News Corp (Fox) president: player SCARCITY holding back Blu-ray adoption

[cajun1975]

Maybe if disk prices came down to what DVD's retail for or just sightly higher more people would consider going Blu.

[Kris Deering]

Originally Posted by cajun1975

Maybe if disk prices came down to what DVD's retail for or just sightly higher more people would consider going Blu.

DVD demanded a premium price during its initial run too, so that is no surprise.

But again, for a lot of people the difference in quality doesn't justify the price. With most catalog DVD's costing $10 or less it is hard to justify spending 2-3x's the price for what may or may not be much of an upgrade depending on the playback system.

DVD brought better picture, better sound, an optical disc format, and better availability since VHS was tied to a rental market. Again, it is a completely different playing field this time around. You also have to remember that DVD has been on the market for over a decade now, and it took a LONG time to get to the price point we're seeing from it. I personally think Blu-ray pricing is on the cheap side considering the quality. People are just spoiled by where DVD is now and expect this to be the same right out the gate.

[Alan Gordon]

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

DVD demanded a premium price during its initial run too, so that is no surprise.

But again, for a lot of people the difference in quality doesn't justify the price. With most catalog DVD's costing $10 or less it is hard to justify spending 2-3x's the price for what may or may not be much of an upgrade depending on the playback system.

DVD brought better picture, better sound, an optical disc format, and better availability since VHS was tied to a rental market. Again, it is a completely different playing field this time around. You also have to remember that DVD has been on the market for over a decade now, and it took a LONG time to get to the price point we're seeing from it. I personally think Blu-ray pricing is on the cheap side considering the quality. People are just spoiled by where DVD is now and expect this to be the same right out the gate.

I'd like to see the studios adopt the WB/Disney MSRP plans myself, but other than that, I agree 100%!

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

DVD players were pretty expensive in mid 1997 and 1998. Entry level players were going for $700 or more. A few may have been slightly less expensive, but I can't remember seeing any under $600.

I bought my first DVD player in September of 1998 (Panasonic A-110) for $349which came with a free movie. It wasn't anything special (no internal decoding, no component outputs, no DTS output), but it was a solid player given the fact that I didn't have component inputs at the time, I was planning on buying a receiver, so I didn't need internal decoding and there really wasn't any DTS titles at the time. A few years later I upgraded to a Progressive Scan DVD player (Sony) and paid $399 for it. Considering that several players were had last Christmas for less than $300, I'd say Blu-ray is doing pretty good. By this Christmas, I think we should be in a LOT better position.

Originally Posted by Kris Deering

DVD was structured different though. DTS output was already around by 1999 and dual layer support was there from day one. In 1999 Toshiba put out the first progressive scan DVD players though, and they started around $800. You then had the progressive players costing a premium and standard players coming down in price.

Again, BD players for what they bring to the table right now are priced reasonably considering time in the market. Consumers may still find them expensive in terms of mass market adoption, but only because they are used to dirt cheap DVD players from China.

You're on a roll Kris!!

~Alan