Could it be a Blue Christmas for Blu-ray?

S-B said:
I've posted it before...




:rolleyes:
You do know what the difference between 480i and 1080p is, right?
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um... DVDs are 480p. if you watch it on a standard def TV, yes, you'll see 480i. But there is a big difference between interlaced and not.

There is an irony to this...
 
HOCP4ME said:
Well, just this morning I stood in line for 4 hours to get a $128 Blu-Ray player at Wal-Mart, and let me tell you, the 50+ player that they had were gone one minute after the sale started. Not to mention the 200+ people buying HDTVs who are going to want a BR player next year.

Based on that experience, I must respectfully disagree with this article. It look like BR is pretty popular this year.
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Not everyone in the country was shopping at your local walmart today (even if it seemed like it). Just because 200 people bought HDTVs at your local walmart doesn't mean suddenly 300million people have blu-ray.

I agree the article does seem to bash blu-ray a bit much, but the 8% figure they came up with doesn't seem that far off. That is 8% of ALL holiday shoppers, and many people still don't own a HDTV (I don't have a single friend/relative who owns one yet). Even some people who have a HDTV don't want to upgrade to blu-ray yet.
 
bicycle_wreck said:
You don't have to buy all of your movies over again. If you're complaining about many older movies not looking so hot in HD, then just stick to your current DVD collection and watch them in standard def or spring for a BR player that upscales. The upscaling isn't going to look as good as a newer movie in a high def format, but its better than buying a movie on BR that has been upscaled for you.

There is only so much the studio can do with older movies. Many of the complaints you have are a result of the equipment used to film the movies. There's nothing that can be done about that, and no amount of "remastering" can truly change the original resolution of the film.
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Guess your out of luck if you gotta big screen.
 
ferrisnox said:
"HD-DVD is dead, get over it. No amount of crying nor arguing will bring it back to life. You are just making the after life of the HD-DVD harder by mentioning its name and you are also making the people who have got over it to start crying again. Just let it burns in hell."

See this is exactly the kind of attitude that is destroying this country. Oh my (evil company) won out over your (less evil) company so you should just get over it. Nevermind the fact that they were shady, illegal, immoral, or just a shitty product chock full of DRM the People have decided...oh wait they didn't the companies did. Honestly this is no longer capitalism... the better product and consumer demand did not choose the victor the studios told us which product we would be allowed to use...I just think there is something seriously fucked up with that. So much so that I personally would never do business with (evil company) again. Honestly I"m over it...but that doesn't mean I forget about how this went down and critically analyze what happened and why.

This story is not about who won... its about how they won and how we arrived here. Try looking a little bit further down the road.
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That might be what the article is alluding to. BR might not be far behind HD unless they start pricing the product to compete with its primary competitor. It's a sad indicator that the future of BR might hinge on the wildly discounted prices enjoyed by some on one day of the year. What's even more sad is that they've got about $75 in discount to go before more people begin to give a shyt about BR.
 
via Digital Bits using information from the Digital Entertainment Group's recent findings from two weeks ago...

...the Digital Entertainment Group held an interesting press event this morning in Hollywood to talk about the latest HDTV and Blu-ray Disc market research. On hand were senior home video execs from all the major Hollywood studios. Among the interesting revelations (and we'll be talking about them a lot more on Monday) were these: We're now a little over 2 years into the growth of the Blu-ray format. At the same point in the early life of DVD, there were 1.2 million DVD players in U.S. homes. Fox's Mike Dunn claimed that there are more than 2.5 million stand-alone Blu-ray players in the U.S. today, with another 8 million PS3s. Price points for both Blu-ray hardware and software are at about the same level as they were at this point for DVD. BD hardware sales were reportedly up 25% in October from the previous year. And Blu-ray software sales are actually AHEAD of the DVD software sales curve, and have been accelerating even in the last two months as the economic slowdown has become more obvious. The DEG says that a year ago, Blu-ray made up about 10% of total sales of new blockbuster titles. Today, that total is 14%, and the industry expects that to increase to between 18-20% in the next year (likely starting with Warner's The Dark Knight). Much of this is being driven by the adoption of HDTVs in the U.S. (which are now installed in 50% of U.S. households). The DEG's research indicates that some 28% of HDTV households in the U.S. currently view Blu-ray movies. No actual hard numbers were given, but according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are roughly 111 million households in the U.S. (as of 2007), so some 55 million of those current have HDTVs. At a 28%, that comes out to about 15 million U.S. households watching Blu-rays, either on stand-alone players or PS3s. That's our own rough calculation based on the estimated percentages the DEG provided. We suspect the actual number is somewhere between 10 and 15 million, which would more closely match up with the estimated number of BD players and PS3s mentioned above - something north of 10.5 million. Regardless, that's still an impressive figure when you consider that the laserdisc market - at its height - amounted to a total of 2 million LD players here in the States. In a little over two years, Blu-ray has ALREADY far surpassed laserdisc and is currently running ahead of the DVD adoption curve. So much for those claims that Blu-ray will remain a niche market.
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The DEG's report found that 43% of HDTV owners dislike standard-def content after exposure to high-def content. Basically, that means prices will continue to drop, and adoption will continue to climb. But if you personally have a problem with the format, the answer is simple: don't buy it. Period. The rest of us that do but it will continue to enjoy it. Spreading FUD about it because you personally have a problem with the format only hurts your credibility, to be kind about it.

If you're interested in reading the report in it's entirety, Digital Bits was kind enough to host it in pdf format on their website.
 
I watched MANY BRD players fly of the shelves today, and had the nerve to ask someone what they knew about Blu ray. Basically, they own a HDTV and want high def media. They know it isn't going to be a HUGE difference (on a properly tuned set and audio system, it is a pretty damn big difference between upscaled and actual 1080p video), but at the sub $150 price tag and movies under $20 each, she said it was time to jump in and get it. And she said that they aren't really technology people. Just normal people that like to watch movies.

I think that when they hit $100 or less for the players, they will start penetrating deeper into the market. And movie studios will start lowering prices due to more sales (Warner already has).

Depending on your setup, Blu ray can be a pretty big improvement over standard DVD, even upscaled with a good player.

So, many people are just saying "Why not?".

If prices were permanently at BF prices, more people would jump. :p
 
bicycle_wreck said:
You don't have to buy all of your movies over again. If you're complaining about many older movies not looking so hot in HD, then just stick to your current DVD collection and watch them in standard def or spring for a BR player that upscales. The upscaling isn't going to look as good as a newer movie in a high def format, but its better than buying a movie on BR that has been upscaled for you.

There is only so much the studio can do with older movies. Many of the complaints you have are a result of the equipment used to film the movies. There's nothing that can be done about that, and no amount of "remastering" can truly change the original resolution of the film.
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i disagree, the new BR james bond movies were filmed a long, long time ago and they look excellent on BR on my TV or my 23" apple cinema display...

so if done right old film can look the part of 1080p ;)
 
E.E.L. Ambiense said:
via Digital Bits using information from the Digital Entertainment Group's recent findings from two weeks ago...



The DEG's report found that 43% of HDTV owners dislike standard-def content after exposure to high-def content. Basically, that means prices will continue to drop, and adoption will continue to climb. But if you personally have a problem with the format, the answer is simple: don't buy it. Period. The rest of us that do but it will continue to enjoy it. Spreading FUD about it because you personally have a problem with the format only hurts your credibility, to be kind about it.

If you're interested in reading the report in it's entirety, Digital Bits was kind enough to host it in pdf format on their website.
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Man...:rolleyes:

The only reason this stuff is coming off the shelf (today) is because of the price cuts. You're only fooling yourself if you think people have "seen the light" of BR and are buying it because of the "superior" content. What you're seeing is the GP finally getting the prices they're willing fork over for the technology. That's about about $10 over standard DVD.

I'll give the GP credit. At least they weren't chumps enough to buy this crap for $400>.
 
swiftB3 said:
um... DVDs are 480p. if you watch it on a standard def TV, yes, you'll see 480i. But there is a big difference between interlaced and not.

There is an irony to this...
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The keys are one letter apart, cut me some slack.

bicycle_wreck said:
You don't have to buy all of your movies over again. If you're complaining about many older movies not looking so hot in HD, then just stick to your current DVD collection and watch them in standard def or spring for a BR player that upscales. The upscaling isn't going to look as good as a newer movie in a high def format, but its better than buying a movie on BR that has been upscaled for you.

There is only so much the studio can do with older movies. Many of the complaints you have are a result of the equipment used to film the movies. There's nothing that can be done about that, and no amount of "remastering" can truly change the original resolution of the film.
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Older movies, in general, merely have to be rescanned in, and more often than not, there is still plenty of detail for 1080p. Granted, a lot of them would be better off in 720p. There is no such thing as upscaled Blu-ray releases; they do not upscale 480p to 1080p and then sell that to you. It's rare for them to have been mastered digitally at lower resolution. Take, for example, Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is a very costly procedure, since they have to rescan the film at 2K and then redo all the post-processing.

Some stuff is mastered poorly, but this happens to DVD as well. An example of this is The Dark Knight, which has been edited and sharpened into oblivion, a very mediocre BD release.

People also fail to realize that "high definition" is not just video, it's audio as well. Blu-ray releases (usually) offer vastly superior audio quality to their DVD counterparts, whether it is in bitrate or a wholly different format all together.
 
travbrad said:
Not everyone in the country was shopping at your local walmart today (even if it seemed like it). Just because 200 people bought HDTVs at your local walmart doesn't mean suddenly 300million people have blu-ray.

I agree the article does seem to bash blu-ray a bit much, but the 8% figure they came up with doesn't seem that far off. That is 8% of ALL holiday shoppers, and many people still don't own a HDTV (I don't have a single friend/relative who owns one yet). Even some people who have a HDTV don't want to upgrade to blu-ray yet.
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Well said. I have a Playstation 3 and have watched MAYBE 3 blurays.
 
I think its funny all of the people with HDTVs and little to no HD content to play on it. People complain about how prices on this and that are a little higher than the old stuff----excuse me? Then why do you have a fancy pants HDTV in your living room? So you can watch 20 channels of mediocre HD broadcast?

Hmmmm


Well I've had a PS3 for over a year now. Love Blu-ray. For Black Friday, I bought 6 Blu-rays at $9 each. Any given week I never have to pay more than about $25 for any Blu-ray and have personally never payed more than $20 for any of the 25+ Blu-rays that I have. On November 11th I received from Amazon a copy of Band of Brothers on Blu-ray for $54.

Movie companies are willing to sell Blu-rays at DVD prices. The Internet has been proving that since this time last year. Its the Brick and Mortar retail stores that are keeping the prices high. I guess it goes to show the struggles of having to keep up with E-commerce. Those physical locations have to cover building and land costs, Invetory space, Utilities, etc etc. So they've gotta be greedy somewhere. Currently the popular way to be greedy is with all of the new mysterious HD equipment. Like Blu-rays and HDMI cables....
 
Online stores have to pay for their warehouses, and utilities, and all the same stuff as B&M stores
 
ICOM said:
Man...:rolleyes:

The only reason this stuff is coming off the shelf (today) is because of the price cuts. You're only fooling yourself if you think people have "seen the light" of BR and are buying it because of the "superior" content. What you're seeing is the GP finally getting the prices they're willing fork over for the technology. That's about about $10 over standard DVD.

I'll give the GP credit. At least they weren't chumps enough to buy this crap for $400>.
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ICOM, why does BR have to supplant DVD right now? The format is what, 2 years old? I bought my first DVD player, as I recall, January 1999 and i paid between 300 and $400.00 for it. Prices for BR are significantly less than what a DVD player cost at this same point in time (for the cheapest DVD players).

Yes, movies are still high, but they will come down.

As for those comparing picture quality, look at a DVD from 1998 or 1999 and compare it to a BR movie...the difference is huge, no matter how good your upscaling dvd player.

If you pick the best BR movies, they'll look better than DVD.

What's next: 70kb jpegs look just as good as a 20MB jpg or an uncompressed TIFF?

Oh wait, that's right, this is the world that thinks that MP3 sound quality = CD quality :mad:
 
ICOM said:
Man...:rolleyes:

The only reason this stuff is coming off the shelf (today) is because of the price cuts. You're only fooling yourself if you think people have "seen the light" of BR and are buying it because of the "superior" content. What you're seeing is the GP finally getting the prices they're willing fork over for the technology. That's about about $10 over standard DVD.

I'll give the GP credit. At least they weren't chumps enough to buy this crap for $400>.
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You basically just supported what I had initially posted. Prices for BR have dropped DRASTICALLY faster than DVD did at it's current age, and we're seeing the general public beginning to buy it.

I'm sure there are a few of us who were those very same 'chumps' that bought early DVD players in '97 that couldn't even properly switch layers on the new dual-layer discs for $800. ;)
 
I'm waiting for the prices to go lower. I'm still watching VHS tapes on my 52"!ROFL!
 
E.E.L. Ambiense said:
You basically just supported what I had initially posted. Prices for BR have dropped DRASTICALLY faster than DVD did at it's current age, and we're seeing the general public beginning to buy it.

I'm sure there are a few of us who were those very same 'chumps' that bought early DVD players in '97 that couldn't even properly switch layers on the new dual-layer discs for $800. ;)
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BR prices are dropping in an effort to rescue the format from irrelevance. The GP wasn't buying BR at the premium prices because the technology wasn't worth it. Prices have DRASTICALLY dropped because nobody is buying the product. The GP isn't buying BR because standard DVD's are still an exceptionally good product. That's why BR has to come WAY down in price. It can't compete with standard DVD's at the current pricing index. It has NOTHING to do with BR providing better content. It has everything to do with standard DVD's providing better value.
 
Vinnard said:
Online stores have to pay for their warehouses, and utilities, and all the same stuff as B&M stores
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They don't have nearly as many warehouses as large retail chain.

Even if my point is wrong, its still true that the B&M retailers are keeping the prices high for HD stuff.
 
Quite frankly, I am not upgrading to Blu-ray. While my DVDs don't look as good as they would on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. I am going to stick with the next technology which will be scalable and make Blu-ray short lived. Streaming / Downloadable / Ondemand HD.

It has a way to go, but it is getting there pretty quick. I give Blu-ray till Q1 2011 when it is officially declining in popularity. Why buy when you can have a subscription thousands and thousands?
 
i dont plan on going BR any time soon
iv got a 52" sharp 1080p lcd in my room, but i stream 1080p vids off my server through my 360..so that kinda takes care of that
and having a 25/3 connection certainly helps :p
 
I have had a PS3 mostly for the BluRay functionality since not too long after they came out on the market. The initial cost of the bluray player isn't the big thing for me. The problem is the price of the movies. I am not a big renter, I am more of a buyer. And in my area it seems as though in general, for any of the new releases that are things you really want (like let's say Ironman) the DVD can be found on sale for around $12.99-15.99 but the Bluray version will be sold for around $25.99 to 29.99. I know for a fact that the picture and sound are better on the Bluray version since I have witnessed it myself and have a decent enough home theater to take advantage of it. But I just cannot justify spending $25 to $30 bucks on each disc. It is just too much. Bring the media prices down to the same price as DVD and then I will happily start buying Blu Ray exclusively, and maybe even start replacing all of my regular DVDs as well.
 
Aktunka said:
I have had a PS3 mostly for the BluRay functionality since not too long after they came out on the market. The initial cost of the bluray player isn't the big thing for me. The problem is the price of the movies. I am not a big renter, I am more of a buyer. And in my area it seems as though in general, for any of the new releases that are things you really want (like let's say Ironman) the DVD can be found on sale for around $12.99-15.99 but the Bluray version will be sold for around $25.99 to 29.99. I know for a fact that the picture and sound are better on the Bluray version since I have witnessed it myself and have a decent enough home theater to take advantage of it. But I just cannot justify spending $25 to $30 bucks on each disc. It is just too much. Bring the media prices down to the same price as DVD and then I will happily start buying Blu Ray exclusively, and maybe even start replacing all of my regular DVDs as well.
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The version of Iron-Man you cite for $12 - 15 is likely the single disc version. The Two disc dvd version (which closely equals the amount of content as the Blu-ray) goes for $20 - $25.

The Blu-ray sells for $20 - $30 and was likely on sale somewhere today for less than that.
 
techie254 said:
i dont plan on going BR any time soon
iv got a 52" sharp 1080p lcd in my room, but i stream 1080p vids off my server through my 360..so that kinda takes care of that
and having a 25/3 connection certainly helps :p
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and WHERE does that 1080p content come from???
 
chrispix said:
Quite frankly, I am not upgrading to Blu-ray. While my DVDs don't look as good as they would on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. I am going to stick with the next technology which will be scalable and make Blu-ray short lived. Streaming / Downloadable / Ondemand HD.

It has a way to go, but it is getting there pretty quick. I give Blu-ray till Q1 2011 when it is officially declining in popularity. Why buy when you can have a subscription thousands and thousands?
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Scalable? what do you mean by this? You are still going to have to buy/own some sort of "player" to be able to get this content. and if you do want to own it, it likely won't be as cut and dry as buying the disc and you'll need some form of large storage media like a hardrive. Current HD/DVR type devices cost as much as Blu-ray players. Sometimes more if you let them talk you into paying for it in installments through your monthly bill that already exists for the service.

Also, with the current state of this country's Internet Infrastructure, A lot of people will have trouble making this content TRULY on demand. In the time it would take me to pull down that same amount of content as a Blu-ray and in comparable quality (visually and audibly) Its really not any worse to just depend on a subscription service such as Netflix or Blockbuster.
 
E.E.L. Ambiense said:
Film itself, if you were to put a resolution to it, is far beyond digital's capabilities at this point. For example, a good quality 35mm frame's resolution is well in the range of 20 million pixels.

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1033297158&postcount=39
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QFT. I wish this thinking (that older movies aren't "hi-def") would go away. When studios x-fer these older movies into digital format, they're generally scanned at 4K resolutions, and then down sampled to 1080p. It's when they overuse DNR, or generally just don't care to take the time to do it right, that the picture quality suffers. Properly done transfers of older films can be amazing. See the James Bond movies previously mentioned.
 
chameleoneel said:
and WHERE does that 1080p content come from???
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Probably from sources that don't suffocate the consumer with digital right's management, firmware/software updates at every turn, and out the wazoo royalty embedded fees.
 
People said the same thing about VHS compared to DVD back in the late 90's. Give it time.
 
w1retap said:
Probably from sources that don't suffocate the consumer with digital right's management, firmware/software updates at every turn, and out the wazoo royalty embedded fees.
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Most legitimately acquired downloaded content certainly does have some form of DRM. The firmware updates are frequent because features are being added and compatibility issues are being worked out. Video codecs make updates as well. I've had problems with Xvid and H.264 encoded videos that were literally fixed by a codec update. Its all the same when you boil it down to the fundamentals. The problem isn't the firmware updates, those are good, it means your player will work better. The problem is not every brand is supporting every one of their players with updates. That's something that happens with any type of product, though. Blu-ray is just getting shit for it because its new and trying to be in everyone's living rooms.
 
Wrench said:
The blueray was Spiderman 3 that came with the PS3 never did any research on it. I'll have to go pick up a few bluerays and try. Thanks for the info. All this time I thought the difference was small lol. :D

I know it's not the TV because games that play at 1080p look amazing.
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Size of the screen counts too. My smallest screen is a 32" Toshiba that I hooked the PS3 up to now that I have a new Sony 350. The difference between that and my Samsung ToC screen (52") is incredible. My friend has a projector and the difference just scales with a good setup.

I don't find this unusual. When DVD came out people were unimpressed by it's quality often enough. Then again most people had <=27" curved tube tv's and the DVD players plugged into their VCR's composite inputs because said TV didn't have any. Right now, less than a 40" screen and BD looks a little better 42"-49" it's pretty good. Start getting into the 50"+ units or projectors and it's pretty darn sweet.

Pick up a good Onkyo (or other quality) receiver for some 7.1 (or 5.1) sweetness.
 
chrispix said:
Quite frankly, I am not upgrading to Blu-ray. While my DVDs don't look as good as they would on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. I am going to stick with the next technology which will be scalable and make Blu-ray short lived. Streaming / Downloadable / Ondemand HD.

It has a way to go, but it is getting there pretty quick. I give Blu-ray till Q1 2011 when it is officially declining in popularity. Why buy when you can have a subscription thousands and thousands?
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You're probably not going to be happy when Verizon sticks caps on FiOS next year. I say that because they're the only true major (Comcast, TW, AT&T, et al) left without caps. Most of the major comm companies are also putting small caps in place (20-30GB). How much is that downloading worth to you? Enough to pay 5-10 times the amount you currently pay?

Don't count on Net Neutrality either. That just guarantees all data is the same priority, not the amount of bandwidth you can consume.
 
The Fall on Blu-Ray is all I have to say.

Seriously, once you see a DECENT Blu-Ray, there is no going back. I always check Blu-ray.com or high def digest to see how the video transfer compares.
Prices are coming down. I managed to get Band of Brothers on Blu-ray (brand new release) for $60. I remember buying it for a friend a few years ago for $100 on DVD. Having a PS3 really made the decision for me, but I simply cannot rent or buy DVD's anymore. I'm completely sold on the concept even though it probably will not last as long as DVD's have.
 
I have gone partly BR

I decided to not buy a BR player but bought one for my laptop and use that with the TV. Most of the newer BR releases are just poor transfers or upsampled DVD which yields no benefit to a BR adopter, there are a few gems in the mud though but you still have extortionate prices for discs and player that could be made cheaper if the BR consortium didn't try and wring as much money from people as they can for licencing but instead gave the licenses away while the format is new and then slowly increased them over time up to a moderate level.

All in all I dont see BR being adopted anything like DVD was when it came out due to costs.
 
chrispix said:
Quite frankly, I am not upgrading to Blu-ray. While my DVDs don't look as good as they would on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. I am going to stick with the next technology which will be scalable and make Blu-ray short lived. Streaming / Downloadable / Ondemand HD.

It has a way to go, but it is getting there pretty quick. I give Blu-ray till Q1 2011 when it is officially declining in popularity. Why buy when you can have a subscription thousands and thousands?
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Have fun with that..

Streaming/downloadable is frankly overhyped. Hard drives fail, Bandwidth has caps and from time to time the internet has outages. Physical media if taken care of will last longer then I will live, never exceeds my bandwidth cap no matter how many times I decide to watch it, Doesn't have nearly as much DRM bullshit attached to it, oh and is available 100% of the time once I bought it.

I see streaming content having a place, but I don't ever see it replacing physical media.
 
First and foremost, if you can't see the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD, you're not looking at properly setup system.

Second. Blu-Ray isn't just about picture, it's also about sound. If you're watching a movie on blu-ray and listening to it through the tv speakers, you're only getting half of what you've paid for.

Blu-Ray will be more successful than Laser Disc, but never reach DVD numbers. So long as Blu-Ray releases come from good transfers with no DNR or EE, and high quality audio and video encodes I'll be happy.

finalgt said:
And what format would that be? There hasn't been news of a single physical medium that even has the remotest possibility of hitting the market within the next 3 years.
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You may have heard of the new physical format, it's called flash memory. Toshiba just released a 16GB micro SD card, so 32 isn't that far away and 64 is likely in the next 36 months. Studios will be more than happy to leverage flash based distribution because every single flash card can have a different encryption key. Consumers can pop a flash card into a Red Box at the store, select a movie to load for rental, go shopping and have it ready when they're checking out. Once home they can watch the movie once at the rental price, or pay $15 extra to unlock unlimited viewing. If the studios implement correctly, they can then bind the HD version of the movie to one or two players and a 480p version to another two.
 
Panasonic DMP-BD35K, nuff said :). I think you can get it on Amazon for just over 200, and its hands down one of the best bluray players without having to buy a PS3. I hate the PS3 personally, and I think it is ugly, plus its a direct Sony product which is enough of a reason for me not to buy it :p. I bet they get royalties from bluray, but oh well such is life.

Pretty sure mine should be here on Monday!
 
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