Blu-ray awareness rising, but challenges remain: study

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. consumer awareness about the Blu-ray high-definition DVD format is rising, but adoption of the technology still faces challenges, according to data released on Tuesday by research company NPD Group.

Until earlier this year, consumers seeking sharper movies on high-definition DVDs had to choose between two competing standards -- Blu-ray backed by Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and the rival HD DVD, backed by Toshiba Corp (6502.T: Quote, Profile, Research).

The standards war ended in February when Toshiba threw in the towel, but NPD said Blu-ray player manufacturers still face hurdles due to price and perceptions among consumers who are content with standard-definition DVD players and content.

Hollywood and consumer electronics makers are hoping the technology would ignite a slowing $24 billion home DVD market.

NPD said 45 percent of U.S. high-definition television owners now claim to be familiar with Blu-ray, up from 35 percent in June 2007.

While just 6 percent of all consumers surveyed said they plan to buy a Blu-ray device, 9 percent of high-definition TV owners plan to buy one in the next six months, NPD said.

"With HDTVs now in approximately 40 million U.S. households, that percentage translates to a pool of almost 4 million potential BD (Blu-ray) player buyers," according to Russ Crupnick, entertainment industry analyst for NPD.

Earlier on Tuesday, Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said it was now aggressively promoting sales of Blu-ray players by offering from June 8-14, a $100 Wal-Mart gift card with the purchase of any Blu-ray player in its stores.

Wal-Mart has also increased the brands of Blu-ray players it sells, adding Magnavox, Samsung and Panasonic, and will sell select Blu-ray movie titles for $15 starting June 8, including "3:10 to Yuma", "Shooter" and "300".

(Reporting by Sue Zeidler, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

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Blu-ray Drive

With the coast clear for Blu-ray to get a real grip on the next gen disc market, a report by Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices Services suggests that there will be 29.4million Blu-ray players operating in homes across the globe by the end of 2008.
The figure is based on projected sales this year of 18.8million Blu-ray units, broken down to around four million standalone BD players, 13million PS3s and two million PC-orientated Blu-ray drives.
Coupled with the ongoing transition by consumers to HDTVs, this sales figure is expected to rise to 57.4million BD units by 2012, with more than 132million homes across the globe owning at least one Blu-ray player.

'HD DVD's withdrawal leaves the way open for Blu-ray to become a major revenue earner for technology vendors and content owners alike,' said David Mercer, principal analyst at Strategy Analytics. 'The 265 million homes that will own an HDTV by 2012, and Hollywood's need for a new growth engine, represent huge incentives for the industry to coordinate marketing activities and demonstrate unified support for the successor to DVD'. Strategy Analytics expects the largest Blu-ray market by 2012 to be Europe, with 26.4million BD devices sold that year compared to 22.6million in the US and 8.4million in Japan.

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Sony Launches New Blu-ray Recorders

Sony has unwrapped two new Blu-ray recorders boasting large hard disk drives and the very useful ability to transfer recorded HD material to other Sony products with the simple push of a button.

As usual, they are arriving in Japan first for around £800-£850 apiece. The new recorders, the BDZ-A70 and BDZ-T90, come with 320GB and 500GB hard disk drives respectively, and boast a cool ‘one-touch’ feature that allows content to be transferred to a PSP or video Walkman device via USB.

This is another example of how Sony seems determined to make its key consumer technologies work easily together, like the increasing integration between the PS3 and PSP. We recently heard that PSP owners will be able to copy over their Blu-ray movies to the handheld later this year.

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Mitsubishi Blu-ray recorders put HD video on standard DVDs

Mitsubishi just launched two new Blu-ray recorders set for Japan with the DVR-BZ200 and the DVR-BZ100. The two recorders each house an internal HDD with 500GB and 250GB capacities, respectively.

The part that really makes these Blu-ray records most notable is that they can record HD content onto a regular DVD disc with Blu-ray’s AVCREC specs. You can fit around a couple of hours of Full HD MPEG video onto a standard 4.7GB DVD, and set it to record using the super-cool, included touch screen remote control.

Toshiba also has/had a recorder that was able to save content onto a hard drive or HDD as well, but of course it was an HD DVD recorder which didn’t end up panning out. The DVR-BZ200 and DVR-BZ100 recorders also have digital and analog TV tuners and a feature to skip commercials when recording.

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Two New Mitsubishi Blu-Ray Recorders

Mitsubishi Electric just released two New Blu-Ray recorders, the DVR-BZ200 with 500GB of internal HDD and the DVR-BZ100 with 250GB of internal HDD. Both support, obviously, AVC codec, but also AVCREC which allows you to record AVC to DVD (cheaper than Blu-Ray discs). We also have digital and analog TV tuners as well as HDMI and Tivo Like (automatically removes commercials) support …

The most interesting thing by far is touch-screen color LCD remote conrtol... SWEET !

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Blu-ray player prices hit 2008 highs as competition dwindles

Pricewatch - Blu-ray Disc players from Samsung, Sony and Sharp are now the most expensive they have been all year, presumably because HD DVD's exit from the high-def disc arena has removed some of Blu-ray's pricing pressure.

Although HD DVD was always seen as a distant second in the HD format war, it constantly received attention because of the lower cost of its players. Because of this, standalone Blu-ray players were not moving off store shelves very steadily.

The majority of Blu-ray Disc movie purchases have to date been for consumers who own a Playstation 3, which has BD playback capabilities.

In a move to expedite HD DVD's downfall, Blu-ray manufacturers and retailers aggressively cut prices earlier this year, to the point where it was possible to buy a standalone BD player for less than $300.



Now, however, according to Pricegrabber.com's most recent information, the average price for Blu-ray hardware is around $400, which is right around where it was last year. The players from Samsung, Sony, Sharp and Panasonic included here are the least expensive on the market and also the most widely available. LG's BH200 is a dual format player with support for Blu-ray and HD DVD.

Within just the last two weeks, te average prices for LG's BH200 player and Sharp's BD-HP20U have climbed significantly. Every standlone Blu-ray-specific player in the chart above is now more expensive than it was at the beginning of the year.



Sony's S300 seems to have settled pretty calmly at the $400 point, despite being closer to $300 at the beginning of the year. With Sony's PS3 at the same price point, it is hard to justify buying the standalone Blu-ray player. That goes for all the devices listed here.

By looking at these prices, it is pretty clear that the PS3 did in fact almost singlehandedly declare the winner of the format war. Another point worth noting is that all of these players will reach a certain level of obsolescence later this year, as soon as the new BD Profile is released.

Later this year, Blu-ray movies will carry a new slate of advanced features, most notable being the ability to connect to the Internet. However, none of the Blu-ray players on the market today (with the exception of the PS3) can connect online. This means that not only will they be unable to access Web-enabled features in the future but they also cannot receive firmware upgrades.

With that reality looming, it surprises me that current players are still price as high as they are, and especially that they continue to rise. Obviously they are rebounding from the HD DVD competition, but if these prices don't come down soon, they will be forced down significantly more when the new wave of players comes out.

Meanwhile, the HD-A3 HD DVD player set a new low today, with the average Pricegrabber price at $98. It is interesting that this and other HD DVD players continue to plummet in price, because they do after all still function as DVD upconverters.

Ironically, although Blu-ray has been declared the winner, it is right now about the worst time to invest in a standalone Blu-ray player, because of the high prices and looming obsolescence. Many of the current Blu-ray manufacturers have announced new players that will support BD Profile 2.0, so my advice would be to buy a PS3 or wait for the next-gen players. In the meantime, buy a dirt cheap HD DVD player and some even cheaper HD DVD movies.

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TiVo to Provide YouTube Videos Directly to the Television

TiVo Inc., the creator of and a leader in television services for digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced an agreement with YouTube™ that will offer access to YouTube videos directly from the TV via a TiVo DVR. The service will be available later this year to broadband-connected subscribers with TiVo Series3™ DVRs, including the new TiVo HD.

Every day hundreds of millions of videos are viewed on YouTube and hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded. Upon launch of the TiVo-YouTube service, TiVo users will be able to search, browse and watch these videos directly on their television sets through their broadband connected TiVo DVRs. The combination of having the YouTube experience with the convenience and familiarity of TiVo’s intuitive user interface will provide TiVo subscribers with the ability to discover and enjoy the most shared and most discussed web videos in the world on their televisions. Importantly, users will be able to log into their YouTube accounts directly from their TiVo boxes and access their favorite YouTube channels and playlists.

“We’re delighted to be working with the world’s leading online video community so that TiVo subscribers can access YouTube’s popular content on the TV via the TiVo DVR,” said Tara Maitra, Vice President and GM of Content Services at TiVo Inc. “Being able to make available YouTube videos to the TiVo subscriber base using one device, one remote and one user interface is another major step in our commitment to combine all of your television and web video viewing options in one easy to use service.”

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