European Blu-ray Chairman calls HD DVD Group's actions "unbelievable"
By Donald Melanson 
posted November 13th 2007 1:39PM
posted November 13th 2007 1:39PM
While it's not exactly a surprise that the Blu-ray folks are getting in yet another tussle with their counterparts in the HD DVD camp, the latest comments by the Blu-Ray Disc Association's European Chariman Frank Simonis do up the ante quite a bit, with some alleged misrepresentation of data on the HD DVD Group's part drawing most of his ire. More specifically, according to Tech.co.uk, Simonis is upset at the significantly higher "attach rate" that the European HD DVD Group recently touted, which Simonis now says was a "gross misrepresentation of data." Simonis goes on to claim that the HD DVD Group "manipulated" the data, adding that, "you can see this because they did not even supply access to the original source of their numbers." As if that wasn't enough, he then further slams the HD DVD folks by saying, "Honest to God, the Blu-ray Disc Association would never do this. We've seen so much rubbish come from the HD DVD Group it's unbelievable."[Thanks, Micheal]
Hypocrisy at its finest...
Really now? When has the BR camp spun its numbers?
First, BDA is whining about how HD-DVD didn't release the source of its number. Last time I checked, neither had BDA. On top of that, you have BDA counting units sold to distributors, not to end users, when it helps their case. There is their BOGOs (giving away BDs) to buy wins for weeks, skewing the Neilsen results.
The one that is the most pathetic, they have been pro-claiming BD the victor and HD-DVD the loser even before they had their unfinished spec released to the public.
I am not saying HD-DVD is perfect or has not done the same. I am merely pointing out that BDA has not right to claim foul when they were the one to throw the first stones.
Eh... all this HD/BR DVD hoopla is for naught, in a few years we'll have holographic DVDs (HG-DVD - trademarked) on the market with couple of hundred of Gigs per disc and players/recorders in the current BRDVD range (which is yeah expensive, but we're talking 1st generation here).
Call me Nostradamus ;)
Oy! Predicting the future is MY job! I said so in an earlier post!
But the HG-DVD is a lovely concept. Such a dense format could store an entire season of an HD show on a single disc. I'm loving it. I would love to see it come to fruition (yes! I got to use my handle in my post) and thoroughly trounce both BD and HD-DVD, even though I really like Blu-ray.
"supply access to the original source of their numbers"
I've never seen either of these guys supply original data. I'm sure that their data costs millions to get an analyze, and for them to publish that gratis would be almost crazy. I'd love to see some raw number from either side to draw my own conclusions from. With any set of data you can draw a conclusion to support your case. Its all a matter of using the right analysis. Both sides are doing the same thing, and consumers are stuck in the middle wondering why. I just got an hd-a3 recently, and although its nice to finally watch hdm, i feel bad only being able to watch half of the hdm available. Also, the hd-a3 doesn't support nearly as many formats cheap dvd players, so its a move backwards in many ways
I don't understand how they can say that HDDVD lied about numbers and talked about not citing their resources, and then they go ahead and make a claim without citing their resources. If HDDVD really did lie (maybe they did who knows?) then the BD group should show the numbers where they did. Instead they just are acting like a child.
i have both and while im partial 2 bluray because the hd player is slow starting but pic wise they both right there. i can see the attach rate being higher for hd because u have to actually go out and buy one and u dont have the luxury of having one built into your video game console. i guess im the minority though because i buy tons of bluray movies and only the movies that hd has exclusive over bluray
Hey everyone! You can vote more than once! May the best spammer win!
;)
C-E-Oh no he didn't?
I want to set up a HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Engineer fight.
The movie will be released on both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray...and DVD, of course. With a game coming soon, called "HiDef Wars".
We are currently in negotiations with various member companies on what should be a stand-out and totally unique, fun and thrilling experience for expected release in Q2, 2008.
The contestants will perform physical challenges, battle-of-the-brains, cooking (Iron Chef style) humour and wit tests. There will also be a bonus feature asking the engineers what they REALLY think of the other format, tech-wise. They will also be grilled on "in an ideal world, I'd like to watch movies on..." type questions.
Look for it for worldwide release on Blu-Ray, HD-DVD" and DVD in 2008 (wherever good HD-DVD, Blu-Ray and DVD are sold).
If you are going to pick one at this point, I'd suggest HD-DVD. It provides more featurs (in-movie experience). It's cheaper. And it allows you legally rip a copy of the movie. You'll have that digital copy much longer than you'll have your physical format anyways, and we can all agree that digital distribution will be the final winner of this and all format wars.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Even if HD-DVD fails, you'll still have your digital copy which means you win.
Since when has anyone had only DVD player in their house? I have 3 that I know of there prices were $139.00, $70.00 and $20.00. Just get a BR and an HD-DVD player that way you will have both. If you wait till next year I am sure this will be very feasible.
If you ask me, what HD-DVD pushers are doing is brilliant. Deceptive? Most likely. Slightly immoral? Possibly. But the fact of the matter is they're making the preemptive strike in this case in the "company image war" and people believe those numbers at least initially, even if Blu-Ray goes and then cries foul.
My gut instinct when reading things like this and what I assume to be is that of many of my fellow consumers, is that Blu-Ray is making desperate rebuttals to HD-DVD. Even if those rebuttals are valid, their denial still seems weaker than the initial statement and first impressions ever will.
In other words, the format war is determined by who buys what, and in this age of iPods and Crocs a lot of the decision making process involved in buying is determined by what everyone else is buying or at least by what a consumer perceives everyone else is buying.
I can't shake the feeling that even if what Blu-Ray says is true, and HD-DVD says is false, that more people are buying HD-DVD products, and more people will think more people are buying HD-DVD products.
I'm trying to understand. Is your explanation of peoples perception just in the press-release arena?
Out in the retail world, Blu-Ray is selling twice as much software in the US as HD DVD, and outselling HD DVD with even larger margins in other countries, I would think peoples perception would be, as you've said that Blu-Ray is 'what everyone else is buying".
I would think that the average person's perception of the market would be limited to the press release arena, yes. Unless a person is particularly interested in the topic or has actually researched the market well, then I would say the only factors they will be considering in buying a product are the features of the product and what they think everyone else is getting.
This joker was just asking for trouble when he decided that the best counter to the data was to pretend to be a victim of some sort of fraud. Basically what he is saying is that it's not fair to count the PS3 as a Bluray player when discussing media sales. I probably don't have to be the one to tell him that he can't have it both ways. It's a movie player or it isn't. He can't adjust the preference to fit two different criteria.
Thats exactly the problem. The HD DVD promotions group counts the PS3 as a Blu-Ray player when discussing attach rates, but does not count it when talking about hardware sales. They conveniently slide it's definition in and out of being or not being a Blu-Ray player depending on what they're referring to.
Yes because BD would never do anything as underhanded as doing a BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) offer on Blu-Ray films the week a big movie is released on HD-DVD. Then count both the purhsed disc and the free one as part of your sales figures and show how you are outselling HD-DVD.
I believe, aside from the fact that Blu-Ray IS consistently outselling HD DVD in software, the BOGO sale during Transformers was a legitimately planned counter-strike to the release of that title on HD-DVD. Fudging the numbers, as is the whole point of this article, is not the same as a sales counter-strike.
Counting each sale in a bogof promotion as 2 sales is fudging the figures.
I must've missed that part. Aside from Nielson/VideoScan numbers, I didn't see any press release or big to-do from BDA about that week. I saw plenty of independent articles about it, but none from BDA trying to fudge numbers.
I'll have to go look for that I guess.
Pot...kettle....black....Can't stand the fire fight which you started the flame?
Oh, for God's sake, Simonis.
Quit your whining, Blu Boy.
Sony has proven it's still as out of touch as it was during the Beta, SuperBeta and Hi8. You and the rest of the Blu market haven't matched prices or selections. Closed architecture, onerous DRM, etc.
It's not about specs any more. It's about perceived value for the money, or the "VHS Effect." You're losing ground.
Even though Blu-ray is clearly leading right now, I actually see HD-DVD winning in the end. Hear me out on this (i'm actually being objective)...
So I think to explain the current numbers, you have to look at who is buying what. Right now, HD-DVD is winning when it comes to stand alone players, but when you factor in PS3's Blu-ray is winning by miles, which is of course why they're selling more disks. Where I think Blu-ray is going to fall down is when general consumers enter the fray.
General consumers (and by that I mean average people who aren't early adopters and who aren't tech savvy (like say, your mom)), make up the vast, vast majority of people who own DVD players today. When those people migrate to HD formats, they aren't going to buy a Playstation 3 for Blu-ray. If anything the Playstation brand and console styling will be a turn off for them, so they're going to go for a standalone player. I refer back to my earlier comment that on standalone players, HD-DVD is winning, so it makes sense that that trend would continue. I also think it's understandable why HD-DVD would succeed with casual consumers: to the layman the brand name is easier to understand, and the players are a lot cheaper.
Of course we'll have to wait and see; clearly either party could swing it with good marketing getting their brand out there.
We also need to consider a few other factors. While HD DVD stand-alones are indeed outselling Blu-Ray stand-alones, it is not by a huge margin, and I believe for a brief period that sales lead shifted to Blu-Ray this summer.
Also, prices of Blu-Ray players will drop at a natural pace as all new technology does.
The last thing to consider is brand loyalty. With Panasonic, Denon, Samsung, LG, Sony, Daewoo, Pioneer, Philips and Sharp making Blu-Ray hardware, there are a lot of people who will be able to stick to their favored brand. I think perception of so many choices alone helps there too.
With HD DVD, at the time being you have Toshiba. Now, while I am a Blu-Ray supporter now, If I ever wanted to consider HD DVD, I only have Toshiba, who's products I have never liked, long before this whole format war.
UHD or Ultra HD is already being developed. Supposedly the image is so life-like that it makes you nauseous. I guess it will only work if the screen was the size of your entire wall in your house.
Ok somehow prove to me that HD-DVD is a more open format and not proprietary to Toshiba backed ventures.
Prove that Toshiba doesn't get licensing rights for HD-DVD more than any other company.
Prove that Toshiba wasn't behind the development of HD-DVD.
Oh and prove that there is more than one brand of HD-DVD player on a shelf at Best Buy or Circuit City.
Oh wait you can't, so how is HD-DVD not exactly the same as BluRay in all the forcefull, arrogant, and anti consumer ways that HD-DVD fans point to BluRay as being.
But BluRay has more companies behind it, more general adoption, and a greater variety of hardware. Isn't HD-DVD the evil proprietary format. Somehow by all logic it is. But how can Toshiba be a more evil company than Sony, they just can't be. Sony breeds devil worshippers and is trying to bring about the birth of the antichrist by trying to establish a format it helped create.
If BluRay was as bad and Sony driven as people say there would only be Sony BD capable players and only VAIOs would have BluRay drives.
Oh yeah but all those facts are just FUD right? Sony hates consumers because it is unwilling to sell a player for way less than it cost to make.
By the way here is the way the $99 Wal-Mart sale worked. If Wal-Mart did pay $150 for each A-2 and sold it for $99 they in effect lost $50 on each sale. Here's the rub. Wal-Mart then issues a chargeback to Toshiba of $50 for each player sold. Wal-Mart will not stock any Toshiba items until the chargeback is paid or it will deduct the total from the next invoice. Say Wal-Mart bought $250,000 of Toshiba products and the loss from the A-2 sale to Wal-Mart was $250,000. Toshiba would say to Wal-Mart, "You owe us $250k". Wal-Mart says, "We took a loss of $250,000 selling your product because it wouldn't move at $199 so we owe you nothing." Toshiba really doesn't care because they moved 90,000 players and they write of the loss as an operating expense. That's the way Wal-Mart operates, any company that deals with them will tell you so, and what are you going to do they're Wal-Mart. They never sell a product and lose money, EVER.
Daedric,
you're missing the pont on 1080p vs. 1080i output. Both BD and HD-DVD have movies encoded at 1080p with 24 frames/second. Since TVs are generally 60 frames per second, some conversion needs to be done. The steps in both HD-DVD BD are 1080p/24->1080i/60->1080p/60. In a BD player and some HD-DVD players all three steps are done in the player. In some HD-DVD players, the output is 1080i/60 and the last step of the conversion is done in the TV. If you have a 1080p LCD or plasma monitor, there is absolutely no difference between a player that outputs at 1080i and one that outputs at 1080p. Your monitor cannot display 1080i content without making the last step fo the conversion. If you have an analog 1080p CRT, well, there may be a difference and that's a problem for all three people who have those.
IMHO Sony can ESAD!
I single handedly save the face of Bluray :P
10 pointer in position
20 select
30 click
40 backspace
50 click
60 goto 40
Who knows who's going to win at this point?
I guess this Christmas is going to be the important turning point.
"Honest to God, the Blu-ray Disc Association would never do this. We've seen so much rubbish come from the HD DVD Group it's unbelievable."
Give me a break. People in glass houses...
People have varying motives coupled with inaccuracies, and this guy needs to be reminded that he's a part of the BDA, not the Borg. Any number of people in the BDA, in fact, absolutely do what he claims they wouldn't. If we can see it, why can't he?
100,000+ units a week in possible Transformers & Bourne Blu-ray Disc sales LOST by Paramount and Universal.
Can anyone say, "Morons"!!!
LOL. I love it. How dumb is the guy from Paramount who inked that deal for HD-DVD exclusivity with Microsoft? Or how about the guy from Universal that decided to go HD-DVD.
Do they still have their jobs?
Universal & Paramount are in the same sinking ship.
The "Universal Blunder" has a nice ring to it.
Merry Christmas Paramount & Universal. No bonuses this year!
Let's see if you are dumb enough to miss the 2008 Holiday season as well. LOL.