Did you watch the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on your HDTV the other night? What an amazing show! It was the kind of event that especially shines in high-definition. Watching a few sporting events over the weekend was somewhat hit-and-miss since not everything has been in HD (at least for me), but having your team win makes up for that a little.

So here’s my advice for the forthcoming Chinese-owned HD DVD format: bundle an Olympics highlights disc, or even a box-set, with each of your players. Based on national pride alone, you’re bound to sell at least a hundred thousand units, and word of mouth will bring in the next batch of customers. Communist governments are typically into heavy self-promotion, and I’m sure the government can even be talked into helping susidize this deal big-time. A box set of these Olympics could very well be your Planet Earth, and maintain the same kinds of high ranking in the most loved HD disc sets of all time. An exclusivity deal for this Chinese box set might help your sales momentum carry you forward for quite a while.

What will you need to do beyond that? If you followed the format war in the western world, it would appear that being influential with the studios is a key requirement. For example, we read in a recent Forbes article that Sony’s participation as a movie studio in all the movie studio politics helped keep Lionsgate on the Blu-ray side. But that’s the west, where consumers theoretically drive the market. It’s not that way in China, where studio politics can be trumped by real politics.

In case readers didn’t know, one of the driving forces behind the Chinese HD DVD format is China’s desire to own as much of the technology as possible. They don’t want to be restricted by, or share profits with, all sorts of foreign-owned patents and licenses. This fact alone means that the CBHD (China Blue High-Definition) team gets some government help, and I’m sure that there are many Chinese citizens who are equally happy to show national pride and root for their hometown team instead of the foreigners.

Some analysts point out that studios haven’t signed on to support CBHD, and that Blu-ray is the inevitable winner even against this format. I think they’re ignoring one major difference between China and the rest of the world: the Chinese make plenty of their own movies and music to not need to care about everything that comes out of Hollywood. In fact, even the Indians make plenty of their own music and movies to not need to care about the movies that come out of Hollywood. Is that the same for you and I in the west? Absolutely not. Our entertainment is totally dependent on what Warner, Disney, Universal, Sony, Paramount, etc. put out. Thus, the outcome of the format war here was deeply affected by these Hollywood studios and their control over our western content.

While studio politics might be a hill of beans in the USA or Europe, it don’t mean a thing in Communist China, where the government gets the first and last word. Movie and music piracy is a fact of life there, and people barely care about purchasing original movies in the first place when cheapo copies are freely available.

Heck, I meet plenty of people in this country who have that same attitude. The difference is that copyrights and other intellectual property laws are observed with a little more reverence in western countries. That means that the governments of those countries might actually get a few police officers to care that Johnny Consumer is making his own copies, buying some cheap ones, or getting them off the internet.

Hollywood makes a tiny amount of money in that nation of over a billion potential customers, and the Chinese government does little to fix that situation. They’re polite and appear to give a crap about studios and copyrights, but the Chinese authorities would just as soon keep more of the profits in their homeland. The government decides who gets to play ball and what those rules are. They choose how much time Blu-ray can spend with the ball and how much time their own team will get.

So, CBHD guys: get your act together and put those players out, and look into that Olympics bundle right away. Only time will tell if your format war has the same dynamics as it did in the west. Your hometown advantage can only work for a little while, and you’re gonna have some competition from locally manufactured Blu-ray players soon. And don’t forget that previous attempts to establish homegrown standards over western ones haven’t necessarily panned out.

HD DVD fans: this is not really anything to do with us because it’s primarily designed for use by Chinese in China. I doubt that we’d even get any firmware upgrades (if that’s all it takes) to make our existing players use CBHD discs, and even then, it’ll be mostly for watching Chinese content.

Here are other recent articles about CBHD in case you want to learn more about it:

• CH DVD Details Revealed, Warner on Board? at FormatWarCentral, works with translation of an article from ZDNet China
• Chinese HD Format: It’s blue, but not “Blu-ray” at Ars
• HD DVD lives on in China as CBHD, but will it have content? at BetaNews

There’s a saying that “it depends on what you are made of whether you take on a polish or get worn down.” Life might send upsetting things in one’s direction, but it’s up to us how we react to these challenges.

Good sportsmanship means that you accept victory and defeat gracefully. In the spirit of showing some good sportsmanship, here are some instances of jokes made at HD DVD’s expense, as well as some that poke fun at Blu-ray.

This list is not comprehensive, and I left out things that I didn’t think were overly funny, or that I felt were insulting — to both formats or owners of those players. Some are funnier than others:

Making fun of HD DVD:

• How to Rationalize at Basic Instructions
• HD DVD Eulogy at Joy Of Tech
• HD DVD Funeral Attack of the Show clip on YouTube
• HD DVD vs. Blu-ray consumer apathy at ExtraLife.com
• A political cartoon, one of many such jokes

Here’s another along those same lines.

This video clip from Der Untergang has been used many times, and its use for HD DVD was right on the mark in many ways (be warned of the strong language):

(click here to view the video at YouTube if it is not visible above)

This clip has also been used to parody (more strong language):

• Hitler’s Xbox banned (over 2 million views)
• Hitler’s car stolen

There are a few other variations, and the best of the clips demonstrate an excellent working knowledge of the subject being made fun of.

Here are a couple of older Blu-ray jokes:

• Exclusive Interview Blu-Ray Speaks at Aeropause.com (from August 2006)
• Why We Are Switching to Blu-ray at The Onion

And just for you Blu-ray fans who come around here in the spirit of bad sportsmanship, here’s one about the greatness of Blu-ray (over 7 million views). (sorry, couldn’t resist)

Add some of your own in the comments, but forget about it if they’ve got a derogatory tone or are unfunny. I’ve seen some where the joke’s punchline is simply to show a player thrown in the trash or to call the owner an idiot. Besides these people’s family members, I’m not sure who else would think those videos were funny.

Regarding advice about your HD future, it’s one thing when someone is speaking from their own experience, and a whole other matter when people are just pulling ideas out of their butts. It’s quite common for the advice from this latter group to completely disregard your actual investment in an HD DVD player and movies. Since it’s not their money, they’ll offer advice such as “Sell it all on eBay.”

You should do what you’re most comfortable with, but I want to present an explanation why selling it all off may not be your best option. I’m not saying it makes absolutely zero sense, but just that you should consider a few things about this course of action. (more…)

The big news at all the usual places that talk about HD DVD is an article in The Hollywood Reporter suggesting that Toshiba may be closing in on making a decision over their part of the combat in the high-def format war.

The authors of the article are guys who routinely write for a few magazines and sites that cover the home video scene like Home Media Magazine, and obviously Hollywood Reporter. According to their industry sources, financial losses and recent negative news are taking their toll on Toshiba. One of the sources feels that the possible end is coming in just “a matter of weeks.”

That’s what I was able to extract from the article in terms of information directly related to a decision from Toshiba and the HD DVD camp. The rest of the article summarizes news that you’ve already read about here and elsewhere in the past several weeks.

There’s a little bit of conjecture where they’re reading into a quote by Toshiba’s Jodi Sally who said, “Given the market developments in the past month, Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of our recent price reductions on all HD DVD players.” Their take on this quote is that “something’s in the air.”

There’s also something implied when the authors mention that they weren’t able to get calls returned by Kevin Collins, the HD DVD evangelist at Microsoft, or Ken Graffeo, the VP for Universal Studios Home Entertainment and co-president of the HD DVD North American Promotional Group.

As a whole, it’s really easy to come away from the article and believe that Toshiba is about to call it quits in a few days. But nobody at Toshiba or the HD DVD group actually said so in the article, this is really just talk from some industry sources. Since they don’t name the sources, it’s fair to guess that those sources are Blu-ray aligned people trying to create some bad publicity for HD DVD (although they did say one of them is “close” to the HD DVD camp). This wouldn’t be unheard of, since it’s been people from the Blu-ray camp who have leaked bits and pieces to news outlets in the past and been able to make sure that bad news was definitely getting well distributed.

Let’s step back for a moment and take a deep breath. (more…)

Some HD DVD owners decide to completely stop doing business with companies that announce plans to withdraw their support. A good example is Netflix who announced that they would stop stocking new titles and would allow their inventory to phase out from natural attrition. Warner is another.

I can understand why people might get upset, but I’m not sure that boycotting these companies actually solves the problem. In fact, I think it only helps those companies come up with real numbers later that solidify and demonstrate their initial statements about a weak HD DVD market (whether those statements were well-founded or not). I also wonder if the sacrifice is the right one to make, especially if it feeds into the company’s self-fulfilling prophecy.

Stopping all business with these companies only gives their bean counters some smaller numbers on the HD DVD side to count up. Many months later, they’ll come out and note that demand has fallen off and their decision is now sealed, and they might even consider accelerating their exit.

On the other hand, continuing to get your HD DVD titles from these companies demonstrates that there’s demand for the format. In fact, if there’s enough of a reliable source of income from the format, it’s a little harder for those companies to ignore the money that they’d throw away.

If you don’t believe me, then read this posting at DVDTown.com where a Warner executive said, “If there is product available in HD DVD and there is a request from a retailer, we will provide.” Ronee Sass, VP of Publicity and Promotion also went on to say, “There may be isolated instances that an HD DVD title will be created, but as a general rule our titles will be out in SD and BD only.”

The extremely optimistic might get carried away and interpret that statement as saying that Warner is coming back. No, that’s not what Sass said. What she said is that if there’s a good reason to make a disc, then they will. She didn’t say they’d make brand new movies come out. But she did say that Warner is basically not going to ignore consumer demand for a product.

Lastly, there’s the sacrifice that you have to make when you elect to stop doing business with a certain company. Most boycotts are designed to hurt the company’s financial prospects. If a company has already decided to boycott you, then boycotting them ends up being a one-way loss — yours. Your loss is that you have closed off one additional way to enjoy HD DVDs.

• Warner will restock if needed at DVDTown.com

Some of you are visiting the site today because you opened your Christmas presents, found an HD DVD player amongst them, and are now wondering how to get the most out of it.

For those of you who came here looking for technical help, you should read this earlier posting about getting assistance using various internet forums.

This posting has basic tips for some common technical issues, and concludes with information about living in the HD DVD world you just joined and getting movies.

Connect it Properly
First off, make sure that your HD DVD player is connected to your HDTV via an HDMI cable, or with component cables that have the three jacks (red, blue, green) for video. If you’re using the single RCA jack for video (usually colored yellow), or an S-Video connector, then your HD DVD player is not going to deliver HD picture quality. You’ll still have access to the HD DVD interactivity features, but your picture quality isn’t going to be much better than what you get on regular old DVDs.

Also make sure that your player and HDTV (and receiver, if you’re using one) are all set up properly for each other. Read about disc playback issues, firmware updates, and buying/renting movies…

Study results from the NPD group show that 73% of HDTV owners claimed to be satisfied with their current DVD player and felt no need to go high-def via either Blu-ray or HD DVD. Only 11% of them expressed a strong interest in buying a high-def player in the next six months, with 62% stating they’re waiting for prices to come down.

In an interview at Beta News, NPD analyst Russ Rubin points out that some consumers only start seeing the differences between up-converted movies versus those playing on high-def players when things are pointed to them.

Another executive NPD analyst said that “Once consumers become convinced of the superiority of high-def, and find a way to navigate the format issues, there will be a great deal of pent-up demand for HD DVD or Blu-ray content.”

These reports of consumer ignorance are consistent with news from a Best Buy study where it seems that lots of people enter into an HDTV purchase without really knowing what they’re getting into. The survey polled 1,012 customers from August 3 to August 5, and found that 89% of people admitted to lacking a proper understanding of HDTV technology. Nearly half (48%) of customers don’t account for the fact that they’ll probably also need to sign up for some kind of HD service from cable or satellite (and probably invest in a high-definition player too). (more…)

UPDATE: I’ve been debunked! It’s not really conclusive afterall. I originally meant this to be a satiricial kind of thing about making up numbers, but somewhere along the way, I lost that satirical vibe and presented it with the same bravado of those who really do officially present this kind of thing at conferences. I’m leaving the article up for your amusement or lack thereof. Meanwhile, I’ll go back and study Jonathan Swift a little more, and maybe more Jay Leno too.

Presenters from the high-def DVD camps are glad to bring out charts and stats that demonstrate how their own format is beating the other. You have to pay close attention to fully appreciate the data, or else it’s easy to get lost in the details and not understand what’s being presented. It also seems like every one of these reports comes from a flavor of the month research company, which leads to a lot of conflicting information. For example, how can two sets of reports for the same time period generate opposite results?

Data collected by a trusted source over a long period of time is probably the most meaningful. It’s even more useful when the topic is easy to understand (e.g. there’s no math). Show me a chart from an organization that everybody’s heard about, where the point being studied is simple to understand, and I’ll know for sure that somebody’s claims are for real.

I’m about to show you just such a chart. (more…)

Prominent high-def enthusiast Josh Zyber has taken a few moments to share his thoughts on all the recent commotion about last week’s Paramount news, as well as the hyping of disc sales numbers.

Some of Josh’s points have already been made in comments or articles at this site (and by a lot of High-Def fans on various forums), and it’s nice to see that these opinions are actually shared by a more authorative person like Mr. Zyber.

Pop on over to High-Def Digest to read his piece, and even post your thoughts for him to respond to over in the associated discussion thread in their forum.

Here are just a few of Josh’s points:

• Zyber’s early reviews of Blu-ray titles were negative because the studios were putting out lousy discs compared to HD DVD. He’d like to think that criticism like his has led to an improvement in Blu-ray quality, both formats are much more directly comparable today.

For some unknown reason, Blu-ray titles would come out in MPEG2 encoding, while the HD DVD version used VC-1.

• Comparing sales numbers between Blu-ray and HD DVD is “like boasting an ant is larger than a flea, just before the big shoe of DVD comes down to smoosh them both into oblivion.”

Josh is referring to the fact that DVD heartily outsells Blu-ray and HD DVD combined, and points out that 300 sold more copies on DVD in one week than both formats have sold of everything combined in 6 months of 2007. One format would have to start selling way better before trying to proclaim itself the winner.

• Business is business and if you’re going to point fingers at the Paramount deal, then don’t be hypocritical about Blu-ray’s deals.

He points out that Disney was a contributor to the HD DVD interactivity features, but “surprisingly,” they don’t even use this stuff because they’re Blu-ray exclusive.

• Both formats are going to be around together for a while, get used to it.

That’s how it has worked for many years in the video game world, and all of the competition forces everyone to make better products (at better prices too).

There’s even more food for thought in his article. To a Blu-ray supporter, Josh’s article is going to come off as an anti-Blu commentary. He promises that his next commentary will take on various problems with HD DVD. And I’ll be happy to report on that piece as well. Please do yourself a favor and read his article for yourself over at High-Def Digest.

• A War of Hype, and Paramount’s Big Bombshell