By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sony Discussion - Sony's in a 'bag of hurt' because of Blu-ray

dreamcast210 on 02 May 2014

Mob mentality of consumers will always be the path of least resistance. And digital makes for easy access when you can buy that movie or game from the convenience of your home. People are willing to give up quality for convenience, and pay a premium for it, too. Fact of life.



Author of science fiction and other genres, I write under the pen name Desmond Shepherd. The second season of my series The Permanent Man premieres on November 11, 2014. Pre-order the season premiere The Walls Have Ears on Amazon today!

Around the Network
Burek on 02 May 2014
Arkaign said:
Audio on Netflix is god freaking awful. Amazon audio is better. I even saw that vhs Dolby is decent though. DVD is low resolution but has good audio. Bluray is superb.

As more people drop old crap TVs, bluray will continue to slowly grow. I also expect new releases to get more affordable. I think $12.99 to $16.99 will become the standard.


You are still counting on two things:

1) That people would rather pay $15ish for one movie then $10 for an entire month of films and.series just because of audio/video quality differences

2) That they won't just swap their old crap TV with a new crap TV. Heck, the bestselling TV here is a 40'' Vivax HD Ready TV Set - €199. I bet its quality is poor, but I don't see that it bothers people that much...



Kasz216 on 02 May 2014

It's pretty fascinating, you'd think the market would mostly shrink from the low end with the move to digital (in otherwords DVD).

Hasn't been so though.

I was pessimistic about BR from the start, but it's even under performed my expectations.



SvennoJ on 02 May 2014
padib said:
 

Sorry for the confusion, I meant that there is no considerable difference between a physical DVD and a DVD file on a computer when compared to the difference between a book and an e-book (easier on the eyes especially, but also possible to flip through pages with the touch, it's a completely different experience, and I personally prefer books though I'm much more of a digital kind of guy).

Oh, you are definitely right that people don't want to bother with selecting a streaming service as compared to just popping in a dvd and playing it. However, for my blu-ray disc player, it's a first generation Sony we got with our Bravia, and it takes at least 1 minute to load, if not more, while I'm crouching trying to fit the disc inside. However, all in all I think that people not wanting to bother with tech is why books are often prefered, but also why the digital delivery will improve moving forward, and will most likely become a king of the hill situation, where one provider really has all you want (much like everyone goes to google to search the web nowadays). I admit this is speculation but the point was really made to differentiate books and not to show an advantage for digital media.

As for copying a digital movie from a friend, if you actually own that movie in the first place but just lost it, it's just as legal as keeping a digital copy for backup. If you lose your backup, I believe it's perfectly legal to obtain it again from a friend as a remote backup type of solution. I'm not big on law so I'm not sure about this.

I agree about the identity theft point, and that's why I'm for digital media, but I'm hesitant of only a streaming/cloud-based solution. Bear in mind, digital doesn't only mean cloud, it can be more than that (HOPEFULLY!). I was mostly trying to say that digital is much easier to manage in terms of data recovery than physical copies. It's true that the cloud however adds another dimension of loss (or in this case theft), but it doesn't diminish the original advantage of data recovery for non-cloud digital media.

@movies not at cinema. Hey you are perfectly right on that one. I also mentioned a few exceptions of movies I'd like to have in HD quality at home. Ultimately though I think that a non-cloud downloadable version of an HD movie can become mainstream soon enough, but I'm again just speculating (or maybe hoping yet again). In the mean time BD is convenient (I have a BD player for those cases), or for the more digital people buying the movie on google play or xbox videos should be good.

I have a pretty good cinema around my house, just 10 mins away by car, and a dollar cinema if I'm not too picky on quality :) Hehe, I know my local movie theaters in Montreal because I love it.

@datacap. Oh, I meant in many places in Canada. For example, I lived 3 years in Fredericton NB, and was with BellAliant. I had an unlimited DSL connection. Here in Montreal I'm on an unlimited cable connection with Videotron. I don't think they have that option at decent rates in the US if I understood correctly.

@download centers. Honestly, I have no clue why they aren't there yet. If a company with enough leverage could make good use of a delivery system like that, it would save a huge worry I have about having all my media on the cloud out of my ownership. A certificate of digital ownership should also be provided by a company like that.

SvennoJ said:

Not redownload from the web, from the pc. It feels like downloading lol. Shitty usb.

I backed up up all my save files, the ones that were allowed to be copied. I didn't bother with an external HDD to make full system backups of a frigging console. Do you honestly do that every week or month? I have an external mirror drive for my pc, good enough I hope. I keep the important stuff (pictures, home videos) on SSD cards in a fire proof box and on a laptop for easy carry out. Yet how long do ssd cards last :/

Ahaha, usb 2.0 is the worst for large file transfers, you're right!

I personally back up my files daily so to speak, I think it's important for my work files. My setup is a constant connection to google drive or dropbox, it's my remote backup solution. I then have monthly full backups of that data (still not often enough :S I will be in trouble if either services bugs), and my digital media library I incrementally back up every month. I'm not too worried about my media because for me it's really secondary.

Wow, a fireproof vault, you are way ahead of me then!

I meant that there is no considerable difference between a physical DVD and a DVD file on a computer.

Makes sense, but I don't entirely agree though. Although box editions have become pretty spartan nowadays I still love browsing through my movie collection, resorting them when the shelves get full, or checking the artwork and extra information inside the box collections. Opening up a new case and sliding in the disc feels a lot nicer than waiting for a download or stream to begin. It's part of the ritual of movie watching for me, popping in a disc feels like a firm decision. Stick it in, start playing (and go grab a drink while the annoying mandatory screens play) check the setup and relax while the opening credits roll.
With Netflix I get distracted, too tempted to back out to the menu and see what else is on.

Copying and making back ups is a grey area. When you lose stuff you aren't automatically entitled to a free replacement.
I guess indefinitely 'lending' my dvd copy of a movie to a friend is also a grey area. I guess as along as you don't go selling the dvd and digital copies online it's fine. Or in the case of backups, don't share them ofcourse.

I used to go to the cinema a lot when I still lived in Amsterdam. Plenty state of the art cinemas and art houses around. Here in Canada I have 1 15 minutes away, the next one 35 minutes away by car. And the prices nowadays exceed that of most blu-rays. I kinda dropped off when cinemas switched to digital 2K. 35mm still had that 'warmth' and extra resolution to it, with digital I get equal or better at home.
In Amsterdam I could never compete with this experience. In rural Ontario, a shoe box is all you get.

If I didn't have a datacap I would probably subscribe to Netflix again. More so for the kids, as Netflix's interface is much nicer than my cable box's slow menus for kids on demand stuff. I would watch some documentaries and stand up comedy, and the odd tv show. It's not really missed anyway, I waste enough time on movies, HD Discovery/NatGeo and games already :)
It won't dent my movie buying. It would probably make it worse, eg I started watching True grit on tv one time, turned it off after 5 minutes and ordered the blu-ray instead.

I'm still hesitant about putting everything in the cloud. I have seen services come and go, shrinking space allowance or moving to a different system entirely. My isp has it's free storage service, but then I'm tied to my shitty isp. Most of the important digital memories are shared in the family 'cloud' anyway. A total fire won't ever be as catastrophic as it used to be with paper foto albums sitting in a drawer.
Fireproof vault, haha, it's not that great. Just a simple Sentry box for passports, birth certificates, etc, and SSD cards.



Dark_Feanor on 02 May 2014

In eigth years I never bought or watched a BluRay Disc.

I´m very happy with my cable and Netflix.



Around the Network
SvennoJ on 02 May 2014
Kasz216 said:
It's pretty fascinating, you'd think the market would mostly shrink from the low end with the move to digital (in otherwords DVD).

Hasn't been so though.

I was pessimistic about BR from the start, but it's even under performed my expectations.

It is though, blu-ray still grows, albeit far slower than DVD is declining.
http://www.digital-digest.com/blog/DVDGuy/2013/06/08/blu-ray-the-state-of-play-may-2013/
I wonder if they'll do another update this May. Blu-ray did pretty good last holiday season afaik.



sales2099 on 02 May 2014

Really is fascinating how the best quality picture is very niche and dropping off. Funny how the average consumer prides the delivery system (netflix/console on demand) rather then the quality of picture.



Xbox: Best hardware, Game Pass best value, best BC, more 1st party genres and multiplayer titles. 

 

Burek on 02 May 2014

Shadow, you talk a lot of sense. But the article in the OP even placed "blame" on us Europeans for failing to accept BD. 

And it seems that throughout the thread exist a dissonance and a slight musunderstanding between US and EU users here. So basically we are both correct, but limited to our geographic region and those differences in this case seem to be huge.



mornelithe on 02 May 2014

While it'd be pretty damaging to all companies involved, could Sony, Philips, Panasonic and Toshiba (DVD inventors) stop giving out licenses for that format? Ergo, could they force everyone to adopt Blu Ray, or...go straight digital? Just out of curiosity.



gergroy on 02 May 2014
Kasz216 said:
It's pretty fascinating, you'd think the market would mostly shrink from the low end with the move to digital (in otherwords DVD).

Hasn't been so though.

I was pessimistic about BR from the start, but it's even under performed my expectations.


It always seemed like a stopgap format to me.  Its why I never bothered to upgrade my dvd movie collection.  Its at a point now that if the blu ray doesnt come with a digital copy, i wont even buy it, because the i just dont trust the future of the blu ray format.  I can get an ultra violet copy and play it on just about everything, but blu rays i can only play on a couple of my devices...