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Yep, it's true... the first week after the announcement that Warner was going Blu-Ray exclusive saw a huge swing in sales, from ~65:35 to 85:15. This represents a change of roughly 2:1 to 5.6:1. This is the most one sided week of sales the format war has seen since before the launch of the PS3

Looking at the release schedule for both formats, it's hard to see HD DVD recovering this much lost ground. I for one have to wonder how much longer it will be before Universal and Paramount give in to consumer demand and start supporting Blu-Ray. Either way, I think it's obvious that the war is over now, and only the truest of die hard fans are continuing to buy into HD DVD (along with the completely uninformed and ignorant).

Here's a link to the article with the sales stats (at the bottom):
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/news/h ... e_ID=11894

As my signiture says, I of course attribute this win to Blu-Ray's significantly cooler name

Unfortunately I see the writing on the wall, and hear the fat lady singing. However, I still bought at a 4:4 ratio last week

Grain wrote:....... However, I still bought at a 4:4 ratio last week

Because of people like you, the war is dragging on !...

oslik3 wrote:

Grain wrote:....... However, I still bought at a 4:4 ratio last week

Because of people like you, the war is dragging on !...

I'm hoping there will be some more crazy sales before it all wraps up! If nothing else, the war forced both sides to lower prices faster than they would have if there had only been one format.

While I agree that this is a significant win and sales record for Blu-ray, one week doesn't say much. On the other hand, I do expect that this trend will continue.

With the release slate the way it is, plus looking at public perception, and the media pushing Blu-Ray as the winner, I expect this ratio to hold or increase between now and May.... and then in May it will deffinately increase for Blu-Ray.

Of course if Universal or Paramount starts supporting Blu-Ray also before May, then it will obviously increase much faster and sooner

dolphinius_rex wrote:Of course if Universal or Paramount starts supporting Blu-Ray also before May, then it will obviously increase much faster and sooner

Your grin makes me a little nauseous.

I bought 5 HD DVDs at Best Buy that week, by the way...all the while cursing Sony to hell on the way there.

dolphinius_rex wrote:With the release slate the way it is, plus looking at public perception, and the media pushing Blu-Ray as the winner, I expect this ratio to hold or increase between now and May.... and then in May it will deffinately increase for Blu-Ray.

Of course if Universal or Paramount starts supporting Blu-Ray also before May, then it will obviously increase much faster and sooner

I do think the HD DVD numbers will improve slightly over the next couple of weeks, before tanking for good.

This weeks numbers represent A LOT of returns from people still able to return players and unopened discs from Christmas once they heard the Warner news.

It also represents the data from before Toshiba's "ingenious" plan to lower prices (again), before some poeple realize they're dead in the water. I think we'll see a couple of weeks when Blu-ray "only" wins by 3:1 margins before it takes over completely.

Otherwise, though, I agree. Once May hits (and actually, I'm hearing mid-to-late February for another HD DVD supporter to jump ship), the Nielson data will become too embarassing for HD DVD to even continue releasing ratios.

JadedRaverLA wrote:This weeks numbers represent A LOT of returns from people still able to return players and unopened discs from Christmas once they heard the Warner news.

Good point. Ebay is full of guys dumping their HD DVD collections too. Seems damn stupid to me, sell off a collection for half it's original value, if your lucky, and then turn around and invest in another format, replace the collection again at full value, and end up with something that is of no higher quality. Excuses that it's in a "winning" format are weak, HD DVD hardware is going to be around for a long time. The smart folks aren't dumping anything, they're just protecting themselves by becoming dual format. I saw an auction on ebay earlier this week where a fella sold his Toshiba HD-XA2 and 72 HD DVD's for $1100! I was mighty tempted...

Grain wrote:Good point. Ebay is full of guys dumping their HD DVD collections too. Seems damn stupid to me, sell off a collection for half it's original value, if your lucky, and then turn around and invest in another format, replace the collection again at full value, and end up with something that is of no higher quality. Excuses that it's in a "winning" format are weak, HD DVD hardware is going to be around for a long time. The smart folks aren't dumping anything, they're just protecting themselves by becoming dual format. I saw an auction on ebay earlier this week where a fella sold his Toshiba HD-XA2 and 72 HD DVD's for $1100! I was mighty tempted...

It depnds on the studio I suppose. Warner titles on Blu-ray have been a direct copy of their HD DVD counterparts for some time, but Paramount was doing separate encodes... so the likelihood of their titles being "better" on Blu-ray is high. Universal has done a TERRIBLE job of doing their encodes... so hopefully someone will show then how to properly tranfer films once they release on Blu-ray. Personally, I feel that if you don't have a "substantial" investment in HD DVD, then you're better off selling while you can.

Toshiba price cut their product to the point of bringing in people who weren't early adopters. Those "typical customers" (or J6P) got screwed, and probably won't even realize it until stores like Best Buy stop stocking titles in the HD DVD format. Once that happens, you won't even be able to get half of what you paid for HD DVD players and titles. So... if you can, sell NOW. No reason think your HD DVD collection is going to go UP in value....

When Paramount was format neutral, there were many cases where their HD DVD was better than their BD, Shooter is just one example (DD+ soundtrack vs a standard DD on BD). If they once again become format neutral, I doubt they will remaster old BD releases. As for Universal, they have done a terrible job on SOME encodes, just like Sony(Talladega Nights), Starz(Halloween) & Fox(The Sentinel) have done with SOME BD's. Universal has also put out some reference quality HD DVD's, Hot Fuzz, Hulk & King Kong are just a few of them.
Your missing the point completely on why not to sell your HD DVD collection. You'll need to replace it with a BD collection, and that collection won't be any better. It won't be worse either, but the audio and video content won't be improved in a different format. The hundreds of releases to date have proven that all things being equal (audio and video codecs) there is no difference. If anything, Warner and Paramount released more titles with HD DVD getting better encodes and codecs than their BD counterparts. Why that is, who knows, stupid studios.

Those "typical customers" (or J6P) got screwed, and probably won't even realize it until stores like Best Buy stop stocking titles in the HD DVD format. Once that happens, you won't even be able to get half of what you paid for HD DVD players and titles. So... if you can, sell NOW. No reason think your HD DVD collection is going to go UP in value....

Guess what, our BD collections are depreciating in value too, and our BD hardware? That's almost worthless unless it's a PS3. I wouldn't pay $100 for a used BD player, thanks to the incomplete profile's. I'm not complaining about software going down in value, as long as it doesn't deteriorate and keeps playing, that's all I ask. As for hardware becoming redundant, I bitch about it, but I bought my hidef players knowing there was a war on, and that someone would lose. I also have a Pioneer Laserdisc player that I paid $900 for in 1990, it still works, and I still use it, although very rarely. I'll likely still be using my HD DVD player 17 years from now too.

Ian wrote:

That graph goes very nicely with your signature Ian

Blu-ray Releases

March 11, 2008

Appleseed Ex Machina (Warner)
August Rush (Warner)
Dan in Real Life (Walt Disney)
Dogma (Sony)
Gattaca (Sony)
Hitman (Fox)
I, Robot (Fox)
Independence Day (Fox)
No Country for Old Men (Walt Disney)
Saawariya (Sony)
Sleuth (2007) (Sony)

From Hi-Def Digest, a decent release date! I'll be grabbing No Country for Old Men, maybe Hitman, and will wait for a sale on Independence Day, Gattaca & I, Robot.

March 11th is going to be very expensive for a lot of people.... probably going to be a HUGE sales week for Blu-Ray

I'm waiting for Universal to open their catalog. Really disappointed in their release rate. Time to shite or get off the pot.

Q1 2007 saw a similar drought.

vinnie97 wrote:Q1 2007 saw a similar drought.

That's true.... I wonder why Universal is always so weak in the first quarter?

Spending too much time on their Oscar bids...

Grain wrote:Spending too much time on their Oscar bids...

Heh, quite possibly! Well in all fairness, I'm sure the Oscars are FAR more important then the HiDef war to most studios at this point.