Blu-Ray just not "catching on"

[PKerr]

Now before anyone starts attacking with the whole Xbox 360/HD-DVD PS3/Blu-ray stuff hear me out.

I heard on the radio that Blu-ray is not catching fire like they thought it would after HD-DVD went away.
In fact the market is struggle so much that analyst predict you can pick up a player for $199.00 by Christmas time.

That said some co-workers and I were discussing it and mostly agree.

"We are not ready to got out and start replacing our current DVD collection to technology that may have a new rival in a few months for all we know."

I found a pretty good article on it if anyone is interested.

I agree with pretty much the whole thing with the exception that there is a minute difference between Blu-Ray and DVD.

http://tech.blorge.com/Structure: /...failing-in-the-wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time/


Discuss.

 

[MikeGainer]

I understand your co-workers. When Super-HD could be following in the next couple of years, why bother dish out more money for 1080 HD? Especially the way the economy is right now and will be in the next couple of years, Blu-ray should expect low sales.

 

[Arrqh]

The thing is that Blu-Ray didn't win so much as HD-DVD lost. Neither of them had a particularly high adoption rate when compared to DVD. Add to that the current economic situation, and it's not really something most people are going to spend money on.

However, the idea that digital distribution will supplant physical media anytime soon, as the article suggets, is a pipe dream (see what I did there? ) due to the immense amount of resistance any large scale HD distribution system will have from the ISPs. And we can thank the current movement towards bandwidth caps for that.

 

[Caleuche]

Unsurprising, given that the switch from video to DVD had to be forced slightly by having the record stores simply stop selling videos. Most people I know (myself included) still haven't completely replaced their video collections to DVD and as such are unwilling to jump to yet another format and yet more expense to replace the DVD collection, they've still yet to complete.

Edit: Plus why get Blu-ray at all when downloading film/tv programmes to your television in the same way as to your ipod is the next logical step? Blu-ray already looks like a dated format.

 

[The Evil Dead]

I don't really know what to do. If a reasonably priced BluRay add-on to the Xbox 360 came out I would probably get that, but that's obviously not an option and may never be.

I will be honest, I have been downloading 720p rips of films recently (some I own on DVD, some I don't) and watching them on my 24' computer monitor. They look absolutely stunning, so stunning infact that I haven't bought any standard definition DVDs in months. Why buy The Dark Knight, Iron Man or Hellboy 2 on DVD when I can get something better in HD? I don't want to spend 30 bucks now, and in a year finally upgrade to BluRay and put down another 40 so I can have my favorite films in HD.

I'm just not sure where to go from here, I'd hate to start investing money in BluRay and then in a year or two find out it is going to be obsolete and I don't really want to sink anymore money in regular DVDs while there is this uncertainty in the air...

 

[Electric Coleslaw]

The only problem with comparing the adoption of Blu-Ray from DVD to the adoption of DVD from VHS. For one, people who went with DVD's just had to buy a DVD player. For Blu-Ray folks, you have to also buy a new HD TV.
As for replacing stuff, the quality upgrade from move from VHS to DVD was more noticeable than the the upgrade from DVD to Blu-Ray. Especially if all you own is a 720p TV. Personally, I usually buy only new movies on the new format and won't bother replacing my DVD's unless some super duper directors extended cut remastered edition of a movie comes out.

 

[Gryffindorian]

As a Playstation 3 owner, I'm not even considering buying Blu-Ray movies at this point (as I have hundreds of DVD titles I'm not yet ready to get rid of). I see the commercial every time I go to Target: "Watching a DVD movie on a Blu-Ray player is like driving a sports car in first gear." So what? I have a 37-inch HD LCD TV anyway; as far as I'm concerned the picture and sound quality is decent. I'm not about to spend thousands of dollars on BD titles I don't need right now.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

It may not be kicking the DVD into touch yet but i have no doubts it will eventually become the dominant media, i can see the end of 2009 onwards being the time of the Br disc big time,and once you can buy a sub £100 BR player in your local supermarket BR will have arrived.

I have the Spiderman trilogy box-set i bought for £16 just to make sure my PS3 was playing BR movies OK, and that's all i will have on the BR front until i see a big price drop in BR movies.

 

[TheArsenal]

With the price of players still a little high, and discs a little pricey as well, I can see why it hasn't caught on.

I have a Blu-ray player. Even so, I feel no need to convert my favorite DVDs to Blu-ray as I did going from VHS to DVD. Blu-ray is an improvement, no question, but it is not as incredible an improvement as it was from VHS to DVD, or using an example in audio, cassettes to CDs.

 

[DarkHelmet]

I saw an Olevia BluRay player with Dolby TrueHD sound for $219 at SuperTarget this past weekend. That wasn't a sale. I was *that* close to buying it, but I figure by xmas I can find one for less than $200.

The main thing putting me off right now is the cost of the discs themselves, not the player.

 

[Smiley]

Boy, BR sure hasn't gotten the message out that it's backward-compatible with DVDs, has it? No wholesale replacement of the DVD collection is necessary.

There are certain titles I would like on Blu-Ray, but price is the issue right now. In time, the hardware and software costs will go down, and it will become a more attractive option.

 

[CaptainStoner]

The players are still $200!!?

No-brainer there. It's still way out of mainstream affordability. Couple that with the enormously expensive HDTV's they've been trying to force people into buying, lying to old people about how their old TV's won't work, etc.
Icing on the cake is the demise of HD-DVD, which was harmful to the conversion as a whole, while also removing competition with Blu-Ray, keeping prices high.

 

[Cicero]

I think disc price is probably the biggest problem. A movie on disc should not cost $35-$40. The studios aren't facing a significant cost increase in printing BluRay discs rather than DVDs (the cost per disc is still under $2); the current high prices are a simple case gouging customers.

A lack of upgrade discounts is probably second biggest problem. The average DVD viewer has spent at least hundreds of dollars on DVDs, and to expect people to move on to BluRay without any clear ability to reasonably upgrade what was percieved as a permanent, ultimate medium is unrealistic. I wouldn't be surprised if people in general waited for an apparently stable (probably full theatrical resolution) medium to appear. No one wants to keep buying new versions of the same thing.

 

[Good Will Riker]

As I already own a big screen HDTV, my current goal is to purchase (an affordable and under $200 price range) Blu-ray player in the fall/winter of 2009 when Star Trek XI is available on Blu-ray disc, and I plan to purchase the following titles:

Quantum of Solace
Watchmen
Terminator Salvation
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Star Trek XI

Since new releases on DVD are costing about $27.00 a pop for me nowadays, I might as well purchase a Blu-ray player to get the best picture quality possible considering the price the consumers are paying for these newly released discs these days.

The average DVD viewer has spent at least hundreds of dollars on DVDs.

More like thousands of dollars on DVDs.

I own 180 DVDs currently, but had I not kept trading-in/giving away/selling DVDs since 2001, my collection would total almost 800 DVDs by now...

 

[CaptJimboJones]

It will get there, but it's going to be a lot slower going than the transition from VHS to DVD. I think one main factor is that consumers bought DVDs so heavily - not just individual movies, but entire multiple seasons of TV shows - that they have this big DVD collections and aren't ready to run out and A) buy a new BR player and B) replace all those discs in their collection. You're talking about a lot of money at a time when people are trying to cut their spending thanks to the economy.

 

[Warp Coil]

I think the biggest roadblock for Blu-ray is that the average consumer is perfectly happy with regular DVD. While Blu-ray may look prettier and have a better picture, a standard-def DVD still looks awfully good. The transition from VHS to DVD was more dramatic and profound. There are even some people out there still trying to grasp onto VHS and haven't even made the leap to DVD (and I know a few of them!).

 

[Good Will Riker]

There are even some people out there still trying to grasp onto VHS and haven't even made the leap to DVD (and I know a few of them!).

Let us leave those luddites out of this discussion who hang onto their old VHS players and still purchase used VHS tapes on-line and in used bookstores.

The consensus, in terms of picture quality & affordability: "DVD is good enough." (for now)

 

[Skywalker]

I don't even have an HDTV yet (and I'm sure many other people don't, either), so I won't be "upgrading" to Blu-ray until after I get one.

 

[stoneroses]

Bluray is great. Heroes is great on the format. It is here to stay like it or not. Terrabyte Bluray is waiting in the wings ready for QuadHD and i can't wait.
Don't knock it till you have tried it!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Edit: Plus why get Blu-ray at all when downloading film/tv programmes to your television in the same way as to your ipod is the next logical step?

Three things:

1) Blu-Ray is the best there is, right now. If you keep waiting for the next big thing, you're never gonna get anywhere.

2) You really want to deal with all that DRM bullshit that is inherent in downloading?

3) There's nowhere near the infrastructure, bandwidth, etc. in place to allow for anything like 1080p downloads.