New Study Finds Low Interest In Blu-ray

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PeterCH

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From Slashdot:

A new consumer survey recently released chronicles the woes of the winner of the hi-definition format war: nobody wants it. While consumers were very happy to embrace the DVD standard when it came about because it brought a huge jump in quality over VHS, the pros of switching to Blu-ray are not as obvious. From the article: 'In contrast, while half of the respondents to our survey rated Blu-ray's quality as 'much better' than standard DVD, another 40% termed it only 'somewhat better,' and most are very satisfied with the performance of their current DVD players." Another reason cited was that a Blu-ray investment also dictates an HDTV purchase, something consumers are reluctant to do.'"
Maybe it's also that line-doubling DVD players can be had for less than a hundred dollars.

Slashdot: http://entertainment.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/08/07/1811259

Original Survey: http://www.abiresearch.com/press/1203-Consumers+Delaying+Blu-ray+Player+Purchases
 
Basically what I've been saying in the other thread. People don't want this yet, its too expensive (cost of a big enough 1080P HD set are too much at present) and DVD
just seems good enough, once you actually get into watching a good movie. A bad
movie is going to be bad in HD too.
 
Agreed.... I have watched HD BD movies on my setup with an HD LCD TV and there is not such a major improvement. O sure it looks GREAT but is it worth forking out R299 for a BD movie disc compared to R129 for a standard DVD movie - not worth it - and as Peter says, if the content of the movie sucks, it sucks no matter how great the picture quality is.
 
*gets popcorn*

Sony fans will be here with torches and pitchforks soon
 
it's true, HD was a lemon of an invention... I mean, honestly, the difference isn't that great and doesn't warrant the purchase of the hd tv and a R3000+ player!

We need something new, something different, something that when people see it, they are compelled to buy it, that just can't say no!

ps,
i'm a sony fan boy, I got me my ps3 and all, and the only up side to the whole thingy is that games are on 1 disk and that's it
 
I think that an upscaled dvd movie looks almost identical to blu-ray.

Definately not going to pay 3 times the price for maybe 10% better picture quality with fancy menu's.
 
How long did it take for DVD to be accepted over VHS? DVD -> BD is a much higher jump, as you also need a HDTV and internet connection to get all the benefits of the technology. I think it will be another 2/3 years before any major uptake will show.
 
Nod said:
How long did it take for DVD to be accepted over VHS? DVD -> BD is a much higher jump, as you also need a HDTV and internet connection to get all the benefits of the technology. I think it will be another 2/3 years before any major uptake will show.
Click to expand...

Sony do not have 2 to 3 years. In this age of new technologies, Blu-ray will be obsolete by next year. Other industry players are working on higher capacity drives and other forms of content distribution. We were saying all along that Sony wasted billions on R&D. There are too many factors against them...
 
The latest versions of optical storage were always going to be a lame-duck for consumers. Pointless waste of money for an outdated technology.
 
^I agree. Solid state was mentioned in one of those links that Gary posted. Now that makes sense for the future. Disks are so yesterday, they are big and they get scratched easily plus you need a big drive to play them in.
 
I think the only reason Blu Ray suffers a bit now is the lack of titles available. You get MUCH MUCH more titles on dvd at the moment. It's getting better though... I'll watch a blu ray film any day over a dvd one. The picture quality is just so much better on a 40"+ Full HD screen.
 
XCalibre said:
<snippage>
The picture quality is just so much better on a 40"+ Full HD screen.
Click to expand...

Ok, but is it that much better to justify the expense of a 40"HD screen, BR player, and cost of the movie?. I am inclined to say not, but that's me. Show me a vast improvement over DVD, and then I will think about getting it.

It seems as if BR is going to become the Betamax of the digital entertainment world.

B
 
Nod said:
How long did it take for DVD to be accepted over VHS? DVD -> BD is a much higher jump,
Click to expand...

I think we must also mention that you don't have to rewind DVDs while
you do have to rewind VHS tape. VHS tape degrades with time and use.
VHS tape is bigger and bulkier. VHS does not offer soft subtitles, additional
audio tracks, DTS or DD 6.1EX and it has no direct access. Its only
benefit is that you can record on it. DVD was a major jump.
BD on the other hand offers increased resolution and a wider colour
gamut BUT only if you spend R20K plus on a full HDTV. Its not just
buying one piece of hardware, its buying 2 expensive ones.

Also some BD players take 90seconds to load the actual disk,
as did some HD-DVD players too. You can't skip ads which you
can do with DVDs using cheap Chinese made DVD players.

The end of the BD vs HD-DVD format war also caused a hike in
BD player and BD movie prices.
 
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