RSSHarris Poll: More Americans own HD DVD consoles than Blu-ray
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published June 19, 2009, 1:14 PM
No, this isn't an accidentally posted Betanews article from back when we had a capital "N." The findings of a recent Harris Interactive poll released yesterday, whose major headline was to demonstrate the lack of recent consumer uptake for Blu-ray players more than one year after the high-definition format war ended, says that among 2,401 Americans polled last April, 11% own an HD DVD player console. But just 7% own a Blu-ray player console.
Could the pollsters be counting Xbox 360 as "an HD DVD player," or "HD DVD-capable," as some did during the format war's heyday? Apparently not. Some 9% of respondents own a Sony PlayStation 3, all of which are Blu-ray capable. Thus, 9% of citizens polled own Blu-ray players of some sort, whether or not they use them as Blu-ray players -- a gain of 4% over last year. Meanwhile, 3% of those polled own an Xbox 360, which Harris says "plays HD DVDs" even though the drive for doing so was well-known to have been an optional attachment.
By that logic, Harris could publish a brief stating the PS3 is 300% the success of the Xbox 360, which we all know not to be accurate.
Harris goes on to say sales of HD DVD and Blu-ray players have risen in the twelve-month period from April 2008, by the same margins -- both by 3%. But these "sales" are apparently among those whom Harris polled, not a figure reflecting nationwide sales figures.
The pollster does some intriguing numbers: An estimated 374 people turned up in Harris' poll own Blu-ray players, and 216 own PS3s. We do not know how many of these own both. But among the pool of Blu-ray capable respondents, only one-fourth plan to move their entire movie libraries to Blu-ray. One-third have already done so. The remainder -- people who already own Blu-ray capable equipment -- are reluctant to buy new Blu-ray movies today until their prices come down.
Harris apparently did not ask HD DVD owners about their reluctance to purchase HD DVD discs, though we can blindly throw a dart toward to what that outcome might have been and probably be spot on.
Assuming these numbers hold up, Harris VP Milton Ellis says the reason for consumers' continued reluctance to own Blu-ray may come from the alternatives, which in many cases are already here, and which may extinguish their need or want for discs. "In the near future, access to high definition movies may be a download or streaming delivery of one's favorite movies to a home media server that eliminates the need for a Blu-ray player and Blu-ray Disc," Ellis stated yesterday. "One thing is for sure, the market will be highly competitive and consumers will have a wide variety of choices for their entertainment experience."
If there's anything for sure to come out of this whole report, it's that one thing is for sure, and perhaps only that one thing.
Those figures don't make any sense.
The LD format too got an unexpected boost around 1997, when the DVD became decently available. Reason: video shops were disposing of their remaining LDs by the truckload, and this contributed to an important surge of activity in the second hand market. It doesn't mean the LD turned popular all of a sudden at the expense of the DVD -- it just took a long time for the DVD to really take off in Europe (more than four years) and during that period, I could still buy new LDs for a dime. For me, the choice was easy.
Yet, although I still have my LD collection as of today, I've got more than 300 DVDs in my movie library... Give the BD some more time and it will gain more commercial ground. That's of course if Sony stick their fingers out of their arse and really start doing some serious marketing around BD...
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|This poll contradicts itself. First it says that 7% own a Blu-ray player console. Then it says 9% own a Blu-ray player of some sort. Well which figure is correct?
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|2401 people surveyed?
That's just not enough people to make this worth writing an article over. Not to mention, survey's can be manipulated to give the result you are looking for.
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|It would be interesting to find out how many of those people polled have ever visited Betanews (or even BetaNews). I suspect the answer would be very close to zero, which would go a long way toward explaining why we find it hard to understand their technology progressiveness or lack thereof (and why they would probably find it hard to understand why we even care).
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|Good to hear!
Region coding, HDCP, BD+ and all that other crap are great reasons to boycott Sony's Blu-ray. It's such a PITA to get your average media centre playing Blu-ray discs that in the end you wonder if it's worth the trouble, or if you're better off downloading the high quality rips that don't have all the stupid hardware restrictions.
When it's easier (or, more to the point, you have no choice) high quality movies than buy them, you know you've done it wrong. :p
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|thats because "****" blu-ray, sony, and the politics behind the whole deal that led to the more expensive unfinished players winning the "war." i download my movies now and use the hd dvd player as a really nice upconverter, though it saddens me that some of the new flicks (transformers 2) will not be on my coveted hd player. definitely doesnt make me want to run out and buy a blu-ray player after all the shenanigans that ensued in the "format war" for sony to win. also, root kits and all that mess. still dont own a ps3, have no inclination to.
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|I own ...
Several VHS only players and over 400 VHS Movies.
Several DVD only players and over 600 DVDs, some are duplicates of those in my VHS collection.
Three HD DVD players from Toshiba and 130 HD DVDs, a few are duplicates of some of my DVDs.
One LG Blu-ray/HD DVD player in my PC and 2 Blu-ray movies, neither was avaialble as HD DVD.
I continue to purchase 10 - 20 DVD or HD DVD movies or concerts each month.
I will buy Blu-ray movies under these condiitons...
The movie is not available in WideScreen on DVD
The movie is not available on HD DVD
The movie price is no more that $15 for a first rate movie and not more than $10 for a good movie released in the past year.
The two Blu-ray movies I own are Fifth Element ($15) and Stargate ($10).
Cheers,
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|when you think about how many times you'll watch those any of those movies ever again (maybe once) and you factor in the availability of rentals elsewhere for 1/4th the price to own (netflix, apple tv, xbox live, redbox, etc), why are you spending all that money on something that's not: a) getting you laid, b) at all convenient to manage, c) allowing you to save money you could be spending on things worth buying like cars, clothes, or theater tickets to imax showings? Like seriously... what the hell bro? that's way too much poured into collectable junk. You're like one of those OCD mofos that can't throw anything away!
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|wow those are great movies two of my all time favs :)
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|Perhaps the poll has more validity than some may realize.
I, for example, own an HD DVD player as well as many HD-DVDs. I only paid $39 for the player (with a free movie), and an average of $4-5 per movie. The player is the stand-alone XBox player, which I play through my HTPC instead (even though we do have the power hungry XBox as well). It also upconverts regular DVDs beautifully.
Contrary to what some of the posters assume, a great number of of us did not jump into HD DVDs until after the war was over. Even now that no new HD DVDs are being published, I'm still not interested in Blue Ray. I tend to agree with many who predict that the ever expanding availability of HD streaming (Netflix, Amazon, etc) will eventually prevail as the winning HD format as long as ISPs offer unlimited broadband access.
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|In other news, 90% of the people claiming to own an "HD DVD" player have no idea what "HD DVD" really means....
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|one would wonder if the (I've had a little experience with HP) Harris pollsters got dvd's and hd dvd's confused. Was always a concern of mine ... HD DVD isn't a dvd. Much better for a name change. And downloading really I don't think be much yet. And you still have to store it somewhere. BD Live kinda fixes this little problem, although the content is a little lacking.
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|GREAT point!
Look in any of the recent flyers from Best Buy and other retailers and I'm sure you'll find a player that mentions HD-DVD without it being an HD DVD player. Upconverters often state this.
I bet many people were confused.
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|"Harris Poll: More Americans own HD DVD consoles than Blu-ray"
Paul Skinner Poll: More Americans are idiots.
Don't buy until war is over.
Too late now though.
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|LOL agreed.
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|One thing for SURE. BlueRay is Guaranteed to be the most some day..
Why NOT as the simple question. It's a disc why do these companies HAVE to have so much control over them at the expense of the customer???
Most people who buy this stuff DO NOT know anything about it.. Just want to watch a 20$ disc they purchased!!
IT people want a cheap disc to backup data. (FYI: it's not cheap yet.. 4 years later.. and 50G is NOT much space anyways) So I will NEVER buy one.
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|"One thing for SURE. BlueRay is Guaranteed to be the most some day.."
Nah...At the rate Blu-Ray is going something bigger and better will come along before it ever gets a foot in the market. Until then DVD will continue to dominate.
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|I think Sony and its partners have been dropping the ball on the HD adoption process. Their player and software (movies) are too expensive vis-a-vis the older DVD alternative and do not present enough of an upgrade over the image of a DVD in an upscaled player to entice buyers to switch. I have always been a techie and own over 500 titles and I have yet to find a reason to switch. The only reason that would help is best selling titles under $15 three months after release and a player under $150 with recording capabilities. In the meantime, I will keep buying, renting, etc. DVDs at 9.99 or less.
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|Heh...
Well.
That was informative. :p
Here's a report, none of the numbers add up or even really make much sense, but we can be sure of one thing...
Polls are useless. *grin*
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|Agreed PC_Tool. I was expecting an article that was going to surprise me and give me some information. I feel cheated out of the 1 minute or so that I was reading it.
Anyway, back to watching a Blu-Ray movie using my HD DVD/Blu-Ray Combo drive. ;)
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|I'm sure Harris (no newbie to polling) knows the difference between the HD DVD attachment on the Xbox 360, and the PS3 which has Blu-ray built in. The purpose of the poll overall what the uptake of high-definition in general. It just so happens the Blu-ray/HD DVD numbers provided the most news.
That said, it would have been interesting to see who uses the PS3 for Blu-ray. I'm sure its nowhere near the number who have bought the console overall.
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|Actually, of the 4 (yep... a whopping 4) people that I personally know that owns a PlayStation 3 console, 3 of them purchased it solely for its Blu-ray capabilities.
I'm about to be another one of those individuals.
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|I actually use the PS3 as a bluray player mostly. At the time i bought it. the 80 GB version for $399 with a bunch of games and extra controller on a sale. The price of bluray players were about $350... for $50 more i got the PS3 which is better.
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|I agree that the number in this article don't make sense although I didn't read the original report.
On another note NPD group reports that, "First quarter 2009 sales of standalone Blu-ray players in the U.S. topped 400,000 units"
So how come Harris could only find 374 with standalone players? Did they poll the same people from April 2008 again in 2009? The sample of 2401 persons sounds skewed somehow.
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|How many of them own an HDTV set? I bet all three. Of the people I know using the PS3 for Blu-ray, nearly all of them have a HDTV.
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