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)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Can anyone say DRM?
Yeah, but the masses can't tell you what it stands for.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Funny)
Digital Restrictions Management?
Though, I don't know if 190 pounds is enough to be considered "masses".
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed, Pounds are the problem---the players start at something like 190 Pounds... and the discs at 15 or so.... :-)
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: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: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: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.
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: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:5, Informative)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
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, Interesting)
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.
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.
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: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:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Funny)
DRM is irrelevant to 99.999% of Blu-Ray owners because it doesn't effect them.
Affect; not effect.
Man, I've seen this so many times recently it's starting to seem rediculous!!
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Funny)
To be pedantic, the original poster is technically correct---DRM doesn't cause those people to come into being---but almost certainly was mistaken in his/her word choice.... :-)
Well, I suppose DRM could effect a person if somebody gets so annoyed by it that he throws the DVD player out the window and goes out for a night on the town, meets the perfect girl, then one thing leads to another, and the next thing you know, a DRM-effected child is born, but... thats about as likely as a pig flying without a trebuchet....
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:5, Funny)
So we need them to figure out that "Disk go in here, disk maybe play, maybe not. If not, me spend more money and disk maybe play, maybe not. If still not, me lose money and get frustrated and go to thepiratebay.org and now it play. Me write letter to company, tell them they steal from me, I steal from them, we even now."
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Funny)
I said All the consumer sees is the movies are more expensive and in pretty blue boxes.
So that's what I just said. Now can you say "Polly want a cracker"?
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Funny)
So that's what I just said. Now can you say "Polly want a cracker"?
I don't get it.
Do the crackers come in blue boxes?
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Funny)
No, that was "talk like a pirate day". "Talk like a parrot day" is this week. Next week it'll be "talk like Poirot day". Mon dieu!
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Informative)
It could have to do with new DVD's being $10-$15, where new Blu-Ray discs are $23.99(amazon)-$39.99 (Bestbuy)
Not only are they twice as expensive, but I've stopped buying blu-ray movies because more often than not the quality is almost exactly the same as the DVD version! I just watched The Usual Suspects on blu-ray, and while it might be slightly better, it's definitely not a significant improvement over the standard DVD.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Informative)
The fact the blue ray will largely be the same quality as dvd has a lot to do with the original storage format. For TV series SVHS video means, you can't get the data when it isn't there. So if they really want to sell the quality they are marketing, they have to use the original content as a digital framework and combine it high tech photo realistic animation to put the missing data back in, cost prohibitive as the sales will not justify it as people will be unwilling to replace existing DVD content already sold.
Not that high definition picture quality can be really pretty but, where is the scenery channel screen saver, the only content I would bother seeking out on high definition. Honestly failed plastic surgery, botox overdoses, unrealistic facial expressions and, overtly visible make up, are often just too painful watch on hi-definition (there is often another reason why blue ray is of no better quality than DVD, sometimes that quality is closer to SVHS than even DVD, gotta protect those egos).
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score: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: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, 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.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Funny)
I actually have a 37" EDTV that I got from a friend for a song, so 480p is the best my screen can do anyway. Looks great, and it keeps me from buying an expensive BluRay player that I don't need.
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:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:4, Informative)
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....
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.
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.
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:5, Funny)
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: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.
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: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.
Close but not quite (Score:4, Funny)
Here's why....
Jim Bob, your average Walmart employee is actually their #1 sales target. In fact, they depend on Jim Bob for quite a few reasons :
- He couldn't figure out how to pirate a film even if you gave him incentives like threatening to break his beer fridge on his porch.
- He places strange values on entertainment. After all he spent $200 on his new truck, $500 on his fake chrome wheels, $99 on his new paint job, but $1500 on his high end audiovox stereo system with three 18" subwoofers.
- He's lost his job to those [insert derogatory name for a minority group here] and now that he's receiving his pay checks from the unemployment office once a month instead of every week, he gets much bigger amounts in each payment. So, now he finally has enough money in one go to buy that 42" plasma and BluRay combo which will free up nearly 2/3s of his living room in his trailer, so he might be able to fit a couch next to his lay-z-boy imatation recliner. So he can even invite friends over to play XBox and drink beer.
- He realized that he can be the hottest thing at the local bar when he says "I just watched that at home on my new HIGH.... DEF... TV and Blu-Ray". When the other guys then say things like "Yeh, I heard about them things... I heard the movie is like much better on that".
I can go on and on like that forever, but the company I worked for knows one thing... it's only the middle class that spends less on entertainment budgets during recession, the lower class actually spends more since "It's too expensive to go out to the bar right now, I'll just (rent|buy) a new movie and a 6-pack for the house".
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Informative)
What about being able to use 1080p with a TV that doesn't have HDMI?
1080p can be sent over component, but no Blu-Ray players do that.
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score: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.
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)
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.
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.
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:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Most consumers know nothing of DRM. They understand however that $35 per movie is a joke.
Big News (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
movies like those? (Score:4, Funny)
Careful, someone in Hollywood heard you.
You'll get remakes which will be nothing like those movies. Don't worry, they'll make the Great Space Coaster and Different Strokes first.
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.
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.
I got one of those "Trial" discs. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I got one of those "Trial" discs. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they should consider putting free trial Blu-Ray players in magazines. I'd consider giving them a spin of they did that.
Re:I got one of those "Trial" discs. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, so that is what that was. I saw 'Sony' on it, so I ripped it out of the magazine and threw it away. I thought someone rootkitted my magazine!
Re:I got one of those "Trial" discs. (Score:4, Funny)
Check your carpet. Once the DRM gets into the carpet padding, you have to tear everything out and start all over.
Upscaling DVD is good enough.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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.)
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:From one consumer's perspective... (Score:5, Funny)
Finally the typical movie buyer speaks up.
Re:From one consumer's perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lower the price (Score:5, Insightful)
"Transformers" is special? (Score:5, Funny)
That's nearly as worrying as seeing "Eraser" at the top of the sales chart in the article.
$200? (Score:5, Informative)
Keep going. I can still get a no-name DVD player for $30, region free as well.
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.
Blu-ray is the new ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, maybe Blu-ray turns out to be the next Laserdisc [wikipedia.org].
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.
How 'bout some movies get released first? (Score:5, Informative)
Bought my Blu-Ray player a few weeks ago and was all pumped to pick up a copy of Saving Private Ryan and... nope. Well, I'll just go to Blockbuster and rent something at least... nadda. There was all of 12 movies available, none of them worth renting let alone purchasing. We settled on Fantastic Four I and II. God awful movies. Shamefully bad. I'm surprised they're not churning out movies faster than this; there's barely any titles worth getting that have been released yet.
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*
Re:Look at the titles (Score:4, Informative)
"Master and Commander: Far Side of the World" was pretty great. After watching it on Blueray, I went back and watched the first bit on DVD .. wasn't nearly the experience.
Re:Look at the titles (Score:4, Informative)
Personally I liked The Fifth Element, Planet Earth, Blade Runner Ultimate Edition, 2001, Spiderman trilogy, Close Encounters and Hellboy on Blu-Ray Disc. In terms of image quality and visual pop (as distinct from the innate qualities of the movie) I have to say The Fifth Element was the best so far. I understand there was an inferior transfer originally, but the latest one is good.
Too little, too soon. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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.
Re:Am I the only one? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
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.
please, completely slanted article (Score:4, Informative)
The week before, market share of BluRay was WAY up. BluRay sales were up 16% despite DVD sales being down 10%.
http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/13/nielsen-videoscan-high-def-market-share-for-week-ending-septembe/ [engadgethd.com]
And selling players for cheaper is a bad thing? Sales accelerate when prices drop. DVD players are $35, it must be a complete flop!
It's about time for these ridiculous slanted anti-BluRay articles to end. BluRay is having a tough enough time without slashdot airing repeated hit pieces.
Re: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?
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
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Total Geniuses (Score:4, Funny)
If the concept of $10-20 movie for DVD (Players for $40) vs $40-50 movie in Blu-Ray (players for $300-400) is puzzling corporations, on why Blu-Ray is not selling...
I really cannot help them.
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: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.