No Total HD Until 2008

Warner Bros. has announced they will not be introducing their Total HD discs until at least 2008. Total HD is a new format that will be able to carry both an HD DVD and a Blu-ray version of a movie on one disc. The downside to this, unfortunately, is that the discs will cost a little bit more than individual format discs. Warner believes it is a good concept, since buyers will guarantee themselves a copy of the movie on whichever format finally wins the format war.

Does the decision to delay the release of the discs indicate problems creating them or perhaps that Warners believes that a winner in the format war may come sooner rather than later? The only hint given was in this statement by Warner Senior Vice President Steve Nickerson: "We’ll do it when it makes sense and when it's right."

Blockbuster Goes Blu

The largest movie rental chain in American made a stunning announcement when they stated they would only be renting Blu-ray high definition titles in their brick and mortar stores and would no longer be supporting the HD DVD format.

However, those using the Blockbuster online service to rent movies will still have the option between Blu-ray and HD DVD. According to Blockbuster, customers have been choosing Blu-ray over HD DVD 70 percent of the time. Senior Vice President of Blockbuster, Matthew Smith told the Associated Press that “The consumers are sending us a message. I can't ignore what I'm seeing.”

Blockbuster’s numbers reflect national sales, in which Blu-ray is outselling HD DVD by about a 3 to 1 margin.

Toshiba Lowers Sales Expectations

Toshiba had once claimed they'd sell 1.8 million units of their HD DVD players in 2007. Not anymore. Toshiba cut their 2007 projections by a whopping 44 percent, and now claims that they'll only sell about 1 million units before the year is out.

This announcement comes on the heels of some major price slashing by Toshiba on its HD DVD players, but even the great prices can't seem to close the Blu-ray gap. Even though an impressive 60% of stand-alone players sold in the last month have been HD DVD players, Toshiba was only able to move about 150 thousand units overall.

Meanwhile, Sony claims they plan to ship 600,000 Playstation 3 units to the United States in 2007. Sony has sold roughly 1.5 million PS3s in the United States alone and over 3 million worldwide. Not great for a new gaming unit, but good for Sony, since every sale is another home with a Blu-ray drive in it.

Despite having more expensive stand-alone players, Blu-ray software releases continue to outsell HD DVD by about a 3 to 1 margin.

Sparrow Stomps Neo In Hi-Def Showdown

A lot of eyes were on HD DVD and Blu-ray sales during the past few weeks as two popular franchises were released on each of the formats. For HD DVD, it was the release of the Matrix Trilogy (along with a bigger, more bonus-filled Ultimate Matrix Collection); while Blu-ray had individual releases of the first two Pirates Of The Caribbean films.

According to a report by Home Media Magazine, the two Pirates titles were the big winners, and by a huge margin. Combined, the Blu-ray versions of Curse Of The Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest sold 47,000 units in its first week of release, compared to only about 14,000 units of the two Matrix sets (combined).

While one can argue that the individual Pirates releases were much cheaper than the Matrix boxed sets (although there's only about a $30 difference between the combined Pirates titles and the less expensive of the two Matrix releases), the vast difference in sales numbers shows that Blu-ray was the clear winner in this battle.