More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Just because every movie ever made is not yet available on Blu-Ray, isn't a bad sign. Jeesh. Because of the high expectations, almost every movie has to be twiddled with before it can be sold on Blu. They can only do so many at a time. When I look at all the movies that are available I am amazed that we have as many as we do at this point in a new format.

And I will say it again. If someone is OK with the quality of a HD downloaded movie, they should even bother wasting thier money on a Blu-Ray player and movies anyway. They obviously don't care that much aboout the picture/sound.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

The studios don't seem to think people care much about picture/sound otherwise I can't figure out why they see a value in packaging in digtial copies with High Def releases as often as they do.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Well, you see - nowhere in my post will you find me bellyaching that every movie ever made isn't out. So your "jeesh" is completely misplaced. Nor will you find any mention of downloading in any of my posts ever. What you will find in my post is the simple statement that about eighty percent of what's coming in the next few months is of no interest to me. You will also find that I enjoy Blu-Ray, love top quality discs and transfers, and harbor no ill will to anyone if they disagree with me. I don't ridicule them as a group. Nor does anyone else who's making their opinions known in the "doom and gloom" group (whatever that is).

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Sorry for the misunderstanding, the second paragraph in my post was not directed to you.

I also went back and re-read your post and I guess I misread it before. I was thinking your comment about what was coming out in the next few months was about the lack of catalog movies that I hear all the time. I read your post again and it doesn't seem that way this time. Guess I let my emotions get the best of me.

Sorry Billy.

Back to the subject. I just updated my chart of Blu-Ray Market Share over the last year. Even with last week being extra low (I think that the increase in DVD sales for fathers days effected the results), The Trend is still very positive.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

All I know is that the studios keep putting out films and I keep buying. I'm a little more discreet about what I purchase nowadays than what I was purchasing on DVD a decade ago, but I'm nearly at 200 BDs since I bought my player in February 2007, and I have 125 in my wish list, which only keeps growing as titles are announced.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Hi John,

Thanks for your thoughtful response to my post. I have been tempted several times to buy but have not been able to justify it. Prices have come down considerably and COSTCO is currently selling the Panasonic latest model for $228. The resume feature I refered to is stopping a movie mid stream and finishing it later...supposedly this functionality does not exist in most players. Perhaps updating firmware is not really a big deal, but it seems to me that one should be able to buy a player and "plug and play" with the expectation that all advertised funtionality is working and all commercially available discs should play. This gets back to perception that these products were launched too soon and without all the ducks being in a row.

There are some desirable titles available but the ones I am interested in are the great 30s and 40s films that are likely never to be on Blu. Fox's treatment of newer classics like Patton and Warner's insane pricing on OZ, Casablanca, etc. haven't done themselves any favors. In the meantime I have numerous great looking SD-DVDs of all kinds of classics to enjoy.

Don't get me wrong; I think Blu is a great format and I wish it success. If it succeeds we all benefit. I just see it achieving the level of success that its predecessors had.

Steve

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

I wouldn't be surprised at all if Blu-ray and DVD co-exist for many years to come. Many films, especially older titles, simply won't justify the work required (in terms of projected sales) for an HD release but will for a DVD. Example: The 1969 musical of "Goodbye Mr. Chips" was finally released in DVD with all the music and in widescreen. The old VHS was P&S, and I don't think all the overture and play-out music was there (could be wrong on this, though). Anyway, I'm thrilled to have a high-quality DVD transfer. It looks much better than it ever did in VHS. "Chips" is not going to be a big seller, though. I don't think we'll ever see an HD release of it -- but, boy, am I glad to have "Chips" in widescreen on DVD!

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

some kind of navigation error dumped my post....

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

While the titles are getting better, there isnt a whole lot coming out that I feel the need to have.

Must haves to the end of the year:
Coraline,Watchmen: Director's Cut,Jackie Brown, The New World: Extended Cut,Requiem for a Dream and Forrest Gump

Maybe's are Mad Men:S2,Pulp Fiction,Kagemusha(which is sure to be expensive)

Really not alot at all though I can understand why alot of others might be interested in titles Im not.

I like to get Benjamin Button and Im interested in Ghostbusters, and STILL havent gotten around to picking up Dr Strenglove,but $$ is tight right now.

There are also titles Ive wanted, but the studios have screwed up, that prevented me from buying.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

I may be totally off here, but I think this may have more to do with the disc than the player. It appears that the 'stopping point' information is somehow stored in the player's system memory (or in the "BD Cache" as it is called on a PS3) and the next time you insert your disc that information is retrieved. The reason I believe this may be a disc function rather than a player function is that it is handled differently from title to title.

First off, about the only time I am even conscious of using the feature is with TV-On-DVD Blu-rays. That said, on Star Trek TOS Season 1, when I put in a disc I was watching earlier, the disc immediately loads to the precise spot where I left off (bypassing all disclaimers, etc.) With Lost (and other Disney titles) though, they make a big deal out of this feature and call it "Season Play." You identify yourself as "Viewer 1","Viewer 2", etc. and every time you put in a disc, you still have to sit through all the disclaimers and warnings until you reach the main menu where you access season play and select your viewer profile and go back to the place you left off. I guess the advantage to the Disney approach is that more than one family member can watch the same season set without losing their place. Myself, I much prefer the Paramount implementation.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

HW pricing are coming down a bit faster than i thought they would. Software prices has a ways to go. I see a lot of comments on here about people spending $10-15 a disc, but that takes a lot of work and requires shopping around. When people can find DVD titles up by the register at Target, Walmart or Best Buy for $5, and see BDs on the shelf for $34 that just adds to their perception that the SW is too high. Studios are going to need to work with retailers to put some BDs in the bargain bin up at the front of the store.

I'm also interested to see what kind of discounts on BDs we see around the holidays and on black Friday

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

The players all have Resume. It's the discs utilizing Java menus that negate it. In the first 6+ months, or so, of the format all the BD's resumed, no Java. The last major label release I saw sans Java was New Line's Austin Powers set. So, it has Resume Small label stuff like The Big White have no Java. It resumes.

So, it's the Java, wiz-bang-poop, authoring that has negated the Resume feature. They either can't or won't provide it on these Java-tized titles.

Now, this is the post I had go amuck earlier.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

You would think more titles would support bookmarking which would with a few extra menu steps be like resume.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

$26.99 on amazon.com. Criterion BDs have the same MSRP as their DVDs.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

It depends on the disc programming. If the disc is programmed with HDMV, then it can stop-resume like a DVD no problem. If it's programmed with BD-Java they need to program a special workaround like Disney does with Season Play.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

I suppose the question is whether or not the trend is sufficiently steep to overcome another trend that some folks have been predicting, that being an overall decrease in demand for video discs, in general. Do you have a good source for that? Or more properly, do you have a similar graph showing the trend in the number of units sold?

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

I always have to smile when I hear people bragging about never spending more than ten to fifteen bucks for Blu-Ray discs. Yes, you can get a few titles for that price on amazon (usually the cheaper-priced Warners titles), and yes, you can occasionally find cheaply priced copies in used stores that get promos traded in (where I've gotten a lot of mine), but it does take work, and it has no basis in reality when you're talking about ninety percent of Blu-Ray buyers and the mass market. It doesn't matter if a handful of crafty people have figured out ways to get cheaper Blu-Rays - the pricing has to come down for real buyers, those who don't have all day to cruise websites or go to used stores to find deals.

Fry's has a wonderful bin of sale Blu-Ray's right up front - the cheapest disc I found was 22.95 - sorry, that's not cheap, not when in the bin next to it you can get the same movie on DVD for six dollars.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

I DO see retailers making inroads to offer cheaper Blu-ray discs. It's happening slowly, but it's happening.

Best Buy seems to have a solid amount of titles on sale from week to week and Wal Mart has a section of $10.00 and $15.00 discs.

A few weeks ago I snagged Superman Returns (True HD!) and Miami Vice for $15 bucks a piece.

Hard to get more reasonable than that.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Some films on blu-ray are still being released with a list price of $34.99. The recent Wolverine movies has a list of $39.99. The "sale" at Amazon has it priced at $27.99.

I'm sorry but $30 is a price beyond which I'm unwilling to pay, and I'm not happy about paying over $25 for any single movie.

It seems clear that the studios are not interested in the kind of adoption rates that DVD enjoyed. Frankly they never wanted home video to start with. They want to control where, when, who and how you see their movies, and they have been spending a good deal of their time since 1979 trying to undo the Betamax decision. Make no mistake they don't want you to be able to hold a movie in your hands, take it to a friends house, or, God forbid, make a copy. They also don't like the fact that a blu-ray player can be hooked up to a projector, and have a fairly high quality product projected in a commercial movie theater. This is going on now in some third world countries. They want to put the genie back into the bottle.

The problem is they now make the majority of their profit from home video, and they have to play nice for now. So they are trying to use technology to determine how and where and when, (and yes how often) you watch a movie. Ultimately they really want to see some cash every time you watch a movie. After all that is what they have come to expect over the last 100 years, why stop now.

A download to a self contained machine that is not easy to hack, like a DVR or a blu-ray player for instance, is controllable. Its not easy to get a copy off of these machines. At least not a perfect digital copy. And if its streaming the copy goes away as soon as you're done watching it.

I'm afraid this is the reality of the situation.

Doug

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

LOL, I know it is probably a mistake at Amazon but the 2 disc DVD set of Wolverine is $31.49 and the 2 disc blu-ray version is $27.99.

I hope this is true.

See BluRay movies are cheaper than DVDs. LOL

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Yes the price of DVDs has been creeping up for a few years now. Its one reason I don't buy many DVDs anymore.

Doug

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Methinks you doth protest too much:
You can see where people get the "doom and gloom" from.
This, coming from a guy who has at various points claimed that either most or none of the DVDs sold at or near launch were priced at anything more than $30, that there has been no title that sold as well as the "big guns" in DVD's history, and that DVD classics from the beginning (and not day-and-date sales) was the linchpin of success, all while claiming others "misrepresent what came with DVD".

Again, the "doom and gloom" moniker isn't coming from nowhere.
So, your personal account is the only thing that matters, despite the fact that at least one independent source (Adams Research) has discredited the Harris survey's methodology, numbers and conclusions?

And you've yet to provide any numbers of any sort in Blu-ray discussions to support your arguments, despite the fact that Nielsen releases new ones every week. Odd, that. To say nothing of the fact that the source of the "real numbers" and this survey has a pretty poor history when it comes to Blu-ray, as in predicting it was losing or would lost the format war only a few months before Toshiba bowed out.
This would make sense if Blu-ray hadn't already surpassed LD's 20-year-plus lifetime landmarks within 3 years. And replacing DVD the way the studios hope? DVD was the most successful video format in history by an astronomical margin, with the added bonus of having full support from every major and most independent studios from the very beginning.
Your "realist" position is more or less the equivalent of complaining that a runner who recently regained use of their legs (see above re: full studio support) can't get the same lap times when competing against an Olympic gold medalist who holds all of the world records, and can't get all of their endorsements. It's a flawed "realism" argument to begin with.
Actually, they have. They just weren't clever or cute, or were made by people who made multiple unprovable statements.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Brian, I don't have a chart with number of units sold. The best I can do is a chart of Weekly Blu-Ray sales.



This shows the revenue is able to still go up in the bad economy. I find that good news for the format.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

I saw this article from an Australian site - thought it may be relevant to this discussion - Is blu-ray losing its sting?. (More of a tech discussion about the quality though)

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

That doesn't have much relevance to this discussion at all, IMO.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

I don't know where you shop, or why in this economy you find looking for sales to be unnnecessary "work" but I've purchased about 1/4 of my blus from Fry's and their sales prices were from $12.99 to $16.99. I've never paid more than that. I pop in on Sunday, walk down the blu-ray aisle and pick up the titles I want that are on sale. Real hard work. Takes me 15 minutes total, including check-out. I didn't go last Sunday, but two weeks ago they had The Day the Earth Stood Still for $14.99 and today Butch Cassidy and the Sundace Kid for $16.99. Same with Target. Each week they have titles on sale for $14.99 - $19.99.

BTW, Fry's regular price for most blus is $22.99, so that wasn't a sale bin, simply a blu-ray bin. They have them throughout the store, but those aren't the sales, so your comparison is in error.

I have to smile when I hear people talking about the list price of blus. Aside from Best Buy, which I don't patronize anymore anyway, I have never seen a store that carries blus at the "quoted" list prices, and I have never paid those prices even once. Nor would I.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Fry's has a great selection and fantastic sale prices every week.


Unfortunately there are no Frys where I live. My area is limited to BB, Target and Wal-mart. Needless to say, most of my purchases are on-line.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Just to illustrate, here are some of my blu-ray titles with the "list" price, followed by what I paid (and none of my blus were purchased used):

Fry's/Target purchases:
Arlington Road (28.95) $9.99
Clear and Present Danger (29.99) $13.99
Dark City: Director's Cut (38.99) $9.99
Die Hard films (39.98 each) $13.99 each
Fargo (29.99) $14.99
The Hunt for Red October (29.99) $13.99
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (39.99) $13.99

Amazon purchases:
Halloween 1978 (29.99) $12.99
A Passage to India (28.99) $16.99
A Room with a View (28.69) $17.99
Sleepy Hollow (29.99) $14.99

And I've never paid more than $14.99 for my Warner Bros. catalogue blu-rays whether purchased online or at Fry's, Target or Costco.

This is just a very small sample of my collection, which is all like the above, price-wise, and all purchased new, not used. Yes, it would be great if prices came down, but I simply do not believe the people who say they only have the list price to pay. The sale prices are out there EVERY WEEK.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

That may show only that disc prices are rising but the current (affluent and/or dedicated) adopters are willing to pay higher prices. But per se it doesn't show anything about adoption rate.

I'm interested in this conversation, as I've not yet bought Blu Ray but have been seriously considering it. I've done a major HD upgrade this year and would like to go HD for movies. But with the cost of BR, the confusing and ongoing upgrades, and my modest DVD watching habits, I keep postponing it.

Re: More Research Asserts that Blu Ray Adoption Isn't Apt to Surge

Personally, I find it takes a lot less time to "cruise websites" for my shopping than driving to stores. Bargains are out there, and are not any more difficult to find than bargains for other merchandise.