Blu Ray's Identity Crisis by Joshua Zyber

[Canada]

I get home theater magazine and there was an artical stating that Blu Ray is actually not doing as well as we would like to think it is. They were saying it has a relitivly slow adoption rate + movie sales are relitivly slow compared to 2 years into DVD. Two things I can see that are holding it back are people not having an HDTV. Only 6 people I know of have an HDTV out of those 6 people only 3 have Blu Ray. The problem is people like my Dad who says DVD is good enough? My aunt and uncle just got a DVD player about 3 years ago. Then there are people like my supervisor at work who will not buy a DVD if it's over about $ 12.99.

Joshua Zyber's said one of the reasons that adoption is slow is that no standalone Blu Ray player on the market that is a cheap or as good as the PS3 is. Plus there is still some what of a stigma around the PS3 because people see it as a gaming machine and not a great Blu Ray player.

Any ideas on how we can get people to adopt Blu Ray faster.

[Mr. Cinema]

Josh Z, as he's known on the web, is still feeling the sting of WB dumping HD DVD and ending the war. He won't admit it, but if you read his posts on various sites, you'll understand. He always takes a negative tone when it comes to positive BD news. I've read enough of his posts to figure that out. I know there are plenty of members here who think the same way. Needless to say, I'm not a fan.

He is the LAST person I want to hear from regarding BD.

[HeavyHitter]

Josh Zyber has always had an agenda against Blu-ray - and still does to this day. Much of time he's subtle about it, but he's definitely very non-objective. Josh has been wrong on many accounts. If his "logic" was correct, Blu-ray would have died and HD DVD would have won. As Mr. Cinema said, I'm sure Josh is still feeling that awful sting of Warner and his favorite format now officially dead.

[JJ]

Although I have to say I know how you feel, Mr. Canada - I am the ONLY person I know here with Blu-ray capabilities. And I only know 3 others who have HDTVs. Although I always do put out the good word when I make jaws drop when people come see movies at my hizzouse.

[Canada]

One of the reasons I think less Blu Ray's are being bought is there are some that have no HD audio which is a huge selling point for me and many others. I mean Lethal Weapon 1&2 are 2 of my top 25 movies, on Blu Ray neither of them are the Directors Cuts,no sale, and they don't have Dolby True HD, no sale. So there are 2 Blu Rays that would have been sold if Warner Brothers had done them correctly the first time. Because if there are DVD Directors Cuts out and Blu Ray has yet to see them you can bet your bottom dollar WB is going to release the Directors Cut with a Dolby True HD track, count on it.

[JadedRaverLA]

Personally, I don't think the PS3 is the issue. Most of the people who I've set up with Blu-ray aren't using the PS3, and they don't know or care that the PS3 plays Blu-ray movies. Joe Consumer doesn't analyze formats to death and debate the effect of video game systems on movie sales before making a purchasing decision.

Software sales are lower because there's 600 Blu-ray releases vs. over 3,000 DVD releases at the same time in its's history. With DVD, the studios could just use the Betacam master tapes they had already made for LaserDisc and TV for DVD production. For Blu-ray, they actually need a 1080p master... and, there's an outcry on the internet anytime they try to use an older "unacceptable" (vertically filtered 1080i, etc) master for Blu-ray.

If DVD had 5x the titles (it was actually more than that) but sold 2x as much, is that really a victory for DVD? Blu-ray sales will pick up significantly once we start to get a truly significant quantity of titles released from the studios. In the meantime, I think it's doing as well as could be expected.

[allstar780]

I have about 16 friends with PS3s, all of whom I've convinced to atleast start renting Blu... it is being adopted just fine... 2 years in to the DVD thing my doctor didn't even have DVD... now the 52 year old store manager at my work has Blu-Ray.... it is going to be something big, theres no doubt about that.... just wait til prices drop and people with HDTV won't have to think twice about putting down $200 on a player

[richieb1971]

The old adage is that BD has 50gb of current storage yet studios like Warner use compressed audio. There are studios which will release a subpar presentation that they know will disappoint fans of the movie in question. For me, BD was supposed to be the end all format. But it seems a movie can be released in any state a studios deems fit even on BD.

As said a million times before, people don't feel movies are worth $20 a time. If you know what your doing you can watch anything for free. In our economic climate even a HDTV owner could resort to freeness rather than paying a hefty chunk of an annual salary and blow it on movies. Movies are not exactly a "need" but rather a form of passive entertainment, there is always broadcast TV if your that bored!

The other problem, some people don't adopt a format until about 80% of everyone they know has it. They would rather be in the DVD crowd for now until DVD players start filling our landfills.

[Bobby Henderson]

First of all, I disagree that Blu-ray is doing worse at its 2 year birthday than DVD when it turned 2 years old. When PS3 units are included, Blu-ray is doing much better on hardware sales than DVD did at the year 2 mark.

I also disagree that PS3 is part of any perceived problem with Blu-ray. The fact of the matter is PS3 is the main thing that helped Blu-ray win the format war. I believe the notion that countless PS3 owners don't watch Blu-ray movies is wildly inaccurate. Most people I know who own PS3 consoles watch BD movies often. The PS3 is what helped Blu-ray outpace HD-DVD disc sales by 2:1 and 3:1 margins.

The main reason why standalone Blu-ray players aren't moving as well is that most simply don't perform as well as a PS3. They load discs slower, have more problems with certain movie discs and don't support as many features as PS3. What Pioneer is currently doing illustrates the point perfectly: they're still releasing new BD player models with no LAN ports and no BD Live support -and yet carry a HIGH price tag.

If Blu-ray movie discs aren't selling as well as DVD in its 2nd year that entire problem can be summed up to the quality of movies itself. It takes great, new movies to sell home theater hardware very well.

1999 was a pretty good year for movies. Quite a few good movies were released around that period. The Matrix was a huge success for DVD -it did much better on video than it did in theaters.

For the past few years Hollywood studios have put out a lot of derivative, forgettable crap. Some decent hits have been released, but there hasn't been a movie good enough to drive home theater hardware sales well since Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King arrived on DVD.

Blu-ray sales this fall could be different. If The Dark Knight turns out as well as I hope it does the movie could help the Blu-ray format really break out to a new, faster pace of customer adoption. I think Iron Man is also going to sell well. But it's not a ground-breaking movie title like The Matrix.

[jadedeath]

Did Josh enjoy the paycheck he got from Crazy Ken at Universal for being so anti-Blu-Ray at every opportunity?

I've had a few disputes with regards to HD-DVD/Blu-Ray back in the day with that nitwit, if he's not Anti-Blu-Ray I don't know who/what is.

Btw: Did he quote any sources or was it just an opinion piece like most of his writing?

What a maroon.

Logan

[WickyWoo]

What Pioneer is currently doing illustrates the point perfectly: they're still releasing new BD player models with no LAN ports and no BD Live support -and yet carry a HIGH price tag.

Pioneer is about build quality and high end processing and DACs. They're not going for the J6P market

[Monkey]

.. by Joshua Zyber

Well that's your problem right there.