Results of a survey of high-volume DVD users conducted by online DVD trading company Peerflix have shown that only about one in five users may be tempted to buy high-definition DVD players or discs in 2006.

Daniele Levy, Peerflix's vice president of marketing, said the results showed that significant adoption by hard-core users was at least a year off. "We were quite surprised to see that a very small number of those die-hard DVD fans envisioned moving into the high-definition format this year," Levy said. "With all the talk and excitement around high-definition DVD they are still a long way away from moving into that format."

Tom Adams, head of Adams Media Research, said the Peerflix numbers were in line with his firm's expectations for early technology adopters. He predicted sales of 1 million to 2 million video game consoles that play high-definition discs, plus sales of about a half-million next-definition DVD players by the end of 2006.

Privately-held Peerflix surveyed about 1,100 of its active users, who said they buy an average of five DVDs and rent an average of seven DVDs per month, about how likely they are to buy a Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player or discs.

The respondents were predominantly 25- to 44-year-old males with jobs, a wife and no children. Most had DVD collections of at least 50 discs and about a third also rented DVDs online.

Six percent of Peerflix said they were "very likely" and 13 percent were "somewhat likely" to buy a high-definition player in 2006.

Story filed 16.05.06