Hollywood studios are counting on the new format, which boasts better quality images and more storage space for content, to renew demand for DVDs, which are more profitable than theatrical releases.

But Daniele Levy, Peerflix's vice president of marketing, said the results showed that significant adoption by hard-core users was at least a year off.

"We were quite surprised to see that a very small number of those die-hard DVD fans envisioned moving into the high-definition format this year," Levy said. "With all the talk and excitement around high-definition DVD they are still a long way away from moving into that format."

Tom Adams, chief executive of Adams Media Research, said the Peerflix numbers were in line with his firm's expectations for early technology adopters.

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