Blu-Ray Drives for PCs Bombing

[exfileme]

iSuppli reports that DVD-RW drives will dominate PCs and laptops well into 2013.

Blu-Ray Drives for PCs Bombing : Read more

 

[lowguppy]

Its so much cheaper to add blue ray to a PC than to buy a stand alone player though... Its also not very expensive to rent Blu-ray through Netflix and the available library is growing steadily.

I think people are just stuck thinking that they need a stand alone player because they always have for other media, and don't realize that their PC can do everything they would use most stand alone devices for.

 

[hunter315]

Until we get to the point where games take multiple DVDs so it becomes tempting to start putting them on bluray I dont think bluray players are going to start being used normally. If they could get the price down below 80 then they might start selling more of them, but im not going to spend more on an optical drive than i spent on my hard drive.

 

[Transmaniacon]

As has always been the case, if they start producing 1080P porn, or as hunter mentioned, games requiring the space of blu ray, it will never catch on fully.

 

[ssalim]

Why would I want overpriced 25GB non-rewritable storage, where I could get 1 TB hard drive that is easily portable with enclosure, for much much less.

 

[blackbyron]

"the Blu-ray drive is facing difficulty in booting out the DVD-RW"

That is a reason why I wouldn't buy a blu-ray rom for my computer. Also the price is expensive and its not worth anything unless more technology occurs.

 

[frozenlead]

[citation][nom]hunter315[/nom]but im not going to spend more on an optical drive than i spent on my hard drive.[/citation]

I agree. I've always hated optical media. They're slow, unreliable, (for most cases) read-only, and just a hassle to deal with. I probably won't ever buy a standalone blu-ray player. I might get a drive for my computer...but with downloadable content services, why bother? I can take all my movies with me on a hard disk, instead of taking a bajillion optical disks in their cases.

 

[zelannii]

Damned analysts never actually ask anyone for a real opinion...

I'll tell you why it's not taking off plain and simple, it's the same reason DVDs in PCs lagged: writers are WAY too expensive, and media is scarce and even MORE expensive, and as yet, copying a BD to a BD-R is nowhere near cost effective, has compatability issues with players, and is still illegal. We're waiting for legal copying in the next release of the blueray firmware, PC based writers to drop to below the $100 mark, and for disks to drop to the $2 mark or lower... Also, some software to make writing a BRD easy needs to come along.

In 6-12 months, hardware prices should be in line, disk prices may get close to $1.50 each per 100 disks, and we'll see (hopefully) an answer to the legal copying debate. Then these things will fly off shelves.

 

[warezme]

The problem is cost and usablity. A regular DVDRW can do 90% of what the blueray drives can do and faster yet the BD's are several times more expensive. So these things are luxury items, not must haves.

It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. The ball is in the manufacturers court, not the consumer court.

 

[Guest]

It's the cost of the media that has kept me from buying a blue ray player for the PC. I can nearly buy a hard drive for the cost of a re-writable blue ray blank.

 

[Aionism]

I'd probably have a BD drive by now if I didn't have to deal with all of this HDCP garbage just to watch a movie in HD. I would have to buy a new monitor and video card.

 

[Major7up]

I think everyone is mostly echoing the article in different words. Bottom line is that consumers just don't see the value in blue-ray (cuz there isn't much value for them yet) and won't until blue-ray content movies/media become more ubiquitous.

 

[Guimar]

The drives wont take of until burnable media gets cheaper.
The choice of an optical drive for me has always been driven by backup of data.

 

[Guest]

Blu-ray is bombing because Blu-ray is a videophile format. Sure, it looks better and sounds better, but most people would rather just go DVD and avoid the expense and hassle of Blu-ray.

And its really bombing in the PC world because there's still no affordable burnable media for Blu-ray drives. No user-made burnt Blu-ray media (due to its expense & slow speed) + more than adequate DVD movie quality + plentiful and cheap DVD+R/-R media = no real need for Blu-ray drives, esp. if you already have an extensive DVD movie collection.

I'm not planning on upgrading to Blu-ray anytime soon anyways...even if I do get an HD tv. I was a big supporter for Blu-ray in the format wars, but I don't care at all anymore since there seems to be no progress with the archival aspects of the media.

If you're a rich bastard however , I suppose its good to have *something* new to spend your money on.

 

[megamanx00]

PC users don't have much incentive to have a blu ray reader if they are happy watching semi-HD content online, often for free at that (assuming they don't have metered internet use ). Of course that means that if you want to burn data to use on another computer, it has to have a Blu Ray reader too, and if it doesn't you just wasted an expensive disk. Sure sometimes you need to move more data than a DVD allows, but with 16GB flash drives and above selling so cheap, as well as their ability to be used on most computers, using a BD disk instead doesn't seem as attractive.

I originally switched to burning DVDs when the cost per disk was cheap enough to do so. I pretty much looked at it as the cost per CD + a cd case, or sleeve if your being cheap, for each one was a little more than one DVD and one sleeve or slim case for backing up the same amount of data. Also it doesn't seem like burning those 25GB blu ray disks would save me too much time over burning 5 or 6 DVDs with my high speed plextor. Once Blu Ray media falls below $1 a disk and blu ray readers become cheaper, then they may have a chance of replacing DVDs for storage.

At this rate, Blu Ray will be replaced by the next thing before it ever becomes mainstream.

 

[thearm]

I'm waiting for blank blu-ray disks to go down in price.

 

[christop]

IT IS POINTLESS RIGHT NOW...

 

[JohnnyLucky]

I'm am not excited about blueray because my eyes do not notice any improvement with blueray.

I am not excited about 1080p because my eyes do not notice any improvement over 720p.

I am not excited about an HTPC because I already have a perfectly good dvd player.

I am not excited about watching a movie on my pc monitor when I'm busy doing something else like answering questions at Tom's Hardware. I do not multi-task very well.

I am not excited about watching a movie on my 22 inch pc monitor in the den when I have an excellent 48 inch plasma TV and home theater system in the living room which includes the previously mentioned dvd player.

 

[dark_lord69]

I don't even want a bluray drive unless it is burnable and those are still more than I want to pay... I would buy one for $50 if I could convice the wifie. Even then... HDD's have 10X or more capacity and at ten times the storage... You can get those 500GB drives for $50. The video quality difference from an upscaled DVD to a blu ray is only noticable on a LARGE (about 48" or more) 1080 screen. Upscaled DVD's are fine with me for now... I'll wait for the whole blu ray pricing to come down on.. the movies, blank disks and the players/burners.

 

[JohnnyLucky]

OOPS! I forgot something - I do not need blueray to watch a live broadcast of a Sunday afternoon football game with my friends. I just need beer.