Blu-ray's toughest competitor: The humble DVD
Wed Apr 23, 2008 11:27AM EDT
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Blu-ray may have won the battle when it vanquished HD DVD in February, but it's still waging a war—and for now at least, it looks like a David-vs.-Goliath face-off. Who's Goliath in this scenario? Turns out it's your old friend, the DVD.
But here's where the bad news starts. Nielsen just released its most recent Blu-ray vs. DVD disc sales figures, and if you're a Blu fan, the numbers are daunting. For the week ending April 13, DVD enjoyed a whopping 95 percent of the total disc sales market, leaving a paltry five percent for Blu-ray. Ouch.
Meanwhile, industry watchers believe that any market share that Blu-ray happens to be gaining is mostly thanks to the Blu-ray-equipped PlayStation 3—and beyond that, "there's very little installed base," according to one analyst.
Part of the problem, of course, is that stand-alone Blu-ray player prices are still hovering around $300 to $400—and that's for older players like Samsung's BD-P1400 and Sony's BD-S300, which are already out of date. Meanwhile, Blu-ray prices aren't expected to drop significantly until next year.
Another hurdle for Blu-ray is that standard DVD players are ridiculously cheap. I was browsing the aisles at Best Buy the other day and stumbled on a progressive-scan DVD deck for $29—cheaper than some Blu-ray movies. I also found plenty of name-brand upscaling DVD players well south of $150.
And after all this time, I still find myself regularly having to explain the benefits of Blu-ray over DVD—and more often than not, I'm greeted by a blank stare, which turns to disbelief when I mention the $300 price tags for players.
So for now, at least, it still looking like Blu-ray has a long row to hoe—and indeed, with streaming HD movies via cable, Vudu, the Xbox Video Marketplace, and Apple TV gaining traction, Blu-ray may never take off in the way that DVD did.
What do you think? Will Blu-ray eventually succeed DVD once Blu-ray player prices drop? Or will Blu-ray have to settle for second (or third) fiddle?
Related:
Nielsen VideoScan High-Def market share for week ending April 13th, 2008 [Engadget HD]
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7 Posted by johnord on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:39PM EDT Report Abuse
Take this to the bank....as soon as the release date for the Blu-Ray versions of the Star Wars episodes are announced, expect a TREMENDOUS spike in Blu-Ray player sales. Mark my words.
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8 Posted by johnord on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:39PM EDT Report Abuse
Take this to the bank....as soon as the release date for the Blu-Ray versions of the Star Wars episodes are announced, expect a TREMENDOUS spike in Blu-Ray player sales. Mark my words.
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9 Posted by maori_yelir on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:05PM EDT Report Abuse
The only place Blu-ray could find a home would be gaming and computers and even then it is going to be a challenge. Blu-ray disks are SLOW. Very slow. For gaming they are pathetic unless you are going to rip the entire game to your computer and right now with services like Steam and the fact that portable harddrives can carry just as much information AND be rewritable I don't see them taking off. The PS3 is a prime example of it's weakness. Much of the extra space alloted is wasted by double entries of files meant to speed up loading because of the slow read time of the disk. When it comes to movies Blu-ray doesn't stand a chance and in the other areas it has potential to succeed in there are issues that it is going to have to overcome. The main problem is that it's just not a very good upgrade. DVD's look fine, most people can't even tell the difference between HD and SD, the only difference is one is widescreen. DVD's were an ENORMOUS upgrade from VHS and that is why it is the reigning king. BR just doesn't offer anything new.
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10 Posted by magpagbst on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:03PM EDT Report Abuse
as long as the price of bluray discs consistently remains north of the twenty-dollar mark . . . bluray ray will never be more than a niche item . . . the quality jump from dvd to bluray is not as dramatic as the jump in quality was from vhs to dvd . . .
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11 Posted by paul_soares on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:03PM EDT Report Abuse
Blu-ray will be successful *eventually* because the majority of people out there have enough trouble figuring out how to attach a photo to an email message let alone download movie content to their PC and send it to their HDTV. Ha! Good luck. Blu-ray just needs mass-appeal pricing and $300 just doesn't cut it. Until then Blu-ray will only be found in the homes of home theater buffs.
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12 Posted by gregorylopez4881 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:13PM EDT Report Abuse
Take this to the bank: As long as the economy remains this way, people are not going to fork over money for a Blu-Ray player...This is surely the last thing on their mind at this time or in the near future.
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13 Posted by pimpz4u1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:12PM EDT Report Abuse
blueray will never win out the dvd never. first off blueray costs way to much for people not many people are thinking about spending there money right now when gas is 4 dollars a gallon and 5 dollars for a gallon of milk maybe if you could buy a new blueray for 12 to 15 dollars each and get the player for no more then 150 dollars. I think sony must want to go out of business if they keep there prices up.
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14 Posted by tamplain1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:55PM EDT Report Abuse
Tough luck and let'em sink and die. People had a good thing in HDDVD with cheap movies and Quality Players that were cheap. Sony had to buy everyone off to corner the market and they didn't even realize that the market was already on its way out with downloads. I have no intention of buying a bluray player as I just download what I want to watch or use my HDDVD player to upconvert. The Upconverts are almost as nice a quality as the HD/Bluray.
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15 Posted by korrupt9187 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:53PM EDT Report Abuse
I don't really see the point of spending thousands of dollars more just to watch the same movies a little bit clearer. My old Zenith CRT tv and wal-mart DVD player work just fine. (Unlike most of America, I don't really care about the Jones' or trying to keep up with them). Blu-Ray is fine for people with money, or those who really love watching movies, but I don't really see it taking off for a long time, if at all.
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16 Posted by floydhyatt on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:01PM EDT Report Abuse
The consumer electronics industry would like to see all product lines roll over to higher ticket tech as fast as the computer hardware sector does. Not surprisingly, the general device market is not as responsive. Were it not for government mandated upgrading from NTSC broadcast standards, I doubt HD tech of any type would be selling as well as it is. Plus, consumers have been bitten before by such Run-Out-Now-And-Buy-Our-Stuff Bosh. Anyone out there remember Quadraphonic Hi-Fi? Eventually, with the support of Home Cinema and an end to incompatible standards, it has, slowly, taken back a place in the market. That said, I don't see people lining up to pay for Blue Ray's R&D costs, or inflated Disc prices just because. With proper bundling, sane pricing, and say, a year living under the newer broadcast standards, it may gain a reasonable market share, or else be bypassed by other tech. Memory chip tech has become cheap, and if you think there are no other solutions on the horizon, you need to wake up. My crystal ball envisions simple black boxes hooking internet download services directly to your TV, with the ability to store and replay video without requiring the consumer be a Hacker. I see these devices appearing, eh, yesterday. I envision it being called "Cable Box" and "DVR", with a port to allow use of something called a "Memory stick" which will be ten times smaller than a Blue Ray disk, more platform independent, and reusable. Gosh. In short, no big jump in Blue Ray sales. The industry, at current pricing, would have to approach consumers with a hankie and a revolver to even approach a 30% share. Its a good Hack, but I think I'll just wait for the B train, thanks.
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17 Posted by mjcobb87 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:22PM EDT Report Abuse
well think about how long dvd's were out befor they were mainstream due to their pricing issues. they were just as much as the blu-ray players are now just wait for the tech to come down in price and we will see.
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18 Posted by lucidlad on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:59PM EDT Report Abuse
It's all about giving it time, letting ec0nomy heal, let the prices come down to Earth and most important; CONTENT. DVD was and is successful because all the things people really wanted to own (classic movies, TV shows) were available with commentaries and features. I disagree with those who say that most people don't notice the difference in quality. My parents who don't know how to check their voicemail on their phone were awestruck when they saw a sony blu-ray player hooked up to a Sony XBR TV. You can easily notice this with many other people at Best Buy, all glass eyed and smiling when they see a blu-ray setup. Also Must own content. Like someone said, put Star Wars out on blu ray and watch it take off. Why would I wanna pay $30-35 for a crappy Romantic comedy when I can get it off of my cable or netflix. Stuff like beforementioned Star Wars, BBC's Planet Earth and old shows remastered are incentives. Stuff you wanna own. Not your run of the mill movies.
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19 Posted by keybowvio on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:50PM EDT Report Abuse
I think internet video will win out in the end, who wants discs when you can store movies on a HD? Or stream instantly to your livingroom?
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20 Posted by davidgopen on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:38PM EDT Report Abuse
My feeling is that most folks do not have a TV with 1080P capability at this point in time, and considering the price and quality of an upconverting unit, WE will wait til prices drop. Dave from Orlando.
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21 Posted by lonestartexasmn on Thu Apr 24, 2008 10:04AM EDT Report Abuse
There are 2 things that B.R. needs to do to get them into the average customer. 1st how much profits do they really need to make off of the player itself. Sell the players for cheaper and reap the benefits of the profits off of the dvds itself. When you think about it I might have a $200 dvd player now and about $20,000 in dvds. So when you compare the two price differentials the player is minuscule. Next if you want people to use your product you need to have the blank media cheaper than $20-25 a disc. When people can use them for mass media and get them for about $5 people will be more apat to use them.
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22 Posted by sjrl@sbcglobal.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:25PM EDT Report Abuse
Well, if blu-ray disc were much cheaper people will buy, but since blue-ray won the stand off against hd-dvd there prices went up. A disc for 35.oo yeah right !!!! I'm not buying.
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23 Posted by mrshawnqt on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:28PM EDT Report Abuse
Its pretty simple, people won't go BLU until it is affordable for me and YOU! I have a PS3, and while knowing that it has a Blu Ray built in, I really got it to get the awesome games! I don't have a HDTV yet because I am still trying to figure out the benefit. My Standard TV plays PS3 great, there are still not a lot of HD channels on cable, and standard signals can look crappy on a HDTV. How often am I really going to watch movies? Is it worth getting a brand new TV?
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24 Posted by jay_j69ped on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:29PM EDT Report Abuse
I actually bought an HD DVD player after the news came out that Blu ray won. I bought it for $90, so now i can watch HD DVD movies and use the player as an upconverter, which works great for regular DVd movies
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25 Posted by anandaarasu on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:53PM EDT Report Abuse
The cost of Blue Ray disks vs. DVD's is another issue. You can get DVD movies from Target for $5.50 for crying out loud. Granted they aren't new movies, but still. Then there's netflix and redbox. Prices of the movies and players need to come way down, not to mention everyone needs to have a HD ready TV to enjoy the full benefits, don't they?
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6 Posted by guitarmunkey05 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:14PM EDT Report Abuse
As DEJG303 said, it's very much like the VHS- DVD change. There is one CRUCIAL difference though. People changed from tapes to dvds FOR GOOD REASONS, such as... You didn't have to sit through credits, no rewinding, no fast forwarding, the tape could get mangled easily if you opened the cover, no special features, commentary, etc etc. Now, the only difference, besides a bit more special features, is mainly quality. The quality of a DVD is still pretty darn good, and like it has been said, there's now up-converting DVD players that help out the picture. After everyone has spent tens/hundreds/thousands on DVDs, there's not really a large reason to change. Take this fact, then add on the price of BR discs and BR players, and you're left with a huge population of people who aren't willing to change. I don't expect to see even 10-15% of the population switch until prices have dropped enough to where it's only a few bucks more than DVD prices. Then there's the whole getting-movies-from-your-cable/internet bit... but that's a whole different story!