Has Blue Ray Failed?

[chudleighpaul]

I have just forked out and bought a Blue ray player (Panasonic). The picture is astounding, better than Sky HD.

However I wonder if the public have voted with their feet and decided DVD is good enough, especially with a good up scaling player.

The reason I say this is due to the lack of discs in shops. WH Smith have none on their shelves neither do the major Supermarkets. Specialist retailers such as HMV devote very little shelf space to Blue ray, so the only good sources are internet sites.

Is it that the retailers are not interested, or is it lack of public demand that so few discs are on sale. This would not be the first time a format has failed, remember DVD-Audio and SACD?

 

[Anonymous]

I disagree.

They have tons in HMV, and every disc I wanted and looked for, I have found on-line, and the price is coming down as well, the only disc I really want is saving private ryan, but soon to follow this year. They were what ? £40.00 when they first came out, now you can get them for as little as 3.00 - 4.00 pounds

I dont think 3D tv will take off as much as games, so I think blu-ray will continue to grow. until Super HD comes out years down the road,

But PS3 will update this

 

[staggerlee]

I don't think it has failed but agree with you. I spent a fortune on a new Tv and blu ray player but was left disappointed, as my DVD's looked very good. I think if the cost of Blu rays drops then it may be more successful. A recent film i wanted was £3 on a Dvd and £12 for a blu ray copy, which seemed absurd. The PQ is better on blu ray but the cost doesn't justify it.

 

[professorhat]

Walking through HMV in Croydon the other day, I was actually quite surprised at how many Blu-Rays were present there, and at reasonable prices now as well (reasonable for a high street shop anyway in that they were between £10 - £15 on the ones on special offer instead of £25 - £30. Still much cheaper online though).

So I think the tide is beginning to turn now that players can be found under £100.

 

[laserman16]

chudleighpaul:

The reason I say this is due to the lack of discs in shops. WH Smith have none on their shelves neither do the major Supermarkets. Specialist retailers such as HMV devote very little shelf space to Blue ray, so the only good sources are internet sites.

Well my local Tesco has about 60 titles on the shelves. Local Sainsbury and Morrisons about 15 titles a piece.

 

[John Duncan]

From Amazon:

* DVD (320,261)
* Blu-ray (5,233)
* HD DVD (864)
* UMD (1,921)
* VHS (78,628)

 

[staggerlee]

So VHS is the second most popular format !!!!

 

[Tom Moreno]

laserman16:chudleighpaul:
The reason I say this is due to the lack of discs in shops. WH Smith have none on their shelves neither do the major Supermarkets. Specialist retailers such as HMV devote very little shelf space to Blue ray, so the only good sources are internet sites.

Well my local Tesco has about 60 titles on the shelves. Local Sainsbury and Morrisons about 15 titles a piece.

My local Sainsbury has an entire aisle with a couple of hundred titles, and half of them are in a 2 for £20 deal.

 

[Torres09]

JohnDuncan:From Amazon: * DVD (320,261) * Blu-ray (5,233) * HD DVD (864) * UMD (1,921) * VHS (78,628)

That must be a typo, 78k VHS

Is this for older titles, surely studios dont bring out new movies on VHS?

 

[Deleted member 2457]

To be honest hd dvd seemed to get it's act together alot quicker than blu ray but I do love blu ray, the moment pioneer jumped on board there was only one way I would go.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

staggerlee:So VHS is the second most popular format !!!!

that is laughable! I didn't even know WHS did DVDs, let alone Bluray.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

staggerlee:So VHS is the second most popular format !!!!

that is laughable! I didn't even know WHS did DVDs, let alone Bluray.

 

[chudleighpaul]

The Shelf space in HMV given over to Blue ray is very small compared to DVD. If you are not near an HMV shop you are left with the Supermarkets and WH Smith who appear not be interested.

Impulse buys make up a large proportion of disc sales and if the only option available is DVD then DVD it is. The average Joe Public goes to the supermarket and decides he wants to see a movie that night, then the internet is a non starter so he buys the DVD. I agree that the cost of players has come down which may help, but the discs have to be widely available, which at the moment they are not.

What may help is that multi region players are now available. Early buyers into DVD had multi region players and imported large numbers of discs, because of the extortionate prices charged for region 2 discs. Until recently to buy into Blue ray meant that unless 2 players were used a lot of your region 1 discs could not be played.

 

[Big Aura]

Do you live in London, or elsewhere? I think there's lots of focus on Blu-Ray in the HMVs that I visit regularly.

 

[aliEnRIK]

JohnDuncan:From Amazon: * DVD (320,261) * Blu-ray (5,233) * HD DVD (864) * UMD (1,921) * VHS (78,628)

Crikey, didnt realise there were anything like that number of PSP discs

 

[professorhat]

You have to remember it's still a young format - Blu-Ray is doing much better than DVD was at the same stage. I don't think you can judge whether the format will have succeeded or failed for another couple of years yet. Once the players are available for £50 - £100 in the supermarket, more people will buy them, and then the number of available discs will increase as demand increases.

I'm not saying Blu-Ray will definitely succeed, I recognise a lot of people may not bother if they think DVD is good enough (as you point out, that's certainly how it's worked in the music formats), but I think it's still too early to write it off.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Noticeable in Japan last week that BD sections in stores relatively small, compared to humungous DVD selection...

 

[lobby]

Vhs with 78,000 films for sale are obviously all by sellers not many by Amazon. This is because no one is getting rid of them on Amazon in fact the same with Ebay carboot sales etc. Only place i know that gets rid of them is charity shops, because the money goes to good causes.With Vhs being around for so long you will expect to see plenty online for sale, the same with dvd, thats because there so many titles available and alot people are steadily upgrading to blu-ray.As you can see we now getting back dated releases and blu-ray is set to get stronger and stronger. Just for example CEX , Gamestation are selling plenty, and at reduced prices of around £3.00-700.Some newer titles online can be picked up from £11.00 and older titles from a fiver. And there plenty of deals around if you put the time into searching for them. A few huge titles like District 9, Transformers 2 and Star Trek, are all still higher priced, but thats because there very popular, the same as COD games for PS3 and XBOX-360, why reduce when these are must haves.

 

[Alec]

I still think its going pretty slowly, but as people have said, players are getting cheaper and that could be the clincher. The jury has to come back in at some point anyway.

How long has it been around now in an even remotely affordable way?

 

[carter]

chudleighpaul:

The Shelf space in HMV given over to Blue ray is very small compared to DVD. If you are not near an HMV shop you are left with the Supermarkets and WH Smith who appear not be interested.

not a suprise my local smiths (west wickam)dosnt even sell cds

 

[Alec]

I'm in Rugby. Whats HMV? Is it like hour prcyse? Or Vur-jin? I feel like ive just come from Narnia.

 

[lobby]

I agree with Professorhat, and as tv's get better and players are updated and Crts diminish. Players become cheaper and portable with most new pc's having blu-ray drives and now there only around £40, then film prices will drop, more and more will buy. The reason WHS is failing with Multi media is it's astounding prices films costing over £20.00 and dvds where priced from £11.99 to £16.99 so thats why i think many smaller stores are pulling out, can't compete with supermarkets and online shopping.

 

[Alec]

But they cost similar and more in blockbuster. but if they pulled out thatd be a major problem for the format. not that im suggesting they would.

 

[harveymt]

If people have a choice between something they'll usually pick the cheaper one. I have a PS3 and haven't really bought that many due to the price. With some titles now down to under a tenner I've recently bought a couple.

I don't know what the percentage of homes with surround sound is, but the high-def sound impressed me more than the picture. I haven't really seen to much pushing this side of things so maybe they missed a trick there?

As for the future, it'll definately pick up when supermarkets are selling them cheaply. I also think they should ensure that new players for 3D Blu-rays are compatible with 2D blu-ray discs. That way if someone upgrades to a new player they know that it's future proof and they can use the current 2D discs or DVDs should they wish.

 

[Anonymous]

My local WH Smith doesn't sell Blu Rays, nor does my local Tesco, and the little independant film rental shop near me focuses mainly on dvds. They started bringing in blu rays for some new titles (at £4 per film/ per night v £3 for the dvd), and I think they have about 10 films on blu ray. I recently asked when they would be getting a film on blu ray and they said that very few customers rented their existing blu rays, and so they were unlikely to expand their collection of them.

I therefore get blu rays from play, amazon or hmv (online/ in-store). The HMV store nearest to me is probably the bond street branch and it has loads, so no complaints on the number of titles, though the in-store prices are generally considerably higher than online, as you'd expect.

I don't think the format has failed, but dvd is still a very attractive proposition given it's price and the fact that it does a good enough job. I buy lots of TV box sets, most of which are not available on blu ray, but I do buy the latter format for all the new films released on the format. I go for dvds when they're older films and at a bargain price.

Most of my friends (early 20s) still generally buy dvds, including those with PS3s. Blu Rays still make up only a very small proportion of their purchases, if they feature at all. Most don't have dedicated blu ray players and are perfectly happy using dvd.