Video Asylum

Posted by Duilawyer (A) on July 14, 2007 at 09:47:02

HD DVD group says outselling Blu-ray in Europe
Wed Jul 11, 2007 8:13 PM EDT

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - HD DVD video players have outsold rival standard Blu-ray players by a three-to-one margin in Europe's main markets so far this year, according to a lobby group.
The European HD DVD Promotional Group claimed it had 74 percent market share in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland for stand-alone players, citing sales figures it commissioned from market research group GfK.

GfK said it has not published research commissioned from the trade group.

The HD DVD group, led by Toshiba Corp. and backed by Microsoft Corp. and film studios including Warner Bros., declined to give figures for how many players it had shipped to retail outlets in Europe.

The figures were for stand-alone players only and did not include sales of games consoles such as Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, which contains a Blu-ray player.

The Sony-led Blu-ray lobby group includes Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Apple Inc. and Dell Inc.. Its discs, which are outselling HD DVD discs, can store more information and special features but the technology is more expensive.

Toshiba cut prices for its HD-E1 HD DVD player to 399 euros ($549) in Europe and $299 in the United States last month from 499 euros and $399, respectively.

Sony's BDP-S300 Blu-ray player costs $499 in the United States, and its BDP-S1E European version has recently gone on sale, with prices starting at around 900 euros. Other Blu-ray players have been on sale in Europe for longer.

According to its Web site, Blu-ray is an optical disc format developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video. It claims to offer more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs.

HD DVD (high-definition digital versatile disc) format claims to offer six times the picture resolution of normal DVDs and enhanced audio, according to its Web site.

Toshiba's spokesman for the European HD DVD group, Olivier Van Vieandal, told Reuters that profit margins for its HD DVD players were comparable to those for its DVD players in Europe.

He declined to say whether Toshiba was selling players at