When will the price of Blu-Ray hardware start to drop? (1 Viewer)

[Jerome Grate]

Based on what I read here and other forums the gist I'm getting is the price probably wont drop anytime soon. BD (with the Samsung release) is the weakest release to date. HD-DVD was in the same boat for a couple of weeks but each week a couple of movies are released, firmware upgraded and fixed various issues, meanwhile Sony has delayed their release ( I just got an email from Sony style) till October which translates to no price dropping for BD. For me it's tough in a two format war to spend that kind of money for a "1st Generation player". I'm glad some of you went to HD-DVD and some went BD because with out you guys we would not know what to expect from either product.

 

[Nick]

I bought My Panasonic for $499.00 at the "Nobody beats the wiz" the first month it came out. I forgot the model number. It's still working flawlessly till these days. My brother is currently using it. The only thing that it won't play is the rewritable disc.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

Not much of a revolution since BD is using Mpeg2

 

[Lew Crippen]

I agree that it is unlikely that they used consumer prices, but it is also unlikely that they used Toshiba’s real costs—that is known only to Toshiba.

iSuppli also has predicted that combination HD-DVD/Blu-Ray players would be on the market in 2006—a bold prediction indeed.

 

[Ron-P]

I'm sure it's been posted in here somewhere already but the rumor of Toshiba selling their players below cost and at a loss has been proven false. The president of Toshiba stated this himself. I'll see if I can locate the link.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Just curious, does the X-Box 360 function as a DVD player also? If so, what is the quality?

 

[Rob_Walton]

The president of Toshiba said no such thing. He called for a unified standard to his shareholders. Then lower down the article a Tosh exec working in Australia said he didn't think Toshiba would sell a device at a loss, based on his past experience with the company. The isuppli BOM estimate has yet to be challenged by Toshiba, and seems to be generally accepted as accurate, especially considering the expensive goodies included in the A1 box. Someone disagreeing with the BOM estimate would need to explain why the BD player is sold at $1000 and Toshiba are themselves selling their player for around $935 in Japan.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I just deleted some posts that added nothing to this discussion. If any of you care to continue that type of discussion then please do so off-line or some other forum. No more warnings!





Crawdaddy

 

[Terry-A]

i heard the price of the blu ray drives were alot more than the HDDVD drives....the sony blu ray is supposed to have a seperate sound board in there's for 999 but it cant play CD's so i heard...all the spec sheets on the blu ray players are so vague its hard to say what they can cut out to make them cheaper....i think they will be stuck at 999 for a while....and the upscalled blu ray players will have no bounds....

 

[John_McKittrick]

I primarily use my xbox 360 as my main dvd player even though i have 2 sony players (1 5 disk changer, and 1 single disk). The xbox has a progressive scan dvd player and with my 57" HDTV I have it set up through it's component cables. I see no difference in the quality compared to a stand alone. While some people like to use the PS2 DVD player analogy I think it fails in this respect. It looks like MS did it right.

 

[Kami]

I think you will see individual retailers start giving discounts early in the new year, maybe even during the holidays...but don't expect anything substantial for at least a year or more.

I also expect there to be a 2:1 price difference between BD and HD-DVD for quite some time, unless the BD manufacturers decide to take a hit.

 

[Ron-P]

 

[Jerome Grate]

If that statement is true then there's only two ways to deal with this, drop the price on the format alone or re-invest into a dual format player and cut your losses with the hope that one format is better than the other. Hard to tell, but it's looking like to me that BD will have to come down on cost some point next year, just my hunch.

 

[Mark Zimmer]

It's not really in Toshiba's interests to deny selling it at a loss, even if they're not. That creates a sense of the consumer getting a good deal, which encourages sales. Why refute the notion?

 

[PeterTHX]

Trouble is, it isn't. It's the opposite.

Warner & Paramount initially supported HD DVD only. Now they support both.

Lions Gate, Fox and Disney still support Blu-ray only (Disney may change, but not for now). Of course MGM & Columbia/Tri-Star are exclusive.

Universal remains the only HD DVD exclusive studio.

 

[Robert Crawford]

In the end, it's going to be all about the hardware units sold that translates into software product sales. All of the studios will support the format(s) that makes them the most money. As of now, it's too early in the rollout process to determine whether one of these two formats will generate enough profit for the studios to choose it over the other or just support both formats for an indefinite period of time.





Crawdaddy

 

[Chris Moreau]

Of course, it's possible that a high executive at Toshiba might know of successful talks between the company and some of the studios that we haven't heard about, yet. I just wonder why, if not, he would make such a statement.

 

[David Deeb]

My suggestion is that rather than buying, opening & returning a player you have no intention of keeping, go to a better retail source than BB.

No offense to either you or BB, but BB is only a cattle call. I can't imagine testing any AV equipment there. It's like a circus. I laugh every time I see people in BB critically listening to BB's audio equipment. It's so loud in the store, I can't imagine what nuances the customer thinks he is going to hear.

There are certainly locally-owned and AV specialty stores that carry & properly demonstrate both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Even a chain like Tweeters is much, much better. If you don't have those options in your town, then wait till you are in one, but don't buy and return something just because you want an experiment.

 

[Nick]

I just walked into BJ wholesales club in Manchester Connecticut today and they have bluray player by Sony for $347.00 last month I saw it listed for $447.00
I hope it drops more after Thanksgiving. I would love to get a standalone player for my room.

 

[RickER]

I saw the Sony BD300 today at Wal-Mart for $399, thats $100 price drop.