Blu-ray, HD DVD Joust at CeBIT

March 15, 2007 By Geoff Duncan

Sony says Blu-ray will own the market in three years, but HD DVD says it expects nearly 600 titles in 2007 - and that's just in Europe.

The so-called “format war” between high-definition DVD formats HD DVD and Blu-ray might not be a shooting match on most days, but when you add a little gasoline to the fire in the form of an international trade show like CeBIT, the camps seem to enjoy an occasional tactical engagement.

Sony has been bragging lately that the high-definition war is all but over, declaring themselves the winner based on recent U.S. sales data and the fact every PlayStation 3 game console ships with a Blu-ray drive. Today at CeBIT, the Blu-ray Disc Association chairman Frank Simonis upped the ante even further, declaring that not only will Blu-ray beat out HD DVD, it will completely do in the standard DVD. “Within three years it will just be Blu-ray,” he said at the CeBIT trade show.

Sony said it has sold 1.84 million PlayStation 3 systems by the end of 2006, and has a million more ready to launch in Europe next week.

For its part, the HD DVD camp concedes that PS3 sales mean HD DVD players are being outsold almost five to one, but claims that sales of movie titles in HD DVD format are still level with Blu-ray titles. At first glance, that would appear to be quite a feat: five major Hollywood studios are currently only issuing titles in Blu-ray format (MGM, Columbia, Disny, Lionsgate, and 20th Century Fox), and they include the top-grossing film studios; only Universal and Weinstein are issuing titles exclusively in HD DVD format. Paramount, Dreamworks Warner Bros., and New Line Cinema are issuing titles in both formats.

However, the HD DVD camp says Hollywood titles aren’t the whole story, noting they have the backing of industry titan Microsoft and HD DVD is showing strong adoption in the PC market. Furthermore, the HD DVD Promotion Group announced the formation of the European HD DVD Promotional Group, and noted more than 100 HD DVD titles will be available throughout Europe by the end of the first quarter of 2007, with a third of those titles being from European studios. According to the group, none of them are available in any other high-definition format and the discs are all manufactured and replicated in Europe. By December 2007, the group estimates more than 600 HD DVD titles will be available worldwide. Toshiba has also announced a new HD DVD player for the European market, supporting 1080p playback; the EP10 will be available in May at an estimated price of €699.

Showing 5 comments

Matt (Manchester UK) at 12:55pm 3rd April 2007 Previos HD DVD enthusiasts, please get your facts right, both formats are good however, Blu ray is better end of story, The technology is better and to us people who dont go shopping on a shoe string and are waiting for DENON to bring out their new amps with HDMI 1.3 which takes the DTS and Dolby True Uncompressed audio, we need Blu Ray, Microsoft are only backing HD DVD because of their rubbish XBOX and Toshiba make it, but Nobody else wants it, Later on this year sony will release their new BD player at half the price, you can get a PS3 as I did for £425 which is awesome plus lets face it as PS3 came out, micorsoft released the Elite 360, ha ha what a joke, still their games are on standard Def dvd's, they have only increased their hardrive size for games such as GTA IV which is to big for One DVD so you will have to install it so even 120GB of extra space will only cover you for 4/5 games. Now my point as Micorosoft and HD DVD are so into each other the Xbox will kill HD DVD as people flood to PS3 for its gaimng capabilities which will beat 360 in 6 months with new software and therefore they all will have a blu ray player aswell. There is only one future choice PS3 and Blu Ray.
consumer at 3:49am 28th March 2007 well i have looked in too this hd/blueray war and i have to say four little things
1) yes there are more blueray players and movies on the market currently "but" current trends shows that hd is out selling blueray check google trends for 2007 sales.
2)no one will ever sit through a 50gb movie so why would that point ever matter, and dont say movie extras cause no one ever watches them. and if u say for better picture there are not enough hd tv on the maket that are 1080p most are the 1080I that are flyin off the shelf.
3)blueray still cost to much at 675+ not alot of people are going to get them when u can get a hd player for 200-439.00+5 movies to start with when a normal person goes shopping the always look for the pros and cons..and price!
4)and at this moment 210 blue ray titles too choose from and 195 hd titles to choose from not much of a diffenence and as far as the movies go they always come out on hd 1st with the shared studios the Matrix is one that just heard about.. but thats just my two cents on this subject.
DaveBG at 6:15pm 16th March 2007 What do you mean by "Blu-Ray Technology is undeniably superior (disk space 1080P etc)" Steve?

HD-DVD is just as capable of 1080p.

In fact HD-DVD has, for many dual format owners on the avs & avforums, the superior sound and image quality.

Certainly the consensus is that HD-DVD uses a superior codec (VC-1) more often and to much better effect than the nearly 20year old MPEG2 codec Sony are sticking with.....and it shows in the movie quality.

That's why retail HD-DVD movie discs with 30gb capacity can look better than BD's 50gb discs.

As for outright capacity?
BD is maxed out at 50gb right now.
HD-DVD at 30gb but 51gb is due very soon.
Steve at 2:20pm 16th March 2007 Blu-Ray has the backing of seven out of the eight major studios. Blu-Ray Technology is undeniably superior (disk space 1080P etc). The only way HD could win is in the price war. Blu-Ray discs are still way too expensive to produce. It is possible that the market could bear both formats for years. One thing is for sure. Those of us with HD Televisions do not want to watch movies or Pay TV in 480P. The tiny amount of HD channels available and the price to receive them is ridiculous. Come on folks! Go buy an HD TV so the price of this stuff will drop!
DaveBG at 11:09am 16th March 2007 These BD claims are pathetic & utterly laughable.

It'll be many years (5+?) before the high def (combined) get anywhere remotely near SD DVD sales numbers.

They are currently at around the 0.5% of the total market now.