European HD DVD lobbyists claim '74-percent' market share
By Darren Murph 
posted July 12th 2007 5:51PM
posted July 12th 2007 5:51PM
posted July 12th 2007 5:51PM
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"For the record, HD-DVD is an inferior format and everyone knows it. (even if you only consider total storage capacity)"
You mean 'ONLY if you consider total capacity'
HD-DVD has many more advantages over BD.
No BD+ encryption.
Backwards compatibility discs (yes they play at regular res in old dvd players).
Cheaper hardware is huge.
The Plastic coating is thicker, resisting scratches better.
The Visual/Aural definition on both formats is dictated ENTIRELY by encoding methods and the choice of codec used (which are the same choices on both); properly encoded movies in 1080p/7.1 are around the 8-10gb size using mpeg2. This size can drop and quality increase for VC-1 encodes. Special features hardly need to be several hours of 7.1 in full res. You know the movie companies won't bother putting effort into having the special features look as good as the feature because they don't have to. Why pay so much extra to get the format with lots of unused empty space on the discs?
So HDDVD, having a worse marketing name... plays with the same quality; in more players, cheaper, and likely to last longer. Do some research, you sound like you worked for alliwantforxmasisapsp.com
Seems to me you're the one that needs to do some research.
1) HDDVD's Volume identifier is equivalent to BD+
2) Backward compatibility isn't free, you'll pay for it whether you want it or not
3) Thicker plastic is of little protection. A scratch deep enough to get to the first layer of Blu-ray will still render your HDDVD useless since laser won't be able to read through it. Thicker plastic doesn't resist scratches, hard coating like Durabis does.
4) Hardware wise, HDDVD players that support 1080p output will be cheaper by around $100 than their Blu-ray counterparts. An advantage, but hardly a big one considering that it's a one time investment.
You mentioned encryption, no doubt to point out the ease of "backing up" HDDVD's. Well here’s something to think about - since most movies come on dual-layer HDDVD and single-layer Bly-rays it will cost you double to create a copy of HDDVD vs. Blu-ray in 99% of the cases.
You neglected to mention Toshiba has increased the HD DVD capacity to over 45g rendering this capacity argument moot. I'm pretty neutral regarding the formats but if I had to predict I would give the edge to the HD format.
Mentalsticks -- It's certainly true that all buyers of standalone players bought them to view movies, while some PS3 buyers might only be buying them for games and will never watch a single Blu-ray movie. However, it's pretty hard to argue that this even comes close to making up for the huge difference in numbers. Let's say that only 10% of PS3 owners use their machines heavily for movies. (I think that's a very low estimate, but just for the sake of argument, we'll use that.) Given the numbers I quoted above, that would still give Blu-ray more than 10 times the installed base in Europe. Plus, even the people who don't watch movies on their PS3s now might start once more popular movies are available. You simply can't ignore the PS3's effect in this.
> mentalsticks
bluray is the only reason i use my ps3, its not as if there are any games (beside motorstorm) that make it worth while (imho)
i did try to get on the hddvd bandwagon, preordered the xbox drive when it was first announced waited for release, a couple of discs turned up, cancelled my order in march(iirc) when the distributor said they had no idea when they were getting the drives, luckily they also refunded the money for the discs as well
if they had got the players and discs on the shelves quickly it could have been a whole different story
The reason Microsoft didn't put HD-DVD in the XBOX 360 is because they will corner the market on movie sales through digital distribution.
Who wants to buy the disc when you can get it for MUCH less through your cable box or xbox 360? XBOX Live! users have spent 125 million on movie downloads. That's an average of nearly $20 per person. There is a new Live! member every 8 seconds. People are voting with their wallets. (Alright, I'll give Peter Moore a rest)
Does the PS3 even have HD movie downloads?
I'll be damned if I end up buying another beta-max. Not happening. I'm waiting.
Do people think that 80% of the movie companies are just going to support HD-DVD?? I mean, look at the facts, ONLY universal studios is backing hd-dvd, everyone else is backing blu-ray.
Some are backing both, but that isnt enought, you need many solid backers, not just one. Blu-ray has already won in Japan and Every other place where people realize they want to watch movies on their hardware isntead of just save $100.
Despite Blu Ray having more studio support, the lack of releases from Fox and Disney have made it a lot more even. Apart from POTC Disney has released nothing of note, and Fox has released pretty much nothing since AACS got cracked.
IMO most people knowledgeable about HD are buying their HD disks from the states, as happened with laserdiscs and dvd in the early days. When you can get discs for £14-18 delivered compared to £22-29 from places like Virgin or HMV it makes a whole lot of sense.
Well, there are a few important differences between this and "beta max". Media shape, for one. Beta and VHS wouldn't sit in each others drives, but HDDVD and BluRay will. Eventually, reliable (and affordable) dual players will emerge.
So really, your only real risk is whatever you spend on a player right now, which is why I didn't find it all that painful to get the HDDVD add on for the 360.
This is very funny.
I went to the games forum and the XBox 360 fanboys all declared that most of the people bought the PS3 just to use it as a cheap Hi-Def movie player.
I came here and see all the HD DVD fanboys declaring that most of the people bought the PS3 as a games only machine.
And to answer Leoedin, yes, PS3 is ALREADY the one major factor in driving up the BD adaption, whether you like it or not.
I think the PS3 Blu-Ray is an arguament used by PS3 fanboys to try and 'sell up ' the value of the £400 PS3 but that they themselves probably don't actua;;y buy any media.
What truly worries me and what has stopped me thus far buying a PS3 is that the DVD on the PS2 sucked the big one and so my fear is that the Blu-ray will be similarly crippled and be a second rate blu-ray experience when compared to a dedicated standalone blu-ray or HD player.
Furthermore ;
Will people who own a PS3 actually buy blu-ray media ?
The PS3 demographic is
60% 20 years or younger
30% 20-30 years old
10% over 30 years old
I don't think under 20 year olds buy a lot of 'media'....
Personally I think blu-ray has a bigger installed base because of the PS3 but I don't think that automatically means it will win - though I'd be perfectly fine about it if it did. I think over 30's are still way to burnt by the VHS/BETA fiasco to get behind this.
Let that be a warning to all - the public is slow to forgive and forget when they get screwed by big corporations!!!...
HAHA
You are in for a shock. The Blu-Ray capability are the best of any player (HD DVD or Blu-Ray), bar none. It's Blu-Ray performance and DVD upscaling has been given reference quality status by several AV magazines.
Please don't use the DVD playback capabilities of the PS2 as a comparision, as they are simply world apart.
Ever wonder why Engadget keeps sucking the HD-DVD cock? If anyone's biased, it would be Engadget in their reporting.
Most shops in the UK only sell Blu-ray. Blockbuster, HMV, Tesco and many more. They may sell HD-DVD online, but most people still buy their discs in a store. Also I bet the 360 add-on is classed as stand-alone, because it is seperate from the 360s case.
HD-DVD is dying a death in the UK. I went into Comet the other day, I couldn't find an HD-DVD player, but I found 3 different Blu-ray players and a PS3, they didn't even stock the HD-DVD 360 add-on, but that could just be the store I went to.
I am holding off buying a PS3 until the UK pricing is final, it isn't too dear, but if the price is going down in a few months, 80gb, I might as well wait.
Well I think they should include all 10 PS3s that have been sold in Britain.
Seriously though, I do not know anyone with either a PS3 or a standalone BR player but I do know people with a HD-DVD 360 Add-on and HD-DVD Standalone players. The biggest problem in Britain though is the price of the HD Displays, they are around twice the price of the ones in the US! Until they sort this out then Uptake will be slow. (unfortunately there was also a huge push by the electronics companies to get people to buy the last generation of non-highdef plasmas etc into which the High Def sets were then launched, end result is that loads of people bought new very expensive non-hd screens just before HD was released!).
Personally I will be going for HD-DVD as I have seen no difference in the picture quality for Blueray (not that impressed by anything HD apart from nature programs to be honest) and I also do not Want BD+ anywhere near my home!
@ Clix
Some nice points, but
"3) Thicker plastic is of little protection. A scratch deep enough to get to the first layer of Blu-ray will still render your HDDVD useless since laser won't be able to read through it. Thicker plastic doesn't resist scratches, hard coating like Durabis does."
What's beneficial about the thicker plastic is that it causes the laser to defocus more over the surface, and so it can read over larger scratches and particles... I think the same size scratch on a single layer BD is more likely to cause a read problem than an single layer HDDVD. Of course, this defocus is also how BDs store more data per "layer" (less defocus, more accurate at reading tightly crammed data on the other side of the plastic). This is part of why a 3-layer HDDVD still stores 5GB less than a 2-layer BD. The reason HDDVD camp used the thicker plastic was probably to save on initial manufacturing costs since it kept the basic disc construction the same as with DVDs.
The HD DVD Promotional Group discounts PS3 as part of the Blu-Ray market because it is not solely used for BD movies. That's a funny one! I have a funny one too; The HD DVD Promotional Group will be out of business in less than a year!
Let's go over the problems with HD DVD:
Problem #1. HD-DVD single layer Disc capacity is 15 gigs compared to Blu-ray's 25 gigs.
Problem #2. HD-DVD's maximum capacity per Disc is 30 gigs compared to the Blu-ray max of 200 gigs per disc.
Problem #3. Microsoft unofficially jumped ship after closer evaluation of the direction the format war was headed, basically leaving Toshiba & Universal to fend for themselves with the dying format.
Problem #4. The success of the HD-DVD format was basically left in the hands of Microsoft; a company that has accomplished nothing in the gaming industry except losing billions of dollars.
Problem #5. Horrible Marketing campaign. HORRIBLE!
I live in the Netherlands (Europe) and you can hardly find a hd-dvd player or disc in any store but even the toy stores here sell blu-ray discs.
Most people do not even know of hd-dvd they only just heard about blu-ray.
Got a ps3 mysellf only use it as a blu-ray player and so do most people here.
35 blu-ray discs and counting
Calm down PS3 Fans!!! Wow.. you're so angry because they didn't throw in PS3 as a stand alone player.. Because its NOT.. haha define it! Anyway it would only hurt the blue ray market by adding in the consoles, don't forget who's outselling PS3... oops thats xbox360 don't they have a HD-DVD player? But guess what guys its not a Stand Alone player.. Calm down and think about what you say folks