Why most people I know don’t have Blu-ray yet.

[punman]

Why most people I know don’t have Blu-ray yet.
These are some of the reasons I came up with. Why do you not have one or why do most people you know don’t?
1- I don’t have the money.
2- I don’t have an HD TV to show it on so why bother.
3- I think the players are still too expensive. Waiting for prices to decrease.
4- I think the movies are still too expensive. Waiting for prices to decrease.
5- I don’t think the quality over DVD is enough to justify the expense.
6- I can get movies through cable, or via Internet so why bother.
7- I think another medium is not far down the road so I will just wait for the next craze.
(For those who picked # 3 or #4, how much lower does it need to go before you jump on the bandwagon?)

[tonyvdb]

Points number 2 and 5 are very good points. I think that most people who dont have BluRay dont have a display that supports it and or the display they have is too small to really take advantage of the extra quality. BluRay looks far better on larger displays and projectors, on a 32" and under there really is no advantage.

[HomeTeam]

Most of my friends are on number 3. They don't care about the PS3 (most of them are X-Box 360 loyalists) and are waiting for the players to drop just a little more, for them around $150 would be the price for them to jump in.

[MonoPestoso]

My parents just purchased a 32" Hdtv and have over 200 DVD's. With the price of blu-rays and players there is no way they are justifying replacing any of their DVD's for the marginal improvement they would see on their tv.

[redduck21502]

Most people do not care about high definition movies. They either do not have 1080p TVs yet or they do and just do not care to see movies in higher definition. Those same people likely do not have an HT receiver and speakers + subwoofer. Therefore, they do not know how good the sound can be.
I think some of the prices are really not that bad compared to when DVD came out. Although the same people that held onto VHS for so long will not buy Blu-Ray until they are $40/player. Even then, they DVD will have to die off completely before they switch.
I still do not think that there will be a better media very soon. Even if there is, I think that Blu-Ray will still stick around. Since the demise of HD-DVD, Blu-Ray has become quite popular. That is what I waited for before jumping in, a clear winner. Even when DVD came out, Laserdisc still lasted a couple years and if you had a player or two, you could still watch your movies even without new ones.

[Strype]

Most people I've talked to who are "holding out" actually haven't seen a proper demo.
When they see a proper Blu-Ray displayed and then also so how their standard def dvds look better on a blu-ray player too ... they usually change their tune and now want one.

but with the global economy and prices with new technology on the market I can understand lots of people "holding out".

[redduck21502]

Strype wrote:

Most people I've talked to who are "holding out" actually haven't seen a proper demo.
When they see a proper Blu-Ray displayed and then also so how their standard def dvds look better on a blu-ray player too ... they usually change their tune and now want one.

but with the global economy and prices with new technology on the market I can understand lots of people "holding out".

That's what almost stopped me from moving on. I bought a $50 upconverting DVD player and from my viewing distance you could not see much difference. The first time that I saw Blu-Ray was at a difference of 3' on a 42" LCD at Target. The clarity was amazing, so i started getting interested. Then I thought I would get the DVD player to hold me off. It looked good, but at 3' it started to look less good. It looked more like Dish Network HD programming in 1080i. Once I made the jump to Blu-Ray, it amazed me how good it could look. Then the sound was a WHOLE other story. Not too many people talk about uncompressed sound as a benefit of Blu-Ray. If more people would put together a modest 5.1 surround system, they would be lown away by the difference between Dolby Digital and the uncompressed. DTS-HD-MA is unbelievable.
I wish that the Blu-Ray players were the only ones that upconverted, then more people might go with Blu-Ray and get more movie selection for me.

[justsaykb]

I recently made the jump. My main reasons were for upconverting my standard DVDs and experiencing the latest movies in the best quality possible. I don't plan to convert/upgrade/double dip my DVDs as their Blu-ray equivalents are released. Unlike 10-12 years ago, I doubt I'll be a Blu-ray evangelist the way I've been with DVDs in the past.

[Strype]

also...there is no D-Box motion encoding on standard DVDs

[redduck21502]

justsaykb wrote:

I recently made the jump. My main reasons were for upconverting my standard DVDs and experiencing the latest movies in the best quality possible. I don't plan to convert/upgrade/double dip my DVDs as their Blu-ray equivalents are released. Unlike 10-12 years ago, I doubt I'll be a Blu-ray evangelist the way I've been with DVDs in the past.

My wife thought the same thing, but there are those that I ended up doing. You have to remember that when they do Blu-Ray, they don't just copy the DVD over, they remaster them from other sources. I picked up Top Gun (old laserdisc favorite for display) almost first thing. It looks a good bit better than the DVD, even upconverted DVD. The detail is amazing on the F-14 planes. I also duplicated Vantage Point because I like it. Plus, you usually get that good uncompressed sound that you don't get with Dolby Digital. Of course, when Lucas decides to start releasing the Star Wars movies one by one (and then 5 years later release the complete collection to get more money), I will be waiting to buy them all over again.

[justsaykb]

redduck21502 wrote:

My wife thought the same thing, but there are those that I ended up doing. You have to remember that when they do Blu-Ray, they don't just copy the DVD over, they remaster them from other sources. I picked up Top Gun (old laserdisc favorite for display) almost first thing. It looks a good bit better than the DVD, even upconverted DVD. The detail is amazing on the F-14 planes. I also duplicated Vantage Point because I like it. Plus, you usually get that good uncompressed sound that you don't get with Dolby Digital. Of course, when Lucas decides to start releasing the Star Wars movies one by one (and then 5 years later release the complete collection to get more money), I will be waiting to buy them all over again.

You have a good point there. I'd probably rent and read reviews on older titles before making a decision to do that though. As far as the Star Wars movies, I need to eat my words because I totally forgot about them since it's not currently available. I'm Lucas' minion so I'll be there purchasing like everyone else when it's finally released.

[tonyvdb]

I've held out on buying any Star wars movies. I still only have the original 3 on VHS
But as soon as they come out in BluRay I will be there.

[punman]

I am the original poster of this thread and want to thank those that took time to comment. I never really voiced my opinion at the time, just threw some possible reasons out there.
I don’t have a Blu-ray player yet but I am sure I will sometime this year. Since October I have bought a plasma TV, a new receiver, an HD box that records, and 5.1 speakers as separates. That is enough audio-visual for awhile.
Actually that is a lie. I had a Blu-ray player for about three hours. I bought it Boxing Day with my other purchases while I was standing in line. A Samsung BD-P1500. $147 Canadian ($118 U.S.). I got home and thought – the movies are still more expensive than I want to pay and I have not studied Blu-ray enough to know if this is even a good model. By next Christmas there will be many players that price and the bugs will be out of the format and movies will be cheaper so I took it back unopened.
I recall buying a CD player in 1986 that only played one disk for $275 (almost $500 in today’s money). Most of my friends did not have one. I don’t regret the choice. It seems expensive now, but then so was my first VHS player. That is the price of new technology.

[thewire]

punman wrote:

I am the original poster of this thread and want to thank those that took time to comment. I never really voiced my opinion at the time, just threw some possible reasons out there.
I don’t have a Blu-ray player yet but I am sure I will sometime this year. Since October I have bought a plasma TV, a new receiver, an HD box that records, and 5.1 speakers as separates. That is enough audio-visual for awhile.
Actually that is a lie. I had a Blu-ray player for about three hours. I bought it Boxing Day with my other purchases while I was standing in line. A Samsung BD-P1500. $147 Canadian ($118 U.S.). I got home and thought – the movies are still more expensive than I want to pay and I have not studied Blu-ray enough to know if this is even a good model. By next Christmas there will be many players that price and the bugs will be out of the format and movies will be cheaper so I took it back unopened.
I recall buying a CD player in 1986 that only played one disk for $275 (almost $500 in today’s money). Most of my friends did not have one. I don’t regret the choice. It seems expensive now, but then so was my first VHS player. That is the price of new technology.

Impressive. Impulse shopping can be costly, or really add up quick for some. It's nice to know someone isn't after something because of feeling pressured into it.

[robbo266317]

It's a shame they don't allow "upgrades" like software companies.
ie. If you own the movie on DVD then you upgrade to blu for a nominal fee... maybe $10 rather than full price.

[brucek]

Why most people I know don’t have Blu-ray yet.

Because the jump from standard DVD to Blu Ray isn't the jump that we experienced from VHS to DVD.

The average person simply does not see the advantage or couldn't care about the small increase.

With regard to the new audio formats, a proper system playing 5.1 Dolby will blow the average person away. They hear very little difference in the new uncompressed formats.

It's a hard sell I'm afraid - just as SACD was a hard sell.

Raise your hand if you haven't found someone in your family watching an SD channel when there is an HD channel showing the same material. That pretty well sums it up.........

brucek

[CharlieU]

Those 7 reasons are certainly valid, but my biggest gripe with Blu-ray is copy protection and moving standards. If you bought Ironman on DVD, you could play the movie and watch all the extras on the player you bought back in 2000. If you bought the Blu-ray, chances are that you couldn't do the same thing on the player you bought in 2008. How many people are ready to run a network down to their video equipment just to keep the player up to date? Unless I know a person is technology smart, I wouldn't recommend Blu-ray to them in it's current state.

[Wayde]

MonoPestoso wrote:

My parents just purchased a 32" Hdtv and have over 200 DVD's. With the price of blu-rays and players there is no way they are justifying replacing any of their DVD's for the marginal improvement they would see on their tv.

I've always wondered why bother with HDTV when it's so small. I mean, by now - it might be harder to find an EDTV than an HDTV because it's become ubiquitous. But at 32 inches sitting back 10 feet or more, you're not going to see 720 lines over 480.

I'd say for anything 40" and under, DVD is fine.

[Strype]

CharlieU wrote:

Those 7 reasons are certainly valid, but my biggest gripe with Blu-ray is copy protection and moving standards. If you bought Ironman on DVD, you could play the movie and watch all the extras on the player you bought back in 2000. If you bought the Blu-ray, chances are that you couldn't do the same thing on the player you bought in 2008. How many people are ready to run a network down to their video equipment just to keep the player up to date? Unless I know a person is technology smart, I wouldn't recommend Blu-ray to them in it's current state.

If you haven't noticed most equipment coming out these days has ethernet jacks. These can be used for a few things... firmware updates, IP control of equipment, downloaded and/or streamed video content. providing LAN and Internet access to your equipment is more and more becoming the standard.

[Pinhead-227]

CharlieU wrote:

Those 7 reasons are certainly valid, but my biggest gripe with Blu-ray is copy protection and moving standards. If you bought Ironman on DVD, you could play the movie and watch all the extras on the player you bought back in 2000. If you bought the Blu-ray, chances are that you couldn't do the same thing on the player you bought in 2008. How many people are ready to run a network down to their video equipment just to keep the player up to date? Unless I know a person is technology smart, I wouldn't recommend Blu-ray to them in it's current state.

This is my biggest gripe. And it's also why I'd either get a PS3 or a BD-ROM drive for my PC since they're both almost infinitely upgradable AND I'd have the option to back up the movies onto an external hard drive.

[tonyvdb]

Pinhead-227 wrote:

This is my biggest gripe. And it's also why I'd either get a PS3 or a BD-ROM drive for my PC since they're both almost infinitely upgradable AND I'd have the option to back up the movies onto an external hard drive.

There is a lot of mis-information and mis-understanding in that area.

There is no way to get all of the extras that you get on BluRay discs on a standard DVD so thats a really bad example. The only big thing you dont get if your bluRay player is older is BluRay Live and that feature most people dont use or care about. As with any new technology there are new features added all the time. Look at receivers for example, your receiver from 2000 wont be nearly as feature rich as a receiver bought in 2008. Network connections are standard in most receivers, DVD players and BluRay players and is necessary to install new firmware as well as receive any extras not included on BluRay discs so that again is a bad example to complain about.
I do agree that BluRay should have standardized things alot sooner but the latest Profile is apparently the last profile that will make any changes for some time to come. Thats why I still think HD DHD should have won this battle as they had no issues with profiles but Sony did some really stupid bullying to force studies to abandon HD DVD.

[lcaillo]

I think the mass market does not find a problem with the qualtiy of DVD. Many have smaller sets as noted above, and many also are using DVD recorders or VCR combos and adding BR would require another piece of equipment. For those more interested in the quality difference, many are waiting for other distribution options and do not see BR as a long term solution. I think many will replace their DVD players with BR when they get around to it or have a service issue, but it just isn't that high a priority. DVD is pretty good when considered in the context of watching tape and analog TV for years.

[CharlieU]

Strype wrote:

If you haven't noticed most equipment coming out these days has ethernet jacks. These can be used for a few things... firmware updates, IP control of equipment, downloaded and/or streamed video content. providing LAN and Internet access to your equipment is more and more becoming the standard.

Very true, but.... Let's say you gave a player to your Mom and Dad, sister and brother. How many of them would have that ethernet connection hooked up and downloading the latest firmware? (you can't help them, that would be cheating) How many households have a resident geek? Just because the jack is there doesn't guarantee that it will be used.

As a counter to my argument, Toshiba would send me update disks for my HD-DVD because I sent in a card asking them to. I'm not certain how many Blu-ray companies do this, but if they don't, they should. In fact if you register the player, they should send you one whether you request it or not.

[CharlieU]

tonyvdb wrote:

There is no way to get all of the extras that you get on BluRay discs on a standard DVD so thats a really bad example. The only big thing you dont get if your bluRay player is older is BluRay Live and that feature most people dont use or care about. As with any new technology there are new features added all the time. Look at receivers for example, your receiver from 2000 wont be nearly as feature rich as a receiver bought in 2008. Network connections are standard in most receivers, DVD players and BluRay players and is necessary to install new firmware as well as receive any extras not included on BluRay discs so that again is a bad example to complain about.

My point was that you could play everything on a DVD if you wanted to, but may not be able to do the same with a Blu-ray disk. Doesn't matter how popular a feature is, if someone wants to use it and can't because of the player, it's a problem.

Networking is still Black Magic to the majority of the world. I make a pretty good living because of that fact. The average consumer wants to throw a disk in the player and have it play like it did with that DVD, not have it crash because of some bug in the firmware or a change in copy protection codes that they missed by not connecting the player to the network.

There is a reason that you see a composite cable and a stereo RCA cable when you open that Blu-ray box. These companies understand the average consumers technical knowledge and they want to ensure that they will get picture and sound out of their players.

[SteveCallas]

I'm an "enthusiast" and I still haven't hopped on the blue ray bandwagon. My HD DVD collection continues to grow and there is a noticable picture quality improvement over standard dvd - the difference will only get more distinct as I move from a 42" to 55" display. But I still have no interest at the moment in moving to blue ray. One main reason left at this point.

Discs are too expensive. I pick up my dvds and hd dvds for ~$5, typically used. Blue ray isn't anywhere near that yet, and probably won't ever be. Would I rather get one blue ray for $20 or four standard dvds? Upconversion looks pretty good - not as good, but good enough to get four instead of one.