Blu-Ray Winning Format War, Says Sony >

	2007/02/06 8:10:24: Posted by DM
	According to Sony, Blu-Ray is already winning the next-gen format war. They claim the format is outselling HD-DVD by more than 2 to 1. Sony is basing this fact on a Neilsen VideoScan report which states that during the first week of January, 47.14 HD-DVD movies were sold for every 100 Blu-Ray. Then again with Sony's recent trend of botched PR, who knows if this is true. >Link
	Labeled With  sony playstation 3 blu-ray Comments [30]  | Rate this article: -- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  | Avg. rating of 3.6

NEWSFLASH ... as of Monday, there are more BD titles than HD-DVD titles. And with only one studio releaseing exclusive content for HD-DVD, its not gonna catch up anytime soon.. in terms of releases and units sold.

Face it, the PS3 as BD Trojan Horse worked, whether you like it or not.

Indeed. But it isn't solely b/c of Sony. Blu-Ray as we all know is comprised of numerous major corporations and have great support from the movie companies. With the overwhelming support that Blu-Ray has, it is hard to imagine that HD DVD will be able to keep up. If Universal drops exclusivity, it is all but over. Disney's and Sony's movie house support are huge for Blu-Ray. There is an interesting opinion piece on cdnet referencing some of these same points. These thoughts and sentiments are echoed all over the web.

In other news ...

"purbeast is the coolest guy in the world" says purbeast.

I heard that you were the coolest guy in your town, world not so much, lol.

Hey unless your name is arthur herbert fonzarelli, i deffo doubt that! as for blu-ray, is it ever gonna take over standard DVD?

"says Sony"...lol.

Well its not like its games out there to play on your new PS3 might as well buy some Blu-ray while you wait.. in that sense it makes sense to be winning

March will change the game outlook for the PS3. Motorstorm FTW.

Yea, the PS3 library blows right now, no doubt about it. Which is why i have 4 BD movies and RFoM.

:) way to go blu-way,I have a major collection already.

Wow Sony says BluRay is winning. There's a news flash. Next thing you now Microsoft will say Vista is the best operating system you can get.

Sony is stating the obvious. There are enough sales figures from a variety of sources to back what they are saying, for once.

IF It works , this will gave sony extra sales. who dont want a console/blu ray player for less than $600?

well i got both consoles im not worriead a bit in what will happen.lolll

I don't think it will boost their sales too much. It is going to be the games that do that. Rumor has it that a Killzone 2/3 demo(whichever it will officially be)will be playable at the GDC. I for one don't know how much of that I'll believe, but Sony has to realize it is time to step up and bring the goods. Blu Ray sales are nice and all, but I want some games.

"Sony has to realize it is time to step up and bring the goods."

@Vaevictus

The console hasn't even been out 4 months yet. Give it some time. Every console usually has a slow start.

I am giving it time, trust me. I own it and am excited about the coming months.

what worries me is the obsoleteness of the blu-ray drive in the ps3. IMO, when/if blu-ray finally hits it's stride, and it wins a "war" all the new set top blu-ray players will have faster drive speeds and new features, and the blu-ray discs can be read at faster speeds.

what do you all think?

its a natural evolution , budy just like the cd, and dvd drives.

My first dvd drive was 2x in 2001 , now i got a new one at 16x speed.

This dont realy mather, cos the guys interesting in whatching blu movies trough the ps3 are not video experts or entushiasts , they are isntead,,the maisntream , normal people like mean that just want to pop in the movie and watch it.

soo should i still get tha HD-DVD player for my 360...

Response to QuestimElite:

I highly recommend the HD-DVD player for you Xbox 360, because it is priced in an excellent way and comes with the awesome King Kong movie that was filmed in high-definition!

Also, I would just like to make a few things clear to EVERYONE:

(1) HD-DVD and Blu-ray BOTH had a shot to become the successor to standard DVD discs. But the DVD forum chose the HD-DVD format, BECAUSE IT IS BETTER!

One of the reasons why HD-DVD is better because it offers movies that cost less, because the manufacturing process is nearly identical to the current DVD production process. HD-DVD movies cost significantly less to produce, and this will grow even more over time.

But it goes much deeper than that. I will explain the reasons why HD-DVD is the best type of disc for home entertainment one at a time in an unbiased way:

(2) HD-DVD and Blu-ray both potentially have access to three types of compression Codec: MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and VC-1.

MPEG-2 is the least technologically impressive because it is over ten years old; that is what is used in standard DVD discs. MPEG-2 is also what is used in the overwhelming majority of Blu-ray discs.

MPEG-4 offers video quality more impressive than MPEG-2, but it is based on Floating Point rather than Integer. Floating point takes up space on a disc in infinitely greater ways because it is not based on whole-numbers; the decimals of the numbers are also used for the calculations. This is a BIG problem because it uses up a HUGE amount of space on the disc in a very inefficient way that prevents things like Special Features from being added.

VC-1 was built by Microsoft and Intel as a counter to MPEG-4. VC-1 is used in every HD-DVD movie available. VC-1 displays the high-level of video-quality that MPEG-4 does, but it is based on the very efficient Integer math compression technology.

(3) Sony could easily choose to use VC-1 for their Blu-ray movies if they wanted to, but they literally choose not to, just because they don't want to pay licensing and royalty fees to Microsoft and Intel. This is nearly identical to the reason why Sony does not include Rumble/Vibration technology in the Playstation 3 controller; they simply don't want to pay the licensing and royalty fees...and as a result, the customers of the Playstation 3 and the Blu-ray format are cheated out of a higher level of quality due to the arrogance and greed of Sony's Japanese executives.

(4) There are currently FAR MORE HD-DVD movie discs on the market that have more space that Blu-ray discs do. The fact of the matter is that every HD-DVD disc on the market at this point in time is a dual-layer 30GB disc, compared to the Blu-ray discs on the market right now, which are only single later 25GB discs.

(5) Sony has not been able to successfully manufacture their dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray discs in a bulk ratio, because there is too high a defect ratio. Even when Sony eventually figures out how to manufacture dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray discs with a defect ratio that is satisfactory, it won't matter, because there are already three-layer HD-DVD discs that hold 45GB of data.

Before you say, "Well, Sony's 50GB discs still will have a 5GB advantage," you need to realize something. There comes a point when the the amount of data available on a disc simply does not matter, because there is virtually no way to fill it! It is almost like one person saying, "I have $50 billion, while you only have $45 billion." It simply doesn't matter, because both people have more than enough to do whatever they need to do or whatever they are asked to do!

Even if there were a reason to include more than 45GB or 50GB of data on one of these discs, the discs can potentially hold HUNDREDS of GB of data! NO MOVIE would EVER need that much data!

(6) Blu-ray's space advantage per layer only helps it in the world of data storage for computers--not home entertainment! That is the reason why the DVD Forum selected HD-DVD as the successor to the standard DVD format for home entertainment! And anyone who would need to put 25GB of data on a Blu-ray disc would probably be better off just spending a couple hundred dollars on a 500GB hard-drive rather than thousands of dollars for a built in Blu-ray drive!

(7) THIS IS FUNDAMENTALLY IMPORTANT to why HD-DVD has been selected by the DVD Forum as the successor to the standard DVD format:

HD-DVD has the ability to access two pieces of information on a disc at the same time, while Blu-ray DOES NOT!!!

This means that you can do things with an HD-DVD movie such as watch the movie in VC-1 high-definition, while at the same time seeing a high-definition picture-in-picture where the actors or the director are explaining what their goals for that part of the movie, or what they were thinking when the action was taking place while that part of the movie was being filmed.

You CAN'T do that with a Blu-ray, and you NEVER WILL BE ABLE TO, because the Blu-ray technology DOESN'T offer that ability...and that is one of the main reasons why HD-DVD was selected as the Official Successor of the standard DVD format, while Blu-ray was NOT!!!

Ya know, the pornographic industry may be one of the industries that takes advantage of this feature the most. Just stop and think about how people would enjoy seeing the actors from the porno being interviewed in a picture-in-picture box, while the HD-DVD porno movie is being viewed!

The actors in the pornographic movie might say things like, "it hurt when he did that, but I had to keep a smile on my face," and then everyone in the picture-in-picture would laugh, and things like that.

Those are features that Blu-ray discs DO NOT HAVE!

Response to the (un)bisead Professor:

1)Plain lies.

Your point number 7 is false.

Read this.

"In addition to the greater video and audio quality, the extra storage capacity also means there will be plenty of room for additional content and special features. This combined with the new BD-J interactivity layer adopted by Blu-ray will bring the menus, graphics and special features to a whole new level. For example, you will be able to bring up the menu system as an overlay without stopping the movie, and you could have the director of the movie on the screen explaining the shooting of a scene while the scene is playing in the background."

hxxp://www.blu-ray.com/faq/#bluray_vs_dvd_comparison



2) Popularity

"Blu-ray is currently supported by more than 180 of the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer, recording media, video game and music companies. The format also has broad support from the major movie studios as a successor to today's DVD format.

In fact, seven of the eight major movie studios (Disney, Fox, Warner, Paramount, Sony, Lionsgate and MGM) are supporting the Blu-ray format and five of them (Disney, Fox, Sony, Lionsgate and MGM) are releasing their movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. Many studios have also announced that they will begin releasing new feature films on Blu-ray Disc day-and-date with DVD, as well as a continuous slate of catalog titles every month.



3)Sales

Blu-ray software sales have now surpassed HD-DVD for the first time the week of December 24 and they did so by an impressive 20 percent. The sales gap is expected to widen further in 2007 based on research conducted by Twentieth Century Fox and Blu-ray is expected to outsell HD-DVD by a 3.5-to-1 ratio by the end of the first quarter. One of the driving factors behind the growth in sales is the PlayStation 3 (PS3), which was launched on November 17, 2006 in North America. The PS3 has been selling out at retail outlets since it was launched and despite shortages Sony has been able to meet its target of shipping 1 million PS3s in North America by the end of 2006. What's even more impressive is that they did it faster than their top-selling PlayStation 2 (PS2) platform did when it was launched. Sony is now targetting 6 million PS3 consoles shipped worldwide by the end of the fiscal year (end of March 2007). While many have doubted the eff...



4) HDVD VS BLU RAY

The first is capacity. Because Blu-ray utilizes a lens with a greater numerical aperture (NA) than HD-DVD, the laser spot can be focused with greater precision to fit more data on the same size disc. This allows Blu-ray to hold 25GB per layer (50GB on a dual-layer disc), whereas HD-DVD can only hold 15GB per layer (30GB on a dual-layer disc). Blu-ray has also adopted a higher data transfer rate for video and audio (54Mbps vs 36.55Mbps). The greater capacity and data transfer rates for Blu-ray will allow the movie studios to release their movies with higher quality video and audio than the HD-DVD format.



The second is content. The Blu-ray format has received broad support from the major movie studios as a successor to today's DVD format. Seven of the eight major movie studios (Warner, Paramount, Fox, Disney, Sony, MGM and Lionsgate) have already announced titles for Blu-ray, whereas HD-DVD only has support from three major movie studios (Warner, Paramount and Universal). This is an important difference because some of the studios might only support one of the formats, so you won't be able to get your favorite movies in the other format. Choosing the format with the most content support minimizes this risk.



The third is hardware support. The Blu-ray format has broad support from the world's leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers, including Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Pioneer, Sharp, JVC, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, TDK, Thomson, LG, Apple, HP and Dell. The Blu-ray format will also be supported in the next-generation PlayStation 3 (PS3) video game console. This means that you will have a lot of choice when it comes to players and hardware. The HD-DVD format has far less supporters, so the amount of players and hardware will be very limited. Currently, Toshiba is the only company offering a stand-alone HD-DVD player.



@@@@@@

Please Professor dont post lies like the hdvd unice extra features over the blu ray stuff when you know

you are lying.

You been caugh in a row of lies and assumptions one more time.

DONT YOU THINK THATS TIME TO LEAVE THIS WEBSITE ALONE?

Go back to you highstreet sales man job and dont post it where.

Your sincerely

Tecno Geek.( the unbisead person)

to much reading.... X_X

QuestimElite, do not waste your money on an HD DVD player, despite what some MS interns would have you believe about the addition. Do some research and you'll see that HD DVD is gasping for air as we speak.

Atleast someone agree with me.

@@@@ UNBISEAD

Im still waiting for you response , i want to see what u gona tell me to justify some of your lies......

SHAME ON YOU MR unbisead.

Response to Tecno_Geek:

With all due respect, Tecno_Geek, I have had people tell me that a couple of people on this website always agree with you, because you represent a handful of people with what is called, "Lemming-style-loyalty." In other words, you blindly follow Sony, even though IGN has said that the Playstation 3 is such a disappointment in a very short amount of time it has completely ruined the Playstation brand-name that took over ten years to develop. But, that is the way things are in life. If a company doesn't make a quality product, then consumers shouldn't feel obligated to buy it. In fact, they are doing the company a favor by not buying it; that way, the company (Sony) will be motivated to do a better job on their next system (The Playstation 4).

I don't know if you have actually used both a Blu-ray and an HD-DVD or not, but both of them can easily bring up a menu while the movie is playing; that much has always been known.

As far as what the discs can do while movies are playing, I have always known that both Blu-ray and HD-DVD have the ability to have the directors and the actors audibly speak while the video is being played, but I have read many times that Blu-ray is not capable of displaying a picture-in-picture where the audio from the directors and actors is being shown, while the audio from the main movie is also running silently in the background.

You need to realize that the specifications of both Blu-ray and HD-DVD have changed several times since their release, and there are actually improved versions of both.

But just remember that the overwhelming majority of movies on the market--hundreds of them--have 30GB of space for HD-DVD, while the Blu-ray discs only have 25GB.

You also need to remember that on the website you listed, many things have already changed. For example, at the time your website was written, the HD-DVD format had support from three big-league movie; however, this has increased since then, but your outdated website leaves that fact out without a recent update.

I should also mention that the things Sony says are part of Blu-ray are perfect examples of why Sony has developed a reputation of a company that lies and cannot be trusted.

For example, in all of Sony's brochures for Blu-ray, they constantly talk about 50GB discs, and they described them as the standard currently in place for all Blu-ray discs. But that simply is not true. Virtually every Blu-ray disc used has been 25GB, which gives HD-DVD the advantage.

1. There are so many "On-Demand" Cable TV networks that give you the ability to purchase a high-definition movie whenever you want--many times FOR FREE!

2. Devices such as the Xbox 360 also also you to purchase high-definition movies by downloading them to your hard-drive. When I watch a movie, I ALMOST ALWAYS watch it once, and that's it. I have HUNDREDS of standard DVD movies that I paid $15 or $20 for, but I only watched them ONE TIME! I am NOT going to pay $35 for movies on Blu-ray, or even $25 when they are on sale, just so I can watch a movie ONE TIME!

It makes a LOT more sense to use a device like the Xbox 360 or an "On-Demand" Cable set-top-box so that you can watch a movie as a downloaded rental--with no need to return--that you pay only a few dollars for, or get for FREE!!! THAT OBVIOUSLY MAKES A LOT MORE SENSE!!!

3. Many HDTV and newer DVD players now have "upconverting" abilities for their resolution, so that the standard DVD movies look just as good, if not better in some cases, than Blu-ray movies. The reason for this is because standard DVD movies and Blu-ray movies both use MPEG-2 compression Codec technology, so when the standard DVD is upconverted, it looks virtually identical to the Blu-ray in many cases.

You can read about that here: blogs.business2.com/utilitybelt/2006/10/hddvd_vs_bluray_1.html

You can also read six areas where Blu-ray failed the Microsoft/Intel test when it came to determining which one would be supported by them: tgdaily.com/2005/09/27/hd_dvd_support_a_last_minute_switch/

This website link shows that consumers prefer HD-DVD over Blu-ray in surveys conducted in an unbiased way: cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=19223

Response to Tecno_Geek:

One of the things I need to clarify is the difference between “Mandatory” vs “Possible.” Previously, I talked about an advantage that HD-DVD has over Blu-ray, such as the ability to watch a movie in high-definition while at the same time seeing and hearing a picture-in-picture of the actors and directors doing commentary. Let me explain a little bit more about this:

With the HD-DVD format it is mandatory that all of the HD-DVD players have a second video decoder so that dual streams of video can be displayed. This is something that is NOT mandatory with Blu-ray. That is specifically what I was referring to when I wrote about that. With the Blu-ray format, if you purchase a Blu-ray player that does NOT include a second video decoder, then there is NOTHING that you can EVER do to see a dual stream of video, such as a picture-in-picture commentary from the directors and actors while you are watching a movie.

With HD-DVD, it is MANDATORY that all players include a second video decoder. So, every HD-DVD player automatically has the ability to take advantage of those types of available features. But with Blu-ray, it is only a “Possible” form of technology, and the ONLY way you can take advantage of that sort of technology is if the Blu-ray player has a second video decoder. And just so you know, the Playstation 3 does NOT include a second video decoder.

Here is a copy of text from a website that talked about some of the ways HD-DVD is superior to Blu-ray in terms of this specific area:

=== First, persistent storage is mandatory on HD-DVD players. This is useful for the creation of bookmarks (custom markers that persist across DVD playback), but is obviously useful for much more.

Second, a second video decoder is mandatory on HD-DVD players. This enables the playback of dual video streams, for instance, as part of an enhanced director’s commentary that appears as a PIP (picture in picture) in the corner of a screen, or as a way to show how a particularly complicated stunt was performed alongside the playback of the main video.



Third, network connections are mandatory on HD-DVDs. Kevin Collins noted that this creates the ability to download custom previews for existing movies, a vast improvement over the current situation wherein one is forced to watch the same old previews over and over again. Such previews could even become time-specific, such as more horror-oriented previews around Halloween. One thing not mentioned, however, is the opportunity for context sensitive linking, or even online purchases. Marketers would have a field day if they could sell products found in a movie with the click of a button.

All of these things are POSSIBLE with Blu-Ray, but aren’t MANDATORY…much as the ability to offload content from an HD-DVD disc to a media server is possible in Blu-Ray, but MANDATORY in HD-DVD. The advantage of mandatory is that content UI creators can assume the presence of these features, and take advantage of them. Creators of content in a Blu-Ray device may be less inclined to take advantage of features which may not exist across all players. ===

Tecno_Geek, the website I received the above information from is blogs.zdnet.com/carroll/index.php?p=1583

Response to Tecno_Geek:

Ya know, I recently read something that shows that Sony is REALLY running their mouths about the Blu-ray. I am going to examine some of the information, because it turns out that when Sony changed the low-end PS3 so that it can includ HDMI, some of the other specs were changed, too--some for the good, and some for the bad.

I will do my best to fill you in on what I find.

i not a fanboy , proff of this is my xbox360.

But i do not permit trools like you to spread lies and negative assumptions about the ps3. PERIOD.



DONT YOU THINK THATS TIME TO LEAVE THIS WEBSITE ALONE?

Response to Tecno_Geek:

I don't know if you were talking to me, but I haven't called you a fanboy lately. Calling people "fanboys" isn't something that I do, unless they are REALLY asking for it.

But, um...I am not a "trool," whatever the heck that is.

I have actually been doing quite a bit of research lately to get the story straight on a few controversial issues.

But friend, I was thinking about this...and I think that there is an excellent chance that one of two things will happen:

1. BOTH Blu-ray and HD-DVD will fail in the same way that BOTH DVD-Audio and SACD have failed.

2. There are quite a few companies who originally only suppored Blu-ray who are now scheduled to start making devices that allow BOTH Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs to be played. I believe LG is the first manufacturer of this, and I think this product is already on sale.

If both Blu-ray and HD-DVD fail, then that is that, they both fail until the prices have gone down, a LOT!

But, if the products based on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD succeed, then you need to ask yourself, "What will happen."

Well, obviously the movie studios owned by Sony will continue to release movies on the Blu-ray format in the outdated MPEG-2 video compression Codec that standard DVDs use. And the movie makers who release movies exclusively for HD-DVD will continue to release HD-DVD discs using the new VC-1 high-definition compression Codec.

But that is when things start to get tricky. We have to ask ourselves, "What would the movie studios who release movies for BOTH Blu-ray and HD-DVD do under that circumstance."

The answer is that they would almost certainly be motivated to use HD-DVD discs, rather than Blu-ray ones, because HD-DVD discs use the same production facilities as standard DVDs, which means they are less expensive to produce.

Blu-ray is too expensive at this point in time, and I think maybe even HD-DVD is, too. You can buy a $395 HD-DVD player on Amazon--Toshiba's new one.

But, I think that five years from now, the HD-DVD format will have reached the $100 price range.

Blu ray no longer uses MPEG-2, this is very old news.

Old news like Blu Ray dominating HD DVD.