Bad economy to kill Blu-ray?

I would say greed will be the down fall of blu-ray, just as much as it is for the world economy. Money is the downfall of men who work in greedy organisations that make obscene profits to the detriment of humanity and Sony comes under this category along with Banks, Solicitors, Lawyers Oh... and Billy Boy Gates MicroShaft.

Very true I couldn't agree more, greed in the end will kill everything greed has always existed but it's gotten really bad over these last 8 years thanks to our goverment and other goverments. No body will ever bail out Main Street like they did with greedy fat cats, and CEO's on Wall Street, pay cuts for CEO's? yeah right! a packaged deal with loopholes how lovely isn't it??? I as a tax payer am pissed off and rightly so and I am not spending a dime in this damn economy unless I have to.

People will start buying blu-ray once the price comes down. Slowly but surely they'll convert over.

Will bad economy kill BMW? Kill Disney World? I don't think so. People will spend less on high end cars, high cost vacation. People will spend less on Blu-ray as well but I don't think it will kill them.

I think it will increase the Sales of PS3's, because its a all in one solution. one that will be around for some time. Sure the movies will sell when the economy is better. but at least they'll have PS3's to play them on. In the UK PS2 put a DVD player in homes of people who weren't even bothered about DVDs if trends follow and they tend to then blu ray has a bright blue future.

The whole point of the article was that it seems problematic to rely on the belief that, "Slowly but surely they'll convert over." It's the "slowly" part that seems to concern some experts. If nobody is buying $200 Blu-ray players, why would more people buy $400 PS3's?
If Blu-ray is, in fact, holding on by its fingernails, the recent economic slowdown could indeed hurt or even halt its progression.

Sign of the times- people are cutting back on everything not just bluray. It's a matter of priority and also, folks are beginning to see that they need a bit of savings for a cushion...here is the result. Bear in mind this announcement is coming just weeks before "Black Friday" the biggest day of the year for many retailers. Who in their right mind will buy something from Circuit City that is expensive that might need to be covered under warrany?:

"Circuit City Stores Inc. is considering closing at least 150 locations and slash thousands of jobs to avoid filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a report said Monday.
A report in the Wall Street Journal said people familiar with Circuit City’s plans said the store closings and job cuts could allow the retailer to liquidate $350 million in inventory that could be used to pay real-estate costs, including leases on abandoned sites. Circuit City, the nation’s second-largest consumer electronics retailer, could then try and renegotiate leases with existing landlords, the report said."

it won't kill bluray it will just put it on hold, unless they slash the price to what dvd is. Bluray will eventually be at dvd's price, if thjey just slash it to that now, it will then sell.

P.S. my account isnt working and i tried to send a email but it bounced back, can someone reset my account, cause the ONLY thing i can do is post reactions, i cant forum i cant even do a avatar! thanks for the help.

I don't agree with the reports that say blu-ray has a limited shelf life, because it'll get replaced by something else. It offers 1080p which offers very good picture on very large TV's. Which means any replacement format would need an advantage over that. Meaning and replacement format would probably need people to have 100 inch tvs or bigger to take advantage of a higher resolution.

So that being said, I think its gives blu-ray a rather large window for adoption. Even if growth is low the next year or two, as prices come down, it will pick up. HD is here to stay, and HDTV adopting is pretty hefty, which means if prices drop, the people will adopt and HD format for their HDTV's.

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It offers 1080p which offers very good picture on very large TV's. Which means any replacement format would need an advantage over that?

Do we forget any decent priced alternative with similar "good quality" would be an option. Fact is still many households do not have big plasma's nor can afford it. The move to Blu-ray does not mean investing in blu-ray player only but also in movies and a big Tv for many and that will certainly have an effect under current conditions. Life will become more "expensive" once more...

20.000.000 people will loose their jobs in the upcoming months worldwide, that's already quite a group that certainly will not spend couple thousand bucks to upgrade their home to HD...

Including Blu-ray profiles, live content and such not being tuned at this stage (often players not even reference the profile or people do not understand the differences) are a reason why people hold off on making purchases. They are unsure...

It would be perfectly possible for blu-ray players to take things a step further without adding major cost so there actually would be an extra added value (look at HDi HD Center for example which combines DMA with Blu-ray for the same price almost than a stand alone BD player) and unless they start delivering what they can today, they won't make it.

There's no such thing anymore as making progress and adding stuff one thing at a time (profile 1.0 <-> 2.0 and adding divx next step) to make people purchase every step of the way... Currently the Blu-ray players are outbalanced by their price / features, content, announcing no price drops for the holidays and so on... There is no simple explanation except it is clear, Blu-ray is far from a "standard" even though it won over HD DVD... Now let it conquer over its own limitations and price and we might actually get consumers on board...

Cut 50% of the current prices, make them 1 profile, add DMA abilities (H.264, mkv support, internal disk, DVD ISO player, web radio etc...) creating a "one for all" player and you will have a lot more success... There's no added value except some better quality and the average household does not want to pay for that multiple times in purchasing more expensive disks which are mostly released after the DVD version (that looks good enough on an upscaling dvd player) and purchase a 400$ player either...

There's another aspect to look at for the "freaks" of HD...
DMA players supporting BD playback from hard drives are coming very soon... who of the current people considering BD will not take that route if it delivers more playback abilities than DVD and BD alone for a fraction of the price...?

BD is destined to be for Home Entertainment setups only, not for the usual customer like most of us are... it just isn't interesting to take the step and the current financial crisis and uncertain "job" situation for many will not help at all...

I dunno... should we include the online options popping up like mushrooms? I want to see blu-ray succeed but their pricing structure, licensing and abilities are just "too" much of a mess and too less of a value... except for the die hard quality freaks that currently kind of keep blu-ray alive along with the PS3... Take either of both away and gone is Blu-ray...

Well if the Bluray player sells get stagnant due to the economy, that means they will have a surplus of product and that means lower prices usually. Good news for the consumer. Bad news for the manufacturer.

Funny we have to get a daily attack of bullsh*t. There is no possible way that BD ever dies or anything else happens. It's pricedropped a lot faster than DVD, but it's the same critism over and over again. PPL want everything for FREE.

@Speedy,
the link in the article above to technologizer.com has a few sentences about comparing Blu-ray adoption to DVD, saying it is a "faulty analogy". You should read that article, and for the purpose of arguing, you should avoid phrases like "no possible way" "ever" and "anything else".

It's kind of like the classes you can take about "how to take an examination". If a test question choice has the word "never" or "always" in it, don't pick that choice.

Not that arguing about this subject is a matter of life or death, but statements like that can come back and bite you.

@ Speedy

Yes, free is good.


DRM-free is good.
Exploding Battery-free is good.
Root Kit-free is good.
Limited Activation-free is good.

Sales of BD players/recorders in japan in August this year when compared to August last year went up 10710.7%. When compared from january to august this year and to the same period last year its up 2323.4%. Sold BD players/recorders for august are 138000 units and in the period of january to august are 841000 units...

I don't have an HDTV but I will buy into blu-ray for storage on my comp if the burners ever hit the sub $100 dollar price point and the discs a dollar or 2 for dual layer discs it'd be a solid sell for me on backups of my data. For dvd media by the time the burners hit 4x they were around 130 bucks and a buck a disc. but now blu-ray has hit 8x and its still hovering around the 200+ price point with $10 discs so that has influenced my decision as a consumer regarding blu-ray.

I totally agree. Blu-ray will be here, whether we like it or not. We are more educated on this subject than the average joe, maybe some of us won't buy it, but the average joe will do so for sure if the marketing machine of all those big electronics companies will do their job...

Hihi, amazing numbers, what is the price in Japan for such a unit? Much lower than in the US?

@jess, you can wait for a sub $100 blu-ray burner in a year or two but not sure about blu-ray media a dollar for 25GB or $2 for 50GB. Even now, after 4+ years, DVD+R DL still hovering $1.5 - $2 average if you buy in bulk.

@ blue

I get my DVD+R DL discs for less than a buck each when on sale at Future Shop or Best Buy.

Back in 2004, I said Blu-ray would die a slow death much like SACD and DVD-Audio players that poor suckers are stuck with now. It's true that BR has a broader appeal than SACD, but the releases are still lagging. I'd say less than a quarter of my commercial DVDs are even available in BR format. I also have stacks of concert bootlegs that will forever remain in standard DVD format. Content is king, and nothing is worth it for me to upgrade to BR (except porn). Netflix will help sell the BR players to BR renters, but everyone knows the BR movies is where the money is made.

From a minimalist point of view, Blu-ray is overkill and unneeded when one can have perfectly good DVDs that have more than enough extras, alternate endings, etc. for the average movie consumer + even the intermediate movie addicts. Only the most die-hard movie addicts will insist on BR with the copy protection headaches and extra $$$ to all the extras the BR disk would contain. Why buy BR when one can upscale DVD and get an even greater viewing experience without having to cough up all that extra $$$? Doesn't add up.

To dovetail off what Crabbyappleton listed about Circuit City, anyone notice how the standard b&m stores since at least about 3 years ago largely stopped putting on REALLY good sales on nice, brand-name merchandise and that even around X-mas the sales are dismal compared to times before that? The b&m retailers have gotten really greedy and have largely stopped passing on nice discounts to consumers by way of the formerly traditional Turkey Day, X-mas and major holiday sales. While it is indirect proof, it is proof indeed that customers haven't propped up such greed, to the extent that a place like Circuit City is in dire straits. Also the direct inference is that while consumers will splurge when economic times are really good (even making the pricey and unnecessary BR slightly more attractive), it's a no-brainer people will walk away from extravagances such as BR and settle for less expensive entertainment at least.

@ Quema34
You just woke up from a long sleeping beuaty? Whatsup with copy protection headaces?! If you look DVDFab forum and AnyDVD forum, there are more "problems" for DVD than blu-ray. Both copy protection are the same level of difficulties or otherwise easy to break! And blu-ray extra $$$? Yes it does but not significant contrary to the way you describe it. Go outside more often and you can see that many blu-rays can be bought for only $2 more than its DVD format.

At amazon:
Incredible Hulk DVD (3-discs SE) $22.99
Incredible Hulk Blu-ray (2-discs) $24.95

The Dark Night DVD (2-discs SE & Digital Copy) $22.99 (Preorder)
The Dark Night Blu-ray (Digital Copy & BD Live) $24.95 (Preorder)

Best Buy--- Incredible Hulk Blu-ray $26.99 --- DVD $34.98. ;p

My point was not addressed about being able to upscale DVD to near BR quality without having to pay for a BR player and buy the BR disk; no reason to buy a BR player or PS3 if one already has a unit that upscales like that + the TV to see it with. VERY few people will say the slight difference in upscaling and BR is worth going the extra $$ for the BR route. And by the way, according to Slysoft, BR has more problems than standard DVD and DVD is easier to deal with than BR. I've had no such headaches with anything standard DVD at all. Also, my point still stands on BR being an extravagance and overkill, neither of which is in dispute. If people want to foolishly spend extra on BR (and especially to prop up Sony which doesn't deserve having a format bought they likely paid $500 million to entice studios to drop HD-DVD), then it's their money to burn and waste. For that matter, the true minimalist/person looking at cutting out extra spending won't buy inflated DVD prices when it only costs a little over $1 to make the DVD.

In these times it makes no economic sense to purchase Blu-ray equipment and titles. People are sticking with what they have due to limited budgets and uncertainty over their financial future. Spending money on trivial "entertainment" products like Blu-ray is now considered anathema to many.

The $1 DVD bargain bins might still get a look-in

Blu-ray players won't so much kill Blu-ray as will the cost of the actual movie discs. That's where the rip off lies, and will continue to lie as long as they are produced. New releases will always be a rip off!

I was at Wal-Mart today and they had a *ton* of DVD movies for $5 - $8. Deal on Blu-ray? No, not so much.

I disagree with you that there's no need for a Bluray player if you have upscaling for your DVD. 1080 looks A LOT better than 480. It's very easy to see the difference on a HD TV, such as what I have: a 52 inch Samsung LCD. The detail is crisp with with Bluray because there's MORE data represented in the image. With DVD, a lesser amount of data is shown across the screen. Only if you have a very small screen would a viewer not notice a difference. Bluray players are around $200 now, certainly in the range to entice higher numbers of people. In a few years, Bluray will be dominant over DVDs because most people will have HDTVs (about 25% to 30% of households now do). If lower quality images satisfy you, by all means, save money in that area. I'm not saying throwing your money all over the place is a good idea. I do think Bluray is worth it IF you love to watch movies on a large HDTV.

You can't compare apple and orange. We all know what kind of movies in those DVD bargain bins at Walmart.

Au contrair. In the past few months I bought DVD movies from Wal-Mart's treasure bins for $5 and less; titles such as "Starship Troopers", "Blade Runner" (not super-deluxe edition)", "Once Upon a Time in the West (2-disc classic, $4.99!) and several other titles that were definitely worthwhile. So "we" really like the bargains that can be found in the Wal-Mart bins. I suppose eventually Blu-ray titles that are rotting away on the shelfs will find themselves into those bins...with maybe a few more takers than are buying them now.

There is always the next big thing. It has to be to keep the revenue stream going for an organization and 120Hz is an example. Another thing coming is 4x signal processing. BUT, BluRay is here for a while and it may go through some improvements down the road but they have to regain their investment and make a profit for R&D for the next big thing

i think the best bet for blu ray is to sell the dvd and blu ray movie in one package (NO EXTRA COST).. so eventually the consumer will say "eh we got these free bluray movies why don't we buy the bluray player???" i'm telling ya!! people are already sticking to dvd because it does a pretty good job, they need something for nothing to upgrade. if the companies don't, bluray will die and we'll go back to dvd completely.

What hurt bluray came before bluray was even released , Sony and all the other tv brands was releasing big tv's in 1080i with dvi ports and people was flocking to them sets , now they released bluray and jumped upto HDMi and the hdmi has problems with the dvi ports with packet handshaking making them not work together . I for 1 have a 51" sony hdtv from 4 years ago it works flawlessly but doesnt have hdmi and doesnt work with bluray players . I have no plans of upgrading to a device I cannot connect to my HDTV . And I do not need to spend another $2000 on a new tv when my current tv works like brand new still . My upconverting dvd's looks amazing , I have seen a few bluray titles at bestbuy and there is no major upgrade from what I watch @ home . not a investment to me to move away from what I have .