Blu-ray beware

[Deleted User]

Thought I'd just pass this on ...

A couple of days ago, I met an American who works in the DVD industry in California and, one of the things he told me was that Blue-ray discs and players haven't taken off in the way that it had been hoped, and that companies were going to give the technology "no more than about 6 months" and if things didn't improve, they were going to give up on it.

Given the state of our respective economies, I can't see lots of people rushing off to buy them but, just in case you're offered a Blu-ray player that looks like an incredible bargain, you might want to bear this in mind. (That is, you may well get stuck with a player that you can no longer buy discs for).

(Of course, I can't guarantee this is 100% correct, but just in case ... )

emmahip

They can play DVDs anyway and most will upscale standard DVDs to show a better picture.
I'm not sorry I've got 2 blu-ray players - the price has been really good on a lot of the newer films (only a pound or two more) everyone keep buying them and they'll come down even more!!!

savemoney

I doubt they will go. Its just bad timing. It doesn't help with players still being beyond a lot of peoples reach and then charging premium prices for blue ray discs

Prices are falling, I would love one but I rather have something else like my new you a HD ready PVR as I would get much more from this than a blue ray player

I will get one next year I dont buy dvds any more for that reason as I want blue ray

wonka

I read the same thing about a month ago. The whole industry assumed that because HD-DVD gave up the battle, that Blu-Ray had won. But that's not happened. American consumers have also given BluRay the big thumbs down also, which is quite surprising.

Mind you, BluRay is not quite as revolutionary as the DVD was when that first came out. DVDs had many new features, but BluRay had only one feature - High Definition video. That is a big plus. But one big disadvantage that counts against it is the DRM protection, and a lot of consumers are dead against that. Not because they're all pirates, but because they no longer have control over their own discs...

So.... if BluRay gets ditched next year, who knows what the future holds for HD video media?

rare_uk

Well, I suppose that explains why some of the Blu-ray players are down to £99. Also if BD dies then atelast give us more download options.

Conor_3

For most people, upscaled DVD looks "good enough" which is the problem Blu-ray faces.

Darth_Marty

Its long been known that whichever format "won" that ultimately downloading/video on demand is the future.

rare_uk

Darth_Marty wrote: »

Its long been known that whichever format "won" that ultimately downloading/video on demand is the future.

At the moment it would seem there aren't many places to download films from legitimately, except VirginMedia Movies on Demand (very good), Lovefilm -(very limited in films), XBOX 360.

Are there any other places with a very good selection of films, I don't think there is yet.

Darth_Marty

hence the "ultimately".
That said with the bbc i player, the itv player, sky anytime, bt vision, and a few other "on demand" type of broadcasting we are slowly switching to a different way of watching tv. I-Tunes now has a large film and tv library, legitimate, and others will follow. Increasing broadband speeds will only aid this. Within 5 years id be surprised if any form of disk was a success.

Leopard

And how will this accommodate those who can't get or can't afford broadband?

Robin_T_Cox

The main difficulty with Blu-ray is that you can't make a back-up copy of the DVD, as you can with ordinary DVDs.