Following the high-def disc news ends up being quite a lesson in statistics, and I’m glad I paid attention to it when I was in school. Luckily, one does not need a college degree to figure out some of the stuff that comes up in the format war, because much of it appears to be common sense.

It was only about a week ago that someone on the Blu side leaked NPD sales data which suggested Blu-ray had won the war within days of CES. Both Toshiba and the NPD group came out to say that one week of data is not sufficient to label a trend, and that you need to look at more weeks of sales figures.

Well, it’s the week after, folks, and it’s time to see whether Toshiba was truthful in saying that customers have responded favorably to lowered prices. In the doomsday week, HD DVD players had only 7% of the week’s total sales, but that has come back up to 34% the week after, which is closer to the usually higher number that’s seen for HD DVD players.

Now, I’m going to have my own fun to get back at a lot of headlines I’ve seen in the last few days. All in the spirit of statistics, mind you…

Going from 7% to 34% in the last couple of weeks — hey, that’s nearly 485%! At that rate, Blu-ray might as well throw in the towel right now, because we can clearly and quite logically project HD DVD to be at 100%, maybe even 200%, market share in just a matter of weeks. w00t! Hey, get me a Gartner or other research analyst on the phone, they need to see this!

• Source: DVDTown.com

The January movie doldrums continue this week with nothing incredibly spectacular in the few disc releases that managed to squeak through. It would have been this way even if Warner hadn’t chosen this week to start their “We’re going to screw HD DVD by putting out the movies three weeks later” policy (The Invasion should have come out today, but will come out in February instead). Interestingly enough, this policy caused them to modify their plans: Warner recognized that I Am Legend would probably sell reasonably well on HD DVD, and they had to extend their May deadline by a few weeks so that the movie would be available on our format. Huh? Isn’t that admitting that the format is worth releasing on?

We’ll have to wait a few more weeks before the releases start to get interesting on a more consistent basis. This time around, we’ve got a couple of music-oriented titles, one being a Strauss operetta and the other is a three hour benefit concert by Dispatch. Both of these discs are from studios that use Warner to distribute their titles. The BBC has indicated that they’re going to keep putting out discs on HD DVD, so that’s going to be another interesting situation with at least those Warner discs continuing to be made beyond Warner’s own deadline.

Die Fledermaus is actually comedic, but there’s also a more traditional comedy this time around. The King of California stars Michael Douglass as a dad who’s just been let out of a mental institution, and tries to convince his daughter that there’s a magnificient treasure buried beneath a Costco.

The last disc is scheduled to release on January 31, according to the Amazon ordering page, and it’s another in the series of landscape/nature discs, this time focusing on Costa Rica.

(all links go to Amazon ordering pages)

Dispatch: Zimbabwe – Live at Madison Square Garden (2008) Dispatch Not Rated

Die Fledermaus (2004) by Johann Strauss II Pamela Armstrong, Thomas Allen, Lyubov Petrova, Malena Engman Sirected by Vladimir Jurowski Not rated

King of California (2007) Michael Douglas, Evan Rachel Wood, Willis Burks II, Laura Kachergus, Paul Lieber Directed by Mike Cahill Rated PG-13

Living Landscapes HD Costa Rica

There are a lot of HD DVD players out in the wild, and the lowered prices on them helps to get more of them distributed. But even when there were only a few hundred thousand users, one of the biggest problems has been the high cost of movie ownership. The “buy one get one free” deals on HD DVD movies only started happening around Christmas, and that has made it difficult for HD DVD owners to build their collections.

As expected, Best Buy started the latest BOGO (buy one get one free) deal today, Sunday, January 27, on 14 titles. You buy one, and get a second one of equal or lower cost for free. Movies are $25 and $30, so the BOGO math means you’ll end up spending half that amount per title in the end. The catch is that you can only pick from 14 titles (but some people get lucky and can get a manager to approve a movie that’s not on the list).

The deal runs through February 8, which is actually a longer time that we’d expect on such promotions2. The easy way to guarantee that you can get the more popular titles like Transformers and Shrek the Third is to order online and pick them up in the store, instead of visiting a store to try your luck.

Anything else on sale? Amazon still has that sale on a bunch of movies at around $16 each. Maybe they’ll get into the sales mood and start something new and exciting as the week goes along. Buy.com got into the spirit and is offering most of those Amazon movies for about a buck cheaper. Finally, Deep Discount still has a lot of titles for $16 and less.

• Best Buy buy-one-get-one from January 27 to February 2
• Save up to 53% off on Select HD DVDs at Amazon
• HD DVDs on sale at Buy.com
• Movies under $16 at DeepDiscount.com

Painfully slow. That’s how I’d describe the long wait between Bandai Visual’s releases of Freedom episodes, where each one comes out about two months after the last. Continuing in this tradition, Freedom 4 has been slated for a February 26 release, with Freedom 5 to follow the customary two months later on April 22.

If you’ve followed the site for a while, then you already know I’m invested in this series and look forward to each new installment. These discs are notable because they’re the only anime series on HD DVD in North America (there are more in Japan, naturally), and also because they use the TWIN format disc technology where the DVD and HD DVD versions of a movie are on the same side, but on separate disc layers. Unlike the combo discs from Universal and Warner, you don’t have to flip these over to choose between the HD DVD and DVD versions.

There’s actually a third cool feature on these titles, and that’s their unique implementation of HDi where the picture-in-picture (PiP) commentary window can be moved, resized, and made transparent. If you’ve ever used PiP on an HD DVD before, then you might appreciate how nice this feature ends up being. I don’t think it requires any extra weight-lifting on the part of the HD DVD player to do these extra things with the PiP, and I look forward to seeing it on more discs in the future.

The way that Bandai Visual’s discs get distributed has changed in the last few months, and that makes these discs just a little harder to find. While just about all HD DVD discs are available via Amazon and Netflix, Freedom 3 wound up only being available through anime sites. At this moment, that story remains the same for the upcoming volumes, and you’ll have to head over to the company’s official online store or another anime dealer for preordering.

I’ve referred to the smack talking against HD DVD as the “flavor of the month” before, and the most recent example of this has been fueled by leaked sales statistics from the NPD suggesting that Blu-ray players have a near complete hold of the market. In general, the NPD numbers are reported for longer periods of time like a month or quarter so that sales blips caused by special promotions don’t generate sensational news. In this particular case, someone with access to the weekly data leaked the information out, and everyone subscribing to the flavor of the month plan has fallen for the bait.

If you look closely at the numbers being reported, Blu-ray players saw an increase in sales by almost 4,000 units than the week before, while HD DVD players took a big nose dive. The HD DVD dip is not good news, but did these new Blu-ray sales come at the expense of HD DVD player sales? I’m sure many did simply because a person is either going to buy one or the other kind of player, but here’s more illuminating information released by Toshiba spokespeople just a short while ago:

As you may have seen, there are attempts being made to portray NPD’s weekly sales tracking figures for next generation DVD as a trend. We want to remind you and make clear that it is not accurate to make long term assumptions based on one week of sales – a cautionary point that NPD has made as well. The facts are that during the week that is being singled out, both Blu-ray disc players and software were being given away for free with the purchase of 1080p TVs. It is also important to note that the instant rebate promotions that had previously netted Toshiba’s players’ MSRP’s to $199 and $249 had actually ended on Jan. 5th – causing an increase in HD DVD’s MSRP back to $299 and $399 during that same week. Since Toshiba’s retail price move on Jan. 13th to $149 / $199 – Toshiba is seeing very positive sales trends at retail. This reinforces the fact that price is a significant driver of sales.

In other words, wait for more NPD reports and take a look at the bigger sales trends instead of weekly blips. Even NPD agrees.

Toshiba’s assertion is that consumers are cost-conscious and respond to sales and freebies. Hobbyists may be less price sensitive, but the general population is not, and they’re responding favorably to the HD DVD player price cuts.

In the weeks that Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. have had their two-for-one movie deals or player promotions, the corresponding HD DVD products have done really well. When those sales end, consumer buying habits return to normal. In the several months that I’ve been monitoring movie and player deals at this blog (which you can verify by going through the archives), the two-for-one movie deals only started around December, and HD DVD sales numbers did exceedingly well during those promotions. If one was to pick only those weeks of good news to report about HD DVD, then it’d be easy to say that Blu-ray was being trounced.

In the end, this is what the format war is all about. Numbers and statements go flying left and right, with each side able to figure out a way to show how they’re making a difference. Anybody who thought it was over can now be reassured that there’s still more coming.

Customers will come out in droves to adopt the high-def formats when there are a ton of neat movies to watch on them.

The releases for this week help towards increasing the total count of available movies, but the low number sends a mixed message from the big studios about how much they’re really into all of this. The release slate is short this week, even for the other guys though they’re supposedly better supported. It was like this many times last year as well.

We’ll never know what goes on in those studio boardrooms and how they decide to put certain movies out before others. Oh well. (By the way, some HD DVD supporters are trying to see if they can get Warner’s attention through an online petition. I’m not necessarily convinced that the goal will be accomplished, but don’t let my jaded ways obstruct your enthusiasm – visit the petition here.)

On tap for this week are two music related discs, one is a concert by Wu-Tang Clan’s emcee, Method Man, and the other is a 3D audio experience disc — the latest in that series which has also included jazz and classical music. The third HD DVD disc is a good old movie. All of these titles are, just as with last week, from smaller studios that support the HD DVD format, but don’t count in the bigger picture when people make lists of major studio support. In fact, it’s going to be more of these smaller players filling up the release slate for at least the next few weeks.

Since I’m mentioning movies, don’t forget that Amazon’s got a little sale on about two dozen catalog titles, like A Scanner Darkly, at around $16 each.

Mysterious Aqua – Music Experience in 3-Dimensional Sound Reality Composed and produced by Alexander Jero (disc will be released later in the week) Unrated

Method Man: Live from the Sunset Strip (2007) Directed by Devinn DeHaven Unrated

Channels (2008) Ed Asner, Kimberly Oja, Nat Christian, Taylor Negron, Joan Van Ark Directed by Nat Christian Rated R

Ken Graffeo plays dual roles in the HD DVD world: he’s the co-president of the North American HD DVD Promotional Group, as well as Executive Vice President of High-Def Strategic Marketing for Universal. Ken’s whole world is all about high-def and BetaNews.com was able to score a lengthy interview with him that brings out a great deal of much-needed insight into recent events with the format.

I’m only going to mention a few tid bits from the interview here, but do yourself a favor and read the whole thing over at BetaNews. Here are some of the highlights:

• Warner’s decision was completely unexpected and came out at the last minute while most of these execs were on their flights to Las Vegas. (This is also mentioned in a piece over at Gizmodo). There was no time to retool the HD DVD presentation for Sunday night at CES, and Graffeo didn’t want to put on a half-hearted effort that left too many questions unanswered, quote: “I hate to stand in front of someone and say I don’t have an answer, I don’t know what’s going on.”
• Graffeo asserts that all those initial rumors about Universal and Paramount were unsubstantiated, and that both parties plan to go on with “business as usual for us and there are no plans to make any changes…We also have a lot of other things planned.”
• While he can’t speak for other studios and what they might do in the future, Ken Graffeo reports that CES meetings with retailers were encouraging and that they openly said they’d wait for consumers to make the final choice. To that end, Graffeo talks about $85 up-converting players owning the market right now, and how consumers are very price sensitive. He also mentioned needing better consumer education on exactly what high-def is all about.
• Digital downloads will improve over time, but it’s not going to take over next year or the year after that because it’s not as plug and play as DVD players already are. Also, people like to collect and share, and they can’t do that with digital downloads. Consequently, physical media and disc ownership is going to be around for quite a long time.

There’s plenty more to read and Beta News did a great job in landing this interview. Please head on over and see for yourself what Ken Graffeo had to say about reaching compromises with Blu-ray, CH DVD – the Chinese HD DVD format, and more.

• Ken Graffeo interview at BetaNews.com
• Juicy info about studio support at Gizmodo.com

Another week in the still relatively new year, and it’s time for another set of HD DVD sales.

Amazon’s recent 44%-57% off sale is over and has been replaced by one featuring up to 53% off on a lot of Warner titles. Most of these are older catalog movies and going for $16, and I’m pretty sure they were not included in the most recent sale. I think Amazon keeps track of which movies are involved in different offers so they can minimize the price matching confusion that might happen when sales overlap.

I’ve read at forums where people aren’t sure about ever buying another Warner movie again. It’s a lot like when the Blu boys wanted to boycott Paramount last year. Well, part of that decision has been made for you by Warner already, because in a few months you won’t have that choice. Buying movies demonstrates that there’s a market for titles on HD DVD, and if you really like a movie, don’t let format war politics get in your way, because it might be harder to track something down later on.

Best Buy has the other notable deal this week, of 9 movies with the purchase of a player. That’s 2 movies already in the box (300 and The Bourne Identity), 5 free via the eternally ongoing mail-in rebate, and two more movies to select from at the store (or online).

Their website reflects current pricing on the HD DVD players, but the printed ad does not. That’s because these ads are actually designed weeks in advance and things can change by the time those circulars come out. Consequently, the $299 price mentioned in the Best Buy print ad is two weeks old. If you go for this deal at the store, make sure they ring up the player for the current price and not what the ad says. If you do it online, then there’s less room for such issues, and you’ll get to pick from a larger set of movie titles than you normally see stocked in a store.

Amazon has a sale on their HD-A3 to around $130, but the extra couple of movies at Best Buy has you coming out a little bit ahead at for only $20 more — after all, HD DVD movies never go on sale for $10 a piece. If you visit Amazon, don’t forget to sign up for their 100 HD DVD Movie Giveaway, which also includes a player.

Finally, DeepDiscount.com still has a lot of HD DVD movies at $16 and less. If you come across any noteworthy deals, feel free to share them in the comments.

Microsoft is at the Sundance Film Festival for the coming week demonstrating one of their main contributions to HD DVD technology: HDi, the interactivity layer.

According to this post at Andy Pennel’s developer blog, representatives from the HDi team will be at the Microsoft House for some demos and movie screenings. This is intended for independent filmmakers who may be interested in learning how to take advantage of HDi in their disc releases.

We’ve talked about HDi a few times at the site, and it’s one of the features that demonstrates how the HD DVD platform was well thought out from the very beginning. HDi interactivity is mandated on all HD DVD players, and it’s such a cool and next-gen kind of feature. On conventional DVDs, you have to pretty much stop the whole movie just to revisit the menu and change your various viewing options, but that’s not so on HD DVDs where you can do all of these things while the movie continues to play. You can change viewing options, select a chapter to skip ahead to, or even change your mind and resume viewing, all without interrupting the main flow of the movie.

Some discs have bonus content that augments the viewing experience. For example, in The Kingdom, you can pull up brief explanations about the cultural and political aspects of things that come up in the plot. In The Bourne Ultimatum and on Heroes, you can look up some story related items such as character profiles.

Web-enabled interactivity has also been interesting. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has a “Live Community Screening” mode where friends can watch together from their own homes, and even send each other text messages in a manner similar to multiplayer video games. The simpler web implementations have been more about downloading bonus content, purchasing things like ring tones, or taking quizzes and comparing your results with other viewers. (more…)