Killing Blu-ray
As you have read, I am excited by Blu-ray and I don’t think it is overhyped. I do think that Sony underestimates how HD delivery of movies on cable and satellite, in an era of larger, cheaper hard drives, will be a market-inhibiting competitor.
That said, I just caught up with the NYT’s reporting on Stan Glasgow, the president of Sony Electronics, and his recent NY media meetings (3/5). And I am in more than a little shock.
As I wrote when HD died, Sony must seize the opportunity to make this format fly. People will pay a $5 premium for the discs in return for the clear quality step up. But what is still a major factor in the way of the growth of the market into double-digit penetration is the cost of the players. (What makes PS3 the go-to player is the wireless updating of firmware, even more so than the gaming application.)
And here, Glasgow is not only crowing about controlling the market – bad press choice – but making clear that the cost of a Blu-ray player will not drop to $299 until this next Christmas!!! And that’s still too high!!!
$199 by 2009! Still too high!!!
Until they deliver a $149 player, the market will continue to limp along, even with increased and singular visibility at retailers. Discs are already being discounted on Amazon and elsewhere, both to keep up with HD discounts and to deal with the price disparity with the ever dropping retail price for regular DVDs.
And really, however threatened Sony might feel about the Chinese knock-off artists, resting on their laurels is no answer. Sony NEEDS to come up with a $150 solution – or a $250 package that comes with 10 Sony Blu-ray DVDs – by the end of THIS summer.
They don’t seem to understand the lesson of Apple and the iPod. Yes, it’s great to control the market. But Apple controlled the digital music market by creating; 1. a superior product, 2. ease of use unlike anyone had previously experienced, 3. a sense of real value, both in the somewhat pricey product and with iTunes as a lower cost alternative to overpriced CDs, 4. a range of products within 18 months of the initial release of the product so more people could join the “revolution”, and 5. access to the full value of the iTunes platform, even if your new iPod couldn’t fit everything you owned.
Sony seems committed to forcing Blu-ray on quality improvement alone. They haven’t even adapted the very clever duel format that allowed many HDs to play on regular DVD players as well, so buyers wouldn’t feel they were buying something they could only use in one machine on one TV in their homes.
What is Sony’s iPod here? The $150 single use machine that also has wifi updatability.
You have to make the product accessible enough that people who are ready to make the leap because of a movie
I saw a report on one of the tech sites or blogs that prices of players have actually gone up somewhat since HDDVD died. Not a winning formula. Word is stand-alone players will not get any lower than $299 this year, and that only by Christmas if at all. Apparently, companies will hit the lower price point by selling obsolete players, i.e., ones with the earlier firmware (1.0, 1.1) that can’t be upgraded because they won’t have internet capabilities. Excellent strategy for creating confusion and annoying customers.
The Information Week article about the increasing Blu-ray prices is here: http://tinyurl.com/2ns7pq
“The average price in January of the top 10 Blu-ray players on PriceGrabber.com, a comparison-shopping site, was $467. In February, the month Toshiba said it would no longer lead the charge for HD DVD, the average price jumped to $604.”
“They haven’t even adapted the very clever duel format that allowed many HDs to play on regular DVD players as well, so buyers wouldn’t feel they were buying something they could only use in one machine on one TV in their homes.”
Are you talking about the HD-DVD combo discs
,with the hi-def on one side and the standard-def version on the other?
I’m not sure there is much of a demand for those. If people cared enough to pay more for the hi-def aspect, then would they really want to watch the standard-def? How hard is to get up and walk to the room with the blu-ray player?
Also, according the digital bits, there have been a lot of technical problems with the combo discs.
“As you have read, I am excited by Blu-ray and I don’t think it is overhyped. I do think that Sony underestimates how HD delivery of movies on cable and satellite, in an era of larger, cheaper hard drives, will be a market-inhibiting competitor.”
Dude… how many cds do you have? If you are like me and have 4000 of them. This means that you will always be looking for storage on a hdd for all of this music.
The problem is David — and you obviously have never dealt with a library this HUGE — it’s a BITCH TO MAINTAIN. Right now I have a 500g HDD, that I will have to replace in less than a year with a TB HDD because I will have ripped more cds by that point in time. This means that I will once again have to reset Itunes, move program and user files to the new hdd, and hope everything works out fine.
Do you get the problem with your’s — and Jeremy Smith’s — hdd fantasy? It’s a bitch to maintain. It’s literally a hassle — unless these are DEDICATED HDD ATTACHED TO SOME PREPRIORITY SOFTWARE (do you really want to have to deal with a company such as TIVO for the rest of your days in terms of where you store your songs, movies, and even photos?) — to have TENS THOUSANDS OF SONGS and MOVIES on a HDD.
I will just let the lunancy about HD-DELIVERABLE content slide because it’s a more of a fantasy then myself and Natalie Portman having a serious relationship. There is simply no way in hell the US will have comparable internet speeds to the rest of the world barring a technical revoltuon. So please: spare us the whole “DELIVERABLE HD” content triffle. It would be appreciated. What would also be appreciated? You trying to manage tens of thousands of files and see if you think the world is ready for this level of shenanigans.
That aside; SONY HATES LOSING MONEY ON DEVICES. If you go back and read about their corporate strategies over the years. This will become abundantly clear to you.
What should also become clear to you at this point… SONY WANTS TO WIN THE REAL CONSOLE WAR. They want to bury the 360 (Wiis are a “baby’s toy” and Nintendo are going to screw themselves by not producing enough consoles) and do it with BLU-RAY.
So you see… BLU-RAY is going to get SONY back all of that money they blew through on the PS3 launch. Once the PS3 is the leader. The PS3 will step-aside to let the blu-ray players sell on their own. Thus letting Sony do what they have wanted to do since the very start… LET THE PS3 BE THE ESTABLISHMENT FOR BLU-RAY.
I agree with pretty much everything in the post, but dude, if you’re paying $100 for an HDMI cable, you are retarded.
monoprice.com, fool!
Eric, he’s foolish (BUFFY COMMENTS), and that’s how he’s rolling. Hell. That’s how a lot of motherfuckers roll with HDMI cables. They are convinced that they need to spend a lot of money to get optimum performance. When anyone in the home theatre biz will tell you that you do not need anything fancy unless you are going to do a run over 5ft. I almost dropped a guy at a Best Buy for his bullshit reaction to my question about his HDMI cables. Apparently fools love being seperated from their money. HUZZAH! [runs away from the less than strong finish]
Oh yeah: notice I used “almost dropped” in that above post. There’s never any reason to hit anyone. Although that motherfucker was the rudest person I have ever met in all my life.
Lot of tough talk from a guy whose only credentials seems to be that he doesn’t buy rip-off HDMI cables. There is nothing more foolish than the idea that HD content will not be available to consumers in the States in the next couple years. And it will be popular in 5-10. We don’t need a single method of delivery anymore. Companies are giving consumers options and they seem to like it.
Your argument about movie files being a bitch to handle was hilarious. Uhhh…you’re still digitizing your music. For all your complaining, you haven’t switched back to cds. You haven’t dumped the software that you are whining about. Guess there must be some kind of advantage to digital music, huh?
And “Sony hates losing money”? Usually true, but again you talk about how they blew all the money on the PS3 launch. They were losing money at $599 so imagine what they’re losing now. Not that it matters since the only goal was blu-ray victory.
IOIOI, is there a picture of you somewhere online? I really want to be able to properly visualize these stories of yours.
I put forth another worry for Blu-Ray. The fact that DVD’s only came to prominence less than 10 years ago. I remember when everyone I know what buying DVDs every week just because they were new and fun and had “special features” and these days I rarely buy DVDs (as do my friends). THe last three DVD items I’ve bought were Project Runway season 1, The Closer season 2 and Will & Grace season 4 as a birthday gift.
And now we have to have blu-ray or it’s useless? How long after blu-ray becomes popular are we going to have yet another technological advancement and mean we have to start over again?
4000 CDs = $40,000 – $80,000
whoops I made the mistake that you might have actually paid for a few of those.
sorry more like:
4000 CDs = $1000 for ipod and separate HDD
not in any rush to go blu ray myself, but i’m sure it will vaguely establish itself in the marketplace by this Christmas. It will never be the success that DVD was, but no one expected it to be. 3-5 years from now it will have a decent customer base and by then there will be some new tech just coming out, whether very immediately downloadable SD quality pics, or some new storage medium the early adopters will be all over. In the mean time, there will be a nice big selection of blu-ray, so I see no reason to be concerned.
I hate shopping at Best Buy or Circuit City. The service is ALWAYS bad. For all the class prejudice jokes that SNL make about Target, I thought they blew a great opportunity by not parodying Best Buy. All that space and hardly anyone around to help you find anything. And when you do find someone, you wish you hadn’t. An employee actually asked me who was Martin Scorsese when I went looking for that Scorsese box a few years back.
I’ve found that the best service at a chain store is Barnes & Noble. It is definitely head and shoulders above Borders.
Jimmy; Borders and Barnes and Nobles are the exact same stores. They simply switch off which store is bigger or what not depending on your area. This is why I prefer Borders to the Barnes and Nobles in my area, because the Barnes and Nobles are a bit stuffy.
Are you implying that I steal music Lockey? If you are… here’s a big FUCK and YOU to you sir. I have easily spent a ridiculous amount of money on music. This does not include emusic, mtracks, or itunes, where I have ridiculous numbers with all of those services.
Now let’s deal with another millymouthed jabrone, that wants to step up. Engage… MCWEENEY STYLE!
“Lot of tough talk from a guy whose only credentials seems to be that he doesn’t buy rip-off HDMI cables.”
No; I did not drop a guy for being a jerk-off about HDMI cables. Please note the difference.
“There is nothing more foolish than the idea that HD content will not be available to consumers in the States in the next couple years.”
It’s already available from ITUNES, but it’s compressed. We are referring to true 1080p and higher quality content. Content blu-ray provides, but takes days to freakin download.
If you would go look up internet speed rankings for the planet earth. You would notice that the US is so far behind, that we lack the speed to make TRUE DELIEVERABLE HD-CONTENT a possibility for years.
“And it will be popular in 5-10.”
It will most likely not be prevelant for 5 to 10 years. You also have no idea if people will feel as if they own something when there could be DRM involved like Itunes. Where you may have purchased it, but Itunes could one day turn off the access to your music. Do you really see these companies and conglomerates providing this DELIVERABLE CONTENT without it DRM and COMPRESSION?
“We don’t need a single method of delivery anymore. Companies are giving consumers options and they seem to like it.”
The above represents why you are talking (figuratively) out of your ass in this entire reply to me. THE ONLY REASON WE HAVE MULTIPLE DELIVERY METHODS IS… the studios make their money elsewhere. If you change the places where the studios make their money. The delivery methods will change overnight. If you do not get this simple premise. You are a bit daft. Hold on….
“Your argument about movie files being a bitch to handle was hilarious. Uhhh…you’re still digitizing your music. For all your complaining, you haven’t switched back to cds. You haven’t dumped the software that you are whining about. Guess there must be some kind of advantage to digital music, huh?”
WHAT PLANET ARE YOU LIVING ON? ARE YOU LIVING ON CRAZY PLANET? Digitizing music with loss-less audio is pretty damn awesome. It just takes forever, and I hate using CDS in my car. There’s simply too much music that I love and want to take with me, that makes carrying CDs around a hassle.
“And ‘Sony hates losing money’? Usually true, but again you talk about how they blew all the money on the PS3 launch. They were losing money at $599 so imagine what they’re losing now. Not that it matters since the only goal was blu-ray victory.”
Dude; they have broke even on the PS3s now. Please watch Webb Alert on a daily basis to get a freakin clue on random tech news. You should also not play. It does not suit you.
Jeff: imagine awesome and there you go!
It strikes me that there are two inherent flaws in thinking of Blu-Ray as some kind of savior: the market is never going to be as big as it was for DVD, and the difference between DVD and Blu-Ray isn’t nearly as noticeable or as exploitable as the difference between VHS and DVD.
I agree with the previous post 100%. People in the real world with real mortagages, gas bills, and other costs will drag their feet to spend money for another toy. That is what Blu-Ray is….a toy…a pretty toy…. but I am not dying to rebuy my library for a quality bump. I have my fair share of toys….IPOD, XM Radio, PSP player, but Blu-Ray is not one of those toys that will change my life or commute to work, or make those hours at the gym go by faster. With the exception of a few PS3 people, nobod in my office has one and it does not even come up in conversations.
If I was Sony I would start looking at ITunes and Amazon delivery system and develop a high quality portable video device. In this busy world we live in, I am surprised on how many TV episodes I watch at the gym or ITunes movies I rent for a plane ride.
People have less and less time so portable is the way to go.
I do not own a Blu-Ray player at present. Yet… by the time I return to Liberty City… I shall. Nevertheless; BLU-RAY will only be a toy for so long. Eventually DVDs will go one way. While BLU-RAY goes another. This is another one of those things that take time to flesh out.
Bennett, you watch episodes of shows at the gym? Do you actually get any working out done?
Camel, it can be done if you’re doing cardio, rather than weights. I do the same thing and it makes a world of difference. It’s the only way I can spend a full hour on an elliptical machine.
I just finished up the third season of Entourage, and now I’m working my way through Arrested Development. Love that iPod Touch.
“If I was Sony I would start looking at ITunes and Amazon delivery system and develop a high quality portable video device. In this busy world we live in, I am surprised on how many TV episodes I watch at the gym or ITunes movies I rent for a plane ride.”
They did, it’s the PSP. The new revision on it rocks, but they are lacking an ITunes style content downloader.
I have to rip all my shows, but it works.
See, I can’t watch stuff on iPods. I hate the idea of watching something on such a tiny screen.