Kumar, there are valid questions about the state of home entertainment between now and when DVD came out, but the probable answers to those questions actually make the BD performance even more impressive. The only thing necessary for anyone to make the jump to DVD was a television, and I think it's pretty safe to assume that television penetration is about the same now as it was when DVD was hitting the market (pretty darn close to 100% in the US). So there were no other required purchases that required anyone to hold back from jumping into DVD. To get into Blu-ray, an HDTV is pretty much required. Granted, a lot of people had HDTV's before Blu was introduced, but we all know that the penetration of HDTV's in households is not anywhere near the penetration of SDTV's when DVD came out. I think we can all agree that the options available on cable/satellite are a lot better now than when DVD came out too. All in all, I think the deck against Blu-ray is stacked a little higher than it was against DVD, and yet it's outperforming DVD over the same period in it's lifecycle. Pretty impressive.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
NIUHuskie @ Jan 6th 2009 4:20PM
Kumar, there are valid questions about the state of home entertainment between now and when DVD came out, but the probable answers to those questions actually make the BD performance even more impressive. The only thing necessary for anyone to make the jump to DVD was a television, and I think it's pretty safe to assume that television penetration is about the same now as it was when DVD was hitting the market (pretty darn close to 100% in the US). So there were no other required purchases that required anyone to hold back from jumping into DVD. To get into Blu-ray, an HDTV is pretty much required. Granted, a lot of people had HDTV's before Blu was introduced, but we all know that the penetration of HDTV's in households is not anywhere near the penetration of SDTV's when DVD came out. I think we can all agree that the options available on cable/satellite are a lot better now than when DVD came out too. All in all, I think the deck against Blu-ray is stacked a little higher than it was against DVD, and yet it's outperforming DVD over the same period in it's lifecycle. Pretty impressive.