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Hardware
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Written by Daniel
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Friday, 19 June 2009 13:00 |
Blu-ray may have won the war against HD-DVD, but American consumers aren't exactly warming to the high-definition disc format.
Jeff Bertolucci
Jun 18, 2009 11:29 am
PC World
According to a new Harris Poll, more U.S. homes have a Blu-ray or HD-DVD player compared to a year ago, but adoption is slow. Only 7 percent of Americans own a Blu-ray player, up from 4 percent in 2008; while 11 percent have an HD-DVD unit, up from 6 percent a year ago.
I suspect that HD-DVD's slightly higher popularity is due to the fact that HD-DVD players were cheaper than their Blu-ray competitors, and hence were more appealing to early adopters. Of course, now that HD-DVD has gone the way of Betamax, it's certain to fade away quickly.
The popularity of high-def physical media gets a boost if you factor in the 9 percent of U.S. consumers who own a Sony PlayStation 3, which plays Blu-ray discs too. Still, consumers' lack of interest in Blu-ray is bad news for proponents of the HD disc format. Only 7 percent of survey respondents who don't own a Blu-ray player say they're likely to buy a Blu-ray unit within the next year, down from 9 percent in May 2008. [Comments...]
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