Blu-ray Not Gaining Momentum

[Specialist]

http://www.betanews.com/article/CES_Countdown_12_Has_streaming_media_already_rendered_...ete/1229700590

Neilsen's figures show that not only is Blu-ray not shouldering the weight, but it's buckling under the pressure.
Downloadable and streaming content has made tremendous leaps this year in availability and relative quality. Users can stream content to even the most humble netbook from one of the surplus of video syndication sites, or access their Slingbox content via Sling.com. High definition fans can hook up to Vudu, and receivestreams in 1080i that cost between 99¢ and $2.99; or can get Netflix on Demand high definition streams through their Xbox 360. Even Sony, one of Blu-ray's highest profile supporters, has begun to offer streaming 720p content via its Bravia Internet Video Link. Meanwhile, the best-selling Blu-ray player today, Sony's PlayStation 3, is currently trending downward in sales.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

I said it before and I'll say it again: Blu-Ray is the solution to a problem nobody had. Blu-Ray will become the LaserDisc of the 21st century.
I've owned a PS3 ever since they announced that new models would not play PS2 games. I scoured the city to find the 60GB model. It came with a coupon for 5 Blu-Ray movies. The selection was crap. I chose the 5 that I thought I could get the most trade-in value for at GameStop...
Since then I have purchased a grand total of 2 movies on Blu-Ray.
PS3 rocks for games (I now play it more than my Wii & 360 combined) but Blu-Ray is almost pointless.
Maybe if they would have made good on all the promises of the amazing shit it could do...
Where's an entire season of *insert recent TV series here* at DVD quality on one disc?
What the **** is up with all these multi-disc Blu-Ray releases of ONE ******* MOVIE? Blu-Ray can hold an amazing shit-ton of data - don't **** me over with a higher price for multiple discs because you can't pull your head out and figure out how to use the technology to it's potential. If every single frame of every single bit of video on these discs was 1080p that would be one thing, but it's 1 entire disc of DVD quality "extras" that nobody ******* cares about anyway and 1 disc of the theatrical release of the movie with nothing else...
Where the hell are all the movies on Blu-Ray that you can pick your own edit? Remember that groovy promised feature? Hell I've seen DVDs that do this but squat on BD. Why are all the deleted/extended scenes on a seperate ******* disc?????
Blu-Ray cannot last, as all of it's potential has been completely wasted.
*end of rant*

[zoobie]

I was thinking about this last night...
Someone in another forum asked what format others would like a magic video in...most replied DVD and BD was never mentioned. Looks like DVD is hanging on much more than thought. By the time the public catches up to BD, there will be other new formats that, hopefully, will be more flexible. BD has been in our lexicon so long now, it's old hat. Glad I didn't spend a penny on it...

[redwudz]

HD video formats are a move in the right direction, but BD never lived up to what most of us want, a high capacity disc that we could use for any purpose we desire. Instead it's a convoluted mess with DRM being more important than quality, ease of use and compatibility.

I still want my simple, universal, and economical high capacity optical solution to data storage.

[Constant Gardener]

Bring on the "DVD2" discs - which could use h.264 encoding, have full menus, and work just like DVDs - but with a hi-def picture - when played in a compatible device, such as a "DVD2" player, computer, or even a PS3 (although I doubt Sony would support such a heretical concept.)

The DVD still has a lot of life left in it.

[johns0]

Blu-ray is good for me cause i can burn 720p mkv to dvd and get better quality than standard dvd.

[racer-x]

Constant Gardener wrote:

Bring on the "DVD2" discs - which could use h.264 encoding, have full menus, and work just like DVDs - but with a hi-def picture - when played in a compatible device, such as a "DVD2" player, computer, or even a PS3 (although I doubt Sony would support such a heretical concept.)

The DVD still has a lot of life left in it.

You can do that now with standard DVD-5 and DVD-9 writable media disks..............but you can only play them on a Blu-Ray player, PS3 or a PC at the moment.

The Blu-Ray format is very slow at talking off, but that might change quickly when the price gets down around $100 USD...............

[videopoo]

Bring on the "DVD2" discs - which could use h.264 encoding, have full menus, and work just like DVDs - but with a hi-def picture - when played in a compatible device, such as a "DVD2" player, computer, or even a PS3 (although I doubt Sony would support such a heretical concept.)

The DVD still has a lot of life left in it.

We had that...it was called HD DVD standard content (as opposed to advanced content). Psfftt! DRM was optional, replication was easy and cheap...God I hate Blu Ray.

[DereX888]

The Blu-Ray format is very slow at talking off, but that might change quickly when the price gets down around $100 USD...............

Snails in France run faster from connoisseurs than BR is "taking off" LOL!

The "magic" price was $200 last time I heard, now it is $100?
Guess what:
BR won't take off even if S*ny would start to give it away for free, unless they would include high resolution television sets with it (and that's the key for any HD video format to "take off" at all, as I've been saying for years).

It will take off the moment the cheap HD TV sets at 40''+ drop below $300 retail (if BD will survive that long).

Blu-Ray is the solution to a problem nobody had. Blu-Ray will become the LaserDisc of the 21st century.

Exactly.

[ron spencer]

interesting HD DVD....that was perfect when it came out...no more revisions, etc. Ready for prime time, ready for authoring, rare issues with compatibility, etc....just a good product. Compare to BR...a mess, stuff not playing, BD-Rs playing in some machines and not others, firmware updates and more firmware updates...BLAH.

So why did the better product lose?

Well....it lost because HD DVD spent too much time getting it ready. BR won because they saw an outlet in the PS3, and they saw a pretty much perfect HD DVD specification. So they dumped it out quit before it was ready on the backs of the PS3 in order to compete.

HD DVD, given that it was superlative when it came out, obviously started its specification process eariler than BR. So instead of waiting until all was pretty much perfect, HD DVD should have released a bit early, like BR, piggybacked on the xbox (like BR did with PS3), use Microsoft reources more (like BR and Sony) and then made some QUICK fixes. Had they done this I think we would be in a better HD DVD world, despite the stronger DRM arguement.

Instead, a better product is relegated to history, as least for now...............

[zoobie]

this time, the industry got tired of waiting for the consumer and made the decision themselves...

[DereX888]

BR won because they saw an outlet in the PS3

PS3 market is still too insignificant to count.
BR won simply because S*ny owns today directly and indirectly most of the key entertainment industry.

[Xylob the Destroyer]

*DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING* *DING*
We have a winner!
PS3 did not have the HUGE influence like PS2 did with DVD.
Sony's pocketbook won that particular format war.

[ejai]

With reports from this thread saying that Blu-ray isn't doing so well, I noticed that throughout the web many sites are reporting a very good sales year for Blu-ray. Someone is lying.

I personally liked HD-DVD over Blu-ray but I realize if you do a Google search on blu-ray sales you will find the majority of sites are indicating a great year for the blu-ray format.

From what I can see the format is doing well, has anyone else noticed this trend?

[levick]

Sitting and watching this over the last year and having both formats in my system...HD DVD and BR.
I am pleased to say our local retailers are finally starting to stock BR titles in volume and the difference between BR and DVD is now around
$6.00 (New Releases) so I am thinking it could make a better stand this year...

The video quality on the new releases is now quite staggering...so maybe now attention is being paid to these details...

[MOVIEGEEK]

I own a HD DVD player and a Blu Ray player but I haven't bought any Blu Ray titles because the prices are too high,for now I'm happy renting Blu Ray.I'm still buying HD DVD titles because they are around $5USD and I can always sell my collection if and when my player breaks.
Blu Ray players actually sold pretty well over the holidays because they were under $200,The Dark Knight is the best selling Blu Ray title to date with over 1,700,000 sold in the first week.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/The-Dark-Knight-Blu-Ray/story.aspx?guid=%7BFB979...7E8BD45EF88%7D

[SCDVD]

One of the major reasons that Blu-ray is floundering is that Sony isn't applying the "normal" marketing practices that should be applied with a new product launch. They have failed to set price points and overall marketing strategies that should have been applied. I strongly suspect that any attempts at applying appropriate marketing strategies by the marketing staff at Sony were overruled by the Shogun bosses who were so misguided by their big fat egos that they thought they were invincible. They "won" the HD war. They thought that since they had conquered that all that was left was the pillaging. I suppose they thought that Blu-ray was so wonderful that everyone would want to have it regardless of the price. I wish them much continued misery. I hope they all get fried by the Sony stockholders.

[bmwracer]

Dropping the price of the players would help immensely... People aren't willing to spend $300 for a glorified DVD player. :P

[orsetto]

BluRay is neither "dying" nor "doing well": its parked in neutral, and like all statistics, it depends on how you look at it. Sales volume was pumped very nicely by the Black Friday slash-and-burn price cuts, but the holiday gift momentum is over and the hardware is back to flatlining at the "normal" price structure of roughly $300 for a Sony or Panasonic. The software is doing rather better, posting decent (but far from stunning) month-to-month gains. As has been stated many times, the problem for BluRay was in the timing: absent a format war, and introduced with no confusion, it would have had a much better chance to "kill". But by the time the "war" ended, the moment for a major HD disc transition had passed, and standard DVD now sits like an 800-lb gorilla blocking a significant portion of BluRay growth.

As it stands, BluRay is doing OK but not nearly well enough or fast enough to repay Sonys insane investment in it. And lets not kid ourselves, this is not an industry-wide gamble like DVD was: BluRay is Sonys baby all the way, so they have the most to win or lose. A very big issue right now at retail is price discrepancy between BluRay titles and standard DVDs: $5 or $6 may not sound like much to us here but in our larger "Wal*Mart" culture its a dealbreaker. This is one of the modern-day market lessons Sony and its partner studios refuse to learn: consumers do not consider BluRay a distinct product, rather it is lumped in with regular DVD as simply a "video disc". If they don't own a BluRay player, the disc prices scare them off from considering one. The culture no longer supports premium pricing for premium product: with HDTVs selling for less than same-size CRTs of a few years ago, and the price floor of standard DVD having collapsed long ago, $28 new-release BluRay pricing is quaintly out-of-touch with reality. Sony and the studios need to wake up and realize BluRay sales will not truly take off until they bite the bullet, accept another wave of red ink, and cut BluRay title pricing to match standard DVD.

Its actually sort of amusing that Sony and the studios seriously believed that consumers gave a damn that DVD had become an "unprofitable" commodity, and expected us en masse to immediately embrace a slightly improved format just to give them 30-40% more profit per title. Idiots. They really need to pull their collective heads out of their asses and look at a video software trade paper once in a while. What may eventually rescue BluRay is its storage capacity: the latest moronic studio craze is 3D, with billions being poured into refitting theaters and billions more being expended in a frantic effort to invent 3D home displays. If this did actually catch on as the new home video standard, regular DVD would be out in the cold as only BluRay could carry all that 3D data. Wait and see, as always.

[PuzZLeR]

I was just as excited as anyone when the format war was over. I wasn't particular about which one, as long as we only did indeed have just one. Anybody who knows me knew I was patiently awaiting this heavenly day for a long, long time - bigger disc capacity, higher resolutions, more efficient video formats which would only be a benefit for all video, HD of course, even for SD (like that huge "complete TV series X" on one, or three discs...) What a dream!

And that wonderful day finally arrived February 2008 - I thought I heard angels singing. YAY, time to move forward finally, embrace, encode, expand, build libraries, etc - I've waited 4 years for the next "standard" format!

Unfortunately, I didn't expect Sony to be so stupid as to screw it up like they did.

Bad marketing. Bad backward compatibility of the previous standard (unlike HD-DvD). Overpriced software. Useless updates. And worst of all - a complete dilution of equality among devices and a violation of interoperability - what better way to turn a "standard" into a complete disaster.

And GREED, GREED, GREED - let's rape the consumer now with overpriced hardware and software. Let's rape the vendors, let's rape the studios, let's rape the producers, etc. Look at me, I'M BLU-RAY THE GOD OF ALL GODS!

Shame. I'm so disappointed.

Blu-ray can still recover if they shift gears into reality. But now I'm totally liking the concept of DvD 2.0 more and more. I'm calling out to Toshiba to see the opportunity in this and come back and rescue us all.

[cal_tony]

Sony this and Sony that. So what.
I still say except for the Comic book movies, evidently those people have a different mindset than most movie makers, the video quality of most BRs and DVDs even on the best TVs is not that big a difference. I watch lot of movies but I figure, unless the studio was willing to spend lots of money on sets and scenery and lighting etc, the DVD version and the BR version just wont be that much different.

Lately, the newness of BR is wearing thin for me and I'm back to watching more DVDs. BR could have been a format you couldn't live without but Sony turned it into something you have to endure until else comes along.

Many people mourned the loss of HD. Don't think anybody will miss BR when something else comes along.


Tony

[sunderland]

well if i remember dvd wasnt that quick of the mark as well,as people have said once the players get to a certain price which they are not far of now it will start to pick up again

[Epicurus8a]

Dropping the price of the players would help immensely... People aren't willing to spend $300 for a glorified DVD player. :P

Exactly! If Sony wants Blu-ray to become mainstream, they need to cut their prices considerably. Duh!

[Nitemare]

It's all about the TVs, man. (as stated before). I have a PS3 and don't own any BR discs because I have an SD TV.

I don't plan on buying an HD TV any time soon. Hugely expensive for an item that lasts about 5 years. My CRT SD TV will last for 20 years! I'll buy an LCD or plasma screen when it's priced like the disposable product it is (or when I have no other choices).

If I could buy an HD TV that would look great and last for twenty years, I'd have adopted BluRay already.

[Scooter_NJ]

I have a Sony 400Q LCD 1080I projector that looks as good today as it did the day I took it out of the box. LCD is not a "disposable" product.

[BogieV]

Most of the opinions come from US - don't you think it is not entirely representative?

In Japan nobody buys any players anymore. The market here is all about recorders. There are still HDD-DVD recorders but new buyers usually go for Blue Ray. Still 2-3 times more expensive but new buyers and dropping prices will help it gain momentum this year IMO.
Even BR-R media is already twice cheaper than one year ago.

I was thinking to buy the standard recorder type (my old one doesn't have the digital tuners) but might wait a little and buy BR straight!

And there are standard HDD-DVD recorders (Panasonic, Toshiba) that can record about 2 hours of HD material onto DVD-R. Of coarse playback is only on that brand's machines that the DVD was recorded but some people are buying into it to save some buck!

Just my 2 yen

[lazlo]

One only has to look directly at Sony to realize Blu-ray will never succeed. Sony is the most closed technology environment on the planet. They have 'won' the format war and used this victory to impose the Sony monopoly and price gouging practices.

The lowest price I've seen for printable Blu-ray blank disks is ~14.00, AND that is only if you buy them in bulk quantities like 1000. You're looking at an average price of $25-30 per disk with small quantities.

Quality Standard printable DVD's can be had for $.13 per with some reasonable bulk deals.

At these prices for blank printable Blu-ray disks, it looks as if producing Blu-ray titles is simply a bad business decision.

There is a small time window of opportunity for Blu-ray to succeed, but the boneheads at Sony would prefer to slam close that window now and price-gouge us rather than advancing a technology.

It seems clear to me that Sony understands that it is a losing battle to compete with the other methods of receiving HD content. As was mentioned above, even Sony is putting more resources into streaming HD content.

Just sit back and watch Blu-ray go away sooner rather than later.

Nice job Sony.

[BogieV]

Sorry for posting again and I am really not a Sony fan but let me point out something.
Blue Ray is consortium with members Panasonic, Sharp, Hitachi and more.
So despite our hate for Sony they are not alone and better soon than later we all see some lower prices.

[bmwracer]

Dropping the price of the players would help immensely... People aren't willing to spend $300 for a glorified DVD player. :P

Exactly! If Sony wants Blu-ray to become mainstream, they need to cut their prices considerably. Duh!

Yup.

It's not Rocket Science.

[rayden54]

Dropping the price of the players would help immensely... People aren't willing to spend $300 for a glorified DVD player. :P

Exactly! If Sony wants Blu-ray to become mainstream, they need to cut their prices considerably. Duh!

Yup.

It's not Rocket Science.

Exactly! Why pay $300 for a Blu-Ray player when you can buy a DVD player for $50. Upconverting players cost a bit more, but it's not like I have an HD-TV.