Friday, May 5, 2006
Tepid Interest for Next-Gen DVDs in 2006
Posted by Jeremy Charette in "NEWS" @ 03:00 PM
"A survey of high-volume DVD users by online DVD trading company Peerflix Inc. on Wednesday showed that about one in five may buy high-definition DVD players or discs in 2006...Daniele Levy, Peerflix's vice president of marketing, said the results showed that significant adoption by hard-core users was at least a year off. "We were quite surprised to see that a very small number of those die-hard DVD fans envisioned moving into the high-definition format this year," Levy said. "With all the talk and excitement around high-definition DVD they are still a long way away from moving into that format." Tom Adams, chief executive of Adams Media Research, said the Peerflix numbers were in line with his firm's expectations for early technology adopters. "If you did a random sample of the general population, it would be a fraction of that," Adams said on Wednesday. "These are heavy movie fans that certainly early on will get a player and they are not too concerned about the format war.""
There's no doubt that the low number of early adopters willing to make the leap to high-definition optical discs is due to this ugly format war. If there were one clear standard, and some assurance of continued availability, more consumers would buy into it. But since that isn't the case, even early adopters are steering clear until the dust settles. That's a shame, because I think this is the biggest innovation in home entertainment we've seen in a very long time.
There's no doubt that the low number of early adopters willing to make the leap to high-definition optical discs is due to this ugly format war. If there were one clear standard, and some assurance of continued availability, more consumers would buy into it. But since that isn't the case, even early adopters are steering clear until the dust settles. That's a shame, because I think this is the biggest innovation in home entertainment we've seen in a very long time.
