Has Blu-Ray failed?

[Lord Garth]

Yes, it's not the number of years, it's what happens in-between. There are now enough differences between what 15-year-olds and 30-years-olds listen to, grew up with, and wear to justify another generational split.

Don't believe me? Ask a typical late-20-something what they think about guys in their teens/early-20s wearing skinny jeans. That's one of the easiest ways to pinpoint the new generational divide.

 

[Amaris]

I still want physical media. A disc, a box, and something I can have sitting on my shelf to admire.

Sure you do, and so do I. We, however, will be slowly phased out. Look at the younger generation. They're already used to streaming everything on their PC, their TV, their cell phones. In time, that little cell phone will represent all the tactile contact they'll need to enjoy their media and have that same sense of ownership.

"Younger generation"? You're fucking 30, dude! You're not that old.

Hell, I am a year younger than you and I have pretty much embraced digital everything. I don't care so much about having a physical copy as I do having an easy way to replace the electronic copy should something ever happen to it.

I buy games on Steam, for instance, and should they ever go under I know of several tools that can be used to crack Steam archives and free them of the DRM. As long as there are other channels I can use should the primary ones go away, it's not paramount for me to have a physical copy.

That said, I do like my big (physical) collection of PC games.

What?! Speak up! I can't hear you!

There is a huge difference between 30 year olds and say, 15 year olds when it comes to technology. I'm like you, I do embrace the digital age, I just really like having hard copies, too. Call it distrust of the corporate entity.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

^Having a hard copy is also probably handy for things that go out of print due to funny rights issues flukes. (MST3K's "Godzilla vs. Megalon" anyone?)

I bought Spider-Man 3 used for $6. Apparently nobody but me wanted it.

I think Spider-Man 3 came free with the purchase of a PS3, so it's one of the most ubiquitous BluRays out there. Same deal with Taladega Nights, which came free with early BluRay players. And back when HDDVD was still around & I worked at a used store, Peter Jackson's King Kong was rediculously common for much the same reason.

No. I want a physical copy. I want to sit back, look at my bookshelf full of boxes and admire my collection. I want to go up to it, open a box, and slide in a disc. I don't want to scroll through a menu to watch something. In terms of movies and TV series? Long-live physical media!
[...]
But as a huge fan of collecting DVDs/BDs I always want to have physical media. I do not feel that movies and TV series are anything like music where stuffing 300 songs in an iPod is better than carrying with you an entire folder full of discs. Big movie collectors want physical media, boxes, cases, bookcases, etc.

Agreed, I'm probably more obsessive about my DVD collecting than I am about my DVD watching. I'm very occupied with the quality of DVD cases. (I'm currently lamenting the fact that I can't get all of my James Bond DVD cover art to match. Sadly, MGM never released The Spy Who Loved Me as a separate 2-disc ultimate edition.)

Now something like the upcoming Alien Anthology set on the other hand is over flowing with extras, so that does make me wanna upgrade. In saying that, those kinds of movies are more expensive, so it makes it hard to justify the expense, especially as the Alien Quadriligy DVD has about 95% of the extras that the BD set has.

IIRC, the new Alien BluRay set brought back some of the original actors to ADR some of their dialogue from Alien 3 so that they can do a more polished version of the David Fincher workprint. That alone might make it worth it. (Personally, I might finally add Alien 3 to my collection if the remastered workprint is released to DVD.)

I have an old TV that doesn't even tax the limits of my DVD player. (It's not really a problem because nearly all I've been watching lately has been classic Doctor Who.) BluRay is a rediculous fantasy to me. And while I've got 20:10 vision and can spot a lot of the minor flaws in the TV picture, my mother can't spot any of them. In a lot of cases, BluRay is talking about resolution far beyond was is discernible to the human eye.

I've got a couple of friends that have an HDTV but no BluRay player. (However, they'll no doubt jump to BluRay once they release the Star Wars movies in that format.) They watch a lot of DVDs, and they have this very annoying habit of watching fullscreen TV shows distorted into widescreen.

 

[Trekker4747]

FWIW, I watch 4:3 TV shows "stretched" to widescreen as well. The TV I have "smartly" stretches (it stretches the sides more than the center) and I do that so as to not unevenly wear-out the TV viewing area. The distortion doesn't bother me at all.

 

[The Wormhole]

Blu-ray's been on the market what, two or three years? It took DVD four or five years to start making VHS cry. So let's wait until 2011 or 2012 to see where blu-ray stands.

 

[Trekker4747]

Really. Blu-Ray came too soon. VHS had a 25 (or so) year round before DVD first broke onto the market. It would then take DVD almost five years to completely knock-out VHS to the point where VHS players/VCRs would be obsolete and movies would seldom, if ever, be released on VHS.

So after 30 years or so of use VHS went away, replaced by DVD. It's just too damn soon for a new format to come out. I mean, after 10 years we're already being asked to adopt a new format and buy a new player? Esp. in a tough economic time?

That's BD's biggest problem, it was just too early for a new format with not enough gain. Yeah the picture quality is a lot better but DVD is still really damn good too. BD isn't vastly better enough over DVD (as DVD was over VHS) for people to be motivated to drop $100 on a new player.

The only thing BD really has going for it is that it can play DVDs as well so buying a new player doesn't make your old collection obsolete (another problem, no "surge" to replace a collection onto the new format), but the problem is if your DVD player is mostly new, why would you replace it? Only reason why I've adopted BD is because I've got a PS3.

 

[RoJoHen]

FWIW, I watch 4:3 TV shows "stretched" to widescreen as well. The TV I have "smartly" stretches (it stretches the sides more than the center) and I do that so as to not unevenly wear-out the TV viewing area. The distortion doesn't bother me at all.

I do the same, and my TV stretches it out in a similar fashion. I don't even notice the distortion. In fact, if I watch 4:3 shows without stretching it, the whole thing seems too skinny.

 

[Aragorn]

My new LCD TV automatically stretches out 4:3 TV broadcasts and I don't know how to make it stop.

 

[Sparky]

My new LCD TV automatically stretches out 4:3 TV broadcasts and I don't know how to make it stop.

Is it your TV doing the stretching or a cable box or PVR setting doing the stretching?

 

[Servo]

Really. Blu-Ray came too soon. VHS had a 25 (or so) year round before DVD first broke onto the market. It would then take DVD almost five years to completely knock-out VHS to the point where VHS players/VCRs would be obsolete and movies would seldom, if ever, be released on VHS.

So after 30 years or so of use VHS went away, replaced by DVD. It's just too damn soon for a new format to come out. I mean, after 10 years we're already being asked to adopt a new format and buy a new player? Esp. in a tough economic time?

That's the price we pay for technology moving faster. I'm 31, and at least from an entertainment standpoint, there have been more technological advances in the last 16 years of my life, than there were in the first 15 years of my life.
Entertainment is something a hell of a lot of people take very seriously, whether your preferred escape is gaming, movies, literature...whatever, the big companies are all in a rush to convince you that they can provide you with the best option for enjoying your media, and as a result of that, technologies related to those areas are developing faster and faster.

I consider my generation to be a sort of bridging generation. We exist between my parents generation (those who aren't too bothered about technology as it wasn't a huge part of their life growing up, and are happy to stick with DVD's and SDTV's and things they're used to), and the next generation (who will adopt every piece of new tech as and when it's released, due to being more acclimatised to the faster rate of development). Being between those two generations, it's easier for us to adopt and understand the workings of new technologies, but a lot of us are still a little more hesitant to jump in and run with whatever the big companies throw at us.

I hope that makes sense.

 

[Deckerd]

Young people can't afford this kind of equipment. They mostly have second hand tellys and any media players they can get ultracheap.

 

[Servo]

Young people can't afford this kind of equipment. They mostly have second hand tellys and any media players they can get ultracheap.

But my point isn't about what they can afford to buy now, it's about the culture they're growing up in. By the time they're my age, and have a large disposable income, they will be able to afford this type of equipment, and will be used to technology developing and evolving at a faster rate than it did when you or I were kids, therefore they'll be more willing to adopt newer technologies off the bat.

 

[RoJoHen]

Young people can't afford this kind of equipment. They mostly have second hand tellys and any media players they can get ultracheap.

How young are we talking here? I know plenty of teenagers with iPhones and PS3s and 50" HDTVs.

 

[ReadyAndWilling]

I think it's because BR isn't really a big leap like DVD was. It's just a little bit better than DVD and isn't worth the cost to most families, especially in this economy where Americans are waking up and realizing that they don't produce anything.

 

[cultcross]

Young people can't afford this kind of equipment. They mostly have second hand tellys and any media players they can get ultracheap.

How young are we talking here? I know plenty of teenagers with iPhones and PS3s and 50" HDTVs.

There's that lovely slump though between when all your income is disposable so you feel you can buy every consumer product there is, because you're living at home and essentially on full board, and the time when you're earning enough to buy that stuff and buy food, rent, etc. The period in your late teens to early twenties where suddenly you have to afford 'life' things and the cost of a high end TV suddenly seems a pipe dream.

 

[RoJoHen]

But that's the point. These kids live at home and don't have bills, so they are able to buy all this new technology. Just because they grow up and start to have more expenses doesn't mean these things are going to suddenly go away. There are 10-year olds that have cell phones and their own personal computers. They're very unlikely to give that up because it's become a part of their lifestyle.

Older people don't care as much about new technology because they didn't have it when they were growing up.

 

[Rarewolf]

I've hardly bought any DVDs or Blu-Ray discs over the past year, archive wise I've pretty much run out of ones I want to buy. New films I will get Blu, mainly since the ones I want have more extras.

The thing with DVDs was it made collecting easier. I got loads of cartoons and films that would have been only for kids on video, but DVD was a bit more of collectable thing (look at the hundreds of things released that never made it to video)

With films the jump to widescreen from off air cropped versions made a world of difference.

There's very few films I will buy a further time. Back To The Future, Alien are in there. Star Wars and Indy when they come along. But everything else, DVDs will do.

 

[RandyS]

Like many others I have built up a decent DVD collection and I am quite adverse to re-purchasing Blu-Ray versions of movies I already own on DVD.

Me too, particularly since I'm still upgrading from VHS to DVD, and have spent the last seven years doing so, and probably won't be done for a while.

Add to that, ALOT of my old VHS titles were never relased on either VHS or DVD, and I had to get a DVD/VHS combo recorder in order to preserve the rare titles in my library. Blue Ray recorders (if they even exist yet), most likely cost more than a small country anyway.

As long as Blue Ray doesn't completely supplant DVD, I'll be happy.

 

[TheInsideMan]

All I know is that I rent my Blu-Rays from Lovefilm, and have done for some time now. I've only brought 4 Blu-Ray movies and I have little desire to buy more.

This is after I've sold loads of DVDs on eBay, DVDs which looking back, I hardly watched.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I consider my generation to be a sort of bridging generation. We exist between my parents generation (those who aren't too bothered about technology as it wasn't a huge part of their life growing up, and are happy to stick with DVD's and SDTV's and things they're used to), and the next generation (who will adopt every piece of new tech as and when it's released, due to being more acclimatised to the faster rate of development).

And then there's my grandparents, who bought the best friggin' HDTV of anyone I know and yet still can't figure out how to operate their DVD player. Youth is wasted on the young and technology is wasted on the old. (I suggest we remedy this by chasing MILFs & robbing old people!)