Is Blu-ray just for the "In Crowd?"

[carpaltonnel]

Check out this article I found on CSMonitor.com

Blu-ray sales are stagnating. What’s to blame?
By Matthew Shaer | 06.22.09
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These are grim days for Blu-ray, a technology once heralded as the future of high-definition home video.

According to a new poll from Harris Interactive, although the sales of HDTVs has continued to climb, the overwhelming majority of Americans have not yet bought into the Blu-ray craze. The results of an April survey show that 93 percent of adults in this country still have not purchased a Blu-ray player, down only three percent since May of 2008. (The survey does show that some consumers use video-game systems such as the Sony PlayStation3 to play Blu-ray discs.)

Internationally, the news is no better. The global video business lost somewhere north of $2.6 billion in 2008 alone, says trade publication Screen Digest, amid slackening sales and limited discretionary spending.

Who’s to blame?

Milton Ellis, Vice President and Senior Consultant, at Harris, said in a statement that Blu-ray, particularly, is facing stiff competition from cable, satellite, and the Web.

“Consumers today can easily watch high definition TV channels or use the Internet or video-on-demand to access high definition movies,” he said. “In the near future, access to high definition movies may be a download or streaming delivery of one’s favorite movies to a home media server that eliminates the need for a Blu-ray player and Blu-ray disc.”

At the same time, the file-sharing practices that decimated the record industry are threatening to cut into video sales – thousands of hi-definition movies and TV shows are available for free, if you know where to look.

An uptick?

Over at PC World, David Coursey writes that, “most of us will end up with Blu-ray, because it comes as part of whatever we purchase next, be it a computer or video player.”

But the numbers from Harris aren’t particularly reassuring – at least in the short run. Of the 2,401 Americans surveyed, only 25 percent planned to switch to Blu-ray completely, and 43 percent want prices to come down significantly before they invest.

More sobering still, only 21 percent of Americans appear to be replacing or duplicating their existing standard format DVD library with Blu-ray format, Harris said.

[Rob J in WNY]

Interesting article.

As for me, I enjoy movies. I enjoy technology. Blu-ray helps me enjoy both!

[LaMp-PoSt-MaFiA]

sounds to me lake that guy is talkin out of his rear... I know lots of people that have blu-ray players and lots of blu-rays. I live in Toledo Ohio and its hard to find certain movies on blu-ray a couple days after their release.

[ScarredLungs]

Originally Posted by Rob J in WNY

Interesting article.

As for me, I enjoy movies. I enjoy technology. Blu-ray helps me enjoy both!

Same Here! I love movies and I love technology. Put them together and you get blu ray

[tvine2000]

Originally Posted by Rob J in WNY

Interesting article.

As for me, I enjoy movies. I enjoy technology. Blu-ray helps me enjoy both!

interesting but wrong! don't pay any mind to that poll!
blu-ray is doing better then people think.blu-ray will be around along time because the studios and ce's support it. people that post these things should be more on top of things.this op isn't

[carpaltonnel]

Originally Posted by tvine2000

interesting but wrong! don't pay any mind to that poll!
blu-ray is doing better then people think.blu-ray will be around along time because the studios and ce's support it. people that post these things should be more on top of things.this op isn't

Relax Son, it's okay....just a Copy, Paste, Debate piece. Not the end of the world here. Us "people" are sorry to offend. I love blu-ray too, much love!

[Rob J in WNY]

Originally Posted by tvine2000

interesting but wrong! don't pay any mind to that poll!
blu-ray is doing better then people think.blu-ray will be around along time because the studios and ce's support it. people that post these things should be more on top of things.this op isn't

Interesting, whether right or wrong.

I'm not one to go much by speculative information and even most published "surveys." I love the format, and will continue to buy into it. Granted, I did wait until the format war with HD-DVD was over, but that was a "real" issue.

[Suntory_Times]

Originally Posted by carpaltonnel

But the numbers from Harris aren’t particularly reassuring – at least in the short run. Of the 2,401 Americans surveyed, only 25 percent planned to switch to Blu-ray completely, and 43 percent want prices to come down significantly before they invest.

More sobering still, only 21 percent of Americans appear to be replacing or duplicating their existing standard format DVD library with Blu-ray format, Harris said.

Isn't blu-ray still bieng more quickly adopted then dvd was?

In all honesty the article looks like it was written based purely on some ones point of view and thre in some stats to try and justify it.

[joenostalgia23]

I don't understand how even though it's adoption rate is faster than DVD's adoption rate, even in the face of an economic crisis, it's considered a doomed format.
And even though digital download market for films is miniscule and laughable, especially compared to BD, people see it replacing everything in a few years.

It doesn't make sense.
Also, tons of people still buy CDs.

[RiseDarthVader]

The people that say digital downloads will take over are the same people that own or work for HDD/Server companies.

[MOONPHASE]

Originally Posted by RiseDarthVader

The people that say digital downloads will take over are the same people that own or work for HDD/Server companies.

But even they must admit that HDD can't hold every single movie you enjoy and you can only choose so many before the HDD runs out. Like I downloaded one of anime movies thats available in HD on the PSN store with 5.1 surround sound and it took 6 1/2 GB of space on my PS3.

[Azyiu]

Or blame the economy. I know quite a few people who might have gotten into Blu if not for the uncertain economy forecast for the next couple years. Many of them are interested in the technology and HDTVs who still haven't bought their first HD set. The fact is they are also not sure if they still have their jobs 6 months from now. So they are better off just stay put.

[JimShaw]

Originally Posted by RiseDarthVader

The people that say digital downloads will take over are the same people that own or work for HDD/Server companies.

Am I correct in stating, in regards to downloading HD, that the highest HD down load is 720 because it takes to much broadband to download 1080P?????





.

[dolphinc]

Originally Posted by JimShaw

Am I correct in stating, in regards to downloading HD, that the highest HD down load is 720 because it takes to much broadband to download 1080P?????

.

Correct, to download Blu quality video and audio you would have to have a fiber connection to support that kind of bandwidth. Even though it is coming I think we are still at least 8-10 years away from wide availablity for that technology.

[Afrobean]

Originally Posted by RiseDarthVader

The people that say digital downloads will take over are the same people that own or work for HDD/Server companies.

Actually, more likely is that they pirate all of their movies and haven't spent a cent on media lately and don't intend to in the future. They see how great their illegal copies of BD rips are and they think "screw buying discs, THIS is the future!"

Originally Posted by dolphinc

Evrytime I read a Poll about anything technology related, I can find 3 other polls that state the opposite. Sampling 2500 people out of 300mil will not give you an accurate reading, demographics, household income, level of education can change an outcome easy. The only "POLE" I care about has a stripper attached to it.

Actually, assuming a good representative sample (which is probably not the case here), 2500 is a good sample amount that gives a fair margin of error. The problem with this isn't in the amount of people polled, but rather in the way they were polled and the way the data was manipulated and the way the results were reported.

Originally Posted by dolphinc

Correct, to download Blu quality video and audio you would have to have a fiber connection to support that kind of bandwidth. Even though it is coming I think we are still at least 8-10 years away from wide availablity for that technology.

Actually illegal rips of BDs are relatively good quality and they sidestep the issue of bandwidth by the filesharing structure of torrents. The user still has to be able to download enormous files, but the real problem on the commercial end isn't explicit here: there is no server that needs to be able serve the enormous files to thousands of nodes quickly and simultaneously.

But even then, the rips are transcoded at a lower bitrate and unless I'm mistaken, probably feature downgraded audio as well. Oh, and they're illegal.

Originally Posted by dolphinc

I agree with you except that they need to standardize the format. How many times do you read a post about people who buy a new Blu player and it won't play a specific movie, everyone ask, did you get the latest firmware? I had this problem last month, I bought a Samsung BD3600 and I had a hard time getting Ironman to load. The updated firmware just came out this week. These are the kinds of things that can discourage a person from getting into a new format.

I've never updated my firmware on my Panasonic BD30 and I've not had any problem with any of my ~400 discs. Sucks if your player has issues, but it's not something plaguing all players.

By the way, I think this article was already linked to here before. They use the same flawed and TOTALLY INCORRECT survey data results from Harris not long ago. Anyone with a brain dismissed these results completely, but people with an agenda latched on and wrote up bogus blog posts about how Blu-ray was dying or dead.

[dolphinc]

Originally Posted by Afrobean

Actually illegal rips of BDs are relatively good quality and they sidestep the issue of bandwidth by the filesharing structure of torrents. The user still has to be able to download enormous files, but the real problem on the commercial end isn't explicit here: there is no server that needs to be able serve the enormous files to thousands of nodes quickly and simultaneously.

But even then, the rips are transcoded at a lower bitrate and unless I'm mistaken, probably feature downgraded audio as well. Oh, and they're illegal.

Sorry, I ment to say streaming HD quality, a person with a slow dsl connections can download a bit torrent file even they don't mind waiting 6 days for the movie and not affraid of spending time in jail.

I've never updated my firmware on my Panasonic BD30 and I've not had any problem with any of my ~400 discs. Sucks if your player has issues, but it's not something plaguing all players.

I guess Panny has got it right because I have seen almost every other brand on one thread or another with disc problems. Maybe I should have bought a panny .

[monkeyjb1988]

Originally Posted by joenostalgia23

I don't understand how even though it's adoption rate is faster than DVD's adoption rate, even in the face of an economic crisis, it's considered a doomed format.
And even though digital download market for films is miniscule and laughable, especially compared to BD, people see it replacing everything in a few years.

It doesn't make sense.
Also, tons of people still buy CDs.

I even still buy CDs. I just read an article that said HD video streaming was still a long way away:

True HD Streaming Likely Years Away, Says Report

2 July 2009 1:48 PM, PDT


It is likely to be at least five years years before high-definition movies can be streamed to home theaters with the same resolution as Blu-ray discs, according to a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and reported on the Video Business magazine's website. Although millions of homes are already connected to video services that claim to offer HDTV titles, via streaming, the quality doesn't even match that of standard DVDs and the "flow" is sometimes jerky. The problem in many cases is that most consumers' broadband connections are too slow to stream HD video which ideally requires an 18- to 20-megabits-per-second connection. (The average broadband subscriber's connection is about 2.5 mbps.)

Meanwhile the video subscription service ZapMyTV has signed a deal with Paramount that will allow it to offer to its online customers such relatively new films as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Hotel for Dogs and such classics as Breakfast at Tiffany's and Ghost.

http://www.imdb.com/news/ns0000003/#ni0861923

I swear, every time I hear a doom for Blu-Ray story, it makes me sick with worry and disgust. Worry, that they may be right, disgust, that Blu-Ray seems to be a punching bag. I also don't get why people have problems with discs. They're safer than computer files. If anything happens to your computer, your whole collection is done for. If something happens to a Blu-Ray disc, you only lose one movie/couple of episodes.

I swear, these Blu bashings have to stop.

[dolphinc]

I swear, every time I hear a doom for Blu-Ray story, it makes me sick with worry and disgust. Worry, that they may be right, disgust, that Blu-Ray seems to be a punching bag. I also don't get why people have problems with discs. They're safer than computer files. If anything happens to your computer, your whole collection is done for. If something happens to a Blu-Ray disc, you only lose one movie/couple of episodes.

I swear, these Blu bashings have to stop.

I agree with you except that they need to standardize the format. How many times do you read a post about people who buy a new Blu player and it won't play a specific movie, everyone ask, did you get the latest firmware? I had this problem last month, I bought a Samsung BD3600 and I had a hard time getting Ironman to load. The updated firmware just came out this week. These are the kinds of things that can discourage a person from getting into a new format.

[DetroitSportsFan]

Originally Posted by dolphinc

I agree with you except that they need to standardize the format. How many times do you read a post about people who buy a new Blu player and it won't play a specific movie, everyone ask, did you get the latest firmware? I had this problem last month, I bought a Samsung BD3600 and I had a hard time getting Ironman to load. The updated firmware just came out this week. These are the kinds of things that can discourage a person from getting into a new format.

I agree. The need to update firmware every now and then will discourage not-so tech savvy people.

[dadkins]

Certainly not part of "The In Crowd"... too many things "They" have and do that I will never be a part of.

I got into Blu-ray because of being *into* VAIO Laptops.
Since they are VAIOs(Video Audio Integrated Operations), they can surely play DVDs quite well.

The VGN-AR190G is the first BD enabled laptop... and yes, it can display 1920x1080 easily on it's 1920x1200 display(or HDMI to a HDTV).
At first, the ability of burning 25-50GB to a single disc was what I wanted.
After buying a few BD movies, that expanded to also watching movies that made their DVD counterparts look like childrens toys.

Here we are todat and I am on BD laptop #2.
Aint it cool?