Are Blu Ray Players Ever Going to be Cheap?

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

I am still confused on why blu-ray players are still higher in some places, then others (comparing high end models, not the cheap ones)

Sony must be taking a massive blow per console, if a video game console can be sold cheaper then an actual player.

if anyone has the production cost per player / ps3, compared to the retail cost of both, that would be interesting to see

[MightyJordan]

I am still confused on why blu-ray players are still higher in some places, then others (comparing high end models, not the cheap ones)

I think the main reason why is because consumers aren't adopting to Blu-Ray quick enough.

[thealexweb]

In the UK they've come down fast I saw one in a shop window the other day, new, ?150.

[stezo2k]

In the UK they've come down fast I saw one in a shop window the other day, new, ?150.

wow thats a good price, i havent seen them that cheap in the uk yet. cheapest ive seen is about ?200 which is still good

[Boz]

Yes, of course, the holiday sales where stores raise their prices to $299 :wacko: They're currently available for $278.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=9864613

One player at that price that is a chinese unfinished specs at that is not what I call overall pricing.

Why are you comparing a new release to bargain bin DVD's? Hey look, bargain-bin Stargate on Blu-Ray for only $11.86 http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5555734

And I just gave Stargate as an example because I happen to like that movie. You can find bargain-bin Blu-Rays for $9.86 just have a look at walmart.com

Right..all 10 of them. Please.. the reason I'm comparing is because you know, you buy a MOVIE not the picture. Added value over SD resolution should be minimum as it's a natural progression of technology. The only reason the premium is dictated is overall greed. This format is slowly dying because nobody is buying it. The premium is not worth it as upscalers do a terrific job for many people for the price.

Real Blu-Ray prices are far from $10 per disc. Most discs are between $20-$30 per movie and that's for old catalog movies. It's ridiculous. I see you are the type that justifies this and I will not argue with you, you are welcome to continue buying those discs but the reality is that if they don't lower the prices, they won't be going anywhere. It's not IF, it's already a 100% guarantee, especially with the recession and other huge economic issues.

Yeah, the great XDE players :laugh: http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/18/toshiba...500-dvd-player/

Please..Engadget is such a Sony/Blu-Ray fanboy site that's not even funny. They are the next Blu-Ray.com which is nothing to be amazed about considering they are owned by Warner.

But even them, after that ridiculous nonsense news post, they were impressed by XDE 500.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/08/19/eyes-...ing-dvd-player/

I saw this technology at CEBIT 2008 in person and it also certainly depends on the quality of the disc but it is SIGNIFICANTLY better then any other DVD player I've seen. Not to mention the new Resolution+ TVs from toshiba who completely eliminate the upgrade from DVD player point as it has this superb cell super-upscaling in the actual TV.

Maybe you might have the bandwidth to download full HD movies, but most of the world doesn't, especially with major US companies starting to cap usage.

Ah, the denial of hardcore Blu-Ray fanboys. The whole world is actually FASTER then United States for the most part. If you look through the history of my posts I have already posted results worldwide for broadband speed. For 1080p btw, through Vudu it works amazing! (I know I have it) and it provides unbelievable results at 4mbps. This is nothing for most of America broadband. My connection is like 20mbps right now and most people have like 5mpbs. Even if the rest of the world didn't have as fast internet (they do and much faster then US - Japan alone has 100mbps standard, while most of Europe has I believe around 50mpbs) US is really what counts in the first wave of technology and even right now, there are more people that use digital downloads for movies, games etc then there is Blu-Ray players. They might make less money because they don't rip people off like studios do with Blu-Ray as an HD rental is around $4-5.

In 2 years.. broadband will be so advanced and improved that it will be completely ridiculous to even talk about optical media. Surely, there will be people who want to own it but even today, we are obviously in digital downloads age from music to video. This trend will definitely not stop so we can all wait for Blu-Ray.

Granted, broadband has a few issues to overcome but it's not really broadband (this is nothing to be worried about, where there's money upgrades come). It's more copy-protection based about owning movies. Rental system (which is btw the future IMO) is already at full steam. We won't even need to own the movies when you have full catalogs of movies at your fingertips at a few bucks.

Netflix, Xbox Live, PSN, Vudu all already make waves in rentals this way and they even offer 1080p quality. Of course Sony limits to stereo sound because they are trying again use some scumbag tactics to half ass consumers. Fortunately in this area they are not fighting Toshiba but much bigger fish that can bury them financially.

Wait, what? are they losing money?, or are they over-charging the consumer like you mentioned earlier with $1500 players? your arguments seem to be on two conflicting extremes.

They are only conflicting if you apply a simplistic logic as you did here. They lose money because when you try to sell a player at $500 and nobody buys it you lost money regardless of the fact that you didn't actually lose money on part during manufacturing. Blu-Ray players are completely failure in sales because nobody buys them. CE companies are losing money producing players that nobody is buying because there's a PS3 that is actaully a fully featured player that costs less.

I never said that they lose money on player parts. That's Sony's job. In general only Sony lost billions thanks to Blu-Ray and others are persistent to sell players at ridiculous prices because of their greed when in the end they lose money by not selling a thing.

This is where I find it fantastic how furiously this CE companies are fighting to keep Blu-Ray alive at their own costs despite the fact that nobody is buying it.

Blu-Ray discs are priced relative to DVD's. If a new DVD is $19.99, a BD will be more expensive simply because it has the added value of being in HD. It wouldn't make much sense for the studios to charge the same amount for a single disc DVD and a special-edition DVD version would it? It's the same case with DVD's and BD's.

The value is not worth that premium in price. Again, you buy a movie you don't buy pixels. I don't have a problem new release costing $25 even $29.99.. and older catalog titles that are $6-$8 at bargain bin to cost $15 on Blu-Ray, but the prices right now are completely ridiculous. I make very good money and I simply don't want to buy discs anymore out of principle. I buy new movie on Blu-Ray here and there but it's clear where the problem lies and why this is one of the reasons Blu-Ray will have hard time reaching mainstream, little less replacing DVD.

There's no discussion here..I just came back from my super Walmart. Prices are completely retarded. They had 3 movies only under $20 ($19.99) the rest were $24.99 to $30+ and most of them were old ass titles too.

A the beginning of the year, Samsung's $499 player was profile 1.1, and could output 5.1 and had a standard video processor. Their latest player, at the same price, is profile 2.0, outputs 7.1 and supports all audio formats, and has a HQV video processor. It's the same price, but has better features, where's the problem?

The problem is that right there you can see that they ripped consumers off then and they are still trying to rip consumers for $500. And it's not that perfect, it has a myriad of limitations and is not Profile 2.0.. it's Profile 2.0 compatible. Those features are not better, they are something that should've been included in the first place. For comparison sake, everything and more they are selling was available on HD DVD for $299 and later $150 regardless of the fact that Toshiba might've lost money. It only counts what consumer can buy, not what company's business model is.

Again.. I don't think Samsung player is bad.. it shows promise but this product is NICHE product, not mainstream. Simple as that.

[zape]

Didnt see this coming:

PC

http://www.partspc.com/ProductDetails.asp?...amp;ProdID=7282 $117.27

Standalone

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...ANIA-_-82204016 $279.99

More than double....Why is that?

[Boz]

Boz for all the banging on you have done about how HD DVD is so great, if the outcome were different and Toshiba didnt have to drop prices down to $100 for a player do you really think that HD DVD players would be so damn cheap?

I dont think so.

As for XDE Players, why would i settle for near HD quality which is totally dependant on the source video not being a crap transfer, when i can have FullHD.

Of course they would remain that cheap.. it was their MSRP price.. the only one who is speculating is YOU. We've already witnessed players at $150. Toshiba's model was very obvious. Get dirt cheap hardware, lose money but gain on licensing. The winner is consumer here.

Granted, movie situation would probably be the same now but one huge advantage HD DVD had was mass production. Already established replication plants that did DVDs could've easily switched to HD DVD and with superb yield rates.

Again, the backup of what I'm saying is the releases from Warner just before they were bought by Sony when they started releasing HD DVD movies that were the same price as inferior Blu-Ray movies (feature wise) that also included DVD version (combos).

Logic and economy suggests that HD DVD would already be on the way out with problems that Blu-Ray simply can't bypass now because not only that they have to sell replication machines at ridiculous prices (a few million per replication line) in order to increase replication capabilities that will create competition that will again undoubtably create lower prices, but the studios have to wait and start using BD25 discs because the yield rates on BD50 discs are still pretty bad (despite the fact hey most likely improved since last year).

[Mr_Edwardo]

The only way that manufacturers can get the mass market to adopt something such as bluray is to push the price down. Until that happens, they will not see anywhere near the level of adoption that DVDs currently have.

Ed

[Boz]

Didnt see this coming:

PC

http://www.partspc.com/ProductDetails.asp?...amp;ProdID=7282 $117.27

Standalone

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...ANIA-_-82204016 $279.99

More than double....Why is that?

That BD player is the same as Magnavox and has all elementary decoding processing inside the unit. Your BD drive for PC is really just the reader - PC does all the heavy lifting. I just bought LG BD/HD DVD burner/reader that works like a charm below $200 and tried AnyDVD HD and I'm happy as a puppy.

But I always LOL when I see these zero quality brand names who sell DVD players for like $30.. selling Blu-Ray player for $280.. lol.. is Blu-Ray worth 10 times more? You got it!

[+BeLGaRaTh Subscriber¹]

You can get them in the UK cheapish ?200 mark or so (made by some cheapass company probably), but they are profile 1.0 machines, fine if you just want to play a movie and not watch the extras etc (on the later discs) and I believe even some discs will not play the movie properly? (I don't know how true that is, but I heard it mentioned on another forum) and when quizzing the shops regarding profiles they look at you with a blank expression and say something like "They're all the same, just made by different people" <- I mean WTF?

If you look at profile 1.1 players you are looking more like ?900 and profile 2.0 seem to be non existant, with the exception of the PS3, but as mentioned, thats primarily a console not a bluray player.

[Timelimit]

well you can pick up a few for under ?200 in the UK, i'm looking at getting this one shortly

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0016J7...;pf_rd_i=468294

it will support profile 2.0 when its finally finalised and can be upgraded via usb or lan (i think)

its had some pretty good reviews too:DD

[Bat21UK]

?50??? You must be joking! Like others have said, you can't even get a decent DVD player for ?50! The decent DVD players nowadays a consoles!:D:D

If you want to get a decent Blu-Ray player for a low price, wait for the PS3 to drop in price, which will probably happen next year.

sorry i have just got a dvd for the bedroom Samsung DVD-F1080 for ?49 and i am over the moon with it

1080p upscaling hdmi divx mp3 ect

[MillionVoltss]

Would it be worth having a standard DVD player which dosnt do upscaling on a 32" LCD, buy a blueray player and as i plan to do rent Lovefilms on blueray. I wouldnt really want to buy an upscaling dvd player or the xd-e500 which does look good.

[Ayepecks]

Boz for all the banging on you have done about how HD DVD is so great, if the outcome were different and Toshiba didnt have to drop prices down to $100 for a player do you really think that HD DVD players would be so damn cheap?

I dont think so.

As for XDE Players, why would i settle for near HD quality which is totally dependant on the source video not being a crap transfer, when i can have FullHD.

FYI: Toshiba already had the cheapest high-definition players by a WIDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE margin. I think they would've been $100 EASILY. But that's irrelevant.

[Richard Hammond]

FYI: Toshiba already had the cheapest high-definition players by a WIDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE margin. I think they would've been $100 EASILY. But that's irrelevant.

Yes and why was that, they sold them at a MMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAASSSSSIIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE loss to try and undercut Blu-Ray, thats the only reason they were so cheap.

[goji]

^ Ya to stock holders. However I doubt it wasn't that much more to manufacture than a SD DVD players save for the licensing of the newer codecs (audio, HDMI etc)

[Ayepecks]

Yes and why was that, they sold them at a MMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAASSSSSIIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE loss to try and undercut Blu-Ray, thats the only reason they were so cheap.

Massive loss? Source? I heard they were selling for a slight loss in all the rumors I read.

I have a hard time imagining that it was recently rumored that Sony was finally breaking even with the PS3 sales, and yet it's still (one of?) the cheapest Blu Ray players. That's with all the extra equipment required for the PS3's manufacturing. Sorry, but I don't buy that Blu Ray prices shouldn't have fallen significantly recently.

[Boz]

Yes and why was that, they sold them at a MMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAASSSSSIIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE loss to try and undercut Blu-Ray, thats the only reason they were so cheap.

There was no MASSSSSSIVEEEEEE loss.. Toshiba lost from the beginning of the war, including marketing and subsidization..around $800 million. it's peanuts towards what they would get in royalties.. Sony on the other hand, on PS3 alone lost 3 BILLION and that's without the count of payoffs to Fox and WB and who knows else in 1+ billion dollars. There was even an article from NY Times I read or similar publications can't remember now that came out a month or two ago that analyzed the war and says openly that Sony also lobbied Lionsgate to stick with Blu-Ray.

So Toshiba's losses were pretty much NOTHING and far from massive. You might want to ask Sony how much they are STILL losing on Blu-Ray because of PS3 and subsidizing Blu-Ray replication.

Let's get serious here.

Bottom line is this.. HD DVD players WERE at $150. It is HIGHLY unlikely that Toshiba would increase the price. There's no logic nor evidence that suggested that. It's purely speculation from Blu-Ray fanboys who are trying to justify the ripoff tactic that Blu-Ray did and still does.

HD DVD prices would've most likely stayed the same if not lower if HD DVD won the war and royalties would more then compensate Toshiba for it. The mass production of HD DVD would've been already established as mainstream as we already saw by studies done just before the end of war that mainstream consumers actually preferred HD DVD to Blu-Ray. Price wise and feature wise.

Listen, I"m not defending HD DVD anymore because it's gone and there's no real point. I"m just trying to gets some facts right here. Blu-Ray is by far the least flexible, mainstream ready format, with requirements for huge investments in replication that nobody really wants to do and it will most likely stay in niche audience unless they lower the prices to what I've explained above. Since BDA members are simply too greedy and Sony has to recoup billions of dollars lost, there's very little chance of that happening, ESPECIALLY with the fact that economy is in a crapper, DVD is really good upscaled for a lot of people and digital downloads are offering cheap on-demand HD that will more then likely replace optical medium on a larger scale just like digital music did for audio cds.

[giantpotato]

There was no MASSSSSSIVEEEEEE loss.. Toshiba lost from the beginning of the war, including marketing and subsidization..around $800 million. it's peanuts towards what they would get in royalties..

Let me know where I can get some $986 million dollar peanuts, my billionare friends might be interested in purchasing some. :wacko:

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006633.html

[Julius Caro]

I dont think blu ray is failing. I just never saw it as a replacement for dvd anyway. But blu ray is doing a great job considering how things are right now.

The only country in which blu ray can "triumph" is the US. That's where most people HAVE seen HD tv channels. In europe you need expensive equipment and subscriptions to get a very limited selection of hd channels. People are so happy with their big tv sets they don't care about HD, because most people don't even know what it is. Things are changing and there's a big PR machine pimping out HD like I guess happened in the US a few years ago. And now every dvd release says "on DVD and Blu-ray" which always helps.

I've seen dvd new releases in europe ranging from 17 euro to 30. In spain blurays are NEVER over 30 euro, they all seem to have a very fixed price. And HD-DVD movies were priced at the exact same prices of bluray movies.

You can't expect blu ray to totally replace DVD because HDTVs haven't totally replaced regular tvs. And we all know that it would be dumb to make the investment to use a regular tv with bluray. Blu-ray market share depends on HDTV penetration.

And I think it was pretty clear that bluray prices wouldn't change too much when it was announced that hd-dvd was out of the game. And digital downloads... I doubt they can't 'spread'. Broadband is generally between 1mbps and 10mbps, which is insufficient for blu-ray-like quality video. Europe's average broadband must be around 3 mbps, not the 50 mbps needed. Just because it exists, it doesn't mean everybody can have it. In Spain I doubt I could even get more than 10 mb unless they installed fiber to my house. Digital downloads are happening, and they're good but I wouldn't expect endless amounts of people using them.

[Boz]

Let me know where I can get some $986 million dollar peanuts, my billionare friends might be interested in purchasing some. :wacko:

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006633.html

Right.. It was $900+.. I know it was something below $1 billion but close.

It's really costs that include everything.. the $150 million subsidization to Paramount, hardware, marketing etc.. it's NOTHING when compared to billions lost from Sony. So it's not really something to be shocked by. That's what's called competition and Sony lost about $4-$5 billion on Blu-ray and is still losing. So go figure eh.

Sony still loses approx. between $120-$200+ per PS3 and now they are trying to rip people even more by completely taking back fully featured PS3s from before and doing the 40gb sliced down version without BC and missing usb ports, memory cards etc and selling it for $399 and $499 trying to lower the loss.

I don't see people's points when they try to make it such a big thing as if Toshiba was a big loser. LOL.

[Boz]

I dont think blu ray is failing. I just never saw it as a replacement for dvd anyway. But blu ray is doing a great job considering how things are right now.

The only country in which blu ray can "triumph" is the US. That's where most people HAVE seen HD tv channels. In europe you need expensive equipment and subscriptions to get a very limited selection of hd channels. People are so happy with their big tv sets they don't care about HD, because most people don't even know what it is. Things are changing and there's a big PR machine pimping out HD like I guess happened in the US a few years ago. And now every dvd release says "on DVD and Blu-ray" which always helps.

I've seen dvd new releases in europe ranging from 17 euro to 30. In spain blurays are NEVER over 30 euro, they all seem to have a very fixed price. And HD-DVD movies were priced at the exact same prices of bluray movies.

You can't expect blu ray to totally replace DVD because HDTVs haven't totally replaced regular tvs. And we all know that it would be dumb to make the investment to use a regular tv with bluray. Blu-ray market share depends on HDTV penetration.

And I think it was pretty clear that bluray prices wouldn't change too much when it was announced that hd-dvd was out of the game. And digital downloads... I doubt they can't 'spread'.

Well I'm just saying by numbers.. Every week numbers of discs for Blu-Ray fall. Last week it was about 10%.. the week before was like 26%..

People simply don't want to buy them at ridiculously expensive prices for both hardware and movies.

A technology in it's 3rd year and not making increases in sales is pretty indicative of it's failure. I'm not saying it will go away, but it is most likely going the Laser Disc route due to many other factors and it's even worse now because we have so many other competing technologies. I highly doubt we will see Blu-Ray replace DVD and this is something that Sony was hoping for, now even they themselves say it's not gonna happen. And if that's not gonna happen and technology won't be mainstream, it's highly unlikely that you will see rapid price drops and all this will pretty much guarantee Blu-Ray to be in the niche audience. My 2 cents.

I know I've completely stopped buying Blu-Rays. It's just kind of stupid to spend this much money anymore.. I rent them, I will probably buy really really good movies like Iron Man, Hulk and Batman and that's when people might see some increase but this will of course still be temporary.

I don't know.. in essence I would like for Blu-ray to be mainstream and be cheap but with massive losses BDA and Sony had promoting it and paying off everyone under the sun to support it almost certainly guarantee that we won't see low prices for a looong time.

Broadband is generally between 1mbps and 10mbps, which is insufficient for blu-ray-like quality video. Europe's average broadband must be around 3 mbps, not the 50 mbps needed. Just because it exists, it doesn't mean everybody can have it. In Spain I doubt I could even get more than 10 mb unless they installed fiber to my house. Digital downloads are happening, and they're good but I wouldn't expect endless amounts of people using them.

Vudu.. 4mpbs.. 1080p video + DD+ sound.. Looks absolutely fabulous.

People who are still waiting for Blu-Ray will be completely satisfied with 720p HD quality as for them the difference between 720p and 1080p is negligible. XBL HD movies at 720p already look 10 times better then DVDs. For the price, people already enjoy it. You'd be hard pressed to pursade anyone to spend several hundred dollars on a player and trying to explain to them why 720p doesn't look really that much worse then 1080p.

20 MILLION people has Xbox and about 10 million use Xbox Live in US alone. Vudu has a decent share. Digital downloads are spreading and an incredible pace. Sites like HULU and others offer internet video at HD quality too. The time of optical media is at an end regardless of what few percent of people say and the reasoning that they want to hold in the hand.. this attitude is long gone among majority of consumers.

1tb HDD that can store 100 HD movies at superb video and audio quality are now at like $150.

Tell me, how many people you know buy audio CDs? and how many download MP3s? I think you can see the point. The same will be with video only it will be much faster because now people are accustomed to this digital delivery and with new devices splashing out like Xbox, PS3, new Digital Download DVD players, Roku, Vudu etc etc.. it is becoming increasingly easy to do whatever with just a press of a few buttons.

I encourage you to pick up and try Vudu or watch a movie on XBL in HD.. you'll be impressed, I certainly was and the difference was completely unnoticable to an extent that you didn't really have bad things to say about the quality.

Edited August 31, 2008 by Boz

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

The PS3 does not = Blu Ray.

It's one player of BR, remember that everyone.

3rd parties can make BR players :yes:

If you can't afford/don't want to buy HD just now, fine, don't. Stick with your SD for now.

Everything HD will continue to drop in price.

Who gives a damn who lost what in the past, we have one format now for physical HD (Y)

Edited August 31, 2008 by Audioboxer

[Kupo-Cheer]

My only complaint is that the price of the stand-alone blu-ray drives (the ones you add in to your existing computer) are still in the $200+ range, at the cheapest. That doesn't make any sense to me, considering the price of the cheaper, full-fledged hardware is in that price range, or maybe a little more expensive. I just want to add blu-ray to my desktop, but for the price it's at now, I can't justify it. Maybe it's because I'm a cheap person at heart, but until HD content prices drop, it's all way off of my radar. I have other priorities.

[stevehoot]

Meh - Blu Ray seems far to expensive for what it is.

I wouldn't have rushed out to get either HD-DVD or BluRay, but to be honest the worst format one. To enjoy a film that uses all the pixels of MY TV shouldn't require me to check what version of the format is being used! An nor should it cost me 3 times the price of a DVD which I can upscale!

You can always find one-off ad-hoc promotions on some Blu Ray films that are around DVD prices, but generally in the UK they cost about ?20-?25. Compared to a DVD @ ?10-15.

Between the greed and BDA buying their way into the mainstream, as well as format confusion (seriously - "profiles"?! WTF?!) as well as the recession (or impending recession) it's going to be longer for BR to take off compared to DVD which had both audio, visual and physical advantages. (A/V is obvious regardless of TV you have, but to skip "chapters", having a menu system and in-line commentary etc. were all brand new groundbreaking stuff that the general public liked - neither HD format offers anything similar)

I'll wait until the BDA settle on what they format spec's are going to be, and wait till it's easy to cirumvent the DRM/Region restrictions on it. Then, once that's sorted and I can get a brand named one for around ?100 - ?150 I'll buy one. Oh, and if the discs are no more than ?15 too.