AVZombie are reporting that BR sales in Feb in the USA 'crashed':

Blu-ray player sales in the US plummeted in February. According to data released by the NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service, dedicated player sales dropped 40 per cent, as a string of special retail promotions and bundling deals came to an end.

This is an interesting article that articulates some short hand posts onto this forum:

http://www.resmagonline.com/articles/publish/article_2543.shtml

M

Interesting.

In my experience - DVD offered sufficient quality, access and storage robustness advantages over VHS for me to start buying films in the format.

Now - disc price, availability of titles and my use of a DVD5 lead me to continue with the format - being more than happy with its compromises.

A friend, who has recently bought a Panasonic HD screen and PlayStation, rightly raves about Blu-Ray. He has one disc.

Maybe he should get up to the shops and buy some more ?

Adam, i agree with your statement, i have a tosh HD-player and a panny BD player, and yes i do find the above slighly better pq than my Nv-i but not the marigns i keep reading about. i do have around 20 HD or BD titles, but i still buy mostly sd versions ?

quote:

Originally posted by Roy Donaldson:
Maybe he should get up to the shops and buy some more ?

I think you should buy the content you like - rather than the medium.

John

quote:

Adam, i agree with your statement, i have a tosh HD-player and a panny BD player, and yes i do find the above slighly better pq than my Nv-i but not the marigns i keep reading about. i do have around 20 HD or BD titles, but i still buy mostly sd versions ?

I am amazed that you think there is only a slight difference between SD (480p here) and HD at 1080p....the difference is not subtle...nowhere near subtle.

Adam

quote:

I think you should buy the content you like - rather than the medium.

Of course...but all things then being equal and I had the choice of owning the same movie in either SD or HD (and I had an BR player which I don't as I don't watch many movies at home) then I'd buy the HD version...

I do find it a little puzzling at to why (essentially) the same group of people who pay out a small fortune for an often fairly subtle (diminishing returns and all that) improvement in sound quality seem so reluctant to either adopt, or is some cases even acknowledge) that HD is here to stay.

This isn't meant as a "dig" to start yet another US vs UK battle but maybe it's because of the smaller TV sizes in the UK where I could well understand the differences in PQ would be minimized (minimised to the language pedants! )

Cheers

Jim

Jim,

I certainly didn't point the article, and reported news, out to attack BR adopters.

The point is that while I do not doubt that HD will stay - that does not necc. mean that BR will.

I have been considering a move to HD for the last two years - still waiting for standards to stabilise & mature.

As far as the DVD5 being expensive goes - yep it is. I bought mine as my last SD DVD player, not as my final player full stop.


M

quote:

Originally posted by Exiled Highlander:
I do find it a little puzzling at to why (essentially) the same group of people who pay out a small fortune for an often fairly subtle (diminishing returns and all that) improvement in sound quality seem so reluctant to either adopt, or is some cases even acknowledge) that HD is here to stay.

I ABSOLUTELY believe that HD is the new standard and that - in 5 years - we'll all wonder how we ever watched SD.

However, they seriously cocked up the purchasable media side of things. I see HD as having "settled" itself just a little too close to the advent of HD films-on-demand and HD broadcast. It may be a medium with no persuasive USP.

And - given the choice, a new (non-duplicate) purchase and an HD player which actually was as good as it should be AND near price parity AND availability of the titles I want - I would also buy the HD version.

I haven't bought a player because - the above(s) do(es) not obtain in my case.

quote:

Originally posted by Exiled Highlander:
....would be minimized
(minimised to the language pedants!

The pedants would (should) have "minimized".

"Minimised" is the variant.

Adam (the pedant's pedant).

I can't believe that anybody thinks that BD offers only a slight improvement over DVD. For me it's chalk and cheese, in some cases perhaps more than the improvement of DVD over VHS. It's the difference between a decent picture, and something richer, sharper, and more colourful than a cinema picture. My local Zavvi and HMV are expanding their BD sections and selling more and more DVDs off cheap. Every month the balance changes. Check Play, Amazon, Loaded247 etc to see the increasing availability and reduced prices of BD. The evidence is overwhelming that BD is the future. I've bought about 40 BDs since taking the plunge at Christmas and have no regrets whatsoever.

quote:

Originally posted by TomK:
I can't believe that anybody thinks that BD offers only a slight improvement over DVD.

Who does?

It's a shame HD lost. The Tosh HD-DVD player I had was very good. Excellent picture and fantastic sound.

Now however that BD has the stage to itself, I bet we see BD stall for a bit. The BD players were still catching up in quality to the final gen Tosh players.

Now that Apple are releasing to buy DVD movies simultaneously (!) as the DVD release, I'm sure we'll start to see the market change again where it may be HD downloads and rentals that become the format of choice. I think it right that Naim sit this one out a while.

It'll be a shame if the largest installed base of BD players become PS3 and Xbox's.

Roy.

I think that for a lot of people TV and DVD are just appliances, a bit like a cooker or a weashing machine. I know they are for me. At the moment I need to get a new TV and I've lloked at a few in the shops but I can't really tell the difference so I'm comparing a bewildering list of specifications and in the end I'll probably buy the cheapest HD ready box for the particular size that I want. Blue Ray sounds good, in the sense that it's something new so I want it, but really I can't be bothered. It's better but so what. I've got loads of DVDs I don't watch and if I want to watch a new film, which is rare I'm more likely to watch it on Sky box office than bother getting up and going out to Blockbusters to rent it. I suspect a lot of people feel the same way - it's a bit like getting excited about the difference between cookers - some people do but most people can't be bothered. When Blue Ray disks are cheapre or the only ones readiuly available, like when DVD replaced VHS, and the players cost £30 I might get one, but until then there's always something better to spensd my money on.

Bewilderment is one reason why things could stall. People just want to buy a machine to play their music and movies on. They do not want to have to work out which specification screen to buy so their HDMI1.3 connection will deliver sound and video at the full bitrate rather than a cut-down version due to handshake issues between parties. They just want it to work.

Another issue is that there is little distinction between HD variants. There's broadcast HD which is the older 720p standard and there's BD resolution which is 1080p. Many people coming into the shop do not even know there is a difference and when told about it get very confused indeed. This devalues the BD offering since people will think that their SkyHD broadcast is the same as that provided by BD.

there's also the question of better audio through BD. This is an absolute travesty. Yes, BD is capable of delivering higher quality audio, but I ahve yet to find a single disc that actually has a true higher quality sound than 16bit 48khz surround. I recently got Close Encounters and it has both DTS HD MA as well as TrueHD. Well, the TrueHD turns out to be good ol' 16/48.

Of course the Sharp BD player we have can't output DTS/HDMA so we couldn't try that. Here's another bugbear. Many players can't decode DTS/HD MA, which is the default codec on most Fox BDs.

It's a mess.

quote:

Originally posted by TomK:
I can't believe that anybody thinks that BD offers only a slight improvement over DVD. For me it's chalk and cheese, in some cases perhaps more than the improvement of DVD over VHS. It's the difference between a decent picture, and something richer, sharper, and more colourful than a cinema picture. My local Zavvi and HMV are expanding their BD sections and selling more and more DVDs off cheap. Every month the balance changes. Check Play, Amazon, Loaded247 etc to see the increasing availability and reduced prices of BD. The evidence is overwhelming that BD is the future. I've bought about 40 BDs since taking the plunge at Christmas and have no regrets whatsoever.

Well spoken.

Frank

Interesting hypothesis.....but most people don't wander into specialist stores like yours no doubt is....the volume is through Best Buy, Circuit City, Dixons, Comet etc....these folks can just buy a 1080p TV, plug in a BR player and hey presto you have full HD PQ at 1080p. the same people who wander into mass market stores today and buy a DVD player on a combination of price and brand name will start to buy BR players and HD TV's....the leading edge right now are the enthusiasts and the market will follow IMO.

You painted an overly complex and very glum picture I think.

One of the few occasions that I disagree with you it seems.

Cheers

Jim

Actually I think we're partly in agreement. Those people who walk into Best Buy, Circuit City, CostCo, etc, do simply buy an HD TV and a BD player and expect to get HD. They don't make the distinction between SkyHD and BD HD and therefore they don't expect it to be better via BD. It's one reason in my view that BD can suffer - many aren't aware of HD vs FullHD (not even a name for it in fact). They also may expect better than SkyHD, but not realise that their HD Ready TV is actually only 720p capable and so can't show them the capabilities of FullHD off their BD player or even worse, they can't see the difference on a standard HD screen and don't buy a player. You can get people like CostCo to plug in BD players.

Add the inconsistency between players (early Toshiba HD-DVD players didn't even support 1080p!) and this is why I think that confusion reigns in the marketplace. That said, I think a lot of people simply see BD as an improved DVD which was already more than good enough for them, so sure, they'll upgrade when their current DVD player dies, btu there's no rush, since they already get HD via Sky...

And to illustrate my point, it's BD, not BR (more confusion? ) ...

Frank

It must all get lost in transatlantic translation....I have never seen the term BD used and I don't know what it is!

Cheers

Jim

Jim, BD is the international shorthand for Blu-Ray Disc. Check here for example.

Tom

Ahhhh....International!! Therein lies the problem - I am in the USA!

Cheers

Jim