Blu-ray may have won, but it’s not winning

Robert Hallock 23 Jun, 2009 at 2:46pm ET Article published in Tech

A recent study is suggesting that Blu-ray’s victory in the format war has done virtually nothing to improve its prospects in the market.

Amongst 2401 respondents, 93% indicated they would not be buying a Blu-ray deck. This is a 2% increase over last year.
11% of the respondents indicated that they own HD-DVD– the “dead format;” this is 4% higher than the number of Blu-ray owners.
Only 25% of respondents were willing to migrate their library to Blu-ray.
Only 33% of respondents said that the majority of their purchases are now in Blu-ray and;
Approximately 40% of the respondents are waiting for the format’s prices to drop.

We’ll be over here throwing an unsurprised party for the format that bought its way to a Pyrrhic victory.

Comments

23 Jun 2009 ~ 4:31pm djmeph I think people are looking for a format that isn't controlled by a conglomerate. Espcially with the way we can get HD movies on demand these days, without having to buy another receiver and expensive media, the industry needs to come up with something to give people an incentive to buy. Otherwise, physical media may eventually die and we'll get everything over a wire.
23 Jun 2009 ~ 5:11pm Gate28 I have a Blu-Ray player and all I buy now are Blu-Ray discs, and I'm going to rebuy all of my favorites on Blu-Ray. Yay for minorities!
23 Jun 2009 ~ 5:14pm GnomeWizardd I have blue ray BUT i use netflix to watch my blu rays
23 Jun 2009 ~ 8:39pm Komete They just need to drop the prices already for the players. Until there is a selection of players below 100 there will not be any amazing growth.

Ya know, I'm wondering if the loss of value on the US dollar is holding this up any.
23 Jun 2009 ~ 8:45pm ardichoke Why would I buy a Blu-ray player when I hardly ever consume my media on a TV anyway? Add to that the fact that most media I consume on a television is streamed through my computer and play back on my TV and I have no real use for Blu-ray. What companies should really be focusing on is better ways to stream high-def content. I think the real winner will be the company that delivers full high def streaming, compatible across platforms and that won't die if you have a slightly slower connection. Netflix seems to be winning this race at the moment.
23 Jun 2009 ~ 10:29pm deepsea Count me among those that will avoid Blu-Ray completely. Combining a high initial cost, higher ongoing cost and Sony's views on DRM, and then competing against streaming, it's pretty clear cut for me.
23 Jun 2009 ~ 10:42pm Ryan Meray | ctechsinc.com Streaming isn't a blu-ray killer, nor is it truly a competitor for blu-ray, because there are those of us who want 1080p, multichannel audio, extra features, and a physical playback medium.

Digital download still pales in resolution and features, and frankly I think it's overpriced for what you're getting.

Much like DVD players, digital cameras, and other consumer electronics, Blu-ray will start to accrue perceived value amongst the non-videophile public when the price point drops significantly below the $200 price point. It might take the $100 point of DVD players or the $150 point of digicams to star tto have broader appeal, but I can see this coming holiday or perhaps the next one as a time when blu-ray starts to see some growth.

Much to my chagrin, I'd add, because I was really hoping for Sony's latest media format fail before HD-DVD lost the format war.
23 Jun 2009 ~ 11:05pm ardichoke I'm going out on a limb here and saying you're wrong Ryan Meray. Just because streaming doesn't offer 1080p or multi-channel audio YET doesn't mean it won't. It's a lot easier to update streaming software as the technology changes than to change the hardware. Streaming has the ability to evolve quicker than DVD/Blu-ray/whatever hardware could ever dream. Netflix is already streaming in 720p... I wouldn't be surprised to see them pushing higher resolutions as the bandwidth becomes available to them. I know once I move I'm going to get the fattest DSL line I can get so that I can stream media easier, especially the HD Netflix. I, and a lot of other people as well from the looks of things, am not planning on buying a Blu-ray player.
24 Jun 2009 ~ 12:48am Ryan Meray | ctechsinc.com Supposing that streaming and/or digital downloads manage to match or surpass blu-ray, what then?

How do people get the content onto their TVs, where they actually want to watch most of the content?

I'm sure everyone with an Xbox 360, PS3, or HTPC will be covered, but what about the vast majority without? Are they going to be willing to buy into a device, whether it be a streaming media player, video-playing game system, or living room PC in order to play back the content on their TVs?

I'm not saying blu-ray is better than digital downloads, I'm saying the two aren't even competing right now as they serve two vastly different niches. The person with a great home theater setup or hell, a media room, isn't going to be satisfied with digital downloads for years. Conversely, a person who wants to cheaply and easily watch TV and movies on their laptop while traveling has little to no use for blu-ray.

Blu-ray might be the last optical format, but I think it'll last at least until FIOS-level internet connections and high-def digital downloads are commonplace, which is gonna be years at best.
24 Jun 2009 ~ 9:36am Zuntar Surprise surprise, not everyone has a TV capable of utilizing blue ray.
24 Jun 2009 ~ 9:43am mirage Zuntar, that is the point exactly. People watch blu-ray at SD or 720P and claim it is not better than a DVD which is a correct observation. What is the percentage of >52" 1080P television owners?
24 Jun 2009 ~ 10:06am Cliff_Forster Being the tech geek in my circle of friends and family, people ask me all the time, "What do you think about Blu-Ray?"

Honestly, I'm typically an early adopter and a bit of a movie nut, but for me, the primary value of any physical media format is going to be to own, not to rent, and when you consider the per movie cost Vs. DVD is usually about double, I just can't advise any friend of family member to do that in good conscience when DVD still offers a pretty good experience.

Good ole DVD is still a flavor of high quality video and audio, not suggesting its as nice a blu-ray, I am just saying, do you go from great, to greater, for double the price? It's just hard for me to justify, and I'm a bit of a video nut, so if I am having the trouble justifying the expense, and I understand the benefits, and kind of want it, how do you think Joe Blow consumer is going to do it?

Hardware aside, they can charge four times as much for a player and get the premium if the media comes down in line with standard DVD pricing, and that means older films between $10-15, new releases no more than $20 for a standard edition, and maybe $25-30 if you do something really special.

Asking people to pay $25 for a run of the mill old release, and $30 for new popular films just is not in line with what people are willing to pay for that kind of entertainment.

Looking on the FYE website, Ghostbusters on Blu Ray, $27, on DVD $11. Its impossible to justify 2.5X unless you have plenty of disposable income to project it on a 100+" screen.

Price of the optical media is what's killing the format. People will buy the hardware at a reasonable premium and start to transition their collections when the film prices are right.
24 Jun 2009 ~ 10:17am Thrax My family has a high-end 46" Samsung LCD. It's one generation old, and as I made the purchasing suggestions, people that know me will understand it's a quality display.

We have an OPPO DV-971H upscaling player. It'll take any video and bump it up to 720p and 1080p.

It looks amazing. I am the biggest image quality snob out there, but the upscaling quality on a DVD is spectacular. It's close enough to Blu-ray (which does look amazing) that I could not possibly be assed to care about BDR. The Oppo player is quite possibly the best purchase ever made for our home theatre behind the TV, and there is a long purchase history on that one.

It even makes DiVX/XViD look impressive when upscaled.

Truly a marvelous player. I'm sold on upscaling.
24 Jun 2009 ~ 11:01am QCH I have a 4 year old 52" Hitachi Platinum HD TV that will do 1080i (I know). It is an awesome TV but it does not have a HDMI port. It only has component. Now that no one makes DVD players that upconvert to 1080p via component, I am stuck with 780p which looks very good. When I watch DirecTV HD, it comes in at 1080i and looks awesome. It will be YEARS before I go Blueray because it means an entire overhaul of my entertainment system to see the difference.
24 Jun 2009 ~ 12:13pm BlackHawk As a person that doesn't have a TV, Blu-ray only appeals to me as a storage medium. For movies, it has no appeal since I get them elsewhere as I bet many do also, but if I didn't, I'd prefer streaming to physical media.
24 Jun 2009 ~ 1:37pm chrisWhite Eventually I'll get a DVD player but I'm not in any rush. I hate watching DVDs on anything larger then a laptop and I see the compression issues of online video really easily, I've done enough streaming compression to never look at a video and not see some artifacting. Yet, I don't feel drawn to Blu-ray. Must be the part about how much I hate physical media. If I had a big screen I'd absolutly go Blu-ray but a TV just doesn't fit into my philosophy and isn't practical at this stage.
25 Jun 2009 ~ 4:54pm chrisWhite hmmm, that should have read Blu-Ray in the first sentence
28 Jun 2009 ~ 5:09pm Qeldroma Bottom line-

They charge too much for the standard.
PS3s haven't come down a nickel
29 Jun 2009 ~ 2:03am NiGHTS Standalone players have, though.