If we look at it in terms of technical evolution, I think that storage capacity and downloading/compression technologies are moving most quickly and in a way that will not have you married to choosing a particular hardware platform.
Lets face it, we're all already committed to having a PC and most of them are upgradeable in terms of storage and throughput.
Paramount & Dreamworks made waves when they announced they would only distribute in the HD-DVD format, prior to releasing Transformers in October. They must have received truckloads of money from the HD people for their allegiance. Just when Blu-ray seemed to be getting a sizable edge...
How many years are we into this war, again?
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
Block Buster is #1 video rentals and just plain revenue. Block Buster's allegiance recently switched to Bu-ray. That just seeded the fate of HD DVD. I was on the fence this WHOLE time and I could not see any clear cut winner until recently. I really thought the HD DVD payer for the Xbox 360 was going to be the deciding factor for HD DVD but that proved only marginal.
Now that Block Buster has clearly chosen a side, HD DVD will be the format to fail.
Does anyone realize how much of an influence Block Buster has on the American movie industry? Chair of the promotion committee for the U.S. region of the Blu-ray Disc Association says in reference to Block Buster's recent committal, ""I think it would be presumptuous that this is the make or break in the format war. But it does reflect what we've said all along: if you have more content available, people will come. It's not spin, it's not hype--it's just reality. These are the titles people want to watch." http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,1...,1/article.html
However, I think it is naive to think that Block Buster's allegiance didn't just cause the war to be over. With any major competing products, of course it is going to take a while for HD DVD to die out. With "Transformers" being idiotically placed on the HD DVD format, the death of HD DVD was only prolonged.
Come this holiday season, you will see purchases for Blu-rays disc players widen the gap.
Next summer, I am buying a large and high quality 1080p TV along with a purchase of a Blu-ray disc player...probably the PS3. PC World gave PS3 as a Blu-ray disc player, a pretty good score and an excellent interface score.
You overestimate BlockBuster's power. Their presence and importance has been declining steadily over the last few years and it will continue to do so. More and more poeple are getting movies from Netflix, so no, saying the war is over because Blockbuster chose a format is hyperbole at its worst.
A more important factor is the massive price drops HD-DVD players are recieving. As WD showed earlier in the thread, Walmart had a sale for a $99 HD-DVD player (my Dad got one, pretty sweet), and other stores will probably have similar sales, while BluRay players still cost several hundred dollars. This alone could be responsible for a spike in HD-DVD sales this holiday season.
Blockbuster was still creating revenues 4 times higher than Netflix the last time I checked. Blockbuster is operating at a net less for the 3rd quarter $35 million...not good on the surface but there is much more going on in the background. The loss came from selling of company owned stores to the beat of 526 stores. That was almost offset by an increase in online rental revenue of $79.2 million, year over year.
Some people are giving Blockbuster 2 years(Only because they are laymen and really don't have a clue about corporate economics.)...others are calling that absurd hyperbole...a comparable contrast to how you used hyperbole in my description of Blockbuster being a deciding factor for Blu-ray.
Blockbuster is far from gone. It is gaining new customer's in its online rental position to the tune of 3.1 million, currently.
Also, blockbuster is operating at 4 times the amount of revenue that netflix is...
How come no one talks about netflix not meeting their onloine membership goals they projected for themselves? Surely that would be something to talk about considering that "everyone" is claiming Netflix is taking down Blockbuster.
Also consider that fact that I feel that Blu-ray, even when it wins the battle of formats, will be a short lived disc format for Movies. The real format in the near future will be digital rentals...Why wait on a movie when you can download it? Why use a specific format for a digital movie when you can download several movies, overnight, all in delicious 1080p resolution? With the large push Verizon and AT&T are making on their fiber networks, bandwidth requirements are far from a limitation in the near future. (I really really would like to talk about that, but that is far from on topic.)
I suspect that the 2007 4th quarter and the 1st quarter of 2008 will show marked sales increases in the Blu-ray discs/disc players and more stable Blockbuster revenues.
Also, reducing the price of the Blu-ray disc players will soon occur, as well. As manufacturing techniques and the technology employed in the hardware improves, they will continue to become cheaper and cheaper.
The recent drop in HD DVD players WILL cause a spike in HD DVD sales, obviously. The same thing will happen when when Blu-ray disc players come down in price.
When DVDs first came out, the players were rather expensive. My father bought his first one for $800.
This always happens with any new electronic product.
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Last edited by dadudemon on Nov 4th, 2007 at 04:13 AM
Less and less people are going to Blockbuster. While it may still be outdoing it's competition, it's doing so at a much lesser degree. The number will continue to decline.
And that Blockbuster does not hold the amount of power to single handedly decide the outcome of the format wars.
Also, yes BluRay will see a price drop at some point, but the fact that HD-DVD has now done it first, and sold many many units, that's that many buyers who are now probably off the market for BluRay.
Nothing else you said had anything to do with my post, so there is no need for me to respond.
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Last edited by BackFire on Nov 4th, 2007 at 09:34 AM
Less and less people? Where are you getting this info? Last time I checked, the customer base was increasing for Blockbuster?
Do you have a link? My link showed that the online customer base has increased to 3.1 million customers...but instore customers, I don't have. However, I thought that instore customers increased as well.
And yes, Blockbuster DOES have that power to turn the tide on the format war.
Add the revenues up for the next 10 largest movie rental companies. Does it equal 1.2 billion dollars a year?
Also, post a link for the above information IF I am wrong about the closest 10.
Also,
Backfire, this is a side of you I haven't seen!!! I had no idea that you were a techy.
Nah, I've no link. I know stores have been shutting down across the nation because the customer base has been shrinking. I'm talking about the actual stores, online may very well be increasing. For instance, there used to be nine Blockbusters in my city, there are now three, and I hear one of those may be shutting down shortly as well. But yes, Blockbuster online is most definitely the future for the company, and they have fierce competition online in Netflix.
I never said that Blockbuster didn't have power in the format war, or even that it didn't have the power to turn the tide, what I said was that it doesn't have the power to decide the war all by itself. Like "Oh, BB is Bluray, war over". There's other factors that will contribute.
Honestly though, I don't think either side will die. I predict one of two outcomes --
1. Dual Format Players will eventually get so low that everyone will be able to afford them, thus rendering the war pointless as everyone will be able to play both formats.
2. Companies will realize that they can make more money by releasing their films on both formats, so they will, also rendering the war pointless.
I'm not really a techy, friend. I just love movies and find this war, though stupid and counter productive, quite fascinating.
I just did some reading and the loss of revenue was due almost completely by their idiotic free trial this summer with the "Total Access" plan. They said that the free in store rentals caused a big loss as well. He also said that 500,000 thousands customers were lost at the end of the 3rd quarter...300,000 of which were customers from the free trial period. Also, over zealous advertising expenditures also attributed to the loss...and they cut back on that.
Basically, it was bad management that caused the problems in the 3rd quarter. Blockbuster WAS fast closing the gap with Netflix until recently. Blockbuster WAS actually stealing customers from Netflix, on a "net" basis. (Though Netflix was adding new customers so fast that Netflix still noticed a net increase in customer base.)
Blockbuster just made some blunders this year. They should really steal the market back and maybe even add customers that haven't really been into movie rentals when they start doing download-able rentals.
I agree that Blockbuster alone cannot turn the tide of the format war. However, imo, Blockbuster was the last major player necessary to decide the format war outcome. If Blockbuster chose HD DVD, I may not be so sure because Blu-ray has been selling better than HD DVD.
And Beta was supposed to be far superior to VHS, 25 years ago. But Beta lost the war because VHS was cheaper to produce. Isn't HD-DVD cheaper to make?
The other wrinkle in this is that Blu-ray players receive constant complaints for their malifunctions; HD players don't have that rep right now.
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"I'm not smart so much as I am not dumb." - Harlan Ellison
I read the same thing myself...but it wasn't from a blockbuster rep...it was some third party opinion.
I read, I think it is in one of the links I submitted, that BlockBuster is also preparing to go digital...which digital rentals should make the format war useless.
Yes, they probably are working towards converting to 100% (or close to it) online, but that is because their brick and mortar stores have not been doing well.
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May 30th, 2007 06:21 PM
