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Xbox Blu-ray rumor surfaces, denied

This is one of those rumors that exists in that little space between asleep and awake. It’s so plausible that no amount of denying it will ever kill it. Maybe you can’t kill rumors, only the people who spread them.

On 8th June the rumor surfaced once again on CrunchGear. The anonymous tipster cited their anonymous source at Microsoft claiming the Redmond, WA company would announce a Blu-ray enabled Xbox one-hour before Steve Jobs took the stage at WWDC. (This actually gives me a great idea; I should post anonymous rumors to drive traffic to this site!)

Obviously this tipster was full of crap, but Microsoft’s Robbie Bach was quick to respond. Shortly after the rumor surfaced the Entertainment & Devices Division President told the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview that it couldn’t be further from the truth.

If you look at the Blu-ray player market, you haven’t seen the acceleration everybody expected (since the demise of HD DVD). It’s not as much about whether all the content is in a Blu-ray format or a HD DVD format. You have to look at how fundamentally compelling the difference is between a progressive scan DVD player and the picture that it can produce and what you get on a high-definition player. The reality is there is some difference, but most people look at it and say, “I am not going to pay extra for that.”

Aside from the usual Microsoft spin that they’re always right and their competition is always wrong, Bach fails to realize that Blu-ray adoption has taken off and is growing quite steadily. But aside from the point, this is a pretty straightforward response without any political two-step around the issue.

With the Playstation 3 now nipping at the heels of the Xbox 360 with Metal Gear Solid 4 just around the corner, most analysts are suggesting the Sony video game console will beat the 360 this generation. The next generation console seems to require a Blu-ray drive. If Microsoft does not join the program this generation it’s mostly probable it will appear in the next console.

As a side note to would-be rumormongers: next time you bring this rumor out please show a little more creativity. This latest one simply took the month-old rumor out of China and changed the source from a Chinese publication to “my friend.” Instead, say there will be a new Media Center Xbox 360 with Blu-ray drive, 7.1 surround system, and looks like the Batmobile from the 1995 Val Kilmer sequel. Now that would be a cool rumor!

Blu-ray replication out-pacing DVD

Our friendly neighborhood Blu-ray spinster Scott Hettrick has posted a press release from Singulus Technologies claiming the demand for dual-layer Blu-ray Disc replicators has surpassed DVD replicator demand at the same compatible age.

Singulus told their stockholders they received orders for 21 Blu-ray dual layer machines in the 1st quarter of 2008.

“This means that the orders for Blu-ray in the first year of the dual layer technology already by far exceeded the volume at the start of the DVD eleven years ago with 17 machines.”

Obviously Scott takes this to mean Blu-ray’s future is bright, however the electronics market is much larger now than when DVD was first released, and clearly the home video and optical storage media markets were much smaller a decade ago. So while the straight numbers show higher sales, the market share is certainly much less.

What is also not mentioned is how much of the DVD replication market share Singulus had back then compared to how much of the Blu-ray Disc replication market share now. If I’m not mistaken, Singulus is one of the few machine suppliers for Blu-ray.

Wal-mart Launching Hi-Def Blu-ray Experience Area

There’s more news coming from America’s number one retailer and its’ Blu-ray Disc plans. Video Business is reporting that Wal-mart will be launching a new “Hi-Def Blu-ray Experience” area in 1,200 locations.

“Within the new ‘Hi-Def Blu-ray Experience Area,’ shoppers will find an increased selection of Blu-ray titles, as well as new models of Blu-ray players from manufacturers Magnavox, Samsung and Panasonic. Previously, Wal-Mart primarily offered Sony Blu-ray hardware in stores.

Underscoring its Blu-ray drive, the chain will hand out $100 gift cards to anyone who buys a Blu-ray player from June 8 through June 14. Shoppers can put their gift cards toward specially discounted Blu-ray titles at Wal-Mart during that week, including $15-priced 3:10 to Yuma, War, Shooter, 300 and The Fifth Element.”

We previously reported that Wal-mart was offering a bonus $100 giftcard with the purchase of a PS3, but now they have extended the offer to include all Blu-ray players from June 8 - 14. This is no doubt a part of Wal-marts’ Father’s Day sale promotions.

With the gift card promotion expanded to all Blu-ray players, one could now pick up a Magnavox NB500MG9 for $298 and get $100 of bonus Wal-mart funds for ‘free’. That’s a pretty low priced Blu-ray player! Even so, I would still recommend a Sony PS3 over any standalone Blu-ray player, even the Magnavox. The PS3 already supports BD Live (BD Profile 2.0) and is guaranteed to receive routine firmware updates, which will add even more new features and capabilities.

On a related note, we are also hearing rumors that Bestbuy will be matching Wal-mart’s promotion, offering up $100 Bestbuy giftcards with the purchase of any Blu-ray player.

Source: Video Business

Get Blu-ray in front of their eyes

Continuing with my free advice to the Blu-ray marketing department, I have some observations related to consumer indifference. Around the blogosphere and online message boards, I’ve heard quite a few people say DVD was good enough. But they haven’t really experienced Blu-ray so how would they know?

This is a problem that Blu-ray Disc Association faces to grow adoption. Why are 45% of HDTV owners aware of Blu-ray and its victory and only 9% planning on buying players? Granted that’s still 4-million HDTV owners planning on buying into Blu-ray this year, but what of the other 16-million plus consumers? That’s the market Blu-ray needs to succeed.

According to NPD’s latest survey, many of the new HDTV owners are planning on buying Blu-ray players for their new TVs, but why are so many HDTV owners still content with standard-def movies?

One reason may be that a survey conducted last year of HDTV owners showed two-thirds of them thought DVD was high-def. Still only a fraction of HDTV owners have a high-def source connected to their TV, including cable, satellite or off-the-air broadcasts. But they must be aware by now that Blu-ray is truly high-def, shouldn’t they?

Late last year Disney and Panasonic did a good job getting Blu-ray Disc in front of consumers with their magical mystery mall tour. This is a good way to get consumer awareness not with just buzzwords but with actual images they can relate to and be impacted by. They need to use examples people can understand, like ask the consumer if they would actually watch Lost on standard cable if they could watch it in high-def. This is a good example and should be used when selling Lost on Blu-ray because they can say, “Now watch Lost the way you remember it - in high-def!”

Nothing is more powerful than a visual presentation, and that is why it’s used so much in board rooms, by door-to-door salesmen, and the Pentagon. But this is better than charts and graphs, it’s moving images we’re familiar with. This is an important part of selling high-def.

What is Super Upconversion?

With the recent rumors of Toshiba challenging Blu-ray once again, I decided to search around a bit online and see what I could find out about the so-called “super upconversion” technology. One of the most interesting tidbits that I found was the following comment from Deadmeat, posted on the dvdtown messageboards.

“The upconversion Nishida’s talking about is “Super Upconversion” or Real-Time Super Resolution technique that has been used in astronomy and by intelligence services for decades. CELL’s computational power allows real-time super resolution processing of SD video to increase its native resolution to 960p, by fusing 9 frames front and back.

The Super Resolution(aka Super Upconversion) output is truely 960p, and journalists who have seen the demo at trade shows like CEDEC and CES vouched that it really worked. Previously, Super Upconversion was scheduled to appear on Sharp and Toshiba HDTV sets only, but the death of HD-DVD changed all that it is now confirmed that Super Upconversion will come to DVD players as well.”

We also found this image on the Japanese website Impress:



My thoughts on this are:

1) A Toshiba plan to compete against Blu-ray with DVD super upconversion is certainly plausable, especially if they continue to avoid Blu-ray technology altogether (which they appear to be doing).

2) Cell processors and the hardware needed to power this technology could be expensive. Toshiba is going to need these super upconversion players priced significantly lower than Blu-ray players in order to have any chance.

3) Is this too little too late? Many consumers are already aware of Toshiba’s massive failure with HD DVD. Would these same consumers be willing to ‘buy’ in to the latest Toshiba hype?

4) I would like to personally witness a demo of this super upconversion video technology. Until then, I won’t draw any conclusions on its’ effectiveness (or lack thereof).

What do you think about super upconversion?

Sources; comment: dvdtown, Image: Impress

AnyDVD HD Discount

Slysoft contacted us to let us know that they are running a promotion for all customers that provides a 20% discount on all of their products (except upgrades and t-shirts), including AnyDVD HD!

This software is the only solution that supports Blu-ray ripping of all discs on the market (including BD+ protected discs) and it is constantly updated to support new protections. If you’ve been thinking about picking up AnyDVD HD, now would be a good time to do it. The promotion ends on Monday, June 16th. No coupon code needed, just visit the Slysoft website.

Toshiba challenging Blu-ray again?

The rumor today is that Toshiba is planning to challenge Blu-ray again, only this time with traditional DVD technology. What’s that you say? Remember when Toshiba left HD DVD in the dust they said they were focusing on upconverting players, and that is exactly what we’re going to see later this year.

But aren’t DVD upscalers already on the market? Yes, they have been for years. Toshiba is claiming their new chip is different. It is using Super-resolution technology to create a 960p image from the original 480i source material. This image will then be scaled to 720p, 1080i or 1080p depending on the TV’s abilities.

Doesn’t this sound like a gimmick? Of course it does. They claim it’s a new “large integrated circuit” (LSI) that converts each frame to high-resolution instantly. This LSI is cheaper than what Blu-ray has to offer so they plan on a full-frontal assault on the Blu-ray market.

How is that different than what they did with HD DVD? I don’t know really. For about a year Toshiba was marketing HD DVD players as a DVD player that made your existing movies look better but also played HD DVD. Now they’re taking out the HD DVD part and saying your existing library of movies will look as good as Blu-ray. Hard to believe, but they’re trying this on for size.

The way they’re marketing this technology may hurt Blu-ray sales, but it seems more of a vendetta than a real challenge. Their real competitors are Silicon Optix (HQV), Anchor Bay (DVDO), Sigma Designs (Gennum), and Genesis Microchip. These companies have been perfecting video scalers since long before the format was first introduced.

The basic math just doesn’t work. Blu-ray begins with six-times the resolution that DVD does. You simply can’t add the fine detail back into the image the compression schemes take out. Maybe Toshiba will join forces with Flexplay to really take on the world.