Gizmo

So you now can predict the future and tell me they were addressed 10 months in the future?

Gizmo

If there is a negative thread you will no doubt see Pro-B in it defending BDs honor. If there is a positive thread, you will no doubt Pro-B in it applauding the OP/article (even if it was an author who months before dismissed BD as niche, dead etc). You and I both know this and its something I've come to expect. With the BD Sales thread locked, we see less and less of him as its not like he actually wants to discuss the actual films (unless its to prove the BD is more impressive then the previous HD DVD).

Firmware updates are an issue as you can see by visiting other forums or even here. How many times do we see a thread asking why x movie won't play in his player and re-directing him to get the new firmware upgrade (hoping that user knows how to even apply it)? Its a shame for consumers, because they simply won't stand for it. I know I'd be pissed if I didn't follow BD heavily and buy a BD title off the shelf only to find out it won't play in my brand new player and have to run around and figure out why.

Gizmo

Since you are all knowing - why not explain to us, simple folk, who is handling firmware updates and monitoring their progress? First I have ever heard of this. What third party is taking the task of testing ever BD film off the line with the 30 or so BD players currently on the market? And please - don't give me your insider BS either or derail the thread into something else.

cultshock

A lot of valid points have been brought up, but this thread has been deteriorating over the last couple of pages, with everyone being bitchy with each other. Why do Blu-ray discussions always end up devolving like this?

mhg83

when i popped in sleeping beauty for the first time today, it said there was a firmwire update needed. But it was only for extra features not the movie itself. It even says you dont have to update at the moment and can still watch the movie. So I dont know why some people on here are saying you cant watch a movie without an update???

Adam Tyner

That was just for some of the online functionality.

Some discs won't play, period. There's some sort of incompatibility -- and it varies from disc to disc and player to player -- where it won't load, it won't get past a certain menu screen, or it'll completely lock up the player. I ran into instances on HD DVD where some titles would play to a certain point and then keel over. I'm not sure if that's been a problem with any Blu-ray titles so far, though.

You don't always have the option of letting the movie play one way or the other, and in some cases, people have had to wait weeks to be able to watch high-profile movies on namebrand players.

Come on -- you know the problems aren't just limited to the bobo brands. Is there any manufacturer who's released a Blu-ray player and hasn't had to issue a firmware update for incompatible titles?

I'm not sure how many average people could even tell you the name brand of their players without thinking about it. Maybe when the format becomes better established, people will start differentiating like that, but in these early-ish days -- and especially if their friends/family run into similar problems -- I think they'd probably place the blame on Blu-ray as a whole.

Gizmo

Universal does that as well. But that's just to download (or pre-load) some of the online special features. You can skip past that and play the movie (and if you do not have your player connected via Ethernet/WiFi you won't even see that message). We are talking more about films that won't play at all and require firmware updates.

Mr. Cinema

Aside from the PS3, Panasonic models don't seem to have hardly any trouble with any playback of discs. I've had 3 models and never had an issue with any title. I also don't read complaints about Panasonic either on various sites.

fumanstan

I can think of one reason (person) why.

Anyway, I can't see how anyone would think that firmware updates and incompatibility issues aren't a problem for Blu-ray. Hell, think of Iron Man when it came out and how it took hours for some users on Day 1 because of BD Live downloading and overloaded servers. Little things like that are always an issue and assuming that the average consumer should just shut up and be more tech savvy seems silly to me. Would it be nice? Sure. But that doesn't mean it's going to change anytime soon, especially in a market where folks are used to products just working.

Gizmo

Panasonic had issues with the first batch of Paramount (back to BD) and Uni releases. Some reviewers couldn't even review titles because they either wouldn't play or they had to disable 24fps to get them to play.

dmkb

My thoughts exactly!

I don't think this mindset is limited to Blu-Ray only it seems to be prevalent among most retailers and consumers of hard and software.

But for geezers like me that expect things to work out of the box, it drags my quality of life index way doooown.

orangerunner

I don't actually own a Blu-Ray player but reading about the compatability issues and the continuous firmware upgrades lead me to think this will be a real issue if they intend Blu-Ray to dominate the market anytime soon.

It reminds me a little of when DVD-R discs came on the market and the previous machines built from 1997-1999 would not recognize them. Then two years later DVD+R came along and caused even more compatability issues.

Unfortunately the customer's machines who failed to play the recordable discs were also the people that bought the machines early on and, of course, paid the most money for them.

What about the Blu-Ray rental market? I'd be upset if I rented the latest flick, took it home & couldn't play it that night without an upgrade to my player.

Think about the grief the average Blockerbuster employee would have to endure? Every night you would have several customers complaining their disc doesn't work in their machine and have to explain compatability issues over and over.

The rental market is a big factor when it comes to introducing a new format to the general public. If these problems become persistant it may have a big impact on Blu-Ray having mass acceptance.

Save Ferris

With the ISPs wanting to throttle broadband usage I dont see HD streaming being the norm anytime soon.

kms_md

i see this as the major current obstacle to widespread HD streaming.

cultshock

Here in Canada, most ISPs already practice throttling and have stingy download/upload caps, so I can't see HD streaming/downloading happening for a loooong time (also because of other reasons that have already been mentioned). Whenever people say that downloading HD quality films is just around the corner and will replace Blu-ray soon, I just roll my eyes.

BuckNaked2k

The ISPs have been threatening to cap broadband usage in response to illegal downloading, and the MPAA, RIAA, et al making noise about this.

If legal downloading becomes widely available, and in demand, I believe the ISPs will mitigate their stance.

namja

It's only a matter of time before we catch up to Korea, Japan, and other Asian countries. In Korea, the average broadband speed is about 50 mpbs and it costs around $20 a month. This is the average speed/cost. Don't think we can catch up to that in 10-15 years? Seriously?

Not that this will mean replacing Blu-ray or anything. Just that bandwidth issue should no longer be an issue in 10-15 years.

DivxGuy

Any player that didn't have its firmware updated would have had problem with Fox titles (new version of BD+).

Mr. Cinema

Just to note, "Hardly any trouble" does not equal "100 percent flawless".

Mr. Cinema

15 years isn't exactly around the corner.

Who's to say there won't be a cap on how much you can download each month without incurring additional fees? I think downloads will take over the rental market, but that's it.

I'm not convinced that in 15 years, the majority of the US population will have the infrastructure to handle massive HD download files. We still have people using dial-up now and it's 2009.

Qui Gon Jim

I think it will be tied into the cable services, sort of like the way OnDemand is now. It would be separate from the regular bandwidth you would get from your internet package.

cultshock

South Korea and Japan have an advantage (well, in this situation it's an advantage) of being smaller, densely populated countries, so it's easier and faster to do things like install a fiber-optic system (homes with fiber-optic internet connections have an over 10% penetration rate in these two countries already, and it's growing fast, it's already higher than cable or DSL internet connections). The US and Canada (especially Canada!) have a bigger hurdle as far as geography and population distribution goes. There are huge geographic areas that probably won't have the infrastructure to handle a relatively speedy transfer of large HD files for quite some time.

SPRBD

Korea is a good example because the cost of living there is just about the same as it is everywhere in the United States.

jiggawhat

If the Cable companies are smart, they should just license the tech from Netflix and put it their boxes then again that would probably decrease the revenue from their on-demand services.

namja

More than half of all Koreans live in the metropolitan Seoul area. And Seoul ranks as the 5th most expensive city to live in the world. By contrast, New York is the 22nd most expensive, and no other US city ranks in the top 50. So maybe it's not a good comparison. The prices in the US should be much lower if anything.

Anyway, that's what I'm giving us 10+ years. If we can't catch up to those countries in 10-15 years, then we're in serious trouble.

Source: http://www.mercer.com/costoflivingpr