Where Is Blu-ray Going?

[sj001]

Originally Posted by dialog_gvf

What is your Blu-ray setup? How many movies? And what is your favorite?

First posts that start "I love Blu-ray" and then follow with nothing but negativism are hardly going to send the right message of solidarity.

Gary

I agree with Gary on this, I see a lot of these posts that seem to come from folks who claim they are BD fans. Then it is followed by constant negativity and questioning of the format, yet claiming to be neutral. I guess I just don't understand your purpose here. Toshiba selling off players at a huge loss for $99 is a "Master Stroke", how so? Not only have they lost a ton of money, but they have cornered themselves in the market, they have nowhere to turn, no other CE's, and created a price expectation for HD-DVD buyers. Blu-ray chooses not to lower themselves to that standard, and sometimes you get what you pay for, quality.

[kjack]

Originally Posted by BaronVH

I am exclusive to Blu-ray since last week. Just bought about 20 titles, but I have to agree, they better get their act together. Everybody can say time and time again that Blu will win, but they will not unless they get the stand alone prices in check. Cheapest Blu-ray player? PS3. That is rediculous. If the PS3 is $400, then they need a stand alone out before this Christmas that is $300 or less or HD-DVD will continue to gain ground. I, personally, just spent a lot of money on a Pioneer Elite. I don't care about the cost, but I am in the extreme minority. They need to cut costs now and to bundle Blu-ray players with their high end displays.

To address long-term player costs, work is being done to bring Chinese BD players to market. If I said how many Chinese companies were doing them, everyone would probably choke on their coffee. Last week I added a new feature to our upcoming SoC, and if I said what it was, everyone would also probably choke on their donut.

To address short-term player prices, a CE can drop their player prices to anything they wish anytime they wish. It's all a matter of how much margin they are willing to live with during a sale or life of the product. OTOH, a salesman at my local BB said BD players were outselling HD DVD players not quite 2:1 before the Toshiba sale.

Bundling with HDTVs is already going on.

[sj001]

Originally Posted by kjack

To address long-term player costs, work is being done to bring Chinese BD players to market. If I said how many Chinese companies were doing them, everyone would probably choke on their coffee. Last week I added a new feature to our upcoming SoC, and if I said what it was, everyone would also probably choke on their donut.

To address short-term player prices, a CE can drop their player prices to anything they wish anytime they wish. It's all a matter of how much margin they are willing to live with during a sale or life of the product. OTOH, a salesman at my local BB said BD players were outselling HD DVD players not quite 2:1 before the Toshiba sale.

Bundling with HDTVs is already going on.

This is really good news! I guess there will be a lot of cheaper players coming out soon!

Do you know if anyone other than Sony is bundling their players with their HDTVs?

[Knight-Errant]

a $99 player makes me very suspicious as a HT enthusiast. I am accustomed to getting value for money and that usually means a higher price for newer formats.

HD-DVD just tends to come across as a cheap product in every sense of the word frankly. Which we know is true anyway.