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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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Page 2 of 2 And then there are the prices for Blu-ray and HD DVD players. The prices are totally ridiculous, costing hundreds of dollars more than a DVD player, and are often even more expensive than the Blu-ray playing Sony PS3 or the HD DVD playing Xbox 360 with the new HD DVD add-on drive. Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
Even an iPod, a play-only device out of the box, has had the ability, through an add-on attachment, to record. While the initial versions were limited to 8-bit, telephone quality audio, the latest iPods can record at 16-bit, 44.1Khz CD quality – be they the iPod with Video, or the 2nd-gen iPod nano. With a growing amount of high-def HDTV content now available from a range of sources, from free-to-air TV to cable TV offerings and even downloads (which are a form of recording) through the Xbox 360’s new video download service in the US, people want to RECORD. People like to keep things. It’s a simple fact of humanity. Until Blu-ray and HD DVD recorders come onto the market, at realistic prices (which they certainly won’t be when they first arrive), few will want to spend the money on a Blu-ray or HD DVD player when they can get an entire home entertainment and gaming system from Microsoft or Sony for less money. And even though Blu-ray and HD DVD recorders are now available in Japan, that’s only for a market of 120+ million people. There’s still at least 3 billion people out there who probably have the money to buy one, and another 2.7 billion people out there who can’t, as they’re in third world countries, but are rapidly getting exposed to technology through the ubiquitous mobile phone and the very cheap DVD player. The industry has painted itself into a corner. Anyone with smarts will avoid Blu-ray and HD DVD players like the plague. This is tremendously good news for the PS3 and Xbox 360, which will sell like hotcakes as they already have. Microsoft just needs to make sure it can cut through with its HD DVD drive add-on, lowering the price as necessary, and needs to keep on advertising its Xbox Live video download service. Sony just needs to get over the production problems and get millions more PS3s out to the world. And consumers need to be very careful how they spend their money so they don’t end up with the Betamax equivalent of a boat anchor. {moscomment} |
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