Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: LOTR blu ray?

my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

»	Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE » Community » The Afterlife » LOTR blu ray? (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Author

Topic: LOTR blu ray?

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-06-2008 03:13 PM

quote: Scott Jentsch
I don't think that WalMart needs to reduce the price of the Wii because my impression is that the stocks of those units are still in short supply, and they sell out as soon as they're available.

One positive thing to say about Nintendo is they haven't taken the opportunity to price gouge over the popularity of the Wii. Re-sellers on eBay sure have, but that's another deal.

That's one area where I find it pretty annoying that prices on arguably outdated standalone Blu-ray players have held steady or even risen in some cases. The electronics companies are claiming player components are in short supply and they can't meet the growing demand. To me, that sounds like a problem they ought to be eating instead of would-be customers. Panasonic just announced pricing on its profile 2.0 DMP-BD50: $699
[Eek!]

If Playstation 3 is really gobbling up all available Blu-ray manufacturing components from everyone else, pricing a new standalone player up through the stratosphere seems to me to be the very opposite move a rival company should make. This is only going to further cement customer opinion that the PS3 is the only Blu-ray player currently worth buying.

quote: Scott Jentsch
If Sony were willing to sell an XBR HDTV for the price that WalMart would want to sell it for, you'd bet it would be there.

Sony isn't willing to lose a fortune giving away high end televisions at or below cost. Neither is anyone else who makes medium to high end electronics products.

Add to that the issue of customer service, optional delivery & installation as well as warranty service to go along with those medium to high end electronics products. These are points stores like Circuit City, Ultimate Electronics and other dealers often have to provide in order to carry these more expensive products.

Wal-Mart's business model isn't designed to provide any of that. You just go into the store, pick up a cheap product, take it home and figure out how it works by yourself. And if it breaks? Well, the garbage is nearby. That's part of what comes with getting the rock bottom price (and possibly rock bottom quality).

Inflation, dollar devaluation and ever rising costs of commodities like steel, oil, plastics, etc. are making electronics products more and more expensive to sell in the United States. I think it's a lucky thing prices are continuing to hold steady or drop in some cases on HDTVs. I would not have been surprised at all to see some price spikes like we have been seeing in a lot of other areas.

quote: Mike Blakesley
So if Blu-Ray ever becomes a mass market item, they will do everything they can to be the lowest priced Blu-Ray seller on the block, no matter who they have to screw to do it. Which is what they did with DVD players, and lots of other electronics items before.

Wal-Mart was only able to take advantage of moves made by other companies, principally APEX. Wal-Mart didn't just call up DVD forum members on it own and command they start selling DVD players for under $100. APEX marketed a cheap Chinese made DVD player, which also played MP3 files and had an early glitch that overlooked region coding. It turned out to be a big hit and Wal-Mart snapped up lots of them to put on store shelves.

For now, the Blu-ray forum isn't providing that avenue to exploit. And if Wal-Mart doesn't want to stock standalone Blu-ray players that's not the end of the world for the format. It's still a high end item. Customers interested in that sort of thing are more likely to visit stores designed to carry such products instead of walking into Wal-Mart. Stores like Best Buy and Circuit City will do far more to drive Blu-ray into the mainstream. Wal-Mart will only be there after Blu-ray has gone mainstream.

| IP: Logged

Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 05-06-2008 06:39 PM

quote: Bobby Henderson
Wal-Mart will only be there after Blu-ray has gone mainstream.

Which is exactly what I said, except in way less words.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Wal-Mart's business model isn't designed to provide any of that. You just go into the store, pick up a cheap product, take it home and figure out how it works by yourself. And if it breaks? Well, the garbage is nearby. That's part of what comes with getting the rock bottom price (and possibly rock bottom quality).

Well of course! That's why there are so many crappy home theater systems out there. You don't think everybody is buying them at Circuit City and the like, do you? There are lotsa cheap folks and wannabe "experts" in the U.S.A.

| IP: Logged

Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 05-06-2008 07:35 PM

Well, the problem is Blu-ray disc isn't that sort of disposable kind of product Wal-Mart likes to sell. And it doesn't need to be in order to grow into mainstream use.

| IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.