In case you didn't
get the message, Sony's due
sooner-rather-than-later
27-inch OLED is going to be priced for the Mark Cubans, Bill Gates' and other people not you of the world, at least for the next couple of years. Even with recent massive
investments, U.S. head Stan Glasgow tells CNET OLEDs in the future could be seen as a premium alternative to LCDs, but don't expect Sony to jump on smaller screens while they wait for the technology to catch up, HDTV is the focus. As for the upcoming standard def-streaming
Hancock experiment? The first of many, if things go well, while at the same time he acknowledges format war winner Blu-ray may not penetrate to the same level as DVD since "a lot of people may be happy with an
upconverting DVD player" -- which would be music to Toshiba's ears.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DEEZNUTZ @ Jul 3rd 2008 4:33PM
Quote from the Interview:
"Looking ahead, you're only just getting into Blu-ray. How do you see the future penetration of the format compared with DVD?
Glasgow: That's a good question. DVD took 10 years to really penetrate. We're now in the second year of Blu-ray. My guess is it will probably happen a little quicker in terms of penetration. The pricing is already coming down more quickly than DVD came down. I don't think it will take as long as 10 years, but I don't think it will penetrate to the same percentage because there's a couple of conflicting forces. Certainly, people that want the best picture are going to want it, without a doubt. People that are OK with upconverting DVD players, which is somewhere close to 600, 650, maybe 700 (lines of resolution)--that's not a bad picture either. So a lot of people may be happy with an upconverting DVD player. And (Blu-ray) may not turn over, it may not penetrate to the same extent, because (DVD) was such a big medium change from tape.
But I see it being the major format. It's won the war, that's done. Now it's a matter of: Can we provide an exceptional experience? Can we provide a social part? And can we involve the overall community in, let's say, designing applets and coming up with new things that we can't even think of today?"
UnnDunn @ Jul 3rd 2008 4:49PM
Sounds reasonable on the whole. At least they know what they have to do to make it appealing for the sheep who bought into it.
EQC @ Jul 4th 2008 12:20AM
"Can we provide a social part?"
Hint hint: 98% of people don't care about a "social part" to the home-theater experience. If they want to get social with it, they invite friends/family to watch in the same room. When people sit down to watch a DVD, they aren't thinking "man, I wish I could text message some strangers who are watching the same movie as me," so adding such a feature to BR isn't going to be a draw.
(Hint to self: 98% of statistics are made up, but they can still make a point and sound believeable.)
Mark @ Jul 4th 2008 4:23AM
I think in 10 years DVD regarded like VideoCDs today. BD players will be backwards compatible and so cheap that no one would bother buying DVD player. Chances are they couldn't even if they wanted to.
Grapist @ Jul 3rd 2008 5:24PM
Man I really hate the fact that you use a Patrick Bateman avatar, but constantly spout such inane bullshit.
Actually, it's pretty fitting for the character.
Mr. E @ Jul 3rd 2008 5:30PM
Did you read the article? He sees it becoming "the major format". I don't know how it can be more clear than that, regardless of whatever spin you want to try and put on it. Once again, Blu-ray does not have to replace DVD to survive. The goal in creating it was to turn around the decline in home video sales. As long as it brings in the cash, it's viable. It's doing so. End of story.
Blu-ray will be around for at least ten to fifteen years. Hell, I was just at Fry's the other day and they STILL sell blank Beta tapes.
gamedude420 @ Jul 3rd 2008 6:08PM
its already beating dvd wel dvd from the same time perod when it started out vs vhs. so its goign to bluray already owns 10% of the market. within 2 years sony will have nearly 100 million ps3 systems in stores and the ps4 will be on the way to the market. not to mention more people with standalone bluray players and maky hdtvs now come with "free" bluray players
gamedude420 @ Jul 3rd 2008 6:11PM
the ps3 is lready selling the same if not slightly better than the ps2 did from the same time peroid. its prety much the number 2 console in the rest of the world and ms is loseing steam elsewhere even in the states the ps3 is finally topping the 360 to become number 2.
Mike @ Jul 4th 2008 11:43AM
Well, 1st you can't count ps3 as a bd player when comparing to dvd player sales as if you go to digital bits it has in the notes the sales don't include dvd drives for computers and it doesn't include playstation...and the playstation sold A LOT more then ps3 ever will.
PS3 has won a couple months when certain games were released. July will be interesting given the new MS price cuts. In the end I say 360 will probably sell more units in 2008.
Rick @ Jul 3rd 2008 6:25PM
How could BRD possibly penetrate as deep as DVD when it's 3 times the cost?!!!?!? I'm so pleased to think they may have spent big to beat out Toshiba only to lose more cash in the end. They didn't win the war, they bought it. Ha!
Mark @ Jul 4th 2008 6:21AM
DVD players weren't always this cheap you know. At one time they were as expensive as BD players too and it was VHS players which were cheap.
gamedude420 @ Jul 3rd 2008 7:32PM
less than 25% of the people in the world even have internet. less
than that even have any sort of broadband. and less of the people
with broadband even have a decent down/up speed gonna be awhile
before the mass market can download 30+ gigs of a high bitrate video
with uncompressed audio at 5.1-7.1
downloads will pretty much be a great alternative for the rental market, but for buying a hard copy is always the best to have, reason what if i lose my downloaded copy, what happens when the server no longer exists, the I must re purchase. while the physical copy I can just make multiple copies or with bluray download to psp, or other portable devices or pc for a lower quality verision or rip the disk for a 1 to 1 copy
no reason to download hd lite which isnt even has good as dvd. but like i said , for rentals its fine but for purchase not so good. plus blu rays prices are dropping you can find many movies for as low as $10 now
Truth Teller @ Jul 3rd 2008 9:01PM
LMAO
The first tentative official acknowledgement Blu-ray is never going to be 'the next DVD'.
Hot on the heals of the recent news of the $3.3 Billion PS3 loss.
......and how does the PS3/Blu-ray fanboy contingent react?
Nothing to see here everybody, move along everybody
- as they then put fingers in ears, close eyes and shout 'la la la la...etc etc' as long and hard as they can.
Very funny.
I guess that must mean that the Sony guy quoted here is a secret HD DVD, Microsoft or Toshiba fanboy tho, eh?
Or maybe he's just wrong & doesn't know what he is talking about
(cos only the true believers do, right?)
LMAO
Hilarious.
The PS3/Blu-ray fanboys got bilked on a niche high margin game console format and never even got to benefit from the minute prices the HD DVD buyers enjoyed.
Amusingly, still they rage away as their smug little bubble collapses around them.
.....interesting how the verses DVD numbers have dried up
(IIRC in the places where they can still be found Blu-ray continues to underwhelm mightily - is the excuse that maybe consumers don't buy anything in the 1st 7 months of the year now)?
Yeah, of course.
That must be it. Not.
The 'gonna' format
(always gonna get better, always gonna take off sometime soon.....just like the PS3 game console itself is always on the verge of taking the number 1 slot and is always just about to get good games sometime soon)
obviously isn't.
Panther @ Jul 3rd 2008 9:07PM
Nfinity: I'm pretty sure you mentioned something about HD DVD winning the format war too. Maybe it's time to use a little windex on that crystal ball of yours?
Truth Teller @ Jul 3rd 2008 9:09PM
* quote
gamedude420
its already beating dvd wel dvd from the same time perod when it started out vs vhs.
=====================================================
Actually that is a completely untrue, a lie no less.
Blu-ray is not doing better compared to how DVD did in the same period when DVD started.
I expect the Blu-ray.com liars to be peddling that sort of myth and only the PS3/Blu-ray fanboys to continue to spout such proven BS.
This is the true situation -
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/8002/hd-DVD_outsells_blu-ray.html
Even with the massive leg-up the PS3 has given Blu-ray is trails behind DVDs starting performance
(and DVD never had the initial boost of being included from the beginning in a game console that was always bound to sell quickly in the multi-millions)
gamedude420 @ Jul 3rd 2008 9:32PM
um the ps3 is already the number 2 format everywhere in the world other than the usa, and now in the usa its already beating the 360 in sales.
i dont even own a ps3
EQC @ Jul 4th 2008 1:30AM
There are still a few problems I see with digital downloads. The first two below are totally solvable, but it would require consumers to smarten up and not buy lousy, overpriced, or DRM-ridden products. Unfortunately for many of us, there seems to be a lot of dummies out there perfectly willing to pay $15.99 for DRM'd downloads that are lower quality than DVD. Until people stop doing that, the rest of us might get stuck with these problems:
1) Downloads too often cost the same as a hard copy. Personally, I think that is lame. The digital downloads are generally lower quality and often don't even have extras. At the very least, a download means the customer is paying for bandwidth (more on that below), a blank disk (if they can burn it), plus extra time and effort, and the studio/seller doesn't have to do any packaging/disk pressing/inventory storage/etc. Unless a download can be easily burned to a disk, it generally isn't as portable as a hard copy either. There is no reason why, in my opinion, a download should not be *significantly* cheaper than a hard copy of the same or higher quality.
2) DRM can literally kill your copy. We've seen this several times with DRM'd music downloads -- when the company you bought it from goes out of business, or just changes to a new DRM scheme (like Microsoft), you lose the music/movies you paid for. Seriously...if even a major company like Microsoft can screw people over like this, why should we have faith in downloads?
Again, the above two should be easily solved...if people stopped buying overpriced, low quality, or overly DRM'd downloads.
This last problem may be a bigger issue, although it may only really be a problem in the US market and not so much in Europe and Japan:
3) Bandwidth -- more and more ISP's (in the US) are now putting bandwidth caps on their service. If people have to buy extra bandwidth to download movies, then there is a hidden cost that effectively makes your movies more expensive. Fixing this problem would require the US, as a whole, to get a coherent broadband internet policy going. But right now, the US broadband penetration, price, speed, and now capacity is pretty lacking for delivery of HD video.
MaxPower @ Jul 4th 2008 3:47AM
LOL@Nfinitiy
Gamedude420 makes a 2 line post and you accuse him of spamming while you continue to shovel your usual multi-paragraph tripe. Rich....
I'll probably get bored with this site when you and FortuneTeller stop posting.
Rabid fanboyism FTW!!
Mark @ Jul 4th 2008 4:34AM
@Nfinity spamming is where you leap onto every blu ray thread and deliver essentially the same longwinded screed about digital downloads with assorted lies about yields or whatever thrown in. A small message calling you out on your drivel does not quality as spamming. You might also help your case if you didn't make paranoid accusations that someone is a "paid marketeer" for daring to disagree with you.
MaxPower @ Jul 4th 2008 6:06AM
Just so everyone's clear: That XBox 360 GTA IV with exclusive downloadable add on content that Microsoft allegedly coughed up $50 million for was not a marketing push. Obviously.
EQC @ Jul 4th 2008 12:51AM
TT:
let me preface by saying that I don't really care about the ongoing format wars one way or another...but I do like to follow the discussion/debate and chime in now-and-again. You and NFinity keep it particularly interesting ;).
with that in mind:
- The graph in your link comparing initial DVD sales to initial HD sales only covers through 2007. I don't think sales have picked up much since then (though I don't really know), but some might say that the "format war" was still ablaze at the end of 2007, keeping many consumers uncertain and preventing them from buying.
- Also, your linked article says:
"Frankly, the math definitely favors buying HD-DVD today only to chuck it for Blu-ray two years down the road. By then Blu-ray players will all be Profile 2.0 and selling for under $100..."
and goes on to say that while many people are (as of March 2008) buying up uber-cheap HD-DVD stuff, "it is probably inevitable that they will go Blu-ray at some point"
So the article, as a whole, does seem to think that the future looks good for BR.
Mark @ Jul 4th 2008 4:48AM
Sony learnt the hard way with UMD that people don't like paying premium prices for proprietary formats that only play on a handful of devices. Or that offer sub-premium movie quality and no features. If doesn't matter how "convenient" the format is, if the quality or features are not comparable to a DVD, people will not pay more than a DVD for it. If anything UMD has more lessons to teach digital downloads than blu ray.
DVD4ME @ Jul 4th 2008 6:26AM
Hey gamedude, if only 25% of the world has internet, what percentage of the world has a HD TV , way less than that!! Lol.
I luv it when you BR fools spout stats and forget your own crock of shi" that you support is directly tied to HD TVs, DVD never had that problem, DVD is good for every TV on the planet.
I hope you feel all warm and fuzzy seeing these crap stats being spat out comparing DVD to BR, in the first few years of DVDs life, it didn't have the biggest push of all , Playstation, but that is all BR has had from the get go, by comparison , it should be MILES in front of DVD, it's not, blu ray is tanking, I couldn't be happier.
Maverick Saturn @ Jul 4th 2008 8:01AM
Anyone who has a blu-ray player in thier house now will tell you they are buying more blu-rays disks then DVD, the major reason for that now is that you can get DVD quality movies on PC through downloads. So its sometimes pointless buying them unless you intend to have the full cinematic experience, which means dolby surround sound, widescreen HD TV, blu-ray and a bag of popcorn.
Maverick Saturn @ Jul 4th 2008 8:02AM
Since my gfs dad got his blu-ray player, he's been on blockbuster.co.uk non-stop, every time I go there now, theres about 3 new movies to sit and watch. Not that I ever fully watch them :P
Truth Teller @ Jul 4th 2008 8:48AM
* quote
EQC
You and NFinity keep it particularly interesting ;).
=====================================================
Thank you.
It'd be a seriously boring world if we all thought & said the same thing. :D
************************************************************************************
* quote
EQC
with that in mind:
The graph in your link comparing initial DVD sales to initial HD sales only covers through 2007. I don't think sales have picked up much since then (though I don't really know), but some might say that the "format war" was still ablaze at the end of 2007, keeping many consumers uncertain and preventing them from buying.
=====================================================
The graph is the pertinent & really interesting bit but unfortunately it is also seemingly all we have to go on.
It does nail the lie tho that Blu-ray is doing better than DVD did at the start.
I'd say the BDAs persistent reluctance to reveal actual & substantive numbers on an on-going basis is telling us everything we need to know about how poorly Blu-ray is doing - particularly now HD DVD has gone.
We already know that the expected boost that was claimed would be the result of the supposed 'format confusion' during the format war has failed to happen.
In fact the numbers we were given were of a huge (40%?) drop in Blu-ray standalone sales.
This may possibly be because they stopped massaging & spinning the Blu-ray standalone numbers through give-away deals with certain HD TV offers.
We have also been seeing on the 'verses DVD' stats that we have been getting recently that Blu-ray sales have been low and stayed low
(even with those cherry-picked stats.......they have an in-built bias towards Blu-ray as the compare a new early adopting market with a mature DVD market; early adopting Blu-ray owners are far more inclined to buy new releases as opposed to DVD sales where everyone with any sense & patience waits a little while until prices drop).
************************************************************************************
* quote
EQC
Also, your linked article says:
"Frankly, the math definitely favors buying HD-DVD today only to chuck it for Blu-ray two years down the road. By then Blu-ray players will all be Profile 2.0 and selling for under $100..."
=====================================================
Which only shows them reverting to their own guessing games; I'd say it's best just to stick to the factual part of what they offer.
The graph is the factual bit, their speculation is just as open to error as anyone's.
On the basis of the coming recession alone (yesterdays unemployment data from the USA is tending to indicate that the recent tax rebate cheques are not stopping it happening) anyone predicting a rosy future has to be open to much questioning.
************************************************************************************
* quote
Maverick Saturn
Since my gfs dad got his blu-ray player, he's been on blockbuster.co.uk non-stop, every time I go there now, theres about 3 new movies to sit and watch. Not that I ever fully watch them :P
=====================================================
No-one is saying that there are not some people out there that are into home cinema, obviously there are.
The error is to imagine that 'most people' are
(and unfortunately for those who wanrt to make sweeping claims on this stuff 'most people' is what they have to factor in).
'Most people' will never care about things like lossless audio (and the relatively expensive kit needed to even hear it) or the outsized HD TV to make the most of it.
For the majority of people with 720p/1080i HD TVs in the 32" - 50" range upscale DVD player prices are probably as much as they are prepared to spend and Dolby prologic (or at a push Dolby Digital) is all they will ever worry about (on the cheapo satellite, centre & sub speakers that came in a deal with their HD TV).
That's the a/v mass-market and that's what Blu-ray needs to break into if it is ever to be anything beyond the niche.
Their continuing total reliance on a kids game console is no help with that either.
Blu-ray by being a high priced niche product will not mean much to the mass-market as it currently stands.
It's why HD DVD had the better potential, offering all the high-end enthusiast wanted in terms of quality and yet being cheap enough to produce to merely slot in as an evolutionary replacement for DVD (particularly with things like the Twin disc & combo).
Obviously that will never now happen.
But clearly Sony themselves are shifting to acknowledge that it will never happen for Blu-ray either now.
We can also see this attitude demonstrated by Sony in practical terms too.
They have begun (or are about to begin) a downloading service with their PS3 and their Bravia HD TVs.
Some just want to live in denial over this, even when Sony themselves are saying and acting in a manner which shows what some of us have been saying for a long time, Blu-ray won the little squabble with HD DVD but never had even a hope of making so much as a start on trying to win a war with DVD.
......and the Blu-ray fanclub never even had the benefit of the tiny prices us HD DVD owners have enjoyed
(I'm currently getting movies for £3.99 delivered = $8).
Fantastic.
JB @ Jul 4th 2008 12:33PM
Bottomline - HD DVD was cheaper hardware and movies and now we are stuck with the slow to acceptance BR
Either one would have been the same picture - so why go with BR?
Having said that - its simple only people with large HDTV are going to buy these for the picture quality anything below 46" or so in size and the picture loss becomes less and less with an upconverting DVD
Sony and the BR consortium need to realize that people will pay a premium, but not excessive and not on both the movies and players
Download is years away from matching hidef disk quality and for those people looking for great sound picture will go with BR but if you have a 46" TV with average 5.1 sound system or less - why bother at these prices?
SONY - Get the picture? (LOL) lower prices and kill DVD or be an also ran
DrXym @ Jul 4th 2008 4:21PM
Bottom line, hardware costs for Blu Ray and HD DVD were essentially the same. It just appeared cheaper because Toshiba massively subsidized their players even before the bottom fell out of the format and they went firesale cheap.
Anyway prices are getting cheaper. You will see at least one player for $200 over christmas, and likely many more next year. There is nothing especially different in the price of BD players compared to DVD at the same point in its life.
Fred @ Jul 4th 2008 1:59PM
Hold on there, Gamedude you have gone to far...lol, but your stats need to be corrected. the ps3 is nowhere near the 360. World wide it has sold 6 million less than the 360, for the week of the 28th the ps3 won worldwide by 28k, and lost in the us by 10k.
Also blu is in trouble... Sony last week stated that they have lost 3.3 billion on the PS3, stocks for them are falling, so they cannpt afford to drop prices for anything. Blu has to stay up for them to make some of their money back, and no one still knows how much Sony is losing on Blu-Ray now.
P.S. Companies do not make money on rentals, they make most of it on people buying DVD's, so if we keep renting Blu-Ray, not much profit there for them to continue Blu.