Exploring the Depths of Format War Ignorance

Number of people who don’t know they need an HDTV to view HD content? Survey says… 40.

That would be the number of people out of every 100 that have no idea that an HDTV is even required to view HD content.

This is according to results of a Best Buy phone survey of 1012 adults in the continental US, as reported by High Def Digest and Home Media Magazine:

• High-Def Digest: Best Buy Survey Consumers Still Confused About HD
• Home Media Magazine: Best Buy Survey Reveals HD Ignorance

Best Buy’s findings indicate only 11% of consumers indicated that they feel comfortable with their knowledge of HD:

• Four in 10 people did not identify an HDTV as necessary to enjoy high-def content.

• 44% of respondents did not know they needed HD programming or an HD antenna, while 52% did not know they needed HD cables and 62% did not know they needed a full audio set-up.

• More than half of respondents said they had only budgeted for an HDTV, thinking that would be enough to be high-def.

• 52% of respondents who already own an HDTV said they would be unwilling to admit their HD set-up was wrong after showing the system to friends.

• Only 11% of all consumers said they feel they completely understand high-def, compared to only 19% of HDTV owners.

Best Buy Survey, Home Media Magazine

If 40% of the people don’t know they even need an HDTV and over 50% think that only the HDTV is required, that leaves less than 10% who might understand that they have to get at least HD television programming or an HD disc player. On top of this, the format war leaves most of that less than 10% out of the game until the smoke clears and the remaining fraction split.

Even HDTV owners are disinterested in true HD optical disc content. An NPD Group poll report of current HDTV owners should also be sobering to the players in the format war.

• EndgadgetHD: NPD Group reports on HD disc format adoption
• BetaNews: HD DVD and Blu-ray: Toward an Endgame

According to the NPD report on HD disc adoption, only 52% of HDTV owners are aware that HD optical disc formats exist, only 11% planned on buying a player within the next six months, and 73% of HDTV owners say they are happy with up converted SD DVD. Even the competitors in the format war have little name recognition: only 29% of the survey respondents knew of HD-DVD by name and 20% knew of Blu-ray by name.

Worldwide HDTV market penetration is only expected to be around 50 million units by 2008, according to Global Industry Analysts, with the US accounting for about one half.

So what does this mean to the HD optical disc format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD?

It’s an awfully little patch of dirt they are fighting over.

That would be the number of consumers who have any understanding of what HD actually entails and are actually willing to buy in.

Average consumers have no idea what HD is, much less what benefit it may or may not be to them, personally.

I will present a case in point about the true depths of consumer confusion about high def from my personal experience.

As I was standing in the returns line at the local Wal-Mart, I got to witness a defective product return for a $100(ish) up scaling DVD recorder. The reason the customer thought the unit was defective: it would not play the ‘Blu-ray DVD’ that they had rented from Block Buster the night before. Seems the box said something about it being a ‘high def’ player so it must be broken if it can not play a ‘high def’ DVD. Even the marketing crap on regular, up scaling DVD players, with on box statements about (near) high def resolutions, confuses people.

The Wal-Mart clerk attending them also did not know what player was supposed to play these ‘Blu-ray DVD’s’ when asked. So they got their money back and decided to go to Best Buy, where they will get an unpleasant surprise when they find that it’s going to take a $500 player, not a $100 unit, to play that rental disc.

Many in the industry are now saying that the war is between SD and HD, that the war is a stalemate, and it had better end before the downloading begins or both sides will lose.

The opponents in this war have put the cart before the horse.