Live coverage from BDA press conference
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Jan 8th 2007 6:29PM
posted Jan 8th 2007 6:29PM
Andy Parsons take the podium and kicks off the show.
He introduces a panel of BDA members, including representatives from Warner, Disney and many others.
BDA has a content advantage, he goes on to explain how much more content Blu-ray will have than HD DVD.
Only 4 of the top 20 DVDs last year are from the HD DVD camp. Almost all the top 20 movies are only available on Blu-ray.
Understanding and solutions believe Blu-ray will sell more discs.
BDA really launched in mass in Q4 which is why they haven't had a huge penetration into the market.
Blu-ray has 96% of the HD player market in Japan. "In terms of Japan, the game is already over there."
Every major CE company in the BDA is also a major provider of HDTV Displays.
5 of the 10 top CE companies have released a Blu-ray player to market.
There are many devices available today, but only 2 were available before Q4.
The PS3 Advantage.
Sony has shipped 1 million PS3 as of December 31, 2006.
Survey from 10k respondents, indicate that they plan to purchase Blu-ray movies to view on their PS3.
75% of the respondents plan to use their PS3 as a primary device for watching movies.
80% of 1 million equals an installed base of 800,000.
The same source estimates that PS3 will far outsell the XBOX360 HD DVD Drive.
Largest variety of movies.
Largest variety of hardware.
Only gaming console with built-in HD movie playback.
3:11pm PST - Mike Dunn with 20th Century fox takes the stage.
On Dec 20th Blu-ray media sales outpaced HD DVD disc sales.
Fox will continue to be aggressive with BDJ.
7-10 titles per month, most will be 50GB.
Will continue with day and date releases.
3:14pm PST - Steve Beeks from Lionsgate takes the stage.
First studio after Sony to launch the format.
The capacity and the CE support gives them confidence.
They will release 18 titles by the end of Feb.
The Decent was 50GB and is the first with PIP, and has BDJ.
They announce more titles than we can type, look forward for the press releases, when they are available.
3:17pm PST - Kelly Avery from Paramount takes the stage.
MI:3 one of the best selling BDA titles.
Flags of our Fathers and many more.
Will release many Library titles including Payback, the directors cut.
She like those before her go on and on about how they will support BDA.
3:20pm PST - David Bishop President of Sony Pictures takes the stage.
He makes a joke about the Blue Man group that doesn't go over very well.
BDA has seen a 700% increase in software sales since mind-Nov. with the launch of PS3 and additional Blu-ray devices.
Top 5 Selling titles to Date in order: Underworld Evolution, Talladega Nights, Fifth Element, Click , Ultraviolet.
Sony will target 90-100 titles for 2007.
Once again there were many movies including Casino Royal which will be AVC encoded. All the big releases from the middle of the year will be AVC.
Half of the Sony titles will be BD50, despite what HD DVD said.
3:24pm PST - Ron Sanders from Warner Brothers takes the stage.
33 titles last year and the best selling titles. They will arm wrestle with Paramount about the total of MI:3.
The Matrix as well as Oceans series and Harry Potter in 2007.
No dates yet, but Blood diamond and We are Marshal as well. Again all day and date with DVD.
Bob Chapek President of Disney.
Over 20 Blu-ray titles in the first half of 2007, many world wide.
Mic makes loud noise, everyone jumps! Bob says "I didn't realize the other side wanted to win that bad" Everyone laughs.
He goes on to cover the previously announced Blu-ray titles.
3:30pm PST - Andy opens the floor to Q&A.
What is the BDA response to all the dual support?
The BDA welcomes the 7th player into the market and they don't think it will effect the market at all.
When will the format war end?
If we had a crystal ball we wouldn't need to do press conferences like this. It is a matter of time before the fact that BDA is the winner is evident to everyone.
How will managed copy work?
We are still figuring it out it is part of the studios plans, but they don't know how yet.
Will the Studios change size if sales go for HD DVD?
That seems highly unlikely to us based on the sales figures we showed today. Holographic might be the future, but BDA is now.
3:46pm PST - A gentleman goes on about region codes, Andy makes jokes about how long the question was.
The region encoding is supposed to be as non-invasive as possible as well as optional. They are supposed to be properly labeled.
Thats it no more questions, conference is over.
Blu-Ray FTW!
to no surprise the blu-ray format will be a success. Just need to drop the price it costs to play them now.
"BDA really launched in mass in Q4 which is why they haven't had a huge penetration into the market."
Wasn't the PS3 supposed to solve this.
"There is a smell. It a smell like shit."
-Borat
"...700% increase in software sales since mind-Nov. with the launch of PS3 and additional Blu-ray devices."
Blu-ray must have really been in the gutter.
Funny, the Paramount person couldn't say anything about filling the 50GB discs cause they have to be under 30 for their HD-DVD side of releases. lol.
Exessive DRM FTW...
No.
Content won't win the war if no one has player at home. They are too expensive and titles are never going to make up for a $500+ price difference.
Funny, you could replace BRD with betamax and I'm sure press conferences now sounded the same then.
ummm....OK...so let me get this straigh Blue-Ray will win because the content providers will release more BlueRay discs in 2007 than HD-DVD, but they will be mostly old titles, if so, I probably own the good ones on DVD...
so to paraphrase, you want me to pay you again for content I already have licensed...got it
BTW...go to a nice warm place
I don't see why Blu-Ray is being hated on so much. It seems to me that it's because the players are a bit more expensive, even though HD DVD is just as good as Blu-Ray for video.
What's also important is that these high capacity disc formats will be used in a PC for data just like DVD is today, which is used on a daily basis.
Blu-Ray is very much ahead of HD DVD in terms of PC recorders. The first PC Blu-Ray burner came out about a year ago and now the recorders are at 4x speed, and support single and dual layer recordable and rewritable discs.
There is no HD DVD recorder yet released, and the only one announced is at 1x speed and doesn't support rewritables.
In regards to using Blu-Ray for PC data, well, maybe but consider the media cost alone is about $1.20 US / GB for Blu-Ray (based on Sony's list price of $60.00 US for 50GB RE disk), verses about half that for a hard drive (based on current price for a 300 GB disk drive), and that doesnt include the cost of the Blu-Ray recorder...Ill stick with hard disk backups for now..
Blu-ray, not Blue-ray
It seems like some mafia meeting, planning how to take down the other family...
Man, Blu-Ray came out strong this CES. As a current HD-DVD supporter I can't help but be underwhelmed by the HD-DVD anouncements. While I will still hold hope for HD-DVD's continued success, I will also start saving for a Blu-Ray Disk player soon.
Announcing a victory right now is a little far fetched though, HD-DVD software has been outselling BD's for a long time now....
I think they've been to too many of those self help seminars.
You know: "Say what you want and eventually it'll become a reality." type stuff.
They may very well win, but it sure as hell didn't happen last year, and it won't happen this year either. Until people can afford to buy the players and the discs, it's just not going to happen.
"David Bishop President of Sony Pictures takes the stage. He makes a joke about the Blue Man group that doesn't go over very well."
That seems to sum up Sony pretty well.
"Top 5 Selling titles to Date in order: Underworld Evolution, Talladega Nights, Fifth element, Click , Ultraviolet."
Fifth element? Ultraviolet????
Are they into Mila Jovovich, or simply want to sell all the crap they have?
This is a list of surveys (which may not be scientific), sales data (independently verified), and release schedules. How is any of this saying something until it becomes a reality? Looking at sales data before Nov. for how well HD DVD was doing doesn't work too well because there wasn't really a Blu-ray Disc market until then (when more players were released and software was intensified). BD closed the sales gap in one month, which is pretty impressive. Tweeter said they sold 600 Sony BD players in December, and 350 Toshiba players the same month. http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6404706.html
Lemming, Lemming, Lemming of the BDA.
It's a Man's Life in the British Dental Association.
(Sorry, I saw the headline and I couldn't help myself)
Why are so many CE companies supporting Blu-Ray when it's pretty clear that the PS3 will always undercut their own pricier players? Thoughts?
What they need is a solid ad campaign. Im in high school, and it seems that the general teenage population in my school only seems to know about technologies that have large ad campaigns. PS3 was announced years ago, yet nobody knew it was coming until the commercials started playing. Nobody knew about the newest line of ipods until they saw the ads. Unfortunatly, not everyone reads engadget, or knows whats going on in the tech world, but they do know what commercials are on ESPN and MTV.
Blu-Ray FTW!
2 of the 5 "top selling" Blu-ray movies were free pack ins. One with the Sony Blu-ray player and another with the Sony PS3.
Blu-ray as it stands is a failure. Does any of the current Blu-ray players besides the PS3 plays Lionsgate's The Descent?
Do not reward either format with a purchase. DRM needs to die in a fire.
BLURAY IS WINNER.
Thank you everyone, Japan loves BluRay and North America/Europe are next.
HD-DVD you can pack it up and hitchhike your ass back to missouri lol!!!!
And for all you xbox bitches....YOU LOSE, you lose again LOL!
Talking all this shit about Bluray and SUDDENLY you realize that BluRay is IN FACT going to rule..shame on you nerds...shame on you hahaha!
Heh, gotta love sarcasm... Blu-ray is 'going to rule'? Isn't it supposed to be ruling already? And why are there Blu-ray fanboys; surely nobody as dumb as that could afford the sort of home cinema equipment needed to use BD?