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Blu-ray 8 percent of home video market
Author: Gareth HalfacreePublished: 29th September 2008
Blu-ray films, despite higher picture and sound quality, aren't convincing consumers that they're a DVD replacement.
BetaNews recently revealed figures from analysis organisation Niesen VideoScan showing the high-definition Blu-ray set to end the month on a tiny 8 percent share of the US home video market – a market still dominated by the lower resolution DVD optical medium.
With around 8.8 million Blu-ray discs sold so far this year – compared to just 5.6 million last year – the market isn't exactly ignoring the technology, but neither is it rushing out to replace existing DVD content: a problem with a large percentage of Blu-ray releases are back-catalogue films that many consumers already own on a different format. Coupled with the still-high retail price – with Blu-Ray here in the UK hitting an RRP of around £5-£10 more than the DVD release – the market is clearly taking adoption of the new format slowly.
When the death of HD-DVD was officially announced, many in the industry saw the final hurdles removed from Blu-ray's path. Despite lack of competition in the high-definition marketplace, that's clearly not true: rightly or wrongly, many consumers have decided that the advantages over traditional DVD are not worth the premium – and certainly aren't as dramatic as the distinction between DVD and VHS.
Adoption in the computer industry is also slow. Although the Blu-ray medium is ideally suited for backup purposes – a CD-sized disc capable of storing 50GB is pretty darn handy when you've got a lot of data to shift – high prices for blank media are stifling demand, which in turn is excusing high prices by preventing mass production and the reduction in costs per unit that such a thing would bring.
Despite this, so long as download speeds in the UK continue to remain around the 8Mb/s level on average – and with ISPs still insistent on usage caps even on 'unlimited' packages – Blu-ray has no real competition in the high-definition arena.
Have you started purchasing your films on Blu-ray, or is plain old DVD – possibly coupled with a decent upscaling player – good enough for a while yet? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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Comments (57)
DVD's are still fine for viewing any movie with 5.1
problem is when you making things too interoperable there isn't that much of a push to change. Look at vista and xp for instance, might be better but it's not much of a new experience.
it'll kick off soon though, when burners and disc high the right spot
The release of DVD was a huge leap forward -- compact media, much higher quality, immediate forward/rewind, digital, etc.
Now with Blu-Ray. Thing is, it doesn't "seem" like such a huge leap forward because you have, essentially, just plain old DVDs but with a better visual quality. Kind of like VHS tapes but instead of crappy LP play only, you now have Super SP mode. Which requires a new type of player, so most people will think, well, it's not all that different interms of media, it only "looks" better.
Hence why i figure the adoption of BD is so slow. Now, if a new media like single, small flash cards of 64+gigs that were a) univeral interoperable between various media systems and b) drm free, it might have a much bigger impact.
Shame tho, as I buy only BD now -- I've acquired a taste for full 1080P films :)
EDIT: as I am sure people will love to point out, the idea of small universal media cards (also cheap!) isn't new or a complete solution, but having such media that all major film/media industries, as well as manufacturers could agree on would certainly allow for a better consummer experience.
I have absolutely no interest in buying blu ray, cant see enough benefit
Too picky about what I can play them on.
When the opensource guys sort out a player that will run them on any suitable display, as opposed to any suitable display that Sony happens to like, I'll be more interested.
Have watched alot of HD trailers in 1080, look great but its not enough to jump yet. When i can set up a decent HTPC and home theater with a projector... (dreams)
The Blu-ray hardware manufacturers could make things quite simple by saying things like:
"Blu-ray will play all your old DVD's!! Future-proof and buy these players and you can still buy DVD's which will also look better on our hardware with upscaling technology. When Blu-ray discs are cheaper, switch to buying them!"
Ok the price is still high for the players but if points like this are pushed then people might op for it.
Media prices won't come down fast enough if there is not the demand and retail will always support what the mass market is buying... not whats best...
It's rather like the minidisc. Nice idea, rubbish execution.
New tech is always more expensive, regardless of manufacturing cost. The reason is they have to make up for large amount of R&D that went into creating the product. They also take into account the fact that the demand just is not there yet because there really are not a whole lot of titles to buy yet. It all takes time. Once the demand rises the price will fall.
lazer?!
This is exactly one of the reasons I dont want to switch to Blu-Ray. I enjoy DVD quality films, as far as I'm concerned there is nothing wrong with them. I have seen high-def content and know the difference in quality but I would hate if high def-content ruined my experience of DVDs forever. I would hate to be in a situation where I had to fork out extra for high-def content because I couldn't stand to watch DVDs anymore. Ignorance is bliss :)
Anyways, wait till holidays, more people will be buying hdtv's which will result in more bluray sales. I only have one bluray movie that I got for free from someone and wont be buying any right now as my family doesnt have an hdtv or bluray player so i can only watch them on my room on my monitor with my ps3.
once my family gets an hdtv and bluray player we will switch over and only buy bluray
and BTW sony didnt creat blue ray ¬_¬ it was created by a group of companies.
VHS was roughly equivalent to 320 x 240 resolution (NTSC). DVD is 720 x 480 (NTSC). DVD is around 4 times the res of VHS. BR is 1920 x 1080. BR is about 6 times the res of DVD. ...Not an big jump, eh?
Using your argument, the only 'jump' we had was going from analog to digital, right? But a digital to digital jump (that is, in fact, quite a large step in comparison) doesn't count? Using that logic is basically saying a low-res desktop wallpaper is the same as the high-res version of the same image. i.e. for example - 1024 x 768 is the same as 1600 x 1200. Not really logically sound.
Just some food for thought.
But I understand the misinformed consumer's stance on things too. People just don't understand things like that. Honestly, I'm amazed people with HDTVs actually like DVD's picture on it, considering you're blowing up the signal quite a bit to display it on an HDTV, but I digress. I'd always choose to have media played at a higher res than the display is capable of (i.e. standard TV's when DVD came out, DVD looked awesome).
Keep in mind that the price argument is a bit of a fallacy. BR Media just doesn't cost much more than the DVD counterpart for the most part, but it also depends on what you're buying. There are plenty that are all over the map price-wise, of course (depends on the studio too). And in its defense, BR media prices are quite lower in comparison to DVD when DVD was at BR's current age now. I can recall my first DVD player in 1997 cost me over $800, and it was a POS. My first DVD was $40, and it wasn't even an anamorphic-transfer!
A little exercise in media pricing...
Let's look at the upcoming Iron Man film...(mods, I'm not trying to post prices and links or anything for business purposes; merely for arguments' sake! If it's an issue, kindly remove the links)
For the 2-disc DVD version of the set: Amazon.....$22.99
For the 2-disc Blu-Ray version of the set: Amazon...$25.95
Of course, retail prices in stores are going to be higher, because they have a bottom line too and are closer to that MSRP.
Hardware, of course, is going to be at a premium too. But the players are cheaper by far than DVD players 10 years ago were.
But the main reason for slower sales is the economy (the world over now it seems) is in utter shambles. No disposable income = no sales. Simple as that.
I am not trying to put anyone down, but I think this is a valid point that gets extremly overlooked due to marketing tactics.
This might take multiple discs to take in account media capacity, but I'm either missing a huge detail or just don't understand media storage very well, and would like to be informed.
My own thoughts are so far, is BR is great for a storage medium, but honestly, I think that buying this format in it's current marketing form is big mistake. Even though I think the DRM schemes have gone way to far, I have very mixed feelings on the new HD content. When I watch movies at the TV stores, or at a friends house with HD cable/satalite/BR player/PS3 on their TV's, I can't help but notice that dark areas of the played screen are pixilated, or shaded in a very poor fashion. Perhaps it is a limitaion of that particular Tv or they don't have it setup right, but I have yet to see a movie played that has any areas of dark, that doesn't look like the black/dark area has a "square" are of different shades of grey/black that taper to the darker areas.
Actually downscaleing the image can get pretty nasty too, if you can, you should always buy a format that matches the screens resolution but more is better than less in this case if you have no option. DVD also looked awesome because it supported a larger color gamut and video was often better quality because the connections bettween devices were better.
BlueRay allowes the convinience of having the whole thing on one disk, this coupled with the fact that the new BR standard supports many more menu features than DVD makes it a more functional and better overall standard. There's no dvd player on earth that's powerful enough to decode a 1080P stream with PCM (uncompressed) 7.1 audio, not to mention PIP (picture in picture).
The dark areas on the screen are caused by bad compression quality which is nutorious on cable/satalite feeds. Blueray disks can deliver alot more data (at the moment) than a telecom company can over fiber optic so the video is higher quality and uses better compression making black areas smother. Finally it could just be the screen, HD tv's especially LCD's have a hard time producing grey's and shades near black, they somtimes have to jump from one drastic shade to another so instead of a smooth gradiant you get a patchy picture. For example my jvc projector is a nice quality projector and I don't notice patches when I'm watching BR content, but I do when I'm watching tv. On my LCD upstairs I notice patches occasionaly (god bless samsung) on either medium.
I don't understand your argument. :? BR media is entirely different from DVD's structure. The pits of data are way more closely packed than DVD's are. Which was why new tech was needed; i.e. BR's disc structure.
It's the limitation of the display or they don't have it set up right. BR has a rather high transfer-rate in comparison to DVDs' by far, essentially eliminating the banding or artifacting issues that DVD is plagued with due to compression artifacting/other. It all depends on the particular transfer too. If you're talking HD on cable, that would make more sense because although the resolution is higher, the transfer rate is low.
The data on the disc is increased by more layers/ smaller pits, (and in HD discs, different color of pits), right? So this enables a larger capacity per disc. Also I would expect a faster data transfer rate from the disc. My question is, even though it is a new cd type, with faster/larger capacity, it still just holds data, and the data can be copied to other storage sources. So I could rip the iso from a BR disc, and burn that to multiple dvd's, or to a hard drive, and still maintain the same picture quality right?
I guess what I'm getting at is that dvd's and BR discs are really only different in the amount of data they hold, (even though the pits maybe arranged, imprinted differently).
In a similar way that dual layer dvd's hold more than the older single layer, the physical dvd drive has to be able to play dual layer to get to the added information, a BR disc and player are doing the same thing, new disc technology, same movie with extended data.
But if you broke the menu down to allow disc swapping when the dvd ran out of space, you could pack the same BR movie into multiple dvd's.
On a side note, I also forgot to mention on how I also don't like that the BR discs don't come packaged in a protective sleeve like the minidisc's did to protect from scratching.
You can make a DVD structure on a BD disk if you like (will only play in a BD player) and would result in the same quality as a standard dvd, but with the benifit of more storage.
You can also make a BD structure on a DVD disk. Would also only play in a BD player as DVD players don't support BD structure. This can result in the same quality as an off the shelf BD movie, but with storage restrictions (most likely resulting in two disks per movie, or even one disk with no extras if done right).
What many BR fan boys hate to admit, or know, is that many of these "high-res" movies are not re-sampled, but only software upscaled, much in the same way an Oppo upscaling DVD player works.
Long live the DVD
I have to disagree with you their, that's incredibly rare to have a BD movie simply an unscaled version of the DVD equivalent.
The way it works AFAIK is All(well, the vast majority) of movies are and will continue to be filmed with film. Then scanned in Digitally and edited at the full 1080p resolution. Then formated for the various mediums it's distributed in. So with a DVD it's downscaled and compressed with very lossy MPEG-2. Then when they release it in BD, or for HDTV they go back to the digital 1080p and Compress it to the particular format/standards required without downscaling.
Even with really old shows/movies they can still be released in Quality HD that is no where near the poor quality of DVDs (or upscaled SD for that matter). For instance i've been enjoying Seinfeld in HD because Sony went back to the original film plates and remasterd the series. Not to be mistaken with upscaling.
I do realize that the BR players have more functionality to them than standard dvd players today. And while that is a selling point to me, I still have a nasty taste in my mouth from all the drm that comes included with the BR system. I would say that these points are what drives me to not buy BR products. It just feels to me that the overzealous RIAA and the like are what is driving the technology standards, and not consumer wants/needs. It seems like they are taking the approach of give it time, the consumers will just make the purchases as long as they are the only option available, and therefore are able to make whatever DRM decision they want.
Allow me to rip an iso without feeling like a crimanal to my computer/media server, so that I can watch the movie, with all bells and whistles on my TV. With the cost of high capacity hd's always dropping, I can always install new or upgrade my hd's to allow more/new dvd's. I would even allow the powers that be to "watch" those specific folders to make sure I wasn't sharing them with the whole world. But currently, with disc's that end up getting scratched, or stolen, or worse destroyed by a fire or disaster, I will be forever disgruntled with having a huge section of my house filled up with disc boxes, and keeping track of what movie is where, or the kiddies scratching up playing frisbee when no one is around.
Your 42" plasma have a native resolution of 1024x768 by any chance? At that low resolution you would not see much difference between upscaled DVD and blu-ray.
Only brand new content is edited as you describe, 99.99% of all movies out there were, and are not edited this way. For many, most movies, going back and re-scanning the original film is impossible. 50 years from now your point may have some merit, but for real hardcore movie fans finding a high quality DVD transfer of film is in itself very welcome, BR does nothing for most content.
Enjoy your Seinfeld.
I'm sorry, but that is totally wrong. Please show me some evidence to back that. Or, simply a single BD release (or hddvd release for that matter) that you claim is software upscaled.
This is ridiculous, I have viewed hundreds of blu-rays which I usually watch on my monitor. The sharpness and clarity of these releases compared to ones I upscaled DVD is always far superior and clearly not an upscale. Screenshots from the two of these sources can easily prove you wrong.
Wow, I don't really have time for all that.
Just enjoy your expensive BR TV shows and be happy.
I watch movies...
p.s. my plasma is 1080p
On a monitor?
From what?
1 foot away?
What DVD player?
Oh please....
Heres some screenshots from the film Army of Darkness. I chose this film because It's very old, and was not edited Digitally. It's IMO the "worst case scenario" for my comparison.
*The frames are not the exact same, I was having trouble finding the same frames, but they are very close.
Upscaled DVD -> HD DVD (VC-1 Compression for those interested) -> Split between the two
http://www.imagebam.com/image/aad2b514485296 http://www.imagebam.com/image/31cff514485297 http://www.imagebam.com/image/2c156b14485299
Ignoring the color differences (I'm guessing the HDDVD was color corrected when it was remastered better then the DVD.) The HDDVD is far superior.
The Sharpness and detail is what it's all about here.
No matter how good your upscaling is, you cannot add detail, You can smooth edges that should be soft, sharpen edges that should be sharp.
Films are Not made in DVD resolution, they are made in HD.
ironjohn: If you can't backup your argument, i see no reason for you to continue arguing.
If you can't tell the difference between HD and DVD, you seriously, and I mean, seriously, need a pair of glasses or eye surgery or something like that, I have ok eyesight and the difference is HUGE. If you don't normally wear glasses, and you don't have perfect eyesight, if you wear them and watch just a normal TV, the picture will look a lot crisper.
The ps3 has been rated as one of the best upscalers available with only $1000+ upscalers being better quality, which shows even more that HD is way better than DVD.
Heres a tracking of the sales of DVD vs BD.
http://vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=23025
The average LTD sales of DVDvsBD since the release of BD is 92%/8%
The highest its been is 12% for BD (twice)
Because the film industry shots on 35mm every single film released to the mass market has effectly been 'down scaled' so remastering old films from 20 years back for blue-ray is only time consuming as they have to run the 35mm film threw new recorders sampling at a high resolution.
so next time your in a cinema watching a film, just think your still watching an anolog film from 35mm and that is true HD, ( forgot to mention cinema get sent 35mm film for the projectors, the only thing digital back there in teh projection box is the ipod the guy listens to between reel changes.)
Yup, I meant the films that are edited digitally are then transferred to your digital medium. And severely downscaled for DVD. The really old films were edited all on film and thus the final copy is film. Although, yeah, modern movies have copy's on film as well. But those are transfers from the digital copy after editing.
They are still, and will continue to be mostly shot on film.
Wasn't apocalypto shot digitally? My friend in the film industry told me this and I was in disbelief as the Picture Quality on the Blu-ray is outstanding.