Blu-ray gets portable. Success to follow?
I'm not convinced that Blu-ray will ever be as successful as DVD.
I believe that the players are still too expensive, the media costs too much, and there isn't enough of a jump in quality between DVD and Blu-ray to force people to jump to the new format. Plus, streaming video is slowly but surely becoming a force in the entertainment space.
There's another issue holding Blu-ray back: it's not portable. Unlike DVD, you can't bring Blu-ray with you. And you certainly can't run into Blockbuster, pick up a Blu-ray movie, and play it in your car to keep the kids quiet on a road trip. That's been a contributing factor to DVD's staying power.
Until now.
Though it went largely unnoticed, Panasonic announced last week that it was bringing an in-car Blu-ray player to store shelves. The two-part system also features a "7-inch display, GPS, a CD/DVD player, Bluetooth, a 40GB hard drive, and iPod/iPhone compatibility." So far, no price has been announced.
It's an important step forward for the format.
Being portable means adding value to the consumer experience. Portability was a major barrier to entry for Blu-ray. If you can't bring your Blu-ray films with you on a road trip, DVD is still relevant in your life.
I realize that it's just one device and that the in-car systems will need to become ubiquitous before DVD could really become irrelevant away from home. But it's one advantage that DVD will no longer enjoy. Plus, it tells us that companies are thinking about Blu-ray as more than a bridge between DVD and streaming. And it tells us that tech firms are willing and ready to invest in products that will enhance our Blu-ray viewing experiences.
Does portability guarantee success for Blu-ray? Of course not. It still has issues that are holding it back from becoming the definitive source of entertainment in the home. But Blu-ray is quickly becoming more attractive to the consumer who wants to do more than watch a high-def film in the family room. And that counts for something.
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Plus at Amazon and other websites, you can find Blu-ray movies for $15-$20. I think that the prices will continue to drop by this holiday season, but you have a huge library already available to you if you really wanted to get it.
Yes, audiophiles and videophiles that are willing to pay premium prices on 50, 60 and 70" in TVs and high end audio equipment and speakers to get "the best of the best" home theater systems will of course buy Blu-Ray as part of their setup.
That is not enough to make Blu-Ray a success. The other 90% of the public will not pay the price it will take to see and hear the benefits of Blu-Ray.
As with any new technology, the technophiles will buy in early, fueling the market to make things cheaper in the long run. Bluray will eventually supplant the DVD. It may take longer than the VHS->DVD switch, but it will happen.
Here's to hoping that we get 15 years before the next format.
People don't have the hardware to see the difference, but if they had an HD-TV, I think they would definitely want to purchase the product based on the quality difference.
The writer of the article made the general assumption that people don't see a jump in quality, which I think is wrong.
While Blu-Ray will never be cheaper than if companies continued to develop DVD players, eventually you WILL see Blu-Ray players as an option in cars from the show floor. It will probably be 5 years, but it will happen, and most of that will be because when BR hits about 35% of the household market higher end cars are going to start to throw those in. Then it'll trickle down over a couple of years til it hits the market DVD players are in today.
The reasons I have for saying this are that those who can buy higher end cars will have Blu-Ray players. They will be willing to pay to be able to play all their movies in their car, since BR can play DVD and BR movies. And as cost goes down on producing them, they will work their way down the line to less expensive cars.
To everyone who is going to say, "I don't want to wait 5 years to watch BR movies in my car, so I won't buy a BR player at my house (I know if I don't put this here Someone will say it), You should be reminded that no company will add BR players in their cars if they decide their isn't enough market for it. Just buy the thing, and that'll help spur growth in the sector, and everyone will be happy.
And just a side note as to why it is taking longer for BR to take over than DVD; in the VCR to DVD jump, you didn't have to buy a new TV. No one buys a BR player until they buy an HD TV, and that adds a whole heck of a lot of cost to Blu-Ray. But soon it'll take over. I'm not holding out for any streaming of movies before Blu-Ray has run its course because so far I have yet to see a Streamed movie of the EXACT same picture quality as that of one on a physical media. While streaming is fine, and the instant gratification factor is nice, its just not worth it yet. Also I can think of a lot of people I know who wouldn't be able to work the thing. So that will hinder it some.
Any decent Blu-Ray player can upconvert your DVD's. And the players are coming down in price every day. To buy a plain old up converter DVD player these days is silly and short sighted.
Playing DVDs on a Blu-Ray player will make them "look better" and it does to a point.
I also agree that the technology is a bit expensive, but the same was true for DVD technology when it was first introduced to the market.
I have Blu-ray player by default and not by choice because I have a PS3 and I have a 42 inch HDTV but I never use the Blu-ray functions of the machine. While some stuff like Planet Earth look great, most of my older movies that I love don't have a big jump like Full Metal Jacket (which had to have a second release since the first one was so crappy) and Goodfellas. It's not a blanket statement that all movies are going to look as good as Planet Earth.
A couple other points
1)$300 bucks was more in the '80's than now.
2)There is no alternative for a BR player anymore. Just like the VCR beat out the BetaMax, BR beat HD DVD. Maybe it was a little crooked the way they did it, but its happened so deal
3)Just because people are happy with it doesn't mean they will go for a better product when they can. I was perfectly fine with a 2 year old Non-iPod MP3 player and a Razr phone. Now I have an iPhone because I was tired of drooling at them. You do this every day. That's not a reason it'll fail
But the closer you are to a screen, the smaller the screen size needs to be before you see the HD quality. So you don't need a 42" in your car. At 2 feet from your face to the screen it wouldn't need to be that big at all actually. Probably in the 20" range. So there you go :) HD on a tiny screen that is better than current. Problem solved
2. Streaming is only a short term content distribution method. The low quality of streaming video combined with bandwidth caps limit streaming on the long term to a missed TV show or an occasional news event watched from work.
3. Blu-ray adoption will begin to grow exponentially when more people own HD TV's and quality sound systems.
But otherwise I agree with you.
Why buy expensive physical media when you can already get a HD digital copy now for 10 dollars cheaper.
Save your money HD streaming and downloading is available now. If you don't believe me check out Crackle.com and stream beautiful HD content for free. It's a Sony site so compare it to Bluray and see for yourself.
Bluray disc suffer from compression artifacts I have found that HD streams have less artifacts and look cleaner.
Some people like having a hard copy.
Was the 1080p of the quality of a Blu-ray, or was it the OTA junk you get from the local TV station (I hope it was not the garbage they call HD you get from PPV.). When you talk about multi channel are we talking about low quality 5.1 you would get from a DVD or lossless 7.1?
Also, the portability you're referring to really had nothing to do with the success of DVD. DVD was popular *before* it came to minivans everywhere. Though, portability is a problem, just in a different manner. If I want to watch a blu-ray with my friends, they have to come over my place or I need to bring my PS3 to their place. If I wanna watch a DVD with friends, I just need to bring the DVD to wherever we want to watch it. So, ubiquity of the players themselves is holding them back. At the time of VHS, people wanted to upgrade to DVD. The difference in quality was much more significant than DVD->Blu-ray. Also, just functionality in general. VHS forced to rewind. You couldn't jump chapters. When it came down to it, it was the visual equivalent of casette->CD for music. Blu-ray offers little in impressive new functionality. Yea, it can go online or you can play games. But thats not really going to draw people on its own. Thats just extra. I don't know anyone that has said they want blu-ray because they can play little crappy games (really, the games are terrible) loosely based on the movie (live free or die hard had one that i gave a shot. it was awful.). Other than that, it has the same feature set as DVD (skip chapters, no rewind, etc.). It improves on them slightly (much higher speed fast forward and rewind), but nothing thats going to change the way people watch movies. Blu-ray is just a higher quality DVD when it comes down to it. Its not a game changer like DVD was to VHS. So, VHS wasn't real competition to DVD in the way DVD is to Blu-ray.
The segment of the population that only watches movies in tricked-out home theaters with giant HD screens will continue to gobble up Blu-ray discs. Those of us who watch movies on portable DVD players, laptops, and non-HD televisions in other rooms of the house will wait until our TVs and computers are replaced with HD-compatible hardware so that upgrading actually has some meaning.
The key here is that the portable version of the last format is stifling the growth of the newer format (according to some). Portability will always be wanted out of every format, even if its designed to be played on massive screens.
Also, an 8" screen can easily do 720p (the Sony Vaio P has an 8" 1600 x 768 screen). I wouldn't be surprised to see some 1080p 9" portable players down the line.
Same thing with the device in this story, I've still yet to figure out who or why someone needs an in-dash screen of any kind? Weren't we suppose to pay attention to the road?
I don't even bother carrying DVD discs with me now when I travel, I just rip to a video file and I don't have to worry about keeping up with a bunch of discs. The resulting file size is fine for a laptop, imagine the same file size on a BR disc.....who needs em?
Portability WILL help Bluray adoption.
If they really wanted people to buy BR players and discs then wouldn't they simply make the costs of the players and discs comparable to the regular def stuff? To me that's value, not portability.
Michelle
http://www.eclipsemagazine.com
Michelle
http://www.eclipsemagazine.com
In terms of price, I just got a refurbished samsung internet upgradable for $150.00 in Amazon. It works perfectly.
Now , when I watched a DVD movie, they look old and outdated.
Any luddite that says the quality of bluray doesn't make the jump from DVD worth it needs to either stop writing for CNET or start embracing hidef. Good grief, get some glasses or get a real tv.
Streaming is so uncool - low quality, delivery takes longer than netflix by mail and requires more equipment costs. And how many movies can you download before the cable company starts to throttle your connection?
If you have a 1080p HDTV, I believe Blu-ray is the only way you can receive full 1080p resolution. It is also the only way you can get lossless quality sound.
As far as portability is concerned, Blu-ray drives in your laptop are under $100, and you can play your discs on your laptop or any HDTV system with a HDMI input via a $7 HDMI cable.
The price of excellent Blu-ray players is in the $200 range and going lower, and the additional rental cost of a Blu-ray disc on Netflix ($2+/mo) or Blockbuster (zip) not a barrier.
Someday, the music industry will discover there is a market for music discs that provide high quality DVD lossless sound to distinguish its product from free MP3 downloads.
I am all for Blu-ray and we have one Blu-ray player hooked up to the one and only big screen TV in our home. However, we also have a portable DVD player for road trips, and a DVD player hooked up to all other televisions. If I am buying a Disney movie that the kids will want to watch in their room, I will buy DVD. If I am buying a movie that I feel might be watched on a road trip, I will buy a DVD. When I am buying a movie that I am confident the kids will not want to watch in their own rooms, and that will not be watched portably, I will get it on Blu-ray.
So, yes... portability is a factor which prevents me from buying some Blu-rays. I know I won't experience the additional quality on a smaller screen, but that's not the point. I want the higher quality when I put that same disc into my Blu-ray player hooked up to my big screen TV, but I don't want to be permanently tethered to that big screen TV. I want options. Digital Copy is great, but not every movie features it... and in some cases, it's an extra $5 or so for the disc which contains Digital Copy.
So, until we have a portable Blu-ray player for road trips... and until the cost of Blu-ray players is low enough (and the economy improves enough) that we can justify replacing every DVD player we have accumulated over the years with a Blu-ray player, we will not be buying every movie we wish to add to our entertainment library in the Blu-ray format.
- by brightstarbeing April 27, 2009 9:14 AM PDT
- I love how every piece this guy does he has to put his own little editorial comments in. Stick to the news, dude. Besides, Blu-Ray is much more relevant thatn you give it credit for. I would say that the onlt thing "Holding it back" is player price and people like you.
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