this HD format war wasn't going to be good for anyone. But the writing seems to be on the wall at this point and, with a little luck, we'll see the last gasps of this skirmish play out by Christmas. At this rate, the CES convention in January 2008 is likely to be VERY interesting indeed.

Stay tuned...

Bill Hunt, Editor
The Digital Bits
billhunt@thedigitalbits.com

"

[dobyblue]

Good man that Bill Hunt.

[bluflu]

Sorry about the double post, looks like The Big Blue beat me to the posting of the article.

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=11176

[bluflu]

HD DVD is the next Enron.

[mtmw1863]

Time to get the surrender docs ready.

[GasCat]

I respect him for standing up. It's hard to do with all the advertising revenues at stake.

Does he have a user here? We've been saying the same thing for months.

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by dobyblue

Good man that Bill Hunt.

Yep.

When he decides on a position, he's a bulldog.

Gary

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by GasCat

I respect him for standing up. It's hard to do with all the advertising revenues at stake.

I was thinking the same thing. I think he used to have advertising from both sides, and now it looks like the HD DVD stuff is gone.

Gary

[Jack Torrance]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

I was thinking the same thing. I think he used to have advertising from both sides, and now it looks like the HD DVD stuff is gone.

Gary

In the past couple of weeks, M$ tried to woo him (check out his past columns from the last couple of weeks) - but Bill was his typical stand up self and continued to write what he believed in... which is HD-DUD is washed up.

Bill's the man.

[krinkle]

has this been posted at AVS? If not someone needs to go over there and do it.

[MrBogey]

HD DVD is region free. If they can get the EU to force support in Europe then by default studios will be releasing films in Europe that will be imported to America. In short, exclusivity for Blu-ray ends while HD DVD gets to keep their meager assets exclusive. Not to mention the studios will have to support the lowest common denominator. Meaning everything will be VC-1 at under 16Mb/s on a 25GB blu-ray with DD+ and TrueHD only.

At that point HD DVD will be the only truly sensible choice.

MS knows what they're doing.

[jubaiweaponx]

we`ll see when the holidays hit ..........

[dialog_gvf]

Originally Posted by MrBogey

Not to mention the studios will have to support the lowest common denominator. Meaning everything will be VC-1 at under 16Mb/s on a 25GB blu-ray with DD+ and TrueHD only.

At that point HD DVD will be the only truly sensible choice.

How would the lowest common denominator ever be the truly sensible choice?

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by MrBogey

HD DVD is region free. If they can get the EU to force support in Europe then by default studios will be releasing films in Europe that will be imported to America. In short, exclusivity for Blu-ray ends while HD DVD gets to keep their meager assets exclusive. Not to mention the studios will have to support the lowest common denominator. Meaning everything will be VC-1 at under 16Mb/s on a 25GB blu-ray with DD+ and TrueHD only.

At that point HD DVD will be the only truly sensible choice.

MS knows what they're doing.

Actually Disney et al then have the choice of releasing on multiple HD-DVD discs what would fit on one BD and charging more money for the HD-DVD version since it costs them more to produce. Or removing all extra features from the HD-DVD since it won't fit or providing that low bitrate version that will look inferior to the full 50 BD version etc..so I wouldn't jump the gun. There is also the argument that a single DVD standard was GOOD for consumers and MS attempt to divide the market is anti-competitive in nature to confuse the consumer. The EU is already quite familiar with their failure to comply with previous orders and engage in proprietary lock-in strategies in the Windows world..not going to go unnoticed as they make these claims. AVC (Mpeg), Java are much more open formats than HDi and VC-1 - controlled by a single vendor with a history of abusing their monopoly position. The BDA is a broad coalition that insulates against abuse far more readily than the alternative.

[darinp2]

Originally Posted by MrBogey

HD DVD is region free. If they can get the EU to force support in Europe then by default studios will be releasing films in Europe that will be imported to America.

I highly doubt the EU will force Disney to release on HD DVD while that is region free (and probably not even if it gets it). Disney has a good position there as far as pointing out that DVD had region encoding available as a feature to Disney, Disney asked for RC capability on HD DVD and was basically told, "No". I think that alone is enough for Disney to be able to support a position that they will not release on HD DVD as long as HD DVD refuses to provide them that capability, if Disney wants to take that position with the EU.

--Darin

[RangerSix]

That was a great article by Bill Hunt. He articulated in words what many of us know already, but it’s satisfying nonetheless to have those viewpoints validated.

Several things that will knock BD out of the park as the next format of choice, as well as quickly usher in HDDVDs demise:

• Existing studios and companies maintain their current support for BD. While defections may not impact the final outcome, it would prolong it
• Higher proliferation of players on the market from different manufacturers
• Average player price between $250 and $300 (duh!)
• Solidify BD standards and features – I think lots of companies are holding off the release of titles, players and software (i.e. Apple’s DVD Studio Pro) until things are finalized.
• More titles (duh!)

[onanie]

What exactly is the alleged violation?

How can HD DVD simply demand that they be supported?

[Maximus]

Originally Posted by onanie

What exactly is the alleged violation?

How can HD DVD simply demand that they be supported?

It is simple really, MS and Toshiba are trying to pitch HD DVD as the successor to DVD. They say in order to do that the studios should be forced to release their content on HD DVD, otherwise they can't compete with Blu-ray.

The problem for HD DVD is that they have gone on record and denied certain demands from Disney and Fox (the only studios in question really, I highly doubt that the Columbia catalogue is in question). Fox wanted optional extra security, the HD DVD guys said no, the BDA said yes, BD+was born and Fox pledged to release exclusively on Blu-ray. Disney wanted Region coding and higher capacity from the get-go the HD DVD guys said they would look into it, but the problem with the DVD forum is that they are too bureaucratic and decisions take too long to make, they made the same request to the BDA about region coding (capacity was never a problem for Blu-ray). The BDA board said that region coding would be added to the spec under an opt-in basis, i.e. it wasn't going to be mandatory (WB, don't use it at all, Sony use it only selectively to protect theatrical windows, Disney have started to do the same, Fox always use it, and Paramount use it selectively). Disney have said that if HD DVD can offer the same level of service as Blu-ray they will look at releasing on HD DVD, but with TL discs a bit of a fallacy atm, it looks unlikely.

Now all eyes are on Universal/Lionsgate because they have asked for nothing specific to be added to the HD DVD/BD spec but still support their respective formats blindly, if it is found that payments (illegal or otherwise) have been made to Universal/Lionsgate by Sony or MS for exclusivity (i.e. payments to not release on a competitor's format) trouble lies ahead for all parties concerned. You may have noticed that Lionsgate going neutral would not be a great loss, but the EU would compel Universal to go neutral by the same terms - which would basically spell doom for HD DVD.