will blue ray ever become mainstream?

Vinno · 24 May 2015 at 16:09

I can only talk about my own experience. I used to buy a lot of DVD.. a hell of a lot. Now they're all up the loft. Which kind of makes me a bit sad and disappointed that I've wasted quite a bit of money.

I really love having the physical things though, so these days I only buy things on Blu Ray which I really want to keep and watch again in the future.

In terms of almost everyone I know, they all seem to use Netflix and various other online ways of obtaining movies and shows. I can only think of one person I know who buys Blu Rays instead of streaming or downloading.

Plus I think the cost of them is disgusting for the most part. Especially new releases.

FrankJH · 24 May 2015 at 17:04

Vinno said:
Plus I think the cost of them is disgusting for the most part. Especially new releases.

I have bought a huge amount of new releases in the last 9-12 months especially - maximum Ive paid for any one of them is £13 (compared to £25 ish when BR first came out)

That's the price of a cinema ticket where I am (central London)

I really cant see how that is a disgusting price

Psycho Sonny said:
4k on the other hand i reckon it will be easily another 5-7 years before it's mainstream. we need massive improvements in broadband infrastructure which no company can afford to do as well as getting rid of DVD's.
.

No chance at all - less than 12 months after a 4k TV was released and there are already sub £1000 TV's out there. Now the price has come down, people will start buying them as replacement TV's straight away when their existing tv is no more.

There is no reason at all to go 1080p anymore unless you are going for a set smaller than 40" - and that's right now, Im sure in time there will be no price difference even at smaller screen sizes (whether there is a reason to buy one this small is irrelevant, if its cheap enough it will be bought)

ginjaninja · 24 May 2015 at 17:23

Im all for latest standards but in tvs resolution preceeds quality especially in budget....definitely want to test a sub £1000 4K tv thoroughly to check its better thana good 1080p

Psycho Sonny · 24 May 2015 at 17:38

ginjaninja said:
Im all for latest standards but in tvs resolution preceeds quality especially in budget....definitely want to test a sub £1000 4K tv thoroughly to check its better thana good 1080p

+1

i'm willing to bet my 1080P plasma against any sub £1K 4K LCD any day of the week in the picture quality department.

res is only part of the picture. I told people before who only had a budget of £300-£500 to buy a 720P panny plasma over a 1080p LCD. this was a couple of years ago. due to the fact the pros of the plasma far outweighed the 1 con of it being 720P.

the first 4K sets that came out were 30Hz or something stupid like that. it's going to take 5-7 years to get a decent 4K tv near the £1K mark that will compete with my panny plasma.

i will most likely go OLED though which will take 5-7 years to iron out most of the issues it has and i imagine there price won't be cheap and stay inflated for a good while.

Mal X · 24 May 2015 at 18:05

you must have one hell of a plasma or are a bit deluded !!!!

because nearly every single LED i've seen on 4K looks as good as my Plasma, finally, OLED looks better than a plasma already....

time is running out for the plasma, it doesn't have 4k, doesn't have a bright enough image, doesn't go above 65''

Psycho Sonny · 24 May 2015 at 18:37

there are only 2 LCD's that are any good and one of them costs £6000

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/ue65js9500-201502234012.htm

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/ue48ju7500-201504074038.htm

the other is double the cost of my plasma when new for a smaller screen

so yes i do have a very good plasma

TheVoice · 24 May 2015 at 19:42

FrankJH said:
There is no reason at all to go 1080p anymore unless you are going for a set smaller than 40" - and that's right now, Im sure in time there will be no price difference even at smaller screen sizes (whether there is a reason to buy one this small is irrelevant, if its cheap enough it will be bought)

The price difference between 1080p and 4K TVs of equivalent quality is still significant. I highly doubt my next TV will be 4K, especially when there's still not a lot to watch in 4K anyway. It's going to appeal mostly to the same people that jumped all over 3D.

MOOGLEYS · 24 May 2015 at 19:50

I'm very happy with the picture on my £600 Samsung LED and I had a 4K Sony and LG OLED before both were returned. The Samsung has a superb picture and motion. I was quiet surprised for a budget 55" tbh....

lucid · 24 May 2015 at 20:26

Nodiggidy123 said:
I've recently picked up game of thrones on blu ray and had trouble sourcing the complete set anywhere other than online.

It got me thinking. In terms on longevity say in 5-10 years time after my blue ray player has packed up. Will I be able to watch my blu rays?

Despite the lack of picture and audio quality. DVD is still much more popular. I'm a little concerned any further investment into blu ray is fruitless.

Back to the original question....

IMO for the enthusiast market then Blu-ray is definitely mainstream and has been for several years. However, I doubt it's so clear cut with the rest of the general public.

With the exception of vinyl, I believe the whole physical media market is shrinking. We are with DVD/Blu-ray where we were 5-8 years ago with music. Downloading and streaming is a far more attractive proposition for those interested in just having easy access to content. Quality is a secondary consideration. I speak with so many non-enthusiasts and the general consensus is that as long as it looks good enough then that's fine. I know several of my customers have skipped BD completely in favour of streaming. To them, access is more valuable than ownership.

What muddies the waters is backwards compatibility. All BD players also play DVDs and CDs. So while it's hard to buy a decent DVD player now that's no so important because even a cheap BD player will play DVDs too. This extends the life of the DVD format for as long as BD players are available. When Ultra HD Blu-ray players become available then they'll also be backwards compatible with previous 12cm disc formats too. So worrying about whether BDs will be playable in the future needn't really be a major concern.

As to whether BD will surpass DVD, probably it will at some point in the future. But that might be because DVD gets harder to source rather than because of the market for BD growing.

Grimley · 24 May 2015 at 20:54

lucid said:
As to whether BD will surpass DVD, probably it will at some point in the future. But that might be because DVD gets harder to source rather than because of the market for BD growing.

There could be also that discs at some point in the future may be uneconomical to manufacture? Hollywood seems paranoid to the extent now where the next gen disc may well have to 'phone home' & can only play back on one player once registered. There's rumours about it on a couple of the overseas AV enthusiasts sites, no idea if they are true, I'm sure you know more about it than me Lucid.

If it does happen to be true, then it will kill off the disc format for good IMO, Reasons being:

You can't sell on or loan out a disc to someone else.

Your disc collection will become a set of coasters once the player goes wrong (unless there is some sort of procedure to re-register)

TBH I'm getting a bit fed up with this Hollywood paranoia over Piracy. I'm no pirate, but I have ripped my collection onto Storage for convenience & have no intention of sharing it with anyone else over the internet.

Mal X · 24 May 2015 at 21:20

MOOGLEYS said:
I'm very happy with the picture on my £600 Samsung LED and I had a 4K Sony and LG OLED before both were returned. The Samsung has a superb picture and motion. I was quiet surprised for a budget 55" tbh....

the sammy gets a great review i'm interested in the UE75HU7500, but it's very hard to make my mind up

MOOGLEYS · 24 May 2015 at 21:40

The piracy warnings and forced adverts really get on my nerves. I no longer watch Blu-Rays from disc I just rip them to my server and watch from there. They will never stop piracy but force paying customers to sit through the crap. It's ironic that you buy the disc and have to sit through warnings of prison if you pirate the disc but the Pirate version is completely add & warning free.....

Rant over....

lucid · 24 May 2015 at 22:14

Grimley said:
There could be also that discs at some point in the future may be uneconomical to manufacture? Hollywood seems paranoid to the extent now where the next gen disc may well have to 'phone home' & can only play back on one player once registered. There's rumours about it on a couple of the overseas AV enthusiasts sites, no idea if they are true

I'd agree about the paranoia. Slowly but surely the old men in the corporate boardrooms with their legions of lawyers are strangling the life out of home media. The more tightly they try to hold on then the more they force consumers to find other avenues of access. Macrovision, regional coding, cineva and future ideas about restricting playback; it's all anachronistic 20th Century thinking that no longer has a place in the modern world. But they won't listen.

Macky · 24 May 2015 at 23:19

Surely it isn't possible for anyone to change the way how a blu-ray/dvd works and make it 'phone home' per say? It's a piece of plastic and you could play it on an offline player. Edit - ah the next gen disc.. didn't see that part.

Caged · 25 May 2015 at 00:36

Blu-ray would be a lot more successful in my view if UK TV series weren't essentially DVD-only. Inside No. 9, The Hour, Luther, Black Mirror - all of them I had to get off iTunes because the BBC and Channel 4 seem to not know that the HD formats exist, or don't want to spend the money required to press them.

ethan · 25 May 2015 at 00:36

Uriel said:
Blu ray needs one of 2 things to be mainstream.

One would be make it extremely cheap. The other would be widespread high Street rental outlets.

This but I don't see it happening any time soon since stores are making way too much profit from dvds in relation to blu rays.

Vinno · 25 May 2015 at 03:00

FrankJH said:
I have bought a huge amount of new releases in the last 9-12 months especially - maximum Ive paid for any one of them is £13 (compared to £25 ish when BR first came out)

Ok fair enough, I haven't looked at them in a while. I still think the price is a little high for buying any old movie/show. But like I said in my post, I'd be more than willing to pay for that for special things which I'd like to keep forever.

theone8181 · 25 May 2015 at 08:45

Caged said:
Blu-ray would be a lot more successful in my view if UK TV series weren't essentially DVD-only. Inside No. 9, The Hour, Luther, Black Mirror - all of them I had to get off iTunes because the BBC and Channel 4 seem to not know that the HD formats exist, or don't want to spend the money required to press them.

The daft thing is, i watch luthor(or is it luther) and im sure its actually in HD.

GAC · 25 May 2015 at 09:37

theone8181 said:
The daft thing is, i watch luthor(or is it luther) and im sure its actually in HD.

you do ?

what flavour of hd you talking about as i have a major grip with sky and the bbc and their ideas of what hd is. god help us with whatever they turn out as 4k in a year or two.

ChrisD. · 25 May 2015 at 09:52

I'm with GAC on this one. Sky HD is pretty poor, worst thing about my OLED LG is that it is not kind on poor sources and most of the time Sky HD looks so bad! Game of Thrones is a great example, it looked so bad I had to check I was watching it in 'HD'.

Can't beat a Blu Ray (or rip).