HD vs. SD: two years later

[diogen]

Exactly two years ago HD DVD lost the battle to Blu-ray.
Around the same time I made a few posts with an estimate what Blu-ray market share would be.
Here and here.

DEG published their year-end report for 2010 that allows us to check how accurate those predictions were.
http://www.dvdinformation.com/pressreleases/2011/f_Q410.pdf

One of the assumptions made in the old posts was wrong: I assumed DVD sales will get frozen whereas they went down

...the total number of DVDs shipped is 1700 million as opposed to 5.6 million BDs. That makes it 0.33%.
Adding HDs will increase this number 50% (i.e. 2:1 sales ration), hence 0.5%.

Assuming DVD sales get frozen, this BD percent goes up 7 times next year (40/5.6), i.e. about 2.5%.

After that, according to predictions, it will follow the DVD acceptance curve, i.e. about double every year.
DVD Entertainment Group
That would mean it will take two more years (doubling twice) to bring this BD to DVD disc sales ratio to 10%.

To summarize, by the end of 2010 the BD market will be 10% of DVDs. Smashing success...

If they did freeze, the same number of DVDs were sold today, i.e. 1700 million (see above).

The latest DEG report claims 170 million BD disks were sold in 2010, i.e. exactly 10% of that "frozen" number of DVDs...

I'm really proud of my crystal ball...

Diogen.

 

[diogen]

Actually, I was wrong - it is "three years later".
January 2008 was the time BD got the market all to itself.

My bad.
Diogen.

 

[dfergie]

I am pleasantly surprised at the prices of BD's now, I still visit my HD DVD's in fact just converted First Blood to mkv for my media player... (converting them all)

 

[diogen]

Not trying to bring the war zone back or say that FoxNews isn't an oxymoron, but this is a worthwhile read
Why Has Blu-ray Failed to Catch Hold? - FoxNews.com

So why haven't shoppers been impressed? It can't be the price. Walmart sells Blu-ray players for as little as $70.
...
consumers have just failed to understand the benefits of Blu-ray.
...
The real reason Blu-ray players never went mainstream? Quite frankly they were never that good.
There wasn't enough of a qualitative difference between the picture offered by an upconverted DVD and that of a Blu-ray disc...
And now it may be too late for Blu-ray...Movies and video are moving to online streaming services.

Actually picked up from here...

On a related note:
MP3s of the Napster variety (i.e. low bitrate) were often used to make a point that convenience will always trumpet quality.
Here is another argument along those lines
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383755,00.asp

Diogen.