Walmart does hold significant power

That's the clincher right there: he who controls the masses controls the media they use.

but walmart is (supposedly) trying to appeal to "higher income" people & BD screams "higher income" (from the way Citcuit City & Sony are pushing it [via PS3 & live demos]) so I don't see walmart just telling BD to go away. Odds are they'll start pushing those more once they get their house in order (ie raise profits & PR).

once we get players for $150 that do BD, HD & DVD, then I'll buy one. I'm looking forward to that day as there's several movies out I want on BD & HD & I refuse to buy both (aka I buy the DVD).

...and the BD consortium has been on the high side of stupid, IMO, when it comes to licensing.

Absolutely.
I find this remarkable divide between the pro and consummer divisions of Sony. The broadcast guys listen to the market, just look at the EX and that new $3K XDCAM unit. Enough people tell Broadcast what they'd like and Broadcast builds it if they can.

The consummer division seems to work on the assumption that consummers are too dumb to know what's good for them and ignore what I'd call the trickle up effect. I'd suggest that those of us here and working at this level exert more influence over buying decisions than all the marketing hype anyone cares to pay for. And yet we've been left hung out to dry, not just with BD either. UMD could have been a huge success if we could author it and burn small runs, it had a lot going for it.

Bob.

Why one format feels that is has to crush the other in order to survive I'll never understand. To me it seemed that the BD camp started the "We're king and we will rule" nonsense. but there are those who argue the opposite. I bought an HD-A1 for it's superior ability to upscale SD DVDs along with a projector for my video business. It does that really really well. The HD DVD thing was a bonus and I do rather like it, but BD looks good too and the biggest difference I am seeing has nothing to do with the format at all. It has to do with how much the movie producer gives a damn about taking advantage of the Hi-Def potential of either of the formats in producing a quality disc. And from what I have seen to date, most of them are really lazy and taking advantage of the consumer by producing blurry, grainy, and less than stellar discs assuming no one will notice the difference. Then of course they insist on producing combo discs (SD and HD)at higher cost and shoving them down people's throats if they want to buy the film. With a projector you can really see the difference in disc quality. Then there are the discs with the glitches in them like "Happy Feet" which freezes at 28.47 minutes. There is no excuse for that. Of course the films people really want like Harry Potter and the like aren't made available to the US public. They released Goblet of Fire in the UK, but won't release it in the US despite the demand.

Bottom line: It's all a game and we are the ball.

John

Walmart sells the PSP3, and needs the big studios, Sony, Disney..... for the young crowd.

Walmart has been pushing the $5DVDs for awhile, and it looks like it plans to let the HD-DVD fill that void. I do not have Walmart's real plans, but the Asian manufacturing has been buzzing for awhile, suppliers trying to lock-up blue diodes for about 2 million units over a 2-3 year span. A few special IC manufacturers are hinting a product design that starts for a dirt-cheapHD-dvd board that can be expanded to bluray and "other" formats(the other formats caught my attention). The ideal is something similar to Philips $49 DVD player that plays Divx+. So, BluRay should actually gain $$profit by Walmart's marketing of the $5HD-DVDs


I read an analysis the tv warehouses are still overstock with the lower end, early models HD tvs. I would not be surprise to see these older models being repackaged with a cheap HD-DVD player thru Walmart for a super-fire sell for the big sporting events, holidays, etc and the el-cheapo gaming display combo.

I read an analysis the tv warehouses are still overstock with the lower end, early models HD tvs.

I'd assume that's due to stupid marketing & R&D departments at TV manufactures that said "Hey, people won't think there's a big difference between a 15" HD widescreen HD screen & a 15" SD TV!"

People want a BIGGER picture for more $$ normally, not a smaller one. At ~under 20/24"'s it's hard sometimes to tell the difference between a HD set & a SD set at stores (because the HD's are all widescreen & everything is 4:3 most of the time).

The absolute best case scenario as far as I'm concerned would be for a bunch of cheap dual format Bluray / HD DVD format payers to hit the market. That way, the studios could release on whichever format they wanted, the consumer could buy whichever format had a given movie, and we could distribute cheap red laser HD DVD format discs for our projects.

"cheap dual format Bluray / HD DVD format payers" that would be the best option for now. I've heard rumors that Walmart has managed to make the HD-DVD supporters to underwrite the design and manufacturing and the HD-DVD crowd was not pleased with incorporating BluRay options but need the market outlet. But the master of HD-DVD has reduce almost by 50% its projected sales. What does that mean? Maybe "T" is making room for the cheap Walmart player and reducing inventory to contain cost. Or "T" is acknowledging the format wars is over concerning big movie releases, (this is where everyone makes money), and optioning itself as the replacement for everyday computer use, ie CDs is to DVDs for a short time period.

The way I see it, we have two formats. One lets you burn $20 blanks on a $600 burner using $400 software and that plays back on a $500 player. The other lets you burn 30 cent blanks on the burner you already have with software that costs less than $100 and plays back on a player that costs less than $250. The video quality is exactly the same. For small time content producers such as myself, it's an absolute no-brainer.

I really wouldn't which format won this battle if it wasn't for the fact that HD DVD on regular DVD-Rs is such a kick butt format for cheap and easy HD content distribution. I know that the neither format is going to be succeed or fail because of how convenient it is for us small time HD content producers, but if HD DVD wins, I'll be happy to tag along.

The Walmart thing could end up being a really big deal in pushing HD DVD past Bluray. If Walmart shoppers see HD DVD players for less than $200 and a bunch of HD DVD titles on the shelves, it could push a bunch of the people who haven't yet selected a format into the HD DVD camp.

I must be missing something, but what Lawrence is describing has nothing whatsoever to do with Blu-ray v HD-DVD. It's agnostic. I burn AVCHD files from my Sony HD camera onto DVD and play them on my PS3 or my Panasonic BR player using the exact same equipment he touts as being in favour of HD-DVD. It's nothing of the sort. DVD is a medium that can be used for carrying HD files and has nothing whatsover to say about Blu-ray v HD-DVD which are release media. BTW, Walmart does not declare winners. It simply places bets. The world is bigger than Walmart and it's bigger than the USA!

Have you made a red laser disc which plays with menus on the PS3 yet? I have been trying my darndest to do that. Yeah I can burn raw video files on a DVD and play them in glorious HD, but I can't make a polished disc with menus that I can sell as a product that will play in my PS3. I can't make a red laser Bluray format disc that will play reliably on all Bluray players.

It's not Walmart that will declare the winner. It's all the people who shop at discount stores looking for the best possible price that will do that.

I really don't care if the final format is named HD DVD or Bluray. What I care about is if I can burn discs that will play on the winning format for less than a dollar. So far, HD DVD is much better at doing that.

It's not Walmart that will declare the winner. It's all the people who shop at discount stores looking for the best possible price that will do that.

Normally, I don't get involved in these "disc wars" threads. But in this case I have to agree with Laurence.

Go back and re-read this and other similar threads. The posters are nearly always talking what they can do on their hardware. The fact of the matter is the majority--the vast majority--of consumers (public and private) do not have/use the same hardware we do. We, content providers, are the minority. We are the tail, not the dog.

Regardless of what alliances have been forged by which mega-corporations, in the end it will be the consumer--the general, everyday, mom and pop, Joe Public individuals--that will determine which disc format wins the war. That being the case, I can't image the average consumer burning "$20 blanks on a $600 burner using $400 software and that plays back on a $500 player" and viewed on a $2,000 television.

We are the tail, not the dog.
=============
LOL.............I love it.

John

HH Gregg giving away Toshiba HD-A2 with purchase of $999.00 TV or over. Best Buy $299.00 plus 5 HD-DVD movies. Circuit City $299.00 & 5 HD-DVD movies. The newer Toshiba HD-A20 is $499.00. I think that is the correct model number.
JJK

Like a lot of people, I still remember the Beta vs VHS wars... (and I got burned since I spent $400 on a great Toshiba Betamax back in the 70s... wonderful quality, betas a lot better than vhs, but vhs won).

So for now, I'll avoid buying anything til the industry figures out what they're going to do.
Like millions of others, I'm not going to worry about starting a BluRay libary, only to find 80% of the market then shifts to HD DVD (or vice versa!).

And I won't buy any titles of course either, I can wait til multiformat players come out, or the industry figures out what it's going to do. Or more accurately, sales numbers dictate which way they'll go.

For now, I'll simply completely avoid anything to do with either HD DVD or Bluray, because I don't want to pick the wrong winner in the format wars like I did earlier. I'm speaking on behalf of millions of other wise fence-sitters here too, I think. I'm not going to be an early adopter. And I'm not buying Vista either. Harrumph.


Ken

As I said, the world is bigger than WalMart and wider than the USA: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=251.

HD-DVD discs and players are almost impossible to find here. I tried to buy a HD-DVD player (see I am agnostic too) but I can't find one to buy in any store I have been into. Maybe we need WalMart? LOL.

There may be some mis-direction - mis-information about Walmart and the cheap HD-DVD player being developed for the US market. The design included "other" future formats, which may mean that China is the main market and the US second. The Asian market is huge, but poor, so a ultra-low cost player that could be a foot-in-the-door for the big studios fighting foreign "retail" pirates by adopting Chinas new format for Asian and letting China control distribution to Asian retail units.

I believe those markets were creating their own codecs and also using the m2t playback such as the Avelink players. They were also working on a standard triple layer DVD disc and in so doing thumbing their noses at Bluray & HD-DVD. The Russians, French, Germans, & Indians formed their own coalition to create their own codec instead of paying all of those built in royalties and license fees in Bluray & HD-DVD. Though maybe things have changed.
JJK

The vast amount of the buying public ONLY want two things. To record to disk off-air HDV and to play rented HDV movies so their HDTVs are put to use. The capability of HD DVD and BlueRay to do this is just about the same so price will decide the winner. I think BlueRay will die. I can't see an economic model for its existance.

agree - I think HD DVD will win, too. Both the economics, plus, (as a copywriter/marketer), I would say the title "blue ray" is too unfamiliar and not something anybody is comfortable with saying, as in "hey did you get the latest
Star Wars release on blue-ray??"... sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie.

HD-DVD sounds a lot more palatable, professional... and titles are critical, as well all know..

Ken

Research has shown that the vast amount of the buying public has very little interest in Hi definition movies to start with. Most are perfectly happy with dvd's.

It is not a revolutionary technological change in the way it was when going from VHS to dvd. Some months ago Sony came out and stated that Blu Ray will put an end to the dvd within 3 years... I laughed then as I am now.

Those that are interested in this technology are people like us (in video) and the movie junkies seen on the AVS forum.... other than that, the rest couldn't care less. Given this... I really wonder if EITHER format will even have the chance to win before they are over run by some other new technology that comes out tomorrow or the next day/week/month....

I disagree with you blink. Now it may be that the looming economic depression will impact this but in general everyone is now buying HDTV and they are going to want to use them to the max. Everyone sees the big HDV screens playing HD movies in Best-Buy and Costco and when they get home and watch their old DVDs they see what they are missing. Additionally when we can BURN off-air HDTV and rented HD movies to disk then it will really take off.

[I]"I really wonder if EITHER format will even have the chance to win before they are over run by some other new technology that comes out tomorrow or the next day/week/month.... "[/I]

True. It seems to me that downloads (iTunes) and the desire to archive a movie or audio collection in a single searchable database location (like a server) is becoming a lot more popular than individual optical discs ... that only hold one movie. I would have voted for Blu-Ray simply because you could more likely fit the entire series of Stargate SG1 on a single disc. But really the future apeal lies in the ability to have ones entire collection of entertainment media on a single disc.

I think optical discs are on their way out and we'll see internet distribution start to take hold more and more. Possibly even enough to completely kill the mass adoption of either HD optical format

.