Alan Smithee

http://homemediamagazine.com/comic-c...al-media-36233

Pretty much what I've been saying for a while- yes, they aren't selling as much as they used to, but they still bring in a few million dollars which ain't too bad and Blu-Ray does have a bigger share of the market than laserdisc did in its prime. Even us 'enthusiasts' can't buy everything the week it comes out either, so if something isn't selling so hot right away just give it some time and maybe a little more promotion.

PhantomStranger

It's a pretty sobering article from industry veterans. The Hollywood studios don't care anymore and it's up to the niche labels to release anything outside the latest blockbusters.

It is very possible that 4K media arrives nearly DOA. If Hollywood doesn't at least pretend they want it, 4K has no chance at establishing a foothold.

milo bloom

I guess it's not surprising, even our household has moved onto streaming for most things. The other day my son and I saw all the Danger Mouse DVD sets in a used store for like $6 a set, but I said we should see if it's on Netflix and it is, so we've been watching it there.

But I still think there's a (limited) future for Bluray. Like they said, it's doing as well as laserdisc did and you have to remember that while laserdisc was never a smash hit consumer format, it managed to hang on for 2 decades.

So Bluray will become a collector's format. The studios will put out their big box office hits, but it will be the boutique labels that will be for the collectors. I still buy things like MST3K, the Godzilla movies and a few other things I consider "collectible". But even Star Trek, the reason I got into DVD, is now always watched on Netflix. It's just so much easier than swapping discs.

We had a good run, but with forums like this we can still remain a community.

bruceames

Pretty sad when they're comparing Blu-ray with Laserdisc, saying that at least it did better than that.

PhantomStranger

Blu-ray has far more retail support than Laserdisc ever sniffed. That may change in the next year or two but for the moment it's doing fine.

mrhan

I don't think the average person knew about LDs unless all your friends were Asian and/or HT enthusiast. I couldn't stand watching VHS when I really got into LDs. It was kind of cool that it was a niche market where only those in the know got the good shit.

bruceames

That's a pretty low definition of "doing fine", when the sales are down 16 percent for the year, which is even more than DVD.

I would say there are quite a few folks who still doesn't know what Blu-ray is.

kgrogers1979

I never even heard of the Laserdisc format until it was already a dead format. I think I first heard about Laserdisc when I happened to read an article about it sometime in the early-mid 2000s.

I remember also hearing about the piles of abandoned Laserdiscs in Back to the Future II. Before I learned of the Laserdisc format, I always thought those piles were old fashioned music vinyl records...

Adam Tyner

We got our first Laserdisc player in...geez, 1984, I think, although the cost and lack of availability of the media kept our library pretty microscopic for years. (Our first discs: Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn and Strong Kids, Safe Kids. Guess which one my Dad used to pretend the player was for the whole family?) I think in those earliest days, there was one home theater store way on the other side of town that sold LDs. The only "regular" store I remember selling LDs -- even in the early-to-mid '90s -- was Camelot Music, and we raided the hell out of that $12.88 bin. I know we mail-ordered some, although I forget which catalog that was. While everyone else's LD memories revolve around The Abyss and Star Wars, our collection was almost nothing but stuff like Dr. Alien and Killer Tomatoes Eat France. (Guess where I got my schlock-cinema tastes from?) I remember seeing LDs in a Blockbuster in Phoenix, but none of the rental stores (indie or chains) around us in SC seemed to carry any.

I didn't run into anyone else with a Laserdisc player until nearly 10 years after we got ours. ('93? '94? Some dude in high school, anyway.)

I always thought it was funny that Laserdisc was associated with properly letterboxed films when borderline-nothing in our library (maybe 50-60 titles?) was presented that way. If not for my father's home theater obsession, I'm not sure I would've heard of Laserdisc until the early '90s.

If nothing else, Blu-ray is definitely more mainstream than that. Between the premium in price, DVD being "good enough", and the emotional attachment people have to their DVD collections compelling them to snub anything else, I'm not sure how much of a chance Blu-ray ever really stood at toppling DVD. Factor in the popularity of streaming in the years since, and...

b2net

The Blu-ray vs HD-DVD didn't help either... There are still some folks out there that won't upgrade their player thinking they can no longer play their DVDs... And no I an notnot saying the name HD-DVD was better from a marketing perspective .. Just that it was less confusing to althise that confuse easily...

Also, if streaming in HD (not saying it is better than Blu-ray) wasn't so readily available, more people would likely support physical media... And also, some SD streaming is actually superior to the DVD counterparts...

Alan Smithee

Adam- your dad bought you "Strong Kids Safe Kids" on laserdisc? That one's in my "totally messed up stuff" section.

The format war was incredibly stupid; I didn't even get an HDTV until after that was settled (and being into dead/failed formats I then proceeded to collect all the HD-DVDs I could at fire-sale prices.)

Even Vudu HDX quality can't touch Blu-Ray. I know the general public doesn't give a damn about picture quality, but there should be enough who do to keep media afloat. Plus if all streaming becomes like this, I'm out of it completely:
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zuhjeQEE5h0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Why So Blu?

I got my first LD player in 1996 since and we had an LD shop in town and Tower Records also sold LD's. I got the player from The Good Guys. My first LD was Strange Days.

I agree about BD being way more mainstream than LD ever was.

Adam Tyner

Yup! On the upside, I got to show this to all my friends for years and years:

<iframe width="640" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WHVDQAm2KU4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Alan Smithee

The guys at the Found Footage Festival were impressed that I had that on laserdisc, as well as Where Did I Come From and What's Happening to Me? The Found Footage Festival is reason enough to love physical media- think of all that stuff being lost in the 'cloud'!

Paul_SD

I was first exposed to Laserdiscs in the Spring of '79. They were test marketing them in the Atlanta area. They'd have a big spinner rack full of boxed Disc-O-Vision titles (mostly Universal content) with Jaws being the real attention getter for me.
Around '82 I saw the format again and discs had changed to single platters inside a more record like sleeve.
in '90 a local record chain had a buyer that was a huge LD enthusiast and he stocked all the locations with a selection of LDs. The main store had, for the time and especially for the area, a truly incredible selection of titles. TONS of deep catalog. When I saw there were widescreen editions of the Star Wars films available, that's when I jumped in. Had about 70 titles all together. Had about 4 or 5 titles before I ever got my first player in '91.

I think the only thing that really put the brakes on it and eventually killed it was the arrival of DVD. Initially the only real advantage that I could see was it was more compact- which would yield further advantages down the line with PC compatibility. But those first demos of DVD were not impressive to me. Lots of pixel breakup and macro blocking. I honestly thought Laser would hold on a lot longer.

I would be just fine if Blu ray lasted 20+ years and was mainly the province of niche labels that were licensing content. I don't see any competing hard copy alternative down the road. Maybe some kind of flash drive system, but Bd is already plenty convenient of a form factor. For the enthusiast market, it could easily exist as the de facto solution for quite a while.

Up until a year ago there was a HUGE void when it came to MGM catalog that I though would never get filled. While I'm still waiting on most of my favorite MGM catalog to get released, massive strides were made with that studios product. Right now Paramount is looking like MGM two years ago. They're sitting on a ton of content that doesn't look like it will ever get released. From what I understand with the Warner deal, Paramount still calls the shots on what gets released and when. They need to open up more and license their catalog out to more than just Criterion.
When the MGM well runs dry at Kino or Olive, hopefully they can strike a deal with Paramount.
Unfortunately the current head of the home video branch there is piece of work- and hates the hard copy home video market. She might need to get pushed out first before anything actually happens.

Solid Snake

Jesus. You going route the route of a little bitch aren't you? OMG. It's showing me wtf else I might be interested in while the credits are going. I see no major issue here. I'd have more issue w/ fucking up the ratio, subtitles on certain films, etc. It's streaming. It's not a big deal. Netflix does something like that too. How fucking fragile are some people to get pissed at something like that? First world lazy fuck problems.

Alan Smithee

(My mistake on an earlier comment- it's another user with "Snake" in their name who says they throw out slipcovers.) If you look at the video you'll see it doesn't even just interrupt the credits (which ARE still part of the movie), even in the still-frame it comes on when part of the show is still going. If I'm paying for something I want NO intrusions at all unless I hit a button, and if all streaming becomes like that then I simply won't support it.

So I'm a "little bitch" just because I want to see something all the way through? They can show me wtf else I might be interested in AFTER the ENTIRE thing is over- heck, they could even auto-play stuff if they want to keep me watching all day. But don't kick me out of something before it's over. Sometimes even a good few minutes of silence afterwards is a proper way to end a movie.

orangerunner

Remember too, that Blu-ray is drawing from a much smaller pool of titles than DVD. The sheer volume of DVD titles out there help the drop in sales percentage.
Couple that with the fact that many Blu-rays are sold with a DVD.

HD DVD really had little to do with the lack of sales for Blu-ray. I think they're right that the studios had bloated expectations.
Blu-ray was going to be a niche, they weren't going to hit another home run selling the same content all over again.

But once a sales precedent has been set, the corporate mentality does not tolerate anything that isn't a growth industry even if it is still making money.

Even the distribution mindset at the studios is the same way. The big studios used to buy films for $5 million or less from a film festival and earn $40 million by distributing it.

Now, the studios can't be bothered. They would rather gamble $200 million and (hopefully) earn back 1 billion.

Matthew Chmiel

I also feel that with Blu-ray being a niche product, we're seeing releases far stronger in terms of quality and content on par with Laserdisc than with what we've seen on DVD. Not only from the major distributors, but also third-parties such as Criterion, Shout, Synapse, Arrow, and others. Yeah, the sales might not be there, but for those invested in cinema or physical media, there's some strong content out there and on the horizon.

From the director's cut of Little Shop of Horrors, to a two-disc special edition to Phantom of the Paradise, to a fifteen-disc box set of the entire Halloween franchise just to name a very select few. I never imagined such releases on DVD, but here we are.

Hell, I'm going to get a proper release of Suspiria in my lifetime. What a fucking time to be alive!

Why So Blu?

Blu-ray wouldn't be so niche if the prices were lower. You can now get BD platers for $60-$70.

Matthew Chmiel

However, the Blu-ray players at that price point are shit and you get what you're paying for.

For a quality Blu-ray player that is more of an "all-around" media device (both physical and streaming), you're looking at minimum triple digits. At that point, you might as well spend an extra $100 and purchase a PS3.

Drexl

Actually the aspect ratio is still screwed up sometimes. There are titles that are supposed to be 2.35:1 but are about 1.85:1 on the service.

However, I'm not sure if Netflix is to blame; it's possible that's just what they're given by the studios. There are also titles on Vudu like that. Maybe the studios see streamers as a more casual audience that cares less about OAR than disc buyers.

At least it's better than in the early days, when some titles (especially from Warner) had hideous, old 4:3 transfers.

Matthew Chmiel

If you actually reach out to Netflix and Vudu, they'll actually reach out to the distributors and seek out getting the correct version on the service. Most of the time, the studios don't care and will not provide them with the proper version for whatever reason. I've seen Vudu correct problems of this nature far more often than Netflix has.

With that being said, the studios also provide different masters and/or encodes to the different streaming services. Vudu might have a garbage quality of a film, but CinemaNow or Flixster might have a better copy. Its inconsistent.

Josh-da-man

Aren't pretty much all blu ray players less than $100 now? Sony, Samsung, Panny, Toshi?

Only one I can think of that's more than $100 is Oppo.

orangerunner

As far as packaging and extras go, with a few exceptions, DVD was far superior to Blu-ray.

Think of the DVD special editions of Saving Private Ryan, Showgirls VIP Edition, Starship Troopers, Boogie Nights, True Romance, Grease, Saturday Night Fever etc, etc. all had much nicer packaging, multi-page booklets, more extras and, for their time, the best quality available.

At best, their Blu-ray counter-parts offered a slipcover and a case that has more holes than plastic.

I agree there are some Blu-ray titles from Shout! and Criterion that are pretty impressive but you won't find them for under $10 like we saw with DVD and probably never will.

Blu-ray still has unrivaled picture and sound but the combination of extras + presentation + low price + availability, DVD was still the best.