Is Blu-ray Doomed? - Comments Page 1

The problem is possibly outside of America: Blue ray equipment in Europe is quite a bit more expensive than that purchased in the USA. I read part of a blog article somewhere on this during this last week.

If this is the case then of course people in Europe are going to wait until their existing equipment breaks down and buy another DVD player - Make do with upsampling rather than fork out twice as much. Until the prices are evened out worldwide, blue ray just won't take off completely.

I fall firmly into the category of those who already own a DVD player and it works fine so why throw it out. Netflix and the like wont rent out to Canadian consumers, IP checks preclude this, so there goes that option and the cost of the Blue Ray disks seems out of proportion to me, who I think resembles Joe average! So Blue ray or not... I am just not willing to fork over my hard cold cash.

I do agree that the "Blu-Ray" along with ALL CD/DVD/DVR disks have a virtual short life span. Due to the advent of downloading, MP3 etc. Why buy something with moving parts when all you have to do is have an internet connection. Example. 18 months ago I purchased a portable CD player with the belt pack, better headphones, anti skip . . . . cost, aprox $135.00 said and done. Put up with scratched, cracked, broken disks (mishandling)

S O L U T I O N ! ! ! a $20.00 Creative 2 Gig MP3 player that holds almost 300 songs. No whistles, bells, screens, flashing lights, moving parts, just non stop music of my choice.

This is where the High Def video is probably already headed. so, no, I do not believe I will "take the Blu-Ray Plunge"

Congratulations, Bob! Once again you have used over 250 words to say absolutely nothing to further an argument. Thanks again for your timely and courageous answer to the question.

EDITOR'S NOTE: If you had read past the first 250 words, you'd have gotten a better picture. I laid out six reasons why Blu-ray could have trouble succeeding in the marketplace, then mentioned some of its strong points. I also said that to me it "seems unlikely the technology could die an early death." And then I solicited comments to further the discussion. So what do you think was missing?

Will a Blue Ray RECORDER ever become a reality?

EDITOR'S NOTE: They do seem to exist. See http://www.blu-ray.com/recorders/

I have a good HDTV and an upconverting Oppo DVD player, and for me moving to Blu-Ray is a non-issue right now. The DVD movies we watch run the gamit from B&W classics to the latest digital only releases and the clarity and definition are great.

For a lot of the "older" movies, how much definition do you need to enjoy it? The picture can only be as good as the original print or re-mastered digitized copy - how much sharper does "Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House" need to be ? Do I need to see the actual silver film grains? And the extra filler possibities of the larger disc doesn't sway me either.

To me the shift to Blu-Ray is not as great as the move to DVD from VHS. So those are my own reasons why I'll wait until the next evolutionary "jump".

Bottom line for me, I refuse to pay the price, when I can get the movies in DVD, that I want to see, most for under $10. As for my DVD players, they may be older technology, but, they are working just fine and my DVD movies are as clear, as possible. Definitely, FAR better than my old VHS movies!

One of my TV is HDTV and we have it set-up as HDTV. However, not all movies or TV programs are in HD, that come from DirecTV or Cable or DVD.

Now, maybe, just maybe, IF Blu-Ray HD players came down to the lowest price of around $30, I just might consider to purchase one. When you pay a price of $30 for a DVD Player, if it breaks, you can easily replace it, especially with kids and/or grandkids around.

My own conclusion is, that Blu-Ray will go by the wayside. Simply due, to the high price for all things related to Blu-Ray. Something else will come along that will be much cheaper to produce, as a player, recorder and media input (DVDs or whatever).

Thanks for a timely article... My thoughts are that the human eye cannot keep up with the depths of these new technologies like blu-ray. My eye cannot decipher the millions of colors in a computer monitor; 256 colors are substantial.

Thanks for the discussion on Blu-Ray and HDTV players, showever my questions was not answered. I have two DVD recorder/players. Unfortunately both have tuners that go to 99 channels. Since TV is going to High Def and needs a special cabel box to reach Channels 100 to 999, I cannot record the special programs that are in the upper spectrums such as the National Geographic Channel an other great programs. I also wonder what will happen to my recorders when all TV goes to digital. I know that I can get the cable channel 2 to 99 but how can I record the programs on channels 100 - 900? Will special tuners be offered to get these channels?

I'm glad this is being talked about. I had no plans of getting just a dvd player when you couldn't record; then we could so I bought one. It is different with "blu-ray". It is a horrible name that doesn't describe what the product is (unlike HD-DVD). It is totally propriatary, expensive and is loaded with DRM. Times are changing and I know that there are other options out there such as Divx. In conclusion, I have no interest in giving Hollywood one more dime of my money!

I love the HD experience and all but let’s face it the standard DVD is a good picture and sound median. The studios need not worry about copy protection and sales if they just offer the lowest price they can and still make a fair profit. When Blue Ray reaches this point and can be bought at Wall Mart or other discount venues for say $5-10 dollars it will survive and thrive, if not it will die and movie downloads on the internet will replace it.

Thanks Bob for your comments. This reminds me of the 5000 watt car stereos which also had the best audio equipment - 8 track players.

The same music is still available today. Movies and shows are being recycled too even if they have new actors. I feel there is little on TV which is worth buying even more "stuff" to watch, although all the lights and dials look cool in a dark "theatre" or living room.

The human eye and ear have not developed further than 1000 years ago and with all the technology in use, are more likely to degrade at earlier and earlier ages. I don't even know if the human eye sees the real world in HD.

So Blu-ray, HD, 500 channels, etc is just stuff to want and brain candy which stops thinking. Most of of the ads show people watching football. Do we really need to see the pimples or wrinkles?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Hah! I thought I was the only one who just couldn't stop looking at the pores on peoples' faces while watching HD.

I want Blu-Ray for backups. Imagine that I've downloaded a few HD movies; where do I archive them? Do I start collecting hard drives filled with those downloads? I'd rather copy the files to another media and recover the needed space on my hard drive.

The answere is yes the player is doomed! The technology will be applied to a new media which will be in a new format. Blu-ray was known 6 years back and because of greed and politics it was too late! Look at the rate of the so called

"New and Improved" software we are bombarded with?

Nobuddy beliefs it anymore especially the exorbitant pricing that goes with it! If it works, do not break it! Remember Vista?

I reckon that a significant factor in the success or failure of Blu-ray will be the severity & duration of the current economic situation. I won't bore you with my age but, I remember the depression of the 30s and the recessions up 'til now. Blu-ray will fail for lack of buyers. Good newslettwer Bob, keep 'r going.

Thanks for the update Bob. One more ingredient for this soup though. We do a lot of recording with a camcorder and my wife does a lot of video editing. She puts the video on to DVDs with her computer. That allows her to give copies to whomever she wants. I have never heard of a Blu-Ray ready PC. Even if there is such a thing, I have 5 PCs and 3 DVD players in this house. I also have a DVD recorder and one that also converts VHS tapes to DVD.

I would have to be out of my mind to scrap all of that and start shelling out more money for a minimal upgrade. To top it all off, all those grandparents and family members who get copies of our home movies would have to upgrade as well. Blu-Ray may not die but, it may get lean while waiting to be feed.

I think the threat to blue-ray comes from 2 directions.

1) The internet as you say allows very fast streaming to the majority and the speeds just get faster and faster ( see the 40Gb and 100Gb trials underway at the moment )

2) The other threat could be solid-state memory. Look at the price of memory sticks now. If i was going to a store to buy a blueray disc, I'd find it just as convinient to walk our with a memory stick - either my own uploaded in store or by buying a ROM stick.

I can see a very viable service where you take your memory stick to the video hire shop of choice and they put the film on the stick. DRM could time it out after 3 days - no need to return the stick...makes sense to me

But for me the reason i don't buy a blue ray is just the content - i need to see "killer/must have" films before i bother with this technology. DVD is fine for watching mid-quality hollywood output.

To make a correct decision, you need a side by side comparison of an up-convert DVD player and a BlueRay. In my opinion, the Blue Ray is better overall, but not good enough to justify the cost. Similar to LCD's I'll buy BlueRay when the price drops. Thanks for the article Bob.

Let me manipulate a line from Frank Zappa. "Blue-ray is not dead, it just smells funny".

Having owned a 42" Vizio 1080p and a Panasonic DVD/VHS player that can copy in either direction and converts DVDs up to 1080p for almost a year, I doubt I will go out and buy a Blue-ray player until this player quits working.

Sure, HD is awesome as long as I don't have to see too much face imperfections, but the investment by the consumer needs to be in the TV first. With the broadcast stations going digital soon, people will have to spend their hard earned cash somewhere else before they go out and buy a Blue-ray disc player. Blue-ray will boom in 2009 after everyone has made the change over to watch digital via a new TV or converter box.

Who knows? Maybe Santa will drop a PS3 under my tree this year! Make sure it is one of the models that plays PS2 and PS1 discs too, would you big fella?!?

Quote from Afterdawn;

The manufacturer Pioneer has confirmed that its upcoming 16-layer Blu-ray discs will play back on most current standalone Blu-ray players including the Sony PlayStation 3.

The discs boast an impressive 400GB capacity and are finally headed into production by 2010 after being introduced earlier this year by Pioneer. The company also added that it will begin manufacturing 40-layer 1TB discs in 2013.