Bad Signs For Blu-ray 1276
Ian Lamont writes "More than six months after HD-DVD gave up the ghost, there are several signs that Sony's rival Blu-ray format is struggling to gain consumer acceptance. According to recent sales data from Nielsen, market share for Blu-ray discs in the U.S. is declining, and Sony and its Blu-ray partners are trying several tactics to boost the format — including free trial discs bundled into magazines and cheap Blu-ray players that cost less than $200."
$200? (Score:5, Informative)
Keep going. I can still get a no-name DVD player for $30, region free as well.
How 'bout some movies get released first? (Score:5, Informative)
Bought my Blu-Ray player a few weeks ago and was all pumped to pick up a copy of Saving Private Ryan and... nope. Well, I'll just go to Blockbuster and rent something at least... nadda. There was all of 12 movies available, none of them worth renting let alone purchasing. We settled on Fantastic Four I and II. God awful movies. Shamefully bad. I'm surprised they're not churning out movies faster than this; there's barely any titles worth getting that have been released yet.
Re:Blu-Ray vs DVD (Score:2, Informative)
The studios can add little Java applet games to Blu-Ray discs.
Of course, you'll need to be connected to the internet so they can verify that you're running the applet on a single player at a time.
Re:Look at the titles (Score:4, Informative)
"Master and Commander: Far Side of the World" was pretty great. After watching it on Blueray, I went back and watched the first bit on DVD .. wasn't nearly the experience.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Informative)
What about being able to use 1080p with a TV that doesn't have HDMI?
1080p can be sent over component, but no Blu-Ray players do that.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Informative)
Uhm... the article is about Blu-Ray vs. DVD stats. DVDs have DRM too.
Re:Look at the titles (Score:4, Informative)
Personally I liked The Fifth Element, Planet Earth, Blade Runner Ultimate Edition, 2001, Spiderman trilogy, Close Encounters and Hellboy on Blu-Ray Disc. In terms of image quality and visual pop (as distinct from the innate qualities of the movie) I have to say The Fifth Element was the best so far. I understand there was an inferior transfer originally, but the latest one is good.
Re:Look at the titles (Score:3, Informative)
I bought a PS3 and picked up a handful of Blu-Ray titles since. Not until I got a copy of the BBC documentary Planet Earth [wikipedia.org] did I feel that anything justified Blu-Ray.
That series is incredible. And having it in High-Def was worth the money for me, hands down.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Informative)
please, completely slanted article (Score:4, Informative)
The week before, market share of BluRay was WAY up. BluRay sales were up 16% despite DVD sales being down 10%.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/13/nielsen-videoscan-high-def-market-share-for-week-ending-septembe/ [engadgethd.com]
And selling players for cheaper is a bad thing? Sales accelerate when prices drop. DVD players are $35, it must be a complete flop!
It's about time for these ridiculous slanted anti-BluRay articles to end. BluRay is having a tough enough time without slashdot airing repeated hit pieces.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Informative)
As someone else already noted you are comparing a computer dvd drive to the price of a standalone Bluray drive. Newegg has a computer Bluray drive for $99 [newegg.com] already. Last year they were several hundred dollars so they appear to be dropping in price fairly quickly.
Eh, recent weeks have shown an uptake in sales (Score:3, Informative)
I dunno who Ian is trying to fool, but recent weeks have been up, not down. Last week was because, quite honestly, there was nothing worth buying on Blu-ray Disc. However, the previous week set a record for Blu-ray vs. DVD (the week Transformers was finally put out on BD). Taking a down week and saying "oh look, it's failing" is just the ultimate in silliness.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Informative)
It could have to do with new DVD's being $10-$15, where new Blu-Ray discs are $23.99(amazon)-$39.99 (Bestbuy)
Not only are they twice as expensive, but I've stopped buying blu-ray movies because more often than not the quality is almost exactly the same as the DVD version! I just watched The Usual Suspects on blu-ray, and while it might be slightly better, it's definitely not a significant improvement over the standard DVD.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, those few times I want an HD movie, I rent one on my Apple TV or xbox 360
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Informative)
The fact the blue ray will largely be the same quality as dvd has a lot to do with the original storage format. For TV series SVHS video means, you can't get the data when it isn't there. So if they really want to sell the quality they are marketing, they have to use the original content as a digital framework and combine it high tech photo realistic animation to put the missing data back in, cost prohibitive as the sales will not justify it as people will be unwilling to replace existing DVD content already sold.
Not that high definition picture quality can be really pretty but, where is the scenery channel screen saver, the only content I would bother seeking out on high definition. Honestly failed plastic surgery, botox overdoses, unrealistic facial expressions and, overtly visible make up, are often just too painful watch on hi-definition (there is often another reason why blue ray is of no better quality than DVD, sometimes that quality is closer to SVHS than even DVD, gotta protect those egos).
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Informative)
"Disk go in here? Disk play." Wait 7 minutes for DRM to initialize. Where's my damn movie?!!
Yes, I own one of them.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:5, Informative)
Re:DVD (Score:3, Informative)
Umm, theatres play 24 frames a second, non-interlaced, nothing special. Not 60, not 120, 24. They've been doing it like so or decades and nobody says, wow this picture looks soo frigging jittery.
The only slight wrinkle in modern display of movies is that mastered DVD's need to be converted from 24-50(EU), or 24-60(NA) which is called telecine. This process could be what is causing your jitteryness. The advantage of the new 120hz TV's is that as long as the source is recorded in 24fps without pulldown and as long as the player can be configured to output those 24 frames unfiltered, then the TV can be set to render the 24 fps at a perfect 120/24 == 5hz for every frame causing no distortion, pulldown, jitter, tearing, alien invasion, or the like.
You mean you couldn't care less (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Informative)
Granted, that may be because its a PS3. However, last I checked the PS3 was the most popular DVD player.
No titles yet have been encoded with ICP, which reduces image quality on non-HDCP TV's. I've never heard of a player not wanting to work with SPDIF. If it has the port, why wouldn't it be supported? No, you won't get 7.1 HD Master Audio with optical out, but that's a limitation of the hardware. Besides, if you have a stereo that does 7.1 Master Audio, it has HDMI. End of story.
I will admit that the shifting spec is stupid. However, at this point in the game, it's all early adopters, and the vast majority of them can handle tech talk.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Informative)
The quality difference just isn't there, DVD has reached 99% of the acceptable perceived quality for what a consumer expects to see from a movie.
Considering that most 'high quality' DVD rips or HD transcodes aren't even DVD resolution, I'd say it's even better than that. If it's not even worth the extra space for most people to go beyond 1200kbps xvid with appropriate resolution, then it's hard to see compelling reasons to think most people would pay any form of a premium for HD.
Why bother with Blu-Ray? (Score:3, Informative)
When I was buying the TV I wanted to get another DVD player so that the old DVD player could move upstairs to my bedroom with the old CRT television. The salespeople steer me to the Blue-Ray players (obviously). I look at the $399 price tag and laugh. He says "Well, we have this less expensive model over here" and points to a $379 player. I laugh even harder. I honestly haven't looked at the different Blu-Ray players to see what's what, but I find it odd that all of them are exactly $399. There's no price differentiation except for the "store brand" model. I ended up quickly picking up an upconverting DVD player for $70 instead.
Why? Well, it's $330 cheaper for starters. Secondly, upconverted content looks really good. It may not be the same quality as Blu-Ray, but the difference wasn't that discernible from the in-store displays, and watching upconverted DVD content on my TV looks as good as most of the HD cable content that I watch. Then of course there's the movie prices, they're twice what DVD's cost for only a minor improvement in quality. It's odd, but after 2 years of being out Blu-Ray still feels very "bleeding edge" at the moment. Especially after HD-DVD folded I expected Blu-Ray adoption to increase, and I hoped (perhaps against reason) that the increase the production quantity would bring prices down. I was wrong there.
One other thing that really bothers me is that the $399 price seems "fixed" or artificial. You can buy a PS3 for $399, and it includes a Blu-Ray player. Or you can buy a Blu-Ray player for $399. Doesn't it seem like the stand-alone player should be cheaper than the PS3? It's almost like Sony wants to keep the prices higher so that people opt for the PS3 instead, but I'm not really a gamer. I'm not really much of a fan of Sony either, to be honest. All of their DRM infected CDs and other nonsense that they go through to try to force monopolistic, proprietary standards on people really rubs me the wrong way.
Bleeding obvious? (Score:2, Informative)
Is this from the Rick Romero newsdesk of the "bleeding obvious"?
Putting crap on Blu-Ray doesn't turn it into a masterpiece, it's still crap. How much is a blu-ray movie disc these days?
It never fails to amaze me how exec's still seem to believe they can push crap into the marketplace and people will buy it like sheep simply because it has a new name and a cool logo attached to it.
Wake me up when the hd tv format wars have ended and some stations actually broadcast full hd 24x7 outside of some indefinite beta trial phase, then I might think again about ditching good old PAL and my dvd player.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Informative)
This doesn't surprise me too much - unless the film is laden with huge scenes and/or heavy on the visual fx, HD is a waste of space.
The only genres it really works in are sci-fi, action, sports and nature documentaries. Personally, I don't get the appeal of it (even though I own enough HD equipment to make me look like a fanatic :-)) - the whole thing feels like a con to make broadcasters, content providers and consumers alike feel they need to purchase new equipment and replace their media collections.
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:3, Informative)
Okay I can tell the difference between HD and Standard TV. If you can't you need your eyes checked. Now the difference between 720p and 1080p that is a lot harder to tell.
But your right about DVDs. A standard def DVD looks GREAT on my HDTV. I also have an HDDVD player I got cheap. HD movies look nice but they are not that much better.
DVDs are cheap, common, and look great on an HDTV with even a cheap $50 upscaling player.
Re:DRM hits ordinary folk. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:3, Informative)
Can someone explain to me why the image looks so weird? I wish I could describe it better, but I didn't sit there long enough to figure it out.
There are really two kinds of 120Hz displays - there are ones that just do simple frame multiplication - real film is 24fps, so 24x5 = 120Hz and video is sort of 30Hz so 30x4 = 120Hz.
Then there are these other (stupid IMO) 120Hz displays that do interpolation, so instead of getting the same frame 4 or 5 times in a row, you get the real frames every 4th or 5th refresh and then weirdo interpolated images on the frames in between.
Well, weirdo isn't really fair. The interpolation actually works pretty good, but you aren't used to it. Generally, the only shows shot on video at 30Hz are soap operas and other low-budget productions. 30Hz is 25% faster than 24fps so the difference is easily perceptible. Watching a 24fps movie interpolated up to 120hz is kind of like giving it the same production qualities as a soap opera which is why it looks odd.
I think that until we get real 'films' shot at higher frame rates, very few people will be able to get past the hyper-real and low-budget feel of interpolated frames.
So, if you want to upgrade, look for a tv set that just does frame multiplication or at least lets you turn off the interpolation.
Also, you might want to wait for even faster sets, 240Hz is due this year. The reason you might wait is for a set that can actually accept a higher fps signal - I think there is a chance we will start seeing 3D in the home soon and 240Hz means you can do 3D on a 24fps movie by just duplicating 5 frames for each eye (5hz x 24fps x 2eyes = 240Hz) but you can't do an equal number of frames per eyes at 120Hz (2.5Hz x 24fps x 2eyes = 120Hz). It might not happen, but I personally think 3D will happen sooner for more movies than going to faster native framerates will.