Blu-ray prices not coming down — Page 6

2 movies that look stunning on blu ray, and were probably designed with that in mind are clone wars 2008 movie and kingdom of the crystal skull, that says nothing of the films actual quality or plot however.

Clone Wars is EU and i don't think is pretends or masquerades as real star wars, whilst Indiana Jones IV pretends to be the real 4th movie but despite Harrison Ford and Karen Allen being in it the last canon Indy film is Last Crusade.

Lucas and Spielberg had a lot of fun making the movie and the actual behind the scenes stuff if better than the actual film.  I mean Lucas had tons of fun making the prequels and they still sucked.

He had no fun making the originals or mostly no fun because it was a painful experience for him.

I am happy that he is happy with his 2004 trilogy cut as an artist.  Not too pleased with his treatment of the original versions of the films however.  They would require a lot of money and work.  the 2004 is pretty much ready for Blu Ray, it just needs to be properly color corrected and the audio needs to be fixed, matte lines removed etc.

The first film was in the worst shape.  The negative had degraded so far, the film was made on unstable filmstock, this was prior to lpp which jedi is probably the only film that has not severely faded. LPP arriving late in 1982.  Star Wars according to Robert Harris had a lot of cri stock in the oneg.  Aka Color Reversal Internegative.

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/robertharris/harris070102.html

Where did this guy get his stats?  All sales data that I've seen during all of 2008 put DVD sales as slowing due to Blu-ray being on the market.  No one wants to buy a movie on DVD and then later have to rebuy it on Blu-ray because the players got cheap enough.  Even though sales are still huge, they have been lower than previous years.

Also, I don't know where he's getting his info about no DVD players being on the market near $129 during its first two years.  I bought my second player, an Apex, in 2000 for $150.  That player was released in January 2000.  That's pretty darn close to $129 and the 2.5 year mark (right where we're at with Blu-ray).  And that player was region selectable, so I wasn't locked into R1.  DVD was released in the US in March 1997 (test market).  Of course, I didn't have to worry about "upgrading" that Apex DVD player either.  The $129 Blu-ray players he references are most likely either profile 1.0 or 1.1 players.  They won't be able to play profile 2.0 content.  And there wasn't a single profile 2.0 player available on Black Friday for under $150.

That article is nothing more than a pro Blu-ray gush piece.  The news coming out of CES is that if Blu-ray doesn't take off this year, HD downloads are going to end up killing it or at least making it a niche market.  He tries to address that in his article, but he obviously doesn't know what he's talking about.  Verizon is pushing HD content through FiOS...today.  Time Warner has HD on demand...today.  LG just released an HDTV that can stream HD video from Netflix (just plug an ethernet cable right into the TV).  The only companies that are having problems pushing HD content are satellite (DirecTV and Dish).  They don't have the capacity yet to deliver all the channels that are currently available in HD, but they are improving.

I really hope Blu-ray does take off, but I don't see it happening.

Well i got my first DVD player in 1999 and that cost me £250.  was the only person that i knew that had one and its wasn't until late 2001 when i got married that one other person had one. Now onto the present day and i have a Blu-Ray player in the form of a PS3. But after 2.5 years of Bluray most of the people i know has a blu-ray player. Many of the first DVD players were unable to play both DL DVD's when they arrived or and DVD-R discs,plus some of the newer discs were unplayable or caused major problems.  So what is the difference with having some Blu-ray players only having the 1.1 or 1.0 profile? Well for one even if  blu-ray player doesn't have the 2.0 standard you are still able to view the disc. A lot of the blu-ray players can be upgraded to the 2.0 standard by a simple firmware upgrade.

Argos, here in the UK, have a Blu-ray player for £97 which works out to about $145. I know someone who works in management in Argos and they had just over 60 of the players at both local sores here. they ALL sold out in the run up to Xmas and were unavailable to order because the warehouse stocks ran dry due to demand. I can remember this happening when the cheaper DVD players began appearing and then DVD caught on.

HD on demand via the internet will fail here in the UK due to sever bandwidth limitations set by the ISP's. People are now being offered the choice of buying extra bandwidth because the limits are so bad that even online channels like BBCiPLayer takes up too much of your bandwidth to be viable. So imagine trying to stream or download HD movies.

itunes has only succeeded because an ipod or the iphone is the in thing to have and with today's society the way it is your seen as a joke and a loser if you don't own one amongst the younger generation.

HDTV's are now owned by everyone i know. Hell, even my parents have one and they're in their 70's. It really makes me laugh when i hear people say that blu-ray won't take off because an upscalling DVD player can make a standard DVD look comparable to a 1080p HD movie. They either need to get a better TV because there's is crap or go to specsavers to get their eye tested. Maybe on a 720p tv the results would be closer because of both the upscaling of the DVD but also that either the player or the TV has to downscale the 1080p source to 720p, so not a very good test.

The gadget show, here in the UK, did a test between what is considered the best upscaling DVD player and a Blu-ray player. They got 2 identical 1080p TV's and played the DVD & Blu-Ray of Iron man side by side. Their conclusions were that there was a huge step up in clarity and detail and everything looked so much better on the HD version.

I wonder how much sales of Blu-Ray players would escalate if a certian Saga got a blu-ray release?

Jay said:

There's no such "news" coming out of CES about Blu-ray needing a decisive win this year. Big difference between news coming out of CES and opinion pieces in non-tech savvy publications like WSJ and CNN Money.

You're right.  It wasn't a "news" article.  It was an opinion piece.  But it wasn't written by the WSJ or CNN Money.  It was written by TGDaily.  They are pretty tech savvy.

http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-40832-135.html

I've been hearing about media downloads for years. Even with iTunes' great success, it's still a fraction of a fraction of the total music market. Viable HD on demand as a replacement for physical media is years away. Years.

Really?  You've been hearing about it for years now?  I heard nothing about video downloads before last year (2008, maybe 2007).  Music downloads were a new thing back in 1999 with Napster and then Kazaa.  Apple made it acceptable in 2001 with the launch of the iPod.  They've since added HD video downloads to their catalog.  More and more people are getting movies and TV shows that way along with purchasing DVDs from Amazon.

Viable HD on demand is not years away.  HP is now selling a home media server.  Simply plug it in and you're ready to watch HD media direct from a hard drive.  The only thing stopping real, easy to use media servers is the DVD-CCA.  The last time someone tried to market it, the DVD-CCA came down on them.  They were accused of "circumventing CSS".  The device did no such thing though.  It just automated the process of storing an entire catalog of DVD titles onto a hard drive.  mp3 players had to fight the same battle when they first hit the market.  Now that DVDs are being sold with "digital copies", it's only a matter of time before people completely forego the disc entirely.

Have you seen the selection cable companies offer via HD on demand? It sucks, and thanks to low bitrate MPEG-2 and what are frequently older HD masters, it's artifact-ridden and a total blockfest during any type of fast motion, not to mention that stations like HBO and Starz crop 2.35:1 films to 16:9 to fill the screens of morons who prefer that shit. HD on demand is nowhere near being a Blu-ray killer.

Yes, it does suck...right now.  Just like Hulu's selection was horrible when it launched.  But the selections keep on increasing.  As more and more studios sign up, entire catalogs can be added instantly.  Universal has signed back onto iTunes, so a lot of popular TV shows are once again there.

The average consumer doesn't care about the technical details you've mentioned.  As we've talked about in the past, most people still hate seeing the "black bar" which is probably why HBO and Starz crop the releases.  So yeah, the average consumer (the morons as you like to call them) likes it that way.  That's all that really matters though.  If the average consumer can buy an HD video directly from their TV and have it delivered in minutes to be instantly ready for viewing (Verizon FiOS can do this, today), then it'll be the end of optical media.  Why would you want something that can be scratched or destroyed by your kids when you can just have it in a listing on your TV?

The format is doing fine. It may not achieve the penetration of DVD well into its life due to the eventual arrival of viable HD on demand (Vudu perhaps?), but I don't think that's a valid measure of its success or failure, especially in today's market where HD on demand is a complete joke.

Just like VOD was a complete joke when it first launched many years ago.  But now it actually has some worthwhile content available and movies often end up there at about the same time that they end up on retail shelves.

adywan said:

Well i got my first DVD player in 1999 and that cost me £250.  was the only person that i knew that had one and its wasn't until late 2001 when i got married that one other person had one.

When the Apex was released here, everyone I know went out and bought one.  That was the only player many people I know had for a few years.  It played all discs fine.  The only discs it wouldn't play were DL burned discs and DVD+R.  I'd bet it would still play any disc I've bought if I plugged it in.

Now onto the present day and i have a Blu-Ray player in the form of a PS3. But after 2.5 years of Bluray most of the people i know has a blu-ray player.

I know 4 people that have Blu-ray players, all in the form of PS3.  Only one of them uses it to play games.  No one else is ready to drop $400 on a Blu-ray player and most of them have HDTVs.

Many of the first DVD players were unable to play both DL DVD's when they arrived or and DVD-R discs,plus some of the newer discs were unplayable or caused major problems.  So what is the difference with having some Blu-ray players only having the 1.1 or 1.0 profile? Well for one even if  blu-ray player doesn't have the 2.0 standard you are still able to view the disc. A lot of the blu-ray players can be upgraded to the 2.0 standard by a simple firmware upgrade.

I've seen one or two players that can be upgraded to profile 2.0.  The rest are stuck at 1.1.  New firmware seems to only make them a bit faster.  And I've heard plenty of complains on both Amazon reviews and the bits about players being unable to play Blu-ray discs until the firmware was updated.  I don't recall hearing nearly as many complaints in the early days of DVD.

Argos, here in the UK, have a Blu-ray player for £97 which works out to about $145. I know someone who works in management in Argos and they had just over 60 of the players at both local sores here. they ALL sold out in the run up to Xmas and were unavailable to order because the warehouse stocks ran dry due to demand. I can remember this happening when the cheaper DVD players began appearing and then DVD caught on.

Of course it sold out at that price.  That's well below $200, which is the sweat spot that everyone's claiming Blu-ray needs to get down to.

HD on demand via the internet will fail here in the UK due to sever bandwidth limitations set by the ISP's. People are now being offered the choice of buying extra bandwidth because the limits are so bad that even online channels like BBCiPLayer takes up too much of your bandwidth to be viable. So imagine trying to stream or download HD movies.

That might be the case in the UK, but it's definitely not the case in the US or Japan.  Japan has even faster connections, with no limits, than we do here in the US.

adywan said:

itunes has only succeeded because an ipod or the iphone is the in thing to have and with today's society the way it is your seen as a joke and a loser if you don't own one amongst the younger generation.

Oh please.  iTunes succeeded because Apple made it extremely easy to buy single tracks for very little.  Sales of single tracks for all of 2008 were huge.  Album sales were way down.  Single tracks are now going completely DRM free and will have variable pricing.

It's not seen as a joke if you don't have one (at least not here in the US).  The iPod is the easiest mp3 player to use (as much as I don't like Apple, even I will admit this).  The iTunes store makes it even easier to use.  Just select the songs you want and they're instantly downloaded to your computer.  No more going to the store and combing through all the albums to find the one you're looking for.  They even made backing up all your music easy by including a "Burn to disc" feature.

HDTV's are now owned by everyone i know. Hell, even my parents have one and they're in their 70's. It really makes me laugh when i hear people say that blu-ray won't take off because an upscalling DVD player can make a standard DVD look comparable to a 1080p HD movie. They either need to get a better TV because there's is crap or go to specsavers to get their eye tested. Maybe on a 720p tv the results would be closer because of both the upscaling of the DVD but also that either the player or the TV has to downscale the 1080p source to 720p, so not a very good test.

I never said an upscaled DVD looked comparable to a 1080p HD movie.  What I said was that it looked comparable to a 720p movie, which is all most people care about when they see it.  An upscaling DVD player is an instant "upgrade" for anyone in the market for a new player that doesn't want to have to replace their entire collection.

The gadget show, here in the UK, did a test between what is considered the best upscaling DVD player and a Blu-ray player. They got 2 identical 1080p TV's and played the DVD & Blu-Ray of Iron man side by side. Their conclusions were that there was a huge step up in clarity and detail and everything looked so much better on the HD version.

Again, this is obvious.  Sit someone down with two TVs side by side and they'll tell you the same thing.  Now take them away from the side by side comparison and they won't be able to tell the difference.  With DVD to VHS, this wasn't even necessary.

I wonder how much sales of Blu-Ray players would escalate if a certian Saga got a blu-ray release?

They would be huge.

zombie84 said:

It won't be brought down for a while once its in there.

Of course it will.  Once something is easier, more convenient, and of comparable quality, it'll start its fall.  That's the way it was for music.  There's no reason to believe it will be any different for video.

I think the main reason DVD-A failed is because studios can't even be bothered to fill an entire CD with music, never mind a DVD.

Yes, Blu-ray is doing very well. Is it perfect? No. It does have problems with DRM and some poor quality hardware for the price (as lordjedi alluded to above). However, fundamentally the format is a good product and it's good for it to be having success. If it somehow fails from here, and digital downloads are really a huge threat for it, then I wouldn't say that's the fault of the actual BD format being unsuccessful on its own.

My local (privately owned) mom and pop type video store just tripled the size of their blu-ray section.  I asked them how well they are renting, and they told me that Blu-ray is catching on nicely, and the demand for titles has been healthy.  

I'll be first in line in April:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338658,00.asp

Jay said:

What miracles will need to occur to convince the naysayers that everything is just fine?

I answered this question above :)

Which is more profitable for a studio: distributing films digitally to content providers and selling them for $9.99 each, or distributing physical media to retailers and selling films for $19.99 and above? I'd be willing to bet that studios will end up making more profit sticking with physical media, and that's why they're in no hurry to kill the shiny disc.

If you had asked the same thing back in 1996 about downloading music, I would've totally agreed with you.  Why would any recording studio distribute singles at 99 cents each instead of the full album for $15?  It just doesn't make sense.  Fast forward 10 years and that's exactly what happened.

The $9.99 film wouldn't come with any extras beyond the cover art.  I suppose they could include a commentary track, but you wouldn't get any behind the scenes videos.  That'd be perfectly acceptable to me, but it would have to have nearly the same portability as current DVDs and it would be nice to be able to buy the behind the scenes stuff at maybe an additional $5.  Bandwidth costs a lot less than shipping, printing, and packing, so they'd make a ton more money.  And they wouldn't have to use any content providers other than themselves if they didn't want to.  I'm more than willing to buy direct from Universal, WB, Fox, etc, etc for that price.

jay has made some convincing arguments, and a lot of good points,

i may revisit them later...

but for me, blu-ray is officially DEAD... i will NEVER support the format,

i'm just going the digital route, and buying the western digital media extender

(blatant plug : http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=572 )

.... at first i wanted a new media pc... but this does everything i want (i want it to be

a wired solution - NOT wireless)... it does 1080p through HDMI , supports basically every

video format i need, and is completely extendable, because if you need more space,

you can add a new USB hard drive...... i just got a 1T drive for very cheap >$100 today..

[yes there are other media extenders, ie xbox360/ps3/other hardware manufacturers etc,

but i found this one to be the easiest to use and price/performance wise also]

i have found my solution for now, i will just keep archiving my movies on these hard drives,

and i will never have to mess around with physical media again (i hope).....

in fact, i'm buying one for my parents also (even though i helped them get a SAMSUNG

blu-ray player)........

no, it doesn't solve every issue i have, and yes you have to *AHEM* download, or buy

the originals from somewhere, but with this solution.. i can safely say,

I WILL NEVER GIVE INTO SUPPORTING THE BLURAY format, or PLAYER from ANY COMPANY,

ESPECIALLY ##$&#*($&*(#&$*(#&$ SONY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GOOD BYE, AND GOOD RIDDANCE, and hopefully this format will die the quick painful death

it deserves..

later

-1

negative1 said:

GOOD BYE, AND GOOD RIDDANCE, and hopefully this format will die the quick painful death

it deserves..

later

-1

Not now it won't.  With a sub $200 profile 2.0 player coming to market in April, adoption is sure to pick up.  And with Lord of the Rings coming as well, adoption will definitely kick into high gear.

I also have no doubt that at some point in the very near future, the encryption on the discs will be completely cracked and all Blu-ray movies will be easily ripped.  Then we'll all have are nice hi-def media boxes at home playing all our Blu-ray titles.

Jay said:

Where are you going to store all these Blu-ray titles anyway? A $250 Blu-ray player is too expensive, but tossing a couple terabyte drives into a media server to store a modest Blu-ray collection (in addition to the costs of the discs themselves) is somehow reasonable?

like i said, i agree with you about most of your points..however 1) thanks to the beauty of avc/mp4

vc1 compression, a GOOD 1080p rip can fit in 9gigs...(well at least it seems that way), so i could

'potentially' store about, what around 90-100 movies? which i do have (although most are downloads, or HD-DVD's that i own)..

i don't know if you read my earlier problem, but i am inundated with thousands of movies, dvds,

burned discs, etc..... there's no way that even buying a bd-rom drive, and bd blanks will solve

that.... the media extender is cheap, and hard disk space is getting cheap, i hope in the next

few years, i will be able to get a 10 Terabyte drive for just as cheap..

I used to be in the same camp. I built several crazy HTPCs and had grand designs of a media center with all my DVDs ripped and stored. Then I realized how much easier it was to put in the da*n disc and press play. And then I realized that all my tweaking and other nonsense gave me image quality that was about on par with high-end DVD players that cost as much as my HTPC. I can't believe how much I used to obsess over ffdshow settings. F**king Lanczos vs. bicubic scaling. Jesus Christ.

i'm not worried about settings and such, but the access.. it's impossible for me to dig through all

my movies/videos/music.... i was about ready to give up, this is a good compromise (to me), of

course most people don't have as much, so it wouldn't be a problem for them..

Geeks tend to geek out and do things for the sake of doing them and not because they really make sense. Only nerds care about this s*it. DRM and media server friendliness have had zero effect on Blu-ray's adoption and will have zero effect on its future. 99.999% of consumers just don't care.

again, i agree with, look how long the encryption on DVD's lasted (not very)...

and by the way, the encryption on most downloadable formats is much harder to crack

(stupid amazon unbox!!!!) WMV's, what a pain..

the only thing is, once storage gets smaller/cheaper, why not have a small setup like

this to store all your movies... i never thought people wanted their entire music collection

on 80/120 gigs drives to carry with them, boy was i wrong about that!

later

-1

negative1 said:  DERP

Jay said:

Where are you going to store all these Blu-ray titles anyway? A $250 Blu-ray player is too expensive, but tossing a couple terabyte drives into a media server to store a modest Blu-ray collection (in addition to the costs of the discs themselves) is somehow reasonable?

It's not necessarily anymore reasonable, but it makes the entire collection available with a single click.  With my DVDs I just navigate to the folder with the remote and press play (my folder structure is very simple...genre, title, and then movie).

It's just like navigating through the DVR.  With the entire collection on the drive, it becomes a matter of ease of use.  It's kind of nice not having to get up to select the movie I want to watch.

I used to be in the same camp. I built several crazy HTPCs and had grand designs of a media center with all my DVDs ripped and stored. Then I realized how much easier it was to put in the damn disc and press play.

Yes, that's fairly easy to do.  Unfortunately, a lot of DVDs still come with previews and bullshit that I don't want to sit through each time.  By ripping the movie from the DVD, I press play on the remote and the movie starts.  No FBI warning BS, no "Coming soon" that I need to skip over, nothing.  Right now, that's the difference between watching "Cars" and "Wall-E" since I haven't finished my rip of Wall-E.

Geeks tend to geek out and do things for the sake of doing them and not because they really make sense. Only nerds care about this shit. DRM and media server friendliness have had zero effect on Blu-ray's adoption and will have zero effect on its future. 99.999% of consumers just don't care.

They care when it bites them in the ass.  They care when they end up needing to replace a disc because their kids scratched them up.  They do it and just accept it until someone shows them a better way.

With everything ripped to the hard drive, my son just hands me the remote and asks for the movie.  No need to find it on the shelf, load the disc, navigate through the bs, and then watch the movie.  I don't obsess over ffdshow settings though.