Will Blue Ray be a success????

[bucketheadbob]

Blue Ray may be great for storage and give great picture quality, but it will only take off if the retailers stock Films on Blue Ray they will also have films on HDVD and then they will have to stock standard DVD and CD and DVDA and SACD. We all know what a great success DVDA and SACD are!!!
The retailers will decide!! They only have limited space. Even if Blueray wins the war with HDVD can anyone see users throwing away their DVD players.
I personally think that most people will stick to standard DVD disks they don't need the extra quality or they extra price of Blueray disks.
Now if Blueray movie disks had both DVD and BLUERAY movies on them they most people would buy Blueray and the retailers would stock every disk that came out and they would only have one rack of disks.

What do you think.??????

[zombie]

I think Blu-ray will succeed but it won't take over DVD nearly as fast as DVD took over VHS. The main reason for that is, IMO, DVD didn't require a new TV, Blu-ray does (HDTV). Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD have mentioned using hybrid discs which would include both an HD version and an SD version of a film on the same disc. Personally I am strongly against this idea if it means the HD version will be sacrificed quality wise. It appears Blu-ray would not have this problem with the majority of films due to their extra storage capacity but HD-DVD would. A lot of DVD fans will probably applaud the idea of owning HD/SD hybrid discs though and it very well may help the HD formats on their road to success.

[Rob]

Hybrid discs will only be a success if they are they are the same price as dvds. Nobody is going to pay a premium for a disc for hi-def content they can't view. They'll be wanting the standard dvd. Surely Blu-Ray discs will be released ata prmium of £25-30?

[zombie]

Originally Posted by Rob

Hybrid discs will onle be a success if they are they are the same price as dvds. Nobody is going to pay a premium for a disc for hi-def content they can't view.

I agree with this part.

They'll be wanting the standard dvd. Surely Blu-Ray discs will be released ata prmium of £25-30?

I strongly disagree with this part. I fully expect Blu-ray discs to be $20-30 MSRP, same as HD-DVD. If Blu-ray wants to compete they have to match this price. A higher cost will do them in. I'm speaking for American discs but I'd be shocked if Euro discs were priced at a premium of 25-30 pounds. I really doubt that's going to happen. As you have previously stated Rob, very few HDTVs are available in Europe thus far. Charging an insane premium like that won't get Blu-ray any sales at all.

[Rob]

The thing is, the sort of people who have a hi-def set will have paid a premium to do so, (over sd tvs). Therefore, as early adopters they've shown they will be prepared to pay a premium for the latest products. If you look at past format releases, cd's were released at a premium over tapes and vinyl, just as dvds were released at a premium over vhs. If people were prepared to pay £20 for dvds in 1998, (dvd launch in the UK), then I'm sure 8 years later they'll pay £25 for Blu-Ray/HD-DVD.

It seems to me that new media is always released at a higher point than you expect. To some a higher price is an indication of quality. I would expect a £25 price tag. Still, perhaps competition will result in a more competitive £20.

[tron3]

Originally Posted by n2blu

I agree with this part.

Hybrid discs? Who came up with that stupid idea? My HD Reciever outputs 1080i to 480i s-video just fine. No reason why the players can not do the same. The discs will be HD only. Who comes up with this crap?

[phloyd]

The same people that came up with Hybrid SACD's - they have CD and SACD in the same disc and play in standard CD players (only the CD part of course). They cost the same or a little more than the standard CD.

If Sony (and other record labels) did it with SACD, I can't see why they would not consider the same approach with BD...

Future proofing for just a small premium is a reasonable thing.

Cheers!
DAve.

[Rob]

Originally Posted by tron3

Hybrid discs? Who came up with that stupid idea? My HD Reciever outputs 1080i to 480i s-video just fine. No reason why the players can not do the same. The discs will be HD only. Who comes up with this crap?

It's all very well having a Blu-Ray player output 480p or 576p, but you still need to buy the Blu-Ray player in the first place. The point of the hybrid disc is that rather than having to make and sell 2 discs, 1 for Blu-Ray, 1 for dvd, you basically put the two together on one disc. If you only have a dvd player you can watch the dvd layer of the disc only. If you have a Blu-Ray player you can access and read the Blu-Ray layer, (and possibly the dvd layer also!?). It's nothing to do with tv compatibility.