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This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
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Author
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Topic: DVD vs BR-DVD -- live together 4 how long?
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-30-2008 02:42 PM
quote: Joe Tommassello
The 4% number is not on a title by title basis...it's overall sales of discs in both formats.
Are you saying that 4% figure comes from when the HD-DVD and Blu-ray format war was still going? If that's the case you need to throw out that old figure and look at the fact that Blu-ray player and disc sales have increased very dramatically since then.
quote: Joe Tommassello
"No Country..." was the Oscar winner for best picture so "movie collectors" were more likely to pick that one up than "game players". How did a quality but more average title like "Michael Clayton" do?
Michael Clayton hasn't done very well on Blu-ray because it was a poorly reviewed disc (not to mention a very talky disc with nothing in terms of home theater demo material a new BD player owner wants). Warner Bros. put it onto a BD-25 with badly compressed video and lossy Dolby Digital 5.1. audio. WB has been beaten up pretty badly in home theater circles for repeating that formula on lots of titles in 2008, including the recent Speed Racer and Interview With the Vampire BD releases.
No Country for Old Men was one of the first hits released on Blu-ray after the format war officially ended.
quote: Joe Tommassello
You are basing your analysis on MAJOR titles and ignoring where the real money can be made. I was in the video sales and marketing business for fifteen years and I know what I am talking about.
Ooh woopie. That's supposed to automatically validate everything you're saying about how Blu-ray is doomed?
The home video industry does indeed make much of its money off big event titles. Not everyone is going to rush out to buy copies of Persepolis or There Will Be Blood.
If anything, it's even more impressive that Iron Man scored the kind of percentages it did against DVD sales. The sell through potential Iron Man on DVD to casual buyers was enormous compared to DVD sales potential on more modest releases. If the Blu-ray doom and gloom stories were accurate, the BD percentages of Iron Man against DVD sales should have been minuscule.
quote: Joe Tommassello
If you were right BR would have had a 15-to-1 disc sales ratio over HD-DVD. There were (by your argument) more than fifteen times as many "blu-ray players" in use a year ago than HD-DVD.
Spin the story however you like. The enthusiasm of a few "red ants" doesn't take away from the fact that Blu-ray disc sales were outpacing HD-DVD disc sales consistently by 2:1 and 3:1 margins. That's a big reason why Warner Bros. gave HD-DVD the boot. They were getting more money from Blu-ray sales. And PS3 owners represented the vast majority of paying Blu-ray customers.
Blu-ray had a better line up of studio support than HD-DVD. Blu-ray had a better overall supply of exclusive titles than HD-DVD.
quote: Joe Tommassello
To clarify for you a second time...MOVIE COLLECTORS buy lots of movies of all genres and from all eras...game players buy video games and an occasional movie that appeals to them.
"Movie collectors" who buy hordes of discs make up a tiny percentage of the market. Same goes for geeked-out gamers who spend fortunes on nothing but games. Those are polar extreme examples that don't have any resemblance to the buying habits of mainstream consumers who have game consoles and/or movie players in their homes. Most people buy a bit of both.
quote: Joe Tommassello
The article is right about this...Sony better stop trying to recoup the money they have spent in development and focus on making the software affordable or it will die. There is no reason "Close Encounters..." has to retail for $50.
That movie doesn't sell for $50. You can buy it Wal-Mart for under $30. I've seen Amazon price it for under $20 on occasion. Shop around. This situation is no different from how it was with the first few years of DVD.
BTW, lots of new release DVDs have MSRP listings of $24.95 and $29.95. Retail stores usually don't charge that much, unless you buy at places like Sam Goody. New DVDs sure as hell don't sell for $10 a pop either.
quote: Joe Tommassello
Wrong again. That is EXACTLY how it is done...after they milk the early adopters like you and I. That time is up. "Give away the hardware and make the money on the back end." I heard it a thousand times.
Name those "thousand times" in specifics. You're talking like DVD players dropped to $39 a pop only a year or two after they were introduced. It also sounds like you want those companies to give away both the hardware and software. That's a good business model.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
In April of 1999, at the year 2 mark of DVD, I bought my first player, a Sony BVP-S530D for roughly $450 (which is more like $600 today). In 2001, at year 4 of the DVD format, I bought a Pioneer 5-disc DVD changer ONLINE for $250 at ecost.com. Retail stores were wanting more than $300 the same thing.
The first Apex player wasn't introduced until 2000, year 3 of the DVD format -at a price of $179. That seemed really cheap then. People didn't buy it for the price. They bought it for its ability to bypass Macrovision so copies could be dubbed off onto VHS tapes for those who didn't have a DVD player. It took another couple of years before DVD players costing under $99 became a common thing.
Still, the Blu-ray doom and gloomers believe $99 players should have already been happening anyway. I suppose Toshiba's $99 fire sale last Black Friday on an obsolescent HD-DVD player model was supposed to serve as some sort of precedent. The truth is Toshiba was desperate to keep HD-DVD afloat and went in the hole deep doing that.
quote: Joe Tommassello
You are still not taking into consideration the massive VHS collections that were rendered obsolete by the conversion to DVD.
DVD didn't render those VHS collections obsolete. DVD didn't torpedo the functions of existing VHS players. People could still use their tape players, and many did for years.
During the first few years of DVD's existence there was a serious amount of mainstream resistance to the format with lots of anti-DVD arguments similar to what we're hearing against Blu-ray. Back then we heard: "DVD isn't going to sell because no one wants to buy an expensive surround sound system." There was: "DVD isn't going to sell because the movies are letterboxed and no one is going to buy a wide screen TV"" Of course there was: "DVD is too expensive" and "DVD is too complicated" and "people are happy with their VHS tapes.".
DVD also had its own format war against DiVX, which made the situation for DVD look even worse. Add to that the economic turmoil from 2000-2003. Yet people now look back with unanimous agreement that DVD was a very successful format.
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Joe Tommassello
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 547
From: Coatesville, PA, USA
Registered: Jan 2008
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posted 10-30-2008 03:57 PM
quote: Bobby Henderson
Are you saying that 4% figure comes from when the HD-DVD and Blu-ray format war was still going?
No, I am saying that for every 100 movie discs sold only four are BR. That may be five or six by now. I hope so.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Ooh woopie. That's supposed to automatically validate everything you're saying about how Blu-ray is doomed?
The home video industry does indeed make much of its money off big event titles. Not everyone is going to rush out to buy copies of Persepolis or There Will Be Blood.
No, but that industry experience does give me an insider's knowledge of how the studios make money in video. The video industry turns a lot of dollars on event titles but doesn't make a lot of money. They are a loss leader. There is more money made on one copy of Casablanca than on ten copies of Iron Man. "Evergreen" titles are very significant in the overall model. The studios NEED people to buy catalog if a format is to remain viable because there is no margin on "big event titles".
quote: Bobby Henderson
Spin the story however you like.
Where is the spin? If there were over fifteen times as many BR players and only twice as many BR discs selling (a margin which was shrinking towards the end) it's a matter of fact. A factor of eight. For every one movie the average BR owner bought there were eight bought by HD owners. It is apparent that (unlike myself) many - if not most - HD owners have not yet made the leap to BR. Why? Disenchantment is part of it since they were buying movies at a healthy pace for a format that is practically obsolete after approximately a year, but also because the price of the hardware remained too high. This was Sony's big mistake which they are now hoping to correct.
Bob - We both know that Sony AND Toshiba were waving big bucks at Warner Brothers to get them exclusive. WB made the choice they did in part for what you say - double the sales on "selected" titles - but also because they wanted the bigger up front payoff. It was a calculated move and one that the industry is not yet certain was in it's best interest. I suppose you have heard how close they (WB) came to going the other way? That was because of the undeniable evidence that HD-DVD owners - on a per player basis - were far outspending BR owners on movie purchases. It might even have been higher if Sony hadn't bought up space in the major stores as early as they did (one of their rare, smart marketing moves). Yet in spite of all it had in it's favor BR still only delivered a fraction of the sales on a per set basis that HD did. The studios don't look at one title. They make more money from a copy of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" than they do from ten copies of "Iron Man". They look at developing a market that will be lucrative for years and you don't do that with two hit movies per year.
quote: Bobby Henderson
"Movie collectors" who buy hordes of discs make up a tiny percentage of the market.
If you are counting the market for "Iron Man" that would be a correct statement but - and especially considering that we agree BR had a better slate of exclusive titles - what do you think HD-DVD owners were buying at a rate of 8-to-1 over BR owners? Catalog...The Sting, That's Entertainment, Casablanca, Adventures of Robin Hood, The Searchers, etc. Each a lucrative combination of title and price point allowing the studio to actually make some money. That is, after all, what they are in business to do. The 8-to-1 figure is made even more impressive when you consider that BR was picking up an extra 100,000 units on an event title. BR owners had to have been buying almost NO catalog (profitable) titles!
Here's the most direct analogy I can present, tailored for Film-Tech...
Iron Man BR = Theater selling Movie ticket
Rio Bravo BR = Theater selling Large Popcorn
You need the loss leader and the profit center. BR has yet to develop the profit center.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-30-2008 06:45 PM
quote: Joe Tommassello
No, I am saying that for every 100 movie discs sold only four are BR. That may be five or six by now. I hope so.
It still sounds like you're using old, outdated figures from when HD-DVD and Blu-ray were going at it and had millions of interested people waiting it out. In the first couple of years of DVD sales of that format were tiny compared to VHS. That didn't mean studios had to pull the plug on it.
The format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray has been over for barely half a year now. The folks issuing all these premature doom and gloom statements against Blu-ray sound very stupid for at least not having the prudence to wait out this year's holiday shopping season to see how Blu-ray hardware and software does unopposed by HD-DVD. I think it's going to do pretty damned well.
On top of that, there is absolutely no getting around the fact that DVD is and will only be standard definition. Once you buy that new, phiggidy HDTV screen anything standard def is crap. I'm very serious about selling off much of my DVD collection. I don't watch the damned things anymore. I'm spoiled to HD quality and Blu-ray is the best HD anyone can get in their living room. Simple as that.
quote: Joe Tommassello
No, but that industry experience does give me an insider's knowledge of how the studios make money in video. The video industry turns a lot of dollars on event titles but doesn't make a lot of money. They are a loss leader. There is more money made on one copy of Casablanca than on ten copies of Iron Man.
Have you checked what Paramount charged for the 2-disc BD of Iron Man? Your statement tells me you didn't do that. The BD of Iron Man would be loss leader priced if it sat on store shelves with a price well under $20 or even under $15.
Most brick and mortar retail stores were charging at or near $30 for Iron Man Blu-ray discs. They were also charging well over $20 for the deluxe DVD edition too. Nonetheless, retail B&M stores recorded 20% of their disc sales to be Blu-ray on that title. Going online, where Iron Man was discounted better (under $25) the BD sales rate jumped as high as 50% in ratio to DVD.
I even complained about this pricing issue in a couple different forums from this one. Iron Man established new sales records for Blu-ray, despite the usual pricing. I figured Paramount would have moved a lot more copies if they had priced it at or under $20. Pre-order pricing on The Dark Knight is running in the same $24 territory at Amazon. We'll see how copies of that movie jump off store shelves pretty soon.
quote: Joe Tommassello
Where is the spin? If there were over fifteen times as many BR players and only twice as many BR discs selling (a margin which was shrinking towards the end) it's a matter of fact. A factor of eight.
One insane "red ant" buying 8 copies of The Bourne Identity on HD-DVD doesn't make a damned bit of difference. Overall sales totals, I repeat OVERALL, had Blu-ray besting HD-DVD in cumulative sales totals by a 2:1 and then 3:1 margin. And those huge leads were gained on the backs of Playstation 3 owners. There is no getting around that. I don't give a damn if you can point out one die hard HD-DVD nincompoop who bought 10,000 HD-DVD discs. It didn't make a freaking difference in the overall cumulative figure.
Strength in numbers, dude. That's why Blu-ray won. More people had Blu-ray players, even if they were in PS3 packaging. A minority of HD-DVD owners buying discs like there was no tomorrow wasn't going to change that. A legion of PS3 owners hijacked the format war into the direction they wanted and dragged everyone else on for the ride. And I'm glad too. Blu-ray is the better format, even if the latest Internet-connected bullshit arrived a year or two late. A 50GB disc with 54Mb/s of bandwidth beats a 30GB disc with a mere 36Mb/s of bandwidth.
[ 10-30-2008, 09:20 PM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 10-31-2008 02:56 PM
quote: Joe Tommassello
Give me "Dark Knight" for $20 since the SD version will be $15. That will help spark hardware sales. When enough people buy players primarily to watch movies on (instead of playing games) there will be a market for "Close Encounters..." at $50.
Again, there's next to no one charging $50 for those Close Encounters discs. But if you want to give me $50 for mine, I'll gladly take it and go get another copy for $25.
Regarding The Dark Knight pricing:
Amazon has the plain single disc DVD version of The Dark Knight listed pre-order for $16.99. The MSRP for the single disc DVD is $28.98.
Amazon is offering the 2 disc DVD + digital copy version of The Dark Knight listed pre-order for $22.99 -full MSRP is $34.98. Again, this is a DVD package we're talking about.
Amazon has the Blu-ray + digital copy version of The Dark Knight listed pre-order for $24.95. Full MSRP is $35.99.
quote: Joe Tommassello
What is he saying about hardware and software that varies at all from what I am saying?
For one, he's not making some absolutely baseless claim that PS3 owners don't buy Blu-ray movies.
Here's a little news flash: gaming title selection for PS3, particularly with titles that are exclusive to the PS3 platform, have been pretty freaking weak. The Blu-ray playback capability has been one of the main selling points.
Lots of non-gamers have been buying Playstation 3 consoles because those devices still blast all the standalone BD players into the water in categories like superior movie compatibility, low access times, shorter BD Live download times and overall future proofing. For a long time, PS3 was the least expensive Blu-ray player as well. Some early adopters paid a high premium for basic Profile 1.0 standalone players and had a good amount of hell with them. Most early Blu-ray adopters opted for the Playstation 3 instead.
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