Blu-ray celebrates 91 percent sales increase for first half of 2009
By Ross Miller 
posted July 16th 2009 5:54PM
posted July 16th 2009 5:54PM
posted July 16th 2009 5:54PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
How about when you can buy the required HDTVs in the grocery store?
I love this attitude that the BD players are what's holding up the technology. Well, it sure as hell doesn't help when you have to spend additional hundreds of dollars to get a TV that supports it if you don't already have one! Every one that I know who wants to go Blu but can't at the moment has told me that they don't have an HDTV and *THAT'S* what holding them up more than the cost of the players.
@ John B ... are you f-ing kidding me? an estimated 1/3rd of the population has an hdtv, double the number in the last 2 years alone. the networks went all digital for a reason. yes you CAN find hdtv's in walmarts everywhere... and yes they are required for high def players but you cant sit there watching standard def forever. requiring an HDTV to be able to watch HD is definately not a fail for blu-ray
JohnB is right. However, the HyVee grocery store chain was selling 720p plasmas for $700 last Christmas. Since the main appeal of blu-ray is 1080p, it would take a higher res screen for that. Yes, they are getting cheaper, but $500+ is still not cheap in my world. When my free (craigs list) 60" crt rear projector finally dies I might think about getting one.
Where are all the 360 owners who said HD-DVD would win the war? How do you poor xbots feel now? Happy with your cheap malfunctioning, overheating console and your little HD-DVD player? HAHA
*yawn*
Jesus Christ. You people are the sorest winners I've seen of any electronics war -- C64/IBM, VHS/Beta, whatever. It's been well over a year since Toshiba threw in the towel. Get the f*ck over yourselves and grow up, if you can.
(Oh, and I have a PS3, so don't bother trying to call me a sore loser in vain retribution.)
Dude you know that Sony bought that win. This wasn't a case of the better format winning this was a case of Sony shelling out $$$ to *finally* win a format war.
They are busy spamming forums with their Sony hate, and convincing themselves they didn't just pick 2 duds in a row...
Where is my HD DVD player now? Still playing all the movies that I bought many months ago.
Ooooh, you called us Xbots. How creative!
Hey Fony, how is that PS3 selling for you? Still outsold by both the Wii and 360 by millions? Is it still driving you into bankruptcy? How did those platform sellers like LBP, MGS, and Killzone work out for you? Do you think that "launch" game GT will ever be released? How many game developers threatened to stop making games for you this week? I wonder how lonely my PS3 is, sitting next to my 360, the PS3 has not been turned on in months, while my 360 gets plenty of use. When I want to watch a BRD, it goes in the Vista Media Center, rather than the PS3. And it is one of those rare 60GB, such a shame...
See, it can be done the other direction also.
Maybe it has to do with movies coming down a bit. i remember you could find a movie under 30$ a year ago. now you can find a few at 10$ to 15$ still wish the new releases weren't $29.99. ill start buying new movies when there around 15$
I completely agree. While I'm glad that we're starting to see older movies for under $15 (often even $10 or $12), it really bothers me that MSRP on new titles is still $30-40, with some collectors editions going up to $45 or $50. Honestly, people have a hard time shelling out $50 for a videogame that provides 30-50 hours of enjoyment, what makes the studios think anyone would pay $50 for a movie?
Though I must say, my best bluray purchase has been Planet Earth for $38 shipped from Amazon UK (who would've thought that paying the currency conversion fee + international shipping to the US would save me $30 over buying it from amazon US?)
I helped with that with one purchase of a bluray movie! ohh yes!
I remember last year when people on engadget would always talk about how blu ray was dying and they'd go off on blu ray as if it were the dumbest idea ever and how it would never survive next to downloading hd movies online etc.
But thats why the internet is entertaining, because 12 year olds who dont know what they're talking about can pretend that they do.
How dare you sir!
I'm fourteen and a half.
Trey, your mother's calling.
No thats what my stupid mother thinks, im the 12 year old who vouched for Blu-Ray since it's begining. LMFAO
Okay, quick question: When did you buy a movie the last time?
Mine was maybe 5 years ago, VHS!
Where's the DVD sales for comparison?
You see, not everything must be said ;)
To Blu-Ray, from Nintendo's 1984 hit Punch Out!!
A winner is you!
Mike Tyson edition? It makes a difference...
Looking at this reply as well as others leads me to believe that you are the king of Wikipedia.
help me out here - a good mkv file via torrents *720p* is almost as good as a bluray isn't it?
so why should someone pay for the bluray media?
i have a new in box panny bluray and the new 50" Plasma panny G10
i'm thinking of selling the bluray and getting a popcorn hour - or something for my hi def downloads.
before that it was xbmc for movies -
Thanks
Matroska (MKV) is an audio/video container as far as I know, not a format by itself. Blu-ray is 720p/1080p, depending on the movie and has a PCM audio track or lossless surround sound in Dolby TrueHD format (which actually is Meridian Lossless). But yeah, the stuff you can get illegally is just as good as Blu-ray. The question is; are you comfortable with getting stuff via torrents.
MKV (Mastroska Video) is a container format that is used primarily for HD content. Virtually all rips of Blu-ray discs are encoded to H.264, and compressed to either 1 DVD 720p content or 2 DVD 1080p content (4.7 or 8.5 GB respectively). Blu-ray discs themselves generally use MPEG2 or MPEG4 (a.k.a. H.264), though for space reasons generally MPEG4 is being used at this point (older discs from certain studios used MPEG2 but with more features being added to win support over HD-DVD, the more efficient algorithm won out). Another codec (AVCHD), but it is less widely used.
While MKVs and Blu Ray discs both can use the same H.264 codec, the bit rate (and, accordingly, quality) of the MKV's copy will be lower, especially (for obvious reasons) on 720p rips. This can lead to quality degradation and artifacts appearing in playback - scenes with many small, moving details (rain, for instance) can be noticeably lower quality, though this is less of an issue with a 1080p rip. A minor note is that most computers will not support output at 24Hz, which will force your media player to use 3:2 pulldown in order to output at 60Hz (if you're hooked up to a TV in a PAL region, this will be different but I will assume you are located in North America for now), which can cause very noticeable "judder" where motion that should be smooth (camera panning) seems to change speeds as different frames are not repeated evenly.
In short, if you are looking to justify downloading on comparison of quality versus cost, obviously downloading will win because it is free. Although I despise purchasing DRM laced media myself, I would ask you not to justify illegal downloading on the basis that legitimately purchasing the media does not broker enough of an advantage in quality.
91% of nothing is still nothing. No, seriously though, didn't Engadget just post an article a few days about about Blu-ray growth dropping from 9% to 7% or something like that? But now they're raving about 91% growth?
Where am I confused?
Um, Blu-ray isn't dropping 9%. There are lots of garbage surveys out there. Don't believe everything you read. When you have a survey that stated 19% of people prefer HDDVD(dead format) over Blu-ray, I think you can discount that survey.
Reportedly, 19% people understand sarcasm, 99% do not.
Sorry, I got that wrong. Here were the details of that flawed survey:
A. An HD DVD player is in 14% of homes? Blu-ray STBs and PS3s combine for only 16%?
B. Fewer people plan to purchase a Blu-ray player this year than last? If that's really true, then there will be fewer players sold this year, despite lower prices, larger selection, better functionality, and greater awareness. In your dreams, Robin.
C. On average, in the past 6 months, participants purchased more HD DVDs (.7) than Blu-rays (.5).
D. In the next 6 months, these same people plan to increase their purchasing activity to 6 HD DVDs (+750% growth) and 7 Blu-rays (+1300%).
Now to put things into perspective, HD DVD has been DEAD FOR OVER 1 YEAR.
40% of statistics are made up! 2 in 5 of people know that!
Do anybody here got a blue-ray player that does 1080p/24 ? How does it look ?
You really want to see all pimples/acne on people's skin?
I doubt you can even find a player that does not do 1080p24. The question is whether you have a screen that supports a 24Hz multiple. I have both, and they look fantastic, unless you turn on the motion smoothing, which then looks awful. In terms of TVs with the technology, all Plasma panels can do it (I believe, at least - I'm relatively unversed on that tech), all Samsungs past the 550 series (e.g., the A/B 650s and above) can do 120Hz, along with Sony XBR5+, LG's LH series, and Sharp's 75Us and above. Some of those (Samsung 750s, for instance) can even do 240Hz.
The PS3, by the way, most definitely does 1080p/24 if were on the fence about it.
Ps3 does
Yeah, 1080p @ 120Hz refresh (and 52" diag) is pretty freaking sweet - at less than 8 feet. Any further away than that and every Blu-ray disc I own looks identical to the same title on DVD.
The ladies are right - size does matter, boys.
P0rn is great in 1080p, once you see HD p0rn you can't go back to Standard Definition
You all PS3 and Xbox people lose, my PC will always have better graphics and better games lol. All kidding, I have all 4 systems, why not pick up a wii, 360, ps3 and a gaming pc and you will always be win win to the lonely person that has only a ps3 or a 360.
I guess it just that easy to afford all that tech, but if I could I would have all 4 except maybe the Wii. Yeah I like playing games motionless if I wanted to actually move I'll be outside playing Real Sports not Wii sports.
Forgot to mention 1080p owns, I love it.
BlaBlaBlaBla! SOS! Move on now!
Blu-ray won from the very beginning. Sure, digital downloads are the future but it won't be the main movie medium anytime soon. People forget that a lot of even the good ole' USA still runs on broadband and old people love buying something tangible.
Woops, that made no sense! Runs on dial-up. Dial-up people.
Really, dial up? You could say slow broadband.. but really, dial up?
And it's not just old people, there are so many advantages to a physical purchased product. Look at most digital sites like iTunes, Amazon's market place, PSN, XBLA, etc, there are rarely deals to be had. I also like letting people borrow game or DVDS and borrowing them.. can't do that with digital.
Once the higher ups realize that it's ridiculous they should get a much higher profit margin and pretty much total control over the digital content, then I'll probably be on board.
Not to mention, there is something nice about seeing games and DVDS lined up in order, it's a lot nicer then a menu of different games.
I just wish the studios would stop charging premium prices for blu-ray discs and players. It's not even that new. It's crazy that it's still being treated as a luxury product for better off people.
At the current (accelerating) rate of change it will soon become irrelevant in the face of higher broadband speeds and cheaper HD downloads from Apple and others. Price drives the adoption of new technology not just porn. Anyway most people don't want discs anymore for music so why should we want them for film. Who like getting out of the chair to put the damn things in a slot. Bypassed.
"Although consumer spending on sellthrough packaged media was down 13.5 percent in the first half of 2009," the release says, "this was partially offset by the growth of Blu-ray (up 91 percent to $407 million) and digital distribution (up 21 percent to $968 million, which includes $196 million for electronic sellthough)."
---------
What 'electronic sellthough' (sell-through?) are they talking about here? I need someone to put this in Joe Customer Ingrish plz.
Still, when all is said and done, that looks to me like downloads are beating Blu-Ray handily, let alone DVD.
Me likes
The BRD sales are most certainly centered around players, while noticng the movie rental increases. If Sony could take it's head out of it's ass and think about the future, they'd drop movies prices from the $30s and get in the lower $20s for new releases. They'd also start thinking about downloaded BR content and how they can be streamed, shared, etc.
Let me know when there's an affordable universal (all-region) player. Until then I'll stick to DVD.
im so happy that blu ray won the hd-dvd war ... thats all ... just happy
I'm sure it's because Blu Ray players are finally approaching the $200 price point.
I'm still hoping iTunes emerges the victor of the new new format wars (the internet kind, which will replace Blu Ray).