Brian's Brain

A few updates to my blue laser essay of two days back....

As I forecasted, the Warner "Total Hi-Def" disc is indeed, akin to DualDisc, a glued-together sandwich of Blu-ray and HD DVD images. I was impressed to hear that Warner believes it'll be able to deliver dual-layer capability for both formats, and I didn't hear anything that led me to suspect that Total Hi-Def would be any thicker than a conventional Blu-ray or HD DVD disc. Which, of course, doesn't mean that it won't be....companies don't tend to willingly showcase the skeletons in their closets during press briefings, after all. There's no solid word on pricing, although Warner claims that by the end of 2007 they'll convert their entire blue laser catalog over to Total Hi-Def, so any initial price premium will probably evaporate by then.

I don't buy the studio's claim that Total Hi-Def will materially "simplify point of sale issues for retailers by reducing the shelf space required to carry two versions of the same content," since the only other studio that's currently shipping both Blu-ray and HD DVD titles is Paramount, and they haven't announced they're taking a Total Hi-Def license. Instead, I see this as increasing overall retailer hassle by requiring warehouse inventory and shelf space for yet another optical disc format. Similarly, Warner's claim that Total Hi-Def will "eliminate consumer confusion by including both formats on a single disc" only acts as a format-obsolesence insurance policy (at least for the moment) with Warner content.

Warner demo'd Total Hi-Def on the LG BH100 'universal' player that I mentioned in my two-day-ago writeup. Back when I first heard that the BH100 didn't support HD DVD's iHD interactivity features, a warning bell went off in my head. And for good reason; Microsoft's Kevin Collins, who you may recognize from some of my past writeups, confirmed yesterday that iHD support is a requirement for HD DVD certification, and that in fact the DVD Forum was considering taking legal action against LG for the CES misrepresentation. That last bit, I strongly suspect, is nothing more than bluster....at the end of the day, DVD Forum members would love to bring another former 100% Blu-ray backer into the HD DVD fold, if only half-way.

More on HD DVD: in my last report, I mentioned that Toshiba's 2nd-generation HD-A2 player, introduced last September, had a MSRP of $499. Well lookee here....it's already down to $384. Aren't format wars wonderful?

For another perspective on the format war, from a very influential media segment (irrespective of the ethics angle), check out this report. Don't forget the Betamax lesson, Sony....

Followup: BetaNews has an interesting analysis of Sony's 1 million PS3 shipped-to-North America-in-2006 claim, in the face of NPD's report that the console only sold 490,700 units in the U.S. in December, leading to a 2006 cumulative U.S. sales total of 687,300 units. According to Sony, the NPD data doesn't include consoles sold in Canda (Sony estimate: 90,000), consoles sold in the U.S. in the last week of the year (Sony estimate: 170,000), or consoles that were enroute to retailers from Sony's manufacturing and warehouse facilities at year-end (Sony estimate: 100,000).

No response from NPD yet on Sony's counter-claims. I'm going to be very curious to see NPD's numbers for January and beyond, in order to acertain the degree to which my prior prediction of PS3 sales unsustainability (specifically at the $500-$600 price point) is accurate. In case you wondered, I'm not the only skeptic.