When I used to teach students the classic innovation diffusion model of Rogers, I would try to bring up examples of technologies that were more meaningful to them than the agrarian and medical techniques that fill the textbook. The potato famine just doesn’t have the same resonance for non-Irish learners, I discovered. The trouble was that ideal tests of competing innovations don’t happen in the space of time that fits easily within a semester. I was reminded of all this when I learned of Toshiba announcing it was giving up on DVD HD, having been outfought by Sony with their Blue Ray technology for control of the home video market. Clearly Sony learned a thing or two from their VHS/BetaMax battle twenty years ago. Of course the issue is probably more complicated now and the influence of big sellers such as WalMart on the market battle might cause us to re-think Roger’s classic model, which postulates victory to the technology with the relative advantage, better compatibility, less complexity, trialability and observability. Or maybe not – the model is so, shall we say, flexible that it can usually accommodate all data after the fact, a point noted by my more observant students. So we could just explain WalMart’s influence on the diffusion as one of increasing say, observability or trialability, or perhaps it was Sony’s backdoor into home theatre through gaming consoles. But if this makes simple sense to you, will someone explain how we fit the observation of Microsoft’s support for DVD HD, which lest we forget, was the cheaper of the technologies, was launched earlier, and broke free of some of the region constraints that frustrate other formats, into the Rogers model without wrinkles?
All this is not new to anyone who has given thought to buying a new TV or DVD player recently – the choices are annoyingly overcomplicated and mirror an earlier ‘battle’ that petered out over the next generation sound medium, post CD. Sony pushed SACD for awhile, others pushed DVD-A, and the net result was that Sony won again, but you’d never notice since they largely gave up on the format straight after, though you can still buy hardware and software which is, to my ears, a step up from regular redbook CDs. The prediction of pundits now is that with the format war over, everyone will be buying Blue Ray but it’s just as likely it seems to me that most people won’t care and will live happily with the quality the have with existing DVDs. CD and DVD are comparatively old technologies but for many consumers this is as good as they want, and the next great challenge is not a new disk format but a whole new way of obtaining video and audio of sufficient quality without any need for disks. Of course, as there remain regular buyers and users of LP records, I can see the HD DVD being with us for some time to come. Maybe the assumptions developers are making about the human need for these new media is just a little off track? But I am sure both Toshiba and Sony would tell you they really followed a user-centered design process. I just hope for the simple time when I don’t have to buy new copies of old items made obsolete through technological ‘advances’.
Man what do I do with all those hd dvds now?
Well fear not — Toshiba just announced that they are about to make a new HD DVD player as they’ve determined that most consumers are happy enough with this technology and will not switch to Blue-Ray….so the battle continues, and you sir, can keep playing.
You wrote:
“I just hope for the simple time when I don’t have to buy new copies of old items made obsolete through technological ‘advances’.”
Unfortunately, I don’t think that will ever happen. We know this by looking at the toys people are playing with in Japan & Korea. The technology is light years ahead of what we are doing.
Big business here in the USA slowly leaks out the technology over here little by little so that we keep having to upgrade our players and the actual movie formats.
This ensures future profits for them.
I guess it is up to us to either be content with what we have already, or at least wait until the initial market excitement dies down enough that the technology is more affordable.
For example remember when a DVD player was $450-$500? Now they are $29 bucks at walmart.
Regarding HD DVD players and format, the market place will eventually decide who the winner is. Until then there is always ebay to pick up hd dvd movie titles that you don’t own or to sell your collection.
The interesting thing is that Blue Ray has gained popularity over here in Japan, but it still hasn’t taken on like it has in the US. I would guess the reason is the high cost of Blue Ray players here and the fact that the disks cost about $40-$50 dollars a piece.
This is how we roll my friend. Im still recovering from the end of videotape! Blu-ray will catch on if the market says so. There will always be die-hards keeping your medium alive just like the vinyl record junkies who still wont touch CD’s let alone MP3. Some people still dont own a mobile phone. Change causes upset, but I think it is best to suck it and see – move with the times instead of resisting progress – its happening faster than ever these days imho.
Ah, the joys of the competing tech. I think that gamers tend to see this more often due to the frequency of new gaming consoles. Roughly every 5years the next generation of gaming arrives, and then the battle to see which company takes the crown.
Well blue ray will eventually take over everything, it’s only natural for it to happen
Natural? Not sure why….the process of adoption is often slow, partial and unsuccessful. SACD? DVD-A? HD-DVD? It’s certainly not clear that technical superiority is the driver of success in domestic technologies.
When microsoft used HD-DVD drives for the xbox, I had a good feeling the HD-DVD would take over. Comes to find out, my feeling was off. Sony outdid Microsoft this time. Blu-Ray will be around forever now that just about everyone has an HD TV.
Yes the HD-DVD has died commercially, but I dont think the blu-ray will be far behind. The technology (and image quality) is far superior on the HD-DVD than the Blu-ray, so while the HD-DVD is dead at the minute, the technology behind it is still a great step.
As you can see it’s all about ‘marketing’. Sony obviously put a lot more bucks into their Blu-Ray marketing efforts and that’s where Toshiba fell down. And with the spending power and clout of Microsoft the HD-DVD could make a spirited comeback considering its superior quality, it makes perfect sense!