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Majority Of Customers Prefer Blu-Ray

bonch writes "A poll shows Blu-ray as the preferred choice, as conducted by Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates. Customers were given a side-by-side comparison of HD-DVD and Blu-ray. The results were that 58 percent of the 1,200 polled chose Blu-ray, and 26 percent were undecided. Generally speaking, HD-DVD is preferred by those seeking to reduce manufacturing costs while Blu-ray is preferred by those more interested in features and data storage." Sony's PS3 is to use the Blu-Ray format.

18 of 413 comments (clear)

  1. Uh-huh. by Musteval · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And what percentage were convinced by the cool name and blueness, rather than the fact that one is slightly different?

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    1. Re:Uh-huh. by agraupe · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Umm... probably 80-100%. That's the point of marketing. Whatever speeds its adoption is a good thing, because it is technically superior.

  2. Pepsi Challenge by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This isn't like one of those setup Pepsi challenges where they would shake up a bottle of Coke making it flat so the people would choose Pepsi is it?

    Now why is it I think that all side-by-side comparisons can be equated to the Pepsi challenge? Well with a rhetorical question I'll be the one that answers it for you. If you're seeking a certain result you will find it; thus, whatever side-by-side comparison done always seems like a Pepsi challenge whereby the results are skewed by either a deliberate or unconscious malicious act in some way.

  3. History Repeats... by Manip · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If history of technology has shown us anything, in a two horse race the cheapest normally wins unless their is a VERY good reason for it not to.

    This might be one of those cases; HD-DVD seems perfectly capable as a higher capacity DVD; why would people want to pay a premium for a few more features about 10% higher quality?

    1. Re:History Repeats... by Keebler71 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      You are right on. What people "want" or "prefer" is largely irrelevant. What they will pay for is all that matters.

      For instance, almost everyone I know complains about Southwest Airlines - particularly the dreaded "Cattle Call" seating assignments... yet when push comes to shove (pun) their planes are full of paying passengers and they are the only major airline to post a profit every quarter since 9-11.

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  4. From the very start of TFA by Lord+of+the+Wazz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A poll conducted by the group backing the Blu-ray next-generation DVD standard shows that the technology is supported by a majority of consumers, putting rival HD DVD on the defensive.

    Shock horror, the Blu-ray guys have come up with a poll that says their product is better. Next story please...

  5. Re:How much of it is just the name? by DigitumDei · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yes, and right now its just the name of the hardware.

    I bet whichever format gets more of the "cool stuff" to begin with will more than likely be the format that wins, regardless of the actual technology.

  6. If it were up to the customers... by Jjeff1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    On DVD's we wouldn't have to sit thru FBI warnings or have region restrictions, or not allowed to fast forward thru scenes.
    That survey is good to make people think they're being listened to. They're not.

  7. Of course they prefer it. by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blu Ray has a sexier name. HD-DVD sounds like somethign for an IBM PC.

  8. Re:How much of it is just the name? by theNote · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Kind of reminds of when you had to decide whether you were going to get DVD+R or DVD-R discs.
    Now you can get a dual format drive for less than $50 and not have to worry about it.
    I'm guessing after a little while we'll see the same thing happen with the new formats and nobody will care which one you're using.

  9. Re:How much of it is just the name? by dsginter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Blu-Ray" is easy to remember, and does not sound like much anything else.

    Unfortunately, the plan is to call it a "BD-ROM" or "BD-RAM", depending on rewritability. I can see it now:

    CD-ROM
    CD-R
    CD-RW
    DVD-ROM
    DVD-R
    DVD-RW
    DVD +R
    DVD+RW
    BD-ROM
    BD-R
    BD-RW
    BD+RW
    HD-DVD
    HD -DVD-R
    HD-DVD-RW
    HD-DVD+RW

    I think the plan is to get the consumer to actually pass out when shopping for media. Then, the store clerks will just steal their wallets.

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  10. Feature List by bigmurd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds like they missed the price tag out of the feature list. If you compared the feature list of Fords and Ferraris, you'd expect people to want the Ferrari more - but what do people buy? Getting slowly annoyed with these skewed PR surveys. Surely press hacks must be getting bored of filling space with meaningless copy?

  11. Re:How much of it is just the name? by jacexpo069 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Right, like how the name FIREWIRE blew the jumble of letters USB2 right out of the water, even if it was technically superior

  12. Re:the geeks will decide by Blkdeath · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Seeing how most consumers don't own televisions that support hi-def content, the only people who will care about Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD are the geeks, folks who are likely to understand the difference and who will extract benefit from one format over the other. Joe Sixpack is perfectly happy watching his full frame flicks that he rents from Blockbuster on his 27" set.

    I'd be careful there; with no payments until 200x, no interest equal payments for 24/36 months, etc. you'd be surprised what kind of home theatre Joe Sixpack has in his house. 52" Hi-Def screen, 7.1 digital receiver with pre-amp, 1000w tower mains, 100w sub-woofer, 5-disc DVD player connected with Monster Component video and digital optical audio cables, XBox and PS2 with A/V upgrade pack, RFI filtering power centre, ...

    In short Joe Sixpack has a better theatre setup than I do.

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  13. I'm not so sure about Sony by tkrotchko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "I don't think Sony is about to repeat their Beta experience."

    They certainly haven't learned from their ATRAC experience.

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  14. Re:Consumers also thought beta was better than VHS by almostmanda · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, VHS won because Sony wouldn't license porn. But, with the porn UMDs out there that Sony seemed happy to license, it looks like they have learned from their mistake on that one.

  15. Re:How much of it is just the name? by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unfortunately, Apple restricted the use of the "Firewire" brand name in the early days, so most PC implementations were forced to use the unsexy "IEEE1394" moniker.

    However, the real reason USB2 was victorious is because it is free technology while Firewire still requires some sort of licensing fee. Hopefully now that Apple and Intel are in bed, they can come to some sort of agreement and 1394 will become a standard PC chipset feature.

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  16. Reliability? by Jugalator · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Generally speaking, HD-DVD is preferred by those seeking to reduce manufacturing costs while Blu-ray is preferred by those more interested in features and data storage.

    Personally, I'm the most interested in a format that can be at least as reliable (preferrably even more) than the DVD-R format. Now that would be something for data archival -- a common format that's reliable as hell. Especially as the storage size keeps increasing, I keep finding this to be an important factor. But for some reason you rarely hear about it in the Blu-ray/HD-DVD debate, but rather just what's more costly. If Blu-ray is more expensive but also clearly more reliable in addition to a greater storage, I'll happily pay at least 50% more for one of those than a HD-DVD.

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