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Is the Blu-ray format dying?

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Evlar

Banned
OuterWorldVoice said:
You can't have it both ways - it cant be bursting into the mainstream AND be online exclusive for deals.
I haven't paid more the $30 for months and I've been shopping B&M exclusively. Usually the price is in the $25 range. The last time I paid more than $30 was for Blade Runner, the 5-Disc ultra-mega singularity Book of Days edition.
 
the main problem is that 1) the majority of the us (and world) don't have an hdtv, making the entry cost significantly higher than the vhs>dvd transition. 2) there's a lot of people with hdtv's that don't watch hd sources. people keep using hdtv sales as a measurement of someone's desire to watch HD movies. the reason HDTV sales are up is because they only make HDTV's anymore. I bought my mom a tv for her birthday and she doesn't watch hd sources, even though she has access to them.

is blu-ray dying? i don't think so. will it ever reach dvd levels? not until it's the same price as dvd's it won't.
 
borghe said:
unless you are shopping b&m exclusively, there is NO movie that's $32. typical new pricing on amazon is $23-26 ($28 for Fox) on new releases and $18-22 for catalog releases ($22-24 for Fox).

that's another problem why blu-ray is struggling, most people don't shop online. they buy they're movies from the walmarts, targets, and best buys. and when the dvd is 15.99 and the blu-ray is 34.99 they're not thinking "I can get it cheaper online," they're thinking, I'll stick with DVD.
 

MechDX

Member
Onix said:
True, that is a possibility. But I'm not sure there is evidence for that (or is there?).


Business 101. WHy would a retailer give away free money? There is almost zero markup on disc players. The money is all made on the software for players, game consoles, etc...

That and I work for a retailer that did the 10 free BD movies with purchase of a BD player last Christmas. The register system accumulated how much software was given away with the players and put into a specially created account in the system. Sony themselves reimbursed stores for the amount given away with players.

So yeah its safe to say the Sony and the BDA are responsible for those sales.
 

commish

Jason Kidd murdered my dog in cold blood!
Evlar said:
I haven't paid more the $30 for months and I've been shopping B&M exclusively. Usually the price is in the $25 range. The last time I paid more than $30 was for Blade Runner, the 5-Disc ultra-mega singularity Book of Days edition.

25 is still too much for a movie, though. Granted I have about 30 or 40 br discs myself, but I'm an idiot. most other ppl aren't.
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
bdizzle said:
and when the dvd is 15.99 and the blu-ray is 34.99 they're not thinking "I can get it cheaper online," they're thinking, I'll stick with DVD.
this is never currently the case.

Best Buy Current Prices DVD/DVDSE/BRD
Iron Man $20/25/26
Incredible Hulk $20/26/26
Indy 4 $20/25/28
Sex a/t City $20/-/25
Speed Racer $20/-/28
Sleeping Beauty $20/-/27 (includes DVD of the movie)
The Happening $20/-/29 (worst I've found so far and still less than $10)

upcoming releases
Wall-E $20/35/27 (not a typo)
Dark Knight $20/25/30
Hellboy II $20/25/27
Hancock $20/25/28
Mummy 3 $20/25/30
 

MechDX

Member
borghe said:
this is never currently the case.

Best Buy Current Prices DVD/DVDSE/BRD
Iron Man $20/25/26
Incredible Hulk $20/26/26
Indy 4 $20/25/28
Sex a/t City $20/-/25
Speed Racer $20/-/28
Sleeping Beauty $20/-/27 (includes DVD of the movie)
The Happening $20/-/29 (worst I've found so far and still less than $10)


Go compare Fox titles.:D

Seriously, fuck Fox and the ridiculously high MSRP!
 

hc2

Junior Member
Fewer new TV's sold mean fewer high def players sold:

How quickly fortunes change. Analysts are adjusting their previous estimates for the large-screen LCD panel market and Blu-ray players downward as the economy continues to sour.

Earlier this year, LCD panel makers could not meet demand and were running at 100 percent capacity. Now, Taiwanese tech publication DigiTimes reports that production could be cut by as much as 20 to 30 percent in the fourth quarter of this year and into the first quarter of next year.

Meanwhile, digital technology research firm Parks Associates is lowering its Blu-ray DVD sales projections by 25 percent for the next few quarters. However, Kurt Scherf, principal analyst with Parks, said the firm is sticking by its long-term projections that annual Blu-ray player unit sales would jump to about 40 million by 2012.

Van Baker, a research analyst with Gartner, said he's not surprised at the decline. "The cutback on LCD is no surprise, because an awful lot of that goes into TVs, and TVs are going to get slammed this Christmas," he said.
....

The problem is the cost of Blu-ray movies. Blu-ray requires whole new production lines, whereas HD DVD, the high-def format that Blu-ray vanquished, could be made on old DVD production lines. The studios typically pass the extra cost of Blu-ray production onto consumers, with the result that Blu-ray movies cost much more than regular DVDs.
....


McCarron also backed up Apple CEO Steve Jobs's previous comment that Blu-ray for computers is "a bag of hurt." A Blu-ray drive in a laptop is $150, whereas a standard DVD is $20, and the license agreement between PC OEMs and Sony, the lead developer of Blu-ray, only adds to the pain.

"Prices are so excessive and licensing burdens are so onerous," McCarron said. "What it comes down to is the motion picture industry is paranoid about piracy to a degree they are creating a barrier of entry so high they are creating a disincentive for PC guys."

http://www.internetnews.com/hardware/article.php/3779991
 

borghe

Loves the Greater Toronto Area
MechDX said:
Go compare Fox titles.:D

Seriously, fuck Fox and the ridiculously high MSRP!
I just picked movies... really didn't try to keep fox out. certainly didn't help that fox had NO NUMBER ONE BOX OFFICE MOVIES this summer. :p
 

joelseph

Member
bdizzle said:
the main problem is that 1) the majority of the us (and world) don't have an hdtv, making the entry cost significantly higher than the vhs>dvd transition. 2) there's a lot of people with hdtv's that don't watch hd sources. people keep using hdtv sales as a measurement of someone's desire to watch HD movies. the reason HDTV sales are up is because they only make HDTV's anymore. I bought my mom a tv for her birthday and she doesn't watch hd sources, even though she has access to them.

is blu-ray dying? i don't think so. will it ever reach dvd levels? not until it's the same price as dvd's it won't.

1. I don't know a single person that does not have a HDTV. This is including every single friend, associate, family member, mom, sister, dad, grandpa, second cousin, neighbor. Literally everyone I know has an HDTV.

2. Has nothing to do with blu-ray dying. Not anyones fault your mom can't figure out there is a HGTV in HD. The problem is, and I see it as a plus, is that upscaling looks good enough for the average consumer.
 

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
pxleyes said:
The jump in format from VHS to DVD had less to do with resolution (though the emphasis on widescreen releases and 480p video help) but more with the other features DVD offered. The disc format in general is what made it so popular, not the resolution. That is why Blu-Ray is seen in such a negative light. To most "average" consumers an increase in resolution on videos like that doesn't do a lot to force their hand on purchasing a player, especially with all the content available through on demand.
It took 6 years for DVD to finally match and exceed VHS sales and even then it wasn't like VHS immediately stopped selling. Neither the resolution superiority nor the other feature advantages DVD had over VHS were enough to immediately draw the majority of the market away from VHS. It was a matter of achieving critical mass in terms of features PLUS a/v superiority PLUS robust catalog of titles PLUS mainstream pricing PLUS widespread availability.

Features alone did not drive DVD to success over VHS.

IsntChrisL said:
They haven't done a good job of explaining why people should upgrade to Blu-Ray.
There's no need to. Natural progression will take care of it.
 

MechDX

Member
KNow what the biggest problem Bluray has?

They need to include HD cables with the damn players! I have never understood why they include composite cables with these players. People who buy these to go with their shiny new HDTV's go home and kook it up with these cables and say it looks like DVD.

Put some damn component cables with these dammit!
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
good grief - 9 pages? Really? 4% is pretty impressive considering it has had less than year away from the 'war', and no holiday season on its own. Feels roughly on par with dvd uptake or maybe even faster. What percentage of the dvd market does digital download have? Why moan that bluray is expenwive compared to dvd? Both are in different places in their product lifecycles. I expect many were pissed at the expense of dvd compared to vhs back in the day too.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
People who think it won't take off are delusional, IMO.

You say Blu-Ray is competing against DVD, but that's not really true. The publishing houses are putting out both, and it's in their interest that Blu-Ray overtakes DVD. If consumers don't decide on it, the publishers will artificially move demand over to Blu-Ray, forcing consumers to adopt, eventually. Believe me, they want the potential back catalogue sales.

Blu-Ray is still in the stages of early adoption. The casuals haven't started buying yet, so the publishers are trying to minimize losses by overpricing their titles. Once the potential for greater sales is there, they'll bring it down to match DVD.
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
MechDX said:
Business 101. WHy would a retailer give away free money? There is almost zero markup on disc players. The money is all made on the software for players, game consoles, etc...

Well, for one, we don't really know their costs do we? Its quite likely they weren't giving away free money. Though if you can confirm they would be losing money, that would make it far more likely the BDA was helping out.

As to why they would consider selling something for a nominal margin? Many retailers made it VERY clear they wanted one or the other to fail ... for several reasons that have been discussed here. It is not unheard of to take small margins on the short-term in order to (hopefully) set up the conditions to either make higher margins later ... or sell more units at a given margin.

That and I work for a retailer that did the 10 free BD movies with purchase of a BD player last Christmas. The register system accumulated how much software was given away with the players and put into a specially created account in the system. Sony themselves reimbursed stores for the amount given away with players.

That is a different scenario. The BDA hosted several sales like that, and actively advertised it as such.
 

dallow_bg

nods at old men
This week at Frys:

24162478


Last week:

20+ @ $12.99
25+ @ $13.99
9+ @ $14.99
10+ @ $16.99
 

avaya

Member
Building on kaching's post.

The mirgration to HDTV + Blu-ray is seemless. The consumer will be ushered there as pricing comes down. These companies make the TVs. These companies created Blu-ray. The movie studio's like the added value in Blu-ray and some of them have a better royalty pool from it.

In a couple of years your $50 DVD player will be your $60 Blu-ray player.

You will not be able to buy an SD TV, everything will be HD. OLED has the potential, if the CEs are creative with the application, to explode the TV market again like flat screens did, since you can flex the screen and wrap it around things. Wallpaper TV.

Time-Warner at CES 2008 said they expect a $1bn disc market for this year from Blu-ray. They are well on their way to achieving that.

DD will usurp physical for rental very quickly. However it has zero chance of ever doing that for ownership until you can take your DD movie to a friends house and watch it or you can lend and borrow them. This requires non-proprietary intra-industry consortiums to be developed for DD. This has no chance of happening at the moment because of the disparity in the goals sought by the telcos vs. content providers vs. middlemen CEs vs. traditional CEs vs. software companies.

One of the major reasons VHS beat Beta was because of the network effects of people sharing films. There are various academic studies on this. DD is NOT convenient for this reason. In the mass market the social(network) value of the format is important.
 

maharg

idspispopd
TheExodu5 said:
You say Blu-Ray is competing against DVD, but that's not really true. The publishing houses are putting out both, and it's in their interest that Blu-Ray overtakes DVD. If consumers don't decide on it, the publishers will artificially move demand over to Blu-Ray, forcing consumers to adopt, eventually. Believe me, they want the potential back catalogue sales.

Eh, there were several very real quotes during the 'format war' from people at the top of the companies that made it clear that the reason they were jumping on a new format was essentially to be able to raise the price point of new movie releases. They were disappointed by the value-orientation of the mass consumer market and the thin margins that was producing.

It's fairly realistic to assume that in the long run, the industry is looking to have both formats alive and well, with BD continuing to be marked up by a substantial margin to capture high end consumers' dollars, while DVD continues to be razor thin margin on a wider market. This gives them the best of both worlds.

I don't think you'll see BD being pushed as a replacement for DVD until they're ready to introduce another premium format. What they've got going right now is just too lucrative.
 

MechDX

Member
Onix said:
Well, for one, we don't really know their costs do we? Its quite likely they weren't giving away free money. Though if you can confirm they would be losing money, that would make it far more likely the BDA was helping out.

As to why they would consider selling something for a nominal margin? Many retailers made it VERY clear they wanted one or the other to fail ... for several reasons that have been discussed here. It is not unheard of to take small margins on the short-term in order to (hopefully) set up the conditions to either make higher margins later ... or sell more units at a given margin.



That is a different scenario. The BDA hosted several sales like that, and actively advertised it as such.


If they gave away a movie they gave away profit. Ever notice that when these BOGO's happen it's usually movies from one or two particular studios? Wouldnt logic say if they were using them as a loss leader they would just include all movies? More than likely getting kickback on costs from the particular studio.

The promotion I mentioned verifies my earlier statement: the BDA did supplement those sales. If you cant see it you are still in a delusional state from the format war.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
MechDX said:
KNow what the biggest problem Bluray has?

They need to include HD cables with the damn players! I have never understood why they include composite cables with these players. People who buy these to go with their shiny new HDTV's go home and kook it up with these cables and say it looks like DVD.

Put some damn component cables with these dammit!
While I agree with you to a point, there's got to be a point when people don't require the company to come over to your house and plug it in for you.
 

MechDX

Member
Angry Grimace said:
While I agree with you to a point, there's got to be a point when people don't require the company to come over to your house and plug it in for you.


The general consumer is basically stupid when it comes to these types of things. They want to buy the item, take it home, plug it in and use it. Not fiddle with 5-6 different types of connections. Notice how well HTIB sell compared to stand alone A/V receivers?

If you're pushing something that makes your video "pop" when you watch shouldnt you give at least the basic connection to make it happen? I understand DVD doing it but Bluray? C'mon!
 
I think the vast majority of consumers are not at all interested in Blu ray. They don't know what it is, and if they do they "don't see a big a difference". If it were simply up to the consumers to decide, Blu ray would stay dead I think.

BUT there has to be a new standard after having dvd for 10-15 years, and there are some big companies pushing Blu ray as that new standard. And because there are no competing formats anymore, Blu ray has become the "winner by default". Sony and the other Blu ray partners will keep their format in the picture, will gradually make it cheaper, will put pressure on discontinuing dvd sales, advertise their format regularly, ... It may take a while, but in the end, Blu ray will become the new dvd.

The only thing that can change the above scenario is if there were suddenly to come a new competitive format on the market that not only is backed by a group of big companies, but also by the public. But I just don't see that happening.
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
Oni Jazar said:
DD people take note: There is no major digital distribution service that lets you purchase HD movies.

With a great DD service there will be no need to purchase movies. Eventually we'll get to an "on demand" level of service. No reason to spend $20 to virtually purchase something when you can watch it whenever you want for a couple dollars.

There are obvious exceptions like parents who use disney movies as babysitters, of course.


MechDX said:
KNow what the biggest problem Bluray has?

They need to include HD cables with the damn players! I have never understood why they include composite cables with these players. People who buy these to go with their shiny new HDTV's go home and kook it up with these cables and say it looks like DVD.

Put some damn component cables with these dammit!

A. Not a problem for Bluray. Nobody is going out, buying a bluray player, taking it home, then saying to hell with Bluray because the cable they need/want isn't in the box. If you're saying that people are veiwing Bluray over composite and thinking it isn't any better than DVD that could be a problem, but it is one of consumer education.

B. The reason they don't put HD cables in the box is because there is no universal HD cable that will work for everybody. Whichever cable they could pick they would be increasing the cost of production while forcing a significant portion of the market to pay for a cable they neither need, nor want. So you put a component cable in there, what does that do for the people who need an HDMI or DVI cable?
 

MechDX

Member
Woo-Fu said:
A. Not a problem for Bluray. Nobody is going out, buying a bluray player, taking it home, then saying to hell with Bluray because the cable they need/want isn't in the box. If you're saying that people are veiwing Bluray over composite and thinking it isn't any better than DVD that could be a problem, but it is one of consumer education.

B. The reason they don't put HD cables in the box is because there is no universal HD cable that will work for everybody. Whichever cable they could pick they would be increasing the cost of production while forcing a significant portion of the market to pay for a cable they neither need, nor want. So you put a component cable in there, what does that do for the people who need an HDMI or DVI cable?


Is there an HDTV that has HDMI but no component connections? Its a basic connection for ALL HDTV's so just include the damn thing.
 

Stinkles

Clothed, sober, cooperative
MechDX said:
Is there an HDTV that has HDMI but no component connections? Its a basic connection for ALL HDTV's so just include the damn thing.


Movie companies are still trying to decide if they can fuck people with component connections.
 
MechDX said:
KNow what the biggest problem Bluray has?

They need to include HD cables with the damn players! I have never understood why they include composite cables with these players. People who buy these to go with their shiny new HDTV's go home and kook it up with these cables and say it looks like DVD.

Put some damn component cables with these dammit!

Printer manufacturers never included parallel cables with their printers. Fuck, most still don't even include a damn USB cable. Printers are obviously doomed.
 
joelseph said:
1. I don't know a single person that does not have a HDTV. This is including every single friend, associate, family member, mom, sister, dad, grandpa, second cousin, neighbor. Literally everyone I know has an HDTV.

2. Has nothing to do with blu-ray dying. Not anyones fault your mom can't figure out there is a HGTV in HD. The problem is, and I see it as a plus, is that upscaling looks good enough for the average consumer.

The statement I made wasn't an assumption or anecdotal evidence it's a fact. The majority of US households (including other developed countries) do not have an HDTV.

2 has nothing to do with BD dying, but it has to do with the majority of the HDTV user base not flocking to blu-ray. Most people aren't buying HDTV's necessarily for HD. They're buying new TV's because they need a new TV. It's difficult to even find an SDTV. My mom knows there's channels in HD, she just really doesn't care. My ex-gf's mom bought a 50" DLP a while back and doens't watch HD sources because she really doesn't care about HD. My current gf is buying a 56" set in the next week or so and she doesn't care about HD either, even though I show her the diff every time she's at my place. And that's the reality the Pro HD guys don't want to accept. The sad reality is that most people really don't give a fuck.
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
MechDX said:
If they gave away a movie they gave away profit.

Yes, but the question is, how high is the margin to begin with? Some would rather take a smaller margin in the short-term, in the hopes it causes the format to increase in userbase. Taking a smaller does not equal losing money.

Ever notice that when these BOGO's happen it's usually movies from one or two particular studios? Wouldnt logic say if they were using them as a loss leader they would just include all movies? More than likely getting kickback on costs from the particular studio.

The promotion I mentioned verifies my earlier statement: the BDA did supplement those sales. If you cant see it you are still in a delusional state from the format war.

Those two statements contradict each other, don't they? A kickback from a studio != a kickback from the BDA.

Regardless, exactly what happens when a store puts a game on sale? How about when Toys R Us was selling 2 games for 1? Should we assume they are getting kickbacks from those in every case?
 

pel1300

Member
NutJobJim said:
I hope the format dies out.
I own a HDTV and DVDs upscaleD are fine enough for me for now. Blu Rays obviously looks better but as others have said it's not THAT noticeable and I'm certainly not gonna re-buy all my old DVDs again. I'll re-buy my old movies if/when we get 3D movies at home. That's the next big jump for me, full 3D movies, not HD.

wtf are you talking about?

The difference is huge. Even on a 32 inch HDTV you can see the difference right away.
 
I own a BluRay player and just under 20 movies, but I have to admit I don't have much confidence in the format. I certainly don't expect it to have the lifespan of formats like CDs and DVDs.
 

pel1300

Member
I think most of the people here saying "I see little difference between upscaled dvd and bluray" are full of it. The difference is so obvious, and you don't need to compare side by side or even watch one right after the other. DVD has a distinct washed out blurry look to it compared to bluray.

Upscaling is such bs. Before the PS3 got it's dvd upscaling firmware update, my dvd's looked just as good at 480p as they do "upscaled" to 1080p.

I have a 46 inch samsung lcd btw(waits for some moron to say "Theres your problem. You need plasma")
 

SSM25

Member
I can't recall when dvd was introduced to the market, so please somebody help. Did DVD became a huge sales success in less than 2 years on the market?, It wouldn't surprise me since it had no competition...........
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
SSM25 said:
I can't recall when dvd was introduced to the market, so please somebody help. Did DVD became a huge sales success in less than 2 years on the market?, It wouldn't surprise me since it had no competition...........

I didn't.
 

Saiyar

Unconfirmed Member
SSM25 said:
I can't recall when dvd was introduced to the market, so please somebody help. Did DVD became a huge sales success in less than 2 years on the market?, It wouldn't surprise me since it had no competition...........

It took 6 years for DVD to replace VHS as the dominant format.
 

dallow_bg

nods at old men
Saiyar said:
It took 6 years for DVD to replace VHS as the dominant format.
Exactly, I think all these tech blogs expected BD to just take over instantly.
And a lot average joes did as well if this thread is anything to go by.

This is going to be a product that will be around for a long time, and adoption rates will continue to grow.

Hell, my mom is getting one this holiday.
 

Halvie

Banned
Movies have to get cheaper for it to really take off imo. Was at Best Buy today and was thinking of picking up SunShine, but FUCK paying $33 for one movie.
 

Kintaro

Worships the porcelain goddess
Halvie said:
how bout I want to be able to just walk into a store and buy a movie without being raped. Plus if you want Blu Ray to actually take off you can't seriously expect its entire user base to buy all their movies online.

Worked for DVD until the prices came down.
 

pel1300

Member
It boggles my mind that all these retards act as if blurays aren't going to lower in price like pretty much all technology...
 
Dying may be overrreacted, but otherwise it seems to be correct to think that Blu-Ray is not expanding outside of its niche (but will grow to as far as its niche reaches) and there are no practical factors that would make it do so.

And people don't buy HDTV's for their resolutions, they just buy TV's to watch stuff on and almost all of them happen to be HD or HD-ready.

There is simply no relationship or stearing factor between HDTV sales and technology that depends on it. So I guess BR is kinda dead in the water, until dvd is fased out and people are left with no other choice. But I highly doubt there will still be a relevant movie-retail bussiness by that time.
 

pel1300

Member
You guys know what really bugs me?

In bars, restaurants, gyms, or any public place where they have a bunch of plasma or lcd screens.....they never show actual HD content.

All you need a is a freakin bunny ear antenna to get free hd channels.

It boggles my mind that these places spend the $$$ to get a bunch of HDTVs displayed, and show SD content with it. SD content looks worse on an hdtv than it does on a standard tube tv.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Woo-Fu said:
With a great DD service there will be no need to purchase movies. Eventually we'll get to an "on demand" level of service. No reason to spend $20 to virtually purchase something when you can watch it whenever you want for a couple dollars.

There are obvious exceptions like parents who use disney movies as babysitters, of course.

You miss the part where studios don't want just VOD - they want retail sales too. As a consumer you might prefer to pay a couple of dollars for a rental if you'll only watch now and then, but the studios would much prefer you to pay $20+ for that.

So I think rental and ownership is here to stay for some time
 
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