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[captive]

Members of the Ps3 crowd, obviously.

Really though i saw it in theaters it was very average.
Its clearly obvious at this point that new releases benefit more from not having a DVD released long before it.

 

[Mrbob]

Not that big a shift in the top 10, outside Planet Earth. I think this is the first time we've seen the Blu Ray version outsell the HD DVD version.

 

[DarkJediKnight]

Not that big a shift in the top 10, outside Planet Earth. I think this is the first time we've seen the Blu Ray version outsell the HD DVD version.

Huh? With the exception of Planet Earth, titles released on both formats simultaneously have always sold better on Blu-ray.

 

[starship]

Huh? With the exception of Planet Earth, titles released on both formats simultaneously have always sold better on Blu-ray.

He said this is the first time that the BD version of Planet Earth outsold the HD DVD version.

 

[Crayon Shinchan]

He said this is the first time that the BD version of Planet Earth outsold the HD DVD version.

Another feather in the cap.

Who wants to bet how long it takes for the BD version of Batman Begins to outsell the HD-DVD version?

 

[captive]

Another feather in the cap.

Who wants to bet how long it takes for the BD version of Batman Begins to outsell the HD-DVD version?

Is warner releasing it on blu-ray i was under the impression Warner was creating artificial 'exclusives' despite being format 'neutral'

 

[Crayon Shinchan]

Is warner releasing it on blu-ray i was under the impression Warner was creating artificial 'exclusives' despite being format 'neutral'

Warner's line is that it's holding out on some of the bigger exclusives until BDJava+ is set in stone.

 

[captive]

Warner's line is that it's holding out on some of the bigger exclusives until BDJava+ is set in stone.

Yea i know, i think its retarded, hence my line you quoted.

 

[djkimothy]

Toshiba may be release the HD-A2 for $99 for a limited time to boost sales of HDDVD titles.

http://www.dvddossier.com/2007/07/a2-toshiba-hd-d.html

If you're thinking of buying an HD DVD player, you might want to wait a week or so.

I just received an e-mail tonight from the folks at the EMA (Electronic Merchant's Association), who are responsible for a big industry event next week, the Home Media Expo. The e-mail is ostensibly an attempt to boost last minute attendance at next week's trade show, which will run July 16th - 19th in Las Vegas.

But the e-mail looks more like an ad for Toshiba than for the show itself. Even so, I found the pitch absolutely irresistible:

TOSHIBA HD DVD PLAYER for ONLY $99 PLUS 3 FREE HD DVD’s

For one week only, starting July 22, 2007, Toshiba will be offering the HD A2 player for only $99. With your purchase you will also receive 3 HD DVD's.

WOW, is all I have to say. How much money are they losing giving away players like that?

 

[Kleegamefan]

Toshiba may be release the HD-A2 for $99 for a limited time to boost sales of HDDVD titles.

http://www.dvddossier.com/2007/07/a2-toshiba-hd-d.html



WOW, is all I have to say. How much money are they losing giving away players like that?

Fire sale

 

[Mrbob]

Time to clear out existing inventory and call it a day.

 

[Costanza]

Time to clear out existing inventory and call it a day.

Yep.

 

[Petrarca]

Wal-Mart Offers New Blu-ray Player/Disc Bundle

http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/s...t_Offers_New_Blu-ray_Player/Disc_Bundle__/767

Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: In the latest high-def bundle deal to hit retail, the big box discount chain is giving away two Blu-ray discs to consumers who buy Sony's BDP-S300 Blu-ray Player at a new low price.

Wal-Mart's price for the Sony player is $488, which represents a new low price record for a Blu-ray player (both the BDP-S300 and the PS3 are available elsewhere for $499).
ADVERTISEMENT

To further sweeten the pot, Wal-Mart is also throwing in two free Blu-ray discs with purchase of the BDP-S300 -- 'Gridiron Gang' and 'Open Season,' both from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Combined with the BDA's recently announced "Five Discs Free" promo, that's a total seven free Blu-rays for lucky Wal-Mart shoppers.

The latest deal from Wal-Mart follows a similar promotion at Amazon, tied to the PS3. As we reported earlier this week, that deal sees Amazon customers buying the PS3 receiving a free PS3 Blu-ray remote, a copy of 'Memento' on Blu-ray, plus the BDA's five free discs.

Wal-Mart is offering this promotion to customers online at Walmart.com and in its stores nationwide. The company says the offer is limited and only good while supplies last.

 

[Suikoguy]

Holy crap.. $99 and 3 Free Movies :lol :lol

 

[Petrarca]

Anime Company FUNimation Goes Blu-ray Exclusive

Score another one for blu-ray

http://dvd.ign.com/articles/804/804901p1.html

The folks at FUNimation Entertainment are far more forthcoming than some of their competitors when it comes to their plans for high-def. For starters, they have acknowledged to IGN that they have in fact chosen to go with the Blu-ray format when they do start releasing titles.

"At this point, we are in the Blu-ray camp. We started researching this about a year-and-a-half ago, actually," explains Ward Thomas, Senior VP of Sales and Operations at FUNimation. "We feel that the fanbase and our customers are very much trailblazers on the technology side, so it's something we wanted to get involved in right away. We really felt that the introduction of the PlayStation 3 last year was kind of a foray for our customers and fans to at least get into the next-gen platforms."

Blockbuster Video's recent announcement that it's siding with the Blu-ray format certainly won't hurt FUNimation's plans either.

"We do a nice business with Blockbuster," says Thomas. "I'll be honest with you. From a retail perspective, Blockbuster is probably pretty much the only place we do a retail business with right now. From an online perspective, obviously we're in business with Netflix and we have a wonderful business with them as well. Most of our rental business is with Blockbuster. Their announcement was just kind of gravy for us since that was the direction we were headed anyway."

Thomas says that the decision did not come lightly to choose Blu-ray over HD DVD. But after much research and exploring of both formats, FUNimation found that the interactive aspects of Blu-ray were much more appealing.

"Some of the demonstrations that we've seen, and just in talking to the different people [developing the format], the long-term interactive scope of Blu-ray just seems to be so much more endearing to at least the fans of the FUNimation content. I just think long-term what we're going to be able to do on a Blu-ray disc from the interactive programming perspective is really intriguing and it opens up a lot of new windows for us. So it was really the direction we wanted to head."

The company isn't quite ready to release any specific information regarding what titles they might launch first on Blu-ray or when we might see them (though they are willing to say that in all likelihood product will hit by the end of the year). But they do hint that an announcement is coming very soon and that "Comic-Con is coming up and all." In other words, stay tuned to IGN for more specifics about FUNimation's Blu-ray lineup in the coming weeks!

 

[The Main Event]

Toshiba may be release the HD-A2 for $99 for a limited time to boost sales of HDDVD titles.

http://www.dvddossier.com/2007/07/a2-toshiba-hd-d.html



WOW, is all I have to say. How much money are they losing giving away players like that?

Desperate times? :lol

That's a deal for people who are attending the Home Media Expo. You have to pay a $150-$505 ticket (depending on your badge) to get in.

That's a nice ****ing deal for people who will be able to attend.

 

[cvxfreak]

I ordered Equilibrium (Rebellion/リベリオ&#12531 from Japan on HD-DVD from Amazon Japan (their 2000 Yen shipping to the U.S. sounds steep until you discover its ultra-fast DHL Express), and it just came in a regular DVD case, not the red case. Japanese BD cases come in the same blue style as the US ones.

Just an observation.

 

[Crayon Shinchan]

Desperate times? :lol

That's a deal for people who are attending the Home Media Expo. You have to pay a $150-$505 ticket (depending on your badge) to get in.

That's a nice ****ing deal for people who will be able to attend.

Grass roots movement! That's where this multi-billion dollar business is at!

 

[dextran]

I bought a PS3 this week, so today was my first time out to buy a Blu-Ray. Best Buy had horrible selection. Fry was much better - but boy was I sticker shocked. 27.99 on average for a disc? I picked up Scanner Darkly for 19.99.
I don't see why everyone gets so worked up over sales. Most people have to be renting.
People really buy movies for 30 dollars? It cost you 9 in the theatres!

 

[Zoe]

Fry's usually has really good sales. Within the past few months, there have been quite a few weeks where they were priced $15 or below.

 

[C.Dark.DN]

How much do we expect standalone blu-ray players to be next christmas?

 

[Petrarca]

How much do we expect standalone blu-ray players to be next christmas?

should be around 350-400 by Christmas

....but there's a good Walmart deal here, $488 plus 7 BD movies (thought they are not exactly first rate titles)
http://www.highdefdigest.com/news/s...t_Offers_New_Blu-ray_Player/Disc_Bundle__/767

 

[djkimothy]

An Industry insider at AVS has an interesting take on the respective bandwidths of both BD and HDDVD... This was from the producer of Chronos.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11010647&&#post11010647

As a Producer, Blu-ray Disc offers greater bandwidth for encodes. With Blu-ray Disc, I have yet to encounter a problem or limitation with respect to my "Bit Budgets" when planning a BD release. I calculate 48mbps of actual workable bandwidth for my "Bit Budget" when I am producing a BD title.

However, I am constantly bumping up against the ceiling with HD-DVD when it comes to "Bit Budgets" for audio / video encodes. I find that I must compromise somewhere along the way based on the bandwidth limitation of HD-DVD. I calculate 30mbps of actual workable bandwidth for my Bit Budget when I am producing an HD-DVD title.

Also being one that like to look way ahead of the curve, and if you read the BD specification to get an idea of what its potential is down the road, BD could prove to be quite an interesting format.

I wonder how common this problem is with other HDDVD producers.

 

[Kosma]

Toshiba will be doing a crazy stunt for a week....HD-DVD player with 3 movies for 99$ all of this between 22 and 29 july.

Desperate move for a losing medium...or crazy stunt to put HD DVD back in the game?

Source

 

[calder]

Not really on topic, but I recently found Planet Earth on BD (finally!) and picked it up only to discover that the first disc is HDDVD! What an annoyance. :|

Now I guess I have to wait until my local HMV gets another copy in to return it or else make a special trip to a larger HMV store to do a swap. What a weird packaging error though, just disc 1 is HDDVD (and it's not just labeled wrong, it won't play). As numerous ppl have said though, Planet Earth in HD is simply *godly*. :-o

 

[rubso]

I ordered Equilibrium (Rebellion/リベリオ&#12531 from Japan on HD-DVD from Amazon Japan (their 2000 Yen shipping to the U.S. sounds steep until you discover its ultra-fast DHL Express), and it just came in a regular DVD case, not the red case. Japanese BD cases come in the same blue style as the US ones.

Just an observation.

well, that's not cool >.>
some Japanese HD-DVDs come in the same US/EU red small cases, the other JPN HD-DVDs come in DVD Amaray cases size with white or silver HD-DVD banner and Equilibrium is one of them >.<

 

[Cosmic Bus]

There's a brief review up at DVD Beaver for Infernal Affairs Blu-Ray. It's hardly an in-depth analysis, but I know some people here are interested in the release.

 

[mollipen]

Toshiba will be doing a crazy stunt for a week....HD-DVD player with 3 movies for 99$ all of this between 22 and 29 july.

Desperate move for a losing medium...or crazy stunt to put HD DVD back in the game?

Did you just repeat news that is on this exact same page?

 

[rubso]

An Industry insider at AVS has an interesting take on the respective bandwidths of both BD and HDDVD... This was from the producer of Chronos.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=11010647&&#post11010647



I wonder how common this problem is with other HDDVD producers.

I find the VC-1 the most efficient codec for HD-DVD because of the bandwidth limitations.

 

[mrklaw]

if you take the hddvds at msrp, that's pretty much 'buy three discs, get the player free'. Just insane. Surely there is a point where you drop so far so fast that you actually scare people away?

 

[HyperionX]

Toshiba may be release the HD-A2 for $99 for a limited time to boost sales of HDDVD titles.

http://www.dvddossier.com/2007/07/a2-toshiba-hd-d.html



WOW, is all I have to say. How much money are they losing giving away players like that?

And some people still think this war has a ways to go. I'd say we are much closer to the end than the beginning. That's nuts, and I think even the Toshiba execs know this.

 

[VanMardigan]

So is that $99 deal only for folks attending the show? I wouldn't mind getting a standalone and selling off my add-on if this is true.

 

[cvxfreak]

*snip*
well, that's not cool >.>
some Japanese HD-DVDs come in the same US/EU red small cases, the other JPN HD-DVDs come in DVD Amaray cases size with white or silver HD-DVD banner and Equilibrium is one of them >.<

Yeah, I almost thought Amazon Japan sent me the wrong version. Would be nice to have a consistent set of cases.

 

[Crayon Shinchan]

So is that $99 deal only for folks attending the show? I wouldn't mind getting a standalone and selling off my add-on if this is true.

You'll be at the show already, or you're planning on going now because of this deal?

It's a pretty expensive ticket isn't it?

 

[Kosma]

Did you just repeat news that is on this exact same page?

Oops!

 

[VanMardigan]

You'll be at the show already, or you're planning on going now because of this deal?

It's a pretty expensive ticket isn't it?

Neither, that's why I'm asking if its for show attendees only or if its a one week special offer for the general public.


'Wings of Honneamise' to Fly on Blu-ray, HD DVD this September

One of the classics of anime will make its high-def debut when Bandai Visual brings 'Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise' to Blu-ray and HD DVD this fall.

Due to hit both Blu-ray and HD DVD on September 11, Bandai will present the acclaimed anime masterpiece in a newly-remastered 20th Anniversary Edition.

Tech specs are identical on both versions, and are set to include a restored print remastered in full 1080p video, along with the original Japanese soundtrack in both Dolby Digital TrueHD and uncompressed PCM 5.1 surround versions. (An optional English dub in standard Dolby Digital 5.1 will also be included.)

Intriguingly, both next-gen releases are being billed as "two-disc sets," with the second disc being a standard-def DVD. At press time, it wasn't clear what might appear on that second disc -- the fact that Bandai is calling both next-gen releases "combos" has led some to speculate that the standard-def DVD may just be a duplicate copy of 'Honneamise' in standard-def. Here's hoping that's not the case, and that the second disc will contain some as yet unannounced supplements, instead.

Bandai has set a rather pricey $79.99 MSRP for both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions of 'Wing of Honneamise.'

 

[Kintaro]

Neither, that's why I'm asking if its for show attendees only or if its a one week special offer for the general public.


'Wings of Honneamise' to Fly on Blu-ray, HD DVD this September

One of the classics of anime will make its high-def debut when Bandai Visual brings 'Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise' to Blu-ray and HD DVD this fall.

Due to hit both Blu-ray and HD DVD on September 11, Bandai will present the acclaimed anime masterpiece in a newly-remastered 20th Anniversary Edition.

Tech specs are identical on both versions, and are set to include a restored print remastered in full 1080p video, along with the original Japanese soundtrack in both Dolby Digital TrueHD and uncompressed PCM 5.1 surround versions. (An optional English dub in standard Dolby Digital 5.1 will also be included.)

Intriguingly, both next-gen releases are being billed as "two-disc sets," with the second disc being a standard-def DVD. At press time, it wasn't clear what might appear on that second disc -- the fact that Bandai is calling both next-gen releases "combos" has led some to speculate that the standard-def DVD may just be a duplicate copy of 'Honneamise' in standard-def. Here's hoping that's not the case, and that the second disc will contain some as yet unannounced supplements, instead.

Bandai has set a rather pricey $79.99 MSRP for both the Blu-ray and HD DVD versions of 'Wing of Honneamise.'

The second disc is the DVD version of the movie. Sheesh, not sure where that's from, but Bandai V. made it pretty clear what it is.

$80 is a STEAL for Wings of Honneamise on BR. That's around $40-50 online or so. Amazing movie.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

According to EngadgetHD, that $99 deal is for show-attendees only.

Which makes is reek less of desperation and more of attempting to plant seeds with people likely to influence others. When I first heard the $99 thing I figured the sky was falling for HD-DVD, but it's not.

 

[VanMardigan]

Peter Moore's response to the Sony "HD DVD dead within months" comment:

On the topic of HD-DVD, Moore was largely bullish. "On that mark I look forward to speaking with you at, say, CES next year," he began. "I was just looking at HD-DVD numbers over the weekend, and I think Toshiba may have an opinion about that."

"Of course, the fact that Sony has an economic interest in making sure that it’s dead is interesting. I think his comments will be read with interest by folks in the European Union, and looking at the tactics the Blu-Ray forum has been using to ensure that retailers do things their way. Let’s just look at what happens this holiday. I think it’s kind of a preposterous statement. Within months? No."

 

[Phantast2k]

"Of course, the fact that Sony has an economic interest in making sure that it’s dead is interesting. I think his comments will be read with interest by folks in the European Union, and looking at the tactics the Blu-Ray forum has been using to ensure that retailers do things their way."[/I]

LOL, you are Microsoft. STFU about unfair tactics and eu fines. It's hypocricy^10

 

[Forsete]

"I was just looking at HD-DVD numbers over the weekend, and I think Toshiba may have an opinion about that."

Yeah, its looking great Petah!

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

MS involvement in getting BluRay investigated in Europe confirmed.

Nice tactics, nice.

 

[VanMardigan]

MS involvement in getting BluRay investigated in Europe confirmed.

Nice tactics, nice.

It's self serving and hypocritical of MS. But if the allegations are true, they deserve to get investigated. As a consumer, I welcome it in the same way I welcomed the ones were MS was being investigated.

 

[Rabid Wolverine]

Some great horror classics with confirmed dates on the way.

Dawn Of The Dead
Halloween (double dipping)
Evil Dead 2 (douple dipping)
MINE!

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Van, sure, but the allegations are likely complete BS, as we have discussed here already. And Peter Moore is engaging in smear by alluding to them.

 

[DarkJediKnight]

Original Dawn. I knew it was coming but seeing the cover art helps.

 

[VanMardigan]

Van, sure, but the allegations are likely complete BS, as we have discussed here already. And Peter Moore is engaging in smear by alluding to them.

Well, I remember reading the responses to the investigation when it was initially posted, but I missed the posts that prove this is bs, and I'm here a lot. Also, yeah, petah alluding to them is about as "smear" as Sony's claim that HD DVD is dead within a few months. Par for the course, it just irks you more because of the bias you have.

 

[Matrix]

Halloween,Evil Dead 2 and Original Dawn of the Dead for me

 

[CrushDance]

$99 HDVD?

WHAT happened here?

 

[jjasper]

Halloween,Evil Dead 2 and Original Dawn of the Dead for me

Me too but where is Evil Dead 1?