......so is it fair now to declare Blu Ray the winner of the Format War?

[michael hurd]

100% of all statistics are 99% wrong, skewed 45% in one direction, to make a certain point. To REMOVE [bs], wipe bottom of media's mouth with a slighly damp depends.

[mas]

And while we are talking about statistics:

\

Music media (hard copy) sales are UP, not DOWN - despite what you and RIAA are claiming. Please go back and look at the last 10 years of annual sales and the number of artists making those sales, as reported in trade rags such as Billboard. Like it or not - agree with it or not - people still want factory, studio, hard media, just as they will in the video/movie market for quite the foreseable future. I have already stated that in this thread, and others.

IFPI: Music CD sales continued sharp decline in 2007

http://www.betanews.com/article/IFPI_Music_CD_sales_continued_sharp_decline_in_2007/1201193467

January 24, 2008

…Digital
music sales now account for 15% of the worldwide recording industry's revenues,
IFPI reported, and 30% of revenues in the US market. Those numbers are climbing
at a faster rate than before. US record companies netted $3 billion in revenue
last year from digital sales alone, representing 40% growth over the previous
year.

…But IFPI is characterizing the digital
music revolution as a positive force this time, not a negative one. It is even going so far as to use it as a means of masking or counter-balancing the effect
of a 9% slowdown in global CD sales recorded over the first half of 2007, with
the second half probably plunging into the cold, cold realm of the
double-digits.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aren't statistics fun? ...And so Easy! If you need support for your claims you can just make them up!

So, the message is: CD hard copy sales are being marginalized in the overall music marketspace by alternative supply vectors. (Stated over the screams of "No they're not! There are still hard copy CDs in existence!" ROFLMAO!!!)

But then the fanboy, after claiming CD sales to be increasing, wants to redefine the issue as to become a debate as to whether an online presence can provide advertisement for a source. I would hope so. But has it lead to an overall increase in hardware sales? The industry only wishes it were so. Instead downloads are increasing and hardware sales are diminishing. And many enterprises are racing to capitalize on this fact, while many of the monolithic recording companies who have failed to respond to the new market drivers wallow under the weight of their old hardware based supply chain management and the old obsolete model where they controlled all aspects of the pruduct chain as described in the previously cited Wireless article.

Yup, the hardware distributors are celebrating the current sales figures - as they lay people off and close their doors. ...Been to Tower Records lately? Or how many Virgin Megastores are left?

Edit:

"It took you that long to....."

What? I respond when I have the free time, the opportunity and the inclination, not according to your infantile feeding schedule.

And it is hilarious to watch both you and srbak try to redefine topics to fit YOUR wacko assumptions. Just go take a look at Has Blu-Ray won? where srbak tells the author of the thread that even he is wrong for not addressing the topic in a manner srbak wants to focus upon! And nevermind that there are many frames of reference from which to answer the question. And winning against another competitor in a small niche market is not the same as winning in the overall marketplace.

And how many times have you told me that I am not saying what I am saying? I am only inconsistent in that I totally reject your limited BR has won so "Br hard copies will dominate the world" view. Oh, but that is because your world view is so myopic that you think simply that by BR winning the format war (if they indeed have), that that is equivalent to dominating the larger video market....And many more ludicrous assumptions.

My interest for over a year with the topic of BR vs HD_DVD, and relative to the larger issue of BR/HD-DVD versus the larger HD market as well as the still larger video market has been pretty clear. What you want to focus on with your asinine presumptions is not only a it ludicrous, it misses the point with regards to the evolving business models and market developments. BR BEGINS as a marginalized media and marketspace relative to both the large HD market and the total video marketspace.

And without some very significant market changes, there is no reason to assume that 1080p
BR will dominate HD. But then HD is much larger than 1080p BR!

Not only are 1080p HDTVs not dominant,
the competition from network, cable, satellite, online sources all are using
technologies ranging from SD(480i) to DVD(540) to various HD formats ranging from 1080i to 720p.

The majority of the public ‘lives’
somewhere in that realm. And the supreme irony is that the major issue driving
the adoption of the new technologies is NOT dissatisfaction with SDTV, rather
it is the forced migration to Digital TV and the majority of new product just happening to feature these technologies. All you have to do is to ask the average consumer the difference between the various formats for confirmation of this fact, fanboys. Few consumers actually know. Nor do they have to, as they are already satisfied.

Couple that with more than 105, 273,120
DVD player sales* from 2002 through July of 2007, including the shift in the DVD
player market becoming players for which the norm is tha ability to upscale,
thus extending the life cycle of existing media as well as affording the
ability to further leverage the ever important aspect of price, as DVDs,
especially those past their initial release hype stage, have become commodities
with retail prices less than $10.

But the market developments are just as
significant.

Market diversity is key, as the market
has fragmented into may uses and device formats where it is simply not feasible
nor even desirable to attempt to employ just one video program format to serve
all purposes. Thus it is unreasonable to expect only one format to
dominate. And the system requirements
for 108p, combined with the fact that most devices, in addition to commercial
broadcast sources of any note, do not natively support it.

Additionally, in order to fully take
advantage of 1080p, one needs a monitor capable of fully displaying the format
(and they are definitely minority devices) as well as a relatively high cost of
market entry for both the playback electronics and high price source media. And
if that is not enough, the playback devices will not even reach what was
envisioned as their initial release configuration for almost another year.

Far from just the move to higher
resolution is the advent of the consumer space ‘personal video devices’ which
are the video equivalent of the audio iPod. Far from being 1080p, they run on
SD and SD+ formats for whom, like for many with TVs, standard resolutions are
‘good enough’. These devices already support current and readily available streaming
content.

So, do existing TVs, personal playback
devices, network, cable, and satellite sources require 1080p BR? No.

So, the fact is, 1080p begins in a marginalized position. And
while the fanboys predict the world domination by the format, it is rather
fascinating to listen to many address the market as either being characterized
by SD or DVD as being “crappy video” (despite the fact that is just fine for
the majority of folks) or as being “HD”, which these folks also assume must be
BR due to their bias.

Likewise, any HD content by network,
cable, and satellite that is not BR is denigrated as well. After all, its not
‘real’ HD. But, the fact is that is is. Any HD is defined simply as any
resolution greater than SD. It is not defined by those who advocate one
particular variant.

And the same fanboys deny that its
feasible to source any “HD” programming online. You see, their asinine
ASSUMPTIONS say that ONLY 1080p and realtime streaming constitutes viable
online HD download. Despite that the majority of folks are quite comfortable
waiting for their NetFlix video delivery, or taking the time to go down to
Blockbuster – well, less and less as they prefer to have the video delivered TO
THEM as witnessed by market developments.

The irony is that most folks are
content with whatever level of programming they have, be it their SD ‘iPod
toys’, their upscaled DVDs, or their puny 1080i or 720p ‘not quite HD’.

Oh, but the objection also states that
EVERYONE MUST have broadband access for an alternative delivery vector to work.
Just as EVERYONE must have a Blockbuster within 3 miles of their home for video
rentals to work. Nevermind that all that is required is for the success of the
venture is for the sourcing company to have a significant market to support
their activity! And these services will focus on high density markets where the
infrastructure is already present, as they will benefit directly from not
having to establish or maintain any network infrastructure. And their model
allows for either the seeding of many cheap servers that can easily be
centrally managed and loads distributed, or they can even lease managed
services should they find that advantageous.

And the fact is, the mainstream
services know this. And the current and modified H.264 codecs support this. And
the networks can definitely support bursty non-streaming downloads where real
time viewing is not a required pre-requisite. Existing markets demonstrate that
a significant number of folks are more than willing to place an order and to
then come home from work the next evening to view a video. The requirement for
real time streaming and viewing is a specious invention.

And the real driving force for this
need not even be the consumer.

The enterprise is the single largest
driving force behind this development, as the companies as enable to establish
a virtual company where there are no physical inventories such as they must
currently manage with the significant labor, processing, inventory management,
And even more than the significant labor and physical inventory management cost
is the substantial outgoing and return shipping charges.

The virtualization of the inventory
essentially eliminated the majority of the existing overhead. Distributed
servers are relatively cheap, and the administration of them is minimal. Customer
interaction is able to be virtualized as well. And B2B supply chain
relationships can be virtualized and shifted with sourcing agents maintaining
and pushing data files to the enterprise which then routinely schedules the
pushing of inventory throughout the distributed server network.

All the while they ply the larger
market satisfying the needs of the larger real market, rather than having to
try to co-market and drive the marginal 1080p market where few have the means
to natively display full 1080p source material. And to the degree that this larger
market has additional vectors for programming sources at an increasingly
attractive price without the overhead inherent in hardware supply chain
management, they have a competitive advantage.

But then the same fanboys will cry that
this is not the same as claiming that online 'HD' will supplant 1080p hard
copies. As if the marketplace cares.

And they will again rant that I am
‘changing’ my position, which is complete nonsense! My argument has never been
limited to 1080p HD-DVD nor BR! In fact, my position has been how these “two”
formats are already at a disadvantage just as DVD-A and SACD were (albeit that
DVD-A and SACD didn’t require a significantly prohibitive cost of entry!) And my
opinion regarding BR (regardless of how nice the picture is – and my position
is not that it cannot look nice! ) continues to be consistent with my larger
original point which addresses my focus from a basic strategic management
business POV that challenges the position as to whether 1080p BR will become
the dominant digital media, or if digital downloads of HD will further
marginalize an ALREADY marginalized format.

My point has always been whether a
non-standard high-end video format would dominate over formats that are already
available, have a greater (and growing) percentage market penetration, and
which are adequate to meet the needs of the market – in fact, which already
provide an increase in resolution and quality over what the market previously
had available, and which are less expensive.

The fact is, the continuing format war, and especially Sony's failure to take advantage of their initial product announcement to initiate a successful value pricing model, has simply prevented their taking advantage of their lead to market and provided significant time for alternative formats and delivery vectors to gain on this technology, thus limiting their ability to dominate the market and providing an increased opportunity for the competing formats and delivery models to advance..

And with increasing options in sourcing
“HD” quality providing alternative to a comparatively expensive format
requiring a significant cost of entry there is less reason for the average consumer
to ‘overbuy’ into a technology that most sets do not even natively display.

Thus, online delivery will provide an
increasing alternative to expensive BR. And each alternative that is sufficient
to supply the needs of the larger marketplace while also providing increased
value by an increasingly cost effective supply chain model, and this will serve to undercut a technology which has a high cost of entry and high production and supply chain management costs, and which to date has
still not even reached a form that was intended for its launch (profile 2), and which
depends upon the distribution of a purely physical media for market
penetration.

Some are content to deal with only hard
media, and that is fine. But the larger marketplace has demonstrated a distinct openness for
convenience and formats that are ‘good enough’. Thus the advent of alternative
‘HD’ delivery vector sourcing up to and including the 720p format will provide
sufficient alternative market driving forces to continue to marginalize BR into
at most a niche product (which it exactly how it began and exists today - a marginalized product!!!).

And the larger marketplace is putting their money where their opinions are to bring that model to fruition. All while BR is busy debating whether they have beat HD-DVD in their tiny corner of the market - using figures where they are giving away their players for free (as they desparately try to dump their inventories of profile 1 players!)! Of course, it was fascinating to not see any citing of figures of no sales for the BR units not being given away!

So, at least for the next several years, there will probably be a small BR hard copy market. And I suspect that it will reside right up there with the 'HD' audio market...likewise wondering why the 'ignorant common folks' continue to be satisfied with 'crappy quality' SD, DVD, upscaled video, and 1080i and 720p video alternatives.

But tell us again how CD sales have continued to climb and how they are not on the decline. LOL!

And if you would rather not simply read how the two fanboys think that CD sales are up and that BR hardware will dominate the world as they tell everyone else what position they are supposed to have while failing to talk of the larger market driving forces, you might want to check out:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=983718

* http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/cemadvdsales.html .

[anarchist]

It took you how long to come up with that justification of your position? And it doesn't even substantiate your previous arguments? And includes you again attributing arguments to others you yourself manufactured! HAHAHAHA. You kill me man. You should have your own Beavis&Butthead show.

[Guest srobak]

So, the message is: CD hard copy sales are being marginalized in the overall music marketspace by alternative supply vectors.

Your perspectives are waaaay out of whack. Holding 85% of the market share <> (or !=) "being marginalized". I also think their numbers are off - quite a bit. Billboard reported digital sales accounting for 13% 5 years ago... so it has to be a lot more than 15% now. And if not - then that is hardly a "sharp decline", as a 2 to 20% varying happens every other month anyhow.

Here is something you omitted from your quote of the article - which is in direct support of what I said has happened over the last 10 years of "online music", and will continue to happen: "GReeeeN was responsible for selling 4 million
legal tracks since the release of its first album in May. Then people
actually started buying the physical CD -- up to 300,000 copies sold." I'm not one to say "I told you so,"... but... I did. Yet another point you argued with me about.

Here is more: " IFPI appears to be lifting its "axis of
evil"-style metaphor around piracy, no longer pointing to it as the
single cause for both the plunge in CD sales and the catalyst of the
digital revolution." Again... as I said nearly 10 years ago.

Any way you slice it - the face of the industry is changing. Individual artists saw this years ago, and many started to adapt. Finally the IFPI is recognizing it, and eventually so will RIAA (unless it wants to completely decompose).

That being said... CDs are not going to disappear tomorrow, and while vinyl has a far less stake in the game than 15% of the market share - it is still here - over 20 years after CD came on the scene, and you can still go to Best Buy and purchase a turntable. True - it has a USB plug on it - but the format is still there with quite a presence - and according to other folks on here in other threads - vinyl sales (non-DJ, supposedly) are actually on the increase. For you to think that anything less will happen with CD is just plain insanity. History has proven otherwise - just as with everything else "revolutionary" that you try to bring up. CD is not going away for a very, very long time... nor will it be "marginalized" any significant amounts in the near future.