Live from the Blu-ray press conference

Blu-Ray's press conference has kicked off as planned at 5:04PM.

Here are some of the tidbits that have srung up so far :-

Any Parsons from Andy Parson - Blu-ray Disc Association/Pioneer takes the podium and kicks things off.He introduces the panel which includes; Steve Beeks - Lionsgate, Ron Sanders - Warner Home Video, Bob Chapek - Walt Disney studios, David Bishop - Sony Pictures, and Danny Kaye - Twentieth Century Fox. Andy makes a joke about how Ron is the man who everyone actually wants to talk to, everyone laughs.

5:07PM - The first slide shows that every week and every month Blu-ray Disc outsold HD DVD, but we already knew that,

Andy. Next up is the global market, which is 2:1 as well or 66/34. Hardware sales which includes PS3 give them a 85% share internationally.( in 2007 )

Studio market share is strongly in Blu-ray's favor, with 68.4% while HD DVD only has 22.8% exclusivity.

5:09PM - Danny Kaye from Fox takes the podium, and thanks Andy for "setting up the situation."

During 2007 there was about 170M in disc sales. But in 2008, they expect to see 1 billion -- man we wish we could remember what they were trying to hit last year.

5:13pm - David Bishop from Sony pictures takes the podium and points out that the PS3 they will continue to use bundled titles to help tell everyone that the PS3 is a Blu-ray player. Up till now the focus as been on early adopters, but now they are moving on to everyone, and that is what interactive features are all about.

5:16pm - David reminds us of all the interactive features we saw earlier today and goes on repeating what we already saw.

5:19pm - Bob Chapek, Walt Disney takes the podium and brings up all the issues we know too well about confusion about HDTV. The BDA has been setting in store demos, educational discs.

[hella whip]

Q. Was there a Warner pay off.
A. Ron says "I wish". He says any pay off woudl've been a drop in the bucket so the decision was not related to any payoffs.

[Guwapo77]

Wouldn't it be nice for once to get new information in these press conferences?

[ruibing]

I think it was pretty informational.

1) They expect to sell 10 million more Blu Ray devices by the end of 2008. This is gonna be pretty easy to do since PS3 just needs to match its current year to even reach that mark without standalone players, and we all know the PS3's market share has been growing rapidly lately.
2) Sony tends to use this momentum to help push the PS3 by increasing its interactively with Blu Ray.
3) WB was not paid off for switching to Blu Ray.

The Q&A was very interesting.

[Guwapo77]

I'm sorry bro. But this isn't anything special.

1. Yes putting figures to what they hope they will sell...yeah thats cool. How does this give us anything informational as to something new with the product? Dates on BD-Live release for the PS3... nope nothing along those lines. Basically just for the stockholders...nothing for you/me at all.

2. The entire reason for Blu-Ray being added to PS3 is two fold. a. Extra strong for gaming b. to create the momentum for Blu-Ray format as the successor to DVD. We already know a significate portion of current PS3 owners know about it or the disks wouldn't sell 2:1 - 3:1.

3. WB said it the day before the announcement they weren't paid off.

This press conference was a waste of time. Thank goodness they had some nice things to show off during CES though!! I like that MP3 player thingy.

[Agent 88]

Finally, the superior Blu Ray places a final nail in the format coffin. Blu Ray offers dozens of features not found on the dead format. Experts stated that HD-DVD was "mediocre", "insignificant" and "uninnovative". Now with MS introduction of HD downloads again shows the disparity and down right ruthlessness of the evil empire Microsoft. There will most definitely be a monthly charge of $15 dollars for the download service then an additional $30 dollar charge for the movie itself. HD downloads looks to be dead in the water, with the XBL problems of late. The last time I checked, an internet connection was paramount for downloading. It is safe to say that my Grandchildrens, Grandchildren will probably also chose Blu Ray........

[Account deleted]

bubbles for you....
it was known from the beginning that blu ray is the the true innovation, but companies like toshiba and m$ said that high definition isn't needed, yet they made a half-assed clone, and what do you expect from a clone,even more half-assed, to do?
hd dvd was going eventually to vanish sooner or later, i am glad it is over now, we can have more poeple jumping in the hd bandwagon

[Pandaren00]

hopfully this is the last day that we see this influx blu-ray, hd dvd news, because it's getting quite excessive. >_<

[HondaSIRowner]

Whats funny is that a lot of HD-DVD fanboys think that BR paid off Warner to go exclusive.

Yet, Warner has stated many times that if HD-DVD does not make a big impact on the Hi-def market then they(Warner) will consider going Blu-ray.

BD is the future end of story!

[Figboy]

endgadget always sounds so f*cking *ANGRY when reporting *ANYTHING that is Sony, PS3, or Blu Ray related.

it sounded like there were some interesting things said, but i certainly wouldn't know with comments like "Blah, blah, blah lots of the same, look at the past, we all need to work together -- ok, Steve, we get it."

f*cking assholes.

i didn't realize the source of this story was endgadget, or i would have ignored it.