Why Has Blu-ray Failed To Catch Hold? 1162
Velcroman1 writes "My VCR is stashed in a closet, right next to a couple of CD-ROM players, a laser disc player, and other forgotten electronics. Is my Blu-ray player about to join them? Blu-ray really hasn't caught on — and probably never will. 'I'm surprised DVDs have continued to hang on,' said King, referring to the fact that player sales of over 20 million units in the US last year were pretty much evenly split between DVD and Blu-ray models. Blu-ray discs and players are clearly superior to DVDs, offering more features and a better picture overall. So why haven't shoppers been impressed?"
DVDs are better. (Score:5, Informative)
DVDs don't crash because some jag-off decided to run Java code between frames of my movie. DVDs don't make me worry about version numbers, patching my player, or any of that jazz. And that's just technical.
I have a DVD player in every computer, and connected to each TV - meaning portability. All my friends have DVD players. It's easier to find movies on DVD.
DVDs are cheaper.
I have a huge collection of DVD's. I'm not going to repurchase everything.
Next will be going back to solid state non-spinning media. People don't change formats for picture quality (see: Betamax). They change for convenience/durability.
Re:One-word answer: (Score:5, Informative)
I purchased a BlureRay player specifically because it was cheap and had Netflix built in..
Months later the ONLY BlureRay I have is the one that came with it, the content I watch with the device is all Netflix and my own media streamed via a DLNA server.
Re:Not bothered (Score:5, Informative)
There are also (non quality related) advantages to DVDs, to this day:
Well that and a dvd burner is 20 bucks whereas a bluray burner is about $100
Re:"Good Enough" is the enemy of "Better" (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. It's also hurt by early adopters to Blu-Ray which had horrible mastering. I believe Talledega Nights was worse on Blu-Ray than DVD (and not just extras - picture quality too!).
Upscaling DVD players do a remarkable job these days (and if you got one of the old discounted HD-DVD players back in the day, wow it's hard to tell).
And Blu-Ray really only benefits new movies. Catalog movies often suffer worse on Blu-Ray due to poor mastering. (Compare the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray releases of Apollo 13 - yikes. The Blu-Ray has blown highlights, extensive DNR and other crap that despite a 66% increase in available storage capacity, it has less details than the HD-DVD version - at times it's so bad signs in the background are blurry).
Blu-Ray doesn't offer much these days - in the early days they were often worse than DVDs (if you're an extras buff like me the Blu-Ray would be 50% more expensive for just the movie alone) when they were mastered well, and for the vast majority of people, a DVD is far more convenient because there are players everywhere - cars, portable (there are a few Blu-Ray portable players, but there are far more DVD ones), computers, and attached to practically every TV in the household. A Blu-Ray player is rarer, can probably only be watched on the "good" TV, and doesn't offer much more for most people.
Even though I have both players, even I have to sit down and figure out if the extras are worth the extra cost, see if the mastering is any good (avsforum.com is good for this), etc. Even then I often buy DVD copies and reserve the Blu-Ray for movies I want (unless the differential is small).
DVDs plus DVRs replaced inconvenient VHS. Blu-Ray doesn't add as much value to the mix these days for its cost.
Re:Not bothered (Score:5, Informative)
Why are you people still reading the comments to this article? I read this far and every point worth making has already been made.
* People don't care enough about better quality (in visuals and audio -- they do care about better quality in content)
* The price vs improvement isn't worth it to those that don't care
* DVDs can be copied by the pirates much easier (so why would they want to upgrade)
* Equipment compatibility issues (older vs newer DRM may or may not work with your player)
* Slower load times
* Better portability to "anywhere" -- even computers pretty much have DVD readers in the base model
* When you stream your content, you don't really care about Bluray (physical media isn't as important)
Re:Not bothered (Score:5, Informative)
well that is it is shelf life. for most people TV's represent a 10-20 year investment. If you bought an HDTV 10 years ago, your not thinking of replacing it for another 5-10 years.
Ultimately Blue ray has a major design flaw. it forces people to update hardware that shouldn't need to be updated ever. google(or Bing) Blue Ray update problems. you get 80 million results.
James cameron's Avatar is the best example of it. something like 1/3 of the blue ray players had to receive a firmware update to play it.some took only 5-6 days to come out others took months.
when you finally got your update, you had o then hook your player up to the internet. for most people that means disassembling the tv stand moving the player to your computer desk and hooking it up there, along with a cheap tv so you can see what you are doing. Or making a really long patch cable and stringing through the house to hook up the player long enough to get the update.
Re:Not bothered (Score:5, Informative)
If I stick a Blu-Ray drive in my mom's computer, her 1080p TV will get 720p, at best, I think. If I stick it in my computer, with HDCP, but plug it into my iz3d monitor, I get 720p, at best ( no HDCP support ). If I plug it into my TV with VGA, because Westinghouse TV's apparently forget how to receive HDMI for weeks at a time, I get 720p, at best. Or if I accidentally leave the iz3D drivers running, thereby breaking the video chain of trust. Or if the wind blows.
People buy DVDs to play on -all- of their devices. Even old people watch DVDs through computers now. Getting Blu-Ray to work doesn't involve buying Blu-Ray discs, it involves upgrading every goddamned component you have, then crossing your fingers.
And the software. JESUS CHRIST.
I get to choose between CyberLink something or other and PowerDVD something or other... the only two options... both cost money. The OEM that came with the drive installs fine, but fails to install an update without it which it can play no Blu-Ray discs. When it finally runs, it's visibly horrible software, littered with stock photos and upsell messages. It enforces every no-skip, no-fast-forward, no-screenshot, no-noting rule to the hilt until you just wish Flanders was dead.
I love the picture, and now that I've got it all working, it's worth having the Netflix Blu-ray option.... but I'm not going to pay money to own discs that do their level best to thwart me at every opportunity, and if fell through a wormhole into the past, I would probably skip the whole thing and pirate my HD content. 720p only? Fuck, that's probably all I get half the time, anyway.
Re:Not bothered (Score:5, Informative)
I think Blank Media cost is the big mover here.
If BD_Rom blanks were the same price or even price/gig as DVD media the adoption rate would be much higher. The content creators have ensured this won't happen. What they don't realize is this has also greatly hurt the general adoption rate of the format.
If disks were cheap, people would use them for their home movies, what with 720p cameras being commonplace now.
I recently had to explain to someone that my sony* DCR-96 was DVD quality even though it wasn't 1080p/720p etc. they really didn't get it. It wasn't until I shot identical scenes on both the DCR and a FlipUltraHD 720p camera and mastered them to a DVD, then played it on a 1080p TV did it sink in that raw pixel counts don't help in consumer video. You're better off buying based on low light performance and SNR than on resolution.
-nB
* I hate Sony's antics, and I shopped around for days to find an alternative camera in the same cost range, nada.
Re:Not bothered (Score:3, Informative)
and mastered them to a DVD...
Your point is correct, but your test was flawed.