Vision - January/February 2008 - (Page 26) Warner has a significant amount of influence to determine which side can claim content superiority in the format war. DisplaySearch’s Paul Erickson Blu-ray proponents also have been active on the pricing front, though their players remain higher priced than the HD DVD players. Instead of reaching pricing levels that are on par with regular DVD players, at least for this past holiday season, Panasonic is differentiating its products on features. The company said the DMPBD30 will be the industry’s first player to use support final standard profile, which adds enhanced features to Blu-ray media produced using BD-ROM Profile 1 Version 1.1 standards. The enhancement adds the capability of displaying picture-in-picture. It can play discs burned in high-definition camcorders without a cable connection because it carries a SD Memory card slot. The product also can play CDs as background accompaniment to still-image slide shows run from SD cards. The format war has also turned into a race for the most disc storage capacity. The DVD Forum helped ratchet up the battle on this front last fall when it approved Toshiba’s triple-layer, 51 GB disc structure, exceeding the 50 GB capacity of a dual-layer Blu-ray disc. Potential obstacles in increasing storage, however, are whether discs with more layers are more difficult to manufacture and whether they are backward-compatible with first-generation HD DVD players. Analysts wonder whether greater storage capacity will have much appeal beyond early adopters and enthusiasts. “Those are specifications that don’t resonate with the mass market,” said analyst Josh Martin of the Boston research firm Yankee Group. “Right now the biggest issue concerning the nextgeneration format is their inability to coalesce around one format or to support every title.” Added storage capacity is a more necessary dynamic in the personal computer arena, said DisplaySearch’s Erickson. “The more capacity you can give, the better,” he said. “That’s going to make these disc formats viable, especially as hard disc storage becomes cheaper.” Lg electronics was the first to offer a dual-format player and, at press the holiday selling season. time, Samsung was expected to introduce a dual-format player during Toshiba expects to continue pushing the HD DVD format across multiple lifestyle applications, from home entertainment and gaming to computing Toshiba’s Jodi Sally U.S. tV Viewer Survey: Online Bids to Usurp Pay-tV in-Stat interviewed 1,266 consumers, aged 18 years and older, who had a broadband internet connection and at least one tV set in use. Respondents were asked to indicate which of the sources they used to obtain DVD content. Since more than one response was permitted, the total adds up to more than 100%. 69.5% 63.6% Sources Used for DVDs or DVD-Related Content 41.6% 27.9% 22.1% 14. 9% 12.3% Purchase DVDs Rent from store Source: In-Stat, 10/07 Borrow from friends Public Library Use NetFlix Internet downloads Non-NetFlix mail Expanding Product Portfolios DVD players are not the only CE products on which the HD DVD camp is competing on price. Toshiba, in addition to putting its HD-A2 HD DVD player into the hands of cost-conscious consumers, also was expected to introduce a sub-$1,000 HD DVD notebook computer for the holiday selling season. The price point is significant because it shows how fast prices have fallen on high-definition CE products, most famously on TVs. In 2008, Toshiba expects to continue pushing the HD DVD format across “multiple lifestyle applications, from home entertainment and gaming to computing,” said Jodi Sally, vice president of marketing for Toshiba America Consumer Products’ digital audio and video group. In content, Sally said Web-enabled network connectivity will continue to grow. HD DVD drives lead in worldwide market share among PC manufacturers, she said. www.ce.org 26 January/February 2008 http://www.ce.org
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