Blu-ray prices not coming down

You gotta love it when these dumbasses open their mouths.  I guess they don't want Blu-ray adoption to take off.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39347/97/

The longer it takes to lower prices, the less likely I'm going to try to invest (again) in a physical format.

I, like many others, do not own an HD TV. Not planing on buying an HD TV anytime soon. Since the whole HD thing I have slowed down my DVD purchasing to almost zero, figuring I will just get in it Blu-ray sometime in the near or distant future. If Blu-ray where comparable to DVD prices, I'd still be buying movies, blu-ray doesn't look any better on a TV screen the size of mine, but it doesn't look any worst either.

If they were comparable in price, many others like me would be buying them who are currently not buying them. Seems like an larger range of customers paying less would be better than a small group of customers paying more. As it is, they have effectivly knocked me out of the market for buying movies period.

And of course it is the damn pirates who are causing the drop in media sales...

My normal DVD player that is about 9 years old started to crapped out and made alot of my disks skip, and I just could not see replacing it with another old style player. Best Buy had a sale on their Insignia brand player for about $249, so I just got my first 1080p Blu-Ray player about two weeks ago. Thing is, I still don't own any Blu-Ray titles yet.  The price and selection of films is kind of keeping me from doing that.  I'm kind of sad that I got the Blade Runner 5 dvd set in normal DVD format last year, but what can you do.  I don't realy feel like re-buying something like that so soon. The new Blu-Ray unit plays my old normal format DVD collection just fine, and I feel I can ease into the new Blu-Ray format slowly as titles I feel I would enjoy much more in 1080p come out.   My local video store does have a small selection of titles in Blu-Ray, so I have been able to see how improved the format looks on some films, and I must say that I am very impressed. To bad the remastard Star Trek came out in the now quickly fading HD format, or that would have been my first Blu-Ray media items to buy. I've had a HD T.V. for about 4 years now that I used to use for digital Dish Network. 

Why not just sell the BR set and buy it on Blu-ray?  I'm sure someone out there wouldn't mind paying a discounted rate for the DVD.

I'd have a Blu-ray player by now if they could get a little closer to $200 (preferably lower).  NewEgg recently had an awesome deal on a Blu-ray ROM drive for just $99.99.  Since I have a HTPC hooked to my 50" HDTV, it would've been perfect.  But for now, I'm still waiting for prices to drop.

I noticed a lot of people download illegal rips of blu rays to watch on their computer but don't buy them in stores.  Great for capitliism that (sarcasm), stealing and not actually paying into the industry and economy because they either hate sony or just feel they deserve things free.

Most Blu Ray disc titles are extremely affordable.  It is the players that are not coming down in price quick enough.  The only blu ray titles that are expensive are japan imports, anime from bandai, or Studios that sell boxsets or people like Paramount who like to gouge price.

That thread lordjedi linked to is obviously the support of HD-DVD camp.  Comparing blu ray to laserdisc could not be more inaccurate.  HD-DVD is more like Laserdisc because it is also a dead format.  The only accurate statement would be that blu supports lossless PCM just like laserdisc.  Buying Laserdisc players and keeping them in working order and buying laserdiscs is still more expensive than buying into blu ray, i would hate to burst the bubble of unreality these people seem to have.

They are offering these players for very expensive technology at next to nothing in todays dollars of inflation.  X-box 360 and PS3 can't be given out any cheaper they are already losing money on the machines for charging less than the parts and labor they cost to make.   Well actually that is true of the ps3 and not for microsoft 360, because The Xbox uses standard DVD technology with upscaling on HDTV sets. Unless the upscaling makes the system so much more which i doubt.

Apparently Americans want something for free yesterday,lol.  And now their excuse is that bush devalued the american dollar and wrecked the economy.

I seriously doubt those were HD-DVD people.  What I do think is that they were people who are tired of the industry price gouging.  It's been almost 10 months since HD-DVD died.  The players can be made affordably, but the BDA clearly doesn't want them to be.  Even the CEO of Sony said they wouldn't be licensing the tech to the Chinese because they didn't want cheap players flooding the market.  Why not?  Because that way they can gouge consumers for even more money.

Here's a listing for Iron Man on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=iron+man&x=0&y=0

Yeah, the Blu-ray version is only $5 more than the DVD.  But the player would also cost you about $300.  If the player were half that price, more people would be willing to upgrade.

The reason for the laserdisc comment had almost nothing to do with Blu-ray becoming a dead format.  It had everything to do with the high cost of the players and it becoming a niche market.  In LDs hayday, the LDs themselves weren't that expensive ($60 I think was the average price), but the players were $200-$300, and that was for a low end player.  That's more than Joe Average consumer is willing to spend to watch a movie.  If they really want people to adopt the format and stop buying DVDs, they need to lower the price of the players.  They had no problem cutting the costs when HD-DVD was still around, but suddenly all the costs have stayed pretty static since March.

People aren't asking for things for free.  They're asking for things at a reasonable price.  As technology advances, things are suppose to get cheaper, right?  It costs far less to produce a DVD or Blu-ray disc than it did to produce an LD.  The players should also cost far less to produce, yet they're still being sold at a high markup.

I got my first DVD player for $300.  A Toshiba with everything built-in (dolby decoder and all that).  I got my Apex a year or two later for $150.  Both of those were well after Divx folded.  The Toshiba was actually top of the line when I bought it.  Right now though, even low end Blu-ray players are about $300 and that's just to much.

Yeah, price is still the only reason we've not adopted BluRay yet. We have a low-end HDTV and a progressive scan DVD player (the X-Box 360) and that's good enough until the price drops.

DVD's use to be in their 30's. And seriously, you pay $28.00 for a DVD with all the bonus features or $25.00 for a single disc Blu-Ray with all the same features, even if the single disc DVD is $15.00-$20.00. The prices of the discs are fine IMO, it's the players that need to be cheaper.

sean wookie said:

. If it wasn't for the DRM and not being that good me and a lot more people would of bought Spore.

I dunno man, that is a pretty weak excuse. "I only pirate games because of the publisher's anti-piracy attempts, and the games suck."

If Spore isn't good enough of a game that you'd be willing to pay for, why do you need to play it at all? Seems like if a game is worth your time, then it ought to be worth your money. If you don't feel it is a good enough of a game to pay money for, why the need to pirate it? If Spore was a pretty good game, and if it didn't have any sorts of digital rights management crap, would you have paid for it?

Kind of like saying, "All Hollywood movies suck these days, so instead of paying money to see them, I have torrent them." If they suck, why the need to do something illegal in order to see them? Why not just give them a pass? Isn't that what 99 cent rentals, netflix, and cable TV are for?

As for DVD prices, Blu-ray discs feel really expensive to me at $30 each. I have never paid more than $20, unless it was some sort of boxed set. I mean, I paid $28 for the four disc Blade Runner set on DVD brand new, I guess I buy my movies at some pretty inexpensive places, but I am pretty surprised to hear some people pay close to $30 for 2 disc DVDs when I usually get them for $16 - $20. The players will eventually get cheaper, that is a given, but what is the point in buying a cheap playing if you are paying so much more per disc.

I gotta go with A-M...compare Blu discs to standard on price-vs-content, not whether you're getting one or two or however many physical discs.  Clarity aside, BD's other claim to the throne is capacity.  The 10 disc Ultimate Matrix collection is only 4 or 5 discs on HD and BD (coming on 10/14), but they retail for the same basic price range.

And yes, everyone wants the player prices to come down, and yes eventually they will, but when to spend that money is a different decision for everyone.  To use the standard "car" analogy - would you rather have a cheap car that's expensive to insure (yes, they do exist) or spend a little more for a car that has lower insurance?  I was actually faced with a decision like that when I bought a new car a few years ago, so I know it's possible and not just theoretical.

Corollary to the "disc count" issue - one of the things I hate about 2 disc releases - 1 film/1 supplement - is that they use the extra disc as a reason to jack up the price.  Early on, discs were dual sided instead of 2 disc sets.  Know why they stopped doing it?  Because people complained that they had to actually read the disc core to figure out which side to play.  They wanted something idiot-proof like artwork on two separate discs so that they wouldn't have to think about which side of the disc is which.  ',:-\

"The problem with the quest to make the world idiot-proof is that it challenges the universe to create better idiots."

That is the dumbest explaination for the switch from flippers to two disc sets I have ever heard. It has nothing to do with idiot proof, and more to do with people wanting nice looking sets instead of lame two sided discs. 2 sided discs are also a lot more prone to damage, especially when you have siblings, kids, room mates, or whoever who tend to toss the disc on the top of the DVD player instead of putting it back in the case. And seriously, it is not like it costs a whole lot more to produce a set with two discs as opposed to a flipper.

Which proves my point - people chose fashion over function.

And, double sided discs aren't lame, it's a space saving feature.  And how is a DS disc more prone to damage from someone tossing it on top of the player?  More than likely, if someone is in that much of a rush or is that careless that they would put a disc down anywhere other than its case, they're not going to be careful enough to flip it over to put it label side down.  They're going to put it label side up so they can see what disc it is, which means the underside is still getting damaged either way.

I'm just going to say that this thread is worthless. Blu-ray is not "overpriced" in any generalized sense I can see. If it's too expensive for some of you, then Blu-ray will lose your bussiness as a result. However, considering the historical adoption of formats and my understanding of the technology and the market, it's right where it should be. I don't see your displeasure being an indication of anything more substantial.

However, if by some mysterious happenstance, the Blu-ray critics are correct, then only the BD association stands to lose if they've priced Blu-ray wrong. I can't predict the market well enough to determine where Blu-ray will ultuimately go, but I know it's doing fine right now. Anything else seems like worthless speculation to me.

sean wookie said:

If it wasn't for the DRM and not being that good me and a lot more people would of bought Spore.

Actually, from what I've read, it's exactly because of the DRM that a lot of people (more so than usual) are pirating it.  No one's bothering to buy it for exactly that reason.

Ziz said:

I gotta go with A-M...compare Blu discs to standard on price-vs-content, not whether you're getting one or two or however many physical discs.  Clarity aside, BD's other claim to the throne is capacity.  The 10 disc Ultimate Matrix collection is only 4 or 5 discs on HD and BD (coming on 10/14), but they retail for the same basic price range.

And where are you seeing these prices at?  I just checked Amazon and TheDigitalBits.  The "10 disc ultimate set" on DVD sells on Amazon for $31.  The BD set, which only has the movies and Animatrix in hi-def, the rest are all SD, sells for $90.  That's not exactly the same basic price range.  Yes, at release they'll have been the same basic price range, but the DVD set has been out so long now that it's easy to get it much cheaper.

Every other release I've seen recently (Iron Man, Hulk, Heroes) has the same number of discs for either the DVD or Blu-ray release.  The difference is usually as little as a few bucks, but sometimes it's $20-$30.

And yes, everyone wants the player prices to come down, and yes eventually they will, but when to spend that money is a different decision for everyone.  To use the standard "car" analogy - would you rather have a cheap car that's expensive to insure (yes, they do exist) or spend a little more for a car that has lower insurance?  I was actually faced with a decision like that when I bought a new car a few years ago, so I know it's possible and not just theoretical.

The CEO of Sony said very recently not to expect prices to go below $299 by this Christmas because they were not going to license the players to the Chinese manufacturers.  They do not want cheap players on the market.  Why is that?  Because they're trying to milk the consumers, but the consumers aren't buying it.

SInce I don't have to insure my player, I'd rather just have a cheap player.  I don't really have that choice right now though, do I.

Corollary to the "disc count" issue - one of the things I hate about 2 disc releases - 1 film/1 supplement - is that they use the extra disc as a reason to jack up the price.  Early on, discs were dual sided instead of 2 disc sets.  Know why they stopped doing it?  Because people complained that they had to actually read the disc core to figure out which side to play.  They wanted something idiot-proof like artwork on two separate discs so that they wouldn't have to think about which side of the disc is which.  ',:-\

Uh yeah.  I'm sure the price is jacked up so high.  Or not.  Yeah, it's a lot easier to read a giant label than it is to read the tiny lettering on the disc core.  Dual sided discs were a pain in the ass and I'm glad they got rid of them.  And since you can still fit two discs into a single disc package, there's really no need to cram everything onto a dual sided disc anyway.

Tiptup said:

However, if by some mysterious happenstance, the Blu-ray critics are correct, then only the BD association stands to lose if they've priced Blu-ray wrong. I can't predict the market well enough to determine where Blu-ray will ultuimately go, but I know it's doing fine right now. Anything else seems like worthless speculation to me.

Actually, it's not doing fine.  DVD purchases might be down, but they're still way ahead of Blu-ray purchases.  Blu-ray adoption is low and slow right now, due completely to player prices.  The excuse the BDA is using is that DVD took a while to become popular with consumers and it took a while for prices to come down.

Here's a little breakdown of similar prices when DVD was being adopted.  Keep in mind that Divx was around from 1998 until 1999 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX_(Digital_Video_Express))

DVD player prices were as low as $200 in 1999 and as high as $1200.  http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpidvd.htm Even on sale, I can't find a Blu-ray player for that price.  DVD player adoption was also rapid according to that.  Sales quadrupled from the 1.1 million players sold in 1998.  So at the time that was written, October 2001, DVD player adoption was rapid.

And here's another article that suggest prices will be around $300 for the foreseeable future http://www.ipodobserver.com/story/35730

These aren't really critics making these statements.  These are industry observers looking at historical data as well as the current market.  Blu-ray adoption is low and everyone agrees that $200 is the price point at which most consumers start snapping up players.  Anything above that and it remains in "videophile" territory.  Unfortunately I can't really find any sales statistics on Blu-ray players or discs, but the article I originally linked to doesn't seem to impressed with sales figures to date.

lordjedi said:

DVD player prices were as low as $200 in 1999 and as high as $1200.  http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpidvd.htm Even on sale, I can't find a Blu-ray player for that price.

Unfortunately I can't really find any sales statistics on Blu-ray players or discs, but the article I originally linked to doesn't seem to impressed with sales figures to date.

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-BDP-S300-1080p-Blu-ray-Player/dp/B000PALZE0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1222170931&sr=1-1

Also, from what I have seen, Blu-ray's installed base is ahead of what DVD's was at this same time in the format's life cycle (three years old). That's actually pretty good considering a format war with HDDVD and the lack of HD televisions installed in people's homes.

"Excellent for the price, however this player lacks the new BD profiles, 1.1 and 2.0, which allow you to have picture-in-picture and web content."

That would be a silly player to buy at this point.  Profile 1.1 is final and on all new players.  Unless this player is upgradeable, that would be a waste of $200.  I payed about that for my Apex 600a, but it was upgradeable.

lordjedi said:

That would be a silly player to buy at this point.  Profile 1.1 is final and on all new players.  Unless this player is upgradeable, that would be a waste of $200.  I payed about that for my Apex 600a, but it was upgradeable.

Yes, it looks like that model's fimrware is upgradable. You just have to log it in to the internet.

The firmware is upgradeable, I noticed that.  But that doesn't mean the profile's are upgradeable.  I see one person mentioned upgrading to firmware 2.0, which I initially took to mean Profile 2.0.  Then, later on, the same person mentions upgrading to firmware 4.10.  Something tells me the firmware is different from the profile.

Also, quite a few people have mentioned that it's a very slow player.  Some even say that it's great when it does work, but that it doesn't work very often.  It looks like it's a hit or miss player.  Sorry, but I just don't think that's going to cut it with John Q Public.  If it doesn't work all the time everytime, they're just going to think that Blu-ray in general is broken.

I remember the hell that was raised when The Matrix came out because it wouldn't play on a lot of players.  The reason is because the players weren't fully standards compliant.  So all those players had to get upgraded, mostly by sending them in to the manufacturer.  The same thing happened with T2 Ultimate Edition.  It would lock up and restart where they're driving through the desert.  The Apex I own would do that.  I had to send it in for a firmware upgrade.  They also ended up removing the region-changing backdoor menu, which is one of the only reasons I bought the player.  I'm a pretty tech savvy person.  I can imagine Joe Schmoe user taking their DVD back and complaining about how it doesn't work.