Some on the this weekend about Walmart apparently placing a two million unit order for HD-DVD players (worth USD$100 million). Assuming those numbers are correct, Walmart's cost per player is about $50 each. According to the articles, a possible retail price for this holiday is $299, but there's a lot of speculation that it could be as low as $199.
Assuming all the above is true, the news is a pretty significant blow for Blu-Ray. When you look at stand-alone player sales (excluding PS3), Blu-Ray and HD-DVD unit sales are roughly equivalent. Sony likes to tout every additional PS3 as being yet another Blu-Ray player on the market - while there's some truth to that, it's also extremely unclear whether or not those PS3s are being used primarily for movie playback, or for games.
Even if you posit every PS3 in consumers' hands is being used as an HD movie playback device, the price point is still incredibly limiting. And with , it's hard to imagine the price dropping to below $400 by holiday. A $299-$199 stand-alone HD-DVD player could well be what tips the masses to one format over another.
(The may well be another.)
[Edit - looks like there may be translation confusion - so we need to wait for clarification. From :
Pull back the reigns [sic] HD DVD fanboys, Akihabara now says that they've made a "huge mistake" with their translation: the original source called it "藍光 HD DVD and 藍光 means Blu-RAY.
" In other words, Blu-ray HD DVD. Huh? Word to the wise: since both formats use blue lasers, it's best to wait for an English press release before either camp celebrates.
Thanks to "ericdrum" for the catch!]
Posted: Monday, April 23, 2007 8:20 AM We'll see what happens in the next 3 to 5 years when people have had to (rather than chosen to) get a new TV to replace their broken sets. Assuming they will the go for HD-TV because prices will have dropped enough.
But will those people get an HD player of either kind, or will DVD keep going strong.
If the latter is the case, what will the movie studios do? They can't try and force people to buy HD DVDs (of either kind) because it may backfire and push people to the illegal practices they so much fear.
I'm really only talking about myself, not speculating about people in general :)
Interesting to read. To those of you with the HD-DVD add-on, do you really notice the difference? I've been trying to decide what to do with my tax return, and HD-DVD is looking promising.
...
My TV is a 50 Hitachi LCD @ 720p/1080i. The only HD thing I have is my 360, and I usually have it on 720p. Whenever I take my 360 to friend's homes, I have a hard time telling the difference between their standard def tv's, and my HD tv.
So I don't know if I really should buy the add-on or not. I have pretty bad vision, but my contacts/glasses take care of that pretty good. So what do you all suggest?
I wish I could rent one for a day, even...
Then test DVD's and HD-DVD's side by side, to see the difference. Also, is the drive any quieter than the 360's?
Thanks!
I read through the Chinese news. It does say Blue-ray HD-DVD and also compare the price with both Sony and Toshiba's.
At the same time, it also mentions this is the only model on the world that can combine both two.
Look like it indicates a blueray HD-DVD dual player.
Enzo, yes, you notice the difference. I tested it with King Kong, since I had it on DVD and it came free with the HD drive.
It's huge. And there are a lot of older classics coming to HD, I've rented Spartacus, Enter the Dragon, and Gran Prix (best racing movie ever made) recently and I know there are more I can't remember.
Is your TV natively 1080i?
If so I think you'd get a little better quality from the 360 if you set it to 1080i.
And there is a distance formulae (I forget it exactly) that gives you the number of feet you can sit away from a given tv size before the hd doesn't matter. AFAIK, for a 50' screen it's 5-6 feet?
Thanks Porktree! I'm not sure what it is natively ..
. I just know it works with both 1080i and 720p. I leave it on 720p, because someone that sounded smart from either this blog or MajorNelson's said that progressive works better for games than interlaced does.
It might have been the same guy who said that 1080p and HDMI meant nothing. Who knows..
. It's been a while.
Also, my couch is roughly 6-7 feet away.
It's going to be a hard decision, I guess...
. If I go get the HD-DVD add-on and a few movies, that will probably use up all of my tax break..
. Or a few new games, and a new black wireless controller..
.
Thanks again!
And, I don't use up one of the precious HD ports on my TV (I only have 3 counting HDMI).
Well, I was a bone head and opted for the 2 HDMI TV thinking it was the only way to go instead of 2 component and 1 HDMI and then I bought my 360 and was stunned that it did not support HDMI and I had already bought a DVD player/receiver(standard DVD) that only did component so I was forced to buy and use a VGA adapter for my 360 so I still have 1 HDMI input left. I'm still a little peeved on how M$ handled the whole HDMI port but life goes on and I still love my 360.
I will probably wait until fall before I go HD-DVD or Blue Ray.
Who knows maybe Sony will have a price drop and I will go Blue Ray, hard to say right now.
I am a native Chinese speaker. I translated major points in those two links.
It is pretty clear to me that they were talking about HD-DVD. In the last paragraph, the major advantages of HD-DVD were mentioned, i.e.
can take advantage of current DVD manufacturing equipments, low cost from DVD to HD-DVD, better protection from scratch and dirt, etc. I believe all these are compared with the format You Know Which. The first batch, 2mil players could be delivered by the end of 2007 for $100 million, based on info from the first link.
There could be more subsequent orders for 2008, totaling up to $300 million by the end of 2008, based on info from the second link (not Fuh Yuan's website). All these information were released as part of campaign to promote Fuh Yuan's impending IPO for next March. It is from the Chairman of the Board of Fuh Yuan.
He is the guy in the picture. He has to speak the truth to make sure his stock price flies sky high." Obviously this is one person's claim posted on an internet forum.
So it must be true. ;) Seriously, though, this will be one of those wait and see things..
. but it could shake up the battle quite a bit if true.
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