Look at these ads

[The Don]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

It would be so funny if Toshiba by some miracle was able to sale 20 million cheap quality HD-DVD players for under $100. Then the HD-DVD camp would be in shock if Disney, Fox, and Sony Pictures said we are only releasing in BLU-RAY and not even releasing movies in the DVD format anymore.

** The studios will decide what format survives the format war. When the studios stopped releasing on VHS the VHS format died **. The studios can kill both the HD-DVD format and DVD format if the want too.

VHS died when majority of the population owned DVD players....

regardless how many HDDVD players are available...PS3 is still a convenient purchase that will still get as many looks as the HDDVD player..

[johnnyd1]

Originally Posted by HDTV1080P

Sony pictures could stop releasing movies in the DVD format and only release in BLU-RAY. Fox and Disney could do the same. If one remembers studios before did a similar thing with the VHS format. They stopped releasing movies in VHS and started releasing in the DVD format only. This caused consumers that only had VHS machines to purchase DVD players. Today no major studio releases on VHS and no company makes a standalone VHS machine. Only a few combo DVD/VHS machines are made now, no consumer standalone VHS machines are in production.

Good Point !!!

[Rup_Muk]

Originally Posted by Greenmatiz2

I fully disagree. The Best Buy and CompUSA ads are a tragedy. They absolutely scare the general consumer away from buying BR anytime soon. Just look at those high prices -- ON SALE, BUT STILL 2 to 3 TIMES HIGHER THAN HD-DVD players.

I wrote/produced TV commercials for nearly a decade (in another life). The general consumer buying at Best Buy is dumb, and they think price.

They will see that it is a high definition movie player, is far less expensive than BR, and that they get several disks for buying a few with the player. They will see a wall of BR disks, and HD-DVD disks and think:

"Oh, the store must not have those movies in the blue boxes in the white boxes yet, but they will soon. They're probably sold out of the white boxes because the players cost half as much."

The consumer will buy the HD-DVD player.

I think many of us expected Sony not to counter with low-priced players (no, going from $1,200 to $600 does not equal low-priced players), and many of us feared they would lose the war due to hubris. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that we all feared from the get-go, whether we admit it or not.

Now is the time for BR to get off of its big blue butt and do something before they lose this war.

Pimping a few Pirates disks as being "exclusive" is not going to do it.


Hubris.

That Best Buy ad hardly points out the "advantages of blu-ray".

It is a tragedy.

There have a number of great points raised in this thread. I agree with Greenmatiz2 and with HDTV1080P.

The BDA - as a whole - needs to realize that the money is in the content. Make the hardware sell - and software sales will follow. One can recoup all costs in royalties alone! If a certain percentage of sales went to the BDA, other manufacturers would not have to worry about taking a slight loss on each player sold. Besides, the price for harware manufacturing is bound to decrease with increasing quantities sold.

Yes, the BDA needs to get their heads out of their behinds.

The HD-DVD ad on Discovery HD last night got to me. Where are the Blu ads? Will Sony pay if I stood with a banner outside BB? When do we get to let J6P know the benefits of going blu?

My $0.02.

Rup.

[Fozziwig]

Originally Posted by Greenmatiz2

No, Fozz...

The movie studios will notice a larger penetration of HD-DVD players, and view all of those players as potential sales.

No studio can resist money that long. Then they will release their movies on HD-DVD (probably with the exception of Sony).

That is what I see could happen, unless Sony gets off of it's big hubaristic blue ass and lowers its prices on players.

Thank-you for illustrating what I mean by "Sony Hubris" in regards to loyalty between movie studios, and available titles.

And hanging your hopes on BD+ as a non-crackable format is even more hubris. Call it fanboyism or not (I don't even own HD-DVD), we'd better pray there's SOMEBODY in the Sony marketing camp who is willing to do something before it's too late.

Well, they're more Fox & Disney's hopes to be fair. As for being crackable or not, time will tell. The BD-ROM Mark looks like it might actually be tough to crack - but I digress.

When you say "before it's too late" you seem to imply that Blu-ray is in a hole and is scrambling to get out of it.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Blu-ray has a sales advantage greater than 2:1 on YTD sales (68:32 in fact). It has a massive advantage in studio support. It has a massive advantage in CE support.

It's true that Blu-ray is not going full throttle, mainly for technical reasons (BD-J 1.1 and BD+), but when it does ramp up - and it most certainly will - HD DVD wont know what hit it.

Toshiba selling lots of dirt cheap players is little more than a distraction (assuming they manage to achieve lots of sales). Certainly no need for emergency measures as you seem to suggest (apologies if I misread you). Keep in mind that Toshiba have been practically giving players away since the start of the year with little effect on sales. There has also been a $199 HD DVD 'player' on sale since last November and that isn't doing too well either (it's the Xbox add-on in case you wondered).

Fox, Disney and Sony will be releasing on Blu-ray exclusively, irrespective of the HD DVD player population. Fox and Disney especially would prefer to release no HD product than on an insecure and techically inferior format. Universal, on the other hand, would be moving to a more secure and technically superior format. No studio can resist money that long. Then they will release their movies on Blu-ray.

That's my tuppence ha'penny worth anyway.

I suppose the next thing for Toshiba is to drive lorryloads of A2's into town centres and just hand them out to passers by - along with 12 free movies.

[becomingwater]

Originally Posted by Greenmatiz2

I fully disagree. The Best Buy and CompUSA ads are a tragedy. They absolutely scare the general consumer away from buying BR anytime soon. Just look at those high prices -- ON SALE, BUT STILL 2 to 3 TIMES HIGHER THAN HD-DVD players.

I wrote/produced TV commercials for nearly a decade (in another life). The general consumer buying at Best Buy is dumb, and they think price.

They will see that it is a high definition movie player, is far less expensive than BR, and that they get several disks for buying a few with the player. They will see a wall of BR disks, and HD-DVD disks and think:

"Oh, the store must not have those movies in the blue boxes in the white boxes yet, but they will soon. They're probably sold out of the white boxes because the players cost half as much."

The consumer will buy the HD-DVD player.

I think many of us expected Sony not to counter with low-priced players (no, going from $1,200 to $600 does not equal low-priced players), and many of us feared they would lose the war due to hubris. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy that we all feared from the get-go, whether we admit it or not.

Now is the time for BR to get off of its big blue butt and do something before they lose this war.

Pimping a few Pirates disks as being "exclusive" is not going to do it.


Hubris.

That Best Buy ad hardly points out the "advantages of blu-ray".

It is a tragedy.

I don't think it's a tragedy. The reason is they will buy the HD-DVD player and want a Pirate movie or Bond movie and they will tell them it's on Blu-ray and probably give them a list of others on the Blu-ray format and then they will fork up the extra cash to get a Blu-ray or just buy the PS3. Studio support is killing the HD-DVD format.

[becomingwater]

Originally Posted by bruce

Toshiba has sent all new displays to Best Buys, now it looks like they are paying both for ad space and to make BR look bad, look at this ad from BB with HD DVD and BR on the same page-

Have you noticed the Blu-ray screen shot looks more vibrant than the HD-DVD shot. Now im sure it's not the real screen shot, but I thought that was funny.

[Longshot]

There's an old saying in politics. "When you're opponent is slitting his own throat , stay the hell out of the way". Look there are some valid poinst here but the bottom line is this. Disney and Fox are not going nuetral. It's just not going to happen. It;s clear the HD DVd strategy is to get as many players in consumers hands as possible and hope to convince Disney and Fox to go nuetral.

Why do you think Toshiba is cutting prices again? THEIR PLAYERS AREN"T SELLING ANYWHERE NEAR THEIR PROJECTIONS. I'm sure if you gave a Toshiba exec truth syrum he would say they did not want to drop prices like this until xams. No they had to do it 6 months earlier and shoot their wad with the one big limited time exclsuive in "The Matrix". They know what is coming at the end of the year in exclusive BD titles and cheaper players. The disc sales gap is widening in favor of BD and that's all the studios care about.

[bluflu]

Soon, Toshiba will be dropping HD DVD players from airplanes attached to little parachutes.

[akadkins]

Originally Posted by Mystique

DAMN HDDVD players are so cheap compared to Blu-ray players.

It's because you're paying for 1080i vs. 1080p....now while I think that is lame, HD-DVD is smart in that they know a majority of TV's out there are 720p/1080i - very few 1080p (myself included - damn me for buying early!).

[GasCat]

I like this line under the HD-DVD player.
"Choose from over 200 HD DVD titles in store and at BestBuy.com."

I'd be going with the HD-DVD player after reading the ad. Oh well, maybe Blu can swing another 1 for 1 sale at B.B.

[blurayforever143]

how can you guys be scared..?

$299 player

5 free movies...

the Matrix..

and BLU-RAY is STILL outsellign HD-DVD!

Like I've said before, the writing is on the wall, if Blu can sell without pack ins and promotions, if more discs are being sold, even at MSRP and with the player prices these days, that truly says what the consumer really wants...

Until I see HD-DVD outselling Blu-Ray every single week, and stores not needing to give away 5 free movies with a player or 2 free movies and a game with the X-Box, then I don't see how in the world anyone here is scared.

You know what I'm sad about?

That Pirates is getting such great reviews on the technical side of it all....and that I totally -hate- Pirates [not pirates, but the movie..!] and even incredible video quality can't get me to watch it.

[Greenmatiz2]

Originally Posted by akadkins

It's because you're paying for 1080i vs. 1080p....now while I think that is lame, HD-DVD is smart in that they know a majority of TV's out there are 720p/1080i - very few 1080p (myself included - damn me for buying early!).

You know something, I just "downgraded" from a 42" 1080p LCD to a 50" 1080i PDP TV. I can notice a small difference in video gaming, and on the PS3 menu system, but in movies, it's very, very slight. Actually, I feel 80% of the difference I do see is due to my previous LCD being sharper than the PDP.

I'm not sold on 1080p as a necessity for anything below 50".

In fact, some games look better at 1080i, for whatever reason. Maybe it's because they are native to that resolution? The ducks game, "Rub A Dub" is one.

[ps3andlovinit]

Originally Posted by blurayforever143

how can you guys be scared..?

$299 player

5 free movies...

the Matrix..

and BLU-RAY is STILL outsellign HD-DVD!

Like I've said before, the writing is on the wall, if Blu can sell without pack ins and promotions, if more discs are being sold, even at MSRP and with the player prices these days, that truly says what the consumer really wants...

Until I see HD-DVD outselling Blu-Ray every single week, and stores not needing to give away 5 free movies with a player or 2 free movies and a game with the X-Box, then I don't see how in the world anyone here is scared.

You know what I'm sad about?

That Pirates is getting such great reviews on the technical side of it all....and that I totally -hate- Pirates [not pirates, but the movie..!] and even incredible video quality can't get me to watch it.

At what point does this become "dumping" and warrant an investigation...

[The Don]

Originally Posted by ps3andlovinit

At what point does this become "dumping" and warrant an investigation...

it sounds like they are just trying to get rid of these things now...

the price drop has been pretty significant...and early as well....

[phranctoast]

it sounds like they are just trying to get rid of these things now...

the price drop has been pretty significant...and early as well....

After a move like this I think its time to change the slogan.

"HDDVD. the looks and sound of desperation"

[PeterTHX]

Note the BB ad says "before savings" for BD and "after savings" for HD DVD so at first glance folks will think the gap is even wider.

People aren't too bright when it comes to rebates. BB knows this.

[PeterTHX]

You know something, I just "downgraded" from a 42" 1080p LCD to a 50" 1080i PDP TV. I can notice a small difference in video gaming, and on the PS3 menu system, but in movies, it's very, very slight. Actually, I feel 80% of the difference I do see is due to my previous LCD being sharper than the PDP.

Yes, but which models by whom?

I've calibrated displays and seen 720p Sonys blow the doors off 1080p Sharps.

[BuyHDOnline]

It's was also nice to see a Blu-ray movie featured with the normal DVD's. Page 15 of the CC ad.

[bruce]

Well this rebate sale is working out for Amazon, all of the Toshiba HD DVD players are in the Amazon Top 10 for DVD player

#2 A2
#8 XA2
#10 A20

[GasCat]

It's not much but its something. Notification of the deal was sent via email. HD-DVD was not mentioned in the ad.

Free Blu-Ray disc with 60GB PS3 system
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....at120900050014