The war is over- The consumer won?

[Harrison476]

I thought some might find this article interesting:

http://www.nero.com/enu/tutorial-march08.html?NeroSID=310f4926c89f186b8243d527e76c4394

 

[mtrycrafts]

I thought some might find this article interesting:

http://www.nero.com/enu/tutorial-march08.html?NeroSID=310f4926c89f186b8243d527e76c4394

The consumer lost, it seems. and interestingly, unlike the vhs/beta where both carried the same titles, not so with hi def.
So, the mighty corporations won. Again.

 

[BMXTRIX]

I think it covers a lot of bases which have already been discussed to death. The question of technical quality is still very much up in the air since both sides have obvious advatages to each other. I think that for people who just buy discs locally and enjoy them - which is most consumers - then it is just the HDi features which offerred HD DVD any real advantage.

Cost is often used, but consumers chose, this holiday season, to buy the more expensive Blu-ray players at levels which basically eliminated all HD DVD leads built up to that point... and that's completely ignoring The PS3 Effect. Consumers chose to spend more on Blu-ray at a time when Warner was neutral and Universal and Paramount were exclusive to HD DVD. They cleary didn't buy based on price of players... and it's hard to know if Disney/Sony/Fox was really the motivation for people to go Blu. More likely it was the far superior collection of CE choices in the Blu-ray format vs. Toshiba.

At the end of the day, every company is in this for the money. If the studios could make good money on both formats, they would continue to do so. But, the belief I have, and Warner has stated - a single format breeds consumer confidence which encourages adoption and spurs sales.

It follows as a general A/V law - If sales increase, then manufacturing will increase and pricing will decrease as competition within the format grows. We could see the start of that this holiday season... especially from CE manufacturers who deliver the full package of playback, surround, and video. Panasonic, Sharp, Sony, and Samsung will likely be leading that list.

The format war is over, and consumers win when all studios release all titles at the same time, or ahead, of the DVD release. Beyond that, the majority of people that are complaining bought into a format with far less support from day one, from a company that has incredibly high vested interest in the DVD format - and went against the grain of every other major CE manufacturer in the world. Their choice to do so, but HD DVD had the writing on the wall over two years ago and to their credit, they definitely have hindered HDM adoption by the masses.

 

[Djizasse]

More likely it was the far superior collection of CE choices in the Blu-ray format vs. Toshiba.

...

and went against the grain of every other major CE manufacturer in the world. Their choice to do so, but HD DVD had the writing on the wall over two years ago and to their credit, they definitely have hindered HDM adoption by the masses.

Could you care to explain these 2 points? I thought HD-DVD had a bigger collection of titles than BD. I also don't understand how HD-DVD hindered the HDM adoption. Do you mean that by entering the HD market with an alternative, people became confused without knowing what to buy?

 

[BMXTRIX]

Could you care to explain these 2 points? I thought HD-DVD had a bigger collection of titles than BD. I also don't understand how HD-DVD hindered the HDM adoption. Do you mean that by entering the HD market with an alternative, people became confused without knowing what to buy?

HD DVD hit the ground first and Universal was a very strong supporter of the format from day one. This led to HD DVD having far more titles out before Blu-ray hit the ground, but they were coming with 3 major studios only - Warner, Universal, and Paramount.

When Blu-ray hit the ground, they were behind, but leading into last holiday season, they had more movies out, and more major studios through Sony Pictures, Warner, Fox, and the all important Disney. So while some people may have preferred Universal and Paramount titles to those exclusive to Blu-ray, it was indicative that titles from Disney, Fox, and Sony... especially Disney, could sway many buyers into the Blu-ray camp. I think CE support was more of a factor in Q4'2007 than studio support personally.

As for HD DVD hurting adoption, it's more specific to say that the format war itself would hurt consumer adoption. With a lot of early adopters on this site fence sitting, it's no wonder that J6P would not be rusing into a new format with a giant question mark hanging overhead. Instead, we now have a single unifying format that is (in theory) receiving 100% studio support across the board. I think that will be far more close to realized going into this holiday season where we likely will see triple digit percentage gains for Blu-ray sales compared to 2007. It is the effect of a format war, which people can blame on whomever they choose, which has hampered HDM adoption for optical HD discs to this point. Now, it will be entirely on the BDA to get pricing down, keep advertising up, and build brand awareness without a format war to draw attention to things.

I think you really hit it on the head - consumers were confused on what to buy in fear of choosing the wrong format. Some perceived 'cheaper' as more consumer friendly, others perceived 'supported' as more consumer friendly, yet at the end of the day, armed with the knowledge that there was a format war actually in progess, there are still people that are bitter about choosing the losing format.

 

[Djizasse]

I agree with you. This was more of a (stupid) bidding war and Blu-ray was the highest bidder. Let's just hope the hardware prices drop and the format does not die (unlikely due to the PS3 sales and mass studio adoption).

I would love to see HD-DVD as the "winning" format, i prefer it for a lot of reasons. Unfortunately that did not happen, but i'm not bitter, this is just (i hope) a setback. I'll just wait for some price drops and then i'll jump all over it.

Till then i'll just use a 50€ X box 360 drive connected to my PC and get some (cheap) selected discs. I love "collecting" dead stuff (like old Dreamcasts lol).

Now let me check ebay for a sub 100€ A35

 

[stratman]

I thought some might find this article interesting:

http://www.nero.com/enu/tutorial-march08.html?NeroSID=310f4926c89f186b8243d527e76c4394

I re-read the article, I might be wrong on this, but it sounds like the author has an ax to grind. As for Blu-ray, we all know that it has a mountain to climb and frankly the odds are long that it will become dominant over DVD, at least in the short run. As for anticipation, Black Friday will be more interesting than last year, VOD is making headway, prices on BD software needs to start coming down NOW. I'm still neutral as far as hi def vs DVD, I will wait and see how pricing pans out, but the end of the year will be a watershed for Blu-ray, I pray the economy will pull out of it's doldrums, not just for the sake of Blu-ray, but for all our sakes. If the market doesn't stabilize we're in for a rough ride and we don't pack the buying power of J6P. If BD doesn't perform like expected, I won't put it beyond any one of the manufacturers to cut and run starting a daisy-chain effect, leaving Sony holding the bag and the A/V community in the lurch.