Blu-ray prices go up following HD DVD's death

[NICEBUD]

Here we go blue poo lamers this is what you wanted and youve got it.
Hope youve got very deep pockets.No compertition means all your greedy retailers will helping consumers alright.


http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/Blu-ray-prices-go-up-following-HD-DVDs-death.html






got this from http://www.cdfreaks.com

[ejai]

I would not buy a Blu-ray player until prices fall considerably. Most people I know are content with DVD video, and so am I. The public didn't choose Blu-ray the movie industry did.

[slickster]

I agree with you ejai, I have too many movies to change over right now and the blu-ray players are way too expensive. Not that I can't afford it but I probably wouldn't buy one until they drop to the $200.00 and under price range.

[somebodeez]

Most people I know are content with DVD video, and so am I. The public didn't choose Blu-ray the movie industry did.

That about states my opinion in a nutshell.

[addu]

BLUERAY FATE WILL BE SIMILAR TO DVD PLAYER ONCE THE CHINESE ENTER THE MARKET. BUT THE DIFFERENCE IS HIGH DEFINITION SO PEOPLE SOMEHOW HAD TO GO FOR IT.

[zoobie]

what wasn't mentioned at the Academy Awards is that the movie industry is in trouble, too...

[CubDukat]

Most people I know are content with DVD video, and so am I. The public didn't choose Blu-ray the movie industry did.

That about states my opinion in a nutshell.

Same here, but be that as it may, it's here, and the industry is going to find some way or another to steer us into buying their buggy, grossly overpriced and anally-restrictive product.

I'm thinking that even if the industry as a whole can't afford the ill will any strong-arming on their part would whip up, they're probably going to do it anyways because all they care about is making money hand over fist--regardless of whether their methods of doing so will alienate their customer base. After all, if they were to yank SD-DVD out from under us, where else would we go? And yes, they would do that.

Personally, I intend to stay away from stand-alone players until their prices drop to what HD-DVD players were going for before they got killed. I'm going to stick a drive in my PC instead.

[stiltman]

BLUERAY FATE WILL BE SIMILAR TO DVD PLAYER ONCE THE CHINESE ENTER THE MARKET. BUT THE DIFFERENCE IS HIGH DEFINITION SO PEOPLE SOMEHOW HAD TO GO FOR IT.

Sony's President said they will not License Bluray to the Chinese.
They are worried about pirating

[somebodeez]

what wasn't mentioned at the Academy Awards is that the movie industry is in trouble, too...

How so?

In this article - it looks like they're doing well...

What piracy crisis? MPAA touts record box office for 2007

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080305-for-movie-biz-tales-of-piracy-and-record-profits.html

[zoobie]

ops...musta been the Grammys...my bad...ha ha

[NICEBUD]

So that retailers can charge more.They are rolling out that old excuse " the cost of blue poo laser diodes has gone up so we have to charge you more because there isnt many about ".


Not going to anything blue poo until its at least £40 or £50.Why would anybody with any common sense buy a blue poo player for £300+ with 1080p.When you can buy DVD player for £30 that upscales to 1080p plus some of them play other codec`s ie xvid etc.

Lets hope that blue poo dies very soon.So we dont have to go though all the bullshit from meesers foney/sony on why they have to put up the price.

[cal_tony]

I said as much a month ago. It seemed obvious then that prices would rise.
The next thing that people might notice is that the quality of commercial Dvds might start might start to have less resolution. From the comments on this site it seems that most like Dvds and are not intending to switch. The final prod from the Movie execs just might be to decrease the quality of blockbuster movies. It could happen. I'm not saying it will, but with all the sneaky stuff going on with Hi def so far, why not that as well?

Tony

[orsetto]

Having once owned a video store, I can certainly confirm the movie studios are capable of doing ANYTHING to goose their profits, no matter how wrong-headed or destructive it might be. They have made some real dumb-ass moves in the past regarding home video, mostly limited to how they distribute thru stores plus other stupidities too convoluted to mention. (Anyone remember the brief period when they pulled a 180 and instead of fighting tape rentals enforced a draconian retail code that allowed ONLY rentals: sales to consumers were absolutely forbidden?! This lasted about six months until the original Star Wars VHS fiasco: people were renting and then refusing to return the tapes to stores, forfeiting their deposits, but stores were being charged a $300-400 penalty for each Star Wars tape they "lost" this way! Oh, the horror! Shortly afterward Spielberg suffered his first divorce which put E.T. on the table helping to launch the "sellthrough" market- one year after he swore he'd NEVER release E.T. to home video even on his deathbed. His ex-wife's $300 million settlement changed that tune right quick.)

Normally I wouldn't put it past the studios to debase or discontinue standard DVD to push Blu-Ray. But there are factors in play here that lead me to believe they'd be afraid of tampering with SD-DVD. First, other than Sony there is currently no profit incentive for studios in Blu-Ray: the discs are currently much more expensive to mfr, the return rate is ugly because of the various versions of player compatibility, and there are few BD-capable pressing plants. BD factory capacity will be a chicken-and-egg situation for awhile longer. Second, despite all of Sony's DRM and CP pandering, the plain fact is the studios actually don't WANT a high def packaged format to succeed right now. They are all at loggerheads with a 50/50 lockstep attitude: they see the skyrocketing sales of HDTV sets and want a piece of that action, but they're terrified of thousands of high-def discs floating around just waiting for some Polish or Chinese 12-year-old to crack them. Plus there are many popular segments the studios do not particularly want to bother prepping for HD, such as TV series sets.

In the beginning, had they lined up behind the ready-to-market HD-DVD and made a big push, they could have rewritten history and forced a shift. But after a couple years of format wars and Blu-Ray stumbles, they see now that the moment has passed. Consumers have gotten used to Hi Def by wire via cable/satellite, this is something the studios really want to encourage because their holy grail is bumping the numbers of VOD sales. Packaged media is beginning a slow decline and nobody became aware of this faster than studio accountants: there is still a lot of life left in standard DVD but its not a particularly good time to be promoting a new disc format. Given a choice between throwing their efforts to Blu-Ray (and Sony-Columbia, a rival don't forget) or making a supreme push for cable-satellite HD, they will bet their chips on the rental boxes.

I could be wrong, they've been mega-stupid before, but right at this moment they SO cannot afford to make expensive mistakes: studio product just costs so damned much more to create now than it did three years ago. They will leave cash-cow standard DVD alone, nurse BluRay as a niche HD product, and throw their weight into emerging cable-satellite-PC distribution modes. There will be many MANY more Blu-Ray rollercoaster stories in the trade press before the dust settles. The fact that BD sales are down or up during any given week for the next year or so is no indication of anything until a solid trend emerges.

[MOVIEGEEK]

I knew this would happen,without competition there is no incentive to lower prices.
I'm going to wait a couple of years before I buy a BD player(if at all),player and media prices better fall or Blu Ray is doomed.

[louthewiz]

DIE BLURAY DIE

[victoriabears]

I mainly watch old stuff,not the overproduced crap of today, so dvd's upconverting with my oppo dvd player and my Sony (yeh I know,SONY!), hi def TV does me very well thank you.

[SatStorm]

I'm very concerned regarding the picture quality of the current DVD releases.
I'm sure that they gonna low the bitrate, so to make the BD releases look better.

Keep in mind, that they doing it - in Europe at least - with the DVB satellite channels right now! I know some 720x576 @ 8800kb/s DVB channels, recently switch to 544x576 @ 3600kb/s. Surprisingly, the same channels announced new HD versions of them "sometime in the close future".

If the criteria are the so called average HD Ready 42" screens we have, then BD needs help to show considerably better any good upscaled DVD.
The easy way, is the obvious: Lower the quality of the DVD releases.

[adam]

There is nothing surprising about this price increase and I personally don't think it has anything to do with greed. In the months leading up to Christmas '07 there was a highly publicized price slash on blu-ray discs. It was an attempt to put HD-DVD out of its misery and it worked. The prices were lowered due to extreme competition, and now they have stabilized again. But this isn't a bad thing. That lower price was really artificial. It was a strategic move rather than a price that the market could bear. Hell, the problem was that there was no market to bear anything. Now we don't have that artificial factor and we can move on to what REALLY lowers prices, and that's greater demand. Now that we've got one format you can absolutely expect the blu-ray market to significantly increase over the next few years and that will drive down the cost.

There's probably some other factors affecting price right now too. For instance, we've gotten alot of grim news about the economy in just the last month, and oil prices are at record highs this month which affects retail prices for everything due to increased shipping costs. The article notes the price increase for blu-ray but I wonder if there wasn't a similar price increase for regular DVDs too?

[jagabo]

Greater demand raises prices. You mean efficiency of scale leads to lower prices.

[budz]

prices on blu-ray players won't go down until sometime after 2009. Sony has the consumer by blu-balls.

[Cyrax9]

BWAHAHA, this is exactly what Sony deserves for pushing that buggy Betamax disc wannabe of a format. As much as it annoyed me, I pretty much figured that LaserDisc would be CED Selectivision -- ehh.. I mean Blu-Ray would beat HD DVD.

I'm curious to know who actually wants a Blu-Ray player when it looks like it was developed by the same team behind Windows Vista and has just about as many problems, and is pretty much useless without the HDMI capabilities. (Read: Without an HDTV.) Why should the industry screw with DVD -- they have Blu-Ray looking like garbage already, if you don't use an HDMI cable, the player won't even decode full HD signal to downscale -- the quality is slightly better than DVD and those of you who press your nose to the screen might notice a minor improvement, but nothing that you'd pay for. Those of us with HDTVs seem to have no problems with our DVD Players.

As far as rental boxes go, I hate them more than anything -- my parents haven't had any problems with VOD, but every one of my friends has had their cable company's VOD server crash at least once or not start the movie that they've paid for correctly. What's more, VOD for channels like HBO are a joke; why should I pay for the service to pay for the channel package to pay for the subscription to the on-demand portion of the package; that's paying three times! I'd rather go and buy the DVD of shows like The Sopranos and Curb your Enthusiasm than pay for VOD. Besides, I can watch the DVD I've purchased as many times as I want without some overzealous director or studio altering future VOD offerings. (Yes George Lucas and Walt Disney Co., I'm glaring at you.) I was really considering an AppleTV too, but once they began offering rental-only movies, I decided against the purchase for now -- if I had a choice when picking titles, I'd buy most of them and rent a few that I might never watch again. Also, don't forget that Cable Companies love to butcher movies and transmit them in pan & scan foolscreen rather than their OAR which to me is an insult to the film and an insult to me that makes me really want to not spend my money on VOD.

It's funny, I would've bought an HD DVD within the next month or so because I had been putting money aside for Star Trek: The Original Series-Remastered on Twin-Format HD DVD, in fact if every film had been released on Twin-Format HD DVD, I'd have bought a player at launch. HD DVD was, as someone I knew put it, "evolutionary" -- it evolved to continue support of Toshiba's DVD Format, and let's face it, that's what we wanted. Blu-Ray on the other hand was, again to quote this person, "revolutionary," which is totally true -- it's meant to take advantage of HDTV only, nevermind the fact that many consumers either A) Don't have an HDTV or B) Don't have multiple HDTVs, and C) don't want a new format, Blu-Ray is also revolutionary in the sense that it's revolting -- any format released with a profile that might as well be in its "beta build" should be offered for FREE to those of us who are basically being asked to beta test it. This might sound a little extreme, but think about it -- do you pay for beta build software? Probably not; in fact, many companies would PAY YOU to beta test their hardware or software, and Blu-Ray is certainly a "beta" format with its unfinalized profile.

My gripe with Blu-Ray isn't even as trivial as the "big brother" encryption, the overpricing, or the fact that Sony is so arrogant about the format's success -- those are all factors, but the real killer for me is the lack of anything resembling a "Twin-Format Blu-Ray Disc" option. Sony should've thought of this for profile 2.0 while they were busy gearing up for an empty victory. In fact, the only way Blu-Ray may truly survive is if Sony finds a way to make a deal with Toshiba for some backwards compatibility like they should've done in the first place.

Hollywood has done stupid things in the past, but the MPAA doesn't want to make their image as mangled as the RIAA's in the public's eye. Sure they could pull standard DVD, but angry consumer just wouldn't rent VOD, much they way they boycotted CD sales for a month out of protest for $20 dollar discs. The MPAA could start supporting Blu-Ray only, but people would just stop buying movies, and this would only increase the piracy that Sony claims it's trying to prevent. If Sony really wanted to prevent piracy, they'd REMOVE all of the encryption schemes that only seem to encourage hacking. Also, there are plenty of other ways to pirate a film, we don't need Blu-Ray to do that, just ask the people on the NYC Subway selling cammed copies of new released. Note that I'm not condoning this behavior, nor am I advocating it since there wouldn't be a need to even think up scrambling systems if people didn't pirate movies.

Lucas has flip-flopped more times than I can count, and after what he did with the Star Wars DVDs I consider his credibility to be near nil these days. Spielberg at least seems to be willing to work with his followers rather than try to anger them into a frenzy. At least he didn't leave Universal when they were backing HD DVD -- he let them release his films in both formats, which is more than Lucas did. Spielberg has matured since the comments about E.T., but I can't say the same about Lucas and his perpetually changing views on Star Wars.

I personally hope Blu-Ray dies a quick death -- the PS3 is the only thing that even makes this format worth considering to me, and I personally won't buy a PS3 until Sony lowers their obscene price tag on the thing and starts pumping out decent games that aren't on the Wii or XBox360. What's more, Blu-Ray seems to be more of a flaw than a feature (unless we're using the word in the context Microsoft uses it in to describe the infamous Blue Screen,) for the PS3, and Sony knows this -- that's why they're reissuing the PS2 with Wii-style remote controllers in the near future -- they know that they're going to lose the console war and may have won a format war only to realize that they're now the ruler of coaster central because nobody will buy their discs.

Not releasing Blu-Ray in China is an idiotic business move as well, what's to stop a Chinese citizen from smuggling in an American or British Blu-Ray disc and dissecting that. What's more, if the discs are going to be "MADE IN CHINA," then the Chinese will still have a way for them to be pirated. Short of an embargo, China will be able to pirate Blu-Ray, Sony may only further hurt themselves in the long run.

You know, I half-expect to see Toshiba announce that they're back in the HD DVD business when Sony's profits take a total nose-dive. While it's highly unlikely, it'd be another way for Toshiba to try and take the market, especially if all HD DVDs had to play in standard DVD players -- a "forced Twin-Format" disc might even be an intelligent business move. A great example of something similar would be Sony pretty much dropping SACD for awhile and bringing it back recently.

Let's be honest, we don't want to "buy data" -- hard drives crash, viruses infect computers, and there's no way to return a defective download. Players and services are often incompatible as well and some older people don't even own a computer. We want an HD Disc format, but we want it to work with what we have now. ejai hit the nail on the head when he said that the public didn't choose Blu-Ray, and that Hollywood did -- and even then, many of us who work with or close to Hollyweird hate Blu-Ray.

Here's what I hope happens: Blu-Ray crashes and burns having exhausted all of its support driving HD DVD out of the market. Toshiba brings back HD DVD, not as "HD DVD," but as an extention of the DVD format making all DVDs Twin-Format HD DVDs, and reissuing older titles -- thus a "forced upgrade" isn't forced, and most people don't notice the difference -- the packaging would be the same (no red cases,) and the HD DVD logo might be changed to avoid confusion. This is one solution.

The other solution is to wait another ten years until enough people are sick of standard definition and there's enough content in HD to release on a revolutionary optical disc format at a reasonable price, and to push something like HVD as both a data and a movie storage format. The discs could be used to back up today's large hard drives much more efficiently than Blu-Ray, and rather than TV Show Box Sets, we'd buy single-show discs. Movies could have extras like the film's work print in its entirety as well as the types of extras we have today, or films like the Star Wars Trilogy could be released on one disc.

There's a reason S-VHS never caught on in the consumer market -- it was too expensive for most people whose TV sets didn't have S-VHS capabilities, and there were no real S-VHS movies -- it became "Laserdisc Back-up" and a semi-professional format for small studios. Blu-Ray is headed to that same realm, those of us who want HD will have to wait until a better format appears that ALL consumers want.

If an optical disc format is to succeed, every studio needs to agree on it from day one, consumers have to want it, and it can't alienate them. People went from LPs to 8-track or cassette, some waited and went to CD or went from 8-track and cassette tape to CD. Then Vinyl made a comeback as a niche format and it's still around today. CDs are over 20 years old, and only now has SACD really started to become a viable option for people, and most of us aren't looking for new stereos. We buy CDs and rip them to low-quality files that we dump on MP3 players (usually our iPod,) and are content. If a breakthrough like the CD allowed for better sound quality, that everyone could hear, many of us would buy it. Consumers want a replacement for the CD, but they don't want anything that the RIAA is going to butcher before release so they take CDs as they are over offerings like SACD.

Blu-Ray is too little too late for data, and too soon for HD Video. If Blu-Ray crashes and burns, the first thing Hollywood should do is sit Toshiba and Sony down and force them to agree on a format to "replace" HD DVD and Blu-Ray, and to extend the life of DVD. I want HD content, but I refuse to buy Blu-Ray until I can be sure that it's not a fad -- DVD was different, we needed DVD for data and for movies, we don't need Blu-Ray for data.

In any case, I'll wait until I see how many people are mislead into buying an HDTV in 2009. If enough of the public is duped by salesmen on the Best Buy floors than Blu-Ray might have a chance, but if people actually pay attention to all of those PSAs being run, than Blu-Ray will be the latest in the list of Sony's great formats that nobody wants, right under those stupid little UMDs that stores had to practically give away -- in some cases "10 for $1.00" which nobody would refuse. (As far as the DTV mandate goes, I think that the government needs to force every station to run an educational piece about the switch for a whole night worth of primetime viewing making it impossible to miss -- this is the only way Americans will actually know what they're supposed to buy, I can just see people buying analog HDTVs in 2009 not knowing why they still don't work.)

[Video Head]

I would not buy a Blu-ray player until prices fall considerably. Most people I know are content with DVD video, and so am I. The public didn't choose Blu-ray the movie industry did.

Well said, ejai. Especially the part about the public didn't choose Blu-Ray.

[jimbucc]

Well, the public didn't choose DVD either, but there it is. As far as Blu-Ray players, waiting for prices to come down is the best action we have to lower prices. I wouldn't pay $400 for a player when I know that eventually I can get it for $100 - patience always wins out. DVD will be around for a while because of the large customer base so I have no fear that it will go away any time soon.
Just wait and see...

[cal_tony]

Cyrax9 said......
Well, he said a lot. It was a long post.... well thought out, and I just wanted to say.
thanks for the insights and the effort.

Tony

[SingSing]

It was Blue Ray vs HD DVD, and Blue ray won.

Now, it is Blue ray vs Wallet. Guess who is going to win?

[Constant Gardener]

If Blu-Ray was much better than upconverted DVD, there would be a reason for it. But it's slightly better, not much better, and certainly not the kind of thing that I expect to sweep the planet.

I'll sit this one out. Wake me if Blu-Ray burners drop below $50 and blanks below a buck.

[SatStorm]

According to this: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120450428955606405.html?mod=hps_us_editors_picks

Toshiba Corp. Chief Executive Atsutoshi Nishida said:

"What people don't realize is that Hollywood studios are going to release new titles not just for Blu-ray but for standard DVDs as well, and there are a far greater number of current-generation DVD players out there. If you watch standard DVDs on our players, the images are of very high quality because they include an "upconverting" feature. And we're going to improve this even more, so that consumers won't be able to tell the difference from HD DVD images. The players would be much cheaper than Blu-ray players too. Next-generation DVD players are in a much weaker position than when standard DVD players were first introduced."

[showtaper]

Well, the public didn't choose DVD either, but there it is. As far as Blu-Ray players, waiting for prices to come down is the best action we have to lower prices. I wouldn't pay $400 for a player when I know that eventually I can get it for $100 - patience always wins out. DVD will be around for a while because of the large customer base so I have no fear that it will go away any time soon.
Just wait and see...

Maybe not, but the public has adopted DVD as their "higher-def than VHS" standard and I don't see that changing in the near future. The "slightly-higher-def than DVD" isn't blowing people away like DVD did, and that's what makes people get out their wallets.

HD and Blu-Ray are just another way for the industry to try and sell you the same shit product and justify charging more money for it. It would be really great if just once they would look inward to see where their real problems are. Piracy isn't killing the industry, apathy and greed is.

[lordhutt]

H..........

[gll99]

It was Blue Ray vs HD DVD, and Blue ray won.

Now, it is Blue ray vs Wallet. Guess who is going to win?

My leaning towards HD actually went down when HD-DVD went under. Higher prices on Blu-Ray players and media will only push me away even further so they have a heck of a selling job to draw the masses of people in.

I was responsible for many friends and family switching from VHS to DVD within the last few years so I can't see any of them going full HD anytime soon. That doesn't mean they don't own HD televisions. Most tv's sold over the years are 720p/1080i not perfectly native but capable with some internal conversion so for most an upconverting DVD player will do just fine. If they push Titles in HD only then not many of these will sell and that will be the industry's loss.

PC recording and large storage and then standalone playback is what will entice me and eventually get me to buy in but the price will have to be rght.

For now, my wallet stays tucked in my back pocket until the players, recorders, movies and blank media all drop in price to where I consider them viable. There's no rush.

There are still a lot of unanswered questions about Blu-Ray such as rumours that they are able to invalidate your player unit and you not being able to play certain purchased discs without some form of online validation. Just because they haven't used this in current titles doesn't mean they won't when the market is right for them.
I don't trust greedy corporations and that includes $--Y.