More analyst conjecture: format war will remain stalemated
By Darren Murph 
posted Dec 5th 2007 7:17PM
posted Dec 5th 2007 7:17PM
If there's one thing you can count on in the format war, it's conflicting evidence -- oh, and the occasional knife fight, too. Among all the reports of Blu-ray / HD DVD claiming victory, there's also a decent amount of folks who believe this whole mess is still deadlocked, and the latest musings from sister companies Screen Media Digest and Adams Media Research certainly support the latter. Put simply, the two firms feel that the "main factor eating into high-definition adoption is standard-definition DVD," and while we've already heard that DVD player sales were slipping, we've no doubt owners will continue to snap up DVDs for quite some time. According to Helen Davis Jayalath, senior analyst at Screen Digest, "both formats will be established and coexist for the foreseeable future," and she even suggested that HD software would be split 60% / 40% globally, with BD taking the edge. Feel free to hit the read link if you're intrigued, but don't be shocked if you see something completely contradictory hit the presses just hours from now.
Wow, they're really going out on a limb with this report.....
Slowly but surely they're all backing away from their initial claims Blu-ray were a cert for the win.
Sub $200 then $150 and soon enough $100 HD DVD players from China are going to render even these stalemate estimates wrong.
That and all the HD DVD studios moving to 'Twin' disc production (which will see movie disc prices fall).
Meanwhile the kids game console format will sell a few more game consoles and get some additional movie disc sales out of it.
Big deal.
HD DVD is closing in on the much larger adult a/v market.
Blu-ray is not.
Blu-ray is the PS3 kid's game console format.
It's just PSP & UMD all over again - with a little PC burner activity added into the mix.
You consider a PS3 a “kid’s game console”.
What a Wii considered?......Toddler?
I couldn't agree more.
BR is ahead now, but IMO, Toshiba has this war one as soon as the Chinese made HD DVD players hit the market in volume.
DVD players will become a thing of the past when HD DVD players are consistently under $100 and have international market saturation, and that scenario should only be a matter of months. Realistically this war could and should be over by next year.
Also, personally i hope fony loose because I have a problem with a manufacturer trying to force me to pay inflated prices for an inferior product by withholding content.
Since no one can win, it's time to accept two formats. All studios, including Universal and the Sony-controlled ones should immediately start shipping on both formats. Let the consumer choose the format that is best for them and stop this stupid war from destroying both formats.
It's time that organizations like Engadget, Gizmodo, AVS Forum, etc, call for the format war to end. It does no one any good.
No the PS3 is a half-assed game console. The Wii, on the other hand, is a complete gimmick.
"Toshiba has this war one"
I lol'd...sorry man, you just lost all credibility.
My mistake for a typo, should have been "won", sooo sorry your royal highness.
I feel like that article greatly underestimates DVD and how much longer DVD will be around. I feel that HD DVD and BD are both destined to be niche markets because to the general public, DVD is just good enough.
Sad for some of us to understand, but its true...ask your parents
I agree. I have HD DVD, but I believe both formats will become the next Laserdisc. Those of us that have it will enjoy it, but most people won't care. They are happy with DVD and will be for a long time to come.
i agree with kevin murphy. I also think its funny that people still defend "their" format. Originally, I figured this was because players were so expensive that people could only afford to back one format, and hoped with all their might that it would be "the one", lest they lose a chunk of money for investing in the losing format.
Well, the waiting game is getting tiring, and the prices are dropping low enough to make the cost issue less convincing. They both look good, they both sound good, they both have good exclusives... and the average consumer is still happy with dvd i guess?
There was a post a while ago from someone who felt both formats would fail, that downloads would take over. When told that xbox Live movies were "720p, and 5-8 gigs per movie.. looked great to me"
News flash. Lots of Standard def dvds are that big. Hell, dual layers are 8 gigs! Ever tried to rip a dual layer onto a single layer, strip all special features and still retain 100% quality? Few movies allow this. So, imagine the compression on downloads!! Doesnt this defeat the purpose of "superior quality" high def formats?
Remember though that the XBOX 360 HD rentals are encoded with VC-1, so they can squeeze that much more picture out of the digital bits while upping the resolution from DVD.
I have a hard time believing Best Buy and Walmart will continue offering significant space to HD-DVD discs as the blu ray library grows. After the end of this year, they're going to be looking back and realizing that every HD-DVD out on display represented less sales then having a blu ray disc in its place.
You mean the same way they still offer shelf space to PS3 games despite those games selling at 1/4 the pace of Xbox 360 games? It's called giving your customer what they want. Blu-ray movies aren't outselling HD-DVD at anywhere near a pace to justify completely pulling HD-DVD off the shelves.
You can say a few things about the PS3, but "half ass" isn't one of them. I don't even have to ask if you own a PS3 because your post says it all.
I own a PS3 and 360.
I can honestly say that I worry every time I power on my 360.
My inner monologue goes something like this-------Will this be the day that my 360 craps out on me? Oh good it still works!
My money is still on history, which means my money is far away from Sony.
oooohhh my favorite, "once the cheap chinese players hit the street" argument.
Newsflash, they are all cheap Chinese players with different brand stickers on them.
It should be once the profitable cheap chinese players hit the street and right now profitable is still $200-300.
HD DVD will win easily when portable HD DVD players hit the market in mass next year... Toshiba will sell 15 million laptops all with HD DVD drives and HDMI output. Four of the top five laptop brands support HD DVD, so roughly 20 million HD DVD capable laptops should be sold years - this will easily counter the PS3 :-)
It's funny to read predictions of one hi-def format to soon "win the war".
There's a big problem though. You don't "win" a war if regular/standard DVD has 95% of home video sales, while both HD formats disc sales are less than 5% combined!
Even if we could have perhaps one HD disc format in use right now (take your pick), the majority of discs sold would still be for standard DVDs, rather than an HD version.
So, as another speculated above, both of the HD formats may never become the "mainstream", and could remain a niche format by a limited number of users, like the LaserDisc, which never had more than 4 to 5 million owners worldwide (from it's existence between 1978 to 2000).
Okay this "format war" is a HOT TOPIC on the net. This holiday season will be the final determining factor for which format will take it all.
Pending the holiday sales of multimedia discs Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD, major player Warner Brothers will make their decision on the format with the most market push. However, this will not be a practical approach as the Playstation 3 (the cheapest blu-ray player on the market) is currently picking up in sales due to their price drop and release of a cheaper version of the console. The Playstation 3 has had a slow start, possible has stronger movie publisher support, and has outdone Microsofts XBox360 sales take of during its first year or sales.
Once the final numbers are in Warner Brothers can kick this war into the final throws. If it selects Blu-ray, 70% of the market share will be in Blu-ray's hands. If it goes with HD-DVD then it will split the two DVD formats once again extending this fight into the next year.
Although the blu-ray discs cost more, and are more to produce. What do we really want? Most of the money lies in other distribution venues such as Netflix and online HD media.
So everyone get out there and buy some Blu-ray movies to drive the numbers this holiday season. This will surely finalize the deal with Warner Bros.
-Adam Stafford
http://zune.adamentity.com