MleB

December 24, 2009 at 11:37am

Blu-ray? Its hard to imagine a home technology that has so underwhelmed the consumer.

Beta video, eight-track audio, those enormous platters of video disks? Perhaps. But while the output of Blu-ray is lovely to look at, short of those having a serious home theatre lab, do we really care? I mean, we still go to 'real' movies with images pushed thru a plastic film by an intense light to project against a white screen...

The only ones who benefit from Blu-ray are the distributors, with the premium cost of these disks. For most consumers, we're still happy with our 'old' DVD collection or perhaps even better than Blu-Ray, the (legal) download of an HD video. 

Jox

December 24, 2009 at 11:36am

I'm afraid, Mr. Lilly, that there is a significant flaw in your figures.

While it's true that DVD was an expensive technology upon release, it did not require the same degree of financial investment to get on board that is required of Blu-Ray.  Sure, the player itself was pricey, and the discs were more expensive than VHS, but the customer was getting a quantum leap in technology for his hard-earned dollar.  DVD image and sound quality is far greater than that of VHS tape.  DVD's, if properly cared for, will long outlast VHS (I cannot tell you how many cassettes I lost to VCR's that chewed up the tape).  Finally, the DVD's are broken up into bookmarks, allowing random access even on the most basic player.  Put a DVD into a PC and it's a truly random access medium allowing the viewer to skip to any specific point in the film without having to fast-forward through preceding material.

The jump from DVD to Blu-Ray is far less earth-shattering.  The media is unchanged (capacity is improved, but physical form remains the same).  The audio track(s) on a Blu-Ray can be superior to DVD but certainly not to the same extent that DVD is superior to VHS.  The most important difference, however, is that I did not have to purchase a new television to make the jump from VHS to DVD and that MUST be factored in to any price comparison of the technologies in question. Without a television capable of displaying video at 1080p, Blu-Ray is largely worthless.

 

-Jox

jawspinkid

December 24, 2009 at 8:54am

I was at a Walmart the other day and they had a stack of Blu Ray players marked down to $78. Panasonic or Magnavox if I recall correctly- a very basic player but Blu-Ray nonetheless.

ETNPNYS

December 24, 2009 at 8:25am

I don't understand the "Black Friday" numbers... Are those year 3 BF figures? Or figures from our last BF?

And while DVD player pricing didn't fall as fast as Blu-Ray has, I find it odd that Sony "Scrooged" the pricing while there was a format war... Wouldn't it have been in their best interest to have their stuff cheaper than HD DVD? I know many people who have a PS3 only for the fact that it was the cheapest Blu-Ray player available for the longest time...  

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