It's certainly not a failure but as we all know it hasn't been the success we all hoped,it's still by far the best way to watch a movie but unfortunately best doesn't always matter and easier and cheaper are two options which are the main problem.
I have seen on UK TV recently that new films downloaded being advertised for a week early release before DVD and Blu-ray.
The longer this medium last, the cheaper it becomes. Blu-ray is a win because frankly, compared to other mediums, this sort of quality has never been so cheap and consumable.
I watched a vintage Siskel and Ebert where they were promoting the new Star Wars laserdisc set (just the first three released films mind you) that came with a $200 price tag. Compare that to the blu-ray pricetag.
Oh course, there have been some some botch jobs but there will always be botch jobs (Fox Lorber DVD?). When blu-ray hits it's high marks, they are exceptional. I remember when I first spun Oblivion on my projector and asked myself, "Will I ever have to go the the theater ever again?"
I think 2001 might be a little bit too early but 2004 is definitely too late. I believe the last major VHS release I bought was this which came out in late 2002.
Well, like I mentioned, for me buying a PS2 made VHS pointless. I bought it mainly for the games, but I remember the fact that it could play DVDs was a huge reason to get one as well.
It was a much simpler transition to the new format. Also because every new PC you bought in the early 00s also had a DVD player. Which is why I find it hard to believe that VHS were still competing with DVDs at that point. I remember watching this South Park episode where Token brings a Lion King DVD to one of the other boys house, but they don't have a DVD player and can only play VHS:
When I saw it, I remember being surprised that DVD was supposedly so advanced and a big deal that few could play it when everyone I knew had a PS2 that could play DVDs.
The relatively cheap PS2 made the transition to DVD the simplest and seamless format transition in format transition history. With blu ray, I remember how big of a deal it was that the VERY expensive PS3 was able to play them.
Also, with blu ray you needed an HDMI exit in your TV. With DVD, you could play them with cables that could be inserted into the TV you already had.
Instead of complaining about what you can't get, why don't you praise what you can get. And while there are some releases that aren't up to complete Blu-ray par, the fact is that for many films, they've never, ever looked better, except perhaps (and sometimes not even then) at their theatrical premiere in the best theaters. For other films, considering the fact that either the original negatives don't exist or it's hard to find a good print, they look as good as they're ever going to look in our lifetimes.
This is not unique to Blu-ray. Far more books are out-of-print than in print. And much music product from defunct labels is unavailable, although more music is available today than ever before. Back in the mid-1970s, the major labels used to slim their inventory and declare the majority of the catalog out of print. It's amazing how slim the catalogs from Columbia, RCA, Warner Bros/Reprise and others were back then.
There have always been issues with the rights and therefore, the consumer availability of films, but rights issues have become more complex than ever. So, yes, some films aren't going to be available. Big deal. It isn't like there aren't already more great films available in great versions than you could ever practically watch in a lifetime.
Yes, we can't currently get "True Lies" on Blu-ray. So what? We can get almost every important film in all of film history and most with amazingly good picture and sound. Look at almost any Criterion release. Citizen Kane. Incredible releases of many classic silents. Baraka, Ben Hur, Blade Runner, Bridge on the River Kwai, Casablanca, The Godfather, The Right Stuff, the Kubrick collection, the Wizard of Oz, Woodstock, etc., etc.,
But having said that, I've been warning (and been berated) for years, because I said that if Blu-ray didn't have a good enough growth curve, studios would lose interest and we'd get fewer releases, restorations, remasterings, special features, special packaging, etc., and that's exactly what happening.
Year to date (through 10/31), Blu-ray in the U.S. is down 2.73% in dollars and 0.31% in units as compared with last year. It has a 31% dollar share of physical media, but only a 21% unit share. (Last year at this time it was 29.2% and 19.3% and was 5.77% ahead in dollars of 2012).
So if Blu-ray has failed, it's not in the quality of its offerings. It's only in the sense that it hasn't been accepted in big enough numbers in the consumer marketplace in spite of the fact that players are now quite affordable and catalog titles are very inexpensive. I never thought we'd see Blu-ray titles of decent movies as low as $7 at this point in its life.
I think we've become incredibly selfish and we have a sense of entitlement. Up until the advent of home video media, the only way you got to see a classic film other than going to a revival house or watching an incredibly cruddy version on TV was if you could afford to rent or buy 16mm prints (which were also usually in terrible condition). Then we got VHS, which we liked, but compared to today was incredibly poor quality and release windows were still very long, so we didn't get to see anything for at least a year after theatrical release. DVD was far better, but especially in the early days, mostly pan-and-scan for widescreen releases and there were few restorations. So IMO, Blu-ray has been absolutely incredible.
If it tapers off or dies, blame the masses who don't care about quality and are willing to watch movies on 3" screens. In fact, one of the things saving physical media is the fact that the web infrastructure in the U.S. is relatively poor and the rip-off companies that control it either charge through the roof for high bandwidth or they throttle your connection. I suppose we should actually be a bit thankful for this because if true high-speed connectivity was both widely available and inexpensive, the end of physical media would come much faster.
If I may chime in, I'd tend to disagree with the OP here. The majority of major titles have already seen a release, not to mention some extremely niche genre titles that I never thought would see the light of day on blu-ray.
I agree with this, and have said so since late 2012.
Those 50? 100? seminal titles which are the major drivers to catalog upgrades were all released by the end of 2012. I had a (very) unscientific list of core titles which needed to be released on Blu-ray. This list included the Star Wars, Indys, Back to the Futures, Godfathers, at al. which constitute the majority of favorites for the Joe 6-pack movie collector. IMHO, that list was completed with the release of Lawrence of Arabia.
But it did not try to be better than DVD in other ways that would have mattered more to Joe Q Public - such as eliminating the FBI warning screens. That alone would have made DVD owners jealous of BluRay ("you mean you don't have to put up with 5 minutes of legalese garbage when you press play? Sign me up!").
BluRay simply copied DVD. In some ways it made it worse - the Java menus breaking the ability to stop and resume where you left off was a huge cockup.
The non-scratch surface of BluRay was a big leap forward, at least.
Also, with blu ray you needed an HDMI exit in your TV. With DVD, you could play them with cables that could be inserted into the TV you already had.
That's not entirely true. Up until this or last year most BD players had component or composite connections to output to TVs. HDMI leads weren't a requirement unless you wanted 1080P. If you wanted to hook your BD player up to a TV you had the same outputs (plus HDMI) as your standard DVD player.
In the UK it was slightly different, I don't think we ever had a SCART output on any BD player, just component, composite and HDMI.
I don't think Blu-ray is a failure by any means, we've just got more competition than VHS, LD and DVD had. Public awareness isn't great either and Blu-ray isn't exactly informative as a format name!
Speaking for myself, no. The majority of dvds I own(ed) either have or have been getting blu-ray counterparts of recent, so if you're basing it on availability I'd say it's not a failure. It's normal for older catalogue titles to take a while before getting released, as it was in the days when DVDs got released.
The majority of blu-rays also offer a significant enough upgrade in picture quality to warrant a release in the first place.
Where blu-ray to me failed, is with the false start it took with the blu-ray VS HD-DVD war, the expensive prices for blu-ray readers/writers and blank media, as well as HD ready (720p) instead of (1080p) equipment.
These factors definitely made people hold off from the format until that was sorted out, and the unnecessary addition of combo dvd/digital copies. When DVDs got released, they didn't have a VHS copy included for those who did not get a player yet.
Also, what bugs me a lot is a blu-ray release that doesn't include extras from the dvd. You have the additional space, use it. There's nothing more sorry than a blu-ray that doesn't use its full potential (transfer and content-wise).
HD ready has nothing to do with 720P or 1080P.
You are confusing the earlier term "HD capable" with HD ready.
I think 2001 might be a little bit too early but 2004 is definitely too late. I believe the last major VHS release I bought was this which came out in late 2002.
The last major Hollywood film released on VHS in the U.S. was "A History of Violence", made in 2005.
No, I don't agree. Blu-ray is the best thing that ever happened to the home video market. First time you could actually see a film in a respectable quality in your own home. It only took about a hundred years.
While I think blu-ray has been a resounding success, I agree the chink it its armor is the lack of Death Becomes Her.
I've seen multiple people mention the lack of this in this thread, but it's available on Blu-ray from Germany with a decent edition. That's certainly something... a valid option for getting the film in HD. I still need to pick it up.
Now we just need What Lies Beneath to be released somewhere for all of the Zemeckis films to be available on the format.
I've seen multiple people mention the lack of this in this thread, but it's available on Blu-ray from Germany with a decent edition. That's certainly something... a valid option for getting the film in HD. I still need to pick it up.
I had no idea about this. Do you know if its region-free, by chance?
Edit: The only version I can find on Amazon is Region 2 and apparently pan-and-scan?
Only thing that frustrates me about blu-ray are the numerous glitches I have to deal with on a semi-regular basis.
Movies that inexplicably freeze up at random moments and my machine won't respond at all, so I have to literally unplug it and plug it back in to start the whole thing from scratch.
And there's still quite a few movies that automatically reboot to the main menu page when you hit the "stop" button--either on purpose or by mistake.
In that case every single home video format was a failure as far as I'm concerned.
As someone who grew up in pre-home video times, I'll shake my walking stick at all of you and call you a bunch of self-entitled whiners who have no idea how good they've got it when it comes to access to their favourite films at very high quality.
LOL I should've been more clear that that was sarcasm, I blame my self-inflicted level of near poverty for the size of my BD and TV show collection more than the format of BD itself.
Only thing that frustrates me about blu-ray are the numerous glitches I have to deal with on a semi-regular basis.
Movies that inexplicably freeze up at random moments and my machine won't respond at all, so I have to literally unplug it and plug it back in to start the whole thing from scratch.
And there's still quite a few movies that automatically reboot to the main menu page when you hit the "stop" button--either on purpose or by mistake.
...it's really a pain in the ass sometimes.
Sounds like your player is a POS. The only reason any BD would do these things is because of scratches or a touchy laser on a crappy player. I can count on one hand how many issues ive ever had with BD's, and everytime, it was a scratch on the disc, or a smudge.
Yes. Bluray is an utter and complete disaster. There's absolutely nothing good on it and there never will be. Classic and new films alike have been butchered by 1080p, HD audio, restoration and remastering. There's an obscure afternoon special I used to watch when I was a kid but it's still not on bluray so it sucks.
The format was perfected with betamax and it should've stayed that way.
Sounds like your player is a POS. The only reason any BD would do these things is because of scratches or a touchy laser on a crappy player. I can count on one hand how many issues ive ever had with BD's, and everytime, it was a scratch on the disc, or a smudge.
It's not disc scratches...I take excellent care of my discs.
Player itself is a fairly new Sony...automatic Firmware updates.
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