Posted on 05/06/2008 11:04:35 AM PDT by Notary Sojac
Mid-February was a good time to be a Blu-ray backer. Media moguls who had championed the technology were busy floating on yachts in the Pacific, chomping cigars, and stroking white longhaired cats; the billion-dollar payday was at hand. But numbers out last week indicate that standalone Blu-ray player sales plummeted in the early part of this year, and enthusiasm for the hi-def format appears as lukewarm as the applause at an REO Speedwagon concert. Where did all the buyers go?
Last week, both ABI Research and The NPD Group delivered the news: the standalone Blu-ray player market did not suddenly rise up and walk after HD DVD quit the market. Instead, it remained in its bed and took a turn for the worse. NPD reports that player sales dropped by 40 percent from January to February 2008 and increased by only 2 percent the following month.
ABI argues that the Blu-ray player market won't improve to full health for more than a year, perhaps as long as 18 months. "BD player prices remain high, and supplies are limited," says ABI Research principal analyst Steve Wilson. "This is good for the market because most current players do not support all the functions that studios place on the discs. Lacking support for—or upgradability to—BD Live! or Bonus View (picture in picture), consumers cannot utilize all the available options. Manufacturers would rather sell more fully-featured models."
This is "good" only because the collective companies involved in supporting Blu-ray haven't been able to get their collective act together. In fact, the only real beneficiary of the current high-prices, underperforming standalone players has been Sony's games division, which produces the PlayStation 3, a solid (and future-proof) Blu-ray player in its own right.
In answer to the question posed above, it appears that buyers have gone in several directions simultaneously.
PS3. The reported declines in Blu-ray player sales aren't actually declines at all; they only apply to standalone players. Sony's PlayStation 3 has been moving serious units, and while standalone player shipments can be numbered in the thousands, Sony sold 257,000 PS3s in March 2008 alone. That represents a 98 percent growth rate in year-over-year sales. Given the high cost of standalone players and the fact that the price didn't fall after the HD DVD announcement, it's clear that most people are getting their Blu-ray fix from the PS3.
ABI believes that PS3s will account for a full 85 percent of all Blu-ray players in the wild by the end of 2008. Despite dire headlines regarding Blu-ray that are based on the recent ABI and NPD reports, it's clear that the format is actually growing the number of players in the field, and in significant ways.
Upconverting players. HD players from both contending formats have long had to face questions about whether the quality boost they offer is "good enough" to drive users to make a pricey upgrade away from a DVD player. While the PS3 represents a good value for money, standalone players typically don't. They still exist far above the $100 magic number for broad adoption of new consumer electronics devices, and upconverting DVD tech continues to look quite good. On my new 52" LCD TV, for instance, Battlestar Galactica upconverted over an HDMI connection looks simply spectacular. Sure, it would look better in HD, but good enough that I want to drop hundreds on a new player?
NPD notes that upconverting DVD player sales are up 5 percent in the first quarter of 2008 over 2007, while those that cannot upconvert dropped by 39 percent.
Download services. But not everyone sees the need for a disc-based player anymore. The 360 has a well-regarded content download service that delivers HD movies right to the console, for instance, and Microsoft has been talking up to the direct download model for content distribution now that its pony is out of the race.
Apple has its own iTunes infrastructure that can serve up video content to iPods, iPhones, Macs, PCs, and TVs, and it now offers 720p rentals for the Apple TV. Amazon and TiVo provide further video download and rental options, while Netflix has been adding to its ever-increasing stable of films that can be streamed online instead of ordered through the mail.
Given the array of such services available, it's not hard to see how even tech-savvy folks might hang on to a decent DVD player as backup but make use of newer streaming and download services to grab on-demand fare.
HD DVD is dead, and Blu-ray is arguably well positioned to take advantage of that fact. But the format has a long way to go before it supplants DVD as the physical media of choice for the living room. Remember, it took nearly a decade for sales of DVD players to overtake those of VCRs. It was only when DVD players began dropping down around $100 that they truly took off, and Blu-ray has a long way to go before it gets there.
That was until the crowd heard, "And now here is a song from our new album...."
The first blu ray disc I bought after getting the PS3 was a BBC production called "Planet Earth".The word "stunning" doesn't even begin to describe it.Soon,I'll be getting a National Geographic disc about the Serengeti.
There's a lot more than just anti-American films out there.
Bump
That and when you can walk into Blockbuster (or get in the mail) nearly any movie you want on Blu Ray. Along with Blu Ray discs being the same price as regular discs are now.
I have already made up my mind, PS3 will be my player.
True enough.
I love the “nostalgia” concerts, but 99% of the time their new material sucks. It’s like they try to sound modern while still sounding like themselves and bomb at both efforts.
I am the first to say that the "new" stuff isn't that much better than the current stuff (Conservative that I am), but I've seen movies on HDTV screens that simply jumped out of the plane, and grabbed me.
There are still some problems with the technology, and the price isn't quite there for me yet, but I plan on upgrading. I DO find standard def TV perfectly adequate for much of my viewing, however.
Anyone wanting a BD player, most will buy the PS3.. its the cheapest one out there, comes with a nice game system as well, and will handle all upgrades to the format.
This “stand alone player” numbers is right out of the old HD-DVD camp trying to spin.
Every PS3 sold is a BD player, and if you are in a store with only a BD player costing 400 or 500 right beside a PS3 that is a BD player with a game system as well for 400.... most will pick up the PS3.
This seperating out the PS3 from dedicated players to prove something about sales is idiotic.
Had Comcast's HD box, but that didn't give me much more than just a full screen. I returned it and went back to the regular digital box and paid $30 less a month.
So IMHO, an HDTV is great, but I don't think one needs all the fandangle stuff to enjoy it.
You’re spot on with post #29. The pricing of the blueray players is ridiculous. I’ve got a 5 disc DVD carousel player that works just fine. I’ve got a DVD burner on both my desktop and laptop pc’s that work just fine. I’m not going to go out and spend 400-600 bucks on a blueray player that doesn’t even have very many features. In fact, I’m waiting for the price of the PS3’s to come down. When it gets closer to 200 then I’ll think about it.
It's bad enough to have operating systems hobbled, and new technology rendered useless by computer software. Putting up with it, and having to pay a premium for its implementation is adding insult to injury.
Perhaps the death of HDDVD was premature.
The PS3 is also the only player where you knew you’d get the final Blu-Ray spec eventually without paying a penny more. It has the processor power, networking and storage space, so all that was needed was a software update.
Now all the talk is special effects. To my thinking it is just a bunch of cartoons.
It's not higher-def in the number of pixels, but those who transmit your HDTV use high compression to save bandwidth, and that hurts picture quality. HDTV is also broadcast at a maximum 1080i (interlaced), while Blu-Ray is 1080p. You do need a big, high-speed TV to notice the difference though.
REO is coming to Oklahoma City in a month or so. I went to an REO/Blue Oyster cult concert in 70’s. I barely remember it.
You're getting 1080i (interlaced) on HDTV - and the cable companies are sometimes cheating and delivering lower quality feeds. Blu-ray is 1080p non-interlaced, and it's perfect.
To me the big problem with Blu-ray adoption is not the player, it's that too many of the greatest movies haven't been released on Blu-ray yet - the catalog is skewed toward more recent releases. Unless you're the kind would rather see classics like "Alien vs. Predator" instead of "Ben Hur". ;)
BD-Audio is the Blu-Ray 3.0 specification, and lucky for you Sony will probably issue a system update so you can play those disks (whenevery they come out).
My first DVD player probably cost more than my PS3 if you count inflation. VCRs were pretty cheap at the time. That's just how the next generation works. I remember when a 42" flat screen cost over $20,000, and now they're under $900.
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