Paramount Pictures, was initially one of two studios (along with Warner Bros) that supported both next generation high definition DVD formats and then, rather foolishly as it turned out, decided to side exclusively with Toshibas’s HD DVD, a few months before that standard went off the wall, has just announced that it will now support Blu-ray.
However, despite winning the format war against HD DVD, Blu-ray cannot count on market domination as a result of high prices and limited availability. According to new market data by ABI Research, these two factors are preventing Blu-rays from cornering the HD market.
The research house claims that one of the primary challenges facing Blu-ray is that many consumers are not fundamentally dissatisfied with the quality delivered by their conventional DVD players, when “upconverted” to play on high-definition TVs.
“We are starting to see an increase in the number of DVD players with built-in upconverters, and the video processing is getting better with each new generation,” says ABI principal analyst, Steve Wilson. “Today about 35 per cent of all DVD players sold include upconversion.
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