Should we worry? (1 Viewer)

[RickER]

Like you said yourself Rachael, firmware is an issue with older folks, not so much with younger. I am 45, and i have no issue with it. Now my parents, are mid 60s. I think they would.
Blu-ray doesnt really market much to people much older than me. At least most of the movies that are on Blu dont seem to float my parents boat.

Shoot, i have to help them readjust their LCD every time i go see them.

 

[Rachael B]

I think firmware is an issue with more than just elder people. It's a huge inconvience for a liesure product. Those two things go together like oil and water. Stand-alone players need a final firmware solution. IMO, Blu-ray can't be a mass-market product without this finality. It's all fine and well if the PS3 is gonna be an evolving beast. Stand-alones need to be locked down. Stand-alones just don't need more features. One could argue they have too many already.

I'm making this obsevation by trying to look through the eyes of folks that don't yet have Blu-ray.

 

[Bryan^H]

I was once labeled a crackpot for saying $29.99 is the average price for a Blu-Ray title. I've done a little research, and guess what? $29.99 is the absolute standard price for Newer Blu-Ray titles.
I don't want to hear about prices from online sites. My credit card is high enough. When I shop I like to pay with cash.
If I go to--Ready?--K-Mart, Wal Mart, Meijer, Target, Circuit City, Best Buy, FYE.....every title I look for is $29.99. Some are even $34.99.
There are practically no first week sales(on the titles I want anyway) for new Blu-Ray releases. If they are in an ad the price is usually{wait for it} $29.99! On the rare occasion I find an actual DEAL on a Blu title the first week of release the price is usually $27.99. Whopper of a savings right?
I'm tired of being accused of being a moron for buying Blu titles in actual stores opposed to online sites.
I'd love to visit the world you guys live in where I can go into a Best Buy and pick up a copy of Iron Man for$20-$25. I really, really would!

NOTE: this is directed at anyone that thinks $29.99 isn't the standard price for Blu-Ray titles.

 

[Paul Sandhu]

I am also not a fan of the cases. I also don't like the ugly blue bar on the boxes, it makes them look even moreso like videogames and it totally clashes against the sometimes great artwork some movies get. And do we need to have them on the big special edition boxes too? I've seen it ruin the steelbooks that Future Shop releases for select movies!

 

[Chris Atkins]

I second that. Many of my buddies who are looking into Blu-ray are nervous about profile 1.1, 2.0, etc. I am telling all of them to get 2.0 but those players tend to be a bit more expensive.

 

[Todd Stout]

If they would just drop the prices of Blu-Ray players a bit more and drop the prices of the discs down to where DVDs are, they'd have a lot greater market penetration. Of course that will likely happen in time.

So just what does make the discs so expensive still anyway? I stopped at a Fry's store last week and noticed an end cap full of Blu-Ray discs for $7.99. None of them were big name movies and they all appeared to contain TV miniseries type content but the price caught my attention. Why can these be sold for $7.99 when most movies are being sold for $20-$35? Obviosly the manufacturing costs aren't the key factor anymore.

 

[TravisR]

I do my best to use cash as much as possible so my credit card bill doesn't balloon. However when I see something cheaper online, I use my debit card and then bank that amount in cash. That way, I get the far better online price without any credit card bill and it keeps my bank account from dipping either.

 

[Rachael B]

Todd, I'd bet you saw a display of Echo Bridge's titles. Most are made for TV stuff and not so good. One title they have that is very, very good, IMO, is a little indie comedy-drama called The Big White with real stars. Get that one. I'm with you, those Echo Ridge titles are a clue about how inexpensive BD-25's are to distribute. The Big White cost me $12.99 in Busted Buy and you can get it for less at Amazon, about the price you witnessed.

 

[David Wilkins]

I use a debit card almost exclusively, also.

For those who are inclined, Amazon also lets you pay via paper checks, by entering the check info on the online order form.

 

[Todd Stout]

Yep, that's exactly what they were. I picked up something called Supernova that says it was a miniseries from 2004 and it stars Luke Perry, Tia Carrere, and Peter Fonda. I'm sure it'll be cheesy but I wanted to see what an $8 Blu-Ray disc looked and sounded like.

 

[Scott-S]

If someone choses to spend more on a movie by buying it with cash locally, that is all fine. But you shouldn't be complaining about the cost. You are choosing to spend $5-$10 more than you have to.

This is like someone deciding to do their grocery shopping at 7-11 or a gas station then complaining that groceries cost too much.


This is not reasonable. BD cost more to master and manufacture than DVDs.

 

[Todd Stout]

You only quoted a small part of what I posted. I said if they dropped the prices, the market saturation would increase.

I have no idea what it costs to manufacture a Blu-Ray disc but if I can buy made for TV content at $7.99 that tells me that manufacturing costs couldn't be that high. Where does the extra money that the larger movie studios charge come from?

 

[Rachael B]

I wouldn't be so sure. I am confident that BD-50's cost a little more than DVD's to distribute. However, the majority of releases are on BD-25's and they very well may be cheaper to distribute than DVD's...??? Remember, Blu-ray was a home recording format in Japan for a few years before coming to America as a prepackaged media format. Echo Bridge provided me with The Big White complete with 2 lossy 5.1 soundtracks and 2-channel PCM that sounds great. It's not the kind of film that needs more than 1 or 2 channels of audio, IMO. I got a movie with lossless audio, Woody Harrelson, Holly Hunter, and Robin Williams for a considerably lower price than any major studio. Well, a few Warner, budjet titles have been close and I've seen a handful of very poor major studio titles from the early days of the format at Wally-Mundo for $10.

Enthusiasts scour the net and anywhere else for BD's at the lowest prices. Civilians do not behave thusly. They're casual. They pick up media as a throw in the basket at Tar-jeaux or Wally-Mundo. The prices in those venues, generally $30 or more, for new releases is retarding Blu adoption, bIG tIME. High prices are fueling professional shoplifters quest to steal BD's in mass too. This is the predicament the greedy studios have put retailers in.

Big studio prices are not driven by costs in my estimation.

 

[Ed St. Clair]

Do you believe everything you read?

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Got it used for like $5.99US; cute little title/like Fargo-lite!

 

[David Wilkins]

Prices on BD's are where they are because studios are charging what the market will bear. Echo Bridge doesn't occupy that high ground or share the same concerns. Companies like Sony and Paramount aren't bothered by companies such as Echo Bridge, because they don't have a catalog of threatening titles in their arsenal.

Evidently quite a few of us buying the discs in the upper price range. Evidently the studios are not in an arm flailing panic. Evidently, they're not worried about the success and health of the format.

Perhaps, looking at the situation from their angle, they see no real benefit in cutting prices right now, whether it's production capacity, the number of HDTV's currently in homes...whatever. No doubt, they see a much larger picture then we do. We see trends and situations that cause us, as consumers, to scratch our heads and wonder if they're stupid. I doubt it.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Then they shouldn't expect Blu-ray software sales to maintain double digit penetration into the overall video software market for all titles not named "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man". We'll see how much these studios are worry this year when the recession deepens further before it hits the bottom and it's not there yet.

 

[David Wilkins]

I agree. The coming months are going to reveal a lot, about a lot of companies and industries.

Maybe they're not too displeased with the state of the format because they knew in advance that growth would slow but steady, due to the nature of it.

Then again, maybe they're driving the car into the ditch. In the aftermath of the format war, and the way it played out...who knows.

 

[RobertR]

Agreed. There is simply no reason not to pay less online (I paid 18 bucks for Close Encounters instead of 50. What rational person wouldn't do that?). A debit card is functionally the same as cash. The "buy local with cash or nothing" attitude simply makes no sense.

As long as the format is growing at a reasonable rate, there's not much to worry about. It's already grown much more than laserdisc ever did.

 

[George_W_K]

My dad, not known for keeping up to date with electronics bought a blu-ray player. I'm not worried.

 

[mattCR]

The biggest benefit to Bluray is the Digital TV conversion which happens this year. Lots of people didn't see any benefit in buying BD because they had the same set they've had forever. My parents, in their late-sixties had the argument "what do I care, my eyes are crap anyway". But now that they received an LCD for Christmas, a BD Player is high on their list.

BD sold to those who were already interested as a way to show off what they had. The more people who have output devices that match BD, the more people will want BD. That simple.