Blu-ray outsells HD-DVD 2-to-1 so far in '07

Blu-ray DVD titles outsold rival HD-DVD titles by almost 2-to-1 in the first nine months of the year, but analysts expect additional HD-DVD support and new hit releases to "transform" the high-definition DVD battle score in the fourth quarter.

Home Media Research, a division of Home Media Magazine, said on Tuesday total U.S. sales of Blu-ray discs, using a Sony Corp.-backed technology, totaled 2.6 million units from Jan. 1-Sept. 30, versus 1.4 million HD-DVD discs sold. HD-DVD was developed by Toshiba. It is backed by Microsoft as well as film studios like Time Warner's TWX.N Warner Bros.

The division in Hollywood grew deeper in August when Paramount and DreamWorks Animation SKG signed exclusivity deals to distribute their next-generation discs on HD-DVD format for the next 18 months. Gerry Kaufhold, analyst with In-Stat research firm, believes newly released HD-DVD titles with new advanced Web-enabled features, such as Paramount's "Transformers," will help the HD-DVD camp in the fourth quarter. Paramount Home Video said "Transformers" had the biggest debut of any high-definition titles, selling over 100,000 HD-DVDs on Oct. 16, its first day of release.

Tom Adams, president of Adams Media Research, also said the 18-month period of exclusivity for HD-DVDs by Paramount and DreamWorks should strengthen HD-DVD's hand this quarter.

"This definitely smoothes out the edge that Blu-ray had in exclusive titles and it very much strengthens HD-DVD's hand in the fourth quarter," he said, but still expects Blu-ray will lead for the year overall.

Adams predicts that for 2007 overall, consumers will spend $186 million purchasing Blu-ray discs, versus $91 million for HD-DVD. Walt Disney, Sony, News Corp's 20th Century Fox and Lions Gate Entertainment are exclusively in the Blu-ray camp. Hollywood and electronics manufacturers had hoped new high-definition DVDs, with better picture quality and more capacity would revive the slowing $24 billion home DVD market.

But like the Betamax-VHS battle in the 1980s, the DVD standards war has slowed adoption and created customer confusion. It has also raised the likelihood it will be years before next-generation players become standard equipment.

Since both formats launched in the spring of 2006, an estimated 4.98 million high-definition discs have been sold, including 3.01 million in Blu-ray and 1.97 million in HD-DVD through the end of September, according to Home Media. One big factor giving Blu-ray an edge has been the popularity of Sony's PlayStation 3 game consoles, which also include a Blu-ray disc drive.

"It's going to be 2008 before the dust will really starts to settle. For now, its like watching a yacht race," said Kaufhold, who expects the standards battle will lead more consumers to dual DVD players such as those made by South Korea's LG Electronics, which supports both Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Samsung Electronics is expected to market a dual format player later this year, ahead of the holiday shopping season.

HD DVD? Blu-ray? How about neither?

HD DVD or Blu-ray? Could the smartest choice be neither of the two? The high-definition DVD formats are competing for your dollars, but the best investment may be to hurry up and wait. Sales of both formats aren't doing nearly as well as plain old DVDs, and the true future of at-home HD movies will probably be fully digital. CNET News.com's Erica Ogg explains why neither format may be in it for the long haul.

The wait is almost over for Mac fans. Apple announced the official release date of the next-gen Mac operating system, nicknamed Leopard. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard will go on sale October 26, and Apple claims the long-awaited OS includes 300 new features. One of those features is called Time Machine, which may explain all the delays. News.com's Caroline McCarthy has the full details.

And more Apple news: The company announced a price drop for DRM-free tracks bought from the iTunes Plus Music Store. Apple hasn't commented officially on the price drop, but it may have to do with Amazon.com's recent decision to sell DRM-free songs for between 89 and 99 cents.

HD DVD more than twice as popular than Blu-ray Disc at Netflix

One often overlooked statistic when comparing the two main high-definition optical formats is rentals. While Blu-ray Disc movies have consistently sold more units than HD DVD at retail, the popularity of the formats appear to be reversed in the rental market. According to Netflix data gathered by Compete’s online traffic metrics, HD DVD is the preferred high-def format for customers of the largest online rental firm in the U.S. Netflix users that deliberately set a particular format as preferred chose HD DVD by a factor of 2.4:1 when compared to Blu-ray Disc favorers.

Strangely, the Blu-ray Disc section had 1.8 times more browsers of the selection than the HD DVD section. But of those consumers who looked at high-def discs, browsers of HD DVD were 4.4 times more likely to set it as their preferred format as compared to Blu-ray Disc. Furthermore, the HD DVD format saw greater growth numbers than Blu-ray Disc over the June to August period observed. Before any conclusions are drawn about what this may mean in the ongoing high-definition format war, both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc combined are barely a blip on the home video radar. Of the 14 million monthly visitors to Netflix, only 0.3 percent viewed either of the high-def formats.

The Netflix data runs contrary to the other major rental powerhouse in the U.S. In June, Blockbuster chose to stock only Blu-ray Disc movies for rental across 1,450 stores nationwide. At the time of the announcement, Blockbuster said that its customers were choosing Blu-ray Disc over HD DVD 70 percent of the time.

Toshiba shows off HD-DVD recorders

Toshiba is showing three yet-to-be-launched HD DVD recorders at this week's Ceatec show in Japan. A main feature of all three players is the ability to transcode in real-time an off-the-air MPEG2 high-definition signal into the more efficient MPEG4 AVC compression system. When used it means recorded HD content will take up less space so more can be stored in the recorder's hard-disk drive or on an HD DVD disc.

Toshiba says about 6 hours of content can be stored on a single-layer HD DVD-R disc. Because the MPEG4 AVC data takes up less space it's also possible to store about 2 hours of content on a DVD-R using the recently standardised HD REC format.

The high-end RD-X7 recorder from Toshiba features 1080p (1080 horizontal lines with progressive scanning) video output at 24 frames per second, which is the highest of several grades of video signal judged to be high-definition. The other two recorders, the RD-A101 and RD-A201, didn't appear to offer this output based on available information from Toshiba. The company hasn't announced when the recorders will hit the market but three manufacturers of recorders based on the competing Blu-ray Disc format, Sony, Panasonic and Sharp, have all in the last month announced new machines for the year-end shopping season. To compete, Toshiba will likely have to release the new recorders in the coming weeks.