Surprise, Surprise: Blu-Ray Still Not Catching On

from the late-to-the-party dept

Way back in 2005, as we sat through yet another ridiculous and self-defeating standards battle over the "next generation" standard for high definition DVDs, we pointed out that it was probably already too late, as the market was already beginning to recognize that disc-based storage made less and less sense. And yet, because the two sides fighting over the standard could only see monopolistic dollar signs from winning the "battle" they kept on fighting. Yet, with two competing standards, very few people wanted to bet on either one, knowing if they bet wrong, they were stuck with a useless box. And this went on for years. And years. And eventually Blu-ray won in early 2008, even though it was clearly already too late.

The latest numbers suggest, indeed, that despite Blu-ray "winning" the standards battle, it likely missed the big window for success, as many people just don't see the point in buying yet another new box and having to get movies all over again -- especially as online delivery is becoming more and more effective and efficient. I don't think Blu-ray will collapse completely, but it seems like the standards battle became a prisoner's dilemma of sorts -- with both sides ending up much worse off. If they had just agreed to a standard back in 2004/2005, when they had a chance, because online delivery options really weren't that good. Today, however, they're not just good enough for many people, they're getting better all the time.

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China Tosses Out Yet Another High-Def DVD Format

from the going-nowhere dept

Say hello to HD NVD, China's latest homegrown high-definition DVD format. It joins EVD, another Chinese effort, along with HD VMD to try and drag Blu-Ray back into a standards fight, following its triumph over HD DVD. Best of luck with that, even with NVD's supposed cost advantage thanks to a lack of foreign-owned intellectual property. That's the same argument that was used for China's homegrown TD-SCDMA 3G technology, which hasn't exactly thrust them to the forefront of mobile telecommunications.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Predicting Blu-ray's Troubles Didn't Take A Crystal Ball

from the that's-gotta-hurt dept

A bunch of regular readers of Techdirt have been sending in Robin Harris' analysis that, despite beating HD-DVD in a drawn out standards battle, Blu-ray DVDs don't seem to be gaining much traction. Harris specifically states: "16 months ago I called the HD war for Blu-ray. My bad. Who dreamed they could both lose?" I guess Harris doesn't read Techdirt. Because we predicted such an outcome 3 years ago when the standards battle delayed adoption, and again when Blu-ray launched over two years ago, and again when HD-DVD dropped out earlier this year. It wasn't exactly rocket science to recognize what would happen, if you just compared the standards battle over DVDs to previous standards battles, and looked at the competitive environment and tech horizon, you could see that an extended standards battle would hurt both sides. That said, I'm actually not as pessimistic as Harris about Blu-ray's chances. I think that it will catch on somewhat and become more widely used -- though, not nearly as widely as if the standard had been set three years ago, before online delivery of movies was a viable option.

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Despite Winning The HD Format War, Blu-Ray Sales Dropped

from the whoops dept

We've been pretty harsh on the warring camps over the next generation DVD standard, pointing out, frankly, that most people just didn't care, and the longer the two sides battled, the worse the problem would get. However, even given that I wouldn't have expected the latest news that Blu-ray sales have plummeted from January to February, following its eventual win in the standards battle. Research group NPD chalks up the sales drop to the high prices of Blu-ray DVD players... but that doesn't make any sense. The players were already expensive -- so you'd at least expect sales to remain constant, even if selling prices may have bumped up a bit without the HD DVD competition.

My guess is that a few different things may have impacted the decline in sales. First, there's the seasonal aspect of it (and February is a short month). But, perhaps even more important is that the whole standards battle itself turned users off from any form of next generation DVDs. Those who were HD DVD early adopters are pissed off that they bet on the wrong horse, and those who didn't follow the space closely just know that some folks got screwed -- and don't want to take the chance. One other factor may be the widespread stories warning people not to buy Blu-ray, because the player profile is getting updated, and many older players are not upgradeable. Either way, the backers of Blu-ray can't be all that thrilled that the end of the standards battle didn't lead to a jump in sales. Perhaps they should have spent a bit more time coming up with reasons for consumers to buy rather than wasting all that time fighting with HD DVD.

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And Here's A Set Top Box Built On Open Standards -- So Now We Get Another Standards Battle

from the fragmented-markets dept

After just complaining about Blockbuster working on proprietary set top box technology (which Netflix was already working on as well), Wired points out that there's a company, Myka, working on an open set top box that can be used to bring all sorts of online content to your television. It's basically a set top BitTorrent device. The company has apparently worked out some media partnerships as well, which is important. However, unless the big players agree to sign up, it's still going to be pretty difficult. What we're getting is a fragmented market with the big providers betting on proprietary solutions that not enough people will want -- and the really open solutions (the ones people would want) getting left behind because the big companies won't agree to use open standards.

In the past I had complained that the high definition DVD crowd had missed its real window of opportunity due to a totally unnecessary standards battle. The point was that it gave broadband and online distribution a chance to catch up. What I didn't expect, however, was that online distribution of movies would end up getting bogged down in its own totally unnecessary and counterproductive standards battle as well. Never underestimate how certain players will muck up a huge opportunity by trying to keep all of it for themselves.

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