Warner DVDA Chief Admits Past Mistakes

Lee Scoggins · 04-14-2003, 10:45 AM

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Warner's David Dorn stated that the label would look at DVD-Audio hybrids seriously over the next six months, admitting that they've done "a terrible job [of promoting DVD-A] over the last few years, which we are correcting now." He hinted that promoting DVD-A as an audiophile format was an error.

I guess even Warner at the NARM convention is fessing up that SACD has been a challenger and marketing has been poor. The article also discusses the paltry 25% penetration rate to stores. The rest of the article is from Stereophile...

http://www.stereophile.com/shownews.cgi?1619

Tower also made some very interesting comments...

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Tower Records' George Scarlett addressed the DVD-A/SACD format war, "Whenever there have been these sorts of wars, if you will, one or zero have emerged." He added, "It will be a good thing for our industry if a format between these two emerges and becomes ubiquitous in the marketplace." Scarlett said that, while Tower is an outspoken supporter of SACD, the company is still trying to find the best formula for selling DVD-A discs and the best location for them in the store.

A good idea. Why not just have one format and a wide industry push?

Philip Hamm · 04-14-2003, 11:01 AM

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Why not just have one format and a wide industry push?

Like they did with DVD perhaps? Remember how close the competing groups were to releasing different DVD contenders in 1996. It's almost a miracle that they all got together and made one unified format. Too bad hi-rez audio didn't end up coming out of a similar effort.

Too much corporate hubris. Nobody wanted to share their technology, licensing fees, etc. And darn it all if Sony can't come up with something idustry standard for once instead of reinventing the wheel, again. MiniDisc, Digital8, proprietary memory slots for digital camers, SACD, why can't they just get along with the rest of the induistry.

Al B. C · 04-14-2003, 11:29 AM

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why can't they just get along with the rest of the induistry.

Because they're greedy bastards.

Oh well - "Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered"

Jerry Klawiter · 04-14-2003, 11:36 AM

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And darn it all if Sony can't come up with something idustry standard for once instead of reinventing the wheel, again. MiniDisc, Digital8, proprietary memory slots for digital camers, SACD, why can't they just get along with the rest of the induistry.

Innovators tend to lead rather than follow.
If it fails, they will try again.
In the long-run the licensing pays for many years to come.
just my $0.02

Dan Joy · 04-14-2003, 12:13 PM

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A good idea. Why not just have one format and a wide industry push?

Here we go again

**HTF Ads**

Marc Colella · 04-14-2003, 12:42 PM

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A good idea. Why not just have one format and a wide industry push?

I agree... kill off SACD and let DVD-A be the format for Hi-Rez.

There are more DVD players than SACD players on the market, and soon we'll see alot more of those DVD players including DVD-Audio.

Hybrid SACD will do very little to move people away from the CD format, and doesn't address the piracy issue.

DVD is the format of the future, and it makes sense that companies piggyback off of that with DVD-A.

John Kotches · 04-14-2003, 01:05 PM

Lee,

On a purely semantic level, how does one describe non-existent marketing as "a terrible job"? Not much to critique and say "this could have been done better" here or there.

Anyway, with some of the recent announcements and upcoming day and date titles (Fleetwood Mac Say you Will and Steely Dan's Everything Must Go) it's time to actually market the format.

The stated (but not yet delivered) hybrid flipper solves one of the other bigger criticisms of DVD-A.

In response to Marc Collella:

All the interested parties couldn't get along when they were trying to lock down the DVD-A specs within WG-4. Sony/Philips split SACD off when DSD was denied as an alternative encoding scheme for DVD-Audio discs. To this day, Sony and Philips are listed as members of WG-4 which governs the DVD-Audio specifications.

Regards,

Ed St. Clair · 04-14-2003, 02:53 PM

GOOD!

Phil A · 04-14-2003, 02:56 PM

The article pointed to lack of success with many retailers and it is little wonder with sometimes 3 different size cases for the discs. Generally, retailers have shelf space configured for CDs or DVD-Vs. If they expect more retailer support, they need to come up with a standard size case for all DVD-As and it probably would not be a bad idea at this point for them to give retailers displays (other than kiosks). They have come up with a format that is different from the 20 year history of CDs in the manner in which the discs are intended to be viewed vs. just put in and played. They are going against the tide of an established norm that makes up around 94% of the music sales in this country today, where retailers and consumers have their storage configured differently and except for Warner, which has done an excellent job lowering the price to basically CD levels, other major commercial labels have not followed suit. The depressed music industry does not need a more expensive (for consumers) format that is a problem putting on the shelves of retailers or consumers. Warner needs to see what BMG or EMI (and even Universal) is going to sell their DVD-As for. If they are going to continue a trend of $25 list DVD-As, it is not going to cut it with the mass market and Warner may as well make the switch and the most money they can from their vast pool of musical content and talent.