HD DVD Now Outselling BluRay
The “HD Civil War” (Copyright Rodney Brazeau) between HD DVD and BluRay has taken another turn. Another one in favor of HD DVD. Some people were all but calling the war over with BluRay the winner… (which was WAY too premature), and then Paramount announced it would only distribute its movies on HD DVD. Now… it seems the tide has shifted.
This comes to us from VideoBusiness:
HD DVD players began outselling Blu-ray models starting in mid-September and regained a year-to-date lead of a little over 50% through the rest of the month, said Jodi Sally, Toshiba VP of marketing of digital A/V products.
Year to date, according to NPD figures she cited, HD DVD players command 53% of sales; Blu-ray players, 44%; dual format players, 3%.
Man, I remember when I put up that post about Paramount picking HD DVD and everyone railed that BluRay was going to dominate and win, and that this was just going to prolong things. And I told people… look… only about 5% of homes have HD systems right now… it’s FAR too early to start proclaiming a winner. And now HD DVD is out selling Blu Ray. When only like 5% of the market has the stuff… “who is winning” can swing back and forth awfully fast.
Until there is only 1 universal format, I’m quite happy with my Plasma and DVD player thank you very much. Let me know who wins… I don’t care which one of them do.
1. Sound Designer Dan replies at 11th October 2007, 5:36 pm :
John, it’s HD-DVD PLAYERS that are outselling Blu-Ray PLAYERS not software. HD-DVD players have been outselling Blu-Ray players throughout most of the year. Keep in mind that their figures do not count the PS3. And the problem with the PS3 is that most people who own the system don’t know it plays Blu-Ray HD movies.
2. Gruff replies at 11th October 2007, 5:51 pm :
I must say John. Microsoft’s inability to incorporate hd into their xbox’s has been, and will continue to be a major blow for them. Sony are scumbags, but they are scumbags who have lost too many times. Which is why I think they are going to win.
3. The Darr replies at 11th October 2007, 5:58 pm :
“Until there is only 1 universal format, I’m quite happy with my Plasma and DVD player thank you very much. Let me know who wins… I don’t care which one of them do.”
I am truly grateful I am not alone!
4. Grave replies at 11th October 2007, 6:04 pm :
I like to go on record that this is so stupid. The whole HD civil war going on is out right lame and ripe with fanboys from all corners of the world. Blue-Rays better, HD-DVD is cheaper blah, blah, blah. The funny thing is no one is hardly paying attention to sale of normal DVD players and software. We have TV and computers with HD in them already and ppl can down load HD video clip online so whats gonna happen is by the time Blue-Ray or HD-DVD systems become cheap enough for the masses the next format that comes out will be none at all. Movies and media will all be uploaded into your computer or TV and we have no more Disks or tapes or cards to buy the media from. Sit back and wait. Oh and all the PS3 is good for is a Blue-Ray player I guess thats why developers are jumping ship from Sony lol. Zing!
5. hotmale replies at 11th October 2007, 6:07 pm :
I could careless who wins as well. However, Blu-Ray is a lot better name than just HDDVD to me…and also the Blu-Ray boxes look a lot prettier with the blue swishes and what not compared to the ugly brown and back HDDVD boxes. So, for that little bit of difference, I’ll root for Blu-Ray for now. :D
6. Bryan C replies at 11th October 2007, 6:44 pm :
I think I am going to use this format “War” for my next speech in my busniess speech class. It is intersting to learn about.
7. DarkKinger replies at 11th October 2007, 7:42 pm :
I am just satisfied with a standard DVD player. Hell, Nintendo gets more attention than this pointless “HD war”.
8. Andrew replies at 11th October 2007, 7:57 pm :
John, I totally agree with you. As long as you get to watch the movie, who cares about crystal clear pictures or detailed textures? I sure don’t. Personally, I believe that HD DVD and Blu-ray are going to end up like Betamax.
Besides, the people who want Blu-ray just have to see the nose hairs of every single actor.
Also, Paramount did release two movies on Blu-ray, and those were Mission Impossible III and Disturbia. Just thought I’d point out that little error you made.
9. John replies at 11th October 2007, 8:01 pm :
Hey Andrew,
It was no error. Paramount and Dreamworks have announced they are going exclusivley HD DVD
10. Kryptonite replies at 11th October 2007, 8:02 pm :
I’m with you all the way, John. When one format is left standing, or dual format players become affordable, then I’ll jump in. Until then, my plasma and standard DVD player is fine.
“There can be only one.”
11. Kristina replies at 11th October 2007, 8:28 pm :
I can live with my plain old DVDs. All this other crap……don’t need it. Knowing my luck, I’ll pick a side and then the other side will triumph.
12. buh replies at 11th October 2007, 9:08 pm :
plasma and dvd? that must look like crap
13. buh replies at 11th October 2007, 9:09 pm :
wow
14. Rodney replies at 11th October 2007, 9:37 pm :
Gruff, you said “Microsoft’s inability to incorporate hd into their xbox’s” was a bad thing. I actually PREFER that they offer the HD playing unit as an addon. It keeps the initial investment down on buying an XBox, which is a BIG factor in choosing a next gen system (second only to title availability)
Those who choose to use their XBox as a movie player can then choose to upgrade to HD. (Which total cost is still less than PS3) Those who dish out nearly double the price to get themselves a PS3 are forced to get a BluRay player whether they want one or not.
Its not a flaw. Its good marketing.
15. Rodney replies at 11th October 2007, 9:41 pm :
@Bryan
If you plan on using the “Format war” in your speech class, please be sure to call it the Civil War of High Definition DVD Formats. (and give TMB and me the credit for the title) This is my coined phrase, heard first here on the Movie Blog.
In the Format war movies were available on both sides, and it was the formats that were at war. This time, studios are picking sides. Its a Civil War.
Thanks
16. alfie replies at 11th October 2007, 9:55 pm :
well all i know is i don’t have a blu ray yet but i have an hd dvd player and the picture quality is fucking awesome. I queued up the same film on standard def and hd and paused them both to switch between the two (geeky i know) to do a comparison and it makes standard dvd look like vhs.
and I get transformers in hd next week…can’t fucking wait to see that it looks like.
not eveyr titles looks great though..the superman returns hd dvd looks awful but say what you want about the film King Kong is absolutely beautiful to look at on HD. it looks better than it did in theatres…..
getting a blu ray player very soon though….they have robocop so I have too.
17. Alex replies at 11th October 2007, 11:06 pm :
I was in Circuit City the other day and they had the Blue-Ray DVD of X-Men 3 playing and I must say that it looked awful. It looked too clean and almost like it was shot on video. I have to agree that with all the money I spent on conventional DVD’s, I’m not in a rush to embrace yet another new format. I no longer buy as many DVD’s as I used to because of this.
18. Christian replies at 11th October 2007, 11:21 pm :
You can always spin statistics. In the article, the numbers only come from standalone players. So that means that they didn’t include the PS3 into their figures.
My opinion is that DVD is fine the way it is. For those with big screen televisions, HD is the way to go. It’s not that we want to see every nose hair, we just want to match the resolution and detail of our HDTVs.
19. Ricci replies at 12th October 2007, 12:05 am :
This is the HD DVD camp spinning useless nonsense stats that obviously back them, What they fail to tell you is that Blu-ray discs are outselling HD DVD 2:1 world wide, with USA being the only real place HD DVD is being adopted, whereas europe and asia are both buying blu-ray upwards of 3:1 and 4:1 in Japan.
And the enevitable argument that the stats dont include PS3, which regardless of what HD DVD fanboys like to say means PS3 fans have a HD system and are unlikely to even consider buying a HD DVD system when they already have the superior technology in their games console.
More news from the Blu-ray camp is that sonys new PS3 advertising campaign with highlight what most people think it should have highlighted from the start - that PS3 is a Blu-ray Player aswell as a console and media centre.
With the cuts in price for PS3 coming close and fast these days, the superior release of Blu-ray titles and the upcoming system sellers for PS3 (namely Gran Tourismo, GTA & FFXIII) we will see PS3’s fly of the shelves and Blu-ray disc sales go ahead even further.
HD DVD love to shout this stat high and clear, because it the only stat that favours them, yet it is the most flawed.
But really, who cares, By the time this war is decided, you’ll be able to pic up either format player for under $200, probably cheaper! so whoever wins, its hardly gona stretch your purse, especially if you have the money to buy a HD TV & system.
So why not just sit back, buy either games console (xbox with add on) or both, and enjoy everything, instead of wasting money on a stand alone DVD player that are at present 1st & 2nd generation rubbish, that are full of flaws, flaws highlighted mostly by Blu-ray ( as there earlier systems are having serious difficulty plaing newer discs!!)
Then again, theres always the newest format which is even cheaper…………..what next?
will this war be over before Ultra High Definition Video hits the streets - in all honestly I dont think it will, there will be to many PS3’s in the world to scrap blu-ray + the fact that europe and asia have adopted it pretty much outright - and maybe USa will be pedominantly HD DVD!
One of the big wgs did comment that there may be a format split covering the world.
Me, I’m in the Blu-ray camp, as a PS3 owner I really dont see what all the fuss is about, why on earth would you buy a standalone player, when you can have a muti media centre for less of a cost all in one.
HD DVD can have their little stat back, forgetting that blu-ray stand alone units have been outselling them for the past couple of months let alone PS3’s
HD DVD camp fails! and if you sniff hard enough, you may catch there chief execs sweating under the pressure as they realise, they have wasted billions.
20. Andrew replies at 12th October 2007, 3:15 am :
Then how do you explain why I saw a copy of Mission Impossible III and Disturbia on Blu-ray?
21. AjaxLou replies at 12th October 2007, 3:43 am :
Once you go High Def you can never go back.
I have a HD DVD player and watching movies in High Def is amazing. Its like a layer of gauze has been removed from the picture. If that’s good enough for you, so be it.
Me, I’m loving the HD world.
22. Michael replies at 12th October 2007, 4:21 am :
@Andrew - Those movies went into BluRay development before Paramount made their announcement about going exclusive HD DVD.
23. Jamie replies at 12th October 2007, 6:49 am :
Nice spin they got there they failed to even mention ps3. I own one and have like 15 movies for it. Not to mention they also failed to say how software is doing which we all know is what will push sales and blu-ray outsells hd-dvd 2-1 according to nielson videoscan. and heres a newsflash standalone hd-dvd players have always outsold standalone blu-ray players…….this isnt news.
24. dark_venom replies at 12th October 2007, 7:52 am :
i am good with my ps3 to play blu ray movies
25. Darren J Seeley replies at 12th October 2007, 7:55 am :
I’m one of those who is quite happy with normal DVD. I might get a new player in the future, but it will be another DVD player.
If I had to choose between HDDVD and Blu-Ray, I’d go HDDVD….for one reason. The HDDVD players will also play standard DVDs, BluRay does not and that’s why HDDVD will be the one left standing between them and Blu-Ray.
It all comes down to the consumer and the price point. The majority of us just tossed out our VHS and/or laserdisc collection (or keeping a few as collector items, especially if they were a box set) as we upgraded. Now we have to chuck our superior DVD collection…for Blu Ray when HDDVD says we don’t really have to if we don’t want to we could just “buy” HDDVDs from now on?
@Jamie:
There’s a darn good reason why films released on PS3 isn’t mentioned. It’s a dead format, for the most part.
*No extras -none;
*All “Widescreens” aren’t really that (the aspect ratio of the films is brought down to 1:78 when the films were shot at a different aspect ratio;
*The price was slightly higher than the film on DVD.
* Some studios have either stopped or limited thier films from PS3 releases a year and a half ago because they were losing money.
26. Jamie replies at 12th October 2007, 8:31 am :
Nearly all if not all blu-ray players play dvd’s including the ps3 they also upscale them to 1080p. As far as releasing titles on blu-ray there are more titles on blu-ray right now than hd-dvd and thats not gonna change even with paramount gone there is still more studio support for blu-ray. According to ammazon there are 476 blu-ray titles for order or pre-order and 383 for hd-dvd. and as far as cost many titles on hd-dvd are combo discs and they cost more than blu-ray discs.
27. Jamie replies at 12th October 2007, 8:57 am :
I just re-read your post darren, i think your thinking of umd thats for the psp, the ps3 is a blu-ray player.
28. Jay E replies at 12th October 2007, 11:13 am :
I can’t believe how this spin is getting promoted everywhere when really nothing has changed. This announcement is so minute (and very misleading), why is it news?
All year Blu-ray discs has been outselling HD-DVD 2:1.
Blu-ray players (total) have been outselling HD-DVD 6:1 (that includes the PS3 and 360 add-on)
HD-DVD Stand-alone players have outsold stand-alone Blu-ray players by a small margin
Recently Blu-ray stand-alones started outselling HD-DVD stand-alones. Last week HD-DVD stand-alones started outselling them again. That’s what this announcement is.
So even though Blu-ray has 6 million players out there and HD-DVD has 1 million (including the game systems), and Blu-ray is outselling HD-DVD discs 2:1, HD-DVD puts out a notice saying it’s stand-alones are finally outselling the Blu-ray stand-alones and suddenly everyone thinks HD-DVD is winning…
29. vargas replies at 12th October 2007, 12:48 pm :
It’s still too early to tell. It’ll probably be about two to three years before we know who wins. Really.