Rough economy challenges Blu-ray?

[lch]

those analyst should be predicting the reverse will happen.
"during bad economic, people will just buy the disc home for the whole family to enjoy instead of family outing to the cinema which will cost more."

[P@t_Mtl]

Its funny, I remember the same type of articles and news stories back in 1983-84 about the Compact Disk, how it would not caught on.

You will always have those (very few) who are just plain scared or against any kind of change or move forward.

But the majority will always embrace a new gadge

[CptGreedle]

All the analysts I heard say Blu-ray sales could double by the end of the year!
That is a huge difference from what they are saying..
Why you ask?
Simple... the economy.
Yeah.. the economy.

BD prices (at least for movies) might not drop at all. However, player prices are dropping to encourage consumer adoption, and HDTV prices are dropping DUE to the economy. So more ppl will be likely to get HDTVs, and thus, more BD players and movies.
Also, in times like this, entertainment industries do VERY well, cause it is a necessary part of human life and it is a great way of escaping from real world troubles.

I expect to see a HUGE increase in sales, not a drop.

[haushausman]

What a stupid article. With X-mas right around the corner Blu-ray is going to be the hottest gift this year.

[SquidPuppet]

Blu-ray IS doomed and the 4th quarter WILL suck. Ooooops...I forgot....The Dark Night releases in the 4th quarter.

Yea....right....very few copies will sell.

MASSIVE

[The Don]

I'm buying one of those HD download thingies for christmas!

oh wait...they're not out yet?..

[jw]

studios dont have much choice but to keep releasing titles in the BD format as the dvd growth has peaked and in order to continue sales growth they are releasing catalog titles from DVD to blu-ray as downloads havent filled that gap yet

[CptGreedle]

Actually DVD has started to decline this year. As they predicted, for the last 2 years, 06 and 07, DVD peaked and leveled off, and now in 08 it has started to decline. However Blu-ray sales were enough so far to make up for that decline to overall, Home Media has grown this year slightly thanks to Blu-ray.
Now that info IS a few months old, so I am not sure what has happened lately, but I suspect it is still following that trend.

[nbxfan]

With the rising cost of going to the movies, I have found, I prefer to watch at home with the quality of Blu-Ray. Have gone from 3 titles last x-mas to 39. Can't remember the last thing we went and saw at the theaters but, I've been purchasing Blu's. $20 to go to a movie or about $20 based on the deal to own a movie and see whenever...It's all about choices.

[BluFann]

I've actually been working with Warner Home Video on some blu-ray projects so I'd like to give my .02. First off, slowing economies are invariably going to slow overall adoption rates as people as consumer spending declines- however, this slowing exists across the board and isn't just limited to blu-ray. People aren't going to be buying less blu-rays but more on dvd's, or additional cable services...

But, as a few people have mentioned, contrary to what the article may suggest, Blu-ray sales are actually expected to be the highest in Q4 of this year. Player and disc prices are as low as ever and more importantly, holiday releases (read: the dark knight) are expected to blow sales out of the water. Mass market adoption takes time, but overall, blu-ray as a format has been seeing steady growth and won't be going anywhere, any time soon.

[Panos]

Originally Posted by Blu-Ron

I purchased more Blu's since this (so-called) depression started, than I did all year.

No kidding. I bought 4 Blu's just last week alone! I would have bought more if i didn't stop myself. Price on blu's are coming down. It's not what they used to cost 6 months to a year ago.

In order for people to download, nevermind stream 1080p videos with lossless audio, were going to need ISP's to provide the average user with a lot more bandwidth! What's it going to cost for that kind of bandwidth?? I guess they can just push out 720p videos and call it "Blu-ray quality!" and fool most people that don't know better...

I highly doubt blu-ray will fail. There is nothing out there at this time that can compete with it.

[Gremal]

Originally Posted by Panos

No kidding. I bought 4 Blu's just last week alone! I would have bought more if i didn't stop myself. Price on blu's are coming down. It's not what they used to cost 6 months to a year ago.

In order for people to download, nevermind stream 1080p videos with lossless audio, were going to need ISP's to provide the average user with a lot more bandwidth! What's it going to cost for that kind of bandwidth?? I guess they can just push out 720p videos and call it "Blu-ray quality!" and fool most people that don't know better...

Yeah, but most people don't care about quality. These same issues were in play after the launch of SACD and subsequent economic decline post 9/11/01. Look what happened. Downloadable music pretty much killed not just SACD but CD and took a huge chunk out of the record labels' business. That could happen to the studios, too.

[Sir Terrence]

Originally Posted by Gremal

Yeah, but most people don't care about quality. These same issues were in play after the launch of SACD and subsequent economic decline post 9/11/01. Look what happened. Downloadable music pretty much killed not just SACD but CD and took a huge chunk out of the record labels' business. That could happen to the studios, too.

Gremal,
The problem is that downloading music is not nearly a bandwidth hog that a movie file is. My local cable just slapped us with a download limit. Between me and my boys downloading habits, we are going to have to cut down down about 25% to keep within those limits (those young dudes download a lot of music). I buy more movies than those download limits will allow, and that is the problem with downloading. Not to mention we have moved on to Hidef, which you can't download many of without busting the limits imposed on us. This download limiting is occurring all over his country with both Comcast and Warner (the two big boys) imposing limits everywhere trying to protect their turf from the likes of Apple and Microsoft downloads.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Gremal

Yeah, but most people don't care about quality. These same issues were in play after the launch of SACD and subsequent economic decline post 9/11/01. Look what happened. Downloadable music pretty much killed not just SACD but CD and took a huge chunk out of the record labels' business.

I find it amazing very few people seem to understand truly why SACD and DVD-A never gained mass market acceptance. Those two formats never went anywhere because there wasn't any music released on those formats that appealed to the general public.

The failure of SACD and DVD-A has absolutely NOTHING to do with the public preferring music downloads or the very presumptuous guess the general public doesn't care about quality. Both arguments completely ignore the quality and appeal of "software" supplied to both formats.

Both Time/Warner and Sony control a very big chunk of the recorded music business. They do something Apple and other online music resellers do not: create music product. Time/Warner and Sony were in a perfect position to have every major popular music release from their labels be issued on both standard music CD and their respective next-generation audio formats. Amazingly, they didn't do that. Instead, Sony and Warner merely offered 30 year old classic rock albums, some jazz material and a few classical albums -precisely the kind of material that doesn't appeal to people younger than 30 who buy the most music. Time/Warner and Sony didn't release DVD-A and SACD albums that appealed to young people.

Blu-ray won the format war against HD-DVD largely because of the quality of movies available for the format. Blu-ray had the best studio support and best supply of titles. Sony (along with Disney, Fox, etc.) released every new movie onto Blu-ray alongside DVD. Perhaps if Sony had done the same for SACD in its music business the SACD format would be much more popular.

[Gremal]

Originally Posted by Sir Terrence

Gremal,
The problem is that downloading music is not nearly a bandwidth hog that a movie file is. My local cable just slapped us with a download limit. Between me and my boys downloading habits, we are going to have to cut down down about 25% to keep within those limits (those young dudes download a lot of music). I buy more movies than those download limits will allow, and that is the problem with downloading. Not to mention we have moved on to Hidef, which you can't download many of without busting the limits imposed on us.

I hear ya, but the fact is that you are not an average consumer. Many people in this thread are superimposing their personal buying habits on the average consumer’s buying habits and then making claims about the viability of Blu-ray as the de facto replacement of DVD. It may unseat DVD, but the fact that lots of young people (who command the direction of these markets) seem content to watch stuff on their handheld device or laptop is very distressing, you have to admit.

This download limiting is occurring all over his country with both Comcast and Warner (the two big boys) imposing limits everywhere trying to protect their turf from the likes of Apple and Microsoft downloads.

Sure, but that makes the move to handheld devices even more attractive for the average consumer who may not care to watch lots of movies at home or on a bigger display. Listening habits changed, and viewing habits are changing too.

Originally Posted by Bobby

I find it amazing very few people seem to understand truly why SACD and DVD-A never gained mass market acceptance. Those two formats never went anywhere because there wasn't any music released on those formats that appealed to the general public.

That’s not true. Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and more recent megaplatinum releases by Ludacris, Destiny’s Child and other chart toppers. The public wasn’t willing to pay a premium for high resolution, surround sound content.

The failure of SACD and DVD-A has absolutely NOTHING to do with the public preferring music downloads or the very presumptuous guess the general public doesn't care about quality.

Cool. Can you kindly show me where Tower records and similar retailers’ sales went, then? The unavoidable fact is that not just SACD and DVD-A but CD itself (the king of optical formats) were unseated by digital downloads over the past decade. And the idea that the average consumer is more concerned with price than quality is not a guess but supported by endless market analysis.

Both arguments completely ignore the quality and appeal of "software" supplied to both formats.

Both Time/Warner and Sony control a very big chunk of the recorded music business. They do something Apple and other online music resellers do not: create music product. Time/Warner and Sony were in a perfect position to have every major popular music release from their labels be issued on both standard music CD and their respective next-generation audio formats. Amazingly, they didn't do that. [/quote]

Sony spent a fortune developing, producing, distributing and marketing SACD hardware and software to the extent that it did. The idea that it could have every release brought to SACD is not realistic. It would have bankrupted the company at a time when it was having a hard enough time competing with its CD sales.

Instead, Sony and Warner merely offered 30 year old classic rock albums, some jazz material and a few classical albums -precisely the kind of material that doesn't appeal to people younger than 30 who buy the most music. Time/Warner and Sony didn't release DVD-A and SACD albums that appealed to young people.

Know your market. Young people don’t own systems capable of delivering the advantages of high resolution, multichannel audio. Older music fans do, and that’s who Sony tried to target initially with its SACD products. Had this initial push met with the success it deserved, Sony’s plan was to issue the bulk of its catalog on hybrid SACD, and then just SACD, gradually phasing out CD.

Blu-ray won the format war against HD-DVD largely because of the quality of movies available for the format. Blu-ray had the best studio support and best supply of titles. Sony (along with Disney, Fox, etc.) released every new movie onto Blu-ray alongside DVD. Perhaps if Sony had done the same for SACD in its music business the SACD format would be much more popular.

SACD was more popular than DVD-A. It never killed it as overtly as Blu-ray killed HD DVD, but for those of you who think Sony’s approach to SACD was poor, or could have been better, you need to take a closer look at the realities of the market and the challenges facing SACD. And while I think Blu-ray faces fewer challenges and a somewhat friendlier market, the chance that it too could be seriously hurt or even killed at some point by downloadable content is very real.

[Bobby Henderson]

Originally Posted by Gremal

It may unseat DVD, but the fact that lots of young people (who command the direction of these markets) seem content to watch stuff on their handheld device or laptop is very distressing, you have to admit.

That is no fact. There's no proof young people by and large watch movies only on little portable devices. That's just another attempt to apply iPod popularity to the movie and home video industry. It doesn't translate.

If that notion had any truth to it at all the DVD business, both in rentals and sales, would be reeling right now. Most people young or old prefer watching movies on big screens -whether it's a movie theater screen or a big screen TV in their living room.

Originally Posted by Gremal

That’s not true. Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and more recent megaplatinum releases by Ludacris, Destiny’s Child and other chart toppers. The public wasn’t willing to pay a premium for high resolution, surround sound content.

Michael Jackson's Thriller? You're proving my point with that 25 year old album. That especially goes for Dark Side of the Moon from Pink Floyd -a 35 year old album. DSOTM is a great, all time classic. But it's old. Some people just now hitting adulthood may consider that classic album to be music for old farts.

As to the examples of Ludacris, Destiny's Child, etc. -few if any of those releases were made available day and date with the original music CD release. Worse yet, there has never been any steady supply of popular new albums hitting SACD or DVD-A. The output has been very spotty at best.

The efforts on the part of Sony and Warner Bros. to support the SACD and DVD-A formats were pathetic. What they should have been doing is what they're doing with Blu-ray: every new movie they release onto DVD also gets released onto Blu-ray. They never did that with SACD and DVD-A. And that is why those formats failed.

Originally Posted by Gremal

Know your market. Young people don’t own systems capable of delivering the advantages of high resolution, multichannel audio.

That's another misconception.

I've had friends who were junior officers in the Army or just out of college who had pairs of Martin Logan tower speakers in their living rooms, all sorts of high priced separate components and more. There's lots of people under 30 who spend serious amounts of money on stereo systems.

It also bears mentioning that lots of people who get well into their 30s don't buy as much in the way of electronics as many would think. The lives of most of those people get very complicated with kids, medical bills, 2nd mortgages and all sorts of other stuff that keep them from buying a lot of home theater and music listening gear.

Originally Posted by Gremal

SACD was more popular than DVD-A. It never killed it as overtly as Blu-ray killed HD DVD, but for those of you who think Sony’s approach to SACD was poor, or could have been better, you need to take a closer look at the realities of the market and the challenges facing SACD.

The main problem SACD had was music studios not offering anything NEW and GOOD for the format. I'm not going to buy an album of music I don't like just because it's recorded in high resolution DSD multichannel. It's still music I don't like regardless of the resolution. I'm huge fan of 70mm movies, but I'm not going to go see a dreadfully bad movie or one I'm just not interested in watching just because it's being projected in 70mm.

[AintNoSin]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

I find it amazing very few people seem to understand truly why SACD and DVD-A never gained mass market acceptance. Those two formats never went anywhere because there wasn't any music released on those formats that appealed to the general public.

The problem with SACD and DVD-A had nothing to do with selection (which was very similar to the early days of CD, primarily titles geared to appeal to audiophiles) and everything to do with their lack of portability. You couldn't play them in your car. There was never any portable player. You couldn't rip them to a portable device, either. We've always been willing to sacrifice quality for portability with our music, even going back to the days I was dubbing vinyl albums to cassettes so I could listen in my car.

SACD and DVD-A failed because they flew in the face of how regular people consumed music.

[Gremal]

Originally Posted by Bobby Henderson

There's no proof young people by and large watch movies only on little portable devices.

I said they watch “stuff”. Not necessarily movies, but the trend has already been established. Last year ABI research found a near-doubling of consumers who say they watch video streamed through a browser, from 32% to 63%. “This increased adoption of online video can be attributed to a large-scale shift in the industry towards embracing the online channel as a legitimate and growing avenue for video entertainment,” according to ABI. Downloaded or streaming video, while not high quality, shows significant growth. Is your position that this trend isn’t carrying into movies?

If that notion had any truth to it at all the DVD business, both in rentals and sales, would be reeling right now. Most people young or old prefer watching movies on big screens -whether it's a movie theater screen or a big screen TV in their living room.

I thought the same thing about consumers’ listening habits when I predicted that SACD would succeed eight years ago. Everyone USED TO listen to music around the radio or stereo system in the living room. That changed. Is your position that it can’t change for video? Consider that traditional video rentals in the US plunged more than 20% from their 2001 peak to 2004.

Michael Jackson's Thriller? You're proving my point with that 25 year old album. That especially goes for Dark Side of the Moon from Pink Floyd -a 35 year old album. DSOTM is a great, all time classic. But it's old. Some people just now hitting adulthood may consider that classic album to be music for old farts. As to the examples of Ludacris, Destiny's Child, etc. -few if any of those releases were made available day and date with the original music CD release. Worse yet, there has never been any steady supply of popular new albums hitting SACD or DVD-A. The output has been very spotty at best.

Agreed, but downloaded music sales are more than doubling every year and CD sales are declining. In that climate, it is flushing your investment down the toilet to pump a lot of money into SACD production. That’s why no other major label rushed to support SACD. It was being slaughtered by the download.

The efforts on the part of Sony and Warner Bros. to support the SACD and DVD-A formats were pathetic. What they should have been doing is what they're doing with Blu-ray: every new movie they release onto DVD also gets released onto Blu-ray. They never did that with SACD and DVD-A. And that is why those formats failed.

With all due respect, if you were the executive at a record label and put the kind of resources into SACD that you insist Sony should have, you’d have sunk the label, created massive debt for the parent company, and been the laughing stock of the industry. As it was, Sony dumped much more money into SACD than it could have possibly recouped.

I've had friends who were junior officers in the Army or just out of college who had pairs of Martin Logan tower speakers in their living rooms, all sorts of high priced separate components and more. There's lots of people under 30 who spend serious amounts of money on stereo systems.

I have a friend with a six-figure income who recently bought a Kuro plasma and decided to get a cheap Polk HT-in-a-box system for the audio. Anecdotal evidence and personal acquaintances aside, the percentage of consumers who invest in high end stereo gear is miniscule. Far more are investing in cheap surround sound systems and handheld devices. According to CEA, sales of digital-music players tripled in 2005 alone, with the value of shipments of digital-music players totaling $3.7 billion versus just $1.2 billion for traditional home stereos.

It also bears mentioning that lots of people who get well into their 30s don't buy as much in the way of electronics as many would think. The lives of most of those people get very complicated with kids, medical bills, 2nd mortgages and all sorts of other stuff that keep them from buying a lot of home theater and music listening gear.

Agreed. That is why young people are driving these markets and pointing where the growth will be--toward downloadable content.

The main problem SACD had was music studios not offering anything NEW and GOOD for the format. I'm not going to buy an album of music I don't like just because it's recorded in high resolution DSD multichannel.

But was SACD ever targeted at the mass consumer? What are the listening habits of the average music fan? You can’t forget your target market. Because of SACD’s difference from CD, both in quality and pricepoint, Sony was forced to target audiophiles. Had this community received SACD more warmly, there was a chance at going after the main market by reinvesting sales dollars into a broader campaign. As it turned out, not even the elite music fans wanted much to do with SACD. Yet here you are claiming that Sony should have been going after the mass market all along at a time when CD couldn’t even compete with downloadable content. The first rule is know thy market.

[Blu Titan]

Market up almost 900 points.

[AintNoSin]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

Market up almost 900 points.

Tomorrow it will be down 500 and the day after tomorrow it will be back up 600. Welcome to the new economy!