Erroneous HD DVD Report Gets Tongues Wagging

An anonymous reader writes "HD DVD fans learned a valuable lesson in 'don't believe everything you read' this week, after the trade publication Home Media Magazine reported that the HD DVD camp planned to release more than 20x the number of releases planned on Blu-ray through the end of 2007. The suggestion was so preposterous that even the official HD DVD Promotions Group (which has the most to gain from the spread of such misinformation) has requested a correction. 'Contacted for comment, the HD DVD Promotional Group told us that the Home Media Magazine report was incorrect. The group says it "conservatively" projects a worldwide total of 600 HD DVD releases for the entirety of 2007, and that the error in the report appeared to stem from a slide in an HD DVD powerpoint presentation that listed the cumulative number of titles by month for 2006. The Home Media Magazine report also quoted a Blu-ray spokesperson as saying that Blu-ray-affiliated studios will release a total of 43 titles in 2007. This number also appears to be incorrect, given that 160 titles have already been announced through September in the U.S. alone.'"

What's clear is...

[no_opinion]

What's clear is that nothing is clear. Neither format is winning. The longer this keeps up, the more likely it is that the replacement format to DVD will be unprotected video downloads. This is what's happening with music, and the motion picture studios are repeating almost every mistake the majors made.

Shill magazines

[billcopc]

Seems to me like this magazine finally blew it's (already weak) cover. It's one thing to have advertising on every other page of a magazine, it's another when the rest of the book is all payola.

I stopped reading computer magazines a long time ago, right around the time we went from 20 mags to 200, right around the time mags started having product names in their TITLE, right around the time that all the good advertisers moved elsewhere and let the scammers fill the pages with their counterfeit system-on-a-chip-made-in-china rackets.

The only paper mag I don't knock is DDJ, and even then I thought they were running a bit dry as of late with all the regurgitated Java bullshit. Magazines have become largely obsolete, replaced by top-shelf blogs.

Re:You must be joking

[suv4x4]

You're falling for the kind of skewed impression Sony wanted to achieve with PS3.

I'm not the "paste your post and refute line by line" kinda poster, but it just kinda lends itself to this format best so there we go:

* There are around 200k HD-DVD players in the US today. There are 2+ MILLION PS3's that play Blu-Ray, plus whatever standalone players Blu-Ray has managed to sell.

100% of the people who bought HD DVD players, bought them to play HD DVD movies. I can guarantee you that the vast, VAST majority of PS3 owners got it to play games.

How many standalone Blu-Ray players were sold out there? Let's compare those numbers for a more realistic trend.

Whether they'll buy enough Blu-Ray titles in the future to match HD DVD is yet to be seen.

* Blu-Ray discs, since the start of the year, have outsold HD-DVD discs by three to one margin (or higher).

Sony bundle the PS3 with Blu-Ray movies and put this in their sale figures. Again, notice the buyers didn't have much choice. They just got it with their PS3.

The trend in such a case may have nothing to do with current sales figures.

* Universal is the only major studio still wholly behind HD-DVD (The Weinstien Brothers have announced Hard Boiled will come on Blu-Ray, including the movie and a PS3 game).

How many studios (except Sony Pictures I presume) are only behind Blu-Ray?

* Funai, an HD-DVD backer just announced they will be selling a cheap Blu-Ray player later this year.

Anecdotal evidence alert. Also they just saw the match is kinda even so far, so it's normal they want to sell Blu-Ray players.

But they won't stop selling HD-DVD players either.