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614 Comments
- theblueprint, on 05/01/2008, -7/+182It doesn't help that Blu-Ray movies are typically $30+.
- notcarsondaly, on 05/01/2008, -6/+171Couldn't sales be plummeting because the Blu-Ray players are ridiculously overpriced?
- rcorman, on 05/01/2008, -8/+157I think part of the reason is that quite a few consumers who are looking for HDTVs aren't buying the 50"+ TVs, but the 26-40" models because of the price. At that size, it is a lot harder to see the difference in picture quality at regular viewing distances.
- Bluenoise, on 05/01/2008, -22/+171Why pay $600 for a Blue-Ray player when i can buy $600 worth of DvDs at a slightly lower quality?
- drmangrum, on 05/01/2008, -5/+136Well, lets see.
Economy tanking: check.
Money is tight: check.
Blu-ray is a luxury most could care less about: check.
Color me not surprised. - acdcfanbill, on 05/01/2008, -11/+133or maybe they can't afford 52 in TV's :X
- SoupNoZi, on 05/01/2008, -38/+158Am I the only one who doesn't care if the quality is great or not?
- jjustice, on 05/01/2008, -41/+139Wow. Consumers clearly haven't seen Ratatouille playing on a 52+ inch plasma at the Sony Store.
- magamiako, on 05/01/2008, -2/+89People aren't wanting to spend the ridiculous prices to rebuy movies they've already seen over and over and over again. They bought new DVDs out of necessity. Their VHS players failing, the tapes losing picture quality.
Now that picture quality is digital, it's a lot harder to convince people to rebuy movies at $30/pop instead of getting the $12.99 DVD that looks almost as good (to them). - pianomahnn, on 05/01/2008, -11/+96my tube tv is awesome
- raisinbrainMMM, on 05/01/2008, -7/+84My girlfriend can't really tell High-Def from standard-def. She only notices when I point out the differences and even then it is really hard for her to notice. There are many people out there just like her. I think her vision sucks.
- jrbrewin, on 05/01/2008, -8/+83or maybe they can't afford the bluray players, since sony and other manufacturers ramped their prices up drastically after HD DVD pulled out of the market. Competition is good, and sony without peers screws us all over. get used to it.
- vdubski, on 05/01/2008, -4/+75I know of people who own Blu-Ray/HD DVD players but still have a SDTV. Makes me want to face-palm. Some consumers are just so dumb they buy it without knowing anything about it. Then they complain when they can't see a difference and bash the product.
- speedyrev, on 05/01/2008, -3/+74I was in a store the other day and a "Blue Ray" display player and HDTV were running. I looked at the connections and the player was connected to the TV with a composite cable. Everyone was oooooo'ing and ahhhhh'ing. I just laughed.
- robEstyles, on 05/01/2008, -4/+59Seriously 70% of consumers are techno-idiots. I used to work at Best Buy and you don't understand how many times you get this:
"I liked to return this 50" Plasma"
"Why"
"The Picture looks like crap"
"What do you have plugged into it"
"A VCR, and do you have an RF adapter for the PS3"
No lie - neoform, on 05/01/2008, -14/+69I can get DVDs for $6 (new).
I can also get Blu-Ray Movies for $35 (new).
Sorry, but the increased resolution is definitely not worth paying 580%. - gl77, on 05/01/2008, -6/+59...........the things you own end up owning you................
- BadseedJR, on 05/01/2008, -4/+48Maybe that's the point. On any standard TV, there's no difference. Eventually it will catch on when plasmas and LCDs are far more common.
- Hetman, on 05/01/2008, -4/+46Who didn't see this coming. The only reason Blu Ray did well is because of the ps3. Which is good because I do hope to see a game that completely utilizes a blu ray disk. However your average consumer will just stick with DVDs at least for the next 4-5 years. Especially with the way the economy is doing. Blur ray player + HD T.V. is just to expensive for your average consumer.
- thawkth, on 05/01/2008, -4/+45Summed up the situation perfectly. $600?! Assuming $20 each, that's 30 movies - or complete series box sets of Babylon 5/Buffy/Weeds and a few movies...That's a ton of hours of high quality entertainment, most of which isn't even available. Sorry, but no. DVD is more than good enough for most of us.
- ZombieKiss, on 05/01/2008, -2/+38I have to agree. I have a PS3 and like two blu ray movies, but a lot of times I find myself buying 3 to 4 regular DVDs when I originally went to buy one blu ray movie. Now I can see the difference between blu ray and regular DVD, but I just don't know i the price difference is worth the quality difference. Unless its the Matrix or some really nice special effects flick I won't bother with the hi-def hype.
- McHoffa, on 05/01/2008, -4/+37especially since the cheap tvs are all 720p
- Aristillus, on 05/01/2008, -2/+34Count me in! Look how popular YouTube videos are, and you can't claim that quality to be high. What matters to me is content. Of course it's important to be able to see what's on the screen but regular DVD is perfectly fine for me. Sure there's a difference, albeit a small one, viewing HD...but is it worth all that extra money and replacing the DVD collection I already own. A big fat NO from this viewer! It kind of reminds me of the people who'll pay gazillions for 10% better sound from a sound system. That's a niche market and likely to remain so in this economy. Ditto for Blu-Ray.
- elhaf, on 05/01/2008, -21/+51I think Blu-Ray winning was really a mistake. HD-DVD was cheaper with $100 players, whereas Blu-Ray exists almost entirely on PS3 machines, which are primarily used for gaming. Microsoft won't come out with a Blu-Ray player, and the whole thing is going to die on the vine. I don't know anyone who would buy a PS3 just to watch movies, whereas plenty of people bought HD-DVD players. Who is going to let their kid play PS3 on the 52" sony TV?
- inactive, on 05/01/2008, -5/+35its because people probably have their blu-ray players connected with RCA cables.
- LordStandley, on 05/01/2008, -1/+3020$ 75% of them are using composite cables to watch'em
- rmxz, on 05/01/2008, -4/+32The One Biggest Difference I see is that with a DVD if my kid scratches I can burn another from my backup; while with a Blu-Ray I can't yet.
That's enough to make me prefer DVDs even if they were the same price. - inactive, on 05/01/2008, -0/+28Seriously whats the point. once you have seen a movie it becomes a rerun, who cares how high resolution it is. there are only about 3 - 5 good movies a year and is it worth wasting all that money on equipment to watch them? big screen does not improve the plot.
- jankind, on 05/01/2008, -2/+30No, I don't give a ***** either.
- TheWriteGuy, on 05/01/2008, -2/+27Reasons sales are slagging (my guesses):
1) The prices are still high.
2) Technical ignorance on the part of average, non-technical consumers.
3) Limited selection (for now) of quality, popular movie titles. - intekra, on 05/01/2008, -0/+24I think most people aren't very aware.
My uncle thinks he's watching his comcast in HD quality, but he doesn't realize that he's not even watching one of the HD channels. - miko555, on 05/01/2008, -5/+29I own a 1080p 32" sharp and I can see the difference.
- SkippyDoorknob, on 05/01/2008, -5/+29Time for a new girlfriend, obviously she's defective.
- dave122, on 05/01/2008, -6/+29nope, I notice the difference, but am more than satisfied with dvd quality. If it's one of those epic movies you just can't watch on a dvd, you should have seen it in the theatre imo.
- Kerath, on 05/01/2008, -6/+29Almost everyone can tell the difference between DVDs and blu-rays side by side, but I've never even seen a side-by-side display. Most stores play terrible quality SD content on the HDTVs.
- inactive, on 05/01/2008, -11/+33and then you will buy the ***** that you don't need.
- CiXeL, on 05/01/2008, -0/+22was it made with a computer? its CGI.
- Otto, on 05/01/2008, -4/+25Even if you can tell the difference, it's not particularly significant. I mean, yes, I can see the difference between true HD and upscaled DVD, but it's not a) worth $600 for a player and $20 more per movie and b) it's not worth anything *at all* to me because I'm far more interested in the movie itself.
Once you hit that quality threshold of "good enough", then it's stupid to go beyond that level. DVDs are good enough. I don't need to see Spiderman in full HD quality. I'm not looking for the quality or level of detail, I'm watching the damn movie. - EtherGnat, on 05/01/2008, -3/+24On a 32" set from 9-10 feet they DO look the same. Even on a 40" set the two sources will look about the same from 12 feet. Most people just don't have a set large enough for their viewing distance.
- secrity, on 05/01/2008, -0/+19It is not ignorance, it is not ***** CARING.
- inactive, on 05/01/2008, -1/+20"I think her vision sucks."
Well, she is dating you. - Toffeeapple, on 05/01/2008, -7/+25Nope : )
- subxero37, on 05/01/2008, -3/+21I am a huge fan of CRTs. Sure, they're big. But their color reproduction is perfect. Also, no such thing as dead pixels. And if your expensive LCD dies and is out of warranty? It's just gone. If your CRT dies, there's most likely a single problem and it can be very easily fixed.
CRTs are still around because they are the most-perfected display technology. - truspector, on 05/01/2008, -5/+22You can get a good upscaling DVD player for ~$50 and if you don't have a 1080p TV, you will barely be able to tell the difference.
- snotrokit, on 05/01/2008, -4/+21i wonder how many here got that? I hope it was a bunch.
- ZombieKiss, on 05/01/2008, -5/+21CGI CGI CGI CGI CGI CGI CGI
- Dhalgren, on 05/01/2008, -2/+18I am more surprised that a Blu-ray player has composite out, seems pretty pointless and introduces the possiblity of mistakes like this...
- Spudster, on 05/01/2008, -1/+17There was actually a big reason to upgrade to DVD from VHS: There was a VERY noticeable increase in quality, and it didn't require people to change their existing televisions to something compatible. Blu Ray in comparison, requires quite a sizeable investment into a new television alongside all the work of replacing previous DVD libraries with Blu Ray. All of this headache for a quality difference that's rather minimal compared to the jump in quality from VHS to DVD.
I predict that by the time HD is compatible and popular enough for people to watch their movies in, people will use internet downloads, not Blu Ray, in order to watch HD movies. Face it people, the era of going to a movie store to rent a movie is dying. All it will take is another boost in internet speeds and hard drive sizes and Blu ray will be obsolete. - coit, on 05/01/2008, -3/+19Another difference is that $5 DVD movies cost $25 on BluRay.
- bigp3rm, on 05/01/2008, -2/+18The economy plays into this. People are holding onto their cash. They don't want to go out and spend extra cash on a player and movies.
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