Vision - January/February 2008 - (Page 25) HigH-def Growing Demand Some 2.6 million Blu-ray discs were sold in the U.S. in the first nine months of 2007 compared with 1.4 million HD DVD discs, according to Home Media Research. And true enough, there were more Blu-ray titles than HD DVD titles in early November. But the gap between the number of titles is razor thin, with 332 Blu-ray titles available versus 328 for HD DVD. Certain to continue keeping the gap narrow is the decision by Paramount Home Entertainment last August to exclusively endorse the HD DVD format over Blu-ray after distributing titles in both formats, a major boon to the HD DVD camp. Those developments prompted Howard Stringer, Sony’s chief executive, to declare before a business forum in New York last fall a “stalemate” between the rival formats. “We’re in a tough fight,” Stringer told the audience. “We were trying to win on the merits, which we were doing for a while, until Paramount changed sides.” Stringer also said he believed that backers of both formats once had a chance of uniting under one umbrella. Paramount’s defection put attention on what moves Warner Brothers, which distributes titles in both formats, might make. Fueled in part by Paramount’s decision, there has been speculation that Warner might rethink its strategy and pursue just one format. Warner and Paramount, shortly after the latter studio went with HD DVD, aligned themselves in a partnership to combat DVD piracy in China. Though a Warner executive was initially quoted in press reports last quarter that it was re-evaluating its strategy to remain with both Blu-ray and HD DVD, another executive from the studio told Hi-Def Digest shortly afterward that it was committed to both formats. “Warner holds a lot of cards. Warner has a significant amount of influence to determine which side can claim content superiority in the format war,” said Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD market research at DisplaySearch in Austin, Texas. “If Warner chooses one format, it could sway other studios to switch allegiance,” he said. Strategies The relatively high price of both Blu-ray and HD DVD players has not given consumers much reason to choose one over the other. But the HD DVD camp has been trying to change that this past holiday selling season, making its players more accessible to the mass market—and making retail outlets an important new battleground for consumer share of mind. For example, Kmart said it would support both HD DVD and Blu-ray and had no plans to endorse either platform exclusively. January/February 2008 HD DVD than they would have been without the format war,” said Gerry Kaufhold, principal analyst with the In-Stat research firm, based in Scottsdale, Ariz. “A lot of people are now very interested in a next-generation optical disc player but they’re concerned about which one to buy.” www.ce.org 25 http://www.ce.org
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