Blockbuster goes Blu-ray, HD DVD=beta?,

With over 250k discs sold of the movie 300 in the first week not counting Wallmart ect sales as well as many reported shortages of the Blu-ray version, and 163k of these being on Blu-ray, its plain to see were this is headed with exclusive titles like Spiderman 1/2/3, Pirates of the Carribean 3, National Treasure, Closec Encounters, Ratatouille, Cars, Pixar Shorts, Kill Bill 1/2 and Pulp Fiction ect ect coming out for the holiday season as Blu-ray exclusive.
The first year best sales for dvd in a week was 100k so Blu-ray has already beat that despite 300 being a dual release in this so called war.
I believe that the Holiday software sales percentages will be very telling and expect Blu-ray to take 80-90% of the sales between their exclusives, and all dual format releases which will be at least a 2-1 advatage for Blu-ray in disc sales.

Seeings how this is first and foremost an audio board,its very interesting that Blu-ray has HD audio as in uncompressed PCM, DD-THD or DTS-MA on over 90% of its format specific releases and hd dvd has less than 10% of its format specific releases with actual HD audio.

When Warner releases the 18 or so titles on Blu-ray that they have been putting off for picture in picture interactivity, hd dvd will have less than 5% of its format specific releases with actual HD audio.
Which is something most here would have a real use for with all the higher end speakers and gear.

Rysa, do you have a link to an actual official announcement of Chinese hd dvd players?
This was an internet rumour and picked up by everyone and there brother and posted as fact on blogs and sites acrossed the net.
Wallmart as well as the rumoured Chinese company both denied there was ever a deal or contract.

From what I have read, any Chinese players are not actual hd dvd players but some lessor form of HD player that will be sold only in China.

Blu-ray however does have cheap players coming from Funai and gowell that are contractual.
Funai makes some of the Denon and other brand players.
At any rate, the local Wallmarts have not had HD DVD players since last August but have had the Philips and now the 450.00 Sony player in store.

Target is only selling the Sony player in stores during the upcoming Holidays with a special Blu-ray end cap displaying mostly Disney Blu-rays.

Its interesting to note that neither Target or Costco now have an hd dvd player for sale online but both have BD players.

Its also interesting that BD disc sales are in the lead everywhere on the planet where the formats are sold.

Shadorne, content is and always will be king IMO,and all that HD audio on Blu-ray exclusives from Sony, Disney, Fox and MGM doesn't hurt either.

Newbie 13, a few days after Target announced that the Sony s-300 Blu-ray player was the only stand alone that would be sold in their store this Holiday season, and for a week straight neither had them available online.

Maybe they were waiting on the new model players.

Rysa, so there is still nothing official, just more of the same rumour started on AVS being re-hashed by the A/P this time.

Blu-ray players from Funai and Gowell are officially coming though.

I see you telling members that the PS3 is not being bought as a BD player but how do you explain that hd dvd was ahead in sales in Europe until this spring when after 1 week of PS3 sales, Blu-ray software was responsible for 87% of all HD software sales?

Also, how do you explain that ever since the PS3 was readily availble on U.S. store shelves in January, that Blu-ray has out sold hd dvd at least 2-1 and up to 3-1 every single week in the nielson ratings?

Even when there were new hd dvd releases and no new Blu-ray releases, it remained 2-1 that week.

Anyone interested in finding fact from fiction can look at the Nielsen ratings for this entire year and keep looking because those numbers are going to be getting worse by the week for hd dvd, all the way through the Holidays.

Sorry Rysa,expected to be released, is the same old rumour spun once again with zero official backup.

You say hd dvd players are more powerful, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Upcoming releases of Face Off and Blades of Glory in both formats have uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray version and only core dd plus on the hd dvd version.
The Blu-ray version is also cheaper in both cases.

The PS3 remains far more powerful than any exsisting hd dvd players with plenty of power to spare.
I owned two hd dvd players and three BD players, and all the BD players were quicker at any function.
An hd dvd version of a movie can be ported to a BD version with additional HD audio lacking on the hd dvd version added.
The reason is not just the extra GB available on the BD version but mostly the extra bandwidth.
A Blu-ray version could never be ported to hd dvd because of both the 30gb limit, and mostly because it lacks the bandwidth of Blu-ray....ie there not powerful enough.
All Blu-ray players except the Philips and original Samsung play 1080p/24 which is something lacking on every hd dvd player.

Lets also not forget that Toshiba is really the only CE making hd dvd players compared to Panasonic, Pioneer Elite, Samsung, Sony, Philips, LG,and the announced Denons with their stand alone and Blu-ray transport arriving this fall.

Yes the future players will be able to do picture in picture but how many really even use that feature on their tv's, let alone during an HD movie?

What early adopters want first and foremost is 1080p/24 and actual HD audio as well as studio support, with picture in picture taking a very distant last place.

With Weinstein going neutral, this leaves only Universal or around 12% of current studio releases not available on Blu-ray yet.
Now whats more likely, Sony, Disney, MGM, Fox and Disney going neutral with Blu-ray outselling hd dvd everywhere in the world, or Universal going neutral?

And lets not forget that even though some hardcore early adopters reccomend boiling the hd dvd combos when they have playback problems, that the average consumer will be bringing his player and movies back to the store and certainly will not be boiling problem combo discs.

From experience and also from what I read all over the net, Blu-ray is ready now for average consumers with the exception of player prices needing to be under 99.00.
HD DVD is definitely not ready for average consumers at this point IMO.