Comments on: Why $100 is the perfect Blu-ray player price

Until DVD players came down to that price, the format wasn't even close to ubiquity. Besides, Blu-ray provides only nominally better picture quality, Don Reisinger says.

[technologyRules]

The difference in picture quality and sound seems pretty big to me over upscaled DVD. So I'm surprised when people who own good equipment don't notice much difference.

That said, I'm eagerly awaiting the media prices to drop -- the player prices are reasonable now.

[Careakith]

I don't care what the price is even if its free I wouldn't care. The movies cost too much!

[Magicland]

The cost of the player is not the issue, the cost of the media is. Why pay at least a 50% price premium for a format which doesn't bring much to the table? DVD looks great on my 56" HDTV (tv upconverts, so I don't even need an upconverting DVD player), costs less, and plays on everything I own. Heck, most things I own will play mp4 video files, so why pay a premium for a blu-ray format which will be obsolete before it ever meets market saturation? Soon I'll just be ripping all my DVD's and keep the files on a hard drive, as I did years ago with my CD's.

[xcal78]

I'm thinking Blue Ray will die just like HD-DVD. Why bother with a physical format other then DVD when you can just stream them in better then Blue Ray quality. On-demand, instant, cheaper, better quality, and no special equipment other then your PC. I guess you may need a special device for $100 or a cable to hook your PC to your TV for $20-30. I like a lot of people I know will stick to DVD's and get HD content from a streaming online source like Netflix. I'd be tempted to grab a Blue Ray for $100 for now until all the movies I want to see are avalible in a streaming format but again the difference isn't really worth the price. I do have a nice new plasma tv and bose's system so I'd prefer the best avalible quality but in this economy price places just as big of a roll.

[danielwsmithee]

I agree, it's all stored on hard drives in the future. Boxee + Apple TV woot.

[The 3rd Nipple]

I have a PS3 with BluRay too. There's a large different to me between that and a regular DVD....but only on newer movies. I have a few BluRay versions of older movies and even watching those I just see more graininess of the flim on the screen. Not the razor sharp images that come with new HD movies. So even if the BluRay player price was at $100, I would still recommend buying the DVD version of movies that came out prior to HD and stick to the BluRay of newer movies. And if I didn't even have an HDTV...I wouldn't even consider purchasing BluRay. That's my two cents worth.

[sting7k]

Blu-ray will likely feel the effects of this economy much more so than DVD. In these times people will just keep doing what they can for as cheap as they can. Right now DVDs are dirt cheap, you can find weekly deals for some great movies for just $5. I don't even think a $100 player is enough when movies are still at least twice as much as they are on DVD if not more. Blu-ray will probably be hit hard the next few months or even few quarters as people pull back and hold off until things improve.

[BlutoNYC]

I think buying a Blu-Ray player is a waste of money... I'm holding out for true HD downloads and a device with a lot of hard drive space. Besides... all that plastic that is needed for the media and the case is bad for the environment.

[HlLLARY CLITON]

I'll consider one when they are $49

[Splashes]

It's a reasonable (and fairly obvious) hypothesis -- $99 is a universal sweet spot. However, in the short term, I'm not sure if it's a reasonable and desirable goal for the manufacturers.

I, like Don, use a PS3 for playing Blu-Ray discs. In fact, I bought it solely for that purpose -- I haven't yet used the PS3 for games. After reading many reviews, it became clear that there were a lot of lame Blu-Ray players out there. Instead of spending $200 on a player that was slow, had less features, and wasn't software-updateable, I paid $400 for the PS3. I haven't regretted it, especially after hearing about some friends' low-end players.

Many years ago, when my regular DVD player pooped out, I bought a cheapo replacement ($80 or so), figuring it would be 'good enough.' I was wrong. In contrast to VCRs, the performance of a DVD player is highly dependent on the computer inside -- slow computer = slow response to remote, slow layer switching, slow track seeking, etc. I returned that piece of junk and bought a mid-range player from the same manufacturer; I was pleased with it.

And there lies my concern with cheapo Blu-Ray players. Blu-Ray is even more demanding of the hardware; a cheapo player will likely mean (for instance) slow-loading discs. Even my PS3 can take ten seconds or so to load the menus for a movie like Wall-E; on a friend's $200 unit, that delay is more like a minute and a half. No big deal in the grand scheme of things, but combined with other inevitable performance deficits, it's unlikely to encourage people to make the leap, especially considering the factors Don pointed out in his article (such as picture quality improvement being minor for most people, and higher movie prices).

Bottom line: well-performing $99 players could (if it performs well) greatly increase Blu-Ray adoption. Poorly-performing $99 players could sink the format entirely. For a software metaphor, one need look no further than Vista.

[jsl4980]

Who cares about Bluray? With any luck it won't matter if Bluray or HD-DVD was better, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon through $99 boxes like Roku are so much easier to use. Forget the insanely high priced movies on easy-to-scratch plastic discs.

[gerrrg]

Over the span of several years, Blu-Ray will simply be incorporated into the average DVD player, so we'll eventually see sub-$50 players in a handful of years.

Blu-Ray as a format will eventually take over SD DVDs in the market place, but the overall market for optical disk content will shrink as we'll gradually move over to content delivery via the internet. Before the end of 2010, much of broadband will be streaming at 50 Mbps or faster, possibly including wireless LTE technology.

The same is true for CD music. As time goes on, even with SACD technology, the market for physical CDs will shrink as more and more people get their content streaming or purchased online.

[Splashes]

For all the folks saying downloads will obviate physical media, what about all the extras (shorts, featurettes, outtakes, audio commentary, kids' games, etc.) that come on most discs these days? Not worth the hassle of dealing with physical media?

I'm not being snarky; I'm genuinely curious. I really enjoy some of the extra stuff, as do my kids. I'm sure that's why that stuff is included -- to sell the discs. Obviously not all people see value in the extras; the question is what percentage? One could hypothesize that the extras will eventually be downloadable as well, but for some reason that doesn't seem likely to me.

[Sugith1]

I got my parents a nice 42 inch plasma this Christmas, but they weren't interested in upgrading their cable box to HD and the higher monthly fee, let alone a blu-ray player.

And the vast majority of HDTV owners do not watch an HD television signal, so why would they bother with blu-ray? Most people bought their sets for the size and shape of the unit, and the general picture quality improvement over what they had but not because they want high definition.

MOST people don't even own many DVD's. (My parents may own two.) They rent and they don't want to have to look for the blu-ray version of something.

Blu-ray will remain a niche market for videophiles, just like SACD and DVD-audio are for audiophiles, regardless of any price drop. (I may be both, but I know that I'm not typical.) The public isn't picky, especially in this economy.

[dixonpete]

I'd be interested in Blu-Ray purely as a computer storage device. DVD blanks are about $10 for 50 pcs, or $0.20 per pc, or, roughly, $1 for 20GB storage. Blu-Ray needs to beat that cost factor ratio by at least a factor of 5x to be thought of as any kind of worthwhile improvement.

[brykb]

I just purchased a blu-ray player for $79. It is an internal drive for my computer. Looks really great on my HDTV when I use the HDMI output of my graphics card.

[brykb]

Oh and by the way, I upgraded my netflix account to Blu-ray for an extra $1 a month. They have lots of blu-ray titles.

[supergoodnachos]

Well, I would rather pay $150 for a decent Blu-ray player than $100 for one that sucks, if the extra $50 can really make a difference. I admit, I got burned on HD-DVD, and I'm not eager to jump back in with Blu-ray. DVDs up-converted on my HD-DVD player look pretty good, I can notice a difference between the same movie on HD-DVD and up-converted DVD, so I imagine I would see the same thing by going with Blu-ray. If I do eventually get one then I will just get media from Netflix as opposed to buying the disks. I agree with the other comments, even with cheap players the media is too expensive, especially considering the huge catalog of DVDs that can often be had for $5-$10 on sale, and even new releases we are talking about a $10 to even $20 more to get Blu-ray versions, way too much. Consumers are not going to pay $30-40 a movie, unless the Blu-ray camp realizes this and adjusts the prices downward they are not going to go mainstream.

[aka_tripleB]

I'm not sure if it's the TV or the DVD player (but most likely the latter), but when I watch a DVD it looks almost as good as a 1080i OTA broadcast. With 1080i being the best the TV can do, I see no reason to move to Blu-ray. Plus, I'm weary that when the studios want to move to a new standard they will remotely sabotage Blu-ray players and force everyone to move everything to the new format.

[jrolin1]

The biggest problem I have with Blu-Ray players is the need for updating to be able to play the latest discs and other playback glitches. BD will not take off as long as the regular person has to have it updated manually or have it connected to a home network to be able to play discs without problems. The price drop will help but everyone will not be ready to jump to a format where you have to do updates regularly to play a movie.