Blu-ray making greenbacks, sales up 72% to start '09

Congratulations Blu-ray, you might be ready to step into the zone of mass market acceptance, as NPD's retail tracking service found Q1 sales of standalone players up 72 percent over last year, moving over 400,000 units with a 14% increase in dollar sales. Last year sure the format survived mad fights but high prices were a setback; fast forward to March when an online survey of 6,994 people found awareness has reached 90 percent in the last six months, with customers fascinated by its updates. Although BD-Live is looking more and more like an unneeded gimmick, the real facts are people care about cost and average player prices dropped from $393 last year to $261 in 2009. The "Blu-ray report" suggests the magic number is $214 for folks like Shawn Marion, so more room might be needed to breeze, and could come as soon as this fall around the time Vizio's player finally appears. It might be tragic for Vudu, CBHD and others trying to get a foothold, but Blu-ray's magic wand is word of mouth - so while much talked about, but much lower selling tech like Kindle is happy as hell to get a record deal, right now Blu-ray's unique skills can't be compared.

[MariusElijah (Only on PlayStation 3) @ May 6th 2009 8:21PM]

But but but Digital Downloads

[Gad Get @ May 6th 2009 8:47PM]

Excellent point.

What was your point, again?

[Sean @ May 6th 2009 10:28PM]

Wow, most people that comment on this post really want blu-ray to fail.

[Troy Powers (PSN: TroyPowers) @ May 7th 2009 1:09PM]

Hey, digital downloads are the future!

Unfortunately for the digital download people, this is the present.

In the words of that great black poet, Jay-Z, "I got NOW. I don't care who's got next."

[Lebowski26 @ May 6th 2009 8:23PM]

I would support this format more if didn't cost an arm and leg to buy one. My Blu Ray purchases are few and far between because of this.

[Timbo @ May 7th 2009 6:41AM]

You're not wrong - the cost of entry is keeping DVD alive.

[Barky @ May 7th 2009 7:09AM]

Prices are too high, there are too many incompatibilities with new discs, making the consumer dependant on firmware updates. Bluray live is a gimmick that no one wants.

Why did BluRay win over HD DVD again?

[Vidikron @ May 7th 2009 1:13PM]

"Prices are too high, there are too many incompatibilities with new discs, making the consumer dependant on firmware updates. Bluray live is a gimmick that no one wants."

Most of the "incompatibilities" are with BD Live, which you claim no one wants anyway. In almost every case you can still watch the movie just fine... there aren't "too many" as you state.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ May 6th 2009 8:24PM]

Now if Fox would stop pricing their movies at $36 we could really get somewhere.

[bob e @ May 6th 2009 8:25PM]

I got a Blu Ray drive on my new Dell Studio XPS and must say it is sweet.

I don't plan on buying a lot of discs but it is nice to have the high quality option available.
Hobblin Jobs is off base calling this a bag of hurt.No thank you iTunes.

[Dane @ May 6th 2009 8:26PM]

Interesting to see that Apple logo on the banner. Bag of hurt?

[Dane @ May 6th 2009 8:27PM]

My comment is in no way related to the one above.

[Gad Get @ May 6th 2009 8:49PM]

And yet you put it as a reply to that one.

See what I did there? :D

[Almo @ May 6th 2009 8:26PM]

Blu-Ray discs have become insanly cheap in the UK, usually retailing at a mere £8 a pop, that's quite decent compared to slightly less DVD prices. HDTV sell like hotcakes here and it's slowly, but surely, moving towards a HD future! Go Blu!

[Jeremy @ May 6th 2009 8:35PM]

Sure, Sure. Blu-Ray has some of (if not the) best picture/sound quality. VDU HDX isn't far behind.

Disc's to purchase are too much.
Disc's generally take 5 min before you even get to the menu to play the movie. And thats with pressing skip over and over. If that studio even allows you to bypass all the fluff before the movie.
Netflix is almost impossible to get new discs anymore
HD downloads don't compare to Blu-Ray but can be very close. Except they usually cost $6 or so.

I say it should all be digital downloads but lets lower that rate to a more reasonable $2-4, make them say and date with the disc sales.

[cashmonee @ May 6th 2009 8:57PM]

Not that I am a huge BD supporter, but your points are way off base.

1. Look at Amazon. A ton of discs can be had for well under $20 and many are $15. Most new releases are more expensive, but iTunes costs $20 vs ~$25 for new BD's. Not much difference and you get better quality, physical copy. Does vudu even sell movies, or is it all rentals?

2. I have yet to see a BD take anywhere near 5 minutes from startup to playing, much less to the menu. Some discs do take a while, but 5 is an exaggeration. And the only thing I have not been able to skip thus far is "don't pirate" messages.

3. Agree, but see point 4...

4. Redbox (.99) and Blockbuster (~$5) both are cheaper and as convenient as digital downloads. Why would I pay more for something that is less quality and can easily take an hour to download (my experience renting HD on Apple TV) when Blockbuster and 3 Redboxes are within minutes of my house?

Downloads will likely be the future, but they need to get better and far cheaper. People talk about Vudu and Apple TV, but the boxes cost as much or more than a Blu-Ray player, the content costs nearly as much and in some cases more than a BD, and the quality is not as good. Add to that the majority of people can go get the movie faster than downloading it. Downloads need to improve greatly before we can even begin to consider them a threat to physical media.

[sean lancaster @ May 6th 2009 10:23PM]

i am near 40. i don't think i've ever bought a movie. ever. i think the most i've watched a movie is 3 times. so if the price of an awesome movie drops below $9 then i might buy it instead of renting it 3 times . . . but i'd want to rent it once just to know whether it's watchable again . . . so the price needs to be below $6. oh, but i sometimes get a free rental at Blockbuster. okay, the buy price needs to be the same as the rental price or i won't buy it. wait, what was the topic again?

[Nate @ May 6th 2009 11:35PM]

I believe the slow load times were common in the orignal sony player that came out a long time ago - the one with the blue face, maybe some other early players. I have Blu in my HP 5000t and it loads as fast or faster than DVD. BTW, the software I'm using is PowerDVD 8/9. So, you can't say that is a problem across the board because it's not.

Aside from that I'm tired of people trying to tell me what quality is good enough for my 56" 1080p TV and 20/20 vision. There are a lot of options out there, which is good for consumers, but I have drank the blu cool aid and it was good.

[dennis @ May 6th 2009 8:53PM]

Well, sure, now that you can buy DVD-upscaling BR players at Costco for

[ajy0903 @ May 6th 2009 9:00PM]

The problem of blu-ray sales is as people said already, is the price.
The player's price became cheaper now, but not as cheap as DVD, and the blu-ray disc is still expansive even in USA.
So, they will gain more customers who will getting blu-ray stuffs, the companies got to sell them much cheaper then now.

[arunas @ May 6th 2009 9:22PM]

For me the showstopper with BRay is regional coding and absence of Chinesse players that would allow to disable this nonsense and other restrictions. If if pay money, I don't want somebody telling I can't play the movie I brought while traveling.

[why not the LS2LS7? @ May 6th 2009 10:39PM]

All Blu-ray catalog titles are required to be region. So after a movie has been out 6 months, you should be able to find a copy on the shelves that isn't region locked. Some of the companies don't even region lock on day 1 (others do).

[Clyde Berry @ May 6th 2009 9:28PM]

You can't deny the super-shinyness that is Blu Ray on a nice HDTV.

More HDTVs going into homes = More Blu Ray players into homes = More super-shinyness into homes

[The Avatar @ May 6th 2009 9:39PM]

BR disc bargins are bountiful. Just went to Fry's Electronics this week and picked up Layer Cake for $9. No reason to switch over to BR. In fact, until Docsis 3.0 becomes standard, no way I am waiting for the pain of a 1080p download.

[lgndk11r @ May 6th 2009 9:40PM]

Blu-ray discs are almost the price of 2-disc DVD special editions. Might as well pay up for the extra dollars for the movie+special features+ high def!

[Wolfticket @ May 6th 2009 9:42PM]

HD-DVD ftw

[Jon Graft @ May 6th 2009 11:11PM]

obviously!

[Dave @ May 6th 2009 9:49PM]

Let's face it. A download with bluray quality would take HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS. If you have Netflix you can watch probably 6-12 movies a month for under $20. If you have a fancy HDTV this is an easy choice.

I love mine enough that when my ps3 started dying, I bought a second one so I don't have to wait for the other to be repaired.

[Dave @ May 6th 2009 10:04PM]

Now that is what being a smart consumer is all about.

[simooo @ May 6th 2009 10:13PM]

At Dave "A download with bluray quality would take HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS." perhaps in US it does, there are other places in the world that are lucky enough to get FTTH with speeds at 100Mbps or more, it sure doesn't take the hours to talk about :-) plus a lot of the data on the BD disc is special features, which we don't need, take that off and suddenly the amount of data on the disc is lowered significantly somewhat.

[hexydes @ May 7th 2009 12:01AM]

Not to mention that a properly encoded 1080p movie, without the extra features, etc. is WELL under the space on a Blu-ray disc. For an average-length (~90 minute) movie, at 1080p resolution, using H.264 compression, you only need 8-12Mbps to adequately support the picture and a minimum of 5.1 surround sound. With those numbers, you're looking at around 6-10GB total file size. Assuming an average broadband connection of 5Mbps (or roughly 600KBps), and an average file size of 8GB, that's about 3.5 hours to download the entire movie. Is that really such a long time? That's not even getting into streaming.

And that's only if you care about 1080p resolution, which quite honestly most people wouldn't (and shouldn't). Unless you have a 47" or greater TV that supports 1080p, anything more than 720p is a total waste. Additionally, the average person looks at an upscaled DVD on a large-screen flat-panel and is blown away...so you think they won't be totally happy with a true 720p resolution movie? If that's the case, now we're looking at a 4GB file and just over an hour to transfer the entire thing (with streaming being possible after 15 minutes or less load time).

Additionally, lets all admit why digital HD downloads aren't mainstream yet: the studios don't want them to be. The piracy community has been doing it happily for a few years now. If there was a way to easily and affordably access this content, Blu-ray would be dead overnight. So every time those of you in the Blu-ray camp cheer on Blu-ray adoption, you're just cheering on the studios effing you over in the name of bleeding the market for profit (which they then use to buy politicians in Washington to further draconianize the copyright laws in the United States).

Sigh...

[Vidikron @ May 7th 2009 1:21AM]

@hexydes

Dead over night? You're living in fantasy land. Have you seen the state of broadband in this country? Sure, if you live in one of the few large population centers you may have access to FIOS or 100Mbps cable service, but the VAST majority of this country doesn't have those options. And even if you do have access to those services, they cost a relative fortune. Not that many people really want to pony up for $100 internet access. And what about the move by IPSs to implement caps and consumption based billing? Time Warner just got smacked down by the public outcry over ridiculously low usage caps, but they haven't given up. As it is now many ISPs have unspoken caps that people do hit from time to time already. I hope these ideas ultimately fail, but if it doesn't caps, consumption based billing, and overage charges could put a huge dent in the digital distribution movement.

Ultimately I think digital distribution is the future, but there are still many hurdles to climb beyond even those I already mentioned (e.g, standardize formats, drm, storage, etc...). You think it took a whiel for consumers to become aware of and understand Blu-ray? Try asking your average Joe how they would go about legally purchasing an HD movie and playing it on their TV. I promise you'll just get blank stares from most. But they understand discs. I think digital distribution is great for rental services and, hell, on-demand type stuff has been around for many years already, but it's not ready for primetime as far as actual purchases and being able to match disc quality go. For these reasons I think Blu-ray has decent future ahead.

[hexydes @ May 7th 2009 2:39AM]

@Vidikron: Broadband is lacking? I can only think of one person in my circle that doesn't have access to broadband, and they live waaaaaay out in the sticks. I personally am definitely not in a major city-center (I wouldn't call myself rural, but pretty close), and I have 5Mbps cable for around $45 a month. I have no trouble at all streaming anything from Netflix (albeit not HD), Hulu (closer to 720p HD but not quite), and other services; most videos start after loading for about 20 seconds. At double to triple the size for 720p, I'd gladly wait 60-120 seconds.

Again, there's a reason digital distribution isn't here, and it's because the media industry doesn't want it to be. You brought up the complexity of streaming movies, but look at things like Apple TV. If there was actually competition in this market (i.e. the studios weren't crippling the content availability), then it'd be as simple as plugging in your Apple TV or other device, hooking up to your network, and clicking on the movie you want to watch.

[Vidikron @ May 7th 2009 11:05AM]

I have 15Mbps cable and the last time I watched a 720p movie off of XBLA it stopped to buffer several times during the movie and Netflix won't even give the best quality via my 360 during streaming (usually 2 or 3 out of 4 bars). Not acceptable. And you basically completely ignored all the other issues. What about ownership? What if people want to buy movies? What DRM is going to be in place? Will we be able to move the content? Where will these movies be stored? Streaming is just one issue, storage is a completely different, yet just as important, issue.

You bring up Apple TV, so what formats do they use? Because I'd personally prefer, and I'm sure many other people would as well, that the video/audio formats be standardized across different devices and I'd like to be able to transfer my purchased movies between devices. This is how it works with discs. I can buy any brand of player I want and play the movies in any of them. People are used to this with their movies and I have doubts about digital distribution taking hold unless it can offer the same thing. People often commented about how the HD-DVD vs Blu-ray format was only confusing consumers, but the fact is that digital distribution is easily 10x more confusing and fragmented. And, yeah, you're right that the studios are crippling content. They're doing it because they would prefer you didn't get to own anything. They would like nothing more than to make you pay, and monitor you, each time you watch content.... ahh, the beauty of digital distribution + corporate greed. Make no mistake that unless you are willing to give nearly all your rights as a consumer that there is a still a HUGE uphill climb for digital distribution that goes way beyond broadband infrustructure. Remember that as you sing its praises.

I personally like what we have had up to this point. Discs offer superior quality, less DRM, and we actually have a physical object as proof of ownership. Plus, the general public already understands discs. Those of us that are more tech saavy can then rip these discs and stream around our house to our heart's content.

[Nugent @ May 7th 2009 1:55PM]

Vidikron is correct about broadband penetration. Do some Google searches on cable and broadband adoption in the US and the numbers are a lot lower than most people think. Broadband is increasing very quickly, so perhaps in a few years the broadband penetration will be enough for digital distribution to take over. But Blu-Ray's available now, and with prices dropping it'll only become more attractive.

[Smoke_me_a_Kipper @ May 6th 2009 10:14PM]

I paid $199 for a Sony BDP-350 Blu-ray, CDN$ too. That was the right price for now. I would not have gotten one, have a PS3 otherwise. But now I have one for each HDTV. I own a total of three BD movies. All from sales, one only was $9.99 and the other was a two movie deal. The local Futureshop has some half decent movies for less then $20.00. Movies you would want to see on HD. Of course they do upscale DVDs nicely too.

[sean lancaster @ May 6th 2009 10:25PM]

$214 is the magic number? not for me . . . my magic number to finally buy a Blu-ray machine is $157.42. not a penny more.

[dagamer43 @ May 6th 2009 10:34PM]

Dang, you've got some pretty expensive tax on that $149.99 Blu-ray player you really want!

[seriousam7 @ May 6th 2009 11:11PM]

Well, that's definitely less tax than he'd have to pay if he lived in California.

[crescentdavid @ May 6th 2009 11:09PM]

Blu-ray all the way ... whenever possible. It's a world filled with possibilities and blu-ray is one of the brighter ones. I can just imagine the comments if apple wasn't allergic to "bag-o-hurt." The sledge hammer really did get lost, didn't it?

[gerrycomo @ May 6th 2009 11:34PM]

The magic price is not 199$, it's your sticker price minus the first number starting from the left.

I'll buy a BR when it'll be that price just like I did with my dvd player.

Perhaps HD-DVD would have been very inexpensive by now... But then, it might have had
the same difficulties reaching the market like BR now...? Who knows...

[hexydes @ May 7th 2009 12:09AM]

As someone who bought an HD-DVD player for $99*, and is now buying up every single HD-DVD movie made (new copies, mind you) for $4 or $5, I am living proof that at the right price, Blu-ray would take off. Sony (I mean, the "Blu-ray association") chose to take their loss-leader money and buy out all the studios, rather than subsidize the cost of players (which they didn't want to do because they'd be subsidizing the failure of the PS3). Once again, those cheering on Blu-ray are cheering on a technology that is backed by a company/industry that decided the best path to success was to buy out all the competition, and then get the money back by raping the consumer.

*Actually, through a series of coincidences, I ended up getting my HD-DVD player (with 9 free movies) for negative $5. And thanks to Traderbora and other Amazon retailers, I've amassed a collection of 50+ HD-DVDs for around $200. ;)

[Wolfticket @ May 7th 2009 11:47AM]

I just bought an HD-DVD (Hendrix Live at Monterey) for £1 ($1.50).

So yes, HD-DVDs are cheap now :D
Mmm... the joys of having a hybrid HD-DVD/Blu-ray drive.

[YouFaceTheTick @ May 7th 2009 12:12AM]

BR will be worth buying... never. Sorry, we stream or rip from DVD. There's not a real advantage to BR. No matter how big our screen (we've got a few HDTVs in our house) the video image just doesn't matter that much. I'd rather stream 480p and watch something I like for free than spend even $1 extra for 1080p for the same thing.

[Vidikron @ May 7th 2009 1:26AM]

If the image doesn't matter that much, why bother with HDTVs? Also, you aren't watching it for "free" unless you stole it. Which, at that point, you could just steal BR rips.

[loosely_coupled @ May 7th 2009 2:06AM]

". I'd rather stream 480p and watch something I like for free than spend even $1 extra for 1080p for the same thing. "

Exactly what the guy ^^^ said, Why the hell do you even own an HDTV if you could care less about having high definition content? You are clearly out of the norm here...

[hexydes @ May 7th 2009 2:41AM]

Uhm, because 480p looks better on an HDTV than an SDTV? This is why lots of people watch DVDs on their new HDTV, and think they are watching "HD".

[WickedEast @ May 7th 2009 1:56AM]

Cry me a river, Sony haters. LOL.

[JRM @ May 7th 2009 2:08AM]

Well, what can you do? This is exactly why Sony had to win the HD format war--even if they had to cheat. After a new TV purchase, consumers are practically forced to use Blu-ray to see stuff at full rez. Sony knew people would end up being hancuffed to the dominant HD media.

Personally, I will not support blu-ray (or Sony, really) until it kills every other media format and I have no choice but to get blu-ray for my entertainment fix. Basically blu-ray has to kill off DVD and no new technology can come out for the foreseeable future.

[Jeff @ May 7th 2009 9:25AM]

So... your strategy is to deprive *yourself* to punish Sony for winning the format war?

Makes sense.