ELECTRONICS retailer JB Hi-Fi has thrown its weight firmly behind Blu-ray in the coming high-definition DVD format war, announcing it will only stock Blu-ray products.

Speaking at the official launch of Blu-ray in Australia by the Australian Blu-Ray Disc Working Group, JB Hi-Fi marketing manager Scott Browning said Blu-ray technology and discs would be the only high-definition format the chain would support, apart from selling drive units for the Xbox 360 console which will support the rival HD-DVD format.

He said 10 per cent of the floor space at the chain's stores would be devoted to Blu-Ray technology and titles by the year's end.

He predicted this would probably increase to 30 per cent by Christmas 2008.

At present in Australia, Blu-ray players are available from such manufacturers as Samsung and Panasonic, while Toshiba is the only company selling HD-DVD players.

These will be joined next month by Sony's Blu-ray equipped PlayStation 3 console and the Xbox HD-DVD drive from Microsoft.

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,21225059%5E15306,00.html

Wonder how much Sony paid them for that.

they just gave them 1 PS3 for free


























Oh Snap!

hmmm.....this is largely part i'm sure to the fact that toshiba and JB-HiFI aren't that close any more, and since toshiba are the only people that have a HD-DVD player at the moment, i wonder how much tha thad to do with it

No HD TV ... No Care ...

And given the VHS v Beta war ... JB could really have signed a death warrant there.

VHS v Beta war

Most people on the itarwebs these days aren't even old enough to think of beta as anything other than a microsoft or EA term for a half arsed release.

Sadly, I am on of the ones without biological read error

whilst id love to get into an arguement as to which is better blue-ray or hddvd, i still cant help but feel we are progressing to a new media too quickly.

^^agreed. I only just established a really good DVD collection!

I play my dvd's on a s***ty generic play-all dvd player that cost under $100, on a 51cm crt flatscreen tv, and i "backup" my dvd's in 5minutes on the computer with an 80cent blank disk on a DVD burner that costs like $45 these days.

Reason to upgrade to blueray/HDDVD? Zero.

I think it will take ages to catch on. Disks are disks to the general public, and unless u have a sweet ass tv there'll be no difference so I can't see anything getting popular until HD TV's have saturated the homes of all Australians.

I'll third groydis on that.
I doubt JB are gambling on a winner in the HD race, as it won't be “Won” for at least a year or more yet. What I can't understand is why JB would jeopardize sales and profits so blatantly.
There must be more going down behind the scenes. A deal with some other company to get Blueray players cheaper than competitors?
HD DVD and Blueray sales will be neck&neck for a while yet, there is no point in tossing out a whole market.

last edited by Lynx at 00:48:57 15/Feb/07

Maybe because JB already make a s*** load of money on CD's, DVD's, Games, Car sound, home theater and all that other hardware that backing one new gen media, even a failing one, wouldn't matter too much. When it's becoming more common to spend a five digit figure on your home theater set up, one company making a firm stand in this uncertain market could be a good idea in that it would give buyers a bit more confidence.

Edit: Shoddy typing

last edited by Crizane Tribal at 01:19:08 15/Feb/07

i was in JB at Kedron only last week and saw the Poo-Ray being played on a HD TV. I can't say it was a 'spoot in your socks' leap over standard DVD players. Never the less, it was 15 to 20% better. Shame the price wasn't 15-20% higher than a standard DVD player.

last edited by sLaps_Forehead at 02:19:30 15/Feb/07

Not sure if this is just me but the all the blue-ray movies that were playing on the 1080p LCD panel all seemed reaaaaally overly saturated, maybe Chermside JB had their panel incorrectly configured.

However, I agree that picture quality in terms of sharpness and contrast were better than DVD - not the "DVD better than VHS" picture quality however. To most everyday Joes I don't think it'll impress them that much, well maybe not ones that last more than 10minutes anyway. Especially considering that they'd have to go out and rebought the movies they're already owned on DVDs to get that 10-15% improvement in picture quality.

I for one am not going to go out and rebuy all of my movies again to only get a marginal improvement.

Most people on the itarwebs these days aren't even old enough to think of beta as anything other than a microsoft or EA term for a half arsed release.

Sadly, I am on of the ones without biological read error

matey, i still remember my video store having a beta section

And who's gonna invest in blue ray or hd dvd player+dvd's now when in a year or 2 one of the formats will be dominating and if u picked the wrong one then you're stuffed!

Of course they're going to expect to be able to charge $40-$60 for a new DVD on BD - meaning there's no way I'll bother with it.

I really don't care if there's so much detail I can see an actors nose hairs.

There's no way I'm gonna blow cash on a new player. After watching stuff leeched off the net for god knows how long I really don't give a f*** if the picture is clearer. And there's no way in hell I'm replacing my current DVD collection with the new format.

heh. jb hi-fi.

personally i'll wait till the dust settles then buy a player that does blu-ray, hddvd & regular dvd. i definitely won't be getting rid of my regular dvd's too quickly as, for my eyes, the quality is fine.


[edit] does anyone else get no images when you return to the thread ofter a post? the first time i reload the thread after a post all images are red x's... but a refresh resets them all :/

last edited by demon at 10:05:09 15/Feb/07

I'm always interested into why retailers do things like this. Surely its in their interests to stock as many products as a) they can fit on shelves and b) that will sell.

yeah I'm in no hurry to jump on next gen DVD, my tv only does 720p and normal DVDs played on the 360 look great. No chunkiness no blurriness

JB sell alot of Sony Gear.. I wonder what the terms were.. Sounds like it could be a very timely and profitable deal for JB!

I say bring it on, HDTV (in whichever format) is just sooo much better than DVD on a phat screen.

Trog: Deals done between retailers and manufacturers - Sony say "if you buy this much, then you'll get this many extra points on each unit sold". JB spend up to get the deal...leaving little left for everything else...no room for Toshi or whomever to counter the deal. All this is covered publically with a "We back Sony" statement.

But then, Sony are bullies. And retailers are vampires to manufacturers.


Demon: The Broadcom chip allows for hybrid playback - the first hybrid player is on sale here now from LG - still costs a little more than an HD-DVD player + a PS3, but it's a start. I'll certainly be looking into the 2nd gen players with this technology.

I still remember my beta player!

Ain't no way I'm going anywhere near this new fancy HD DVD shinanigins for quite some time, I just can't see the point in wasting all that cash.

Man, jillions of TV stations still use beta, if one of these fails they can pwn them off to TCN9 or whatever.

Someone needs to get that video of simpsons episode where snake steals the beta video player "Oh no, beta"

What happened with JB's shares??

^ They are owning, i shoulda bought more.

Man, jillions of TV stations still use beta, if one of these fails they can pwn them off to TCN9 or whatever.

Do not confuse Betamax (consumer version which lost to VHS) with Betacam SP, Betacam SX, or Digital Betacam.

^ He's right. They're not in the same league, the pro-version is far superior than the consumer version. They only have similar name is all.

I just heard a terribly biased piece of what sounded like blatant advertising on newsradio about this where they interviewed some JBHIFI guy and it sounded almost like if you wanted to watch high definition movies you needed a bluray player, since it had the backing of the 'majority of hollywood studios', and 'normal movie watching people like you and i' would want a bluray player and something about 'vast back catalog', whereas HD DVD was more for people wanting to produce their own content on their computers. And something about wanting one for the amazing graphics required in modern consoles.

If the first thing you heard about Bluray was that article, which seemed to be targetting baby boomers, then it almost sounded like something you did to your TV. HTF they managed to through console gaming in to that piece i do not understand.

And the lead in made it sound like bluray was overwhelmingly winning the war in australia. I know there was some stats on dvd sales released today for 2006, and that it had some mention of next gen dvds but i haven't seen any numbers from it so can't confirm if that is the case. With the price of the 360's HD player being so reasonable it's going to be hard to see how it could lose in this country.

last edited by natslovR at 11:02:08 16/Feb/07

Yeh, that sure is why the mass market media is lame; how many drones are going to believe that now because it was on the amazingly authoritative radiolomatron!

I will stab [over the interwebz] the next person who calls it "Blue-ray".

whats Blue-ray?

With the price of the 360's HD player being so reasonable it's going to be hard to see how it could lose in this country.

Thats the clincher.. its a wonder sony didn't approach the whole thing like they did the ps2.. mums and dads get to watch their movies for the same price if not cheaper (DVD player wise) and the kids shut the f*** up because they've got something to play games with.. pricing the ps3 out of the market the way in which they have is quite silly...