Sony feels good about Blu-ray's future
By Matt Burns 
posted Apr 20th 2007 8:26AM
posted Apr 20th 2007 8:26AM
Some may question Blu-ray's future but not Sony. So much so that their Sony Digital Audio Disc Corp group is investing $75.8 million into their Terre Haute, IN manufacturing plant. Sony DADC has plans to retool this plant for Blu-ray disc production. Who knew that this format war was so healthy for the American worker but this plant employs 1,223 jobs and this expansion must be good for some type of pay increase. Sony must feel good about Blu-ray's future if they were going to drop that type of cash into the format - good thing Blu-ray has some dedicated fanboys.
No they don`t!! they are desperate and have nothing else. walmart hd dvd players will destroy the already troubled blu ray-- oh wait, sony is going to make the fatal blow to toshiba yet, theyll lower the price of the pos3 to 299.00? yeah right!
spoken like a true fanboy
GO WALLY!!
oops..someone forgot to let them know about the Wally deal. Triple oops..
You guys don't know how to translate. That article was for 300$ blu ray players.
It has been confirmed these are HD-DVD players coming to Walmart.
This news coupled with PS3's collecting dust in warehouses across the country; Blu-Ray is over.
This means nothing. Companies invest money into manufacturering or R&D all the time. It doesn't mean things are rosey, nor is it a guarantee of success.
Nokia invested a TON of money into their failed N-Gage product.
But if you want a more specific example, Sony was all gung ho about the UMD format several months after release, and increased production.
So, you never can tell.
They're simply investing in their business, with a hope the investment pays off.
where exactly is the evidence pointing to the supposed fact that blu-ray is over or dead? the sales figure for individual discs claims otherwise with the numbers going up for blu-ray at a faster rate than the gradual drop of hd-dvd sales. those cheap players don't come out till next year.
n.p. (AKA Dummy),
1.) 75% of all Blu-Ray players on Earth are PS3's which is why the sales figures for discs are skewed.
A lot of those sales are coming from PS3 owners who are just testing out Blu-Ray.
And as I just said before, those same PS3's (which are skewing things) are failing and collecting dust on store shelves. There is your first nail in the Blu-Ray coffin.
2.) HD-DVD is owning Blu-Ray in actual stand alone player sales(not counting PS3's). Go check the Amazon sales charts to see how well Blu-Ray players are selling. They are failing.
3.) HD-DVD is cheaper and has better picture quality due to the use of the VC-1 codec. Blu-Ray is still using the old MPEG-2 codec for their movies. It is well known that VC-1 owns MPEG-2.
Hmmm....HD-DVD is cheaper and has a better quality picture. I wonder which one will take off once the mass market starts buying these HD players, rather than just PS3 owners, Xbox owners, or videophiles? The answer is HD-DVD obviously.
4.) Walmart (as I mentioned before). They will offer cheap HD-DVD players, not in 2008, but in in Q4 2007. So let's see, just in time for Christmas, HD-DVD stand alone players will be selling from between $199 to $299 (depending on what Walmart decides to do) while the cheapest Blu-Ray player will still be the PS3 at $599 (the $499 PS3 is being discontinued). HELLO!!! Is anything sinking in yet?
Also, Walmart controls 40% of all the DVD player sales across the country as it is, so what is going to happen when they basically back HD-DVD with their cheap player?
Think about it.
If you can't think, here is the answer. The studios who don't back HD-DVD now will all of a sudden back it, just like they did when VHS got more popular then Beta. As you know Beta had the studio support early on back then. What happened?
5.) HD-DVD is already the hands down favorite in the European market.
6.) The porn industry is being forced to use HD-DVD due to Blu-Ray not allowing porn makers licenses to use their technology.
Everything I just said is fact. These facts add up to the sure death of Blu-Ray.
Go check out the forums at the most popular audio/video forums on Earth, www.avsforums.com , and listen to what people who know way more than you or I have to say. They say HD-DVD will be the clear winner by early 2008.
Anything else?
Unless HD DVD DISC sales, not player sales(Which don't include PS3s), increases, HD DVD is doomed. Any Studios exec looking at the sales numbers can see it just as easily as we can, Blu-ray sells more discs.
||Blu-ray Disc enjoys the support of five of the six major studios, while HD DVD is supported by three of them. Three studios -- Sony, Disney and Fox -- are exclusively in the Blu-ray camp, as is mini-major Lionsgate. Paramount and Warner support both formats. Universal is the only major studio to release titles only in the HD DVD format.||
Resource Supply, which represents the largest variable in this war, tells anyone who Objectively views this who is going to win.
@ Mr_Fizzlepop
Thanks for telling us stats that we already know. Blu-Ray is the one doomed, though.
Here is what you left out. Blu-Ray has sold more discs than HD-DVD. We know this. They have sold 1 million and HD-DVD has sold 998,000.
So Blu-Ray has sold 2000 more discs, BUT has 20 times more players on the market. Again, only 2000 more discs sold, BUT 20 TIMES MORE PLAYERS ON THE MARKET. It looks like PS3 owners aren't watching as much Blu-Ray as Sony had hoped.
It is safe to say the studios that don't support HD-DVD see these dreadful attach rates for Blu-Ray, and will soon offer HD-DVD.
It is funny to watch a failing format like Blu-Ray trying to spin things to make it look like they are winning. It is laughable. I suppose it is all they can do, since their days are numbered.
First of all, keep in mind, I am NOT commenting on which format is the Better one.
The reality is, one of the Blu-ray players is also bought as a Game console, and some of those customers are really spending their money on 40+ dollar games, not 20+ dollar movies.
So knowing the exact breakdown of Blu-ray players, Those PS3s bought strictly as a BD player and those bought strictly as a Game console, is unknown, and trying to lock down a hard and fast number of the Blu-ray players that are out there with customers that will be buying a semi-steady amount of movies is kind of a soft number.
The numbers that aren't so soft though, and the ONLY numbers that matter to the Studios that produce and make profit from Disc movie sales are that Blu-ray discs are selling through at a Much higher rate than HD DVD discs, even thought there was a 2 month lag in the release of players for Blu-ray.
The reason I post Stats people already know is that they seem to dismiss these facts and make conjecture on what they FEEL MIGHT happen based on emotion and NO facts at all, and I guess I'm hoping that seeing the facts again might make it finally sink in.
If I produce Part type A, and Part type A sells better, what is my incentive to switch to making part type B when the current profit on Sales is shown to be less, and I also know that if part type B loses to the format war, I'll undoubtedly sell lots and lots more of Part type A?
The answer is simple; NONE.
No blu-ray only Studio will be switching over to the format that has less sell through and inhibits their current sell through and price points by lingering in the market; it's just a bad business move, and these companies are run by business people.
In summary, only if HD DVD disc sales increase beyond blu-ray disc sales will there be a business incentive for companies to consider going neutral or locking out blu-ray, and with there being more studios currently locking out HD DVD, as well as those studios being the biggest Studios with releases this year like the spiderman trilogy and the Pirates trilogy, the likelihood of HD DVD discs sales overtaking Blu-ray disc sales is grim at best.
That is the reality as it is now, and only someone basing their views on emotion and not market facts would come to the conclusion that HD DVD will win the format war.