Blu-ray, Read This, We Demand...An Open Letter...

You might have won the war blu-ray, but that doesn't mean that you can continue screwing us the consumers. I, like most of us who post in this site, LOVE MOVIES, we enjoy watching movies, whether it might be Citizen Kane, Lord of the Rings, or Superman IV: Quest for Peace (shut up, it is entertaining, more than SIII), Star Wars, you name it, good or bad movies, we love them, and we surely love to have them in discs.

Remember, DVD gave us the right to demand quality, and quality is what YOU SHOULD deliver. If I wanted SD extras, I would buy SD DVDs, not high-def discs. DVD also gave us audio commentaries, deleted scenes, featurettes, making-ofs, multiple audio feeds, multiple subtitles, trailers, to say the least.

Blu-ray, stand up and show your true capabilities we the consumers, DEMAND top-notch Audio AND Video quality, as well as all special features in HD, at least 720p. Make those 20 gigs worth.

Blu-ray, prove us HD DVD fanboys wrong, whow US that you can deliver all the goods for once, at very reasonable prices. It is your chance of making all of us who dislike you for one thing or another, to shut our mouths and to say, 'I am here as the proud and RELIABLE successor of DVD'...

Let's hope, for I want to watch ALL the Pixar movies in HD...

Well said,

Blu has to get a fully 2.0 compatible and future proof player to the masses ASAP, and not the PS3 (although I love mine.)

That needs to be priority 1 for sony. Meanwhile the studios have got to begin Ironing out the special features as you mention. Also, Can we get some titles? I have about 30 Blu ray movies and dont plan on buying anymore until we get some decent releases.

markleville, I don't see that happening right away. Why would Sony want to obstruct possible sales of the PS3. This has been the problem with BR from the beginning. BR success = more PS3 sales = more incentive for developers to make games.

Who knows how long it will take for an affordable 2.0 player to be available, and who knows if Sony's strategy will pay off or blow up in their face.

Oh, and mvckalel, I second that motion!

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Who knows how long it will take for an affordable 2.0 player to be available,

Thats sort of a sinking fear I have as well. It wouldn't kill the format per say but, would anyone really be shocked if we didnt see a 200 dollar blu ray player until christmas 2008 at best? IF then?

Sony has taken a ton of losses promoting the PS3 and Blu ray, PS3 being their future cash cow they are going to want to use its blu ray capabilities to make bank.

Anyway, just my 2c. Wont be shocked if we dont see an affordable player until this christmas.

All very good points, mvckalel. That is why I am not going Blu anytime soon. Like I've said before, I'll be find with my HD VMD player/upconverting DVD player, SDVDs and my HD projector.

Which brings me to another point...If Sony is the one 'dominating' the hi-def format, shouldn't we be afraid they will actually NOT lower prices? I am interested in investing in blu-ray, but the PS3 for me it's not the answer it is a $400 'gaming console' that doesn't have many titles worth it.

I hope Sony doesn't become even more greedy and stops lowering prices, because it is not my fault that they had to lower prices in order to sell their PS3s...

With consumers no longer able to choose between HD DVD and Blu-Ray Sony has no reason to do anything but leave things as they are now.

Yeah they do, getting people to buy Blu-ray is reason enough. Just because there isn't a format war doesn't mean blu-ray has won.

They won the hi-def disc war, not the hi-def war overall. Me myself, I don't like downloads, I Love having the discs as a collection and show them off, something I can't really do online...I love the shiny discs, the horrible artwork, and those awful flip discs, lol...

I just hope Sony doesn't screw us, they've already stoped the 5 free blu-rays by mail, so...

just to let you guys know, most catalog titles that were avail with tons of extras on special edition dvds .. on blue have just the movie. alot of fox titles too. they expect you to double dip and but the bluray special edition. lol

W@nkers

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Blu-ray, prove us HD DVD fanboys wrong, show US that you can deliver all the goods for once, at very reasonable prices

Sorry, $ony can't let that happen.

Any standalone Blu Ray player priced below the entry level 40Gig $ony P$3 will seriously hurt their game console sales figures.

Unfortunately, Blu Ray is still fighting a loosing battle in the Game Console war, running close with the M$ XBOX360 and both being hammered by the Nintendo Wii.

As with Toshiba selling HD DVD players at a loss, $ony has to sell the P$3 at a steep loss as well, to remain competitive with other game consoles.

In effect, they need to force people buying Blu into buying it via the $399 40Gig P$3.

$ony's claims that the $799 and up standalone Blu Ray players are flying off of shelves has been unfounded, many sales studies don't make it clear what is sold as standalone and what is sold as a Game console.

Common sense would dictate that the 80Gig P$3 is packaged with Motorstorm, a game, thus we can count that as a game console, but the 40Gig P$3 is packaged with Spiderman3, a movie, so that would count as a movie player???

I seriously doubt that $ony has been completely honest with their sales figure breakdowns.

You may see some sales or seemingly good pricing on early BD 1.0 players that they are trying to deplete stock on, but until the P$3 price falls to the $199 range(don't hold your breath) you won't likely see any decent standalone Blu player below the $399 P$3 on a regular basis.

The first manufacturer that tries to introduce a low cost($299 or less) standalone Blu player would have to be $ony themselves, as any other manufacturer would have $ony seeing to it that they are booted from the BDA, and loose their rights to manufacture Blu Ray players.

Look around here on DVDTOWN at the average Blu owner, you find that 90% have P$3's.

To sell an affordable standalone Blu player would be great for the consumer, but would DECIMATE P$3 sales.

In such a case, with limited game support, coupled with a suddenly stagnate P$3 sales rate, $ony would have to fall back to their P$2 as their flagship game console.

If they can't keep up P$3 sales, they could follow Toshiba's line of thought about HD DVD players.

$ony determining that the P$3 Game Console is no longer financially advantageous for them to market .

$ony and Blu Ray have won nothing, anybody investing money into the HD movie disc business is still merely a pawn in an ongoing Gaming Console war.

The P$3 is Blu Ray's Savior, but it is also Blu Ray's biggest obstacle in generating widespread consumer acceptance.

How does that work when Wal Mart, the home of low prices, is only going to sell Blu Ray, but the cheapest Blu Ray player they have to offer is the $399.99 P$3????

Maybe on occasion they will do one of their famous Wal Mart price rollbacks to only $398.94 to boost their sales????

Yup, that $1.05 rollback savings is going to start things flying off of shelves for sure

Your typical Wally World shopper is going to turn right around and keep buying regular DVD's at that price point.

Game Console prices are all fixed by the manufacturers, giving retailers very little if any room to offer discounted pricing.

For Blu Ray players to reach a mainstream price level, $ony needs to detach Blu Ray from the P$3, but that is something impossible to do.

$ony tying a movie format to a Game Console, has helped Blu Ray to win the movie format war, but it also has $ony now having shot itself in both feet as well.

Maybe a lesson they can learn from Micro$oft.

Don't build the movie player into the Game Console, until the Game Console has won the Game Console War.

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Amazon.com to Support Blu-ray as the Digital Format of Choice for Customers

Yup. Yesterday the Panasonic BD30K was $411 directly from Amazon. Today the cheapest listed is $549 from third party sellers (I guess Amazon sold ther in house stock). Other listings are way higher than that. Intresting.

Letter wont do you much good. If I was you I would send it to Sony..

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Letter wont do you much good. If I was you I would send it to Sony..

I say send it to all the studios. They want to charge $30+ for a disk, they better work for it even for catalog titles. No more slappin' the ol'DVD master over and then applying the digital smoothing and edge enhancement. I have some high expectations for ID4, Gattaca, and IR on March 11th, and they better deliver or I'll be pissed!

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I say send it to all the studios. They want to charge $30+ for a disk, they better work for it even for catalog titles. No more slappin' the ol'DVD master over and then applying the digital smoothing and edge enhancement. I have some high expectations for ID4, Gattaca, and IR on March 11th, and they better deliver or I'll be pissed!

A question for you all: if a movie is released in blu-ray with barely no special features, do you still buy it, even when the price might be $30+? Why should it be worth buying a movie in HD in a "hi-def" disc with no special features?

Why should I buy a $30 with basically no special features (one of Fox's ID4, I Robot, etc.) when you can get the SDVD with great special features for less than $$15??

I don't. I hate that. HD-DVD did that a few times, most notably with Knocked Up and the recent American Gangster. When that happens, I just buy the SD DVD and wait until they figure out we won't buy subpar yet overpriced disks. I'm not paying $35 for Mr. and Mrs. Smith until I get a version that's equal to the special edition I can get for $15-$20

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A question for you all: if a movie is released in blu-ray with barely no special features, do you still buy it, even when the price might be $30+? Why should it be worth buying a movie in HD in a "hi-def" disc with no special features?

Why should I buy a $30 with basically no special features (one of Fox's ID4, I Robot, etc.) when you can get the SDVD with great special features for less than $$15??

First off, I could care less about special features. They are the same ass kissing hype seen time and time again. The only one's I remotely enjoy are deleted scenes or alternate endings, anything after that is wasted fluff.

Second, the film has to have great repeat value in order to justify the price. Now, the film doesn't have to be some classics or blockbuster, but it should be something you feel you could enjoy watching from time to time. So, if you think you just might watch "I Robot" more than 4 or 5 times a year, then the $30 isn't all that bad.

So, only caring about getting the movie with no extra features, and getting a film I know I could watch several times, I'd probably but the $30 movie. Nevertheless, I am a tight ass, so I still might wait until a sale or general prices drop.

My point is, you have a DVD and a blu-ray edition of a movie. The DVD is a two disc loaded with special features (most making-of documentaries are great, plus, sometimes deleted scenes add nothing to the movie and in some instances, they might take away some mysticism that the movie might have) and the blu-ray with a commentary track, a 'trivia track' and lots of trailers in 'glorious' HD (LMFAO)...honestly, the blu-ray is not worth it, not even with it's supposedly 'glorious' HD quality.

The difference between the upscaled 1080p and true 1080p IMO is not worth the price.

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The difference between the upscaled 1080p and true 1080p IMO is not worth the price.

And to think, I used to pay extra just to get standard DVD versions WITHOUT special features!

Seriously. They were called SuperBit.

mvckalel said -

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"Why should it be worth buying a movie in HD in a "hi-def" disc with no special features?... etc"

OK, we know well of your bias for HD-DVD, from many posts here.

Why don't you ask the same for many of the Universal HD-DVDs that lack barely any supplemental special features - hmmm?

One of my favorite hi-def discs (for either format) is Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of KING KONG on HD-DVD - yet it contains NONE of the supplements seen on the DVD (and it's not even the longer theatrical cut, which -can- fit on a dual-layer HD-DVD using MPEG-4). Notice this disappointment, in an excerpt from the HDDigest Review -

SUPPLEMENTS - Whatever your feelings about the movie iteslf, here is where 'King Kong' on HD DVD really disappoints. Perhaps I've gotten spoiled, but for such a high-profile title, was I wrong to expect most if not all of the same extras that were on the two-disc special edition Universal released last year? And with a new four-disc extended version of 'Kong' about to hit standard-def DVD as well, I am puzzled why the studio didn't release that version on HD DVD along with the theatrical cut.

But no, what we get here is -- brace yourself -- absolutely nothing. Nada. Zip, Zero. Universal doesn't throw us a single banana, er, bone -- not even a theatrical trailer. Sure, there is some HD bonus content (*see below), but I don't know why the studio didn't ante up for a two-disc set (I can't imagine 'Kong' fans would have minded, even if they had to pay a few extra bucks for the extra disc). As is, supplements-wise, 'King Kong' now pales in comparison to just about every single other HD DVD release out there, when it should have obliterated them.

*brief excerpts (not complete) from Peter Jackson's production diaries (part of the U-Control option)

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

[Post edited by Love Hendrix! on Feb 21, 2008]

Yes, in past post, I recalled 'crying' about hi-def discs not having enough special features to be worth the price, just look for those posts...

It's ironic that you would like a movie in HD but no special features to go with it.

EDIT: Remember that Bush got 500,000+ less votes than Gore in the popular vote...

[Post edited by mvckalel on Feb 21, 2008]

No, it's not ironic - the film is the MAIN thing. And HD is a great way to see the film. Still, special features should always be added. What's disappointing is that some of the Universal titles, like Spartacus, Traffic, The Deer Hunter, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, etc, have been released in SpEd on standard DVDs around the world [also Criterion editions], and with a BETTER PRINT than the HD version! (this has been confirmed by many reviews). And the SpEd extras, commentary tracks etc are, of course, NOT included on the Universal HD-DVD editions.

By the way, I have the very rare COLORIZED version of the original 1933 King Kong too, on LaserDisc (with remastered digital audio sound). To my knowledge, this has never been released on DVD anywhere.

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

I'm not a Kong fan, but that sounds pretty cool, how about the colorized Casablanca?

Anyways, I've always asked for the new format to give us everything the DVD HAS given us, commentaries, deleted scenes, making-of...it's just sad that both HD discs didn't fully offer any real extras (blu-ray being the worse, and this is being unbiased), and specially not much in HD, it would be understandable when the source is not HD, but with newer titles?

Again, I would recommend studios to release a barebones movie only SD DVD edition of a movie, and a blu-ray (or whatever new hi-def format) being the super-duper-ultra-ultimate-special-extreme edition...

historically fony have given the punters a state of grace, then after a short period they banged up the licence of their products, this is how they killed off md in the uk just as it was starting to take off, and i liked md...
oh well, heres hoping they repeat themselves