Blu-Ray prices significantly increase, no competition
Blu-ray Disc players from Samsung, Sony and Sharp are now the most expensive they have been all year, presumably because HD DVD’s exit from the high-def disc arena has removed some of Blu-ray’s pricing pressure. Although HD DVD was always seen as a distant second in the HD format war, it constantly received attention because of the lower cost of its players. Because of this, standalone Blu-ray players were not moving off store shelves very steadily. The majority of Blu-ray Disc movie purchases have to date been for consumers who own a Playstation 3, which has BD playback capabilities.
In a move to expedite HD DVD’s downfall, Blu-ray manufacturers and retailers aggressively cut prices earlier this year, to the point where it was possible to buy a standalone BD player for less than $300. Now, however, according to Pricegrabber.com’s most recent information, the average price for Blu-ray hardware is around $400, which is right around where it was last year. The players from Samsung, Sony, Sharp and Panasonic included here are the least expensive on the market and also the most widely available. LG’s BH200 is a dual format player with support for Blu-ray and HD DVD.
Within just the last two weeks, te average prices for LG’s BH200 player and Sharp’s BD-HP20U have climbed significantly. Every standlone Blu-ray-specific player in the chart above is now more expensive than it was at the beginning of the year. Ironically, although Blu-ray has been declared the winner, it is right now about the worst time to invest in a standalone Blu-ray player.
Source: Tom’s hardware
“te average prices”
its all gonna go digital anyways, bluray will be yesterday very soon
now where are all the blu ray fanbois, who yelled all year? if you cannot afford, say good bye to high def for a while. will only go down again if noone makes the purchase.
the downfall of bluray
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9877031-7.html
Anybody who takes this as a suprise is a fool.
“Although HD DVD was always seen as a distant second in the HD format war…”
And this is one of the reasons I don’t read THG…
As I had said already, SONY was, is & will always remain a bigger evil than even M$. This was al along a plan conjured up by SONY, were consumers are sadly the loser!
“prices increase, no competition”??? How about naming it competition what is between the different brands of bd players, wouldn’t that be competition?
Someone is trying to be sensational I think…
Let them try and exploit us…truth is people are simply not going to bother until the price is fair..all they will do is bring about their own downfall
lol not suprised by any of this!
can’t wait for that NME HD-VMD to hit the market.
personally I have no blu-ray, have no need or desire for blu-ray, am offended completly by the greediness of the blu-ray industry, and dare say the format war is not over at all!
I feel bad for the sods that believe that claptrack b/s sony feeds them in thinking more sales would lower the prices, or that somehow no competition in a market is good for the end user?
ultimatly, heres just one more way to easily justify pirating sonys overpriced wares.
when a movies costs more than my monthly entertainment budget, as well as many of my friends budgets, what can the blu-ray people really expect?
I wonder how costly they will make the blanks now, to punish their own customers yet again!
LOL
Down with Blu-ray!!!!!!!!!!!!
up with xvid, matroska, and HD-VMD !!!!!
@6:
Yeah, because Samsung, LG and the other 200-odd Blu-Ray consortium companies all work for Sony? Didn’t think so. Blu-Ray != Sony. Sony just had the most to lose with the PS3. Do you honestly believe HD-DVD prices wouldn’t balloon if Blu-Ray had gone down instead? Consumers were always going to lose out as soon as talks broke down between the two next-gen camps. finally they’ve all realised people don’t care enough about HD content in any form when there’s uncertainty on the technical side as well as wider economic problems.
Try to understand a topic before you start ranting about it.
Easist way buy a playstation 3, they will continually go down in price to compete with ms xbox 360
@6 try Apple.. they beat every wannabe evil around!
Samsung, Sony, Sharp, and JVC, are all the same company!
thats why none of em have ever made a decent speaker, yet think they are the best audio company on earth!
there is no actual competition here!
unless you think plymouth competes with dodge or Chrysler in the auto market!
call facts and figures “sensational” all you want!
it won’t change them!
HD-VMD is looking better and better every day, or as good as currently vaporware can.
Mike H. please enlighten us some more about how HD-DVD would have balooned in price!
LOL
because thats ususally what competition does right?
like for instance that must be why we see wal-mart prices soaring all the time right?
cuz raising prices makes you the head of an indusrty somehow?
LOL
nice rant though!
i just felt I should add that I’m sure wal-mart will raise prices once they do squeeze out all the Targets, Kohls, K-marts and thier ilk!
kinda like we now see with blu-ray, which is perty much what most were predicting once hd-dvd was bought by sony.
What do you guys think would have happened to HD-DVDs aggressive pricing should they have won this race? You would all have been shouting %&¤%#&%#TOSHIBA/#&/¤# (pardon my french) by now. Do you really think that the HD-DVD camp would have kept it’s desperate prices (in order to try to win over the leading BluRay)?
When it comes to digital disks vs memory cards and download through the net I personally think it is a fantasy to even believe that some of these can compete with optical disks in the nearest future. But it might become the next generation. But first we will have almost a “dvd” era with HD-optical discs (maybe not quite as long though). The prices for memory cards will in no way be able to compete with BluRay until Bluray has sold a massive amount of players (through PS3 etc) by which time it will be too late to conquer BluRay in the nearest future. Download from the net will for most people be too slow for the next years also. There will always be “early adopters” that will be willing to give a lot of money for other options, but the masses will decide where the filmstudios and gamemakers will focus.
As for HD-VMD….too little much too late…’nuff said.
It all boils down to volume and access to content (films/games etc).
I heard maker of Metal Gear Solid 4 even had problems fitting their game on a 50 Gb BluRay disk. How do you guys think this will be solved in the future if games continue to grow to these sizes? Download through the net? Get your game after 1 week of download? When will 50Gb memory sticks be available for a resonable price and when will the masses use these kind of technologies which in turn will make the studios and gamemakers use this kind of distribution systems?
Sony is just one of many in the BluRay camp and has been in focus due to the PS3 connection. I suggest swallowing the pride and go for BluRay as fast as you can. In that way you don’t have to be angry at yourself in a few years for sticking to DVDs to long instead of having HD BluRay movies in your bookshelves.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
PS3 is so far the cheapest Blu-ray player
Ha ha ha ha ha!
All that fuss about which hi-def medium will be the best, then the moment Sony wins, the industry gets all greedy (again) and shoots itself in the proverbial foot!
Firstly, anyone who actually wants a Blu-Ray player will buy a PS3, not some standalone player!
Secondly, just because Blu-Ray won the HD format war, that doesn’t mean that the medium will succeed in the mainstream. Take a look at Laser-discs in the 80’s (No competition, superior to VHS, but the product was a flop!), or more recently, the rise & fall of the Mini-Disc. - Personally, I still believe that there is nothing wrong with the quality of a DVD running through a decent DVD player. I certainly don’t think the difference in quality between DVDs and Blu-Ray justifies me spending a huge dollop of cash over it. There is a difference, granted, but until it is holographic, panoramic, and as sharp as natural vision, I ain’t buying into the great Blu-Ray con!
I think this is the least surprised I’ve ever been.
Wow, would be nice if these articles showed both sides of the story.
Most Blu-Ray manufactureres were selling thier players AT A LOSS to help kill of HD DVD. Now that they’re done they’re taking a profit again.
EVIL EVIL SONY! You may not have a profit! YOU ARE EVIL INCARNATE!
Oh well, this comment will probably get deleted like all the rest. How dare I contradict the poster. EVIL EVIL SEAN. I AM EVIL INCARNATE!
People are “all” buying expensive HD tv-sets now and we expect them to settle with less quality films just in order to be able to download content? I don’t think so. BluRay meets this need for better quality and with volume sales comes lower prices. Just go back in history and see what has happened before. It all costs less during competition and format war. Then it will go up a little waiting for the masses to adopt it. Then prices will go down again.
Shame on Sony for trying to make a profit. We “all” expect them to just be there at our service and work for free just like MS$, Apple, Intel etc.
If Sony doesn´t start to lower the prices in a reasonable time frame, I´m guessing Blu-Ray won’t catch on and will be displaced by the next format as soon as a reasonable and affordable one appears. HD-VMD may be on to something.
Yes..I agree….HD-VMD may be on to something but that something is not success. It will probably end up as a “standard” Chinese format or the next “big thing” in Xbox unless Microsoft is willing to swallow a few camels and go for BluRay.
Just buy a PS3, then you can play GTA4, GT5, Resident Evil 5 and watch HD movies on your 60″ Bravia. Chur to the chur.
i hate sony so much, ive been burned by minidisks and then umds. when i was in middle school i had a sony sportsman, you know the water proof yellow tape player that could flip sides without opening and had an extra headphone jack for a friend, thats the last thing i bought from sony that i didnt regret, and my ps3 is on that regret list. i will not adopt any form of high def disk, the only disk ive used over the last 2 years are the ones i burn my downloaded copies of xp and vista and call of duty 4 (thats an original), the rest has been streamed. i will build a computer with a terabyte and hdmi just so i can download the flicks and not have to adopt. f u sony.
and to number 25, without microsoft theres no blueray, they own the codecs.
So what if Bluray decreased prices of their units to beat HD-DVD?
I dont think that was a big problem over all. Overall the units were still more expensive than HD-DVD therefore the influence wasnt that high.
Also, be aware that Hd-DVD even from the beginning wasnt that popular outside USA. Even from the beginning in the european countries and Asian countries, i always saw Bluray was more popular than HD-DVD.
Its funny how everybody keeps mentioning Sony, however Sony isn’t the only people who invested into Bluray. Some people should read up before commenting, so they dont make them look dumb when they make a stupid comment, about Sony VS MS or something.
Just swallow this, and accept that it isn’t all about sales in AMERICA.
HD-VMD will never be in competition with Bluray, they simply don’t have the funds that all the companies which support Bluray has.
IMO it might succeed to be a “primary” standard for Chinese and Asian Market though. See VCD & SVCD for example.
There is also a reason why bluray won:
1. The name sounded cooler than a cheesy name like HD-DVD
2. Bluray technology is far ahead of HD-DVD technology.
Simply speaking, why settle for something old when you can get the newest thing?
As production costs get lower, then it will become more and more common. I remember me buying a 2nd generation DVD-Burner, it costed me about US$500. Look at it now, DVD burners only $30…..
I really don’t understand why as time goes on, people are more stingy. Why wont somebody buy a $400 burner now when they would 10 years ago?
Also expect to see larger disks, which can possibly be replacing backup solutions. For example a 200GB Bluray disk which TDK has apparently made.
@27
Lol you been burned by sony.
Alot of people have been burned by microsoft ever since they developed the first windows.
Bluray prices high till nov. then fall for xmas. then up again. mark my words
your articles comes from
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36428/113/
not tom’s hardware
—–
Pricewatch - Blu-ray Disc players from Samsung, Sony and Sharp are now the most expensive they have been all year, presumably because HD DVD’s exit from the high-def disc arena has removed some of Blu-ray’s pricing pressure.
Although HD DVD was always seen as a distant second in the HD format war, it constantly received attention because of the lower cost of its players. Because of this, standalone Blu-ray players were not moving off store shelves very steadily.
The majority of Blu-ray Disc movie purchases have to date been for consumers who own a Playstation 3, which has BD playback capabilities.
In a move to expedite HD DVD’s downfall, Blu-ray manufacturers and retailers aggressively cut prices earlier this year, to the point where it was possible to buy a standalone BD player for less than $300.
Image
Now, however, according to Pricegrabber.com’s most recent information, the average price for Blu-ray hardware is around $400, which is right around where it was last year. The players from Samsung, Sony, Sharp and Panasonic included here are the least expensive on the market and also the most widely available. LG’s BH200 is a dual format player with support for Blu-ray and HD DVD.
Within just the last two weeks, te average prices for LG’s BH200 player and Sharp’s BD-HP20U have climbed significantly. Every standlone Blu-ray-specific player in the chart above is now more expensive than it was at the beginning of the year.
Image
Sony’s S300 seems to have settled pretty calmly at the $400 point, despite being closer to $300 at the beginning of the year. With Sony’s PS3 at the same price point, it is hard to justify buying the standalone Blu-ray player. That goes for all the devices listed here.
By looking at these prices, it is pretty clear that the PS3 did in fact almost singlehandedly declare the winner of the format war. Another point worth noting is that all of these players will reach a certain level of obsolescence later this year, as soon as the new BD Profile is released.
Later this year, Blu-ray movies will carry a new slate of advanced features, most notable being the ability to connect to the Internet. However, none of the Blu-ray players on the market today (with the exception of the PS3) can connect online. This means that not only will they be unable to access Web-enabled features in the future but they also cannot receive firmware upgrades.
With that reality looming, it surprises me that current players are still price as high as they are, and especially that they continue to rise. Obviously they are rebounding from the HD DVD competition, but if these prices don’t come down soon, they will be forced down significantly more when the new wave of players comes out.
Meanwhile, the HD-A3 HD DVD player set a new low today, with the average Pricegrabber price at $98. It is interesting that this and other HD DVD players continue to plummet in price, because they do after all still function as DVD upconverters.
Ironically, although Blu-ray has been declared the winner, it is right now about the worst time to invest in a standalone Blu-ray player, because of the high prices and looming obsolescence. Many of the current Blu-ray manufacturers have announced new players that will support BD Profile 2.0, so my advice would be to buy a PS3 or wait for the next-gen players. In the meantime, buy a dirt cheap HD DVD player and some even cheaper HD DVD movies.
—-
and it’s not too surprising since they were selling the players at lose when they had to compete against HD-DVD. HD-DVD supporters did the same but they lost. however, if they had won the market, they would have highered their prices again.
HD-VMD is a delusion lol
Hm,
while I agree that the increase in prize is mostly due to the dead of HD-DVD as a competitor, I think that the recent dollar weakness might be partly responsible too.
GOD when will all you bloody sony fan boys learn:|
bill gates is not the only devil who wants to rule the world,,,,its howard stringer.thx alot you fan boys now you have f…. us nice and proper,Yes Its your fault.
who cares, anyone here actually buy dvd’s or bluray?
^^^Exactly, as long as i can still download for free…. i hope they charge a million dollars per movie, then I will feel LESS BAD about taking free movies!!
lol@Sony if they think people will buy BD discs when they cant afford food due to the 8 trillion housing bubble deflating.
Anything to divert people from real issues. Instead of inventing alternative fuel buy mthfkng overpriced BlueRay junk. Way to go. YOu can watch your BS movies and shows in Highest Definition possible. LOL
Ok, now that you Blue ray ranglers have got your way and the BR player is on top for the moment, just what have you given the rest of us? More expensive players and a lot more expensive dvd’s all because they can thanks to your yammering. And if we go out and buy the BR player now…in less then a year it wont matter because it will be gone and a new better format will be here and the cycle will start all over again.
So do us all a favor…next time you BR Ranglers want to say something about new hardware…KEEP YOUR FLIPPIN TRAPS SHUT YOU FLAIMING BURKS!!!!
Maybe we knew this was coming anyway but still it’s kinda lame. I don’t own blueray player and will not EVER own a br-player if the price continues to rise like this.
Waiting price to go cheaper… again.
predictable, and real step backward. this will only boost online marketing plans. and about hte guy mentione metal gear solid not fitting on 50gb, i want to see what those 50gb content is, uncompressed data on purpose perhaps? not like any real working person will say, one game plays any role in the decision to buy a console. thats all marketing bla bla. dvd prices are so cheap at the moment, there is no way that this blue ray prices cant stand up to that, no matter what quality boos they offer. most consumers will be satisfied with upscaling dvds and having more money for real needs in their pockets.
hahaha aww man what a great afternoon read
so many experts here.
the only thing i want to add to this lovely discussion is that u have to remember that companies don’t care about customers. granted it might seem like it for some companies but they only care about profits, and how to maximize them. now i’m not read up on the budget/economic issues surrounding bluray so this is just pure speculation.. but it seems to me that bluray technology has an extreme startup cost therefore making prices inflate because of the early on stages of selling. what i mean is that the machinery and technology needed to make these players must of cost alot.. therefore they need to have some high prices just so that they can get a little return. as for the prices being lower before.. well they (don’t really know who they are.. but lets call them they bluray group) were facing two choices.. lower prices giving them temporary losses but eventually consolidating there place in the market, or scratching the entire project. once they had consolidated there place in the market they obviously wanted to start making some profits.
my prediction is that if people start buying bluray tech then the prices will eventually go down once the startup costs have been paid for.
as for this whole downloading aspect.. i see that as a completely different market.
-downloading for those who want to pay less for there movies and have a quick way to purchase them yet sacrificing quality
-bluray for those who want higher quality movies to go with their much talked about and expensive higher quality tv’s.
i’m not from the states nor live there so i don’t know which market would be bigger there, however living in sweden and england i would say that the quality market would be bigger here because people have now invested so much in more expensive tv’s that they would want to use it to the full potential
Torrent+PC+HDTV = It’s all that’s needed.
once they get the mkv codec working on the 360 and ps3 screw which disc to use. i’m sticking with dvd 5s and 9s. streaming is the future anyways. so screw discs.
well i will never leave my good old divx (xvid), its only question on what kind of media ill put them. im satisfied with dvd (one layer) for about next 2 years.
Seriously, this is a torrent site….download hd/bd torrents…connect your pc to your hdtv and away you go….all you pay for is the tv and the cables. I have a geforce 7950, a dualcore 2.3 and 2gb of ram…streams 1080p mkv’s without a problem. Let the greedy shareholders of the big tech companies swallow that for a few months and the price will quickly decrease.
We don´t need BR players!!! I´m happy with my dvd and I won´t change only because Sony wants my money. Period!!
Im sticking to what i have feck sony im not paying for something i do not need
Who cares abauto BD prices: http://www.rlslog.net/category/movies/hdrip/
I just thought of something. Why not use the same idea as the console market, where the consoles are cheap and the games expensive. I think the players would get sold and spread much faster by this way
ok, so prices of older players went up. as usual
and prices of computer based players are dropping
Sony Playstation
Sony Playstation 2
Sony Playstation 3
Sony Blue-Ray
Sony Movie
Sonie Music
Sony Electronics
Sony………
time to learn Japanese guys.
@LazyLuni:
I dont know why you think downloading is about less quality? With higher bandwidth and new services its about getting the same quality in a much more flexible way. blue ray is just a storage system, why not distribute the same content in the same quality or even better (with more efficient compression) over the internet? i want to see how the blue ray group with its standards wants to implement new technology as fast as an online service could do it, once its up and running.
anyway, the customer will decide what will be the real thing. and i dont see rising blue ray prices making a lot of people interested in the technology.
The only reason Blu Ray won is because the publishers gain more from it, it has stronger DRM, it’s region locked and costs the consumer more.
HD DVD should of won.
hahaha if you read some of my older comments about this subject you will find i predicted this would happen a long @$$ f’ing time ago… and of course i was right… i’m actually suprised that blu-ray won the format war because this is Sony’s first ever format to out beat its competition, just to name a few of their failures… Beta-Max (competition to VHS), Mini-Disc (no competition but nobody bought them), Memory Stick Duo (SD cards are standard), Atrac (mp3 competition… haha wtf Sony), SDDS (competition to Dolby Digital Surround Sound… again WTF Sony)… Blu-ray fans will argue that the disc size is superior to that of HD-DVD, while that is true if you actually look at the back of any movie that is on Blu-ray and HD-DVD you will see that HD-DVD almost always has more extra features while maintaing the same 1080p resolution. People arguing that if you buy a PS3 you will get a Blu-ray player and a game system, who give a $h17 PS3 has no fun games that aren’t already available on another console, and if you want to play your old PS2 games you have to buy the more expensive one…
I don’t blame Sony for increasing the prices they are taking advantage the situation, i’m just sad it has to be at the expense of their consumers… it doesn’t make me too sad though anyone dumb enough to invest in a sony format should learn that by doing so they are going to be fu(ked sooner or later…
@55: Agreed $ony really don’t do themselves any favors.
@54: HD-DVD should HAVE won, not OF. I bet you’re one of these people who ‘brought’ something instead of ‘bought’. Learn your own language FFS.
What a nonsense! …at least no nonsense in Europe:
http://geizhals.at/eu/?phist=276824&age=91
http://geizhals.at/eu/?phist=305468&age=91
http://geizhals.at/eu/?phist=269923&age=91
http://geizhals.at/eu/?phist=282102&age=91
http://geizhals.at/eu/?phist=308625&age=91
not in any rush to buy still need a hd tv for blue ray and well thats 2-3years in the future that will happen if i dont win some money
@53
well like u said when u would download it should be a fast download or a stream, and that would require quite some bandwidth which i honestly don’t know but it doesn’t seem like the majority of the states have that kinda bandwidth required and i don’t think the people would think downloadin a movie over a whole day or so is a better way,
plus for people to play 1080 movies on their computers the majority of the people would need to upgrade their comps which adds the possiblility of getting some type of media file player harddrive connected directly to the tv, but i’d think that the price of that would be quite high aswell.
retailers set price and are ready to make profit along with there tv sales so buy a free online ps3 and get ready for $4.10 gas
@LazyLuin:
I am not saying we are there yet, but on our way, with providers creating in dense populated areas services for telephone, internet and tv over high speed lines from 50mbit upwards, including settop standalone boxes for exact that purpose. after all, the companies will need a reason to sell new products to customers.
Don’t believe everything you read.
http://www.dailytech.com/Bluray+Player+Prices+NOT+Rising/article11087.htm
I swear last weekend I saw n internal BluRay player for $179. I was surprised so I did a double take to make sure. I thought I saw wrong and it was closeout HDDVD but it wasn’t. I was hoping that meant it was going to get reasonable. I couldn’t see me ever devoting that much more money to buy disks or devote WAAYYY more HD space for crisper looking bad movies. If it was a magic player that made crappy movies good somehow I’d say it would be worth it. There aren’t that many good movies and shows. I’ve only downed a handful of HD items and it’s never really been justified. IMO all this high def stuff is just like polishing a turd. Maybe I’m just jealous that I don’t have thousands to put into watching movies and TV.
So the downfall of HD-DUD has also caused the increase in gas prices?? Get real people. The price increase has nothing to do with anything else except maybe the price of tea in China! To bad we can vote on articles. This one is obviously written lop-sided.
Here’s an idea…watch the freakin movies!
In other news, HD-DVD industry admits early exit, comes back on scene and drives Blu-Ray prices rock bottom.
Conglomeration ALWAYS loses. Sheeple need to think for yourselves and BOYCOTT!
Exactly why I have a Popcorn Hour digital streamer, screw payin for blu-ray when i can just play digital hd rips
Let us continue to leech high definition releases from torrents. It’s $400+ compared to free and whatnot…
Anyway, Sony is pushing prices up to make people buy more PS3s, which will lead them to game and buying expensive console games, and when they’re addicted they’ll buy Sony’s next gen console when it comes out, and…
blu ray is gonna be around for about 2 years. then digital downloads and the terabyte discs will take over
Like others, there was a time when I didn’t care much about high-def. I watched DVD’s on a so-so 32″ CRT. Then in late 2006 I saw for myself what the big deal was, and just had to upgrade. I really love my 52″ 1080p television and now care a great deal about HD content. So will everyone else with time. After all, older televisions are not going to last forever and pretty much every display technology sold these days is HD capable. If you’ve paid for it, then why wouldn’t you want to make use of it?
I also agree with several folks here that HD-DVD losing doesn’t necessarily equate to a win for Blu-Ray. Personally I’ve been indifferent to the format war. All that matters to me is getting all my content in HD rather than SD. I’m not a big fan of optical media for a number of reasons (frailty, drive noise, etc), but would like to see at least one good HD format prevail soon, and last for longer than DVD and VHS did. At this point I don’t really see much need to improve HD any further. Blu-Ray (and HD-DVD before it died) and any other 1080p technologies are more than good enough to meet the standard of high quality content for a great many years to come. More resolution would just be wasted. Same for audio, which is already at 7.1 and lossless.
I’ve been reading since 2000 that digital downloads were going to take over, but I have yet to see that come 100% true. I’m not sure I like the idea of DRM crippled rentals, which is what it would all end up being if we end up going that way. While I’ve never been crazy about optical media, I would still rather own a disc that I can watch at any time I want, as many times as I want, with whomever I want, anywhere I want, all for a one time (hopefully reasonable) fee.
Paid downloads and VOD, being the DRM laden rentals they will inevitably be, just won’t be able to guarantee the same things. On top of that, I do not relish the idea of having to sign up at lots of different sites, paying varying fees at each of those sites, and/or having to hunt high and low for the movies and shows that interest me. When I think of a digital download future, I see chaos. Hopefully I will be wrong should it finally come to pass.
I’ve been saving up for a dual format HD-DVD / Blu-Ray player for a year now. I had the Samsung BD-UP5000 for a short while, but it was junk IMHO. Future support was looking increasingly flaky, and there were rumors of a replacement already in the works the same month the 5000 had been released. Now that HD-DVD is dead, dual format players are likely out of the question.
I currently own the HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360, even though I knew deep down that Blu-Ray would likely win. Blockbuster had chosen to rent out HD-DVD’s back in early 2007, and the add-on seemed like a cheap no-brainer solution to getting HD content on my HDTV. I’m now waiting for a good Blu-Ray solution to come out. I want one that can bitstream all the current audio formats via HDMI and support profile 2.0 for future-proofness, but also be able to decode all those formats internally and send them out via 7.1 analog. That way I won’t need to buy a new amp seeing as mine already has 7.1 analog inputs. Sadly, all the Blu-Ray players made up until now have problems doing either (or both) of those things properly, especially when it comes to the new lossless codecs from DTS and Dolby. Properly constructed players likely won’t be available until fall of this year, which sucks, but thankfully I can download 720p x264 material in the interim thanks to RLSLOG and bittorrent.
im laughing all the way to picking up another HDD…
I don’t think blu-ray is really worth it anyway. I have a PS3 and I’ve rented some blu-ray movies, but none of them blew me away the way I was expecting. I was very disappointed with the older movies I rented, but then again I don’t know what I was expecting. The leap in quality from DVD to blu-ray is nothing like the leap from VHS to DVD was. Everything videogame and movie related costs way too much these days, so it’s great that you can just download or rent most things.
@72
I also have a PS3. I bought a full-hd (1080p) lcd-tv at the same time as the PS3 in addition to a good HDMI-cable. Then I got recent Bond film “Casino Royale” (the new one) and can say that the quality just blew me away.
After BluRay won the format war, PS3 will increase their sales because more people will see the benefit of both a gaming console and a BR-player. More PS3s means even more volume and support for BR. Increased volumes will mean cheaper production which ultimately will affect the prices to consumer in a positive way.
Whether I give my money to Sony or someone else is frankly something I couldn’t care less about as long as I get the product I expect.
I remember most of you were HAPPY when the BR/HDDVD war was ended.
I remember comment comments like…
“Finally”
“Yeah!!”
“Eat dust Toshiba” etc. etc.
Maybe some confusion about the different formats belongs to the past, BUT SEE HOW THINGS TURNED OUT.
Monopoly is NOT Good (and I am not talking about the game)
@74
In what way is this monopoly? In worst case it is oligopoly. Do you think you as a consumer would be better off with 2 formats?
Indeed…tell me how things turned out….we are 2 months after the end of the format war and there seems to be a conclusion already about what this outcome meant for us as consumers? First of all it is discussion about whether there has been a price increase at all(http://www.dailytech.com/Bluray+Player+Prices+NOT+Rising/article11087.htm).
Second: If it can be confirmed that there has been an increase do you think there would not have been a similar increase in HD-DVDs extremely aggresive pricing?
Third: thinking back in history about other introductions of other formats….what in history tells us that BluRay equipment will continue to rise in price in the months and years to come?
To me most of the critics seems to be “victims” of the “sour grapes” analogy…. It’s much to early to conclude about BluRay.