On a press prelease, NPD Group published results of a survey about consumers' intent to purchase and awareness of high-definition video players and video content. According to the study, there are some reasons for the slower than expected start of high-definition video players and high-definition content sales.
It seems that the main reasons are basically two: many HDTV owners said that the standard DVD format still works well enough so they don't feel the urge to buy a HD player, and because of the war among the two rival formats people is still waiting for a clear winner (nobody wants to have again a "betamax" on the shelf...)
According to the study, however, even if large numbers of consumers already understand what a high-definition player is, there are still many people that have no idea about HD, and the main culprit of this: A lack of information.
Even if indeed the industry must do more to motivate consumers (this, too bad, means more advertising. I said "too bad" because we are already submerged by ads in every place...), I still think that the main factor that actually will cause the large diffusion of High-Definition is the end of the war among rival formats. If there is no winner, there will be no diffusion.
So the main thing that industry should do is not to spend more money in invasive advertisements but stop to bore end-consumers with that useless and money-consuming war once for all.
