HD DVD May Face Marketing Nightmare

With the Blu-ray high-definition DVD format soaking up the limelight at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the HD DVD format may be in trouble.

Warner Brothers' announcement last week that it would stop pressing movies in the HD DVD format shook things up. The Time Warner studio's plan to back the Blu-ray disc format will have it stop distributing movies in HD DVD later this year. Warner Brothers' crushing blow to the HD DVD format could lead to a marketing nightmare.

Panasonic Training Manager Ron Cameron said he believes that Warner Brothers made the move to Blu-ray because of the long list of companies supporting the technology. He said the players with recorders being sold in Japan today will move into the U.S. market in 2009.

"Blu-ray recorders record 30 percent more information than HD DVD, and they always will," Cameron said. "Consumers are building an incredible library of movies, and when Blu-ray recorders come to the United States, those who bought HD DVD players will want to know why the salesperson didn't tell them."

Los Angeles-based marketing consultant Rochelle Winters said these predictions do not hold much weight, since the 15- to 20-year-olds of today, who become the main buying public in 10 years, will want everything downloaded.

"There doesn't seem to be a craving for a high-resolution home experience, except for sports, among the next generation of consumers," she said.

Warner Brothers' departure from the technology leaves Paramount and Universal as primary HD DVD backers. Reports from conference-goers say it appears that Toshiba remains committed to HD DVD and talk of the format's demise is premature.

At this year's CES, Toshiba was expected to introduce a fourth-generation HD DVD player, but during the press and analyst presentation Sunday, the company reportedly spent less than five minutes talking about the technology. The only mention of the format came at the end, along with a press release.

Meanwhile, Panasonic, Philips and Sony announced new Blu-ray players. Sony rolled out a high-definition version of its spherical digital living room PC, the VAIO TP Home Theater PC. The media hub integrates a Blu-ray disc drive, built-in DVR and Bravia Sync technology for one-touch play. The model comes with two external CableCard TV tuners to simultaneously watch and record HD programs.

Sony also introduced a sub-$200 internal BD-ROM drive that can upgrade an existing desktop computer into a high-definition Blu-ray disc player, as well as a DVD and a CD player. The BDU-X10S drive comes with CyberLink's PowerDVD BD Edition software for playback of commercial movie titles, recorded Blu-ray disc home videos, DVD-ROMs and CD-ROMs.

Panasonic premiered its first integrated home theater system with a Blu-ray player. The unit will play standard DVDs, support Blu-ray's depth of colors, and offer Dolby TruHD and DTS-HD 7.2 surround audio.

Philips plans to begin selling a $349 Blu-ray high-definition DVD player in April. The Philips BDP7200 player, which offers picture-in-picture, is expected to display video in 1080p.