Fortune puts Blu-Ray on the top 9 tech flops of the year

[Andrew Lyle Global Moderator]

Complete flop I say.

I'm at least one of them :D

I have a blu-ray player, and love it so far! I wouldn't say it is a flop... that web site is a flop for saying that

[Joel]

Give people choice.

When we had a choice between HDDVD and BD, you said it was confusing for the consumer and that one format needed to win. Which is it?

[LTD]

When we had a choice between HDDVD and BD, you said it was confusing for the consumer and that one format needed to win. Which is it?

Choice isn't always a good thing when it comes to tech. It's not really "choice" that's the problem, it's the people that are doing the choosing.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

When we had a choice between HDDVD and BD, you said it was confusing for the consumer and that one format needed to win. Which is it?

Um, both formats done exactly the same thing, and had the negative of segmenting the movie market. That is confusing and costly for the consumer.

Some movies were on HD-DVD others on Blu Ray. You bought HD-DVD as you were recommended to by friends/store clerks/etc, and your favourite movie sprung up on Blu Ray? Tough luck, or else shell out hundreds more $ for a player just to get your movie(s).

Tell me how that is a good choice for consumers Joel?

One of the formats needed to win, there was no two ways about that. DVD existed on it's own as a physical choice, so would one of the HD formats.

If you adopted early and got stung, something it's obvious you have with supporting HD-DVD it was a risk you took. Same with anyone investing whilst the HD war was going on. Thinking both formats could actually survive alongside each other was being overly optimistic and a little naive in my books - They were in direct competition to win the market, neither wanted to play alongside each other. And history already shows when two formats opting to do the same thing come head to head, one walks away victorious (betamax vs VHS).

Now in this topic we're talking the choice between physical and digitally distributed movies, a whole different ball park of giving choice than two identical physical formats segmenting the market.

I think that's quite obvious to see, when I say giving choice is a good thing.

Edited December 20, 2008 by Audioboxer

[Joel]

Choice isn't always a good thing when it comes to tech. It's not really "choice" that's the problem, it's the people that are doing the choosing.

My point is the contradiction of his post. First it was, "we need to remove the choice", now it's, "give them a choice".

Um, both formats done exactly the same thing, and had the negative of segmenting the movie market.

Some movies were on HD-DVD others on Blu Ray.

Tell me how that is a good choice Joel?

So if digital downloading became a larger reality, you think there would be continued releases on both formats and that no company would EVER skip the physical medium to save on production costs?

The studios made the choice to release on a given format, not the people. Then the studios had the nerve to say the people had decided which format was to win. What choice did anyone have if they wanted Disney movies? They bought a BD player. No amount of spin can make the statement that the consumer chose the winning format can make it true. Last year you were supporting the choice of exactly 1 format, this year you're supporting choice of format. What's the difference? You say that last year, both formats did the same thing. Do they not do that if we have DD and BD?

[HawkMan]

No chance. Internet connections are nowhere near fast enough to be able to deliver full 1080p movies yet. When we get GB internet connections in our homes, then it'll be ready. But for now, Blu-Ray is the way to go. It's gonna get bigger in 2009, I'm sure of that.

Except you're wrong.

You don't have to get the hwole movie right away.

and 10-20 Mbps connectisona re more than adequate for HD movies, even at on disk BD quality (wich IS NOT incompressed)

Also as this becomes an issue ISP's will 1: uinrease the speed of internet connections, as there is still actually quite a bit to go on, at least as long as databases are kept sem localized so as not to starnge the main internet hubs. and 2: they will put movie downloads from official sources outside of the internet cap. like is allready beign doen for xbox and other stuff.

of course the best solution would be for the people in countries where you have caps to do what we did in Norway. simply refuse to use internet from capped companies. The largest (once tele monopoly) ISP in Norway tried capping the bandwidth. Ater one year, and losing the majority of their customers, they did a full reversal, removed caps and started a big campaing to fix their image. Better customer service, better badwidth and all that.

Of course now it's too late in many places since beause you didn't show your opinion right away, now all the ISP are capped.

Either way, with Digital distirbution of movies, digital terretrial video, eventually in HDm, and posibly with on demand if they can work it out. And with more and more ISP's offering TV over DSL/cable/Fiber with On demand/rentign of movies. Not to mention all the other services popping up, More and more peopel are being exposed to and learning to use digital distribution, and for the regular user, that means the interest in renting or buying DVD's will quickly go away. And then there's a matter if the studios will consider it worth it to sell BD disks only to what is globally a very low number of Hard core enthusiasts who insist on havign stuff on disk, even if they only watch in one time. Even if they make money on it, they make decide not to if it's not a big enough number. You don't keep an operation as big as that going, without significant returns.

[Joel]

If you adopted early and got stung, something it's obvious you have with supporting HD-DVD it was a risk you took. Same with anyone investing whilst the HD war was going on.

I paid $100 for my HDDVD player, and I don't regret it. I still have my few movies, and it's an excellent upscaler. My only problem is that I need a new receiver to support a BD player, as I don't have enough HDMI inputs.

[DDStriker]

Blu-ray is fast approaching it's high before starting to fall back, digital downloads is the way to go now!

yeah 25GB bandwidth a month isn't much fun

You guys realize that the article says Sony's Blu-Ray Player is a flop. They were not talking about Blu-Ray in general.

At last some one who knows how to read, and english is not my primary language :rolleyes:

Sony Blu-ray DVD player

people are mostly responding to "Fortune puts Blu-Ray on the top 9 tech flops of the year"

that pretty much summed it up i never clicked the link till you mentioned it :p title needs to be fixed

[Joel]

No, they show a BD player, but the point is that BD itself is a flop. Read it again.

Unlike the Beta vs. VHS video format battle two decades ago, Sony won this war over the next generation of DVDs. But the victory over Toshiba's HD-DVD standard didn't help move Sony's pricey DVD players off store shelves. "The format war was a good excuse [for consumers] to put off [their next DVD] purchase," said Majestic Research analyst Richard Klugman. "Now people are asking: 'Is it worth it?'"

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

So if digital downloading became a larger reality, you think there would be continued releases on both formats and that no company would EVER skip the physical medium to save on production costs?

The studios made the choice to release on a given format, not the people. Then the studios had the nerve to say the people had decided which format was to win. What choice did anyone have if they wanted Disney movies? They bought a BD player. No amount of spin can make the statement that the consumer chose the winning format can make it true. Last year you were supporting the choice of exactly 1 format, this year you're supporting choice of format. What's the difference? You say that last year, both formats did the same thing. Do they not do that if we have DD and BD?

Digital downloads may become this large reality one day, but until then no movie studio is going to miss out on physical sales, something which for movies is booming right now in comparison to digital distribution for many of the obvious reasons brought up thousands of times on NW.

Even with Music kind of taking off digitally there is always a market for physical, hence why music is still sold on cds...

I really don't want to get into semantics of HD-DVD vs Blu Ray, money pay offs, studio wars and all this fighting of "my favourite format" of the past.

Having two physical formats on the market was, and never will be a good pioneer of choice. I showed, you backed up, movie studios make choices, those choices segment the market and we end up in a pickle as half the movies we want are on one format, half on another.

If you foreseen that, you'd of let HD-DVD and Blu Ray battle it out till one, won. Effectively that kind of happened, the PS3 trojan horsed Blu Ray to victory due to a lot of gamers buying it, then investing in Blu Ray movies through an added bonus of their device - As opposed to hundreds of thousands of more people choosing to buy standalone Blu Ray players over HD-DVD.

This became attractive to studios as Blu Ray software sales were much higher than HD-DVD month upon month.

If you are comparing physical vs digital distribution to HD-DVD vs Blu Ray, then that's just silly Joel.

HD-DVD and Blu Ray are both physical formats, therefore it becomes physical vs physical.

Digital distribution is a completely new method of letting people watch movies, not the same method reprinted in a different coloured packaging.

And no, digital distribution is not exactly the same, it's a convenience method right now - You lose out on quality (both in video and audio departments), and you lose out on extras - Plus in many cases you have DRM attached.

[Joel]

And no, digital distribution is not exactly the same, it's a convenience method right now - You lose out on quality (both in video and audio departments), and you lose out on extras - Plus in many cases you have DRM attached.

OK, so we're talking about the same problem as now; CDs sound better, but people opt to listen to inferior MP3s.

BD has DRM attached, though.

If you are comparing physical vs digital distribution to HD-DVD vs Blu Ray, then that's just silly Joel.

I said you first said choice was bad, then said it was good. I'm comparing that. Your opinion about the legitimacy of choice then or now is just that, YOUR opinion. You're basically saying you didn't see the point of choice before, but now you do. Someone else may feel exactly the opposite.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

OK, so we're talking about the same problem as now; CDs sound better, but people opt to listen to inferior MP3s.

BD has DRM attached, though.

Visual differences are much easier to spot than audible differences.

I can see the difference much more easily in a lower bitrate HD film (ripped or distributed online) compared to it on disc, than I can between FLAC/WAV and an MP3 encoded in V0.

You know what I mean with DRM. With a physical disc you can watch it on any Blu Ray player, in anyone's house, as many times as you want. Most digitally distributed goods are tied to devices, can only be activated on so many devices, etc.

I said you first said choice was bad, then said it was good. I'm comparing that. Your opinion about the legitimacy of choice then or now is just that, YOUR opinion. You're basically saying you didn't see the point of choice before, but now you do. Someone else may feel exactly the opposite.

Fair enough, but if you actually believed having two physical formats segmenting the market was a good bearer of choice, then hey, what can I say.

I'd rather be able to buy every movie I want on one format and not need the expense of owning two devices to watch my movies - Not to mention the headache that causes if I take a film round to my friends/girlfriends and he/she only has the other HD player.

[Ryster]

One of the main problems with Blu-Ray is that it wasn't (and some argue still isn't) a complete and finalised format. There have been multiple iterations of Blu-Ray Disc Profiles and while firmware updates can fix the issue for most people, theres alot of people out there without technical experience who get a BD Player and wonder why it wont play some of their BDs. In contrast, HD-DVD was a finalised and complete specification from the outset. Sure the occasional disc had issues, but that wasn't down to the format being incomplete. Hell, the original Blu-Ray spec didn't even require an ethernet port.. how were the BD Alliance planning on keeping those players up to date????

Then there's the cost. HD-DVD could use existing production lines with only minor modifications, whereas Blu-Ray needed entirely new production facilities for Blu-Ray Discs. Manufacturers have to recoup that cost somewhere, so thats why they cost so much more than DVDs.

[Wasted Credit Generation]

Lol Blue Ray, up-scaled DVD looks just as good from 15 feet away, it's going to flop just as downloading HD movies will flop, because people have better things to spend their hard earned cash on atm, like energy bills and food lol.

[Ryster]

Lol Blue Ray, up-scaled DVD looks just as good from 15 feet away, it's going to flop just as downloading HD movies will flop, because people have better things to spend their hard earned cash on atm, like energy bills and food lol.

I'm no fan of Blu-Ray (I wish HD-DVD would've won), but I'm afraid what you just said is a load of rubbish. There is a clear and dramatic difference between native 1080p images and standard definition DVD that's been upscaled. It pure physics. A standard definition image that's been stretched, smoothed and sharpened just can't look as clear and crisp as an image with at least 4 times the picture information.

Perhaps you need your eyes testing?

[afusion]

IMO they should of waited until they put BD-DVD playback(see here)

I find it ironic Toshiba failed when they did so many things right.

[Fred Derf Veteran]

I think that upscaling DVD players are good enough for most people (although not necessarily Neowin users) who don't want to repurchase their DVD library.

[DaDude]

I'm no fan of Blu-Ray (I wish HD-DVD would've won), but I'm afraid what you just said is a load of rubbish. There is a clear and dramatic difference between native 1080p images and standard definition DVD that's been upscaled. It pure physics. A standard definition image that's been stretched, smoothed and sharpened just can't look as clear and crisp as an image with at least 4 times the picture information.

Perhaps you need your eyes testing?

Yeah, I wish HD-DVDs would've won. Had the Xbox 360 been able to play HD-DVDs, they probably would've won. But of course, Microsoft had to act money-hungry and include the player separately. The PS3 included the Blu-ray player and that helped Blu-ray win.

I think that upscaling DVD players are good enough for most people (although not necessarily Neowin users) who don't want to repurchase their DVD library.

Yeah, for me, it's good enough. I'm not saying that upscaled DVDs look just as good as Blu-ray, but what I'm saying is that the quality on upscaled DVDs is good enough to satisfy my needs. The extra money isn't worth it for some people. For example, at Amazon, the Spider-man trilogy is $57.99 on Blu-ray and on DVD, it's $20.99. An extra $37 is way too much to ask. When Blu-ray becomes cheaper and more people are buying it, I may buy a Blu-ray player myself. However, I'm not going to repurchase all my movies like I did with my VHS collection. I'll just buy additional movies I want. My cousin has a PS3, but he only bought a couple of movies on Blu-ray. But he still buys DVDs because sometimes, the extra cost is too much for him.

Edited December 20, 2008 by xraffle

[thealexweb]

Lol Blue Ray, up-scaled DVD looks just as good from 15 feet away, it's going to flop just as downloading HD movies will flop, because people have better things to spend their hard earned cash on atm, like energy bills and food lol.

The odds of blu-ray failing are so much higher than HD downloads failing, HD downloads are growing at a very fast rate.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

The odds of blu-ray failing are so much higher than HD downloads failing, HD downloads are growing at a very fast rate.

Nonsense.

Show me the sales statistics for The Dark Night on HD downloads please.

[39 Thieves]

Nonsense.

Show me the sales statistics for The Dark Night on HD downloads please.

The fact that your argument throughout this entire thread has pivoted around one movie title is rather telling.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

The fact that your argument throughout this entire thread has pivoted around one movie title is rather telling.

Explain please?

Why wouldn't an argument of Blu Ray growth be focussed around this movie, did you see the sales?

If someone has a preference of which format they like, fine, but if you're going to post claims of growth/failure back it up with something or else it comes across as FUD.

[Glowstick]

Why is everyone pretending that DVDs did catch on the year itself it hit the market? I already had a sizable collection of DVDs while everyone else was still complaining how expensive players were. Until cheap ass China brands were flooding the markets with 50? DVD players. It won't be different with Blu-ray.

[Ryster]

Why is everyone pretending that DVDs did catch on the year itself it hit the market? I already had a sizable collection of DVDs while everyone else was still complaining how expensive players were. Until cheap ass China brands were flooding the markets with 50? DVD players. It won't be different with Blu-ray.

+1

People have short memories. The same is true for Vista vs XP. Nobody seems to remember that XP had at release nearly all the same issues Vista had at release.

[+StevoFC MVC]

if you are still paying $35 for a blu-ray movie then you deserve to get ripped off. I buy almost all my movies from amazon. the most expensive new releases are about $26 now. if you wait 2 or 3 weeks you can get most movies from $20 to $24. Wait another month and you will get it for $20. Many times they have buy 2 get one free also.

I have over 100 Blu-ray and HD DVD's. They aren't expensive...believe me. If you base all your purchases off of retail store prices, then like I said before, get ripped off or never buy anything new.