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Feb. 11th, 2008 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stevenehrbarI thought HD-DVD would beat Blu-ray. You know why?
I thought the exclusively-HD-DVD content providers (Universal, Paramount) would, under the same influences that got them to support HD-DVD, take the simple step of ending sales of ordinary DVDs in favor of the dual DVD/HD-DVD Twin disc. That would have created a massive sales base of HD-DVDs, since everybody buying a Universal, Paramount, or Time Warner disc for their standard definition player would be buying an HD-DVD. And those millions of HD-DVDs already in homes with only standard definition players would make it easier to sell those homes HD-DVD players, instead of Blu-ray players.
Instead, the studios continued to sell pure standard-definition disks. So you had the chicken-and-egg problem wehre consumers wouldn't buy HD-DVD disks without players, and they wouldn't buy players without disks, and a format war that threatened them with obsolescence should they go to the expense of spending lots on both.
Sony, of course, had taken the step of putting a Blu-ray player in every PS3. Now, when the PS3 didn't take over the gaming market, that was a problem; but even mediocre sales created a market for Blu-ray movies. That left Blu-ray with an edge over HD-DVD . . . and the edge was enough, over enough time, to win the format war.
I thought the exclusively-HD-DVD content providers (Universal, Paramount) would, under the same influences that got them to support HD-DVD, take the simple step of ending sales of ordinary DVDs in favor of the dual DVD/HD-DVD Twin disc. That would have created a massive sales base of HD-DVDs, since everybody buying a Universal, Paramount, or Time Warner disc for their standard definition player would be buying an HD-DVD. And those millions of HD-DVDs already in homes with only standard definition players would make it easier to sell those homes HD-DVD players, instead of Blu-ray players.
Instead, the studios continued to sell pure standard-definition disks. So you had the chicken-and-egg problem wehre consumers wouldn't buy HD-DVD disks without players, and they wouldn't buy players without disks, and a format war that threatened them with obsolescence should they go to the expense of spending lots on both.
Sony, of course, had taken the step of putting a Blu-ray player in every PS3. Now, when the PS3 didn't take over the gaming market, that was a problem; but even mediocre sales created a market for Blu-ray movies. That left Blu-ray with an edge over HD-DVD . . . and the edge was enough, over enough time, to win the format war.
