Blu-Ray "Is Dead" - ZDNet Editorial

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Paul MacLean
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Re: Blu-Ray "Is Dead" - ZDNet Editorial

#16 Post by Paul MacLean »

Just stumbled upon this old thread. Interesting to consider how things turned out...

I didn't hold much hope for this format either (plus I was annoyed that the format I did chose -- HD-DVD -- got the axe!). But I guess this proves the old adage "You never know". I still have a good deal of my original DVDs, but nearly half of my collection is now Blu-ray.

Don’t expect Steve Jobs to budge from his “bag of hurt” understatement. Or Final Cut Studio support for Blu-ray. I suspect that Jobs is using his Hollywood clout from his board seat on Disney and his control of iTunes to try to talk sense to the BDA.
This does remain a sore point with me. Despite the desire of people like Steve Jobs to see physical media phased-out by downloads, that has still yet to happen. Yet Apple never included any support for Blu-ray burning into Final Cut Studio, and staunchly refused to build Blu-ray drives into their machines (today they don't even include disc drives of any kind in their machines!), nor will any Mac play a Blu-ray disc -- even when read by an external BD drive (but Apple still includes its "DVD Player" app on all its machines, but no BD player :? ).

* Recognition that consumers don’t need Blu-ray. It is a nice-to-have and must be priced accordingly.
It's funny, because over time, I noticed more and more "casual" consumers (who were anything but tech-heads or discriminating cinephiles) buying BD players.

ZDNet's Robin Harris is now taking the bold step of calling Blu-ray "dead" and "in a death spiral," saying that in 12 months the format "will be a videophile niche, not a mass market product." While it may be early in the game to make such a prediction, Harris has some good points in his screed. Among them: That after its gruesome, 18-month battle with HD DVD, no one has the energy to care about high-def players any more.
Well, I guess people ultimately did care. :lol:

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AndyDursin
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Re: Blu-Ray "Is Dead" - ZDNet Editorial

#17 Post by AndyDursin »

I'm happy Blu-Ray took off and 10 years after it's launch essentially, it has proven to be a real wise investment. These discs translate well even now to 4K upscaling and when encoded/transferred properly offer an awesome picture that streaming still cannot entirely match. The last 5 years have seen a great array of catalog titles....really awesome diversity thanks to so many small independent labels....and the library as a whole has enabled me to almost completely ditch my DVD library outside a few handful of discs. Those DVDs also don't upscale well to 4K but Blu Rays certainly do, which is another reason I was happy dumped most of my DVDs when I did (just as I dumped most of my laserdiscs way back when). I'm not sure I'm ever going to get to that point with Blu Ray because I don't see another physical format coming down the pike that's going to rival it..
4K UHD is nice and all but for catalog releases it's usage is sketchy.

Some of the criticisms about the format though in it's early years do hold true....the way they flooded the market with cheap discs in the end hurt growth to some degree, and there's never been BIG money in it, which is why so many boutique labels ended up taking care of catalog titles instead of the major studios. They didn't go about it as wisely as they should have but it's proven to be durable in spite of the missteps.

In fact with all the licensing, it's nearly been the reverse of the DVD format, which saw small indie labels like Anchor Bay licensing from major studios at the start (remember all those Disney titles they licensed?) . Once DVD took off then the studios jumped in. With Blu it's been the reverse...every studio was in at the beginning but when they saw sales were only at a certain level, they jumped out, at least as far as catalog fare goes. That said I've seen movies on Blu I never imagined would get there and even some that never even appeared on DVD!

Certainly I'm very happy with it even if the format war gave it a rocky start. I'm just not sure there's an "after" this format, which is one more reason to dive in for the stragglers who haven't adopted it yet!

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