2009 - the Blu Ray dies ?

[Mark W]

Back in victorian times we all watched VHS tapes and we thought how cool it was to watch movies at home when you felt like it but I also recall thinking - this looks and sounds crap - and it did unless you had s vhs originals and player.

Then the men in white cotas and some others in nice suits gave us Digital Versatile Discs and we all celebrated and lusted and purchased. I can recall seeing my fisrt DVD player - it was £1000 and I wanted it.

No bleeding reds or flicky pics, no winding, you can eat jam off them. They looked superb. It was better by a parsec. We didnt mind ( much ) buying all our fav films again.

Now we have blu ray, and aint that the shizzle. Once you have paid up to £20 or more for a film you already have, and purchased another DVD player and added your old to the pile in Bangladesh, and thrown your old telly into a back alley and purhahased a lovely new £700 ' HD ' ready flatty you are ready to go.

Blu ray really is superb and I sorely want a blu ray player as my projector has the pixels but I aint a rich guy.

My recent film purchases...

The Lives of others - DVD £4.99, Blu ray - not avaialbe
Man bites dog -------DVD £7.00 Blu ray - not available.
Donnie Brasco -------DVD £4.99 Blu ray - £13.99
Gaydiator ( yeah and ? ) - DVD £3.99 Blu ray - not avialable.
Training day---------- DVD £4.99 Blu ray £17.58

The whole blu ray HD thing is going to appeal hugely to film fans like me, but I am poor so blu ray isnt an option. Now lets assume I win the lottery, blu ray here I come. Now I can enjoy batman 7 and the lion king in HD - lucky me !

Blu ray is going to flop.

It's like the few better audio formats that have come and gone over the years - quadraphonic, SACD, DVDA - most people dont see the point and those that do want brown rice medieval chants and mozart. They flopped in the mass market sense but some audio formats have found a niche with the cable sniffers and that is where blu ray may end up.

But only if they give us more than than Batman seven. The lion king isnt even on Blu ray - sob sob - lols.

Oh and a global recession just started....

( sites checked - tesco, amazon and hmv )

[Mark W]

Just a sec - a Blu ray of hope...

The dvd I shall be buying today is Somers Town. From tesco web site.

DVD - £11.96
Blu ray £15.96

Perhaps there is some reason to hope it dont flop - I am an optimist. Slightly ironic that this film was hot on proper old fashioned black and white celluloid... 16mm too - lols.

[Andy Lockwood]

I think the global economic downturn may have more to do with it's possible death than anything else. Yes, in the old days a DVD player was mega-bucks as Blu Ray is today. But now - major supermarkets have sold DVD players for as little as £7.99. So - will the manufacturers see the light and reduce the cost of players and recorders? One would hope so. In order for a format to be succesful in sales terms, it has to be affordable as well as aspirational. As does the media it plays.

Blu Ray needs stimulus. Reducing the retail price of a player / recorder to a sensible level (sub fifty quid in my mind) and reducing the cost of movies to the same level as standard DVD prices, it may have a chance with the mass market.

Without that stimulus, I fear you may be correct.

[Mark W]

I so dont want it to die.

Sadly sony et al appear to see this as a way to rip us off and are preferring to maximaise short term profit rther then ensure the format thrives.

I bet it it wasnt for the playstation 3 it would have flopped already. Lots of my friends have a ps3, less have a HD ready tv, less buy blu ray discs. None of my friends have a blu ray player - except for one, and he has a porche, and a hopped up audi RS4 and 3 houses....

[thedustroom]

I've been thinking of taking the plunge and buying an external BluRay rewriter; this would be cool as I have a lot of different machines that could make use of it.

However; Macs currently don't support watching BluRay films (you can record to the discs and read data) and I'm switching to Mac completely as soon as they release the new MacPro as Windows has p*ssed me off far too much now and I use a 17" MacBook Pro when out and about anyway.

Thing is that the external drive is £180 which is a lot of money for an optical drive IMHO; yes - this would allow me to watch BluRay (and HD-DVD with this drive) films on my PC but not my Macs (yet) and, of course burn HD video to BluRay but a DL BluRay disc costs over £20!!

Talk about rip off!

I don't have a BluRay player or PS3 (I have an X360) and I haven't upgraded my 32" panasonic CRT telly because there's nothing wrong with it and we only have one HD source (the X360) anyway.

DVD looks great IMHO; yes - HD is much better but does it really add that much to the viewing experience?

It certainly doesn't make films any better than they would be without HD it just means we can enjoy more FX and less story no doubt!

[Mark W]

^^^ thats a bit odd about mac and blu ray - mac is normally on the money with new video stuff.

[thedustroom]

Originally Posted by Mark W ^^^ thats a bit odd about mac and blu ray - mac is normally on the money with new video stuff.

Mac doesn't support HDCP which is required in both the hardware and software in order for you to be able to watch BluRay films (apparently).

It's rumoured to be included in a future point release or "Snow Leopard" though; I assume that Apple was waiting for the BluRay/HD-DVD battle to end in order to adopt the right format but that was long ago.

I was hoping to see BluRay in the new 17" MacBook Pro but there's no mention as yet....

[The Seventh Taylor]

Originally Posted by Mark W Blu ray [...] It's like the few better audio formats that have come and gone over the years - quadraphonic, SACD, DVDA - most people dont see the point and those that do want brown rice medieval chants and mozart. They flopped in the mass market sense but some audio formats have found a niche with the cable sniffers and that is where blu ray may end up.

True, SACD is a niche market. PS3 could have changed that but the record companies haven't picked it up. In the meantime, for PS3 owners who care about SACD but not about classical music there's ( a link to a website that I removed - mw )

Note - New users cannot post links for a few posts- mw

[worddigger]

Originally Posted by Andy Lockwood I think the global economic downturn may have more to do with it's possible death than anything else.....

These are interesting times. The U.S.A. is killing off analogue TV next month, a move that will force many folks to finally buy a large flat-screen digital TV set. Unfortunately, this deadline is coming at the worst possible time for the economy. Lots of folks no longer have the disposable income to make that investment. Yet many still will rush out and purchase one; not to be deprived of their entertainment.

"Our family was so poor that the new baby had to sleep in the box that the 42 inch LCD TV came in."

Couple this with the fact that our DVD players and movies are going the way of all flesh as the entertainment world migrates to HD and Blu-Ray. Collectively, this is all a major (and expensive) paradigm shift.

I recently spent about $5,000 to buy a new editing workstation. I did not order it with a Blu-Ray burner (although it has the room to add one later) because I still only have DVD players and a big screen analogue projection TV. Fortunately, I use only satellite for my TV channels, so my 3 year old TV should still serve us well for the time being while we are still working overseas. I have opted to wait until later to make the LCD digital TV purchase (probably when I retire). I also still only have an SD Camera (AG-DVX100) which I shelled out a pretty penny to get four years ago. I'm not ready yet to spent another eight grand or more for an HDX200 (although I am lusting in my heart for one).

In short, I have made the personally painful decision to stop chasing the new technology and just wait and see what comes along in the next few years. If the global economy tanks (and it really appears to be heading that way), I may need my money for more important things for basic survival. That is, of course, assuming that my money will have any real worth when that actually happens.

The "toys" I currently own are enough to keep me happy and creative, for the time being.

[Mark W]

I agree - gains become smaller and more expensive.

Having said that I may change my tune by tomorrow. My froend is bringing his ps3 round later with a few ( crap ) blu ray films to try on my projector.

Part of me hopes I am not too impressed as i hate that yearning for tings I cant afford.

Now I am nearing middle age I find there is huge pleasure in just enjoying what you have and can have.

Old hungarian proverb that I recall from a hungraian film I saw this year .

" The secret of happiness is not getting what you want but wanting what you get "