Your 1st DVD player vs. 1st Blu-ray player: How much and when did you buy? (1 Viewer)

[Brent Hutto]

Mark,

An alternative idea comes to my mind on reading through the posts here. It is possible that what really happens is any given person has a certain amount of money they're willing to venture on a "new" (or not-so-new as the case may be for us non-early adopters) gadget. In that case, a person might wait until any particular kind of player gets to, say, $300-ish whether that means waiting two years or five years or whatever.

Of course it's a totally untestable theory but IMO it fits with the anecdotal reports in this thread as well as any other explanation. My thinking would imply that you can't really infer anything about the relative pricing-vs-time patterns of DVD and Blu-Ray if what's really determining each individual's entry into the technology is the point at which it reaches their comfort level.

 

[PaulDA]

But the dates given for the purchases should indicate the availability of players at a given point in the life cycle and at what price. I fail to see how this makes it impossible to infer anything about pricing/time patterns.

 

[Erik Pontius]

My first DVD player was around '96 or so, was the DVP-S7000. Probably spent close to $1k on it. Couldn't do DTS, couldn't play burned DVD's very reliably...

My first BD player was somewhere mid 2007. The BDP-S300. Don't remember the exact cost...seem to remember it being in the $300 range.

 

[RomanSohor]

My first player was a Panasonic DVD-A120... I got it as a Christmas gift in 1999... my dad got it for $199.99 ... also got South Park: Bigger Longer Uncut and Pinnocchio with it

- Player still works great.

First BluRay (Only BD) Sharp BD-HP20, $249

 

[Carlo_M]

Wow, how'd you beat the rest of us?!?! DVD wasn't released in the U.S. until March 1997 (test markets in 7 cities) and country-wide in late 1997.

 

[Erik Pontius]

'97 was probably right...that was a long time ago...my memory fails me.

 

[Scott McGillivray]

I bought the first DVD player I could find.

I got the Toshiba SD-1006 from Future Shop here in Canada. Not sure when that was, must have been spring of 1997. I also bought the only 2 movies they had in stock, "Jumanji" and "In the line of fire".

Total cost with the 2 movies and taxes was right at $1000.00 CDN.

(I sure felt like a big shot having the only DVD player around!)

Blu-Ray player: I picked up the first PS/3 I could find. I bought from a guy that advertised in the paper. It was the original 60GB model. He had bought it and decided he needed the money. It was unopened and it is still working great. I paid $700.00 CDN.

Very happy with that purchase!

I had tried to get a PS3 out here in Vancouver, but it was a madhouse. Shoppers were paying homeless people to stand in line overnight for them!

I tend to agree that getting started with Blu-Ray has been much easier and cheaper than the start of DVD.

(Thank God that the format war did not last too long!)

 

[Shad R]

First DVD player was an Onkyo. I bought it in November 1998 for about $400.

First Blu-ray was a Sony BD300, I picked up for only $180, but I had a gift card, so I only paid $150.

Cool thread

 

[jjharvey]

The first DVD player I had was a Samsung purchased in the summer of 1999. Don't remember the model but I have the original ad in the paper saved. Bought it at K Mart for 249.99 + tax. Complete hunk of junk! Would hardly play most dual layer discs. Constantly froze and digitized. Single layer discs played somewhat better still not perfect though. Had my doubts about this new format early on. Saved my money for a few months and bought a much better RCA model at Wal Mart for 299.98. The first blu ray player I bought was the awful Sony BD-P S 1000 (I think that's the model #) at Circuit City in 2006 for around $1,000. It played fine for a day or 2, then I started noticing "helicoptering" from the soundtrack and it started freezing up as well. Sony tech support was no help at all, very inexperienced in the new format. So I returned it to Circuit City the following week and 2 of the employees just kinda laughed and shrugged it off and told me just about everyone of these players they sold were coming back!

 

[Angelo Colombus]

Had a Pioneer laserdisc player for a few years and then in 1997 it stopped working so I took it to a repair shop where I was told about $300 to fix it. My local Best Buy had for sale the only laserdisc player they had and it was a combo which plays dvd's so I paid $800 for it. First dvd I saw was a rental of Blazing Saddles and having see it many times I was struck how good the image looked and seeing it widescreen. First Blu-ray player was a Panasonic and paid about $150 on sale.

 

[jcroy]

My first "dvd player" was actually a computer dvd-rom drive. (My then-wife purchased a standalone dvd player with a Pioneer nameplate on the front, back in the late 1990s. She didn't tell me how much she paid for it).

My first "bluray player" was also a computer bd drive. (A TSST Samsung external bdr drive). It was around $100 at the time.

My first standalone bluray player, was a $50 el-cheapo Toshiba.

 

[Matt Hough]

I believe my first DVD player was a Panasonic, but it could have been a Samsung. I'm not really sure, but I paid somewhere in the $300s for it.

Easy to remember my first Blu-ray player: the PlayStation 3 (the fat model). The Samsung 1000 had gotten such horrible reviews in every publication with its non-defeatable DNR chip that I wanted no part of it. The PlayStation was the only other alternative in those early days. I paid in the $400s for it.

 

[Edwin-S]

First DVD player was a dual disc Toshiba for about 700 in 97, IIRC.
First HI-DEF player was the Toshiba A1 HD-DVD player for around 700.
First Blu-ray Hi-Def player was a day one Fat PS3 for about 700, all in.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Updating my post from when this thread originally appeared:

First DVD player: Sony DVP-S300 in autumn 1998 for $299

First Blu-ray player: Sony BDP-S350 in autumn 2008 for $258

First UHD player: Sony UBP-X800 in January 2017 for $270

Interesting that I bought a Sony for my first venture into all three formats, but never bought another Sony DVD or BD player. I later owned Toshiba, Panasonic and Oppo DVD players, and then a Panasonic BD player. I do still own my original Sony BD player -- it's in our master bedroom.

 

[Robert Crawford]

First DVD player: Sony S7000 August, 1997 for $799.99

First HD DVD player: RCA HDV5000 June, 2006 for $449.99

First Blu-ray player: Samsung BD-P1000 June, 2006 for $899.99

First 4K/UHD player: Oppo UDP-203 December, 2016 for $549.00

 

[TJPC]

First Sony beta VCR -- 1983. $1500. Snapped it up on sale. Regular price $1899. Tapes $25.99/2 hr tape.

 

[Robert Crawford]

First Sony beta VCR -- 1983. $1500. Snapped it up on sale. Regular price $1899. Tapes $25.99/2 hr tape.

Please, no unpleasant memories of another format war that I was on the losing side of.

 

[Matt Hough]

I somehow guessed right in both big format wars choosing VHS over Beta and Blu-ray over HD-DVD. But it really was a fluke in both instances.

I bought VHS because of the colorful buttons on the RCA Selectavision VCR that looked like they would somehow make operating the machine easier. (Dumb, I know).

I bought Blu-ray because the Playstation 3 was cheaper than the Toshiba HD-DVD player (though Blu-ray also had more studios supporting it which was the real tipping point for me).

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I waited until the winner in the format wars was quite evident before buying into VHS and BD, so I never owned a Betamax or HD-DVD player. I didn't buy many films on VHS, though -- it was more of a rental format for me, plus I recorded quite a few films off cable TV channels. DVD was the format that turned me from a renter to an owner.

 

[TJPC]

I was a teacher in a large metropolitan school district. I figured "if they chose Beta"!