Blu-ray: Victor in the HD DVD Wars, But Ultimately Doomed?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10052157-17.html?tag=mncol;posts' target='_blank'>http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-1...tag=mncol;posts</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"CNET's Crave on Friday reported on Nielsen's latest VideoScan figures, showing that Blu-ray Disc's market share in the video disc market has slumped in the past week. According to Nielsen, Blu-ray's market share dropped to just 8 percent of the overall market, giving DVDs a whopping 92 percent ownership. Granted, those figures show only one week's performance, and Blu-ray may have a huge week soon and capture more of the market, but let's be honest with ourselves: do we really think that will happen? According to a study released in August by ABI Research, more than half the people it surveyed had no plans to buy a standalone Blu-ray player in the near future, and 23 percent are considering it, but not until 2009. When your format is limping along with just 8 percent of the market, the last thing you want to hear is that only 23 percent of the population actually wants a Blu-ray player."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1222973678.usr1.jpg" /></p><p>Don Reisinger has <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10052157-17.html?tag=mncol;posts" target="_blank">put together an interesting piece</a> on the future of Blu-ray, and it confirms what I've felt since last year: neither HD-DVD nor Blu-ray offer enough advantages over upscaled DVD to win over the hearts and minds of consumers. Blu-ray won the battle with HD-DVD (much to my dismay), but it faces a long, drawn-out war with regular DVD. I firmly believe that Blu-ray is only going to oust DVD through a long, slow war of attrition - and it's going to take a full decade before DVD is really gone from the store shelves. What's your take on the future of Blu-ray?</p>

[Rob Cannon]

I MIGHT buy a BluRay player this Christmas if they get much closer to $100. And then I will only rent the discs (from Netflix). One thing that I learned from this war is that there is no value in owning the discs.

Also, I think that digital downloads will win the day. The format war served to push buying decisions out long enough to where digitial downloads are feasible. I think the Netflix is about to crush the DVD with the combo of the Starz deal and the XBox deal. Now they just have to work on improving the video quality.

[Damion Chaplin]

This also confirms what I've been thinking since the war began: Bluy-ray and HD-DVD are just not a big enough step for me to justify the additional expense (and replacement of my extensive DVD collection).

When CDs came out, they were clearly better than the cassettes and LPs they were trying to replace (and don't start with the LP vs. CD fidelity argument - normal people like me don't care and would rather have something that's portable and sounds great). So there were obvious reasons why one would want to switch to CD and replace your tape collection with them. Then came DVDs. Again, they were so clearly better than the VHS they replaced that really no one needed to be convinced.

Blu-ray is just too small of a step. An 'incrimental' upgrade if you will. I'll be waiting for UHD or something similar to come out before I even consider switching to a new technology.

[Jason Dunn]

One thing that I learned from this war is that there is no value in owning the discs.

Yeah? I'm different, I really like owning DVDs - I have about 600 I think. What I don't like is the price of Blu-ray discs though; I won't start buying Blu-ray discs until the price is closer to the $20 to $25 mark for new releases and the $10 to $15 mark for older movies.

Also, I think that digital downloads will win the day.

I'm a bit less optimistic about downloads...things have to get a lot easier and faster for the average consumer to do digital downloads. The average person still wants to own a physical piece of media when they purchase a movie - having it stored on a hard drive is too complex/confusing/risky for the average person. I think people are used to that with music now, but movies are another thing...

[David Tucker]

The ONLY reason I've ever liked owning a large selection of DVDs is because I can watch whatever I'm in the mood to watch at that moment. I would much prefer to have it all available for download/streaming whenever I want it.

I've always felt that HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray were competing for the chance to be the next laserdisc.

[gmontielh]

The quality of the picture is just a lot better. Particularly when watching in sets 40in and higher. Enough to justify buying the player. But honestly I should recommend to get a PS3 if "basic" players are in the $300-$400 price range. You get more for your money. Just wish I would have been more informed before. Now with the coming of "Turbo HD" with allegedly 1080p broadcast resolution it makes you wonder about the future of the players and that 1080p downloads seem bound to happen rather sooner than later. Any comments on this? I for one although using Netflix considerably, still like to have an actual copy of the movies I really like. I have not an extensive collection of DVDs but after watching the Blu-ray edition there are some that definitely I will replace.

[Felix Torres]

Blu-ray has problems, without question. They're mostly self-inflicted.

1- Disc pricing went up once the studios killed HD-DVD. Really smart move, pricing BD at twice the price of SD-DVDs, right?

2- Player pricing remains ridiculous and, combined with the half-baked nature of the spec (some *new* players are coming to market supporting *last year's* 1.1 spec?!) is encouraging savvy buyers to wait until things settle down, which won't really happen until next year. The only future-proof player on the market (PS3) doesn't offer easy home theater integration (no IR remote?!) and the BD-mafia's idea of affordable players is bare-bones feature-stripped players at $299. Expect no significant adoption until Profile 2.5 players hit $199 and when is that happening? Not soon.

3- The studios have failed to understand the value of portable video. Having chosen to kill mandatory-copy (one of the reasons the Fox-Disney axis bought into BD in the first place) and failing to produce hybrid disks that might play in car DVD players, the studios charge more for a product that does less.

4- Lets face it, HD video may be better than upscaled DVD, but for most movies (non-sfx-blockbusters) its hard to see the difference or, even care. Yes, Speed Racer, Iron Man and Dark Knight will look better in HD than SD but for most movie releases, the grainy, soft-focus look directors prefer for their dramas hardly benefits enough from the increased resolution to justify the added cost, even for the golden eyeballs crowd.

All that said; the studios have it in their power to make BD dominant.
All they have to do is what their music counterparts did in the 80's to speed CD adoption. All they have to do is stop pressing DVDs the way they stopped making LPs overnight.

Or, if they are unwilling to risk the short term pain of cold-turkeying the market again, they can simply raise DVD prices to BD levels. They've already raised DVD prices a notch by introducing higher prices for the extras-loaded editions and selling single-disk barebones versions at the old price points, so all they have left to do is stop selling the cheaper single disk releases. That would reduce the pricing gap enough that they could then force the market to BD by delaying the higher-priced DVDs by a couple months.

Considering where the global economy is headed over the next year or two, odds are that by next spring the studios will look at their declining revenue numbers and decide to do *something*. And I doubt they'll be cutting BD disk prices by 30%, so... :(

[Outlaw94]

I do beleive that the increased picture quality is worth it. I bought a blu-ray player earlier this year but I never buy a movie that isn't on sale (i.e. $20). It just isn't worth it, not when I can get a DVD for $15-20. Again it also depends on the movie. "What Happens in Vegas" in blu-ray isn't a big deal but "Iron Man" in blu-ray is a great step above DVD.

I will never be replacing my DVDs with blu-ray but I will add to my blu-ray collection as the prices on movies come down and they have. Amazon always has blu-ray titles at $15 to 20. Granted they are the older movies that you can buy the DVD for $10 but I also believe that depending on the movie, the blu-ray version might be worth $5.

As for downloads, they will never become big, until you have an easy was to download the movie, burn it to a disc, watch the disc anywhere you want, and watch the digital copy on your normal television, computer, ipod, zune, etc. with out any restrictions. BUT, we all know that this will never happen. The movie studios won't have it.

Then there is the fact that some cable internet providers are capping internet usage at 50gb per month (I'm talking to you comcast). Most people never get close to the 50gb limit but lets see what happens when a few HD movies are being downloaded.

[jeffd]

I love HD deatly and think blueray is a fine format for it, but sony, just like toshiba, has been f'n its market since day 1 with completely retarded prices. Today I currently still have no plans to buy blueray.. I won't until its under 70 bucks, oh yea and I need an hd tv too. I currently watch hd movies downloaded on my monitor ^^.

[dtanderson]

I will never buy a Blu-ray player unless I am forced to becuase that is the only format available. I can't believe that Blu-ray won the HD disc war, they still do not have the standards straight yet.

[jeffd]

huh? Its standards are fine. I belvie its still enhancing its java abilities but thats not exactly exploited nore required to watch a movie. Video and audio codec wise, its been "standard" since day 1.

[DaleReeck]

If you have the right kind of setup, blu-ray players will improve picture quality of standard DVD's. So there is an immediate improvement, even if you don't buy blu-ray disks. But once blu-ray disks come down in price to the same as regular DVD's, and once the Feb 2009 end of analog TV comes, that's when blu-ray market share will climb.