Panel: Consumers will have to choose

FROM CES: High-def rivals agree that no agreement is in sight

By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 1/8/2007

JAN. 8 | LAS VEGAS—For now, it looks like there’ll be two high-definition disc formats. That’s the takeaway from a mix of industry players who took part in the “And the Winner Is” panel, moderated by Paul Sweeting of Video Business and ContentAgenda.com at CES Monday.

Ben Keen, chief analyst with Screen Digest, said fewer than 125,000 standalone high-definition players made it to market in 2006, and he predicted that both sides will struggle to get 1.8 million units out in 2007, referring to Toshiba’s prediction for its own players.

Keen blamed the low numbers on consumer confusion. But Warner Home Video senior VP of market management Steve Nickerson said it’s because of limited hardware availability.

“On any of our platforms, it’s pretty difficult to find hardware now,” Nickerson said, referring to Warner’s support of both HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc.

Value Electronics retailer Robert Zohn said consumers are confused by two formats but added that they are used to making choices between competing offerings. “Consumers need to be educated quite a bit more,” Zohn said.

Warner’s Nickerson, whose studio is putting films out on both formats so as to “not leave any money on the table,” said unless the two leading backers of Blu-ray and HD DVD decide to end the war, it’ll be up to consumers to make the choice.

“Walk around this show; multiple formats is what this industry is about,” he said. “Consumers make choices all the time on technology.”

Warner’s Total HD disc, which will include a Blu-ray and HD DVD compatible movie on one disc, is meant to make it easier for consumers to pick a side and more efficient for the studio, which is now producing a disc for each format.

Microsoft corporate VP of the media technology group Amir Majidimehr said LG Electronic’s announcement about a dual-format player shows that HD DVD is not going away and could force Blu-ray-only studios to reconsider HD DVD.

“You can wish it will go away, but I’m here to make sure it doesn’t go away,” he said.

Retailer Zohn predicted that the dual-format discs and players will only prolong the format war.

Andy Parsons, head of the Blu-ray Disc Assn. and senior VP of product development at Pioneer Electronics, said content is what will win in the end.

“As fine a product as the Toshiba player is, and the HD DVD group has done an exceptional job, what it really comes down to is content,” he said.

When asked what the tipping point would be that would push one format to victory, nobody had any clear answers.

Pointing to past format wars in other industries, Nickerson said those most involved would likely say the tipping point “winds up being something that couldn’t be projected, because if you can project it, you can affect it.”