Blu-ray to boom despite downturn World+Dog will buy more than twice as many Blu-ray Disc players this year than the number sold in 2008, it has been claimed. According to market watcher Futuresource - a long-time Blu-ray advocate - 12m Blu-ray Disc players will be bought in 2009 in addition to Sony PlayStation 3 consoles and PC-oriented optical drives. By …
I haven't bought one yet, and have no plans to.
Why would I want one? I don't own an HDTV (yet), and I'm not planning to buy one of those any time soon either. Although I am watching the falling prices.
Yes, I know I'm contributing to the recession. Sorry.
Skull and crossbones, because I'm keeping my money for me.
it's the extortionate price of the films that is the problem. That coupled with the issue of nobody actually selling the damn things means it's not quite ready to boom just yet.
with dvd's i bought all sorts of random stuff, some good, some apalling, due to them being about a fiver. The best thing that can happen to drive up sales is to bring the base price of them down from near £30 discounted to £15 - £20 everywhere, to something more reasonable. most of the stuff i have bought has been about £10, and i still think thats high.
Legitimate disks will only play on authorised players and screens.
Ripped disks will play on anything with suitable power and a decent media player (eg Geexbox).
Ripped disks also start quicker (no DRM to load).
They also *seem* to be more reliable (no DRM crashing??)
Legitimate Product is inferior to counterfeit product > FAIL.
Now I have a PS3 and a 50" HD I want to buy everything on BluRay. Problem is, you just can't seem to get anything but Batman Begins. The Bluray section in my local Asda is smaller than a hobbit with growth deficiancy. yet the DVD section covers three massive walls (not counting the display stands).
When BD players are around $20 or so more than a DVD player, you will see it quickly becoming the standard. But you won't see people rebuilding their DVD collection into an equivalent BD collection. They will buy a few replacement disks of their favorate movies that BD would make a notable difference. People who have stopped or slowed buying DVDs won't change much switching to BD - they cost too much (how often do you really watch a movie you bought - far cheaper to rent) and take up too much space.
I am looking forward to inexpensive BD writers for backing up my computer files. A 4.7GB DVD doesn't make much of a dent in a 1TB disk drive.
..... really? I've never seen a BR film for MORE than 20 quid.. Well, not since the middle of last year anyway. I tend to find most of them are 17.99. Only the new releases are at 19.99. And that's just at the supermarkets. If you go to the right music/video superstores, they are usually between 12-18 quid. Not sure about HMV though, as I got pissed off with their inflated price... or are you talking about trilogies, box sets and the like? If so, then you've been sniffing the plastic off discs too much ;o)
And Luke, remember that DVD soared when a player was 200 quid. You can pick up a BR player for less than 150quid these days. Just because a DVD is now a tenner, doesn't mean that BR will only work with similar priced hardware.
Also, not sure about "DRM" crashing BR discs - have quite a collection now, and have never had, nor expect to have a disc just crash on me... or load slower than DVD... Hmmm...
Agree with Steven that there needs to be a better selection in the multi-stores, but then they can't have it all their own way can they ;o)
@Paul lol! new keyboard please ;o)
I wonder how many people are like me and have refused blueray so far just on the fact it is being pushed by Sony? The same company that used to be innovative hardware wise but sold its soul to the devil and bought a movie studio. The ipod would have been called the iWalkman and came out two years earlier if they hadn't. After the rootkit/spore drm fiascos Sonys brand name rates up there with AIG to me. Customers hate DRM and money talks. DRM long term future is full of fail and it looks like Sony will be one of the last companys to get the memo.
Only when:
1) I can watch any movie from any region without trouble and resorting to exotic hacks,
2) the disc prices drop (in Canada there is a 10-15$ premium at minimum, usually more) and
3) the range of titles drastically improves, most local stores have CUT the number of BD titles.
I dont expect anything to happen with regards 1, but I will not buy a player that cannot play any region DVD. I immigrated to Canada bring some 200+ DVDs with me, no way in hell am I re-purchasing all of them!
To be honest, I have still to see any BD title that really makes me go: "OMG I have to have one". Even the special home-theatre setups just haven't shown enough of a difference from a decent DVD setup. Oh well.
If I bought a blu ray player, I would also need to buy a new HDTV and stereo/amp system to take advantage of the improved picture and sound quality. Then there are the discs I need to buy to make the whole "investment" worthwhile.
Oh wait, we have region coding again? Even after the Australian competition regulator found region coding was anti-competitive and then did precisely nothing about it. It was a pain in the arse with DVDs - why the hell can I still not get "The House of the Spirits" for region 4 goddamnit you greedy movie studio c**ts?!?? Which is the other half of the reason I'm not going there.
And anyway, four or five years down the road there will be a new, faster, better, SuperDuperHD immersive 3D holographic something-or-other format requiring a new player, new media, new TV, new stereo system, new nuclear power station...
I've woken up to this game and I'm not playing it again.
If an Indie wants to release a Blu-Ray disc, AACS wants a slice
$3000 setup
$1500 per title
$0.04 per disc
additonally
$3000 blu ray logos
and a staggering
$40,000 for the authoring software - though you can rent it for $300 a month
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/videoencodvd/revfeat/bluray_blues/
Or we can duplicate DVDs at home for $0.20 each
Not going to get involved in a discussion about the pro's and cons of Blu-Ray but I was just going to point out that the supermarkets tend to have a particularly poor selection of Blu-Ray's. Try HMV or even the console game shops as places like Game/Gamestation in my area also have a choice of Blu-Ray's.
Zavvi were the best around here until they closed down.
Failing any of that, Play.com and Amazon.co.uk both have a wide selection of Blu-Ray films, and they tend to be a couple of quid cheaper than in the shops.
Indeed, when you look at Blu-ray production from the point of view of an independent or amateur movie maker it is a disaster:
http://tech-no-media.blogspot.com/2009/04/blu-ray-why-it-only-works-for-big.html
Between the incompatibilities, abusive licensing fees and the obligation to include AACS copy protection to have your discs pressed it is not very interesting!
@ "blu-ray - what's the point
By jonnyscavenger Posted Monday 20th April 2009 14:44 GMT
If I watched my second favourite film on blu-ray and a 10k telly, it still isn't as good as my favourite film on DVD on my laptop." - wow, wtf are your first and second film? and how the hell can you watch a movie on a 14" screen in stereo? ergh.
@"Now I have a PS3 and a 50" HD I want to buy everything on BluRay. Problem is, you just can't seem to get anything but Batman Begins. The Bluray section in my local Asda is smaller than a hobbit with growth deficiancy. yet the DVD section covers three massive walls (not counting the display stands)." - buy online. you can also get imports as long as they are region free (fifth element is a good example - £10!)
@"Only and ONLY if the players come below £100 and the filsm drop to £20 will this happen, note its 12 million AS well as any PS3's sold, not including PS3's." - ive never paid more than £15 for a BR disk and ive got quite a few, many of them being new release titles. yes, you do need a nice HD TV (not crappy 720i/p, that isnt proper HD!) to enjoy them, but for anyone who is even remotely into movies a big screen and surround sound is a must anyway.
people also forget the superior sound quality on BR also.
at least we dont have the usual 'i see not difference between DVD and BR' nonsense this time lol.
I have a bluray player with the necessary mod chip to disable DVD and Bluray regioning (expat here!). I've bought maybe 10 titles that I like to watch repeatedly, the rest of the time I get them through the mail from netflix for only $2 more than rental DVDs. Everything looks better in 1080p!
...naysayers. Sooty, Dave, Luke etc.
Don't buy Blu-ray then. Bugger off and stick your head back in your blinkers, and leave it to the people who know where you can easily buy films for £15-£20 with little effort.
I love ill educated, out of date, factually flawed statements. The only thing I love more is pointing said statements out. Buffoons.
Anyone who has been to the cinema and seen the latest 3D films will understand why no one cares about HD. HD is pretty at first, but then it gets dull and you realise it adds nothing.
3D as in the cinemas on new films are where it's at because that really is a big step forward in visualisation. Just wait until it hits consumer hardware.
Oh, and Mark, stfu idiot. He demonstrated scepticism because the source was known to be biased. I know you're the biggest most ignorant fanboy on earth, but I hoped even you could understand that if the source is biased, the story must be treated with caution. Apparently you can't though, because that's how ignorant you fanboys are and to you inflated statistics from biased source = truth if it suits your own fanboyist bias, but is the ultimate crime if a competitor does it going against your fanboy bias resulting in the ultimate troll and violent anger as you explode from the inside due to the level of idiocy and ignorance in your head reaching such critically dangerous levels.
I think it is quite likely that pretty soon there will be very cheap DVD players that upscale to 1080p and play HD disks such as BD5, BD9, 3x DVD and DVDROMs with HD files.
Since BD5/9s play in most BD players, it is possible that these may eventually be found alongside the cheap DVDs found in markets. (The legal ones.) Some of these would offer better quality than DVDs.
Now while I own a Blu-ray player I've not gone down the route of buying lots of films like I did with DVD. The reason is that Blu-ray films are mainly of the Craption genre so the more interesting films are still on DVD. The other problem is that Blu-ray highlights the flaws in the filming process and some disks aren't worth the bother.
@jonnyscavenger - I really doubt your favourite film on DVD looks better on your laptop than watching Planet Earth on Blu-ray on a 40" screen.
I'm not particularly a naysayer, just a realist. I am actually a film buff, have a stand alone blu-ray player and largescreen tv and think it's great, but it's exactly because the disks do cost £15-£20 each* that it won't become mainstream any time soon. Buy on dvd for £4.99 and upscale or blu-ray for £17.99, i know which one i chose before getting a blu-ray player. Now i've got one and seen the improvement** i choose to buy neither until the price falls a bit. I'm happy to pay a little bit more to buy in a store (up to £15) rather than online, but nowhere near where i live sells them, except blockbuster who have a single shelf of ex-rentals.
*rrp £30 buy with 40% discount at just £17.99!! I had enough of that with the early days of dvd, paying £80 for the alien boxed set a few months before the remastered one was released.
**on films that actually make an effort, like with dvd there are still some studios that think no-one will notice if they recycle a laserdisc or dvd master, compress the film down to nothing just to add mountains of junk "extras", or release just 1 disk with 20+ languages on it in each country. I am one of those old fashioned people who think that every spare MB on the disk should be used to present the actual film i bought in the highest quality possible.
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