What Blu-ray needs for Christmas – a miracle
There has been a lot of talk recently over how Blu-ray is seeing a bit of a surge in interest in the run up to Christmas. And while that may well be very true, with sales of Blu-ray players and discs up this year on last, that doesn’t guarantee a bright future for the format. In fact, Blu-ray still needs a miracle to succeed.
The start of December saw The Dark Knight sell exceptionally well on Blu-ray, doubling the record set by Iron Man earlier in the year. There was speculation at the time about whether this one movie release could do for Blu-ray what The Matrix did for DVD back in 1999, which was to push the format well and truly into the mainstream.
Then, just a few days ago came news of massive increases in Blu-ray sales during the holiday season. Both the players and discs are selling in quite impressive numbers, mirroring or even beating DVD sales at the same point in its lifetime. Could Christmas 2008 be the period looked back on in the future as when Blu-ray got its act together?
In a word, no, and here’s why. As I’ve discussed here on Blorge in the past, Blu-ray is a victim of various different factors conspiring against it. All of which are surely going to mean that the format dies before it has chance to truly live.
First we have the popularity of DVD, which isn’t going anywhere, despite what some people may wish. In fact, DVD is likely to remain popular for a long time to come partly because of the emergence of Blu-ray. Since the new format arrived, the average price of DVDs has lowered by quite a margin. And this in a time of deep recession.
Which leads on to my second point, which is that Blu-ray is still prohibitively expensive to gain mainstream acceptance. Sure, the players have come down in price a little but the discs seem to be as expensive as ever. And that’s even assuming you’ve got a large high definition television capable of showing the 1080p picture that Blu-ray requires in the first place. If you haven’t then that’s another $1000 right there.
Then there is a huge bugbear for me, the fact that Blu-ray isn’t actually that much better in terms of picture quality than standard DVD, especially if you’re using an upscaling DVD player to play them on. I own a PS3 with its Blu-ray player built in but after sampling Blu-ray movies through it and comparing them to their upscaled DVD alternative I decided to stick with DVDs, which I can buy for about $8 a pop.
And last but not least is the digital future we’re inevitably heading towards. As Don Reisinger explains on CNET, HD streaming content is already here and the amount of places offering it increase every week. Is anyone really going to choose an overpriced physical medium when a lower-priced and potentially more user-friendly alternative is available?
Blu-ray isn’t a bad format and it’s likely to gain some mainstream acceptance over the next few years. But due to unfortunate timing, a lack of a real advantage over the format it’s replacing, and a faltering economy, Blu-ray is surely destined for a gloomy future unless Santa Claus delivers some kind of miracle down the chimney at Sony headquarters this Christmas.
Related Posts:
December 24th, 2008
Ok, firstly, BR sales accounted for 14% of The Dark Knights total haul, for any studio, that’s a very very encouraging statistic.
Secondly, I also have a PS3 and a TV capable of performing 1080p. And guess what, I think you’re lying through your teeth when you say the difference between upscaled DVD and a true 1080p file are negligible. You’re flat out wrong, and i’m calling you out on it. I have both the DVD Boxset and the HD Boxset of Band of Brothers. The HD version is hands down better, audio and video are stunningly better.
Thirdly, you can stream all the HD content you want, but right now, and for the forseeable future, none of it matches what’s on a BR disc. Any streaming content offered right now, is either compressed (audio and video), only 1080i, or both. There are no HD services that currently allow for 1080p streaming, because…surprise surprise, the files are just too darn big.
The broadband infrastructure of the world, isn’t nearly adequate to support mass adoption of HD digital downloads. Your precious interwebs that you post your incoherent babble on would shrivel and die overnight. Additionally, I can take 2 minutes to drive to the nearest video store and buy a BR (Which…is better picture, better audio, better everything), or…I could wait a half hour…and hour…2 hours…3 hours…to download an HD file. And no, I don’t stream, because it’s not going to push my TV to what it’s capable of. So anyway, BR doesn’t need any kind of miracle, it’s doing exceedingly well, in fact, surprise! it’s doing better than DVD did when it was first launched…well golly gee…guess the difference is enough after all, isn’t it?
Morne
December 24th, 2008
Oh dear, it’s a sad state of affairs when Blorge brings the opinions of Don Reisinger into the debate…
The same studios who provide the content for DVD’s and HD digital streaming/downloads (WHICH ARE NOT TRUE HD!!) are the same studios who provide the content for Blu-Ray discs.
And given that royalties are more lucrative on Blu-Ray than DVD since the DVD Forum effectively gave up collecting them, I can see studios trying to push Blu-Ray further.
They could release some films only on Blu-Ray, or release them with extra content, or a couple of months before DVD, or release only the uncut, or season collection on Blu-Ray etc. There are many things movie studios (of which all the big six are signed onto the BDA) can do to entice people to Blu-Ray.
I don’t think anyone doubts that at some point in the future everything will be distributed over the internet with no need for optical media; but that certainly isn’t going to happen soon.
There are far too many issues with ISP’s, usage caps, bandwidth, download speeds, etc that have to be worked out first; not least ensuring that the internet is available EVERYWHERE; not just in the home.
The biggest threat to Blu-Ray is DVD. But again, it’s the same studios providing content for DVD as Blu-Ray. I’m sure they can get inventive in trying to push Blu-Ray.
December 24th, 2008
DVD may be a small margin product but it has truly vast volume sales on it’s side, despite what the Blu-ray cheerleaders would have us think.
DVD isn’t going away anywhere and nor are the movie business going to kill off or hobble such a productive & profitable cash-cow.
I have said for a very long time that Blu-ray cannot simply slide in ‘to become the next DVD’.
Why? It’s pretty obvious really.
The mass-market sees no substantive benefit ‘worth’ the additional costs.
It’s simply a fact that to fully benefit from 1080p you need – at normal viewing distances – a huge HD TV.
To fully benefit from the better audio it can offer you need a high-end receiver & a high-end speaker package.
Frankly no-one (besides the anal a/v ‘philes’) cares about the nth degree of image quality or audio quality.
That’s why iMovies HD is doing so well, no-one really cares if it isn’t “full HD”.
The CE corps & the movie industry seem to have forgotten that people watch movies to enjoy the movie, not to play ’spot the stitching’ games over the actors clothes.
(and so many movies are such worthless instantly forgettable BS who really wants to drop $20 – $30 or more on them for the high def version when the DVD upscaled is so close?)
It’s also true that Satellite & cable HD TV deals are increasingly offering DVRs and VOD.
That old ‘DVD market’ simply isn’t there for Blu-ray to have now anyways.
It is broken up between several formats and means of delivery of which Blu-ray is merely a minority share, largely confined to the PS3 gang and the early adopting tech fans.
This could all be great news though.
Blu-ray could (if it is to have any serious durability) ditch the adolescent male PS3 game crew and head to the best quality niche where the movie fans could appreciate it properly for the few years it now has left.
Instead of trying to cut costs & please the game console kid who mostly will only buy the most shiney effects-laden shallow garbage.
BD50 movies and 24-bit/96kHz audio on every release ought to be the standard.
Blu-ray is the next Laserdisc, it ought to start acting like it.
Don’t worry, there’ll be another format along shortly – and everyone but everyone knows it’s digital distribution.
When not if.
(and with Govs across the globe embarking on major capital spending programs to offset the worst effects of the coming slump/recession improving the internet infrastructure is heading their lists and coming a lot sooner than some would have us believe)
December 24th, 2008
People who state that the difference between an upscaled DVD and Blu-Ray are negligible clearly need to get their setups checked. Any decent 1080p Tv will show the gap between Blu and DVD. BTW did you forget the uncompressed lossless HD Audio? A decent enough HD setup will definitely show the qualities of Blu-Ray and if you can afford to buy a Blu-Ray player and buy the relatively expensive discs than you can afford a good TV and HT setup.
December 24th, 2008
Fernando
No-one ever said there was NO difference between DVD upscaled & Blu-ray.
That’s a totally fabricated & ridiculous straw-man argument.
The serious point here is that on the sort of HD TV most will ever have (32″ – 50″) it’s nothing like the huge great big deal some want to pretend it is.
Lossless audio means nothing if you haven’t got the expensive high-end receiver or expensive speaker package to play it on properly.
Again this is the reality of the mass-market situation.
Blu-ray offers little tangible benefit to the mass-market, only much higher prices.
December 24th, 2008
Ah…bah humbug! The DVD is more versatile and far less expensive than the over hyped and over priced Blu-Ray.
When I can buy a Blu-Ray player for $29 and Blu-Ray movies for $7.99 each, we might consider it. Until then DVD and my VCR will still rule for quite awhile.
I could care less if its HD, SD or analog, If I can watch the movie…then that is all that matters. There are many movies which will never see the light of day on Blu-Ray, so I am not ready to give up my VHS and DVD collections.
January 17th, 2009
I’ve seen Blu Ray up close and sure, with the proper Tv it is awesome quality. But has standard DVD really become horrible to watch all of a sudden. When I look back through some old VHS tapes and compare it to Blue Ray I wonder how i spent 15 years watching the format. I guess that’s as good as it was at the time. But is Blu Ray really that much better than DVD for the price. Hell I’m happy watching Avi downloads, for the small convenient file size you can’t beat it. That is something that could be streamed today. Maybe for your blockbuster sci fi & special effects movies but for bog standard people walking around in everyday settings (comedies dramas etc) the standard DVD (or avi for me) is good enough. What if you actually think the movie was crap after watching it? Did it need to be in high def? Did it make the plot any better?