Thor, Star Wars Releases Lift Disappointing Blu-ray Sales

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ik242

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region codes, drm, high prices, ridiculous licensing/copyrights, editing content years after initial release... give me a break.


 

alidan

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[citation][nom]greghome[/nom]IMO, the reason why the general public dont buy Blu-ray (aside from online streaming and pirating) is that most of them dont really care about image quality and just wants to watch the movie, not to mention a lot of Blu ray releases I've seen are just DVDs ported on a shiny new disc......A lot of them just dont wanna buy a new blu-ray player, much like how many people still have VCRs even now and dont even wouldnt have gotten a DVD player if all those new movies were still available in VCR format[/citation]

for me to consider a bluray format a few things must be bet.

the movie must be recent - this way they are made for bluray from the get go.
if its old, it must be a re do, as in they re mastered or what ever the term is, not just upscale, it must be a true hd
if its old it must not be touched up AT ALL. its the main reason i am very hesatent to buy the thing on bluray, they blured it to de grain it. grain is lesser, but so is a noticeable drop in picture quality compared to the hd dvd version.
if its old, it must not be cut - some old shows had a music licensing problem, and had to redo sinifiant portions, but a vhs copy didnt have that problem. or they cut out major parts and never relase it uncut outside of vhs or so...

there are plenty of reasons not to jump onto bluray and dvd and stick to vhs, but most people will never notice it.


[citation][nom]ik242[/nom]region codes, drm, high prices, ridiculous licensing/copyrights, editing content years after initial release... give me a break.[/citation]

i can see editing content, like getting rid of the burn mark, getting rid of that hair and such, but i cant see the point in editing out grain when it also kills image sharpness.
 
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We here in Denmark have always been struggling with prices around $37 for release titles. Fortunately many titles from amazon.co.uk also have nordic releases and always has a release price of $24. Wait a few weeks and titles can be purchased for only $16. Not hard to turn your attention to international sellers such as amazon who also ship for free. We like! I believe Denmark has fake price management in terms of disc media. When ALL movie releases can be streamed for a flat rate price, I'll stop buying optical media. Hopefully within the next 5-8 years.
 

distanted

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I'm not surprised. When DVD came out it offered more than just a sharper image, it offered menus full of extras and nearly instant access to any section of the movie...with no need to rewind ever again. Compared to VHS, it was a major improvement in terms of convenience and getting extra content. For all of it's hype, Blu Ray just turned out to be more of the same, with a slightly sharper image. When people can buy a pretty good DVD for $10 less than the very good Blu Ray or download a movie in less time than it takes to drive to the store, it's hard to see Blu Ray taking the lion's share of the market. It didn't help that many of the older titles seemed to be transferred to Blu Ray from the same SD masters used for DVDs.

I produce videos for a living and I sometimes get obsessive about image quality, but even I have a hard time detecting a dramatic improvement in many of my Blu Ray titles on my 50 inch plasma. And, I'll stick with my theatrical release of Star Wars IV on DVD without the bounty hunter that misses a static target 3 ft. away.
 

Wamphryi

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Well it seems like I am flying in the face of public opinion but I have had a reasonable run with Blu Ray. I have picked up disks on special so the small difference in price between DVD and Blu Ray has not been a problem. I have to strongly disagree with those who have put forward the view that VHS is in anyway viable. There is no comparison when it comes to features and picture quality.

There was a time when DVD was premium technology that was barely affordable. Over time it has dropped in pricing as most technologies do. Blu Ray will do the same. There are other things to consider also. For instance I find the 25 GB Blu Ray Data Disks very handy for backups. The price of Dual Layer DVD disks has always been rather high and are not cost effective when compared to 25 GB Blu Ray Disks.

Why pay top dollar for 8.5 GB Media when you get 25 GB Media. I can get 10 Dual Layer DVD's for $24 dollars US. That makes 85 GB. I can get 25 Blu Rays Disks at 25 GB each for $69 US. That comes to 625 GB of Data.
 

mickey21

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[citation][nom]Wamphryi[/nom]The price of Dual Layer DVD disks has always been rather high and are not cost effective when compared to 25 GB Blu Ray Disks. Why pay top dollar for 8.5 GB Media when you get 25 GB Media. I can get 10 Dual Layer DVD's for $24 dollars US. That makes 85 GB. I can get 25 Blu Rays Disks at 25 GB each for $69 US. That comes to 625 GB of Data.[/citation]
That is just retarded, I'm sorry. Your going to say that the more GB's you get, the more fair it is? It all comes down to the fact that the technology is 5 years old. We shouldnt be paying a premium on it anymore, it should be in the 10 to 20 dollar zone all the time, if not less. It doesnt cost that much more to produce over DVD. Problem is they wont listen till the market is hurt.

No one wants physical media much anymore. This is coming from a person who had/has/will have over 600 DVD's in his collection. I want the freedom to watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it, find a way to charge me for that and we will call it day. But so far only few services have come up with anything close to that and not on a global scale at this point either. Sure in the US, maybe you can get netflix streaming or similar service, but that isnt thinking global.
 

Wamphryi

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That is just retarded, I'm sorry. Your going to say that the more GB's you get, the more fair it is? It all comes down to the fact that the technology is 5 years old. We shouldnt be paying a premium on it anymore, it should be in the 10 to 20 dollar zone all the time, if not less. It doesnt cost that much more to produce over DVD. Problem is they wont listen till the market is hurt.

Actually I fail to see how it is retarded to point out that Blu Ray has another use outside of what you personally consider important. Some of us actually have back up requirements that may be well served by Blu Ray technology. No one is forcing you to buy Blu Ray. You are perfectly free to back up to Floppy Disk if it pleases you to do so.
 
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Bluray disks offer the best in video quality you can get today. The other great thing about it is once you buy the disk you own it. Once you have the physical disk you do not need to worry about going over your bandwidth cap with your internet service provider. Granted you can make a dent in it if you use the new BD live features and also the new movie trailer that gets downloaded every time you watch the disk.

Now that blueray players are getting better,faster and cheaper the medium will continue to grow. The industry has to do a better job in informing the general public to let them know that their blueray player will also play standard definition dvds and in many cases upscale the dvds to 1080p resolution. There is still a place for the physical disk medium. Collectors and Video files that want the ultimate in picture quality will still opt for blueray disks.
 

southernshark

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Disks... why are we still using disks?

Put the movies out on a cartridge type format using flash and I might buy it (assuming the price is cheap).

Disks break/scratch too easy.
 

alidan

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[citation][nom]Wamphryi[/nom]Actually I fail to see how it is retarded to point out that Blu Ray has another use outside of what you personally consider important. Some of us actually have back up requirements that may be well served by Blu Ray technology. No one is forcing you to buy Blu Ray. You are perfectly free to back up to Floppy Disk if it pleases you to do so.[/citation]

yea, editing video and such, saving things i acquired, and so on, i want to have bluray as the format that i do that on, but it still has to be cheaper. as in cheaper than a hdd. i want 1$ 1 disc before i really get into bluray storage, as i would be making 2 copies of everything as a backup. i cant have a single disc cost so much.
 

Wamphryi

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[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]yea, editing video and such, saving things i acquired, and so on, i want to have bluray as the format that i do that on, but it still has to be cheaper. as in cheaper than a hdd. i want 1$ 1 disc before i really get into bluray storage, as i would be making 2 copies of everything as a backup. i cant have a single disc cost so much.[/citation]

It would be good if prices got that low but the fact that Dual Layer DVD Disks are still so pricey after all this time is not encouraging. However GB for GB Blu Ray is cheaper unless you are willing to have a massive pile of 4.7 GB DVD disks essentially 5 for every Blu Ray. I also use HDD's for back up but I use Blu Ray for essential Data as a Blu Ray disk carefully stored is not prone to mechanical failure. Perhaps a careful combination of the HDD and Blu Ray technologies will allow you to get the redundancy you need at an affordable price.

When I look back a few years ago I paid almost $1300 US (at the exchange rates of the day) for a CD Burner.
 

nikorr

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[citation][nom]reggieray[/nom]Why buy movies? Unlike music, after I watch a movie (several times at most) I don't want to watch it again. If I do years later I can rent it. I have better things to use my money on, like food and shelter.[/citation]
Maybe when u have a 40incher, than u don't see the different quality, but at 60inch and up, u do.
 

back_by_demand

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[citation][nom]reggieray[/nom]Another reason not to build a big collection of movies is because within 10-20 years they will have changed the format again and you basically wasted all of it. If your going to invest in something make sure it can be passed onto to loved ones (kids). Easy to say but there are things that can last generations.[/citation]
I must admit, I did feel a pang when I moved to BluRay for my 800+ size DVD collection, but it is slowly being transfered to HDDs so I can watch them via XBMC, when Bluray gets superceded I will do the same with them, all it means is whatever format comes in the future I will just have to watch older movies in lower defination.
Am I taking a risk that my HDDs can die and kill my movies? Maybe, but with the cost of 2Tb drives I always do a full duplication to pop in the firesafe and still have the original DVD disks.
Needless to say, I will be making a copy of the hard drives for my kids, something to keep them entertained when they go to college.
 

dark_lord69

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Well...
1. BluRay's cost more
2. Netflix, Hulu, Vudo, Sony Playstation Store and other online rental services are available
3. If you have a Playstation 3 or a DVD player that upscales/upconverts the picture to HD, even DVD's look surprisingly good on an HDTV.

I suppose it might look different if my TV was like 55" and I sat closer. But it's 42" and I have a long living room so the extra money for the bluray isn't worth the cost. The only exception I make is when it would definitely make the experience better in full HD. Rio would be a good example, also, the Earth series and any other movies that are exceptional. StarWars would be a good collection to get and so would the bluray lord of the rings collections.
 
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