HD DVD outselling Blu-ray in Europe


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HD DVD outselling Blu-ray in Europe

Group claims 74 percent market share for stand-alone players

FRANKFURT - HD DVD video players have outsold rival standard Blu-ray players by a three-to-one margin in Europe's main markets so far this year, according to a lobby group.

The European HD DVD Promotional Group claimed it had 74 percent market share in Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland for stand-alone players, citing sales figures it commissioned from market research group GfK.

GfK said it has not published research commissioned from the trade group.

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The HD DVD group, led by Toshiba Corp. and backed by Microsoft Corp. and film studios including Warner Bros., declined to give figures for how many players it had shipped to retail outlets in Europe.

The figures were for stand-alone players only and did not include sales of games consoles such as Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, which contains a Blu-ray player.

The Sony-led Blu-ray lobby group includes Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Apple Inc. and Dell Inc. Its discs, which are outselling HD DVD discs, can store more information and special features but the technology is more expensive.

Toshiba cut prices for its HD-E1 HD DVD player to $549 in Europe and $299 in the United States last month.

Sony's BDP-S300 Blu-ray player costs $499 in the United States, and its BDP-S1E European version has recently gone on sale, with prices starting at around 900 euros. Other Blu-ray players have been on sale in Europe for longer.

According to its Web site, Blu-ray is an optical disc format developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video. It claims to offer more than five times the storage capacity of traditional DVDs.

High-definition Digital Versatile Disc

The HD DVD format claims to offer six times the picture resolution of normal DVDs and enhanced audio, according to its Web site.

Toshiba's spokesman for the European HD DVD group, Olivier Van Wynendaele, told Reuters that profit margins for its HD DVD players were comparable to those for its DVD players in Europe.

He declined to say whether Toshiba was selling players at a loss in the United States.

A mass market for high-definition video is still some way off. Blu-ray and HD DVD are battling for domination in a war reminiscent of the VHS-Betamax battle of the 1970s and 1980s. That war was won by VHS after about a decade.

Steve Nickerson, a Warner Bros spokesman for the HD DVD group, said still-high prices were partly to blame. "You can't get to mass-market consumption until you get to mass-market pricing," he told Reuters.

But Nickerson said the high-definition video market was developing faster than the DVD market had. "If we take a pragmatic approach, and understand we're still only selling to innovators, we are ahead of the DVD curve."

Van Wynendaele said surveys had shown 70 percent of consumers would be prepared to buy a high-definition player once prices fall below $200.

Asked when Toshiba would cut prices to that level, he answered: "I can't say if it's likely this year, but it will happen, yes."

Nickerson added: "It took nearly four years for that price point to be achieved in DVD ... anything inside three years would be significantly improved compared to the DVD."

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yea but last I heard, blu-ray was winning software wise, i.e movies. This is most likely because of the PS3, which they discount. I realise its hard to work out how many people brought the PS3 for bluray tho

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The figures were for stand-alone players only and did not include sales of games consoles such as Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3, which contains a Blu-ray player.

Which makes the figures pretty much useless :huh:

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Yeah for standalone players... Everyone that wants Blu-ray gets a game system while there at it (PS3). If it was movie sales then I would be impressed.

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"If you count the biggest selling blu-ray player that also happens to be a games machine, we're losing like 50-1, but if you pretend that doesn't exist, we're winning 3-1!!"

Twisting facts ftl :p

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When I read the title, I thought 1 of two things, 1) Blu-Ray is getting owned by the EU anti-trust commission, 2) HD-DVD must have twisted the sales figure around somehow.

Apparently, number 2 is what occurred.

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I don't think "who's winning" should be based on hardware sales. Not with the PS3 as part of the equation. Who's to say whether people are buying PS3s for gaming only, watching Blu-Ray only, or a mixture of both?

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I don't think "who's winning" should be based on hardware sales. Not with the PS3 as part of the equation. Who's to say whether people are buying PS3s for gaming only, watching Blu-Ray only, or a mixture of both?

Yup thats exactly why they don't count PS3 in hardware sales, but really because PS3 can be used as one and many have been sold really it should be based on disc sales not hardware. Last time I checked Blu-ray is leading in disc sales.

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^Which, keeping the "stats" above in mind, does technically mean that Blu-Ray users purchase more movies than HD-DVD owners yet there are less Blu-Ray player owners.

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The European HD DVD Promotional Group ... citing sales figures it commissioned from market research group GfK.

GfK said it has not published research commissioned from the trade group.

That's just wierd! lol

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I think, at the end of the day, no one really cares about blu-ray OR HD-DVD at the moment. Compatibility is a sheet to the wind at the moment, and there's nothing really wrong with DVDs just yet.

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Yeah it's rather useless since that only counts standalone players and not the PS3. And while PS3 isn't exactly a standalone player, it's affecting sales enough to grab a 2:1 marketshare over HD-DVD. Also some people grab a PS3 over a standalone because they're the same price, sometimes cheaper over here.

Here are HMV UK movie sales from last month:

hmvchartez7.jpg

http://forums.highdefdigest.com/forumdisplay.php?f=43

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there's nothing really wrong with DVDs just yet.

You probably don't own a big screen HDTV to say that.... Even with upscaling to 1080p, DVD is no match to the quality of picture from HD-DVD or Blu-ray.

And yes, I can see the difference with my 50" Sony SXRD.

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I think, at the end of the day, no one really cares about blu-ray OR HD-DVD at the moment. Compatibility is a sheet to the wind at the moment, and there's nothing really wrong with DVDs just yet.

once they get a consumer drive out that will play both...no one will care and both HD-dvd and blue ray will sit idle

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i just want this crap to end so i know which one to buy. i don't care which one, really, i just want it to be done.

i had a betamax and i'm not going through that again

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Ommgggzzz, th3 form@t wr iz ovr!!!!!!!11one

(No, I don't dislike HD DVD, but com'n... these are always the comments you get with these articles :))

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once they get a consumer drive out that will play both...no one will care and both HD-dvd and blue ray will sit idle

Agreed. I think LG have already released a hybrid drive in America.

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