Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Blu-ray is dead - heckuva job, Sony!

Interesting article , any thoughts?

Even people here were calling all of the HD disc formats a failure before the "war" was over. With video streaming and access via the internet, more and more people are choosing the cheaper DVD route and those methods.

We are, a year after HD-DVD did it, just starting to see sub-$200 Blu-Ray players, but the movies are $25-$30 where HD-DVD was $5-$10 less than that, and regular DVDs can be had for $16 when they are released.

Sony is trying to make back its money, in my opinion, from the battle, and from all of the PS3 sales, via licensing fees for the players and movies, and those costs are keeping even some of the more dedicated folks away.

They just need to make the movies themselves more affordable. I mean, one can get two to three regular DVDs for the price of one Blu-ray. That's been the most frustrating part of this new format. I've been slowly trying to build my Blu-ray collection and have waited for sales and deals on the newer discs. It's a hard pill to swallow when I want to replace a regular DVD with a Blu-ray and need to spend $30 to do so.

Like Nick said, they can come down all they want on the price of the players, but the root of the problem is the discs.

I'll pile on. Yeah, the disc prices are horrible. Even for someone like me who seems to enjoy throwing money around like he's the yin to JohnK's yang, it's hard to justify a lot of the time.

Yeah, they really need to get Blu-ray on the fast track if they want to supplant DVD. It's hard to see how they're going to do that at this point.

OK, I'll pile on CVs piling on. I picked up my 52" display with the intention of going HD, but I find that upscaled DVD looks pretty good to me. I can see how it would make a difference on a much bigger screen, but for me at this point, it doesn't really matter.

It does make a difference on a 126" projection screen. I supported HD-DVD so as not to support a monopoly, and still have not bought a Blu-Ray player...

After I get a new HDTV I won't be rushing to purchase a Blu-ray player, I'll just pick up an Oppo upscaling DVD player.

I've heard the same from all big screen owners. You're spreading those pixels over a lot more realestate than I am.

I picked up a windows medea format HD video because I wanted to experience the wow now. The image difference is noticable, but not really WOW different on my 52".

Wheels, I am wondering if I should invest in a better scaling solution. I'm in no hurry so I will wait and see if Bluray picks up or not. I am truely format neutral at this point.

Funny, if Bluray fizzles, Toshiba may yet have the last laugh with their upgraded DVD format.

I certainly hope it doesn't fizzle out. DVD was a good format, but the difference Blu-ray makes is something I wouldn't want to give up. I haven't seen scaling that is any kind of substitute.

Here's a rebuttal to the article linked to at the beginning of the thread:

The Digital Bits - Archived post 10/30/08