Sony's Balance Sheet: "Competing HD Formats down 100%"

Posted by Rob Beschizza, September 4, 2008 5:05 AM | permalink

Just fantastic. From CrunchGear.

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#1 posted by shutz , September 4, 2008 7:05 AM

I love how these people can selectively omit data to make their charts look better.

Competing HD formats? How about Netflix's streaming service? How about Microsoft's movie rentals? How about Bittorrent?

And if they're discussing physical media-based formats, isn't there a competing HD format in China? I can't remember what it is, but afaik, it hasn't been supplanted yet. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this front.

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#2 posted by Rob Beschizza

, September 4, 2008 7:35 AM

The problem with the Chinese formats is a philosophical one: no-one will use them outside of China.

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#3 posted by Enochrewt , September 4, 2008 8:37 AM

Hey, you gotta say you won somehow...

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#4 posted by brassmule , September 4, 2008 9:19 AM

I still buy HD-DVDs. Looks great on the HDTV using the HTPC with the xbox360 HD-DVD drive I got for 40 bucks, modded to fit inside the case, plus now most of the discs are on mega-sale.

Chinese format is Pb-DVD, right?

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080729-chinese-hd-format-its-blue-but-not-blu-ray.html

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#5 posted by SamF , September 4, 2008 12:01 PM

How is Netflix's streaming service a competing HD format? I wasn't aware I could stream from Netflix to my 1080p HDTV. I've read that they're planning on it. But until they can deliver better-than-DVD quality to my TV, I wouldn't consider it a competing format.

And with the Chinese format, as large a market as there is for pirated movies, you need studio releases to sell a format, and I doubt too many US studios are going to release their movies on a format that is ripe for piracy.

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#6 posted by Enochrewt , September 4, 2008 12:45 PM

#5: Netflix doesn't do HD yet but they're working on it.

A better example might be that there's HD movies available on the Xbox 360 marketplace currently, how are these not competition? Is it because it's a "rental" and not ownership?

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#7 posted by mdhatter

, September 4, 2008 12:56 PM

I believe that "-100%" is corporateese for pwned.

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#8 posted by jungleFish , September 4, 2008 1:11 PM

@ SAMF, @ ENOCHREWT :

And don't forget the Amazon/TiVo movie download service. I use it regularly. Once broadband becomes ubiquitous, I can see this type of service supplanting BluRay in a matter of months.

I like how Sony can gloat over this "accomplishment" as if they've never lost a format war. BetaMax? MemoryStick? -100% indeed.

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#9 posted by shutz , September 4, 2008 4:05 PM

Broadband can't become ubiquitous until all the service providers (and the other big companies and organizations that manage the backbone) get fatter pipes so that a small percentage of users who fully use the bandwidth they're provided don't saturate the network, instead of throttling said users.

If VOD services over the Internet become popular, the ISPs will find that Bittorrent and other P2P protocols aren't the only causes of high bandwidth usage.