Comments on: Blu-ray gets portable. Success to follow?

Blu-ray is now portable. But will it be a success because of that?

[durham4556]

ok I dont even know where to start correcting this guy. Do some research dude

[ewelch]

Yeah, well it's easy to whip out all the "I believe" nonsense, but the fact of the matter is Blu-ray is being adopted faster than the DVD transition from VHS. And there was a way bigger difference in qualitative difference there.

Blu-ray players are getting cheaper. Big screen TVs in homes have been the main reason to this point, as well as the HD-DVD war that ended with Blu-ray the clear winner.

Streaming is dead until Time-Warner and their greedy ilk, who are all colluding to cap bandwidth so that alternative VOD services like iTunes and Hulu and Netflix streaming on TiVO and XBox 360 and PS3 won't work, are stopped.

A tiny screen in a car is a compelling reason to use Blu-ray? Yeah, right. Blu-ray is doing fine, and no matter what the memes are out there trying to kill is so they can extort money from us by streaming HD content at inflated prices, it will succeed and do well. Prices are coming down for media. It wasn't long ago that DVD prices were way higher, and when you adjust for inflation, a $200 Blu-ray player is cheaper than a $99 DVD player 10 years ago.

What agenda is being pushed by what corporate entity seems to be the deciding factor on what headlines we read at tech blogs any more. It's pathetic.

[Dleon84]

Not a jump large enough in quality between DVD and BD? Have you even seen the quality or heard it on a 7.1 channel system? I'm sick of your BD bashing. You're either cynical or blithely ignorant of the capabilities of BD.

[ofmyony]

Dvd was a big deal. Most people can't tell the difference between Bluray and Dvd when asked to pick.

[sanjayb]

Only if u are blind.

[iamwho]

This is the second Don Reisinger piece that I've read that is total nonsense. Remind me never again to click on a piece with his byline. I've just wasted a few minutes that I cannot get back.

[ralfthedog]

I know that some of you want a way to keep your kids quiet in the back of your SUV. Many better solutions exists. If you are too afraid to trank out your kids just remember, "Kids are why god created the tazer!"

[staypuffishere]

wow quite possibly the most ill informed article ever on the internet. First of all bluray is cheaper than dvd's and the player's were at their beginnings. I remember paying $800 for one of the first ones years ago, the bluray players are much cheaper. It also wasn't too long ago that new dvd's out were $25 or more... the same price as bluray movies. And as for the quality??? I can only deduce that the author of this article is blind and deaf as well. The quality is many times better than dvd. I can no longer even enjoy a dvd movie now that I've switched to bluray. I have many friends that stated the same and when i invited them over to watch one, 4 of the 5 went out that week and bought a player. It's uninformed reporting like this that's holding back bluray, not the format itself.

[chrisx1]

Don't forget to factor in the cost of an expensive, high-end audio system with premuim speakers if you expect to notice sound quality that's any better than you get from a standard DVD.
You can easily spend more on that than the display cost.

[sanjayb]

"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 is soo much that is wrong with this paragraph.

1. Price - Yes Blu-Ray is still a bit expensive. But the prices are constantly dropping on players and media.

2. Quality - Any TV that you buy today will clearly show you the quality difference between DVD and Blu-Ray. It's night and day. Anyone that says they can't tell the quality difference between Blu-Ray or DVD is either lying or is blind.

3. Streaming Video - This maybe our future but how long r u going to wait? 10 years? 15 years? You may have many streaming video options in California but look beyond your backyard. Many areas don't have the infrastructure to support streaming. And this isn't going to change anytime soon. Also the quality of streaming is not as good as Blu-Ray. It might look nice but it isn't the same as Blu-Ray. Until streaming can handle delivering 60 GB sized video, it won't be as good as Blu-Ray.

[CptGreedle]

So Don...
Remember a year ago you said that Bu-ray was doomed.. You said Blu-ray was going to die. You said the same things you did in this article (too expensive, not enough of a quality jump, streaming is on the way). Well, that was a year ago.
Today, Blu-ray is still alive, and it advertised all over, and making better sales than ever. The prices have dropped. My dad just bought a Blu-ray player that plays Pandora Radio, Netflix, as well as DVDs, BDs, and CDs, for less than $200. LESS THAN $200! It is hard to find a DVD player that can stream Netflix and Pandora. Here is one for less than $200. And it wasn't alone. There were several others, all by Samsung, that had the same abilities and similar prices. And other BD players are cheaper than that one! As for movies, there are many titles available on Amazon for $20 or less. There are countless other stores online that have as good or better deals. Best Buy sells theirs for usually between $25 and $30, which might seem like a lot to you, but Best Buy has about 40-50% of the Blu-ray market already! So obviously, other people disagree with you there. The pice is worth the quality difference.
6x the resolution, better color, more sound at a higher quality, less compression, more features, online access, interactive components, Blu-ray is a powerhouse in a tiny box.
Believe me when i say that portable Blu-ray players will do as much to the Blu-ray as they did to DVD... not much. DVDs were already successful then the portable units came out. Portable Blu-ray players will be nice, and might help a little, but you do not buy Blu-ray to see it on a tiny screen in a car, so while this is not an ideal situation, it does give people another excuse to get Blu-ray. But it will not in any way make Blu-ray a success. Portability is a nice toy, but it does not make or break the format. You say portability could lead it to success, but I say that its success has led to portability.
Remember you said Blu-ray was a doomed format. You made arguments saying that Blu-ray would not last. Well, look around. Almost every commercial for a movie release to disc has a Blu-ray disc prominently displayed. Rest assured, Blu-ray is not doomed, and it is not going anywhere except on road trips, now.

[CptGreedle]

BTW, these Blu-ray are doomed things are only opinion pieces. Streaming is "on the way" and has been "on the way" for a few years now, while Blu-ray is already here. They are "slowly but surely" headed to popularity, a little too slowly actually. The world is not done with physical media yet, especially at this higher quality.
Again, I feel that you mentioning "success to follow?" is a way for you to justify your own miscalculation and biased opinion about Blu-ray. You want to seem like you know what you are talking about, and this little portable device changed the world of Blu-ray enough that it might be the straw the breaks the camel's back. Well, it is not. Blu-ray is already immensely popular, and growing in popularity all the time. You were simply wrong and nothing you can say now will absolve you of your own opinion pieces. Stick to news, and not to mindless chatter and pointless babble you know nothing about.

[Glasseyes]

What do mean not portable? I purchased an HP laptop with blu ray drive, 15" screen. I take it on plane trips and works great!