世論 What Japan Thinks

With Toshiba having thrown in the towel on HD DVD leaving the market for next-generation high-capacity optical storage to the Blu-ray consortium of manufacturers, what will the consumer do? This recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into Toshiba’s withdrawl of HD DVD tried to find out.

Demographics

On the 11th of March 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 83.0% of the sample was male, 10.9% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 35.2% in their forties, 10.9% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

I’m surprised in Q1 that almost three times as many in this sample bought an HD DVD rather than a Blu-ray player. Was it only overseas that HD DVD died? I’ll have to look into that…
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Earlier this year, the Japan Recording-Media Industries Association announced that last year’s sales were below predicted numbers, and they think it will be 2010 before the market flourishes. One reason for this is the confusion between the standards, Blu-ray Disc versus HD DVD, with consumers delaying their purchases to avoid being stuck with another Betamax. To learn what people thought of the situation, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into next-generation DVD.

Demographics

On the 26th of November 2007 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group employed in either the public or private sector successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 82.1% of the sample was male, 8.5% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 33.6% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

Another reason is perhaps the lack of clear user benefits from upgrading from DVD; on a good system, the higher quality of the next generation is really obvious, but for those with lower-end television the desire to upgrade just their media player is not present. However, this aspect was not addressed in the survey below. Also missing from the report below is details on how many of the owners have stand-alone players versus PS3, Xbox or computer drive owners.

Personally, I’ve no plans to buy either format, not that I watch many DVDs anyway.
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At the start of December japan.internet.com published the results of an opinion poll conducted by goo Research into next generation DVD systems. 1,091 members of their monitor group successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire. 47.2% of the group was male, 21.2% in their twenties, 38.0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, and 12.6% in their fifties.

I too am confused by the upcoming standards war, and have no particular urge to purchase either system, as almost all of the contents I currently watch is self-recorded video tapes, so I’ll probably end up getting whatever high-density DVD is fitted in the hard-disk recorder that I plan to buy sometime, although I suspect that standard DVD-based recorders might start dropping into a very attractive price band soon.
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