BD buys at BestBuy!

[JoeSp]

First if you purchase the two POTC BDs at BestBuy at the same time you get $10.00 off! Their asking price is $29.99 so that effectively gets the price down to 24.99 which is a good price considering that Amazon.com's asking price is $23.79.

Second up is the Samsung BDP1000 BD player for $499 the new new price for the first generation BD player from Samsung. Their BDP1200 is priced out at $699 (I see this dropping in about 2 months. Next up for BD is the sub-$400 range. This is very good news for the BD camp as the HD-DVD camp is pulling out all the stops to try and improve their image and discs sales by dropping the bottom out of their pricing structure.

Third, their are an over abundance of good BD titles out this week and more coming every week. The only downside is where am I going to get all this money to buy all these titles?

 

[navychop]

Or if you buy the Panasonic BD 10A you get the first two POTC plus 3 other BDs included. But then, the Panasonic BD 10A doesn't have an ethernet port. I don't know anything else about it, except it has a $599 MSRP.

Regarding HD DVD pulling out all the stops- Home Media Magazine in their May 20 issue (page 32, continued from page 1) is claiming BDA affiliated studios will release only 43 titles this year, and only 147 in 2008, while HD DVD will release nearly 800 titles this year. Surely they knew that was wrong when they "printed" it! More questionable claims, scrambling for an edge.

 

[JoeSp]

I think those numbers must be reversed. There are not enough studios to produce 800 HD-DVD titles in a year. BUT, there are enough BD studios to produce that many titles a year. Very interesting.

 

[navychop]

So "interesting" I hope the Blu-ray association pursues it with a vengence!

 

[teachsac]

I think those numbers must be reversed. There are not enough studios to produce 800 HD-DVD titles in a year. BUT, there are enough BD studios to produce that many titles a year. Very interesting.

Simply not true. Universal has the largest movie library of any studio. In addition, as of today, they have 22 movies slated for release. Several of them look extremely good including: The Kingdom, Illegal Tender, Hulk, Hellboy 2, Tale of Despereaux (extremely popular book), Veggie tales, and of course Bourne Ultimatum to name a few. It was shown ages ago at AVS that the number of titles available to be released by both camps was even.

S~

 

[JoeSp]

22 does not make 800. On top of that AVS is a forum like this one and they are very HD-DVD heavy in support. I say this because that particular forum has been very prone to push rumor as fact when discussing HD-DVD vs BD.

The number of titles are not even. BD has released twice as many titles this year as has HD-DVD and we are already at the end of May. BD currently holds onto a 60/40 margin in discs sales. Maybe Toshiba's sub $300 player will improve HD-DVD disc sales but this deal has been out over two weeks and we still do not see any change in the disc sales margins.

This information can be read by anyone who can pull up Nielson sales figures or Amazon.com figures or any other site who actually deals with the number of disc sales of a particular format.

That said, there are some very nice titles coming out for HD-DVD -- it is just that the BD studios are also bringing out some nice titles -- some of them blockbusters -- and they are slated to bring out more of them. My issue is with the Home Media mag that is obviously still liiving in the summer of '06.

 

[teachsac]

22 does not make 800. On top of that AVS is a forum like this one and they are very HD-DVD heavy in support. I say this because that particular forum has been very prone to push rumor as fact when discussing HD-DVD vs BD.

The number of titles are not even. BD has released twice as many titles this year as has HD-DVD and we are already at the end of May. BD currently holds onto a 60/40 margin in discs sales. Maybe Toshiba's sub $300 player will improve HD-DVD disc sales but this deal has been out over two weeks and we still do not see any change in the disc sales margins.

This information can be read by anyone who can pull up Nielson sales figures or Amazon.com figures or any other site who actually deals with the number of disc sales of a particular format.

That said, there are some very nice titles coming out for HD-DVD -- it is just that the BD studios are also bringing out some nice titles -- some of them blockbusters -- and they are slated to bring out more of them. My issue is with the Home Media mag that is obviously still liiving in the summer of '06.

Joe,

Once again you are putting things into your post that were never stated in the original post you responded to. I never stated anything about sales figures. My response was to you saying that HD-DVD doesn't have that many titles to release. There was a list compiled in the neutral thread that listed the total number of movie titles owned by each studio. It has nothing to do with what format is "favored" over the other. Universal has the most movies in its movie library followed by Warner. Warner is also the first company to reach the 100,000 plateau (not a big figure) for a title and owns more than 30% of the total high definition disc sales.

Universal alone is releasing 22 titles to theaters. Most look very good, a few that I'm not interested in, this summer/early fall. They should do well to extremely well at the box office. Counting these 22 , warner's, paramount's, and other studio's titles (including catalogs), HD-DVD could easily release 800 by the end of the year. BD could also release 800 by the end of the year. Will either? Noone knows. We'll have a better idea towards the end of summer when they start announcing titles for the holiday season. But once again you said HD-DVD does not have enough studios to produce 800 titles. Universal can do that by itself with catalog and their summer release titles. In fact, any of the major studios could if they wanted to. The problem is.... High definition disks are a niche product. Neither camp can release 800 current release/day and date titles. Theyt will have to rely on catalogs to reach that number. I never said that Bd wouldn't release a good number of titles either. I didn't respond to that part of Navy's post. BD's two exclusive companies (Fox and Disney) do not have a lot slated at this time.

S~

 

[mike123abc]

Joe,

Universal has the most movies in its movie library followed by Warner.

Not exactly true, Sony via its control of Sony Pictures, Columbia/Tristar and MGM libraries controls the distibution of more films than any other studio.

 

[CochiseGuy]

Not exactly true, Sony via its control of Sony Pictures, Columbia/Tristar and MGM libraries controls the distibution of more films than any other studio.

The buyout of MGM was a complicated deal. Sony got the rights for new films from the MGM library - such as James Bond in Casino Royale.

And Fox got the rights for distribution of all of the existing MGM library.

Sorry, but does not control the distribution of anything more than the Columbia/TriStar studio the paid a hefty price for, and new productions based on the MGM library.

 

[JoeSp]

teachsac, I did say that my beef was with the source you used and not you. Either camp could pump out 800 titles and if they did that most would be of very poor quality. I would rather see 3 to 4 titles a week down very well from each studio then ten a week done poorly.

My statement is based on the fact that 90 percent of the studios support BD while 30 percent of the studios support HD-DVD. I have always said that this is a numbers game and the more studio support one has the more quality product one can see on the market.

I do not doubt that Universal can crank out HD-DVDs. But lately, BD is the camp that has been cranking out the titles. Can this turn around - yes - will it is the question. The only thing really holding BD back right now is not having a BD player under $300. That does not seem to be a problem though to the BD camp as discs sales keep rising.

Another thing, last I checked Fox is in the BD camp. That would mean that the MGM library for now is secure in the BD camp here in the states.

I just do not believe that we are going to see 800 quality titles from either camp this year. I am afraid that if either camp approaches that number we are going to see alot of sub-par HD conversions.

 

[Dog6869]

Blu-ray?? What you mean that is still around?? I thought it went the way of SONY BETA MAX????? HD-DVD rules!! and always will... SONY is a JUNK company!!! Once a Very long time ago it was a Very good company. A V E R Y loooong time ago..

 

[CochiseGuy]

Regarding HD DVD pulling out all the stops- Home Media Magazine in their May 20 issue (page 32, continued from page 1) is claiming BDA affiliated studios will release only 43 titles this year, and only 147 in 2008, while HD DVD will release nearly 800 titles this year. Surely they knew that was wrong when they "printed" it! More questionable claims, scrambling for an edge.

Yep, the HD DVD Promotional Group has already come out and said Home Media Magazine got it wrong (from HighDefDigest) :

The group says it "conservatively" projects a worldwide total of 600 HD DVD releases for the entirety of 2007, and that the error in the report appeared to stem from a slide in an HD DVD powerpoint presentation that listed the cumulative number of titles by month for 2006.

Home Media Mag was quoting a Pioneer spokesperson as saying there would only be 43 Blu-ray titles released this year. No correction yet from the BD folks.

Gotta say it - for the May 22 releases, I bought Matrix Trilogy, Flags of our Fathers & Iwa Jima on HD DVD, and I Netflixed POTC Curse of the Black Pearl. I've made it through Matrix 1 :up & Iwa Jima :up , but after two nights of trying, that Pirate movie just keeps putting me to sleep.

 

[teachsac]

Gotta say it - for the May 22 releases, I bought Matrix Trilogy, Flags of our Fathers & Iwa Jima on HD DVD, and I Netflixed POTC Curse of the Black Pearl. I've made it through Matrix 1 :up & Iwa Jima :up , but after two nights of trying, that Pirate movie just keeps putting me to sleep.

Iwo was spectacular. I also bought the HDDVD version for the lossless sound, but I bet it looks spectacular on BD, also.

As for the first POC. I did notice a pretty significant flaw in the video right after she walked the plank when the sky was on the left and the ship on the right. Scene flashes pretty quickly, but it was definitely noticable. Overall a very good transfer, but I wouldn't say it was perfect.

S~

 

[CochiseGuy]

Iwo was spectacular. I also bought the HDDVD version for the lossless sound, but I bet it looks spectacular on BD, also.

As for the first POC. I did notice a pretty significant flaw in the video right after she walked the plank when the sky was on the left and the ship on the right. Scene flashes pretty quickly, but it was definitely noticable. Overall a very good transfer, but I wouldn't say it was perfect.

S~

teach - Did the TrueHD audio track on Iwa Jima seem significantly low volume to you? It was really a nice, full surround track, but I really had to crank it up to catch all the nuances - the sound of the waves on the beach, the wind blowing, etc. By comparison, I had to turn down the volume of The Matrix TrueHD during the lobby scene, and the neighbors still probably think we had a gang war in the neighborhood.

I'll have to watch for the walk the plank scene - I haven't made it that far yet. Just my taste in movies, but POTC is just a snoozer for me, I keep waiting for for it to pick up with some action.

 

[teachsac]

teach - Did the TrueHD audio track on Iwa Jima seem significantly low volume to you? It was really a nice, full surround track, but I really had to crank it up to catch all the nuances - the sound of the waves on the beach, the wind blowing, etc. By comparison, I had to turn down the volume of The Matrix TrueHD during the lobby scene, and the neighbors still probably think we had a gang war in the neighborhood.

I'll have to watch for the walk the plank scene - I haven't made it that far yet. Just my taste in movies, but POTC is just a snoozer for me, I keep waiting for for it to pick up with some action.

I watched POC2 and it was a much better transfer than the first movie. Excellent transfer.

Cochiseguy... could be that it was filmed in Japanese. I turned it up a little.

S~

 

[diogen]

Not exactly true, Sony via its control of Sony Pictures, Columbia/Tristar and MGM libraries controls the distibution of more films than any other studio.

Depends how you look at it.
Box office earnings (new releases) Sony was the leader in 2006
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2006.php
Warner - in 2005
http://www.the-numbers.com/market/2005.php

If you count the total marketshare (including catalog), Warner was and is the leader
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6408846.html

Diogen.

 

[Jamey K]

Joe,

Blu-Ray Fan boys remind of Lynyrd Skynyrd. I love the band but I hate the fans. I'll listen to their songs on radio but I won't go to the concerts.

If my son has his PS3 up here and is watching a movie, I'll watch it, but I'm not going to buy a seperate player or buy Blu-Ray movies. The players are too expensive, and so far, no title has made me buy a BR movie.

He bought Casino Royale and that was ok. I rented The Prestige and Rocky Balboa. I loved The Prestige but, like The Crying Game, I won't need to see it again. I noticed I get it as an HD-DVD import.

Rocky was ok and mercifully short but the PQ was totally unimpressive.

I'd rather have The Godfather Trilogy than Star Wars, so until BR players come WAY down, or if someone gives me one for a birthday, I'll stick with my HD DVD.

I'm really looking for a reason to like BR, but I just haven't seen or heard it yet.

Maybe the new Springsteen concert next month?

 

[teachsac]

Yeap. Lucas has no plans on releasing Star Wars in HD any time soon anyways.

S~

 

[jmd102354]

Joe,

.

Maybe the new Springsteen concert next month?

Springsteen !!!???
Talk about a waste of time !

 

[Jamey K]

Springsteen !!!???
Talk about a waste of time !

LOL. Well, it's my time.