Warner sales of Blu-ray from 60% to 70% compared to HD DVD.

[ack_bak]

Doby one of my problems with the PCM bit is if studios do this shit they should use the money they save NOT paying Dolby or DTS and pricing the discs or rather putting the new or catalog release stuff at $20 period.
"Night At the Museum" is $13 on DVD this week for release on sale at CC so it wouldn't kill them, if they really want to spur sales of HD discs to sell it on BR for $20.
They can argue press and costs but they're not really gonna get high sales of these day and date movies and having them press a lot more in the process if they don't hit that magic price point.

This movie is on sale for $24.99 at Target. I don't find that unreasonable. I do wish that ALL studios for both formats would price their movies at around $25 MSRP and that they sold for $20 tops... One day...

[Meatpopsicle]

Doby one of my problems with the PCM bit is if studios do this shit they should use the money they save NOT paying Dolby or DTS and pricing the discs or rather putting the new or catalog release stuff at $20 period.
"Night At the Museum" is $13 on DVD this week for release on sale at CC so it wouldn't kill them, if they really want to spur sales of HD discs to sell it on BR for $20.
They can argue press and costs but they're not really gonna get high sales of these day and date movies and having them press a lot more in the process if they don't hit that magic price point.

Taking this a step further; I have always felt that if Studios actually were interested in HD discs taking off and possibly becoming the dominate format, why not release them before DVD's? Even if by a week or two?

[divian]

Taking this a step further; I have always felt that if Studios actually were interested in HD discs taking off and possibly becoming the dominate format, why not release them before DVD's? Even if by a week or two?

I think this eventually will happen , once CE companies can offer cheap HD DVD players to the market. Then , we will start seeing the HD media coming first than the standard dvd's.
The only way High definition will succeed is by somehow little by little replace the standard until everybody will end up with the High Definition format in their homes. HD DVD will get there with hardware price.

[Keegs]

Taking this a step further; I have always felt that if Studios actually were interested in HD discs taking off and possibly becoming the dominate format, why not release them before DVD's? Even if by a week or two?

I see many things they can do and your idea would be smart. I think they need to do better marketing and actually talk about the differences and show the differences in commercials and such. I also they that hd-dvd and blu-ray should directly attack each other by saying why they should choose their format. Sony should talk about their exclusive titles loudly and Toshiba should be talking loudly about how their format is not much different for a cheaper price. I hardly see any marketing. Obviously they will throw something huge this holiday season. It will be interesting to see their strategies.

[marine92104]

You're new here so I'll tell you what happened with Warner Bros. They supported the HD DVD format 7 months before announcing neutrality. Warner Bros. wanted to support HD DVD, but their parent company, Time Warner, is on the Blu-ray Disc Association's board of directors. Hence all Time Warner companies, New Line, HBO, Warner Bros., etc., are format neutral.

If Warner continued on the path that they did with Superman Returns and other movies, giving HD DVD lossless audio and lossy Dolby for Blu-ray, they will be in bigger trouble with Blu-ray supporters than if they NEVER, EVER issued a single lick on interactivity on the format.

People care first and foremost about the picture quality, then the audio. That is why you buy a movie. The extras, to a minority, are gravy.

Note, the single biggest obstacle for Blu-ray to overcome is Universal not supporting the format. To try and suggest anything else is completely incorrect.

If you read my posts you'll know I get good information about Warner and I can promise you one thing, once BD-J is sorted out by the end of October you will see Warner catching up on their Blu-ray releases that already have HD DVD counterparts. You WILL see them going day and date on ALL their releases after this time.

Doby I agree with you as a videophile & audiophile that if I was buying a Warner release on Blu-ray I would want the lossless audio just like the HD DVD has.

But I don't see any difference when they could be releasing higher encodes on a BD-50 for a better looking picture & it's not stopping anyone from buying their titles on Blu-ray. With all that extra space they could have higher bitrate encodes.

The only companies I really care about buying their releases on Blu-ray is Sony now that they've gone with AVC on BD-50s & Disney since they use AVC on BD-50s & both include uncompressed audio.

With Paramount I get higher bitrate audio on HD DVD & since they're releasing Dreamworks titles (Dreamgirls) same thing, higher bitrate sound on HD DVD (1.5M vs 640 kbps) & I've done a side by side & definitely can hear a difference.

With Warner you're right on some titles I get Dolby TrueHD & the Blu-ray gets Dolby Digital.

And let's not talk about Fox. I'm pretty pissed at them right now cancelling all of their remaining titles. On the titles they do have they DTS-HD MA but there's no players or receivers capable of decoding it so I'm getting the same 1.5M DTS core that I'm getting on the Paramount titles on HD DVD.

So I guess I'm just taking your arguement about sound one step further not disagreeing with you. I want the best sound & the best video on each title. After all we are talking about HD movies here.

In case you haven't seen it "Deja Vu" was one of the best looking & sounding HD movies I have seen. I watched it tonight on Blu-ray & it blew me away. Great movie. (AVC encoding on a BD-50 with uncompressed sound.)

Why can't these studios get it right.

[rarsi123]

How on Earth do yo ucome to this conclusion?

Look The Departed on Blu-ray sold 53,640 copies to March 31st.
The Departed on HD DVD sold 31,590. That's a difference of 1.8

The other title I can see for comparison is Superman Returns, which outsold on Blu-ray by 1.1

Even if we take a marginal rate of 1.40 for Batman Begins, which should see PCM on Blu-ray, that's 62,426, If it sells the same as Blu-ray outsold on The Departed then batman Begins could sell 75,803. If it sells the same as Superman Returns, which is doubtfiul as SR has lossy audio, that's almost 50,000 copies for Blu-ray

Add to this the sales of A Perfect Storm, Troy, and of course the upcoming Matrix and you can only come to one conclusion, which is this.

No way would HD DVD account for anyewhere nnear 40% pof Warner's HD disc sales if they released all titles on both formats.

Is it a great advantage for HD DVD fans? Absolutely hell yes, I'm not arguing that. If I has an HD DVD fanboy I'd be thrilled that Batman Begins still hasn't seen Blu-ray yet and that the Matrix is coming out on HD DVD ahead of Blu-ray, but I wouldn't be so blind that I could accepot that 30-40% nnumber without realising that the studios biggest title to date is only on one format, HD DVD. Therefore that number is pretty iuseless.

Where have these updated figures come from for Departed? If true we have the first title (and possibly second with casino royale) to break the 50,000 barrier. Id love to get a link, as the latest figures we have are unitl 18/03

[Samlives]

Hey Doby

WB sold 53640 blu-ray and 31509 on hd =85230 total of disk to march 31 === Big smile on Wb and the reason they are selling = total disk sold. what WB sees is total disk sold 85230 . To wb they only see by having both formats they will double their sales , not decress.

So regardless of wether they release on one format or the other A good chunk of WB buisness comes from HD.

Even if Batman begins came on blu-ray it won't be such a huge hit , by the time Batman begins hits blu-ray or the matrix more folks will have already been Format neutral and probably already own Batman begins on hd dvd and unless blu-ray offered some awesome great feature , people wouldn't rebuy....People only double dipp if they have extra features , new cut , or special packaging.....

[dobyblue]

I doubt it. 3 Million PS3 owners will not be going out to spend more money on an HD DVD player for the Matrix and Batman Begins when they know it will be coming to Blu-ray within the next 9 months.

They don't double their sales. What sort of math is that?

BB is currently still in the top 3 best selling titles for HD DVD so to suggest it will not sell well on Blu-ray is not very good foresight at all.

Most people that go format neutral are going from HD DVD only to format neutral, not the other way around, so I think your argument is flawed.

[dobyblue]

Doby I agree with you as a videophile & audiophile that if I was buying a Warner release on Blu-ray I would want the lossless audio just like the HD DVD has.

But I don't see any difference when they could be releasing higher encodes on a BD-50 for a better looking picture & it's not stopping anyone from buying their titles on Blu-ray. With all that extra space they could have higher bitrate encodes.

The only companies I really care about buying their releases on Blu-ray is Sony now that they've gone with AVC on BD-50s & Disney since they use AVC on BD-50s & both include uncompressed audio.

With Paramount I get higher bitrate audio on HD DVD & since they're releasing Dreamworks titles (Dreamgirls) same thing, higher bitrate sound on HD DVD (1.5M vs 640 kbps) & I've done a side by side & definitely can hear a difference.

With Warner you're right on some titles I get Dolby TrueHD & the Blu-ray gets Dolby Digital.

And let's not talk about Fox. I'm pretty pissed at them right now cancelling all of their remaining titles. On the titles they do have they DTS-HD MA but there's no players or receivers capable of decoding it so I'm getting the same 1.5M DTS core that I'm getting on the Paramount titles on HD DVD.

So I guess I'm just taking your arguement about sound one step further not disagreeing with you. I want the best sound & the best video on each title. After all we are talking about HD movies here.

In case you haven't seen it "Deja Vu" was one of the best looking & sounding HD movies I have seen. I watched it tonight on Blu-ray & it blew me away. Great movie. (AVC encoding on a BD-50 with uncompressed sound.)

Why can't these studios get it right.

Marine I absolutely agree with you. If Deja Vu can have a VC-1 encoding (the AVC listing was incorrect) that hits peaks of 40 Mbps, higher than the ceiling for HD DVD's video and audio combined, then there's no reason why Warner should not do a seperate encode for the Blu-ray release and take advantage of the higher disc space and bandwidth.

I have no idea why Warner didn't start implementing PCM sooner or do TrueHD encodes like NIN. I was told that they wanted PCM on Superman Returns Blu-ray but time ran out on them and they didn't want to delay the Blu-ray release.

I know that Paramount are also doing the same thing with their Dolby encodes and it's a load of rubbish, now Dreamworks are doing the same. I was told that they will use TrueHD and/or DTS-HD Master Audio on their Blu-ray releases once more receivers are released this summer, but I wish they'd get on with it. In the meantime at least we enjoy nice beefy bitrates from them on their video encodes, but without the lossless audio codecs it feels like you're being ripped off.

That's why I didn't buy Superman Returns. It comes out in the UK on Blu-ray region free on May 27th and word is that version WILL have PCM on it.

I think by this time next year when the 1.3 receivers are all over the place and players decode more codecs that it will be a different picture, but it sucks to have to wait.

[dobyblue]

Where have these updated figures come from for Departed? If true we have the first title (and possibly second with casino royale) to break the 50,000 barrier. Id love to get a link, as the latest figures we have are unitl 18/03

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom042207/

[rarsi123]

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom042207/

Wow..several titles here have sales way above the figures released by Sony. Surely an extra two weeks can not make such a difference? Or do these figures track a larger proportion of the market?