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Has blu-ray failed?

The main problem with BR is that they are too darn expensive. But I still buy them. But i find myself thinking...do i really need to buy this movie on BR? I end up only buying the BR movies that are best to watch in HD. That being said most movies I own on BR are comic book movies. Just because they are usually better in crisp BR-HD.
If Sony wants BR to kill DVD's all they have to do is lower the average price from 30.00 to 20.00 and BAM you'd see sales jump.
And I always pull this example out. I also own a Xbox 360 and the HD-Addon HDdvd player. I have Transformers on both BR and HD-DVD. Ill tell ya. It looks better in HD-dvd. Ive even run the test on some of my friends whilest hiding which player Im using and so far all of them have agreed with me that the HD version of Transformers is sharper and better overall. Thats not good for BR.
And whats with a 6-8 previews that are forced on you at the beginning of every BR movie? I didnt buy the BR to watch previews...
 
BR players will have to get to the same price as dvd players and at the same time BR movies will have to get down to the same price as normal DVD's.

DVD has several things going for it over VHS that people actually cared about.
BR, has superior picture quality, that's about it. Not very many people care enough about that. Sound; just forget about that,statistically speaking nobody cares about that. All the extras are nice as well, but really not a strong selling point. I like extras but if i have to choose between extras and saving a few bucks on the non-extra version of a DVD, i'll save the money.

I'm just not sure BR will ever replace dvd. Maybe if you could put the dvd version and the br version on the same disk and play the dvd version in a dvd player. But then you would have a whole lot of people thinking they are watching bluray.
 
DontFeedPhil said:
If Sony wants BR to kill DVD's all they have to do is lower the average price from 30.00 to 20.00 and BAM you'd see sales jump.
Click to expand...
The reason that won't happen is that Blu-Ray was introduced in part because Sony and other studios wanted a higher price point for films. Studios weren't happy that consumers had embraced DVD at the low price points, and Blu-Ray and HD-DVD were both seen as ways to get consumers to pay more for the content.
 
Well Blu-Ray can hold 50 Gigs of data, which makes it the perfect medium for video games.

And yes I agree with the statement that Blu-Rays (other than PS3 games) will not last 5 years, for the simple reason that at the rate which our media technology is advancing something better will come along within that timeframe.
 
I find the whole "5 year thing" to be pretty unlikely. For a format to supplant Blu-Ray, it would have to provide a tangible benefit... and in 5 years we'll still be on HDTV's with the same resolution as now and Blu-Ray discs and players will be as cheap as DVD is now. A "replacement" technology would have to be either significantly better in the eyes of the public (and given that many people can't even tell the difference between HD and SD now...) or be significantly cheaper... and new technologies are rarely cheaper on release then existing ones.
 
DVD grew and thrived under the behemoth that was VHS and eventually, over the course of about 10 years it became low-priced and the dominant format. Blu-Ray is growing faster than DVD was and price points are just as low in the life cycle as they were at this point with DVD. Blu-Ray will be fine. HDTV sets are selling at ridiculously fast rates. People aren't going to want to watch "upscaled" dvds exclusively, which look like crap (especially when the transfer isn't so good in the first place), on their brand new big screens.

As for streaming formats, there's nothing feasible available, nor will it be for sometime, that provides 1080p video with 7.1 surround channels.

There's those that say that they "don't see the difference." Well then you're blind :p
 
It's funny - I was in a department store this afternoon and there were lots of DVD players as well as big HD televisions for sale but I had to look around a bit to find a Blu Ray player.
 
Arrghman said:
I find the whole "5 year thing" to be pretty unlikely. For a format to supplant Blu-Ray, it would have to provide a tangible benefit... and in 5 years we'll still be on HDTV's with the same resolution as now and Blu-Ray discs and players will be as cheap as DVD is now. A "replacement" technology would have to be either significantly better in the eyes of the public (and given that many people can't even tell the difference between HD and SD now...) or be significantly cheaper... and new technologies are rarely cheaper on release then existing ones.
Click to expand...

Especially considering when most people buy 720p TVs... yeah, I don't see a big change soon.
 
The real competition is the rise of digital distribution. I'd say BD and DVD are the last big physical formats we'll get. DVD is the broader, mass market one while BD is the Laserdisc version. It appeals to the hardcore, which is what Laserdisc did while VHS was mass market. I think people forget that before DVDs hit big time, collecting movies and especially TV for home use was hugely expensive. The DVD market is huge, bigger than the VHS market was. To call Blu-Ray a failure is to be a bit short sighted. It's not necessarily DVD's replacement. I'd rather have it around and doing poorly than have no HD option for films at home. If you're fine with DVD, good on you. But I like HD content. Sure, BDs are expensive, but in my opinion DVDs just got too cheap for their own good. We all need to take a step back and see the home video market's entire 30 year history in context. Remember when videos to buy were 6 months after the rental release? We're incredibly spoiled and the market has a ton of formats to contend with these days. It's too complex to simply call it a failure. Personally, I buy DVDs, BDs and download content as well.
 
I think for most people it's not a matter of not wanting to upgrade, it's not being able to afford it and let's be honest, to the non-media fanatic the difference in quality isn't that significant. In a way, DVD has been too successful for Blu-Ray to really compete since there's no way a sizeable chuck of people are going to replace all their DVDs with a more expensive format AND buy an overpriced player.

Actually if anything BR has helped make DVD all the more affordable by adding a little competition. I've notice the price of brand new films (even 2 disc sets) has gone down in the past few years from something around the £18-20 mark down to around the £10-12 mark while the ever popular tv season sets have plummeted from the £60-£80 price range to something more like £20-30.
 
My thought is, do I really need to watch shows in HD? Comedies in HD? What's the point?

I'm skipping this gen unless it last 20 years, which I doubt.
 
bigdaddy said:
My thought is, do I really need to watch shows in HD? Comedies in HD? What's the point?
Click to expand...

I guess not everybody cares about picture quality.

Me, I will watch anything on Blu-Ray that I can. I replace all standard def DVDs with Blu-Rays at the earliest opportunity. The quality is just too good for me to pass up - I've *seen* it. I have a perfectly good HDTV, and I figure why feed it with anything but the best?

To answer the original question: No. Blu-Ray has not failed. Not even close. It's only just *started*. It's way too early for the Luddites to crow about its death.
 
I don't think it's failed at all. I don't think it will necessarily do as well as DVD eventually did, however. That would be because many will continue to buy "small" TVs (less than 30") where blu-ray really won't shine. Especially if you're just using the TV's speakers for audio.

Myself, I'm an enthusiast for TV/Movies and higher-quality picture/sound, so as soon as I could financially, I dived in with an HDTV, a blu-ray player, and I upgraded my audio receiver so that I could get Dolby TrueHD, DTSHD, PCM5.1, etc.

I'm mostly quite pleased, though not as blown away as I thought I'd be. It's not a massive improvement over DVD, but enough so that I'm happy.

I think blu-ray will have a smaller piece of the pie than DVD over the years because it's less "necessary" than upgrading to DVD from VHS, but given the fact that HDTV continues to grow and become increasingly popular, I think it will do just fine.

For those not interested in BD for various reasons:

1) Price can suck, but if you buy online it's not that bad. Buying through Amazon, I've never paid retail price for a BD. It's still more expensive, but not outrageously so IMO. Furthemore, as a Netflix user, it only cost me an additional dollar a month to be able to rent BD's. Just by being more selective in my purchasing choices than I was with DVD, and opting to rent more often, I haven't really spent more here. Granted, it was expensive to get the player and the new receiver, but I wanted those things and can accept that.

2) Picture quality is sometimes not much different, but the bigger and better your HDTV is, the more noticeable it gets (in particular when the studio behind the disc does it right). I will also say I wasn't expecting to notice the difference in audio, but I do. It's pretty enjoyable.

I think if you're an enthusiast like me, someone who likes high-quality picture/sound more than the average bear without being an audiophile/videophile, I recommend it if you've got the coin.

If not, no bigge; enjoy your DVDs. But Blu-Ray's going to be okay.
 
I want to know who decided that Blu Ray was going to be the next VHS, so to speak. I have no money for a new Blu Ray player nor do I have money to replace all my DVD movies, most of which have great pictures, special features, and so forth. I would like to get some films in high def - but I do not need older films or TV shows that were not filmed in a compatible method to properly convert over and whose quality can get hurt by high def changes. Who wants to look at the coffee stains on Spock's uniform on TOS for example, or stair at the wooden planks used to make up the floor of the bridge? That ruins the show.

I myself have been worried that the switch to Blu Ray would be used to abuse the consumers the way music CDs were. When CDs first arrived, they were about double the price of regular albums and did not come down (to adjust to the market as the public switched to CDs) for years and years.
 
If people have money to spend on a snazzy TV, Blu-ray players and disks, good luck to them. Not everyone's in that situation and dismissing them as "Luddites" who are "blind" or don't "care" about such things is pretty pathetic. God forbid that anyone should have interests in things other than owning the latest and greatest entertainment stuff, or who simply don't have the money to splash out on such things.

I've seen no compelling advantage(s) in "upgrading" from DVD, as there were to go from VHS to DVD. The difference isn't great enough to interest me, even if I didn't have other things to do with my money. If that makes me blind or uncaring or a Luddite or anything else, too bad. To each their own.
 
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