世論 What Japan Thinks

Top of my list of electrical items to buy for the house is a HDR, or Hard Disk Recorder, the name commonly used for PVRs, Personal Video Recorders, or TiVo-like devices. This survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Cross Marketing or television program recording looks at how these HDRs are used in Japan.

Demographics

Over the 9th and 10th of January 2008 300 members of the Cross Marketing online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50.0% male, with 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

I’ve heard people in Japan talk of how their lives have changed with the advent of the HDR; the biggest plus is for people who have children, as kids can’t wait, but now the television can. When their kid needs attention, the live broadcast can be paused, the child attended to, then the program resumed. Secondly, lots of children’s programs can be saved to disk, and their favourite programs called up at the touch of the button, and scenes they enjoy can be repeated over and over again.

Research results

Q1: Do you record ordinary television programs? (Sample size=300)

Yes	66.0%
No	34.0%

Of there 198 people who said they normally record programs, 111 people, or 56.1%, primarily used a hard disk-based recorder. How the others were split between VHS video recorders and other devices such as computer-based TV cards or one seg recorders such as are present on most new mobile phones these days is sadly not recorded. These 111 people were then asked the following questions.

Q2: Who are the makers of your hard disk recorders? (Sample size=111, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Panasonic	31	27.9%
Sony	24	21.6%
Toshiba	24	21.6%
Sharp	22	19.8%
Pioneer	6	5.4%
Mitsubishi	4	3.6%
Hitachi	1	0.9%
Samsung	1	0.9%
DX Antenna	0	0.0%
LG Lucky Goldstar	0	0.0%
Other	3	2.7%
Don’t know	5	4.5%

This gives a total of 121 device manufacturers. Next, these 11 were asked if their hard disk recorder had a built-in DVD writer for saving programs, and 92 people reported that they did. They were then asked this question.

Q3: What fraction of your recorded programs do you save to DVD? (Sample size=92)

Almost none	20.7%
Around one or two tenths	48.9%
Around three or four tenths	10.9%
Around half	9.8%
Around six or seven tenths	6.5%
Around eight or nine tenths	2.2%
Everything	1.1%