On The Sidelines: Who's taking a pass on the Blu-ray/HD-DVD Schmozzle?

Sensible companies, that's who.

I took a quick survey of some of the best known brands in upscale A/V, and here's what their representatives had to say:

Yamaha: "Yamaha Corp has made no decisions one way or the other on the new formats. We are sitting on the fence with this one. "

Denon: "We have made no decisions."

Marantz: no comment, but since they and Denon have the same parent, their strategic direction is locksteped together.

Integra: "We are evaluating our options, but until one format shows significant adoption, we're not doing anything."

Funny story: a source at Soundsaround, Calgary's dominant regional retailer told me that they had first bought into the Toshiba HD-DVD players, and had promoted them heavily. However, in a matter of weeks, customer dissatisfaction with glitches and bugging drove owner Tony Scafeo into one of his moods, Soundsaround blew every last one of them out the door (stamped "Final Sale" I presume) and are currently pimping promoting the Samsung BP-D1000, which by many people's estimation still kind of sucks, but is the only Blu-ray unit available until Sony and Pioneer both get their acts together.

Never in the history of format launches have the early adopters been so badly abused and short-changed, and not by one format, but by two.

So, is this "Format War" Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD, or is it Industry vs. Customers?

I'll let you decide for yourselves.

Sphere: Related Content