Who is winning the war??

[DSparil]

Im curious to see what some gurus think about the progress of the current Blu-ray vs HD-DVD war still underway. For me, its honestly hard to conclude which is going to be a clear winner, because there is so much "back and forth" stories and no conclusive evidence of either gaining the big upper hand.

One person will claim Blu-ray has more of the market share and generates more interest, while another will say its too expensive, and HD-DVD has the upper hand.

What do you guru's think? I thought this was an interesting article, but it seems somewhat biased http://news.digitaltrends.com/talkback158.html

This apparently shows HD-DVD as the clear leader due to price, and options offered by big companies like Microsoft and Hewlett Packard.

[greengiant]

The battle doesn't really start until decent sized HDTVs get around $200-300 and someone get a player for under $100. I'm guessing that should be holidays 2008 right in time for the 2009 analog cutoff

[Jelle Mees]

Blue ray is winning.
This is not a good thing because HD-VMD ( not HD-DVD! ) should be the winning format.

Nobody knows about HD-VMD, but this format is the cheapest of them all and it also has a very big capacity...

[Joey]

Blu-Ray is winning on disc sales... not in stand alone hardware. Games console sales are serving them well, currently, but I can't see they will be very important in the future. They have sold 3.5 million PS3's but they are still only getting 60:40 split on sales against HD DVD. Averaging out the sales, only 1 in 3 PS3 owners have actually got a single movie.... (that's discounting all of the sales of discs made by the people with stand-alones - so it's probably more like 1:4 or 1:5) and they were giving the discs away with the console....

This is why it's not clear cut as to who is currently in the lead. Stand-alone sales are a tad more reliable numbers than discs sales though.... in my opinion. A lot of console owners picking up their freebie is not as good as a lesser number of people buying a dedicated player and start buying more discs.... HD DVD seems to be way ahead in the "discs per player" stakes.

[AccordTR]

For the hardware versus the number of discs comsumers are buying, HD-DVD is winning. In otherwords people who buy HD-DVD players by a lot of discs, me included.

Also should be interesting, toshiba just stated: ALL new laptops will get a free built in HD-DVD drive, and toshiba sells a lot of laptops, and i mean ALOT of laptops.

[double_cut]

Strictly speaking Bluray is "winning". However I personally win either way.

[DSparil]

lol.... exactly my point guru's. Look at the responses to this thread so far

Half say Blu-ray is clearly winning, while the other half claims its HD-DVD hands down. There is just no clear winner yet, and probably wont be for some time. Its just a back and forth, he said, she said, i heard this, they say this battle....

I guess we'll all just have to wait it out. I completely agree with the HD-DVD hardware selling better though, and it seems that more electronics companies are putting their faith in that format.

[Stinger78]

Right now, I don't care for either format.

I'm content to keep buying movies in DVD format, because I'm also still using a non-HD capable TV. I'm sure a lot of people are in a similar situation.

Perhaps if the Xbox 360 had been available with built-in HD-DVD, or if I had a PlayStation 3, I might be interested in one of them.

[Ish]

there going to close this "war thread" =(

I hope they end up making supper cheap players that can play both.

[Psytek]

I only know two people with HD-TVs, and one of them is me. And I know some people who have only just recently bought dvd players. So in my eyes, the war hasn't really started.

I can understand that blu-ray sales are better because it's an advertised feature of the PS3, but I doubt that very many people have standalone Blu-ray or HD-DVD players,

[DSparil]

Originally Posted by Stinger78

Right now, I don't care for either format.

I'm content to keep buying movies in DVD format, because I'm also still using a non-HD capable TV. I'm sure a lot of people are in a similar situation.

Perhaps if the Xbox 360 had been available with built-in HD-DVD, or if I had a PlayStation 3, I might be interested in one of them.

Yeah, I hear ya on that one. Im still using an analog television as well. When I do get an HDTV though, I will be more than satisfied to buy a good up-scaling player that upscales to 1080P HD. I know its not quite the same, but I HATE the idea of going out and rebuying all my favorite movies on some new, fancy pants expensive format.

Upscaling the DVD's i already own, and making them look even better (without spending hundres on all new HD-DVDs) ... is good enough for me.

[Sprecker]

If I was to go to the store right now (Ottawa Eastern Canada) to buy a new format DVD I would have half the choice of HD-DVD compared to Bluray. Seriously. Be it Wallmart, Bestbuy or Futureshop the Hd-DVD selection is half that of Bluray. When I watch TV I see commercials for new releases and they are all DVD and Bluray. It sux 'cause I have a HD-DVD player and don't realy want to get another player just to get the new movies that are coming out (not that the majority of them would benifit from HD res) or those movies that I wouldn't mind geting in HD format.
I am seriously thinking Bluray has a chance in winning this format war. I am still rooting for HD-DVD though. We should have a better idea come Chrimbo.

[Jelle Mees]

Originally Posted by Psytek

I only know two people with HD-TVs, and one of them is me. And I know some people who have only just recently bought dvd players. So in my eyes, the war hasn't really started.

I can understand that blu-ray sales are better because it's an advertised feature of the PS3, but I doubt that very many people have standalone Blu-ray or HD-DVD players,

We have a HD-TV, but I am 100% sure that we will never get a HD-DVD player...