Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Furious
Frankly, I've always preferred to buy rather than rent. However, Netflix is changing my mind. It's just too damned easy.
What's really crazy is the number of movies I've watched on demand. The quality is less than SD DVD (stereo only sound). However, I've been watching 80's TV series and shows I'd NEVER buy on any format. I've pretty much forgotten about buying movies. For me, the format war almost totally ended my DVD buying obsession. Instead of buying 1 or 2 movies a week, I rent.
See, a $15 premium for HD is obscene. The VHS -> DVD made sense since you got a ton of convenience features that weren't present in VHS. Portability really went through the roof. With BD, you don't get an advance in convenience; you actually take a hit because of the portability limitations. From an average consumer's standpoint, the audio is unnoticeable and the video improvement may not be apparent on a 40" low end LCD versus DVD.
In the computer industry, old technology drops to a low dollar value and the latest usually takes its price point. For example, the NVIDIA TURBO MEGA 1100 w/ OMGHAX memory sells at $400. The next generation card (the 1200) releases and takes that price point of $400 and the 1100 goes to $250. In the movie industry, that hasn't happened. BD hasn't supplanted DVD in price or convenience. It's strong suit, video quality, isn't recognized by a large chunk of the population.
That's your problem. It's all about price and performance in a time of economic slowdown. If Netflix partners with Xbox, you'd likely get a power house and the beginning of the download generation. Frankly, Sony forgot that HD DVD wasn't the only competitor.
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I don't think Sony has forgotten anything. It is the whiners on price that have forgotten that blu-ray barely been around for 2 years. Ya'll have forgotten that dvd was initially more expensive than vhs, and it was slow to catch on before prices went down. You forget that initial dvd players didn't offer all the features they do now, and were very expensive. You forget that it took a long time before dvd supplanted vhs, despite all the conveniences you listed. And you forget that even now, vhs is still being made available at rental stores and retailers. Because no matter how far technology goes, there will be those that hold on to older ways of doing things.
I think blu-ray is on a good growth track right now. They have beaten off the biggest threat to its existence (hd-dvd), and it has solidified all studio support behind it. Prices continue to drop on players, and if you want to find deals (just like in the "old days" of dvd), you can still find them for blu-ray software. The biggest impediment to blu-ray growth, imo, is getting consumers to buy hdtvs. As more and more people watch programming in hd, they will not be able to tolerate watching blurry dvds anymore.
In the meantime, we can all enjoy movies in 1080p picture and lossless sound. We don't have to wait on heavily compressed and weaker download options to meet our needs. We can get the best right now.
