"Blu-ray is dead" proclaims Robin Harrs.

[DamingR]

I agree with Harris. Unless they get the disc prices down to $15 soon, they're going to never take off.

All my friends just download movies. They don't even bother to rent the DVD. They don't care about quality.

Blu needs to hook those who care while they can.

[candyrocket786]

Originally Posted by GizmoDVD

There is no guarantee that Can't Hard Wait BD will be $10 cheaper at BB 6 months from now (unless its combined with a coupon), but its almost certain you will be able to grab the DVD $10 cheaper (then the original "sale" price on release week for both formats). I wound up passing many times on Day and Date DVDs years ago because 1-3 months later it could be had for half price at the same store. Can't say the same for BDs.

I grabbed it for $13 earlier this week with no coupon

[Kocheese99]

The only way i'll download is if i can download the movie with equal picture quality, cheaper price, and it can be stored for me so i can call it up whenever i want. Also i want some extras as well, ie featurettes and some docs and trailers. Let me know when we can get all of this, otherwise i'll stick to Blu-ray.

[candyrocket786]

Originally Posted by Vandelay_Inds

I care about quality and selection. That's why I went with DVDs so many years ago. But as it turns out, studios don't care about quality or selection, and they care less as time goes on. So now rather than pay for mediocrity, be limited by the studios' provincialism, and get ass-raped with scratched or damaged discs, like your friends I don't buy DVDs anymore.

I have yet to see a scratch on any of my BD discs, I guess it has something to do with the Adamantium Coating.

[slop101]

I don't think the article is saying that blu-ray is dead, or even dying, but that it will remain a niche format (which it is) for a while, possibly for too long before downloads take over.

[bunkaroo]

Originally Posted by Vandelay_Inds

So floaters, shit like those double-sided Universal disks, or hubs which force you to bend DVDs to the cracking point in order to remove them for playback are a thing of the past in the brave new BD world?

I would actually give the studios credit for something that.

Floaters happen, but the protective coating almost always prevents any issues.

Double-sided discs thankfully never invaded BD, although they were problematic on HD DVD.

Haven't come across many difficult hubs as the Blu-Ray cases seem to have softer plastic and hubs than typical DVD cases.

I will say I've rented probably 50-60 Blu-Ray's from Netflix and have never had anything on them that didn't easily wipe away.

[bunkaroo]

Originally Posted by slop101

I don't think the article is saying that blu-ray is dead, or even dying, but that it will remain a niche format (which it is) for a while, possibly for too long before downloads take over.

Isn't the title "Blu-Ray is dead" though?

[GizmoDVD]

Originally Posted by Vandelay_Inds

So floaters, shit like those double-sided Universal disks, or hubs which force you to bend DVDs to the cracking point in order to remove them for playback are a thing of the past in the brave new BD world?

I would actually give the studios credit for something that.

Ugh. I hate those damn BD cases that has pieces of the Blu plastic spindle floating inside the case. I seem to always get those from Amazon. Same with those stupid locking tabs that never actually lock but stick out from the sides.

I have yet to crack a BD/HD title tby removing them from the hub. I've come close several times...but luckily its never happened. I killed my Crash of the Titans DVD a few weeks back though :-( Hurry up and release this on BD Warner!

[slop101]

The title's hyperbole to get eyeballs - all articles (especially internet ones) are like that.

[darkside]

I keep hearing how BD just needs to slash prices, but is that really want the BD association and movies studios want? I thought the main reason they were so gungho for a new format was to get disc and player prices up. Make the consumers that want HD pay a premium. If they end up with $99 BD players and discs the same prices as DVDs was there really any point to starting a new format? Oh I guess security may have also been a concern, but BD was cracked a long time ago and bittorrent is flooded with HD versions of movies. Doesn't sound like HD video will be a major financial success for anyone involved.

[DRG]

It took how many years for the mainstream public to, for the most part, 'be okay' with widescreen/OAR? (Be okay meant as accepting the black bars and not freaking out when their DVD has them, even if they are not their preference.)

Now you're going to convince Joe Sixpack that there's a big enough difference between HD and standard DVDs to warrant paying twice as much for a BluRay disc? Good luck. I know a lot of people who say they honestly can't see the difference when it's right in front of their eyes. Keep in mind these are the same people who are okay watching all their 1.33:1 tv stretched to fill their widescreen tvs without ever noticing any distortion.

[Mister Peepers]

In his piece, Harris claims there are few quirky indie films on the format - are you KIDDING me?! Has he seen Transsiberian, Sukiyaki Western Django, Mongol, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Persepolis, Shinobi or any of the MANY such titles now available or coming soon? What about the documentary titles? Baraka, Planet Earth? The TV titles? Heroes, Lost, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Torchwood, Pushing Daisies, Band of Brothers?

Nothing like those indie shows like Heroes, Lost, or Sarah Conner Chronicles. Seriously though, he just made the claim that Kiss of the Spider Woman is a quirky indie film. Did he just scan through and see the word "indie".

You think all of those titles are impressive? Look at the tip of the iceberg of what's coming next year: The Star Trek films, Braveheart, Pinocchio, The Lord of the Rings films, King Kong (1933), The Wizard of Oz, Ben Hur, North by Northwest, the Ghostbusters films, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone with the Wind, the Rush Hour films, The French Connection, Napoleon Dynamite, Office Space, Raging Bull, Ronin, the new Battlestar Galactica TV series and HUNDREDS of others. That's just scratching the surface. There are titles that I KNOW FOR A FACT are in the works for release on Blu-ray in 2009 that will blow your minds, but I can't mention them by name yet. MAJOR catalog releases. For god's sake, folks... The Final Countdown is on Blu-ray! Are you kidding me?

The Rush Hour films!!! Blu-ray is here to stay!!!!

The question isn't, "Is Harris right?" The question is, "Is Harris even PAYING ATTENTION?" Of course not. He's fine guy... but he's A DATA STORAGE GUY. He's not a film guy. He's not a home video industry expert.

But you just agreed with him on what needs to change.

I wouldn't be shocked if Blu-ray stayed in the niche market but I've been buying more lately and hope it succeeds but nothing is guaranteed, not matter how much people say it is unless it's taxes or death.

Let me also get this out of the way, "How dare he attack Bill Hunt".

[Sonny Corinthos]

I enjoy Blu-Ray and I buy them if given the choice between SD DVD and Blu-Ray but most people I know aren't going to shell out an extra $15 bucks for a movie on Blu-Ray when they can buy the SD DVD for half the price.

I think Blu-Ray will be like laserdisc was in the 90s. It had it's niche crowd but the average joe isn't willing to spend the extra cash on a Blu-Ray movie when it can be bought on DVD for a cheaper price.

[SexualPudding]

Originally Posted by Drexl

They are not analogous, IMHO. Music was further along in the technology of delivering content, to the point where DVD-Audio and SACD were not much better (multichannel aside). CD was already good enough that many people could not tell the difference. Video, on the other hand, had further to go, and HD video is a noticeable difference over SD video. The next video format will be a better equivalent to DVDA/SACD.

Of course, there is still the question of whether people care enough about the quality.

I have to disagree. I think it is a pretty fair comparison. To me, SACD and DVD-Audio, strictly from a sound quality standpoint, is almost a night and day difference from standard CD. I would argue that it is at least on par with the difference in PQ from standard 480i/p DVD to BD/HD-DVD. The main thing is, very, very few people care about sound quality anymore. It's all about portability and how many songs you can fit on x device. The quality of mp3's is horrid, but no one really cares.

HD video is a noticeable jump in quality over SD, but frankly, not enough people care, or they just aren't educated enough on the matter. I think a lot more people care about video quality than sound quality on music, but still not so many more that they are willing to start buying up HD media en masse. That's the rub.

The comparison between SACD/DVD-Audio and HD discs seems like a fair one to me, though. Both of them are/were seen by many people as incremental upgrades at best. The technology that preceded them, CD and DVD, were the real revolutionary jumps. They were both successors to a tape based format, so not only was there a noticeable upgrade in terms of sound/video quality, but the convenience factor, with menus and chapter skips, was huge, not to mention just being smaller and a lot less cumbersome.

[pro-bassoonist]

Originally Posted by SexualPudding

HD video is a noticeable jump in quality over SD, but frankly, not enough people care, or they just aren't educated enough on the matter.

There are very few people that cared about OAR when VHS was ruling the media market even though the obvious example, the cinema experience, was there to prove that a lot of the picture was missing. This was a much more substantial and glaring example of improvement when DVD took over...yet those who did not care adopted the OAR standards DVD introduced.

Pro-B

[Shazam]

Is 1080p so much better than 480i (with a faux-p) that a simple bit of education is enough to convince them?

[chanster]

The simple fact is that an upconverted DVD is probably good enough for people. Thats what Blu Ray is up against, the economy stinks for most people right now, so the idea of throwing away or moving a perfectly good DVD player for a $200-$300 Blu Ray player, plus the added costs of "Blu Ray price - DVD price" doesn't make it appealing to a lot of folks. So yeah, you get some picture + sound quality improvement, it doesn't revolutionize the way you can view the movie (i.e. chapter stops, portability, rewinding) so there you go.

Moreover, the fact that even mid adopters have to constantly upgrade a machine to watch movies (ala James Bond) is a shame and the companies that support Blu Ray should be ashamed they are trashing "their next step in high def." DVD players had some problems early on too, but not at the fundamental level that some Blu Ray players seem to choke on Java implementation. And yeah HD DVD had its problems too (although I never experienced any with the whole 7-8 discs I bought) but HD DVD is dead and anyone brings it up, congratulations you get the award for not talking straight about Blu Ray.

Full disclosure: I supported HD DVD because of the lower price than Blu Ray, because I wanted "high def" to become mainstream and not Laserdisc 2.0, because frankly I'm not (or no longer) a home theater enthusiast but I enjoy picking up a favorite movie once in awhile and if mainstream acceptance would lead to more variety, I would pick whatever horse promised that. I wonder if and when Blu Ray players hit $99, people will be screaming firesale or some other nonsense. So for those who revel in the role of home theater hobbyist, I guess you don't care if Blu Ray picks up steam or not, as long as you can proudly proclaim you are the owner of the Sony X500000 that can decode Virtual Dolby ES 10.0 TrueHD DTS., but others do care if high def titles are available in a relatively affordable format.

Frankly, I guess it makes no difference to me, because the DVD looks good enough (and looked good enough vs. HD DVD too) and no I don't sit around and compare still images and compare high def to standard DVD and notice the lack of detail on Pacino's nose in the godfather. The movie and the story is what is important, and frankly I would rather watch Godfather on VHS then Resident Evil:Apocalypse on Blu Ray. Moreover, the cost of paying at least $350 or so for the Godfather collection on Blu Ray and a new Blu Ray player doesn't make it appealing enough to dump my Godfather DVD box that I got for free during the great flooz bankruptcy fiasco at BN.com. Old timers, anybody remember that.

[Shazam]

flooz bankrupty? That was like yesterday. I miss freeride. So many free Amazon GCs...

[applesandrice]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

...yet those who did not care adopted the OAR standards DVD introduced.

Pro-B

??

If that were the case we wouldn't still be seeing "Full Screen" DVD releases. There are still plenty of people out there who complain about the "black bars" on widescreen films. Why, it was only a few years ago that whenever Best Buy advertised these dual releases they'd only print the cover art for FS releases, and feature a little icon at the bottom showing "widescreen version also available"!!

Look -- in the beginning, when DVD was new and was first being marketed to film buffs OAR was a big selling point. But since its popularization you've got every slackjawed yokel with a 13" Zenith buying pan-and-scan crap by the pound. I think the biggest factor in widescreen DVDs not becoming a niche market of their own has been the popularization of widescreen displays. Similarly, I think that unless studios begin actively reducing their production of DVDs and/or providing more incentives for consumers to go Blu-ray, BD will -- at best -- remain a niche market.

As for this article, the author is obviously looking to push people's buttons and start some kind of firestorm, if only for the purpose of getting his/her name out there.

[chanster]

or pointclick.

[GizmoDVD]

Originally Posted by applesandrice

??

If that were the case we wouldn't still be seeing "Full Screen" DVD releases. There are still plenty of people out there who complain about the "black bars" on widescreen films. Why, it was only a few years ago that whenever Best Buy advertised these dual releases they'd only print the cover art for FS releases, and feature a little icon at the bottom showing "widescreen version also available"!!

Look -- in the beginning, when DVD was new and was first being marketed to film buffs OAR was a big selling point. But since its popularization you've got every slackjawed yokel with a 13" Zenith buying pan-and-scan crap by the pound. I think the biggest factor in widescreen DVDs not becoming a niche market of their own has been the popularization of widescreen displays. Similarly, I think that unless studios begin actively reducing their production of DVDs and/or providing more incentives for consumers to go Blu-ray, BD will -- at best -- remain a niche market.

You would be shocked at how many people think that buying a HDTV instantly means no black bars for them. I shamefully had to explain aspect ratio to several people all of which said "why do primetime TV shows not have black bars then?" Ugh.

[darkside]

I think all the hardware issues are just as big of a problem as anything. I have a profile 1.0 Sharp player that I thankfully didn't pay for because if I had paid $500 for it I would probably want to file a lawsuit. If it was my only BD player I would junk it and go back to DVD. It now sits unused except for the occasional standard DVD. It is super slow, can't handle many of the new BDs (most Fox titles are completely unplayable) and likes to freeze completely in a BD movie if you try using an advanced feature like rewind.

I know we had lots of issues here and on AVS Forums with profile 1.0 and many 1.1 players. I have to wonder how many consumers were bit by these $500 to $1000 dollar junk players that have given up on Blu-ray. It is sad that gaming consoles are basically the players that had to carry HD video for years and in the case of the PS3 is still possibly the best player on the market. Some have finally caught up in features, but none in speed and stability.

The one thing that still makes people I know laugh is the boot time. Even on my fairly quick LG BH200. The fact the player doesn't immediately open the tray when you turn it on is a bigger deal killer than you might think for some people. It just screams at them that BD is not ready and is still a beta product.

[applesandrice]

Originally Posted by GizmoDVD

You would be shocked at how many people think that buying a HDTV instantly means no black bars for them. I shamefully had to explain aspect ratio to several people all of which said "why do primetime TV shows not have black bars then?" Ugh.

I wouldn't be shocked at all -- I've had to explain it a time or two, myself. Sometimes you just wanna shake 'em!!!

A lot are just willfully ignorant, too. They may ask for an explanation, but they really don't care, and no matter how simple an explanation you might give, they claim it's just going over their head.

That's when you punch 'em right in the mouth.

[kms_md]

Originally Posted by darkside

The one thing that still makes people I know laugh is the boot time. Even on my fairly quick LG BH200. The fact the player doesn't immediately open the tray when you turn it on is a bigger deal killer than you might think for some people. It just screams at them that BD is not ready and is still a beta product.

i find this annoying as well.

[BuckNaked2k]

The comparison between Blu-ray and SACD & DVD-A is valid to a point. However, no one can say that those (failed) formats had the promotion, marketing, and retail support of Blu-ray.

Just the other day I was in my local BB, and noticed that they now had 30 FEET (10 three-footers) of shelf space dedicated strictly to Blu-ray, along with various end caps, and other stand alone, tie-in type displays. There is no way SACD or DVD-A was ever given anywhere near this type of support. Rather, the few available titles were mixed in with the regular CDs in the respective artist's section.

This leads me to wonder; with retail management being a veritable "science", where sales, profit, and stock turn can be measured down to the exact foot, how much time will the majors give Blu-ray to show a reasonable rate of return in these areas? I know the BDA spread some money around in the past, but with the major B&M chains maintaining the highest price points on Blu-ray discs, you have to think that something has to give soon.

The three possible scenarios I see are: BD takes off and begins to "earn its keep" on retail sales floors; retailers get fed up, and "take back" some of the current floorspace given to Blu-ray; or retailers drop prices on Blu-ray discs to a price point where the spread between BD and SD is much more reasonable and in line with consumer expectations.