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

kabhold on 08 October 2008
theRepublic 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??

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 :)



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theRepublic on 08 October 2008
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.



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DMeisterJ on 08 October 2008

Looks like Microsoft disagrees.



naraku2099 on 08 October 2008

"However, Blu-ray's improvements over DVD are less pronounced and largely limited to a noticeable but far from extreme increase in picture quality, provided a big screen HDTV is used."

 

Clearly whomever wrote this watched a badly made blu-ray on a 20 inch 720p HDTV.

I have a 40-inch Sony Bravia 1080p HDTV and the picture is not just "noticeable", it's incredible.

I haven't had one person who was not simply amazed at the difference from a DVD. DVD picture is extremely inferior,

has bad color, bad contrast, blurry picture and often sound that never before did I notice was so awful.

Blu-Ray is a LARGER jump in advances than VHS to DVD was. The reason it hasn't gotten a hold on the

DVD market is because 1. It's more expensive 2. People realize you can't take full advantage without

an HDTV 3. People don't want to spend money to replace DVDs.

Alot of people don't realize how much more affordable Blu-Ray Discs, players and HDTVs have become

compared with when they first came out. Example: My brother bought a 32 inch 720p HDTV for less than $800.

Standalone Blu-Ray Players have gone down in price drastically. They're still higher than DVD players, but

you can pick up a good one for $200. As For Blu-Ray Discs, if you buy them off of eBay, the Amazon marketplace

and other places on the internet, you can find Blu-Rays for $19.99, new. I've even seen new Blu-Ray Discs

at retail stores for $14.99.



vlad321 on 08 October 2008
naraku2099 said:

"However, Blu-ray's improvements over DVD are less pronounced and largely limited to a noticeable but far from extreme increase in picture quality, provided a big screen HDTV is used."

 

Clearly whomever wrote this watched a badly made blu-ray on a 20 inch 720p HDTV.

I have a 40-inch Sony Bravia 1080p HDTV and the picture is not just "noticeable", it's incredible.

I haven't had one person who was not simply amazed at the difference from a DVD. DVD picture is extremely inferior,

has bad color, bad contrast, blurry picture and often sound that never before did I notice was so awful.

Blu-Ray is a LARGER jump in advances than VHS to DVD was. The reason it hasn't gotten a hold on the

DVD market is because 1. It's more expensive 2. People realize you can't take full advantage without

an HDTV 3. People don't want to spend money to replace DVDs.

Alot of people don't realize how much more affordable Blu-Ray Discs, players and HDTVs have become

compared with when they first came out. Example: My brother bought a 32 inch 720p HDTV for less than $800.

Standalone Blu-Ray Players have gone down in price drastically. They're still higher than DVD players, but

you can pick up a good one for $200. As For Blu-Ray Discs, if you buy them off of eBay, the Amazon marketplace

and other places on the internet, you can find Blu-Rays for $19.99, new. I've even seen new Blu-Ray Discs

at retail stores for $14.99.

And in the end it's just an improvement over the quality of picture. That's not really a great jump in advancement at all, the jump between VHS and DVD was much more thana a clearer picture between the two. It was ease of use, ease of production, and the fact DVDs evetually made it as a staple to the computers where you could back up large amounts of data. The jump between DVD and bluray is just a better picture and more storage, big whoop. I think hardrives are like 14 cents a gig nowadays....

 



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Kasz216 on 08 October 2008
FinalEvangelion said:
Bodhesatva said:

I'll be honest: this fight has been spun so many ways that I'm honestly not sure what to believe now. I've seen (seemingly) convincing evidence that Blu Ray is doing quite well: I've seen evidence like this that (seemingly) convinces me otherwise. Way too much spin. I'll just wait and see what happens. I have an HDTV and Blu Ray player already, so I can absolutely promise that I will not be buying either during this recession.

 

I'm with you on this.  Maybe it's somewhere between being a smashing success and a complete failure.  Unfortunately, people don't want to settle for something "between" and journalists will spin the facts to support their claim based on how much they like or hate Sony.

That's the best way to put it.  It's on the precipise right now.

Whether it succeeds or fails is in the balance... however i don't think it has to do with like or dislike with sony so much as it does how much the person has to make off it being successful.  Those who have a lot to gain from it spin it as successful (and those that care a lot.).

Those who don't have anything to gain, see data that says otherwise then assumes it must be even worse for the people to spin something so much one way.



DMeisterJ on 08 October 2008

Iron Man seems to disagree too...



naraku2099 on 08 October 2008
vlad321 said:
naraku2099 said:

"However, Blu-ray's improvements over DVD are less pronounced and largely limited to a noticeable but far from extreme increase in picture quality, provided a big screen HDTV is used."

 

Clearly whomever wrote this watched a badly made blu-ray on a 20 inch 720p HDTV.

I have a 40-inch Sony Bravia 1080p HDTV and the picture is not just "noticeable", it's incredible.

I haven't had one person who was not simply amazed at the difference from a DVD. DVD picture is extremely inferior,

has bad color, bad contrast, blurry picture and often sound that never before did I notice was so awful.

Blu-Ray is a LARGER jump in advances than VHS to DVD was. The reason it hasn't gotten a hold on the

DVD market is because 1. It's more expensive 2. People realize you can't take full advantage without

an HDTV 3. People don't want to spend money to replace DVDs.

Alot of people don't realize how much more affordable Blu-Ray Discs, players and HDTVs have become

compared with when they first came out. Example: My brother bought a 32 inch 720p HDTV for less than $800.

Standalone Blu-Ray Players have gone down in price drastically. They're still higher than DVD players, but

you can pick up a good one for $200. As For Blu-Ray Discs, if you buy them off of eBay, the Amazon marketplace

and other places on the internet, you can find Blu-Rays for $19.99, new. I've even seen new Blu-Ray Discs

at retail stores for $14.99.

And in the end it's just an improvement over the quality of picture. That's not really a great jump in advancement at all, the jump between VHS and DVD was much more thana a clearer picture between the two. It was ease of use, ease of production, and the fact DVDs evetually made it as a staple to the computers where you could back up large amounts of data. The jump between DVD and bluray is just a better picture and more storage, big whoop. I think hardrives are like 14 cents a gig nowadays....

 

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.

 



shams on 08 October 2008
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



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blazinhead89 on 08 October 2008
makingmusic476 said:
shams said:

"The shift from VHS to DVD a decade ago offered tangible benefits such as significantly improved picture quality and the ability to skip instantly to any scene of the film. However, Blu-ray's improvements over DVD are less pronounced and largely limited to a noticeable but far from extreme increase in picture quality, provided a big screen HDTV is used."

 

I've always disliked this line of reasoning.  While yes, there is less of an incentive to upgrade to Blu-Ray from DVD like there was to upgrade to DVD from VHS, it's also much EASIER to ugprade to Blu-Ray from DVD than it was going to DVD from VHS.

When you buy a Blu-Ray player, all your DVDs will play in the machine, and they'll all look better because of it, due to upscaling.  When you bought a DVD player back in 1998, it made all your VHS tapes obsolete, unless you kept both players around (which many people did).  It also did nothing to increase the quality of the movies you already owned.

In a few years, standalone Blu-Ray players will have dropped to or past the $100 mark.  At this point in time, what will keep people from buying a Blu-Ray player over a regular old DVD player?  Hell, manufacturers could just advertise it as a DVD player, and the few uninformed consumers left would never be the wiser.

Blu-Ray drives will probably end up like DVD drives for PCs today.  They can play practically everything, including obscure formats like DVD-Ram, but that's just about all they make, because it's cheaper for manufacturers to focus on 1-2 SKUs.  That's just what you buy.  You don't track down a CD drive for your PC if you have no interest in playing DVDs.  You just buy the DVD drive.


Well Said MakingMusic