I think that’s the most straightforward thing I’ve ever heard anyone at Sony say about the whole mess, although his soft-peddling of Sony’s position is somewhat ingenuous.

Although I’m not as emotional about it as some of the other commenters around here, I think there’ll be serious sales growth of both formats this Christmas, and while I believe that Blu-ray may have the advantage long term, this war has been a teeter-totter from day one, so who knows?

This is a definite change from the confident “We’re going win” / “It’s over. We’ve won.” Sony we’re used to hearing from.

For Sony to say this means that things may have been tied up and Sony might even have been humbled somewhat in this experience.

Maybe we’ll see Fox’s Mike Dunn, Disney’s Bob Chapek, and Pioneer’s Andy Parsons stop with their pathetic trash-talking about HD DVD that they’ve demonstrated since before the formats even launched.  It’s about time we see a little realism and humility from these clowns.

Toshiba has weathered every storm and is sitting pretty right now.  Dedicated players nearly at the half-million mark and selling faster than ever, while Sony and the BDA continue to put all their eggs into a videogame console to win the war.  I saw this coming from a mile away.

Am I alone in thinking a 2 to 1 sales on the BD side *might* have been due to a long Buy One Get One free sales and heavy discounting of BDM during those times? I have to assume the disc out the door is counted as product moved regardless if it was free/half price to the end consumer or not.

I also believe that there being more PS3’s in homes than stand alone players equates to an issue with no games to play means these media hungry PS3 owners are buying BDM (movies) to fill the void.

I surmise that as in the past where PS2 drove DVD sales the PS3, despite its poor hardware sales, is a driving force in BDM sales currently. If I had a PS3 I would surely be taking advantage of sales on BDM.

As an Xbox360 owner (with hd add-on, and now a Toshiba HD-A2) I still find I buy more Games than movies, simply because they are available. Now that I have a $100 HD player, I can think differently about how I buy media.

No, Bigbrain, you’re NOT alone in your line of thinking.  These Buy 1, Get 1 Free sales on Blu-Ray discs have been run all year at least half-a-dozen times.  They have included discs from Sony, Fox, Disney and Lions Gate, and have been run at every major retailer from Best Buy (twice), Circuit City, Fry’s, amazon.com—even FYE.  They serve no purpose whatsoever except to pad the software sales figures so the mouthpiece of the BDA could continuously spew the “2:1 sales” line.  In other words, it’s all for the perception and hype and nothing else. 

In fact, the Disney-sponsored BOGO sale on ALL their catalog titles was intentionally designed to counter the effects of Transformers on HD DVD—God forbid Blu-Ray lose a week in software sales numbers to HD DVD—so they prefer to GIVE AWAY 60,000 discs to save face. 

That’s the mantra of the BDA—do anything to buy public perception.  That way folks don’t see the reality of the situation—that HD DVD at half the price (or less) offers the exact same picture and audio quality and even adds many next-generation features that Blu-Ray STILL can’t accomplish after nearly 18 months on the market.

But my favorite part of this interview is when Stringer claims, “We were trying to win on the merits, which we were doing for a while, until Paramount changed sides.” Merits, my ass!  They were trying to strong-arm the consumer into Blu-Ray from Day 1 by keeping Fox, Disney and Columbia/Tri Star exclusive!  THIS is the only reason to buy into Blu-Ray at twice the price of the competition.  So for them to get peeved at Paramount for dropping Blu-Ray support is the epitomy of hypocrisy.  They’re now reaping exactly what they’ve sown.

“So for them to get peeved at Paramount for dropping Blu-Ray support is the epitomy of hypocrisy.  They’re now reaping exactly what they’ve sown.”

Where does he say he’s “peeved at Paramount”?  Of course they’d be dissappointed by Paramount switching, but come on!  Of course the HDDVD side would gladly take Fox and Disney if they decided to switch.  Both would welcome any exclusive studios.  Why do you consider this “strong-arming”?

I just love how the internet has changed what an industry is able to do to consumers.

Each one of us has a small mouthpiece here online and when banded together the real truth wins and corporate America or in this case Japan can’t screw us.

This price was has been a win win to the consumer.  In short order we will all be able to purchase HD DVDs at a reasonable price as well as the hardware.

So I say hail to the greedy Sony’s and Disney’s and the rest.  I for one have boycotted Disney theme parks until they produce HD DVDs.  Of all companies you wouldn’t think Disney would strong arm our country’s poor children who can’t afford the most overpriced hardware.  America’s children deserve better from Disney.  A 99.00 player with HD and Disney wants you to spend 399.00 on a BD player because they don’t produce in HD DVD.  So the message from Disney to our children is bah humbug, only the rich children get to watch our movies in High Def.

I actually bought a PS3 but more for the blu ray, and i have 2 friends who were also more interested in the blu ray but i also like games so yes there may be no games right now for the ps3, but make no mistake, im more in it for the movies, the ps3 is an excellent blu ray player on its own.

Hey Brad i dont think the poor families are worried about HD movies, they are more worried about not having food on their tables, besides those Disney movies are on DVD so those poor kids can still watch their movies, the kids dont really scutinize the difference of 480p vs 1080p as much as the adults

Couldn’t agree more with the comments above.  Before the format war started, I was certain that I would be supporting Blu-Ray as I believed that it was technologically superior.  I heard Mark Cuban give a keynote address at CEDIA where he heaped endless praise on Blu-Ray and castigated the HD DVD camp as pushing a technology that would not live up to the public’s HDTV expectations.  He portrayed HD DVD as a half-hearted compromise that was developed more to continue the profitability of DVD producers than to push technology.

I believed it....until I actually experienced HD DVD.  To say that I was stunned would be putting it mildly.  I didn’t see the reduced quality that I previously imagined must exist, based upon the BDA spin.  All I got was perfect picture and sound, at a ridiculously low price.  My initial player was the XBOX 360 add-on.  I have since purchased a Toshiba HD-A2 and couldn’t possibly be happier.  I have also experienced Blu-Ray at its absolute best (in vendor demos at the 2007 CEDIA expo) and was completely underwhelmed.  Sure it looked and sounded great, but for at least double the price of HD DVD there was absolutely no discernable difference in quality.  In fact, as many are aware, for much less money I received a technology that not only has no deficiencies compared to Blu-Ray, but actually has advantages (PIP,internet access, etc.) No brainer.

The BDA should realize that I am the perfect target consumer for them, as my wife and I have a combined income over $200,000.00 and can purchase anything we want. We generally just buy what we feel is the best, and in this case we certainly did....HD DVD.  Sony came to this fight without any bullets in the gun, and now they’re trying to bluff us all into submitting by just waving the empty gun around and telling everyone to give up (the slight bit of uncharacteristic humility in the story above notwithstanding).  Absolutely freaking hilarious!  They’re getting what they deserve by trying once again to monopolize a media format.

I think it’s crazy to see how much debate this topic has created in our industry.  Everyone who has either a Blu-ray player or a HD-DVD player is at this point an early adopter.  We both suffer from some sort of limitations, albeit some can argue that we don’t care as much about the limiation the other camp puts on us.  Watching this heated debate over the last few weeks, is a perfect example of why the two camps can’t agree on terms - we can’t even agree as professional decision makers in the industry as to which is right.

As an industry and as a benefit to our clients, I strongly believe we should not recommend either one unless we’re selling them a device that does both.  I predict the new Samsung dual format player to be the most influential piece of hardware to come out end of this year and into next year.  Looking at the specs, this piece will fully support both formats, including DTS and Dolby HD, as well as include a HQV video processor to play old DVD’s.  The LG dual format player doens’t come close to providing the same level of functionality.  It will be the best Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player that has ever come to market and it will do both formats.

I realize it may be less expensive to get two seperate players to play both formats, but in buying a dual format device, we tell both sides that we really don’t care who wins.  We just want to watch whatever content we want to watch.  The movie directors and studios can then decide for themselves what format they want to use for special features or capacity reasons.

Let put this to and end people, support dual format players.

Buying a dual format player is a waste of money and more to deal with firmware updates.  Why would you spend more than 99-199 for a HD player?  It will not be long after the news from CEO Stringer that the BD only studios begin HD DVD production.  If not those of us who own HD and not BD will eventually get our copies from Europe.

I believe with this recent news the BD only studios will see the light very soon.

Ed,

While I agree, in theory, that dual-format players are now the best avenue, I have reservations about that approach.

First, as you’ve already mentioned, the cheapest dual player is currently $1000 and is therefore more expensive than buying a player from both formats.  If duals were $299 or less, I belive that would be a no-brainer.  Plus, it would seem likely, IMO, that one player that needed to read both formats’ discs would be more susceptible to breaking.

Secondly, at least for me, I would NEVER want to buy Blu-Ray discs and support these underhanded, greedy companies that have done nothing but attack the worthy competition for over a year now.  I’m not claiming that all companies aren’t greedy and want to maximize their profits—they certainly do.  This is capitalism, after all.  But the BDA (Blu-Ray Disc Association) has just gone overboard, in my opinion, with their arrogant attacks, their pathetic claims of “victory” over and over, their disdain for their very customers in charging $1000 - $1500 for players that, unbeknownst to the buyers, would be obsolete regarding many future features!  It was a format that was not even close to being ready for prime-time, yet they pushed it through to compete with HD DVD.  18 months later, and they STILL don’t have the Java-functions properly implemented in players, yet they still try to sell them to the public!  And they have the gaul to suggest their format is superior?!?

Blu-Ray should simply have never existed!  Insiders (especially compressionists and disc manufacturers) knew that BD was not economically viable—there are numerous quotes from 2005 and earlier that support this fact.  Even today, disc manufacturing costs are much higher for Blu-Ray than HD DVD. Sony needed to subsidize disc manufacturing costs just to entice studios to support the format (some theorists claimed the end of these subsidies is what prompted Paramount to dump Blu-Ray, along with HD DVD’s incentives).

And we all know that creating the new disc lines for BD cost several million dollars whereas HD DVD can simply modify existing DVD lines for a few thousand.  Why do you think Blu-Ray has so many production issues?  Hell, MGM canceled 2 more announced titles just today including Ronin and Red Dawn (to go along with the recently canceled Battle of Britain and A Bridge Too Far), which means there entire slate of announced titles is now a whopping ONE!  We’ve seen FOX announce an entire slate of titles only to pull all of them off the shelf, and Sony has bumped Life Of Brian twice now!  And this is the format that intends to compete with the juggernaut of DVD?  What would it do in a possible future when a big title would be selling MILLIONS of discs rather than a few thousand?

And let’s not get started on the subject of DRM (digital rights management), in which Blu-Ray studios have begun implementing even MORE copy-protection crap on their discs that hav led to playback issues in every player on the market.  Take Fox’s “Day After Tomorrow” release, for example.  Best case scenario, the disc plays after a 2-minute wait!  Worst case—it just doesn’t play!  Kind of makes the whopping $40 that Fox charges a bit high when it doesn’t play!  And speakingof price, Sony and Blu-Ray have just risen the cost of a single title to $50 with Spiderman 3 and Close Encounters!  Wow, let’s support Blu-Ray so we can go back to Laserdisc pricing.

No, it’s HD DVD for me and HD DVD only.  If you saw the recent articles, you’d know that Toshiba sold a whopping 100K players over a 3-day span nearly 2 weeks ago.  This figure represents nearly HALF of all Blu-Ray stand-alone players sold to date, and it was accomplished in a single weekend!  My advice—avoid Blu-Ray and its greedy cartel-like companies and buy an HD DVD player. It’s affordable, complete, and equal to Blu-Ray in every respect.  Let’s let the studios acquiesce to our wishes rather than constantly giving in to theirs.

Thanks Ed.

Thats what I was thinking and more.  I just didn’t want to take the time to type it.

99.00 HD DVD hardware which upconverts - inexpensive HD DVD disk that plays as a DVD or HD DVD.

Getting back as Sony for bucking us all these years.

How is this a tough decision.

Sorry I meant Bob Black not Ed.

I believe neither will “win” and both will end up niche formats like SACD and DVDAudio (as many others have also predicted). New fiber optic tv services and internet connected set-top boxes offering HD downloads are going to be the next evolution. Disc based media is on its way out.
Still, an A3 for 2 bills (with 10 free movies thank-you-very-much) and a new $400 PS3 and I’m set for both!

Thank You ALL! As much as I *try* not to be a BD basher and/or HD DVD “fanboy” it really puts a smile on my face to read the like minded thoughts of fellow (self) educated consumers. It’s nice to know you’re all (also) paying attention to the real story here. For the record, like most of you, my real gripe over BD id their tactics, as stated above; if you ain’t got it, don’t say you do, and charge me 2x’s as much!

Funny Bob Black should mention Laserdisc pricing. I often use that analogy myself, as a LD owner who often shelled out $70 for (sub dvd quality) movies for 10yrs!

I’ve learned my lesson. Like any good American, I want it CHEAP, I want it BEST and I want it NOW!

And for me, that’s HD DVD all the way.

“Even with the switch by Paramount and Dreamworks, recent statistics have shown that Blu-ray discs outsold HD DVD titles nearly 2 to 1 through September. “

Didn’t Paramounts first exclusives come out in October?  So isn’t adding these two a bits of info together a little misleading.

Really a fascinating interview here with Mr. Stringer. I don’t think that one Blu Ray player maker, such as Sony, can lower their pricing much more without basically destroying the viability of the other manufacturers players. I predicted this long ago. Its very hard to hold this type of consortium together, as we have seen.

Since 1080P displays with HDMI are becoming the standard, Hi Def DVDs will as well. What we are looking at is HD-DVD replacing SD-DVD. Blu Ray isnt as much as a factor as people may think. Remember, Blu Ray only titles are available as HD-DVD releases in Europe. If one or two movie studios that are Blu Ray exclusive now go dual format, its basically over for Blu Ray IMHO.

Paramounts catalog is too strong, along with Dreamworks, for Blu Ray to “win.” And with the volume of HD-DVD players being sold, and the movies to follow in HD-DVD, other Blu Ray studios can’t sit on the sidelines too long. Its too expensive for them to remain Blu Ray only while the HD-DVD studios make more profit due to lower production costs on the discs.

This all said, I personally salute the super intelligent folks on the technical aspects of both Blu Ray and HD-DVD for a lot of hard work. I don’t really care about sales and marketing and hype, or authors that just have to throw in slants in articles. ( Since until recently, Blu Ray players outsold HD-DVD players 6 to 1, but only lead in software 2:1, they are really down 3:1.--all which will become, very shortly, a very moot point).

HD-DVD--DO NOT TALK TO SONY ABOUT “one format.” They made their bed in the first round--now they must sleep in it.

“Of all companies you wouldn’t think Disney would strong arm our country’s poor children who can’t afford the most overpriced hardware.  America’s children deserve better from Disney.”

Doesn’t surprise me, take a look at the cost to enter their theme parks!  It’s not the children they care about.

If Michael Eisner were at Disney this would not be happening.  CEO’s are obligated to make the most profit for their companies by law.  Even though I have sided with HD DVD from the beginning, I believe every studio should offer both formats and let the public decide by their purchases.  I hope there are class action lawsuits in the future for these companies for not looking after the best interest of the shareholders. But the way I see it some on the Blu Ray side are milking the cow from both sides.  The studio executives know HD will be the victor and the numbers have been schewed from the beginning using the Play Station as a movie player is just not attaching at the rate Sony would hope for.  So when the BD studios stop producing as with Paramount and Dreamworks, only more sales will occur because those folks who purchased their movies on BD will now have to keep hardware for a few movies, or more likely repurchase the movies on HD and double the revenues for the studios.  This is hiprocracy.

I think the comment about Disney strong arming, doesn’t make much sense, unless Disney stops making the normal DVD.  As far as which platform will win over the other, look at the adult film industry. the platform they use will be on top in the long run

Sam,

We’re not discussing studios blocking their releases from standard definition, we’re talking about HI-definition!  What studio would be stupid enough to stop manufacturing DVD’s when they account for 98% of their business?

This is about a pre-planned coalition between companies & studios backing Blu-Ray exclusively from the start, in an attempt to strong-arm the consumer into buying Blu-Ray.

Warren Lieberfarb, the ex-President at Warner Brothers, had this to say about Blu-Ray back in April:

Lieberfarb accused film studios and CE companies backing Blu-ray of forming a “cartel” back in 2002 in an attempt to ensure that its favored format would become the industry standard.

Four of the eight major studios are backing Blu-ray exclusively and Sony, Panasonic and Philips are only manufacturing Blu-ray players.

“It was clear to me that a cartel-like consortium was being created for the purpose of forcing a de facto standard on other manufacturers,” Lieberfarb tells Variety.

Consequently, he says, Blu-ray’s supporters were never seriously interested in negotiating with HD DVD’s backers on a compromise for a single format. At one point, he tells Variety, he asked Time Warner’s legal team to investigate the anti-trust implications of the Blu-ray effort. He believed that the Justice Department should investigate.
_________________________________________________

This is what we are discussing.  The concerted efforts of a band of companies to FORCE the consumer into the more-expensive, less complete format that wasn’t even ready for launch!  There was also an article from earlier this year discussing this coalition “attacking” Samsung for “breaking rank” and releasing an HD DVD / Blu-Ray Combo player! 

As anyone can clearly see, Blu-Ray has been an abomination for the consumer since its inception—overpriced, incomplete, riddled with copy-protection and region-coding (all at the expense of the consumer) and backed by a bullying cartel of greedy companies & studios.  As I said before, support HD DVD and tell these corporations that they will acquiesce to our wishes or they will not get our business.

I found the link for the event I mentioned in the above post.  From the CED Industry Newsletter in April, 2007:

Blu-ray stalwart Panasonic brutalized LG for its combo [player] at the latest DVD Forum Steering Committee meeting, we’re told. From transcripts we’ve seen, Panasonic accused LG of breach of contract for offering a combo player, and said it should be censured for doing so. LG blithely thanked Panasonic for bringing publicity to its combo—and said its lawyers would respond. In what seemed an exchange of spite, LG split ranks with its Blu-ray compatriots by voting in favor of all HD DVD measures before the SC—rather than abstaining, as the pragmatic Korean companies usually had.
________________________________________________________
...just so everyone interested in hi-def media knows exactly what kind of coalition exists backing the Blu-Ray format.  As I stated, these companies are the very essense of greed and corruption.  Lieberfarb knew this fact, and events like this simply re-affirm his comments.

What I find staggering is the outcry from Sony and PS3 fanboys complaining about Paramount Pictures exclusivity deal with HD DVD after they dumped Blu-Ray this summer.  They support a band of the worst corporations forming a cartel, yet they take issue with a studio dropping support for Blu-Ray—claiming they “took the bait” (a quote from Fox’s moronic exec, Mike Dunn)!

Paramount’s move and now the exponential sales growth of HD DVD hardware mark the beginning of the end for Blu-Ray.  And it can’t come fast enough, IMO!

These comments are a riot. What a FUD fest from the HD DVD cartel.

Let’s see, Blu-Ray sales are inflated due to ‘buy 1, get 1 free deals’. And yet there’s been plenty of “Get X Free Movies” when you buy an HD DVD player, or the XBox addon. So when BR does it, they’re evil, when HD DVD does it, they’re offering consumers a great deal.

“That’s the mantra of the BDA—do anything to buy public perception.”

But dumping $99 HD DVD players had nothing at all to do with buying public perception, right?

It’s amazing and horrifying to see how angry you people get over a video format. When AVSForums had to disable posting on the Blu-Ray and HD DVD forums because of the threats being made over choice of high definition video format, it really opened my eyes.

You seriously have to wonder how much some of these people are getting paid to post the comments they do. And honestly, if some of you are NOT getting paid to be a shill, you ought to be.