Blu-ray in Europe

[ESF]

The technically excellent Blu-ray format is rather slow catch on in Europe. A rather important market consisting of about 500 million people. From what I gather from retailers all over Europe one main reason is the deplorable lack of quality offered by Hollywood. Endless infantile nonsense, already revealed by the titles, do very little to encourage grown up consumers to purchase a Blu-ray player in spite of the fact that over a hundred million "HD ready" flatscreen sets are in use in Europe. Far too many Hollywood productions appear to be aimed at a pre-puberty audience, or people sadly confined to this mental level. This lugubrious state of affairs has of course many more far reaching consequences than whether the disc is HD DVD or Blu-ray, although this debacle is symptomatic of the whole Hollywood approach of
attempting to waste consumer money on elaborate, expensive nonsense.
I am convinced Blu-ray will prevail, but it deserves a very much higher level as far as content is concerned.

[dcl1979]

I agree. Right now, there are not many titles in Europe that I would want to own on blu-ray disc. It would be nice to see more variety in the releases. A higher release rate would also help.

[gvortex7]

I'm a European living in the US and all I can tell you is that as much as I like independent cinema, it is mainstream Hollywood blockbusters and action movies that will help propel the adoption of Blu-ray and not art house movies. Once Blu-ray is established as the de facto standard for high-def movies, then you will see a great influx of quality, lesser known movies from all corners of the world.

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by gvortex7

I'm a European living in the US and all I can tell you is that as much as I like independent cinema, it is mainstream Hollywood blockbusters and action movies that will help propel the adoption of Blu-ray and not art house movies. Once Blu-ray is established as the de facto standard for high-def movies, then you will see a great influx of quality, lesser known movies from all corners of the world.

I may have misunderstood what ESF is saying, but I think he is more complaining about what Hollywood is producing than asking for lesser known art house movies to be released on Blu-ray.

I agree with the complaints about Hollywood, I think the quality of mainstream movies has gone WAY downhill in recent years. The Prestige is a rare example of a recent fairly mainstream movie that stimulates the brain a bit rather than just being full of endless boring action sequences. I've bought tens of Blu-ray discs, but very few of them are movies I regard as truly exceptional, I can really only think of The Prestige and Blade Runner off the top of my head.

[Bucket]

Read about Blu-ray - when was it? - around year 2000/1? It was a short note in a home entertainment magazine about a new technology and that a consortium had been formed with a panel/committe that defined standards and what not.

"Makes sense" I thought and decided not to go all out for the then reasonably new DVD-technology. So I bought the cheapest available DVD-player and only the very few films I really wanted. Blu-ray was around the corner, right?

For eight years, or so, It has been a long and exciting wait. I've explained to my kids that we won't really buy this or that film "until it's out on Blu-ray". Poor kids - for them Blu-ray has come to mean "never".

But I have remained faithful to the Blu-ray concept nevertheless, and I don't even own one single disc, let alone a player.

Then I became aware of the format war. I took it personally. HD-DVD sure messed things up, so I became a disgruntled and very partial (in favour of Blu of course) fence sitter.

Now to my point: don't you fret. Europe will follow. I can't be the only one who has gone through this process AND add to that the fact that technology is first released in Japan, then the states, and only then in Europe. It's not so easy to jump on the Blu-ray band wagon when it's not even arrived at you station yet. Friends, there are no Blu-ray players to be bought in Sweden!

However, PS3 changed that! But most still cling on to their PS2's. Heck even the US expats at my kids' school (they are english speaking - wife's english) have not gotten around to getting PS3's yet!

We are simply lagging with at least a year. But it is soon our turn - and WB going exclusively Blu will speed that up.

By the way - found this forum when it was just a dinky holding page! Back when google gave just a handful hits on "Blu-ray".

Have followed it ever since. Registered today.

Now... start shipping some players to my neck of the woods!!!

Regards,
Bucket

[DS1975]

I'm from Europe and I hate to say that it hasn't to do with what's offered by the Studios but mainly with how much they charge for it!

Why do so many Europeans order from the US? It's not the different movies or better quality but the price!
I realize that the low US Dollar helps in that point but still the US Market offers much better prices (even with shipping).

For me that is the main reason why I order from the States and not from European Stores.

[Bullseye]

On a side note to this debate CE companies and Hollywood see Europe behind both USA and Japan even though the market is bigger than both of those combined. The PS3 debacle was a prime example of this. Japan and the USA got theirs before Christmas whereas Europe had to wait until March for theirs. While i know we in Europe tend to have to take a back seat when it comes to these format wars I would still prefer to live in Europe I do love visiting the USA though

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by DS1975

I'm from Europe and I hate to say that it hasn't to do with what's offered by the Studios but mainly with how much they charge for it!

Why do so many Europeans order from the US? It's not the different movies or better quality but the price!
I realize that the low US Dollar helps in that point but still the US Market offers much better prices (even with shipping).

For me that is the main reason why I order from the States and not from European Stores.

You can blame the EU for those high VAT and Duty Taxes.

[eat_me_cool]

The UK isn't that far behind the US. 750K Blu-ray films were sold in 2007 thats equivalant to 4.7Million pro-rata with the US population. Given that the UK is subjected up to 5x the price of DVD for BD's it not bad going (and many people like me buy from the US)

[Giyomu]

blu ray is still new in france
what? 1 year maybe...

the price may be the biggest reason why we are importing from US!
I have never seen an Amazon.fr BOGO... already hard enough to find all titles available on the territory. titles that are for the most have been released months ago in US

I bought around 60-70 blu-rays, 90% is US imported and hollywood, 85% is big bang boom boom hollywood high action movies.

[Getus]

i'am from The Netherlands and i olso order from the us. because of the prices and the early release dates

[NK86]

I live in England and also buy as many discs from the US as possible. I have around 30 BD's, five of which are region B discs.
Though this is becoming harder as more and more of the movies I want are day and date releases, or are just region coded catalogue titles. Warner seem to be the only ones that dont region code their new titles. I understand why this is so, but i refuse to pay £25-£30 for a region B movie ($50-$60). Why are we paying so much? This is realy hurting HD media out here.
Also, i bought Gangs of New York (only available at the moment in region B) and the transfer is awful. It looks like a sd-dvd 90% of the time.

[hanser]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

You can blame the EU for those high VAT and Duty Taxes.

That is not the main reason. If I import from amazon.com to Germany, I still have to pay taxes for it, but it is nevertheless much cheaper this way.

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by hanser

That is not the main reason. If I import from amazon.com to Germany, I still have to pay taxes for it, but it is nevertheless much cheaper this way.

Yes but your post office is not charging you the same rate that the EU is inforcing on retailers. I appreciate though that the retailers are also putting a large profit margin on there too but don't forget that they too charge VAT.

[Got2LoveGadgets]

Originally Posted by NutsAboutPS3

I may have misunderstood what ESF is saying, but I think he is more complaining about what Hollywood is producing than asking for lesser known art house movies to be released on Blu-ray.

I agree with the complaints about Hollywood, I think the quality of mainstream movies has gone WAY downhill in recent years. The Prestige is a rare example of a recent fairly mainstream movie that stimulates the brain a bit rather than just being full of endless boring action sequences. I've bought tens of Blu-ray discs, but very few of them are movies I regard as truly exceptional, I can really only think of The Prestige and Blade Runner off the top of my head.

I also agree that most of the films that come out of Hollywood today are rubbish but unfortunately Hollywood is all about making money and there is allot of money to be made in films like Pirates of the Carribean. This im afraid will never change. Give it a year or so and the production cost of blu-ray will come down allowing more independent films to be released on blu.

I do find it funny on this site how people get excited over PQ / SQ of what is a rubbish film, unfortunately the studios are only to aware of this. That's why this year we will see allot of rubbish being brought out on blu in the hope that consumers will buy just because its high def.
All that in mind there are still some decent films being made and on blu (Million Dollar Baby comes to mind) the future for blu is bright we just need to be a bit patient

[DS1975]

Originally Posted by Bullseye

Yes but your post office is not charging you the same rate that the EU is inforcing on retailers. I appreciate though that the retailers are also putting a large profit margin on there too but don't forget that they too charge VAT.

Since Switzerland isn't in the EU I don't have to pay any VAT at all when importing from Amazon.de or Amazon.co.uk - however considering this as well I still pay more vs. ordering from the US.

As I've mentioned it is also due to the very low US Dollar but every cent counts...

[Bullseye]

Originally Posted by DS1975

Since Switzerland isn't in the EU I don't have to pay any VAT at all when importing from Amazon.de or Amazon.co.uk - however considering this as well I still pay more vs. ordering from the US.

As I've mentioned it is also due to the very low US Dollar but every cent counts...

The low value of the dollar does have its advantages

[TheTenth]

I'm French and I can honestly say our movies are crap!
French Directors think they're intellectuals and make better movies than USA but it's always the same : boring guys talking about bad things in life, people with problems thinking about their bad future ... Hey! Cinema is here to have a good moment, and guess what? Those horrible USA movies have lots of people go see them and buy them after!
So people like Doillon, Beineix (forgot other names) need to forget their ego and smile a bit!