Comments on: Blu-ray sales up 91 percent in first half of 2009

Despite the recession, the Blu-ray format appears to be putting up relatively decent sales and rental numbers. Overall, however, the home entertainment industry is still contracting.

[caseyboy]

I've had a Blu-ray player now for about a year and half (had HD DVD before that) and I've found myself buying more than I thought I would. I try to make the decision based on two things: 1.) will I REALLY watch this movie more than once or twice and 2.) is the Blu-ray audio/video/extras REALLY that much of a step up over the DVD version? If one or both of those answers is yes, then I will most likely buy it. But, I only buy from Amazon; I think their prices are pretty fair but I refuse to pay what Best Buy and Target are charging for Blu-ray! Ridiculous.

If the disk doesn't meet those requirements, then I'm all about Netflix (but I have to admit I'm rather annoyed with their lastest upcharge for Blu-ray ... totally unjustified, I think).

[stepyourgameup]

Netflix had to upcharge more for blu-ray. It's called supply and demand. I had a movie sitting in my queue for like 2 months before a copy became available.

[caseyboy]

@stepyourgameup

I understand supply and demand and I understand that Blu-ray media still costs more than DVD. Clearly, I don't mind paying extra for HD quality stuff nor do I mind paying more to rent Blu-rays from Netflix. However, I think we're paying TOO much now ... the last increase was excessive. Based on all the information I can find, Blu-rays simply do not cost Netflix that much more than standard DVD.

[sweaty_taco]

I gave up on Neftlix after the last increase. I am now with Blockbuster and couldn't be happier. So far they've had the supply that I've demanded. The longest I've had to wait for a blu-ray new release in my cue was about 2 weeks.

I've had new release blu-rays in my Netflix cue for months at a time before it became available. Maybe if Amazon does buy Netflix. It might get better, but we'll see when that time comes (if it comes).

[t_seq]

the price increase was due to the higher price that Netflix has to pay for Blu-ray discs. here's a quote from the CEO:

"With the strong growth in Blu-ray we felt Q1 was the right time to put in place more realistic Blu-ray pricing. We
landed on the 20% to 25% premium for high-definition Blu-ray, which is in line with the high-definition premium
consumers pay in other channels but is less, unfortunately, than the price premium we currently pay to some
studios for Blu-ray relative to DVD. If we can get our Blu-ray cost premium more in line with what consumers are
willing to bear relative to DVD, then we can be much more aggressive in promoting Blu-ray adoption"

...saying that Netflix makes less money on Blu-ray than on DVD, even with the higher prices they charge for Blu-ray subscribers...

[t_seq]

btw, that quote was from the Q1 earnings call

[chrkeller]

But bluray is dying and digital downloads is taking over!!

Maybe people will finally realize BR is here to stay for quite sometime.

[sobishop]

I wouldn't say it is taking over but it is definitely headed in the right direction.

[tappy727]

A lot more bandwidth is needed for downloads to grow. So who is going to build it? And how much are consumers will to pay to get it built? Yeah, we want it buit we don't want to pay for it.

[dctech08]

yeah, for nerds who care about that crap. most people don't even know about digital downloads. heck, most of the country was not ready for the analog to digital switch!

[Mikeybabes]

I couldn't agree more. These people that said A. that HD-DVD would win, and then B. Digital streaming would take over - well these people just look rather silly now.
I have no doubt that eventually that one day we could instantly receive ultra hi-def holographic movies over some super-charged version of the Internet sometime in the future. I have no doubt we will all be owning flying cars. But for the here and now, I am enjoying Blu-ray movies on my home theater setup and I will continue buying them, until you tell me there is a better product out there that does it better.
I hated these people at school and I hate them just as much now. The ones who you told them I got a 486 computer would turn their nose at you and say "that's nothing I am waiting for the new super charged 586 model to come out". You carry on living your life for the tomorrow - we like what we have now just fine.

[paulimusmaximus]

Digital streaming is garbage. I mean I use it all the time, but it's pretty crappy quality a lot of the time. And then even when it starts to stream in hd like on netflix, half the time it has to stop to buffer. I have 6 meg cable internet, so I mean I know there are faster speeds, but how many people have them?

[iowampb39]

You have it 100% backwards..

Digital downloads are a joke and the niche.. BR is the future and will be for some time.

I of course Buy my favorite movies on BR.. would never even consider digital downloads/renting of any kind because the quality sucks for both video and audio.

[sobishop]

So what is it like being one of the very few people in the CD isle at your music store?

[Renegade Knight]

@sobishop

No EULA, or TOS. I can give the CD away if I want, and the quality is better. It's rather nice compared to digital.

[sobishop]

@renegade

Just sayin. Time to step into the 21st century. You either get on board or get left behind.

[Jefferson101]

I download in FLAC and Wav. The quality is the same.

[macksumum]

i used to rent blu ray movies but now i only buy online were it is cheaper.i have grown really tired of movies on blu ray getting high rattings on picture quality and then when i buy the movie i find out that the movie looks terible.most of these blu ray movies look the same as a upconverted DVD.

[chrkeller]

No, upconverted DVD in no way even remotely touches bluray. Get some glasses or a HDTV that isn't crap.

[ikjadoon]

@chrkeller

That's not always true. I have a Pioneer PRO-111FD (the highest rated HDTV on cNet, mind you, with a picture quality of 10/10) and upconverted DVDs look decent compared to Blu-ray. I mean, Blu-ray (of course) wins in overall, but upconverted isn't half-bad.

[chrkeller]

I bought a very nice upconverting DVD player and quickly returned it. BR is clearly superior. The colors, sharpness and black levels are unmatched. Simply upconverting doesn't truly make it high resolution.

[Renegade Knight]

@chrkeller

That maybe true, but a DVD on a HDTV is far better than what I was used to only last were on an old CRT. Color me perfectly happy with DVD at the better price.

[spurs1999]

I hate movie theaters these days. And with the price for me and my wife to see a movie in the theater it's cheaper for us to buy the Blu Ray when it comes out. That way we can see it in the privacy of our home and we own it.

[unifex_]

I second that. When I was alone I used to go to the movies with a bunch of people. But now, happily married, we only go to the theater if there are lots of special effects that look good on a big screen, or if a bunch of friends are going. Other than that, it's cheaper to buy, it's ridiculous.

[steve5200]

The next step is realizing that it is an even greater savings to do a Netflix plan and quit buying altogether.

[the_iceman]

Now we just need to support a better music format instead of the ancient CD, maybe Blu-ray audio??

[repete66211]

There are "better" audio formats--DVD-Audio and SACD. They caught on not like wild fire.

[Shaun822]

Blu Ray is going to keep plugging away and gaining market share. The price of movies is dropping despite what the detractors want you to believe. You can walk into a Best Buy and they have a rack filled with movies that cost between 8 and 15 dollars, most of them actually decent movies too which surprised me. And, usually they are the same or only a dollar or two more than their DVD counterparts except Blu Ray comes with HD picture and sound, and usually more extras that no one will watch.

Until we get faster uncapped broadband across the entire country digital download will never fully take off. Even if you didn't have to worry about the caps set by your ISP you usually lose most of the HD fidelity when you download a movie anyway becuase of bandwidth limitations. And with having actual discs you don't have to worry about losing the data due to a hard drive failure or data corruption, etc.

[marc sloan]

no one ever goes backward, its like getting a new computer that is slower than your old one. Once you watch blu ray and have a 7.1 sound system, your locked in.

[MeepMan]

Yeah, especially with internet speeds, too. It is almost impossible to go from broadband to dial-up. There are so many conveniences that you forget about. I completely forgot about how long it takes to load 3D on dial-up. I tried runescape standard def on dial-up at a friend's house. No, let me rephrase that: I tried to try runescape standard def on dial-up at a friend's house. It took 5 minutes to load the files needed to start (not download) and another 2 to log in from there. I gave up when loading different areas took another minute every time I walked 50 steps.

Note that these are 99% accurate times. I rounded for my convenience.

I was almost screaming at that computer by the time I was done. That same computer was a perfectly reasonable Intel Core Duo with Windows XP running FF 3.0 (at the time). It has 2gb internal memory and a fairly large hard drive.

[CommanderAwesomeness]

blu-ray really has to come down in price before i invest. same thing happened with dvds when they were first released, and now look at how cheap they are. i can walk into target and buy a dvd for 5 to 10 dollars. so, until they do come down in price, i'll be just fine with standard-def dvds.

[chrkeller]

BR movies are easily found for $15, just look around the web for some nice deals. I have over 30 BR movies, never paid more than $20.

[Alphaman63]

Or look in your local Target or Best Buy -- they've got quite a selection of $14.95 BR movies. Of course, I've also picked up a few used BR discs at my local MovieStop for $10.

Now that BR players can be had for under $100, I'll bet that 91% improvement will skyrocket over the next couple quarters leading up to the holiday season!

[Mikeybabes]

I hear some old VCD movies can be found in bargain basement bins, for a couple of dollars. Why bother getting DVDs. Until DVDs come down to price of a dollar or two, I ain't buying them!
And good for you! ... or is your real issue with them the that you can't actually rip Blu-rays?

[repete66211]

Did you notice how the DVDs got really cheap right after Blu-ray came out? Hmmm.

[Darthbane17]

I rarely watch movies, mainly since I don't have time, but when I do I rent blu ray even though I pay extra for it.

[tappy727]

I am on the fence when it comes to HD content. I like the idea of beling able to download movies but I don't like having to be locked into AppleTV and iTunes for downloads even though the Apple way is slick. Also downloads would take up my hard drive space pretty quickly unless I figure out a good way to juggle external hard drives.

I like how Blu-ray players can play older DVD's but I don't think the movies should cost more than DVD's. Yeah it's more pixels but it is the same movie.

[repete66211]

And Folger's coffee is just as good as Dunkin' Donuts.

No it's not the same movie. It's the same dialog, editing, etc., but the picture quality is much better. The PQ is better because Blu-ray discs can hold 5x as much information as DVDs. To do this you need different technology. That new technology costs money, so the prices are higher.

[nicelooksent]

The visual and sound quality trump everything else out there. Cable's on demand is a joke. You can't pick up at a specific chapter and no bonus features. Price is becoming less of an issue with BR. I will try a movie on Netflix sometimes before buying, but certain movies you just buy them, like "Dark Knight". Digi downloads can't just be picked up and taken with you easily. I can grab a few BRs and go to a buddy's house to watch. Downloads have to transferred and you risk losing data. I'll stick with BR.

[scaught78]

People seem to forget that the picture is half the package with Blu Ray. The jaw dropping sound is the other half. Upconvert all you want, but you will never be able to get the amazing high bitrate sound that Blu Ray has. Seriously, any half decent setup will show a huge improvement in sound on Blu Ray.

I have a nice 7.1 set up at home and heard DTS-HD Master Audio is enough to knock pictures off the walls....you know....in a good way.

[dddouchebag]

I'm not sure why people think that digital downloads (DDLs) is the obvious choice. As with all media options, DDLs have their pros and cons. The pro that all the fanboys push is that it is the most convenient method for getting their product. This convenience can be a problem, however.
-The actual distribution of DDLs is not standardized... do companies offer streaming, or make you wait for the entire download to finish (which in the case of BR, is several gigabytes)?
-Actual space to store this data comes into question... terabyte drives are inexpensive, but the lifetime of a harddrive (especially cheaper ones) could leave you with a library of movies that you can't watch anymore. Imagine burning all of your movies onto one giant disc, and then hoping it doesn't fail. Will companies allow you to re-download the movie in this case?
-Or will companies keep all the movies centralized, and you watch it from their servers? In this case, bandwidth becomes an issue because if everyone in the world tries to watch the same movie at the same time, I'm assuming terrible things happen. In specific reference to netflix, why are some movies on instant watch only for a certain period of time? The more they do that, the more it becomes like watching regular tv and hoping that my movie is available.

As we can see, these are all issues that need to be addressed (and hopefully standardized such that we don't need to have several streaming, downloading, and snail mail companies), which is why I think that physical discs are going to be around for awhile. All of these questions have already been answered and standardized for physical media... all the customer needs to do is rent or buy the disc and pop it into the machine. In time, if the disc is damaged, the loss is only limited to that one movie.

[steve5200]

I watch about twelve blu-ray movies per month using my three at a time Netflix plan. This works out to costing less than two dollars per movie. I can't imagine how much bandwidth you would need in order to download a movie that is the exact same quality as a blu-ray disc. I just don't think that this will be a practical alternative to discs at anytime in the near future. If anything it seems as though we are going to have less bandwidth as more and more people go online.

[steve5200]

I forgot to add that I never purchase any blu-ray discs. I learned my lesson a long time ago with VHS and DVD's that I rarely watch a movie more than once or twice, so it just doesn't make sense to me to own movies.

[Donniebrasco]

One blu-ray for $25 is still about as much as it costs for my gf and I to see a movie, so in the scheme of things, its not that bad. If you can wait a month or two after the movie first comes out on BD, then it will obviously be cheaper. It wasn't too long ago (and may still be, I don't check DVD prices much) that a "special edition" of Gladiator on DVD was selling for upwards of $30. I would rather forgo the "extras" disc for HD. Deals can be found online if you can handle waiting a few days for the movie to arrive.

Hopefully BD doesn't go anywhere. I wouldn't want to spend $20 on a download. I like having something tangible for my money. Just like how I gladly spend $10 instead of $8 to get a CD instead of downloading the music off Amazon. I can make all the high quality backups I want with that.

[Alphaman63]

I mostly buy Blu-Ray movies. I've rented two in the past 6 months, and rented perhaps 3 "HD" movies from the PlayStation Store in the same time. I've got 84 discs that I now own (with rare exception did I spend over $20 per disc, and I frequently traded in DVDs for Blu-Ray). I started early on, though, and quit buying DVDs perhaps a year before BR hit the market because I knew it was coming and knew there would be no turning back. I had a lot of pent up buying desire (and saved my pennies) so that when I finally got my PS3, I was ready to invest in my new movie collection.

As others have said above, once you get used to watching true HD and 7.1 uncompressed audio, there's no going back. It's like asking someone who loves their widescreen DVD w/ 5.1 Digital Dolby to give it up for VHS. Not going to happen. But when it was introduced, many questioned who would spend money on DVDs when VHS was "good enough"!

[bpob1977]

As long as Blu-ray has clearly superior picture and sound quality it will continue to sell. Upconverted DVD's still pale in comparison, as do digital downloads. Downloads may be way the way of the future, but it will take some time to overcome quality and bandwidth issues (assuming the ISP's don't kill video downloadsin their infancy with draconian bandwidth useage charges and other restrictions.)

As far as Netflix, I think their latest fee increase for BR is completely excessive and unwarranted.

[adonn78]

I still think the price of the media is too high. If They cost the same as DVD's and if the cost of players went down to below $100 then we would have a product that I would buy.

[Shaun822]

You can get a cheapo BRD player from wal-mart for 98 dollars and there is now an expansive library of Blu Ray Movies at Best Buy and Target for 15 ish dollars. New movies still cost about as much as the special edition DVDs when they come out though.

[paskunyak]

One day about ten years or so from now, everyone who has bought a ton of Blu-ray disks will be kicking themselves when 4k becomes the newer new home video standard. Yes, Blu-ray is vastly superior to DVD, so go out and buy a player and RENT your disks. How many times must you get fooled? You bought the VHS tapes, the Laser disks, the DVD's and now the Blu-rays. I can think of so many better things to spend my money on, and very few worse things.

[spurs1999]

When that "10 years from now" time comes I will have enjoyed watching the movies in my Blu-ray collection anytime I felt like it and/or where ever I felt like it. I seriously doubt that people will be "kicking themselves" for spending money on an entertainment media that they will have enjoyed.

Put it this way. Even if you buy a BR movie for 30 dollars and watch it once a year in your time frame you end up spending 3 dollars a year for it. Halve that to only watching it 5 times in 10 years and it's still only a 6 dollar a year investment. That makes it just as inexpensive as renting. Yes I know someone is going to throw in the Netfix argument. But here is my response to that ahead of time.

I like to be able to watch a movie when I feel like it. Not when I eventually get it from a waiting list. And I like the fact that I can watch it again in a week if a friend comes over to my house or if I just feel like it instead of having to reorder it and wait again. Plus an added bonus to buying a lot of BR movies these days are the fact that they come with a Digital Download copy. Meaning I can load to into my PC and take it with me anywhere without having to spin a disk in the drive and running the battery down faster or load it into my iPhone and take it with me too.

So if you don't feel the need to spend your money on BR disks then more power to you. But those of us who do find it a worth while endeavor.

[tappy727]

Good thing I never bought the laserdisc and VHS tapes. I only started buying DVD's when it hit the right price point. I think the same strategy need to be applied with Blu-ray discs. Come on movie studios, it is the same movie regardless of whether it is 1080 or 480.

[repete66211]

One day about twenty years or so from now, everyone who has bought a ton of 4k disks will be kicking themselves when 8k becomes the newer new home video standard.