Your Opinion: How Would HD DVD Be Doing Today Had it Won?

kamspy

I'm going to bed. Looking forward to reading some well thought out posts tomorrow after work on this topic.

So, how much further along it would be than BD if it won the war.

If possible, no crap posting.

I'd really like realistic input from the HD DVD crowd so I can better understand the sentiment about BD.

mshulman

Assuming timing was the same and HD DVD prices did not go up for any reason, I think it would be doing much better.

Combo's are one reason. Price of players is another. What were the prices prior to HD DVD ending things? $150 or so, right? I don't think the $99 happened until after they folded, did it?

Anyway, price of the players would have been a key factor.

__________________
Toshiba HD-A2 and HD-A3
PS3, XBox 360 and Wii
Panasonic BD-P1600
Sanyo PLV-Z3
Canon HF-10 and M30 (w/underwater housing!)
Onkyo 805 and 606
Panasonic TC-P46S1 and TC-P50S2
Vholdr 1080P HD Helmet Cam

"I eat green berets for breakfast and I'm very hungry!"

Cowboy X

I think it would be doing better for several reasons:

1/ Capacity issues would not be preventing studios from releasing HD DVDs to the extent that such issues are hindering Blu.

2/ as a follow on from #1, HD DVD would not have to worry about games either.

3/ Low production costs would have encouraged more replicators and more competition. In fact several small replicator companies who are neither in the BDA or HD DVD promo group have said openly that they would have preferred HD DVD to win and were hoping that it would do so because of much lower startup and production costs.

4/ HD DVD would be much better able to reach consumers via mass market level pricing than Blu is right now ( or I should say Blu isn't right now.).

5/ The HD DVD combo and twin discs could have been used to sneak high def content into more homes. In fact they could have chosen a few select titles a year to subsidise and let the studios release as twins only for example.

Ultimately this is all water under the bridge and who knows after winning Toshiba could have done silly things linke the BDa and refuse to make significant inroads in prices.

__________________
HD A-30
PS3 80gb
LG HD DVD/Blu-Ray Combo Drive
Denon HT 7.1 speakers
Logitech Harmony 880 pro remote
Samsung HLT 61A750
Onkyo TX SR 606
donations welcome
HD DVD 15
Blu-Ray 50

Cowboy X

The $99 occurred with the Walmart sale and also just prior to Toshiba folding.

__________________
HD A-30
PS3 80gb
LG HD DVD/Blu-Ray Combo Drive
Denon HT 7.1 speakers
Logitech Harmony 880 pro remote
Samsung HLT 61A750
Onkyo TX SR 606
donations welcome
HD DVD 15
Blu-Ray 50

mshulman

I know we saw it back at the Holidays (My first SAL was purchase in Sept for $99). But I didn't think we saw it again until Toshiba folded. Or at least the WB news, which was pretty much the end anyway. I think we'd have to base any thoughts on pricing prior to the WB announcement.

__________________
Toshiba HD-A2 and HD-A3
PS3, XBox 360 and Wii
Panasonic BD-P1600
Sanyo PLV-Z3
Canon HF-10 and M30 (w/underwater housing!)
Onkyo 805 and 606
Panasonic TC-P46S1 and TC-P50S2
Vholdr 1080P HD Helmet Cam

"I eat green berets for breakfast and I'm very hungry!"

8ch-DeeorDie

I thought that HD-DVD was allways positioned better to handle mass adoption.

"IF" they had been able to win over the studios (like Disney who did help develop HDI for HD-DVD), then I believe the Triple Layer Twin would have become the standard disc for all releases.
It would have allowed studios to raise the price slightly(to cover initial costs and eventually make more profit), and move all HD and SD disc production onto one format.

Secondly, the low bar for prices had been set by Toshiba, and consumers would demand similar pricing.

This would have made the adoption to HDM seemless and, in my opinion, much faster than Blu-ray.

LonnyE

Several good "pro" reasons given. I'll give a "con".

Most CEs probably still would not have had sufficient time to have produced their first HD DVD player unless they already had a model under development.

crazyal

I think most here agree that HD DVD had lots of bullets to use in the war. Too bad they either didn't use them (the tripple and maybe the twin), shot them up into the air (not being agressive with the combo pricing), or just left the bullets on the ground (mounting effective PR).

For these reasons I truely wonder if they could have done much better. I think the HD DVD format was a much better format to replace DVD. It was advanced enough to deliver what HDM needed while not so advanced that it suffers issues with thinkings like learning curves and getting an infrastructure in place. But again the best car doesn't win the race and the driver(s) of the HD DVD car were the questionable part.

At least Toshiba didn't do as bad a Hillary, lol. She managed to turn a huge advantage into a second place finish. Toshiba was always in second place so finishing there really shouldn't have been a surprize to anyone.

__________________
Please don't feed the Unicorns

ssjLancer

Thats still a rumour, we havent heard of any title delayed due to 'capacity.'

I dont know why that would be a problem. Did DVD have to worry about the PS2?

What about combos and if twin discs actually came along. Wouldnt that put costs up?

Im not so sure Toshiba would keep the price. I know they make money off royalties but even they wouldnt like to be making dollars off each player. And other CE companies would probably force them to put prices up.

So all in all the waiting game would have been much harder with HDDVD.
Personally I think its much easier waiting for a profile 2.0 standalone player than waiting for the vaporware twin discs(that arent single episodes)

h0mi

I think we would've seen roll out of twin discs and TL51. But I dont think HD-DVD would be in any better shape.

anythingwt

It all depends.. It's tough to say how HD DVD would be doing, because they slowly started fading away with more and more studios changing sides. They did have Paramount on their side till the end but that's about it. I think stand alones would be selling at a steady pace, and more than BD stand alones, but could never come close to what the PS3 has done to the market.

The PS3 is the sole reason that HD DVD lost the war. Studios probably just felt too intimidated by supporting a format that had a game console as competition. Game consoles are guaranteed sales no matter what, and that is forcing BD into millions and millions of homes. I've always said this was a genious tactic on Sonys part.

So to answer your question, once the PS3 came out with a BD player included, HD DVD lost it's chance all together. Therefore, there's no predicting the state the format would be in now if it were still around.

__________________
"your dreams, minus your doubts, equal your reality"

Nikopol

Adoption would be slow. HD DVD PG marketing efforts probably wouldn't have improved.

Several ex-blu studios would only trickle out releases or probably wouldn't release at all (FOX). A huge part of the market represented by the majority of PS3-as-BD-player users would have been lost.

Prices for players would be higher ($200 - $300), as the need to subsidize for market penetration at all cost is no longer there.

Prices for software would be SRP $40 for day&dates and anything between SRP $20 - $35 for catalog.

Sales for software would be much scarcer than last year, when they were already not a weekly event.

Internet forums would be filled with whining Blu-ray fans, rehashing the old Betamax sentiment that the "better" format lost.

Deja Vu

I doubt it would have been doing any better than BD is doing now. The studios are only interested in money so the discs would be expensive. Even if Toshiba was giving the players way - who would want them when the discs cost $30 to $40? Toshiba couldn't unload enough players for $150 with 10 free movies so it became evident that adoption would be slow. BD at one point were giving BD players away, which counted as sales, with the purchase of a T.V. (I got a Samsung player this way) and guess what? The sales of BD players actually decreased during this period!!! It is no wonder Toshiba packed it in with HD DVD and is now reverted to Plan "B" - attempting to reinvent DVD. Unless it has control over some content I suspect it is just hitting its head against a brick wall - again!

awol

Personally, I think HD DVD would have had two possible outcomes... it all depends on what they did with the pricing.

Had they left the pricing low, other CEMs would not have been able to afford to make players I don't think. Again, for the same reason we're not seeing low prices on BD equipment right now, they would have been losing money to try and compete with Toshiba. Again, because people only see one brand of a particular device, the likelihood of adoption could be lower. There's a chance that mass market wouldn't "trust" a format that only has one manufacturer supporting it. (mind you this is all just my opinion)

Had they raised the price, it would be in exactly the same position as BD.

Dare

I think we would have seen the first mainstream DVD/HD-DVD combo release without a DVD-only version by now. It probably wouldn't have been a bigtime blockbuster though, in the interests of keeping the experiment small. That would have paved the way for bigger and better things, like turning HD-DVD into DVD 2.0, instead of a separate format.

__________________
LG GGC-H20L Super Multi Blue Blu-ray & HD DVD ROM Drive
58 Lost count