Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: DVD vs BR-DVD -- live together 4 how long?

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-21-2008, 11:06 PM:

Obviously Blu-Ray DVDs will eventually replace standard DVDs, but when....in a year, two? How long will they live side-by-side? Presently, is EVERY video title released these days done in both formats or are some titles still released only in S-DVD? I know VHS lived along side DVD for quite awhile, but that was because VHS still offered recording capability where DVDs didn't. That issue won't be a factor with BR-DVD.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-21-2008, 11:23 PM:

Not everything is released in Blu-Ray as of yet.

Studios would be crazy to try to kill off regular DVD at this point - there are still millions upon millions of players out there. I would say maybe 3 to 5 years, you'll start seeing a lot of titles only coming out in BR. I still have my original DVD player - a Pioneer from somewhere around 2003 or so.

I haven't been in an electronics store in a long time -- can you even still buy regular DVD players?

quote: Frank Angel
I know VHS lived along side DVD for quite awhile, but that was because VHS still offered recording capability where DVDs didn't.

That's not why they coexisted. It was for the same reason as above -- there were so many VHS players out there. Most people never used their VCRs for recording -- just to play rental movies. Once the machines started getting older and people wanted to "upgrade," they got phased out of use and that's when VHS tapes went by the wayside.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 10-21-2008, 11:24 PM:

I think the calculus goes the other way. Consumers had a compelling reason to adopt DVD over VHS (several). Quality was MUCH better, you didn't have to rewind tapes, and whiz-bang extra features.

BD (BluRay Disc) doesn't have that kind of advantage. Yeah, resolution is better, but not by the same quantum leap that DVD was over VHS. And the whiz-bang extra features just aren't that compelling (BD Live? Umm...).

Consequently, most consumers won't upgrade from DVD to BD.

So I expect BD will run in parallel with DVD for the foreseeable mid-term future, perhaps 5 to 15 years.

At some point BD decks might get cheap enough that there's no reason to buy a DVD player, and then everyone will buy BD, and DVD will get phased out. Don't count on that any time soon.

--jhawk

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-21-2008, 11:37 PM:

quote: J-Hawk
BD (BluRay Disc) doesn't have that kind of advantage. Yeah, resolution is better, but not by the same quantum leap that DVD was over VHS.

That is perhaps one of the most downright idiotic, forehead-splappingest things I have ever read on this forum. Let's see... a jump from standard definition tape to standard definition disc vs a jump from standard definition disc to HDTV. Yeah. I think HDTV is more of a "quantum leap" jump.

quote: J-Hawk
Consequently, most consumers won't upgrade from DVD to BD.

Yes they will. But first, they need HDTVs. People will want high resolution movies to go along with their high resolution TVs. DVD does not cut it in this area. Whoever invented DVD surely must be a registered sex offender.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-22-2008, 12:24 AM:

At the beginning of 2008 more than 30 million homes in America had at least one HDTV set. It's obvious several million more will have been added to that total before the February 2009 cut-off of analog TV broadcasts.

The point is this: there is already a very ample install base of HDTVs for Blu-ray to exploit.

Once people buy a HDTV and see how much better HD content can look on it versus standard definition they'll get spoiled to HD very quickly. In addition, SD content often looks HORRIBLE blown up on big screen HDTV sets -even with various up-conversion techniques applied to the video. Anamorphic DVD is only pass-able because of the anamorphic widescreen enhancement.

quote: Mike Blakesley
I haven't been in an electronics store in a long time -- can you even still buy regular DVD players?

Yes. But there's no profit in selling them. DVD players will soon disappear in high end electronics stores (if they're not doing so already). As cheap as DVD players are, it only makes sense for stores like Wal-Mart to carry the things. A sales person working on commission in a store like Sears, Circuit City or Ultimate Electronics would be losing money by wasting any breath explaining a cheap DVD player to a customer.

I think standalone DVD players will vanish from retail stores, including Wal-Mart within 2 years. There's already rumors of $149 Blu-ray players for Black Friday in a few weeks. Chinese made Blu-ray players will hit the market in 2009. By 2010 you'll see a good number of BD players for under $100.

Movies offered for sale and rent on DVD will hang around quite a bit longer -at least another 3-5 years at the minimum, maybe even longer.

quote: Joe Redifer
Let's see... a jump from standard definition tape to standard definition disc vs a jump from standard definition disc to HDTV. Yeah. I think HDTV is more of a "quantum leap" jump.

1920 X 1080 based HD has SIX TIMES the pixel count of 480p on DVD. That is a much bigger jump in resolution than the mere doubling of pixel count in the leap from VHS to DVD. Color quality with Blu-ray is also dramatically improved over DVD.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-22-2008, 09:35 AM:

quote:
A sales person working on commission in a store like Circuit City

Just as a point of information, Circuit City sales people haven't been on commission for quite a while now, since around the time CC fired all their most experienced staff as a cost-cutting measure.

Looks like that didn't help them much either since they're on the brink of mass store closures, layoffs, and bankruptcy.

Circuit City tries to avoid bankruptcy

Who's Next was the title of a classic rock album from The Who, of course, back in the days of vinyl records, but today when that phrase is mentioned, it's more likely to be referring to the list of troubled companies on the verge of bankruptcy.

Big box retailer Circuit City (NYSE: CC) may be next to declare themselves insolvent, although they are said to be pulling out all the stops to avoid that outcome.

Trading over $8 a share just one year ago, Circuit City's share price has been in steady decline and has fallen off the cliff lately to settle around 45 cents per share. Circuit City has, according to a Market Watch report, been in talks to secure a line of credit to cover operating expenses while in receivership (in anticipation of a bankruptcy declaration), but the lack of available credit in the current economy has left them with no takers willing to finance them through reorganizational bankruptcy.

This leaves the company with little choice other than scaling back operations and liquidating whatever it can for emergency cash. Initial statements suggest that 150 of Circuit City's 1484 stores in the US and Canada may be shut down. As recently as September you will recall that Circuit had announced a slowdown in the planned store openings for the coming year. It seems that wasn't nearly enough.

In addition to the closings, Circuit City may be liquidating up to $350 million in inventory, likely at fire sale pricing. If you're in the market for a big screen TV and you have enough cash left over after filling your gas tank, this might be your opportunity. This hints at one of the causes of Circuit City's troubles. During a period when Americans are uncertain about their personal income, and when they see their net worth falling everyday not only with real estate values, but also with falling 401k and other stock market investments, they are much less inclined to purchase high ticket luxury items like fancy new appliances or entertainment systems. With companies like Circuit City now focusing on cost-cutting and reducing payroll, things are likely to get significantly worse before they get better.

Circuit City is perhaps the earliest and hardest hit by the current slowdown as they were already losing customers to competitors. Having fumbled around with redesigning store layouts and sales structures, Circuit City has been unable to find a retail model that draws customers. No detailed estimate of the number of employees likely to be released was available although the Associated Press, citing unidentified sources put the number in the thousands. My own estimate, based on 150 stores shutting down would put the number between four and five thousand workers. If the remaining stores and corporate operations also pare staff the number could go higher. Circuit City currently employs about 45,000 people, although that number includes both US and Canada operations.

It is not known how many of the reportedly closing stores are in the United States and how many are in Canada. However, one has to wonder how much of an effect this sort of spill over of US economic troubles will have on Canada going forward. If other multi-nationals begin paring operations there as well, we could see the two trading partners reinforcing each other's decline.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-22-2008, 10:06 AM:

quote: David Stambaugh
Just as a point of information, Circuit City sales people haven't been on commission for quite a while now, since around the time CC fired all their most experienced staff as a cost-cutting measure.

That's kind of surprising considering how much the sales people at Circuit City try to hard sell you on over-priced Monster Cables and various warranty plans. Perhaps CC just makes them do that under the threat of being fired for not up-selling.

I think one of the chief problems with Circuit City is the company often builds stores in really odd locations. Stores like Best Buy and Ultimate Electronics are often next to huge malls or built within popular strip shopping centers while a lot of CC stores seem a little more out of the way and situation in somewhat lower priced real estate areas. It's rare that I find a CC store in a really good location.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-22-2008, 01:31 PM:

Best Buy isn't on commission either.

I bought a new 52" Samsung flat-panel a couple months ago. At the time amazon.com had the lowest price for a reputable online seller, several hundred dollars below BB and CC sale prices. I took a printout of the amazon price to BB, asked if they could meet it, and they said No Way, sorry. Took it to CC. Sales guy went and talked to the store manager, came back and said "Sure, we can meet that". Maybe that explains why BB is doing ok and CC is on the brink of bankruptcy.

DVD players seem to already be getting less and less floor space at big-box stores. BD is being pushed hard. Yet CC's selection of BD movies seems very limited. And retail pricing on BD stuff is a real turn-off to me as a consumer. I'm probably going to pull the trigger on a Sony BDP-S350 player soon, and make sure everyone likely to give me an Xmas gift gets a list of BD movies I'd like to own. [Smile]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-22-2008, 02:18 PM:

quote: David Stambaugh
And retail pricing on BD stuff is a real turn-off to me as a consumer.

That's why I buy most of mine online at sites like Amazon. I'll only buy at a retail store when the pricing is good.

The last BD I bought at a retail store was L.A. Confidential; Hastings had it for $19. Previous to that, I paid $15 each in July for BD copies of The Departed and Crimson Tide at Best Buy (they were among a number of movies in a 2 for $30 sales display). I've ordered 8 BD titles from Amazon since the beginning of August.

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 10-22-2008, 03:08 PM:

Indeed, sales at those stores are influenced by the fear of job loss. No commission required.

I'm in agreement on the fact that BD and HD capable output devices are a massive spoiler. It's almost painful to watch DVD's anymore [Frown]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-22-2008, 04:10 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
Let's see... a jump from standard definition tape to standard definition disc vs a jump from standard definition disc to HDTV. Yeah. I think HDTV is more of a "quantum leap" jump.

While the improvement in picture quality is noted, I think Frank was referring to the overall jump in quality and convenience. Going from VHS to DVD, you got:

- Better picture
- Easier to skip around
- More features on the disk
- More time capacity on the disk
- More reliable equipment (fewer moving parts)
- No tangled tape
- Smaller and easier to store
- No rewinding
- Cheaper to ship (helps keep prices down)
- Can still use your standard TV and see a big difference

Whereas from DVD to BR, the only major change* is the improved picture, which you won't get full advantage of unless you spend another grand or more on a TV upgrade. VHS-to-DVD was a more "quantum leap, for sure.

*Yes, I know about the fancy menus and the interactive crap...those don't qualify as an "upgrade" in my book.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-22-2008, 05:22 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Whereas from DVD to BR, the only major change* is the improved picture, which you won't get full advantage of unless you spend another grand or more on a TV upgrade.

Tens of millions of Americans have already been buying HDTV sets to get HD OTA broadcast channels and HD via cable or satellite. Blu-ray is a more recent, additional attraction for HDTV.

Blu-ray has other significant jumps above DVD in addition to the 6X more detailed image quality. Blu-ray has these features while DVD does not:

* Lossless, uncompressed and DVD-A quality high res audio.
* Lossy DD or DTS at maximum bit rates on nearly all BDs.
* 7.1 surround in LPCM, DTS-HD or Dolby TrueHD.
* 50GB BDs have over 5 times more capacity than 9.4GB DVDs.
* Even more features than DVD, often in HD.
* Exclusive features not found on DVD, like PIP commentaries.
* Superior in-movie menu navigation & in movie book marks.
* Contrary to popular belief, Blu-ray players and PS3 consoles can be connected to SD TV sets and down-convert Blu-ray video to those TV sets. Any BD player will also play DVDs and up-convert the video on them to a connected HDTV.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 10-22-2008, 06:31 PM:

I'm guessing it will be about a 5-year co-existence era for DVD and BR as well.

Prices for both BR media and players are slowly coming down. I'm looking at the newly released Panasonic 1.1 machine (the DMP-BD30K) at $269.00 for myself. And while at Fry's I picked up the BR of Casino for $19.00. Looking to grab the new BR/DVD combo of Disney's Sleeping Beauty too before it goes on hiatus. And a BR Digital Video Essentials, and...

I'm also actively looking (finally) for an HD display for myself, since the Samsung 50" LED DLP I had access to went to my late roommate's parents. That machine was priced around $1100 and I'm trying to stay around that size and price range.

And so my BR collection begins (actually it began last year with the anime film The Wings of Honneamise). Once again I'll have a few discs in the collection before I have the means to play them, just as it was with the CDs, LDs, and DVDs.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-22-2008, 06:50 PM:

Bobby - none of those features are what I would call major. Sure they're big improvments for somebody who is really into video, but for average schmucks who plunk down in front of a TV with a six pack, they'll never use or notice most of those items.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-22-2008, 07:11 PM:

The vastly improved audio capability isn't a major feature? I think it's nearly as important as the major leap in video quality. This is actually one area where Blu-ray is definitely delivering something superior to the quality of audio tracks played in theaters -even digital cinema equipped theaters. You can't get four channels of discrete surround (via 7.1) and lossless or uncompressed audio at commercial cinemas (although you should).

Some discs, such as Baraka, Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds: Live at Radio City, Celine Dion: A New Day and AC/DC: No Bull feature DVD Audio quality 24-bit 96kHz multichannel audio tracks. Blu-ray actually much more potential to deliver next-generation, superior to CD quality music to far more listeners than DVD Audio or Super Audio CD could ever manage.

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-22-2008, 07:57 PM:

Bobby,

You WAY over estimate joe-blow consumer's taste in sound...it was the number of channels...not how they are obtained. The improved quality will always only apply to a statistically small percentage of people. You can tell them all you want about lossless, higher bit rates...etc....all they know/care about (en mass) is 5.1 Even if they have "EX"...how it is obtained is of no concern.

If mere bit-rate was of concern...SACD would have done better than it did...standard CDs still reign supreme in sales of recorded audio media in stores. I guess arguably...lesser quality MP3s are outselling standard CDs.

As for DCinema...It is defined as a 16-channel PCM medium...they have defined the channels that we know about but there is no definition, that I have seen on how a 5.1 theatre would play a larger channel feature (just what is the mix down?). 5.1 is just the least common denominator. All servers that I have laid my hands on are outputting potentially 8 discrete channels though only 6 are used. All cinema processors that have AES audio inputs for DCinema have 8 discrete channels in...again, only the 5.1 format seems to be used...it is NOT intrinsic to the DCinema format...it is just the least common denominator.

Steve

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-22-2008, 08:55 PM:

Blu-ray isn't geared as a common denominator format. The fact the lossless, uncompressed and high res audio tracks found on Blu-ray exceed the capabilities of most home theater sound systems is a good thing. The Blu-ray software disc is a single inventory retail item. Why stick a flawed audio track on it when there's ample room for something better? Anyone who spends many thousands of dollars on high end speakers and amplifiers should get a lot more out of a lossless Dolby TrueHD track than someone who merely bought a $500 home theater in a box.

The entertainment and technology media doesn't give the general public enough credit for having decent taste in technology. Those journalists believe everyone is perfectly happy with lossy compressed, iTunes style audio, regardless of the fact music CDs are still being sold a full decade after the whole MP3/AAC craze got started.

quote: Steve Guttag
If mere bit-rate was of concern...SACD would have done better than it did...standard CDs still reign supreme in sales of recorded audio media in stores. I guess arguably...lesser quality MP3s are outselling standard CDs.

SACD and DVA-A both failed to be embraced by mainstream consumers because Sony and Time/Warner provided nothing more than pitifully bad efforts to promote their respective next-gen audio formats.

Why should joe-blow consumer be expected to buy a high priced music playback device when the only titles he sees available for it is 30 year old classic rock albums, obscure jazz discs and classical music? It's not that joe-blow consumer lacks interest in high resolution audio. Joe-blow simply is not going buy music he doesn't like regardless of the bit rate and sampling frequency.

Both Sony and Warner Bros have major music distribution businesses. Why couldn't they do some arm twisting and make their most popular signed artists produce albums with high resolution audio? They just didn't bother. In response, joe-blow didn't bother with SACD and DVD-A either.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-22-2008, 09:02 PM:

I'm pretty pessimistic that the average viewer even cares about this stuff. These are people who watch 4x3 SD programming stretched out to fill a 16x9 screen and think that they are watching HD. They are the same people whose DVD players are connected to their TV speakers. They are also the ones who don't complain about damaged prints and generally poor presentation at movie theatres.

Question for Bobby: how many people do you know that have quality home stereo systems? How many people do you know who own ipods?

I wish that the situation were different, but the average viewer/listener seems to favor convenience over quality.

My personal expectation is that low-quality downloads (which may have HD resolution, but will likely be overcompressed and overly edge-enhanced) will become popular long before Blu-ray becomes a mainstream product.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-22-2008, 09:09 PM:

The HD picture will always be the main selling point for Blu-ray. Most people won't likely go out and purchase all of the movies they already own on DVD for the newer format, but they will likely purchase NEW movies that way and if they have super-favorites they may repurchase them as well.

The new Batman will sell a lot of Blu-ray players, at least 46 of 'em!

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-22-2008, 09:46 PM:

Iron Man set new sales records for Blu-ray. Even though the install base of standalone BD players is still relatively small, more than 500,000 copies of Iron Man sold during its first week of availability. I think The Dark Knight will more than double that number at the very least.

HD video download services like AppleTV, VUDU, etc. have a limited window of opportunity. And I think they're going to lose to Blu-ray. Even if the quality was equal to Blu-ray (it isn't), the pricing isn't competitive with Blu-ray rentals at video stores.

I haven't been bothering with the much touted 1080p VOD service from Dish Network (DirecTV added a similar feature this week) because I'm not paying $6.99 for a 24 hour rental when I can get 5 day or 7 day rentals for $4.99 or $5.99 from two video stores not far from my home.

quote: Scott Norwood
I'm pretty pessimistic that the average viewer even cares about this stuff. These are people who watch 4x3 SD programming stretched out to fill a 16x9 screen and think that they are watching HD.

Thankfully, Blu-ray isn't locked down to the "quality level" that particular crowd is accustomed to viewing.

quote: Scott Norwood
They are the same people whose DVD players are connected to their TV speakers. They are also the ones who don't complain about damaged prints and generally poor presentation at movie theatres.

They're too busy obsessively texting away on their phones to bother noticing what is happening on the screen.
[Razz]

quote: Scott Norwood
Question for Bobby: how many people do you know that have quality home stereo systems? How many people do you know who own ipods?

I do know more people who own iPods than own very good or great quality home theater systems. But what is that supposed to prove? That there is no market or justification for high resolution audio? Why should the minority of high quality stereo owners (still a significant sized group) be penalized for the buying habits of everyone else?

Blu-ray actually has the capability of delivering a one-size fits all music disc. There's enough capacity to store a complete album in multiple audio formats, channel configurations and quality levels. BD Live or a feature resident on the disc could copy MP3 and AAC files to a flash memory card attached to the player so the customer could play the same songs on their portable music player. Apple surely is never going to be able to offer anything like that.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is one person who truly "gets it," when it comes to understanding what customers want in music files. He has made his last two albums available for download, but he has provided a wide variety of format types and quality levels -everything from lossy AAC and MP3 files to huge 24/96 quality files for high end stereo systems. He's even provided multi-track session files for people to load into audio editing applications.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-23-2008, 01:25 AM:

Bobby - my point was backed up in others' posts above better than I could have said it. The fact is, and always will be, that MOST PEOPLE don't care about much on their TV except that they can get the channel they want, see an acceptable picture and hear some stuff coming out of all the speakers. You could play mono through all the speakers and a lot of people would think it was just fine. I was in home electronics retail for 20+ years and I can vouch for that.

I'm still selling car audio and it's the same there -- with about 90% of people, as long as it has a lot of bass, they're happy.

A $300 million blockbuster movie setting new sales records for BD is no big deal. Since more players are always being sold, sales figures are going to grow too. Every blockbuster coming down the pike is going to set a new sales peak, because there are more consumers with units to play them on. This isn't rocket science, it's consumer electronics.

quote:
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is one person who truly "gets it," when it comes to understanding what customers want in music files. [snip] He's even provided multi-track session files for people to load into audio editing applications.

Sure he gets it - because he can afford to. No matter how many downloads are made and copied, he'd still be a multi-millionaire.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-23-2008, 09:11 AM:

The point is Trent Reznor understands the public is far from unanimous on liking all their music in severely compressed iTunes packaging. Not everybody likes their music, or movies, served up the same way.

quote: Mike Blakesley
The fact is, and always will be, that MOST PEOPLE don't care about much on their TV except that they can get the channel they want, see an acceptable picture and hear some stuff coming out of all the speakers.

If new technology had to cater to only what "most people" want you would not see any progress at all in new technology.

I've seen the same "this new stuff isn't needed" argument made about DVD when it was brand new. Joe six pack isn't going to buy it; he's going to stick with his VHS tapes. That prediction turned out to be 100% dead wrong. Some said DVD wouldn't succeed due to bad economic conditions. DVD weathered the dot-com bust, 9-11-01 tragedy and following recession and became a huge success anyway.

The same bets against progress were made in the late 1980s and early 1990s when new generations of computers and software were replacing the old. "No one needs to upgrade to this new stuff," was the constant refrain. After a few more years those pundits finally got the hint that constant change was here to stay in that industry.

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 10-23-2008, 10:01 AM:

The way I see it, there are two factors that will eventually lead to Blu Ray becoming the dominant format:

1) Manufacturers will stop making SD-DVD players, so the only players you will be able to buy are Blu Ray players;

2) Similarly, the only TVs you can buy now are HDTVs (on a recent shopping trip this was certainly the case).

Put these two factors together, and it's only a matter of time before Blu Ray takes the lead.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-23-2008, 10:07 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
If new technology had to cater to only what "most people" want you would not see any progress at all in new technology.

That is true, but the road is strewn with the carcasses of dozens of new whiz-bang gadgets and formats that were the "next big thing" but failed because they didn't provide a list of benefits that Mr and Mrs. Joe Sixpack the Plumber would want. DVD is one of the exceptions because it DID provide such a list. Blu-ray does not, it's as simple as that. But Michael Barry's right, eventually BR will be all you can buy and then it'll be the default format.

quote: Bobby Henderson
The same bets against progress were made in the late 1980s and early 1990s when new generations of computers and software were replacing the old. "No one needs to upgrade to this new stuff," was the constant refrain.

And often those arguments make sense. Look what's happening right now with Windows Vista. It is a flop with virtually everyone - but it probably contains technology that will be helpful in a 'better' version to come later.

I'm not betting against progress -- I'm just sayin' that VHS->DVD was a much more consumer-friendly transition than DVD->Blu-ray is.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 10-23-2008, 10:10 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Blu-ray isn't geared as a common denominator format. The fact the lossless, uncompressed and high res audio tracks found on Blu-ray exceed the capabilities of most home theater sound systems is a good thing. The Blu-ray software disc is a single inventory retail item. Why stick a flawed audio track on it when there's ample room for something better? Anyone who spends many thousands of dollars on high end speakers and amplifiers should get a lot more out of a lossless Dolby TrueHD track than someone who merely bought a $500 home theater in a box.

quote: Bobby Henderson
If new technology had to cater to only what "most people" want you would not see any progress at all in new technology.

Keep those things in mind when trying to decide if Blu-Ray should create 3D by outputting a single stream field sequential signal or two simultaneous full 1080P full bandwidth HD signals.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-23-2008, 10:30 AM:

Here's the way I see it:

Old people = Frightened by Blu-ray. Say they don't need it. They don't need anything. Scared and confused by things that move or use electricity.

New people = Love Blu-ray. Purchase new phones every year to have the latest gadgets. At the rate the old people reproduced, there are more new people than old people. And the reproduction isn't slowing down at all, so there will be even newer people.

In other words, we'll soon be bitching about how Blu-ray was "the good old days".

Bottom line: LaserDisc! That's the format that brought the same conveniences except for size years and years ahead of DVD. Nobody bought it. DVD was not a huge jump up from LaserDisc at all. In fact when DVD was introduced, it was much worse. If all of those non-rewinding, chapter searching, special feature conveniences were such a huge reason DVD took off, then LaserDisc would have as well. It boils down to ONLY ONE THING. Price. That's it. Nothing else.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-23-2008, 12:45 PM:

Blu-ray players are still somewhat expensive, although there's a few good models available for under $300. Best Buy dropped the price on their Insignia-branded Profile 1.1 player to $199. We'll probably see some $149 players on Black Friday. Lower priced Chinese-made players are due to hit the market in 2009. I think it's safe to say BD players $99 and under will be available or even pretty common 18-24 months from now.

quote: Mike Blakesley
That is true, but the road is strewn with the carcasses of dozens of new whiz-bang gadgets and formats that were the "next big thing" but failed because they didn't provide a list of benefits that Mr and Mrs. Joe Sixpack the Plumber would want. DVD is one of the exceptions because it DID provide such a list. Blu-ray does not, it's as simple as that.

DVD is only standard definition. Blu-ray is high definition. That's a major difference. The Feb. 2009 cut-off of analog TV broadcast signals is forcing a lot of people into upgrading to HDTV. Like I said before, once viewers get used to HD quality video most don't want to bother with SD. DVD is only SD. And Blu-ray has the best HD video quality one can view at home.

quote: Mike Blakesley
DVD is one of the exceptions because it DID provide such a list. Blu-ray does not, it's as simple as that. But Michael Barry's right, eventually BR will be all you can buy and then it'll be the default format.

That's sort of what happened with DVD. Hollywood began reducing the supply of new movies onto VHS and then eventually stopped releasing new movies on the tape format altogether. You can still buy a new VHS tape deck in some stores today, but it's been a good 5 years or more since I've seen any VHS tapes for rent in local video stores or seen VHS movies for sale in any retail store.

The transition to Blu-ray could actually happen faster. Prices on players are dropping faster than they did with DVD. All Blu-ray players can play DVDs as well. So when Joe six-pack's cheap DVD player breaks, the replacement will just happen to play Blu-ray movies too. Joe six-pack can play his old DVDs on a Blu-ray player. However, at least as far as I'm concerned my own DVD collection is beginning to gather dust. Many of those old discs are going to go bye bye at a yard sale soon.

It's anyone's guess when Hollywood studios will stop releasing new movies on DVD. By 2012 I think DVD will at least have started its disappearing act at video stores, if not sooner via factors like movie download services. Lots of people insist downloads are a major threat to Blu-ray. If they can pose a threat, they'll do more to threaten DVD. You can download DVD quality video a hell of a lot faster than Blu-ray quality video.

quote: Mark J. Marshall
Keep those things in mind when trying to decide if Blu-Ray should create 3D by outputting a single stream field sequential signal or two simultaneous full 1080P full bandwidth HD signals.

It doesn't matter to me how they do 3D on Blu-ray, just so long as it is full color and can work in the form factor of flat panel televisions. I think it's safe to say Joe six-pack is not going to go to the trouble & expense of installing and aligning pairs of HD video projectors just for 3D.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-23-2008, 02:32 PM:

quote:
Old people = Frightened by Blu-ray. New people = Love Blu-ray.

Well then there's the people in the middle who have gone from Beta to VHS to LaserDisc to DVD (and maybe S-VHS and D-VHS along the way, and MiniDisc, SACD, HD-DVD, and whatever other formats I'm forgetting) and see our favorite movies released over and over and over again in new editions, directors' cuts, unrated versions, remastered, etc. and are a little tired of this game, and feel like we're being manipulated and therefore maybe we resist jumping into yet another new format, and meanwhile more people are getting broadband all the time and downloading HD content becomes more feasible. Not to mention hell, there are already Blu-ray discs being re-released in new and improved remastered versions!

I'm just saying, when Joe Sixpak-Plumber is browsing players and discs at retail stores and sees movies like "Beerfest" for $30, it's not a slam-dunk. Most everyone knows you can buy movies for less online, but impressions are formed by what you see at BB and CC (the latter not for much longer though) and resistance may develop.

BD's improved audio seems like a weak argument for 95% of consumers, since most people think lossy Dolby sounds great on DVD players (and in fact it DOES sound great). And how many people will actually deploy 7.1? I couldn't do 7.1 in my living room if I wanted to, just not physically feasible.

Having said all that, I expect to pick up a BD player any day now. [Smile]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-23-2008, 11:59 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
If all of those non-rewinding, chapter searching, special feature conveniences were such a huge reason DVD took off, then LaserDisc would have as well. It boils down to ONLY ONE THING. Price. That's it. Nothing else.

Naaah. It was a lot more than that. Laserdisks were huge and inconvenient to handle vs. videotapes; you had to stop the movie in the middle to turn it over; the players were expensive compared to VHS; the format didn't have the support of ALL the studios (or the electronics manufacturers either) because some of them stupidly went with that crappy RCA system. Stores didn't want to carry 3 different formats of software and players...they were already burnt from having to carry 3 formats of music (LP, cassette and CD coexisted longer than VHS and DVD did).

And then there was the recording issue. We never had Laserdisk in our store, but we had that RCA thing....the first question out of most people's mouths was, "How do you record?" Then after hearing the answer, they would buy a VHS machine. Of course that was when home video was more about time-shifting than it was about movie-watching. DVD had a better feature set than Laserdisk but mostly, it had better timing.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-24-2008, 02:07 AM:

DVD couldn't record when it came out.

Anyway, I'd say that DVD is less of a jump from LaserDisc overall (excluding price, of course) than Blu-ray is from DVD. Remember, when DVD came out you had to flip sides on a lot of movies as well, and there were no automatic side-flippin' machines like existed for LaserDisc. The picture quality was also noticeably worse than LD. I'm sure the same people that whine about Blu-ray these days whined about DVD back in the "good old days when them damn kids stayed off my lawn!" The only advantage DVD had at the time was that it was smaller and had a slightly lower price than LD.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-24-2008, 05:39 AM:

Price isn't everything. When I bought my first video recorder, it was a Sony Umatic 3/4in because that was the only format available and I was intent on stealing movies off of Home Box Office so I could see movies at home and of course so I could be Jack Vallenti's cancer in the belly of the industry. There was no cable in Brooklyn at the time so I had to lug this monsterous Umatic machine on the subway to my friend on the East side in Manhattan -- he had cable. That U-matic cost me $3,000. I was so poor at the time that I could only afford USED tapes and even used, they cost me $30 for an hour tape.

My first CD player which was the very first model the high-end store got in, had no remote (actually a good thing now that I think of it), could only scan, skip cuts and turn on and off -- it was a Techniques and it cost $1000.00!

I was determined to have my own "home theatre" before anyone even heard the phrase (circa 1977)-- I needed to connect that Umatic to something other than a TV, so I bought the very first video projector that was ever designed to be a consumer projector (kind of)....Advent's 3 gun CRT-based VideoBeam -- it was huge compared to today's DLPs. It cost thousands....I think maybe $4,000, which in those days was a lot of money for a young guy working in Non-Profit (capital N, capital P).

I bought got every alternate field sequential 3D title I could get my hands on in the mid-80s and bought the 3DTV 3D video system. Actually it didn't cost all that much although the shutter eye-glasses started getting up there in price if you wanted to show, say, THE HOUSE OF WAX to a party crowd of people. And when they finally settle on how they are going to feed all those 3D releases to the millions of people who will want to see them at home in their 3D Home Theatre, I will be first in line.

So it all depends on where your head is at. For me, having a excellent sound system was imperative (I put in Quadraphonic sound in 1974 and haven't needed to take it down since, only now they call it surround sound. But as wild as I have been for new gadgets most of my life, every one had to offer me something that the thing they are replacing DIDN'T give me. MP3, iPods (spawn from hell, as far as I can see) -- they are steps backwards, not fowards. They don't offer anything but convenience, and looking back, I guess "convenience" never EVER trumped what I really wanted from the device -- hell, a U-matic VCR?! Convenience isn't the word that jumps to mind.

So all I see in those iPods and MP3 players is convenience over quality....that does NOTHING for me. For millions of others, I guess it is the only factor.

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 10-24-2008, 08:07 AM:

Back to the "why was DVD a success" question: I'm pretty sure that another part of the reason was that DVDs were (from the start) priced at reasonable levels at the time of their initial release, whereas "new release" VHS tapes were priced in the $100 range, which was too high for most anyone but rental store owners. Laserdiscs were cheaper, but the players were expensive (about $1k and up for something decent) and the disks were not generally available for rent at most retail outlets.

I never knew any one who had a laserdisc player at home, and the reason seems to have been the cost of the player and the lack of rental availability for the disks. If these had been solved, I think that most people could have dealt with the size and need to flip the disks every hour. The DVD format offered a relatively cheap (~$400, later dropping to about $40) player, as well as cheaper media for those who were interested in purchasing new releases outright.

The DVD player penetration rate did not actually reach VHS levels until most rental shops converted fully or almost fully to the format (around 2003, I think), at which point players were available for under $100.

I actually think that it is unfortunate that most rental shops no longer stock VHS at all, since many VHS titles are still unavailable on DVD. (As much as I don't like VHS as a format, I would argue that it is better to have obscure titles available in an inferior format than for them to be unavailable from rental stores.) As an example, Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud has not been officially released on DVD; if one wants to see it on video, the options are VHS and laserdisc, which makes this title essentially unavailable at most rental stores.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-24-2008, 09:30 AM:

quote: "Joe the Redifer"
DVD couldn't record when it came out.

I never said it could.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-24-2008, 10:10 AM:

You tried to make a case of LaserDisc not being able to record as a reason to why it wasn't much of a jump over VHS, yet DVD was.

Frank, you are (were?) an early adopter. Price means next to nothing to most of those folks. I admit that I can be one at times.

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 10-24-2008, 10:53 AM:

quote: Scott Norwood
I actually think that it is unfortunate that most rental shops no longer stock VHS at all, since many VHS titles are still unavailable on DVD. (As much as I don't like VHS as a format, I would argue that it is better to have obscure titles available in an inferior format than for them to be unavailable from rental stores.) As an example, Robert Altman's Brewster McCloud has not been officially released on DVD; if one wants to see it on video, the options are VHS and laserdisc, which makes this title essentially unavailable at most rental stores.

I agree with this, and it is better to have a low quality print on VHS than nothing at all.

However, I think it is encouraging that little by little, obscure titles that we'd never thought we'd see on DVD are appearing.

There's hope for that Robert Altman title. Criterion recently released '3 Women' and 'Secret Honor' (which are HD masters, so Blu Ray discs are very likely!).

There's a VHS rental store near me that has a lot of titles that I fear will never see the light of day again, anywhere. Sure, many of those titles are of marginal quality, but someone made those movies and someone out there sure enjoyed them at some point. I don't like the idea of any movie being 'gone forever'. That's just not right. My hope is that all those movies will make it to Blu Ray or DVD, even if it takes a really long time.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-26-2008, 10:03 PM:

quote: Scott Norwood
Back to the "why was DVD a success" question: I'm pretty sure that another part of the reason was that DVDs were (from the start) priced at reasonable levels at the time of their initial release, whereas "new release" VHS tapes were priced in the $100 range, which was too high for most anyone but rental store owners.

Factoring in the rate of inflation, movies on Blu-ray aren't anymore expensive than DVDs were when they were first introduced. New release DVDs are still somewhat expensive. I rarely see any new movies being released on DVDs for anything less than the $18-$20 levels, and often see stores carrying them at prices up $25.

People consider DVD movies to be dirt cheap due to the pricing of catalog DVDs and newer DVD movie releases that have been on store shelves for 6-12 months or more. However, it's pretty unfair to compare an old DVD in the $5-$10 bin at Wal-Mart to something that was just released on Blu-ray. But that comparison keeps on getting repeated anyway despite its apples-oranges nature.

As Blu-ray continues to gain more popularity, I think we'll see more downward pressure being applied to the movie discs, particularly catalog titles. Right now, most retail stores typically want $19 or more for a movie that has been out on Blu-ray for a year or more. I think that level is going to drop to $15 and perhaps even less pretty soon. There's definitely going to be some movement in that direction during the holiday season.

Back in the late 1980s the VHS HiFi thing was really expensive. The first players were fetching prices of $700 or more. And those "rental prices" were pretty terrible. I think Laserdisc would have been more popular if a lot more stores offered them for rent. I figured DVD would be a failure if video rental stores didn't embrace it. When the DiVX versus "Open DVD" format war was raging a lot of video stores sat it out while the issue got settled. Hastings was the only store in town renting any DVDs at all. Once DiVX was eliminated, video stores all over town started stocking up on DVD.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 10-27-2008, 11:26 AM:

Blu-ray will not overtake DVD until the prices of the players come down (which is starting to happen) and the movies get a little cheaper (I think $20-25 for a new release is about as high as they should be for widespread acceptance).

The biggest thing is the price of the players, because it's very difficult to convince someone that paying $300-$400 on a player is worth it when they aren't already convinced about the additional quality they're going to be able to enjoy.

Netflix takes the pain out of the price of movies, because so many movies are not worth buying in the first place. It's amazing to me that so many people buy movies that hardly deserve a rental!

I think it's going to become harder and harder to find a decent DVD player, so if you want something that isn't a Polaroid or Coby, you're going to have to look at a Blu-ray player. Getting the players under $200 would be a great thing to really get the momentum going on an unstoppable shift towards HD.

The biggest question right now is where the prices are going to land for the time being? The Samsung 1500 was being sold for around $215 just recently and it included the Matrix box set. I've seen it for below $200, and I think it's reasonable to believe that the low end models could hit $149 on Black Friday and maybe even stay there for the Insignia's and the previous gen players (which shouldn't be purchased without fully knowing what you're getting).

If we could get the Samsung 1500, the Sony S300, and the Panasonic 35 down to $200, that would do wonders to show DVD the door. It will happen, it's just a matter of when.

I think it could be as early as the end of 2009 when Blu-ray overtakes DVD. Many many many HDTV's will be sold this coming February, and hopefully it will be an opportunity for new Blu-ray players to go home with them. DVD belongs relegated to the car and portable segments, and no one should be forced to watch SD in their home ever again.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-27-2008, 01:57 PM:

Amazon is currently offering a $100 rebate on three different Blu-ray player models if you buy four Warner Bros. titles on Blu-ray from a list of 22 available in the promotion:
Amazon Blu-ray Player Deal

The BD players are the new 80GB Playstation 3, the Sylvania NB500SL9 and the Samsung BD-P1500. The 80GB PS3 normally sells for $399. The Sylvania unit normally costs $199 and the Samsung player currently costs $212. Apply the $100 rebate and the players go for $299, $99 and $112 respectively.

The 22 WB titles on Blu-ray range in price from $17.95 to $24.95. 14 of the movies are priced at $19.99 or lower.

quote:
Netflix takes the pain out of the price of movies, because so many movies are not worth buying in the first place. It's amazing to me that so many people buy movies that hardly deserve a rental!

I believe the lack of a rental option is the main reason why the Laserdisc format never gained broad acceptance from the general public. Very few people want to buy every movie they watch on a video format. Video rentals are critical to any format's success.

Most of the video stores in my town have been renting out movies on Blu-ray, although Hastings is the only store with a reasonably good selection. Hollywood Video is OK, but not great. Blockbuster and the others dabbling in Blu-ray rentals have very weak selections.

I'm also getting a better deal on renting Blu-ray movies from video stores than I do with using any online service or PPV/VOD service via satellite. It costs me $4.99 or $5.99 for a 5-day or 7-day BD rental from a store. The PPV, VOD and online services charge even more for HD and give you only 24 hours to view the show. That sucks.

Posted by Bill Gabel (Member # 1105) on 10-27-2008, 02:58 PM:

There has been alot of capability issues lately with select newer releases in Blu-ray and standalone decks. Select decks will play the disc or take forever and day to load or get stuck at the menus. The new Blu-ray James Bond discs and Hulk and Clear and Present Danger, The Hunt for Red October are all having problems. Some firmware updates are working and some are not. People are getting pissed at this new format.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 10-27-2008, 03:04 PM:

Player prices are indeed coming down -

The Panasonic DMP-BD30 I've been looking at is down from $269 to $249 at Fry's now. On-line prices for it are in this range too.

The thing up-rez's DVDs and plays BRs and is Profile 1.1 compliant. To hold down costs, it doesn't decode the latest audio formats - it provides digital outs so that a current AV receiver can do those honors. The unit does provide decoded DD5.1 outs though. For now that'll work for me.

The more expensive brother DMP-BD50 will decode all current BR audio formats.

I expect I'll be bringing one of these home around the end of the year.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-27-2008, 03:31 PM:

That amazon deal is pretty tempting. Too bad the list of movies offered isn't more appealing to me. I have a hard time picking more than 2 movies I'd like to own out of the 22 offered. But I might go for it anyway.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-27-2008, 03:57 PM:

quote:
There has been a lot of capability issues lately with select newer releases in Blu-ray and standalone decks.

Those problems are not as widespread as what is being suggested.

The catalog James Bond BD movies that were released last week have shown some problems on a few players, typically the old Sony BDP-S300 or Samsung BD-P1400 players. Some Sony S300 player owners have been able to play the discs after a "cold boot" (turn off the player, unplug the power cord, plug it back in and turn it on).

Regarding firmware updates that don't work, some of that can be attributed to user error. If the user doesn't burn the disc image correctly to CD the firmware update will not work. It's another nice thing about having a PS3; the system software updates are very easy to apply.

I haven't heard anything about problems with the Jack Ryan action movies, such as The Hunt for Red October.

As usual, none of these playback problems are being seen at all with the Playstation 3. The Panasonic DMP-BD30 has been performing well.

The most widespread glitch I've seen recently with Blu-ray was on the Iron Man disc. The movie disc automatically checked the Internet for BD Live updates before doing anything else. Paramount underestimated server demand. The result was lots of BD players hanging for minutes on end before going to the main movie menu. They fixed the problem after a few days by programming in a "do you want to download updates?" query at the server (along with ramping up capacity). Playstation 3 consoles can be set to query instead of automatically downloading on BD Live functions.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-27-2008, 06:28 PM:

BD Live is so retarded. What updates could I possibly ever want to download? A new texture map replacing Robert Downey Jr's goatee with a handlebar mustache? New costumes? An extra scene? Some awesome nudity? More hidden Captain America shields to find throughout the movie? What? What could BD Live POSSIBLY offer? Answer: lameness.

I like how people complain about the prices of Blu-ray players, whining that there aren't any $99 players yet. Get a life, people! It took DVD longer than this to reach the $99 price point and the DVD format makes you 'gasm with tons of rushing fluids! Be patient or maybe try not being poor.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-27-2008, 07:32 PM:

Joe, unfortunately you're trying to apply a concept called LOGIC to the discussion. For the whiny people who love to hate Blu-ray, logic simply cannot be tolerated. As far as those folks are concerned, Blu-ray should have debuted on the market with $49 players with subsequent discounts to $29 to have any chance of dethroning DVD. Nevermind DVD debuting with $700+ players that were pieces of stinky shit (valued at around $1200+ in today's dollars). And that doesn't get into the issues of how going from a mere 345,600 pixels for SD to 2,073,600 for HD (at the highest bit rates available for HD in the home) matters at all. An image improvement of 6X isn't enough. Shit. Considering the attitudes of some of the trolls out there 600X would not have been enough.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-27-2008, 08:01 PM:

It's not enough. DVD is great because you don't have to rewind it.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-27-2008, 08:20 PM:

Hey! I was wondering what the hell happened to my CD label stamper!

Damned Nigerian 419 scammers strike again!

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-27-2008, 09:32 PM:

I just found out today that you can install Linux on its own partition on the PS3 and turn the console into a general-purpose computer.

I just placed my order with Amazon. PS3. [uhoh]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-27-2008, 10:23 PM:

Be sure to plug in an ethernet cable, go to System Update and let that mofo update itself so you can enjoy the rich BD-Live features which enhance many discs. There is a drawback to the PS3, however... you won't be able to complain about Blu-ray any more since it is literally the best player out there and plays everything... even DVDs! DVD players weren't backward compatible with VHS. DVD sux.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-29-2008, 06:14 PM:

My PS3 arrived today.

Meanwhile... [uhoh]

Blu-ray is Dead - Heckuva Job, Sony!

Blu-ray is in a death spiral. 12 months from now Blu-ray will be a videophile niche, not a mass market product.

With only a 4% share of US movie disc sales and HD download capability arriving, the Blu-ray disc Association (BDA) is still smoking dope. Even $150 Blu-ray players won’t save it.

16 months ago I called the HD war for Blu-ray. My bad. Who dreamed they could both lose?

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
Delusional Sony exec Rick Clancy needs to put the crack pipe down and really look at the market dynamics.

In a nutshell: consumers drive the market and they don’t care about Blu-ray’s theoretical advantages. Especially during a world-wide recession.

Remember Betamax? SACD? Minidisk? Laser Disk? DVD-Audio? There are more losers than winners in consumer storage formats.

It’s all about volume. 8 months after Toshiba threw in the towel, Blu-ray still doesn’t have it.

The Blu-ray Disc Association doesn’t get it
$150 Blu-ray disc players are a good start, but it won’t take Blu-ray over the finish line. The BDA is stuck in the past with a flawed five-year-old strategy.

The original game plan
Two things killed the original strategy. First the fight with HD DVD stalled the industry for two years. Initial enthusiasm for high definition video on disk was squandered.

Second, the advent of low cost up-sampling DVD players dramatically cut the video quality advantage of Blu-ray DVDs. Suddenly, for $100, your average consumer can put good video on their HDTV using standard DVDs. When Blu-ray got started no one dreamed this would happen.

Piggies at the trough
The Blu-ray Disc Association hoped for a massive cash bonanza as millions of consumers discovered that standard DVDs looked awful on HDTV. To cash in they loaded Blu-ray licenses with costly fees. Blu-ray doesn’t just suck for consumers: small producers can’t afford it either.

According to Digital Content Producer Blu-ray doesn’t cut it for business:

Recordable discs don’t play reliably across the range of Blu-ray players - so you can’t do low-volume runs yourself.
Service bureau reproduction runs $20 per single layer disc in quantities of 300 or less.
Hollywood style printed/replicated Blu-ray discs are considerably cheaper once you reach the thousand unit quantity: just $3.50 per disc.
High-quality authoring programs like Sony Blu-print or Sonic Solutions Scenarist cost $40,000.
The Advanced Access Content System - the already hacked DRM - has a one-time fee of $3000 plus a per project cost of almost $1600 plus $.04 per disk. And who defines “project?”
Then the Blu-ray disc Association charges another $3000 annually to use their very exclusive - on 4% of all video disks! - logo.
That’s why you don’t see quirky indie flicks on Blu-ray. Small producers can’t afford it - even though they shoot in HDV and HD.

The Storage Bits take
Don’t expect Steve Jobs to budge from his “bag of hurt” understatement. Or Final Cut Studio support for Blu-ray. I suspect that Jobs is using his Hollywood clout from his board seat on Disney and his control of iTunes to try to talk sense to the BDA.

But the BDA won’t budge. They, like so much of Hollywood, are stuck in the past.

A forward looking strategy would include:

Recognition that consumers don’t need Blu-ray. It is a nice-to-have and must be priced accordingly.
Accept the money spent on Blu-ray is gone and will never earn back the investment. Then you can begin thinking clearly about how to maximize Blu-ray penetration.
The average consumer will probably pay $50 more for a Blu-ray player that is competitive with the average up-sampling DVD player. Most of the current Blu-ray players are junk: slow, feature-poor and way over-priced.
Disk price margins can’t be higher than DVDs and probably should be less. The question the studios need to ask is: “do we want to be selling disks in 5 years?” No? Then keep it up. Turn distribution over to your very good friends at Comcast, Apple and Time Warner. You’ll be like Procter & Gamble paying Safeway to stock your products.
Fire all the market research firms telling you how great it is going to be. They are playing you. Your #1 goal: market share. High volume is your only chance to earn your way out of this mess and keep some control of your distribution.
Time is short. Timid incrementalism will kill you.

Like Agent Smith delivering the bad news to a complacent cop: “No, Lieutenant, your men are already dead.”

Comments welcome, of course.

Robin Harris has been selling and marketing data storage for over 20 years in companies large and small. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-29-2008, 06:41 PM:

That article is a pot-stirring crock of shit. The guy who wrote that piece of very obvious flame-bait likely did so to attract a flurry of visitors -mainly to pump up those page visit stats so ZD Net could go laughing all the way to the bank with the extra ad money.

Blu-ray is doing just fine and will be doing even better towards the end of the year as a steady supply of hit movies from this past summer arrive on Blu-ray. Iron Man moved over 500,000 copies in its first week and accounted for 20% of all discs sales, despite the relatively small install base of BD players in ratio with DVD players in service. Online retailers said as much as 50% of their Iron Man disc sales were going to Blu-ray. The Dark Knight is poised to smash those records.

The fact remains that Blu-ray is growing faster in market acceptance than DVD did at the same point in its life. Same goes for the price drops.

One of the main cornerstones these "journalists" keep using is the whole iPods/movie downloads analogy. If watching via the Internet was truly going to take over, why aren't we seeing the DVD format reeling from this already? Why aren't we seeing TV audiences en masse abandoning their TV sets for a computer screen? Right now I can watch episodes of quite a few network and cable TV series FOR FREE on my computer anytime I want. It's "Internet downloading," so why isn't it taking over?

The reason why is the general isn't going to abandon traditional ways of listening to music or watching movies just because they have a computer or a portable device like an iPod or Sony PSP.

Everyone I know who owns an iPod also still listens to music on the big stereo systems in their living rooms. They still use the CD players in their cars. The iPod just adds another way how they can enjoy their music.

I have a decent number of music video and concert DVDs in my collection. I can see the same videos on YouTube or some other portal anytime for free. According to those "journalists" I should be shit-canning those discs. But I'm not. The damned discs are a lot better, even if the alternative is free.

quote: Flame Bait Article
Don’t expect Steve Jobs to budge from his “bag of hurt” understatement. Or Final Cut Studio support for Blu-ray.

Steve Jobs is certainly putting a smile on the face of executives at Adobe Systems. The company's new Production Studio CS4 suite is the 2nd version featuring BD authoring capability.

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 10-29-2008, 09:23 PM:

I don't understand the mentality of people who declare Blu Ray a 'failure' in light of the fact that 8 months has elapsed since the demise of HDDVD and Blu Ray STILL hasn't taken over the entire planet.

Blu Ray hasn't yet taken over the world therefore it must be a complete flop. Wow.

Hasn't anyone heard of patience? Is everything now about instant gratification?

As for Apple, I'm confident that as Blu Ray takes hold (and it is taking hold, looking at statistical trends) they will include Blu Ray burners in their machines and include full software support, too. [Smile]

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-29-2008, 09:36 PM:

What about Microsoft? Why can't they just say Oh hell, we're adding Blu-ray to the xbox-360? [Confused]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-29-2008, 09:50 PM:

The problem with Apple's apparent strategy of waiting until Blu-ray becomes a fully mainstream item before supporting it is they'll have a lot of ground to make up with rivals.

Apple didn't wait until 50 some-odd million DVD players were sold before doing much to pioneer the enthusiast DVD authoring market with Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro and iMovie. Apple did much to define the DVD authoring market for both casual users and professionals with those tools. With placing so much emphasis on the iPods, iTunes and iPhones business, the company's executives seem willing to wait for others to take a big lead on Blu-ray.

It's more than a little odd none of the enterprise level Blu-ray authoring systems run on OSX. They're all Windows based. Obviously, Sony's Blu-print and Blu-code systems would be PC-based. I expected Sonic Scenarist to feature both Mac and PC versions, but was surprised to find none for OSX. But that's a very specific, high priced niche industry.

Blu-ray movie playback on a computer is a more basic thing. Lots of Windows PCs can do that now. Although you can now buy BD burners for Mac towers and notebooks, there doesn't seem to be any BD movie playing applications for Macs.

IMHO, that's going to grow into a serious marketing issue if Apple sticks to its guns on refusing to incorporate Blu-ray into Mac product lines.

quote: David Stambaugh
What about Microsoft? Why can't they just say Oh hell, we're adding Blu-ray to the xbox-360?

I think it's about them saving face and not appearing to give up any ground to Playstation 3. There's always some rumor buzzing on how Microsoft is going to release an add-on Blu-ray drive or something. I doubt if that will ever happen, especially if standalone BD player prices drop significantly lower over the next few months. If that happens even the PS3 will seem like a really expensive choice for Blu-ray playback (even though the PS3 has more uses).

Microsoft recently updated Windows Vista and WinXP to include OS-level support for Blu-ray disc drives (even though companies like Dell, Sony, Acer and others already worked around that issue).

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-29-2008, 11:04 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Steve Jobs is certainly putting a smile on the face of executives at Adobe Systems. The company's new Production Studio CS4 suite is the 2nd version featuring BD authoring capability.

Adobe's Encore is awful, absolutely horrible. It is a complete joke, even for normal DVD. It is sad that it is one of the few BD authoring options.

Posted by Michael Barry (Member # 237) on 10-30-2008, 04:32 AM:

Has Steve Jobs ever elaborated about his 'bag of hurt' when it comes to Blu Ray? Is there a valid technical reason for his unhappiness?

I'm sure that it's not going to be a priority for Apple while he feels this way...but why does he feel this way? Anyone know?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-30-2008, 07:15 AM:

It's called "Apple TV" and severely compressed 720p HD movies downloaded into it. Steve Jobs thinks everyone is just going to get an Apple TV device and not do anything with Blu-ray...or at least he's betting a lot on it.

quote: Joe Redifer
Adobe's Encore is awful, absolutely horrible. It is a complete joke, even for normal DVD. It is sad that it is one of the few BD authoring options.

Encore and Toast is about it for OSX. There is a wider variety of choices on the PC platform, which seems kind of strange. It doesn't fit the usual stereotype.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 10-30-2008, 09:58 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Iron Man moved over 500,000 copies in its first week and accounted for 20% of all discs sales, despite the relatively small install base of BD players in ratio with DVD players in service.

20% is an impressive number but compared with the 4% overall statistic it proves that except for a few selected titles people aren't buying BR movies to play on their PS3. Hollywood makes money on catalog...movies that have already been paid for and don't need a lot of promotion. Movies they have sold again and again every time a better delivery method becomes available. Movies for which they don't have to pay royalties. These are also titles with which they can make a better margin with each sale vs. widespread discounting to mass merchandise stores. Movies for which they don't have to offer huge return allowances.

Movie collectors are going to make or break BR and so far the numbers aren't impressive.

quote: Bobby Henderson
The fact remains that Blu-ray is growing faster in market acceptance than DVD did at the same point in its life.

DVD wasn't backwards compatible with VHS and collectors (again, the true consumer base we are talking about) had 20 years of catalog titles in VHS. They were indeed reluctant to adopt a new format until it was proven because it threatened to make their previous - and in many cases substantial - investment obsolete. Not so with Blu-ray. With proper marketing it should have taken off by now. HD-DVD had multiple times the installed base of set top players. The short-sighted studios (Warner in particular) opted to compare sales of the Spiderman, POTC, Harry Potter and comic book-based movies (kid's movies in effect) as their deciding factor. They would have been smarter to count the number of people who bought "Rio Bravo" and "That's Entertainment" in each format as that is the demographic with more disposable income.

Bobby - I agree with you on this...no one who is interested in Hi-Def will settle for lossy compressed downloads or any inferior quality. Nor will they pay out money for downloads that they can't own. On the other hand I feel that Sony and Fox and individuals like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg could have launched Blu-Ray through the stratosphere by pricing the hardware reasonably (which is only starting to happen) and releasing "irresistable" titles. It's too late now...they should have done it a year ago or at least early this year after the demise of HD-DVD.

The article draws a correct conclusion...Blu-ray will be a high-end item and the software will remain double the price of standard DVD. It is the Laserdisc market all over again.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-30-2008, 11:51 AM:

quote: Joe Tommassello
20% is an impressive number but compared with the 4% overall statistic it proves that except for a few selected titles people aren't buying BR movies to play on their PS3.

That 4% number of BD to DVD sales isn't accurate anymore. Starting with No Country for Old Men, BD unit sales in ratio to DVD have been closer to 10%. Iron Man opened a new plateau. The neg-head BD haters out there cherry pick statistics of movies like Baby Mama and compare its BD numbers to DVD. Very nice way to spin the argument.

The claim that people who own Playstation 3 consoles don't watch Blu-ray movies on them is a silly, tired myth.

Look back at the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray. The Playstation 3 is the very thing that won the way for Blu-ray on the hardware front. Standalone BD players were hardly selling at all during the format's first couple of years. Yet Blu-ray disc sales numbers were consistently running 200% to 300% better than disc sales of HD-DVD. Much of that business is all thanks to those Playstation 3 owners who don't watch movies on their PS3 devices.

This myth about the PS3 is often repeated by disgruntled "red ants" or anyone else rooting for the failure of Blu-ray. Certain people, particularly "journalist" bloggers at ZD Net, have nothing to gain from Blu-ray being successful. They're hoping online movie downloading takes off in popularity because it could improve computer hardware sales and possibly improve business for ZDNet. They also like posting the occasional "Blu-ray is going to die" article to generate flame fests. It results in lots of page visits and ZD Net makes money from that.

quote: Joe Tommassello
On the other hand I feel that Sony and Fox and individuals like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg could have launched Blu-Ray through the stratosphere by pricing the hardware reasonably (which is only starting to happen) and releasing "irresistable" titles. It's too late now...they should have done it a year ago or at least early this year after the demise of HD-DVD.

There has never been any new video format introduced with very low pricing. Suddenly Blu-ray has to be introduced with $99 players and $10 movies to be successful? Give me a break! The loss leader, no profit margin pricing from Wal-Mart's bargain bin is no barometer to use.

VHS HiFi players cost $700 and up in late 1980s dollar value when they were first introduced. I remember the first Dolby Surround capable stereo systems commanding outrageously ridiculous prices. The first DVD players were very expensive (and very crappy).

If any new video format had to be introduced with hardly any profit margin at all, there would be no justification in developing the format in the first place. Electronics companies are not charities handing out welfare to everyone's living room. Blu-ray player prices are dropping and doing so at a faster rate than DVD ever did. Good quality players running well under $300 is very reasonable at this point.

The folks screaming for $49 BD players can feel free to wait another couple years or so. Those of us with BD players already will be enjoying our 1080p/24 HD movies in the meantime.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-30-2008, 12:23 PM:

The XBox 360 (and I believe, the PS3) were introduced to the market with pricing that resulted in NEGATIVE gross margins on each unit sold. You're saying no manufacturer would ever do that because it's illogical, but they did it. At one point MS was losing $100 on each 360 sale. The strategy was to sell the game console at a loss and hope to make it up on accessories & game titles. I believe MS eventually started turning a profit on the 360 but it took a while.

Is there not a single point in that ZDNet article that you can even sort-of agree with? [Razz]

Anyway I set up my PS3 last night, got it updated, all looks good. [Smile]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-30-2008, 12:47 PM:

I don't think the Xbox 360 will be turning a profit any time soon due to the fact the Microsoft had to spend billions to attempt to fix the shoddy hardware. An 80%+ failure rate will do that to you.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 10-30-2008, 01:13 PM:

quote:
That 4% number of BD to DVD sales isn't accurate anymore. Starting with No Country for Old Men, BD unit sales in ratio to DVD have been closer to 10%.

The 4% number is not on a title by title basis...it's overall sales of discs in both formats. "No Country..." was the Oscar winner for best picture so "movie collectors" were more likely to pick that one up than "game players". How did a quality but more average title like "Michael Clayton" do? You are basing your analysis on MAJOR titles and ignoring where the real money can be made. I was in the video sales and marketing business for fifteen years and I know what I am talking about.

quote: Bobby Henderson
The claim that people who own Playstation 3 consoles don't watch Blu-ray movies on them is a silly, tired myth.

No, it's not. See below...

quote: Bobby Henderson
Look back at the format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray. The Playstation 3 is the very thing that won the way for Blu-ray on the hardware front. Standalone BD players were hardly selling at all during the format's first couple of years. Yet Blu-ray disc sales numbers were consistently running 200% to 300% better than disc sales of HD-DVD. Much of that business is all thanks to those Playstation 3 owners who don't watch movies on their PS3 devices.

If you were right BR would have had a 15-to-1 disc sales ratio over HD-DVD. There were (by your argument) more than fifteen times as many "blu-ray players" in use a year ago than HD-DVD. In effect HD-DVD owners were buying movies at EIGHT TIMES the rate of Blu-ray owners on a per player basis. In the end HD-DVD was closing the software gap with a small fraction of the number of units. So...

To clarify for you a second time...MOVIE COLLECTORS buy lots of movies of all genres and from all eras...game players buy video games and an occasional movie that appeals to them. How many copies of "Citizen Kane" do you think will ever see a PS3? Movie Collectors buy SET TOP players to play movies. They don't want to fight with their kids to get access to their BR player.

To fully disclose I do have HD-DVD but I also have Blu-Ray. I even track BR releases in other countries for titles I can use that aren't released yet in the US so you see I have no animosity toward BR. But for future profitability the industry (WB primarily) made a mistake that set them back more than they expected and from which they must struggle to recover...if they can at all. This is because they spurned the format that was appealing to the consumer that was most prepared to give them profitable dollars.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Suddenly Blu-ray has to be introduced with $99 players and $10 movies to be successful? Give me a break! The loss leader, no profit margin pricing from Wal-Mart's bargain bin is no barometer to use.

Introduced? It's been two years! The article is right about this...Sony better stop trying to recoup the money they have spent in development and focus on making the software affordable or it will die. There is no reason "Close Encounters..." has to retail for $50. And the "no profit margin pricing from Wal-Mart bargain bin" is a very real and increasingly significant part of retail so you (and BR) ought not dismiss it.

quote: Bobby Henderson
If any new video format had to be introduced with hardly any profit margin at all, there would be no justification in developing the format in the first place.

Wrong again. That is EXACTLY how it is done...after they milk the early adopters like you and I. That time is up. "Give away the hardware and make the money on the back end." I heard it a thousand times.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Blu-ray player prices are dropping and doing so at a faster rate than DVD ever did. Good quality players running well under $300 is very reasonable at this point.

You are still not taking into consideration the massive VHS collections that were rendered obsolete by the conversion to DVD. That is not the case now...in fact Blu-ray ENHANCES their current collection. No, Bob, it's poor marketing and greed on the part of Sony that is primarily to blame. I am encouraged by the reports of $150 BR players becoming available soon. This holiday season is Blu's last shot at going mainstream - especially with all the forces (which the article adeptly outlined) working against it.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-30-2008, 02:42 PM:

quote: Joe Tommassello
The 4% number is not on a title by title basis...it's overall sales of discs in both formats.

Are you saying that 4% figure comes from when the HD-DVD and Blu-ray format war was still going? If that's the case you need to throw out that old figure and look at the fact that Blu-ray player and disc sales have increased very dramatically since then.

quote: Joe Tommassello
"No Country..." was the Oscar winner for best picture so "movie collectors" were more likely to pick that one up than "game players". How did a quality but more average title like "Michael Clayton" do?

Michael Clayton hasn't done very well on Blu-ray because it was a poorly reviewed disc (not to mention a very talky disc with nothing in terms of home theater demo material a new BD player owner wants). Warner Bros. put it onto a BD-25 with badly compressed video and lossy Dolby Digital 5.1. audio. WB has been beaten up pretty badly in home theater circles for repeating that formula on lots of titles in 2008, including the recent Speed Racer and Interview With the Vampire BD releases.

No Country for Old Men was one of the first hits released on Blu-ray after the format war officially ended.

quote: Joe Tommassello
You are basing your analysis on MAJOR titles and ignoring where the real money can be made. I was in the video sales and marketing business for fifteen years and I know what I am talking about.

Ooh woopie. That's supposed to automatically validate everything you're saying about how Blu-ray is doomed?

The home video industry does indeed make much of its money off big event titles. Not everyone is going to rush out to buy copies of Persepolis or There Will Be Blood.

If anything, it's even more impressive that Iron Man scored the kind of percentages it did against DVD sales. The sell through potential Iron Man on DVD to casual buyers was enormous compared to DVD sales potential on more modest releases. If the Blu-ray doom and gloom stories were accurate, the BD percentages of Iron Man against DVD sales should have been minuscule.

quote: Joe Tommassello
If you were right BR would have had a 15-to-1 disc sales ratio over HD-DVD. There were (by your argument) more than fifteen times as many "blu-ray players" in use a year ago than HD-DVD.

Spin the story however you like. The enthusiasm of a few "red ants" doesn't take away from the fact that Blu-ray disc sales were outpacing HD-DVD disc sales consistently by 2:1 and 3:1 margins. That's a big reason why Warner Bros. gave HD-DVD the boot. They were getting more money from Blu-ray sales. And PS3 owners represented the vast majority of paying Blu-ray customers.

Blu-ray had a better line up of studio support than HD-DVD. Blu-ray had a better overall supply of exclusive titles than HD-DVD.

quote: Joe Tommassello
To clarify for you a second time...MOVIE COLLECTORS buy lots of movies of all genres and from all eras...game players buy video games and an occasional movie that appeals to them.

"Movie collectors" who buy hordes of discs make up a tiny percentage of the market. Same goes for geeked-out gamers who spend fortunes on nothing but games. Those are polar extreme examples that don't have any resemblance to the buying habits of mainstream consumers who have game consoles and/or movie players in their homes. Most people buy a bit of both.

quote: Joe Tommassello
The article is right about this...Sony better stop trying to recoup the money they have spent in development and focus on making the software affordable or it will die. There is no reason "Close Encounters..." has to retail for $50.

That movie doesn't sell for $50. You can buy it Wal-Mart for under $30. I've seen Amazon price it for under $20 on occasion. Shop around. This situation is no different from how it was with the first few years of DVD.

BTW, lots of new release DVDs have MSRP listings of $24.95 and $29.95. Retail stores usually don't charge that much, unless you buy at places like Sam Goody. New DVDs sure as hell don't sell for $10 a pop either.

quote: Joe Tommassello
Wrong again. That is EXACTLY how it is done...after they milk the early adopters like you and I. That time is up. "Give away the hardware and make the money on the back end." I heard it a thousand times.

Name those "thousand times" in specifics. You're talking like DVD players dropped to $39 a pop only a year or two after they were introduced. It also sounds like you want those companies to give away both the hardware and software. That's a good business model.
[Roll Eyes]

In April of 1999, at the year 2 mark of DVD, I bought my first player, a Sony BVP-S530D for roughly $450 (which is more like $600 today). In 2001, at year 4 of the DVD format, I bought a Pioneer 5-disc DVD changer ONLINE for $250 at ecost.com. Retail stores were wanting more than $300 the same thing.

The first Apex player wasn't introduced until 2000, year 3 of the DVD format -at a price of $179. That seemed really cheap then. People didn't buy it for the price. They bought it for its ability to bypass Macrovision so copies could be dubbed off onto VHS tapes for those who didn't have a DVD player. It took another couple of years before DVD players costing under $99 became a common thing.

Still, the Blu-ray doom and gloomers believe $99 players should have already been happening anyway. I suppose Toshiba's $99 fire sale last Black Friday on an obsolescent HD-DVD player model was supposed to serve as some sort of precedent. The truth is Toshiba was desperate to keep HD-DVD afloat and went in the hole deep doing that.

quote: Joe Tommassello
You are still not taking into consideration the massive VHS collections that were rendered obsolete by the conversion to DVD.

DVD didn't render those VHS collections obsolete. DVD didn't torpedo the functions of existing VHS players. People could still use their tape players, and many did for years.

During the first few years of DVD's existence there was a serious amount of mainstream resistance to the format with lots of anti-DVD arguments similar to what we're hearing against Blu-ray. Back then we heard: "DVD isn't going to sell because no one wants to buy an expensive surround sound system." There was: "DVD isn't going to sell because the movies are letterboxed and no one is going to buy a wide screen TV"" Of course there was: "DVD is too expensive" and "DVD is too complicated" and "people are happy with their VHS tapes.".

DVD also had its own format war against DiVX, which made the situation for DVD look even worse. Add to that the economic turmoil from 2000-2003. Yet people now look back with unanimous agreement that DVD was a very successful format.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 10-30-2008, 03:57 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Are you saying that 4% figure comes from when the HD-DVD and Blu-ray format war was still going?

No, I am saying that for every 100 movie discs sold only four are BR. That may be five or six by now. I hope so.

quote: Bobby Henderson
Ooh woopie. That's supposed to automatically validate everything you're saying about how Blu-ray is doomed?

The home video industry does indeed make much of its money off big event titles. Not everyone is going to rush out to buy copies of Persepolis or There Will Be Blood.

No, but that industry experience does give me an insider's knowledge of how the studios make money in video. The video industry turns a lot of dollars on event titles but doesn't make a lot of money. They are a loss leader. There is more money made on one copy of Casablanca than on ten copies of Iron Man. "Evergreen" titles are very significant in the overall model. The studios NEED people to buy catalog if a format is to remain viable because there is no margin on "big event titles".

quote: Bobby Henderson
Spin the story however you like.

Where is the spin? If there were over fifteen times as many BR players and only twice as many BR discs selling (a margin which was shrinking towards the end) it's a matter of fact. A factor of eight. For every one movie the average BR owner bought there were eight bought by HD owners. It is apparent that (unlike myself) many - if not most - HD owners have not yet made the leap to BR. Why? Disenchantment is part of it since they were buying movies at a healthy pace for a format that is practically obsolete after approximately a year, but also because the price of the hardware remained too high. This was Sony's big mistake which they are now hoping to correct.

Bob - We both know that Sony AND Toshiba were waving big bucks at Warner Brothers to get them exclusive. WB made the choice they did in part for what you say - double the sales on "selected" titles - but also because they wanted the bigger up front payoff. It was a calculated move and one that the industry is not yet certain was in it's best interest. I suppose you have heard how close they (WB) came to going the other way? That was because of the undeniable evidence that HD-DVD owners - on a per player basis - were far outspending BR owners on movie purchases. It might even have been higher if Sony hadn't bought up space in the major stores as early as they did (one of their rare, smart marketing moves). Yet in spite of all it had in it's favor BR still only delivered a fraction of the sales on a per set basis that HD did. The studios don't look at one title. They make more money from a copy of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" than they do from ten copies of "Iron Man". They look at developing a market that will be lucrative for years and you don't do that with two hit movies per year.

quote: Bobby Henderson
"Movie collectors" who buy hordes of discs make up a tiny percentage of the market.

If you are counting the market for "Iron Man" that would be a correct statement but - and especially considering that we agree BR had a better slate of exclusive titles - what do you think HD-DVD owners were buying at a rate of 8-to-1 over BR owners? Catalog...The Sting, That's Entertainment, Casablanca, Adventures of Robin Hood, The Searchers, etc. Each a lucrative combination of title and price point allowing the studio to actually make some money. That is, after all, what they are in business to do. The 8-to-1 figure is made even more impressive when you consider that BR was picking up an extra 100,000 units on an event title. BR owners had to have been buying almost NO catalog (profitable) titles!

Here's the most direct analogy I can present, tailored for Film-Tech...

Iron Man BR = Theater selling Movie ticket
Rio Bravo BR = Theater selling Large Popcorn

You need the loss leader and the profit center. BR has yet to develop the profit center.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-30-2008, 05:01 PM:

I am not going to read all of those lengthy posts, but I have one question for Joe Tommassello:

What is your point? Is Blu-ray bad? Is it going to die? Should we ignore it? Is it scary?

I'm pretty sure that 99% of theaters sell not only movie tickets, but large popcorns as well.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-30-2008, 06:45 PM:

quote: Joe Tommassello
No, I am saying that for every 100 movie discs sold only four are BR. That may be five or six by now. I hope so.

It still sounds like you're using old, outdated figures from when HD-DVD and Blu-ray were going at it and had millions of interested people waiting it out. In the first couple of years of DVD sales of that format were tiny compared to VHS. That didn't mean studios had to pull the plug on it.

The format war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray has been over for barely half a year now. The folks issuing all these premature doom and gloom statements against Blu-ray sound very stupid for at least not having the prudence to wait out this year's holiday shopping season to see how Blu-ray hardware and software does unopposed by HD-DVD. I think it's going to do pretty damned well.

On top of that, there is absolutely no getting around the fact that DVD is and will only be standard definition. Once you buy that new, phiggidy HDTV screen anything standard def is crap. I'm very serious about selling off much of my DVD collection. I don't watch the damned things anymore. I'm spoiled to HD quality and Blu-ray is the best HD anyone can get in their living room. Simple as that.

quote: Joe Tommassello
No, but that industry experience does give me an insider's knowledge of how the studios make money in video. The video industry turns a lot of dollars on event titles but doesn't make a lot of money. They are a loss leader. There is more money made on one copy of Casablanca than on ten copies of Iron Man.

Have you checked what Paramount charged for the 2-disc BD of Iron Man? Your statement tells me you didn't do that. The BD of Iron Man would be loss leader priced if it sat on store shelves with a price well under $20 or even under $15.

Most brick and mortar retail stores were charging at or near $30 for Iron Man Blu-ray discs. They were also charging well over $20 for the deluxe DVD edition too. Nonetheless, retail B&M stores recorded 20% of their disc sales to be Blu-ray on that title. Going online, where Iron Man was discounted better (under $25) the BD sales rate jumped as high as 50% in ratio to DVD.

I even complained about this pricing issue in a couple different forums from this one. Iron Man established new sales records for Blu-ray, despite the usual pricing. I figured Paramount would have moved a lot more copies if they had priced it at or under $20. Pre-order pricing on The Dark Knight is running in the same $24 territory at Amazon. We'll see how copies of that movie jump off store shelves pretty soon.

quote: Joe Tommassello
Where is the spin? If there were over fifteen times as many BR players and only twice as many BR discs selling (a margin which was shrinking towards the end) it's a matter of fact. A factor of eight.

One insane "red ant" buying 8 copies of The Bourne Identity on HD-DVD doesn't make a damned bit of difference. Overall sales totals, I repeat OVERALL, had Blu-ray besting HD-DVD in cumulative sales totals by a 2:1 and then 3:1 margin. And those huge leads were gained on the backs of Playstation 3 owners. There is no getting around that. I don't give a damn if you can point out one die hard HD-DVD nincompoop who bought 10,000 HD-DVD discs. It didn't make a freaking difference in the overall cumulative figure.

Strength in numbers, dude. That's why Blu-ray won. More people had Blu-ray players, even if they were in PS3 packaging. A minority of HD-DVD owners buying discs like there was no tomorrow wasn't going to change that. A legion of PS3 owners hijacked the format war into the direction they wanted and dragged everyone else on for the ride. And I'm glad too. Blu-ray is the better format, even if the latest Internet-connected bullshit arrived a year or two late. A 50GB disc with 54Mb/s of bandwidth beats a 30GB disc with a mere 36Mb/s of bandwidth.

[ 10-30-2008, 09:20 PM: Message edited by: Bobby Henderson ]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-30-2008, 07:06 PM:

Bobby and Joe: You guys need editors. How about summarizing your posts with "bullet points" at the end? [Big Grin]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-30-2008, 09:22 PM:

How about this:

Anything in home theater sucks it compared to Blu-ray.
[Big Grin]

Bud Lite. Suck one.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 10-30-2008, 09:56 PM:

Joe Tommassello,

Even if it is true that HD-DVD owners purchased more movies on average than Blu-Ray owners, that doesn't say HD-DVD was better. People report profits in terms of money, not money per customer.

And as Blu-Ray got more popular, more average people joined in, thereby decreasing the average per customer.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-30-2008, 10:45 PM:

Bill Hunt at The Digital Bits has a pretty good rant about the ZD-Net article from Robin Harris in his 10/30/08 daily column.

He alludes to the same suspicion I have that the guy wrote the article merely to stir the pot and attract angry visitors to the web site (which does result in improved advertising sales).

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 10-31-2008, 12:55 PM:

quote: Chris Slycord
And as Blu-Ray got more popular, more average people joined in, thereby decreasing the average per customer.

Right. How long do you think it will survive if that continues? They need to get their per(hardware)unit software sales up. The studios are not in business to provide us with cheap higher quality entertainment. They either have to keep the prices of the movies high or start selling more profitable titles. I want Iron Man for under $20 on BR. I think an additional $5 is a reasonable fee for the better quality, but not 80-100% more like it is now. ($15 in SD, $30 in BR)

quote: Joe Redifer
What is your point? Is Blu-ray bad? Is it going to die? Should we ignore it? Is it scary?

I'm pretty sure that 99% of theaters sell not only movie tickets, but large popcorns as well.

Blu-ray is fantastic. It's so good it IS scary! But it might die and that would suck. Joe - you are right about the theaters...but the Blu-Ray buyers aren't buying the "large popcorn" yet. The reason is because set top player (intended for movie viewing) penetration is weak and PS3 owners are not buying them. Give me "Dark Knight" for $20 since the SD version will be $15. That will help spark hardware sales. When enough people buy players primarily to watch movies on (instead of playing games) there will be a market for "Close Encounters..." at $50.

Let's look at some of Bill Hunt's "rant":

"The BDA's licensing fees are too high, and there are still too many barriers...Blu-ray Disc player and movie prices are still too high. Studios should cut software prices across the board by $5 to $10. Profile 2.0 players should become standard and cheap, and fast. The need to continually update player firmware for title after title has been very frustrating...a pain in the ass...the industry should take a look at Harris' recommendations for what a more "forward looking strategy" for the Blu-ray format ought to look like."

What is he saying about hardware and software that varies at all from what I am saying? The only variation is how long we seem to feel BR can languish in limbo before it either catches on with the mainstream or becomes relegated to a higher-priced "videophile" format (like Laserdisc was) or...worst of all...dies completely.

I am buying multiple titles every week. I just ordered "The Producers" from Japan and "From Dusk Till Dawn" from Canada. I am investing in this format not because I want it to fail but because I love the quality. But the hardware and software suppliers have to step it up right now to make this format what it could and should be. How long will Best Buy devote 15% of their valuable movie merchandising space to a format that is only 5% of their movie sales?

Posted by Tom Mundell (Member # 4555) on 10-31-2008, 02:08 PM:

I think you're taking some extremes in your price comparisons though. For Iron Man the 2 disc special edition DVD version has the same msrp as the blu-ray version; in practice the blu-ray seems to be around 3-5 dollars higher. There is also a single disc non-special edition DVD which is a lot less but there is no blu-ray to compare that to. For Close Encounters $50 sounds like a lot, but the DVD equivalent is $40. That's msrp for both, either can be found for much less. I don't think Blu-rays pricing is completely unreasonable for a two year old technology. (I still remember some $40 suggested retail prices for DVD movies in pan and scan only from companies like Fox and Disney for the first couple years after dvd was available.)

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-31-2008, 02:56 PM:

quote: Joe Tommassello
Give me "Dark Knight" for $20 since the SD version will be $15. That will help spark hardware sales. When enough people buy players primarily to watch movies on (instead of playing games) there will be a market for "Close Encounters..." at $50.

Again, there's next to no one charging $50 for those Close Encounters discs. But if you want to give me $50 for mine, I'll gladly take it and go get another copy for $25.

Regarding The Dark Knight pricing:

Amazon has the plain single disc DVD version of The Dark Knight listed pre-order for $16.99. The MSRP for the single disc DVD is $28.98.

Amazon is offering the 2 disc DVD + digital copy version of The Dark Knight listed pre-order for $22.99 -full MSRP is $34.98. Again, this is a DVD package we're talking about.

Amazon has the Blu-ray + digital copy version of The Dark Knight listed pre-order for $24.95. Full MSRP is $35.99.

quote: Joe Tommassello
What is he saying about hardware and software that varies at all from what I am saying?

For one, he's not making some absolutely baseless claim that PS3 owners don't buy Blu-ray movies.

Here's a little news flash: gaming title selection for PS3, particularly with titles that are exclusive to the PS3 platform, have been pretty freaking weak. The Blu-ray playback capability has been one of the main selling points.

Lots of non-gamers have been buying Playstation 3 consoles because those devices still blast all the standalone BD players into the water in categories like superior movie compatibility, low access times, shorter BD Live download times and overall future proofing. For a long time, PS3 was the least expensive Blu-ray player as well. Some early adopters paid a high premium for basic Profile 1.0 standalone players and had a good amount of hell with them. Most early Blu-ray adopters opted for the Playstation 3 instead.

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 10-31-2008, 03:24 PM:

quote: Joe Tommassello
Right. How long do you think it will survive if that continues?

I think it'll survive just fine. VHS survived despite the fact that lots of people purchased few movies per year and the same thing has happened with DVD.

It's going to go the same general route as any other format has, only in this case the prices are actually dropping faster than they had in the past (esp fast if you compare the price of the first DVDs/players in today's money).

Sure, it would be even better for the movie industry if everyone bought gobs of movies. But that is highly unlikely to happen. The prices WILL come down. With each person who starts buying movies, that's just a plain increase in number of disks being sold.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-31-2008, 03:50 PM:

Do DVD versions of movies have Digital Copies? I'd be more tempted to buy the DVD version if it did not. Analog forever!!!

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 10-31-2008, 04:28 PM:

quote: Chris Slycord
I think it'll survive just fine. VHS survived despite the fact that lots of people purchased few movies per year and the same thing has happened with DVD.

Chris - VHS was an entirely different sales model. Studios sold "non-event" titles for $60 to $80 COST on most movies. "Event" titles sold 20 to 30 MILLION copies. But the studios made their profit on the "rental-priced" titles. They don't have that with DVD. Volume of sales is dropping and soon they will start thinking again about multiple pricing platforms. You watch...some studio will float the "priced for rental" idea again in 2009.

As for "Dark Knight" pricing we all know that Amazon will likely ship the standard DVD at $14.95 to match the mass merchants pricing. Hence the BR should sell for $19.95 if they want to make an impression. Sure it has all the features of the two-disc special edition DVD but I don't give a damn about that shit...I just want to enjoy the movie. I don't want the second disc...I don't want the digital copy...I don't want the BD-Live (which will be all advertising anyway)...I just want the movie in Hi-Def. I will not spend $25 for it. I'll wait and get it a year later for $10 on a BOGO if I still am interested in buying it at all.

quote: Bobby Henderson
For one, he's not making some absolutely baseless claim that PS3 owners don't buy Blu-ray movies.

Bob - except for what you labeled as "event titles" they are not buying much. See this article:

http://www.inquisitr.com/3707/blu-ray-down-dvd-sales-flat-a-crisis-in-consumption/

You guys don't have to convince me that Blu-ray is great but it has to grow in market share to be viable. Sony predicted it would be 50% of disc sales by the end of this year. It's struggling to hit 10! It will probably survive but in what capacity is far from certain. One thing is for sure - the people that run Sony have their heads up their ass!

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-31-2008, 04:29 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
there's next to no one charging $50 for those Close Encounters discs

I just got back from Suncoast Video and they want $49.99 for that title. They want full retail for about 3/4ths of their entire BD stock. Might be closer to 90%. A few titles are marked down 15%-20%.

PLEASE don't tell me to go look online. I'm not a complete moron. I'm just telling you what some brick-and-mortar stores are charging. BB and CC are the same way. They do not discount every title, not 1 cent. Go look at Target and Wal-Mart and they're not all that low, except on special deals.

Not all DVD & BD buyers (present or future) buy online. Someone is buying at brick & mortar stores, and that's where some people's price impressions are formed, and Close Encounters at $49.99 seems like crazy talk.

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 10-31-2008, 04:43 PM:

IIRC, Close Encounters was $39.99 at Target when I looked at it last. And it has what, 3 different versions of the film on it? True, if they did a seamless branching thing that might have been better, and cheaper. The Blade Runner 5 disc edition for comparision has 4 different cuts of the film, plus 1 disc of extras (I think) and is roughly the same price. I dont know exactly how long Blu Ray has been out, but IIRC, DVD prices were about on par with BR prices in it's infancy, not too mention the cost of the units themselves. Prices will drop over time I'm sure.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 10-31-2008, 04:44 PM:

Suncoast has always been expensive. I never remember seeing a good price for anything in there. I don't even think they exist here any more because we don't put up with their shit.

I bought the Blade Runner Blu-ray pack at $20 or $25 I think at Target. Close Encounters uses seamless branching. One disc for all three versions. VERY well done! I think it has another disc for extra nonsense as well as a fold out map and some clipped hair from Richard Dreyfuss himself.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-31-2008, 05:26 PM:

According to amazon the list price for Close Encounters on Blu-ray is $49.95 (I was off by 4 cents). Amazon's price is $34.95. Walmart online is $32.86.

The list price for Iron Man is $39.99. Because I wanted it NOW and Suncoast had it for like $32.99 I bought a copy there. Amazon's price is $25.95. Walmart online is $25.86.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-31-2008, 05:35 PM:

quote: David Stambaugh
I just got back from Suncoast Video and they want $49.99 for that title.

The Wal-Mart stores here have Close Encounters of the Third Kind on BD for $29.99. They've had the movie at that level for a long time. Sam's Club has it for $28.

quote: Joe Tommassello
As for "Dark Knight" pricing we all know that Amazon will likely ship the standard DVD at $14.95 to match the mass merchants pricing.

You don't know with any certainty the movie will be discounted by retailers to that level. Predictions were made about Iron Man being priced aggressively low, but that didn't happen.

Also, look back at those full MSRP prices on the DVD versions of The Dark Knight. You love quoting the full MSRP of any Blu-ray movie as if that is what everyone is paying for it. Strangely, you don't keep the same level of consistency when mentioning DVD pricing. You prefer only to mention the discount rate. At the very least, that's SPIN. It could be called lying.

The article you linked is another piece of bullshit spin as well. The "epic fail" Blu-ray graphic shows the red ant bias right off the bat. There's lots of those "doom and gloom" articles out there. Lots of cherry picking data to give the article the right flavor loved by red ants everywhere. There's no shortage of articles showing major sales increases over the past year, but red ants don't like reading any of that.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-31-2008, 05:37 PM:

I don't know why you guys are spending so much time bitching about the prices of Blu-rays. You're supposed to be all happy about the money you're saving by not going to theatres. What happened to that happiness?

Want to really save money? Then instead of being being all 'instantgratificationIwantitnow,' just wait for the things to be in the discount cutout bargain bin, which they will be as soon as the next generation special edition souped up version comes out in about a year or less.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 10-31-2008, 05:40 PM:

Suncoast Video wants $49.95 for Close Encounters. That's all I said. You don't have to refute everything.
What the fuck is a "red ant"? Is there a drinking game going on that I didn't hear about? Don't make me google it.
EDIT: I lied and/or was mistaken. Circuit City's price on Close Encounters is $35. Iron Man is $30. I will admit when I've made an error. [Big Grin]

I didn't price-check everything on their rack but those BD titles are discounted.
I'm editing this post from the PS3, using a Logitech Bluetooth kbd. It sort of works.

[ 10-31-2008, 09:36 PM: Message edited by: David Stambaugh ]

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-31-2008, 09:53 PM:

quote: David Stambaugh
Suncoast Video wants $49.95 for Close Encounters. That's all I said. You don't have to refute everything.

I'm refuting the shit Joe said. He throws the $50 term for CETK out there like that is what everyone is going to have to pay anywhere they buy that Blu-ray movie. I provided a couple of specific examples where the $49.99 MSRP is not in effect -and it isn't in effect in most places. Nevertheless, Joe comes back and tosses out that damned $50 full MSRP figure again. On top of that, he insults everyone's intelligence by conveniently only using discounted rates for DVD pricing. Anyone who pulls that shit needs to be called on it. It's bullshit spin.

quote: David Stambaugh
What the fuck is a "red ant"?

"Red ant" is a derogatory term for a die-hard, dyed in the wool (and often blind to truth) hardcore HD-DVD fanboy. There's a lot of disgruntled, scored HD-DVD fanboys looking for any opportunity at all to shit on Blu-ray. The ZD Net dude trolling for readership and ad dollars certainly got a lot of disgruntled HD-DVD fans cheering with his article.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-01-2008, 12:18 AM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
You're supposed to be all happy about the money you're saving by not going to theatres.

But we work at theaters so we get movies for free! Oh, wait...

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 11-01-2008, 12:54 AM:

Cool, I'm not a "red ant". Sorry I got annoyed.

So I just finished watching my first BD movie, Iron Man, via the PS3. Both the video quality and audio quality are incredibly good. As hoped for. I can't really fault anything about the PS3's speed of loading the disc etc. In fact it might be faster loading than my Oppo upscaling DVD player. The PS3 is outputting 1080p 24fps and although I wouldn't say it looks exactly like film, it does look film-like, and that's a good thing. My Samsung LCD converts everything to 120Hz and the AMP feature is set to "low". More experimentation needed.

I did a quick comparison between Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby True-HD, and True-HD sounds much better. That is a slight surprise, was skeptical about being able to hear any real difference. I did though. I had to delay the audio (on the receiver) by about 4 frames to get optimal sync with the picture, no big deal.

All is not perfect though. I'm using a Pioneer receiver, model number is something 1018 something, a recent model with 3 HDMI 1.3a inputs. I'm using HDMI exclusively from input sources to the receiver to the TV. The HDMI handshaking between devices seems to be very slow sometimes. This makes playing with any of the BD extra features frustrating because you can lose both video and audio for several seconds. Every time you select a menu option or whatever, HDMI has to resync. At least that's what seems to be happening. In addition to dropping the audio, the TV can't see any input signal. Not sure what's up with that. Is that normal for HDMI? My TiVo HD does the same thing via HDMI, so it's not particular to the PS3. Very annoying.

Playback of the movie was flawless though.

That's my initial report. Blu-ray may actually be the bomb after all. [beer]

Oh yeah, spent a couple minutes trying BD Live and the HDMI dropout problem made it unusable. Didn't look like I was missing much though. Trivia questions? [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 11-01-2008, 01:10 AM:

HDMI is wholly disappointing. This handshaking business is nonsense. It is so poorly implemented. The paranoia over piracy is taking its toll. It should just work, like component video does.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 11-02-2008, 12:54 AM:

The HDMI problem is mostly gone today. Not sure why other than everything has been rebooted.

OTOH, BD-Live still seems of dubious value.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-03-2008, 11:07 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
I'm refuting the shit Joe said. He throws the $50 term for CETK out there like that is what everyone is going to have to pay anywhere they buy that Blu-ray movie.

Bob - a check of dvdpricesearch.com showed a low of about $33 to a high of about $40 for CE3K in Blu. Granted $32 is a lot less than $50 but don't you still think that's a lot of money for that title?...especially coming from THE studio that is most associated with promoting the format! This is, indeed, laserdisc pricing.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 11-03-2008, 02:08 PM:

Obviously dvdpricesearch.com isn't updated to show the prices I'm seeing for that movie at Wal-Mart and Sam's. Both locations in my town currently offer it for just under $30.

Currently Amazon is selling CETK for $34.95, which is more than what they usually charge for CETK; however, on the same page they have a link to 42 new copies of it from $24.95 via other merchants.

quote: Joe Tommassello
Granted $32 is a lot less than $50 but don't you still think that's a lot of money for that title?

No.

The CETK 2-disc BD is worth $30 or even $40. It's a well done special edition release. Lots of 2-disc DVDs have tipped the pricing scales past $30. I paid nearly $40 for my Criterion Collection DVD version of Robocop. And that's just a single disc release.

quote: Joe Tommassello
This is, indeed, laserdisc pricing.

Actually, the new 2-disc BD is pretty affordable compared to some of the previous versions of CETK on Laserdisc -namely the Criterion Collection edition. I seem to remember that one costing over $100 brand new -that's the pricing I saw for it at the 4th & Broadway location of Tower Records in NYC back in 1990 when the LD box set was released.

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 11-03-2008, 03:26 PM:

Yeah those Criterion LDs got pretty pricey. I bought the first two releases...King Kong and Citizen Kane. I think they were $89 each and you could only get them directly from Criterion so there was no discounting initially. They were fantastic though. I wish I had saved the King Kong...the commentary by Ronald Haver was great. Maybe WB can license it for the Blu-ray version.

I am renting most titles these days from Netflix. I'll see some films in theaters, others on BR. If I liked it I will likely catch it again on cable. By the time it gets marked down or included in a special sale I'll know if I really want to buy it. I am a lot more likely to buy the "Once Upon A Time In The West" on BR than I am "Dark Knight".

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 11-03-2008, 06:56 PM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
Obviously dvdpricesearch.com isn't updated to show the prices I'm seeing for that movie at Wal-Mart and Sam's.

That's not surprising. Given the speed with which re-issues come out, older titles are re-priced, "specials" happen, etc etc etc., I would take any price-reporting service with a large grain of salt.

Posted by System Notices (Member # 2357) on 02-21-2011, 02:13 AM:

It has been 839 days since the last post.

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 02-21-2011, 02:13 AM:

I just read most of the replies in this thread, I skipped the rediculous long posts by a few. Great thread by Frank. I about 2.5 years late in responding.

quote:
1) Manufacturers will stop making SD-DVD players, so the only players you will be able to buy are Blu Ray players;

Pioneer made a DVD/LD combo player until 2009, this player even had a component out. That was 9 years after the last laserdiscs was released. DVD players will be made for a long time. I am pretty sure they still make VCR/DVD combos

DVD and Blu-ray will co-exist IMO for a very long time. Trouble with blu-ray is you need to spend a significant amount of money to enjoy blu-ray at its full potentional.

Also, it looks like nobody predicted that there would be dvd/BR combo packs

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-21-2011, 11:17 AM:

I think the days of DVD are numbered as we speak. Sales are falling every year, thanks to the deadly equation of Netflix + Redbox + the economy. Once enough people sign-up to streaming services to make that profitable enough for the studios, physical product won't be necessary anymore and/or will be higher priced for those who still want it.

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 02-21-2011, 12:38 PM:

Mike-if there is money to be made, the studios are going to do it. There are millions of people who have no interest in blu-ray as DVD is good enough. There are also millions of people who have no interest in downloading a movie.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 02-21-2011, 12:45 PM:

There were millions of people who had no interest in Compact Discs, but the record companies discontinued vinyl records anyway...

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 02-21-2011, 12:53 PM:

The record companies didn't force Compact Disc...it was the people's buying habits that did. The CD offered so much for so many, it wasn't a hard sell at all. All it really took was for the price of the CD-Players to come down to cause the switch.

With BluRay, that has already happened (reasonably priced players)...the BluRay players also play DVDs, output in SD (composite) as well as HD (Component and HDMI)...it is quite flexible. The only issue is that BluRay discs still command a premium price (on initial release, at least)...once that ceases...DVDs will be no more since their discontinuation won't "hurt" anyone (or not many). Attrition alone will deal with DVD players.

-Steve

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 02-21-2011, 01:33 PM:

Steve-The record companies did have a hand in forcing consumers as well. The record companies would not allow retailers to return their pre-purchased unsold stock (this is still going on today)

Record companies of course wanted to push compact discs. There was so much more profit to be made over a cd.

Buying habits of the consumer was the main cause, but the record companies did have a hand in it.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-21-2011, 03:49 PM:

quote: Steve Guttag
The only issue is that BluRay discs still command a premium price (on initial release, at least)

Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but BD's cost a lot less on release than they do in the following weeks. They are usually only a few dollars more than the DVD.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-21-2011, 05:37 PM:

quote: Tom Petrov
Steve-The record companies did have a hand in forcing consumers as well. The record companies would not allow retailers to return their pre-purchased unsold stock (this is still going on today)

Tom - once again you're showing how much you don't know. That has never been the case -- music stores always know the return terms, if any, when they buy product.

In the waning vinyl days, record companies always allowed returns of vinyl. How much could be returned depended upon the supplier. There were (and are) some suppliers who would take 100% returns, and others who would take smaller amounts -- but their prices were lower, so the retailer had to decide what to do -- pay more for 100% returnability, or go cheap but be stuck with almost everything you bought.

While it's true that there are more return restrictions now than there used to be, it's not like record companies suddenly said "sorry guys, you're stuck with all that vinyl." That didn't happen at all.

The whole "way more profit to be made" argument is silly as well. Don't you think manufacturers had to spend millions and millions of dollars developing the CD? Then they had to spend further millions to build plants, etc. The record companies would have been very happy to keep with the status quo, but the new product outperformed the old one by leaps and bounds, and was smaller and more durable besides, so the consumers bought it. Simple as that.

(In case you don't know, I've been in the music business since the early 70s so I know of which I speak here.)

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 02-21-2011, 06:23 PM:

quote: Mike Blakesley
Don't you think manufacturers had to spend millions and millions of dollars developing the CD?

I think

. But that's ok.

Personal attack removed by moderator.

[ 02-21-2011, 07:01 PM: Message edited by: Mike Olpin ]

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-21-2011, 06:27 PM:

Mike does know shit.

But I have no answer on how long DVDs and BR-DVDs will live 2gether 4 (as Frank asked).

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 02-21-2011, 06:32 PM:

quote: Joe Redifer
Mike does know shit.

It takes anyone with half a brain to know that cds are cheaper to make, pack and ship than a vinyl.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-21-2011, 06:48 PM:

Tom, obviously you have no idea just how expensive Compact Disc production and replication was in its early days. Mouthing off to Mike, someone who has been in the business of actually selling the product for decades, makes you appear very ignorant.

It cost a LOT more to create a music CD back in the 1980s than it did in later years. The technology was new. There were very few disc replication facilities. By the 1990s the replication costs had come way down due to a greater number of replication facilities and their ability to produce discs at a much greater scale. But vinyl was long gone by then.

The format that really killed the vinyl LP was cassette tape. Vinyl LPs were not portable. Cassette tape was portable. It could be used in boom boxes, car stereos and Sony Walkman type devices. Cassettes were cheap. If memory serves correct new music on cassette often cost less than vinyl.

Compact disc did become popular relatively quickly for its mostly clean sound, greater dynamics and ability to instantly cue to specific song tracks. No more rewinding tape. No more farting with record needles. I don't think CD could have been fairly called a "mainstream" product until the end of the 1980s. I remember music stores in New York City cleaning out all their vinyl records in the 1986-87 time frame.

quote: Steve Guttag
With BluRay, that has already happened (reasonably priced players)...the BluRay players also play DVDs, output in SD (composite) as well as HD (Component and HDMI)...it is quite flexible. The only issue is that BluRay discs still command a premium price (on initial release, at least)...once that ceases...DVDs will be no more since their discontinuation won't "hurt" anyone (or not many). Attrition alone will deal with DVD players.

Blu-ray discs prices have come down a little more. When you account for inflation, the prices of new movies on Blu-ray today are about the same as new releases on DVD 10 years ago.

Blu-ray is indeed a flexible format. All the players can play DVD and even work attached to standard definition TV sets (with output changed to 480p). One downside, new Blu-ray players made after Dec. 31, 2010 will not have the ability to send full 1080p HD resolution signals over component video outputs. It's part of what's called the "analog sunset."

DVD's days are definitely numbered. It's no longer the top physical format for watching movies and a number of downloading options have it matched for audio/video quality and beat handily in terms of convenience. I have noticed more movie studios are stressing Blu-ray and not even mentioning DVD in commercials for movies coming to home video. Wal-Mart is devoting more and more of its home video shelf space to Blu-ray and shrinking what is available for DVD. When I see the same take place at Sam's Club then the end for DVD will be near.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 02-21-2011, 07:24 PM:

quote: Tom Petrov
Steve-The record companies did have a hand in forcing consumers as well. The record companies would not allow retailers to return their pre-purchased unsold stock (this is still going on today)

It seems to me that not allowing record store owners to return unsold vinyl would have the opposite effect by leaving more vinyl in the consumer marketplace.

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 02-21-2011, 07:26 PM:

Mike-What it means is that record store owners will not stock an item unless they know it is going to sell well.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 02-21-2011, 07:40 PM:

I guess that makes sense.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 02-21-2011, 09:03 PM:

Hi Tom, two things. First, you are not living in Peru/Colombia/South Africa/Canada right now. We do REQUIRE a real and current location to participate in the forums.

Want to know what else we require? We require you not make personal attacks towards other members, especially members such as Mike who has extensive experience in this industry (as well as the music industry).

Now would be an excellent time for you to read the rules of these forums and make appropriate changes. [Smile]

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-21-2011, 10:50 PM:

quote: Tom Petrov
record store owners will not stock an item unless they know it is going to sell well.

Good thing you are not a music store manager. You'd have totally missed out on ... well, every "new" artist in history.

There's no way to know if an item is going to sell well, even by an established artist. The audio graveyard is filled with albums by mega-selling artists whose next album after a blockbuster is a big flop.

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 02-21-2011, 11:18 PM:

Mike-New artists today do not get a vinyl. It took Taylor Swift two established records to finally come out with one. They still count for about 1% of record sales. Most large chains will not stock vinyl, and I find it interesting that these are the same chains that sell new record players.

On the flip side, there are a lot of vinyl's that people do not know about. Movies like Scott Pilgram got a vinyl and so did "Where are the Wild Things"....

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-21-2011, 11:59 PM:

quote: Tom Petrov
Mike-New artists today do not get a vinyl.

You never said your comment was referring to LPs. You just said "an item."

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-22-2011, 09:00 AM:

Artist success has virtually nothing to do with an album getting a vinyl LP release today. Most artists and most record labels simply don't give a damn about releasing anything on vinyl.

The first album from Queens of the Stone Age in 1998 was released only on vinyl. While I enjoy that band's unusual music, I'm pretty sure they have sold nowhere near as many records as Taylor Swift.

The issue of who releases on LP and who doesn't must be taken on a band by band basis. Those who appeal more to the vinyl crowd may go to the trouble.

Björk and Nine Inch Nails aren't exactly mainstream acts yet both have released material on 180 gram vinyl before. You can buy the soundtrack to The Social Network on a 180 gram double album. The soundtrack is also available in a variety of download formats, standard CD and high resolution 24/96 stereo and LPCM 5.1 on Blu-ray Audio.

Posted by Dan Biegner (Member # 6026) on 02-22-2011, 09:32 AM:

In my neck of the woods, vinyl is actually pretty trendy. Personally, I only collect jazz and hip hop albums on vinyl. Everything else is either digital or CD. Most record stores here DO actually carry vinyl as a result. I know that's probably not true everywhere or just anywhere, but thought it'd be interesting to note that it is still a niche market.

It's also funny to see that a lot of "indie" bands do make it a point to put out vinyls. One of the first vinyl records I bought after moving here was Sufjan Stevens's "Greetings! From Michigan!" Came with a bonus track not included on the CD. I think maybe I need to pick up that Scott Pilgrim record though. Good soundtrack. Same with Where the Wild Things Are too...

Regarding blu-ray vs. DVD, I pretty much buy exclusively on blu-ray at this point, though I have no qualms with DVD. The image quality of blu-ray really is enough for me to prefer that to DVD. And since blu-ray have more "space," you can pack more features on them as well, and I'm a fan of that. I think Sony spoiled me with the PS3 though. I don't see the difference between blu-ray and DVD to be as big as the gap between DVD and VHS, but it is enough that I notice it and have a preference. But the technology is similar, so I don't need to replace my DVDs with blu-rays the way I had to replace my VHS tapes with DVDs.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 02-22-2011, 11:14 AM:

DVD's have become a commodity item whose value has been reduced so far that $4.99 is becoming a common price attached to anything but new releases. I see DVD holding on for a while, but it's losing ground fast to streaming solutions.

Probably the biggest key factor in the popularity of DVD is for in-vehicle entertainment systems. Even those are starting to feature input jacks, so the kids can just plug their iPods into the console and see sponge-bob up on the viewscreen in the minivan.

Blu-ray is taking the position that DVD once had, but I fear that streaming will take over. Even though its quality is substandard, the convenience for the consumer and the price attraction for the studios and places like Amazon and Netflix may cause us to lose physical media altogether in the next several years.

I will not buy a movie on DVD. I was offered a DVD copy of a movie to review for my site, and I turned it down. Reviewing a DVD is a waste of time, as anyone who cares about the quality of the image or sound, or about the extras, is going to be interested in buying the Blu-ray version instead. If all they want is to see the movie, they can stream it or rent it from Redbox for a buck.

DVD has lost its value to the point where it has no value. Once the streaming suppliers bulk up their selections, there will be little use for the digital versatile disc.

Posted by Dan Biegner (Member # 6026) on 02-24-2011, 09:14 PM:

You think the special features will be streamed too?

The Walking Dead first season was the first thing I bought on iTunes that wasn't music. (Don't have cable, so didn't know how else to watch it in good quality.) The "package" included a few special features, but it was barely anything. Granted special features on television shows can often be lackluster, but I wonder how big streaming or downloading will really be. Frankly, I don't think there is really adequate space on computers to download a lot (had to get an external harddrive just to store the six episodes of Walking Dead). And the reliance on internet access makes me not want to stream only. I think having a hard copy will stay around for a while longer. Streaming is nice, but my internet connection is too unreliable to use it exclusively. Right now, I view it more as a luxury (not that DVDs and blu-rays aren't also luxuries, but relatively speaking.)

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-25-2011, 10:59 AM:

I ordered a Polar Express Blu-Ray from Amazon last Christmas and right away I got a link to be able to watch it right then on my computer, or I could have watched it thru their site on Tivo (I think).

It's only a matter of time until broadband is widespread enough that THAT becomes the norm, and having a physical copy will be three or four times the money. Then it won't be long until "lesser" titles don't see a physical release at all.

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 02-25-2011, 09:18 PM:

Mike-I think you are a little too optimistic on the whole downloading thing. There will be a need for hard copies for a while. There are some that don't want to just download. I think downloading is still at least 5 years away and it will replace renting before it officially replaces buying.

Just my opinion, I still think there is a very large market for store bought movies.

Just curious, maybe you can comment. Can one purchase a movie from iTunes/Netflix or whatever and burn the copy and print the box cover?

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 03-08-2011, 11:34 PM:

Here is a good article that is relevant to this thread.

Sample of the article

"So what about Blu-ray? Yet another format to drain the pockets of film fans and collectors. The thought of starting all over again is exhausting in itself. But wait. This time around, it doesn't look like the new technological kid in town will get an upper hand for three simple reasons:

1) Old standard definition videotapes reveal hardly any picture quality improvement when up-converted to high-definition Blu-ray; therefore, DVD remains the favoured format for television programs and movies from the past.

2) Blu-ray machines can play older DVD films; both mediums exist in compatibility.

3) Last but not least, the biggest obstacle to terminating the DVD is that many consumers are quite satisfied with it, myself included."

There is no indication the DVD will fade away; in fact, it is predicted it will remain the dominant force in the home entertainment arena for years to come.

dvd-br

Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 03-09-2011, 12:20 AM:

Those articles miss the point. Blu ray doesn't have to quickly and totally remove DVD from the market to be successful.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 03-09-2011, 09:51 AM:

That piece by Andrew Merey on durhamregion.com is flawed in the very points he uses to support his opinion.

1) Old movies can look great on Blu-ray. It takes some effort to do a good transfer, but when it's done right, we get The Searchers and Casablanca. One would hope that he doesn't think that raiding the stack of GoodTimes videotapes is the way that DVD's and Blu-ray's are authored.

2) He got this one right, but it was an easy one.

3) This is a classic old-fogey response used by people that aren't necessarily old, but stuck in their ways nonetheless. When you watch a lot of HD, SD doesn't look so good any more.

That said, I don't think it's a zero-sum game. DVD doesn't have to die for Blu-ray to be successful. Streaming can work alongside both of them, but I think it poses the most serious risk to DVD, with Blu-ray becoming possible collateral damage if too many people are willing to overlook the diminished quality that is received in exchange for the convenience.

Of course, that could be just temporary if the bandwidth is available on both ends of the chain. I just watched an HD movie via Netflix Instant Watch on a 120" screen, and it looked pretty good. Good enough that most people wouldn't notice a difference between that and Blu-ray.

The movies he mentions would most likely appear on streaming services before any physical medium, due to the cost involved with pressing, distributing, and selling discs. Streaming seems to be an excellent way to deal with such titles, followed closely by Amazon's CreateDVD or whatever they call their burn-to-DVD process.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-09-2011, 12:50 PM:

I agree, that article from Andrew Merey is flawed on a number of the points it claims to make against Blu-ray and totally misses other points on why DVD is already doomed. And how exactly is durhamregion.com an authority source on movie-related news and opinion?

On point #1: there is massive difference between the native resolution of Blu-ray and DVD. The 1080p level literally has 6 times the number of native pixels as 480p. That's 600% improvement. DVD only doubled resolution above what VHS could show.

Movies made half a century ago can look EXCELLENT on Blu-ray and far better than any DVD or VHS counterpart. The studio must do a proper job acquiring the film image into the digital realm and mastering it. They can't just reuse some old wobbly HD telecine master used for creating DVDs.

On point #2: Yes, Blu-ray players can play both DVDs and Blu-ray movies (as well as CDs and even other kinds of multimedia from attached hard discs or flash drives). Customers don't have to get rid of old DVDs and replace them with new copies on Blu-ray (although they will end up doing that with their favorites).

Unfortunately Blu-ray and DVD can't coexist so easy in stores. DVD is the odd-man out here. There's little if any profit in DVD players and DVD movies anymore. Blu-ray player prices have dropped to extremely affordable levels; many players are available under the $100 price point now. Lots of stores are increasing the foot print they give to Blu-ray hardware and shrinking space available to DVD-only players. Blu-ray movies are holding onto retail space in stores like Wal-Mart much longer than their counterparts on DVD. A not so new movie on Blu-ray might stick around in the $10 discount shelves for a long time while a few copies of its DVD version are lost within a pile of DVDs in a $5 bin.

On point #3: Sure, lots of people are satisfied with their DVDs and keep getting along with that old DVD player until it breaks. Walk into most electronics stores now, even the electronics section in Wal-Mart, and you'll find more Blu-ray players than ones that do DVD only. And as cheap as the last remaining DVD players are priced, it gives at least some customers a bit of pause on how crappy a DVD player it might be. For another $20-$50 they can at least move up to an entry level Blu-ray player. Many of these DVD only users already have a flat screen TV capable of showing HD content.

In addition to declining profitability for retailers I think DVD is under a growing threat from video on demand. The old format is under a far greater threat from this than Blu-ray.

No VOD movie streaming service or any other cable/broadcast service really matches the audio-video quality levels of Blu-ray. But they can match or out do the audio-video quality levels offered by DVD.

If DVD quality is "good enough" for lots of people, why bother going to the video store to get it? Sign up for an "all that you can eat" Netflix account and stream movies to your heart's content.

With rising gasoline prices as well as cable/satellite companies raising their fees I think streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus are going to get a lot more popular. Their popularity and popularity of other upstarts will grow as Internet bandwidth and speed improves.

Serious movie collectors are or already have moved up to Blu-ray. Those who don't want to upgrade aren't necessarily so loyal to DVD either. Many of those customers will leave for PPV and VOD alternatives out of instant convenience and not having to burn up fuel driving to the store.