Blu-ray player sales down since January.

[Smokey]

The NPD Group released some of its retail sales tracking data on Wednesday that showed sales of Blu-ray standalone players (not a PlayStation 3, combo player, or PC with Blu-ray drive) had mostly decreased since the beginning of the year.

Despite Toshiba's HD-DVD throwing the towel in February, standalone Blu-ray player unit sales in the U.S. decreased 40 percent from January to February and saw a very slight increase (2 percent) between February and March, according to NPD.

Analysts at NPD gave two main reasons why the sale of Blu-ray players are down:

1. DVD is "good enough" for most consumers. And that the picture offered by a Blu-ray Disc and accompanying player doesn't appear so overwhelmingly better than a standard DVD and many consumers can't justify the dramatically increased cost.

2. Cost. Regular DVD players did not became a common commodity untill they hit $100 mark, and that might be the magic price for Blu-ray player sales to take off. But that might be couple of years away as Sony recently announced that $200 players aren't likely until next year at the earliest.

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_080430.html

[pixelthis]

Not to mention that people are broke, as a general rule.
I READ A STORY in todays paper about how people are cleaning out their attics
and even their houses, looking for stuff to sell for gas money.
not a climate favorable to a new toy.
I myself dont see any big hurry to get a blu, sure the pic is slightly better than broadcast,
but the price IS high.
And its not DVD that is the big competitor, I rarely watch DVD anymore.
But I watched 3:10 to yuma in DD and HD the other night, 5.99 and I didnt have to take it back, or spring for a 400$ player.
And the picture was really beautiful, the sound also.
And its not the price of the player alone, only reason I'd get one would be to collect movies,
so its not just the player but the cost of discs.
I am due a few "windfalls" but some will go for bills, some for a much needed vacation.
Any left over, I MIGHT look into a player,
Emphazise the word MIGHT.

[GMichael]

3. People have found out that the PS3 is the best BR player available for the money.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Got my stimulus package money today.

[bfalls]

How much willl it cost the next time you watch 3:10 to Yuma, or the next after that? I do agree discs are too costly right now, but I think there's a big difference in PQ over DVD. It may not be as important to many comsumers, but I enjoy it. I'm also enjoying the upconversion of SD DVDs. I don't plan to replace any of my SD DVDs with BDs. What I'm waiting for now are the prior HD-DVD titles to come out on BD. Has anyone heard if The Bourne Ultimatum will come out on BD?

I'm still finding the PS3 is the best quality BD player and its frequent upgrades a plus. I think it's great that upgrades to the gaming side allows more frequent upgrades to the BD side. I doubt standalone players will update as often. The only downside I see is the fan noise. Has anyone tried the auxillary cooler? Is it's fan quieter and reduce the need for the internal fan to run. I'm sitting 10ft away from the PS3, but still here the fan during quiet passages.

[Groundbeef]

Well, certainly as the PS3 goes, I think it's helping drive the BR format forward.

As far as "sales" go, I think that it will be interesting to see how the lack of competition affects sales.

Contrary to the BR supporters, I am not conviced the format war was all that bad for consumers. True, it was sometimes confusing for people to sift through the hype, but it was beneficial for downward price pressures.

Additionally, the format war helped keep the technology on the front burner. Now that there is only one format, it is largely ignored by the popular media. No war, NO STORY.
Therefore, I feel that consumers now have a "wait it out" mentality. Why buy into the technology now?, After all, it is the only game in town. The sense of urgency is gone, as well as the possiblity of a quick drop in price.

I do agree that BR does look great on a HDTV, but for many people in this rather uncertain time (financially) I don't know if BR offers enough benefit vs DVD. And the disc prices are too high.

[Feanor]

The NPD Group released some of its retail sales tracking data on Wednesday that showed sales of Blu-ray standalone players (not a PlayStation 3, combo player, or PC with Blu-ray drive) had mostly decreased since the beginning of the year.

Despite Toshiba's HD-DVD throwing the towel in February, standalone Blu-ray player unit sales in the U.S. decreased 40 percent from January to February and saw a very slight increase (2 percent) between February and March, according to NPD.

Analysts at NPD gave two main reasons why the sale of Blu-ray players are down:

1. DVD is "good enough" for most consumers. And that the picture offered by a Blu-ray Disc and accompanying player doesn't appear so overwhelmingly better than a standard DVD and many consumers can't justify the dramatically increased cost.

2. Cost. Regular DVD players did not became a common commodity untill they hit $100 mark, and that might be the magic price for Blu-ray player sales to take off. But that might be couple of years away as Sony recently announced that $200 players aren't likely until next year at the earliest.

http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_080430.html

And I think the reasons stated above are valid.

A couple of months ago I suggested that BluRay sales would not take off until players were available for <$200 and the DVD vs. BluRay software price differential shrunk to <30%. I'll stick with that.

BluRay vendors, hardware and software, are still at the "market skimming" stage whereby big bucks are extracted from "early adopters", (or as some would have it, the "suckers").

[Mr Peabody]

40% is significant, that should give some one some worry. As I posted in a thread I started current BR players suck at standard DVD playback. I think this is a disservice to consumers and the prices haven't gone down. There may be some upgrades in decoding but that shouldn't add much to the expense of a player. It looks to me like the current players are offering less performance for the same money. I doubt if this is the reason for the slump, it didn't seem to make a difference with the members here and I doubt if the average Joe would know this information unless he researched before buying. I agree that most of it is probably the economy. When money is tight your existing DVD looks pretty good. Although home theater has made a dramatic impact on home viewing, I'd be willing to bet the majority of people just have a TV with a cable plugged into the back. BR isn't going to mean much to them.

Speaking of significant, BR's sound quality in it's intended format, uncompressed, is tremendously better than DVD, and DVD is better than broadcast. I also agree that when compared BR's PQ is better than DVD. But will the general public care about this. BR may still yet be a nitch. And, some are still claiming downloads are the future, including my local high end dealer. I still can't see this in the near future if at all but let's not start this again. Pix, I think you are the only PPV fan boy here. Your town might be the exception but most people's cable service sucks and satelite isn't much better. Their problem is they are trying to offer quantity instead of quality. PPV is also very limited. I've had a free movie coupon for a couple months now waiting for something worth using it for.

Also I don't know how much your average consumer is aware of but my feeling is the consumer electronics industry is as corrupt and moarlly bankrupt as any crime organization I can think of. I have never seen anything as messy as this HDMI crap and the one's behind it are the very one's selling and designing the electronics. Most here are the early adopters who this effects but they don't seem to care which just makes the electronics companies that much bolder. Things are starting to fall more in place but it has left many with receivers and other equipment that won't be compatible. An installer I was talking with says there are still some compatibility issues between even components of different brands both using 1.3. He suspects it has something to do with the large amount of talking back and forth the components must to to operate via HDMI.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I think everyone is missing one important point here, which makes this no news at all. Every year between January and June CE sales take a dive. What this report does not do is give some perspective to the overall industry. During the same period NDP reported on bluray players, DVD players were also down about 30%, Televisions about 15% DVD sales down about 45% and bluray disc sales up about 10%. The entire CE industry goes into the doldrums in the first and second quarters, and things usually pick up during the third and boom during the fourth quarter. It has been that way since the early nineties and nothing has really changed.

Clearly with many consumers the HD DVD "effect" has changed everyones perception of just how much Hi Def should cost. New technology being introduced to sustain a healthy market is not cheap at its inception, and does not artificially stay cheap because of subsidation. Bluray players cost more to make, they are not subsidized, so one cannot expect their prices to be cheap like HD DVD players were(they were heavily subsidized in a unhealthy market) so early in the game.

Mr Peabody, the upgrades in decoding DO add to the expense of the player. In order to make some 1.1 players complient and upgradeable to 2.0, more memory has to be installed, and the chipsets that allow flash upgrades cost more money still. Their prices have not drop just yet. You have liscensing fee that are associated with audio codec additions. Bluray is not a continuation of DVD. Everything associated with the player is brand new, from the laser assembly, to the output devices.

You are not getting less product for the price as you state, you are actually getting more performance for the same price. Chipsets have become more powerful so they handle BD-j much better. It was found that the earliest players(namely the Samsung BP1000) does not have the horsepower to run BD-j, process DTHD or even pass it as a stream, and process or pass Dts MA lossless as either a enternal decoding, or pass it as a bitstream. Now players can either pass both as a bitstream, or internally decode it. All players sold now are AT LEAST 1.1 compliant, and 2.0 is still an optional choice.

To clearly understand what happens when your product is commoditized too quickly all one would have to do is look at HD DVD players, and Plasma televisions. Toshiba had to abandon the HD DVD market because of huge losses, and television manufacturers are bailing out of plasma production because they are not making any money on the televisions.

GB,
The war was not bad for consumers except it created a VERY false sense of a pricing structure for new technology. What was good for the consumer on the HD DVD side, pretty much killed Toshiba's profits for two years. On their HD DVD business their loses were within a hair's breathe of $1billion. Most of this loss was on subsidizing player prices for the entire time HD DVD was on the market. That was good for the consumer, but killed its business, and in the end alot of HD DVD owners were stuck with a player no longer supported with movies, and a customer services nightmare as players that were broken or half function before leaving the manufacturering plant are now coming back for servicing. Toshiba is dragging their feet, and creating more ill will for themselves, and now the consumer is seeing what happens when products are artificially cheap, and do not reflect the true cost from manufacturing to customer services.

I would rather delay adoption a few months, even a year, so I could keep a healthy market that supports continued cost cutting R&D, supports a good customer services structure, and make sure that software plays in the player with fewer glitches(The glitch level of software and players has pretty much gone away post war).

Renting via downloads is going to grow, but very slowly according to all of the credible analyst that cover the film industry. Nobody believes that downloads are going to hurt or even slow down bluray, but products appeal to two different levels of consumer. Secondly, they are not making any money. Amazon and Microsoft have totally refused to release their quarterly numbers on both sales and rental of video on demand products. Most analyst think they are actually losing money. Apple is losing money on download sell through, but doing pretty well with television and movie downloads. Right now DVD is experiencing major pain in sales, as sales continue to drop 1-2% yearly.

Another thing to consider is that once the format war became over, demands for bluray players went through the roof. Walmart has experienced this rather painfully as they have not been able to keep bluray players on the shelves, and delays of getting new players is about 30-45 days for some store locations. Pioneer sold out their higher end $1000 player, and getting more on the shelves has been pretty slow for some retailers. Alot of analyst are discounting NDP's Ross Rubin's analysis. According to three other analysts, bluray player sales are actually doing quite well, but is not meeting the demand. This is further bolstered by very healthy software sales. So things are not always as they look. When you look at first quarter sales this year compared to last, there has been a five fold increase this year over last years sales. Best Buy is having a problem keeping both the Samsung BP 1400 and the Sony S300 bluray players on the shelves, and there are shortages of these players nation wide.

Several members of bluray.com that work at both Best Buy and Walmart report that the PS3 is selling so well that any shipments that come in, are gone within days, and in some cases hours.

Bfalls, I have never heard my PS3 fan, not even when running folding@home which is very power intensive. Do you have your sitting flat, or standing up?

[Groundbeef]

I think everyone is missing one important point here, which makes this no news at all. Every year between January and June CE sales take a dive. What this report does not do is give some perspective to the overall industry. During the same period NDP reported on bluray players, DVD players were also down about 30%, Televisions about 15% DVD sales down about 45% and bluray disc sales up about 10%. The entire CE industry goes into the doldrums in the first and second quarters, and things usually pick up during the third and boom during the fourth quarter. It has been that way since the early nineties and nothing has really changed.

Clearly with many consumers the HD DVD "effect" has changed everyones perception of just how much Hi Def should cost. New technology being introduced to sustain a healthy market is not cheap at its inception, and does not artificially stay cheap because of subsidation. Bluray players cost more to make, they are not subsidized, so one cannot expect their prices to be cheap like HD DVD players were(they were heavily subsidized in a unhealthy market) so early in the game.

Mr Peabody, the upgrades in decoding DO add to the expense of the player. In order to make some 1.1 players complient and upgradeable to 2.0, more memory has to be installed, and the chipsets that allow flash upgrades cost more money still. Their prices have not drop just yet. You have liscensing fee that are associated with audio codec additions. Bluray is not a continuation of DVD. Everything associated with the player is brand new, from the laser assembly, to the output devices.

You are not getting less product for the price as you state, you are actually getting more performance for the same price. Chipsets have become more powerful so they handle BD-j much better. It was found that the earliest players(namely the Samsung BP1000) does not have the horsepower to run BD-j, process DTHD or even pass it as a stream, and process or pass Dts MA lossless as either a enternal decoding, or pass it as a bitstream. Now players can either pass both as a bitstream, or internally decode it. All players sold now are AT LEAST 1.1 compliant, and 2.0 is still an optional choice.

To clearly understand what happens when your product is commoditized too quickly all one would have to do is look at HD DVD players, and Plasma televisions. Toshiba had to abandon the HD DVD market because of huge losses, and television manufacturers are bailing out of plasma production because they are not making any money on the televisions.
GB,
The war was not bad for consumers except it created a VERY false sense of a pricing structure for new technology. What was good for the consumer on the HD DVD side, pretty much killed Toshiba's profits for two years. On their HD DVD business their loses were within a hair's breathe of $1billion. Most of this loss was on subsidizing player prices for the entire time HD DVD was on the market. That was good for the consumer, but killed its business, and in the end alot of HD DVD owners were stuck with a player no longer supported with movies, and a customer services nightmare as players that were broken or half function before leaving the manufacturering plant are now coming back for servicing. Toshiba is dragging their feet, and creating more ill will for themselves, and now the consumer is seeing what happens when products are artificially cheap, and do not reflect the true cost from manufacturing to customer services.

I would rather delay adoption a few months, even a year, so I could keep a healthy market that supports continued cost cutting R&D, supports a good customer services structure, and make sure that software plays in the player with fewer glitches(The glitch level of software and players has pretty much gone away post war).

Renting via downloads is going to grow, but very slowly according to all of the credible analyst that cover the film industry. Nobody believes that downloads are going to hurt or even slow down bluray, but products appeal to two different levels of consumer. Secondly, they are not making any money. Amazon and Microsoft have totally refused to release their quarterly numbers on both sales and rental of video on demand products. Most analyst think they are actually losing money. Apple is losing money on download sell through, but doing pretty well with television and movie downloads. Right now DVD is experiencing major pain in sales, as sales continue to drop 1-2% yearly.

Bfalls, I have never heard my PS3 fan, not even when running folding@home which is very power intensive. Do you have your sitting flat, or standing up?

I for one am tired of your well reasoned, and well versed responces.

BTW I highligted a portion of your response. Nice to see that you and Pix are again seeing eye to eye. PLASMA IS DEAD!!!!

[kexodusc]

I for one am tired of your well reasoned, and well versed responces.

BTW I highligted a portion of your response. Nice to see that you and Pix are again seeing eye to eye. PLASMA IS DEAD!!!!

You hit below the belt, dawg.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

I for one am tired of your well reasoned, and well versed responces.

Come to think of it, so am I

BTW I highligted a portion of your response. Nice to see that you and Pix are again seeing eye to eye. PLASMA IS DEAD!!!!

I just have to do this because it is so ghetto, and so pixie at the same time There!

Plasma is hardly dead, but manufacturering is defintately shifting around to the manufacturers with much lower labor costs. There is going to be alot of generic products made with a company's badge slapped on it, that is for sure. $hit, I just wanna do this one more time

[Smokey]

Not to mention that people are broke, as a general rule.

That is probably another good reason. Have you been to grocery store lately.

I don't plan to replace any of my SD DVDs with BDs.

This probably be the big reason why sale of blu ray discs will be slower as compare to DVD sales a decade ago. Decade ago, most people dumped their entire VHS collection (including me) and replace them with DVD.

The question now become, would most people dump their DVD collection in favor of HD DVDs?

A couple of months ago I suggested that BluRay sales would not take off until players were available for <$200 and the DVD vs. BluRay software price differential shrunk to <30%. I'll stick with that.

So far, it is holding true

Another thing to consider is that once the format war became over, demands for bluray players went through the roof. Walmart has experienced this rather painfully as they have not been able to keep bluray players on the shelves, and delays of getting new players is about 30-45 days for some store locations. Pioneer sold out their higher end $1000 player, and getting more on the shelves has been pretty slow for some retailers.

So you are saying the sales are down due to inventory? That don't sound like a good business practice.

I would rather delay adoption a few months, even a year, so I could keep a healthy market that supports continued cost cutting R&D, supports a good customer services structure, and make sure that software plays in the player with fewer glitches(The glitch level of software and players has pretty much gone away post war).

Really, time might not be on blu -ray side. As other option and venues become more available to watch a movie, there will be more erosion in customer willingness to embrace blu ray.

For example since switched to comcast few months ago, their On Demand movie selections (which is for free) have pretty much put a dent in my desire to buy new dvds. May be that is why SD DVD sales are down 45%

[emaidel]

[QUOTE=Groundbeef]I for one am tired of your well reasoned, and well versed responces.

QUOTE]

Why is it that so many members here can't quite seem to spel correcktly? that's one aspect of many members' contributions that defiantly annoys me.

[Mr Peabody]

Emaidel, you misspelled response.

I am not willing to dump my DVD's. I'd like to just pick up with BR where DVD left off. That's why I'm so annoyed at the industry not supporting good DVD playback in the BR players.

I haven't actually been looking to buy a BR player but when I've been to websites checking specs and such I don't notice too many "out of stock" messages. So I can't buy the excuse there's no BR players on the shelf.

As far as getting better performance for the same money, when I said the opposite I was comparing 2nd gen to current players. PS3 is probably one of the most up to date BR players and people who bought one in the past still receive the updates, that's a good example of better performance at the same price. They must have had plenty of margin built into the price originally if you claim that updated software costs that much. An example of what, I'm, talking about is the Panasonic dmp-10 had a separate standard video chip and did good DVD playback. The dmp-30 same price, DVD playback sucks because of the single chip for both SD & HD and it won't even decode Tru-HD or DTS-MA. It will pass it via bitstream but not decode which limits what it can be used with if you want that best audio. That's NOT better for the same money. Sony ES and Elite use the same video chip as well as all the BR players for less. These players cost big money and for that I'd expect something more than what a $399.00 player can do. I know it's your job to defend BR and the industry but I don't see better performance for the same money. I see them trying to keep price points up while stripping the player of any value except to play the BR discs which they are banking on us to buy to replace our existing DVD collections.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

This probably be the big reason why sale of blu ray discs will be slower as compare to DVD sales a decade ago. Decade ago, most people dumped their entire VHS collection (including me) and replace them with DVD.

This is a pretty stagnant way of looking at looking forward. Going forward every new movie released on bluray will be day and date with DVD. In other words going forward mostly new movies will be released. So if the early adopter is purchasing new movies, and replacing just a portion of his previously released DVD's it will propel long term sales quite nicely. Right now in bluray's life it is outselling DVD at this same point in its life. And back in the last days of VHS everyone didn't quickly replace their VHS with DVD. It was a long process just like it will be for bluray to replace DVD.

The question now become, would most people dump their DVD collection in favor of HD DVDs?

I think you mean Bluray's. The early adopter appears to be doing so at this point. According to a survey done by Disney those that got into bluray early are replacing more of their older DVD titles than purchasing newer titles.

So you are saying the sales are down due to inventory? That don't sound like a good business practice.

Sales are up from last year at this period. Sales have always been down in the first and second quarter of every year since the early nineties, because gone is the holiday sales push, up goes consumer debt, and folks usually use this time to pay off credit card bills from christmas. Nobody expected the format war to end this soon, NOBODY. And quite frankly when it was over, nobody anticipated that sales would jump so fast. Manufacturers were being cautious because everyone knew a enconomy slowdown was on its way, so manufacturering was managed in a very safe way. The unexpected benefit of this happening is demand is keeping player prices high, and that is good for CE R&D health. If you want to continue ways to cut cost on both player parts and assembly, you have to be constantly creating effieciencies to save more money, and raise profits. Can't do that without money.

Really, time might not be on blu -ray side. As other option and venues become more available to watch a movie, there will be more erosion in customer willingness to embrace blu ray.

Its a fallacy to believe that Bluray has to replace DVD tomorrow. The BDA is trying to build an sustainable and controlled infrastructure to support the next gen hi defintiion movie, audio and gaming platform for the next ten years, and beyond if nothing else replaces it after ten years or so. We are currently on 10 year cycles with video formats, with VHS lasting the longest. The bluray disc is still the best way to watch HD movies, soon to be the best way to listen to high resolution music it is going to appeal to audiophiles and videophiles alike, and soon everyone. There is no rush, downloads have more than 10 years before it is ready for primetime, there is plenty of time for bluray adoption

For example since switched to comcast few months ago, their On Demand movie selections (which is for free) have pretty much put a dent in my desire to buy new dvds. May be that is why SD DVD sales are down 45%

Analyst do not believe downloads and VOD have effected DVD sales. There are fewer movies being released each year, so fewer to choose from. Most studio have very little catalog titles left for DVD release. Most titles in most studios libraries are already out there. Folks that were buying SD DVD before are now buying blurays, as bluray sales have pretty much shored up DVD sales which lead to a 2% rise in studio net sales last year. I used to buy at least 5 DVD a week before, and I have not purchased a single one in two years. In that same two years I have purchased 175 HD DVD's, and 374 Blurays. Video collectors are just changing formats. and these are the things that are hitting DVD sales.

[pixelthis]

I for one am tired of your well reasoned, and well versed responces.

BTW I highligted a portion of your response. Nice to see that you and Pix are again seeing eye to eye. PLASMA IS DEAD!!!!

just goes to show that a broken clock is right twice a day.
But Sir talky is probably on military time, so make that ONCE a day.
Anyway glad to see you finally got one right, talky

[pixelthis]

How much willl it cost the next time you watch 3:10 to Yuma, or the next after that? I do agree discs are too costly right now, but I think there's a big difference in PQ over DVD. It may not be as important to many comsumers, but I enjoy it. I'm also enjoying the upconversion of SD DVDs. I don't plan to replace any of my SD DVDs with BDs. What I'm waiting for now are the prior HD-DVD titles to come out on BD. Has anyone heard if The Bourne Ultimatum will come out on BD?

I'm still finding the PS3 is the best quality BD player and its frequent upgrades a plus. I think it's great that upgrades to the gaming side allows more frequent upgrades to the BD side. I doubt standalone players will update as often. The only downside I see is the fan noise. Has anyone tried the auxillary cooler? Is it's fan quieter and reduce the need for the internal fan to run. I'm sitting 10ft away from the PS3, but still here the fan during quiet passages.

Well, I wont watch it for awhile.
Considering gas prices and such the price is competitive with renting one at the store,
and since I didnt have to buy a blu player I save 400 bucks right there.
And it was HD with DD sound, both of which were quite spectacular.
I know you rent movies so whats your point? How much will it cost the next time you
rent one?

[pixelthis]

[Groundbeef]I for one am tired of your well reasoned, and well versed responces.

The fact that you think his marketing doublespeak is "well reasoned" speaks vollumes about your reasoning abilities (press harder, dont think your lips are planted
as hard as possible on his butt)

BTW I highligted a portion of your response. Nice to see that you and Pix are again seeing eye to eye. PLASMA IS DEAD!!!!

Just hate to admit I'm right, eh?

[pixelthis]

Sales are up from last year at this period. Sales have always been down in the first and second quarter of every year since the early nineties, because gone is the holiday sales push, up goes consumer debt, and folks usually use this time to pay off credit card bills from christmas. Nobody expected the format war to end this soon, NOBODY. And quite frankly when it was over, nobody anticipated that sales would jump so fast.

I expected it, and so did everybody else with a clue.
THE FACT THAT YOU HAD NO IDEA DIDNT MEAN NO ONE ELSE DID

Manufacturers were being cautious because everyone knew a enconomy slowdown was on its way, so manufacturering was managed in a very safe way. The unexpected benefit of this happening is demand is keeping player prices high, and that is good for CE R&D health. If you want to continue ways to cut cost on both player parts and assembly, you have to be constantly creating effieciencies to save more money, and raise profits. Can't do that without money.

yep, GOTTA KEEP THOSE PLAYER PRICES HIGH, give the broken masses another excuse not to buy one in a reccession (like they would anyway)

Its a fallacy to believe that Bluray has to replace DVD tomorrow. The BDA is trying to build an sustainable and controlled infrastructure to support the next gen hi defintiion movie, audio and gaming platform for the next ten years, and beyond if nothing else replaces it after ten years or so. We are currently on 10 year cycles with video formats, with VHS lasting the longest. The bluray disc is still the best way to watch HD movies, soon to be the best way to listen to high resolution music it is going to appeal to audiophiles and videophiles alike, and soon everyone. There is no rush, downloads have more than 10 years before it is ready for primetime, there is plenty of time for bluray adoption

Keep whistling in the dark, VOD has practically replaced renting discs at my house already, and day and date release (which you brag about with Blu) is already a reality with
VOD on some titles(the Mist being the latest example)
Keep being disingenuous , talking about downloads over the net (which themselves are increasing) when its VOD over cable and sat that the action is at

Analyst do not believe downloads and VOD have effected DVD sales. There are fewer movies being released each year, so fewer to choose from. Most studio have very little catalog titles left for DVD release. Most titles in most studios libraries are already out there. Folks that were buying SD DVD before are now buying blurays, as bluray sales have pretty much shored up DVD sales which lead to a 2% rise in studio net sales last year. I used to buy at least 5 DVD a week before, and I have not purchased a single one in two years. In that same two years I have purchased 175 HD DVD's, and 374 Blurays. Video collectors are just changing formats. and these are the things that are hitting DVD sales.

YOU'RE changing formats, doesnt mean everybody else is, more center of the universe reasoning from talky.
BLU will probably become a collectors format, what I have been saying, but VOD and getting a movie over the wire will be the renters format.
You had better hope that BLU catches on enough to surrive when VOD takes off,
in a few years instead of ten, because theres a lot more renters than buyers

[pixelthis]

Emaidel, you misspelled response.

I am not willing to dump my DVD's. I'd like to just pick up with BR where DVD left off. That's why I'm so annoyed at the industry not supporting good DVD playback in the BR players.

I haven't actually been looking to buy a BR player but when I've been to websites checking specs and such I don't notice too many "out of stock" messages. So I can't buy the excuse there's no BR players on the shelf.

As far as getting better performance for the same money, when I said the opposite I was comparing 2nd gen to current players. PS3 is probably one of the most up to date BR players and people who bought one in the past still receive the updates, that's a good example of better performance at the same price. They must have had plenty of margin built into the price originally if you claim that updated software costs that much. An example of what, I'm, talking about is the Panasonic dmp-10 had a separate standard video chip and did good DVD playback. The dmp-30 same price, DVD playback sucks because of the single chip for both SD & HD and it won't even decode Tru-HD or DTS-MA. It will pass it via bitstream but not decode which limits what it can be used with if you want that best audio. That's NOT better for the same money. Sony ES and Elite use the same video chip as well as all the BR players for less. These players cost big money and for that I'd expect something more than what a $399.00 player can do. I know it's your job to defend BR and the industry but I don't see better performance for the same money. I see them trying to keep price points up while stripping the player of any value except to play the BR discs which they are banking on us to buy to replace our existing DVD collections.

LETS FACE IT MR P, those DVD'S are never going to look that good, because they are being compared to Blu and HD on sat or cable.
Sony has enough money to sell gold bricks at ten bucks a pop, had huge profits last year.
If they wanted to really get Blu established they would sell a cut down player for under a 100$, beleive it or not that is doable, wont make money, but doable.
But they wont because they have the worst marketing dept in the known universe.
Their engineering dept has all of these triumps and the suits keep screwing up.
Basically they have the collectors market sewed up, as well as early adopters.
But the great unwashed know that cheaper players are down the line, and since they cant afford one one, why not wait?
So they will, and quite awhile, 4.00$ gas isnt going anywhere, its here to stay,
mortages that are too high because the property is overvalued are gonna be around awhile too.
So Sony is going to listen to the sir talkys of the world, people who couldnt sell ice water in hell, so to speak.
YEAH, lets keep those players prices HIGH, people losing their houses, cleaning out their attics (if they have an attic left) trying to sell heirlooms for a tank of gas, they
are going to jump at the chance to pay 400 bucks for a toy, really,
when they are having to walk away from their houses because they cant make the payments.
Anybody who knows will tell you, the money in any format is the software.
THAT IS WHY SONY BOUGHT RECORD COMPANIES AND STUDIOS.
You need to get players out there, a player is a one time purchase, software is on the installment plan, people wont buy discs without a player to play it on.
THE AFTER CHRISTMAS "SLUMP" , BTW is over , as is sir talkys excuse.
This "slump" is real, but only lasts at most until the first tax refunds start coming out.
So as usual SONY will blow it, trying to sell a luxery item in a harsh retail market
when most retailers are begging for customers, and shuttering stores.
And dont tell me how much these players "cost", that is inconsequential in selling something, cost doesnt matter, people wont pay a million for a chevette,
they will pay 4 bucks for gas because they need it, do they need a Blu player?
HARDLY

[emaidel]

Emaidel, you misspelled response.

.

No, I didn't, but Groundbeef did, and all I did was emphasize the word. How come you didn't pick up on "defiantly" as opposed to "definitely?"

[Groundbeef]

No, I didn't, but Groundbeef did, and all I did was emphasize the word. How come you didn't pick up on "defiantly" as opposed to "definitely?"

That's a no-brainer. Because you didn't spell "Defiantly" wrong silly. True, it might have been a poor word choice, but it wasn't spelled wrong.

What I really hate is pompus people who try to spell words wrong, but can't do it. Instead they think they did it, but actually used a word out of context.

That's what I hate.

Freakin' out of context word users...drives me nuts.

[GMichael]

LETS FACE IT MR P, those DVD'S are never going to look that good, because they are being compared to Blu and HD on sat or cable.
Sony has enough money to sell gold bricks at ten bucks a pop, had huge profits last year.
If they wanted to really get Blu established they would sell a cut down player for under a 100$, beleive it or not that is doable, wont make money, but doable.
But they wont because they have the worst marketing dept in the known universe.
Their engineering dept has all of these triumps and the suits keep screwing up.
Basically they have the collectors market sewed up, as well as early adopters.
But the great unwashed know that cheaper players are down the line, and since they cant afford one one, why not wait?
So they will, and quite awhile, 4.00$ gas isnt going anywhere, its here to stay,
mortages that are too high because the property is overvalued are gonna be around awhile too.
So Sony is going to listen to the sir talkys of the world, people who couldnt sell ice water in hell, so to speak.
YEAH, lets keep those players prices HIGH, people losing their houses, cleaning out their attics (if they have an attic left) trying to sell heirlooms for a tank of gas, they
are going to jump at the chance to pay 400 bucks for a toy, really,
when they are having to walk away from their houses because they cant make the payments.
Anybody who knows will tell you, the money in any format is the software.
THAT IS WHY SONY BOUGHT RECORD COMPANIES AND STUDIOS.
You need to get players out there, a player is a one time purchase, software is on the installment plan, people wont buy discs without a player to play it on.
THE AFTER CHRISTMAS "SLUMP" , BTW is over , as is sir talkys excuse.
This "slump" is real, but only lasts at most until the first tax refunds start coming out.
So as usual SONY will blow it, trying to sell a luxery item in a harsh retail market
when most retailers are begging for customers, and shuttering stores.
And dont tell me how much these players "cost", that is inconsequential in selling something, cost doesnt matter, people wont pay a million for a chevette,
they will pay 4 bucks for gas because they need it, do they need a Blu player?
HARDLY

Reasonable assumptions. But most people put a little something aside for recreation. Will they have set aside enough for that trip to Vegas this year? Not likely. More likely that they'll spend that on home entertainment during these rough spots. The question is, how many people fall into the "rough times, but can get by" category vs how many fall into the "wholly crap, we're screwed and can't buy anything" category. There will be some in both.
As long as PS3's keep selling so much (that were so left out of these numbers) , I doubt Sony will lower any prices on BR players. As more and more people keep buying gamers as their BR players, a certain percentage of those people will actually play a game or two on them and get hooked. Sony will take that smile all the way to the bank. Not a bad business plan IMO. If it doesn't pan out (as so many good plans don't) they can then think about lowering BR players, or other such plan B's & C's.
It's good to keep options open. Once they lower prices, they'll nevver be able to raise them again.

[Rich-n-Texas]

No, I didn't, but Groundbeef did, and all I did was emphasize the word. How come you didn't pick up on "defiantly" as opposed to "definitely?"

Well, I'm not trying to be defiant or anythang, but I spell it as definately, which I think is also correct.

Reasonable assumptions. But most people put a little something aside for recreation. Will they have set aside enough for that trip to Vegas this year? Not likely. More likely that they'll spend that on home entertainment during these rough spots. The question is, how many people fall into the "rough times, but can get by" category vs how many fall into the "wholly crap, we're screwed and can't buy anything" category.

That's what I'm doing this year. Maybe if the economy picks up by summer 2009 I'll take a trip up home to Jersey. I really miss the shore and some of my friends up there. AND... I fall into the choice A category... "rough times, but can get by". I'm not WEALTHY by ANY stretch of the imagination.