DVD Sales Drop Faster Than Blu-ray Can Rise
Others agree that Hollywood and its partners may have squabbled too long: Blu-ray's victory in the format war may be too late to salvage the sale of DVDs. Consumers spent less on the disks in 2007 than the year before, the first drop in DVD revenues since they became a household staple. And this year is unlikely to be any better, reports Pali Research.
Sales of Blu-ray disks will triple, say analysts Richard Greenfield and Mark Smaldon in a new report. But that won't make up for the steady decline in other disk sales. Overall, the analysts predict that studio disk sales will drop nearly 5 percent this year, after a fall of nearly 2 percent last year.
The future is unlikely to get much brighter, the Pali analysts say. They fret that pirates will steal more video as bandwidth increases across cable and telco networks. Oh, and then there are the legal alternatives: "We are seeing an ongoing evolution in digital distribution (both paid download and advertising-supported models), which cannot be positive long term for the physical formats such as the DVD."
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Conversion costs are the explanation, not preferences
I've shown everybody I know Blu-ray movies on my PS3 & Samsung 6187. All have been cold-cocked by the quality. All are in th process of saving their pennies and gathering finance to make it happen in their own living rooms.
You have to understand that the conversion costs for middle America are anything but trivial. You need a full stack of components including 5.1 surround sound speakers, a good receiver, and a good 1080p screen. Usually, HD cable or satellite are required to complete the package. We are talking $2000 min, and more like $4000 for decent quality.
This explains everything you just reported. Everybody wants the new stuff. Demand for the old stuff is falling. They don't want to waste money on out-dated DVDs. However, the new stuff is expensive and takes time to acquire. I built my setup over the course of 90 days, spreading the costs down to a manageable level. Most people are doing the same.
In short: I wouldn't be surprised to see Blu-ray rise astronomically by the end of the year. I expect it to be substantially better than the forecast says.
Yeah, what he said...
Dear Blu-Ray, congratulations on your format victory. As it has been mentioned earlier, please do not release the movie on blu-ray and then 6 months later release it again with extras that were left off. How you did Blade Runner is the best way...5 discs where I can choose what I want is OK by me. As the cost of completely enjoying this wonderful format is very expensive, the first time we are asked to buy the movies again because the director decided to add back deleated footage is going to stop the sale. It is the ONLY reason I stopped buying DVD's a few years ago. We want a one time purchase so we can stop looking over our shoulder to see if we missed anything. that lets us move forward and get the bigger TV and sound systems....
So until the new 3D format battle I bit you good luck.
Give it time and lower the prices. Offer Music titles.
We are in a period of transition to HDTV. One must understand we already own everything on regular DVD. I suspect people are waiting for titles to come out on Blu-ray rather than spend money on regular DVD’s. There is a lack of titles! Blu-ray needs to put the pedal to the metal and come out with great Blu-ray players for under $200 by next Christmas (2008) for the average Joe to buy. Also, disc prices need to need to be the same or not that much higher than regular DVDs so we’re given added value. Otherwise one can get fairly decent results with widescreen movies played with the regular DVDs on standard DVD players we already own.
Also, we need “Blu-Ray Audio only” releases of classic and new music mixed in both Multi-channel and Stereo in Hi-Rez lossless audio 24 bit / 96 kHz or 24 bit / 192 kHz, just as what was done with the great DVD-Audio and SACD formats for music that are becoming more popular now that more people are adding surround sound speakers to their home theater systems. Blu-Ray is not just for movies, but offers great sounds as well.
Take Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” for instance. The mixes have already been released in the recent past in 5.1 and Stereo Hi-Rez SACD discs and there is also a popular Quadraphonic mix (4.0) that was done in the 1970's. With the storage capacity of Blu-Ray we could have a great music disc of this title with all three mixes as well as a new 7.1 mix all with 24 / 192 kHz sound (much greater than what any CD could offer) all on one disc.
Bad Movies
Maybe the decline of disc sales has been the fact that movies in general are getting worse....terrible story lines....the same story over and over but with different special effects. One movie out of ten is worth owning. And these "straight to dvd" movies are just terrible.....absolute trash.
As far as downloading....it takes hours and the quality is just not there! It might be fine for the people who "live" in front of their small computer screens but I like to watch my movies on a sizeable screen and a downloaded movie is just not going to cut it. After spending the big bucks on a HDTV I want the best quality picture and sound. I would rather rent or buy a HiDef disc before downloading anyday!!
Downloaded movies will NOT have the success of downloaded music. I know lots of people who don't even have a computer but they DO have a dvd player and a TV. They aren't going to go through the costs of setting up for downloading movies when they stop on their way home from work and rent a movie!
Blue-Ray not user Friendly
I have many dvd's from various regions and most would not play on a new Blu-ray
player because of region coding.This is the main reason I have decided to not buy into the next generation of dvd players. It's a shame really because there are hundreds of thousands of people like me in Europe who would like to move forward but are being penalised by companies like Sony who through silly moves like this risk having another useless format .
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How to make blu-ray tech. last much longer:
In order to counteract the future of downloading movies, blu-ray disks must offer all the extras that can be offered & right away. IE the audio commentaries & docs. And stop releasing disks like "Kingdom of Heaven," with Nothing on them! Very likely, downloading movies will mean the movie & nothing else, but it will be cheaper, so dear Blu-ray producers: listen to what I'm telling you here!
Mar 13, 2008 10:05:16 AM [permalink] [report comment]