logo Sign In

zombie84

User Group
Members
Join date
21-Nov-2005
Last activity
12-Jan-2024
Posts
3,557

Post History

Post
#297317
Topic
George Lucas to host showing of Star Wars "1977" for AFI's 40th anniversary.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/297317/action/topic#297317
Time
Although its gone virtually unreported, I believe that Lucasfilm recieved the full rights to Star Wars in exchange for Fox getting full distribution rights for the prequels. Very smart--Lucas finally bought the only film that Fox owned because Fox would do anything to get the next Star Wars trilogy (indeed, it netted them som $1 billion+). Thats why the older video boxes say ESB and ROTJ are copyright Lucasfilm and Star Wars copyright Fox but starting with the SE I believe everything belongs to Lucasfilm.
Post
#297249
Topic
George Lucas to host showing of Star Wars "1977" for AFI's 40th anniversary.
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/297249/action/topic#297249
Time
I guess this makes it seem like we can do something but we really can't. In the event that we flood AFI with enough responses and they ask Lucasfilm for permission to be leant a 1977 print the following exchange will occur:

AFI rep: a lot of people have been asking about the original version of the film, would it be possible to get that print?

Lucasfilm rep: No.

AFI rep: Okay.

Because LFL is the boss and they call the shots. I have to admit that Lucas is quite clever to actually achieve this sort of control.
Post
#296658
Topic
IMPORTANT BEHIND THE SCENES INFO ON THE ORIGINAL TRILOGY FROM LONDON FILM AND COMIC CON-SEP '07
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296658/action/topic#296658
Time
Panavision doesn't sell their cameras, they only rent them. Additionally, there were some non-Pana cameras used in Star Wars, for instance there are photos of Lucas operating an Arri for the Tantive IV scenes, looks like an Arri 35-3 or a 3C to me, probably used as a B or C camera since that shootout was multicamera. I didn't know they used some of Kurtz' print for the SE resoration, very interesting.

Good stuff there.
Post
#296567
Topic
2007 DVD repackage
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296567/action/topic#296567
Time
Originally posted by: Crygor64
Honestly I think Lucasfilm is foolish for not having a budget priced DVD six pack in stores right now.

Forget about the eventual box set we've all been promised. I'm only talking about a simple repackaging of the films we've already been given. Possibly sans extras. All the movies, one through six, all in one place. Consumers like convenience. And it would take almost zero effort to get something like this off the ground.

It could also be huge with the Wal-Mart crowd.


I agree, and this is a big trend in sales right now. All six films in six slimeline cases in a small carboard sleeve, with just the films and commentary tracks (in other words all the disk ones of the sets), priced for $19.99. Would make a good sales item for the holiday season. I would have thought Lucasfilm would jumped on that train but like I said i guess we should be glad they haven't.
Post
#296563
Topic
George Lucas jealous of Irvin Kershner's Star Wars?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296563/action/topic#296563
Time
I see it as the opposite--in ANH the Falcon is a bucket of bolts but in ESB its this graceful acrobat of the sky that can do things no other ship can. The thing about the Falcon is that it is a bucket of bolts. Thats how Solo conned Luke and Kenobi in ANH--"oh youve never heard of the Millennium Falcon? Its famous!" But then when they finally see what they expect to be a suped up racer they see this old transport truck sitting in a garage and Luke says "What a piece of junk!" Thats the joke. It's a piece of junk. But as Han says, its got it where it counts--it can do the jump to lightspeed and Han is a clever and wiley fellow. If you look at it in ANH it doesn't move impressively, it just chugs along like a truck, and it even backs out of the Death Star hanger like one (its not hard to imagine beeping sounds as it reverses). But in ESB its this amazing thing that can do acrobatics and really is an impressive ship. But thats sort of a retcon of ANH. Its just a transport freighter. It doesn't work all the time, it looks like its literally falling apart, and its probably really old and outdated but its kept around because Han's made a lot of special modifications and updates.
Post
#296547
Topic
George Lucas jealous of Irvin Kershner's Star Wars?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296547/action/topic#296547
Time
Actually, Lucas did hand over the film to Kershner. He wanted someone else to have their take on the story and have it be their own. "Its Kershner's film" was the phrase he said over and over. Lucas was going to be hands off and it was--and is--Kershner's film. But something happened--Lucas basically changed his mind. I think that as Lucas saw someone else playing with his world and deviating from what Lucas himself would have done he couldn't help but begin to interfere. But Kershner wouldn't let him and Lucas had made a promise that Kershner would have creative control. Thats why when he went to make ROTJ the circumstances he set up were much different--it was Lucas' film from the beginning and Marquand was just a hired hand. But that was not his philosophy in 1978 when he began prepping ESB.

And I personally think Kershner did direct the best one, in terms of drama and characters. The humor I don't think is inappropriate at all--its character humor. Lucas would go for jokes or slapstick but Kasdan and Kershner are more into humor that comes from characters and their relationships. One of the best examples is 3P0 telling Han he'll have to replace a part, Han yelling at him to shut up, and then quietly relaying the same information to Chewie. Its not a joke but its funny, and it comes from the eccentricities and personalities of the characters.

FYI the malfunctioning hyperdrive was something Lucas added himself. Aside from "I am your father" and Han-frozen-in-carbonite, one of the main tonal changes Lucas made from Brackett's first draft was humor and slapstick, namely the ongoing gag of the hyperdrive breaking and 3P0 never quite put back together. Kasdan and Kershner made this centered around the characters of course through the way everyone reacts-- ie "would it help if i got out and pushed?" "it might!". Kasdan and Kershner's humor is more subtle and based on character dynamics, while Lucas' is more gag and slapstick based.

I don't think Kershner and Lucas hated each other--the animosity between them post-release is way overblown--but at the time of course there was massive tension. Kershner was justified in some sense because his ideas were usually bettter--and ultimately the ones that ended up in the film--but Lucas' hostility was also justified in that Kershner went way over budget and schedule. And thank god he did. If Lucas had his way the film would have half the budget, would have an erratic pace of only 100 minutes and would jetison most of the wonderful character moments and supulchral tone that the film is defined by. Seriously, that was how Lucas wanted the film to be made but Kershner and Kasdan wouldn't let him and Kurtz let them both get away with it.

I don't think he is jealous--in fact, all indication is that he considers it a lesser movie because its not the way he would have done it. I also don't think he's that resentful, and neither is Kershner--true, Kershner didn't want to work with Lucas again and Lucas didn't want to work with Kershner again (Kershner said he wouldnt direct ROTJ and Lucas never asked him) but at the end of the day they made amends and Kershner even visited Lucas on the set of ROTJ. I think there is still a bit of unspoken tension but I don't think its as scandalous as some people make it.
Post
#296532
Topic
2007 DVD repackage
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296532/action/topic#296532
Time
Well its not really that pointless. The original 2004 set has been out of print for a while now so this is a re-pressing. Probably new cover art, and as you said it might be likely that its in the new slimline cases that are becoming popular for sets. But I don't see this as milking anything really, unlike the 2005 version this is more or less just a re-pressing of the original release, probably for the holiday season since the original sets are getting hard to find. I don't get why they wouldn't package all six films together like this, or do a companion one for the PT, but I guess we should be thankful that there's not five different versions of the films sitting on store shelves.
Post
#296482
Topic
Mr. McGregor hated SW?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/296482/action/topic#296482
Time
McGregor always liked the OT and thats one of the reasons he took the role in 1996. You can see how excited he is during pre-production in all the docs--"I'm going to be in a STAR WARS movie!" And then Episode I is actually made and released and his attitude immediately changes to "[eyeroll]". He's always been critical of the PT but tried his best to keep quiet about it because Lucas is such a nice guy and he didn't want to trample a series that already was the most criticised films ever released. But it comes out often because so many people ask him about it. If it was just one film he probably would shrug his shoulders and not think about that one lousy role he took but this was three LONG films that took up three or four years of his life when you combine all the work he did on it. Its true that he's one of the best things about the series but thats a relative comparison when the standard for said films is so low. Its one of McGregor's worst roles in terms of performance because he's such a great actor and usually has pretty strong scripts, but it just so happens that everything else around him in the PT was so lame that he stood out as being "not sucking all the time." I think its just luck for him that he happened to get a role in the PT that wasn't written badly--it wasn't written particularly well, but if you have the right look and attitude and deliver the scripted lines with the sort of personality that the script requires then you will survive.
Contrast that with, say, Hayden Christensen or Natalie Portman--it wouldn't matter who the hell Lucas cast in those roles because theres simply no way to make the script work. Robert Deniro and Maryl Steep would suck just as much. The trick Lucas used was that he made them sign on without a script, before a script or a PT film, on the sole basis of the OT back in 1996--no self respecting actor would accept the role if they actually read the three scripts to the films. Robert Deniro and Maryl Streep, for an example, would never accept the role because they would only have to read the first ten pages and know that there was no way they could do anything but crash and burn. But Christensen and Portman keep quiet about there resentment of the material, for Hayden because it made his career, and for Portman because she basically operates on the principle of not saying anything if you don't have anything good to say. But even still you can find moments when they become more honest and admit that it was basically a dumb series that probably was a waste of time if not for the stardom it gained them. McGregor is the only one that really pulls no punches and tells it like it is.

And really, is it any wonder that he's somewhat resentful of the thing? I mean, the number of character he acted with in AOTC that never existed: Jar Jar, Dexter Jester, Yoda, all of the Kamino guys, the entire Clone War and arena sequence (basically the entire last half of the film), plus all that stuff flying a spaceship and talking to a droid. The only human contact he has in the film is two or three brief scenes with Portman and Christensen (two at the beginning of the film, plus a chase scene and one at the end), one with Christopher Lee (plus a brief stunt sequence at the end, which probably used a double), three with Mace Windu and a digital Yoda, one of which takes place in an all bluescreen stage and was filmed a year after principle photography, and one where he asks a Jedi librarian about a computer. The rest of the film is bluescreen stunts and shots of him walking and looking at stuff. And people wonder why AOTC sucked?

Do you know the only reason why actors complain so little about the film when it sucked so bad? Because it was an easy show and it payed big money. The days were relatively short, almost all of it was shot in a studio--in the case of ROTS, ALL of it was in studio--there was very little pressure or tenseness on set, most people got along and things were technically relatively simple (as far as production). The production company took good care of the cast and crew, paid them very well for it, and Lucas and most of the crew are great people that are pretty laid back and easy to get along with. Its a vacation. Some shows work you 18 hours in wind and rain with a dickhead director screaming at you, a DP that runs his camera crew into the ground, crew getting fired and tempers flaring, tenseness on set all the time, budget cuts and massive scandals, all that bullshit--that stuff happens more than regular people realise on a typical movie, and the prequels had none of that, so thats why most of the cast and crew just take the shitty content in stride and move on to their next project.
Post
#295655
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295655/action/topic#295655
Time
Well, thats how the industry uses the term; a 1.78 (16x9) image is called anamorphic for the simple reason that not calling it such implies a letterboxed image. The anamorphicness comes from the dual encoding for 4x3 TV's i believe, since the image will be squished to fill-by-letterbox or stretch to fill-by-fullframe depending on your TV. I think. Its a bit confusing.

Regarding the previous post I made about the poor resolution of HD and the prequels--it should be noted that the prequel films arent actually HD res. They are in fact, less than HD resolution--because HD resolution is in a 1.78 native ratio. The 2:35 aspect ratio is achieved by cropping. So, in fact, its a blow-up of a smaller portion of the image.
Post
#295545
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295545/action/topic#295545
Time
The O-neg is no longer the 1977 or 1981 version of the film, it would be configured as it was for the 1997 SE since those altered pieces were put into the O-neg. Thats what Lucas means when he says the "original film no longer exists"--it doesn't in a sense, you would have to take apart the O-neg and re-edit it back to the way it was before the 1997 SE. The pieces that were trimmed or removed I am assuming are back in storage somewhere. Personally I'm not quite sure I'd want the OOT from the O-neg anyway, since I'm sure they would mess up the color timing, though the IP's have probably faded to the point where color correction is necessary anyway--personally I'd love to have that dye-transfer technicolor print that they used for color reference for the 1997 SE.
And yeah, Lowry got the O-neg scanned, thats why it looks so pin-sharp; were it not for the low resolution of the scan it could have looked better than it did in theaters.

As for resolution, 35mm is generally considered to be transferred more or less accurately at 4K, though I believe there are now 8k scanners that would ensure a truely lossless transfer. The 1997 SE changes were only done at 2k because thats all that technology had back then. Its a shame that the prequels were in HD; and not only HD but 2000/2002 HD. Right now I am working on a film that is using the same cameras and lenses that were used in AOTC and the HD tech we have has done nothing but complain about how crappy they look--in our case, we are just doing a TV movie so it is acceptable, but its really sad that the prequels were made with these things. IMO the only camera that I would ever consider using for theatrical release is the Genesis, or perhaps the Arri D20, its the only thing that will hold up on the big screen (but even then it still has that HD look).
Post
#295505
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295505/action/topic#295505
Time
Originally posted by: skyjedi2005


The biggest roadblock i see for either of the two competing HD formats is earlier and classic movies needing to be scanned at HD resolutions and have cleaned up prints or go back to the camera o-negs.

The only viable films I see at the moment would be the recent lowry/dts digital 4k scan of the bond movies that is only on dvd, the 2k scan they did of both the indiana jones movies and the 2004 edition of star wars trilogy.



Most telecines since 2004 have been in HD masters. And it wasnt really until that time that we started getting newly remastered SE's of classic films--Casablanca, Searchers, Ben Hur, Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, etc--so most of them are already done and sitting around. Additionally, an O-neg is not required for HD--very few films go back to the O-neg for a new master, and a 2k or 4k telecine is not necessary since HD can't hold that much info (although purists will argue it makes a difference)--Star Wars OT and Indy, IIRC were only scanned at an HD resolution.

Regarding the previous discussion of anamorphic 16x9--that just refers to stretching an image to fit a certain aspect ratio. Although it is true that there is no stretching in a 16x9 image on a 16x9 screen, because it fills it exactly it would not be considered letterboxed since there is no letterboxing--in that sense its not really anamorphic either since there is no re-sizing but its a better way to describe filling a screen of the same size without any loss. As I said, letterboxing is always necessary since tvs are fixed size and films come in all sorts of shapes--in theaters, the projectionist has to letterbox films too, even though 35mm prints are anamorphic; thats how the same size screen fits a 1.85 film and a 2.35 film without changing the screen, there are drawn curtains that mask the shape of the screen to fit the images, even though the silver screen is "widescreen" and "anamorphic."

And while we're on Superman, I have to reinforce my love and preference for the 2000 cut. The expanded smallville scenes add so much and there is a totally kick-ass action moment where Superman breaks into Lex's lair that is classic Superman; they don't slow down the film, they enrich characters and kick up the pace IMO. The biggest drawback is that the soundtrack is remixed in 5.1 and has a lot of new sound effects--to people who have the film memorized the new sounds seem jarring but actually considered objectively they are excellent additions to the sometimes-dated sound mix. Terminator had a similar remix in 5.1 wherein a few sound effects were replaced--people who know the film might be thrown off, but a lot of the times they add an appropriate punch.
Post
#295294
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295294/action/topic#295294
Time
Originally posted by: canofhumdingers
this may come as a shocker to some of you guys asking about the "letterboxed" bluray stuff.... any movie you have on standard dvd that is anamorphic, but wider than 16x9, is also letterboxed. it's just not letterboxed AS MUCH as a non anamorphic dvd... So, the bluray stuff being "letterboxed" is really no different than the way they do standard anamorphic dvds....

Exactly what I said before. The only 100% anamorphic image is a film with an aspect ratio of 16x9 (which I believe is 1.78). As it drifts away from this, letterboxing becomes necessary, whether it is getting narrower (ie 1.66 will have slight side letterboxing, 1.54 will have even more) or if its getting wider (ie 1.85 will have slight top/bottom letterboxing, 2:35 will have more). Its just logically impossible to do it any other way since a widescreen television has a fixed aspect ratio and films come in all sorts of tiny variances. 16x9 was chosen because it was considered the best medium since it is between the American and European academy standards (1.66 vs 1.85), thus is was the best overall choice to minimise letterboxing effect. Personally they should have just gone with the american standard since wider is being more and more accepted.

To get back on topic in regards to movies wider than 16:9, since it's being shot in 35mm either way aren't we not really "losing" any lines of resolution unless the movie was shot in 70mm?


I'm not sure if I understand what your asking. Are you suggesting that a totally true-anamorphc HD image would be equal to the 35mm original? HD is about equal to 16mm in resolution (though IMO its actually not as good), but without the aesthetic advantages of 16mm; there seems to be a myth that HD is better or equal to 35mm film but its a total fabrication of marketing, as 35mm is roughly four times the resolution of HD, to say nothing of the technical limits and aesthetic flaws of video.
Post
#295221
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295221/action/topic#295221
Time
Regarding a 2:35 image on a 16x9 screen, its both anamorphic and letterboxed since its the only way to get an image of a different shape to fit on the screen--so yes, the tiny black bars are letterboxed. Instead of with a normal 4x3 tv where the whole image is letterboxed, 16x9 tvs can display as much of the image anamorphically as the screen permits with the remainder thus having to be letterboxed--films shot 16x9 can be true anamorphic, 1:85 will have tiny, tiny letterboxing, 2:40 will have slightly more letterboxing, and if you watch Ben Hurr in its OAR it will look even more letterboxed.
Post
#295197
Topic
UFOs and Aliens
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295197/action/topic#295197
Time
Based on statistics, we could not possibly be the only intelligent race in the vast universe. Its practically guaranteed. But what people don't realise is that, based on statistics, not only is it virtually guaranteed that we are not alone, its even more likely that we'll never meet them. The amount of planets, vast distances of travel, and relatively short life spans of species pretty much shows that we'll forever be millions of years and billions of lightyears apart from one another, totally ignorant to our mutual existance. At best we should hope to discover signs of life, such as ancient (by the time they reach us) transmissions through space, or perhaps one day primitive wildlife on a planet. As far as alien abductions and UFOs, based on the one in a billion-trillion-trillion odds of another super-intelligent species contacting us and not only that but secretly experimenting on us, the most virtually guaranteed stat of all of these is that the few isolated reports are simply cooks and liars, people with psychological disorders that genuinely believe such experiences happened, and most importantly confidential military technology of various sorts. I mean theres a reason that the hot-spot of all UFO's is a top-secret freaking military base! People don't put two and two together.
Post
#295196
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295196/action/topic#295196
Time
I never heard anything about Rinzler tackling ESB or ROTJ. Are you sure about this? I think you may be mistaken. Indy is definitly in development--he has said that this is his next project is Lucasfilm lets him, and based on the strong sales and critic reaction to his SW book, I suppose we'll get an Indy book in a few years years.

The Star Wars Vault book comes out in the fall and is a sort of sampling of the Lucasfilm archives Star Wars material as far as I understand. It looks sort of interesting but pricey, but I'll bite because I'm a sucker for this stuff.
Post
#295195
Topic
Part VII VIII and IX
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295195/action/topic#295195
Time
Lucas will never make the sequels. Maybe someone else one day will, but I'm quite certain that Lucas will never never direct another motion picture, nor have many major projects once the current lineup of Indy4/Redtails/CloneWars/Live-action-SW is over with in 2014 or so. He'll be 70, his health will be failing, and he will retire and live his last years enjoying life before he croaks from diabetes-related matters around age 75. He'll never direct those "personal films" of his, he'll never make more Star Wars films, and there will be a ton of attention to the rights to Star Wars when he dies since they are owned by Lucasfilm and hence him; he'll appoint some CEO in his will to run the company, give instructions not to remake or sequelise the existing films nor release the OOT in a competitive, form, all of which will be ignored in due time and history will look back on him with a confused mix of admiration and derision. Honestly, thats the way the future will likely go.

If we see any sequels, we'll probably be old men ourselves when that finally happens, as I imagine a good decade or so would have to pass after Lucas' death before the lengthy and controversial negotiation and development begins, and even then there is a fair chance that the films will suck only slightly less than if Lucas had done them himself. My estimate is that it would be close to 2040 or so before we see new Star Wars films on the big screen. It will happen.
Post
#295120
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295120/action/topic#295120
Time
Originally posted by: ronlaw
Just a small note, because it's kind of ironic and also could cause some confusion in future:

Blu-ray and HD-DVD are always letterboxed!

That is to say: there are no anamorphic formats defined, which means that no movie wider than 16:9 ratio can use the full resolution of 1080. They must always be letterboxed, encoding the black bars as part of the signal (albeit highly compressed).

This is a bit ridiculous, IMO, since this means you will rarely if ever get 1080 lines of actual signal even though it's in "1080p". For the moment it's not a problem as it's still an advance over DVD, but not as much as it should have been.


This is not so. Films with an aspect ratio wider than 16x9 obviously have to be since they are wider than "widescreen"/16x9 sets, otherwise you would have to crop it to fill it. So yes, a film that is 2:35 is obviously going to have a slight letterbox since there physically is no way to accomplish it, but the films are still encoded in an anamorphic 16x9 image. The only other option would be to make 2:35 TV sets, but then you would be complaining about the letterboxing on all movies narrower than that aspect ratio, which are far greater in number than the ones in 2:35.
Post
#295056
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295056/action/topic#295056
Time
Originally posted by: Mike O
Originally posted by: generalfrevious
Anyways, the future of the OOT can be best explained by these two words: letterboxed Blu-ray


Ever heard the epresson "If can't say anything constructive don't say anything at all ." Your unflagging optimism gives us all so much hope. Besides, LFL may bypass HD altogether.


If thats the case we can say hello to the OOT circa 2020, when 2K formats start coming out on home video.
Post
#295045
Topic
Who got their membership pkg and "letter" from George Lucas?
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/295045/action/topic#295045
Time
I'm pretty sure Lucas was tactfully speaking out against fan-edits and the like: "I know you guys love my films and think you own them, but please put your creative energies into your own original projects." I was kind of surpised that he actually commented on the matter; seems kind of sad, like an acknowledgement that our edits and preservations are actually causing concern for him.

As far as the Insider goes, that magazine has been shit for years. When it first started in 1995 it was awesome, and into Episode I it was pretty cool too; they changed publishers in 2002 and it took a serious dive and I stopped reading it, but at least it was the only official source of info regarding the new films. Not only did it continue to slide in quality, but now that theres no new films whats the point? When it first started it had interviews with Hamill and the guy who played Red Leader, it had a report on the Lost Cut, it had Anthony Daniels Wonder Column, it had a lot of good features--the stuff on the new action figures, comics and conventions was in there but only as small, filler columns. Now its pretty much all there is, unless you want to know about some crappy prequel cross-section schematic. Whatever.

Star Wars fandom has become serious stupid since the prequels, and its really pushing me away. I had absolutely zero interest in C4 and you would think that its something fans should be interested in. But 100,000 nerds in stromtrooper costumes eager for footage from some new shitty computer game, a DVD screening of the fucked-up SE's and the PT, and a half-hearted panel with Rick McCallum isn't exactly thrilling. I was surprised to see that Lucas showed up but it was more of a courtesy "thank you and goodbye".
Post
#294653
Topic
I say forget the OOT on DVD, lets target HD-DVD/Blue Ray Now
Link
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/294653/action/topic#294653
Time
Originally posted by: lordjedi


This site http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom080507/index.php would disagree with you. Since inception, the market has been at a steady 60:40 Blu-Ray to HD-DVD. Some weeks the numbers go up, others they go down, so it's been pretty balanced. 40% may not sound like much, but even if only 100,000 players have been sold between the two, that gives HD-DVD 40,000 players. The market is far from decided.

What other retailers, besides Blockbuster, have stopped selling HD-DVD? Blockbuster is the only one I know of. Target is scheduled to have an endcap of Blu-Ray players for the Christmas season, but Walmart is going to have an exclusive HD-DVD display.

Both Microsoft and Sony essentially dumped cheap players, at a loss, on the market. Or do you really think that a PS3 only cost $600 to produce when every other BD player at the time was pushing $1000? Everyone with a PS3 and everyone with an XBox 360 with the HD-DVD add on is watching movies on their respective formats.

Until I found that site, which was linked from blu-ray.com, I thought HD-DVD was surely dead. Now, I'm not so sure. Depending on what happens this Christmas, they both might be around for a long time to come.



Well, 60-40 is not totally accurate. True, a "total disks sold since the format's debut" is actually 60-40 in favor of Blu Ray--but thats because HD-DVD was around for months before Blu Ray, giving it not only a big head start but a head start with zero competition, so it racked up a big number of sales stats. A truer indicator of trends is the weekly and monthly stats. Browsing through the Nielsen Videoscan sales numbers for the month of July you get a much wider gap: week one 66-34 in favour of Blu Ray, week two 61-29, week three 74-26, week four 66-34. The "sales since inception" numbers are decieving because HD-DVD was the sole HD format long before Blu Ray showed up. The stats for this year are actually 67-34, which shows how things have averaged out once Blu Ray showed up, and the weekly/monthly numbers are usually slanted more towards a 70-30 margin, with 75% figures not being uncommon for Blu Ray. If you look at the trend it was 60-40 in favor of HD-DVD when Blu Ray first came out, 50-50 last christmas, then 60-40 in favor of Blu Ray in the spring and now since the summer its edging towards a 70-30 gap. It just keeps growing.

And although its true that Sony is probably taking some losses in its PS3, thats really nothing at all compared to HD-DVD. Number one, a PS3 costs about $600, while the XBOX with add on is about $500 altogether, but then its more costly for Microsoft to manufacture two seperate pieces of equipment, so its more costly to begin with and a solid $100 bucks less (and I think more now). So those losses are greater, right off the bat, but thats not the primary issue. The primary issue is that Toshiba's players are $300 right now--thats an enormous loss, about half the selling price of Blu-Ray players. Although Sony is going for some loss with the PS3, Microsoft has encurred bigger losses with its XBOX and even more significantly Toshiba is suffering huge losses, so much greater that to compare it to Sony is pretty inapt. And even though Sony may be taking a bit of a sting in the hopes of it paying off later (which it seems to have as many Blu Ray buyers are PS3 owners), but Sony is not the sole manufacturer of Blu Ray--if they lose out, which they aren't, then it doesn't matter because there is a half dozen other manufacturers like Pioneer. HD-DVD on the other hand, aside from the XBOX, does not have third-party manufacturers--Toshiba is at such great losses that no other partner could compete. How could anyone else hope to make $300 players? It would bankrupt the company. Toshiba can do it because they are in partnership with Mircrosoft and thats all thats keeping them from being ruined. But the players sales are still doing terrible; thats why they cut the price in half, but even this can't save it because at the end of the day paying an extra $300 is not important for a long range investment in a great new format, and thats why people shell out a couple bucks more for Blu Ray.
The HD-DVD Promotional Group initially hoped to sell 2.5 million units by the end of the year--but sales were so bad they cut prices in half and then hoped to make half that initial number; now they've revised that, hoping not to break 1.8 million units but to cross the 1 million barrier, which it looks like they may not even accomplish! I would say thats pretty embarassing. So the hardware sales are proportional to the abysmal software sales.

Additionally, as I pointed out, many retailers aren't stocking HD-DVD anymore. Target isn't, BJ's Wholesale Club isn't and Blockbuster won't carry them, which is huge. And as this happens, the HD-DVD sales figures will continue to plummet and more stores will stick with Blu Ray only. As for Walmart, they carry HD-DVD and had an HD-DVD display earlier this summer but they carry Blu Ray too, and actually it looked to me that they had more Blu Ray titles in stock, and certainly much more players available (fitting since there are so many different models, whereas HD-DVD only has what Toshiba makes--which is another huge strain on an already KO'd company).

Don't be fooled, HD-DVD lost this format war a number of months ago. When the Blu-Ray exclusive Close Encounters delux edition comes out this christmas along with Blu Ray versions of the Matrix trilogy, Spiderman Trilogy and Blade Runner Final Cut, you will see these 70-30 figures spike up closer to 80-20.