Home Media Magazine - February 24, 2008 - (Page S6) Blu By Scott Hettrick hen former Paramount and Fox TV chief Barry Diller lost a long and bitter struggle to take over CBS in the 1990s, he summed up his defeat with the most NEWS ANALYSIS brief and pragmatic of statements: “They won. We lost. Next.” Proponents of Blu-ray Disc have won their two-year format war with HD DVD in the consumer market, following the rejection of HD DVD by Warner Bros., Best Buy, Netflix and Wal-Mart and the announcement this month that W HD DVD backer Toshiba was throwing in the towel. Now, Blu-ray supporters seem to be adopting a variation on that mantra: “We won. They lost. Next.” And “next” is immediately refocusing on the bigger battle that has unfortunately been undermined by the format war (two years the industry could ill afford to waste) — convincing consumers to switch from DVD to Blu-ray Disc, and doing so quickly, before electronic media and digital downloading can take root with the mass consumer and supplant physical media altogether. So far, the industry appears to be up for the challenge. It better be. There aren’t a lot of clear alternatives, and the stakes are almost absurdly high. High-Def Disc Success a Must for Studios and Retailers Sales of programming on optical discs represents Hollywood’s primary source of revenue and a significant percentage of business and customer traffic drivers for the nation’s biggest retailers, from Wal-Mart and Target to Best Buy and Amazon.com. 6 IT’S BLU February 2008 http://Amazon.com
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