Bad Signs For Blu-ray

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."

Comments

Noone likes DRM

[TheSlashaway]

Can anyone say DRM? Consumers do not like DRM and thus are not buying Blu-Ray. The poor economy is also a factor.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Can anyone say DRM?

Yeah, but the masses can't tell you what it stands for.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[amRadioHed]

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.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[Brian Gordon]

Calling "less than $200" cheap is pretty absurd. Perfectly solid DVD players are flying off the shelves for less than $18 bucks at newegg. Why would someone buy a $200 blu ray player when they can get all their favorite movies on a player that costs less than a single DVD?

Re:Noone likes DRM

[snl2587]

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.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[MMC Monster]

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.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[Goldberg's Pants]

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.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[RMingin]

Simply put, DVD CSS did not restrict the methods of use for your average person. If they had a store-bought DVD player and put a store bought DVD in it, IT PLAYED. End of line.

Put a store-bought BD in your store bought BD player and it bitches about your digital-but-not-HDCP-enough TV and refuses to play. It sees your SPDIF connection to your stereo and pitches a fit. It sees you doing ANYTHING but the Sony-approved Viewing Ritual and it just stops cold. It notices that the disc is using a newer encryption than the player and it tosses a shitfit, demanding that you get on the intertubes and burn a CDR with newer firmware. Average Joe shits a brick and returns his hardware when his MOVIE PLAYER THING tells him to get on the Intertubes. It's not flying.

End users notice that shit, and they're saying no.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[PitaBred]

They don't just work, though. The people who hang out on the forums aren't the ones who were bitten by HDCP. And you get people asking salespeople about this new fancy high-def disc and get asked if the HDTV they bought 3 years ago has HDCP, they don't know if it does or not, so that scares them off. And many people have HDTV's that don't have HDCP, so there goes a number of people who would buy one, but it just doesn't work. My brother is an example of that... bought a 720p TV a while back, and it only has component inputs. It may technically work, but that's only until ICT gets used more commonly, which the the manufacturers haven't used so far. But that's like trusting Apple to not delete your apps off the store.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[Firethorn]

$3k NZD ~ $2k USD.

That's pretty exorbitant for most people. In my case it's more than an entire paycheck. A few years ago it would be a month's income. I still have a 32" CRT TV that's perfectly functional, why should I spend that much money?

Come back when it's $700.

I guess it's worth it for some, and not for others

I think that's the point we're trying to make - HDTV, right now, is for the 'philes. Half of whom probably get their stuff off the internet. The 'average' consumer is also the one perfectly happy with 128kb mp3s in their IPod. Add in a half dose of aging eyes for the percentage of population above 40 and you're looking at a restricted market.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[Enderandrew]

Most consumers know nothing of DRM. They understand however that $35 per movie is a joke.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[DeepZenPill]

That's exactly what it is. I bought a nice new 46" 1080p LCD TV and I couldn't bear to watch any SD content on it because it looked so terrible. I caved and bought a PS3 just to see what a true 1080p picture looked like and it's definitely a huge leap in clarity. Upscaled DVDs are only barely tolerable, I've really been hooked on blu-ray quality. However, I only own 2 blu-ray movies and do not intend to buy another one unless it's something really special or the price is down to 10 bucks.

I now get my movie fix through netflix which ends up costing me 3 bucks for a movie I'd probably only watch once anyway and if I want to see again can just add to my queue. Why pay 25-30 bucks to own it?

The movie industry really struggles with this whole supply and demand concept. There's an abundance of films available on blu-ray but a tiny demand for them. The laws of economics would have you expect the price to come down, but not in the world of the MPAA.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[Trogre]

Consumers are for the most part too ignorant to care about dvd based DRM.

Maybe so, but there are at least two movies that I will, as a direct result of DRM, never ever buy or rent: Madagascar and Over The Hedge.

Why? No jokes about their quality, please.

Because another Dreamworks title, Shrek 2, showed trailers for them on the DVD release I bought, and prohibited me from skipping past them.

When I'm in a theatre I expect to have to watch trailers, and often find them entertaining, but not every. single. time I put a disc into my own player at home.

And most other people I know find such things annoying too. Try asking people in the street "what do you think of those copyright messages on DVDs that you can't skip past?". You'll soon see what consumers think of DRM, even if they don't know to call it that. Curiously enough Disney for all their Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension evilness, seems to be the best behaved - their titles rarely if ever forbid you from skipping anything.

UOPs must die.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[innocent_white_lamb]

Why pay 25-30 bucks to own it?
 
License.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[vivian]

As far as prices are concerned, I think that SD cards or USB flash drives are more likely to overtake Blue-ray's place in the world.
A quick search turns up that a single recordable 50GB blank blu-ray disk (blank) costs somewhere around $47, and a spindle of 50 25GB disks costs something like $996 - about $20 a disk.

I don't collect movies, but if I did, I would be most concerned that chip based storage technology is going to overtake the clunky optical-mechanical drives and leave me with a (yet again) obsolete media library.

I can buy 8GB USB memory sticks for $16 bucks now, and even 16Gb sticks for under $40 from Here for example, which are rewritable and a lot more indestructible (no scratch worries), why would I want a blu-ray drive for data storage? I can see USB memory sticks, SD cards or some other kind of chip based data storage making optical drives obsolete in the very near future. I dont know how many disks I have lost from scratches, or CD or DVD drives have ended up breaking or going out of alignment over the years - but I know its a lot more than is acceptable to me, and I personally cant wait to kiss optical drives goodbye for good. It is a technology that belongs in the 20th century.

Re:Noone likes DRM

[lysergic.acid]

Blu-Ray really seems like a technology invented for profit rather than for utility. when CD-ROMs and DVDs came out, they not only offered a significant technological advancement, but they also met a real need for better storage media. CD-ROM was really a technology created for public benefit.

however, with BD technology, it seems like it was something thought up at a board meeting that Sony had their R&D department develop just so that they could force a superfluous technology onto consumers. it's created and custom tailored for sellers rather than buyers.

i mean, if you look at the features of BDs, they all seem to primarily benefit the film industry and BD producers at the cost of consumer interests. so why would consumers want to pay extra for what is basically a downgrade?

Re:Noone likes DRM

[dgatwood]

Nah. Even most people with high definition TVs don't see much real benefit from Blu-ray over properly upscaled DVD playback, either. At 720x480, DVD widescreen content is, frankly, plenty good enough to look reasonably crisp on all but the largest TVs. For that matter, even on the largest sets, it isn't objectionably fuzzy once you actually start watching it instead of staring at the screen up close.... Don't get me wrong, adoption will continue to grow, but now that the early adopters have pretty much finished adopting, there's not a lot of new market for this stuff as long as the media and the players are both so much more expensive than the comparable DVDs that are "good enough" for most purposes.

You see, people aren't really buying a DVD. They're buying a copy of a movie. That has a value that isn't really tied to the picture quality of the medium. People tend to be willing to spend a particular amount of money that tends to decrease rapidly as the age of the movie increases. Buying a $30 Blu-ray of a movie that you can buy in the $4.99 bargain bin at Wal-Mart is just plain not going to happen no matter how much better the picture quality is. Even buying a $30 Blu-ray of a movie that would cost $15 on DVD is pretty much a non-starter for most people. Their immediate judgment is "I have $60 to spend on entertainment this month. I can buy four new release DVDs or 8-12 older DVDs with that money (or some combination thereof). I could buy two Blu-ray discs." In the absence of their entertainment budget suddenly tripling, they will either buy fewer movies or will continue buying DVDs. Either way, the high cost of the discs is quite clearly limiting the uptake.

It's all about the Benjamins, so I'm pretty certain that Blu-ray purchases won't overtake DVDs until the price of the media drops to the price people are currently paying for DVDs (or less) or until the industry risks corporate suicide by stopping production of new DVDs to force adoption. Blu-ray purchases right now are basically equivalent to buying premium gasoline if your car doesn't knock with regular.... Sure, you'll convince a few people, but most people look at the benefit and the extra cost and conclude that the cost outweighs the benefit. Only when either A. the price is basically the same as DVDs or B. there's some other huge benefit that goes way beyond a slightly higher resolution will the majority of consumers care about Blu-ray or any other similar format.

There's also the penetration issue. I have a Blu-ray player hooked up to an HD set. I own one Blu-ray disc because I wanted to make sure the player could actually play them. Otherwise, I bought it to replace a DVD player that was flaking out, and I'm still buying DVDs. They play in every room of my house, while these only play in one room. So there's the compatibility issue and the need for 100% penetration in a household before people can start buying the discs in large quantities.... They don't replace all their DVD players with Blu-ray players quickly because the Blu-ray players are still relatively expensive. So there's cost factoring into adoption again.

In short, price and price are the two biggest factors in Blu-ray's current stagnation---price of players and price of media. Fix one or the other or both, and uptake will continue to increase steadily. Keep prices as they are, and uptake will slow and eventually stagnate. It is basic early adopter economics....

Big News

[clang_jangle]

Frivolous new overpriced tech does poorly in tough times. Who'da thunk it?

content content content

[Phantom of the Opera]

I'd much rather see a good story with crappy special effects than a crappy story with good special effects.

Yeah, Blu-Ray didn't win.

[Toonol]

HD-DVD lost, clearly, but that doesn't mean Blu-Ray won. DVD is winning; and if it can hold onto a lead for several more years, long enough for a substantially better technology to go along, Blu-Ray will fade away just like LaserDisk.

Blu-Ray is better than DVD, but I don't know if it is enough better to survive and conquer.

I got one of those "Trial" discs.

[chaossplintered]

In the latest issue of Wired, I got one of those "Trial" Blu-Ray discs. I would have loved to check out the movie and disc, except: a.) I don't own a Blu-Ray player. b.) I don't know anyone who owns a Blu-Ray Player. c.) I don't have interest in said movie. I mean, why the -hell- would I spend $200 on something I got in a magazine that I pay $15 for? If I do own the Blu-Ray player to play it, then why good does it do to tell me all the benefits of Blu-Ray when I'm already sold on it?

Upscaling DVD is good enough....

[ip_freely_2000]

I have a PS3 which upscales DVD and plays Blu-Ray. Most of the time, upscaling is just fine for an action flick on my HD TV. I thought I'd be buying Blu-ray discs but I find myself just wanting to spend 20 bucks on a DVD rather than 32 bucks for the Blu-Ray version.

From one consumer's perspective...

[FlyByPC]

* I don't have a HD TV, so what would be the point right now?

* 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.)

Re:From one consumer's perspective...

[Koiu Lpoi]

Oh, so you spend CONSIDERABLY more money on videos than the average consumer. Good to know that the top 1% feels differently than the other 99%.

Lower the price

[HalAtWork]

Just lower the price of movies that come on BD. It's simply too expensive. Because of this, I buy most movies on DVD and only buy special movies on BD. For example, I just got Transformers. But my last BD purchase before that was about 5 months ago, but I bought a lot of DVDs in the meantime.

even for free..

[TheGratefulNet]

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.

Blu-ray is the new ...

[boxlight]

When I chose a Blu-ray player over the HD-DVD player, I was worried that maybe Blu-ray would be the new Betamax.

Instead, maybe Blu-ray turns out to be the next Laserdisc.

Look at the titles

[bizitch]

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*

Too little, too soon.

[Malicious]

While we can be quick to claim hot topics as 'DRM' or 'Poor Economy' for the cause, it's more likely the simple fact that the difference between BluRay and DVD is negligible. DVD from VHS brought 5.1 surround sound and full digital picture. There was also the elimination of over-use causing damage to your tapes and of course the dreaded RE-WIND. BluRay brings nothing spectacular or revolutionary to the table aside from slightly higher resolution for an excessively higher price. Consumers don't need/want it. Myself included.

price price price

[Dillenger69]

I'll switch to Blu-Ray when the price comes down to about double a cheap DVD player and a Blu-Ray disc costs the same as a DVD.
Until then I'll simply download DRM free 1080p files to the PC hooked up to my 1080p tv.

It's not the DRM or cost of the players.

[bl968]

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.

No one cares about DRM

[tverbeek]

Nonsense. Most consumers don't even know what DRM is, or if they do they don't care all that much. They already can't copy their DVDs (without some special software), and I don't see that harming the market acceptance of DVD players or DVD movies. Most consumers probably have no idea what DRM Blu-Ray uses.

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.

I got modded flame-bait last time I said this

[mlwmohawk]

Why would we buy a blu-ray? We have DVD players in our SUVs, we have hand-held DVD players for $99. We have DVD players/burners in our computers. A DVD is the media we can use where we want to use it.

Blu-Rays are expensive, need an expensive player, and can't be used with all our devices.

The only "advantage" beyond new and shiny bling appeal for techy nerds, is dubiously better picture quality on an HDTV for new movie releases.

It isn't good enough to be worth it.

Re:I got modded flame-bait last time I said this

[houghi]

Why would we buy a CD? We have music cassettes players in our cars, we have hand-held cassette players for $99. We have cassette players/recorders in our computers. A cassette is the media we can use where we want to use it.

CDs are expensive, need an expensive player, and can't be used with all our devices.

The only "advantage" beyond new and shiny bling appeal for techy nerds, is dubiously better picture quality on an CD for new music releases.

It isn't good enough to be worth it.

(And yes, I am old enough to have heard the argument and even participated in it. Now get of my lawn)

Re:please, completely slanted article

[JStegmaier]

BluRay is having a tough enough time without slashdot airing repeated hit pieces.

Wait, I thought you said BluRay was doing great?

Re:Am I the only one?

[codegen]

Most of us just simply don't care. I would rather drop $1000 on another lens for my DSLR than on a TV that I only watch at most 2hrs any given day. My TV is only 24". My neighbor down the street would rather spend $1000 on a new tree for her back yard (her TV is only 14"). The kids two doors down would rather spend the money on new hockey equipment for the upcoming season. Another friend of mine will spend that $1000 on upgrades to his boat. Its all about priorities, and for most of the world, the priority is not home theatre.

No one likes $30 / disk

[fyngyrz]

Actually, I think the parent has hit the nail on the head. As an early adopter (PS3 from day one), I've bought a lot of Blue ray disks, but far less than I would have if they didn't ask for $30 each.

I'd be happy to eventually replace my entire DVD collection at $10...$15; but not at thirty. As it is, we only purchase the movies that we like the very best; if it is so-so or just a popcorn flick (light humor, yet-another-sequel, etc.) we don't get it on Blue ray, even if we don't already have it -- we'll just get a DVD.

I really love the hi-res, too (and can see it, too: 204" screen); but ten disks x $30 is $300, and a hundred is three grand; I have *many* hundreds of DVDs, and there's no way I'm going to replace them just as a matter of course.

As more good movies come out, or let's at least say movies that appeal to my family, we'll slowly build up a considerable collection in the hidef format. But a mass replacement... no. Not until they stop charging so much.

Re:No one likes $30 / disk

[livewire98801]

I would wager that most people don't have screens that you can tell the difference on. I have a 46" LCD, and I can see the difference if I really look for it, but as soon as I start watching the movie instead of looking at it, I promptly forget. . .

Re:No one likes $30 / disk

[gripped]

I'd be happy to eventually replace my entire DVD collection at $10...$15;

Why? Do they not work ?

Re:No one likes $30 / disk

[Tuoqui]

Or maybe its just because DVD is perfectly fine resolution to watch a movie on unless your completely anal retentive about getting the super ultra best crisp sharp hi-def picture on your super double ultra maximum plasma TV.

Honestly I dont see much of a difference between standard def TV and HDTV... Then again maybe its because I'm using a 24" TV that has 1080i. (Psst Apparently theres some article on slashdot before stating that the human eye cannot distinguish a higher resolution than 720p from recommended viewing distances!)

Re:No one likes $30 / disk

[Sandbags]

Let me ask you this, how many CGI sequences did you notice in the Lord of the Rings?

I found a total of 23 spots, across the whole of the 3 movies (12 hours), where I noticed a computer generated artifacts, or the failure for rendering to look lifelike. My wife and friends noticed no more than 10 each. There were just over 700 scenes that involved CGI in the trilogy. In face, in the Return of the King, 81% of the scenes included CGI elemets. This was several years ago....

It's not about CGI being hard to accept. It's about the quality time some studios invest and others don't. This has continually improved with time. Iron Man was nearly flawless. The Dark Knight was nearly flawless. Heck, even Battlestar Galactica, a weekly produced show, had great CGI quality.

Get this point straight. ALL FILMS are recorded in high res. In fact, they've been working in resolutions many times greater than 1080p for a long time... The stuff in the editing room is as muchas 4 times that resolution. This is irregardless of wether or not they release to Blu-ray.

CGI doesn't look any more or less real with a shartper image. It's not about the level of detail (in fact, a lot of CGI elements are rendered but are so small you can't even see the texture details on 1080p), it's about movement, light and shadow, and interaction with the environment. If it's not properly integrated to the scene, your brain keys in on it. It's part of how your brain is interpreting 2D images as 3D. If it's not right, it doesn't work, and the brain notices. This has NOTHING to do with resolution, and everything to do with the animator.

Filmakers are storing films in raw format nowadays for future editing in higher resolutions as well. We know 4X HD is on the horizon. (LG already has panels in that resolution available). We also know the new TV standard is 2:1 aspect, not 16:9. Blu-ray has to prove it has the capacity to be used with those resolutions and on those TVs or it just becomes a stepping stone format

Re:No one likes $30 / disk

[FatherOfONe]

You I hear this type of quote all the time:
"Most people can't tell the difference between an up-scaled DVD and BluRay movie."

I don't know what movies these guys are watching but EVERYONE I show can tell a HUGE difference. I will definitely concede that the quality of the movie plays the largest part, but the movies are only getting better and better. I also can say that the difference between 720p and 1080p is significant and given my experience EVERYONE I show a game to in 720P VS 1080P chooses 1080P. I don't want to imply 720P is crap, but the people I show choose 1080P and most reluctantly say things like "Yeah I can tell a difference". I also know that there are better up-scalers...

So what is slowing adoption of BluRay in my opinion?
1. Cost. Not everyone wants a PS3 and in my opinion a $100 player is in order to win over the masses. $200 won't do it.
2. Cost of movies. Noted above, they need to come down to match DVD and what would help is to give both with a BluRay for now.
3. 1080P TV's need to become the standard and below $1k. This is the first year that is the norm. 720p is on the way out.
4. HD Camcorders need to truly support 1080P. I have a Sanyo Xacti and it does an ok job but not 1080P.
5. Burning should be a LOT cheaper. This media would be great for backing up on a computer but it needs to be below $100. Most would kill for a 50GB (or promised 200GB) burnable disc to backup movies. The disc needs to be less than $10.
6. HD content needs to be available on cable and satellite that isn't compressed to death and at 1080P. It appears that this is happening now. I believe it is DirectTV.

All of these will happen but not as fast as some would like. By next Christmas it will be difficult to find a 720P TV that is larger than 36" and the players should be down to $150 or less range.

The largest competitor BluRay has is downloadable content and with Comcast recent bandwidth cap that all but kills downloading 1080P movies for the next 5 to 10 years; well that and other issues getting 30-50GB of data to the home in a fair amount of time. That gives BluRay a LOT of time to address the above issues.

Crap Movies

[Silvrmane]

I have a reasonably nice TV (720p Sony Bravia) and a PS3 as a blu-ray player. I have a nice little collection of blu-ray movies. I LOVE the increased fidelity of the image. It isn't just the resolution - it is the lack of compression artifacts, increased color depth (no banding), etc. that makes watching a blu-ray movie so much more satisfying and enjoyable than watching the same movie on DVD.

Watch Dark City on DVD and on Blu-Ray -- the difference is startling. I am at the point now where I am getting increasingly reluctant to watch a movie on DVD - the image is just so soft and filled with distracting image artifacts.

Now, I would buy more blu-ray movies, but here is the problem for me: There have not been any really GOOD movies coming out this whole summer. What a long dry spell for the home movie enthusiast. Just about every new film released this summer has been awful dreck - insipid teen movies, bad comedies, crappy "paycheck" dramas, etc. I keep going every week, wanting to get a new movie, and I keep coming away empty handed because I just cannot bring myself to buy the junk that keeps getting released. The high point of this month is going to be "Iron Man". I bet the sales of that blu-ray release go through the roof.