By Andrew Shapiro

The high definition format wars have been over for more than a year now and those of us in the production and replication industries can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Or can we? At the end of the last holiday shopping season Sony reported somewhat disappointing sales numbers for their now no- longer-fledgling format. Since its introduction industry analysts have lamented the fact that Hi-def formats have not been as quickly or as lucratively adopted as their DVD forerunner. Other media commentators have looked grimly at its future as well, declaring that on-demand options and downloadable content have become so commonplace that convenience will win out over the consumer desire to possess a physical disc. This might give many content owners pause when considering Blu-ray as a potential format for distribution.

Many of these seemingly dire predictions rely on inappropriate comparisons. The DVD, which took the consumer world by storm, was an obvious and easy upgrade for any consumer. It worked with almost any television viewing set-up, and was usually no harder to connect to the home entertainment system than a VCR. The quality improvement was impossible to deny even for the layperson that doesn’t make his living looking at calibrated NTSC monitors. In addition the random access features, lack of degeneration from use and small shelf footprint offered the consumer nothing but advantages. Considering all this might make it seem like Blu-ray has less of an advantage over its predecessor, but a closer inspection might reveal a different point of view.

Let’s look at the obstacles to adoption first. The manufacturers did not help the situation by having a long and drawn out format war where everybody lost. Consumers who refused to make another “betamax” mistake had to watch impatiently as one Hi-Def title after another was released on a format they did not own, and could not be sure would succeed. Content producers had to choose one side that might fail, or spend the time and money to release a title on both formats, one of which was destined to fail. While all this was happening TV makers, hardware makers, and publishers all lost out on consumer dollars.

The US Congress can actually share some of the blame in this situation as well. FCC efforts to mandate a specific date to make the switch to digital televisions followed by a series of confusing campaigns to inform people of their options has made the process of buying a new televisions a dismal process for many consumers. TV manufacturers are not helping the situation by making myriad different models with a list of specifications that are often useless marketing terms that only serve to obfuscate the situation for the average buyer.  In the end, the switch to Blu-ray is a much bigger risk, and much larger unknown than buying into DVD was.

It is finally starting to turn the corner. As HiFiDigest.com reported, sales of The Dark Knight Blu-ray broke all previous Hi-def home sales records, accounting for approximately 13% or 1.7 million units worldwide. This is not just an outlier type of statistic for an unusually popular movie either, it appears to be the latest data point in a trend. Prior to The Dark Knight, Disney’s release of No Country for Old Men took in 9.8% of home video sales while Fox’s Hitman covered 12.6% of disc sales.

I have no doubt that these percentages will grow rapidly. Just as DVD players have been incorporated as a matter of course into every consumer appliance even remotely related to video, blue laser players and burners will follow suit. Sony put a great deal of support and faith into their format by building an excellent Blu-ray player into their PS3 home game console. Rumors have been swirling for some time of Microsoft introducing a Blu-ray player peripheral for the Xbox 360 and prices for traditional set-top Blu-ray units have continued to drop as sales volume has increased. Finally, computer bundles are starting to appear which already include Blu-ray burners and playback software.

On the industrial side of the equation, more and more content producers are creating beautiful high definition content to bring their ideas to life. This content can be shown on computer screens and disc based files but the need for a physical disc with an intuitive and familiar interface that can be played on computers and big screen monitors alike remains. We simply can’t ask every office to have a D-5, or HDCam deck available for us to pitch our marketing concepts, sell our new home tour or see the lines on our new car design. Having a Blu-ray disc is the obvious solution in terms of cost and practicality.

Eventually other factors will align as well. Content on Blu-ray continues to grow rapidly as studios and media publishers no longer have to choose between competing formats and as such the consumer desire to take advantage of that content pool is growing. Even the congressional measures mentioned above may help as the digital conversion deadline looms in July, spurring increased sales for hi-definition televisions. The cost of entry continues to drop as LCD prices fall, and the technology becomes less confusing, more reliable and more compatible as each firmware update happens for capable playback units.

The advent of DVD was a massive boon for consumers, manufacturers and publishers alike. No doubt the adoption of Blu-ray has been underwhelming by comparison due to mistakes on the part of the trademark holders, Congress, competitors and just plain bad luck. Like any other format that offers genuine benefit for the consumer, though, Blu-ray will continue to grow in sales, popularity and installed user base. In addition to the very smart move to keep players backward compatible with standard DVDs, Sony and other manufacturers have taken steps to make them forward compatible with network and disc based updates that add new features and increase compatibility.

It’s been a long time coming for all of us, but the wide adoption of Blu-ray as a Hi-Definition medium is coming, and it’s coming quickly. We’ve taken steps at iDEA MEDIA to be prepared. Now it’s time to find out how prepared you are.

iDEA MEDIA SERVICES, LLC.
1700 West Hubbard Street
Chicago, Illinois 60622
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info@ideareplication.com