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Bad Signs For Blu-ray
Posted by
timothy
on Monday September 22, @09:38PM
from the anguish-languish dept.
from the anguish-languish dept.
Ian Lamont writes "More than six months after HD-DVD gave up the ghost, there are several signs that Sony's rival Blu-ray format is struggling to gain consumer acceptance. According to recent sales data from Nielsen, market share for Blu-ray discs in the U.S. is declining, and Sony and its Blu-ray partners are trying several tactics to boost the format — including free trial discs bundled into magazines and cheap Blu-ray players that cost less than $200."
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Toshiba To Halt HD-DVD Production 494 comments
Multiple users have written to tell us that Toshiba is planning to halt production of devices related to HD-DVD. According to Japanese broadcasting network NHK, Toshiba will lose "hundreds of millions of dollars" as the format war finally draws to a close. Regardless, investors are pleased that Toshiba has made the decision to cut its losses. This comes after a last-ditch price cut was unable to prevent Wal-mart from throwing their lot in with Blu-ray, although some sources suggest that Wal-mart was already aware of Toshiba's plans to withdraw from fight.
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Big News (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sorry Sony... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not about to rebuy my DVD collection or upgrade my TV to enable your HDCP-enabled dreams of complete consumer control.
Also, I could care less about your game console, so you won't be able to use me as a marketing statistic showing the success of Blu-Ray there either.
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content content content (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd much rather see a good story with crappy special effects than a crappy story with good special effects.
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Yeah, Blu-Ray didn't win. (Score:5, Insightful)
Blu-Ray is better than DVD, but I don't know if it is enough better to survive and conquer.
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I got one of those "Trial" discs. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I got one of those "Trial" discs. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they should consider putting free trial Blu-Ray players in magazines. I'd consider giving them a spin of they did that.
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Parent
Re:I got one of those "Trial" discs. (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, so that is what that was. I saw 'Sony' on it, so I ripped it out of the magazine and threw it away. I thought someone rootkitted my magazine!
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Parent
Upscaling DVD is good enough.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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From one consumer's perspective... (Score:5, Insightful)
* It's my (probably uninformed as heck) impression that not that many movies are out on Blu-Ray. I'm more into documentaries (which would look superb in HD) -- are they available and affordable?
* The players are not cheap -- and judging from the pattern of all similar tech devices, in a year or three, they'll be under $100 or so -- and eventually be downright cheap, once the thrift stores have switched from selling VHS players to DVD players.
* Finally, I have a substantial DVD collection and am in no hurry to re-spend all that money (especially since, until I get used to HD quality, DVDs look fine to me.)
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Lower the price (Score:5, Insightful)
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"Transformers" is special? (Score:5, Funny)
That's nearly as worrying as seeing "Eraser" at the top of the sales chart in the article.
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Parent
$200? (Score:5, Informative)
Keep going. I can still get a no-name DVD player for $30, region free as well.
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even for free.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't install or use a BD system.
on principle.
sony: you lost a LOT of money on people like me who BOYCOTT you for all your various evil ways.
note to industry: upscaled dvd's are JUST FINE on any modern day video player or streamer (I use a 'popcorn hour' box which upscales just fine and is fanless and instant-on).
BD can die for all I care. I'll never fund your poor products with my money.
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Blu-ray is the new ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, maybe Blu-ray turns out to be the next Laserdisc [wikipedia.org].
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How 'bout some movies get released first? (Score:5, Informative)
Bought my Blu-Ray player a few weeks ago and was all pumped to pick up a copy of Saving Private Ryan and... nope. Well, I'll just go to Blockbuster and rent something at least... nadda. There was all of 12 movies available, none of them worth renting let alone purchasing. We settled on Fantastic Four I and II. God awful movies. Shamefully bad. I'm surprised they're not churning out movies faster than this; there's barely any titles worth getting that have been released yet.
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Look at the titles (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been kind of wanting to get a Blu-Ray machine. But I've been waiting for a title that I can get excited about.
Can anyone recommend a movie - that when you watch it on blu-ray you say "awesome ... that was worth it!"
When I look at the BluRay section - I see movies like "SuperBad" and the latest chick flicks
Who the fuck cares about these on BLURAY - @$30 a pop no less
I figure if the re-master Pink Floyd's Delicate Sound of Thunder from the original AGFA film masters, I will be all over that format. ... but until then .... *yawn*
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Why blu-ray is failing (Score:5, Interesting)
Blu-Ray is failing due to pricing vs. benefit.
When it came to DVD, it won over VHS and Laserdisc because on the VHS side, wear and smeared playback and eaten tapes came to an end; take care of a DVD and it will last virtually forever. It won over laserdisc because DVDs are not 12" in diameter and don't need to be swapped one to three times for a movie (yeah it's true some single-layer DVDs might have needed to be flipped but I have never seen one).
However, early adopters got screwed; buyers of early $300+ high-end DVD players were the victims of bad runs, and manufacturers (read:Sony) denied issues existed. I replaced a high-end Sony player with a no-name Apex player, and the Apex player was vastly superior (not to mention region-free and macrovision-free). People who bought into DIVX got equally screwed, by paying as much as or more than a "Basic DVD" player and then losing access to all of their movies.
With Blu-Ray, players are overpriced, and people have to pay more for the same content. Why bother when upsampling DVD players work pretty darn well to make the difference indistinguishable for casual viewers at 720p, noticeable only to pixel peepers? Not only that but a lot of content (old TV shows, older movies, etc.) were either videotaped at NTSC resolution or are on old, grainy film, where encoding at 1080i or 1080p would actually create distractions from actually enjoying the story.
Lastly, what the hell is up with HDCP? If you are an early HDTV adopter and have a DVI flat screen that doesn't talk HDCP or has an early HDCP device which doesn't like to handshake properly with players, you're locked out of the content. You have to turn to either composite, S-video, or if you're lucky, component (if you invested in a large monitor-only device with only DVI and VGA, no YPbPr, you're screwed).
Bring the players down to $125 to $150 or so and limit the Blu-Ray content premium to 10% or so over DVD, and you'll see uptake quickly increase.
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It's not the DRM or cost of the players. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the cost of the content. Content is king and always will be. Consumers will pay more for a disc player which offers more features and functionality. They won't pay $30 per blueray disc when they are used to paying $14-20 for decent quality movie on DVD. Add DRM to that and ya it's doomed to a early demise and they were fools for thinking they could succeed so.
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Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Can anyone say DRM?
Yeah, but the masses can't tell you what it stands for.
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Parent
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
And it doesn't matter what they think it stands for. All they have to know is DRM means support headaches and/or getting screwed out of stuff you pay for.
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Parent
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but they don't do they. You're seriously overestimating the average consumer. "Disk go in here? Disk play." That's the mentality. I hang out on a lot of forums that deal with Blu-Ray and I've not seen a single complaint about DRM, because the disks just play, just like DVD (ARCOS protected titles not withstanding.) DRM is irrelevant to 99.999% of Blu-Ray owners because it doesn't effect them.
I think it's more a case of lack of reason to upgrade. When DVD came out I was really excited as it was a huge quality leap, plus you got documentaries, commentary etc... It was a MASSIVE leap, especially if you're a movie geek. DVD to Blu-Ray is a picture and audio upgrade which you can't really notice without a 40"+ TV and a 5.1 surround system. The regular consumer, the idiot who buys "Fullscreen" over widescreen gets very little benefit from Blu-Ray over DVD. All the consumer sees is the movies are more expensive and in pretty blue boxes. I see DVD's flying off the shelves in stores, but I don't think I've yet seen anyone buying a Blu-Ray release. (PS3 titles not withstanding.) This is just from the many hours I spend feeding my DVD habit and browsing.
Blu-Ray will most likely be these decades Laserdisc. A niche market for home theatre geeks.
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No one cares about DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Blu-Ray's problem is that it's a solution in search of a problem. VHS looked lousy (and progressively lossy) and was clunky to use; the DVD solved those problems by being a higher quality digital disk, so it was successful in the market. So... what's the consumer problem with DVDs that Blu-Ray is supposed to solve? "The resolution could be higher," just isn't that compelling a reason to upgrade.
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Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Its far more likely to be a more simpler reason, like the recession.
...or that Blu-ray offers nothing better for the average consumer than SACD does for sound. It's great for videophiles and those with really expensive setups, but at the end of the day it's the same movie at a higher cost.
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Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Agree. The U.S. economy is melting down as we speak, and Sony is worried why people aren't investing in more HDTVs and Blu-ray players and buying all our movies again in another format at $30+ each for only a gain in resolution?
Hell, the economy even has only a little to do with it.
Make players that cost $100 and make the disc premium $1-2 more than standard DVDs ($15 for a new release DVD during the first week of sale at Walmart!) and you can even sell it during the recession.
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Parent
Re:Noone likes DRM (Score:5, Informative)
What about being able to use 1080p with a TV that doesn't have HDMI?
1080p can be sent over component, but no Blu-Ray players do that.
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Parent