Sony: $200 Blu-ray player in 2009

There goes our 'jump by the end of the year' theory...

This sucks... >=|

hmmm... either a cheap upconverting player that does justice to regular dvds, or super-expensive high-res disc playback. considering that many of us would have a hard time rebuilding, and want the best for our current collection... it looks like blu-ray has some heavy competition

What the hell, just go out and buy a Blu Ray now. What are you waiting for? There are some real good deals out there. For example you can get a Panasonic BDP-30 on Amazon for only $749 plus shipping from a third party vendor. The fact that it was selling for $402 from Amazon directly at the time of the Warner announcement doesn't matter. Rght? It was really too cheap then anyway. Now that BD has proven its superiority, we should all be happy to pay the price. Trust me, we will.

Is the president of Sony basically stating that we will be interested in BR because of PIP and BD features as the upconverting DVD player's picture keeps getting better and better? Who would buy a BR player for that. Many folks comment even on this forum that they don't care about those features.

The hollywood video store in upstate NY just started selling their HDs and they are going for 2 for $20, so picked up two HD combo movies. Seems like a combo movie to me protects agains the HD player failing since it sounds like you can eventually play the 480p version on an upconverting DVD player and simply not have PIP and BD, but excellent picture quality. Be a long time before a standalone BR player will be worth it.

You can already play the up-converted standard DVD version on either an up-converting player or if you take it over to someone with an old CRT setup you can currently play it on that. Hence the benefit of the combo format. Anyways, I am with you guys Blu-Ray has a very narrow window of opportunity here and it could die easily within the next couple of years if they don't start making things happen in the next few months.

haha what a joke! There is no reason why they cant reduce the price!! i think that will be the downfall of blu, the picture isnt that good to shell out 400 bucks for the avg person. Sony is stupid when it comes to formats. They even rape the people who buy there digital camras, dam duo sticks cost twice as much as a sd card.

Quote:
dam duo sticks cost twice as much as a sd card.

Only if you buy them at a retail store.

I'll just say it, I am so pissed off at both Sony and Toshiba. Sony for forcing their overpriced buggy format down our throats with their dirty tactics, and Toshiba for never really taking this format war seriously and just laying down and letting Sony bulldoze us.

We are now authoring Blu-ray instead of HD DVD since no one wants to release on a dead format and manufacturing facilities are rapidly evaporating. It's not a pleasant experience and it's much more expensive than HD DVD authoring, not to mention more of a headache. Because of the cost we have only had one project that looks like it will actually go ahead to a final mass pressing. Most of our clients (mostly indie filmmakers) have opted to release in SD only.

These kind of prices will only turn more consumers off of HD all together and up-converting players will be the norm for a long time to come. It's easy for early adopters with money to say "just go out and buy one" but the truth is most consumers wont, especially when HD can be a hard sell as it is.

This means that most indie movies will never see an HD release, and HD adoption will grind to a halt and will never be widely adopted like DVD until another format comes along, be it downloads, holograms or a matrix-style spike in the back of the head.

Thanks Sony, thanks Toshiba. It was so nice of you to kill HD.


Oh and PS, rumor is in the industry that Blu-ray prices are staying high because of manufacturing issues that have no end in site. If this is true it may mean both HD hardware and titles will stay expensive for a long time to come.

[Post edited by the_dvd_chef on Mar 8, 2008]

DVDChef... HD has NOT been 'killed' , is alive and well, and growing each day as more adopt, especially now that we have an end to the format war, and a single standard (Blu-ray). And apparently you've missed the many threads here of late, where I posted the following -

> 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."

Also, two Sony Sapphire profile 2.0 players arrive by the summer (between $350 to $499), and also OPPO Digital will produce a Blu-ray this year, among others.

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

Quote:
FUNAI '$300' Blu-ray player by Q2

Woo hoo. Until they decent players stay under $200 it can't even compete with DVD. And the main thing is the software. It needs to drop quite a bit, and not just on sale. I know lots of people who own HD DVD and Blu-ray and most of them have very small HD disc collection. They just don't see to point in spending upwards of $40 per title.

My point is from what I'm hearing in the industry, HD DVD's manufacturing processes had a lot of room to drop as there was more demand. Blu-ray however has a lot of serious manufacturing issues at least on the disc side of things, meaning prices won't be able to drop as easily even with increased demand.

It may seem on the surface that the studios execs made a stupid decision backing a format that some of them have admitted is more costly to manufacture. Well I've dealt with these people before and they have a very distorted view of consumers. I think a lot of them genuinely believe that they can keep prices high and people will just shell out. But really it will probably just push people away towards regular DVD and legal/illegal downloading.

Factor in the now inevitable slow-down in the US economy and the possibility that it could turn in to another depression and HD is as good as dead. There was a chance of getting out ahead and getting prices down with HD DVD, but Blu-ray doesn't stand a chance.

Think I'm wrong? Just wait and see.

[Post edited by the_dvd_chef on Mar 8, 2008]

Thanks for the follow-up DVDChef - some valid points and better clarification. And I appreciate your experience in the 'production' side of DVD (HD-DVD etc) content, having read your posts here the last few months. Keep us up to date on the 'politics' and related costs from your perspective 'behind the scenes' - as you're in an industry that most of us know little about (the actual mastering/replications etc). Again, thanks.

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)

FYI...

> 'Father of JAVA' talks Blu-ray 2.0

Sun Microsystems VP and fellow James Gosling calls it "mind-blowing" and we should see demonstrations of developers have achieved at the JavaOne conference in May.

-JIMI (the Voodoo Child)