I wanted to make a ‘year end / new year’ synopsis of where we stand with high definition DVD. I’ve read tons of “news” and “announcements”, but honestly when I sat down and started making notes, a funny thing happened, nothing really. Let me explain. Ok, what did we learn from the Consumer Electronics Show 2005? Come on get real. I hope none of you actually thought anything ‘new’ or definitive would come out of CES; after all it’s really nothing more than the world’s largest real-time infomercial. While there were around 75 HD-DVD titles announced, Sony and their consortium could have likely rounded up just as many, if not more, titles to ‘tease’ with. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t.

The initial HD-DVD and Blu-ray buzz, of seven to eight months ago, certainly hasn’t died down but have we actually learned anything new that would indicate a winner? I think if you had asked the Coca-Cola marketing genius, in charge of New Coke, if they were really on the right track they would have answered with a resounding YES! On April 23rd, 1985 they unleashed New Coke on the buying public. A few months later those same marketing genius, with tails between their legs, ‘introduced’ Coke Classic.

My point is no amount of marketing hype or announcements will pick the winner between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the buying public will handle that. It might not be in the time frame the manufacturers and studios hope for, but it will happen. I haven’t made my support for HD-DVD a secret but to be honest I’d be happy with either format, as long as there is a clear cut winner, not a prolonged pissing match that dilutes the medium. I feel that HD-DVD has a chance for quicker, fuller saturation of titles, but to put a twist on the old cliche, time will tell, not the marketers.

Michael.G

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 15th, 2005 at 9:51 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.