QUOTE(ChrisF @ Apr 27 2008, 01:28 AM)
That was the problem. New technology and no real effort to market or position itself at retail - just low pricing and some internet sales pushes. I mean really, backward compatibility and what was a no brainer naming scheme. Blu Ray had an uphill battle and fought the marketing war hard - and won. Don't bring a knife to a gun fight and don't bother fighting unless you are actually going to try to win. One of Toshiba's quotes was that they "certainly learned a lot from this." Yeah - that's kind of the problem, you don't go learning on billion dollar stuff, hire someone who is experienced and knows what the hell they are doing to launch, market and sell your product. It's disgraceful.
There was plenty going on for HD-DVD, at least in the US. It wasn't until late in the game that HD-D kept getting played to the side. As for BC, every BD device is BC with DVDs, and every forthcoming device should be as well. Naming scheme isn't the best no brainer - sure it can sound logical (oh, I want a high def DVD), but the general public confuses things that are too similar. Look at it like this: if you barley know 2 girls who are sisters, and they look identical (though with a few fundamental differences that you can at least barely tell them apart), and their names are Cindy and Lucinda, you'll easily get confused until you know them better. Just like VHS to DVD; it's different enough that even the simplest people with the smallest vocabulary will know the difference.