Get ready for the Blu-Ray blitz

HD Beat and High-def DVD Digest notes that Sony will launch its marketing blitz for Blu-ray next week. Word has it that Sony will have Blu-ray players in their top 10 stores. The real question will be whether they will operate better than Toshiba's first HD-DVD players, which, quite frankly, have debuted to mixed reviews. Would you really want to wait up to a minute for your DVD player to figure out how to play your DVD? How about having your high-definition signal limited to 480p unless you use the HDMI output, which by the way, is buggy and generates errors?

All that said, let's hope Sony takes the high road and doesn't resort to simulated comparisons against standard definition video that artificially make traditional DVDs look bad. While we applaud Toshiba's use of differentiation, artificially making the competitive technology bad undermines their brand value and trustworthiness. Yes, this is a marketing war, but despite Seth Godin's book, not all marketers are liars. Marketers like Sony can do better by articulating why their products are great and delight their customers. Given the recent successes they've had with their Bravia and PSP lines, I expect that their Blu-ray demonstrations will be similarly high-caliber. We'll see next week.

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