Blu-Ray Movies to Maintain Premium Pricing – Sony

[admin]

“Certainly on the new-release side there is no reason to change pricing. New-release pricing has held on DVD for a while, albeit heavily discounted at retailers. But we are not likely to change that for Blu-ray,” said David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, in an interview with Home Media Magazine while answering the question whether Blu-ray maintains its premium pricing or will dissolve into commodity pricing.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20081205152250_Blu_Ray_Movies_to_Maintain_Premium_Pricing__Sony.html

[doctorhardware]

Sounds like Sony does not want Blu-ray to survive, no one will want to pay the premium prices. They will just buy the standard DVD instead.

[ed klein]

Yep, the general public and DVD fans need to be educated about high defination Blu-ray disks.

Such things as, what is a high defination Blu-ray disk, what can it do compaired to a standard defination DVD disk. Is it worth it?

What is:
BD+
BD live
Internet connection with BD live
hardware updates
phone line connections
different profiles on Blu-ray hardware player

[blutach]

Is it worth it?

With only a 7% share of the market, people are telling SONY "no".

The inevitable discounts will follow as retailers trash old and slow-moving stock. Already, they are not ordering much and so, eventually, the prices will come down to levels where consumers will buy the hardware and discs. Perhaps next year. But who knows?

“Certainly on the new-release side there is no reason to change pricing. New-release pricing has held on DVD for a while, albeit heavily discounted at retailers. But we are not likely to change that for Blu-ray,” said David Bishop, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment,

This man is a total idiot and must be living on Mars for him not to appreciate what families are going through right now. Nice cushy job - what the feck does he care, right? A total idiot (who knows nothing about marketing, to boot).

Regards

[doctorhardware]

His head is stuck up some where it does not belong. If you get what you mean!!!!

[drfsupercenter]

I was at Borders and I saw a ton of Blu-Rays for $20 and under.

So obviously some retailers are indeed lowering the prices. I ordered Terminator 2 on Amazon for like $13 (on Black Friday weekend, though)

And you know... I really don't think Blu-Ray is that much of an improvement over DVD. I've upscaled DVDs in my friend's Xbox 360 that was hooked up with HDMI... and it looked just amazing. Even backed up ones that were compressed. I haven't tried it on a PS3 but I'm sure it'll look just as good

And heck, look at this comparison picture I found:

http://www.originalprop.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/terminator2-comp-sdhd-01.jpg

There only seems to be a very minor improvement. You'll see that the Blu-Ray is still a bit blurry... it's far from perfect. So if it were any more than $13 I woulda just stuck with the DVD I have... as that looks great as-is.

[doctorhardware]

Best Buy is pushing Monster cable $139.00 HDMI cables.

[Wombler]

I wonder how valid a comparison that is though.

It's impossible to tell if the compression artifacts around the edges in the second photo were as bad as they were in the original or if they've been exaggerated by the jpeg algorithm. So that 'minor improvement' might be even less than it appears.


Wombler

[doctorhardware]

That means that the retailer(Boaders) is loosing money, unless you spend more money on items that are not on sale.

[admin]

The T2 DVD transfer (from the Extreme Edition) was an extremely good one (in DVD transfer terms), using a new HD master (compare it to the original T2 DVD release, and the differences are huge). There are several T2 HD transfers around, mainly because it's owned by different studios in Europe and US. The US version actually only uses MPEG-2 and at a fairly low bitrate too (only double that of the DVD version I think, despite having 6 times the resolution). The UK version is better, but not one of the best Blu-ray transfers around, and I even avoided buying in on HD DVD when it was going for $4.99 because I know a better transfer will eventually appear on Blu-ray.

This thread has screenshots of Blu-ray, HD DVD, HBO broadcast and DVD versions of Band of Brothers, which should give you an idea of the difference between the various formats as well as how much of an effect a good/bad transfers has (the HD DVD versus Blu-ray, with the HD DVD version appearing to be better, although the Blu-ray transfer can't be labeled "bad" by any means):

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1085043

I have both the DVD version of the Blu-ray version, and while I can see a pretty big difference even on my 720p screen, in the end it's the quality of the show that makes me want to watch it again and again. If you want to get the best out of your HDTV, then Blu-ray is the best answer for now. Some titles will make you go "wow", but for most of the others, you'll simply be happy with the extra resolution without it having a huge effect on you.

[admin]

And also, the price of Blu-ray has come down a bit in Australia, to only a few dollars above the DVD version for certain new releases at certain retailers

[blutach]

They gotta buy the hardware, too admin. People are holding off on PS3s and HDTVs - money is tight, job ads are down 9% etc etc. People aren't buying those big ticket items if they consider that what they've got is good enough. Certainly not this XMAS.

Even Kevin 747 is pleading with people to spend big this XMAS - he's pushed the panic button, even before the retailers have!

Let's face it - DVD was a sea change in terms of quality shift and the takeup was enormous and quick. BD is almost exactly the opposite - attracting only what economists call the consumer surplus.

Regards

[doctorhardware]

Looking at the HD and Blu-Ray there is not much difference between the quality. If HD would have survived I would have bought the HD player.

[drfsupercenter]

Well, when DVD came out, it was way, way better quality than VHS. Blu-Ray, on the other hand, is only a very slight improvement - and IMO it's not worth paying that much for the hardware yet.

So I take it European Blu-Rays won't work on American players? (They still use NTSC and PAL, right?)

[ed klein]

Playing with DVD's is a hobby for me. I have been involved with standard defination DVD's for about 7 years now, and high defination DVD's for about 8 months now.

Just finished getting all the hi def Blu-ray tools needed from start to finish.
But, I can tell you there is a LOT of hype on Blu-ray disks. Overall I would say Blu-ray is not worth it, when you can get a 1080P video out of upscale standard defination and 1080P out of high defination, the only real difference is with the audio, and unless you are building a sournd room for your audio its really not worth the extra cost.

And, there is quite a cost difference in Blu-ray tools depending on if you are a hi def software player fan or a hi def hardware player fan.

So when I look at the costs, I view it as hobby costs.



P.S.
It will take time, especally due to the recession, but because Blu-ray is viewed as the latest and greatest it will stick, Sony and the MPAA will see to it, they just don't know how long it will take.

Also, one of the leading blank media producers is building a brand new plant mainly for 25gb and 50gb blank disk to be completed sometime in 2009, they would have not invested all that money in a new plant if they did not have a relationship with Sony and Blu-ray.