My Neighbour's New "Top of the Line DVD Player"

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So yesterday I'm outside and I bump into my neighbour who is a very chatty person by nature and we begin chatting. Soon the conversation shifts to his DVD player that he just brought. He said his existing DVD player (a JVC) just broke and that was his second DVD player that broke and both he thinks didn't last long. So he said this time he wanted to buy a "high end" quality DVD player that "would last a long time" and "had a good picture". So he tells me how expensive it was and that it's Made in Japan, and that irks my curiosity cause I am thinking like with that kind of money he could have got a nice BD player that is also Made in Japan so I kind of end up inviting myself in.

His television setup is pretty simple. He has a late model Sony 32" CRT, a Sharp VCR and now replacing his old JVC player is a Panasonic DMP-BD30K. I am kind of suprised and also relieved to know he spent the money on a BD player and that he future proofed himself. So I remark to him "Oh, you got a Blu Ray player". What happened next SUPRISED me. He took it as almost like an insult that he got ripped off or something and got something LESS than a DVD player like say a Video CD Player or a VCR or something. So he says back to me "no, it's a DVD player, but it also plays Blu ray". Stunned, I ask him if he knows what Blu ray is, and he says "no, I don't".

I am sure you can understand why I was stunned. As far as HE is concerned he brought a DVD player that ALSO happens to play back Blu rays, the same way you can buy a DVD player that ALSO plays back MP3 CDs even though you may never use the feature. As far as he is concerned, the Blu ray playback is just an extra "bonus" value added feature the same way MP3 or JPEG playback is also an extra bonus value added feature on a DVD or Blu ray player to help pad the feature list. He is the type of person who thinks that DVD is (still) the latest and greatest and is cutting edge technology. As far as he is concerned, DVD playback is THE feature of the unit and the reason why it exists.

So, I am still not sure if this purchase was simply a product of his own ignorance just wanting to buy an expensive "high end" "top of the line DVD player", or I am more inclinded to believe that it is also the product of a sales person exploiting the ignorance of a customer who wants to buy a "high end DVD player". Cause surely the commision from selling a DVD player these days is slim and compared to the fat commision from a BD player, the salesperson jumped on the oppurtunity. If this is the case, I am sure the sales person presented the Panny in the way my neighbour wanted to see it, as "a high end DVD player" and as the salesperson is running down the feature list for the customer, mentions that it also happpens to play Blu rays.

Once again, I am not sad for him but happy for him even though he didn't know what he brought. When you think about it, he did buy what he wanted, a very nice "high end" DVD player and you know what, since DVD players are a commoditiy item these days, if you want a high end quality DVD player these days you really have to get a BD player, that also happens to be future proof. I think this means too, that there are people with (mostly with lots of money) not much tech knowledge, looking for high end DVD players and buying Blu ray players, who never will use them as a Blu ray player. I am wondering how often this is happening. Here is a tidbit I will leave people here to answer, if they are a significant percentage of stand-alone BD buyers (even like say 5%), are they not artifically inflating the success of Blu ray in terms of sales numbers.?