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Forums - Sony Discussion - BluRay struggling to take off [Article]

kabhold on 08 October 2008
theRepublic said:
kabhold said:
theRepublic said:

The vast majority of people can't even tell the difference between high and low quality sound.  That is way most people don't bring it up.

You mention that BluRay has better ease of use than DVD, please explain.  From what I know, the only ease of use benefit is the scratch resistance.

Anyone can tell the difference between high quality and low quality sound.  Hard of hearing excluded of course.

 I think what you may mean is care about quality of sound.  Which many bluray owners do.  It's all about technological enthuisasm.  Which I like :)

http://www.slate.com/id/2163508?nav=aias

"Studies have found that as long as you're using high-quality encoding software, music compressed to a bitrate of 128 kbps or more is "transparent"—in other words, most listeners can't distinguish it from CD quality."

I'll say it again.  Most people can't tell the difference between high and low quality sound.

 

First,  That's for music, not for movies.  Second, I laugh at any study of thirty people.... That's a joke.  Bit for bit sound.

Have you even heard it????



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hanafuda on 08 October 2008
shams said:
hanafuda said:
shams said:
hanafuda said:
The sound on a good Blu-ray is also significantly better than that available on DVD.

Don't really understand why that rarely gets mentioned.

Maybe Australians couldn't give a XXXX about sound quality.

I really doubt this is a selling point. It must be a tiny percentage of people who have the right equipment hooked up to take maximum advantage of DVD quality sound - let alone BluRay quality sound.

The people in my house are too lazy(?) to even turn on the stereo - just one remote click - when watching a movie. They are more than happy to settle for movie sound from the TV (rather then get full surround) - they just don't care.

Its this same attitude that makes me think BluRay will struggle to convince the mass market that its worth upgrading to. DVD had significant "ease of use" advantages over VHS - BluRay has none over DVD.

When BluRay has become the standard, people will happily blindly use it - as long as it works the same as the old DVD player did.

 

If no one cared then surround sound systems and high range TVs would not exist. Only they do. Anyway, I'm not talking about surround, I'm talking about overall sound quality. Furthermore, Blu-ray does have better ease of use than DVD. I take it you don't actually own a Blu-ray setup or you wouldn't have made such a comment. Your opinion is fine, but know where you should draw the line. Also. mod or not, you are a Sony hater, and this rather lame article is nothing more than flamebait. Why even post it if your opinion of Blu-ray is so negative??

...wow... no comment. I guess no one cares about the 2% / 5% penetration stats - as they are perceived as "negative". Any news that isn't completely positive is "hating". I guess you didn't even reads the article.

Its not that *no one* cares - its the *most* people don't care. Its the mistake you guys seem to make time, and time again.

How does BluRay have "better ease of use" than a DVD player - and we are talking "compared to DVD / VHS" (i.e. menus, no rewinding, jump to any part of the movie, infinite pause, etc)? I don't think you know what you are talking about - give me ONE real example of how BluRay actually improves the "ease of use" over DVD.

Oh - and kill the hating comments - they are unacceptable and YOU know it. Its not my problem if you can't handle the reality of the situation BluRay is in now :P

I'll get back to your points, but not until you answer one simple question:

Do you own a Blu-ray player?



PSN - hanafuda

vlad321 on 08 October 2008
naraku2099 said:
vlad321 said:
naraku2099 said:

No, it isn't. While it's an upgrade from one digital form to another, the difference isn't just the picture.

The picture's improved, yes, but so is the sound. And a great deal too. Sound goes so many levels beyond

Digital 5.1 Surround that with Blu-Ray that's the bottom of sound quality. It goes much higher in the audio quality.

The picture is crystal clear, the sound is crystal clear, and yes, there is more space on a disc. That also allows way

more things to be done with a disc, as well. DVDs have enough space to have special features, but they're usually

paper thin compared to what they have on blu-ray. Blu-ray also allows for you to make bookmarks with some releases.

You can bookmark your favorite parts of an episode, or movie, in addition to scene selection like DVDs have.

With a DVD you can select a scene if you need to go back to watching some other time, but if you have a blu-ray

you can hit play and load a bookmark to exactly where you were. The extra disc capacity also allows for different

language audio tracks and more. It simply can't be done with DVD.

 

Basically DVD version 1.5. Few more basic features and a batter picture and sound. Not nowhere near worth the price people are asking for it. Unless it dros to DVD price I don't see the need for an upgrade honestly.

 



Tag(thx fkusumot) - "Yet again I completely fail to see your point..."

HD vs Wii, PC vs HD: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93374

Why Regenerating Health is a crap game mechanic: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3986420

gamrReview's broken review scores: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4170835

 

shams on 08 October 2008
hanafuda said:

...

Oh - and kill the hating comments - they are unacceptable and YOU know it. Its not my problem if you can't handle the reality of the situation BluRay is in now :P

I'll get back to your points, but not until you answer one simple question:

Do you own a Blu-ray player?

Thought it was obvious from my previous posts - no. I barely buy DVDs (all my purchases $10AU or less), don't have a 1080p TV (1080i though), and have an upscaling DVD player that does nice 1080i output (and a USB slot at the front).

Most of my purchases revolve around entertaining others - not myself. Hence the "ease of use" thing is critical for me. Convince me that a BluRay player is significantly easier to use than a normal DVD player, and I'll consider getting one.

(our next big purchase will be *some* device that allows online movie access + playback - we have a decent enough internet connection to make this feasible. For me the "ease of use" of being able to choose one of many titles at will, outweights the benefits of physical media/disadvantages of downloadable content. My wife watches a lot more YouTube on our TV than anything else. I don't know what the device will be - maybe a 360, maybe a Tivo, maybe AppleTV thing, etc. If the Wii online movie store thing came to Australia soon and worked - we would just use that. But chances of that are zero IMO.).

 



Gesta Non Verba

Nocturnal is helping companies get cheaper game ratings in Australia:

Game Assessment website

Wii code: 2263 4706 2910 1099

Domicinator on 08 October 2008

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.




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epsilon72 on 08 October 2008
theRepublic said:
kabhold said:
theRepublic said:

The vast majority of people can't even tell the difference between high and low quality sound.  That is way most people don't bring it up.

You mention that BluRay has better ease of use than DVD, please explain.  From what I know, the only ease of use benefit is the scratch resistance.

Anyone can tell the difference between high quality and low quality sound.  Hard of hearing excluded of course.

 I think what you may mean is care about quality of sound.  Which many bluray owners do.  It's all about technological enthuisasm.  Which I like :)

http://www.slate.com/id/2163508?nav=aias

"Studies have found that as long as you're using high-quality encoding software, music compressed to a bitrate of 128 kbps or more is "transparent"—in other words, most listeners can't distinguish it from CD quality."

I'll say it again.  Most people can't tell the difference between high and low quality sound.

Well...I'm not most people.  GIMME MAH LOSSLESS!

In all seriousness, 128kbps doesn't sound downright bad...more like 'meh', at least to me.  I can hear a difference between mp3's with a higher bitrate than that and lossless, even - if I'm listening on the right speakers.  You're right though, most people probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference at even lower bitrates (lower than 128..)

 



shams on 08 October 2008

Domicinator - I'm completely with you on this, and its my experience as well. Although I'm no "true" audio/videophile - I find I'm the one pushing my friends to adopt this new tech, and explain how it all works.

The main reason we got a new TV (apart from it being a lot bigger), was for the digital tuner (clearer picture). A bonus is the "HD" tuner - but people in my household have NO idea how it works, or that we have extra channels.

I find myself constantly switching from channel 7 to channel 70 (for example) - as its almost always the same content. They look at me as if I'm mad - they ask why I did that, and I try to get them to see the difference in picture quality... they just can't see it.

BluRay is cool - it looks better, it sounds better - but its also a luxury. One that most people just don't care about.

PS - I rip all my CDs at 128kbps. Its more than good enough for me.



Gesta Non Verba

Nocturnal is helping companies get cheaper game ratings in Australia:

Game Assessment website

Wii code: 2263 4706 2910 1099

theRepublic on 09 October 2008
kabhold said:
theRepublic said:
kabhold said:
theRepublic said:

The vast majority of people can't even tell the difference between high and low quality sound.  That is way most people don't bring it up.

You mention that BluRay has better ease of use than DVD, please explain.  From what I know, the only ease of use benefit is the scratch resistance.

Anyone can tell the difference between high quality and low quality sound.  Hard of hearing excluded of course.

 I think what you may mean is care about quality of sound.  Which many bluray owners do.  It's all about technological enthuisasm.  Which I like :)

http://www.slate.com/id/2163508?nav=aias

"Studies have found that as long as you're using high-quality encoding software, music compressed to a bitrate of 128 kbps or more is "transparent"—in other words, most listeners can't distinguish it from CD quality."

I'll say it again.  Most people can't tell the difference between high and low quality sound.

 

First,  That's for music, not for movies.  Second, I laugh at any study of thirty people.... That's a joke.  Bit for bit sound.

Have you even heard it????

Sound is much more important for music, since that is all there is for music.  So I'm not sure what your point is.

That was the first link I found, I know there are other studies that say the same.



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perpride on 09 October 2008

I swear to god I think these threads will end once MS releases a Blu-Ray drive for 360.



crumas2 on 09 October 2008
perpride said:
I swear to god I think these threads will end once MS releases a Blu-Ray drive for 360.

Are you suggesting that having Blu-ray on 360 will finally make it successful?    Just kidding.

 

I don't think it will make any difference in the threads.  I will be the first in line for the new 360 Blu-ray add-on drive, but I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and pretend that Blu-ray doesn't have some major obsticles to overcome to be the dominant (or even successful) format.