Blu-rays are 8 years old and DVDs still cling to them like a cancerous tumor. Why?

[bobbydrugar]

It seems simple to me. During the VHS to DVD upgrade at some point the Players dropped below a hundred bucks and no additional equipment was required to enjoy it. People bought them and it caught on. Then comes HD Tv's and blu-rays to showcase them Then 3D displays, Then 4k Displays and each iteration costing more and more startup investment to keep up. Eventually you just have to say it's good enough and I'm getting off this rollercoaster. For many (i dare say most) people that good enough break point is DVD.

T

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by bobbydrugar

It seems simple to me. During the VHS to DVD upgrade at some point the Players dropped below a hundred bucks and no additional equipment was required to enjoy it. People bought them and it caught on. Then comes HD Tv's and blu-rays to showcase them Then 3D displays, Then 4k Displays and each iteration costing more and more startup investment to keep up. Eventually you just have to say it's good enough and I'm getting off this rollercoaster. For many (i dare say most) people that good enough break point is DVD.

T

there is definitely no more start up investment required for 4K than for the move from SD CRTs to HD LCDs.

I paid $1000 for my first 26" 720p LCD. I paid $1200 for my first 55" 4K LCD

[mredman]

Originally Posted by ps3bd_owner

Whenever the next video disc format is released (that's if there'll be one which is possible) DVD'll still be alive while Blu-ray reaching its end. DVDs is just far more popular and known than Blu-ray. A lot of people out there still don't know what a Blu-ray is.

Comparing DVD's popularity to Blu-ray is like Microsoft to some small time company. lol

Not for NEW popular movies and tv shows its not. BLU-RAY wins over DVD every single time with these. Its only old movies that gets where DVD is in sales. While BLU-RAY is microsoft while DVD is some small company that manufacture low quality

[bobbydrugar]

But the point was that there was $0 Startup cost to move from VHS to DVD. Many people are still rocking CRT SD TV's and are happy with them. The move from DVD to Blu-ray (in order to even appreciate them) As you said cost you like $1000 which My mother would never do nor would most of my immediate family.

Until their old TV dies That is when it is time to upgrade and many of those CRT's are built like a Brick S*** House. For Those users there is no point in upgrading to Blu-ray hence Blu-ray not taking off as the dominant force to replace DVD never happened.

There are too many people who got off the ride before HD TV's were even a thing and even if the CRT fails and they reluctantly upgrade to HD or UHD or Super Ultra Mega HD With Sprinkles or what ever the industry comes out with to part us from our cash for objectively smaller and smaller improvements in quality many of those users will buy the new TV get it home hook up their perfectly fine DVD player Via their Good enough for Them Composite AV (Red/Yellow/White) cables and enjoy the hell out of their DVD while looking at the amazing picture of their new TV running in Torch Mode.

They just don't know, They don't Care, and they are happy where they are. And most importantly They outnumber us enthusiasts by somewhere around 100,000 to 1 or more.

T

[bluearth]

Originally Posted by steve1971

bluearth, so what makes people think 4K Blu ray is going to do any better? If Blu ray is struggleing against dvd how do you think 4K Blu ray is going to fare against regular Blu ray discs and dvd? We are going to have a log jam of of discs at the retail shops that for sure!

I expect 4K UHD discs to do alot worse then bluray. But that doesnt mean it will be a failure. It will likely be a niche format, and I'm OK with that as long as the releases are generally high in quality. Just figuratively speaking, lets say bluray has 5% the catalogue size of DVD, I expect 4K UHD bluray to have 5% the library size of bluray.

We'll probably get all the biggest, latest and recent (past 20 years) movies on 4K UHD bluray along with the big classics, but I dont see things like moderately popular TV shows from 10 years ago getting the upgrade for example.

Originally Posted by bobbydrugar

It seems simple to me. During the VHS to DVD upgrade at some point the Players dropped below a hundred bucks and no additional equipment was required to enjoy it. People bought them and it caught on. Then comes HD Tv's and blu-rays to showcase them Then 3D displays, Then 4k Displays and each iteration costing more and more startup investment to keep up. Eventually you just have to say it's good enough and I'm getting off this rollercoaster. For many (i dare say most) people that good enough break point is DVD.

T

The general casual consumer will almost ALWAYS put convenience and affordability above quality. Thats why streaming is popular, and one of the biggest reasons bluray never quite managed to take over DVD. It offered better quality, but not an increase in convenience like DVD had over VHS. The extra price was just another turn off.

As an example, if Sony kept releasing every game on the PS3 as well as the PS4 it would hurt PS4 sales. Now gamers appreciate quality more then the casual moving watching public so they would have adopted the newer more expensive technology quicker.

I just hope the people behind 4K UHD bluray have realistic expectations.

[ps3bd_owner]

Originally Posted by bobbydrugar

It seems simple to me. During the VHS to DVD upgrade at some point the Players dropped below a hundred bucks and no additional equipment was required to enjoy it. People bought them and it caught on. Then comes HD Tv's and blu-rays to showcase them Then 3D displays, Then 4k Displays and each iteration costing more and more startup investment to keep up. Eventually you just have to say it's good enough and I'm getting off this rollercoaster. For many (i dare say most) people that good enough break point is DVD.

T

With Netflix in "Super HD" 1080p there's little reason to buy Blu-rays and the quality whether it's that good or not, it only affects the videophiles.

Originally Posted by mredman

Not for NEW popular movies and tv shows its not. BLU-RAY wins over DVD every single time with these. Its only old movies that gets where DVD is in sales. While BLU-RAY is microsoft while DVD is some small company that manufacture low quality

There's still a lot of countries around the world which have yet to discover Blu-ray because their supermarkets, electronic stores and whatnot didn't really make much advertisement of BD, so you see why I'm saying it.

Also you've got the prices to consider on DVD they're really cheap but on Blu-ray? Sometimes even more than a theatre ticket so defeats the purpose of watching it at home for less.

[raygendreau]

Increased resolution isn't moving consumers from DVD to BD and isn't expected to cause many to adopt UHD BR. The industry hopes that HDR will.

"[Update: Since writing the story below, Amazon has informed me that adding HDR (using 10-bit encoding) to its video streams requires no extra broadband bit-rate. It has also confirmed that HDR is available on all streams of its HDR-enabled titles. In other words, it's not just available with the UHD versions of Mozart In The Jungle and Red Oaks, but can also be enjoyed right down to Amazon's lowest 150Kbps video streams.]"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarch...aming-service/

Content providers should give some serious thought to DVD+HDR given the continuing support and revenue generation from DVD sales.

[mredman]

oh great here comes the stream shipper raygendreau streamguru lol

[Derb]

Originally Posted by ps3bd_owner

With Netflix in "Super HD" 1080p there's little reason to buy Blu-rays and the quality whether it's that good or not, it only affects the videophiles.

Netflix has a lot of confidence to throw themselves $1.5 billion in dept.

Streaming is ok for the most part but I've seen 2.39 films open matte on on Netflix.. Oops. Quality also depends on your service speed as well as your actual connection & device.

Only reason DvDs are still "kickin' it" is because PC still uses them. IMO

[spectre08]

I will say that UHD streaming content from Netflix looks WAY better than HD streaming content from Netflix. I suspect it's because of the different codec, but there's noticeably less banding, artifacts, and clipping than even "Super HD" content.

Considering how good UHD streaming content already looks, UltraHD blu-ray is going to be jaw dropping.

[eiknarf]

Originally Posted by ps3bd_owner

With Netflix in "Super HD" 1080p there's little reason to buy Blu-rays and the quality whether it's that good or not, it only affects the videophiles.



There's still a lot of countries around the world which have yet to discover Blu-ray because their supermarkets, electronic stores and whatnot didn't really make much advertisement of BD, so you see why I'm saying it.

Also you've got the prices to consider on DVD they're really cheap but on Blu-ray? Sometimes even more than a theatre ticket so defeats the purpose of watching it at home for less.

The reason to buy blu-ray for many is to own something tangible, physical

[Jett Rink]

People either seem to forget or simply do not care about this. But there is the local library that carries new release movies and usually in large quantities. That right there is enough to make me drop buying BD's altogether.

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by raygendreau

Increased resolution isn't moving consumers from DVD to BD and isn't expected to cause many to adopt UHD BR. The industry hopes that HDR will.

"[Update: Since writing the story below, Amazon has informed me that adding HDR (using 10-bit encoding) to its video streams requires no extra broadband bit-rate. It has also confirmed that HDR is available on all streams of its HDR-enabled titles. In other words, it's not just available with the UHD versions of Mozart In The Jungle and Red Oaks, but can also be enjoyed right down to Amazon's lowest 150Kbps video streams.]"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnarch...aming-service/

Content providers should give some serious thought to DVD+HDR given the continuing support and revenue generation from DVD sales.

While it's true that HDR requires far less bandwidth than 4K, it's likely that they'll be more compression and it will look like crap. I was not all that impressed with the HDR demos I've seen so far. While there was definitely higher dynamic range (so on an indoor scene of a dark room with a bright window in the background, the window was brighter and blacks didn't get crushed), I had a "so what?" reaction. It didn't really add to the experience for me. IMO, the biggest potential improvement is going to be wider color gamut. Everything else is going to be subtle and the way most people have their sets adjusted, they're going to miss the benefits anyway.

And while I completely understand why DVD software still exists (78% of the physical market units in the U.S.), I definitely don't think they should try HDR DVD. It would cause all kinds of compatibility issues. If they're going to change standards forcing consumers to new hardware, the consumer should upgrade at least to Blu. The players are have become inexpensive enough. It should be pretty obvious that DVD consumers are not concerned with image quality and so HDR on DVD would be a complete waste.

[Derb]

Originally Posted by spectre08

I will say that UHD streaming content from Netflix looks WAY better than HD streaming content from Netflix. I suspect it's because of the different codec, but there's noticeably less banding, artifacts, and clipping than even "Super HD" content.

Considering how good UHD streaming content already looks, UltraHD blu-ray is going to be jaw dropping.

I saw what looked like bad Macro on Daredevil during night time shots. Quite distracting actually. I grabbed the remote to see if the Rez dipped.. Nope, streaming 2160..

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by bobbydrugar

But the point was that there was $0 Startup cost to move from VHS to DVD.

There is always a startup cost, in this case it was the cost of the player which ranged from $500+.

Of course if you had a television without component inputs, or eventually HDMI, you wouldn't get the best picture possible either.

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

...

Everything else is going to be subtle and the way most people have their sets adjusted, they're going to miss the benefits anyway.

...

That's a good point, maybe as a starting point the manufacturers should focus on having appropriate universal/default settings on their televisions, out of the box, rather than have settings such as "vivid" mode.

The other thing which seemed stupid when Blu-ray was launched is that a lot of the initial Blu-ray players only came with a composite video cable. Seems manufacturers were skimping on the important details to save a few pennies.

[Jett Rink]

Originally Posted by Derb

I saw what looked like bad Macro on Daredevil during night time shots. Quite distracting actually. I grabbed the remote to see if the Rez dipped.. Nope, streaming 2160..

I am glad you mentioned this, I thought it was my TV.

[ps3bd_owner]

Originally Posted by Derb

Netflix has a lot of confidence to throw themselves $1.5 billion in dept.

Streaming is ok for the most part but I've seen 2.39 films open matte on on Netflix.. Oops. Quality also depends on your service speed as well as your actual connection & device.

Only reason DvDs are still "kickin' it" is because PC still uses them. IMO

I've read ISPs in US tend to be really crap but in European countries? They're damn great with high speeds and no limited cap.

[spectre08]

Originally Posted by ps3bd_owner

I've read ISPs in US tend to be really crap but in European countries? They're damn great with high speeds and no limited cap.

This is a function of population density more than anything. A lot of Americans live in places where it's not economical to run high speed internet infrastructure.

If you live in a big city like New York, LA, or Dallas the internet is on par with European cities.

[prerich]

Originally Posted by Derb

Netflix has a lot of confidence to throw themselves $1.5 billion in dept.

Streaming is ok for the most part but I've seen 2.39 films open matte on on Netflix.. Oops. Quality also depends on your service speed as well as your actual connection & device.

Only reason DvDs are still "kickin' it" is because PC still uses them. IMO

My PC doesn't use a DVD. Many PC's are forgoing optical drives now. Software makers are trying to do everything by subscription via the internet now.

[raygendreau]

Originally Posted by ZoetMB

While it's true that HDR requires far less bandwidth than 4K, it's likely that they'll be more compression and it will look like crap. I was not all that impressed with the HDR demos I've seen so far. While there was definitely higher dynamic range (so on an indoor scene of a dark room with a bright window in the background, the window was brighter and blacks didn't get crushed), I had a "so what?" reaction. It didn't really add to the experience for me. IMO, the biggest potential improvement is going to be wider color gamut. Everything else is going to be subtle and the way most people have their sets adjusted, they're going to miss the benefits anyway.

And while I completely understand why DVD software still exists (78% of the physical market units in the U.S.), I definitely don't think they should try HDR DVD. It would cause all kinds of compatibility issues. If they're going to change standards forcing consumers to new hardware, the consumer should upgrade at least to Blu. The players are have become inexpensive enough. It should be pretty obvious that DVD consumers are not concerned with image quality and so HDR on DVD would be a complete waste.

Consensus is that the majority doesn't perceive increased resolution, but will see a difference between SDR and HDR. So far, with what HDR content is available now, that is open for debate. Time will tell. We need standards and more displays capable of HDR. That is still months away.

If HDR is the panacea that the industry is hoping for, the adoption of UHD BR players by the "DVD is Good Enough" crowd would be more likely if DVD+HDR was available. I think that is the only way to prevent UHD BR from winding up as micro niche or failing from the outset.