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30-Jun-2009
by David Mercer
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Blu-ray To Blame For Customer Confusion?
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Connected Home
Recent research
from renowned polling firm Harris Interactive has put the cat among the
Blu-ray pigeons by claiming that 11% of US homes now own an HD-DVD
(yes, HD-DVD) player, compared to 7% which own a Blu-ray player. If
true this would be great, if inexplicable, news to Toshiba, which, as
its major proponent, abandoned HD-DVD technology more than a year ago
after Warner famously jumped ship to join the Blu-ray camp.
I doubt that even Toshiba will give much credence to the Harris
research, however much it would love to. Quite where the 12 million
HD-DVD players supposedly connected to American TV sets have come from
is unexplained in the Harris survey: presumably some mystery factory in
the Chinese hinterland has been churning them out and shipping them via
newly discovered shipping routes (past the melting icebergs north of
Russia, perhaps) and unbeknownst to the rest of the world.
There is a serious message from these clearly erroneous results,
however (for the record, much less than 1% of US homes currently have
an HD-DVD device of any description, and that percentage is falling).
They once again demonstrate how difficult it is to get accurate answers
about technology from consumer surveys. Years ago, before HDTV sets or
services had been launched in Europe, we used to include questions
about HDTV ownership and interest in our user surveys, and without fail
we found at least a few percentage of people who thought, for whatever
reason, that they already owned and were watching HDTV.
And why should we blame consumers for the confusion? Even as someone
who follows the industry on a day-to-day basis, I try to keep my
“ordinary consumer” hat on stand-by. Listening in on discussions
between salesmen and customers on the retail floor is always an
eye-opener, and I symphathise with both sides. Why should either
customers or shop staff be expected to learn the complex language of
the technology industry? If the store is demonstrating an HD-capable TV
alongside an upscaling DVD player, the images could look pretty good,
and why would I, as an ordinary customer, not want to describe what
I’ve seen as “HD DVD”?
So a question in a survey which asks about “HD DVD players” will
inevitably be interpreted in many different ways. I suspect there are
even Blu-ray Disc player owners who, if asked in the right (or wrong)
way, would say they owned an “HD DVD player”. The thing play “DVDs”,
and it plays in high definition. Seems to make sense to me… It’s not as
if most people had ever even heard of HD-DVD (the Toshiba standard). In
spite of the hype surrounding the whole standards war within the
technology industry, I believe it failed to interest or concern the
majority of the population. So why should they have a problem using the
same term however they please?
So the real problem for the Blu-ray camp is not the numbers from the
Harris survey – everyone knows they are simply wrong. It is the fact
that consumers thought they were saying the right thing, and are
clearly thoroughly confused by the whole world of HDTV, discs, formats,
standards and terminology. It’s time to stop blaming consumers for
being confused simply because Blu-ray still hasn’t got its message
across effectively.
Client Reading: Digital Media Devices Global Market Report
About the author
David Mercer is one of the industry’s most experienced analysts focusing on digital media and consumer technologies. During more than 20 years of analysis and consulting within the broadband, consumer technology and media industries he has worked with many leading global players across the value chain. He is widely recognised as an authority on advanced television, emerging consumer technologies and the digital home, speaks regularly at international conferences, and is frequently quoted by the specialist and general press and media. His analyst blog is published at www.strategyanalytics.com/blogs/author/dmercer.
David joined Strategy Analytics in January 1997 after a period spent in freelance consulting and writing. He previously spent one year at the specialist research firm, Understanding and Solutions. Before this he spent eight years at BIS Strategic Decisions, where he managed the company’s market-leading consumer electronics and media research and analysis programs.
His work currently focuses on:
• The transition to digital media
• The impact of broadband on consumer devices
• Emerging television technologies
He graduated from Reading University in the UK in 1987 with a BA (Hons) in Linguistic Science.
http://www.strategyanalytics.com/
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