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Where's the Hi Def?
July 16, 2007

I'm at the Home Media Expo this week in Las Vegas, which officially kicks off tomorrow, but got a sluggish start today.

There's surprisingly little on the official agenda this year from Blu-ray and HD DVD backers, strange since they both have so much riding on this fourth quarter, which will really be the first that players are widely available at retail. There are no panels for retailers on either format. No presence on the show floor by backers of either format, no big presentations to sell retailers on their respective format.

Sure the HD DVD Promotional Group is offering Toshiba's bottom line HD DVD player for $99 to attendees, which is totally tempting. New Line told indie retailers today that Hairspray would be their first high def release on Blu-ray and HD DVD. But that's about it. No competing press conference between the two camps like last year, no Blu-ray lounge from Sony as there was last year.

That's not to say that backers are skipping the show altogether, just the retailer part, it seems.

Instead they are courting the 75 or so early adopters from the Home Theater Forum and The Digital Bits that were invited to attend this year's show and talk about their habits with studios and retailers. Blu-ray backers Disney, Sony, Fox and Lionsgate are throwing them a party Tuesday night. The HD DVD Promotional Group will give a demo for them, they'll get sit-down meetings with Warner and Universal (where they'll surely be asked if and when they'll start releasing on Blu-ray.)

Not to say that these guys aren't important, but, umm, how are the studios going to reach these types of consumers without the retailers behind them? Backers of both formats keep saying that they want to better educate retailers about high def, so why not here? I keep hearing that there are fewer retailers attending this year compared with last year, but there are retailers here and given the state of the format war, why isn't either side trying to win them over?

Kiosk makers and digital download services certainly seem to be reaching out to them at the show. They'll take part in panels focused on digital distribution, the new part of the business that's expected to grow much slower than high def disc and be a much smaller part of the market for the next five years. Lionsgate estimates that consumers have so far spent $40 million on digital movie downloads, which is like less than the consumer spend on one small box office DVD release. And most retailers I asked about digital yesterday seem unconcerned with it right now.

Instead I've heard talk from small and midsize retailers about Blu-ray and HD DVD and whether more retailers are starting to lean in Blu-ray's favor. Too bad there's no big push from either format to the show them why they should or shouldn't pick a side already.

Posted by Jennifer Netherby on July 16, 2007 | Comments (10)