Is DVD Pricing Holding Blu-ray Back?

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The Digital Home blog has joined the growing list of critics that believe Blu-ray discs are too expensive compared to DVDs. This guy just happens to be saying what we’ve said all along, Blu-ray would take off if they were priced more competitively with DVDs. I guess it is only a matter of time before the powers that be decide to listen to the consumer.

Based on my testing with an upconverting DVD player and PlayStation 3 on my 50-inch Panasonic plasma, I'm hard-pressed to pick Blu-ray at such a drastic price difference. Sure, I get better quality, but is it worth $10 to me? Maybe once. But that difference starts piling up quickly and an entire library of Blu-ray films would cost me hundreds more than if I bought them on DVD. That's an issue.
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They will come down with time. I will say the PS3 is shockingly good at up conversion with a good DVD compared to other up converters. To me there is a huge difference between the two most of the time.

Netflix is just too easy there no reason not to watch on Blu-ray. I will buy the good ones on Bluray when the price goes down.
 
I think even a $5 drop on BD prices would be a huge boom. I love Blu-Ray, but at $30 a pop for new releases I just can't justify buying them. I would love to replace my entire DVD library with BD, but that would cost so much money that I don't even want to think about it, especially considering I own a lot of Bond movies and those collections on Blu-Ray are in no way cheap.
 
I buy most of mine from a local pawn shop. Most of them go there brand new from the store too. :p

But yeah, 30$ is retarded, i'm never paying that for a flick. To me the reasonable area would be about 20 bucks. I think it will be a while before the retailers actually follow along the studios supposed price drops though. Kinda like how i saw a comp-usa ad last week for q9650's for 500+ bucks lol.
 
You can get a dvd player for $30 almost anymore. I think $30 it insane for a blu-ray disc. If they were $2j0-30 I would almost surely have a player by now.
 
Perhaps irrelevance is holding BR back.

But yeah. BR players and discs need to price itself in line with it's biggest competition...standard DVD's. BR is great but it's just not worth the price premium. Why do we keep rehashing that which we already know?
 
I'd say so.

Around the time dvds first came out, they were $40, BUT cassettes weren't cheap ($15-$20 if I remember). Also, the detail difference was easy to see on any pc, as cassettes were worse then youtube, and dvds looked ALOT sharper.

Obviously hd looks alot sharper, but dvds are dirt cheap, and most don't have HDTVs...
 
I rarely watch movies twice and I largely prefer to rent.
Blu-ray and DVD movies pricing is the same at zip.ca (Canadian version of netfix).

Anyway, I never understood why peoples collect movies...
 
That $10 isn't even an issue if your local library has blu-ray titles. You may have to wait a bit but if your community doesn't have a lot of patrons that have blu-ray players, guess what, titles are just sitting on the shelf, waiting to be watched. Hurry before the market gets saturated and all the discs get too scratched :D
 
They are just now realizing this? The flim is recorded in high def anyways. The only additional cost that should be past on to customers is the cost of the disc. There's zero reason to charge more for anything else. They do just because it's supposed to be 'better', but cost the same to produce. Bullshit.
 
Average pricing is closer today than a year ago, BD won't take off until the difference drops to more like $2-5 though.
 
It is definitely hold back my Blu-Ray purchases, and I am not what most would consider a cost-constrained consumer.

I have four HD-TVs in the house, ranging in size from 42" to 70", but only the one Blu-Ray player. That happens to be a PS3. I am not buying another PS3 just to watch Blu-Ray on additional sets (it will ONLY get used for Blu-Ray), and the available non LG/Samsung Blu-Ray players are either cheap shit, or over-priced JUST to watch movies on .

So what happens?

I only buy Blu-Ray movies if the film REALLY warrants it. If the visuals do not significantly add to it either comes via Netflix, goes on Netflix Instant or is bought on DVD. So most of the heavy/story minor visual stuff is unappealing even at $25 a pop, especially where it is only going to be viewable on one TV at the moment.

Go figure ... 1800 DVDs, less than 50 Blu-Rays - and my PS3 is an original 60GB unit ;)

Either give me <$200 players that do not feel like they are going to fall apart the second I turn them on (or that do not have BRIGHT blue LEDs on the fucking front - twats!) are not lacking features, or make your $300 players incoporate NetFlix instant. Because I am not buying LG or Samsung as they are right now. And I am not spending $400 for a another PS3 JUST for Blu-Ray. Easier to stick with DVD.
 
Make an affordable bluray playing for 100 bucks

Make the discs less than 15 bucks each.

Sure you'll take an initial loss but in the long run the blurays will fly off the shelves like crazy.
 
Same as the rest of you guys, I'm never gonna spend $30 dollars on Blu-ray, never .. ever.

Used for $15? Sure.

Sony doesn't get it, that is why they have lost billions of dollars. They have a handful of people in charge making this huge huge mistake of not pricing Blu-ray correctly.

$12 - 15 for DVD's and $18 - $22 for Blu-ray, special edition 2 disc blu-ray, sure, $28 dollars sounds fair.

Anyone at Sony reading this? Fire your market research dept and use common sense to price Blu-ray correctly.
 
I don't know, I'm not exactly Bill Gates but I have around 35 Blu-Ray movies so far. I don't buy anything but Blu-Ray anymore.

I do however have a older collection collection of DVD's though but I bought all of those a while back.
 
Personally, I use Netflix. I'm not rushing out to tell everyone to get it. However, I do enjoy being able to select bluray titles at any time and having it sent within a day of picking it out. Since not a lot of people get the bluray versions, the discs usually come without a scratch.

If I do decide I like that flick, then I usually will wait until there's a sale or deal either at BB or an online store. This entails a little more strategy but works out in the end. Last Black Friday I was able to purchase quite a few blurays at about 10-15 bucks a pop.

I almost never... correct that, I never pay for bluray at full price. For those wondering, I only pay maybe $10 bucks for Netflix so it doesn't even out the cost.

In terms of bluray vs. dvd.. it's no question bluray is better. Maybe not on a non-high def TV... but that's another discussion.

Pricing wise, bluray will get there. Consumers are already starting to feed into the 'bluray' talk... it won't be long before bluray will be the 'Christmas' gift to get (if it hasn't already).
 
Seriously, if you are willing to pay for an HDTV, Blu-ray player, 7.1 surround system to go with it..and are complaining about $10 max difference in price on the disc...You are a serious cheapass.
 
Anyone who says an upconverting player vs a blu ray player (with blu ray movies) cannot tell the difference has to be blind. Or have a really really bad HDTV. First movie I got (the two narnia movies) I could see the difference.

As for pricing, yeah it needs to come down, which it will soon enough. DVD's were pricey at first too. The only thing that helped them was the fact that vhs was shite in comparison whereas DVD's are passable.
 
Well it'll be a cold day in hell before I buy Blu-ray. I'm still boycotting Sony for the root kit fiasco, and the way they supposedly won this format by buying everyone out and bribing the rest with millions, no wonder their losing billions and I wish them well and hope they lose more for their arrogance. They don't have a clue how to treat their consumers. I wonder what the idiot who collected information on 30,000 children was going to do with it. Their attitude is we'll do what we want untill we get caught because the penalties are a drop in the bucket and they get to write it off on income taxe. I wish Toshiba wouldn't of sold out, I guess their pockets weren't as deep as Sonys.
Hopefully another format will show up before dvd's aren't produced anymore.
 
Derangel said:
I think even a $5 drop on BD prices would be a huge boom. I love Blu-Ray, but at $30 a pop for new releases I just can't justify buying them. I would love to replace my entire DVD library with BD, but that would cost so much money that I don't even want to think about it, especially considering I own a lot of Bond movies and those collections on Blu-Ray are in no way cheap.
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$30? Holy crap, I thought they were $24.95 and I thought that was way overpriced.

I bought hundreds of DVDs, I paid less than $15 ea. on average, but still, I regret spending all that money (thousands of $) on DVDs I don't use much now - would have paid for a lifetime subscription to NetFlix AND all my library late fees, oh, and, however many movies I wanted to rent at blockbuster - but - the biggest point would be: I could watch whatver I want.

Sure, I'd kind of like to own all my fav. movies on BluRay - but - I don't want to pay more than $10 each.
 
Oh yea... ROOTKIT...

I start to feel bad for Sony, wish the PS3 was on top, then.... I remember the rootkit.

Sony really needs to get down on their knees and BEG us to forgive them for that asshat behavior.
 
I have only purchased one Blu Ray movie, the Aviator, and I bought it since I liked the movie and I needed something to test my LG combo drive. It was also only $13 at Costco.
I did buy The Sarah Connor Chronicles Season 1 on Blu Ray (came today) since it was $23.99 shipped from Amazon and I heard it was a decent show.

Under $20 is what I would pay for a BD movie.
 
I figure the cost of blu-ray will come down about the same time the next generation technology comes along.
They will probably market it as something like blu-ray "EXTREME" :p
 
Blu-Ray pricing is holding Blu-Ray back. If two versions of same movie exist, they should be priced the same. The only time the price should vary is when it comes to extras.

But bare-bones DVD and BR versions of movies should be at the same price point.
 
Vorazan said:
Blu-Ray pricing is holding Blu-Ray back. If two versions of same movie exist, they should be priced the same. The only time the price should vary is when it comes to extras.

But bare-bones DVD and BR versions of movies should be at the same price point.
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I agree. It's similar to computer software, you essentially pay for a license to view the movie, not for the physical media (if any). Whether the actual movie exists on a DVD, Blu-Ray or was transfered over the net doesn't matter. It's the same movie.
 
Alot of companies are after the quick buck nowadays.

Blu-ray should have launched differently. Start off without the stupidly high licence costs that are needed to have anything to do with blu-ray on a disc or a player so that they are cheap to make then, as the production costs fall, increase the licence slowly to a level the market can handle. This means you will not see a high return on the original investment but it will allow the hardware to become main stream and will get it out there so you can claw back more money later.

The way it has been done with high licence costs at the start just strangle the format and can even bring it down to its knees.

I am slowly building up my Blu-Ray collection when there are the buy 2 get 1 free, or I pick up the really cheap HD-DVD discs that are being thrown away.
 
price and improvement simple as that

Look at the price of the discs and the price of players!!!

my £15DVD player died and had to get a replacement. There was this great upscaling DVD player for £50 so I grabbed that, next to it was a sale sign for a Sony BR player going "Sale!!!!! £199 for a BR Player" as well as a £15 DVD player (non upscaling ;) )

fuck that! - the upscaling DVD player made some of my films look great! LotR, MonstersInc but others made no difference... 1984 (ie all depends on the clarity of the source)

a year before I replace my 27" CRT TV with a 32" widescreen TFT, not because I wanted a bigger,better,wider TV, but like the vast majority of people who replace things... because the old one broke - I would still be using it otherwise

So say my TV didn't break and I wanted to get a new DVD player (since I have a large collection of DVD's) and someone goes "Go BR its better"

Why is it better? picture quality
WRONG! on my CRT it wouldn't be, it only had SCART inputs and thus HD would be out of the question for me
Price isn't that bad (compare it to when DVD players and discs came out...)
WRONG!!!! I would have to buy a BR player (the cheapest being £200) and then a new TV for what? £600

DVD suceeded because they offered a VAST impovement of VHS (no tape ware, random access [ even tho movie studios are getting REALLY rude in denying my ability to skip trailers and their "YOU ARE A PIRATE!!!!" messages...]) and they plugged into the ports available on the TV's of the time and the price difference wasn't as vast as the DVD -> BR COMPLETE setup

BR offers "some" improvements over DVD (yes I said some, HD only really works on modern films that are recorded with a decent recorder - likes of Exercist won't benefit, unless they do a digitally remastered) BUT a load of disadvantages namely cost

Seriously BR may be all well and good BUT it is facing alot of STD-definition TV's out there (people don't just upgrade every time things come out, Vast majority of my friends and family still have CRT's, same CRT they have had for 5years or more)

Likewise the number of film's that actually need a HD setup are VERY low, the number worth seeing even lower (and since I like my asian extreme Korean films... next to none are BR... and don't look any different between an upscale and a normal DVD player)


BR is an attrition technology and it WILL take alot of time for it to replace DVD, a long time...
 
Nine years ago you could've asked the same question: Is VHS pricing holding DVD back? And in another nine years you'll ask is blu-ray pricing holding *whatever the next optical media is* back ad nauseam.
 
i havent paid 30$ for a BD Disc ever. Dont see why ppl keep claiming 30$ is the price point. Its definitely not now. Try 24$. Still too much sure.

Anyway, yeah prices do need to come down. Ive got an 80 disc collection but my buying has slowed due to the pricepoint now.
 
Hey Steve, can we please stop quoting Reisinger for news stories....

With a track record like this...

December 23, 2008 10:53 AM PST
How can we expect Blu-ray to succeed?

Thu Oct 16 2008
Why iTunes makes Blu-ray useless

September 30, 2008 8:01 PM PDT
The Digital Home Video: HD DVD lives!

Fri Sep 26 2008
Believing Blu-ray will succeed doesn't make sense

March 7, 2008 9:51 AM PST
Blu-ray is doomed

March 4, 2008 8:51 AM PST
Why Toshiba will release a Blu-ray player this year

February 25, 2008 7:33 AM PST
Did Toshiba and Sony work together to kill HD DVD?

February 21, 2008 11:15 AM PST
Blu-ray will not be the success other formats have been

Mon Feb 18 2008
Why Microsoft will announce an Xbox Blu-ray player soon

July 18, 2007 1:19 PM PDT
Enough with the HD DVD, Blu-ray battle. Bring on downloads!

June 18, 2007 7:11 AM PDT
Low-Cost Sony BDP-S300 Is Shipping -- Do We Really Care?
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I mean really..... Not only is there a clear bias, but he gets it wrong, MOST of the time.

There's quite a few hurdles for BD to overcome, but I believe, based on the recent change in studio strategy (lower priced catalog, value added discs - BD, DVD, and Digital copy in the same package), along with cheaper prices will add up to a very good year for BD.

I come to HardOCP daily. When you keep quoting and linking to Reisinger's blog, it does all of your readers a disservice.

He's biased, and moreover, he's wrong a hell of a lot more than he's right..
 
Uncle said:
Well it'll be a cold day in hell before I buy Blu-ray. I'm still boycotting Sony for the root kit fiasco, and the way they supposedly won this format by buying everyone out and bribing the rest with millions, no wonder their losing billions and I wish them well and hope they lose more for their arrogance. They don't have a clue how to treat their consumers. I wonder what the idiot who collected information on 30,000 children was going to do with it. Their attitude is we'll do what we want untill we get caught because the penalties are a drop in the bucket and they get to write it off on income taxe. I wish Toshiba wouldn't of sold out, I guess their pockets weren't as deep as Sonys.
Hopefully another format will show up before dvd's aren't produced anymore.
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Since Sony doesn't own blu-ray that pretty much makes your entire stance look foolish. Do some research next time before bringing the blind fanboi rage.

HDDVD is dead..quit crying over spilled milk and get over it.
 
While I've bought a few Blu-ray discs for what I feel are must own movies. I'd buy a lot more if they were $19.99 or less.
 
not sure where you saw $14.99 prices on release dvds or eve $16.99 or $17.99, but dvds where i live have always be $19.99 or even slightly higher in some places upon release, but never lower.

That being said, $30 is too much for blu-ray especially with the perceived lack of quality difference. I think regular dvds need to drop before BD can really drop much. Something like $15 $22 could work, or $14 & $20.
 
Dekoth said:
Seriously, if you are willing to pay for an HDTV, Blu-ray player, 7.1 surround system to go with it..and are complaining about $10 max difference in price on the disc...You are a serious cheapass.
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"DVD rot" issues aside, considering that you now own it, I'm not certain what the problem with the price is. People are stilling paying ALMOST the same amount PER SHOWING (assuming you don't go alone) to go see the film in the theater. Considering you can now watch it over and over 'til you bore of it, I don't understand the issue.

Unless you plan to watch it once then never do anything with it again. But, if that's the case, why buy it, and if you do buy it, why keep it? I'm sure you can get some $ back in return by Ebaying it or something.

I used to (long ago) buy DVDs, watch 'em, and if I didn't care for the extras, or if I knew a CE edition or something wasn't far off, I'd almost immediately sell 'em. My loss was around $3-5. About the price of renting it. And I knew it would be a pristine disc with no issues, and had absolutely no return date associated with it.

I wonder if part of the problem with sales now is that it's just too easy to just download something.
 
Not_So_Hard said:
Has anyone noticed that new release DVD's are creeping up in price? You used to be able to buy new release DVD's the first week they were out for $14.99 on sale. Now they are $16.99 and $17.99 on sale, with a $19.99 (or more) normal price. Even the clearance sales on older movies don't seem to get to the $3.99 level as often, with $5.99 or $6.99 being a more common price point.

My conspiracy theory is that they are raising DVD prices to get us used to paying a higher cost and thus closing the gap between DVD and blu-ray pricing.

Since they've been raising DVD prices, I've been purchasing less and less new releases.
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I've been seeing the same thing in rising DVD prices. I bought 2 or 3 DVD's a month at $15 each for a long time. Now I buy maybe 1 new release every other month at $17. It always comes down to price. I'm more than happy to wait a few days, watch the movie on Netflix, and then wait for the movie to hit $6.99 on sale if I want to watch it again.

If they don't do something about the pricing of BR players and discs I may never own one.... Just wait for the next generation and hope they handle it better.
 
My wife still owns a boob tube, no pun there..

What's the point of watching a blue ray movie on a 480 screen?
 
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