Blu-ray Yet To Be Mainstream

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The chairman of CMC Magnetics says that high royalty fees and equipment costs are holding back Blu-ray and that it will be years before the format goes mainstream.

As Taiwan optical disc makers will only invest in 1-2 lines for Blu-ray disc production during the initial stages, and royalty fees for BD-R (recordable, write once) are still high, the time which Blu-ray disc gains the mainstream role is not expected for several years, Wong estimated.
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Yup!

Having the DATA closer to the edge of the disc and requiring that additional mandatory coating drives up production costs...
 
In all honesty, I hope that this never becomes mainstream. This is purely because I'm sick of this format war, and I want to be able to buy a HiDef something without having to worry about it becoming obsolete.

Seriously though, if neither HD-DVD or BlueRay are mainstream within the next year, neither one of them will be. I don't think the consumer will deal with this crap for years on end.
 
They deal with it with consoles though, so I don't see why this would end up being different. I mean, this DVD format war mimics the current console war perfectly. Each system (player) shares the majority of games (movies) with a few specific games (movies) that sell people on the system (player).

I think if the PS3 keeps picking up steam that eventually Blu Ray will win it just due to sheer numbers, but that's just me. To be honest, it's the reason I don't buy an HD DVD player as I worry it'll go obsolete in a year, but I'm very happy switching over to Blu Ray as majority of movies, espicially big name titles, greatly benefit from high definition.
 
Roufuss said:
They deal with it with consoles though, so I don't see why this would end up being different. I mean, this DVD format war mimics the current console war perfectly. Each system (player) shares the majority of games (movies) with a few specific games (movies) that sell people on the system (player).

I think if the PS3 keeps picking up steam that eventually Blu Ray will win it just due to sheer numbers, but that's just me. To be honest, it's the reason I don't buy an HD DVD player as I worry it'll go obsolete in a year, but I'm very happy switching over to Blu Ray as majority of movies, espicially big name titles, greatly benefit from high definition.
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Yeah, but the format war isn't going to be decided by people in the know. Gamers are in the know. People are going to buy what they can afford. HD DVD is within the affordability range (you can get Toshiba HD DVD players under $200 on Amazon, which is quite mainstream) but even the CEO of Sony said that Bluray players aren't going to drop below $400.

That's why I felt confident in getting an HD DVD player and a whole bunch of movies. Besides that, Best Buy has a B2G1Free deal on HD DVD movies online right now. :)
 
I'm betting on HD-DVD. Players are cheaper, discs are cheaper to make, and the format was finalized a long time ago. Blu-ray is still an unfinished beta product.
 
GilmourD said:
Yeah, but the format war isn't going to be decided by people in the know. Gamers are in the know. People are going to buy what they can afford. HD DVD is within the affordability range (you can get Toshiba HD DVD players under $200 on Amazon, which is quite mainstream) but even the CEO of Sony said that Bluray players aren't going to drop below $400.

That's why I felt confident in getting an HD DVD player and a whole bunch of movies. Besides that, Best Buy has a B2G1Free deal on HD DVD movies online right now. :)
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I swore there was a Blu-Ray player at Costco for under $300 (with 5 free movies) a few days before christmas when I was in there. Was $100 IR iirc
 
Hurdler said:
In all honesty, I hope that this never becomes mainstream. This is purely because I'm sick of this format war, and I want to be able to buy a HiDef something without having to worry about it becoming obsolete.

Seriously though, if neither HD-DVD or BlueRay are mainstream within the next year, neither one of them will be. I don't think the consumer will deal with this crap for years on end.
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i guess you weren't born yet when beta vs VHS war was going on.
 
BladeVenom said:
I'm betting on HD-DVD. Players are cheaper, discs are cheaper to make, and the format was finalized a long time ago. Blu-ray is still an unfinished beta product.
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And they still cant sell half of what Blu-Ray can!
 
The HD DVD/BR fanboys crack me up. I got a xbox 360 hd dvd only because I got 9 free hd dvds with it (amazon) and I use it for my HTPC. I still think whoever makes the cheapest burner with the cheapest media will win the format war. Even if BR does win I'll get a combo burner and "backup" my movies to HD DVD (just strip out the movie if it doesnt fit), assuming HD DVD blank media is cheaper.
 
4saken said:
And they still cant sell half of what Blu-Ray can!
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HD-DVD has sold more stand alone players. They have a much higher attach rate. HD-DVD was clearly winning before the PS3 came out. The only reason Blu-ray is even in the game is because Sony put a Blu-ray player in the PS3, and then had to sell the PS3 hundreds below what it cost to make. Sony has lost billions on it so far. HD-DVD discs are selling at about half the rate. HD-DVD stand alone players are selling faster than Blu-ray stand alone players and eventually that will decide the outcome. The PS3 just delayed the end of Blu-ray.
 
BladeVenom said:
HD-DVD has sold more stand alone players. They have a much higher attach rate. HD-DVD was clearly winning before the PS3 came out. The only reason Blu-ray is even in the game is because Sony put a Blu-ray player in the PS3, and then had to sell the PS3 hundreds below what it cost to make. Sony has lost billions on it so far. HD-DVD discs are selling at about half the rate. HD-DVD stand alone players are selling faster than Blu-ray stand alone players and eventually that will decide the outcome. The PS3 just delayed the end of Blu-ray.
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Aren't they also counting PS3 games as Bluray disks?
 
Hopefully affordable combo players will make this ridiculous format war go away. LG has one that costs more than two separate players do right now, but in a year I can see them coming down to $300 or so. I don't see any other way as neither HD consortium is going away. Both sides have too much money to throw around to keep it afloat, not to mention too much money to lose in lost licensing fees should they back down.

I have players for both formats with the XBox 360 attachment and PS3, but seeing that there is no significant (if any) difference in visual quality between the two formats makes me even more pissed at how stupid this all is. HD was already going to be a hard sell since most people think that DVDs (crap) look just fine. They're making the difficult impossible now with two formats, something that most sane people wouldn't want to commit to in fear of one of those formats going obsolete.
 
First it should be noted this has nothing to do with Sony, the "format war" or even movies in general.

This is about writable media. I'm sure most if not all of us are old enough to remember how much DVD-R discs and drives cost when they first game out. $800+ for a writer, $20+ for a blank. Many of us should be old enough to remember the same thing when CD-Rs first came out.

Hell Blu-ray has barely been out a year and the writers even less. This is nothing new and the prices will drop in time. I'm sure there are plenty of people on this very site who could fill a 50GB disc no problem and will surely be using these at some point.
 
PRIME1 said:
First it should be noted this has nothing to do with Sony, the "format war" or even movies in general.

This is about writable media. I'm sure most if not all of us are old enough to remember how much DVD-R discs and drives cost when they first game out. $800+ for a writer, $20+ for a blank. Many of us should be old enough to remember the same thing when CD-Rs first came out.

Hell Blu-ray has barely been out a year and the writers even less. This is nothing new and the prices will drop in time. I'm sure there are plenty of people on this very site who could fill a 50GB disc no problem and will surely be using these at some point.
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And Consumer DVD players took roughly three years to get to the prices where the HD players are after only one year. It'll only get cheaper.
 
player that makes it to $99 first wins. doubt me?

vhs versus beta max. vhs was cheaper and porn landed on it en masse. game over

hd-dvd versus blue ray. hd-dvd is cheaper and porn has landed on it en masse. game over.

vii versus ps3. game over
xbox360 versus ps3. game over
 
Just wait for CES this year. There's going to be some announcements. ;)
 
The difference between beta vs vhs and the other old format wars was making dual players was hard. Dual players for Blu Ray / HD already exist since the disk size is the same, only need different laser or whatever.

I think neither will win, and combo players will.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
player that makes it to $99 first wins. doubt me?
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It has already happened with HD-DVD players, and a winner is still nowhere in sight. DVD is still (unfortunately) beating the crap out of everything while BluRay continues to sell more. Not that that really matters if you are "selling more" in what is a very marginal market.

This bums me out because I love the physical HD formats a lot.
 
Serpico said:
It has already happened with HD-DVD players, and a winner is still nowhere in sight. DVD is still (unfortunately) beating the crap out of everything while BluRay continues to sell more. Not that that really matters if you are "selling more" in what is a very marginal market.

This bums me out because I love the physical HD formats a lot.
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Actually, the Nielsen numbers are showing quite the opposite. In April, HD DVD only had a 28% foot hold in the HD market. Now just before Christmas they've climbed to over 40% market share... and they're still growing. Warner has already noted that they are moving out more HD DVD movies than they are Blu-ray, and Amazon has had more weeks where HD DVD has been in more top sales spots. All this while Blu-ray has what, 2 million more players out there? That's unacceptable in my opinion.
 
I'm reminded of Amazon's "Customers Vote" promotion. Did anyone remember that?
The HD-DVD player beat the pants off the BlueRay player on that one (more than double the votes). It's just a real-world example of what real people actually want.

We all know most of America is not on the latest and greatest technology. Folks hang on to their old, outdated stuff for quite a while. Would you rather have a proprietary format that you MUST buy a new player to play (BlueRay)? Or would the masses prefer to have some backwards compatibility with the new format, and not be forced to buy anything new until they want HD (HD-DVD)?

HD-DVD already has new technology emerging that will beat the pants of BlueRay storage space as well.

I think it will win simply for the fact of backwards compatibility- which from that stems cheaper prices and more advantages to the end user.
 
w1retap said:
All this while Blu-ray has what, 2 million more players out there? That's unacceptable in my opinion.
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Does this account for the PS3?

I think so many of the BlueRay numbers are padded due to the fact of the PS3...

The "true" test is looking at the standalone players folks get to use with their TVs (IE- the folks actively seeking out HD-DVD, not just as an "accessory" in a package, like the PS3).
 
w1retap said:
Actually, the Nielsen numbers are showing quite the opposite. In April, HD DVD only had a 28% foot hold in the HD market. Now just before Christmas they've climbed to over 40% market share... and they're still growing. Warner has already noted that they are moving out more HD DVD movies than they are Blu-ray, and Amazon has had more weeks where HD DVD has been in more top sales spots. All this while Blu-ray has what, 2 million more players out there? That's unacceptable in my opinion.
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Well, its good to know that they are catching up. I own players for both but my personal preference right now is for HD-DVD, simply because the extra features like custom scripting, picture in picture, etc, all work now and have worked since launch. These features are just recently getting rolled into standalone BluRay players, which means you are out of luck if you bought a BR player earlier than summer of this year that wasn't a PS3.

When you have a dual format release like 300 and the image and audio is identical on both formats, but the cool picture-in-picture "before and after" feature is only on the HD-DVD version, you go with the HD-DVD. It is the reason why Warner still hasn't released the Matrix Trilogy on Bluray; they are still waiting for all of that stuff they had on the HD-DVD release to work on BluRay.

One more thing you should note with those statistics is that many of the BluRay players out there are PS3s, and not all gamers are big into buying movies. A good percentage may not be buying BR movies to watch, just games.
 
Well yeah, that was my point. The PS3 is counted as a Blu-ray player. But lately they've been caught in a debacle not wanting to call it one because if they do, the attachment rates look around 6 fold higher favoring HD DVD.
 
How is this news? All of us here know that neither HD format is anywhere near mainstream yet...HDTV prices aren't even low enough to be considered mainstream, and therefore households don't even have the incentive to update to HD video sources yet.
 
w1retap said:
Well yeah, that was my point. The PS3 is counted as a Blu-ray player. But lately they've been caught in a debacle not wanting to call it one because if they do, the attachment rates look around 6 fold higher favoring HD DVD.
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Its a catch-22. People did buy the PS3 as a blu-ray player because at the time it was the cheapest. Now other players have dropped in price so thats no longer the case, but not counting them removes blu-ray owners, while counting all of them counts pure gamers.
 
With the price point of 299.99 we just about sold every thing we had in our store for Chrismas. More and more customers are coming to buy or ask questions about Blu-Ray.
I am thinking Blu-Ray will become mainstream quicker than the analists think.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
player that makes it to $99 first wins. doubt me?
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Yes, I doubt you. HD-DVD already did this and is still losing market share.
vhs versus beta max. vhs was cheaper and porn landed on it en masse. game over

hd-dvd versus blue ray. hd-dvd is cheaper and porn has landed on it en masse. game over.
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Plenty of pr0n on blu-ray, or does your internet not get google?


vii versus ps3. game over
xbox360 versus ps3. game over
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Facts vs you. game over.
 
Does anyone know the royalties per disc for BD-R/BD-RE?
I couldn't care less about the movie aspect of it all, I just want to backup 25 or 50GB on one disc.
 
-=Antimatter=- said:
How is this news? All of us here know that neither HD format is anywhere near mainstream yet...HDTV prices aren't even low enough to be considered mainstream, and therefore households don't even have the incentive to update to HD video sources yet.
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I thought that sales of HD sets were quite high this year. I think it is more a case of people sitting by the sidelines, waiting to see which format wins. Plus many people still think DVDs look good (ugh).
 
How did this thread even turn into HD-DVD vs BRD? To me it looks like the article was about penetration of consumer BRD writers and media. HD-DVD doesn't even have these things available for purchase yet.

If Sony (or whoever else) wasn't greedy as hell with the royalties on media, we would see some incredibly cheap media and price drops on drives.
 
PRIME1 said:
Plenty of pr0n on blu-ray, or does your internet not get google?
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Phoenix '97 said:
I couldn't care less about the movie aspect of it all, I just want to backup 25 or 50GB on one disc.
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And HD-DVD will end up supporting much more space per disk than BlueRay ;)


I personally don't care either way. I just see this as the BetaMax all over again- proprietary device that Sony is hoping to sell customers on, which will utterly fail.

VHS vs. DVD time... huge differences there. HUGE difference in quality, smaller disk, easier to store, no rewinding, benefits are huge.

DVD to High-Def... not much difference. Quality, marginal (come on- not near the increase VHS to DVD was)... and space are the main two. Most people would care less.
It took DVD quite awhile to overtake VHS- just imagine the time it will take HD to overtake DVD!!!!!

I personally think media over the Internet, or InternetTV (plug Ethernet cable straight into your set...) is how this world will go.
Once we get to that point- the competition is huge. Cheaper prices for everyone as well, with some healthy competition.
HD content becomes standard, and I don't have to pay to watch ads all the time (which is what we do with cable nowadays!)
 
TechieSooner said:
And HD-DVD will end up supporting much more space per disk than BlueRay ;)

DVD to High-Def... not much difference
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only bigger disk that i have heard of is a 51gb disk, unless you cant post me a link that shows hd-dvd disk can hold more then 200gb's like bluray disks can?? For the not much difference, wtf, GET GLASSES.
 
Optical storage for movies will phase out over the next decade regardless. With internet streaming becoming more popular, and bandwidth slowly growing, it's not long before you can stream HD movies via netflix or a similar company.

It's happened to music, so it will inevitably happen to movies, tv-shows, and everything else.

Of course, this is just what I think will happen.
 
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