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Wait and See Time for high def DVD
December 5, 2006
Downloads and high def DVD seemed to be the center of attention during cocktail hour at last night's Video Hall of Fame dinner hosted by Video Business. Nobody seems to have any grand conclusions or predictions on the format war yet (at least none that they're willing to share with a reporter(!)), still they can't help but talk about it. I tried to get some hard answers, but alas came up short.
At one point, I was saying Hi to New Line's Matt Lasorsa, who jokingly asked what the good high def news was. So I turned to Warner's high def expert Steve Nickerson who was nearby and posed the question to him. He laughed, but gave no answer as he walked away... Thwarted! New Line, btw hasn't yet announced any titles for high def release, but Lasorsa said some will be coming next year on both formats.
For the most part studio execs and retailers I talked to said they're waiting to see how sales on high def shake out this quarter, without as much of the blustery talk of years, or even months, past. Still, the Blu-ray guys are always quick to talk up sales of the PlayStation 3 console that will put them into millions of homes by first quarter, while the HD DVD guys are quick to suggest looking at the attach rate of Blu-ray discs to players. On the HD DVD side, the attach rate (the number of discs sold per player) is around 25 DVDs, higher than DVD was when if first launch. I haven't heard a number yet for Blu-ray, but I have heard Blu-ray disc sales were twice as high on Blu-ray in the days following the PS3's launch and backers seem pleased so far.
Posted by Jennifer Netherby on December 5, 2006 | Comments (0)
