nico-t

both quoted for truth
it will indeed be the new dvd
someone bump this thread a year from now and you'll see

justinsain

When I bought my first HDTV last June the next thing on my list
was Blu-ray. At that time the PS3 was about the cheapest at $399
but I wanted a stand alone player and those were $400 + so I decided to wait.

While the PS3 has held it's price, the stand alone players have dropped in price
dramatically. The one I have my eye on is selling for half of what it was listed at in June.
It's also been replaced by a new model with more features and it's listed for less than
the other one was in June. The price of BRDs are dropping as well. It's just going to take
some time. Many people are anticipating another price drop on Black Friday and continue through the holidays

All it's going to take for Blu-ray to become the standard is for it to become affordable
for the average consumer. There is no denying that it is superior to DVD so all it has to do is come down in price.

It really has no competition except itself.

Manowar

if anyone needs a good comparison, rent 'Casino Royale' on DVD then buy the Blu-Ray.... you will never watch the DVD again

Rui

Yeah, talk about over-reacting and not just being rational, when ready his post (the first couple of lines that is) I could almost imagina somebody screaming and acting like a mad...

mikesouth

so have mine

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Mike South

It's No wonder I took up drugs and alcohol, it's the only way I could dumb myself down enough to cope with the morons in this biz.

bronco67

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. The transfer is outstanding on that movie.

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farkedup

In the end its $40 for a new blu-ray or $15 for a new DVD 20 at the most. Most blockbusters if you shop around somebody will have it for sale for $15 or less.

Also when there's a $5 blu-ray bin it'll officially be a good format ;) once blu-ray players are $50 (not 100, currently like 170) it'll be a solid choice.

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-- QUOTE ME IT MAKES ME FEEL SPECIAL --

baddog

We were talking about handguns the other day and he was telling me about his 9mm with a 3' barrel. I could not believe they made a handgun with a barrel that long.

I think he is still trying to convince his g/f that his cock is 4' long.














j/k buddy

candyflip

I just picked up 20 new Bluray discs today at a KMart going out of business. They were all 60% off.

I still buy HDDVD movies and even have two extra players in boxes in the attic. HD versions of great movies for low prices is fine by me. I don't care if the format is dead, the discs should play for quite some time.

Like someone said, once you watch movies in HD...it's tough to go back.

I think that this year will be a big holiday season for Bluray and/or PS3. The PS3 makes the most sense as a player, and anyone I know who doesn't have one has one on their Christmas list. I don't see anything to worry about just yet.

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candyflip

Disney discs are the priciest at $35, but they give you quite a bit of extra content. They do go above and beyond and some of the stuff is pretty amazing.

If you look in the right spots, you can get Bluray movies for $15. Even Target and Walmart have them and the average price is about $25. Cheaper than going to the movies with your wife.

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RedShoe

To create BluRay DVD's with scenaist, you need to buy the license for $30,000, AND THEN you need to BUY a license key thru a replicator so the replicator can produce the blurays.

I'm one of the few people in town that has that license. (so if you need bluray's authored... *shameless plug)

Sony has a fucking strangle hold on this.

Sony's DVD authoring program is DVD Architect. It costs around $500 and you don't need a license to produce BluRay if you use it. The downside is, the menu system sucks ass, and is not dynamic.

Sony charges $30,000 for a license that you don't even need if you buy the authoring program from Sony for $500.00

There is no logic to the pricing.

And from what I understand standard DVD's outsell bluray in adult.

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JayAllan

Here is an informative rebuttal to that Blog. It is from the leading DVD site The Digital Bits

People have been predicting the death of Blu-ray Disc for more than two years now. And many of those doing so were either staunch HD-DVD supporters previously or simply NEVER saw much of a future for Blu-ray or high-definition discs. Harris, it seems to me, falls into the latter category. He's a fine guy, I'm sure, but from what I've read of his work, he's never really been much of a videophile. He's a storage guy. Hard drives. It says so right there in his bio: "Robin Harris has been selling and marketing data storage for over 20 years in companies large and small." There's nothing wrong with that, and more power to him. But I don't expect him to be any kind of advocate for a home video format, other than one based around a downloading model. And he's hardly the person to best judge the future of what is, at its very essence, a HOME VIDEO FORMAT.

That's not to say that Harris doesn't make some valid points. The BDA's licensing fees are too high, and there are still too many barriers (not the least of which is cost) to smaller content producers adopting the format. I'll give you a few more obstacles the format faces: Blu-ray Disc player and movie prices are still too high. Studios should cut software prices across the board by $5 to $10. Profile 2.0 players should become standard and cheap, and fast. The need to continually update player firmware for title after title has been very frustrating, most recently with the James Bond Blu-rays. That's not a big deal if you have a PS3, but if you have a profile 1.0 or 1.1 player, it means either downloading and burning a firmware update disc, or calling the manufacturer's tech support line and requesting one be sent to you by mail. That's a pain in the ass, and the industry needs to figure out a way to make it easier. The economic slowdown and the lengthy format war haven't helped either. I do think the industry should take a look at Harris' recommendations for what a more "forward looking strategy" for the Blu-ray format ought to look like. I actually agree with a couple of them.

But let's get real here. Blu-ray is NOT dead. It's not close to death. It's not even remotely sick or ailing. Saying otherwise is simply a clever ploy to get a LOT of people to read your columns. Look folks, Blu-ray is still essentially a NEW format to most people. This is the format's FIRST YEAR of unopposed exposure to consumers - the first year it hasn't been embroiled in a bitter format dispute with HD-DVD. The standard DVD format didn't begin to really take off until well over a year after its Divx pay-per-view nemesis finally died. It's worth noting that my prediction has ALWAYS been that Blu-ray and DVD would co-exist for many years, and that Blu-ray would gradually increase its market share over time. If I had to guess, I think the mix a few years from now is going to be 50% DVD, 30-40% Blu-ray and some smaller percentage of downloading. Blu-ray isn't going to replace DVD, the single most successful format in the history of consumer electronics, and anyone who thinks otherwise is out to lunch. But Blu-ray's future is plenty bright, folks.

Let's look at this from another perspective. One month ago, Paramount's Iron Man became the first Blu-ray Disc release to sell 500,000 units in its first week of release. Industry sources tell me that the title has CONTINUED to sell well and is closing in on 1 million units sold. If Iron Man doesn't get there first, Warner's mega-smash hit The Dark Knight is on deck for release on Blu-ray Disc on 12/9. Does anyone think it isn't going to fly off the shelves too? Either way, by the end of the year (almost certainly by the end of January), one of these two titles - and quite possibly BOTH - could hit 1 million units sold. That milestone will have been reached just a little more than two years after the Blu-ray format was launched. Do you know how long it took DVD to have its first million selling title? Just under THREE years - The Matrix, which debuted on the format in late 1999. Seems like Blu-ray's right on track to me.

The format's got LOTS more going for it too. First, player prices are finally dipping below $250, right on track with the pace in the early days of DVD. Best Buy has its Insignia brand BD player priced at $249, and a Samsung player on sale for $229. Multiple retailers are expected to be selling Blu-ray players for LESS than $200 on Black Friday and for the holiday season. According to Video Business, Sears will be selling Sony's BDP-S350 for just $179.99 and Samsung's BD-P1500 for $199.99, both profile 2.0/BD-Live ready players. Look for other BD player deals at select retailers to follow, some as low as $149.

Second, look at all the great titles available! You know, earlier this year many of the studios were telling me that big titles were coming for the holidays, and that the floodgates were really going to open in 2009, but I STILL didn't expect the torrent of great titles we're seeing now. Consider the new releases alone... Transformers, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Dark Knight, Cloverfield, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Hancock, Wall-E, Sex and the City, Tropic Thunder, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, Rambo, There Will Be Blood, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Kung Fu Panda, Casino Royale and many, many others.

Now consider the AMAZING catalog titles that have been (or will soon be) released on Blu-ray... SIX vintage James Bond films, ALL of the Austin Powers films, Sleeping Beauty, Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Godfather Collection, ALL of the Terminator films, Starship Troopers, all of the Planet of the Apes films, all of the Pirates of the Caribbean films, Casablanca, How the West Was Won, L.A. Confidential, JFK, all of The Matrix films, FIVE Stanley Kubrick films including 2001, The Nightmare Before Christmas, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, the Omen films, Bonnie and Clyde, the Die Hard films, ID4, the Mission: Impossible films, Dawn of the Dead, the Dirty Harry films, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Superman and the Superman II: Director's Cut, the Spider-Man films and on, and on, and on.

In his piece, Harris claims there are few quirky indie films on the format. Has he not seen Transsiberian, Sukiyaki Western Django, Mongol, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Persepolis, Shinobi or any of the MANY such titles now available or coming soon? What about the documentary titles? Baraka, Planet Earth? The TV titles? Heroes, Lost, Sarah Connor Chronicles, Torchwood, Pushing Daisies, Band of Brothers?

You think all of those titles are impressive? Look at the tip of the iceberg of what's coming next year: The Star Trek films, Braveheart, Pinocchio, The Lord of the Rings films, King Kong (1933), The Wizard of Oz, Ben Hur, North by Northwest, the Ghostbusters films, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone with the Wind, the Rush Hour films, The French Connection, Napoleon Dynamite, Office Space, Raging Bull, Ronin, the new Battlestar Galactica TV series and HUNDREDS of others. That's just scratching the surface. There are titles that I KNOW FOR A FACT are in the works for release on Blu-ray in 2009 that will blow your minds, but I can't mention them by name yet. MAJOR catalog releases. For god's sake, folks... The Final Countdown is on Blu-ray! Are you kidding me?

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

The question isn't, "Is Harris right?" The question is, "Is Harris even PAYING ATTENTION?" Of course not. He's fine guy... but he's A DATA STORAGE GUY. He's not a film guy. He's not a home video industry expert. Make no mistake, the Hollywood studios are 110% behind the Blu-ray Disc format, folks. So are the hardware manufacturers, and so are all the major retailers. They're going to blow the doors off this format in 2009 in terms of amazing releases. And watch for prices on hardware and software to get even more affordable in the coming year. Blu-ray is going to be around for quite a long while, I don't care what Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Robin Harris tell you. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO BE A MOVIE FAN. PERIOD.

Blu-ray is dead?! Yeah, right! And I've got a bridge in Alaska to sell you.

As Charlie Brown might say, "Good grief..."


BILL HUNT / THE DIGITAL BITS.com

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

GatorB

You presented an article by a guy who just copied an article by another guy who copied an article by another guy all of whom are tools with ZERO fact because they wasted money on HD-DVD and think they know shit when they don't know shit. Things such as FACTS aren't as important as making an article that will get attention. So sorry if I called you names, but when you quote tards and you agree with said tards and refuse to seek out facts then sorry that makes you a tard. Kind of like saying you agree with Hitler but get offended if someone calls you anti-Semitic. not very logical. So ok you are not a tard you are just ignorant. Is that better?

GatorB

You can get blu-ray players at the local wal-mart for $250 and they'll be sub $200 models for x-mas. Some peole complain there aren't any movies for it but EVERY new movie that comes out on DVD comes out on blu-ray too. Some blu-rays will give you a digital copy and in fact some others some give you a digital copy AND a DVD version. Now how can you not like that?