Slow traction for Blu-Ray

Not much has changed since the HD-DVD format met its demise several months ago. Adoption continues to be slow. And not surprising, since players are still at $400+. They need to be at $200 or below (a milestone HD-DVD hardware had already reached). But according to Sony that won’t happen until the end of next year, at best. In the meantime, most U.S. consumers have at least one DVD player in their house, and many are fairly content with the quality. Sure, an upgrade would be nice, the picture looks great in the store, but not $400 nice. If you have that kind of money to burn on tech and you’re not a gamer, it will go towards iPods or iPhones first.

Sony is not exactly quaking in its boots. HD-DVD is no longer a threat, so Blu-Ray’s competition in the long run is digital distribution via set-top boxes. Right now, HD-quality digital distribution is not a big threat to the Blu-Ray format due to bandwidth constraints and lower margins for the studios on digital VOD rentals vs. higher margins on Blu-Ray discs. Perhaps the biggest threat to Blu-Ray is consumer indifference toward HD-quality content. That gives digital distribution stakeholders some breathing room.

So what’s the bottom line? Much to the dismay of technophiles and video quality purists, Standard Definition is a survivor and may continue to be on extended life support for some time. The extinction of the standard definition DVD is not in sight.

May 15, 2008 | Filed Under Uncategorized 

Comments

One Response to “Slow traction for Blu-Ray”

  1. Dave on June 4th, 2008 12:48 pm

    Looks like Toshiba is at it again…http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Toshiba-introduces-Blu-ray-killer—again.html?news=14684

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