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

On Wednesday I am due to receive my first high definition player.

I would have loved to support both HD formats as I feel neither
is going away any time soon. I decided NOT to buy into Blu-Ray
because of the $1000 pricetag attached to it.

This is tough for me, because I realize that in a few months
the studios are going to be releasing day-and-date product
on Blu-Ray.

My question is this....

When do you forsee prices on Blu-Ray hardware dropping?

Do you think by 4th quarter it's still going to cost $1,000 to
get your foot in the door with Blu-Ray?

...and please don't mention the $500 game console. I don't
play videogames and certainly don't want a game console in
order to play Blu-Ray product.

Correct me if I'm wrong someone...but when Sony announced the delay of their player to the fall, they said the price would remain at $999. So I assume prices won't fall until after that. Maybe Christmas?

Ron,
I don't expect the player prices to drop until other manufacturers release their players besides Samsung, Sony and Pioneer. Now, that doesn't mean that some retailer might make a special offer to sell some players at $900.00 or so, but I don't expect that to be the norm until much later like the 2nd half of 2007.





Crawdaddy

The bigger question is, when will the picture quality improve? From what I am reading (and the demo I saw) it looks more like upscaled 480p then HD, nothing even close to what Toshiba is giving us.

As to the question, I'm guessing we won't see a price drop until the second gen players.

So, essentially, if these friggin' overpriced players are gonna
stay in the $900-$1K pricerange for the next year, I might as
well go out and buy a player instead of waiting for the prices
to drop.

You can't be more wrong about the upscaled 480P. I have both formats and the difference in picture quality from the discs I've watched are very little.



Crawdaddy

Ron,
Who really knows???? I'm just giving you my opinion which is based on nothing, but my gut and pass video format experiences.





Crawdaddy

From what I am reading over at AVS the majority say differently about the PQ between HD-DVD and BD.

Believe whomever, but my non-bias eyes think both formats are very similar in performance.





Crawdaddy

Greetings

If the formats track similar to the DVD ... then expect about a $150-200 drop in price per year ... with each new generation.

Regards

Ron:

I'm not expecting a price drop of any kind (for either format) until around June-July of 2007.

It would not surprise me to see DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray combo decks from Samsung, LG, Cyberhome, and other manufacturers either announced or introduced around that time as well. I expect these first combo decks to cost between $850 - $1200.

(Coincidentally, I'm trying to hold out until July 2007 to purchase into the HD formats even though I'll probably be obtaining some HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs before then.)

So that would be 1 non-bias eyes vs more than 1 non-bias eyes over at AVS that says different. I think I would rather stick with what the majority is saying and not the minority.

Every person has to make up their own mind on what to believe or not to in this latest format war.




Crawdaddy

I wouldn't buy the Samsung player. It's got too many quirks [in the manual] and, apparently, bugs [not in the manual]. Hopefully, the Pioneer and Sony machines which have been held back for "interoperability testing" should work much better.

boy..if it's $200 per year, I won't be getting one for about 3-4 years.

Ron,

I would wait for the Sony player if you do decide to drop 1K on a Blu-ray player.

I know you don't want to buy a gaming unit, but for $499 it will probably be the cheapest Blu-ray option for a while.

Actually $599 if you want HDMI, and who wouldn't with the prospect of ICT. But for $599, do you think you'll really get a good quality Blu-Ray player in the PS3? Take a look at the terrible quality of the DVD player in PS2 and I think its a bit premature to assume that Sony will deliver a decent Blu-Ray player in PS3.

there is also another possibility...
Maybe when Ron gets his A1 and his discs he won't see enough of an imporvment to warrant $500, let alone $1000 on new hardware.

Even though I'm high on the format and at this point would prefer to have everythig I buy from now on be in HD, there are times when I watch regular ole sd dvd and still come away mighty impressed and popping in an HD title afterwards seems less like a quantum improvment and more like a "thats nice" improvment.

everybody has their own eyes, ears, and thresholds and they need to ultimately heed those rather than the voices of the crowds.

From what I saw (BB demo, via HDMI to a 46" LCD) I was not impressed and it was nothing close to HD-DVD, of course, it was BB so....

When the Sony machine streets I will pick one up for a few weeks just to see with my own eyes. I will return it due to the price but I'll know for sure how it really looks.

I don't know how to say this without it being viewed as scornful towards you, but I despise such action as buying/using and then returning merchandise you have no intention of keeping before you bought it. It's a practice by some consumers that I have an ethical problem with and it causes retailers to enforce return merchandise guidelines that affects us all including those with legitimate problems with products that they're trying to return.





Crawdaddy