BluRay struggling to take off [Article]

[Domicinator]

I would venture to say that these figures and percentages directly reflect how many movie buyers/renters actually even know what BluRay is. Much like when we went from cassette to CD, VHS to DVD is a huge improvement. No tape hiss, clearer picture, no need to rewind or fast forward, media is easier to store because it's more compact, etc. Put it this way: the benefits are so obvious that even my grandmother wanted a DVD player when they came out.

Now skip ahead to the age of HDTV and BluRay discs. HDTV is kind of the hip thing to own now, but I know very few people who even realize the benefits of HDTV. My in laws actually have 3 HDTVs. There's a 42" in their living room, a small one in their kitchen, and a small one in their bedroom. Here's the kicker: their old standard def TV is in their basement hooked up to the digital cable box, the 42" HDTV is hooked up to analog cable, and the little ones are hooked up to analog cable. I've explained to them several times that all they're doing is watching standard def TV on a really expensive flat panel. They honestly don't care and they definitely have no idea what I'm talking about.

I know several people like this. In fact, I would say 99% of the people I know who have HDTVs are just watching normal standard def TV on them, which actually looks a lot worse on an HDTV than on a standard def TV!!! So if there's a huge difference between standard TV and HDTV (there definitely is a difference and if you can't tell you probably aren't really watching in HD), and people STILL don't even care enough to set their TVs up right, why would anyone really care about BluRay?

I know in my personal experience I haven't stepped inside of a Blockbuster since OnDemand started HD pay per view rentals. I'm not a collector of movies, so I don't care if I have a big collection. I normally don't watch movies more than once. I can get my HD movies on Marketplace or on Pay Per View. There are several out there who are like me. (Again, there are several more who will just order up the standard def pay per view because they don't know the difference.) So where does that leave BluRay? I hate to say it, but I was skeptical that BluRay would take off back when they announced it. I thought HDTV had a much better chance because it was cheaper, but I was obviously wrong on that.

I guess my point is that people don't know what they have. It's considered cool to have an HDTV now, but nobody seems to actually know what their HDTV can actually do. It's cool to have a fancy cell phone with all the bells and whistles, but try asking someone with a nice phone if they can actually demonstrate any of the features besides calls and texting. They probably can't.