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NPD Group Says "Wait! HD-DVD Isn't Dead Yet"
The NPD group, owners of the not-quite-as-popular-as-they-had-hoped HD-DVD format, attempted to battle back against the tide of "naysayers" who claim that the format war is over and have declared Blu-Ray Disc the winner. "While select articles have implied that HD-DVD as a format is doomed and the sky is falling for the format's supporters, the NPD Group this afternoon reinforced that sales results from a single week do not necessarily indicate a trend, and that the week in question had several intriguing variables that have gone unreported."
They need to get burners to market in mass quantity as well as offer those licenses for free or very very small royalties.
Like pennies per unit. Plus they need to get the consumer on their side. The more hd-dvd players out there the more the industry has to listen. Unfortunately with the economy tanking this is hard. Right now I personally would put money making on the back burner and just look to break even. Make hd-dvd discs cheaper to buy then a normal dvd and make the players cheaper. At that point this whole thing can turn around , with consumer demand the studios have to listen. If smaller studios stick to the format then there really can be a price market , smaller studios usually make lower cost films and don't need to recoup so much back.
The reason I say they need burners in high volume asap, is that whether they like it or not piracy is often times a real boost to sales. It's been proven that it helps.( http://www.stargeek.com/item/41324.html ) ( http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=243454 )
The american and canadian dbs providers , even cable can thank piracy for large subscriber growth. They really should get those burners out in high volumes fast.
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
As an insider I can attest to the fact that the online world has been nailed by one of the most successful viral marketing campaigns ever waged in a digital format war. An unnamed company (or three) got together before the recent announcement by Warner Bros in the weeks before CES to orchestrate this domino effect. The game plan was, in a nutshell, that Warner Bros would announce their support for Blu-Ray (even though they will continue to make HD-DVD for some time) and their subsidiaries would follow closely with announcements. Then it was revealed that Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment and Twentieth Century-Fox Home Entertainment would reaffirm their commitment to the format. This information was fed into the biggest gadget blogs with the underlying message that the war is over. This was parroted near verbatim by submissions to all of the major technology and social bookmarking sites. Major audio video forums had been primed with posters working for the viral marketing firms employed to pull this off. Overnight every major site on the internet along with mainstream media was singing the Blu-Ray song. To make sure the statistics following CES would confirm the "Blu-Ray has won" story manufacturers were heavily discounting Blu-Ray players. This week, much to no ones surprise, this came true.
So why am I sharing this? I am firmly in the Blu-Ray camp but the techniques employed in this war have been rather unethical. Which blog or news agency will be the first to hunt down the facts in this story to confirm my story?
Don't buy it? Then read this article on TechChrunch which describes the same techniques used to market viral videos.