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- Dec 26, 2004
How many people are purchasing CRT TVs these days? I believe I saw two or three the last time I went to Best Buy. Anyone buying a TV today, the past year or two in fact, is buying an HDTV. People are also buying these for broadcast HDTV and hi-def gaming anyway so they'll already be in homes when people begin their transition to Blu-ray.
I doubt Blu-ray will fail due to a lack of interest from studios or people. That the transition didn't happen in a year or two doesn't mean that it has gone poorly. As someone else stated, that's how the transition usually goes. It's rarely smooth, fast or without competition from a competing format.
An important factor is obviously the cost of BD players. To highlight that point, I "rented" one (Samsung BDP1500) for 30 days, but didn't buy it or any other model because the least expensive model cost $400. Fast forward five months and I can buy an Insignia BD player for $170 (not including coupons, sales, bundled purchasing etc.) or the same model I tried out five months ago for $200 online or $300 in a brick and mortar store. A lot of the updates being made to BD players are to appeal to audio- and videophiles so I can purchase an older model that I know has been updated (Samsung BDP1500) and be fine. There are plenty of brand name $200 options for me out there now and prices are only going to continue to do down.
Finally, the Blu-ray movies themselves. When I thought about purchasing a BD player I didn't even consider replacing the DVDs I already owned because I knew that they'd look good enough for the moment and I could "update" later when the prices went down. I was going to buy new releases and rent (Netflix) most of the hi-def content I was going to see. There's no download alternative to Blu-ray unless I go with Apple TV and from one comparison I've seen, Blu-ray is still better than the HD content Apple has to offer.
We're obviously still $150-200 dollars away on the price of players and $10-20 away on movies before Blu-ray is everywhere, but I'm sure that'll happen soon enough.
Now that some Blu-ray movies are being bundled with digital copies, I'm much closer to making the jump myself. I'd love to have a digital copy (w/o paying extra) that I could transfer between computers, ipods, and my phone, but I can wait for that. I'm sure that I'll make the jump sometime after the holidays.
I was refering to people aren't currently in the market for a TV. But I guess "Invention is the mother of necessity."
You raise some good points. As did this guy:
bill gates also said that 64 kb of ram is the most you'll ever need in a computer or something like that. i think the black friday sales really helped blu ray out as far as adoption goes. But as a movie junkie, I can never see why people think downloads will take over. theres some gratification in having a tangible library/collection that just doesnt come with downloads. and did anyone ever think of the whole letting my friend borrow a dvd or taking this dvd to a friends house to watch tonight? not gonn happen if i have a set top-box with all my downloaded movies that i have to unplug every time just to go somewhere else. tangible media ftw
It's hard to know what will happen obviously, but I could imagine something like a DVD "special edition set", sans the disc beingthe tangible part of the transaction if the consumer wants to go that route. In the "set" a download code would be included. The whole "lendinga movie to a friend" thing will be exactly why studios would push for something like this. Studios will be able to get their product directly to consumersminus shipping costs, etc. I think it will be years and years down the road, I was just giving the other side of the argument. I won't be putting togethera HD theater for about another year or so. By then, I should be able to see whether or not Blu Ray will have a market stronghold for a while. They better have"Willow" and "The Last Dragon" on BD by then.
igital Copy.
