Gallant Pig

From a mainstream POV, HD-DVD doesn't exist yet. It's very much in the early laserdisc stage of its life. When you can get a DVD player for $30 at Walmart, people aren't going to rush out and spend $500 for a player. When the players drop in price to $150, you'll see more people take the plunge.

jiggawhat

Of course, all I'm trying to see is if you've seen people in the stores looking at the demos.

RockStrongo

Yes, Ive been to 2 best buys since it came out and both had a display setup on a plasma or lcd screen (40+ inch). I really didnt pay attention to the setup (brand, connection and so on). They were on end caps with the movies stocked under the display.

RockStrongo

The problem is that someon MUST own an HDTV to utilize one of these. Even HDTVs are not mainstream (yet). Whereas a dvd player can go on just about any tv.

AND, of the ones with an HDTV, I bet most dont even have HD programming yet. They are probably impressed with the picture of the standard DVDs.

This is definately a niche market like laserdisc was.

Spiky

These are no more backwards compatible than DVD-to-VHS. We have players with both of those formats in one, if you can call that compatibility. It may not be as obvious, but is essentially the same thing to get DVD and BD/HDDVD compatible. Some have designed this into one laser, others are using 2 in the same machine.

Spiky

You mean to benefit from one of these. They all have outputs for analog TVs.


Only if the software price remains high. Since it is already lower than LD, I think it will be more like DVD. Unless the 2 competitors kill the industry for now and both fail, but that seems unlikely.

RockStrongo

Obviously, BUT if someone were to buy one without an HDTV, they will probably return it saying that it wasnt working.

My point is that this product should be marketed to those with HDTVs. Unlike DVD players at their launch, this is a huge limitation.

penguin42

yep we sell a 106 inch diagonal projector screen for about 350 bucks. there is a smaller 83 inch one for about 150 bucks.

RoboDad

Well, DVD was limited to a degree at first as well. Without some type of direct video input, A TV couldn't accept a connection from a DVD player, and even in 1997, there were a lot of people who owned TVs with nothing but coax input.

As far as the current world, how many HDTVs have been sold in the US the last two years? Every analyst report and prediction I have read indicate that there are already HDTVs in well over 20% of US homes, and that by 2008, that number will exceed 50%. That's over 50 million homes with HDTVs. That doesn't sound too much like a niche to me.

Will all of those HDTVs really benefit from HD-DVD/Blu-ray? Maybe not. But a good marketing campaign could try to convince them that they would.

namja

A quick Google revealed several reports, all which say that 15% of homes currently have HDTV and that less than 50% of those are actually viewing HDTV reception. Only about 6% of the homes actually view TV in HD.

After reading this thread this morning (5 hours ago), I asked a dozen people at work about HD-DVD and Blu-ray, and no one knew that the players were already on sale and only one had even heard of Blu-ray ... and I work for one of the Blu-ray companies Okay, not that funny. Sad really. Sad but true.

RoboDad

I think that is Blu-ray's biggest hurdle. the acronyms "HD" and "DVD" are now so ingrained in peoples' minds that if someone says "HD-DVD", most people will understand the concept, even if they haven't heard of the format. Or, if they see an "HD-DVD" sign in a store, they will (bascially) understand what it means. But with Blu-ray, people are going to need to be taught.

As far as how many homes are watching HD content, that should be irrelevant. If they have "one of them HDTV thingies," and a good marketing push tells them that to take full advantage of it they need to buy the new HD-DVD/Blu-ray thingy, at least it will get their attention.

RockStrongo

Even at 20%, I still think its a niche market. That doesnt even get into the fact that most of those dont even watch true broadcast HD or have an upscaling player.

Could the marketing be better? Of course.

But, I just dont think a huge marketing campaign right now will make this product more profitable.

I think the holiday season is probably the time to do it (maybe starting in Sept or so). They will catch the people buying HDTVs AND its half the price of the standalone BD players.

Mr. Cinema

Sounds like the cable companies and DirecTV need to do more to inform the consumer about viewing real HD content. You would think they would want to increase that 6% and make sure everyone is viewing HD content, which makes them more money by tacking on the HD suite packages and additional equipment.

Spiky

Unfortunately, these companies are only concerned with making a buck. If DirecTV bothered to offer "real HD content", maybe it would be worth it to advertise it. But they don't. Their main concern is getting as many channels as they can cram into their bandwidth.

The cable companies are marginally better, depending on where you live.

Bokasmo

Consider the population of North Americans that actually have a HD tv and can utilize this new hardware.

Does anyone know the percentage of ppl who have a HD tv? I would fathom less than a few %.

Given that, sales or excitement really can't be huge, except by the few & limited. Supply/demand just isn't there yet...

flashburn

Look a few posts up. Someone said several reports show the percentage to be around 15%.

darkside

I've read 19% a few times and they are expecting HDTVs to outsell SDTVs starting this year and for HDTV adoption to expand rapidly.

chemosh6969

There was another thread that had an article about how well the toshiba player was selling.

Bokasmo

Hey now, don't get me wrong. I want as much hype & attention on this as possible, especially for HD-DVD. They are outta the gate 1st, and now really need to step up the advet'ing.

We DONT need a format war, but a quick winner. Hopefully, that winner will be HD-DVD!

Qui Gon Jim

The only problem I see with stepping up the advertising is that units are not readily available yet. This could lead to some consumer confusion and backlash.

I never saw a commercial for XBox360, but did for the games. What we'll likely see is the HD/BR versions added to the commercials of film releases once day and date releases are ramped up.

RockStrongo

I totally agree....A huge marketing campaign right now would end up with alot of people mad that they dont have the players in stock.

They need to really push the software hard and thats where they are short right now.....they just dont have alot of titles yet. Hopefully soon.

Advertising Day and Date releases on HD-DVD would be a big boost.

Mr. Cinema

I can seem them replacing "now available on DVD and UMD" with "now available on DVD and HD-DVD/BD".

Giles

but even for a outlet like Best Buy - their advertising is inconsistent. Going in today at lunch, and noting that BB had none of today's seven HD-DVD releases is counter intuitive and does nothing to help promote the new format.

digitalfreaknyc

That's BB though. Here they always have them out. But I've known people that have to actually ask for them.

darkside

Toshiba is not stepping up the campaign until September. Until then the format is pretty much for us nutty early adopters. The real launch is in September when a wider variety of movies is out and there is plenty of hardware available.