Market analysis firm Cymfony has combed through blogs and discussion boards, and finds online consumers aren't thrilled about Sony's Blu-ray DVD technology.
Market analysis firm Cymfony has released a brief research report, “A Blue Christmas for Blu-ray” (available for download with registration) which reports results from combing through more than 17,000 postings in blogs and online discussion boards during October and November 2006. The results? Sony’s next-generation Blu-ray technology is awash in negative buzz, as online consumers express skepticism over Sony’s ability to deliver a market-defining technology, and express resentment that the PlayStation 3 video game console has been rendered expensive—and hard-to-get—because of the company’s decision to include a Blu-ray drive.
According to Cymfony, the reasons online consumers cite for disliking Blu-ray don’t match the main points hit in the technology press (those being the cost of Blu-ray players and the “format war” between HD DVD and Blu-ray. Instead, 26 percent of online posters express a general dislike for the format, citing Sony’s history of proprietary formats which fail to capture a marketplace (like BetaMax and MiniDisc, and, it’s looking like, Sony’s UMD movie discs). Many posters also felt Sony was an “arrogant” company. Another 21 percent of online consumers based their dislike for Blu-ray on Sony’s decision to include Blu-ray in the PlayStation 3 gaming console.
Cymfony’s analysis found the competing HD DVD format garnered 46 percent more “positive discussions” than Blu-ray. Cympfony also found comparatively few people are talking about Blu-ray’s larger storage capacity or wider-ranging interactive features. But Cymfony’s data also shows that many online posters haven’t made up their mind on either Blu-ray or HD DVD, with over half expressing neutral opinions about the formats (53.1 percent neutral for Blu-ray, 52.8 percent for HD DVD).
Cymfony followed posts on 323 discussion boards and blogs, but found that almost 60 percent of the posts were on only 44 sites. Loosely categorized, Cymfony felt posters were roughly 40 percent videophiles, 19 percent were gamers, and 41 percent expressed themselves on “low volume sites.
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RSSIs it true that if I want to play my current DVD titles that I can't do that on Blu-Ray and I can do that on HD-DVD? So if Blu-Ray wins and I want to enjoy both, I would either have to add another component to my already filled cabinet...or wait for a Blu-Ray player with a dual lens system to play both discs? If that's the case, I hope HD wins, and from what I'm reading it's half the price of Blu-Ray?? Sounds like HD-DVD should win for the everyday consumer if they are so close, and that Blu-Ray will end up in our computers. Anyone got some insight for me?
It didn't help that there is *4* formats for DVDs now, that's what burned me big time. So if you want holographic storage to take off, settle on 1 standard first otherwise, you might as well kiss it goodby too. 25 years of R&D wasted.
- Kevin
Now, about whats the best format? I like both (prefare HDDVD cause of cost right now). The winner? well only time will tell.
Whether or not Blu-Ray flies, the notion that it is disliked because people resent that PS3s are expensive or hard to come by is ridiculous.
Blu-Ray is a better format than HD-DVD and hopefully the larket will reflect that in the next year.
After all, I produce HD videos for my customers. And I cant burn them to HD-DVD. I can, however, burn Blu-Ray.
Take that, pollsters.
lol.. statistics.. I stopped believing in them when I took several courses on them in University.
So here is a question based on the disproportionate population sample.
Which websites were "queried"?
I'm sure I could write the same story about HD-DVD if I went to websites that were "Blu-Ray" friendly. The questions I like to ask are "Who pays the editors?" and what do they have to gain from writing these statistically flawed articles? Did they buy an HD-DVD and want to see it win? You are barking up the wrong tree here - show me some cold hard numbers and when you pull some stats out of your *SS, try cleaning it off first. ;)
tata,
/HH