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Technology Lifestyle Hi-def disc battle leads to consumer confusion
Technology Lifestyle Hi-def disc battle leads to consumer confusion | Hi-def disc battle leads to consumer confusion |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Sunday, 26 November 2006 | |
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But the problem this year is choice. There’s far too much choice for consumers, and while choice is never a bad thing, sometimes too much choice just makes life difficult. Consumers remember the Betamax and VHS debacle of the 1980s, with anyone purchasing a home Betamax player paying the ultimate price for what ended up as a boat anchor – unless you kept it in mint condition and were able to sell it on eBay, in recent times, for a comparative fortune. It’s not like the battle between GM and Ford. At least when you buy a car, it is compatible with virtually all roads. Imagine if you bought a car that refused to let you drive down the street! It’s also not like the battle between mp3 players. Yes, virtually all support a DRM’d format, be Microsoft’s WMA format (PlaysForSure), Apple’s own Fairplay format (supported on iPods, PCs and Macs running iTunes and select Motorola phones) or even the woeful Zune DRM, but all of those players can play industry standard mp3s. And those mp3s all sound as good as the DRM’d versions of songs. You see, while Blu-ray and HD DVD players will play DVDs easily enough, not only do most people already own a DVD player, but the DVD version of a movie, even if digitally upscaled to a higher resolution through clever computer trickery, will simply not look as clear and as sharp as a movie in native Blu-ray or HD DVD format. And therein lies the rub. For true hi-def movies, you need a true hi-def movie player. And both players are incompatible. How many people who actually did buy a Blu-ray or HD DVD movie player will accidentally buy for themselves a movie in the wrong format, or have a friend or relative buy them a movie in the wrong format? We’ve seen this happen before with DVD-R and DVD+R discs. Many consumers accidentally bought the wrong discs for their burner, until DVD burners started supporting both formats, making a wrong purchase decision irrelevant. Hey, don't stop reading now! The thrilling conclusion to this article doesn't air next week on HDTV... it's on the next page, available now. See you there, click 'next' or 'page 2' below!' |
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