The Time has come to say goodbye to Blu-ray…

[Grant Matrix]

This might incite some to riot but hopefully it will do the opposite and make people think. The time has come to stop buying Blu-ray movies and send a message to the movie studios that we consumers want cheaper prices and first week discounts on par with DVD. I have been valiantly struggling to build my BD library and over the span of one year have just hit number 64.

I am passionate about movies and as much as I want to have the best quality possible, the bottom line is that I want to be able buy the movies I want. Unfortunately, for the cost of one Blu-ray movie, I could buy 2-3 movies on DVD. And while upscale DVD certainly is not on the same level as Blu-ray, it is still most certainly acceptable for viewing.

There is a lot of industry analysis extrapolating that the high cost of players has really held back mainstream adoption of the format. I do not believe that to be the case and have stated before that the real bar to adoption is not in fact the price of hardware as “experts” opine, but the high cost of movies.

Blu-ray is being billed as the “ultimate experience,” but that also is not the case, especially when studios are releasing movies with sub par audio quality for Blu-ray standards and by releasing a film only version with no special features. Sure a lot of people will say “so what” or “bah, who need special features.” Well the bottom line is that if you want Blu-ray to be the ultimate experience, then leaving out material that has been prevalent in the DVD format is certainly no way to achieve the ultimate experience.

The only way that studios are going to listen is when consumers speak with their wallets and tell them that they are not going to pay $30-35 to own a movie. Sure there are certain films that scream, must have on Blu-ray, but the majority of movies released are perfectly acceptable viewed in upscale DVD. If I want to buy “Good Luck Chuck” and “The Game Plan” on Blu-ray I would spend $50. To get both on DVD would set me back about $25 leaving room to get another movie or two. Sure there are a lot of folks out there with so much disposal income they don’t know what to do with and can drop a few hundred dollars a week on movies. But a lot of us who love movies, don’t have that kind of money and Blu-ray has severely crippled our ability constantly build our library. All I have been able to do in the past year is watch my “want list” grow longer and longer.

So as of today, I am done buying Blu-ray with one exception coming out in December. I will continue to build up my DVD library and hope that more people will speak with their wallets and see if the studios will do what they need to do, to ensure the future survival Blu-ray!