In the same trend everything else, gaming sales, home sales, car sales Windows 7 and software sales, etc, etc, etc are all projected downward. Nobody says it is shutting down completely except Pioneer HDTV that could not compete anyway.
Every BD producer is laying off people and closing plants. I know they may decide to come up with a budget BD player at $150 but BD lasers are expensive to make and with reduced volumes they won't get cheaper.
Pioneer is just an extreme example. Everyone is laying off.
Yet by looking at the Blu Ray links given and by looking at other successes like in the gaming world the fact is becoming clear that due to the expense of "entertainment" the home gaming and entertainment industry is booming even in these "crisis" times.
A new Jupiter Research report found that 32% of online adults say they're cutting back on going to the movies. That's fewer than people who say they're doing less driving (63%), shopping (60%) and vacationing (44%), but nonetheless should sound some alarms in Hollywood.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2008/10/survey-says-bah.html
You may cry fowl here but can do nothing to stop the technology advancement.
It's not technology advancement. It's proprietory format advancement which is super expensive - after all SONY and Co want to recoup their R&D and make big profits, after all why else did they do away with DVD? Because the CHinese were making cheap players and people could buy movies online
or for dirt cheap from 3rd party makers. Sony couldn't charge R2500
for a DVD player anymore - which is what I paid in 2004.
BTW I don't want to stop it. You have some paranoid ideas with grandiosity there. I'm no activist and I won't stop anyone.
If people are STUPID enough to waste their last paycheques on overpriced garbage,
good for them. As said, I tried BD to see what the hype was about and after watching a half dozen movies I went back to DSTV and DVD and it looks the same for me.
Why? Because the human mind gets used to things. I have a set of $350 earphones here from Shure and they sound better by a good margin compared to standard
earplugs except I don't use them too often. After a while I forget the difference and the earbuds I use sound good enough. After a while the NOVELTY OF BD
wears off. You get used to the imagery. For me that was after the 3-4th disk. I no longer can justify a purchase of a movie on BD - not the garbage selection
of Hollywood junk sold here - but not even stuff overseas. Being an anime fan I even looked at some comparisons of HD 1080P anime vs SD anime (NTSC ie lower
res too) and side by side the difference is incredibly marginal for 2D cel drawn animation. In other words - the handful of titles available on BD in that genre -
it's NOT WORTH IT. It will be worth it when the BD costs the same or less than a DVD and when the BD player costs under R500. Right now, that's not on
the cards - not even at $150 - SA Price R2500 - that's too expensive and not worth it. Besides at least I can rip my DVDs to take them on the plane with me
on my portable video player. Good luck trying to rip BDs without destroying your HD and buying expensive 3rd party products.
You know ancient Rome provided FOOD and ENTERTAINMENT to keep the plebs in check. The Emperor knew that if he fed his people then gave them circus games
they'd be happy no matter what he did. BD may be the entertainment but someone will have to provide the food.
Panasononic are expanding into 3D HD even during these "harsh economic" strife the world finds itself in. Maybe/definately it will slow down progress somewhat but nothing will stop progress unless we go into a major depression, then projects may be shelved for a while but the stronger boys like Sony, M$ will still survive, and thus make money for you to cry about, where others may fail .
Dude you're saying incredibly obvious things. Of course hopefully the crisis won't become so bad that it shuts down everything but only a fool would understimate the greatest crisis (which is still beginning) since 1929. Some economists say this may even get worse than 1929. You do know that they had soup kitchens in the first world and Hitler came to power lagerly because
of the Gt Depression? To suggest it's cool to buy a R3500 player,
R300+ movies and a R20K TV at a time like this is crazy.
So now: that link of "projections" by far is no conclusive proof that Blu Ray as the next and only generation HD DVD or mass storage media format is failing. Indeed rather maybe development on all the alternate technology projects may be shelved. The fact remains Blu Ray is here and now and the uptake is increasing all the time. Where are the alternate technologies everyone was punting on this forum? Hmmm.
Alternative technologies? They will come in due course. Now is not the time to upgrade to expensive proprietory formats.
Therefore comparitively speaking, under the "economic crisis", are Blu Ray alive and well? I would say YES! untill Sony and others indicates a drop for support of the format and then revert back to DVD or even tape or LP's for that matter.
BD will not tank unless SONY et al stop pushing it. Stringer - the Ballmer of Sony is pushing this tech in all forms of ways, from fake comparisons of BD vs DVD (with DVD artificially made worse) in shops to website astroturfing.
Anyway BD is a big bag of hurt. It's not new. It's just a laser with a different wavelength ie not red for DVD but blue. It is however still 1. Region Locked.
2. Super expensive. 3. Expensive to licence. 4. HDCP protected which means people with older sets or sets with improper HDCP implementations have to buy a product like HDFury or trash their set and buy a new one. 5. Copy protected which means you can't backup your R350 investment or format shift to your video iPod. 6. Requires expensive equipment to take full advantage of. Buying a 40 inch full HD set won't cut it - unless you sit within a few feet of it (
http://www.engadgethd.com/2006/12/09/1080p-charted-viewing-distance-to-screen-size/ ) and cheap LCDs all have junk contrast and colour reproduction (Sony et al are using this as one of the reasons to buy into BD) - in fact they're not cheap - R20K is not cheap - but for R20K you get junk colour reproduction and contrast. There are many things wrong with the PROPRIETARY LOCKED format called Bluray. The most important should be that people should not buy into it right now when the economy is bad. If they do, then they deserve to eat at soup kitchens.
