Ask questions to The Digital Bits team (Bill Hunt, Jeff Kleist et.al.)

[marzetta7]

Welcome to the forum Bill! I've enjoyed your commentary at DigitalBits over the years now, and I'm so pleased to have you on these forums for our direct inquiries.

My question relates to both a specific type of TV and Blu-ray. I know you went to CES 2008, and I'm curious as to how the "Laser TV" on top of the ill-tempered sharks looked like?

In all seriousness, I was wondering if you had a chance to see the Laser TV demoed there and what Blu-ray discs looked like on it? Any better? Colors? Etc?

Thanks in advance,

Marzy

[Uxi]

Hi Bill, been hitting the Bits for many years now and glad to see you here.

As I asked once on AVS, I used to be most fond of the Rumor Mill section. Seems like most of the stuff that should go there ends up in the main "2 Cent's" colum... I enjoy that column as well, but some times just want the scoop on rumored releases, etc and it sometimes can't remember which entry you made the mention and need to sift through the archives for it... but maybe those clicks are what you're after?

Anyways... point, more to the Rumor Mill, please!

[Camulus]

Thanks for last response Bill.

Another TV on BD question for you. How have the sales of TV releases on BD been? Encouraging enough for studios to release more shows?

[mikey p]

Bill..... Are you saying "Cloverfields" is SO short there is no point in putting it on BR? LOL, just kidding of course.

[doctorD]

Hi Bill, any comments on the article out there on a pending trial with Time Warner that could put a damper on digital downloads! Thanks in advance for your response. Here is the link:

http://www.toptechnews.com/news/Time...d=10200BKRDFD6

[JasonS]

Originally Posted by mikey p

Bill..... Are you saying "Cloverfields" is SO short there is no point in putting it on BR? LOL, just kidding of course.

I think it would have been more fitting to say that the Cloverfield monster chose Blu-ray and decimated NYC (HD DVD) haha.

[makingmusic476]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

I actually spoke with New Line folks at CES and asked them about LOTR on Blu-ray. It's coming, but it might be a few years. You'll probably see The Hobbit on Blu-ray first, and then LOTR. They know it's the crown jewel of their catalog, and they're going to want to work with Peter Jackson to create something really special for it on Blu-ray. That will take some time.

That has to be the most disappointing news I've heard since I first jumped into the format war in Dec. '06.

Anywho, glad to have you here Bill. I've been frequenting TDB for quite a while, and it's truly a great website.

[ryoohki]

Originally Posted by makingmusic476

That has to be the most disappointing news I've heard since I first jumped into the format war in Dec. '06.

Anywho, glad to have you here Bill. I've been frequenting TDB for quite a while, and it's truly a great website.

LOL wasn't it obivious.... just like Star Wars and other major title.. .what do you prefer.. 125,000 disc sales or 1+Million. Also the production capaticity is SO limited right now...

[Pellaeon]

Originally Posted by ryoohki

LOL wasn't it obivious.... just like Star Wars and other major title.. .what do you prefer.. 125,000 disc sales or 1+Million. Also the production capaticity is SO limited right now...

Obvious maybe, but still sad.

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by tron3

I'm not Bill, but here are "My 2 cents"

I have always said combo players are best served as a "cross over" technology. Many red campers have hundreds, or thousands invested in movies. To get them to "cross over" to blu-ray without loosing that investment it takes a combo player. Not everyone wants the second player, nor has the room for one. It is quickly becoming a niche market, but one that is essential to keep from screwing the red camp.

They are early adopters and buy High Def Media (HDM) so we don't want to turn them off to the whole thing because they lost player support. Combo players need to co-exist to support those users.

Actually, the company I think is most likely to make combo players at this point going forward is Toshiba. They've already lost the Japanese market, so they have to eventually release a Blu-ray player there or risk being completely left behind. It wouldn't be hard for them to add Blu-ray to their existing HD-DVD hardware. And considering that they're selling the HD-DVD players for next to nothing, they might actually be affordable. It would even be a nice way to still support their existing HD-DVD customer base.

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by mtmw1863

Hi Bill, I have a quick question. With the defeat of the HD-DVD format, do you think that we will start to see actual numbers of units sold (For the disks as well as the players) for the Blu-Ray format? I know your website tracks number of DVD players sold and was wondering if you could show the total number of disks and movies sold? Percentages are nice but don't you think the actual numbers of units sold (both disks and players) will ultimately decide the success or failure of the format?

Probably. But it might take a while. All the high-def CE companies have been very closed about hardware numbers thus far.

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by Uxi

Hi Bill, been hitting the Bits for many years now and glad to see you here.

As I asked once on AVS, I used to be most fond of the Rumor Mill section. Seems like most of the stuff that should go there ends up in the main "2 Cent's" colum... I enjoy that column as well, but some times just want the scoop on rumored releases, etc and it sometimes can't remember which entry you made the mention and need to sift through the archives for it... but maybe those clicks are what you're after?

Anyways... point, more to the Rumor Mill, please!

We'll try to do that. There just hasn't been all that much really exciting title news to report on The Rumor Mill, and all the juicy stuff these days is high-def format war releated. But we'll try to revive the section a little more.

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by Camulus

Thanks for last response Bill.

Another TV on BD question for you. How have the sales of TV releases on BD been? Encouraging enough for studios to release more shows?

I haven't seen any actual numbers yet, but I'm betting they're still pretty small so far.

[Bill Hunt]

Originally Posted by mikey p

Bill..... Are you saying "Cloverfields" is SO short there is no point in putting it on BR? LOL, just kidding of course.

Are you talking about my "Cloverfield Monster Chooses HD-DVD - here's why!!" thing on The Bits today? That was actually a joke - Todd Doogan (of our staff) told me someone over on AICN posted that in a recent talkback, and we had a pretty good laugh about it. I suspect someone was giving Harry a little business for his format war statements of late.

[FourToedStatue]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

Actually, the company I think is most likely to make combo players at this point going forward is Toshiba. They've already lost the Japanese market, so they have to eventually release a Blu-ray player there or risk being completely left behind. It wouldn't be hard for them to add Blu-ray to their existing HD-DVD hardware. And considering that they're selling the HD-DVD players for next to nothing, they might actually be affordable. It would even be a nice way to still support their existing HD-DVD customer base.

I may have misunderstood but are you saying current HD DVD players could be made dual by a firmware upgrade?

[Mr_Bester]

Originally Posted by JackBauer24

I may have misunderstood but are you saying current HD DVD players could be made dual by a firmware upgrade?

I believe he was talking about hardware design, not sold hardware.

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by JackBauer24

I may have misunderstood but are you saying current HD DVD players could be made dual by a firmware upgrade?

Unless they planned ahead (and honestly, why would Toshiba do that?) it takes more than a firmware upgrade to make a dual player.

[gand41f]

Originally Posted by Bill Hunt

Actually, the company I think is most likely to make combo players at this point going forward is Toshiba. They've already lost the Japanese market, so they have to eventually release a Blu-ray player there or risk being completely left behind. It wouldn't be hard for them to add Blu-ray to their existing HD-DVD hardware. And considering that they're selling the HD-DVD players for next to nothing, they might actually be affordable. It would even be a nice way to still support their existing HD-DVD customer base.

Thanks, that's exactly what I've been reading in the Japanese forums as what people expect Toshiba to do. If Toshiba wants to remain in the CE business, they will have to produce combo players for a while -- Japanese people have long memories and they won't be forgiven easily if they abandon their customers.

The speculation is that it will be a recorder but with only playback capabilities for HD-DVD, which I believe will still be cheaper to produce than a recorder/recorder combo.

enjoy
gandalf

[scott1256ca]

I also have a question about digital downloads.

Have you talked to the studios about digital downloads of Hi-Def content?
If so, are they looking at a "download to own" or "download to rent" model?

Which studios are the most gung ho, and which are the least?

Finally, have they speculated on when this might become significant?

Thanks

Now a little of my own commentary on the http://www.toptechnews.com/news/Time...d=10200BKRDFD6
article mentioned earlier in this thread. I have long felt that the two biggest problems with downloads of HD content are the time required to download, and the bandwidth required. Many ISP's have limits on how much you can download per month, some enforce, some do not. If ISP's start doing as the article suggests, you will pay twice for your downloads, once to the movie provider, and once more to your service provider. It could cost you a significant percentage of the media purchase cost just to rent the movie. This is why I think this model is still years away from being viable.

[elwaylite]

Bill, whats you opinion on the accuracy of this comment by Scott Hettrick?

http://www.hollywoodinhidef.com/blog_detail.php?id=162

"Scott Hettrick @ Jan 16th, 2008 At 4:03 pm says:
Yes, great video -- thanks for sharing McGrath Dot Ca.
As for others discussing when Paramount and Uni will shift to Blu-ray. I just talked to a top Paramount exec and others. The feeling is that even if they have already decided to shift, they would never say so until they sell as much of the HD DVD inventory in the market as they can so they do not get stuck with it."

Was replying to a comment on his blog about the Toshiba discount prices. Someone stated that if they sold enough players, studios would come back to HDDVD.

They did not worry about getting stuck with BD inventory.