While many people expected sales of Blu-ray disc players to spike when Toshiba decided to drop out of the high-definition HD DVD market in February 2008, according to a new Harris Poll, it seems that the recently resolved high definition format war is not motivating consumers to purchase the advanced DVD players any time soon. The Harris Poll® of 2,529 U.S. adults surveyed online between April 7 and 15, 2008 by Harris Interactive® found that...

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My response to BluRay winning the format 'war' was to go out and buy a second identical Toshiba HD-A3KU for $99.00 as 'insurance' should my first HD player fail anytime soon. I have about a dozen HD DVD's, most of which I haven't even watched yet. I will depend on the HD DVD player to give improved performance on my SD DVD's. Everyone to his/her opinion, but my opinion was that the Toshiba player was the best. I have no interest in BluRay. I will wait until the next 'newest thing' beyond BlueRay comes out

kweimer wrote: I will wait until the next 'newest thing' beyond BlueRay comes out

Which may be sooner than expected. Right now, Mitsubishi is touring Electronic Expo stores, demonstrating 3-D home theater. With OnDemand and cable currently providing me with HD content, i may not need ever bother with BR. (I love how they are touting the "community-viewing experience of BD-Live as some breakthrough...forgetting that HD-DVD offered the same thing last year for HARRY POTTER, but at hundreds of dollars less!) But I'll be watching to see how the 3-D hardware/software market evolves.

With HD VOD I will NEVER buy Blu-ray. Sony and their cronies can keep their expensive format and make office furniture out of the cases of unsold units.

Directv and cable HD VOD is going to be the dragon slayer and I can't wait to see them win.

jeb

I purchased my Toshiba HD DVD player in November, and at that time I was unaware of any "war". BluRay and HDDVD's were selling at about the same rate. I presumed bluray sales were tied to PS3 sales. I love the upconverting feature, and I own several HD DVD's. Unfortunately, I'm not drawn to bluray, because I've already made my investment. I've purchased a second player in case the first one stops working. It's been a disappointment. I'm not ready to spend dollars on an expensive bluray player. Why can't both exist?

Watch Overstock.com and eBay for the few dual players that were produced...the prices are high now but they WILL come down.

I for one will stick wit VOD....I used to be a "movie buyer" but in my own little protest....they can KEEP THEIR RETAIL SALES.

Now you wanna get into the presidential primaries! Kidding.

Good luck and hang in.....we are the keepers of the CASH.

jeb

I own both formats and have many of both disks but most people I know will not buy Blue-ray because of the great price difference.

DirecTV just this past Friday came out and installed free upgrade of HD Receiver and replaced my 3 LNB dish with the new 5 LNB dish. Maybe the Dragon Slayer will arrive sooner than expected. :shock:

As Mark Twain once said, there are lies, dammed lies and then there are statistics. Let’s take another look at these statistics derived from 2,529 adults which is about .0008 percent of the US population:

Of these about 328 don’t even own a DVD player which leaves a sample of US 2200 adults who invest in modern pre-recorded media players. This brings the sample size down to about .0007 percent of the population for people who already own a DVD player.

According to the survey*, 9% of these adults already own Blu-ray players, a very interesting number since the format war was only won by Blu-ray 2 months before these statistics were compiled, especially interesting since this percentage includes people who don’t even own a DVD player.

The article states that of people already owning HD television, 10 percent already own Blu-ray players and an additional 14 percent are likely to purchase one which would bring the total number of HD TV set owners that either already have a Blu-ray player or plan to buy one at 24 percent, despite the fact that only 67% of consumers are even aware that there is a format war.

Given the small sample size, the extremely short time that Blu-ray has become the official standard, and the shaky logic of this article’s conclusion, I think that at this point in time it would be just as easy to come to the opposite conclusion: even at this very early date in the technology cycle, consumers are choosing the Blu-ray format in statistically significant numbers.

Henry

*counting the PS3 as a Blu-ray player

"Let’s take another look at these statistics derived from 2,529 adults which is about .0008 percent of the US population:"

.0008 of the population? I'm not a statistician, but seems to me that a sample of only .0008 of the population is a totally insignificant sample from which to attempt to draw any conclusions.

Exactly.

hharris4@earthlink.net wrote:As Mark Twain once said, there are lies, dammed lies and then there are statistics. Let’s take another look at these statistics derived from 2,529 adults which is about .0008 percent of the US population ... blah blah blah

Sounds like someone is trying to defend their purchase.

You obviously don't understand polling methodology very well. If you do a bit of research, you will find that a common misunderstanding with polls is that "more is automatically better". Here, I'll get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margin_of_error

Go through this page and do the math. With a 99% confidence level, 3% margin of error, and population size of 301,621,157 (latest census figure from 2007), you only need a sample size of 1,844. The sample size of this poll was 2,529!

Personally, I will not buy Blu-ray. I am perfectly happy with DirecTV, upconverted DVD, and my Apple TV. Perhaps if Blu-ray players come down in price, I will be more interested ... but for now my money has to go toward putting fuel in my car.

- Miller

VOD and recorders are coming......

Directv and Tivo are in the process of bringing out new technology that will not require purchase of new equipment. They have finally mended their fences and are going to spoil us all.

HD and non-HD alike.

jeb

If you'd actually read my comment you'd know that my logic was not based on the size of the sample.

That be what I get for speed reading. I will also check out Wikipedia. I might even learn something. I try to learn something new every day.