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Blu-ray Adoption Soft, More Still Own HD DVD
MojoKid writes "A new study by Harris Interactive notes that currently,
one in ten Americans (10%) own an HD DVD player, while just 7% own a Blu-ray player. Crazy, right?
More Americans own HD DVD right now than the 'winning' format, Blu-ray. If you think about it, that statistic isn't that shocking. When HD DVD was around, it was far and away the 'budget' format for high-def. The players were cheaper, the films were cheaper. In other words, it was a format more ready to thrive in a down economy. Blu-ray was always viewed as a niche format for those absorbed in A/V, not the common man's format. The survey also found that on average, consumers purchased approximately six standard format DVDs in the last six months, compared with one in HD DVD format."
People can just download stuff in any format. The industry is confused about this issue. My computer can play just about anything, so screw them.
how many people with a regular up-scaling DVD player think they have an HD-DVD player?
I think what is more telling is the fact that so many people are still buying standard def., original flavor DVD's over Blu-Ray. In some ways, I really think this should come as no surprise.
DVD player in the minivan/SUV: Standard def.
Portable DVD player: Standard def.
The majority of televisions still in the USA: Standard def (digital or otherwise).
Cost of a perfectly capable, plays-all, region free DVD player in the supermarket: $20.
Whichever big-business sector you hate this week (the hardware makers, the movie studios, the publishers, the MPAA, whatever) are pretty much trying to cram a high cost technology down the thoats of people who by majority don't want it, can't use it, or can't afford it.
When Blu-ray player or PS3 owners are asked...
I take it they're counting the two separately, which would show Blu-ray ahead. Am I missing something?
HD-DVD wasn't "budget" from the outset or because of any particular economy in the price of players or disks. HD-DVD cost as much as Blu-ray to start off with and then it went cheap fast when it became clear it was losing the battle. Had HD-DVD emerged the victor I'm sure we would've seen plenty of bargain-priced Blu-Ray deals and a correspondingly disproportionate install base.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
You're only looking at one market segment though - people who still rent from a physical store.
Early adopters and people who have invested in home setups which would make Blu-Ray worthwhile are more likely to rent from other places (Netflix, iTunes) or just buy the movies outright. No point in owning a Blu-Ray player if your only TV is a 10 year old 27" Panasonic tube.
The real telling issue is that less than 20% of US Households have adopted either, and it's been out for years. Frankly, this should be no surprise, the "format war" dragged on for so long that by the time the victor had stepped forth, the market they were fighting for was already passing them by. The migration to HD video on demand, online streaming, and yes, downloading of material makes disk-based distribution an out of date concept who is slowly fading into the past.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
No. The statistics are clearly faulty.
First, 1 in 10 Americans does not own either of these formats. Come on, really? 30 million Americans own HD-DVD players? If Toshiba and their partners had sales like that, the format war would have been over long before it was - in HD-DVD's favor.
Second, this clearly isn't taking into account the 22 million PS3's out there, of which about 12 million are in the United States. This is still the player of choice for most people - at least until that $99 player announced over the weekend comes along. But this is one case where a game console is actually clearly better than most standalone players and most people know it.
HD-DVD is dead. There's no need to wait to see who will win, as that question was answered a year and a half ago when Toshiba (the banner carrier for HD-DVD) announced that they would discontinue all HD-DVD production. According to the wiki article, the entire HD-DVD promotion group was dissolved March of last year. To my knowledge, no one builds a new HD-DVD player; there are a small number of PC drives that include HD-DVD compatibility, but I assume that's because of the low cost of inclusion once the blue laser diodes for Blu-ray are already in the drive. You can not walk into a retail store and find an HD-DVD player unless they found some hidden stock in the back and are clearance selling it for $20. You can't find HD-DVD discs unless the same thing happens. Any movie that's come out since then will never come out on HD-DVD. HD-DVD is dead and voluntarily buried by its own support and manufacturing group.
In summary, there is no more waiting. The race was over last year. You can debate whether the quality improvement is worth the money, and there's some definite complaints to be made about the cost of the discs. If your only concern, however, is which of the formats will win, then there's no reason to continue waiting. Blu-Ray won last year.
It wouldn't surprise me if a substantial number of those saying they have an "HD DVD player" actually own Blu-Ray devices.
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