More People Watching HD-DVD Over Blu-ray
Posted 06/23/09 at 04:53:15 PM by Andy Salisbury
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According to a recent poll very few Americans are onboard with high definition media players, given that only 11 percent own an HD-DVD player, while 7 percent own a Blu-ray player.
While these numbers may not seem that high, they are up notably from 2008, where only 6 percent had HD-DVD players, and 4 percent had Blu-ray players. And, while there are a good amount of people with these players, many are still buying standard definition discs to watch on them, with only one high definition disc being bought per six standard definition discs.
Interesting results, especially given that Blu-ray was declared the winner of the format war sometime last year.
If you’d like to see the whole poll, be sure to check it out here (clicking the link will download a PDF).
Image Credit: Harris Poll, 2009-6-18
HD-DVD Movies?
Submitted by linkmaster6 on Wed, 06/24/2009 - 6:56am
I thought all the studios cut the strings on releasing moives on HD discs, or is my head completely in the sand?
Submitted by Saltboy on Wed, 06/24/2009 - 4:20am
How do you know that the PS3 count is not already in the BR player count? Technically, I can say I own a PS3 and I can say I own a BR player, but all I have is a PS3.
The numbers above need more info to make them useful, to say the least.
Submitted by D3lt4 on Wed, 06/24/2009 - 6:34am
Is someone screwing with the numbers?
HD-DVD is becoming some crazed zombie.... I am tired of format wars.
Submitted by arkweld on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 6:44pm
this poll does not state more people are watching HD-DVD. It states more people own a HD-DVD player and technically that's incorrect since a lot of users use their PS3 as a player. it's the same thing. If you total the number of PS3 users and standalone units you get 16%. The total of HD-DVD users including 360 add-ons is only 14%.
The whole voting count is off.
You might as well run a poll that asks "Do you own a car?" and then asks "Do you own you own an automobile" and tallies the results separately.
How many people own a PS3 and a Blu-ray player? I do, but that's not out of need that's out of love of shiny toys. Few people need a BR player if they own a PS3.
And how come the image cuts off before the "external 360 drive" and "none of these categories."
Submitted by Shalbatana on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 5:41pm
There's really one outstanding issue here. It was too soon on the heels of DVD for anything, HD or otherwise to emerge and dominate the market. People only got on the DVD wagon a few short years ago. Had HD players emerged a year after DVD release, or 15 years away, the story would be different. But most people are happy with their DVD players, most people can't afford HD TV's (and Let's be honest, LCD's are great because they're flat, but are a serious step backwards in quality), most people can't tell the difference between HiDef and good quality Standard Def. and most television content is not in HD anyway. Therefore most people have opted to sit this generation of players out. The format war was just the nail in the coffin for most cutting edge users. The consoles are the only thing driving it's adoption, and they too will be obsolete in a few years.
No one has any desire to invest in some new format when the next wave is touted to be 3-5 years away. There's just too much cash involved for too little return for too short a duration.
I said it then and I'll say it now. It was doomed from the start.
(Man I wish someone would pay me to write this stuff).
_______________________________
"There's no time like the future."
Submitted by b_c_pc on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 3:22pm
I suspect that the jump in HDDVD purchases were because their price dropped through the floor when they were declared the "loser" of the format war. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a noticible drop in the HDDVD purchases number for next year's poll (assuming that this same poll will be done next year).
As the HD format disks are still a relatively new technology - and given the economy (coupled with the added expense of BR over SD disks), it's no real surprise that the adoption rate is still relatively low. I also suspect that most people who do not have televisions with HDMI connectors (which includes all SD televisions and all HD sets that are more than a few years old) see little added value in spending the extra money for something whose advantages they cannot currently enjoy. They will be inclined wait (at least) until they have a new HD set which, given the current economy, could be a while.
I also agree that on-line downloads are probably going to take a bite out of all disk purchases (SD and HD) in the future.
I use a PS3 to play Blu-Rays
Submitted by RedHawk on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 2:51pm
You have to count the PS3s in as Blu-Ray players as I use my PS3 to watch Blu-Rays and have no need of a Blu-Ray Player.
Wow.
Submitted by maniacm0nk3y on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 2:46pm
It's going to take awhile to get onboard the hi-def train. I am part of both the 11 and 7 percent statistics with an LG SuperMultiBlue optical drive. It's quite nice, but it's still taking awhile to build up my blu-ray collection. Amazon is the only viable place because places at Target still sell titles at $30.
I wonder how they count the
Submitted by jcollins on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 2:23pm
I wonder how they count the combo HD-DVD/Blu-Ray drives for the PC's...
Submitted by sidek on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 2:22pm
That is, unless you count the PS3s with 9%; all of them play Blu-Ray- that brings the total to 16% versus 11%.
edit: And there's no good reason not to count them; lots of people have bought PS3s over Blu-Ray players because (At least when I bought mine, in '07 or '06, can't remember) they are just as cheap or cheaper than all the other Blu-Ray players AND play games.
Submitted by bloodgain on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 3:09pm
You are making a common false-statistics mistake that there is no overlap in the PS3/Blu-Ray Player percentages. It is plausible that the 7% of Blu-Ray Player owners is a subset of PS3 owners. It all depends on how the data was gathered, and if PS3s were explicitly excluded as Blu-Ray Players (unless told otherwise, I would have marked both true -- if I owned a PS3). With the data as presented, the only statistically true remark you can make is that at least 9% of households own a device capable of playing Blu-Ray discs (according to this sample).
Statistics are notoriously inaccurate for many reasons, including the "false addition" explained above. A couple of questions that have me very curious in this case are how was the sample gathered and how many households were in the sample (were multiple people in the same household included in the sample, etc). The small amount of information tells me the following:
1) The poll was conducted online. Whether voluntary, paid, or solicited, this sample is not indicative of the whole US population by default. While I cannot say so with any certainty, common sense would make us assume that this numbers are probably suprisingly inflated -- those who embrace one technology are more likely to embrace others. Then again, I would bet Maximum PC readers' non-techie mothers would be more likely to take an internet poll than their Maximum PC-reading children.
2) The responses were weighted in regards to age, race, gender, education level, region, and household income. This again likely skews the results, because we have no idea how these factors affect the propensity of an individual to embrace certain technologies. The "study" isn't broad enough to deduce how to properly weight these factors before doing so. In addition, if using a "random sampling" method, it would be better to present the raw results with the extra information (age, race, gender, etc), and possibly breaking the poll results down by each group.
3) A quote: "Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online." All I can get out of this is that they took their skewed results and skewed them some more.I do give them credit for the excellent disclaimers in their Methodology section, which basically states that this poll cannot be given any valid margin of error measurement, and therefore may not be accurate in the least.
Oh, and you can get an entry-level Blu-Ray player for about $150 now. If you could get a PS3 for that price (without jumping through hoops), I'd probably get one -- even if I only played Metal Gear Solid 4 and watched Blu-Ray movies on it :-)
Submitted by sidek on Tue, 06/23/2009 - 8:43pm
back then , there was like one really crappy player I ever saw with a price more than 50$ below the PS3.
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