LIVE FROM CES CESdate 01.07.06 - DVDJ @ CES 2006

First, let’s get our priorities straight: Stevie Wonder was wonderful Friday night in his private performance at the Monster Retailer Awards. He had many in the crowd of 4000 in the Paris Hotel ballroom up on their feet, bopping and bobbing. There were those who could be seen nodding off before took the stage at close to 11:00 p.m., but Stevie was their wake-up call. (This CES is like a meat grinder; just making your way through the aisles of the main hall is its own stress test. My early-line handicap on final CES attendance: 142,000. Just a guesstimate; I haven’t finished counting everyone yet.)

Presided over by “Head Monster” Noel Lee, arguably the CE industry’s most inspiring success story -- a former manufacturer’s rep with polio who’s created a masterful franchise on the most fungible of commodities, speaker wire and electronics connectors – Monster could teach other industry segments a lesson in smart and profitable branding, but more on that in a later blog.

Having worked the audience into a frenzy with his startling musicianship and unmatched range of voice and genres, the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, with his daughter Aisha by his side after they sang a beautiful duet, challenged the CE industry to do all it can to find innovative ways that allow “blind people and others with disabilities to enjoy your technology as well.” Coming from someone of such extraordinary accomplishment, I don’t at all mind admitting that sentiment brought a lump to my throat, in no small part due to thoughts of my late son, who had severe dwarfism.

 After hearing that retailer’s misinformed buying strategy for high-def digital disc, my first thought was, “Let the confusion begin!”

 I won’t say that everyone’s favorite industry straight talker, Andy Parsons, senior VP of Pioneer Electronics and digital media muse, exactly agrees with my phraseology regarding confusion, but after spending an hour in conversation with him at the Blu-ray booth Friday, it’s fair to say Mr. Parsons, among others, doesn’t want and doesn’t understand why there still are two formats preparing to go to market. Still, he says he’s gotten past wringing his hands over it and is visibly and aurally confident about Blu-ray being the Blues Brother who survives its sibling in the marketplace.

Andy’s rap on why Pioneer announced an $1800 Blu-ray Disc player is convincing and, despite my early bemusement over the pricing, which I expressed to him, it’s hard to argue with his kind of logic – and experience.

Even before talking with him, others at the show pointed out the $1800 is a suggested retail price and the player is part of Pioneer’s top-end Elite line, which routinely is deeply discounted, so the street price presumably will be much less intimidating.

For his part, Andy Parsons does not think the mass market consumer is in any rush to buy a high-def player, and the very early adopters who are champing at the gigabits not only demand the kind of quality and features that Pioneer’s player will offer, but also expect to pay a premium for the privilege of being “the first one on the block” to show off a first-generation BD player. Notably, the Pioneer player offers a 1080p image while Toshiba’s and Thomson’s $500 entry-level models are limited to 1080i and 720p. Even the $1000 suggested retail priced Samsung Blu-ray player does not output 1080p.

Put another way, he doesn’t believe a $500 price point will drive a lot of early adopters into stores, and to the mass-market customer, he advised, $500 is not exactly a bargain anyhow; it’s a lot of money for a product someone is not hankering to have.

Why wouldn’t a tech geek want to save money on a high-def player? Almost out of character, the courtly Mr. Parsons is obliged to point out, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that “The $499 player is missing features: it won’t play Disney, Fox or Sony movies.” He adds that “Without building up awareness and demand, you can’t accelerate adoption by price alone.”

He also allows that he has friends at HD DVD companies like Microsoft and Toshiba, and that this persistent format contretemps is “not personal, just business.”  (“The Godfather” is from Paramount, so it will be playable in both HD DVD and BD, since the studio, along with Warner, is attached to both Blues Brothers.)

On the BD recorder side, Andy said Pioneer’s product (see CESdate 01.05.06 below) will come bundled with data application software to allow for pre-mastering software, and Pioneer has yet to decide which of four software solutions vendors it will choose as its partner.

He would not commit to whether Pioneer will offer another BD player this year, noting that by the time its Elite player arrives in stores in May, there’s little more than half a year left on the calendar.  “We’ll keep an eye on the market and see how it’s moving along. This product will hold us for awhile.” Clearly, Mr. Parsons and Pioneer are biding their time with the Blu-ray market.

As for HD DVD, I’m still in search of the HD DVD Promotion Group booth here at the show. While there is a booth number listed in the show directory, on a handy map of HD DVD exhibits distributed to the press -- showing where Denon, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Thomson, and Toshiba exhibits are located – the one booth not listed is the HD DVD Promotion Group exhibit. The Blu-ray booth is located at one end of the very long Panasonic booth, and the knot of traffic passing by feels like Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

 I didn’t ask Andy Parsons if he had visited – or found – the HD DVD Promotion Group booth, but he made no bones about the fact he thinks the protracted format war will not last very much longer, an observation he shared with the hundreds gathered at the BD party the previous night. His reasoning is that once product hits the market, the Blues Brother who is missing those Disney, Fox and Sony features will be gasping for breath. Which conjures up an image not so much of Blues Brothers as of a brotherly story of biblical proportions – Cain and Abel.