Blu-ray Awareness on the Rise

According to a study from Interpret, a media research company, in just two years around 60% of U.S. households now know what a Blu-ray disc is. At the same time it is being reported that the number of households with a high-definition disc player has passed the 10 million mark.

The survey, which included consumers ages 18-54 was conducted just after Warner Home Video exclusively endorsed Blu-ray and before Toshiba pulled its HD DVD format out of the running. The survey showed that men, ages 18-34, had over a 75% "awareness" of Blu-ray. Awareness, however belies the true goal of all Blu-ray manufacturers and studio supporters - getting people to adopt the new format over DVD and purchase players for their home. In order to see this hit critical mass, three things must happen:

• Blu-ray hardware and software must get a lot cheaper. In addition, users of Blu-ray need an HDTV to enjoy the new content, and only less than 40% of US households have the new technology.
  
• Studios will have to implement a plan for phasing out the DVD format, let it continue to hang around as a much "lesser expensive format" and provide nearly the same level of quality for many viewers who don't use larger screens and the most high-tech equipment
• The direct-to-consumer content models of cableTV, satellite and Internet must fall flat on their faces, allowing a new physical media to take hold in an economy where downloadable content is starting to pick up steam.
  

Blu-ray is definitely picking up steam, however these challenges put a lot in front of the format, whose debut is often - erroneously, we feel - compared to DVD. The 10 million player mark, assuming one player per household, nets a 9% penetration figure. Contrasted against the 91% penetration of DVD, this indicates an uphill climb for Blu-ray that will be won only by a slow, steady, and concerted industry-wide effort that would need to outlive, out-value, and outperform other available options. Since the industry currently views this as a "quality" enhancement, and not merely a way to get a robustly-protected disc content format out that avoids some of the perils of unprotected DVDs, the technology and software is quite possibly going to remain higher in price for quite some time.

The biggest aid to the Blu-ray movement is quite possibly the digital transition of 2009, which will see at least a moderately-sized movement of people towards HDTV, since an upgrade will be seen as inevitably good to capture HDTV and digital TV signals.