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."
Sorry Sony... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not about to rebuy my DVD collection or upgrade my TV to enable your HDCP-enabled dreams of complete consumer control.
Also, I could care less about your game console, so you won't be able to use me as a marketing statistic showing the success of Blu-Ray there either.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:DVD (Score:4, Interesting)
Blu-Ray mastering needs work, to my eye. Without motion blur, you need ultra-high refresh rates (up over 120fps) to keep progressive scan video - regardless of definition - from looking jittery. That's controlled by how the images are mastered from either film or digital stock, and by how well your TV can really play back the material.
To me, all Blu-Ray stuff I've seen so far looks like crisp newscam compared to a real cinema experience. DVD playback has actually come a long way in emulating cinematic effects, despite the lower res, so in some instances DVD doesn't just get the job done fine, it actually looks better in some ways than Blu-Ray.
Nah (Score:4, Interesting)
Those of you claiming that upscaled 480p looks as good as native 1080p have probably never compared them side by side.
That said, I bought an HD-DVD player, and while I'm rather pragmatic about the results of the format war, I'm not going to spend twice as much for a player with half the features.
Remember, when the format war ended, Blu player prices went up. And cheap 2.0 spec players are still a myth.
Other factors (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe that other factors have been significant as well.
What you will not hear any Sony executives say: "Gee, maybe if we hadn't insisted on a long and drawn-out format war and did whatever we had to do to come up with a single standard early on, perhaps the market for high-definition DVDs would be doing better right now."
I agree that DRM is an abomination but whether I like it or not, it seems that most "consumers" don't understand it and don't see why it's such a bad thing. "Another Betamax vs. VHS" and "I don't want to invest in the loser" however, is something that most people do understand. Because of the way digital downloads (legal and otherwise) are becoming more and more prevalent and are obviously here to stay, the idiots behind the format wars should have seen that time as their one chance to establish themselves and gain some marketshare before people lost interest in purchasing physical media.
The Blu-ray format will be useful as a replacement for DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW, since more space is always useful for data storage. But I really think the days of buying physical media from a brick-and-mortar store in order to watch movies are numbered.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
DRM only because DRM == $29 disk for basically the same product as the $16 DvD disk sitting next to it.
I've seen them selling "dumb" Bluray titles for $12. The market is clearly phenomenal on titles they think are popular.
Folks are struggling- 10,000 people in new york that made over $100k a year plus bonuses just got laid off (there goes 10,000 genuine customers).
Regular folks tend to prefer 43" screens after they get a 55" and it is *too big* for ordinary workin type's living rooms (who needs a 60" screen when you are 12' from the screen). It's this huge black eye when it is turned off. Blu ray on 43" screen is not that much better than DVD. Esp. with upconverting player.
Am I the only one? (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been waiting for HD content for YEARS. I remember thinking that NTSC was crap back in the early 90s and wishing for something better. I just thought it was disgusting that we had been relying on ancient technology for so long.
I finally broke down and picked up a decent TV and a ps3 earlier in the year and it's been like a breath of fresh air. The quality bottleneck in the bluray movies is finally the video source, not the format.
Check out the Dark Knight teaser on the Batman Begins bluray on a decent 1080p tv. It was literally jaw dropping for my friends and I. The thing is we should have been watching video like this 10 years ago.
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)
Oh and the DRM is annoying.... I suspect it will only be a matter of time before I'll be ripping the movies to watch on my portable devices just like I do with DVD. Just crack it and get on with your life.
Why blu-ray is failing (Score:5, Interesting)
Blu-Ray is failing due to pricing vs. benefit.
When it came to DVD, it won over VHS and Laserdisc because on the VHS side, wear and smeared playback and eaten tapes came to an end; take care of a DVD and it will last virtually forever. It won over laserdisc because DVDs are not 12" in diameter and don't need to be swapped one to three times for a movie (yeah it's true some single-layer DVDs might have needed to be flipped but I have never seen one).
However, early adopters got screwed; buyers of early $300+ high-end DVD players were the victims of bad runs, and manufacturers (read:Sony) denied issues existed. I replaced a high-end Sony player with a no-name Apex player, and the Apex player was vastly superior (not to mention region-free and macrovision-free). People who bought into DIVX got equally screwed, by paying as much as or more than a "Basic DVD" player and then losing access to all of their movies.
With Blu-Ray, players are overpriced, and people have to pay more for the same content. Why bother when upsampling DVD players work pretty darn well to make the difference indistinguishable for casual viewers at 720p, noticeable only to pixel peepers? Not only that but a lot of content (old TV shows, older movies, etc.) were either videotaped at NTSC resolution or are on old, grainy film, where encoding at 1080i or 1080p would actually create distractions from actually enjoying the story.
Lastly, what the hell is up with HDCP? If you are an early HDTV adopter and have a DVI flat screen that doesn't talk HDCP or has an early HDCP device which doesn't like to handshake properly with players, you're locked out of the content. You have to turn to either composite, S-video, or if you're lucky, component (if you invested in a large monitor-only device with only DVI and VGA, no YPbPr, you're screwed).
Bring the players down to $125 to $150 or so and limit the Blu-Ray content premium to 10% or so over DVD, and you'll see uptake quickly increase.
Re:From one consumer's perspective... (Score:2, Interesting)
Another consumer's perspective:
I own a Sony 60" 1080p tv.
I own a HD DVD player.
I own a BR player.
I rent an HD DVR from Cox.
I can tell the difference between HD and SD.
I have no desire to go back to SD.
I paid new technology prices for each player and it was worth it to me.
I have no desire to use digital downloads. I like my physical copy. I'll make my own digital copies, but thanks anyway.
Re:Upscaling DVD is good enough.... (Score:4, Interesting)
You got it. I have a Blu player in my PS3 and haven't yet purchased one to play on it.
I just can't see myself paying $30 or whatever... I hardly ever even watch the "special features" (aka crap) they put on normal DVDs, let alone all the extra stuff on Blu-Ray.
And I don't own a high-definition TV yet either. Maybe after I invest in a brand new 1080p television, switch my entire entertainment system over to HDMI, buy the PS3 DVD remote controller, I'll consider Blu-Ray discs.
Of course by then, I'll be too broke to be able to afford the extra 50% in cost over normal DVDs.
Dear Sony (Score:3, Interesting)
I have an "old" 36" CRT that can display 480p and 1080i (though the later flickers too much for my taste) and has component as the best input option. So why would I want Blu-Ray, I won't even be able to tell the difference on my current TV anyway.
Not to mention that Blu-Ray movies are more expensive than regular DVDs. For me to switch to Blu-Ray, first the movies themselves have to reach price parity with regular DVDs. The fact that my TV is too old wouldn't even enter into the equation, HD movie vs SD movie at the same price = I buy the HD movie.
And all of that doesn't take DRM into account. If I buy a movie I need to be able to play the content on any device that I choose.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
Can anyone say DRM?
That's secondary to the primary reason.. High prices and limited selection.
DVD is good enough, plays everywhere.
Blu-Ray, costs more and works only on the expensive player in the living room.
DRM and the possiblilty that your movie in the future will be revoked is of interest to only a few.
Re:Upscaling DVD is good enough.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I've just been getting DVD's instead of Blu-Ray's, I can play them on all my computers, all my recent consoles and my portable DVD player.
My Blu-Ray player I'm restricted at the moment to one TV and for twice the price I'd rather get 2 DVD's than 1 Blu-Ray.
Re:Am I the only one? (Score:2, Interesting)
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)
I hear the compression in my mp3s, but I haven't seen a run by the masses to FLAC and SACDs. For mass market crap, who cares how it looks or sounds? People eat instant noodles too, and I wouldn't call them a culinary experience. Instant gratification and ease of use will trump 'quality' every time.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:1, Interesting)
No but they do know:
"So I need a special cable and special monitor to play it?"
"So can I copy these on my computer?"
and so on and so forth.
I've had some of my friends who bought huge plasma's come and tell me about why I shouldn't buy Blu-Ray tech, and just use DVD. It's pretty funny that they don't know or can't articulate it well, but they feel the frustration and hate the restraint.
Sony won this format war, but it made a really bad choice and investment since nobody pays for worse product.
Perhaps in the future when it is cracked so that it is easy to copy, and when all of the technology is supported/bypassed, then they probably will gain acceptance.
Really there is nothing wrong with improving quality and features, but not at the expense (significant expense) of reducing functionality.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
Since HD-DVD folded I've bought over 35 HD-DVDs. That is 2x the number of DVDs I owned before purchasing an HD-DVD player.
Why? $10 HD-DVDs for all new releases! It's like every day is labor day! And the picture is amazing! And the sound is fantastic!
Maybe when HD-DVD gets sufficiently abandoned and I want new movies in HD and can bring myself to pay $25-$30 for a movie I might consider picking up a Blu-Ray player. Until then. I'll stick to XBox Live and my handy dandy discount HD machine.
Blu-Ray needs to SLASH their prices if they want me to convert.
Re:Upscaling DVD is good enough.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I buy Blue-Ray exclusively now. Just wish they would release LOTR on Blue-Ray soon!
Yes Blue-Ray is a more expensive than DVD (by a couple hamburgers) but this would go down soon and in the meantime, you are missing a lot by sticking to DVD.
You can argue that Blue-Ray is significantly more expensive than DVD, but please remove your blinkers because there is a huge difference between the two as far as the image and overall effect is concerned.
Re:Nah (Score:3, Interesting)
I have an HD-DVD, Blu-Ray, and regular DVD connected to a 46" 1080p LCD I just bought this past year.
The difference is not noticeable enough. The main thing I've noticed between the two is like say an actor is standing in front of a brick wall. With DVD you know it's a brick wall. With blu-ray you see it's a brick wall and you can see detail of the bricks.
It's not nearly as great of a jump as going from VHS to DVD was, where even on a crappy TV you said "WOW!"
Surprisingly where I've encountered the greatest difference is actually in the audio. With the DolbyHD or DTSHD encoded discs, it's quite a difference. Much more of the ambients are there, birds in the background, etc.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
There's even more of a margin over here in NZ...
DVD: $29
Blu-Ray: $99
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
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
I bet you have seen PLENTY of complaints about DRM. They just didn't call it that. I am referring to the ridiculously slow boot and load times that have been explained as primarily system and disc DRM validation steps - for example, I just read someone happily proclaim that with the brand new 4.2 firmware for the sony S300 player pirates of the Caribbean loads in 45 seconds. That such a ridiculously slow load time is considered an improvement is indicative of just how big a disconnect there is between the 'blu-ray community' and the rest of the world.
Sure, if blu-ray does survive, those DRM-caused delays will eventually be fixed, I've even heard the new S350 player is a lot better. But my point here is that DRM has been a gigantic pain in the ass for most blu-ray owners due to unexpected side-effects - which is typically the way DRM screws people over every time it is forced on paying customers.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:1, Interesting)
Simply put, DVD CSS did not restrict the methods of use for your average person. If they had a store-bought DVD player and put a store bought DVD in it, IT PLAYED. End of line.
Except that wasn't the case. Macrovision + RF connections are effectively the same as Blueray + no HDCP, only more annoying, because it wouldn't fall back to lower def.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
I was about to post the same thing. The best thing they can do to drive the Blu-Ray format forward is to release entire seasons on a single Blu-Ray disc for less than the seasons cost new on DVD. They have to do most of the same post-production work anyway, and the incremental cost of building the BRD menus should be fairly small. The dramatically lower cost of producing a single BRD instead of a half dozen DVDs means that they should be able to undercut the DVD sales. When people see a financial incentive to buy a BRD player instead of a DVD player, they will do so....
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Interesting)
1080p can be sent over component, but no Blu-Ray players do that.
With the minor exception of the PS3, sure none of them do that.
Re:No one cares about DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
> If you have an HDTV with HD programming, DVD's don't look very good anymore.
What is that? HD programming was a momentary blip, now it's almost gone. Replaced with overcompressed crap on cable and multiple subprograms on over the air. Because in the end more channels with a pretty good picture brings in a lot more money than one superior quality picture. Premium (HBO, etc) and PPV still get some bits thrown at them but their picture quality will also decline over time, just a bit slower and will always get more than non-remium channels. So by the time most people have HD sets their question is going to be, "Eh? What's the big deal?"
The real problem is HD is better than SD but it is just a waypoint. The origional HD 720p and 1080i have already fallen, forcing a round of hardware refreshing before HD even got going. But HD still isn't as good as even 35mm film so HD and BluRay aren't going to last, now that we have jumped to digital and forsaken NTSC the res and codec wars are only going to intensify. And you videophiles are welcome to spend the early adopter money to push the tech, I'm probably keeping my 32inch tube until it breaks though.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
It is, however, a small price to pay for someone who loves to watch movies/listen to decent quality music.
Which does nothing to change the previously posted opinion that Blu-ray is being picked up pretty much by videophiles and nobody else. I know plenty of people who still watch VHS tapes. They're not purchasing them anymore (you can't find VHS and DVD is cheaper now anyways), but for the movies they already had on VHS they're not rebuying them. Those people are never going to pay more for Blu-ray. Hell besides me and my parents I know no one else "in real life" that has an HDTV - and my parents only have one because my mom wanted a small "flat tv" for the bedroom. That said, my dad stumbled across digital HD OTA channels while tuning in a basketball and despite not knowing what the hell HD is he immediately said "Damn that looks good. That's like being on the court." Still, if you asked him if he'd pay extra to watch it that way over standard digital, I seriously doubt he'd pay it.
EVENTUALLY when only HDTV's are available, the players are dirt cheap, and the movies as cheap as (or cheaper) DVD, then I see Blu-ray catching on. It's not going to be a rapid pickup though. Truth be told, I'm surprised that I haven't heard about more cases of pissed off customers buying Blu-ray discs on accident thinking they'd play in a DVD player.
Re:"Transformers" is special? (Score:3, Interesting)
You could almost say it's blue ray's answer to DVD's Matrix title - at the time it was the best special effects movie available to show off the detail a DVD could provide over VHS.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
Sony really hasn't learnt it's lesson with the minidisc. It was prohibitively priced as well, lacked selection and was hard to justify switching to with the alternatives available.
Just this weekend, I was trying to find season 4 of "Kenny vs Spenny" at HMV, it was only available on DVD. I checked out the Bluray selection, all they had that piqued my interest was "Planet Earth" which was $90 CAD. I thought maybe one day, but not today. I bought my regular old DVD and left the store in the hopes that one day I will have enough disposable income to justify the purchase later on.
For as much as Sony and other electronics manufacturers want us to embrace and upgrade to bluray, they sure do make it a difficult transition. And of course the catch 22 is that costs will remain high if production isn't ramped up and production won't be ramped up unless there is demand for it and there won't be demand unless the price goes down.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
I've used "Duplication Restriction Mechanism", a friend used "Destroyed, Ruined, Mutilated"
-uso.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, today was the first time I saw blu-ray HD content that really blew me away. No idea what it was, some farce with that girl who played in Little Miss Sunshine, but okay, the quality was really stunning - so sharp, without any of that dithering crap that I see in SpiderMan and Pirates of the Carribean. I'm not tracking the technology too closely, so I don't know if the actual issue with graininess are rendering algorithms in the players or the screen, or if they're encoding artifacts.
Anyway, this was one of the 120Hz Sony 46" screens. The sharpness was really seductive, and the first time I could say that yes, quality was FAR superior to DVD.
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:5, Interesting)
as soon as I start watching the movie instead of looking at it, I promptly forget
I was wondering about that - I mean, whether suspension of disbelief is more difficult in hi-res. I find it hard to accept CGI, and was wondering if the extra detail of hi-res would just provide lots of little details to remind me that I'm looking at a fake situation.
Do you think hi-res will force film-makers to increase their attention to detail?
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing to remember about optical drives is that mass distribution of a pressed disk is vastly cheaper than flash memory or anything like it. It's not nearly enough to have blank flash memory that's as cheap as a blu-ray title, you need orders of magnitude beyond that to be viable for distribution. Flash isn't there yet, and may never be there.
If you're thinking about what physical technology will overtake optical in the future, you're missing the point. Physical media will be whatever happens to be convenient, distribution will be by download. And it still might go away one day, if the company shuts down the DRM servers or something.
I disagree with all of you (Score:3, Interesting)
Sony's problem here is one of branding. Bear with me for a minute.
They have world class engineers that expand the scope of human knowlege. They invent stuff. They embed their technology into products. And then they slap the "Sony" brand on them.
Their problem is that there's no more reliable brand for failure of a new medium than "Sony". You can't engineer your way out of this social problem. Because we've all been burned so many times by buying our content on the new Sony format, only to have to buy it again in the format that's become the standard, the "Sony" brand is certain death for a new content medium. They can fix this. I had hoped they'd offer me a few mil for this wisdom, but they didn't offer now I'll give it for free. They can pay for the next one.
For the next medium, they need to take their engineers working on a new media format and assign them to a product group. Then they need to isolate that group and spin it off into a wholly owned subsidiary. Then they need to create the usual three-times indirect shield of layers of corporate ownership that wind up with an untraceable "investment group" that buys the subsidiary. Then they need to release the new medium with no mention of the Sony origins or ownership.
By careful press they can pretend to compete against the new medium with their usual lame efforts with their hardware arm, while licensing content for it with their media arm.
Finally, once the new medium is fully accepted in the marketplace they can "buy" their subsidiary and take ownership of the related hardware IP. Perhaps in time they can admit that it was all a sham.
This is the only way they're going to get people to buy content on a new format they invent.
Oh, and they can forget the DRM... or they can buy my awesome and customer friendly DRM technology that people will accept. (work with me here.... Don't spoil the joke.)
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:5, Interesting)
This may change in the future as professional digital movie cameras and projectors increase in resolution (the latest theater projectors support 4096 x 2160 resolution). But the driving factor will be the studio and theater equipment, which will generally be superior to the home HDTV formats.
Currently, the only time film makers have to really be concerned about detail is for IMAX movies, which are displayed on much larger screens with substantially higher resolution film.
5-1/4" disk as the Maginot Line (Score:3, Interesting)
High definition video is a DRM-clogged thicket and statistically negligible. It's all in low-res these days - YouTube and so on. That's because convenience wins, every time [rocknerd.co.uk].
Someone must be making a fortune telling executives that consumers will buy what the execs want instead of what the consumers want.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
The laws of economics would expect them to maximize profit. They do that by selling fewer units at higher prices and throwing the rest away.
Only because of price fixing and content monopoly. In a real free market you'd expect them to be forced to sell cheaper in order to sell at all. There really needs to be anti trust or cartel litigation against the MPAA members.
There are several factors causing this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Disclaimer: I own a PS3 and originally 'hated' blue-ray, I am now a convert.
The factors influencing this are many, for one the crazy deals on discs are (to my knowledge) not as good as they were during the war, competition makes for good bargains.
Also the economy is going down the gurgler, while it may not be disctinctively apparent to all people, things are slowly but surely changing, as well as media attention to the bottom dollar and credit debt, people are slowly (and finally!) becoming aware that blowing money is not smart.
I also believe blu-ray does not offer a vastly superior experience to DVD, it's superior in my mind, no questions asked but it requires (IMHO) at least a 42" HD television and ideally 50" or more to truely gain the benefits of the format.
Ultimately I am quite confident blu-ray will succeed however.
I do not, in any way want OR believe that downloadable movies will win (yet). The facts of the matter are that until very high speed internet is as common as a power socket in the wall, internationally - it simply won't occur.
Blu ray is a minor upgrade to DVD and it's currently too pricey but I do however believe, much like the HD TV sets required, it will slowly but surely be adopted as simply a replacement for existing 'broken' DVD players or as an upgrade, 'maybe one day' - it's not a "MUST HAVE" that DVD clearly was.
Sony (and the other companies involved with blu-ray) simply need to be patient, much like the PS3, this is going to be a long term investment which eventually pays off.
In 5 years time DVD may be 40% of the market, in 10 years time I believe it'll be 75% or 90% of the market, long time to make their money back but it will become (again IMHO) the final optical disc format.
In a full 10 years time, when (if) the economy and technology get over the large bump we're about to face, then and only then may downloadable movies truely replace a simple, easy piece of plastic.
Note: this piece of plastic can be sold anywhere, Kmart Texas, Safeway Sydney, Airport Singapore and it'll work anywhere you have the infrastructure to play it (television, blu-ray player)
Downloadable stuff requires an internet connected device which is authorised to be on the internet (ISP) to speak with a server that's authorised to download the content (account on server) - setting this up internationally, with all the movie houses and their laws, copyright crap, region coding rubbish and release date bullshit is going to be a nightmare, it will happen but this alone will cause blu-ray to go well.
So to summarise, blu-ray will dominate but it's going to be a very slow process and I do believe ultimately profitable.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Interesting)
HDCP doesn't just affect people using older TVs, it also affects some newer ones. At least once a month I have to explain to someone on the PS3 forums that the HDTV they bought last year doesn't with the PS3 as a Blue ray player because it doesn't do the handshake correctly, hence they get a black screen. Every time the reaction is the same, "OMGWTFBBQ, I JUST WANT TO PLAY MOVIES!!!". No one expects their TV to not work with their PS3 as a Blue-ray player, but at the same time works as a gaming machine over HDMI. I can't wait until BD+ is used to stop playback on players/TVs whose keys have been compromised, then we get to see what happens when a specific movie won't play, but all the other movies will. It will be great.
The best part of all that DRM they are using is that it's has already failed, SlySoft broke it last year and sell AnyDVD HD which can rip Blue rays to your drive 100% unencrypted.
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:2, Interesting)
In the meantime, i recommend pirating them.
I just put about 50 BLU-RAY titles on a 1TB external hard disk.
The disk was $180 and downloading with verizon fios was only $50 per month.
Even bargain shopping at $20/BD that 1TB disk no has over $1,000 worth of movies.
Plus you get the added benefit that the pirated movies don't have DRM.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
Graininess generally has nothing to do with anything in the digital domain - neither the players, nor the screen. Most movies are shot on film and it is the filmstock and the camera settings that determine how grainy an image will be.
There are exceptions - Spielburg likes to digitally add fake grain in post-production and too many DVDs (and some BLU-RAYs) have DNR - digital noise reduction - applied to try to remove the grain, but all that really does is smooth the image out and remove real details as well as the grain, you get a kind of "pancake makeup" effect with DNR.
Rule of thumb though - if it is a brightly lit outdoors scene, there will be little to no grain, but the darker and more shadowy the scene, the more grain will be stand out.
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:2, Interesting)
That's the real beauty of it -- these idiots in suits don't seem to realise that when they put idiotic DRM on their discs, the pirates will get what they want DRM free, and the PAYING CUSTOMERS are the ones getting fucked.
I want to play Blu-Ray discs on my HTPC (as I've eluded to in another post.)
They'd all be legal, purchased, and viewed within reasonable means, but because I run Linux, no dice.
I look forward to the day when someone with a suit on pulls their head out of their ass and does something right.
Re:DVD (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Film captures motion blur and has no scan lines - it renders a complete image each frame, which is a very close analogue of how the eye works. Mimicking this effect digitally with a device that uses scan lines is impossible. To look like anything even halfway decent requires the high refresh rates I mentioned in my post, which you also describe. Nevertheless, the effect is not perfect. No TV with scan lines looks as good as film projected in a theater. Some effects in DVD playback systems - especially projectors - can be implemented to deliberately mimic film a bit better, such as anti-chickenwire effects to blur the edges of scanlines together, etc, but I have not yet seen this done with Blu-Ray.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:1, Interesting)
It has everything to do with that and the fact that our economy simply isn't doing well. Depending on where you live, it might be doing terrible.
For all intents and purposes, BluRay is exactly the same thing to an end user, or for at least over 95% of the end users. It behaves exactly the same way only with a better picture. Cost is the biggest difference.
Maybe you guys haven't noticed but iTunes and DVD both have DRM technologies and they are both flourishing. DRM in and of itself isn't a deal breaker if the terms are acceptable enough to people. In the general sense, a BD is just a better DVD, it's only a tiny handful that will attempt to copy them.
Region Encoding (Score:3, Interesting)
Can anyone say DRM? Consumers do not like DRM and thus are not buying Blu-Ray. The poor economy is also a factor.
That is one issue, but for me the biggest killer is region encoding. As long as I can buy my disk in any country I like and play it in the player of any other country, then I am happy. For me the defeating of CSS on DVDs meant that software applications could be written to ignore the region encoding. The fact I could copy the DVD didn't really rank that high on my list of wants.
With regards to Blu-ray, I have other stuff I want to spend my money on. I have a nice 27" flat screen TV and the DVDs play quite nicely. I will join the Blu-ray generation when the prices make it a no brainer and the market has already shifted. The other thing to take into account is that there are other optical disks, with higher storage capacity just round the corner, in the form of 'holographic disks'.
if they were serious about bluray (Score:3, Interesting)
if they were serious about bluray they'd make it cost the same as DVD, and phase out DVD a few years later.
instead they gouge with the price. $600 players and $30 disks. they're smoking crack if they don't know why no one's buying this.
another way to sell bluray to the public is to offer free (or cheap) replacement of existing DVD collections. this would get people moved over, and thus dependent, on the format.
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No one likes $30 / disk (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh it's possible to get Blu-Ray running on Linux. It only took me about a day and a half of digging obscure information out of forums, recompiling mplayer with beta codecs, installing new kernel modules (for UDF), etc. Still can't get subtitles out of the fucker, but it works.
Of course you may not enjoy despair, frustration and mental torture, however, so this might not be for you.
Well, let's not be surprised here.. (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't have HD-DVD or BlueRay yet.
I don't have a high-def TV either.
Welcome to the majority of us people with neither.
I have a nice 32 inch Panasonic TV, CRT mind you and it's very nice, barely 3 yrs old.
Works great, I get S-Video, etc...
Also have a nice JVC DVD/VHS Combo and a Philips DivX / DVD Recorder.
Now I know that the newer Blue Ray format, with the newer high Def TV give much crisper details, but the truth is, I don't care.
The view I get from my TV is great, for me anyways, and for anyone who has been watching movies with me at home. If the movie sucks, it's not because it's in DVD or Blue-Ray format.
Justifying the investment for this new tech is hard when you have bills to pay.
Sony would have to almost give out the players next to nothing and make their Blue-Ray discs the same cost as normal DVDs in order to make us cross over.
But still, I have over 600 DVDs in my collection, so, I've already spent a lot of money, I can't see myself repurchasing any of the movies I have in Blue Ray def.
Technically, Blue-Ray is better than DVD, but in the end, for most of us, it just doesn't justify the extra cost and bother. DVD movies are just as fun to watch, the minute image detail that you get from Blue-Ray, isn't for most of us, worth the investment.
Re:You are a sick man .. can I catch it, please ? (Score:3, Interesting)
My setup is a consequence of an confluence of opportunities. I already had projection equipment, but it was shoehorned into a small home. We were looking for a new home with a lot of space, but nothing was really coming on the market. Then this church became available (25k for 5000 sq ft on two lots!), and we agreed that we would buy it and build an interior into it. So during this process, I was standing in the middle of this huge, empty space when I noticed that the wall behind the pulpit and above the chair-rail looked exactly 16:9 to my eye. Turns out it's within just a couple of percent. So we decided to use that space, as it was, as the screen area. The only thing I ended up changing specifically to accommodate this was the projector, so as to get one that would throw a 17 foot diagonal image at 1080p (I picked an Optoma HD80, works great.)
As far as benefits, they are myriad; the big screen is really fun and very revealing of detail, and there's a huge list of why watching at home is better than watching in a theater, once you have an HD display. Do you need a list of those?
We've been "moved in" for about two years, but it'll be at least 2010 before we're done building the interior. Right now we're doing stained glass for the windows (secular themes) and a deck; there are still interior walls to be sheeted, etc, but it's coming along. I'm not sure if you can generalize such a situation to your case, but that's how it happened here. :) Some of the pics of the build are in this flickr set [flickr.com].
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
I mean, can you find your movie and check out at a Blockbuster, or even online at netflix, in significantly less than 52 seconds?
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:2, Interesting)
Well,I can say I have had a couple of folks come into my shop wanting to pick my brain while I fixed their machine,and when I told them they couldn't back up their BD discs like they can their DVDs that was the end of that. Sony needs to realize that folks have kids,and no matter how careful you are kids can tear up a Sherman tank with a toothbrush without even meaning to. It would be one thing if they had made them cartridge style where it is much harder to scratch the thing,but they didn't. And even the most clueless home user has found out from their cousin/brother/uncle how to back up their DVDs so the kids don't accidentally trash them.
This is precisely why HD-DVD was perfectly positioned to be successor to DVD. HD-DVD combo discs and (and eventually the twin format discs if HD-DVD hadn't died) would have provided a clear upgrade path from DVD. It's a shame really, the wrong format won. I'd bet my house that if HD-DVD had won the war, it wouldn't be facing the same decline in market share today that Blu-Ray is now facing.