Promoting Blu-ray

Now that the war is over, Frank Simonis, Chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association’s European Promotions Committee, tells Jean-Luc Renaud, DVD Intelligence publisher, why his work has only just started. Planning early to deliver the highest quality products will be the condition for success.

What is the role of the Blu-ray Disc Association now that the format war is over?

Creation, verification, promotion of the standards are the three key functions of the BDA. We already knew back in 2005 that a licensing programme would have to be set up, run by the Blu-ray Disc Association. You need to create an all-encompassing organization to promote a format. Ensuring adherence to specifications through verification is key to a successful market take-up of the new format.

The BDA’s role is multi-fold. Licensing involves the supply of the various books for the creation of content. As the basic documents are being updated, we need to provide continually information and answer people’s questions. We police the use of the BD disc logos, they are several of them, not just one.

If you bring products to market they need to be certified, we oversee certification procedures to ensure titles have been produced to the right specs. We also carry out random checks in the market to see that products are compliant.
To date, we have 190 members, spanning all sectors of the optical disc industry.

What is the market take-up of Blu-ray so far?

There are already over 35 devices using BD, ranging from standalone players and recorders, PS3, computers, camcorders, burners. With Intel joining in May the BDA, we can expect the PC industry to embrace BD even more forcefully by incorporating BD capability in a wider range of devices. BD-enabled PCs will no longer be exclusive high-end solutions.

Europe is behind the US in terms of format take-up, but the forthcoming IFA consumer electronics fair in September will showcase a raft of new BD products.

On the software side, to date (May), 10 million discs have been sold in the US, 3.5 million in Europe and 1.5 million in Japan where recorders are popular.

Is Blu-ray breaking into China as well?

There is a view China is a no-go area for Blu-ray. That’s not true. We are helping to define unique requirements for the Chinese market. To date, eleven Chinese manufacturers have joined the Blu-ray Disc Association, and thus given a licence to use the BD patents which will allow them to manufacture Blu-ray discs and players.

The PS3 console has done a great job in jump-starting the market, now the stand-alone players need to be added to the market. The arrival of cheaper Chinese-made BD players will move the market drastically.

There are concerns expressed by independent replicators in particular, that entry into Blu-ray is expensive, especially with high AACS licencing fees. How is BDA addressing their concern?

Yes, the BDA is aware of the issues in Europe. We have sent a letter to AACS calling on them to be supportive and cater for smaller territories than the US and to address the many European languages. They should be more market responsive, customer driven. If you don’t listen to the voice of your customers, you will never deliver on the promises. The AACS has yet to respond. We invite them to participate to hear first hand the concerns and what is truly going on. As BDA we keep pushing.

The independents will make the difference in our local European markets, by supplying content in our own languages, with our own stars. Local publishers are the customer base of independent replicators. It is therefore important that they should embrace the format. Demand is forecast to be massive so BD manufacturing capabilities need to be ramped up quickly to meet this demand.

To get the consumers to embrace Blu-ray is a tall order as a range of technologies vie for their disposal income. What is your message to ensure a successful transition to high-definition packaged media?

This decade is the decade of high definition and we are there to make it happens and excite the consumers. BD is high definition in its ultimate form. The ambition we should keep in mind is to create a true cinematic experience in the home. Only BD offers the best sound and the best picture in the living-room.

This year HDTVs will account for 32 per cent of TV screens in Europe whilst only two per cent of homes receive HD broadcasts. By 2012, forecasts point to 71 per cent of European screens (168 million) being HD capable, however only 28 per cent (48 million homes) will receive HD broadcasts. There is therefore a large HD content deficit that Blu-ray is uniquely suited to fill.

The content gap is helping us especially where there is no HDTV broadcasting. I was in Russia where two million customers are waiting on BD as the sole source of HD material. That is a huge community looking for the product.
Education is a vital element of our Blu-ray introduction process. We must make home viewers more aware of what is available today. The simple truth is that in all regions Blu-ray Disc offers a superior proposition to broadcast television.

Hardware adoption is a long-term process. The cost of BD players will come down. We are seeing new varieties of BD players on the market at different price points with different features.

With over 400 million consumers, Europe represents the world’s most lucrative market for Blu-ray Disc.

And what is your message to the industry?

My plea is to look carefully for what’s to be done to make a successful Fall season. HD screens are penetrating the market fast. People are getting hungry for Blu-ray as the best source. I we do not deliver a perfect product, consumers will get confused, and we are not satisfying the market the way it should be.

Therefore, planning must take place this quarter to ensure sufficient capacity is in place. Replicators must be aware that moving into Blu-ray involves many steps. The transition from VHS to DVD-5, then DVD-9 did happen overnight. It requires effort to get up to speed, more steps to be made to deliver a perfect product. Make sure they the titles that come to market this Fall are best quality products.

So far a handful of independents manufacturers have installed BD lines. But demand will soon become massive, so be prepared to service local products in local languages. Talk to your customers to gauge their intentions and plans, so that you can cope when they decide to go ahead.

BD authoring takes a long time as well, everything needs to be learnt. Verification and testing are especially important at the launch of a format to ensure a perfect product hits the consumer market.

We need to build the infrastructure, to make it into a massive industry. The objective now is efficiency, time to market, costs. BDA is here to support you.

Some say that low-cost DVD players with upscaling capability offer a nearly-HD quality picture good enough to keep consumers away from full high definition players.

DVD was designed for standard-definition television. Blu-ray is for high-definition television. Upscaling can do a lot for catalogue titles in particular, giving a flavour of what HD can be. But only BD offers the real thing, especially with the advanced features such as online connectivity that can update content, picture-in-picture, secondary sound, etc.

A critical feature of BD is the 3-layered copy protection technology that protects content owners. Unfortunately, with DVD we lost a portion of the content creation business owing to the weak CSS which was eventually cracked.

With anamorphic DVD the consumer’s 16:9 TV set came alive. The same thing will happen with BD and the HDTV sets.

What is the next step in BDA activities?

This year the BDA will sponsor a major above-the-line promotion campaign. Kicking off in the autumn, this will include national advertising campaigns aimed at appealing to consumers who have already invested in a new generation HDTV or are thinking of doing so. Looking ahead, we can expect a wide range of new products to be introduced at the biggest electronics fair, the IFA in Berlin at the end of August.
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