450°

Blu-ray wins yets another week over HD-DVD in the Neilson's Numbers

Week 11/11 BD 65, HD 35 YTD: BD 65, HD 35 SI: BD 61, HD 39
Week 11/04 BD 71, HD 29 YTD: BD 64, HD 36 SI: BD 61, HD 39
Week 10/28: BD 55, HD 45 YTD: BD 64, HD 36 SI: BD 60, HD 40
Week 10/21: BD 51, HD 49 YTD: BD 65, HD 34 SI: BD 61, HD 39
Week 10/14: BD 71, HD 29 YTD: BD 66, HD 34 SI: BD 61, HD 39

No change In Since Inception numbers but Year to Date picked up 1 point for Blu.

*compliments Helen

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gamesblow6022d ago

Of coruse it did... Consumers aren't stupid. Just because something is cheap "cough" HD-dvd "cough" doesn't mean it's worth it. Blu-ray is going to win this media frenzy... I don't care what anyone says. DVD's are fastly becoming more and more unviable by the day... Sure they're still awesome. I have over 500, myself... but I don't mind kickin' one out of my collection everytime I obtain it on Blu-ray.

fenderputty6022d ago

HD v. BD. It has everything to do with more movies on BD and more BD players out in the wild ala PS3.

juandren6022d ago

I think it's mostly just Americans who buy the cheaper HD-DVD. You don't see a Wal-Mart in EU do you?

pukka_p6022d ago

...and anyone who buys a piece of av electronic there is either limited in money or knowledge. It is very much a budget place (perhaps only imo), but is widely frowned upon and derided by the masses.

Of course, like most places in this mould it doesn't sell things with much real knowledge behind it. But it certainly does represent good value for money (although HD-DVD at any price represents only limited-time value, as most sane people know).

Biphter6021d ago

It would be interesting to see worldwide figures all collated together. Then the real picture as to how Blu-Ray disc sales are trouncing HD-DVD would be shown.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 6021d ago
vaan6022d ago

A REAL BD v HDDVD story. With REAL numbers.
Suck it all you fud spreading 360 wankers.

chester6022d ago

i don't get why ps3 fanboys try to rub it in 360 fanboy's faces that bd is beating down hd-dvd. sure, the 360 add-on player is a part of microsoft's accessory plan, but it's not a depended-on format like blu-ray is for ps3. if/when blu-ray wins this, it won't hurt microsoft. if hd-dvd was to somehow wipe out blu-ray, then it would be devastating to sony. either way, this isn't really a 360 vs ps3 discussion.

vaan6022d ago

How many articles do you see spamming up N4G trying to throw FUD and negativity on the Blu Ray format? Just scroll down todays N4G headlines lady and you'll see tons of BS headlines from your buddies.
You go girl.

chester6022d ago

sure thing chief. there are a bunch of articles on both sides, from both sets of pathetic fanboys for donks like yourself to get all worked up about.

cuco336021d ago

Blu-ray had a Disney sale (buy Rat & Cars, get $10 off) with far better releases. Rat was given excellent reviews. BD had other sales as well whereas HD DVD didn't have anything major nor any sales the week. Rat was on top of Amazon's charts all week. Everyone, including HD DVD fans thought BD would win by a huge margin, something like 80:20 or higher and in the end it came down to 65:35. Note that Nielson's isn't gospel, they only look at 60% of a blu biased market (i.e. Target & Best Buy help promote BD due to incentives for promotions) yet since August the sales trend is that HD DVD has closed the sales gap by 7%. It's still anyones "game". I still find it hysterical the trolls on this board who bash a given format yet don't even support their 'format of choice'

cuco336021d ago

Blu-ray had a Disney sale (buy Rat & Cars, get $10 off) with far better releases. Rat was given excellent reviews. BD had other sales as well whereas HD DVD didn't have anything major nor any sales the week. Rat was on top of Amazon's charts all week. Everyone, including HD DVD fans thought BD would win by a huge margin, something like 80:20 or higher and in the end it came down to 65:35. Note that Nielson's isn't gospel, they only look at 60% of a blu biased market (i.e. Target & Best Buy help promote BD due to incentives for promotions) yet since August the sales trend is that HD DVD has closed the sales gap by 7%. It's still anyones "game". I still find it hysterical the trolls on this board who bash a given format yet don't even support their 'format of choice'

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 6021d ago
kooplar6022d ago

Like i give a $Hit about blu-ra and hd-dvd.

Evil0Angel6021d ago (Edited 6021d ago )

i bet my life u will get 111111 agress

I DONOT GIVE CRAP ABOUT FORMAT WAR CAZ I OWN BOTH

fury6022d ago (Edited 6022d ago )

why? Because it has more capacity.
Yes, there are actually people who have XBOX360s and support Blu-ray. I am one of them.

Keyser6022d ago

you keep a mighty clean 360. Mine looks a little abused now from taking it over buddies houses and moving from state to state.

Bubbles for cleanliness...

blackmagic6022d ago (Edited 6021d ago )

I respect your opinion since you have made it based on what you believe the merits are however, I would argue that you are misinformed in your assumption that blu-ray's extra space is a particularly strong advantage for movie playback.

The HD DVD consortium knew from very early on that in order to leverage the installed infrastructure of DVD (a massive advantage), they would have to work with a smaller disc space and they made their decisions based on that.

They supported the latest CODECs from the beginning and made the Thomson Film Grain Technology mandatory which yields better video compression without loss of quality (or maintain bitrate with an increase in quality). For audio they made several CODECs mandatory such as DD+ with up to 3Mbps streams even though audio engineers were saying that 1.5Mbps streams were already transparent to the master. Using these advanced CODECs, over 4 hours of 1080p can be encoded onto a 30Gb disc.

Compare this to Blu-ray and it's choice of less advanced video CODECs (no Film Grain Technology) and it's reliance on PCM audio (due to flimsy audio codec support) and you realize you NEED the extra space to achieve the same thing.

On top of this, manufacturing of dual layer discs is expensive and more time intensive (due to extra complexity and lower yields) resulting in over 50% of blu-ray releases being on single layer discs. Note that the PCM implementation supports 16, 20 and 24bit variants and often releases are only 16bit due to size constraints. Robocop comes to mind as an example of this. Keep in mind that a 16bit PCM stream is CD quality audio.

Also, due to the design philosophy of Blu-Ray, tighter tolerances and more complexity are required in the manufacture of the players which is directly responsible for the higher player prices and have left many players incompatible with CDs. Combine this with the omission of profile 1.1 and 2.0 features and I think it is clear that HD DVD is the better standard.

Edit: Hmm... lots of disagrees but no counterpoints. If you disagree then please make a counterpoint or supply contradictory articles. Convince me on why I am wrong, I am open to discussion but simply disagreeing and walking away just tells me you can't.

tk6021d ago

Hi bud... the codecs - is software. You savvy?
For CD-ROM, DivX is not required - or MP3. Advanced codecs...
Yet I copy the file to them - and that means CD-ROM supports all the codecs... you savvy?

My cheap entry level DVD player plays DivX, MP3, WMA - and none of these are supported on DVD specs - yet my player does - therefore DVD does.

The PS3 with a firmware update supports all the codecs. And if you install Linux on it, even more codecs that you shake a stick at.

So give this "HD-DVD supports better codecs than BR" line a rest. In the end - a slap of foil in some substrate storing bits being read by a little violet, blue or red laser light. All that matters is how fast it can read the data, and how much it can store on the little platter. Anything else - is software - and BR can not get something in the software that HD-DVD can not support with a firmware update and vice versa... You savvy?

So bud... more space, faster... BR wins. More readers (console + PC + standalone) BR wins. More titles BR wins.

The only way to spin HD-DVD is winning is to try and ignore all other elements and pretend that lowest cost entry level reader = higher value proposition. Nothing else washes. You savvy?

blackmagic6021d ago (Edited 6021d ago )

I'm not sure what your point is regarding DivX? I'm pretty sure that there aren't any studios on any high def or standard def formats that support DivX. The only thing that DivX seems to accomplish is encourage piracy so I really don't see how that is an advantage of any sort in the format war... I'd go so far as to say that DivX support is viewed as a negative by studios.

I think maybe you don't understand what a CODEC is? CODEC is an abbreviation for COmpressor DECompressor and things like AVC, VC1, MPEG2, Dolby Digital (DD) and Digital Theatre Systems (DTS) are examples of them. Hardware manufacturers have to pay licencing fees in order to implement them so when a CODEC is not mandatory, it is most likely not implemented. This is the case for Blu-Ray vs HD DVD when it comes to CODEC support.

Both have mandatory support for AVC, VC1 and MPEG2 video CODECs but only HD DVD has mandatory support of Thomson's Film Grain Technology (FGT). Blu-ray doesn't even have optional support for FGT and won't be able to implement it via firmware in the future since it requires extra hardware to support it.

Both have mandatory support of Dolby Digital, DTS, and Linear PCM CODECs but only HD DVD has mandatory support for Dolby Digital Plus (DD+) and Dolby TrueHD whereas these are optional on Blu-Ray.

The extra FGT, DD+ and Dolby TrueHD CODECs are there to deliver the same quality picture and sound with less space and lower bitrates and this is entirely consistent with disc reviews which show both formats completely on par with each other. Blu-ray needs more space and higher bitrates to deliver the same quality.

In the end, the only real discernable differences between the two is that HD DVD players are considerably less expensive than Blu-ray players, have more standard features, have less restrictions due to Digital Rights Management and have manufacturing processes which are scalable at low cost.

There's a difference between playing smart and playing hard. Toshiba played smart and they delivered the better solution in the end. You savvy?

fury6021d ago (Edited 6021d ago )

...space is what matters most. And in that part Blu-ray wins. All those neat features you mentioned, won't be really necessary or you won't really notice them while watching a film unless you have superears and supereyes like superman.
Blu-ray can now hold up to 100GB and old players can read those discs with a simple firmware update. 100GB vs 51GB. Where do you think more content fits on? Yes, on the Blu-ray disc, and content is what you will really notice when you buy a movie. The more content the better...

Edit: I now actually noticed that you have significantly more knowledge than me regarding this whole Blu-ray & HD-DVD thing. You may be right about toshiba being smarter and delivering the better technology, but my personal decision is, that I will support Blu-ray. Why? I don't know, because maybe I like Sony, I really don't know but I've made my decision. This may sound a bit dumb to you but it's the choice I've made.

blackmagic6021d ago (Edited 6021d ago )

No worries FuRy. I believe there isn't a wrong format choice, I think that dual format players will become cheap long before the format war will end and will mimic the DVD+R/DVD-R war.

I do think that overall, HD DVD is the better solution though.

fury6020d ago

But I agree, in the end it will boil down to Hybrid players. both formats will remain.

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 6020d ago
lawman11086022d ago

You will see the worm turn after "black Friday"

eagle216022d ago

Blu Ray has deals black friday. Like $14.99 movies. I reckon 400k-500k Blu Ray players and PS3's will move worldwide black friday week. Hd Dvd is only existing never dominating.

EZCheez6022d ago

Just had a sell for blu-rays at $9.99. Trust me. I was not the only one walking out with a stack of blu-ray movies. After last week, my inventory of blu-ray movies QUADRUPLED.

OFF TOPIC-Has anyone else seen Return to the House on Haunted Hill on blu-ray yet? It's not a very good movie, but it gives about 95 story options. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure movie! Man, I loved those books.

eagle216022d ago

I am buying Blu Ray like no one ever before this holiday...lol

Show all comments (81)
70°

RTX 50 series cooling tested up to 600W, but users want Nvidia to fix the adapter first

Nvidia is allegedly testing GPU coolers to handle up to 600W for the 50 series, reigniting discussion of melting 16-pin connectors.

100°

Former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider pours scorn on EA's AI dreams.

"They want you to believe the devs under them are super stoked to work generative AI into their processes," continued Gaider, "but I assure you what they took as excitement was really a veiled wail of despair not unlike the time that team was informed of their new 'really cool' live service mandate.".

LordoftheCritics1d 22h ago

Publishers see gaming as another stock market.

isarai1d 21h ago

I think anyone with some common sense knew this, im glad i don't support their games anymore, what a sh!t company.

Psychonaut851d 6h ago

Friends don’t let friends buy EA or Ubisoft.

Chocoburger1d 5h ago

I said this yesterday. AI isn't what we want when it comes to crafting artistry. Alas, these soulless corporate morons don't care about their work, only about cutting corners as much as possible.

120°

Phil Spencer and the Battle for Xbox’s Soul

Has the rapid growth of Xbox made the ship too heavy? Following the closures of Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and Roundhouse, we explore what the future of Xbox could look like.

LG_Fox_Brazil2d ago

This ship was never meant to sail, this ship was made from the get go to sink as fast as possible. It almost feels that they want to lower the standards of quality in the industry so that they can fit in

rlow11d 8h ago

I disagree, Xbox from the get go innovated and changed the industry. They did a lot of firsts and standardized a lot of others. It wasn’t till the beginning of the Xbox1 era that things started to go south.

Stevonidas1d 4h ago

Yep, although I’d argue it started going to shit when they tried to hock Kinect on their audience instead of continuing to invest in their studios and IPs. 2001-2010 Xbox was peak gaming, though.

rlow11d 3h ago

@Stevonidas
I agree they never should have focused on it after the 360 era. But you do have to remember they were faked out by the huge volumes of Kinects sold. To quote info on Wikipedia, “Project Natal, It was first released on November 4, 2010, and would go on to sell eight million units in its first 60 days of availability.” So if your Xbox and see these huge sales on a peripheral where are you going to put some money? Criticism in hindsight is worthless…..if only we could all see our future. In other wards they had no way of knowing. Plus they had engagement numbers and a lot of signs pointed to people wanting it.

Their biggest mistake wasn’t the Kinect, but unlike Sony after the PS3 debacle. They didn’t double on down on exclusive good games. The other huge mistake was letting Call of Duty go to Sony.

Hedstrom1d 11h ago

Phil wants Xbox to be as soulless as him!

Tacoboto1d 11h ago (Edited 1d 11h ago )

Xbox has no soul and Phil has no confidence, and it's impossible to say either do when they killed Tango and Arkane Austin.

Everything they've said since has only made them look worse to a point that they're actually less competent than Embracer.

Markdn1d 11h ago (Edited 1d 11h ago )

Whe you release something like the series S and expect it not to hurt your business model, and developers have to have parity with games. Then you know Microsoft don't care. Series s is the final nail that broke developers,

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