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Thread: Blu-Ray winning the race in Australia

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    Default Blu-Ray winning the race in Australia

    AUSTRALIA is leading the world in the next-generation DVD format war, with figures showing home cinema buffs have ignored confusion in other countries and already crowned a winner in the multibillion-dollar battle: Blu-ray.

    Movie studios are promising to reward Australia's quick decision-making with a host of new blockbuster titles this year plus groundbreaking features that will have us playing dice games with Johnny Depp, hacking computers for Kevin Smith and cooking up a storm with a rat in a French kitchen.

    These new additions are timed to ensure 2008 is the year high-definition DVD players become common in lounge rooms across the globe.

    The high-definition DVD war began early last year in Australia, following the launch of two rival DVD formats – Blu-ray and HD DVD.

    Like the VHS and Beta videocassette war before it, the two DVD formats are each supported by entertainment and technology heavyweights and both groups insist consumers pick a side. Both formats offer five times the screen resolution of standard DVDs, making movies look crisper, more lifelike and more involving than ever. Filmmakers such as Ratatouille writer and director Brad Bird insist the technology delivers movies "exactly as they were intended" and with pictures better than those on most cinema screens.

    But the two formats have important differences too. The Blu-ray format, developed by Sony and Pioneer and named after the blue-violet laser used to create it, can store 25GB on a single-layer DVD and 50GB on increasingly popular double-layer discs. Blu-ray DVDs can also process information faster and feature Java applications, though the software and hardware is more expensive to produce.

    Meanwhile, the HD-DVD format, supported by Toshiba, can only store 15GB on a single-layer disc and 30GB on a double-layer disc. However, HD-DVD discs are available free of region coding, unlike Blu-ray discs, so you could play movies purchased in the US or UK, for example.

    The war between the two formats is reaching its height in the US, where sales are increasing and consumers voting with their wallets. Blu-ray Disc Association spokesman and Pioneer Electronics senior vice-president Andy Parsons says the stakes for either side have never been greater.

    "It took us almost a year after Blu-ray was first launched in June 2006 to deliver a million disc sales, but it took only three months to achieve 2 million sales and then another three months after that to achieve 3 million sales," he says. "At the moment we have a two-to-one sales advantage over HD-DVD (in the US)."

    Mr Parsons does not completely dismiss HD-DVD though. Despite Blu-ray's overwhelming software lead, Toshiba is making things difficult on the hardware front.

    Toshiba continues to discount its HD-DVD players, creating a $US200 gulf between the cheapest HD-DVD player and the cheapest Blu-ray alternative in the US.

    In Australia Toshiba offers a HD-DVD player for $299 with four movies to compete with Blu-ray players such as Sharp's AQUOS Blu-ray Disc Player, which is on sale for $749.

    "That's how they get their market – they cut the price," Mr Parsons says. "That has been Toshiba's strategy so far."

    In its favour, the Blu-ray has a powerful weapon in the PlayStation 3. Both versions of the next-generation games console come with the ability to play Blu-ray DVDs, making PlayStation addicts instant Blu-ray fans.

    Mr Parsons says more than 2 million Americans have already bought a PS3 including "many who bought it just to play Blu-ray DVDs". In Australia that number sits at just 175,000, after the high-price console struggled to compete with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii in its first year.

    But Australia is a different market to the US when it comes to next-generation DVD adoption.

    Research by GfK shows Blu-ray DVD players and movies dominate their HD-DVD alternatives in Australia and represented 95.2 per cent of the market by October. More than 97,700 of the 101,600 high-definition DVD players sold in Australia played Blu-ray DVDs, compared to only 3800 that played HD-DVD discs. Blu-ray is also winning the software war, with consumers buying 87,000 Blu-ray DVDs and only 14,400 HD-DVD discs.

    "This report quite clearly depicts the current state of play in the high-definition format market in Australian homes," Sony Australia managing director Carl Rose says. "Across the key areas of high-definition entertainment, from hardware to content, these figures show that Blu-ray is distinctly the format of choice for consumers."

    These figures do come at an early stage in the high-definition DVD format war though, according to Sony International vice-president Matt Brown. He says early adopters are still leading the way for this technology and have been restrained by the limited number of next-generation DVD players and movie titles on the market so far.

    "This is changing quickly though, and it's at the point now where every time you release a new movie you break a new record for shipments," Mr Brown says.

    An important element in this DVD format war is movie studio support. Neither format can win the war without it, as no consumer will buy a next-generation DVD player if it won't play their favourite movies.

    Blu-ray has long enjoyed the largest range of studio support (70 per cent), but suffered a blow in August last year when heavyweights Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG agreed to distribute their movies in the HD-DVD format for 18 months.

    These studios own movies such as Cloverfield, Bee Movie and Shrek, and their deal led many industry experts to predict the DVD format war would continue until the contract expires.

    But HD-DVD also suffered a blow this month when Warner Bros, which controls 20 per cent of the movie market, announced it would no longer support the format and would release only Blu-ray DVDs. The move surprised the industry, including Toshiba, which cancelled a planned HD-DVD event and declared a subsequent press conference "a tough day".

    Despite intense competition for DVD format loyalty, Disney worldwide brand marketing executive Gordon Ho says the studio's decision to support Blu-ray was simple.

    "For our movies to look really good in high-definition we knew we needed more than a 30GB disc, which is what HD-DVD offers," he says. "Guess what? Today pretty much every one of Disney's movies is released on a 50GB disc. Paramount recently had issues trying to get all of their content on a 30GB HD-DVD disc, and so their packaging listed some features that weren't on the disc. Ultimately we needed that space for the best pictures, the best sound and the interactive features you want to add to a high-definition DVD."

    Mr Ho admits other considerations also played a part in Disney's decision, including the added durability of Blu-ray DVDs, its large support base and the lack of Blu-ray DVD piracy (new equipment is needed to produce the discs).

    But Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment president Bob Chapek says it is Blu-ray's extra storage and speed that will ultimately transform home movies.

    "Blu-ray enables us to break the line between the movie and the movie extra," he says. "Because of the capacity of the disc, plus its processing speed, the world of movies and bonus features becomes one. It becomes one seamless experience where you can make choices on the fly because they're now all on one disc."

    As a result, some Blu-ray DVDs will allow you to view "picture-in-picture" movie extras – miniature, behind-the-scenes documentaries that screen in a box in the corner of your television screen. Mr Chapek says many other movie extras are planned for future Disney Blu-ray releases, including interactive games.

    Twentieth Century Fox is planning to add interactive elements to its Blu-ray DVD discs. Technology executive vice-president Danny Kaye says it plans to add features such as a world-saving trivia quiz to its Day After Tomorrow and a function that lets you search for scenes by their content (explosions or car chases, for example).

    The studio's Die Hard 4.0 Blu-ray title features a game with video instructions and gentle ribbing from actor Kevin Smith, Independence Day will feature an alien scavenger hunt game, and Master And Commander will let you see a map showing the location of the movie's two ships at any point during the film.

    Mr Kaye says some future titles will let you transfer a digital copy of the film to your portable media player, be it an iPod or a PlayStation Portable, so you can enjoy it while travelling.

    Despite these promising developments, Mr Kaye admits the DVD format war is still "confusing to the consumer" and "a huge problem for the movie industry", as it divides consumers along technology battle lines.

    Mr Parsons says the end of the war cannot come soon enough: "(Consumers) are getting sick of this format war... they were sick of this format war when it started."

    "If I were to have made a guess about this war a year ago, I would have thought it would be over by now," he says. "I think the Paramount and Dreamworks deals threw a spanner in the works but, regardless, Blu-ray is still on track to win and I believe it will prevail."

    Mr Chapek is more optimistic, fuelled by Blu-ray success in Australia and other countries.

    "It's probably over now in some countries because of Blu-ray's humungous lead in market share," he says. "It's over already in Australia, in Japan and in Europe. The only place it's even talked about is the US. By this year, sometime during this year, it will be evident that HD-DVD is over."



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    I agree that blu-ray seems to be leading and I would be very surprised if HD DVD can make a comeback now.


    The above article was written by Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson and printed in full in the Courier-Mail Wed Jan 23.
    I noted at the end of the article that "Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson attended the Los Angles Blu-ray Festival as a guest of Disney"


    You have to wonder how un-biased the article can be when you get a freebie paid for by one of blu-rays main proponents.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sanity View Post
    More than 97,700 of the 101,600 high-definition DVD players sold in Australia played Blu-ray DVDs, compared to only 3800 that played HD-DVD discs. Blu-ray is also winning the software war, with consumers buying 87,000 Blu-ray DVDs and only 14,400 HD-DVD discs.

    "
    those figures show that there are more hi def. players out there then discs sold!
    Excluding ps3 i guess.

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    Thumbs up LG To Unleash HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Combo Player

    You've gotta have rocks in your head to mindlessly race out to purchase equiptment within 2 years of any new technology format being released as there will allways be something bigger/better/faster/with more features,modes etc on the horizion.
    The smart consumers would just sit back and wait for a manufacturer to create something that is an allrounder,simplistic and user friendly such as this,


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    Medion ( i think thats the brand that adli sells)

    Were advertising a dual mode player as well for around the $500 mark

    I think we will see many more players coming onto the market that play both.
    Im Feeling Wobbly !!!

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    the issue with combo drives is support for standards and disc upgrades. Firmware revisions have been rampant for both formats and these dual units will need to be updated just as quick

    Frankly i dont see the cheap units offering this kind of ongoing support

    as for BD well lets just say that titles are thin as it is.. BUT Toshiba havent really pushed HD DVD players, let alone offer them for $250 as seen in Kmart/Wallmart in the US..

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    I just wonder what percentage of the Australian population
    actually has high def tv's ????
    For myself I am still using my old crt and I am still happy with the picture
    quality of it, thus this will be ruling me out of wasting money on any
    of the units on sale at the moment
    But my money is on blue-ray from just looking in
    the video shops in my neck of the woods
    When you do things right, people won't be sure that you have done anything at all

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    I'll bet those numbers include the ps3. Sony always includes the ps3 in its blu-ray numbers, because according to Sony its not a games machine but a blu-ray player (a lot of people buy it for that). I'm suprised the numbers are as high as that because I've only just recently seen BluRay/HD-DVD discs appearing in stores and they are usually hidden away. As for players, seen them in catalogues but never at the front of a store.

    Best4less, I tend to agree with you there, a lot of people are still running CRTs, I have mine and I'm holding on to it because IMHO it looks much better than a lot of the LCDs and it works in a well lit room (my TV room is well lit during the day when I watch the cricket) which I've heard Plasmas struggle with (not overly eager to go to a plasma anyway).

    Then again I still have stuff in Real Player that I watch on occasionans (The Tick animated series) so I'm not a quality whore.

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    If Blue-ray or HD-DVD for that matter, is so bloody popular, how come the worlds hi-end audio market have completely ignored these systems up to now.
    Many audio chain stores, simply don't sell these formats, and about the only people that do are the one's that also stock the Players. retailers like Sanity Music simply can't be bothered, to find the space for these formats, as people would sooner pay 5 or 8 dollars for a standard DVD.

    With respect, All the hype above was written by someone in the industry, who's simply promoting the stuff. Audio and movie mags do the same thing, They promote just how wonderful this stuff is, then when you turn the page, there's a full page "PAID'' advert for the same thing. And no magazine can afford to say something is crap, when the advertiser pays good money to promote it.
    Quite simply, pay some audio porn mag enough advertising cash, and they will make a Dog food tin, "product of the year" WOT group of magazines are past masters at it.
    As for what's going to win, This country doesn't even count, as we simply don't have the population or buying capacity to matter. When like the USA we can buy in excess of 40 million TV sets a year, then and only then can we dictate to the manufacturers what WE want.

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    i agree with you bassett

    numbers dont really mean much down here.. considering our market is so small its not even funny

    PS3 is included with BD numbers as it is in fact a BD player. One of the better ones in fact. In any case, it will be the ps3 and its continual drop in price every 8 months which will force prices of other players down.

    As it stands, with LCD and plasma screens not nearly getting close to CRT contrast ratios (ie 20000:1) image quality wont ever be the same. in fact our 80' CRT has richer colour than any panel ive seen on the market (and ive seen LOTS)
    The only one that comes remotely close is the new samsung pure black units which are hitting 15k:1 contrasts with pure black generation. Side by side to a pioneer or a Panasonic (IMO the best panels on the market), the image quality is trully astounding (consideirng its a samsung) this ones hitting 25k:1


    ive waited years to see image quaity like this on this kind of technology...

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    CRT will always be better with regard to picture quality, but there big, there heavy, they take up considerable space, and there not trendy, So retailers flood the market with sub-standard LCD or plasma screens, which in a lot of cases don't last, break down and are unrepairable,
    So they get some shonky insurance company, and aren't ALL insurance companies shonky. to offer extended warranty, for something like $450, for five years. [diamond warranty is one, if you live in queensland, don't sell, led or give away the set. and then only make a claim if the thing gets kicked by a pregnant camel on a moonlite night, while the place is flooded or it's snowing, Which is all pretty much standard ] Which people pay for, and also smile when they do it. the thing is, if these things are so bloody wonderful, why do you need an extended warranty in the first place.

    As for quality in Plasma, really it starts and ends with Fujitsu, if your prepared to sell a couple of your kids on e-bay to afford one. 95% of the patents, for Plasma technology are owned by Fujitsu

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