Fifteen years ago, studios and retailers alike were reeling from a dramatic slowdown in sales of DVD, which had been steadily growing at double-digit rates until 2005, when growth began to slow. A high-definition, next-generation successor disc was supposed to bring salvation; instead, the home entertainment industry found itself contending with a bruising format war that stifled sales. The January 2007 CES was a battleground for the two rival formats, Blu-ray Disc and HD. The annual Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA) touched down in Las Vegas for the next-to-last time, and at the end of the year it was revealed that for the first time consumer spending on home entertainment, driven by DVD sales, was down. A glum Ron Sanders, at the time president of Warner Home Video, told Home Media Magazine, “This is not what we initially expected, coming into this year.”
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