Video Asylum

Posted by oscar (A) on September 07, 2007 at 19:56:48

In Reply to: RE: what do you predict, if anything? No money riding on it. posted by Duilawyer on September 07, 2007 at 17:15:47

Except Paramount's defection gave HD DVD some badly needed momentum. They are still hurting and likely to lose, but it'll just take a bit longer. Unless there are some other major studio defections.

I would predict Blu-ray will maintain it's sales edge, maybe 60/70 % instead of 70/80/90% at the end of the year. They'll still have a signficant studio edge provided Fox actually does deliver on the titles they reneged on earlier in the year. "Transformers" is the biggest selling point for HD DVD this year, but it's got a lot of competition from the Blu-ray exclusive day&date releases. One movie by itself will not be enough to get large number of folks to buy HD DVD players IMHO.

Hardware sales could play a big role. Blu-Ray has actually sold more Standalones than HD-DVD the past 12 weeks which surprised me and they are still selling PS3s at a pretty good clip.
I don't think the $200 Chinese knockoffs are going to make much impact when movies still cost $30 or so retail. And a bunch of new Blu-Ray players from a number of name brand manufacturers will come out for the Holiday season. Onkyo and Integra gave HD DVD a slight boost on the high(er) end but Blu-ray more than matched this move. The Dual format players look like they are still too expensive. They must be moving pretty well though if pricing has been maintained.

As for myself, I'll probably only consider buying HD DVD (or Blu-ray) movies only if they include lossless audio tracks (at the moment that list of movies does NOT include "Transformers", "Bourne Ultimatum", Harry Potter, etc....). I'll simply wait for the Special edition and/or Blu-ray releases.