How many DVD consumer by HD DVD by mistake? (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

Planet Earth HD-DVD - eBay (item 330200514604 end time Jan-04-08 18:56:13 PST)



HD DVD seems to have both benefited by the "DVD" association in its name, but also confused quite a few consumers. Most retailers won't accept returns on opened discs, which makes matters frustrating for consumers who make this mistake and also makes it difficult to track what percentage of HD DVD sales are actually mistaken purchases by DVD consumers.

To make matters even more confusing, Amazon lists a "won't play in your DVD player" warning with the Blu-ray Disc version of Planet Earth, but NOT for the HD DVD version! The irony is that the Blu-ray Disc name is less likely to confuse DVD consumers who aren't HD-media saavy, whereas they might see the "HD DVD" logo and assume that it's a DVD that will work on their new HDTV.

Naturally combo-disc sales are 100% legit since both DVD and HD DVD consumers can play/use the product, but I'm curious if anyone out there works in retail and can point to how widespread the problem of "mispurchases" is. If Blu-ray Discs are being purchases by unsuspecting DVD consumers, I'd like to know that too!

 

[brap]

Without a doubt Amazon as it set up to automatically add the warning when [Blu-ray] is shown after the title. It's not hard to do. If so, then it wouldn't for HD-DVD because it might confuse for Combo discs.
I think the title HD-DVD is better than Blu-Ray because people will recgonize the DVD portion. Joe Public will say "I have DVD for my old TV. I have HDTV now. I guess HD-DVD is the next step". The title blu-ray doesn't really describe what it does. You are right that it will lower the amount of mispurchases.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I've always liked the name "HD DVD" for that reason too... it describes what it is/does.

Of course, it also leads to consumer confusion among those who aren't tech-saavy.

I hadn't considered that Amazon might automate the "won't play in your DVD player" warning. It seems they should in that case categorize HD-DVD combo discs as "DVDs" to avoid the warning, and leave the warning enabled for HD DVD discs so customers won't purchase the HD DVD (non combo) by mistake.

Since combo discs are both fully HD DVD and fully DVD, it's just a matter of choice as to which way they're classified in the system, and that would address the problem of the warnings having to be turned off for all HD DVD content when it should only be turned off for the small group of combo discs.

 

[Marc Colella]

The average consumer gets confused with so many aspects of audio and video products.

I've come across people who thought that both HD DVD and Blu-Ray discs are just DVDs that have the HD version of a movie on them - so they can simply put it in their DVD player and take advantage of their HDTV.

Of course I'd say half the people out there think that just by owning an HDTV they're automatically seeing everything in HD quality. Surveys have been done that showed this, and I've personally had to set a few friends and co-workers straight. They were disappointed that they weren't watching HD all along, but they had no desire to purchase an HDDVD/Blu-Ray player or to set themselves up onto HD Satellite/Cable. They were very happy with the quality they were seeing even though they didn't all use component or HDMI - just regular composite cables.

These things are just too complicated for consumers, and I can't blame them since there are too many different standards in this industry.

 

[PaulDA]

It's not helped by the marketing "wizards" who deliberately confuse the issue by selling 49$ "HD" DVD players (says so right on the box--will transform your SD DVD into an "HD" signal); or by having the fact that an HD display REQUIRES an HD source printed in tiny letters rather than the very large letters that should be mandated by truth in advertising laws; or by staffing stores with untrained people who then pass on their incompetence to the general public; or by making a dog's breakfast of most "demo setups" so that no one has any idea what's going on; or...

(rant over)

 

[brap]

It's true about the demo setups. At my local FutureShop there were 2 TV's set up for demo. 1 Blu-ray and 1 DVD. Both playing Dead Man's Chest simultaneously. The blu-ray was set up with hdmi on a fairly calibrated tv except it was set at 720p. the DVD was set up through composite on a similar TV, except the picture was so washed out the letterboxing was in grey.
The guy had to go in the back to find the A2 I was buying and since the set were easily accessible, I decided to fix it. I set the blu-ray to 1080p. They were using 1 rca of a 3 port component cable on the DVD. I hooked it up properly and set the picture to preset movie. restarted the movies. You could still tell the difference, but it was not a total deception.
The rep looked really confused when he brought me the HD-DVD player...then he tried to upsell me on a $100 HDMI cable. I pleasantly declined.
Without a doubt the only reason the Blu-ray looked any good is because of the TV and players default settings.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

In every B & M I frequent, nearly all HD DVDs (and especially pricey box sets like Planet Earth and The Sopranos) sport a metallic sticker about 1 inch in diameter with the statement, "HD DVD requires the use of an HD DVD player. Will not play back in standard DVD players."

How far do software manufacturers have to go to protect people from their own stupidity?

 

[DaViD Boulet]

You don't see that sticker on-line.



And Apparently, lots of consumers *are* boobs because there were lots of folks at the checkout-lines at Best Buy before Christmas who I spoke with who didn't realize that the HD DVDs they had in their hand wouldn't play on their DVD player. I had to read the sticker to them to help clarify...

 

[DaveF]

It's reasonable to expect confusion. DVD works on a HDTV. There's a "Superbit" DVD, that works with normal DVDs. There are audio DVDs that work with normal DVD players. So why would a regular person -- who doesn't read this forum, HT magazines, etc. -- know that an HD-DVD (it says DVD!) doesn't work with a regular DVD player?

As another observed, the current AV technology is so confusing, even the afficianados get confused (witness my coworker who bought BR because HD-DVD didn't have enough storage capacity for 1080i); how's the normal folk to understand this stuff. (Heck, there are six different cable options for video alone: composite, SVHS, component, VGA, DVI, and HDMI.)

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

My niece bought a movie from Amazon on HD-DVD by mistake. Her brother and I both have HDTVs and she's seen them, so she knows the difference between SD and HD, but she doesn't follow the industry. She bought the disc assuming that it would play in standard definition on her player. Which, if you stop to think about it, is not an unreasonable assumption for someone who doesn't read up on this stuff for fun. Most new computer stuff is backwards compatible with earlier versions, stereo tapes and CDs could be played on cheap on-speaker portable players, and you don't have to have a surround sound system to watch DVDs. So it isn't all that odd that people would think that an HD-DVD would play - in SD - on their SDTV and then play in HD later when they upgraded to an HD set.

Still, I doubt that this happens often enough to seriously distort HD-DVD sales figures.

BTW, Amazon.com accept the return of my niece's disc and paid for the return shipping, despite the fact that she had removed the shrink wrap, because they said that the mix-up was really their fault because they hadn't made the incompatibility clear enough.

Regards,

Joe