The next-generation DVD format war limps on in the coming weeks as Blu-ray--one of two formats vying to become the high-definition standard--officially launches its first player and titles.
The launch previously was pegged for May 23 but pushed to late June so studios and hardware companies could better coordinate a kickoff. The first wave of titles will arrive June 20 from Sony Pictures/MGM Home Entertainment, with more following in the coming weeks from Sony and Lionsgate. But two of the three Blu-ray players scheduled to hit stores for the launch have, in the past week, been delayed. Sony pushed its launch from June 30 to August 15 and Pioneer from June 25 to sometime in September. A Samsung unit will be the sole player on the market on June 25.
"It's a flagship piece, and we want to make sure it works perfectly," says Russell Johnston, senior vice president of marketing and product planning for Pioneer Electronics (USA), when asked about the delay. He hints that the hardware was not performing as expected.
Blu-ray's competing format, HD DVD, enjoyed a similarly underwhelming launch when a small number of titles and players from Toshiba hit the market in April.
"Regular consumers aren't paying much attention to this," says Laura Behrens, an analyst at Gartner Research. "It's too confusing at this point, but HD DVD is doing well with early adopters."
"Both camps are not making as big of a bang as I would have expected them to make," Forrester Research analyst Ted Schadler says.
"It doesn't seem to have been really well executed in the initial outlay," Newbury Comics DVD buyer Larry Mansdorf says. "Having these competing formats is difficult for retailers and consumers alike."
The Consumer Electronics Assn. estimated in December that Blu-ray and HD DVD players will generate $480 million in sales in 2006, surpassing $1 billion in 2008. But the CEA says it is revamping those figures because of delays, with new estimates expected in July.
CHOOSING SIDES
While Blu-ray has not proved it can get to market yet, the format has the advantage of being backed by more studios, more hardware companies and the best-selling gaming console--Sony's PlayStation.
"Having so many studios aligned with our format, it's going to be powerful to have so many titles," Johnston says.
Of the six major studios, Universal is the only one backing HD DVD exclusively. Paramount and Warner Home Video are backing HD DVD and Blu-ray, and 20th Century Fox, Buena Vista/Disney, and Sony are backing Blu-ray exclusively. Additionally, Lionsgate is backing Blu-ray, and New Line Cinema is backing both.
The music business is beginning to choose sides as well. Sony BMG is backing Blu-ray, and has scheduled Rod Stewart, Live at Royal Albert Hall and John Legend, Live at the House of Blues for release on the format this summer. Universal Music Group is backing both formats, but no titles are scheduled for release, and EMI and Warner Music Group have yet to decide.
Next-generation DVD is coming at an important time for the music business. According to year-end shipment numbers the Recording Industry Association of America released earlier this year, music DVDs were down in 2005--the first decline since tracking began in 1998. The category posted increases of approximately 50 percent in 2003 and 2004 but slipped 3.8 percent in 2005, to $539.8 million in shipments. The overall DVD market is showing the same trend, thanks to consumer collection saturation levels and other consumer options, according to NPD Group analyst Russ Crupnick.
While it's too early to project a winner in the format war, an unintentional beneficiary may already be emerging--the gaming industry.
By bundling Blu-ray drives with the upcoming game consoles for PlayStation and making the new Xbox ready for an outboard drive, the consumer view of gaming products is shifting in a significant way.
"Increasingly consumers think about their gaming console as a DVD player," CEA director of industry analysis Sean Wargo says. "For the previous generations--Xbox and PS2--it was something that was nice to have. Now it's become a required feature that it will play DVDs. Consumers now look at this as a multifunctioned device and not just for games anymore."
"I went back to my Season 3 DVD and am watching it on my HD and it's really grainy in compression artifacts..."<br />
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that's because 3 hours are crammed onto one disc. i'd much rather see three episodes per disc instead, which would make it 2 hours 15 minutes. Sure it might bump up the price of the season sets a bit, but I wouldn't mind paying a few extra bucks if it means better quality.<br />
OH. Sorry, I thought it was replacing the regular DVD. Whoops.
Why is there still no news story on TV.com explaining the differences between the 2 formats? <br />
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All of the news stories on this site sound like they heard them off some guy in the pub without a notebook to jot down info.<br />
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From what Ive heard in PC magazines for over 6 months now is that Blu-Ray is the better format, offering way more storage space than HD-DVD. But at the time i read that Blu-rays biggest problem was that their discs were not durable enough and incredibly easy to scratch and corrupt the data, which is why Blu-ray was being delayed to give them time to make the discs more durable for consumer use.<br />
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They were considering using Disc caddys like with the first CD-ROM drives but obviously this didnt appeal to them as the consumer (allegally) doesnt want a bulky cartridge and ,more importantly, increases the manufacturing costs.<br />
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One of the key factors of DVD movies selling so cheap is not so much piracy as they want you to belive but much more because of the drop in manufacturing costs of DVDs.<br />
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Music CDs on the other hand have also benifited from using this cheap medium but have only increased the selling price instead of reducing it. an album on cassette would sell for around £12 in the UK but the CD equivelent would sell for £16.49 even though CDs are cheaper to produce than cassettes. <br />
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IMO music piracy is a must to put a stop to this kind of legal crime of ripping off the consumer since the law seems to have no grounds to stop it.moreless
oh, and Manders4000... if you have a standard television connected to a DVD player through S-Vid or component video... you are seeing an amazing picture...<br />
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for me, I watched 24 this season in true HD on my widescreen HDTV and it's a great show. I went back to my Season 3 DVD and am watching it on my HD and it's really grainy in compression artifacts... same thing with Underworld Evolution on DVD... watching that makes me think "hey, that's available on Blu-Ray..."<br />
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The blacks and the contrast are not great with DVD on an HDTV.
Why don't they ever mention prices, in any of these updates and reports?<br />
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Samsung ain't great, how much?
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LOL'ing! Is what I'll be doing when Sony's Beta 2.0 falls flat on it's face. Anyone that buys a BR player when there's a format war going on is a moron. <br />
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And don't movie companies have to pay Sony royalties when they release a movie on BR? They tried the same thing with Beta 20 years ago and look where that went. <br />
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I'm also not in a rush to get any of these formats, one of them will fall eventually. But if I was a betting man Blu-Ray is more likely to win the war. Until prices dramatically drop, I have my sights on a Blu-Ray DVD Recorder which you can put more movies and shows on one disc.
We'll see if people like it.<br />
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i'm not going to boycott, but i'm certainly in no rush to buy one. couldn't afford the unit itself, and the hdtv and even then theres the replacing of all my dvds. <br />
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dvd is 11 years old, but it took 7 years from launch for dvd to even begin to outrank vhs in official figures, and that time there wasnt any vhs/betamax type battle, and it wasnt just an increase in quality but in capabilities too, features and chapters and all that. that said, these probably will get popular quicker, carried along by hdtv and the ps3. (yes, i reckon blu-ray will win, despite sony's track record on such matters - lost with betamax, and their early dvd format was abandoned too)<br />
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i'm a techie, but im also a poor student and like kok my blu-ray player will be my ps3, but even that i'm not rushing to the store to get, patience may be a virtue, but its also a good way to save money, to find out which format will actually win, and to get a decent array of titles availablemoreless
A few things to clarify, Blu-Ray and HD DVD have the double of the quality of HDTV, considering HDTV has already pratically max out that quality, the difference isn't that high, but from DVD, it's very high.<br />
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I'm getting my Blu-ray with my PS3, and like quagland said, ignore the dinossaur above, it's definitely worth to have one of those, but I'm gonna wait until the release of the PS3 that comes with a Blu-ray player and during these next months a few more titles will come out.
Until I see the differences I don' think I'll be jumping on the bandwagon anytime soon. I don't know much abut Blu-ray or HD yet. If someone I know gets into this techonlogy, I'll take a look. ;)
ok, manders4000, dont go judging things you obviously know nothing about. blu-ray is for movies in HD. that's High Definition. it's not like we're making the switch. from regular dvd to blu-ray/hd-dvd. these are for people with HDTVs. its the same size disc, but it can hold a LOT more data. 2 hours of dvd quality video could be one tenth of the size of 2 hours of HD quality video.<br />
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you think 10 years isn't long enough for technology to advance? you must be about 80 years old with that frame of mind. telling people to boycott change in technology is ridiculous.
I refuse to buy these. The VHS to DVD switch wasn't too long ago, less than ten years. I already have a big enough DVD collection and am perfectly satisfied with the quality of a normal DVD. I hope other people boycott these new formats.