Looks like DS9 will not get Blu Ray

[Johnny Rico]

An audience at this point primarily of film buffs or videophiles, who are typically willing to pay top dollar for a film on physical media for a film that they "should" own.

And that answer more or less confirms the difference between mine and the seemingly broad base of opinion here. In that it's apathy of those people who aren't all that into high quality audio and video quality. But I forget that this forum isn't a Blu-ray, or even a DVD forum, but a forum of Star Trek and syfy nerds who would rather stream a 2 GB SD pseudo HD version of their entertainment with lossy sound.

I don't think anyone is arguing Blu is immediately going anywhere as a niche product, but it has little future as a mainstream one. In the UK for example according to this month's empire DVD still outsells Blu 7 to 1.

Niche product, huh? DVD in the UK outsells BD 7:1, eh? Sounds like a personal problem to me. So do people in the UK not give a shit about quality? I don't think I've watched a DVD since I upgraded to BD in '09. Once you get used to BD, DVD looks like ass.

[/quote]If you mean "ultimately most people care more about an extra five quid than high definition" or "people like the convenience and low cost of Netflix etc. over the tiny boost in quality for blu ray" - then yes.[/quote]

Tiny boost? Lossless audio vs lossy...true full 25-30 Mbps 1080p video over whatever streaming can manage. Oh, about cost...what's the average cost of a new release movie title on BD in the UK? In the US a 3D BD is usually under $25...for 2D releases under $20. And sometime after release date, they drop to $15 or so. That said, I have no idea what a Quid is.

You talk like people are obliged to like Blu, they aren't and by and large they don't. As you have said yourself its called competition.

I'm not saying anyone is obligated to buy anything. But hat I am saying is that if you want DS9 remastered ala TNG and on BD, and the overall BD market isn't good, say in your region, then you only have apathetic people to blame for the lack of DS9 on BD.

Question though...how many people have HDTVs in the UK? Is it a widespread norm by now, or is it still a niche with a lot of people still using old SD CRTs? And if so, are they large screens greater than 42"?

I ask, because on the Blu-ray.com forum, excitement for 4K UHBD is growing. Why? Because quality counts and people care.

Yeah, you see the thing is, not everyone thinks that. Plus you already lost your argument before you even started so bonus internetz dude

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Well, I don't know about you, but I don't want the government anywhere near the media. Ever heard of the Free Press? Our First Amendment pretty much makes a government funded or ran news organization illegal. If a organization can't sustain itself thru advertising dollars then it doesn't need to be on the air. For example, Al Gore's liberal radio network "Air America" went bankrupt twice, then made it into Current TV, which then also failed, and then he had to eventually sell it to Qatar and it got swept up into what is now Al Jazeera - America. So Mr. Global Warming sold his network to a Big Oil producing country and made a lot of money off the sale.

 

[Admiral Bear]

A large proportion of the UK public don't know or care about the difference between DVD and Blu-ray, mainly because most of them are happy with the picture quality they get from DVD on their little 32" HD tv. I don't know what it's like in the US, but many British consumers are downright thick and uneducated about anything other than when their next government welfare payment hits their bank account. They can neither afford Blu-ray players, the discs, or bigger televisions.

I could tell you a story about huge numbers of pensioners in my local town going to the supermarket the week The King's Speech hit the shelves. They were faced with the DVD and the Blu-ray editions, all clearly separated and marked accordingly with different prices. They all bought the Blu-ray.

None of them had Blu-ray players. All the discs came back opened with the cellophane torn off. There was nothing wrong the discs, but the idiots wanted refunds because they couldn't play them.

That's what you get in the UK, I'm afraid.

Blu-ray discs in bricks and mortar stores are becoming increasingly hard to buy in the UK, mainly because they are overpriced and don't sell. New blockbuster releases on BR in Asda (Walmart to peeps in the US) and Tesco are around the £20 mark ($31), while the equivalent DVD is around £13/14.
Amazon are by far the cheapest most of the time, followed by Zavvi which does have some very good offers on sometimes.

However, the Pirate Bay is free, and legit streaming for people with broadband connections that can handle it, is far cheaper per month than one physical Blu-ray. And therein lies the problem. Physical media is dead.

 

[MacLeod]

Well the BBC isn't run by the Government or Government funds. It's funded by the citizens who pay the License fee.

License Fee? Translation? Taxes. So every UK citizen is forced to pay this License Fee *ahem* tax to support a broadcast company whether they use it or not? That's not freedom...that's called force.

They are not forced to pay it, you only have to pay it (at the moment) if you watch(or record) something as it is broadcast (be it if you watch it over the airwaves or via broadband).

So you can own a TV without paying the license fee. It has to remained untuned to TV/Radio stations (and not connected to an Antenna/dish etc...) and you can watch DVD/BR to your hearts content and never have to pay the licene fee.

And it's not every citizen, 1 License covers an entire household no matter how many TV's they own.

The question then becomes do the majority of people not mind paying the license fee believing the BBC deivers value for money. A comment which can crop up often even in just general conversation is that a particualr programme was worth the license fee alone. If what the person is saying is a truthful statement then for them the £145.50 they have to pay a year they are happy with the service delivered.

Every ten years the BBC Charter has to be renewed by the Government (inc. the license fee) if people really felt strongly enough about they are more than welcome to runf for Parliament on a platform of abolishing the license fee, even the parties could put that into their manifestos that they will abolish the BBC license fee. Now that's called democracy.

But I suspect that more people trust the BBC than they do politicans.

 

[USS KG5]

And that answer more or less confirms the difference between mine and the seemingly broad base of opinion here. In that it's apathy of those people who aren't all that into high quality audio and video quality.

Well, fair enough, yes. I'm personally a big fan of Blu Ray but I also enjoy streamed movies and can even tolerate the odd DVD.

Niche product, huh? DVD in the UK outsells BD 7:1, eh? Sounds like a personal problem to me.

Personal problem with you? Not a bit of it my friend!

The stat on sales is in the latest issue of Empire magazine and it surprised me too. Physical media sales are generally on the wane, and my definition of "niche" would include a healthy enthusiast market - YMMV of course.

So do people in the UK not give a shit about quality?

I'm not sure if there is a nationalist split on this one, the US gets more catalogue titles though so its possible the studios think so.

I don't think I've watched a DVD since I upgraded to BD in '09. Once you get used to BD, DVD looks like ass.

Oh I agree for most things.

Tiny boost?...

From their point of view. Most people of my acquaintance really don't see the advantage of Blu Ray over DVD. Again, not my opinion, I find the difference between DVD and Blu substantial. The difference between Blu and Streaming is noticeable for me, but I can live with it.

That said, I have no idea what a Quid is.

British slang for the Pound.

I'm not saying anyone is obligated to buy anything. But hat I am saying is that if you want DS9 remastered ala TNG and on BD, and the overall BD market isn't good, say in your region, then you only have apathetic people to blame for the lack of DS9 on BD.

Fair enough.

Question though...how many people have HDTVs in the UK? Is it a widespread norm by now, or is it still a niche with a lot of people still using old SD CRTs? And if so, are they large screens greater than 42"?

The growth of HD TV has been pretty rapid, and the average screen size now probably approaches 42". The big thing is people buy them for size and for convenience (look good, wall mountable) rather than necessarily for quality. I've pointed out to a few acquaintances showing off their HD TV and sky boxes that they were inadvertantly watching through Scart! A switch to HDMI is often followed by "well I cant see any difference"!

There is a very active audiophile and videophile community here in the UK as well though, and Blu Rays are in every supermarket.

I ask, because on the Blu-ray.com forum, excitement for 4K UHBD is growing. Why? Because quality counts and people care.

Some people sure, whether that group of people is sufficienct to save physical media, I guess we will find out.

Of course, it is only current technology limiting connection speed and quality for streaming and downloads. There is no technical reason beyond bandwidth that 4K and 8K cant become the future standards for online video.

Well, I don't know about you, but I don't want the government anywhere near the media.

Well us Brits couldn't agree wth you more, which is why the BBC is run by an independent board of directors and the BBC trust. They are obliged to comply to a broad public service and education remit, but apart from that have considerable freedom. Essentially, it is part of the very fibre of the BBC to remain completely independent of government.

That is actually almost directly what people are opposing. The government is currently attacking that independence by using the upcoming review of the BBC charter and license fee to threaten the existence of the BBC.

 

[Admiral Bear]

Essentially, it is part of the very fibre of the BBC to remain completely independent of government

. . .while living in the ass crack of the Labour Party.

 

[MacLeod]

One also thing to consider is that whilst some people will have a SD TV, many of those will be WS SD TV's.

 

[BillJ]

...but many British consumers are downright thick and uneducated about anything other than when their next government welfare payment hits their bank account.

So anyone that doesn't buy the same format as you is just waiting for their next welfare check? I think Wow just about covers it.

Those damned welfare recipients must be the reason the format has failed all over the world! Because it has been rejected as the mainstream format everywhere.

Who knew British welfare recipients were such trend setters and wielded such power all over the globe?

 

[MacLeod]

For some DVD quality is good enough and if they are happy with that level of quality then so be it. As for not noticing the difference between SD and HD, the best way for people to see the difference is for a side by side comparisson.

 

[USS KG5]

Essentially, it is part of the very fibre of the BBC to remain completely independent of government

. . .while living in the ass crack of the Labour Party.

Lets not go down that road, its TNZ stuff.

 

[Admiral Bear]

Essentially, it is part of the very fibre of the BBC to remain completely independent of government

. . .while living in the ass crack of the Labour Party.

Lets not go down that road, its TNZ stuff.

You must admit that when the exit poll came through on election night last May and it forecast a Conservative majority, Dimbleby's face was an absolute picture.

 

[MacLeod]

. . .while living in the ass crack of the Labour Party.

Lets not go down that road, its TNZ stuff.

You must admit that when the exit poll came through on election night last May and it forecast a Conservative majority, Dimbleby's face was an absolute picture.

I think that prediction caught most people off guard, as polls seemed to indicate another hung Parliament

 

[USS KG5]

Lets not go down that road, its TNZ stuff.

You must admit that when the exit poll came through on election night last May and it forecast a Conservative majority, Dimbleby's face was an absolute picture.

I think that prediction caught most people off guard, as polls seemed to indicate another hung Parliament

This - I honestly don't subscribe to the idea the BBC is fundamentally left wing. It is home to many left wingers but it isn't the Grauniad!

Spoken as a long term Grauniad reader BTW!

 

[Squiggy]

Essentially, it is part of the very fibre of the BBC to remain completely independent of government

. . .while living in the ass crack of the Labour Party.

Lets not go down that road, its TNZ stuff.

Nah. We don't care.

 

[Relayer1]

I honestly don't subscribe to the idea the BBC is fundamentally left wing.

Which is fair enough, because it isn't.

 

[Mage]

Going back to bluray-sales....

I work in a store that sells dvds and blurays, amongst others. And in the last two years the market has collapsed. We sell hardly anything compared to three years ago, and bluray has NEVER been a big thing.

I can see where Johnny Rico was coming from, but if you're a film buff, and part of an online community of filmbuffs, yeah, it'll look like everyone and their uncle Bob is buying blurays all the time.
But the average customer? They can't even justify buying a dvd of a new releases, that's how expensive they are, let alone the pricier bluray.

 

[tomswift2002]

An audience at this point primarily of film buffs or videophiles, who are typically willing to pay top dollar for a film on physical media for a film that they "should" own.

I don't think anyone is arguing Blu is immediately going anywhere as a niche product, but it has little future as a mainstream one. In the UK for example according to this month's empire DVD still outsells Blu 7 to 1.

At this point in the game, here in Canada and the US, Blu-Ray is really the Laserdisc of the 2010's. And there are even more similarities to the Laserdisc situation of the 90's when you look at Blu-ray. In the 90's one thing that kept Laserdisc from becoming part of the mainstream consumer's TV set up was its inability to record from broadcast, whereas VHS was able to record from broadcast. Here in Canada and the US, due to the "red tape" created by the different studios and all the laws in place, most Blu-Ray manufacturers don't even bother to market Blu-Ray set top recorders as they would either be somewhere between legal and illegal (and most studios don't want people being able to make perfect HD copies of their programming for upload to the internet). And most consumers are fine with either buying or renting a DVR from their cable/satellite company which, even for studio's, settles their fears about how many copies are being made from broadcast (channels like HBO encode in their signal an anti-copying code that only allows for 1 copy of the broadcast --- the copy that is made on the DVR, and even if someone tries to copy by analog to DVD or VHS, the signal will interfere), or if people do transfer the programs from the DVR to a DVD recorder, studio's know that people are going from 1080i/720p to 480i.

But here in Canada I've noticed that, while in other Regions TV shows are released on Blu-Ray, the majority of the time the studios go for Standard-Definition DVD releases when they are released in physical (such as The Persuaders which received a Region B Blu-ray and Region 2 PAL DVD release, but here in Canada, while the Region 1 DVD was mastered from the 2011 High-Definition masters, there are no plans for a Region A Blu-Ray release; another show I watch is Canada's Worst Driver and to date there have been no DVD or Blu-Ray releases---it's all be released on digital only services such as iTunes).

 

[MacLeod]

But haven't parts of N. America been slower to adopt certain aspects of how a film is released on VHS/DVD i.e Pan and Scan vs OAR/WS

I was buying films on VHS in WS before I had a WS TV.

 

[Relayer1]

The country is full of people with HD TV's watching DVD's in SD. They're probably watching SD broadcasts too. Most people don't realise there's a difference - HD means 'big telly' to them.

In a world that cared and was informed, everyone that has a HD TV and purchases home media would be buying Blurays, but they're not.

Ignorance, poor eyesight, reluctance to move on from the all pervasive DVD format, whatever...DVD's make up over 85% of sales.

Beats me...

 

[danielcw]

In a world that cared and was informed, everyone that has a HD TV and purchases home media would be buying Blurays, but they're not.

It is not as clear cut as you think. Sometimes the DVD can be the better option.

 

[BillJ]

In a world that cared and was informed, everyone that has a HD TV and purchases home media would be buying Blurays, but they're not.

It is not as clear cut as you think. Sometimes the DVD can be the better option.

I've been buying HD-DVD and Blu-ray for as long as the formats have been out. I've yet to see a DVD being the better option.