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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."
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.
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.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Since HD-DVD folded I've bought over 35 HD-DVDs. That is 2x the number of DVDs I owned before purchasing an HD-DVD player.
Why? $10 HD-DVDs for all new releases! It's like every day is labor day! And the picture is amazing! And the sound is fantastic!
Maybe when HD-DVD gets sufficiently abandoned and I want new movies in HD and can bring myself to pay $25-$30 for a movie I might consider picking up a Blu-Ray player. Until then. I'll stick to XBox Live and my handy dandy discount HD machine.
Blu-Ray needs to SLASH their prices if they want me to convert.
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
I bet you have seen PLENTY of complaints about DRM. They just didn't call it that. I am referring to the ridiculously slow boot and load times that have been explained as primarily system and disc DRM validation steps - for example, I just read someone happily proclaim that with the brand new 4.2 firmware for the sony S300 player pirates of the Caribbean loads in 45 seconds. That such a ridiculously slow load time is considered an improvement is indicative of just how big a disconnect there is between the 'blu-ray community' and the rest of the world.
Sure, if blu-ray does survive, those DRM-caused delays will eventually be fixed, I've even heard the new S350 player is a lot better. But my point here is that DRM has been a gigantic pain in the ass for most blu-ray owners due to unexpected side-effects - which is typically the way DRM screws people over every time it is forced on paying customers.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I was about to post the same thing. The best thing they can do to drive the Blu-Ray format forward is to release entire seasons on a single Blu-Ray disc for less than the seasons cost new on DVD. They have to do most of the same post-production work anyway, and the incremental cost of building the BRD menus should be fairly small. The dramatically lower cost of producing a single BRD instead of a half dozen DVDs means that they should be able to undercut the DVD sales. When people see a financial incentive to buy a BRD player instead of a DVD player, they will do so....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Well,I can say I have had a couple of folks come into my shop wanting to pick my brain while I fixed their machine,and when I told them they couldn't back up their BD discs like they can their DVDs that was the end of that. Sony needs to realize that folks have kids,and no matter how careful you are kids can tear up a Sherman tank with a toothbrush without even meaning to. It would be one thing if they had made them cartridge style where it is much harder to scratch the thing,but they didn't. And even the most clueless home user has found out from their cousin/brother/uncle how to back up their DVDs so the kids don't accidentally trash them.
And add to that the fact that the economy is likely IMHO to end up in another depression,and the fact that for most of the viewing public a DVD looks fine,plus the cheap price of DVDs and players,and you end up with Blu-Ray slowing sinking. If it wasn't for the PS3 IMHO it would already be toast,but a gaming console isn't going to get the vast majority to switch. So sorry,Sony,but like memory sticks and Minidiscs I'm smelling the whiff of failure. I'm betting the next format will be built for storage first,and movies will come along later. Maybe holodiscs? But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It is, however, a small price to pay for someone who loves to watch movies/listen to decent quality music.
Which does nothing to change the previously posted opinion that Blu-ray is being picked up pretty much by videophiles and nobody else. I know plenty of people who still watch VHS tapes. They're not purchasing them anymore (you can't find VHS and DVD is cheaper now anyways), but for the movies they already had on VHS they're not rebuying them. Those people are never going to pay more for Blu-ray. Hell besides me and my parents I know no one else "in real life" that has an HDTV - and my parents only have one because my mom wanted a small "flat tv" for the bedroom. That said, my dad stumbled across digital HD OTA channels while tuning in a basketball and despite not knowing what the hell HD is he immediately said "Damn that looks good. That's like being on the court." Still, if you asked him if he'd pay extra to watch it that way over standard digital, I seriously doubt he'd pay it.
EVENTUALLY when only HDTV's are available, the players are dirt cheap, and the movies as cheap as (or cheaper) DVD, then I see Blu-ray catching on. It's not going to be a rapid pickup though. Truth be told, I'm surprised that I haven't heard about more cases of pissed off customers buying Blu-ray discs on accident thinking they'd play in a DVD player.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Actually, today was the first time I saw blu-ray HD content that really blew me away. No idea what it was, some farce with that girl who played in Little Miss Sunshine, but okay, the quality was really stunning - so sharp, without any of that dithering crap that I see in SpiderMan and Pirates of the Carribean. I'm not tracking the technology too closely, so I don't know if the actual issue with graininess are rendering algorithms in the players or the screen, or if they're encoding artifacts.
Anyway, this was one of the 120Hz Sony 46" screens. The sharpness was really seductive, and the first time I could say that yes, quality was FAR superior to DVD.
as soon as I start watching the movie instead of looking at it, I promptly forget
I was wondering about that - I mean, whether suspension of disbelief is more difficult in hi-res. I find it hard to accept CGI, and was wondering if the extra detail of hi-res would just provide lots of little details to remind me that I'm looking at a fake situation.
Do you think hi-res will force film-makers to increase their attention to detail?
The thing to remember about optical drives is that mass distribution of a pressed disk is vastly cheaper than flash memory or anything like it. It's not nearly enough to have blank flash memory that's as cheap as a blu-ray title, you need orders of magnitude beyond that to be viable for distribution. Flash isn't there yet, and may never be there.
If you're thinking about what physical technology will overtake optical in the future, you're missing the point. Physical media will be whatever happens to be convenient, distribution will be by download. And it still might go away one day, if the company shuts down the DRM servers or something.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
No, this likely won't have any affect. Keep in mind that when a studio creates a movie, they're making it for the big screen, as in the 35 foot movie screen. Digital theaters display at 1080P, so the pixel count will be the same as on your Blueray HDTV at home, but with a much larger display. Analog theater film is still considered higher resolution than 1080P digital.
This may change in the future as professional digital movie cameras and projectors increase in resolution (the latest theater projectors support 4096 x 2160 resolution). But the driving factor will be the studio and theater equipment, which will generally be superior to the home HDTV formats.
Currently, the only time film makers have to really be concerned about detail is for IMAX movies, which are displayed on much larger screens with substantially higher resolution film.
Take off every Sig. For great justice.
You see,there is this little program called DVD Fab,maybe you have heard of it? And I don't how it is where you are at,but around here(small town AR) there is nearly always some friend/family member that "knows stuff about computers". Deity forbid they should ever get ahold of your computer after an error,because they will f*ck it up a hundred times worse(more work for me),but when it comes to basic stuff like installing a card or ripping a disc they can do it. And DVD Fab is so simple a kid could do it.
So I am sorry if it bugs you,but anybody who has read my previous posts for any length of time knows I'm just a small town PC repairman who tells what I see coming into my shop. From my observations I can tell you that my customers hate Vista and when they kill it you are looking at a format/reinstall,The Geforce 6xxx and 7xxx series is still popular around here with ATI almost nonexistent,and just about everyone under 40ish has some sort of DVD ripping software. Oh,and DVD burners are REAL hot sellers right now,thanks to the low price of blanks. I am currently waiting on some Lite-On burners to come in right now. Like I said,that is just what I am seeing in my little shop.
Maybe we got more tech minded folks,or just a lot of guys that know just enough to be dangerous? Hell if I know. All I can say is more and more I'm seeing DVD Fab on the desktop,with about a 50/50 split between the free and pay versions. As far as the economy goes,trying to buy our way out by printing more money while we are bleeding money from two wars smells like a recipe for disaster to me. And as always this is my 02c from out here in BFA,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
HDCP doesn't just affect people using older TVs, it also affects some newer ones. At least once a month I have to explain to someone on the PS3 forums that the HDTV they bought last year doesn't with the PS3 as a Blue ray player because it doesn't do the handshake correctly, hence they get a black screen. Every time the reaction is the same, "OMGWTFBBQ, I JUST WANT TO PLAY MOVIES!!!". No one expects their TV to not work with their PS3 as a Blue-ray player, but at the same time works as a gaming machine over HDMI. I can't wait until BD+ is used to stop playback on players/TVs whose keys have been compromised, then we get to see what happens when a specific movie won't play, but all the other movies will. It will be great.
The best part of all that DRM they are using is that it's has already failed, SlySoft broke it last year and sell AnyDVD HD which can rip Blue rays to your drive 100% unencrypted.
Burn Hollywood Burn