Blu-Ray

[Klutch9]

Why hasn't it fully caught on yet? IIRC, it's been around since 2005 for PS3 games and movies as well. That's 6 years... yet I run across people almost on a daily basis who have no idea what Blu-Ray is. Even when you go and rent a Redbox movie, it warns you when you try to rent a Blu-Ray disc that you have to have a Blu-Ray player. Correct me if I'm wrong, but DVDs caught on pretty fast, or at least faster than Blu-Ray. And IMO, the DVD to Blu-Ray jump in quality is equal to or greater than the jump in quality from VHS to DVD. Is Blu-Ray marketing just bad? I thought its marketing was what killed the HD-DVD (even though HD-DVD was superior). With so many people having HD TVs, you'd think that Blu-Ray would be very popular, since it looks far better than a DVD video. Any ideas? Are people misinformed and/or ignorant?

 

[jigen]

Physical media is just going away for the mainstream viewers. With all the streamable content available now in HD, Blu-ray will probably stick to a more closed market. True HD fanatics will always support it for being able to display native 1080p but 90% of everyone else is okay with a lower "HD" resolution upscaled on their sets.

 

[dparm]

It absolutely has caught on. But the problem is that you can stream films through stuff like Netflix & Amazon VOD without needing to buy a new player.

 

[Klutch9]

You make a good point jigen. I use streaming media too, using Netflix. But as far as the upscaling goes... I don't think the majority of people even know that Blu-Ray players (along with some DVD players) will upscale a DVD disc. I think that most people believe that if they have an HD TV, that all media on their TV will be in HD

 

[Klutch9]

Originally Posted By: dparm
It absolutely has caught on. But the problem is that you can stream films through stuff like Netflix & Amazon VOD without needing to buy a new player.


Edit: yes, it has caught on. But DVDs still trump Blu-Ray discs in sales.

 

[The_Jeff]

To paraphrase George Carlin, the average person is an idiot, and 50% of the population is worse than that!

I was at a yuppie's house a few years back, he had a $2k plasma HDTV and a HDTV cable box. The cable company gave him a RF channel 3 hookup with an RG-6 cable and he was happy watching either a 16:9 in a 4:3 in a bigger 16:9, or regular 4:3 stretched to 16:9 because he was paying for those 50 inches, darn it.

So I suggest we go to radio shack, and blow a large sum of money on a monster HDMI cable, get it all set, things look great, and he sort of gets it. Dude wears tri-focal glasses so at least one focal length should make things sharp.

On topic, it pleases me that they figured out they'd sell ~10x the DVDs at $5-10 than they would at $15-18, the price point for many blu-rays. They're also cool with the multi-packs with digital copy for portable devices; DVDs are crackable, Blu-Rays not so much.

And I must respectfully disagree on the quality jump, DVD hooked up with a S-video or better, or directly in a computer, or upscaled with HDMI, doesn't have chroma mixing in with luminance, the quality killer on VHS. Blu-ray has a few more pixels is all.

 

[Astro14]

There are several factors - and recall that it took a long time for folks to switch from VHS to the first DVD players...many people already had invested in the tapes, so it took them a long time to switch.

First, there was some ambiguity in which format would end up dominating...recall that Microsoft and XBOX were backing HD DVD...and it wasn't until 3 years ago (not 6) that the winner started to emerge...no one wanted to end up with the obsolete format...(remember beta-max?)

Then there was the very high price of the Blu-ray vs. DVD players...initially, they were $300+ when you could get a DVD player for $50...that's changed, and I've seen nice BD players for $80.

Next was the high price of the BD disc itself, some stores wanted $35+ for a disc...now that we're down to $10 - $15, they're competitive.

Finally, as was pointed out, physical media is already being supplanted by fully digital (streaming, i-tunes downloads, etc.) so the demand is being met (often at lower cost) via electronic delivery...

I went "all-in" on BD with the PS3 3 years ago (my Christmas gift) - at the time, it made sense, since players were still $300+ and the PS3 does so much more. With a good HDMI to my THX certified 54" Viera - I am lovin' it!

 

[abycat]

I like the new stuff. We havw a full hd 16x9 55' plasma and it looks awesome with our blu ray and is really cool with the netflix and all other gadgets. definately a good investment

 

[SEMI_287]

I like HD DVD. I still have quite a few of them.

 

[UNC017]

Originally Posted By: jigen
Physical media is just going away for the mainstream viewers. With all the streamable content available now in HD, Blu-ray will probably stick to a more closed market.


This, plus the higher cost of Blu-ray players compared to, say an AppleTV or paying extra for an internet-enabled HDTV to start with.

And one other thing- the difference between DVD and full HD really doesn't get super noticeable until your physical screen size gets greater than about 35 inches. I think the trend for many families now is back down from a single monster 50+ inch home theater system to having multiple smaller high quality flatscreen stations scattered around the home, for which a DVD is nearly as good. Just my take on it.

 

[bdcardinal]

I will buy certain movies on BD and play them on my PS3 on my Sony 46". Other stuff I will download with torrents or buy on DVD.

 

[LS2JSTS]

I have a few different blu ray players in the house and STILL continue to buy DVD's for two main reasons. One, the price is better and as others have pointed out a good upscaled DVD looks almost as good as a blu ray in most situations. I do have a few Blu Rays, mostly of movies that I love that I want to own in the best quality available...stuff like The Godfather.

Actually, most of my blu ray purchases at this point have been centered around music and concert footage. Rush, Last Waltz, DSOTM and hopefully the highly anticipated Pink Floyd WYWH release next week are awesome in BR sound and picture quality.

 

[97tbird]

like some of you, I buy certain movies that i absolutely have to have on Blu ray...not a lot.
I think I have about 6 blu rays right now...

There's definitely an improvement in quality over DVD, and i use a dedicated player, also. However, not all blu rays are the same: some horrible blu ray transfers can look no better than a low quality DVD...

"Pan's Labyrinth" and "The Reader" are probably the best blu rays I have seen yet, as far as pic quality goes.

 

[buickman50401]

Originally Posted By: LS2JSTS
I have a few different blu ray players in the house and STILL continue to buy DVD's for two main reasons. One, the price is better and as others have pointed out a good upscaled DVD looks almost as good as a blu ray in most situations. I do have a few Blu Rays, mostly of movies that I love that I want to own in the best quality available...stuff like The Godfather.

Same here. I buy/rent mostly DVD since my player does a good job of upscaling to 720p which looks fine on my 1080p TV.

For an "average" movie upscaled DVD is just fine. Now if I'm watching something heavy on special/visual effects then yes I'll go blu-ray (examples: Transformers, Inception, etc). Otherwise there is no significant noticeable difference between watching you standard fair comedy or (*puke*) chick-flick.

 

[HTSS_TR]

One of the problem with Blu-Ray is availability, most Red-box movies are in DVD, only few are in Blu-Ray.

 

[kb01]

I think it's probably a combination of most people not having an AV system that would take advantage of BR and not really gaining anything by watching movies like Hot Tub Time Machine in HD.

The improvement from DVD to BR is nothing like the leap from VHS to DVD.

We just picked up our first HD TV (1080i CRT) at the Salvation Army, so we're well behind the bell curve for new technology.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Originally Posted By: kb01

The improvement from DVD to BR is nothing like the leap from VHS to DVD.

I would agree. And depending on how far from the TV screen you're sitting, you may not notice a whole of difference between SD and HD. Now, if you have a big screen projector and want to sit very close to the screen, by all means, HD is the way to go so that you're not annoyed with pixelation.

 

[97tbird]

depends on the movie - i have seen a few movies on my 40" set sitting about 6-7 ft away and i could easily see the difference - it's not always there, but i certain scenes, certain details, I could easily see the difference

 

[Cujet]

I have a 65 inch Sharp. The Bloo-Rey is far sharper on that size screen, when compared to a DVD. My BR player upscales the DVD but I don't even like watching DVD's as they are nowhere near as pleasing on the bigger screen.

However, the 45inch bedroom monitor looks just fine with DVD's and I really can't tell the difference on HD or BR, from 15 feet away.

 

[Vikas]

Believe it or not, I still have bunch of movies on SVCD! The Panasonic DVD player hooked up to ScreenPlay 4805 10' white wall screen does remarkably well even on those SVCDs. It also has ability to intelligently zoom, either manually or automatically. For the resolution of the projector, that DVD player is a great match. I have a BR player hooked up to a small TV upstairs but we don't use it much.