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May 15, 2008

Sluggish Blu-Ray Demand

By Gary Kim, Contributing Editor

Only nine percent of non-Blu-ray player owners report they will likely purchase a Blu-ray disc player within the next year, according to a recent Harris Poll of 2,529 U.S. adults surveyed online between April 7 and 15, 2008.
 
Ownership of standard DVD players is virtually ubiquitous (87 percent), while ownership of Blu-ray disc players stands at four percent.
 
One naturally wonders why consumers are not especially resonating with HDTV-capable DVD players. One suspects it has something to do with content breadth or physical media pricing. There’s no question that consumers prefer thin screens, screens with a different form factor and clear pictures.



 
But consumers also care — arguably even more — about content variety. To the extent the Blu-ray content libraries are not as extensive as DVD libraries are, consumers are going to hang back. Then, there’s the matter of physical media pricing. The fact that consumers prefer higher-quality images is undeniable.
 
But, people also have to make choices: do they want to spend more money to watch the same content on a Blu-ray disk or on a standard DVD disk, when it costs more to do the former than the latter. The Harris data suggests pricing and content selection remain issues.
 
This isn’t the first time Sony has had to confront consumer trade-offs on the price and quality dimensions. In any earlier format war, the Sony BetaMax standard was deemed by many to be a superior standard, in technical terms. But VHS outmaneuvered Sony with a format arguably more affordable and with more content support.
 
The point is that consumers juggle several criteria when looking at the overall value of any format-linked media solution. Content breadth, media pricing, and image quality all are in play. And consumers sometimes deliberately trade off one of the considerations for the others.
 
All of which might explain the lag in adoption interest for Blu-ray, despite the obvious popularity of HDTV screens. The display works for all content. Blu-ray works only with some content, and costs more than a standard DVD rental or purchase.
 
That will change over time, but Blu-ray has to get more content onto shelves, at a lower price.
 
Gary Kim (News - Alert) is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Gary’s articles, please visit his columnist page.
 
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