750,000 is for the USA only.

I do know all the gen 3 machines are selling very strongly in Europe this quarter (see the Amazon sales stats for proof).

Warner will be doing a Paramount soon.

With HD DVD stand-alone sales climbing fast and Blu-ray's extra costs working against the benefit of any marginal & early extra sales it's also pretty likely they will not be alone.

Disney & Lionsgate already work with Microsoft on the XBox 360 HD downloads, my bet is they go neitral soon as they start to dump Blu-ray.

You bet wrong. Blu-ray had over 70% of the sales on Black Friday, which is now offically referred to as Blu-Friday...

Nielson VideoScan data for last week reports that Blu-ray has topped its high definition rival for yet another week - this time with a very impressive 72.6% market share. The sales data includes titles sold on Black Friday - the day after Thanksgiving characterized by deep discounts and enormous amounts of consumer spending.

Possibly leading the pack was Fox's Blu-ray release of 'Live Free or Die Hard' - the latest installment in the "Die Hard" franchise. Early reports show that the title managed to sell nearly 100,000 units last week alone.

Blu-ray has yet to lose a week to its rival this year, with Blu-ray holding a 2-to-1 average sales advantage. Achieving a nearly 3-to-1 sales advantage for the important shopping week despite an influx of sub-$100 HD DVD players shows that consumers continue to choose Blu-ray as their preferred high definition format.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=706

Why on earth would anyone want to jump on the ailing HD DVD format right now?, especially with the cheap Blu-ray players shipping in a few weeks??

http://www.reghardware.c...readies_cheap_bd_player/

HD DVD is truely dead, the desperate cost cutting has ensured no other handware manufacturers aside from Toshiba, have any interest in HD DVD anymore.

http://forum.blu-ray.com...thread.php?t=24977";

"which is now offically referred to as Blu-Friday..."

How does the smurfs making up a nickname, make it official? The real world is calling it black Friday.

Blu-ray.com is not a reliable source...their forums even less.

You're second link doesn't mention the price tag once. It does use phrases like 'if claims are to be believed' and 'that suggests'. Any facts to back the cheap bd player up, or is it all just supposition? Hell, the headline even poses your 'fact' as a question.

Nice spin on what the 3rd link says. One company wants to sell a clone player for a higher price, but can't. That really only speaks for that one manufacturer.

"Blu-ray.com is not a reliable source"

Good job it's not the source..

http://www.hollywoodrepo...4a0aae38936c0078ef4de4a

LMAO

Even Stringer isn't as idioticly extreme with his public pronouncements as you.

You are one lame self-made laughing-stock.

Then you should have posted that originally, not the link to a story on bluray.com, or its forums...

"Blu-Friday"

That's pretty sad.

blu-ray.com how pathetic.

"Black Friday, which is now offically referred to as Blu-Friday..."

Oh, so it's official now? Hysterical.

Using your logic, it's more accurate to consider it Zune Friday... or perhaps iFriday.

You're a joke... still.

Ok, talking about the article now its saying that Blue-ray claims lead in Europe. Ok so if HD-DVD leads in the US and Blue-ray leads in Europe what format wins? What about the rest of the world? Asia, Canada, etc..??

We may end up with 2 formats like there are basically two technologies of cell phones (GSM and CDMA) and more than two technologies for TV (plasma, LCD, DLP and soon OLED) and different types of broadband (DSL, Cable and now fiber). What I'm getting at is why can't there be two kinds of players/writers? Companies can either make movies for both or not.

"Ok, talking about the article now its saying that Blue-ray claims lead in Europe."

- Only those Blu-ray arseh*les would try and pretend that in a market with annual sales in the several hundred millions that they have won anything by selling 1 million in over a year.

They're simply and laughably deluded.

It hasn't even got going yet
(and nor has it in the USA).

Doesn't matter, Blu-ray is leading everwhere.

Europe it's 3:1
US it's 2:1
Japan it's 9:1

Paramount must be hurting inside REAL bad right now, wondering what might have been, rather than siding with the loser..

You are a fool. Both formats are what 2% of the total market. They are not losing anything. What about the extra costs of blo-ray that has to hurt that side. I noticed the prices for blo rar disks rising. Close Encounters at Best Buy $45 Ronon coming soon $50 what a joke.

Deperation, creating FUD about media prices.

Why not take the lowest HD DVD price you can find, and compare it against the highest Blu-ray price.

Idiots like you are embarrassing..

I think what he's trying to say is these two DVD's are OLD movies and being sold at such a high price when you can buy them on regular DVD for $5.

Are you playing the role of the pot or the kettle today? You fling FUD around like a monkey flings poo...

He was making reference to the cost of 2 catalog movies.

Didn't Transformers break all previous sales releases for the HD formats? If anything, Paramount has proved to all other studios that their is money in HD-DVD. Both with sales numbers and more importantly for the studious, production costs.

What I am saying that any movie with a price tag like that is a joke. In fact it is kind of like you. I guess you are not bright enough to figure it out.

Monkey's flinging poo... that's pretty funny. Or how about Blu-poo?

IMHO I would say that the real figure that counts is the player sales and not the discs.

I've sat on the side-lines of all the discussions for ages read all the crap on what standard does what, which model can and can't do 'this' and what is future-proof etc as well as watch the morons who post under several names to 'big-up' their own point of view.

After all that I have jumped on the HD-DVD band-wagon and will ride it till the end.

I can't see that one BRDVD player owner buying 20 discs is more of a success than 5 HDDVD buying 4 as surely the end-result will be that studios who are producing movies are not (if they've got any sense) not going to back a format where the device required to watch the movies is not in use as much as competitor.

So what I'm saying is that a 3-1 sales figure doesn't mean anything except that it could be the same BR 'fan boy' as you call them buying 3 titles for everyone that the HDDVD owners are.

If you total up all the screw ups past and present that Sony\Panasonic and the BR gang have made with past format wars and the current BR vs. HDDVD story then you have to side with HDDVD haven't you? If you take into account all the techie stuff it does muddy the water somewhat but I don't think enough for anyone who impartially weighs up the pros and cons of each format to have a problem with deciding.

I have noticed in the UK is that there does seem to be a lot of shelf-filling with 30 copies of the same BR movie and 2 or three of each HD-DVD.

you could take it to mean that greater stock of BR titles is needing to meet the demand but I think it is more likely the case that the stores in question have been given a back-hander to 'lean' towards BR.

Also I keep reading that in the US there is a lot of talk about what is in stock in stores like Wal-Mart and others but I don't think that counts as again in the UK a lot of high-street electrical stores are not stocking the Toshiba HD-DVD players because they are so cheap to buy customer might end-up buying them in favour over their high-end overpriced SD DVD players which would result in them being left with shed loads of SD stock they can't clear.

The stores in question do have BR units and they aren't being touched 'cos of the ridiculous price so I definitely think that on-line hardware sales are where this war is going to be battled out.

Anyway, I've made my decision and invested in a just ordered Toshiba HD-EP35 to watch my 20 odd movies on (currently I use an XBox360 HD Drive), which comes with 7 free titles BTW, and so don't think I for one will be switching to BR any time soon.

The studios are going to be more interested in disc sales. If consumers are more interested in buying Blu-Ray titles than HD-DVD the studios are more likely to release their titles on Blu-Ray. Obviously the current trend won't necessarily hold up indefinitely but unless more studios release their titles on HD-DVD it is hard to see much of a future in the format.

Ultimately the studio politics will probably determine the winner of this format war. Most people wouldn't care if the players were free if they can't get they favorite titles in the format that their player supports.

I just googled porn HD-DVD and blue-ray and the porn industry is embracing HD-DVD. The porn industry embraced VHS over beta and VHS won, porn is known for using the top technology so I think who ever the porn industry stands behind (using the hi-def camreas and such) will be the winner. So my guess is HD-DVD will win.

Also more people are watching on-demand and pay-per-veiw, and movie streaming sites and such, so maybe as broadband gets faster less people will buy movies period. In that case HD-DVD and/or blue-ray will be used for backups, software and video games.

I believe studios are more likely to look at the number of dedicated HD players sold to determine demand for their titles, whether those be Blu-ray or HD DVD. It seems logical to assume the largest installed base of dedicated players equates to largest potential sales of movie titles... and that lead goes to HD DVD.

Studios cannot count on a game console to move their titles off the shelves... a console which statistics have shown the majority of owners either have no idea it is Blu-ray capable or simply do not care. It's too bad that console outnumbers dedicated Blu-ray players by an incredible margin, for that is surely just one of many factors holding back an otherwise potentially great format.

What studios can count on is the larger number of dedicated HD DVD players to move titles. They are guaranteed to push movie sales. By the end of fiscal year 2007 (March 2008), that number should be close to 1,000,000. Studios cannot and will not ignore that... and some already have taken notice.

The fact that there is almost a mere 2:1 ratio in favor of Blu-ray titles (in the largest entertainment market in the world) is rather embarrassing, considering the sheer number of Blu-ray capable players in the wild. You can thank Sony for that marketing genius. Since they seem more interested in utilizing the console as a high-definition movie playback device instead of a game console, they should have called it the Blu-Station. At least potential customers would have queried "What's a Blu-Station?", and most likely would have been better informed of it's capabilities. Perhaps then you would be enjoying a 10:1 software lead, as it logically should be (or as Sony was expecting it to be).

Blu-ray has been one marketing, design, and feature implementation disaster after another. At least HD DVD has better name recognition to help push hardware. I'm sure most consumers can easily associate and understand needing an HD DVD player to go with their new HD television... at least that's what I feel.

I honestly believe too many people place too much faith in the porn industry to sway support heavily in favor of one format. The playing field is not the same as it was when VHS was gaining in popularity. Porn is practically thrown in your lap now with the explosion of broadband internet, usually requiring active measures to keep it out of your home.

Very well said however the blow hards will either not respond or make stupid off topic comments.

Not to mention what might be seen could be very scary.

"and a similar milestone -- along with sub-$200 players -- helped propel DVD into the ubiquity it sees today"

yeah but in this case the format is not vhs, the differance was night and day. With dvd vs HD disks the contrast is not as large.

"yeah but in this case the format is not vhs, the difference was night and day. With dvd vs HD disks the contrast is not as large."

Yeah, especially with up-sampling players blurring the difference even further.

Blue Ray looks crap through my 1080p projector compared to HD-DVD same settings...Besides I dont like the idea of letting Sony near my internet connection thank you very much!

Do they add the DVD drives in PC's to the total DVD players out there being used to play movies?

It's unclear from the story whether this survey took that into account but I doubt that it would change the results much. Except for Sony and Toshiba I can't say that I have seen too many other OEMs including HD-DVD or Blu-Ray drives in their computers. The prices on both are still a substantial premium over a DVD drive with limited value to most consumers.

HP, the largest retailer of Computers, sells nothing but DVD or HDDVD players in its laptops... I ensure you there are over a million of those out there.

I hope there's a hybrid bluray hd dvd player for sub 200 soon so all this crap can stop. Has anyone really sat down and watched and compared the 2 formats? The picture quality is the same and as for the featurettes, etc....granted, I like the idea of having gigs upon gigs of fluff in addition to the movie, but I'm not interested in sitting there and going through 5 hrs of dvd extras. I'm a blooper reel fan and that's about it. I'm sick and tired of this 'format' war. Make a hybrid disk, a hybrid player and make them affordable and let digital life move on for heavens sake.

Neoprimal,

I have compared both formats side by side in my own home on my DLP projector and DLP rear projection.

There are differences. Keep in mind I have a PS3 as my one and only BD player vs an XA2 for HD-DVD. The PS3 is a pretty crappy BD player compared to stand alone models, the black levels aren't even close to the XA2. Now, I have seen a high end BD player that can keep up with HD-DVD but the player cost three times as much.

Thats the funny thing, Dave's main BD player is the PS3 and he won't admit it's a crappy player compared to the high end models. He thinks it's great, but with a Panasonic 42" LCD, what more could you expect?

Even the A2 is better than the PS3 in PQ and black levels which is pretty sad.

Thanks for your objective review of the products you don't own at cnet.com Dave, you never cease to amaze us with your desperation.

By the way Dave / Joey / Steve / Benjamin, I thought of you when be bought a TV for my daughters play room. We were looking at a 42" but I spent the extra $200 for the 46" just so I could have the satisfaction of knowing that it's bigger than your Panasonic LCD "home theater" with no center or rears with a video game as a substandard HD movie player.

"Has anyone really sat down and watched and compared the 2 formats?"

While I'm not a professional AV reviewer, I have done this.

Both formats were run through the same HDMI input, with the same settings (same movie was used). On some of the earlier BR releases, the picture had artifacts that the same film did not on HD DVD. That's not really the case too often with newer releases.

The difference (for me) lies in the extras, and interactivity; and this is where Blu-ray falls short. HD DVD has a more robust feature set that has existed since day one. True PIP (rather than a second encode of the movie, with the PIP overlayed), web enabled content (300 and Shrek 3 make decent use of this), and a required ethernet port (to make firmware updates easier) are all selling points for me.

Blu-ray has been playing a game of catch-up, in regards to all of these features.

All of this crap will not stop simply with cheaper dual-format players.

It will truly stop when there is simply one format... as it should be.

Well, I have a BD-drive that I use to store files because burning like 50 DVDs a day is not fun, but I haven't seen any HD-DVD drives out there...

BD-drives are like only less than $200 so.. why not?

"BD-drives are like only less than $200 so.. why not?"

First of all where'd you get one for less than $200?

But even though I think your lieing at that price, 50gb DL BD-R's are about $50. So even at the price of $250 you can get a 1TB external hard drive on Newegg.com for $249.99 compared to write once 50gb's. I'll take 1TB over 50gb's any day. I could probably get three or four of those for the same price as what an actual BD-R burner really costs.

If extras are what flots your boat, then Blu-ray is the way to go.

HD DVD uses a very basic scripting system for it's interactivity, Blu-ray profile 1.1 uses full Java.

It seems HD DVD went for the quick and basic option, Blu-ray went for the full but longer to market option.

In a few months time, when all the PS3's are Profile 1.1, and all the new players are 1.1, the HD DVD fanboys will be claiming that extra content is suddently NOT important anymore..

(Much like the XBot fanboys that told us that HDMI was not required, then creamed their pants when Microsoft released HDMI 360s)

Java is used for mainly as a cracked copy protection scheme for one thing. Next how many times do you need to be told HDMI is not a requirement for HD. HDMI equals more copy protection. For you I guess ignorance is bliss.

"If extras are what flots your boat, then Blu-ray is the way to go."

Shouldn't that read "then Blu-ray should be the way to go... soon, just like I've been saying for the last 18 months... soon, but I'll never tell why it's the way to go (because I don't really know myself). I'll just say it has 'vastly superior' features and leave everyone else to guess what I mean."

Longer to market? You Smurfs have the audacity to call HD DVD supporters sheep? Do you even realize that by the time Profile 1.1 (which still doesn't offer the same functionality as HD DVD's complete and mature feature set) capable players reach market, it will have been 2 full years since the format launched?

I've gotta hand it to Sony... they sure figured out how to sell a console that nobody wants... and not just the consumer. Nobody wants to program games for it, and nobody wants to program interactive content for Blu-ray.

what are the advantages of the full Java over the HD DVD versions

In a few months time the PS3 will be 1.1, I thought that was supposed to be in the last update. Profile 1.1 will come with revision 13 and firmware 82.5 knowing $ony.

Javas draconian copy protection is the difference.

Oh please that is crap and you know it.

The only thing extra I've seen on any Blu-ray disc is the extra space taken up by uncompressed audio. Otherwise, it's severely lacking IMO.

Profile 1.1 is by no means a selling point. It's an attempt to catch-up to what HD DVD has offered since it launched.

I hate to put it this way, since it sounds like marketing rhetoric, but watching a film on HD DVD allows for more of an experience. Between the web enabled content, and the interactivity between extras and the film, HD DVD nailed it from the start.

And if you want to whinge about the 360 and HDMI, then you may want to take a look at what was done with BR and PIP...

"First of all where'd you get one for less than $200?"

- It's typical desperation to try and pretend that drive prices have dropped down to a sane level.

He means ROM (reader) drives.

Sadly for him the HD DVD reader drive (the same one as in the XBox 360 HD DVD add-on) can be had a bare drive for $40 now.

So even at their cheapest Blu-ray ROM drives are still 5 times the price of the HD DVD competitor.

As usual Blu-ray offers nothing but higher prices and a lower spec.

"HD DVD uses a very basic scripting system for it's interactivity, Blu-ray profile 1.1 uses full Java"

In that case I'm much much more impressed with what a 'very basic scripting system' can do over Java.

Mods seriously, give us one reason this user should NOT be banned? Clearly a troll who has absolutely no clue to what he even posts

"In that case I'm much much more impressed with what a 'very basic scripting system' can do over Java."

I'm sure most studios are starting (or have started) to feel the same way.

Easier to use = less time to implement = cheaper to produce = higher profits. Studios do loves them some profits. :)

"If extras are what flots your boat, then Blu-ray is the way to go."

ROFLMFAO

This has to be one of the most bare-faced outright lies ever told here.

Blu-ray hasn't got any "extras".....at least nothing beyond what an ancient old interactive CD can manage.

There are no 'advanced features' to be had on a single available Blu-ray player.

Not one existing Blu-ray player is profile 1.1 or profile 2.0 compliant and there is not one profile 1.1 or profile 2.0 movie disc out there either.

You Sony/PS3/Blu-ray shill-drone-fanboy liars really are excelling yourselves lately.

You lot must be desperate, is the tactic just to make up any old story now, hmmmmmm?

""Home Media Research reported that Blu-ray discs are outselling HD DVD discs in the United States by a near 2-to-1 margin."

Um Davey, wasn't that ratio 4:1, I could've swore you were blabbering about that not too long ago. Looks to me that my 1 year projection of 1:1 ratios was wrong. Looks like it will be in 6 months now, my apologies, but at the time I didn't know HD-DVD players were going to go for that cheap. ;-(

Sucks to be you."

Davey, your silence on this issue is GOLDEN!!!

plague,

You are absolutely right, Dave was making sh!t up off the top of his head just to get a rise out of people who didn't know he is socially and mentally retarded.

Amazon shows HD-DVD ahead for a few days straight and keeping up with BS movie sales, but the girls at blu-ray.com and standing around with thier hands over thier ears like kindergardeners.

What needs to be done is the following:

List the breakdown of total sales of all HD capable playback drives in their respective formats, their sales figures, and then penetration rates based on *exclusive movie playback only* numbers. I think the results will be suprising.

The attach rate for HDDvd movie sales compared to player purchase is a good indicator as well.

I'm sick and tired of seeing the PS3 heaped in the numbers for "most Blu-Ray players sold", when people buy the PS3 for games, and *some* idiots out there buy it to be a Blu-ray player exclusively.

Since HD-DVD does not serve as a vehicle for gaming, any HD-DVD drive is a player. Period. That means the standalone players, the Xbox HD-DVD addons, they're both eligible to be counted as a "player" for the purposes of numbers.

On the other hand, I think it's deceptive to actively market and allow people to *assume* that every PS3 sale is going to be used as a Blu-Ray movie player, which is not the case.

The Blu-Ray camp's claims to that effect are about as accurate as the various antipiracy agencies' (both RIAA, MPAA, and BSA) viewpoint that an illegal download automatically qualifies as a "lost sale". It just cannot be quantifiably, VERIFIABLY proven that it's true, just like you can't prove that every PS3 is going to be used for Blu-Ray movies.

I believe the results would indeed be very surprising if that were to happen... which is why I don't believe Sony would ever voluntarily agree to participate in that cause.

Why is people go on about the PS3 as a blue ray player?? I MEAN COME ON I'VE HAD A DVD PLAYER/BURNER IN MY PC FOR YEARS AND I DONT PLAY DVD MOVIES IN IT!!!
I bet that goes for a lot of other people too!
:-)

I do
But then again I'm not dazzled by all the lights on the wiz bang s*** thats out now :)
I lay back on my bed and watch a dvd on the laptop.
Sad yes but I am happy :)

As said hundreds of times before... the inconsistency of not counting the PS3s as BD players and counting the 360 HD-DVD add-ons is this:

Not all PS3s are garanteed to be used as BD players since their "main" purpose is to play games.

The only thing the xbox 360 HD DVD add-on is good for is playing movies since there are no HD-DVD games. Everyone that gets one is going to be playing HD-DVDs on it.

That's not the point. The point is, they include/exclude the PS3, depending on their press release of the day, and twist stats to suit their argument.

They even set targets of 1 million, then when it turns out they are only half way there, they bolster the stats by including Xbox addons, and quietly change the stats from standalone players to dedicated players (which conviently adds another 250,000 players to the numbers to make it look less crap).

If you are foolish enough to fall for this spin, thats your fault.

what about people that bought the PS3 to watch Blu-ray movies? Are you saying they should not be counted?

They should be counted, but how do you do it? There is simply no way to know.

The addon for the 360 is an HD DVD player and nothing more. That is all it does so if someone buys one we know what they bought it for. The PS3 can play movies, but it's also a game machine, primarily I might add. If someone buys one that doesn't mean they are going to buy any movies for it.

It's still a games machine that can play BR movies.

Think of it like this: A DVD player that is capable of playing CDs (or MP3s) doesn't count towards the sale of CD (MP3) players, even if that's the primary reason that it was purchased. The same applies here.

The legitimacy of counting the 360 add-on is a little hazier, though. It only has one purpose (playing HD DVDs); yet isn't actually a stand-alone player. Personally, I tend to think that it should be counted, but with an asterisk to indicate the number of units it adds to the total.

I think we should revisit the U.S. founding fathers "friend" the Three-Fifths Compromise. It could be effectively implemented in two ways:

1) Either don't count PS3s as BluRay and every 5 XBox HD DVD add-on count as 3, or
2) count the add-on as a 1 and use the 3/5 rule for the PS3.

(It kept Americans from civil war for over 80 years, maybe it'll stop the bickering here for 80 days.)

And how is it spin? The 360 HD-DVD bolt-on that you have complained about in the past as being nothing more than a movie player is finally being counted for what it is; A MOVIE PLAYER. In all sense of the word, it's a standalone player as it does nothing else but PLAY MOVIES.

The PS3, again from your mouth, is so much more than a bolt-on movie player and as such should not be counted when assessing total player counts.

End of story...

"Not all PS3s are garanteed to be used as BD players since their "main" purpose is to play games."

Exactly, so then why should they all be counted?

"Standalone: A program, function, files or system that operates on its own and has no dependencies on other programs, functions, files or systems"

So technically NOTHING is a standalone, everything depends on something.

If they are a true blu ray player there would be tens of millions more disks sold so far than what has sold. The die hard fans will use it a player and a game machine while the casual person sees it as a game machine.

There is no foolishness or spin there
It's hd-dvd players that just play hd-dvd media.

Good stuff. Bravo!

That actually got me thinking... :)

Icey, that makes too much sense and the BD girls don't want to accept it.

http://petitionspot.com/petitions/Blu-ray/

Still only 130 sigs on your pathetic petition Dave? I'll bet most of them are you as we all know your track record.

Incase anyone still hasn't seen it, here's your pathetic lies on cnet about products you don't own.

http://www.cnet.com/5270...0-2.html?userID=1150478

Here is your comment on blu-ray.com regarding some idiotic story about god knows what:

"Wahahaha :) HD DUD is dead in the water!

No one will join toshiba in the loosing (loosing?, a MENSA member I see, except I never see you at the meetings) game:

Onkyo, abandoned HD DVD, discontinues its HD805 HD DVD player:
http://forum.blu-ray.com...thread.php?t=24977";

Onkyo is about a big a player in HD-DVD as Element is in the plasma market.

Anything to cheer about, right Dave? Is your life that crappy?

Why do you care if anyone falls for the spin?

There may be a way to count PS3s that are used solely as a BR player. Hear me out on this...

First, this would only work on PS3s that are networked. What would need to be done, is everytime the player is powered on, and connects, it would transmit a piece of data that tells whether or not the hard-drive contains any game data (saves and/or downloaded). Those without any such data could be counted as BR players...with a catch. If that machine's data changes to include game data, then it no longer counts toward the total number of BR players sold.

Is it intrusive? Hell yes; but when you factor in Sony's disregard of consumer's rights, and their love of the rootkit, I'm surprised they haven't tried sooner.

Sarcasm off now...

They probably already have. I'm surprised no one has actually used a packet sniffer to find out if something like that is actually happening.

I wonder how a single Blu-ray disc inserted into console functioning as part of a game server cluster would be reported. :)

i cant wait for my 8 free hd dvds :D

What caught my eye:

# movies sold per PS3 player = 0.6
# movies sold per HD DVD player = 4

That's almost 7:1

Hang on, didn't HD DVD group have a target of 1,000,000 standalone players by then end of the year?

This means they only sold 50% of the players they expected to. Oh Dear...

They are trying to fudge it and look it better than it does (what else is new) by throwing the add-ons into the mix.

As of Nov.2, sales were 420K stand-alones and about 230K-250K add-ons.

Now they say 750K, counting the add-ons.

So they are at 520K standalones, tops.

Again, the end-of-year projection was a million standalones. NOT "a million dedicated players".

Yeah let's just forget upcoming holiday sales. 2007 is already over. Happy New Year!

Try again Stevejamin Davus. Post some sources for your sales claims too while you're at it. Oh never mind, you got them from your a**.

"Stevejamin Davus"...

Classic.

Great Market Research!!! Mind sharing where you got that data?

It is November 27th, the year is not yet over.

Between now and the end of the year is the highest retail sales time of the year....and that is only if you assume they were not talking about fiscal year-end.

"the end-of-year projection was a million standalones"

- You have to be a spectacular brand of 'embarrasingly ignorant & stupid' not to know that they were actually talking about by the end of FY 2007 (which is actually in april 2008).

The same spot I pulled the info on his IQ (which turned out to be that of a retard), his head.

Oh, I guess that does make more sense than from his head.

Last time I checked the year wasn't over.

;)

You're bursting his bubble. He thinks HD DVD only has a month left...(not that it would take a miracle to accomplish, even in one month considering the month in question is the hottest retail shopping month of the year)

It's taken 18 months to reach 750,000, do you really think they will do another 250,000 in 4 weeks?

Got there are some real twats that post here.

I personally would have gone with Stevejamin Deacaid.

Yes... on both counts.

You forgot to log back into Benjamin Linus account.

Easily.

lol..good one!

"Got there are some real twats that post here"

What a complete and total idiot. You flame people about spelling look no further than yourself. You are a joke Dave and everyone knows it.

Unlike the blo ray shills the HD DVD supporters buy movies.

Very good you are catching on.

Dave,

You are the only one who gets upset over this garbage. We are all embarrassed for you.

I forgot, "Bejamin's" uploaded pics to imageshack are also taken with a (drum roll please) ....... Sony Cybershot, just like Dave, Joey, and Steve, what a coincedence we have ...... again.

Didnt you notice the tag after every picture that shows what kind of camera it was taken with? I did.

God I love it when he does stupid crap like that. It makes me feel all fuzzy inside to know how miserable he is.

I concur, it's usually me who comes up with the off the wall comments.

I agree. Actually laughed out loud at that one.

He probably works a lonely help desk at Sony all by himself after everyone has clocked out from their day s***. He keeps all those accounts logged in on different computers and rolls back and forth sniping at us like the loyal Blu-Blood soldier he is.

He reminds me of my ex-wife's previous husband... he was an a$$ gasket, too.

I'm afraid a lot of those HD-DVD players are into the hands of the same people.

Check out the posts in this forum, everyone seems to have 3 Hd-DVD players:

http://www.highdefforum....php?p=425380#post425380

HockusPokus owns 35 players, he is that rabid about HD DVD. LOL.

Wow, it's nice to see that Dave/Steve/Joey dusted off this name again...

3 players sold is more than 1 regardless.

Does it matter if there is 1 unit per person or 3 units per person? You still have to pay per unit, right?

No, you got that number from the number of b-ray players you own.

Look on forums like bluray.com many people there have two or more PS3's so there is no difference.

Like your friends over at bluray that buy the 360 add on so people can not buy and actually use them. Spin away troll.

A lot do yes, far far short of majority though.
And the same applies with the blu side of things or did you accidentally leave that out?

...or 2 PS3s and a BD player.

...or a PS3 and 2 BD players.

Yada yada... :)

Are you sure you weren't counting your own Blu-Ray players Dave?

According to Daves reviews he has several BD players look at cnet as an example. What a bunch of complete douces.

I am going to assume that is not true, because if it were, that would be insane. I mean really really insane, like the kind that should be institutionalized for fear they may harm themselves or others around them.

There is no way someone would be so pathetic as to buy the Xbox attachments from their local stores so that others could not buy them and use them.

I mean, thats insane...right?

"What a bunch of complete douches."

There, fixed that for ya. :P

Yes, in the membrane. :)

You obviously haven't been to the blu-ray.com site you wanna talk insane?

If the general public were made aware of this I honestly believe they would avoid blu-ray in fear of becoming one of them.

Like a product and have faith in it but good god you think they were fighting in a life/death situation.

How can we put this...?

When the announcement that Paramount/Dreamworks were going exclusive to HD DVD, the smurfs reacted like it was 9-11 all over again.

That was actually posted over there.

They are going as far as not buying a movie from a non bluray studio to boycott. That is about as childish as it gets. If a movie is out that I like I buy it. You are right that most of the people over at bluray need to institutionalized.

...or at the very least HEAVILY medicated...

Is this the saddest article todate?

Not only are they talking of 1 million HD DVD players, despite being only 3/4 of the way there, they completely disreagrd the more important facts.

Over 1 million standalone Blu-ray players.
Over 7 million Blu-ray players incluing PS3.
Over 4 Million Blu-ray movies sold
Over 23 Million Blu-ray discs sold

Perhaps you also want to forget about the low cost Blu-ray players coming very soon?

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=700

Perhaps you also want to forget about the hardware manufacturers like Onkyo dropping HD DVD as a result of Toshiba's desperate price dumping.

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=24977

Do you also like how the desperate HD DVD camp are inconsistent?

When talking players sold, they prefer to ignore the PS3, and talk standalone numbers. They then totally make a laughing stock of themselves by including PS3 when talking attach rates. They like to talk standalone players, yet today, they like to include 360 add-on as a standalone player (real number of standalone players sold is closer to 450,000 players).

You have to be a total chump, if you can't see though the desperate HD DVD spin.

The funniest part? "But Sony's Blu-ray isn't going away without a fight,"

Shouldn't that read HD DVD, as it's clearly the underdog by a VERY large margin right now.

You have to ask, how are they getting paid to write this crap?

You have to ask, how are they getting paid to write this crap?

Don't you mean "you" and not "they"? I mean, you did mean your post right?

If not you certainly should, because it's definately crap. Anything else you'd like to link to from the Blu-Ray forums, because that's certainly a non-biased, reliable source.

so offbrand bluray players are competing with name brand hd dvd players on price? if sony and samsung cant get it right, how is a value competitor going to compete? at least the 200 dollar player i got is a toshiba.

Of course they're going to discuss 1 million HD DVD players. It's the next target/milestone.

"Over 1 million standalone Blu-ray players.
Over 7 million Blu-ray players including PS3."
Exactly how many of these are 100% profile 1.1 compliant (and that means completely, not just able to access certain features). When you start claiming that the PS3 is, feel free to post a link to a Sony official confirming it. Furthermore, why is it that if BR is so far ahead, Howard Stringer was speaking of a stalemate?

Honestly now, do you even read the articles you post?

From your first link: "No further information regarding the price or features of the player is available at this time."

Could you please elaborate (with sources and facts) how this equals a low cost Blu-ray player? The article says, in plain English, that there was NO PRICE INFORMATION AVAILABLE.

And for your second link:

If Toshiba is selling at a loss (and I can't find any firm numbers to say whether or not they are), then they aren't doing anything differently than Sony is with the PS3. God forbid you take that into account with your spin machine though...

Your facts are incorrect.

- Blu-ray has not sold 1 million standalone players. HD DVD is going to hit that target far before Blu-ray does at the current pace.

- 23 million Blu-ray discs have been produced but this includes games for the PS3 and has no correlation whatsoever to sales.

And so are yours.

As with one breath, you say that PS3 owners don't watch movies, so therefore the PS3 needs to be excluded from movies stats, then at the same time, you point out that the PS3 is the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market..

The bottom line, is even if only 30% PS3 owners actually watch Blu-ray movies, that's still 2 million players, along with 800,000 standalones, which makes the 750,000 HD DVD player count look VERY pathetic.

Why do you care?

Well, you can read all the articles you like, that say whatever they like, but I am here to tell you that as someone that works at the retial level, interfacing with the customers, day in and day out, (you know, the ones that actually open up their wallets and spend their hard earned cash on these products) there is essentially no interest in Blu-ray what so ever by 99.9% of the people that walk in the door. At the big box retialer I work at, we sell maybe three Blu-ray players a month..if we are lucky (and this is a VERY high volume electronics store). By comparison, we sell at least three HD DVD players a week, some times many more depending on the sales and promos that are going on.

I just don't see how anyone can say that Blu-ray is doing so well when their payers simply aren't enlisting any interest from anyone at the retial level? Everyone comes in and admires it...but almost no one buys it.

Now, someone please tell me how that is a receipe for success as a business model/marketing strategy? If the product doesn't move off the shelf, that pretty much tells the whole story right there, doesn't it?

So, reguardless of what the meadia says, the reality here is that Blu-ray, at least at a retail level...is almost entirely stagnent from what I have seen first hand. Now, the PS3's are selling well, but almost no one who buys them, has any intention of ever buying any Blu-ray discs to watch on them. I know this because I ask them about it when they buy the units. Most of the PS3 buyers aren't even aware yet that they can play Blu-ray movies on them, they are only buying them to play games on. Simple as that. If Sony is banking on the buyers of their PS3 to bolster the sale of Blu-ray movies for them any time soon, I think they are in for a very rude awakening.

Funny how anyone can say anything.

The Best Buy I work at, we sell about 200 PS3's a week, and 10 or 20 Blu-ray standalones. We sold a few obsolete HD DVD units a couple of weeks back, but that's about it, I think I saw Best Buy internal memo mentioning something about them being incompatible with the new 51GB HD DVD specs, and if anyone asked, we had to talk them out of the players.

Lmao...

Yeah...because 50,000 can't be made up in one weeke-

Oh, wait...

Sorry. Claiming 800,0000 vs.. 750,000 is pathetic less than a month after the 750,000 format sold over 100,000 units in one weekend is pathetic. Hmmm...if they did the sale again it'd take what? A day?

"I think I saw Best Buy internal memo"

- You're such a laughably deluded lying dreary little shelf-stacker.

Wow, and what on Earth makes you think that your sources are so reliable?

Hate to break it to you but once again your sources suck!

Haha, yeah, because BestBuy isnt out to make money anymore?

Oh wait, yes they are.

Bluray.com is not even close to a reliable site. Talk about a bunch of rabid clueless fanboys. Aren't you due to make some new mailing campaign or buy a thon. What a bunch of a holes over there. Nice try though.

Funny how other people here that work at Best Buy claim just the opposite.

Nice attempt at sarcasm, there.

Whether or not you choose to believe MikeTechno is up to you. IMO, he hasn't posted anything to undermine or cause a person to question his credibility (unlike most of the BR shills that come to this site).

You would have done yourself a favor IF you posted links to the sources and NOT blu-ray.com which has 'twisted the spin' in it's favor
Then if you actually read the article and interpreted it correctly without blinkers on you might wonder how exactly you came up with cheap from it? And 4000 units a month? I thought your format of choice was steaming ahead, thats not even going to touch the sides now is it?

"I think I saw Best Buy internal memo mentioning something about them being incompatible with the new 51GB HD DVD specs, and if anyone asked, we had to talk them out of the players."
You just proved yourself you are full of s*** with that sentence alone. Can you even type that s*** without your hands shaking?.
I can only assume
(a) you are a teenager (in which case I am horrible disgusted I am wasting time with you) or
(b) an undereducated man who has to work at a retail store because he quite obviously does not have any qualifications?
Your posts btw, are becoming very inconsistant with each other going back a few month's, your either starting to lie or you are forgetting.

And you are an idiot, who totally missed the point. Anyone can post anything here, but it does not make it true.

"Anyone can post anything here, but it does not make it true."

...as you so adeptly prove time and time again with the majority of your tripe and sourceless statistics and 'facts'.

As do my friends that work in our local Best Buy. They confirm the exact same trend that Mike describes.

Studios cannot ignore the total number of stand-alone players in people's homes. The movie playing capability of the PS3 and 360 add-on are just icing on the cake for them. Stand-alone players are a consistent basis for accurately judging demand for one format over the other.

I think it is called panic and he is grasping at straws.

Stand alone players are for one thing and that is play movies. On the other hand game systems like the PS3 are for playing games that have the option of playing movies. This does not mean that some or many will ever be used to play movies. How many people had a PS2 and nver used it to play a DVD movie. I know my hand is up on that question.

The best crap BS poster is you Dave, minutemaid, pitdingo, Steve,,,, or what ever you are calling yourself today.

In all honesty guys, I have no dog in this fight. I can't afford either format of player so it makes no difference to me who wins this "war" actually. I just think if you are going to be making predictions on the direction that a market is moving in now and where it will untimately end up, you should ideally base those predictions on first hand observations taken on the "front lines" of the battle, that's all.

I think your best indication of where this market is going comes right from the people that walk into the stores and put down their hard earned dollars to buy these devices. They ARE the market and what they decide to do ultimately decides where this "war" will end up. Plain and simple.

I just call it like I see it (at the retail level) and I post here because I find this whole BD vs HD DVD thing to be a facinating exercise in capitalism, marketing and consumer psychology.

Sorry chief, but a retailer would NEVER talk someone out of buying a piece of equipment because of incompatibility.

Your post is hideously childish. Which Best Buy do you work at? 200 PS3s a week? I could go to almost every store around my house right now and find one. I very much doubt that statistic.

I know no one that has a blu ray stand alone, and only a few people who have a PS3.

Well said.

I've read most of your posts, and your POV is pretty much in line with what I've seen/heard from others who work in similar stores.

It just chaps my a** to have someone like Steve (or is it Benjamin today) make a comment about ANYONE's credibility.

My hand as well. I was always scared of excessive wear and tear on the drive... and for good reason apparently. :)

Pardon me for being ignorant, but I wasn't aware they had Best Buys in the UK?

"The Best Buy I work at, we sell about 200 PS3's a week, and 10 or 20 Blu-ray standalones. We sold a few obsolete HD DVD units a couple of weeks back, but that's about it, I think I saw Best Buy internal memo mentioning something about them being incompatible with the new 51GB HD DVD specs, and if anyone asked, we had to talk them out of the players."

HAHAHAHAHA. Hilarious. The Best Buy *I* work at, we sell 800 Xbox360's a day and about a thousand Toshiba HD-DVD players. Also, when people ask about Blo-Ray, we tell them "those are high tech toaster ovens" because of an internal memo.

"The Best Buy I work at, we sell about 200 PS3's a week"

Ah...I was wondering why PS3 sales figures were slowly creeping up since I don't see PS3's selling anywhere...99% of the PS3's sold are being sold at the best buy you work at. :)

And if you're working at best buy...chances are very good you're still in school (unless you're in management which I very seriously doubt)....so maybe you should study a little bit instead of obsessing over some movie format? Or maybe you're just saying that and you really work for Sony like we all know you do...

What's your Paypal account Dave? This entertainment(?) shouldn't be free. Thank you Dave!

Apparently.

200 a week please you are killing me. I almost spit out my soda with that one. You are one funny troll.

Well said there Mike.

Can you say read error?

Thank you. I will do some Google searching and see if I can find a link to the article that I saw a while back that made referrence to this. I want to say that it was talking about using an ultraviolet laser but I could be remembering that wrong. If anyone recalls reading this same article (I think it was on eWeek.com or InfoWorld.com) please do post a link here for all to see.

My bet is that he is still a shelf-stacker (when he gets out of school).

When Disney releases HD-DVD, thats when Blu-Ray is officially dead. I think Disney is the only reason Blu-Ray is selling at its 2 to 1 margin. I know I would buy a couple Disney titles if they were available in HD-DVD. Instead of buying the standard dvd, I'll just wait for Disney to switch, or offer both. I cant believe they are going to miss the holiday season sales...maybe they wont?

I agree with you. I have noticed some Disney movies I want in HD. And some from Fox. But I can wait patiently, its only a matter of time before they switch over. If not entirely, they could switch over to dual releases.

Disney recently voted for support of making the new 51GB HD DVD discs and official format. Now if they are so gung-ho Blu-Ray why would they even vote on that at all, let alone a vote of support? Seems to me they aren't so close minded about neutrality, and I think they will release on HD eventually.

i'm with you on that there's a big pile of disney movies i want to get the kids but i'm not going to by them unless they offer them on hd-dvd

I guess you mean Disney's animated stuff.

Bridge to Terabithia is available on HD DVD, providing you're willing to pay a couple bucks extra to import it.

http://xploitedcinema.co...an-release-p-12722.html

I bought a ton of disney blu-ray movies for this christmas. I know a couple of my friends which also spent a lot of money on disney blu-ray titles.

If you want Disney, get a Blu-ray player. It is that simple.

Exept for the fact that there are disney movies on hd-dvd.

Didn't Disney also back Divx?

I always buy my bloray stuff used so the sale doesn't count.

Yes, they were Divx exclusive.

If you want Disney titles in high-definition that look and sound better, and have true interactive features... just wait.

"If you want Disney, get a Blu-ray player. It is that simple. "

Really? Disney stopped making DVD's?? When'd that happen??

You can also rent Disney HD movies on Xbox Live Marketplace too.

"Home Media Research reported that Blu-ray discs are outselling HD DVD discs in the United States by a near 2-to-1 margin."

Um Davey, wasn't that ratio 4:1, I could've swore you were blabbering about that not too long ago. Looks to me that my 1 year projection of 1:1 ratios was wrong. Looks like it will be in 6 months now, my apologies, but at the time I didn't know HD-DVD players were going to go for that cheap. ;-(

Sucks to be you.

Oh, don't forget the 9:1 ratio in Europe he kept spewing everywhere... the one that Sony themselves said was 4:1 (which probably means it's closer to 2:1 there, too... since the figure came from Sony).

At the Best Buy I work at, Black Friday was a very telling time. For every Blu-Ray player that went out the door at least five HD-DVD players were sold. I think that speaks volumes right here about where this "war" is heading.

stalemate!

Here they go again.

The Blu-ray backers, desperate to create impressions before HD DVD sales over-take them, once again claim to have 'won'.

It's the usual BS from them.

They know (as everyone else must surely do by now) that it's just a matter of time as sub $200 HD DVD players get into more and more homes.

The really funny part is going to be when the switch comes, cos once HD DVD retakes the lead that's it.
Never again will Blu-ray hold the lead and they will be dropped further and further behind
(which is quite unlike the situation Blu-ray currently 'enjoys').
It'll be over, period.

....and thank God for that.

Good luck, as Blu-ray has been running away in sales for over a year now.

The sales of Blu-ray hardware totally dwarfs HD DVD, which is nothing more that small fry, with not even a million units yet (it's taken 18 months to get 3/4 of the way there).

are the clouds different colors in your world?

Running away I think not. They are leading but the lead has been shrinking. I don't care if they sell 10 million PS3s if the attachment rate continues as is bloray will die.

I know according to you attach rates don't mean anything.

Uh nope
Have not been running away at all. It's gone nowhere

Well that, "Small Fry," has managed to stop all of the, "We Won!" cries of the BDA zealots!

In addition, that, "Small Fry," has been steadily GAINING ground in this market!

Tortoise vs. Hare? Remember what happened there too!

It's not clouds it's Unicorns!

I WIN!

No, wait...it's a stalemate.

I WIN!

The entertainment industry at it's finest.

Well, it is entertaining! ;-)

*laughing* Good one...

I think you all are full of s***! He counts this you count that you want sources, you want hard numbers. Crap you are all a bunch of babies amazing you get through life at all. I don't care who wins this silly war by the time it is really decided we might be getting movies on USB thumb drives.

You HD-DVD guys you have to take PS3 into account so don't take them all take 10% they are still kicking your a** in units out and don't forget the 105 million PS2 users who might upgrade.

You Blu-Ray freaks are you insane the XBox add-on is only for freaking movies let them count it. They also have Universal a huge library of movies I don't know about you but I sure would like to see Jason Bourne in HI-DEF.

The problem I see is HD-DVD has limited hardware support check Amazon.com for you fact folk. They only show two makers of HD-DVD Toshiba and Microsoft. On the other side not counting PS3 we have Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Sharp, Philips, and Pioneer.

I will give you LG in both camps still if you ask me that doesn't give you a big support group for HD-DVD. Sure if something changes with more studios going single format then maybe. If this was a true neutral environment with studios supporting both camps it would have been over already people like choices.

Enjoy whine cry I am not going to respond.

Guys, here is yet another interesting angle to look at when considering all of this. There are other companies out there that are currently developing new optical disc technologies that will dramatically leap-frog both of these two formats in the very near future. Using still yet different wavelenths of light for their lasers and multiple layers (25 to 50 or more), these new optical discs are expected be able to store somewhere from 20 to 75 Terabytes of data on a single disc. That is hundreds of times more data than what current disc formats can hold.

Now, when this stuff starts to come to market in a couple of years as they refine and improve this technology, it is absolutely going to leave these two formats in its dust because the talk is that when this technology comes out and hits the streets, it won't be substantially more expensive then what it costs to make Blu-ray or HD DVD players today.

Well, assuming all of that is actually true and it really does happen as predicted, where does that leave everyone that went out and spent all that money on Blu-ray or HD DVD players? Are the current drives/players likely to end up as the DAT players of their day? It could happen. Stay tuned.

Blah blah...

Blu-ray's oh-so-vast arsenal of hardware supporters is attributing to their laughably slow market penetration, as none of them apparently are on the same page as far as supported features and adherence to mandated profile deadlines.

Blu-ray players manufactured by all supporters vary in price by over $1000, yet none have any perceivable benefits or additional features or value over the other.

If this were a truly neutral environment, there would not be two formats to begin with. There would be a single format agreed upon by all to be the definitive answer to high-definition in the home. Neither Blu-ray nor HD DVD fit that bill entirely, but HD DVD comes the closest as of right now... and has since both formats launched.

What does limited hardware have to do with selling a format?

If the one or two makers are meeting the needs and the hardware performs as expected, why do we need 4 or 5 other brands?

Typically, when there are more brands out its to even out the price, blu-ray doesn't really have this they are all priced much higher then hd-dvd because since there are so many players the profits have to be divided among more people whereas hd-dvd they can sell if for less as there are only two main people involved.

This is true! However do you wait until there is something down the road that MIGHT get studio, CE mfg., and distribution support, or do you watch Transformers and Ratatouille in glorious HD today?

BigJames, I find it a little ODD that will ALL of THAT CE support for Blu-Ray the only thing keeping Blu-Ray in the format battle is the PS3!

Those CE's mfgs. are there for solidarity, and marketing purposes and are being used as a show of force to the remaining participants of the DVD forum!

I also find it odd that as sole CE mfg. Toshiba, has managed to put a serious crimp in Sony and BDA's SA player plans for format supremacy and market milking. So much so, that the Sony CEO had to make the statements that he did and a crippled (IMO) PS3 can be had for $399 now!

And to boot, they managed to deliver a consistent, high quality product, with more aggregate features and capabilities than BR, at a LOWER cost point!

I'd say, "NOT BAD," for one CE mfg.!

I wonder just how much crap he got from the BDA for that momentary glimpse of honesty (know by the BDA as: A FUD-less slip up)?

Very good, sir! :)