If Blu Ray is doomed to go the way of the Laserdisc, then I say bring it on. Laserdisc in its day was only about 50% better resolution than VHS, but also had much better sound. BR is more than twice the vertical resolution. LD was doing great until DVD came out. This would hopefully mean more careful mastering of the original source so as to better sell it to the videophile. No more discs that have the sharpness/edge enhancement turned way up. I figure prices will probably remain the same since its apparently a hang up for a lot of folks. I am watching on a 60" LED DLP and BR is a big time improvement over even PS3 upconverted DVDs. Don't get me started on sound.
They did the same thing with the Star Trek box set, I'm sure they'll release the extended directors cuts on both at a later date. Double dip, studio sure do love to do that.......
i think at this point though most fans who would even double dip on the blu-ray would wait for the EE versions of the disc. I think the average fan may too. they could have easily had both versions on the disc with seamless branching between the two I believe with the size of BD discs. I dont see a lot of people jumping to buy this box set since many know the EE will be probably out the next year or so. Its a little bit different with new releases but old releases should have both. like the gladiator blu-ray coming out in sept will have both the theatrical and extended cuts on it
I bought mine because it's big (for watching Rocket games) and it hangs on the wall I don't really watch that many movies.
Are you kidding me? Blueray will never be doomed! Try playing a full 1080p res on a 46inch lcd. Beats any dvd players or even the movies any time of the day! I am telling you the picture is really that good.
I can see physical discs becoming obsolete if we ever got to a point where you could stream any and all movies in Bluray quality with ease. But considering the massive hurdles that would have to be overcome to reach that point, it's gonna be a long, long time before bluray and (to a lesser extent) dvds are no longer used. We've been able to download mp3s for a good 10 years or so now, and CDs are still very prevalent. I'd imagine, it's gonna still be another decade (or more) before they become completely obsolete. And this is with the technology already in place to quickly download and efficiently store albums.
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I said in discussions a few years ago that the upgrade from DVD to hi-def was not nearly as compelling as from video cassette to DVD. Some Sony fanboys tried to argue otherwise. When Sony won the format war over HD-DVD, they far overestimated their market strength. They should fire whoever has been giving them advice and hire someone who isn't afraid to tell them what they don't want to hear. The squeeze between DVDs being good enough for most people and downloading becoming more popular will ensure Blu-ray becomes nothing more than a (perhaps large) niche in the market. It will never be a "must have". From my personal view, I've never understood the desire to build collections of DVDs and own physical media (and I'm older than the vast majority of members here). Before downloading, I only bought 1 or 2 DVDs a year for very special movies and rented the rest. Now, it's been about 2 years since I've even rented a physical DVD. Broadband and a desire to avoid clutter are the reasons. R.I.P. Blu-ray. You were doomed to failure from the start because the company that owned you was too full of itself to realize you weren't the greatest thing since sliced bread. The most likely outcome when a company thinks they have a product that cannot fail is that it will indeed fail. I think Sony makes great stuff. If they had the marketing acumen of Apple and were able to gauge reality better, Sony would be on top of the world. Instead of lowering the price and spurring adoption when the iron was hot, they blew it. They are missing the mark once again if they think adding features to Blu-ray movies will spur adoption. It won't because when people watch movies, most just want to watch the movie, not play around with features. Lil Pun, Sony is as dense as that tombstone.
You are wrong. From the article just posted: Now, household penetration of high-definition hardware in the U.S. is split 3% set-top and 6% PS3. That will switch in 2012 to 53% set-top and 22% PS3. That is spectacular growth in 3 years. We'll see.
You forget how technologically driven and materialistically competitive the average American consumer is. 1080p, 240 hertz, Blu-Ray, etc. Streaming will be hard pressed to ever take over the market exclusively, as intellectual property may be easier to reduce to a computer file when it comes to music with mp3s but when you're talking about visual entertainment media... there will always be a craving for crisper picture. It is just the nature of the American consumer to continually want to upgrade to the newest and best technology, even if it becomes economically inefficient. Blu-Ray will continue to increase its market share, and I expect a huge jump in sales starting with Black Friday, in which a lot of stores will make HDTVs and Blu-Ray players extremely affordable for the average income. Once the average Blu-Ray becomes $25 dollars, (people forgot a new DVD still costs 20 bucks)... Standard Def DVDs will slowly start to be phased out.
f I think you misunderstand the average American consumer. Very few are tech geeks who need the latest gadget. That mindset might apply to the average Blu-ray owner. It will be price that determines Blu-ray's success rate. I don't think Blu-ray's adoption rate shows any mass desire to make "economically inefficient" decisions. Nobody said anything about streaming taking over the market exclusively. One thing about most people that I don't understand is they indeed want to own physical media. That guarantees DVDs and Blu-ray a good share of the market. That is, unless there is a significant breakthrough in the next few years that changes the game.
I have to disagree with most of this. As stated earlier in this thread, going Blu-Ray over DVD isn't as compelling as going DVD over VHS. And I won't pay $20 for a DVD, period. You can get new DVDs for less than $20 when they launch, since the DVDuesday sales are pretty fierce. And then you can wait for them to go sub-$10. I won't pay more than $6-7 per DVD, unless it's something my wife or kid wants, and then I won't pay more than $15. As for quality, try watching an old DVD on an upconverting player. It's not -quite- as good, but it's good for my poor 20/13 vision. As for streaming, at best it's regular-DVD quality on the big screen..which is pretty darn good for free or $8/month from Netflix. I've been experimenting with this a lot lately since I dumped pay TV and have gone 100% internet streaming or DVD, and I'm happy with the results with a couple of caveats. There are tons of set-top boxes on the market and on the horizon that deal with streaming TV (not counting 'on demand' from cable cos) that will cut into DVD market share. I won't get into the specifics as I'm saving those for an update to my Screw Pay TV thread. Bottom line- Blu-Ray doesn't do it for me. The cost vs performance isn't enough for me to upgrade the hardware and abandon my old DVDs. Now, if they used that technology to cram MORE into one disk..that's something else. I love efficient use of technology.
