Ready to buy Blu-ray? Better hit pause button

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23262620/

I have been reading your guys post. Couple months ago I purchased a HDDVD player and was absolutely pleased with price / performance. Happy feet and King kong were the first movies my wife & i Watched. I was sold, more importantly she was. It also upconverted sdvds Ratatouille and most other animation & movies beautifully. Well anyways, It will be used as a dvd player and whatever hddvds i can purchase.

Since all the news went down about how "consumers" chose br i decided to start looking and educating myself on whats out there. All I can say is DAMN!! it is going to be expensive for a 1.0 player.I have a PC for gaming so There is no way i will buy a game console just to play a movie especially a PS3.

As the article states "Even at $400, that’s about twice the price most consumers are comfortable with — the “I-don’t-have-to-ask-my-wife’s-permission” number of around $200 " So for me i at this price point I have to wait , my dvds on this HDDVD player are looking better than ever these days. I just thought you guys might find the above article interesting...Take care

[Post edited by patchman on Feb 21, 2008]

Why would you buy a 1.0 player to begin with? Not all 1.0 players can be upgraded. And by the time 2.0 players are common and down to a sub-$250 price range, HD VoD will be more common and likely more viable than expensive Blu-Ray players. Blu-Ray has quite a battle ahead of itself now with SD DVD and HD VoD to deal with.

Spoonard,
Thanx for the info. I mentioned the 1.0 because thats what was being sold to me for that price unless i went with a console. I just found it unbelievable to pay that much for something that is not "finished" So i will not be buying a player any time soon. I read the news article which opened my eyes on the whole format .....not ready yet. It just seemed like i was going backwards when i started looking at BR players. ......

Thanx once again....

Quote:
Not all 1.0 players can be upgraded. And by the time 2.0 players are common and down to a sub-$250 price range, HD VoD will be more common and likely more viable than expensive Blu-Ray players

All I can say is WOW!!!

I am one of those fortunate Verizon FiOS customers, with a real Fiber Optic Feed up to within 6 feet of me as I write this...

I will seriously be scaling back my HD DVD acquisitions if studios stop releasing on HD DVD, and will only rent occasional Blu titles, with no chance of actually buying any of them.

Netflix, canceled. Blockbuster, sorry too.

Got my kids a P$3 for Christmas, and I just boxed it up for it's second trip to the repair shop.

Just leave it turned on for more than 3-4 hours and the Blu drive burns out, leaving the P$3 blind again.

With more than 5 TB of PC drive space available so far, I will be buying HD downloads instead of Optical Discs shortly.

What was this "Format War", I must have missed something.

Probably some insignificant drivel, glad I missed out on it...

No reason to support some Blu-Game format that is intended for kids instead of real HD movies.

$ony can have their P$3 Game Console, it was never a legitimate movie machine to begin with...

I mentioned this in another thread, but I'll repeat it here:

Since the Toshiba announcement, I've been following the Panasonic BD30K on Amazon. Before the announcement, it was $411 directly from Amazon, free shipping w/Prime. Today the cheapest from a third party vendor is $495 plus $14 shipping. I think the cheapest was $549 yesterday.

I should have jumped when it was $411, but on the other hand, I'm reluctant to buy until BD gets their hardware issues resolved for good. (the Panasonic is nearly there I think) I don't think these prices are going down any time soon because I believe some vendors want to milk the price for all they can get until probably this Christmas season. After all, there is no competition anymore. Yes the market will ultimately determine the price points, but not for a while. I would LOVE to see Sony, et. al., be forced to pull a Toshiba to lower the price of their sa players below cost in order to move them. Now, that would be poetic justice!

I tried to read this article, but I hit the pause button as soon as I saw the name "Rob Enderle"

[Post edited by Skyhawk on Feb 21, 2008]

Yeah, I still don't get fibre until next year... I'm still getting 18Mbs to the door, with one HD STB and a Regular STB, and about 4Mbs for internet, but it's no fibre! It is still quicker than cable. Hey on your fibre, how long does it take to download a movie?

Quote:
I tried to read this article, but I hit the pause button as soon as I saw the name "Rob Enderle"

I hit pause the moment I saw "msnbc" in the link!

I just bought We Were Soldiers, Serenity, Sky Captain, Tomb Raider, Sleepy Hollow and Blade Runner Ultimate Edition, all on HD-DVD. WOW. Awesome quality with the newer movies. Absolutely beautiful.

A lot of people think that now there is one format to choose from, the prices have to go down, I disagree. If the prices were at $400+ when the war was going on and each one trying to outdo the other, then without any competition, there's no need to drop prices.

I grabbed a new BD30 player on saturday from Ebay for $350! The only one they had, they now have 2-3 left right now at $380 + Shipping.

Agree on the prices, I don't see them going down a whole lot if at all right now.

[Post edited by dpdurst on Feb 21, 2008]

First of all, I really don't understand why everyone keeps saying that downloads are going to completely take over and be the way of the future. It's just going to be another OPTION for people like satellite TV, DVDs, and Blu-Rays. It's not going to replace any of these.

Just like MP3s for example. A lot of people use them, but stores still sell albums on CD and people still buy them. People rip MP3s from their CD collections, and then if their iPod breaks down, at least they still have the CD to get their MP3s back. People like this, and I really can't see it going the way of the dodo.

Blu-Ray movies aren't always going to be this expensive either. When DVDs first came out, they were in the $40-$50 range, and right now the high definition discs are quite a bit cheaper already. Plus there are Buy One Get One sales, not to mention great deals on eBay.

IF downloads take off, it's just going to be another choice for consumers. That's all, plain and simple.

I think the argument of "No competition" does not hold true, because of two points:

1. There is still competition in the way of SD DVD. All of the CE's want the transition to HD to happen as they will more money on new player sales. So the desire to get the price points to the adoption point has to be high. Let's face it, if the only player is the PS3 and it stays at $400.00 BD isn't going to go anywhere..

2. There is going to be competition between the CEs. Pioneer is going to want to sell more then Samsung and vice vs. And when the new models come out they can either put an ungodly price tag on them (dosen't make much sense) or they can lower the cost of their previous models and etc..

So, price drops immediately..I doubt it..but I would expect to see at least the current model prices to drop once the new lines of (1.1 or 2.0 profile) players start hitting the shelves.

Uni

Quote:
First of all, I really don't understand why everyone keeps saying that downloads are going to completely take over and be the way of the future. It's just going to be another OPTION for people like satellite TV, DVDs, and Blu-Rays. It's not going to replace any of these. Just like MP3s for example. A lot of people use them, but stores still sell albums on CD and people still buy them. People rip MP3s from their CD collections, and then if their iPod breaks down, at least they still have the CD to get their MP3s back. People like this, and I really can't see it going the way of the dodo.

Blu-Ray movies aren't always going to be this expensive either. When DVDs first came out, they were in the $40-$50 range, and right now the high definition discs are quite a bit cheaper already. Plus there are Buy One Get One sales, not to mention great deals on eBay.

IF downloads take off, it's just going to be another choice for consumers. That's all, plain and simple.

Very well put my friend. I especially like that part about the Dodo.

[Post edited by gvortex7 on Feb 21, 2008]

Hey vortex, whats up with my favorite Blu Ray supporter.

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Hey vortex, whats up with my favorite Blu Ray supporter

Nothing much, just anxiously waiting for my tax refund check (due next Monday) and also for concrete announcements from Paramount and Universal about their upcoming Blu-ray releases.

[Post edited by gvortex7 on Feb 21, 2008]

hoodaguy, as I'm writing this your comments made me cry. What a slap of logic that was. You've come so far so fast. I am proud of you. )

DVD's were NOT $40-$50 when they first came out. I had an RCA player from Montgomery Wards (so you KNOW this was long ago) that I bought about 2 years into the format and they were nearly the same price they are now. Of course we didnt have the bargin bins then, but $35 was the highest I ever saw a normal DVD going for without a sale.

Inevitably they will drop, its the timeline of that dropping that will be important in the adoption of this format.

Quote:
Inevitably they will drop, its the timeline of that dropping that will be important in the adoption of this format.

With no competition? Come on, prices will be locked until they sell whatever units of PS3s they've wanted (even with price slashes and new models) and then, will prices drop. NOW, Sony will want to make up for the money it's been losing because of the PS3, and that, is bad for us, so thanks blu-ray fanboys for this.

DVDs were $40-$50 here in Canada when they first came out. And when I took trips to the states, I never bought DVDs because in recent times they were cheaper here.

It is going to be hard to get into blu-ray considering the still-existing problems. I am so waiting on a good deal on that LG BH200 player. Because it is built as a working player.

StevePro and others...

I posted news recently [surprised NOBODY commented afterwards] that the popular brand OPPO DIGITAL is going to produce Blu-ray players. They are well-known for providing outstanding quality at lower prices. You can bet they know their market, and will NOT be releasing players at the higher price points we currently see from some of the other Blu-ray brands.

Also, keep an eye on the forthcoming (May) Panasonic BD50 player and the summer debut of Sony's SAPPHIRE players - both are full Profile 2.0 - as I'm thinking they will run between $400 to $700 (depending on specs and design), which is affordable to most of us - considering how many here can also afford hi-def discs priced between $15 to $30.

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

There is an update on both Sapphire codenamed upcoming Sony Blu-ray players.

The one that was Sapphire 3 is actually m/n BDP-S350 and it will be released the first week of July for $349.99. It will be a BD Live player (profile 2.0) and will be able to bitstream both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD MA to receivers that are capable of decoding them.

The one that was Sapphire 4 is actually m/n BDP-S550 and it will be released the first week of August for $449.99. It will also be a BD Live player and it will be able to internally decode all of the hi-def audio codecs.

They're both 1080p/24p capable as well. Expect the load times on these players to be infinitely better then both currently available Sony players the S300 and S500. Also, for those that are SACD enthusiasts there is a bit of bad news as none of these players will support SACD's.

Jimi,

Thanks for the news about the Oppo. That very well could be a possibility, if it has analogue outputs. I noticed thet the Oppo DV980H has 7.1 analogue. I wonder do you handle that if you have a 5.1 receiver, assuming that the new OppoBD is the same. Steve

Should be no problem with analog 7.1 out playback on a 5.1 A/V receiver set-up - the extra rear matrixed-surround channels output is just added to the regular rear speakers in a 5.1 setup. This has been the case since even standard DVDs were released with EX or 6.1 soundtracks, like Bats, The Haunting, Austin Powers 2 & 3 and many more.

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

FYI -

> FUNAI '$300' Blu-ray player by Q2

"The optical head for the unit will be provided by Sony and the core system will be the Matsushita / Panasonic UniPhier chipset."

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

Not bad $350-$450 for Sony Blu Ray 2.0 players. That's still more than a PS3 and for mass consumer adoption. Is the FUNAI going to be 2.0 .I don't know about having Funai though, it's like having a HD Venturer, still an A-3 but just not sure about the quality. Also for some reason everyone believed that the Venturer was going to be the mass adopting tool and everyone knows how that went. Then again the A2 took its title. Who knows maybe a Panasonic or even Samsung Blu player might surprise us......or probably not. )