High Def DVD DOA?
November 17, 2006

Slate declares HD DVD and Blu-ray dead on arrival in a piece today by Sean Cooper. The reasoning: HD movie downloads from Microsoft, cable on demand offerings, the high cost of high def players and the low cost of hard drives for storing films. While Cooper adds at the end that Internet downloads aren't here now, he predicts that will change quickly. Which, I suspect would make the guys at CinemaNow and Movielink laugh, given how long they've been waiting for the business to kick in gear.

Here are my thoughts after reading it. Sure, they make some good points, but even the download guys will acknowledge that it's going to take time to build the business. As everyone in the industry likes to remind nervous video retailers over and over: music downloads still only make up like 10% of the music business. Plus, high def player costs are likely to start dropping next year when Chinese manufacturers get in the biz. And cable on demand - who knows, VOD has been a threat forever to video and while it's definitely come a long way in the last few years, it's still early.

It's not that I think high def DVD is a slam dunk, I think it's still too early to tell. I think downloads will be a segment of the video business. But as for killing the high def disc, I think there are plenty of other reasons more likely than downloads that could doom it to being the next Laserdisc. Like retailer and consumer confusion or the fact that people are pretty happy with DVD's picture. What do you think?

Posted by Jennifer Netherby on November 17, 2006 | Comments (1)