I don't think the pricing is the issue with BR any longer, especially in the last two months.

We'll see if the prices continue at that low level or whether they'll raise them.
I have a feeling much of the Blu-ray hardware & software is being sold at a loss or close to a loss as a last ditch effort to get the general public to take a stronger interest in it.

I think the issue now for the general public is it worth upgrading your DVDs?

This is where people really see the extra expense, not necessarily with new releases, which can be had for pretty close to the DVD price if you want the special edition.

Yes, I know Blu-ray will up-convert your DVDs but isn't the whole point of a Blu-ray player to watch everything in true 1080p HD?

It's like buying a performance car that requires the more expensive 94 octane gas whereas your previous car ran just fine on the cheaper 87 octane.

Sure, the new performance car is faster but you've also signed up for a larger monthly gas bill. You could put 87 octane in the performance car, but it would not run as well as your old car.

If you've paid all that extra money for the performance car, you're either stuck filling it with expensive 94 octane gas or lose the whole point of buying the performance car in the first place.

Does the car analogy make sense?

personally, i won't be upgrading my entire collection.

it's not "perfect," but i'm happy with the up-convert from my ps3.

however, there are a few titles i would upgrade. ie: gladiator when it was supercheap on black friday.

Best Buy?

No, because this calls for a WWII tank analogy.

You see, DVD is a P1000:
"The P1000 was to be 35 meters long, 14 meters wide and 11 meters high, the size of a decent sized office block ! The tracks that the tank would ride on were to be 3.6 meters wide each side and each plate would be assembled from three 1.2 meter segments. The tracks would need to be this wide so the P1000 would not just sink into the ground under its own weight.

The P1000 was due to be manned by a crew of 20 and powered with two MAN V12Z32/44 24 cylinder 8500Hp U-Boat engines delivering a combined power output of 17,000 hp.

Another consideration was the idea of eight Daimler-Benz MB501 20 cylinder 2000 hp Motor Torpedo Boat (E-boat) engines, delivering a combined power output of 16,000 hp.

The mathematical calculations showed that with 16 to 17,000 horsepower at its disposal, the P1000 would be able to travel at 40 to 45 Kmh which would be quite fast for such a ginormouse tank."

Blu-Ray is a P1500:

"It would have an armor mantle of at least 250mm thick going up to 360mm with 220mm side armor and 150mm top armor plating.

It was designed to be armed with a super heavy duty 800mm Mortar gun similar to that used on the railway gun 'Dora'. Also two 150mm artillery cannon and an array of machine guns and anti-aircraft guns would be included into it.

The P1500 was destined to be powered by four U-Boat engines, possibly the MAN V12Z32/44 24 cylinder 8500hp design that would render a power output of 34,000hp.

The P1000 or indeed even the P1500 was so large that the Germans didn't call it a 'tank' they instead called it a Land Cruiser. At over 1000 tons the tank would not have been able to cross any bridges and would have ploughed up the streets as it trundled by.

It would have had to go through buildings rather than traverse around them, as the majority of streets would have been too narrow, it would have been more like trying to drive a battleship through them."

As you can see, Blu-Ray is superior to DVD but both will have trouble traveling on the street but both are good ideas.

In fact, if you do a search on wikipedia of "p1000" one of the first links relates to Blu-Ray while "p1500" brings up an HD-DVD related article as one of the first results.

Any questions?

I don't know if it is a last ditch effort or not, and I cannot speak to hardware, but on software I believe you are 100% correct. While the discounts I see are nothing compared to to what a Wal Mart or Amazon gets, I do deal in wholesale and there is no way Amazon is making money on a 7.99 blu ray with a pub at of more than 18 bucks. At 9.99 they could be making a profit. Albeit a very small one per unit.

On the slightly plus side for Blu Ray owners....you will start to see "bargain" blu rays most likely within a year. They are starting to trickle out here and there at 6 to 7 dollars net (to the wholesaler), though very limited titles right now.

Unfortunately, all that really means is that traditional bargain vendors like Oldies or whomever will be able to sell at 10$ and actually make money...doesn't add up to much for anyone who has access to Amazon.

I would assume that Amazon has some kind of deal with the studios. The below $10 Amazon DVDs are most all from Warners or Lion's Gate; I would presume that they have some kind of arrangement with them and get the discs at less than normal wholesale. Otherwise, they would also be selling things like Sin City or Pirates of the Caribbean at prices comparable to 2001 and V for Vendetta if they're going that route.

Not to mention that many of the cheap Amazon Blu-rays have also shown up at Target and Best Buy for comparable prices. Makes it seem more like the studios are offering select titles to certain vendors to sell at a low price.

Well, I think it's pretty obvious that the studios are cutting the prices to the retailers. Amazon could really give a crap if people convert to blu ray. They'll just sell whatever it is folks want. The only group who would benefit in the long term by taking the early loss are the studios. Of course, by cutting the prices so deeply, they are basically betting on a whole lot of SD to Blu double-dipping down the road. Now that they've completely lowered people's price expectations, about the only way this works is if we all purchase our collections all over again.

That's a good point, I hadn't noticed the particular studios.

I guess I see Amazon do their blended pricing deal of rotating items and fluctuating prices, exactly what they do with the BRs, and the 7.99 pricepoint just reeks of loss leader to me.

your average shopper probably isn't buying the special edition. They're usually either renting (not buying at all) or buying the bare-bones cheapie version (I don't know anyone other than other video collectors like myself who care anything about bonus discs/features).

I don't think most BRs are priced lower than the bare-bones DVD versions...

Perhaps an over simplification, I admit.


WNot sure that's entirely fair. Yes, there are $100 BR players, but the 'competition' (DVD players) can be had for well below $50, so both hardware platforms are pretty cheap.

Now, when VHS and Laser were competing head-to-head (let's use circa-1991, for example), VCRs were still not-exactly cheap (I seem to remember the 4-head hi-fi machine I bought around then being about $350 at membership warehouse prices). Yes, laser was quite a bit more expensive, but VHS decks weren't down to the same price as a toaster at that point.

There weren't, but there also weren't any fully-loaded VHS releases coming out at sell-through prices, either. Most VHS were the movie only. The rare deluxe VHS sets (like Gone With the Wind sold at prices as high as Laser.

Unlike DVD, where there are all kinds of special features for sub-$20 releases on that platform, too. All home video software is cheaper these days than back then. If the studios were using their current business models back then, Laser (and VHS) releases would've been at sell-through prices, too.

None, but is the marketing really helping all that much? You can advertise something all you want, it won't make the general public accept it.

And I contend that the average person is going to view BR as an unnecessary purchase, too. Maybe not quite as lavish a luxury (as the prices aren't as high as 'back in the day'), but still something that many will see as not needed. There are so many who a). think DVD is good enough or b). wouldn't know HD when they see it (I know people who have bought HDTVs and think that whatever is plugged into it (including their standard-def Dish Network) is HD by virtue of the TV set!

I'm not personally knocking BluRay...just saying I doubt it will achieve the same level of mainstream success that DVD has.

Tanks??? In what universe is a tank a suitable analogy for a DVD???

Just to clarify a few things about laserdiscs.

In the middle to end of the 90's, laserdiscs WERE beginning to move to the mainstream. Most retail stores carried them to sell. Both of my video stores had started to carry them to rent.

The reason many people objected to DVD early on (like in Kevin Smith's opening line in the commentary track to the Criterion CHASING AMY) was because laserdisc was at its peak, but then came DVD and it killed it off.

Laserdiscs WERE dropping in price. While for most of the 90's, new single disc lasers retailed for $39, big titles like SPEED were selling for $29 (and that is MSRP, you could get them for less depending on the store). Plus, there was a huge mail order used market with titles going for $5 to $10. Not to mention Columbia House had a laserdisc club.

If DVD hadn't come out, maybe we would all be talking about lasers today.

That said, lasers never got the Wal Mart acceptance that Blu-Ray is getting. That is a huge difference.

As HDTVs become mainstream, so will Blu Ray players. If you don't have an HDTV, you don't need a Blu-Ray. If you do have one, you need it.

I think you're overemphasizing the progress laser discs made.

I've been a bit of a movie buff and tech fan all of my life (40 years), and I've never even seen a laser disc. Sure, I was vaguely aware of their existence, but no one in my family or friends even thought about buying into them.

I admit that many people in my situation may have been fans, and perhaps I am somehow a bit of an outlier, but I think most people were barely aware of laser even after years on the market, and then the benefits of DVD made it mainstream extremely quickly.

I think if you live in a smaller town, Laser Disc would have been non-factor. I live in a medium sized city (3 million) and Laser Disc was widely available for rent at Blockbuster video and sold at the various stores that carried pre-recorded VHS tapes. There were even several Laser Disc-only specialty stores.

Our city has a large Asian population which probably explains a good portion of the demand for Laser DIsc at the time. Laser disc was quite popular in Hong Kong, Japan etc.

They were advertised and reviewed heavily in Premiere magazine, Entertainment Weekly magazine throughout the 1990s. Siskel & Ebert always endorsed the disc over the VHS on their program.

By the mid-nineties there was strong word about a CD sized disc that was in the final stages of development and was appearing at some of the electronic trade-shows.

I know from myself, I bought a Laser Disc and about five movies and then decided just to rent discs because I knew something better & more compact was just on the horizon.

I also remember a big, two-week long Pioneer-sponsored home theatre demo in the local shopping mall around 1993.

It never really got the marketing push that Blu-ray is getting now. I guess they did their market surveys & decided Laser Disc wasn't going to appeal to the mainstream no matter how much money they threw into advertising it.

I think this definitely speaks to a lot of us. Let's face it. It may be reprehensible, but if Walmart doesn't bring it to town, a lot of folks don't have access to it (whatever "it" is). This was even truer in the heyday of the Laser Disc format, because Internet access was still ahead of the curve for much of that era. I think this is something that our urban friends sometimes forget: Not everyone has been fortunate enough to have a lot of merchants nearby.

Same one as cars.

If you can figure out the point I was trying to make, please let me know.

i found peepers post highly entertaining at the least

I don't think that Blu-ray will dominate the way that DVDs did. When DVD arrived, the differences compared to VHS, even to the average consumer, was quite noticeable. While a lot of people love the improved picture and sound of Blu-ray, many are still very content with their current DVD setup. With Blu-ray Discs arriving so soon after DVDs became the new standard, and the way that HDTVs and Blu-ray players are changing so much, such as 1080P, hdmi 1.3, blu-ray player profiles, along with companies announcing both 3D HDTVs and 4K HDTVs, it is now quite clear that nothing will ever be the ultimate technology in regards to home entertainment. As a result, I think that people have now become much more skeptical about investing even more money in new, high-priced hardware and more expensive movies that may or may not have a long lifespan. Because of these things, I think that Blu-ray will be popular for a long time, but will probably not become the new standard the way DVDs have.

i hate to say this but switching to Blu is not an option anymore...most of the time Blu ray has more extras and btw it's mostly cheaper than DVD these days.look at the list over amazon.com,Inglorious Basterds Blu is cheaper than the DVD...the same goes to Up and Monster's Inc.

I just hoped we all learned something about that tanks that just couldn't do it. No matter if they thought they could.

I blame some new medicine I started taking the night before. I'm going in today to find out what I need to do to get off of it so my heart doesn't explode.

Really?

In the town I was living in at the time of 15,000 our video store had a laserdisc section. The next town's video store rented lasers as well.

Media Play was a fairly popular chain in the 90's and all of their stores carried them.

As mentioned, Siskel and Ebert championed them since the 1980's. I still remember USA TODAY had a front page of the Life section review of the STAR WARS laserdisc box set in the 90's. They also regularly reviewed laser releases in their weekly video section.

There were several laserdisc magazines you could find at Barnes and Noble. Premiere covered them.

Like I said, it was about to breakthrough when DVDs came out.

All true, but I'd love to know how many brick & mortar stores these places had during the era described. I suspect they weren't as widespread as they are today--and even today, you can find entire series of counties in many states who don't have one. Ditto for the circulation of Premiere, whose readership I suspect is more likely to live near a Barnes & Noble or Media Play than out in the sticks where "the Walmarts" is far and away the biggest thing going. Face it: there's a reason that the masses adopted DVD faster and more thoroughly than they did LD, and that's because of Walmart. If they don't bring it to town and throw their might behind it, it doesn't have enough exposure to make it.

As far as Laser Discs go, none of the video stores I rented VHS from ever rented Laser Discs. The only place I ever saw them was Camelot Music at the mall. They had a bargin bin of them in the middle of the store. Plus I was young then and still living at home so I didn't have money to buy a player or much less discs. I didn't mind renting movies on VHS then either cause it was cheap.

Once I moved out and got my own place, DVD's started to come out. I bought a DVD player in 97 when there was only a hand full of movies available. And that was because Best Buy was selling the DVD players and movies so I got to see it in person. I saw a huge leap over VHS, and also I saw that brand new movies would be coming out 6 months after the theater and you could get them for 20 bucks.

I think also technology moves so much faster now than it did when VHS was dominant and Laser Disc came out. People didn't go out and upgrade their TVs. You kept the same TV for 10 years or more and didn't care. Now its in your face all the time that you need this new TV cause its 1080p instead of 1080i. Does the average person care if their TV is 1080p? I doubt it. I think Blu Ray is just another part of this "you need to upgrade cause its better" stuff that keeps getting forced on everyone every year.

I was born in 1985...is it weird that I never once in my life have seen a laser disc? Were they pretty much not popular by the time i got older?

I was also born in '85. My elem school actually had a LaserDisc player.