Are Blu Ray Players Ever Going to be Cheap?

[giantpotato]

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.

Some standalone drives are in the $140 range.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

?10-20 on Amazon mostly

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/bestsellers/dvd..._rd_i=293962011

[Kupo-Cheer]

Some standalone drives are in the $140 range.

Some of the older, 1x drives, from my experience.

Edit: I'm wrong. 4x on Newegg for $130. Much cheaper than I was figuring, though I admit it's been awhile since I last looked.

Edit 2: It's the burners that are killer, price-wise. I suppose I don't need a burner, though, considering all my back-ups can be placed on my hard drive, and blank blu-ray media is still pretty expensive.

Luckily, I'm pretty patient on the matter. Patient enough to wait for a more reasonable sub-$100 price, which I know won't be for awhile still.

[strotee]

I somewhat agree, players (and the movies) are still very expensive.

A technology in it's 3rd year and not making increases in sales is pretty indicative of it's failure.

Not according to this story... Blu-ray sales are impressive for 2008

The research says that Blu-ray movies are selling at about 1.14 million per month on average for the year, for a total of about 8 million. The combined total for 2006 and 2007 was about 6 million discs sold.

[Boz]

I somewhat agree, players (and the movies) are still very expensive.

Not according to this story... Blu-ray sales are impressive for 2008

300% of nothing is still nothing. I am tracking sales by NPD numbers.. they are horrible.. right now weekly sales are below the ones from January and that's with BUNCH of new releases. There's a reason why even NPD is not showing real numbers but the sales revenue from the top 20 titles sold from DVD and Blu-Ray and then presenting that as some kind of percentage. Completely idiotic if you ask me but even if you apply this way of looking things in hopes to show Blu-Ray in as positive light as possible, the numbers are still falling. As I said, usually from week to week sales drop, not increase. They do spike up 20-30% when you see a few good titles so all the PS3 owners pick them up but then next week it drops 30%. This is simply a very clear showing that the format is very weak despite the hype that a lot of industry is supporting it.

You have to also weed out some PR releases that BDA pays for in attempts to gain consumer confidence. This is regular marketing campaign.

ABI Research is actually saying that Blu-Ray won't be able to reach a foothold in mainstream market by 2013. By 2013 we might all be dead :) These articles are usually interviewing BDA members which are pouring money into new models but the reality is people are not buying stuff.. those who want Blu-Ray pick up a PS3 but even with that it's not really long term. With new Xbox 360 prices and digital downloads and Netflix you'll see more and more people going the Xbox and digital downloads route. It's just way too convenient to be passed on and significantly cheaper. At least in my opinion.

Also:

http://www.tmcnet.com/voip/ip-communicatio...r-purchases.htm

Consumers Shun Blu-ray Players

http://www.informationweek.com/news/person...cleID=209901537

and

BI is not the first researcher to find consumers lukewarm to Blu-ray. An online poll of more than 2,500 U.S. adults found nearly nine in 10 owned a standard DVD player, but fewer than one in 10 owned devices capable of playing high-definition content, Harris Interactive reported. Also, only 9% of non-Blu-ray player owners said they were likely to buy such a player within the next year.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

I said it above, and I'll say it again.

PS3/PS3 owners do not = Blu Ray.

Factor that into growth.

Many people will not buy BR till standalone players are cheap, not everyone wants a console, and the general stigma attached to consoles for the general public is a games playing device.

Exactly the same with the 360, a games playing device.

I truly believe BR standalone player sales will be absolutely crushing 360/PS3 sales in say 5-10 years time. Just in the same way that DVD player sales are doing right now. Until costs are down though, sales will not be anywhere near peak levels. That includes HDTV costs.

BR is highly dependent on HDTVs, in fact anything HD related is.

A movie player has far more appeal to a large consumer base than a games console, regardless of the fact a the games console can actually play the movies. The standalone players will come down in price quicker than the PS3 will - Factored by actual competition between standalone providers (Sony have the only console with BR), and cheaper standalone models being introduced from crappy "non-brand" providers. People who don't know any better lap those cheap non-brand players up through in their local supermarkets.

For us techies right now, the PS3 is just a good product to buy for BR.

Edited August 31, 2008 by Audioboxer

[Joel]

I said it above, and I'll say it again.

PS3/PS3 owners do not = Blu Ray.

Didn't Sony themselves count PS3s as BD players when it mattered?

[strotee]

I realize the overall numbers for Blu-ray are low in comparison to DVD, but you stated that sales were not increasing, but the article I linked to proved otherwise. Isn't NPD only for North America? How are sales in Europe and Japan?

Both of those links you provided say the exact same thing, basically people have other things to purchase before thinking of buying Blu-ray, not exactly the gloom & doom you portray.

I know I will never be as emotionally attached to the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD (now digital distribution) debate as others and I'm not attempting to prove that Blu-ray is here for good, but it's pretty laughable to now claim DD will replace physical media (Comcast implementing a 250 GB cap is a sign of the times). ISPs do not have the infrastructure in place to allow high-definition (1080p video with uncompressed audio that physical media provides) downloads on a wide scale.

What makes oneself think DD is a better solution than physical media for providing the next step in home entertainment?

(In an attempt to be in compliance with the new forum rules, I'm not trying to call you out in a mean-spirited fashion, just having a civilized conversation)

Boz - With being seemingly so opposed to Blu-ray, I find it ironic you chose to use an Apple avatar. As I'm sure you know they sit on the Board of Directors for the Blu-ray Disc Association.

[Ayepecks]

Can we get off the Blu Ray versus HD DVD argument? We already know which one. I was simply wondering if anyone heard if the prices were going to drop, if any new players were coming to the market at a good price, etc.

[DaDude]

Blu-ray is still relatively new technology. You need to wait a while if you want a drop in price.

[Boz]

... but it's pretty laughable to now claim DD will replace physical media (Comcast implementing a 250 GB cap is a sign of the times). ISPs do not have the infrastructure in place to allow high-definition (1080p video with uncompressed audio that physical media provides) downloads on a wide scale.

The only problem with your statement is that you don't need uncompressed audio for mainstream. DD+ has proven to be master quality with Transformers HD DVD disc.

As I said.. right now.. 720p + DD+ will make HD downloads a reality. Vudu is going step further and offering 1080p. It is undoubtably the future. 1080p pure and uncompressed audio are only important to microscopic minority of consumers and there are so many parameters involved for you to even hear the advantages (high end speakers, superb AV receiver and proper decoding) that the price vs quality gain is completely unjustifiable.

People have hard time getting 1080p TVs little less advanced audio, let's be real here. Everything you said about uncompressed audio is pure and simple CE & BDA propaganda. HD in 720p looks just as spectacular as in 1080p, for many people the difference is negligible. Millions of people listen to their DVDs and even Blu-Rays on TV speakers.

I think people need to come down to reality and understand that price and convenience will ALWAYS win and we should in fact support that instead of niche formats that primary purpose is to rejuvenate lost sales for CE companies. Ask any person right now what would they prefer, instant movies and rentals from the comfort of their couch in slightly lower (something they won't probably even notice) but HD quality or uncompressed sound and 1080p picture where they most likely won't see the difference because like 80% of people who already purchased HDTVs like 2-3 years ago are 720p anyways and 720p are still being sold for cheap. You can bet that a lot of people actually buys those too. Bigger screen then 1080p and looks just as good and cheaper.

Instead of continuing to try to rip off consumers with Blu-Ray as an optical media where everyone and even the birds on the tree agree is obsolete way of doing things or will be within 5 years anyways. We are progressing to digital in every way. It's a synergy of home servers, digital downloads, software distribution, internet TV etc etc.. we should be and CE companies should be investing into infrastructures for digital downloads instead of beating the Blu-Ray dead horse.

Making profitable model where Comcast and other will be forced by economics to expand even further their networks. The capping threats are temporary. When Comcast starts losing customers and Verizon FIOS (fiber optics) expands, the caps will be irrelevant and Comcast will be forced to get on with the times. The cable providers are just trying to stall and milk as much money from consumers before doing what will be a must in any case. They are doing caps just because they have hard time paying from their pockets to expand infrastructure, but eventually they'll be forced to anyways. Market will dictate it.

[Boz]

Btw.. to show you exactly what I"m talking about.. I will show you 2 frames here.. one is full 1080p frame and the one is 720p frame upscaled to 1080p just like your player does for the TV.

As you will see..there is ZERO difference. Both screenshots are taken from Blu-Ray.com so you are not thinking I did something to them..the only thing that is done is that 720p frame was naturally stretched to 1080p (upscaled) the same way your TV/Player will do.

1080p full frame. No scaling or anything:

720p frame stretched to 1080p. Taken from Blu-Ray.com:

And even if computer somehow more intelligently stretched the 720p frame (which is highly unlikely..it does the same thing as the processing in the player does) the difference would be negligible.

And if you don't trust this.. you can go to Walmart and compare the 1080p footage shown on their TVs throughout (they have both 720p and 1080p TVs). If you see a difference between the two in quality congrats. cause you are totally superman. Maybe if you get so close to the TV that your nose is touching it you might see wider pixel spacing for 720p set..but even from 2 feet, this is hardly noticeable.

Who says they can see the difference, I would probably say they are under the placebo effect.

SOURCE images: http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/screenshot.p...&position=7

Edited August 31, 2008 by Boz

[notuptome2004]

yo Boz sup how you been. Question do you know a site somewhere that is selling HD-DVd movies cheap cheap cause i have yet to find one that had enough of them to buy he he .

[Boz]

Fry's electronics had a HUGE sale this past weekend and were selling HD DVD movies under $10. All of them. Their site is Outpost.com check there..I'm not sure if it was in store only. They had a bunch. Too bad I already had most of them :)

[Julius Caro]

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)

That's the whole point. My advice is to not buy BD if you think the prices are high. I think it's actually great that sales arent *that* great, because that will force them to lower the prices. But I don't think that sales can be THAT high, anyway.

And ISPs networks definitely can't handle thousands of users simultaneously watching HD over the internet. They already struggle with people downloading SD movies through P2P and implement those caps...

On the other hand, Blu-ray is already being marketed as the next-best-thing, new releases have the whole "DVD & bluray" everywhere.. on TV and ads, just like it was DVD & VHS back in the day. People know it's the "next" thing because not long ago the same scheme was used. Definitely not going to be the next laserdisc.

[deuz]

IMO pointless thread Blu-ray has been what out for like a year you seriously cant expect technology to go cheap or to like dvd levels in a year. DVD has been out for say around 10 years but only recently(3/4 years) have dvd players been cheap. Also the funny thing is i still see people coming in trying to upgrade to DVD players from VCRS (95% old people ...lol). Post this thread in a years time.

*rage* >_>

:D

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Didn't Sony themselves count PS3s as BD players when it mattered?

I'm not saying they aren't BD players, I'm saying when you talk about BR, the PS3 does not = BR.

People seem to forget there are standalone players, and these will sell far more than the PS3 will going forward over the years.

Some like to go on about how much money Sony lost and correlate that to a potential failure for BR, or go on about how much Sony lost vs Toshiba.

Fair enough, but as I said Sony do not = BR. Many companies are involved, and there's many different BR players to buy.

[HawkMan]

if you're going to use the short form, id BD not BR :p

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

if you're going to use the short form, id BD not BR :p

Everyone knows what I mean :p

I always get them mixed up.

[Gavin001]

In the UK Sony are selling there new BDP - S350 for ?199....personally i think thats pretty cheap!

[Joel]

Who says they can see the difference, I would probably say they are under the placebo effect.

Actually, I CAN see a difference in those pics. Whether it's an effect of their screenshots or not, there's a visible colour difference (he's a less washed-out brown in the 1080p) and his stubble is more detailed in the 1080p also. That said, I have no doubt that I wouldn't see the difference in a moving picture.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Actually, I CAN see a difference in those pics. Whether it's an effect of their screenshots or not, there's a visible colour difference (he's a less washed-out brown in the 1080p) and his stubble is more detailed in the 1080p also. That said, I have no doubt that I wouldn't see the difference in a moving picture.

I can see that to.

Thing is, how useful are those shots even?

We're looking at them through PC monitors, most of us probably around 22-24".

You'd ideally in reality be looking at those shots on a 32"+ HDTV.

Then it depends on how good your player is at scaling.

I can screen grab what's on my monitor, but when I send it to someone else to look at on their monitor, their viewing of it will probably be different - Different quality monitors and most importantly calibration settings for each of our monitors.

[Boz]

Actually, I CAN see a difference in those pics. Whether it's an effect of their screenshots or not, there's a visible colour difference (he's a less washed-out brown in the 1080p) and his stubble is more detailed in the 1080p also. That said, I have no doubt that I wouldn't see the difference in a moving picture.

There's no real difference in quality of sharpness. Btw, the difference in colors is because I resaved images without ICC profiles so they turned out weird..they are identical in colors. You can see the Blu-Ray.com link and open 720p version and 1080p version and you will see.

My whole point is that recognized experts have already noted how irrelevant 1080p is on TVs below 55". Here's what Senior Editor of CNET said a while back and he's not alone either.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6449_7-6810011-1.html

I said so much in a 2006 column I wrote called The case against 1080p, but some readers knocked us for not looking at high-end TVs in our tests. But the fact is, resolution is resolution, and whether you're looking at a Sony or a Westinghouse, 1080p resolution--which relates to picture sharpness--is the same and is a separate issue from black levels and color accuracy.

Our resident video guru, Senior Editor David Katzmaier, stands by what he said two years ago: The extra sharpness afforded by the 1080p televisions he's seen is noticeable only when watching 1080i or 1080p sources on a larger screens, say 55 inches and bigger, or with projectors that display a wall-size picture. Katzmaier also says that the main real-world advantage of 1080p is not the extra sharpness you'll be seeing, but instead, the smaller, more densely packed pixels. In other words, you can sit closer to a 1080p television and not notice any pixel structure, such as stair-stepping along diagonal lines, or the screen door effect (where you can actually see the space between the pixels). This advantage applies regardless of the quality of the source.

First and foremost, some people just want what's considered the best spec on a TV. If you're one of those people, spend the extra dough, you'll feel better in the long run. Secondly, if you're thinking of going big, really big (a 55-inch or larger screen), or you like to sit really close (closer than 1.5 times the diagonal measurement), the extra resolution may make it worth the difference--as long as you have a pristine, 1080i or 1080p HD source to feed into the set. And finally, it's a good idea to go with 1080p if you plan to use your TV a lot as a big computer monitor. That said, if you set your computer to output at 1,920x1,080, you may find that the icons and text on the screen are too small to view from far away (as a result, you may end up zooming the desktop or even changing to a lower resolution). But a 1080p set does give you some added flexibility (and sharpness) when it comes to computer connectivity.

If none of those factors jump out at you as true priorities--and you are working on a tight budget and want to save some dough--a 720p set is going to do you just fine. HD will still look great on your set, I swear. In fact, our current highest-scoring HDTV, the Pioneer Kuro PDP-5080HD, is a 720p, er--768p, model.

So the point is.. if you feed the TV source from the computer or you sit very close to a TV that is over 50" and you have a pristine source that is 1080p you will have the "benefit" of 1080p.. Otherwise it's completely a wash.

As they say, their top scoring TV was Pioneer 5080 among 1080p screens and it is 720p HDTV.

[Coldgunner]

Actually, I CAN see a difference in those pics. Whether it's an effect of their screenshots or not, there's a visible colour difference (he's a less washed-out brown in the 1080p) and his stubble is more detailed in the 1080p also. That said, I have no doubt that I wouldn't see the difference in a moving picture.

+1

the difference between upscaled dvd and bd is night and day for me.

VHS outsold dvd for the first few years, it'll be the same for the dvd to bd transition. As mentioned above, DD WILL NOT take off due to ISP caps, which in this country are around 40gb* a month, many with much less.

*40gb is a 'ghost' cap many ISP's have, even though they say its unlimited.

and with regards to PC's, much like dvd software is, PQ can differ due to software used.

I managed to watch Star Wars several weeks ago in 1080p, being a film I know very well, the difference was astonishing.

edit: lastly, toshiba never had a fully featured HD-DVD player for under $100 (before termination of the format), the $100 players could NOT output 1080p.

Edited August 31, 2008 by Coldgunner

[Mathachew Veteran]

Man... this topic started out with Ayepecks asking if BD would ever be cheap, and look where it's gotten. You guys should duke it out on IRC once and for all instead of rehashing your arguments in various threads ;)