Can't say I agree. People still want their movies on physical media, check out the latest polls from Home Media Retailing, Video Business and HUC polls. The problem is a recession as number one, and number 2 is that many people have run out of shelf space for DVD's they own so many, and not only that, I do believe there are people cutting back on buying dvd's and waiting until the price of Blu-ray players and movies comes down, because why would they want to buy a DVD version of a movie now when they own a high-def set? Doesn't make sense.
Still, we are in bad economic times, and when DVD came along, the country was in pretty good shape, so it's a battle for any new format. Plus you now have downloads and streaming. Personally, I don't think that is going to be any huge thing for 4-5 more years, because most people do not have the required bandwidth in their homes to download quickly (under 2-3 hours) a full 1080p high def movie, much less with lossless audio. I think people are also used to extras on the disc now, they don't get that with a download. Finally, ALL storage devices WILL fail at some point. I lost almost 100 high def movies from my external hard drive from Dish Network that I stored...the drive failed, a Seagate Freeagent, rated one of the best, so how reliable is buying movies and storing them on a drive, even with a backup? If you lose it, will the studio give you another download free because you purchased the movie in the past? Most services now only allow the movie to be downloaded once and that's it. My Blu-rays are ready and available 24 hours a day and will be on the shelf for years to come!
It will certainly be interesting to see how it all plays out but I think Blu-ray has quite high potential, as soon as the player prices near $100 and the movies start to become reasonably priced. Charging $39.95 suggested retail for a film from the 60's, 70's or 80's is just not realistic, yet they are trying to do it. That is just crazy. Then you have Warner Brothers releasing Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind on Blu-ray in $60-80 sets and not available as a single Blu-ray if you want only the film. This, to me, is a very stupid move.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mntwister @ Jun 27th 2009 12:10AM
Can't say I agree. People still want their movies on physical media, check out the latest polls from Home Media Retailing, Video Business and HUC polls. The problem is a recession as number one, and number 2 is that many people have run out of shelf space for DVD's they own so many, and not only that, I do believe there are people cutting back on buying dvd's and waiting until the price of Blu-ray players and movies comes down, because why would they want to buy a DVD version of a movie now when they own a high-def set? Doesn't make sense.
Still, we are in bad economic times, and when DVD came along, the country was in pretty good shape, so it's a battle for any new format. Plus you now have downloads and streaming. Personally, I don't think that is going to be any huge thing for 4-5 more years, because most people do not have the required bandwidth in their homes to download quickly (under 2-3 hours) a full 1080p high def movie, much less with lossless audio. I think people are also used to extras on the disc now, they don't get that with a download. Finally, ALL storage devices WILL fail at some point. I lost almost 100 high def movies from my external hard drive from Dish Network that I stored...the drive failed, a Seagate Freeagent, rated one of the best, so how reliable is buying movies and storing them on a drive, even with a backup? If you lose it, will the studio give you another download free because you purchased the movie in the past? Most services now only allow the movie to be downloaded once and that's it. My Blu-rays are ready and available 24 hours a day and will be on the shelf for years to come!
It will certainly be interesting to see how it all plays out but I think Blu-ray has quite high potential, as soon as the player prices near $100 and the movies start to become reasonably priced. Charging $39.95 suggested retail for a film from the 60's, 70's or 80's is just not realistic, yet they are trying to do it. That is just crazy. Then you have Warner Brothers releasing Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind on Blu-ray in $60-80 sets and not available as a single Blu-ray if you want only the film. This, to me, is a very stupid move.