comment #1

ZayTonday says ...

You can get Criterion BDs for $26.99 a pop @ Amazon and most other movies for about the same there if not cheaper.

BDs have been out for 2 and a half years. They're much cheaper on average than DVDs were in early 2000.

comment #2

NotImpressed1Yet says ...

Up until a few days ago all the Criterion blu-rays were on sale at Amazon for $23.99. It cost like $12 MORE to buy The Third Man on standard DVD.

There are plenty of deals to be had, but there just isn't the same consistency of low prices across the board like there is for most DVD's. That'll change sooner than we think, I suspect.

I watched Pan's Labyrinth on blu-ray this weekend, and beyond being a great movie, it's as good a reference disc for blu ray as I have ever seen. Blu-ray at its best makes my cable HD look terrible.

comment #3

D.Z. says ...

"In other words, cheaper players and...cheaper Bluray discs?"

If you have to slash prices to get people interested, how are you actually making any money?

Same link:

"Various Blu-ray manufacturers announced a series of new developments, including Netflix/YouTube streaming, wireless internet capability, "

Isn't that basically admitting defeat? I mean, why pay for a new player, when you can just do all this on a PC already?

comment #4

NotImpressed1Yet says ...

There's a difference between your computer monitor and large screen TV in your living room.

New technology - like blu ray - gets cheaper as time goes by, more units are sold, and manufacturing costs go down.

Counting down to D.Z.'s non sequitur response.

comment #5

D.Z. says ...

NotImpressed: "There's a difference between your computer monitor and large screen TV in your living room."

Yes, you can take your computer monitor anywhere you want when it's part of a lap-top.

"New technology - like blu ray - gets cheaper as time goes by, more units are sold, and manufacturing costs go down."

But it's only getting "cheaper" because no one's buying it. The same pro-BD people were calling HD a failure for that very reason.

comment #6

Ponderer says ...

"But it's only getting "cheaper" because no one's buying it. The same pro-BD people were calling HD a failure for that very reason."

Wasn't the argument that Wells posted that the prices AREN'T going down? So is BD failing because the prices are too high and no one's buying it, or is it getting cheaper because no one's buying it?

"Yes, you can take your computer monitor anywhere you want when it's part of a lap-top. "

No matter what the resolution of a monitor is, BD's a waste until you start getting into the 42 inch range. And as someone who has all the popular alternate ways of getting a HD from your PC to your big screen, they're all an annoying kludge. And nowhere near the sound or video quality of a BD disc.

The biggest measure of a format is how many hardware companies are committing to it. 19 new models of player got announced at CES.

Anyway, if you want a ton of data, head here for CES Report 2, which discusses the current BD sales:

http://thedigitalbits.com/#mytwocents

I'm not going to argue with anyone on whether or not these facts are right - you can take it up with Hunt and his track record.

comment #7

D.Z. says ...

Ponderer: "Wasn't the argument that Wells posted that the prices AREN'T going down? So is BD failing because the prices are too high and no one's buying it, or is it getting cheaper because no one's buying it?"

A bit of both, actually. The manufacturers and studios taking hits to encourage more adapters, but they're not going all the way with it, because of the prohibitive production and licensing fees, thus actually putting real sales at a stand-still.

"BD's a waste until you start getting into the 42 inch range."

Thus defeating the appeal of BD.

"And as someone who has all the popular alternate ways of getting a HD from your PC to your big screen, they're all an annoying kludge. And nowhere near the sound or video quality of a BD disc."

The average consumer doesn't care about sound or video quality.

"The biggest measure of a format is how many hardware companies are committing to it."

Well, a lot of companies committed to the Internet and Housing Bubbles and Madoff, too...

"I'm not going to argue with anyone on whether or not these facts are right - you can take it up with Hunt and his track record."

I don't doubt he's right. I just think he's spinning it into something bigger than the reality of the situation. Anyway...

"The BDA estimates that 10.7 million Blu-ray capable playback devices (PS3 and standalone) have now been shipped in the U.S. in just 2.5 years since the format's inception, compared to 5.4 million DVD players shipped by the end of that format's third year."

Yes, and how's that doing for Sony? Oh, wait, they barely broke even so far. BTW, shipping is not the same as selling.

"For meaningful comparison, here's some data from Adams Media Research showing the U.S. market penetration of other historical home entertainment technologies at the end of their respective third year of introduction:

TV - 3%
Color TV - .5%
VHS - .5%
CD - 1.5%
DVD - 4.5%
HDTV - 1%
Blu-ray - 7.75%"

Well, yes, but that's only because most of the other products were relatively expensive when they were first available on the market. BD players had to go down at least $200 in one year for them to be able to even compete with those rates of market penetration.

"Additionally, the BDA says there are now 1,100 Blu-ray titles available, and they confirmed that Warner's The Dark Knight was the first title to surpass 1 million units sold, just 2.5 years since the format launched (and despite the format war with HD-DVD). By contrast, the first DVD title to reach 1 million (Warner's The Matrix in late 1999) came almost exactly 4 years after the early 1997 introduction of DVD (which also faced a format war with the pay-per-view Divx format)."

Same old "TDK's a bigger hit on BD than the Matrix on DVD, I tell you!" bs. Did the Matrix dvds have to be discounted for people to want to buy them? Wasn't TDK a significantly higher grossing film which, unlike the Matrix, also had the benefit of being PG-13, instead of R? Didn't DVD players still cost a lot more than BD players at that time? So, given the same circumstances, why is TDK still only selling the same number of units, and not more of them?

"The first 2 million discs sold month was reached in October (2.3 million), and here's something to give you a sense of how well the format did in the 4th quarter: 3+ million discs were sold in November, and a whopping 8+ million discs were sold in December."

But how many individual discs besides Iron Man and TDK sold more than a million each? Or are these "millions" simply just all or most of the movies currently being released in BD, thus making it seem like you're inflating the current adapters into a higher number?

"Looking ahead, it was noted that Digital Copy continues to be a very popular option added to select Blu-ray Disc titles (at least 53 are already available) "

What did I say about admitting defeat again?

"As to the predictions of some that digital delivery will squeeze Blu-ray and packaged media out, Adams said "I've been hearing that electronic delivery would replace packaged media for 25 years now," adding that "Electronic delivery is not impacting packaged significantly."'

Tell that to the RIAA.

"Five years from now, he expect that packaged media will continue to be about a $25 billion a year business, with Internet delivery and cable "on-demand" delivery reaching about $1 billion each. "

If that's the case, why do you need BD in the first place? Also, it's funny that you say $25 billion a year when, even with those BD sales, Hunt notes that consumer spending on home entertainment is already lower than that.

comment #8

D.Z. says ...

the same=these

comment #9

BurmaShave says ...

Fuck BluRay. I will stick with my PREDATOR DVD in a pink CD jewelcase because I lost the packaging, thank you very much.

comment #10

NotImpressed1Yet says ...

Ponderer, you made the same mistake I made - responding to D.Z. instead of calling him a stupid fucking idiot and then proceeding to ignore him.

comment #11

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

"the same=these"

Okay, that made me laugh actually out loud. The idea that anyone is slogging back through that post to find where ever that belongs. Riiiiight.

Blu-Rays were priced where they were because the industry wanted to set the price there. It's the whole CD/DVD scenario all over again. Only this time, the economy tanked so the fuckers are forced to drop their prices.

I remember when CDs first came out and someone printed what the actual production cost per disc was compared to LP's - less than a buck. Factor in the fact that they cost less to ship and it was apparent that the industry was using the new technology to jack up the cost of music. I think many of us who jumped on Napster and Kazaa did so thinking "Oh, yeah, well fuck you too!"

Sony blew a great opportunity to push players over the holidays by not giving Warners a big paycheck to only offer THE DARK KNIGHT in Blu-Ray only until this month or next. They could have released the DVD to coincide with the Academy announcements or after.

comment #12

D.Z. says ...

Deathtongue: From what I've heard, though, it actually is very expensive to produce BDs.

comment #13

the400blows says ...

I can't imagine anyone wanting to get a BD for something like The Blair Witch Project, Breaking the Waves, Wendy and Lucy, etc. The quality wasn't in the production of those movies to begin with so why get BD? If some indie filmmakers don't care about the quality of their films then why should the consumers? I see no point in buying BD.

comment #14

Wiggumx says ...

Some things, like old movies (French Connection, per the article here on HE) look worse on BD.

But BD will do fine. It won't be as huge as DVD because downloadable films will kill it too fast. But it will get a bit cheaper and succeed, for sure.

"Yes, you can take your computer monitor anywhere you want when it's part of a lap-top. "

Most laptops don't display true 1080p Hi-Def/Blu-Ray resolution... 1920x1200. Most of your cheaper laptops can only produce 720p. So your argument is basically moot.

comment #15

Rich S. says ...

Ponderer was right to raise a bit of a red flag about Bill Hunt and The Digital Bits. Do a bit of digging and you'll find that Hunt probably can't be trusted with respect to his enthusiasm for the format. At the very least, his site depends on perpetuation of tangible formats for relevance. The minute on-demand HD downloads become commonplace, bye-bye Digital Bits.

comment #16

Josh Massey says ...

"I remember when CDs first came out and someone printed what the actual production cost per disc was compared to LP's - less than a buck."

You know production isn't the only cost, correct? Artists, writers, producers, labels, marketing, shipping, etc., etc., etc. They all jack up costs as well, some very significantly.

comment #17

Rich S. says ...

Josh, wouldn't you have those same costs whether it was an LP or a CD? I think the point is that CDs cost significantly less to produce than LPs and yet the retail prices were actually reversed.

It's why I never shed a tear for the record companies when they took it in the shorts over downloads.

comment #18

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

"You know production isn't the only cost, correct? Artists, writers, producers, labels, marketing, shipping, etc"

You know that there was an entire strike going on over this matter, oh, say, about one year ago today and they key defeat was that the writers (and by extension everyone else) didn't get to jack up their prices at all.

Or, put another way, have you seen DVD prices shoot up over this price "jacking up" as well?

Because in the end, everyone pretty much got... jack.