Harris Poll concerning Blu-ray and HD DVD penetration is way off
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Jun 25th 2009 8:09PM
posted Jun 25th 2009 8:09PM
We had a feeling something was up with the results of the recent Harris Poll and it looks like we had good reason. No one is trying to say that the folks that conducted the poll had a Red agenda or anything, it is just like Adams research puts it when talking about consumer polls in general, "you can't trust the average survey respondent to correctly identify the high-tech devices in their homes." You can say that again. The funny thing is that the results of the poll even look screwy when compared to the HD DVD Promotion group's numbers which reported that even after a few months following the format war, only 1 million stand-alone HD DVD players were sold. This is nowhere near the 10 million that it would take to make up 9 percent of the 111 million US households the poll reports. And in case you care, analysts project -- you know, the ones actually based on retail sales instead of a consumer survey -- that 14.8 percent of US households will have some way to play a Blu-ray Disc by the end of 2009, which is almost double what it was at the end of 2008.
LOL at the panic and immediate response from companies that get Blu money.
They might've been wrong about HD DVD, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Buu-ray attachment is poorly low even if Blu-ray does get to 15% of households by 2010. And there's very little chance there was a mistake there if you even take in consideration the possibility that some people might've mistaken upscaling DVDs with HD DVDs.
I'm not sure how many Blu-ray standalones are on the market now but PS3 in US is not even 9 million units and let's say 3-4 million standalones that's not even 10% of the US households and the attachment ratio for those numbers is actually pretty low today.
I don't really hate Blu-ray, what I do hate is constant BS assessments from BDA camp and their companies.
I'd advise them to stop counting and representing dreamy numbers and actually work on solving real issues with Blu-ray hardware and software.
Ask yourself this. How long did DVDs take to become popular? They were released in 1997. I was in high school then and hadn't heard anything about them until 1999. Even when I bought my first player 2 years after the format was out, no one in my family had one.
I do tend to agree a bit with this assessment regarding the BDA associationg being overly optomistic. I guess it probably comes down a bit to company pride. Everyone wants to believe the company they work for is pretty good at what they do, doing pretty well and is economically secure.
I sure as heck wouldn't want to work at a company that sucks at what they do, make a horribly overpriced product in an economic recession and feel unsure about my companies' economic future.
So sure. We'll just add all those PS3s. 21 million world wide I think Sony as touting or was it 24 million? as blu-ray players. See, that's a lot? If each one buys 2 blu-rays a year, we'll have 50 million sales. At $20.00 - $30.00 a movie, we'll say averaging $25.00, we'd have a billion dollars in sales. Its money in studio's pockets?
Let alone all those standalone players which probably would have a much higher yearly attach rate. With both standalone players becoming cheaper and ps3s become cheaper(or so analysts like Michael Pratcher suggest) before x-mas, you'll probably see an slow but gradual uptake of blu-ray players and sales. You just have to try not to factor in or try to ignore an economic depression.
It doesn't matter.. DVD's penetration and adoption rate is not comparable to Blu-ray because we live in a different age. When DVD was released it was so new, people were not getting it and it was much better than VHS. It was actually much more expensive too. $600 DVD player then and $600 Blu-ray today are way different. It was a small fortune back then. Today $600 it's still expensive but not as much as it was then, not to mention the fact that it doesn't improve as much as VHS over DVD.
Look at it realistically. Blu-ray is not revolution, it's an evolution and as such it shouldn't be priced through the roof and with holding a small premium over DVD it should be adopted faster because technology in general has advanced a lot more over the course of past decade.
But the reason it's not being adopted fast is price vs features. If your upscaling DVD player from a lower brand is $50, considering that a Blu-ray player is nothing more complex than that player but holds a slightly different laser, the lower brand BD player shouldn't be more then $75-$100. If a good brand name upscaling DVD player is $100, your brand name BD player shouldn't be more then $150-$200. Same goes with media. Blu discs shouldn't be more then $2-$3 premium over DVDs, yet they are.
All of this and the fact that studios want to use Blu-ray to make money to compensate for DVD loss is what causes issues with Blu-ray adoption.
All they have to do is price it normally and realistically and should buy. But today, there are more problems for adoption then just lowering prices if you wish to discuss it.
Mainly that people are not willing to spend a lot of money on buying discs. They want to rent because they've been collecting and spending insane amounts of money on discs for the past 10 years and they really see no benefit today to do that all over again. In addition, we have alternative means of getting content too. All this is playing a roll in adoption and rightfully so.
So no, DVD situation and Blu-ray state are really not similar at all. One builds upon the other but is in no means revolutionary as DVD was.
Not only that, I know people that don't have a clue how to plug in the Most basic equipment, much like the people that bought HD-DVD discs that thought they were some better version of DVD they could play on their DVD players, people that are asked the HD DVD question might have thought they meant playing a DVD on an HD-TV.
If you are average intelligence that means half the people you run into today will be dumber than you, but half will also be smarter than you, which is alot tougher for people to come to grips with, as everyone likes to think they are smart.
Most of the people taking these questionnaires don't want to look dumb, and I shouldn't have to explain my point anymore then that.
Bozster I don't know where you get your info but it's totally wrong. You cant compare DVD because it was so much more? Blu-Ray launched at compable pricing to DVD. It has also done as well as DVD up to the recession.
You claim to have nothing against Blu-ray but you cite total misinformation, and throw out a totay legitimate comparison -- one the industry is aware of even -- because it contradicts your incorrect statements.
We must be... on the... Internet! :p
-Pie
Mr_Fizzlepop,
Are you sure you're not below average intelligence? Because what you
are referring to is not the "average" - it's the median. Being
average doesn't mean being 50th percentile.
1. you think a BD drive that requires more stable mechanism, better error correction, newer tech laser head should cost the same as DVD drive?
2. you think a BD player which licensing cost more than DVD (about triple of DVD licensing, actually) will make the player only $25 more than a DVD player? The licensing alone is about $20 more than DVD!!!!
3. you think because the manufacturing cost of a chip is the same the R&D doesn't need to be recuperated? what kind of business model are you thinking? This is akin to saying photographer "A" uses the same set of equipment as photographer "B" therefore they both have to charge the same. Wrong! If B is far better than A, then B can charge much higher than A.
In the end... it's called business, not charity.
Do I like it? of course not! But as a photographer myself, I also don't want to be "forced" to charge $500 for a wedding just because the next photographer with the same equipment is willing to charge that low of a price. Hence my understanding of the business model.
Heck, they use the same bandwidh whether we subscribe to basic channel or premium channel, why then we should pay extra?
Nice try Bozster. The garbage you tried to use as a basis for your "my format didn't win" BS is shown for what it is...garbage, and you now try to put a new spin on it. Just let go...
"LOL at the panic and immediate response from companies that get Blu money."
At least they are getting paid to be industry shills. What's your excuse?
You can always depend on Bozster to use any and every story about HD as a springboard to launch yet another anti-blu-ray tirade. There is an old Shakespeare quote that seems approriate: "methinks the lady doth protest too much".
Lisa, I'm sorry I didn't "Internet-Lawyer" check my sentence. Here's some information regarding the word Average to help you better understand what I wrote, and what I meant.
Average:
–noun
A quantity, rating, or the like that represents or approximates an arithmetic mean: Her golf average is in the 90s. My average in science has gone from B to C this semester.
Arithmetic Mean:
–noun Statistics.
The mean obtained by adding several quantities together and dividing the sum by the number of quantities: the arithmetic mean of 1, 5, 2, and 8 is 4.
Now let's take a look at the word Median.
–noun
3. Arithmetic, Statistics. the middle number in a given sequence of numbers, taken as the average of the two middle numbers when the sequence has an even number of numbers: 4 is the median of 1, 3, 4, 8, 9.
So, though the Median is the middle number or average of 2 middle numbers in a series of numbers it may not represent the average, or mean, depending on the numbers in the series.
So, if peoples' Intelligence is rated and given a numerical value, some representing the highest and some the lowest, then the Average, though not the exact Median, might be what I was talking about, though honestly I hadn't applied that much thought to it at the time of writing.
So, perhaps I should have written an "about" or "most" in my sentence to be exact and clear regarding the complexities and variations possible in "running into other people throughout the day" for those trying to lawyer my post. However, I think you really have only strengthened what I wrote as your response reinforces my point regarding how people feel about not being that smart.
Thanks again.
Feel free to also look up "Gifted" at Wikipedia.
Sounds like most people don't even know what they have. They just assumed it was an HD-DVD player since it plays high-def movies on their big new TV. I hate all of the doom and gloom BS spouted off towards Blu-ray.
quote:
" If your upscaling DVD player from a lower brand is $50, considering that a Blu-ray player is nothing more complex than that player but holds a slightly different laser, the lower brand BD player shouldn't be more then $75-$100. If a good brand name upscaling DVD player is $100, your brand name BD player shouldn't be more then $150-$200. Same goes with media. Blu discs shouldn't be more then $2-$3 premium over DVDs, yet they are."
a blu-ray player is far more complex than just changing the laser head. The transport is required to have better stability, better wobble control. Then the unit itself requires better processing power, far larger buffer memory, also higher data transfer rate due to the higher bitrate of both video and audio.
Plus the licensing price is far higher because the manufacturer gotta pay all the licensing of DVD (DVD, Dolby Digital, DTS) plus the BD applications (BD, Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD-MA).
Furthermore, for DVD, all the equipment needs is to recognize MPEG-2. With BD, it requires to decode MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1. That translates to... more licensing, more R&D required... all in all... at least double the cost.
PLUS... because it's a newer technology, the hardware cost is still higher.
So even if the manufacturer is not making single cent more than regular DVD palyer, the price will easily cost 150% more... which is about the price of low-end BD player right now.
In terms of playback quality, the lower end BD player is about the same as $100 DVD upconverting DVD player. Even using your logic (not mine), the price of BD player will be about $200... which is the price of entry level BD player anyway.
In terms of BD media... well, the cost of encoding is still far higher than DVD encoding. So even when the price of replication is only $2-3 more, you still need to add the pro-rated cost of encoding PLUS the cost of licensing.
I don't like the fact that BD players are higher, I don't like the fact that BD movies are higher (I owned more than 2,000 DVD and have more than 300 BD -- so every single cent counts). However, we have to face the facts that these things are more expensive, for the time being, for good reasons.
David said: "a blu-ray player is far more complex than just changing the laser head. The transport is required to have better stability, better wobble control. Then the unit itself requires better processing power, far larger buffer memory, also higher data transfer rate due to the higher bitrate of both video and audio.
Plus the licensing price is far higher because the manufacturer gotta pay all the licensing of DVD (DVD, Dolby Digital, DTS) plus the BD applications (BD, Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD-MA).
Furthermore, for DVD, all the equipment needs is to recognize MPEG-2. With BD, it requires to decode MPEG-2, AVC, VC-1. That translates to... more licensing, more R&D required... all in all... at least double the cost."
First part I don't even get what you are saying. What about higher transfer rates nad higher bitrate? It's a different chip in there that is manufactured the same way DVD ones are. It's a different type of sillicon. SOC are much cheaper these days to the tune of a couple of bucks per piece. I don't know what you are trying to say with drive. None of the costs for Blu-ray players cost as much as they are selling them for. It's the fact that CEs want to make more money is different story alltogether. Licensing DVD or licensing Blu-ray is totally dependent on the BDA or DVD Forum. It is set by the same companies who created the format. So I dont' get your point there either.
I'm not saying there isn't/shouldn't be some premium but that premium is as I noted in my previous response. If you pay low $50 for upscaling DVD player you shouldn't pay more then $75 for a no-name Blu-ray player. There is a premium but not 2-3 times. Licensing is determined by companies and their greed, nothing to do with hardware.
The real advancement Blu-ray brings in the media dept. The hardware to read that only differs in layer. Codec chip is a codec chip. It may be slightly more advanced but manufacturing is pretty much the same. Let's not delude ourselves here.
And btw, we DON'T have to like it and accept the fact they are trying to make money of off us by selling us equipment and media at prices that are not really worth that much. What they are basically trying to do is sell same thing with a bit higher quality at a tune of several times the price of what we are paying cheaply now. Hardware is going down but only because people are simply not interested in buying and paying which is a good thing. Studios obviously still don't get it, but they will, as soon as they start realizing that people will continue renting more and buying less because nobody wants to pay their ridiculous prices.
I don't think it's worth that much especially with the fact you need to repurchase a bunch of other things to really enjoy what they are selling you.
Is Blu-ray quality great. Sure, for some titles and under certain conditions. They are not even delivering what they promised. Many Blu-ray movies are mediocre quality at best and are being encoded with just slightly better bitrate and audio than DVDs, which again doesn't help things but just shows an ugly greedy side of Blu-ray and how studios see it.
It is certainly not the same as DVD was where you got instant boost in quality without really changing anything plus addition of features that were really a time saver and helpful compared to VHS for example. DVD players were rightfully more expensive as they were the first wave of completely brand new technology that was never made before. Blu-ray is definitely not that.
Blu-ray isn't the problem. It's the idiot studios.
1. Five and 10 minute delays to get through all the warnings, logos, promos, BDA ads, copy-protect and BD-Java startups on many disks.
2. Impossibly complicated menu and control structure (was that TOP or POP-UP or MAIN or AUDIO you wanted, sir? Sorry, not at this time.)
3. Useless features bloating disc prices.
4. Constant updates needed to get the player to play current discs.
5. Not upconverting via analog.
6. Slow load times.
What's not to like? My wife won't watch any movies on the BD player if I'm not around -- it's too complicated and annoying. HD DVD had most of this handled except the load time. THen again they didn't have Disney and Lions Gate, the two worst actors.
Bozster is just about the biggest and most ignorant troll I've ever seen on the interwebz. I've never seen somebody so aggressively wrong and persistent.
Wrong based on who? You? Well that's obvious.
Sombreartist, I agree completely. Obviously he can not get over that BD is alive and kicking while HD-DVD is not.
Ben, this does not seem to be a news article but contains only your personal opinion. The same thing goes for the other EngadgetHD article you linked to.
Why are you so defensive about the Blu-ray format?
Personally, I am buying it (but not nearly as much as I am the HD DVD format), because I'm a movie nut and videophile, however, I don't feel that it has much more than another year or two left of life in it.
To me, it is just another niche format like laserdisc.
I am not so much again his opinion as they are not criticizing absolutely anything about Blu-ray when so much wrong with it. Starting with repurchasing new hardware for managed copy, several diverse profiles and so on that people are simply not informed about and yet somehow that's not even being discussed or attacked.
It seems that many of the editors and home theater sites and anything that remotely deals with topic of hollywood and home entertainment hardware simply refused to criticize anything Blu and I'm assuming it's mostly because these same people and companies are so dependent on CEs they don't want to bring wrath of the companies and not get product to review.
That's what is really sad.
I think you are wrong, my opinion of course. More and more homes are going high-def, and do you really think they will still buy DVD versions of the new releases forever over a high-def version? And as for downloads, while they are gaining in popularity, I don't think, considering bandwidth and the fact that all hard drives and storage fails at some point, no matter which type of storage it is, you can lose dozens of movies at a time. I had a hard disc fail used as an external hard drive from Dishg Network and lost 99 high def movies. The hard drive failed, as all will eventually. Plus, I certainly can't get lossless audio and 1080p without waiting hours for the download which even then is so compressed it will never look like a blu-ray.
The format is going to be the norm.
They are pointing out that a much-cited "poll" has been determined to be completely invalid.
That IS news, not opinion. The other article they link is the original announcement of the poll's release.
-Pie
Harris Polls are useless. I know a bunch of people who take these online because the more of them you complete, the more contests you can enter and the more points you get. I know some of my friends who don't even read the questions. Reliable? NOT.
Blu ray is a dead man walking.
I own a Panasonic BD35 and I hate it.
Why you ask?
Because I always like to pause a movie half way through and make a drink etc, by the time I come back, the stupid FKN thing has gone to screensaver, and will it re start??........ no it FKN WONT!!!
It just locks up EVERY SINGLE FKN TIME and crashes. I then have to restart, go through the ridiculous 1 min 50 load time, all the Java BS reloading, ads, main menu, etc, etc, etc
If this is how they plan to win over the public , they haven't got a snowballs chance in hell.
Same thing happens if by accident, I press the wrong button in the dark (no friggin backlit remote!!) or god forbid I actually want to stop the movie for 10 minutes!
Every time it does it, which is every movie, I just want to kick the FKN thing to the curb, it pisses me off so much I have no desire to buy any more movies,
This thing is archaic in operation compared to my 20 year old VHS player and umpteen DVD players, FK it, it's just all to hard.
And I know you can turn the screensaver off, some choice, burn in or a screensaver melt down again.
Just give me RESUME PLAY you bunch of idiots!!!
"Blu ray is a dead man walking." Apparently most agree-- the poll shows fewer intend to buy BR in 2009 than 2008--that's a death sentence.
Nevver happens to me (Sony BDP-S550). I have never had a problem playing any disk. Do not blame the format for a crappy player implementation!
BMZ, "the poll shows". The poll is a pile of BS. That was the purpose of this article in the first place in case you missed it.
BMZ
"Blu ray is a dead man walking." Apparently most agree-- the poll shows fewer intend to buy BR in 2009 than 2008--that's a death sentence.
Never a truer word.
The Blu-ray evangelists are still doing their best
(it's not dead, it's just shagged out after a long and protracted format war! Beautiful colors!)
but Neilson's weekly sales stats prove that even the biggest Blu-ray owning group (those PS3 owners) just aren't bothering with it anything like enough.
It's obvious why too, I know several who tell me they are extremely selective about which movies they will bother with in high def.
Why pay the premium if the movie is, at best, only to be watched once or twice and is so ordinary (like so many are) that high def is a pretty irrelevant consideration?
This is plainly yet another kiss of death for a video format hoping to take a majority share of the retail video market.
Ain't got a hope of happening.
The poll #'s were just dumb. but lets say that the blu-ray association really isn't good at PR and planning. my votes for their stupidest moves so far:
1- BD disc pricing too expensive. some movies priced at release at $40, this premium pricing is reminiscent of Laserdisc
2- Not getting or shaming Apple into supporting BD, except to serve Apple's interest with Digital Copy, but to date no consumer solution exists to playback pre-recorded movies/content on Macs.
3- No recordable BD player/recorders released in USA. to not be able to use BD as a VCR type functionality is really a drawback. Sad they have been restricted from releasing this tech outside of Japan.
A REALLY good start on fixing Blu-ray would be a mandatory control interface across all discs. As it is, each studio's discs operate differently, confusing and frustrating even technically-aware consumers. And god help Mom.
The problem with blu-ray adoption so far is all about $$$. Even though you can buy a player for $200, which is less than we paid for VCRs 20 years ago, people have gotten used to being able to buy $50 DVD players. The middle class person on a tight budget is usually not going to pay this premium. But the prices do keep coming down. If the manufacturers can get the costs down, which they eventually will, we will start seeing average people buying them more. The discs are still too expensive too, but I have noticed some drop in prices recently. I've seen new release blu-rays as low as $20 at Walmart, so there is hope for blu-ray's future if these trends continue. I suspect in about 3 years, we will see several blu-ray players well under $100, perhaps even $50. Within another few years, most people's DVD players will break and they will probably upgrade to blu-ray if the premium is something in the neighborhood of $20. Perhaps if they can get their costs down enough, maybe in 3-5 years we will actually see blu-ray players replacing dvd players on store shelves.
Wow, do people even listen to Bozster. He's not even trying to tell the truth.
And I quote, "Is Blu-ray quality great. Sure, for some titles and under certain conditions. They are not even delivering what they promised. Many Blu-ray movies are mediocre quality at best and are being encoded with just slightly better bitrate and audio than DVDs, which again doesn't help things but just shows an ugly greedy side of Blu-ray and how studios see it. "
First, "some titles" and "certain conditions" are a misdirection. THE VAST MAJORITY OF BDS are absolutely awesome. VAST MAJORITY. These "some titles" make up probably 0.1%. Burn Notice looks like shit, but that's how it looked on broadcast. But every other title I own, from Terminator to Pirates of the Caribbean, to The Dark Knight, etc., look great.
Now to outright lies...
"Slightly better bitrate and audio than DVD"? BETTER THAN CD QUALITY (24/48 vs 16/41) in 5.1 or 7.1, and 5Mmbps vs 640Kbps (mega vs kilo) is a huge upgrade. And, again, THE VAST MAJORITY of titles include these high rates in Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD MA lossless.
Sheesh.
I really hope nobody listens to this guy. He's not even trying to be honest.
-Pie
EatingPie@:
> They are pointing out that a much-cited "poll" has been determined to be completely invalid.
> That IS news, not opinion. The other article they link is the original announcement of the poll's release.
No, that is opinion and opinions are not news (nor is Engadget a news site, as many have pointed out). Please tell me how does that statement "proves" anything at all.?
Yes, there were around a million sold in early January, 2008, but how many millions of HD DVD players and Xbox addons have been sold since then? Frys has been continuing to sell the addon players all along and other major retailers continued to do so for at least a year.
I'm not saying that I know how many were sold or even manufactured (no one is apparently even tracking this any more), nor do I believe that anywhere near as many as nine million were sold. I'm just saying that no one has proved otherwise, either.
What I do believe is that Blu-ray is not doing as well as hoped by manufacturers of discs and players or fans of the format.
Well i dont tip the scale for anyone i just go on facts.I have not seen a big demand for bluray by the average joe.....Bluray is better, but missing the WOW factor for most the population.Other things are not supported by the bluray format.One being DEEP COLOR the other a wider color standard like xvYCC.......When you want to win the game you use all your top cards to trupm the competition,not hold back until every one has left the table.
Going from VHS tape to DVD was a sure bet, going from DVD to Blu-ray, not so much. In fact, I'm not even creating personal-mix music CDs or movie DVDs anymore! All this material either goes straight to high-capacity hard-drives or into flash memory! The Disc is Dead, Gone, Kaput! Seriously, it's ancient tech now.