Number-crunching the Format War

mswoods1 · 11-07-2007, 10:13 PM

NOTE: This post is all speculation. I'm not claiming to be right, or anywhere near right. It is more for discussion than anything. I have no magic ball with which I can see into the future, and I also don't have all the exact numbers on the format war. Only the BDA and DVD forum know exactly what's going on. All I can do is guess.

But, I'm going to go ahead and guess anyway. I am going to try to estimate how many HD players Toshiba has to sell to catch up to to BD.

Okay, here we go:

First off, these are the facts that we get to work with:

-In September, NPD said the ratios of SAL players was 53% HD DVD, 44% BD, and 3% dual-format.
-In September, Microsoft said they've sold 220,000 HD add-ons to date.
-According to NPD, the PS3 has sold 2 million units in America to date.
-According to NPD, the PS3 has sold 1.2 million units in Q1-Q3 this year

Note: The PS3 estimates given here by NPD are in contrast to the VGchartz estimates I was using in another thread. I found that the VGchartz data is not as accurate as NPD, so I'm using the NPD data which I was able to dig up by doing some googling.

Here are the semi-facts we get to work with too:

-According to Videoscan, BD discs have outsold HD DVD discs by a 1.8:1 ratio for the year.
-Surveys show 20% of PS3 owners use it for BD playback

(I'm calling them "semi-facts" because they could both be based on false information. It is just a "survey of PS3 owners" and Videoscan may be off as well since they don't cover all of the HD market.)

Then, some figures which we will use that are not exact but are approximate:

-There about about 400,000 HD DVD SAL's on the market right now.
(This estimate does not have to be too exact for our purposes here. But it's an estimate I have heard on the forums as a ballpark figure. We haven't heard any official numbers on the number of HD SAL's sold in a long time... last time was in June when Toshiba said 180,000 SAL's had been sold.)

-Sales for the consumer electronics business boom in Q4, and typically equal all the sales in Q1+Q2+Q3 combined.
(This is something I've heard discussed at length on AVS in the sales threads, and this approximation can be confirmed just by looking at sales figures for consumer electronics / game systems by quarter if you wish.)

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Now, we'll get into how many HD DVD players Toshiba may have to sell in order to catch up to BD:

Method 1

Suppose there are 400,000 SAL HD DVD players out there on the market right now. These 400,000 make up 53% of the market share according to NPD. Then, the BD SAL's make up 44% of the market share, or about 332,000 SAL BD players.

Then we have to include a number of PS3's has BD players too:

2 million PS3s
* 20% who use it for BD playback
~= 400,000 BD SAL's

Which brings the total BD players out there to 732,000.

Then there are 220,000 Xbox Add-ons for HD DVD, which when added to the 400K HD SAL's brings the total HD players market to 620,000.

Then that makes 732,000 BD players to 620,000 HD players based on those assumptions. Which is a 54% ratio for BD and 46% ratio for HD.

However, that doesn't make sense since the numbers show much more BD discs have been sold throughout the year in a higher ratio than that. BD has to have a higher player advantage to sell so many more discs. Therefore, one of these "facts" must be off, whether it be Videoscan's sales data or the surveys who says the PS3 is only used as a BD player 20% of the time. Or maybe the attach rate for BD SAL's is significantly higher than HD DVD's attach rate. I don't know, but either way.... I'm not completely convinced on this method of number-crunching the estimated amount of players in the market.

Note: My own personal opion is that the flaw in this method has to be the number of PS3's being used as BD players. I don't know any other logical explanation. I would think it's somewhere more like 25%-33% of PS3's being used as BD players for the disc ratios to be so different while HD is winning the SAL war and has a bunch of Xbox add-ons.

Method 2

Now let's just take the total number of HD SAL's + add-ons (about 620k), and compare them to the BD userbase using the sales ratios from Videoscan.

If BD is outselling HD DVD by a 1.8:1 ratio for the year, then assuming an equal attachment rate, there are 1.8 times more BD players out there.

So,
620k
*1.8
~= 1100k BD players

So there are 1100k BD players out there (that are being used as BD players) compared to 620k HD players using this method of estimation.

Or in other words, HD would have to sell around 500k players to catch up.

Method 3

This method will use the same calculation as method 2, but we will use a 1.5:1 ratio to calculate the difference in players, as I've heard many HD DVD fans tout this as the "new ratio" since the Paramount announcement, and it's also the "since inception" ratio for disc sales according to Videoscan.

620k HD players
* 1.5
= 930k BD players

Using this method, HD would have to sell about 300k players to catch up to BD.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Holiday Sales

With the holidays coming up, everything becomes much less predictable with the new $400 PS3 price drop, and sub $200 and even sub $100 HD players. Plus, both sides are going to be throwing deal after deal at each other, with rumors of certain BD CE companies throwing in free (or almost free) BD players with their big screen HDTV's.

Nonetheless, some basic estimations of players sold in Q4.

Holiday Sales Estimate 1

The PS3
Has sold 1.2 million in Q1+Q2+Q3. So using the "Q1+Q2+Q3 sales = Q4 sales" method, it will sell around 1.2 million in Q4 (perhaps more with new $399 price level though.)

That could mean about the equivalent of 250k BD SAL's being sold using the "20% of PS3s are BD players" figure, but I'm going to error on the side of caution and just say "the equivalent of 400k BD SAL's being sold" since that explains the lopsided disc sale ratio better.

BD SAL's
Have sold about 250,000 in Q1-Q3, so it will sell around 250k in Q4 (perhaps more with new $399 price level though.)

HD SAL's
Have sold about 300,000 in Q1-Q3, so it will sell around 300k in Q4 (this is assuming it at the $300 price level though, and demand will obviously rise with $99-$199 players out there. But this is a baseline estimate. I obviously expect a lot more than that.)

The Xbox add-on
Has sold about 150k in Q1-Q3 (that's a total guess btw, as I'm not sure how much of the 220k total sold have sold this year.) So it will sell around 150k in Q4.

Together that would mean the equivalent of 650k BD SAL's being sold and 450k HD SAL's being sold during the holiday season (if trends continued like they had the rest of the year.)

Note: I didn't include HD DVD players in laptops, or BD players in laptops. I have no idea how both those will effect the format war.

Holiday Sales Estimate 2

This is exactly the same estimate as above, but being less generous with the amount of PS3s that are used as BD players. Actually using the "20% of PS3s are BD players" survey result, the amount of BD SAL's being sold reduces to 500k BD SAL's in comparison to the 450k HD SAL's being sold. Therefore, only 50k more than usual HD SAL's would need to be sold in order to keep up with BD.

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Now, you can pick whatever method you'd like to estimate how much ground Toshiba needs to gain, but going with the most generous estimates for BD, it would mean:

Use Method 2 + Holiday Sales 1
BD currently has 500k more players. And using the holiday estimations, they will sell 200k more players during the holidays all other things being equal. Therefore, Toshiba would need to move 700k more HD players than usual. Or, after the $99 Wal-mart sale, about 600k more than usual to catch up.

Or using a more generous approach for HD:

Use Method 3 + Holiday Sales 1
BD currently has 300k more players. And using the holiday estimations of BD outselling HD by about 200k in Q4, Toshiba would need to move about 500k more players than usual in Q4. Or after the $99 Wal-mart sale, about 400k more than usual to catch up.

Or using a very, very generous approach for HD (i.e. a highly unlikely approach IMO):

Using Method 1 +Holiday Sales 2
BD currently has only 100k more players out there, and using the "only 20% of PS3s are used as BD players estimate" will sell only 50k more than HD during the holidays. So, Toshiba would only have to sell 150k more than usual to catch up. Or, after the Wal-mart $99 sale, only about 50k more than usual.

**bruceames** · 11-07-2007, 10:27 PM

Well done!

I think the discrepancy in method 1 is due to the attach rate being higher for BD standalones than HD DVD standalones. This is due I believe to 3 reasons:

1) HD DVD owners are more likely to have multiple players (I have 5 myself)

2) Blu-ray has frequent BOGO and other disc sales, making it convenient for BD owners to stock up.

3) The add-on attach rate is lower than a standalone player attach rate since gamers need to allocate time and money to gaming as well. Just like a PS3 owner, they can't game and watch movies at the same time.

Very thoughtful analysis on your part. I myself believe that HD DVD will outsell BD in standalone in Q4 by at least 3:1 and could very well 'catch up' by sometime early next year.

crazyal · 11-07-2007, 10:37 PM

The one thing that can't be counted very easily is day and date releases. TF I think did much better than P thought it would. After it's not just players but the movie too. A couple of really good movie releases added to great prices and it could double sales.

**PFC5** · 11-08-2007, 06:06 AM

Also consider that HD DVD player MSRP prices didn't drop until 5/2007 the first time. That was 5 months that the PS3 in the much larger numbers were ruling the movie disc sales. Especially when you consider there were hardly any new releases on HD DVD for well over 3 months at the start of the year as well.

Then in early July Sony came out with the S300 at $500.00 which was within $100.00 of the MSRP of the A2. That didn't last long because the A2 dropped another $100.00 MSRP in late August I think. A lot of sales were spikes based on the price drops so it is hard to average them out for the whole year this way.

My gut tells me if Toshiba sells SI 1 million players by Y/E the tide will be turned, and HD DVD will start selling more movies than BD.

Farout777 · 11-08-2007, 07:21 AM

Excellent job Woods!

That took some time right there.
I also think Bruces points are valid on the AR, I myself have 3 players now.

hippy fascist · 11-08-2007, 07:35 AM

you also have to factor in paramount discs sold on BD, since this time period includes both before and after the exclusivity agreement

mswoods1 · 11-08-2007, 07:47 AM

Oh btw guys, Home Media yesterday said there were an estimated 320,000 HD players out there right now:

Quote:

Industry sources say that in the three days after Wal-Mart lowered the price of the second-generation HD-A2 player to less than $100, the big discount chain sold 60,000 units. Other chains that matched the price, both in stores and online, brought the total sold to nearly 100,000 units. Add that to the estimated 320,000 dedicated HD DVD players already in homes, and total household penetration is at about 420,000 units — a number format backers expect will exceed 500,000 units by the end of this month.

That 320,000 number prior to the Wal-mart sale differs from my estimate 400,000. But not going to redo all those calculations. I was close enough.

Bunter · 11-08-2007, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PFC5

Also consider that HD DVD player MSRP prices didn't drop until 5/2007 the first time. That was 5 months that the PS3 in the much larger numbers were ruling the movie disc sales. Especially when you consider there were hardly any new releases on HD DVD for well over 3 months at the start of the year as well.

Then in early July Sony came out with the S300 at $500.00 which was within $100.00 of the MSRP of the A2. That didn't last long because the A2 dropped another $100.00 MSRP in late August I think. A lot of sales were spikes based on the price drops so it is hard to average them out for the whole year this way.

My gut tells me if Toshiba sells SI 1 million players by Y/E the tide will be turned, and HD DVD will start selling more movies than BD.

I think we're on the cusp of an explosion of HD DVD standalone sales.

Look, hardly anyone knew about the Wal-Mart $99 sale of the A2, relatively speaking. Yes, they DID air an ad in which a woman talked about great prices on a Toshiba HD DVD player (and note that the model number was NOT mentioned--it could be the A3 or any Toshiba player), but that was just a few days before the sale.

The sales staff really wasn't being evasive as the sale day approached. It was so under wraps that they honestly didn't know their store was participating.

Okay...with the other stores and online merchants refusing to be shut out of this deal, Toshiba moved over 100,000 units in a week and its not even BF yet!

When you don't know for sure that you want something (HD DVD), there's nothing like a limited sale that you didn't get in on to make you really, really want to snag one the NEXT time!

There are going to be bundles, there are going to be sales, there are going to be movie tie-ins, there is going to be HEAT!

BR is that little, quiet Vietnamese village in APOCALPSE NOW and the Toshiba/Wal-Mart helicopters are about to attack!

500,000 minimum; 1,000,000 maybe.

Lee Stewart · 11-08-2007, 07:55 AM

You did an admirable job.

But you did not include IMO, the "economy factor" which right now is bad and getting worse. The price of both gas and home heating oil is on the rise. What happens when people in the north (most of the USA's pop.) start to see $400 and $500 bills for filling their oil tank? That is going to put a BIG dent in their disposable cash for Xmas gifts.

Your whole analysis is based on past events which do not take into account current and future events.

Bunter · 11-08-2007, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lee Stewart

You did an admirable job.

But you did not include IMO, the "economy factor" which right now is bad and getting worse. The price of both gas and home heating oil is on the rise. What happens when people in the north (most of the USA's pop.) start to see $400 and $500 bills for filling their oil tank? That is going to put a BIG dent in their disposable cash for Xmas gifts.

Your whole analysis is based on past events which do not take into account current and future events.

Didn't seem to stop all the folks around me who live in mobile homes from putting out those $100 inflatable Halloween displays.

Probably won't stop Christmas, either. People will give up a lot before they give up Christmas and buying gifts.

Besides, taking the kids to see Shrek 3 can cost a family $60 in a city, but soon they can buy a $99 HD DVD player and (also soon--at Wal-Mart, I bet) $20-25 discs (and the SD Cars upgrades just fine).

So stay at home, in your sweaters, and watch DVD/HD DVD movies.

crazyal · 11-08-2007, 08:31 AM

I think Bunter has a good point. When the prices start to rise people are more likely to stay home. When it cost $20 in gas to get there, $12 each for tickets, popcorn and soda, and god forbid you stop and get a bite to eat before seeing the movie, you could be out a $100 for one movie.

OTH if you have the HDTV you can spend that same $100 and be able to stay home and watch what you want when you want and not have the idiot near you ruin your night. I do think peope will rent from Netflix more than buy if the economy keeps going down.

**PFC5** · 11-08-2007, 09:06 AM

I just think with the high heating/gas cost people will look for the lower cost alternative which would be HD DVD. If money is tight, people will look even more at the displays for the two formats and say hmmmm $98-199.00 for a HD DVD player that looks just like the $4-500.00 BD player and say HD DVD please.

Once that happens and the Standalone player difference grows I cannot see any studio but Sony giving up all that money. Remember, shareholders look more at FUTURE growth than current years profit when they invest. HDM is the future and that is where the growth is.

BobY · 11-08-2007, 10:17 AM

I think a big part of the problem in estimating how may PS3's are used for BD movies is that they are just treating it as stable number. I believe the real question is how many PS3's are consistently being used for BD movies and I believe that number is actually below the quoted figure and is bolstered by random spikes as some PS3 owners take advantage of "must have" releases, special offers and sales, while not buying movies on a consistent basis.

When averaged out, it looks like a consistent number, but all you have to do is look at the individual title sales to see that there are not that many people buying BD movies on a consistent basis--a number of these films have sold to less than 0.1% of the installed base of BD players.

That's why the sales figures are meaningless unless you know how mant titles they are spread over--that gives you the *real* attach rate.

If BD sells 200,000 discs in one month and HD DVD sells 100,000 discs in the same month, obviously BD outsold HD DVD by 2-to-1. Now suppose the 200,000 BD sales were spread across 5 titles and the HD DVD sales were spread across one title--which attach rate would you rather have if you were studio?

Bunter · 11-08-2007, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobY

I think a big part of the problem in estimating how may PS3's are used for BD movies is that they are just treating it as stable number. I believe the real question is how many PS3's are consistently being used for BD movies and I believe that number is actually below the quoted figure and is bolstered by random spikes as some PS3 owners take advantage of "must have" releases, special offers and sales, while not buying movies on a consistent basis.

When averaged out, it looks like a consistent number, but all you have to do is look at the individual title sales to see that there are not that many people buying BD movies on a consistent basis--a number of these films have sold to less than 0.1% of the installed base of BD players.

That's why the sales figures are meaningless unless you know how mant titles they are spread over--that gives you the *real* attach rate.

If BD sells 200,000 discs in one month and HD DVD sells 100,000 discs in the same month, obviously BD outsold HD DVD by 2-to-1. Now suppose the 200,000 BD sales were spread across 5 titles and the HD DVD sales were spread across one title--which attach rate would you rather have if you were studio?

A well-reasoned post.

Heck, almost all the posts over here are sane and reasonable. Us ex-AVSers aren't used to this kind of thing!

**PFC5** · 11-08-2007, 10:30 AM

BobY is one of the best, and our resident "expert".

11-07-2007, 10:13 PM	#1
mswoods1 Say whaaaaaat? Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Albuquerque, NM Posts: 1,370	Number-crunching the Format War NOTE: This post is all speculation. I'm not claiming to be right, or anywhere near right. It is more for discussion than anything. I have no magic ball with which I can see into the future, and I also don't have all the exact numbers on the format war. Only the BDA and DVD forum know exactly what's going on. All I can do is guess. But, I'm going to go ahead and guess anyway. I am going to try to estimate how many HD players Toshiba has to sell to catch up to to BD. Okay, here we go: First off, these are the facts that we get to work with: -In September, NPD said the ratios of SAL players was 53% HD DVD, 44% BD, and 3% dual-format. -In September, Microsoft said they've sold 220,000 HD add-ons to date. -According to NPD, the PS3 has sold 2 million units in America to date. -According to NPD, the PS3 has sold 1.2 million units in Q1-Q3 this year Note: The PS3 estimates given here by NPD are in contrast to the VGchartz estimates I was using in another thread. I found that the VGchartz data is not as accurate as NPD, so I'm using the NPD data which I was able to dig up by doing some googling. Here are the semi-facts we get to work with too: -According to Videoscan, BD discs have outsold HD DVD discs by a 1.8:1 ratio for the year. -Surveys show 20% of PS3 owners use it for BD playback (I'm calling them "semi-facts" because they could both be based on false information. It is just a "survey of PS3 owners" and Videoscan may be off as well since they don't cover all of the HD market.) Then, some figures which we will use that are not exact but are approximate: -There about about 400,000 HD DVD SAL's on the market right now. (This estimate does not have to be too exact for our purposes here. But it's an estimate I have heard on the forums as a ballpark figure. We haven't heard any official numbers on the number of HD SAL's sold in a long time... last time was in June when Toshiba said 180,000 SAL's had been sold.) -Sales for the consumer electronics business boom in Q4, and typically equal all the sales in Q1+Q2+Q3 combined. (This is something I've heard discussed at length on AVS in the sales threads, and this approximation can be confirmed just by looking at sales figures for consumer electronics / game systems by quarter if you wish.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, we'll get into how many HD DVD players Toshiba may have to sell in order to catch up to BD: Method 1 Suppose there are 400,000 SAL HD DVD players out there on the market right now. These 400,000 make up 53% of the market share according to NPD. Then, the BD SAL's make up 44% of the market share, or about 332,000 SAL BD players. Then we have to include a number of PS3's has BD players too: 2 million PS3s * 20% who use it for BD playback ~= 400,000 BD SAL's Which brings the total BD players out there to 732,000. Then there are 220,000 Xbox Add-ons for HD DVD, which when added to the 400K HD SAL's brings the total HD players market to 620,000. Then that makes 732,000 BD players to 620,000 HD players based on those assumptions. Which is a 54% ratio for BD and 46% ratio for HD. However, that doesn't make sense since the numbers show much more BD discs have been sold throughout the year in a higher ratio than that. BD has to have a higher player advantage to sell so many more discs. Therefore, one of these "facts" must be off, whether it be Videoscan's sales data or the surveys who says the PS3 is only used as a BD player 20% of the time. Or maybe the attach rate for BD SAL's is significantly higher than HD DVD's attach rate. I don't know, but either way.... I'm not completely convinced on this method of number-crunching the estimated amount of players in the market. Note: My own personal opion is that the flaw in this method has to be the number of PS3's being used as BD players. I don't know any other logical explanation. I would think it's somewhere more like 25%-33% of PS3's being used as BD players for the disc ratios to be so different while HD is winning the SAL war and has a bunch of Xbox add-ons. Method 2 Now let's just take the total number of HD SAL's + add-ons (about 620k), and compare them to the BD userbase using the sales ratios from Videoscan. If BD is outselling HD DVD by a 1.8:1 ratio for the year, then assuming an equal attachment rate, there are 1.8 times more BD players out there. So, 620k 1.8 ~= 1100k BD players So there are 1100k BD players out there (that are being used as BD players) compared to 620k HD players using this method of estimation. Or in other words, HD would have to sell around 500k players to catch up. Method 3* This method will use the same calculation as method 2, but we will use a 1.5:1 ratio to calculate the difference in players, as I've heard many HD DVD fans tout this as the "new ratio" since the Paramount announcement, and it's also the "since inception" ratio for disc sales according to Videoscan. 620k HD players * 1.5 = 930k BD players Using this method, HD would have to sell about 300k players to catch up to BD. ------------------------------------------------------------- Holiday Sales With the holidays coming up, everything becomes much less predictable with the new $400 PS3 price drop, and sub $200 and even sub $100 HD players. Plus, both sides are going to be throwing deal after deal at each other, with rumors of certain BD CE companies throwing in free (or almost free) BD players with their big screen HDTV's. Nonetheless, some basic estimations of players sold in Q4. Holiday Sales Estimate 1 The PS3 Has sold 1.2 million in Q1+Q2+Q3. So using the "Q1+Q2+Q3 sales = Q4 sales" method, it will sell around 1.2 million in Q4 (perhaps more with new $399 price level though.) That could mean about the equivalent of 250k BD SAL's being sold using the "20% of PS3s are BD players" figure, but I'm going to error on the side of caution and just say "the equivalent of 400k BD SAL's being sold" since that explains the lopsided disc sale ratio better. BD SAL's Have sold about 250,000 in Q1-Q3, so it will sell around 250k in Q4 (perhaps more with new $399 price level though.) HD SAL's Have sold about 300,000 in Q1-Q3, so it will sell around 300k in Q4 (this is assuming it at the $300 price level though, and demand will obviously rise with $99-$199 players out there. But this is a baseline estimate. I obviously expect a lot more than that.) The Xbox add-on Has sold about 150k in Q1-Q3 (that's a total guess btw, as I'm not sure how much of the 220k total sold have sold this year.) So it will sell around 150k in Q4. Together that would mean the equivalent of 650k BD SAL's being sold and 450k HD SAL's being sold during the holiday season (if trends continued like they had the rest of the year.) Note: I didn't include HD DVD players in laptops, or BD players in laptops. I have no idea how both those will effect the format war. Holiday Sales Estimate 2 This is exactly the same estimate as above, but being less generous with the amount of PS3s that are used as BD players. Actually using the "20% of PS3s are BD players" survey result, the amount of BD SAL's being sold reduces to 500k BD SAL's in comparison to the 450k HD SAL's being sold. Therefore, only 50k more than usual HD SAL's would need to be sold in order to keep up with BD. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, you can pick whatever method you'd like to estimate how much ground Toshiba needs to gain, but going with the most generous estimates for BD, it would mean: Use Method 2 + Holiday Sales 1 BD currently has 500k more players. And using the holiday estimations, they will sell 200k more players during the holidays all other things being equal. Therefore, Toshiba would need to move 700k more HD players than usual. Or, after the $99 Wal-mart sale, about 600k more than usual to catch up. Or using a more generous approach for HD: Use Method 3 + Holiday Sales 1 BD currently has 300k more players. And using the holiday estimations of BD outselling HD by about 200k in Q4, Toshiba would need to move about 500k more players than usual in Q4. Or after the $99 Wal-mart sale, about 400k more than usual to catch up. Or using a very, very generous approach for HD (i.e. a highly unlikely approach IMO): Using Method 1 +Holiday Sales 2 BD currently has only 100k more players out there, and using the "only 20% of PS3s are used as BD players estimate" will sell only 50k more than HD during the holidays. So, Toshiba would only have to sell 150k more than usual to catch up. Or, after the Wal-mart $99 sale, only about 50k more than usual. __________________ Panasonic PT-AX200U Projector 118" 1.78:1 Carada Projector Screen Toshiba A35 HD DVD Player Pioneer BDP-51FD Blu-ray Player Sony PS3 Xbox 360 TiVoHD (w/750 GB hard drive) Denon AVR-2309CI Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1 Center Ascend Acoustics Sierra-1 Mains Polk FXi A6's (surrounds) BIC Acoustech H-100 subwoofer Tri-Traps and Acoustic Panels by GIK Acoustics HD DVD: 104 Blu-ray: 126 DVD: ∞ Last edited by mswoods1; 11-07-2007 at 10:18 PM.

11-07-2007, 10:27 PM	#2
bruceames Moderator Join Date: May 2006 Location: San Rafael, CA Posts: 10,170	Well done! I think the discrepancy in method 1 is due to the attach rate being higher for BD standalones than HD DVD standalones. This is due I believe to 3 reasons: 1) HD DVD owners are more likely to have multiple players (I have 5 myself) 2) Blu-ray has frequent BOGO and other disc sales, making it convenient for BD owners to stock up. 3) The add-on attach rate is lower than a standalone player attach rate since gamers need to allocate time and money to gaming as well. Just like a PS3 owner, they can't game and watch movies at the same time. Very thoughtful analysis on your part. I myself believe that HD DVD will outsell BD in standalone in Q4 by at least 3:1 and could very well 'catch up' by sometime early next year. __________________ Blu-rays: 55 Latest purchases: John Adams, Gone With the Wind, Up, Rocky: The Undisputed Collection

11-07-2007, 10:37 PM	#3
crazyal Smarter than the ave bear Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 3,314	The one thing that can't be counted very easily is day and date releases. TF I think did much better than P thought it would. After it's not just players but the movie too. A couple of really good movie releases added to great prices and it could double sales. __________________ Please don't feed the Unicorns

11-08-2007, 06:06 AM	#4
PFC5 Super Moderator Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 28,402	Also consider that HD DVD player MSRP prices didn't drop until 5/2007 the first time. That was 5 months that the PS3 in the much larger numbers were ruling the movie disc sales. Especially when you consider there were hardly any new releases on HD DVD for well over 3 months at the start of the year as well. Then in early July Sony came out with the S300 at $500.00 which was within $100.00 of the MSRP of the A2. That didn't last long because the A2 dropped another $100.00 MSRP in late August I think. A lot of sales were spikes based on the price drops so it is hard to average them out for the whole year this way. My gut tells me if Toshiba sells SI 1 million players by Y/E the tide will be turned, and HD DVD will start selling more movies than BD. __________________ Denon AVR-887 Klipsch RP-5 Pwred Towers (mains) (525 watts peak each 12"Subs) All Klipsch RC-25(ctr),(2)SS1(surr),(2)SS1(rearSurr) Toshiba (2)HD-A20,PS3,BD35 For SACD/DVD-A Samsung HD-841 Panny 50pz80u plasma SETTINGS RCA HD50LPW162 50"DLP w/HD2+ SA 3250HD 47" LCD+Yamaha5790+HD-A1(bedroom) Harmony 680 + (2) 670s (amazing remote/support) Game room with Onkyo receiver & B&W Speakers The_Cable_Game Take the high ground and be happier

11-08-2007, 07:21 AM	#5
Farout777 I'm Ready hatt !!! Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Richmond,TX Age: 43 Posts: 1,667	Excellent job Woods! That took some time right there. I also think Bruces points are valid on the AR, I myself have 3 players now. __________________ <((>< SAMCAN07 ><))> Panasonic PT AE3000U (1080p) Custom Carada 141" 2.37AR BW Screen Pioneer VSX-84TXSi LG BH200 Super Blu Toshiba HD A1, A2, A3, A30 & XA2 Panasonic BD55K & 35K Oppo DV-981HD Panamax M5100-EX Aperion Audio Intimus 633-T Mains X2 Aperion Audio Intimus 634-VAC Center Aperion Audio Intimus 534-SS Surrounds X4 AV123 MFW-15 (X2) Subs Philips Pronto TSU 7500 Remote

11-08-2007, 07:35 AM	#6
hippy fascist Illusions Michael! Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Cambridge, UK Posts: 694	you also have to factor in paramount discs sold on BD, since this time period includes both before and after the exclusivity agreement

11-08-2007, 07:55 AM	#9
Lee Stewart Behold - the future! Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Albuquerque, NM Age: 58 Posts: 25,193	You did an admirable job. But you did not include IMO, the "economy factor" which right now is bad and getting worse. The price of both gas and home heating oil is on the rise. What happens when people in the north (most of the USA's pop.) start to see $400 and $500 bills for filling their oil tank? That is going to put a BIG dent in their disposable cash for Xmas gifts. Your whole analysis is based on past events which do not take into account current and future events.

11-08-2007, 08:31 AM	#11
crazyal Smarter than the ave bear Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 3,314	I think Bunter has a good point. When the prices start to rise people are more likely to stay home. When it cost $20 in gas to get there, $12 each for tickets, popcorn and soda, and god forbid you stop and get a bite to eat before seeing the movie, you could be out a $100 for one movie. OTH if you have the HDTV you can spend that same $100 and be able to stay home and watch what you want when you want and not have the idiot near you ruin your night. I do think peope will rent from Netflix more than buy if the economy keeps going down. __________________ Please don't feed the Unicorns

11-08-2007, 09:06 AM	#12
PFC5 Super Moderator Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 28,402	I just think with the high heating/gas cost people will look for the lower cost alternative which would be HD DVD. If money is tight, people will look even more at the displays for the two formats and say hmmmm $98-199.00 for a HD DVD player that looks just like the $4-500.00 BD player and say HD DVD please. Once that happens and the Standalone player difference grows I cannot see any studio but Sony giving up all that money. Remember, shareholders look more at FUTURE growth than current years profit when they invest. HDM is the future and that is where the growth is. __________________ Denon AVR-887 Klipsch RP-5 Pwred Towers (mains) (525 watts peak each 12"Subs) All Klipsch RC-25(ctr),(2)SS1(surr),(2)SS1(rearSurr) Toshiba (2)HD-A20,PS3,BD35 For SACD/DVD-A Samsung HD-841 Panny 50pz80u plasma SETTINGS RCA HD50LPW162 50"DLP w/HD2+ SA 3250HD 47" LCD+Yamaha5790+HD-A1(bedroom) Harmony 680 + (2) 670s (amazing remote/support) Game room with Onkyo receiver & B&W Speakers The_Cable_Game Take the high ground and be happier

11-08-2007, 10:17 AM	#13
BobY What's all this, then?... Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 6,197	I think a big part of the problem in estimating how may PS3's are used for BD movies is that they are just treating it as stable number. I believe the real question is how many PS3's are consistently being used for BD movies and I believe that number is actually below the quoted figure and is bolstered by random spikes as some PS3 owners take advantage of "must have" releases, special offers and sales, while not buying movies on a consistent basis. When averaged out, it looks like a consistent number, but all you have to do is look at the individual title sales to see that there are not that many people buying BD movies on a consistent basis--a number of these films have sold to less than 0.1% of the installed base of BD players. That's why the sales figures are meaningless unless you know how mant titles they are spread over--that gives you the real attach rate. If BD sells 200,000 discs in one month and HD DVD sells 100,000 discs in the same month, obviously BD outsold HD DVD by 2-to-1. Now suppose the 200,000 BD sales were spread across 5 titles and the HD DVD sales were spread across one title--which attach rate would you rather have if you were studio?

11-08-2007, 10:30 AM	#15
PFC5 Super Moderator Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 28,402	BobY is one of the best, and our resident "expert". __________________ Denon AVR-887 Klipsch RP-5 Pwred Towers (mains) (525 watts peak each 12"Subs) All Klipsch RC-25(ctr),(2)SS1(surr),(2)SS1(rearSurr) Toshiba (2)HD-A20,PS3,BD35 For SACD/DVD-A Samsung HD-841 Panny 50pz80u plasma SETTINGS RCA HD50LPW162 50"DLP w/HD2+ SA 3250HD 47" LCD+Yamaha5790+HD-A1(bedroom) Harmony 680 + (2) 670s (amazing remote/support) Game room with Onkyo receiver & B&W Speakers The_Cable_Game Take the high ground and be happier

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