Thousands Petition to Save HD-DVD Format

By | January 23rd, 2008 comments icon (3) Comments


hd dvd logoIt seemed like all the guns had come out already in the high definition format war, but there is a new development: almost 20,000 people believe a vapid online petition is going to save the HD-DVD format they bought into from becoming extinct.

On PetitionOnline.com, Tudor Cacenco rallies for the support of “High Def movie fans” in his petition:

Dear High Def movie fans, I’m starting this petition in order to support HD-DVD and hopefully save it, and to show Warner Brothers that the consumer has not “clearly” chosen Blu-Ray. Warner Brothers switched to Blu-Ray exclusive claiming that its the best thing for the consumer, but how about all the consumers that bought HD-DVD movies and hardware for the holidays, or all the loyal HD-DVD fans like myself that own Warner HD-DVDs? Warner just screwed them all.

Cacenco makes a very noble effort to fight for the consumer in the mostly corporate format war, but there is a critical underlying problem: petitions don’t make money. Ultimately, the format war is going to come down to who can make the most money, stay in the game and stay on top of the game. While 20,000 people is not a completely insignificant figure, it’s also not an astoundingly large one or one that Warner is likely to care about.

For those 20,000, most are likely to be people who bought an HD-DVD player before Warner’s Blu-Ray exclusivity announcement and don’t want to be starved of movie selection or be doomed to make use of their HD-DVD players as retractable cup holders. Blu-Ray proponents such as Warner and Sony know they are going to make more money off the same consumers selling them Blu-Ray discs and players if HD-DVD gets phased out, so taking any action over a petition to revive HD-DVD is slim to none. The petition is simply the result of unaware consumers eagerly grappling for new technology at a time when the to-be standard was a complete coin toss.

From overseas, Blu-Ray is mangling its HD-DVD competition in Japan. Over a three month period, Blu-Ray hauled in a massive 90 percent of next-generation DVD recorder sales. Toshiba, the main
player on the HD-DVD squad, got beaten up and had its lunch money stolen, taking home only four percent of sales while Blu-Ray mogul Sony smirked home with a huge sixty percent of sales. The remainder of sales was split amongst a few lesser Blu-Ray companies.

Now, many HD-DVD consumers probably wish they would have practiced the seldom used tactic of waiting for technology to establish itself. Apart from the threat of HD-DVD’s phase out, recent, massive price cuts on HD-DVD players from Toshiba and “free Blu-Ray player” incentives from Best Buy and Sony could have saved a buyer hundreds of dollars on an HD player. Not even iPhone prices dropped that fast.

As it’s playing out, the format war is not only threatening corporate casualties, but is also raking up some irate consumers that stand right on the firing line of being completely ripped off. Expect petitions like Cacenco’s to grow; don’t expect them to bring about change.





Filed in: Industry Buzz

  • SpencerAR

    I have to wonder if the execs at Toshiba are now playing the hindsight game, reflecting on when they (and the other HD-DVD backers) had the standards “peace summit” with Sony and the rest of the Blu-Ray People to try and come up with a unified next-generation disc standard.

    As for the irate customers…have we learned nothing from history with the VHS and Betamax debacle of old? If anything, Sony is now getting the cupie doll today for the raspberry they received back in the early 80′s for Betamax losing out to Panasonic’s standard.

    That’s the thing about buying Bleeding Edge technology…sometimes you bleed ;-)

    Spencer

  • Andrew McLaughlin

    I think Petitions are generally the last step in the death march of most anything that finds itself in harms way.

    I’m surprised that no one is discussing the fact that there was simply no way that BluRay (i.e., Sony) was going to lose this format war. The bad press the company has received over the years due to Betamax is basically legendary at this point and this was too high profile to go down in flames again. What Sony exec wants that mark on their resume? HD DVD never stood a chance.

    FWIW, the price on HD DVD players is so low that I’m thinking of picking one up more for it’s DVD playback / upscaling capabilities.

  • Jotham

    I have no expectation that an online petition will have any effect but I do take issue with this article suggesting that I was an unaware consumer.

    I looked at both standards carefully and decided that from my perspective HD-DVD was a more pragmatic standard and had better players. As far as I can see, neither of these statements are incorrect. For whatever reason, the content holders went with Blu-Ray but it wasn’t a decision based on technical capabilities. There were other market forces at work and contract negotiations and it may be awhile before we know the whole picture.

    In the meantime, I have a fantastic picture on my inexpensive Toshiba and someday, Toshiba will likely release a dual format machine if I chose to upgrade. I really doubt my HD-DVDs suddenly became worthless.

    Absolute worst case, I buy a drive for my PC and have a dual format HTPC.

    For those who argue that someday in the future, Blu-Ray will be a better option from a CE perspective, I would argue that someday downloads will be a better option than either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. That day is not here so I go with what works today.

    There is a number of folks who are completely on the fence, buying neither. If you have a 1080 display, you’re missing out, upscaled doesn’t compare though it is nice.