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."
Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a surprise. (Score:2, Insightful)
Big News (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Can anyone say DRM?
Yeah, but the masses can't tell you what it stands for.
content content content (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd much rather see a good story with crappy special effects than a crappy story with good special effects.
Blu-Ray vs DVD (Score:4, Insightful)
oh a super high resolution that MOST people won't notice on their old CRT Television sets and only few would actually notice on their Hi-Def TVs. DVD for me thanks.
Yeah, Blu-Ray didn't win. (Score:5, Insightful)
Blu-Ray is better than DVD, but I don't know if it is enough better to survive and conquer.
I got one of those "Trial" discs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Balls. People had no trouble buying DVD players before deCSS, and many (I dare say a majority) people still don't know about it/care. It's true consumers don't like DRM, but that's because they generally don't even know about it.
The increase in quality and features is not as great as DVD, and the economy is a huge issue.
Upscaling DVD is good enough.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
And it doesn't matter what they think it stands for. All they have to know is DRM means support headaches and/or getting screwed out of stuff you pay for.
From one consumer's perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
* It's my (probably uninformed as heck) impression that not that many movies are out on Blu-Ray. I'm more into documentaries (which would look superb in HD) -- are they available and affordable?
* The players are not cheap -- and judging from the pattern of all similar tech devices, in a year or three, they'll be under $100 or so -- and eventually be downright cheap, once the thrift stores have switched from selling VHS players to DVD players.
* Finally, I have a substantial DVD collection and am in no hurry to re-spend all that money (especially since, until I get used to HD quality, DVDs look fine to me.)
Lower the price (Score:5, Insightful)
Confused.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Discs that are more expensive than DVDs? Having to buy new type of player? Limited selections? Difference noticeable only on HD TV sets? Gee...seems like the perfect combination to me.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Consumers are for the most part too ignorant to care about dvd based DRM.
DRM on music is enough to concern them, since many have an mp3 player they would like to use with their CD's/Downloads.
However with blu-ray disks, i cannot picture the average consumer, or even the less common nerder consumer giving a damn over the inability to copy 40gig movies to their computer or to where ever.
Put simply, don't fool yourself into wishful thinking that consumers have suddenly woken up to DRM. Its far more likely to be a more simpler reason, like the recession.
even for free.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't install or use a BD system.
on principle.
sony: you lost a LOT of money on people like me who BOYCOTT you for all your various evil ways.
note to industry: upscaled dvd's are JUST FINE on any modern day video player or streamer (I use a 'popcorn hour' box which upscales just fine and is fanless and instant-on).
BD can die for all I care. I'll never fund your poor products with my money.
DO NOT WANT (Score:2, Insightful)
That's like... Someone brings out a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle for $15,000 brand new that runs well, handles well, and is an all-around great car. You go ahead and make a purchase. Then, some conglomerate comes to market with a car that runs on cat shit for $10k and puts the fuel cell company out of business.
I'll walk, thanks.
You can throw in all the free cats and laxative kitty treats you want, I'm not buying.
Re:Not a surprise. (Score:1, Insightful)
After all, Blu-Ray's real competitor wasn't HD-DVD. It was, and still is, the DVD.
FTFY
Blu-ray is the new ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, maybe Blu-ray turns out to be the next Laserdisc [wikipedia.org].
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
DVD sales are steady, though. Granted the article only examines the trend between last week and this week, so both numbers are next to meaningless...
Look at the titles (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been kind of wanting to get a Blu-Ray machine. But I've been waiting for a title that I can get excited about.
Can anyone recommend a movie - that when you watch it on blu-ray you say "awesome ... that was worth it!"
When I look at the BluRay section - I see movies like "SuperBad" and the latest chick flicks
Who the fuck cares about these on BLURAY - @$30 a pop no less
I figure if the re-master Pink Floyd's Delicate Sound of Thunder from the original AGFA film masters, I will be all over that format. ... but until then .... *yawn*
Too little, too soon. (Score:4, Insightful)
DRM, lack of content... lack of a overriding need. (Score:1, Insightful)
People don't like DRM... there's nothing on it and DVD although inferior fills the needs of most people who are not videophiles.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Its far more likely to be a more simpler reason, like the recession.
...or that Blu-ray offers nothing better for the average consumer than SACD does for sound. It's great for videophiles and those with really expensive setups, but at the end of the day it's the same movie at a higher cost.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Most consumers don't care. They just pop in a disc and watch it.
One of the factors is probably that for a BluRay player to give you any benefit, ignore the $400 player... you need a $1500-$4000 television.
Some folks still won't drop four grand on a TV, go figure.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Agree. The U.S. economy is melting down as we speak, and Sony is worried why people aren't investing in more HDTVs and Blu-ray players and buying all our movies again in another format at $30+ each for only a gain in resolution?
Hell, the economy even has only a little to do with it.
Make players that cost $100 and make the disc premium $1-2 more than standard DVDs ($15 for a new release DVD during the first week of sale at Walmart!) and you can even sell it during the recession.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
Nonsense. The "masses" don't care about DRM. What they care about is price. BlueRay players and media are still more expensive than DVD equivalents. Once the price point comes down, expect to see more sales.
price price price (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll switch to Blu-Ray when the price comes down to about double a cheap DVD player and a Blu-Ray disc costs the same as a DVD.
Until then I'll simply download DRM free 1080p files to the PC hooked up to my 1080p tv.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but they don't do they. You're seriously overestimating the average consumer. "Disk go in here? Disk play." That's the mentality. I hang out on a lot of forums that deal with Blu-Ray and I've not seen a single complaint about DRM, because the disks just play, just like DVD (ARCOS protected titles not withstanding.) DRM is irrelevant to 99.999% of Blu-Ray owners because it doesn't effect them.
I think it's more a case of lack of reason to upgrade. When DVD came out I was really excited as it was a huge quality leap, plus you got documentaries, commentary etc... It was a MASSIVE leap, especially if you're a movie geek. DVD to Blu-Ray is a picture and audio upgrade which you can't really notice without a 40"+ TV and a 5.1 surround system. The regular consumer, the idiot who buys "Fullscreen" over widescreen gets very little benefit from Blu-Ray over DVD. All the consumer sees is the movies are more expensive and in pretty blue boxes. I see DVD's flying off the shelves in stores, but I don't think I've yet seen anyone buying a Blu-Ray release. (PS3 titles not withstanding.) This is just from the many hours I spend feeding my DVD habit and browsing.
Blu-Ray will most likely be these decades Laserdisc. A niche market for home theatre geeks.
The reason is easy to figure out (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not the DRM or cost of the players. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the cost of the content. Content is king and always will be. Consumers will pay more for a disc player which offers more features and functionality. They won't pay $30 per blueray disc when they are used to paying $14-20 for decent quality movie on DVD. Add DRM to that and ya it's doomed to a early demise and they were fools for thinking they could succeed so.
No one cares about DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Blu-Ray's problem is that it's a solution in search of a problem. VHS looked lousy (and progressively lossy) and was clunky to use; the DVD solved those problems by being a higher quality digital disk, so it was successful in the market. So... what's the consumer problem with DVDs that Blu-Ray is supposed to solve? "The resolution could be higher," just isn't that compelling a reason to upgrade.
DRM hits ordinary folk. (Score:4, Insightful)
> However with blu-ray disks, i cannot picture the average consumer, or even
> the less common nerder consumer giving a damn over the inability to copy
> 40gig movies to their computer or to where ever.
Forget the nerds, the problem is the people who casually copy DVDs, often for sensible reasons like CHILDREN. DVDs and children are a sure fire way to lose titles. So a lot of people make copies for the kids. Others make copies for their portable media players. As soon as a potential BD customer realizes they will have to buy a BD copy (at a premium) and a DVD print of the same movie they ain't going to be all that interested unless they are the sort of hard core video quality freak that has a bunch of laserdiscs already. (assuming they are old enough)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Put a store-bought BD in your store bought BD player and it bitches about your digital-but-not-HDCP-enough TV and refuses to play. It sees your SPDIF connection to your stereo and pitches a fit. It sees you doing ANYTHING but the Sony-approved Viewing Ritual and it just stops cold. It notices that the disc is using a newer encryption than the player and it tosses a shitfit, demanding that you get on the intertubes and burn a CDR with newer firmware. Average Joe shits a brick and returns his hardware when his MOVIE PLAYER THING tells him to get on the Intertubes. It's not flying.
End users notice that shit, and they're saying no.
Folks won't replace things that aren't broken (Score:3, Insightful)
This falls into the same category as satellite radio -- XM/Sirius have not been able to convince radio listeners their radio is "broken" and needs replacement, upgrade, etc...
Both are just novelties and will never go beyond just that, a new toy. DVDs/CDs fixed something that was "broken" stretched/worn-out/broken media tape. Ah the hiss of a worn-out cassette, and remember the cassette that you tried to play that sat in a 120f vehicle all day --- strrreeetch! Or the one you tried to play before the interior of your car warmed-up in the midst of winter --- snnnaaapp! etc... DVDs/CDs "fixed" these problems, not to mention quality... folks said, "I have to get one of these!"
With Blue-Ray... folks think it is "neat", but are perfectly content with their current digital media and they still remember how bad those analog tapes were in comparison. And in the case of satallite radio the feeling is mutual, "my favorite radio station still comes in loud-and-clear... why should I pay for something that is free?"
[apologies in advance for the satellite radio tangent, but it is somewhat relevant]
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
It could have to do with new DVD's being $10-$15, where new Blu-Ray discs are $23.99(amazon)-$39.99 (Bestbuy)
Re:Why blu-ray is failing (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't just work, though. The people who hang out on the forums aren't the ones who were bitten by HDCP. And you get people asking salespeople about this new fancy high-def disc and get asked if the HDTV they bought 3 years ago has HDCP, they don't know if it does or not, so that scares them off. And many people have HDTV's that don't have HDCP, so there goes a number of people who would buy one, but it just doesn't work. My brother is an example of that... bought a 720p TV a while back, and it only has component inputs. It may technically work, but that's only until ICT gets used more commonly, which the the manufacturers haven't used so far. But that's like trusting Apple to not delete your apps off the store.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:0, Insightful)
"pound" is a unit of weight. not mass.
Re:Nah (Score:2, Insightful)
Those of you claiming that upscaled 480p looks as good as native 1080p have probably never compared them side by side.
If you need to hold them side by side to tell the difference, the difference is not great enough.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
$3k NZD ~ $2k USD.
That's pretty exorbitant for most people. In my case it's more than an entire paycheck. A few years ago it would be a month's income. I still have a 32" CRT TV that's perfectly functional, why should I spend that much money?
Come back when it's $700.
I guess it's worth it for some, and not for others
I think that's the point we're trying to make - HDTV, right now, is for the 'philes. Half of whom probably get their stuff off the internet. The 'average' consumer is also the one perfectly happy with 128kb mp3s in their IPod. Add in a half dose of aging eyes for the percentage of population above 40 and you're looking at a restricted market.
I think it's just a "No one cares" thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
People were willing to upgrade from VCR tapes to DVD because of the range of advantages - smaller, better quality, you didn't have to rewind it, it almost never jams, if the machine *is* goofed up it doesn't shred your DVD, they have some rather nice special features like directors commentary.
Only the "Better Quality" option applies to Blue Ray - and the difference between DVD and Blue Ray *or* HD DVD is a *lot* less than the difference between DVD and VHS.
If it were just the quality issue, laserdisk would have beaten VHS a long time before DVD's were around. DVD's were superior on a number of fronts, and are 'good enuff' on anything for the moment.
One doesn't really need to be able to read the writing on the One Ring while Frodo's wearing the damn thing to enjoy LOTR - {G}.
Pug
Re:From one consumer's perspective... (Score:4, Insightful)
And another consumer's perspective:
I don't watch TV.
I don't care about HD or SD. No, really, I don't. It's not important to me.
When I watch movies, it's usually in a window on my computer while I'm doing something else.
DVD works fine for me.
When I feel the need to unwind, I'd rather play a game, read a book, or write.
(Yes, that's intentionally on the opposite end of your spectrum; but that is on purpose. Not all consumers care about television or format wars enough to warrant purchasing new technology as it comes out. That said, I think most consumers fall in line with the GP to whom you posted.)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
The big issue isn't DRM. In fact, DRM is far worse on downloadable content then disc-based ones like Blu-ray.
For the average consumer, you can play a Blu-ray in any Blu-ray player be it your own or anyone elses.
The problem is that movies cost $35 freakin' dollars. Sorry, Transformers is NOT worth $35 in entertainment value. Neither is Harry Potter or Alvin and the Chipmunks. They need to drop the price down to where DVD is.
Re:Several Factors (Score:3, Insightful)
I got modded flame-bait last time I said this (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would we buy a blu-ray? We have DVD players in our SUVs, we have hand-held DVD players for $99. We have DVD players/burners in our computers. A DVD is the media we can use where we want to use it.
Blu-Rays are expensive, need an expensive player, and can't be used with all our devices.
The only "advantage" beyond new and shiny bling appeal for techy nerds, is dubiously better picture quality on an HDTV for new movie releases.
It isn't good enough to be worth it.
Re:Other factors (Score:3, Insightful)
We have a Netflix account, we can get (basically) unlimited DVDs in the mail. But we really don't use it much. We get maybe 2 rounds of DVDs per month, if that. The reason?
Instant downloads.
It's not all movies, and it's not all the latest movies. But with a Netflix account, we can watch a wide selection of movies on demand from the computer. It's fairly simple, it's fast, and it's entertaining. We deal with the loss in quality in order to get convenience. The quality is fair (not great) but not having to worry about scratches on the disk, returning the disk, the disk getting eaten by the dog, forgetting to return it, waiting for the next selection to show up 3 days later, etc. is all worth it.
In our household, physical media is virtually dead.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Most consumers know nothing of DRM. They understand however that $35 per movie is a joke.
Re:From one consumer's perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
Blu-Ray haters are the new Confederate Yankees (Score:1, Insightful)
The entire group of Blu-Ray haters (the bastard child of Sony Haters and HD-DVD fanboys) simply will not give up, trying to use a SINGLE WEEK of video sales in a totally off-peak sales time to point to Blu-Ray failing.
Much like the confederates who yearned for the south to rise again and never accepted the victory of the Union army, some people simply cannot wake up to the fact of the inevitability of Blu-Ray.
This was of course true well before HD-DVD failed, for those who cared to think. But it should be rather obvious to anyone technical now - Blu-Ray has already won.
Over time blu-ray prices will fall, blu-ray player prices will fall. Eventually trying to find a DVD player will be like trying to find a VCR - they simply will not be carried. And with good reason, why buy a DVD player when generally a Blu-Ray player will upsample quite well and play all your old DVD's just fine?
From there DVD's are sold less and less as there is less reason to buy them as Blu-Ray prices fall due to manufacturing costs declining (and they will decline if for no other reason than PS3 games are pressed on Blu-Ray).
Those that think video sales will overtake Blu-Ray of course ignore things like the recent Comcast bandwidth cap and the practical reality of the internet providers infrastructure to most people's homes, not to mention the simple fact that humans like to own and share stuff - and a physical disc can be shared in ways downloaded video cannot be, at least until content providers wake up and smell the sales potential.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
It's very difficult to keep the under-100 IQ half of mankind focused long enough to explain what DRM is and why it's a bad idea. Make it under 110 and it's still hard enough and now they comprise a lot of people who can't care less about DRM, freedom and such things when there are shiny stuff they can get fascinated with.
Sadly, any strategy that relies on people being intelligent is more or less doomed to fail.
Re:please, completely slanted article (Score:5, Insightful)
BluRay is having a tough enough time without slashdot airing repeated hit pieces.
Wait, I thought you said BluRay was doing great?
Re:No one cares about DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Blu-Ray's problem is that it's a solution in search of a problem. VHS looked lousy (and progressively lossy) and was clunky to use; the DVD solved those problems by being a higher quality digital disk, so it was successful in the market. So... what's the consumer problem with DVDs that Blu-Ray is supposed to solve? "The resolution could be higher," just isn't that compelling a reason to upgrade.
I don't think that is correct. Blu-Ray fits a specific and growing need. If you have an HDTV with HD programming, DVD's don't look very good anymore. You get very spoiled watching HD programs and want your "Video Discs" to look just as good. The more people move to HD the more Blu-Ray will grow and DVD will fade. I only by Blu Ray discs, I think the only reason they may be stagnant at the moment is the economy.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed - for the average consumer, the Blu-Ray DRM mostly "just works". Doesn't mean it's good, doesn't mean I'd accept it in my house, but it isn't a big hassle for the average consumer (yet). Most of them have newer sets with HDMI/HDCP built in.
Adoption is about cost benefit. Hrm, players are expensive, disks are expensive, and the image isn't *that* much better than an upsampled DVD image.
Seriously, I had an early DVD player that I paid nearly $600 for, because it was a substantially better format than VHS and the disks never wore out. I still don't regret that purchase. However, my house is now filled with $60 Phillips players. They're cheap commodity units that do an amazing job (and DivX...)
I've seen Blu-Ray on a 47" screen over an HDMI link, and while I did perceive it as "better", it wasn't better enough. I'm quite happy with DVDs, thanks. If I'm typical of even a small portion of the usual early adopter crowd (and believe me, I'm a "gotta have the latest greatest now" kind of guy when it comes to electronics), then I'd say it's in real trouble with the general consumer base.
Re:Yeah, Blu-Ray didn't win. (Score:4, Insightful)
Blu-Ray is better than DVD, but I don't know if it is enough better to survive and conquer.
Exactly. Blu-Ray may just be "better than DVD" in the same way that Beta was "better than VHS" -- ie, in a way that consumers don't give a flying fsck about.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
It's peripherally cost prohibitive.
The tech heads that understand Blu Ray and can appreciate it already have it and they're usually the first adopters and the second wave of tech consumers.
In order to fully purchase Blu Ray and appreciate it, the following needs to apply(low ball figures but accurate):
-New Hi Def TV $1000
-Blu Ray Player $300
-Content at $50 each
And if you're going to have a new Hi Def TV, you might as well get the service
-Increase of cable bill by $30/month for Hi Def Service
-Increase of cost of tuner rental by $3-$5/month
Of course you can get OTA HD channels but YMMV and antennas aren't for Joe Consumer.
Personally, the cable packages piss me off enough to not ever want HD service from them. They upped my basic rates by 120% (I was paying $10/month for the past 2 years).
Satellite has more HD channels but more restrictive on tuners and contracts.
I'll think about going HD when I can own my own tuner.
The answer is obvious (Score:1, Insightful)
DVD cost of production = $.50
BluRay cost of production = $1.25
DVD cost to consumer = $15
BluRay cost to consumer = $27
The MPAA doesn't understand that a movie isn't worth $27, and there's no justification for the price.
In fact, I'm buying no Bluray movies, and furthermore, I'm buying less DVD's now because I know I'll want to buy them as Bluray once the price becomes reasonable.
Bluray player and media sales and profits would triple if Best Buy would lead the charge with the following policy: All Bluray titles will be priced exactly $2 more than the corresponding DVD prices. There would be an avalanche of newly converted Bluray buyers. In the meantime, there are going to be less Bluray and less DVD sales. Hell, there are 20 different ways to get DVD quality movies on demand for less than $5 each.
$27 average price make BRD's uncollectable. Give the collectors a reason to open their wallets.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
no, its price. Most people could care less about DRM and it will never affect them anyway. Its all about price. The players are cost prohibitive and so are the discs. Even at costco they run >$5 more that the DVD equiv title. Don't bother with the 'I buy them at xxx for $2'. Most people don't shop there. People simply don't care about the added benefits. Hell, I bet if you took a survey a lot of people are still confused and could care less about 4:3 vs 16:9 formats. I know my mother doesn't know or care about the difference and only bought a widescreen because it fit in her cabinet well. When she goes to blockbuster more often then not she comes home with the 4:3 version when the widescreen was available. And she doesn't even care. To the majority of consumers its just the boob tube, not some super sophisticated home entertainment system.
not to mention everyone being worried in general about the economy. DVD/bluray are totally bought from disposable income, which people are running short on thanks to inflation. Just bad timing all around
Re:Am I the only one? (Score:5, Insightful)
No one likes $30 / disk (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I think the parent has hit the nail on the head. As an early adopter (PS3 from day one), I've bought a lot of Blue ray disks, but far less than I would have if they didn't ask for $30 each.
I'd be happy to eventually replace my entire DVD collection at $10...$15; but not at thirty. As it is, we only purchase the movies that we like the very best; if it is so-so or just a popcorn flick (light humor, yet-another-sequel, etc.) we don't get it on Blue ray, even if we don't already have it -- we'll just get a DVD.
I really love the hi-res, too (and can see it, too: 204" screen [flickr.com]); but ten disks x $30 is $300, and a hundred is three grand; I have *many* hundreds of DVDs, and there's no way I'm going to replace them just as a matter of course.
As more good movies come out, or let's at least say movies that appeal to my family, we'll slowly build up a considerable collection in the hidef format. But a mass replacement... no. Not until they stop charging so much.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Affect; not effect. Man, I've seen this so many times recently it's starting to seem rediculous!!
We're talking about Blu-Ray, so that would be bluiculous.
DRM shit and more (Score:2, Insightful)
Most average Joe doesn't care about neither DRM (don't know what it is) or the increased resolution (DVDs good enough).
The people who care about the increased resolution is mainly us geeks, but as we don't buy that DRM shit it implies that no-one buys Blu-Ray.
I have several hundred (around 600) DVDs in my collection. I didn't bother with DVDs at all from the beginning due to the stupid region coding, bought my first player when I saw an ad for region free player 1998, but still didn't bother much due to the DRM, but later DeCSS arrived and I felt like DVDs would be a safe buy.
Blu-Ray contains a shitload of DRM garbage so there is quite unlikely that I could make a safe purchase. There are several systems which all need to be cracked before I would get the slightest interest in Blu-Ray.
If HD-DVD had been the elected format, then I would have invested, because that had mostly been made safe already (that is cracked) so it was useful, but those shitty Blu-Rays contains several layers of DRM shit more.
To save the Blu-Ray format, please remove the DRM, (and the stupid stupid region coding) otherwise put it up yours ...
Re:Upscaling DVD is good enough.... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's hard to pick up new titles when blu-ray are selling for $30-35 and the DVD is right next to it on the shelf on sale for $14-15.
When they discount blu-ray as aggressively as they do new DVDs on Tuesday, I'll just wait.
That's bad for blu-ray too, because I refuse to re-buy anything I already have on the DVD format.
Blu-Ray is a solution in search of a problem (Score:2, Insightful)
DVD quality is more than adequate, it's better than I ever expected.
There are other technologies i'd like to see long before a 'higher-res DVD' tech.
More convenience would be nice -- like being able to view any item from my movie collection at the press of a button; ability to seamlessly transfer my movies around without having to deal with bulky disks or DRM restrictions.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
That's exactly what it is. I bought a nice new 46" 1080p LCD TV and I couldn't bear to watch any SD content on it because it looked so terrible. I caved and bought a PS3 just to see what a true 1080p picture looked like and it's definitely a huge leap in clarity. Upscaled DVDs are only barely tolerable, I've really been hooked on blu-ray quality. However, I only own 2 blu-ray movies and do not intend to buy another one unless it's something really special or the price is down to 10 bucks.
I now get my movie fix through netflix which ends up costing me 3 bucks for a movie I'd probably only watch once anyway and if I want to see again can just add to my queue. Why pay 25-30 bucks to own it?
The movie industry really struggles with this whole supply and demand concept. There's an abundance of films available on blu-ray but a tiny demand for them. The laws of economics would have you expect the price to come down, but not in the world of the MPAA.
Re:Blu-ray is the new ... (Score:4, Insightful)
The parallels are certainly there.
VHS was an analog compression medium whose principles were improved upon by increasing the media density (Laserdisc).
DVD is a digital compression medium whose principles have been improved upon by increasing the media density (Blu-ray).
Both transitions constitute evolutionary steps (density of information for better fidelity) but between the groups is a sea change (analog encoding to digital encoding). It stands to reason then that the second group will only be made obsolete by another sea change, not an evolutionary, in-group change.
That change, of course, will be digital downloads, and just as with previous sea changes, it will take some time before someone actually gets it right enough to change the market.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Consumers are for the most part too ignorant to care about dvd based DRM.
Maybe so, but there are at least two movies that I will, as a direct result of DRM, never ever buy or rent: Madagascar and Over The Hedge.
Why? No jokes about their quality, please.
Because another Dreamworks title, Shrek 2, showed trailers for them on the DVD release I bought, and prohibited me from skipping past them.
When I'm in a theatre I expect to have to watch trailers, and often find them entertaining, but not every. single. time I put a disc into my own player at home.
And most other people I know find such things annoying too. Try asking people in the street "what do you think of those copyright messages on DVDs that you can't skip past?". You'll soon see what consumers think of DRM, even if they don't know to call it that. Curiously enough Disney for all their Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension evilness, seems to be the best behaved - their titles rarely if ever forbid you from skipping anything.
UOPs must die.
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:5, Insightful)
I would wager that most people don't have screens that you can tell the difference on. I have a 46" LCD, and I can see the difference if I really look for it, but as soon as I start watching the movie instead of looking at it, I promptly forget. . .
Re:Am I the only one? (Score:3, Insightful)
I just don't understand it when people say DVD is "good enough". You can see the compression artifacts! (and that's on a low resolution display)
DVD is absolutely good enough for me. All else being equal, of course I'd like better resolution. Sometimes I do find DVD artifacts bothersome, and I certainly resent it when they're poorly encoded. Of course, Blu-ray discs can be poorly encoded too, but it's liable to be less of a problem. Still, with my eyesight barely at 20/20 anymore, and my aging 32 inch LCD subtending no more than about 19 degrees of visual angle (that's at about 8 feet), the difference in resolution makes a lot less difference to me than to someone half my age watching a 50 inch set at the same distance. On top of which, when I watch movies, I tend to get caught up in things that are somewhat peripheral to the quality of the medium -- plot, acting, cinematography, etc. I've often watched movies with scratched film projected by crappy projectors. I often listen to audio recordings that are 50+ years old. A moment or two in and I don't notice anymore. I do have trouble with poorly encoded MP3s, but there's still a range where I can tell the difference and just don't care.
Also, my impression is that it would be a lot more difficult to rip Blu-ray discs to my media box, and it would certainly take up more space. So I'll probably buy a Blu-ray player at some point, perhaps for my computer (if it turns out that ripping problem is solved). But it's not worth even $200 to me right now. DVD is good enough for my needs right now.
Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
If they made Blu-Ray movies as cheap as buying DVD versions then it would be a viable choice.I have a blu-ray burner in my PC, but pack of 3 blank dual-layer BDRW discs is still about $120!!! That HAS to be as a result of the MPAA fixing ludicrous pricing on media to discourage movie piracy, rather than actually justifiable as disc production costs. If so its particularly unfair as you still have to pay the MPAA tax even if you just want the discs to store your own data on.
Most people actually don't care about the higher res. of blu-ray for 3 reasons:
1) The price difference between the same movie on BD and DVD is a total rip=off.
2) They are not releasing that many new BDs when compared to DVDs, and are also trying to maximse sales of less popular movies on BD by holding back releasing even older blockbuster movies on BD such as Star Wars adnd Lord of the Rings. iThe point they don't get is that no-one wants to buy crap movies no matter how high resolution they are.
4)) The majority of people still dont even have the hardware to see the difference, even if they think they have bought a high def setup. THis is for two reasons: There's lots of non-technical consumers who still connect up even their HD equipment such as blu-ray players with RGB or SVGA cables, and because they see some kind of picture they think that it must be working properly.
Also significant extra confusion was caused by purposely misleading marketing of HDTV by tv manufacturers: There are still new digital TVs being sold that actually have native screen resolutions (pixel counts) so low that are phyiscally incapable of displaying a 720p (broadcast res HD) picture in full definition, let alone a 1080p (blu-ray res HD) one. Yet those same TVs are being sold with criminally misleading "HD-Ready" stickers all over them.
As far as I can make out, "HD-Ready" just means the TV will display some kind of a downscaled picture when plugged into an HD signal. It certainly doesn;t mean what you would reasonably think, that if given an HD signal it will actually display an HD picture. Unfortunately lots of buyers make the wrong assumption about those weasel words and of course the kid at Best Buy who gets paid based on sales performance isn't going to make any effort to correct them.
Consequently you can't blame people when they incorrectly conclude there's actually no difference between DVD quality and Blu-Ray quality, because in many cases they're not actually seeing any difference.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
doesn't exactly work that way..
1) parent buys disk
2) parent puts disk in player for kids to watch (whatever kids movie)
3) parent goes to the kitchen to make supper or something
4) kids find it funny to open player and look at shiny disk, putting finger prints & scratches everywhere
5) 30$ brand new disk is fscked the exact same day it was purchased, parent is pissed...
6) parent goes fetch movie on thepiratebay.org and burns dvd out of the file, kids don't give a rats ass about High def
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm calling bullshit on this one. VERY VERY VERY few clueless home users have found out how to back up their DVDs. Maybe the non DRM protected ones, but for the most part, people don't know how to do it. The DVD DRM has been very successful at preventing home users from making copies of their media. While some geeks know how to do it, and enough people probably have friends who can do it, or set up their computers so they can do it, this is not a common operation. Even if people have the software, it's often a pain to use, requiring the user to reencode their video etc.
Of course, when someone also posts that they think the economy is going straight into a depression, I have little reason to believe anything they say.
Phil
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
I didn't know memory sticks and minidiscs have a sense of smell. IMHO disks are going the way of the dinosaurs. Streaming media is the future, IMHO.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Why pay 25-30 bucks to own it?
License.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as prices are concerned, I think that SD cards or USB flash drives are more likely to overtake Blue-ray's place in the world.
A quick search turns up that a single recordable 50GB blank blu-ray disk (blank) costs somewhere around $47, and a spindle of 50 25GB disks costs something like $996 - about $20 a disk.
I don't collect movies, but if I did, I would be most concerned that chip based storage technology is going to overtake the clunky optical-mechanical drives and leave me with a (yet again) obsolete media library.
I can buy 8GB USB memory sticks for $16 bucks now, and even 16Gb sticks for under $40 from Here [supermediastore.com] for example, which are rewritable and a lot more indestructible (no scratch worries), why would I want a blu-ray drive for data storage? I can see USB memory sticks, SD cards or some other kind of chip based data storage making optical drives obsolete in the very near future. I dont know how many disks I have lost from scratches, or CD or DVD drives have ended up breaking or going out of alignment over the years - but I know its a lot more than is acceptable to me, and I personally cant wait to kiss optical drives goodbye for good. It is a technology that belongs in the 20th century.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Blu-Ray really seems like a technology invented for profit rather than for utility. when CD-ROMs and DVDs came out, they not only offered a significant technological advancement, but they also met a real need for better storage media. CD-ROM was really a technology created for public benefit.
however, with BD technology, it seems like it was something thought up at a board meeting that Sony had their R&D department develop just so that they could force a superfluous technology onto consumers. it's created and custom tailored for sellers rather than buyers.
i mean, if you look at the features of BDs, they all seem to primarily benefit the film industry and BD producers at the cost of consumer interests. so why would consumers want to pay extra for what is basically a downgrade?
Blu-Ray has less DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
You have completely forgotten to mention the ultimate reason for us Blu-Ray haters to hate Blu-Ray, it's named DRM, Digital Restrictions Management!
Nope, covered that in a different post.
I guess your point is by decreasing the price average Joe, who doesn't know about the DRM shit, will be fooled to buy Blu-Ray, and we Blu-Ray haters loose.
I am saying nothing about price. I am saying everything about cost. And availaiblity. I am saying that in three years Blu-Ray "wins" because the only disc player you can buy is a Blu-Ray player, or a used DVD player. When everyone has blu-ray players it's pretty obvious it has won.
Then discs will naturally follow, because companies will eventually ship all movies on Blu-Ray when the costs are the same. Why wouldn't they? Thus in five years all discs you buy are Blu-Ray discs. There is no "battle" like with HD-DVD (though again there was hardly a battle there to begin with anyway) because the result is already obvious.
And DRM haters (like myself, which is why I did not include that group) can be thankful because with Blu-Ray, the DRM is going the right way for once. There are fewer regions. And there are mainstream titles shipping with no region control at all (in fact after a year a movie is not supposed to inlcude it). If you hate DRM, welcome some semblance of sense into the video market with Blu-Ray.
This is all better than DVD which had way too many regions and thus made getting a region free player so mandatory. With Blu-Ray it doesn't matter as much.
Sure it has some new super duper protection on the disc - that's already been cracked, just as all such protections always are. It seems pretty pointless to me to get upset over something that has no effect on my life, and a cracked DRM is one of those things. The guys who should be upset are the idiots that paid for all that to be developed. You think they would have learned with DVD. Just wait until you see whatever scheme they have cocked up (mispelling or not? You decide) for holographic storage....
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Then give them the simple explanation - DRM is the thing that means you can't skip previews and intros on DVDs you've purchased, no matter how many times you've watched them.
That's an analogy that's likely to get through to the average (DVD-watching) consumer.
Re:Several Factors (Score:3, Insightful)
Show the same casual user the receipt for the 1080p TV at their local Circuit City, and watch that jaw close right back up.
The TV playing behind me right now cost me $65. It's a 19" tube-TV, it's about 4-5 years old, and it has many years of life left in it thanks to the automatic down sampling done by the Dish DVR and the DVD player that gets occasional use. When we watch DVDs, we usually do it on our laptop computers. And even with the dish DVR, we're just as likely to go to digg/slashdot/myspace/youtube or use NetFlix for movies as watch the TV.
The problem with the TV is that it's a limited medium; you sit and watch movies or shows on it. No matter how much you spend on it, the TV is still a TV. But $500 gets you a decent, intro-level laptop.
The laptop can play a movie at comparable resolution to your $4000 "1080i" plasma TV. But, after watching your movie, you can then do some blogging, read the news, chat with a buddy, play a game or two. All on *your* timeline. Think about it... what are you doing right NOW!?!?!
I hate to say it, but once the price becomes reasonable, the long tail beats mass media every time [wired.com].
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah. Even most people with high definition TVs don't see much real benefit from Blu-ray over properly upscaled DVD playback, either. At 720x480, DVD widescreen content is, frankly, plenty good enough to look reasonably crisp on all but the largest TVs. For that matter, even on the largest sets, it isn't objectionably fuzzy once you actually start watching it instead of staring at the screen up close.... Don't get me wrong, adoption will continue to grow, but now that the early adopters have pretty much finished adopting, there's not a lot of new market for this stuff as long as the media and the players are both so much more expensive than the comparable DVDs that are "good enough" for most purposes.
You see, people aren't really buying a DVD. They're buying a copy of a movie. That has a value that isn't really tied to the picture quality of the medium. People tend to be willing to spend a particular amount of money that tends to decrease rapidly as the age of the movie increases. Buying a $30 Blu-ray of a movie that you can buy in the $4.99 bargain bin at Wal-Mart is just plain not going to happen no matter how much better the picture quality is. Even buying a $30 Blu-ray of a movie that would cost $15 on DVD is pretty much a non-starter for most people. Their immediate judgment is "I have $60 to spend on entertainment this month. I can buy four new release DVDs or 8-12 older DVDs with that money (or some combination thereof). I could buy two Blu-ray discs." In the absence of their entertainment budget suddenly tripling, they will either buy fewer movies or will continue buying DVDs. Either way, the high cost of the discs is quite clearly limiting the uptake.
It's all about the Benjamins, so I'm pretty certain that Blu-ray purchases won't overtake DVDs until the price of the media drops to the price people are currently paying for DVDs (or less) or until the industry risks corporate suicide by stopping production of new DVDs to force adoption. Blu-ray purchases right now are basically equivalent to buying premium gasoline if your car doesn't knock with regular.... Sure, you'll convince a few people, but most people look at the benefit and the extra cost and conclude that the cost outweighs the benefit. Only when either A. the price is basically the same as DVDs or B. there's some other huge benefit that goes way beyond a slightly higher resolution will the majority of consumers care about Blu-ray or any other similar format.
There's also the penetration issue. I have a Blu-ray player hooked up to an HD set. I own one Blu-ray disc because I wanted to make sure the player could actually play them. Otherwise, I bought it to replace a DVD player that was flaking out, and I'm still buying DVDs. They play in every room of my house, while these only play in one room. So there's the compatibility issue and the need for 100% penetration in a household before people can start buying the discs in large quantities.... They don't replace all their DVD players with Blu-ray players quickly because the Blu-ray players are still relatively expensive. So there's cost factoring into adoption again.
In short, price and price are the two biggest factors in Blu-ray's current stagnation---price of players and price of media. Fix one or the other or both, and uptake will continue to increase steadily. Keep prices as they are, and uptake will slow and eventually stagnate. It is basic early adopter economics....
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you're underestimating the average customer. Enough of them have something like a DVD copy program that allows them to "Use disk with MegaDVDCopy. Free film for buddies". When they notice that doesn't work with Blu-Ray, it is not far to "Blu-Ray sucks. Use DVD again".
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
So the regular consumer is an "idiot" for not spending masses of money on "a 40"+ TV and a 5.1 surround system"?
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be happy to eventually replace my entire DVD collection at $10...$15;
Why? Do they not work ?
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe its just because DVD is perfectly fine resolution to watch a movie on unless your completely anal retentive about getting the super ultra best crisp sharp hi-def picture on your super double ultra maximum plasma TV.
Honestly I dont see much of a difference between standard def TV and HDTV... Then again maybe its because I'm using a 24" TV that has 1080i. (Psst Apparently theres some article on slashdot before stating that the human eye cannot distinguish a higher resolution than 720p from recommended viewing distances!)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
I think DRM is stupid, pointless, and generally only going to lose you customers, but I don't passionately hate it, because, to be honest life's too short.
It makes the studio execs feel better, it doesn't really inconvenience me, so why should I care, why should anyone care?
DRM is stupid, but it doesn't really cause any problems most of the time, and when companies cross the line and actually inconvenience people they get their asses handed to them.
You obviously think that DRM is philosophically wrong, as do a lot of people on Slashdot. Oddly enough at the same time, a lot of people on slashdot seem to think that working 60+ hours a week is perfectly normal, and that there's nothing wrong with it.
From my perspective I'll have my 38 hour week and you can rail against DRM, which doesn't actually affect you.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
No, because DVD media does NOT subsidize the the hardware :)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
People had no trouble buying DVD players before deCSS, and many (I dare say a majority) people still don't know about it/care. It's true consumers don't like DRM, but that's because they generally don't even know about it.
DVD penetration didnt hit an inflexion point until after CSS was cracked - it right around the time there were a bunch of DVD copier programs on the market.
Most don't know what DRM is because it hasn't bit them in the ass. If they want to transcode for playback on their ipod or psp, it just works with 1-click free software, the idea of DRM doesn't even enter the equation. But the same is definitely not true with blu-ray, no one-click encoders to make a version for your ipod there.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
I think that discs will be cheaper at the blu-ray capacity for a very long time. The discs are that price because the demand is small, but if flash memory starts getting bigger and reaching the 25GB level, we'll see them come down in price.
But Blu-ray is a point release as far as I'm concerned. I'm convinced that DVD will be around for a very long time. It just doesn't have the draw to pull people away from DVD.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
Then in 5 years:
7) kids clean disc
8) kids insert disc into parents' ancient PC because it still has a blu-ray drive in it
9) kids crack DRM and rip high-def file to new optical disc type
10) kids laugh and say "I don't give a rat's ass about super-hi-def"
The Issue with Blu-ray adoption (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what the latest #'s are but after this past holiday/superbowl season, HDTV penetration was only 25% in the US. Which means that the consumer base for blu-ray disks is only a quarter of the market for DVDs.
The real question is whether blu-ray will entrench itself prior to downloadable HD movies becoming popular. Yes, I know blu-ray is a much better quality than downloadable HD right now. But its not always about quality, sometimes it is simply about "good enough". That is why people are currently satisfied with upscaled DVDs.
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me ask you this, how many CGI sequences did you notice in the Lord of the Rings?
I found a total of 23 spots, across the whole of the 3 movies (12 hours), where I noticed a computer generated artifacts, or the failure for rendering to look lifelike. My wife and friends noticed no more than 10 each. There were just over 700 scenes that involved CGI in the trilogy. In face, in the Return of the King, 81% of the scenes included CGI elemets. This was several years ago....
It's not about CGI being hard to accept. It's about the quality time some studios invest and others don't. This has continually improved with time. Iron Man was nearly flawless. The Dark Knight was nearly flawless. Heck, even Battlestar Galactica, a weekly produced show, had great CGI quality.
Get this point straight. ALL FILMS are recorded in high res. In fact, they've been working in resolutions many times greater than 1080p for a long time... The stuff in the editing room is as muchas 4 times that resolution. This is irregardless of wether or not they release to Blu-ray.
CGI doesn't look any more or less real with a shartper image. It's not about the level of detail (in fact, a lot of CGI elements are rendered but are so small you can't even see the texture details on 1080p), it's about movement, light and shadow, and interaction with the environment. If it's not properly integrated to the scene, your brain keys in on it. It's part of how your brain is interpreting 2D images as 3D. If it's not right, it doesn't work, and the brain notices. This has NOTHING to do with resolution, and everything to do with the animator.
Filmakers are storing films in raw format nowadays for future editing in higher resolutions as well. We know 4X HD is on the horizon. (LG already has panels in that resolution available). We also know the new TV standard is 2:1 aspect, not 16:9. Blu-ray has to prove it has the capacity to be used with those resolutions and on those TVs or it just becomes a stepping stone format
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:2, Insightful)
Guess you'll be waiting quite a while then...
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to mimic that effect, you'll need a 110 inch screen (a projector, basically). But DVDs shown on such a large screen will look, at worst blocky and jagged, and at best, slightly ill defined and possibly somewhat blurry.
I just installed a 1080p projector in our house, with the screen size of roughly 116". We could only afford the projector right now, so we have it projecting on just the wall (no projector screen, that will need to wait) and connected to an up-scaling DVD player that outputs 1080p. I was expecting what you stated, but I have to say that I am shocked at how good the picture is.
The only jagginess I've seen are on low-budget DVDs (Sci-Fi Channel monster-of-the-week movies and like) and that was either due to stretching the 4:3 to 16:9 (wife insists on that, I won the letterboxing on the 2.35 content battle though) or bad encoding on the DVD. I have noticed that some movies do seem "soft", which you could describe as "somewhat blurry." However, considering the age of the movies I've noticed this on (all before the digital age), I'm more inclined to believe it is due to the quality of the transfer. Especially since more recent movies look very crisp and sharp for being projected on to a beige textured wall.
I was expecting to have to plead with my wife to allow the expenditure for a Blu-Ray player and screen soon after the projector, because I wasn't expecting the up-scaled DVD content on the bare wall to look so good. Now, I'm going to wait a bit for the screen and Blu-Ray is bumped to when-I-see-the-right-player-for-the-right-price status.
So, I've fallen solidly into the Doesn't-offer-enough-over-DVD-for-the-price camp on why HD discs haven't taken off.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
While I completely agree with your point, have you taken any steps to get around the ads? Although you shouldn't have to, you can try one of the following:
Again, I think anyone who thought up of unskippable content should be peeing glass-- but them's the cards and sometimes you need to know how to shuffle the deck.
Also, you might want to send Disney a postcard with your demographics and a note telling them there's no chance you'll be buying/watching those titles, for that reason. It's a drop in the bucket, but if enough people let them know their profits are at risk... who knows?
Re:From one consumer's perspective... (Score:3, Insightful)
"I don't have an HDTV right now..."
Common argument, and I sympathize. If an when you get one, the argument is valid. You can connect a BD player to a non-HDTV, but buying now means that a larger part of your collection, when you do buy an HD set, will already be HD... It's forward investing in your library.
"It's my (probably uninformed as heck) impression that not that many movies are out on Blu-Ray. I'm more into documentaries (which would look superb in HD) -- are they available and affordable"
Actually, most of the documentaries coming out are in blu-ray. Discovery Earth and the like all are, and the BD versions have a massive amount of special features to boot.
"The players are not cheap -- and judging from the pattern of all similar tech devices, in a year or three, they'll be under $100 or so -- and eventually be downright cheap, once the thrift stores have switched from selling VHS players to DVD players" Well, players will likely come to under $200 this christmas, and the PS3 to $299 or so. However, although DVD players did reach sub $100 levels about 5 years after they were available, BD players likely won't. There's a LOT of royalties being paid for in each player, and the technology is simply much more expensive. I don't think we'll see sub $100 BD players until about 2 years after the BD replacement is on the market. There's a possibility you might see a sub $100 player that's a "player only" unit in 3 years, requiring a TV with built-in decoders or whatever to do the processing, and including a very limited port selection, but until we make a few generational leaps in set top box chipsets, you won't see this prince.
That said, a $200 player would not prevent most of us from investing. The big deal is the $10-15 premium per movie... I try to buy a DVD a month, sometimes 2 (maybe even 3 if I pick a few up for under $10 each). Doing so with Blue Ray would add over $200 ANNUALLY to my entertainment budget.
"Finally, I have a substantial DVD collection and am in no hurry to re-spend all that money"
Well, every BD player not only plays DVDs, but it upscales them to HD (at least 480p, some higher) quality as well. It;s still not BD quality, but it adds a long life to your existing collection. The ONLY reason i might considder replacing SOME of my DVDs is if the bonus features on the BD disk are super cool.
About those bonus features: the real selling points of BD is not just the high def movie, but the INTERACTIVE features. Anyone can throw a behind the scenes docu-mini on a disk, or a few deleted scenes. The point of blu-ray is you can have true interaction with your movie, turn commentary on and off with a click in real time, insert the deleted scenes right into the movie, see scenes from different angles, bookmark segments of the movie to come back to, and a whole lot of other features. Many BD disks also have interactive games and other content built in and many also interact with web sites if your BD player is internet connected.
Some BDs have the same content as their DVD cousins, in shich case I say buy DVD. Others have some bonus documentaries or other regular video conent, in which case I say buy DVD, but rent the BD so you can see the extra content, and your still saving $7 at least.
Crap Movies (Score:4, Insightful)
Watch Dark City on DVD and on Blu-Ray -- the difference is startling. I am at the point now where I am getting increasingly reluctant to watch a movie on DVD - the image is just so soft and filled with distracting image artifacts.
Now, I would buy more blu-ray movies, but here is the problem for me: There have not been any really GOOD movies coming out this whole summer. What a long dry spell for the home movie enthusiast. Just about every new film released this summer has been awful dreck - insipid teen movies, bad comedies, crappy "paycheck" dramas, etc. I keep going every week, wanting to get a new movie, and I keep coming away empty handed because I just cannot bring myself to buy the junk that keeps getting released. The high point of this month is going to be "Iron Man". I bet the sales of that blu-ray release go through the roof.
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Several Factors (Score:3, Insightful)
Show a casual user a DVD on a 42" 1080p TV from 8' away, then show them a bluray on the same TV from the same distance. Their jaw will drop unless they have worse than 20/40 vision.
The differences aren't small, you just have to know how to compare them.
The jaw will only drop because of the yawn. "The second one looks sharper," the casual user will say, while thinking, "I don't care."
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
A quick search turns up that a single recordable 50GB blank blu-ray disk (blank) costs somewhere around $47, and a spindle of 50 25GB disks costs something like $996 - about $20 a disk.
I don't collect movies, but if I did, I would be most concerned that chip based storage technology is going to overtake the clunky optical-mechanical drives and leave me with a (yet again) obsolete media library.
If I collected movies, I'd be more interested in the fact that your same $996 could buy you 10TB of hard drive space [newegg.com] instead of a measly 1.25TB of slow, inconvenient optical media. Furthermore, considering that few movies are likely to fill 100% of the original BluRay disk, you can pack more movies per unit of storage on the hard drives than on optical media (where you'll end up with one movie per disk regardless).
If BluRay disks come down to about $1.50 a disk, they might start to become competitive on price per storage capacity. Of course, hard drives will also be much cheaper by then, and will always have the convenience of not requiring you to swap media.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
And remember, that's "new to Blu-Ray". As the Cartel tries to bring its massive back catalogue to Blu-Ray, it's pitching full price Blu-Ray discs against bargain bin DVDs.
If you don't yet have either, the DVD has a compelling price edge. If you already have the DVD, is it really worth paying top dollar for a new format? Note that in either case, being Mr Early Adopter with a Blu-Ray player means you're more likely to have an upscaling DVD player, which narrows the quality gap.
And even if you do buy the Blu-Ray, what do you do with the old DVD? If you donate it to a friend, then that's another sale you've likely blocked (you terrorist).
If the Cartel wants Blu-Ray to take off, it has to be a no-brainer: the prices needs to be within a cheeseburger's price difference of the equivalent DVD. Telling us how much DVDs suck when they spend so long and so much telling us how great they were isn't really going to cut it.
Re:No one likes DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not really an issue of intelligence, it's an issue of ideology.
I think DRM is stupid, pointless, and generally only going to lose you customers, but I don't passionately hate it, because, to be honest life's too short.
It makes the studio execs feel better, it doesn't really inconvenience me, so why should I care, why should anyone care?
My main deal is just that I don't want hardware I've bought and own to act on someone else'e behalf. It's mine, it should do what I tell it to.
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:5, Insightful)
You I hear this type of quote all the time:
"Most people can't tell the difference between an up-scaled DVD and BluRay movie."
I don't know what movies these guys are watching but EVERYONE I show can tell a HUGE difference. I will definitely concede that the quality of the movie plays the largest part, but the movies are only getting better and better. I also can say that the difference between 720p and 1080p is significant and given my experience EVERYONE I show a game to in 720P VS 1080P chooses 1080P. I don't want to imply 720P is crap, but the people I show choose 1080P and most reluctantly say things like "Yeah I can tell a difference". I also know that there are better up-scalers...
So what is slowing adoption of BluRay in my opinion?
1. Cost. Not everyone wants a PS3 and in my opinion a $100 player is in order to win over the masses. $200 won't do it.
2. Cost of movies. Noted above, they need to come down to match DVD and what would help is to give both with a BluRay for now.
3. 1080P TV's need to become the standard and below $1k. This is the first year that is the norm. 720p is on the way out.
4. HD Camcorders need to truly support 1080P. I have a Sanyo Xacti and it does an ok job but not 1080P.
5. Burning should be a LOT cheaper. This media would be great for backing up on a computer but it needs to be below $100. Most would kill for a 50GB (or promised 200GB) burnable disc to backup movies. The disc needs to be less than $10.
6. HD content needs to be available on cable and satellite that isn't compressed to death and at 1080P. It appears that this is happening now. I believe it is DirectTV.
All of these will happen but not as fast as some would like. By next Christmas it will be difficult to find a 720P TV that is larger than 36" and the players should be down to $150 or less range.
The largest competitor BluRay has is downloadable content and with Comcast recent bandwidth cap that all but kills downloading 1080P movies for the next 5 to 10 years; well that and other issues getting 30-50GB of data to the home in a fair amount of time. That gives BluRay a LOT of time to address the above issues.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
You remind me of this girl named Rachel. She worked with me in 1996. When she started where I worked I warned her that the customers were mostly idiots, and told her lots of stories of said morons. She didn't believe me, thought I was making it up etc...
Two weeks later I invited her over to my place to watch a movie. (Nothing sordid, so get your mind out of the gutter.) We got to talking and after a mere two weeks she said to me "You know, you were absolutely right."
The majority of consumers are, by definition, the lowest common denominator. The reason people like Rob Schneider have a career, that garbage like "Epic Movie" gets made, and that pan'n'scan DVD's still sell.