HD DVD casualty report: over 1m players, recorders, and drives lost to the format war
By Ryan Block 
posted February 19th 2008 4:03AM
posted February 19th 2008 4:03AM
At all curious to find out just how rare that HD DVD player of yours really is? Well, we hate to tell you, but it's probably not rare enough to fetch anything special on eBay in a couple of years -- but still every bit rare (read: discontinued) enough to justify taking up space in your home theater. The numbers, according to Nishida-san, at this morning's press conference:- Xbox 360 drives (worldwide) - 300k
- PCs with HD DVD (worldwide) - 300k
- US - 600k units
- Europe - 100k units
- Japan - 30,000 units
i just want to laugh in the face of those who said "beta-max" when blu-ray came about... HA!
24th actually (going by the time of the posts)
I guess you set a new standard for fail...
I feel disappointed that the format i picked didn't win, but at least I didn't drop lots of money on it.
$120 is all i spent on HD-DVD player and got 10 movies with it.
I think the numbers might be off unless you're counting PS3s. Also, it isn't a complete loss. HD-DVD can be copied.
Still, I'm glad I didn't invest too much in media. Although I would have preferred an HD-DVD win, I'm glad the war is over. Nevertheless, I won't be investing in a Blu-Ray player until I can get a stand-alone that does Profile 2.0 for $300 or under. Hopefully, I won't have too long to wait.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxGejqxN2WY
"Thanks, Toshiba and Sony!"
If you bought an HD-DVD player, you have yourself to blame. Not Toshiba or Sony.
Time to start watching the landfills in Utah (or was it Nevada).
If there are 10 million Bluray owners and there are 10 million PS3 sold then how many stand along BR players are sold?
As far as Sony would be concerned, that's a double victory - they get Blu-ray in the loungeroom, and when the people are bored of watching movies, they go out and get the games for it. Given PS3's proven software upgradability, that's win-win.
*3000 years in to the future*
Now class what you see before you is a fossilised 'HD Dee Vee Dee' as those hapless homosapiens were beleived to call it. The original scrolls have long been lost, but many scholars maintain that this beast was slain by 'Blu Ray'; what appears to have been some form of water dwelling creature whose primary source of nutrition consisted of plankton, shrimps and these Hd Dee Vee Dees.
I'm holding out for the *next-gen* discs.
These are still too fuzzy and grainy. LOL
Well it's great to see Blu-Ray win. In the end, no won wins with this format war. Definitely not the consumers. And, in the end, the studios are on their way to make the same mistakes the music industry did with CDs and downloadable music.
Actually, would anyone really want to spend their money on any Blu-Ray 1.0 or 1.1 players available today knowing they are not upward compatible, except maybe the PS3? With the 2.0 players planned for sometime this year, it really creates a gap between now-and-then.
Myself, I will happily continue to use the Toshiba XA2. Yes, I purchased the losing format, but will continue to use it, and its wonderful HQV Reon chip, to upconvert the endless available DVDs, while buying HD-DVDs at fire-sale prices.
Did anyone say downloadable HD content?
That's why I went with a home theatre PC. All my HD-DVD discs look great, and I can stock up on a lot more during the firesales, BR looks great, and all those 1080 x264 rips look great as well.
It's Win/Win/Win.
To me it was clear HD-DVD was dead about 6+ months ago, and yet I still bought a £99 player with 5 free HD-DVDs. Foolish early adopting? No. I'm enjoying those movies, I'm enjoying HD-DVD rentals and I will enjoy cheap HD-DVDs in the coming fire sale- there are already a number of titles on Play.com for a not unreasonable £15 with a 3-for-2 offer on. I've got a Blu-Ray player too, so it's win-win really.
£99 on an HD-DVD player is just a tiny fraction of what it cost me to early adopt a 1080p LCD in rip-off Britain.
So basically without PS3, Bluray players sold even less than HD-DVD. (Sony just announced PS3 sold 10.5 worldwide)
Thats why these kids are so vile about a movie player. They are making it a video game war and since the PS3 is clearly loosing in the US (now some kid will say but for one month the PS3 out sold MS) they are using this to cheer about.
I dont care about the console war since I have all 3 that are out right now. I have both BR and HDDVD as well but prefer HDDVD. I wish that in 2 years I would still be able to buy movies for it but it looks like I will not. I guess I will just enjoy my 80 + movies for now. In a decade when the machine dies (I have 2) there will be something new to replace it.
I'd be interested to see the numbers that announce this officially.
I don't recall ever seeing backers of a storage format just decide to throw it in the garbage and give up.
They weren't looking for a storage format primarily, but a worthy successor to the multibillion dollar movie home movie industry.
The creation of two formats was a result of a schism on decided on how to implement high definition video. One camp wanted to expanding existing technology, while the other wanted to implement newer technology. This happens; Windows/OSX/Linux, GSM/CDMA and there are more examples.
"Thanks Toshiba and Sony!"
And Sony? How it is Sony's fault that Toshiba continued to push their format when the tide was more and more heading in Blu-ray's favor? How is it Sony's fault that Toshiba continued to push HD-DVD when Blu-ray by far had more industry support?
Christ Ryan... it's fine that you guys are HD-DVD fanboys, but you really need to get off of the anti-Sony kick you're on.
Is anyone coming out with a combo HD-DVD, 8-Track, Betamax player?
Forgot reel to reel...
My combo LaserDisc/DVD player stopped reading DVDs though.. :(
Well, these are the final real numbers from Toshiba. Not some made up BS spit out by the red camp.
This shows just how badly HD-DVD was beaten. A full total of less than a million players and HD-DVD computer drives sold. Looking at these numbers there was no way that HD-DVD was ever going to win. The numbers may have been hidden from the public but industry insiders knew that sales were too slow to become a viable format. That is why the bottom dropped out so fast.
For all the posturing and promoting by rabid HD-DVD fans the format couldn't move 1/10th the number of BluRay hardware. HD-DVD was all but dead in Japan and on life support in Europe, 30k in Toshiba's home market. Throughout this format war people were told that HD-DVD was the superior format that would sell massive numbers. We were told that HD-DVD had already moved millions of low cost players. In the end it was all just PR spin, a rosy coat of gloss paint covering a turd. While BluRay was advancing and HD-DVD was faltering Toshiba kept up the positive spin and its supporters ran with it. Supporters of the format chose to see rapid price drops and massive player subsidies by Toshiba as a good thing.
When you looked at the facts from the beggining it was clear that BluRay would win, Toshiba never really stood a chance. Without Microsoft HD-DVD would have been dead out the door but they gave the format enough life to cause this latest format war and share most of the blame for it.
What we can learn from this format war:
1) Lining up key manufacturing support and multiple partners means a lot more than going in it alone.
2) Lining up key aliances with a majority of studios will ensure the viability of your product.
3) Price is not the determining factor, profitability is.
4) Early adopters usually do not sway the direction of mass adoption.
5) Marketing means more than technology to the average consumer
And I still don't care. DVDs look fine on my 2001 Sony TV; which set me back over $2200 for a 42" 1080i display. I'm watching broadcast HDTV through my mythTV box and HDHomeRun -- and yes, the pic is sharper than a DVD, but when you're 10ft away from the screen, it doesn't really matter.
I can also archive DVD movies on DVD+Rs, or even on XVid (0.7GB/hr) or h.264 (0.5GB/hr).
I've seen BD first-hand, on a very nice TV set. I still fail to see how a small increase in detail and resolution is worth all that extra money and 5x the storage space.
Ask me again in five years, when BD players are $40 at walmart, burners cost $80, and BD blanks are less than $0.50. Until then... pfffft.
This could have already been stated but, It really did not matter who won this war. blue ray will end up stopping production as well in a few years when they see there is no demand for this technology other then backing up your hard drives. With the XBOX 360 media download (HIGH DEF AS WELL) and NetFlix (HIGH DEF AS WELL), and other down loadable content, there is no need for a disc. Anyone who has 360 is able to download any movie or television show they want. It has replaced my dvd and cable. This is the direction we need to move. Forget about having useless piles of discs in your house. VHS, DVD, HDDVD, BLUE RAY, I mean really? Everything to a hard drive. We are now at Terr bytes lets use it up.
I have both formats. I have about 20 movies on hd-dvd and maybe 6 on Blu-Ray. Since this pointless format war is over i wont be buy any more Blu-Ray's until they start selling them for cheaper..like $20 per movie.
I will however scoop up plenty of HD-DVD's on clearance.
Okay, so I have a high definition disk player (HD DVD) and a bunch of movies. I'm going to be able to get more movies dirt-cheap now that the format is "dead". I'll be able to watch all of these moves for many years before the player dies. Certainly it will last long enough for Blu-ray players to become reasonably priced, despite Sony, who will probably try to hold the price high.
I only paid $100 for the player. It seems to me that wasn't a waste of money.
I don't know what I am more sick of hearing. Blu-ray fanboys cheering because they "won", or people telling me I wasted my money on HD DVD and my player is now worthless.
For all the fanboys who sit there and tout how BR won the war with technology, be honest. Sony bought the victory, the technology didn't. The minute both sides started throwing money around for exclusivity, the format wars were a fiscal decision based on who had deeper pockets and the only ones who made out were the studios.
Once again, when consumers have a choice, they do not choose MS - add this to the heap of webtv, msn, talking barney's, watches, & the xbox ... of course, MS has the silent shareholders willing to keep quiet as MS loses $2 to $6 billion a year on Box unlike the more responsible Toshiba ... next on the death watch list - the Xbox after Ms squanders all its bankroll and goes into debt to buy Yahoo (another death watch there if MS "wins" Yahoo)
Sweet, now RIAA/MPAA can eat our souls:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/21/dmca_exemptions_controversy/
now once I can get a $150 stand-alone Blu-Ray 2.0 player and the old movies go for about $10 I will think about getting one...
...and for the person that commented that the PS3 has BlueTooth and doesn't need IR- find me a universal remote that supports BlueTooth!
I love how people try and compare the sales of BD and HDDVD and include the PS3 in those numbers. That isn't truly a factual count if you do. Every person who bought an HDDVD player did so solely to watch movies. Folks that bought a PS3 bought a gaming machine which happens to also play BD movies. If you do a comparison of folks that bought BD standalones vs all HDDVD players (standalones and 360 addon), the numbers will look VERY different.
Also cracks me up that people are whooping it up that PS3 sales beat 360 for one month. Well yea, at this point, just about everybody already has a 360. Of course eventually PS3 sales are going to beat it. Duh!
Ehh. It's their own fault.
If you bought any of these devices before the war is over it is basically your own fault. Normal people didn't buy these things. Geeks did. And they knew.