So is Blu-ray really ripping off consumers?
That's the idea behind a recent column on TheStreet.com, which cites consumers happiness with DVD and the oncoming march of downloads as reasons that "Blu-ray rips off consumers." Now to be fair, actually within the article are less hyperbolic statements like "Blu-ray hasn't failed" but even from here we can see several holes in the author's theory. To begin, he claims that downloadable and streaming high definition video is "360 lines away from providing the same clarity" demonstrating an unfortunate ignorance of 1080p downloads already available from Vudu and streaming from CBS.com. Unfortunately, as we all should be aware there's more to the movie experience than simply resolution, and even with more 1080p movies on the way from Xbox Live, it will be some time before a customer can get the same experience available on Blu-ray from any internet service. Another assumption? That Blu-ray "expects customers to ignore the rapidly advancing technology right on their doorstep." Tell that to companies like Samsung, LG and Panasonic, who already sell Blu-ray players that double as digital distribution set top boxes delivering HD movies from Netflix and Amazon. Check out all three pages of this guy's opinion yourself and let us know if we missed anything.
