HD-DVD Format Wars Continue, Prices Drop

The good news for consumers is that high-definition DVD prices are falling. The bad news is that the format war still isn't over. As was the case with BetaMax and VHS in videotape recorders, consumers now have to choose between incompatible formats. Personally, I'm just going to wait until the war is over. I've been through enough of these technology standard battles to instinctively avoid buying "eight track," "BetaMax," or just about anything proprietary in the consumer electronics space. Of course, I don't care enough about video to adopt early, in any case, so I might be odd in that regard.

Sony's "Blue-ray" players are selling for under $300, while Toshiba's "HD-DVD" player is available for $200.

The edge right now seems to be on Blu-ray's side. since Thanksgiving in the U.S., Blu-ray discs account for 72 percent of the high-definition discs sold, while HD-DVD has 27.4percent of the share over that same time period. So maybe Sony can win a major format war for once.

Right now, Walt Disney, 20th Century Fox and Metro Goldwyn Mayer support Blu-ray DVDs, while Universal (GE) has sided with HD-DVD. Warner Bros. supports both players.

Studios obviously hope the new format will spark higher DVD sales, which are highly profitable, but whose sales have started to slide.

We shall see. The download market and on-demand video streaming have to be taken into account, this time around. And with users opting for increased mobile or PC screen video, it isn't an absolute certainty how big the market might be for high-definition DVDs. It's great for big screen displays. But lots of viewing now takes place on all sorts of screens where the advantage is small, if much of an advantage at all. For downloaded video, in fact, less information, which means faster downloads, probably is more important.

New Truphone Supprted Devices

Truphone's mobile VoIP service now is supported on five new handsets: the Wi-Fi-equipped Nokia N95 8G, Nokia N81, Nokia N81 8G, Nokia N82 and Nokia E51 models. Truphone also is freezing its rates until the end of February, so Truphone calls will be free to landlines in 40 countries, and to mobiles in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere, until March.

Mobile Web: Not So Useful Yet

The mobile Web might be the future for a goodly portion of user activity in the future. But it isn't quite there yet, Accenture says.

Japan Mobile Market: Different than Europe

The Japanese mobile market long has been seen as a trend-setter for mobile applications elsewhere in the world. As Accenture looks at the market, that remains the case. Japanese users simply do different things, with different levels of intensity, than users in Western Europe, for example.

Mac Users do "Think Different"

The NPD Group says consumers who own Apple Mac computers are much more likely than PC users to pay to download music. According to NPD, in the third quarter of 2007 half of all Mac users had paid to download music tracks from sites like iTunes, but just 16 percent of PC owners had done so.

And while Mac users were more likely to pay to download digital music than their PC-using counterparts, they were also more likely to purchase CDs.

“There’s still a cultural divide between Apple consumers and the rest of the computing world, and that’s especially apparent when it comes to the way they interact with music,” says Russ Crupnick, NPD Group VP. “Mac users are not only more active in digital music, they are also more likely to buy CDs, which helps debunk the myth that digital music consumers stop buying music in CD format.”

According to NPD’s consumer panel data, unit-volume sales share for Apple computers increased from nearly six percent in 2006 to almost nine percent between January 2007 and October 2007.

Overall, more than 32 percent of Mac users report purchasing CDs in the third quarter of 2007, compared to just 28 percent of PC users.

In addition to purchasing CDs and downloading music, Mac users are also more likely to listen to music and watch videos on their MP3-players and computers.

While 34 percent of Mac users had uploaded music to their MP3 players, just 16 percent of PC users had done the same. Mac users are also much more likely to listen to music files on their computers (56 percent) than are PC users (31 percent).

Qwest Really Isn't Interested in IPTV

Qwest Communications International Inc. no longer will pursue cable franchise agreements with Colorado cities or build community-wide TV service in areas where it's recently won franchise approval. That's more confirmation of Qwest's strategic direction in video, which is to rely on its partner DirecTV for linear TV services.

Though Qwest plans to upgrade its broadband capacity in 10 major markets and 10 smallers ones in the company's 14-state service area, that is solely for the purpose of broadband-based services other than entertainment video.

Qwest still supports the idea of statewide television franchises. But it won't seek such a franchise.

Nokia N96: N95 in a New Shell?

This image, from Mobile-Review.com, strike some people as looking like an N81, but larger. To others it resembles an N95. No specs available yet, it seems.