Look, we don't really "get" people who aren't willing to buy the latest and greatest thing regardless of the price and / or current economic state, but evidently there's a rather large sector still clinging to their antiquated DVD format.
Blu-ray proponents Panasonic, Philips, and Sony are looking to change all that by knocking down the tab a few notches. The trio has revealed plans to form a single licensing firm for Blu-ray, which they anticipate will lower the cost of the license -- and therefore the retail price -- by "at least" 40 percent. They expect it'll amount to $9.50 for read-only BD player, $14 for a burner, 11 cents for read-only discs, 12 cents for BD-Rs, and 15 cents for BD-RE rewritable discs. In its current form, hopeful BD makers have to seek out each company individually. The group also hopes a single licensing entity will help them spot unauthorized BD devices, so watch out, suspicious mom and pop Blu-ray stores.
posted February 25th 2009 3:37PM
Agreed. I'll holding off on ANY new physical formats until they are reasonable. IMO, Between iTunes, Netflix and the occasional Bit Torrent, Blu-Ray is just an updated form of an out-dated technology. I know downloads and streaming are still a couple years from being the preferred channel for watching movies, and there are plenty of good reasons. I just personally prefer it to physical formats.
Also is the crisis factor, where even a lousy vhs can looks fine.
Did you just stop buying VHS last year? New DVDs aren't even consistently $10.
Upscalers are good, but not even close to 1080P, why guess at the pixels when you can get them on the disc?
Plus, they do nothing about audo... 7.1 Dolby for the win!
Upscaling may make the picture look good, but does nothing for the compressed 5.1 or DTS soundtracks on DVD's. The lossless soundtracks on Blu-Rays alone make them worth upgrading. Once you hear uncompressed sound it's hard to go back.
Exactly. My upscaling DVD player looks just fine, and honestly the 2 times I've rented movies on Blu-Ray the only difference I could actually notice was sound, which was pretty astounding but not enough to convince me to start buying everything on Blu-Ray. Plus it's my roommate's PS3, I'd be boned when he finally moves out and takes it with him.
I picked up an open box dual type player @ Best Buy for $200. Plays HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. Upon arriving @ the house, I logged onto Amazon, and ordered a bunch of HD-DVD's for $5 a pop.
Wouldn't this have been a cheaper way to fight the format wars?
Awesome, can't wait for it to get cheaper.
Waiting for the Oppo.
High "reference grade" Quality and low price are what the OPPO brand is about. The best "reference grade" BD players are beaten by the PS3. The
Why wait? Sony PS3 is the new OPPO.
My problem is that I have a great SD format system for which I paid many thousands of dollars for, and that still looks and sounds really good. (60" mistu RP, Yamaha sound and Toshiba DVD with optical and component video out) In order to upgrade to Blu-Ray, I need to replace my entire system, and I don't have $8000+ laying around.
My other problem is that I have vowed to not purchase any more dedicated media devices. I might get a PS3, but I will never purchase a stand alone BR player. What I want is to put a BR drive in my server that and rip the content to a server, which is what I do with DVDs. I've read a lot about anyDVD HD. Anyone have any experience ripping with this and playing the content back with a media PC? Apparently VLC doesn't really work too well...
1. Rip using AnyDVD HD. (results in .m2ts file)
2. Convert to MKV or MP4 using MeGUI.
Take 6-12 hours, depending on your computer.
is that a lossy process? What I do with DVDs is rip them to a folder (although I've been experimenting with making an ISO out of them) and play them with VLC. that way you can get the DVD menu, chapter selection etc. I want to do the same with BRD. Is there a player out there that will play a BD ripped to a folder (or better yet to an ISO) like that? As far as the other
"special features" go I'm not really interested...
I really dont think blu-ray, or hdtv for that matter is worth it.... Most americans dont have an hdtv setup with surround sound in their home, and most cant afford it for that matter. Im looking at my 32" tube tv right now with my iron man dvd in it and it looks just fine... the quality is perfect for me.. I really dont need to see robert downey jr's pores on his face in great detail and end up spending thousands of dollars... normal quality for me until i can buy an hdtv for less than $400 and a bluray player for less than $100, like i can with regular tvs and dvd players
Your post was just depressing.
your absolutely right. as a cable guy i see way to many time people have this expectation of HD. when in reality most of what you watch regularly isnt in hd. and on an hd set non-hd content looks a lot worse than tube. the industry is making people go nuts about stuff they they never needed or wanted. And to be honest when I 1st say blu ray i wasnt blown away. even after i got my 1080 120hz 47in I was surprised at how grainy some scenes were......I personally think the craving for hd is in peoples minds put there by bombarding advertising.
Would someone please link me to an affordable HTIB that take can take advantage of the, uh, "advanced" audio features found in BD. Thanks.
hmmm
Meanwhile, Best Buy paid me $5 to take home an HD-DVD player with 9 movies (I got a really good deal here, lol, but most people ended up having to pay $50 for a player and 7 movies), and I've been buying HD-DVDs for $5 each for the last year.
Blu-ray isn't even in the realm of mass-adoption yet. $150 for a player and $12.99 for a new movie, then maybe we can talk.
Blu-Ray will fail...............
http://warmsounds.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/blu-ray-will-fail/
read it.... empty thoughtless crap.
I thought it was spot on, kind of obvious, but spot on.
I don't care... as long as they limit geographical usage and as long as I'm forced to buy some stupid 3rd party software in order to be able to play the latest movies on my PC, it'll be much cheaper, much faster and ironically, much more comfortable to just search for a .MKV container with all the HD sweetness...
When, and ONLY when playing back a Blu-Ray disc on my PC is as comfy as playing back a DVD, then I'll reconsider...
Aahhh... this is just what Steve Jobs was looking for. Now he has an excuse to include a Blu-Ray player in the next Mac Mini.
Look, we don't really "get" people who aren't willing to buy the latest and greatest thing regardless of the price and / or current economic state
>>>>>what the hell don't you understand
Tis sarcasm my good man. Learn it.
Here in the UK, HD sets haven't taken off like they have in the US. The BluRay Companies seem to forget that most customers will need to buy a HD set AND a BD player AT THE SAME TIME. That doubles (or triples) the initial outlay, and then you see the prices of films, many of which you already own on DVD, and it's a moot point.
Until Sony realises that they need to drop the price of HD SETS before BluRay stuff, it'll go no-where.
If they want to sell more BD players, then they need to print on the boxes, marketing, and start calling them hybrid BD/DVD/CD combo players, because most people believe their existing DVD library will not work with BD players. Heck after 10+ years of DVD most people still don't know their DVD player will playback CD music and in some cases, MP3 and JPG.
Screw Blu-Ray, downloads/streaming is the future. Really, they still think a spinning polycarbonate disc with relatively low transfer speed is the best storage medium?
blu-ray is just a cash cow for sony... there is just no way I can justify pricing on the players and the discs, especially b/c in a few years this too will probably be at the wayside