Blu Ray sales up.......

[dust770]

Netflix streaming in our house is great for tv shows and the occasional movie. But I limit it to things I dont feel the need to watch in my theater room. I agree that many, if not most, dont care about picture or sound. My buddy copies/pirates anything he can get his hands on, quality be damned. It could be the new Hobbit movie recorded by some guy using a camcorder in a theater and he'll watch it. He recently offered to give me a pirated copy of Iron Man 3 and I told him I'd pass. I cant think of a better way of ruining that kind of a movie than watching it with headphones from my lap top. I'll gladly wait till it releases and will buy/rent the blu ray. This kind of movie is the reason I am HT enthusiast! It will be available to stream (from apple tv) on the same day as release but due to my inferior internet I will gladly pay more to have the full Blu-Ray experience.

Sadly the majority of people do not feel this way. Fast and easy is the new way. Also estimates of 60 million blu ray players in homes don't reflect what kind of audio systems these blu ray players are hooked into. With 68% of the 120 million homes in the U.S. having an HDTV chances are likely they are all plugged into a fairly decent HDTV, but a decent audio system not so much. We (I'm speaking broadly here) in these kind of forums care about sound quite a bit but with the overwhelming number of people not giving a damn what their movie looks or sounds like we may be in trouble. Many of us here must represent the opposite of what the majority are after. I personally love taking several minutes getting my gear set up before a movie, I dont need a one button solution for my viewing.

I wonder what small percentage of people have any sort of theater room or just a surround sound receiver that is even hooked up to all speakers correctly. I always get asked to help people with their audio stuff and recently went to my in-laws and my father in law had his right and left surrounds switched, I noticed it in just a couple minutes watching scenes from Avatar. It would have driven me crazy but he didnt even care enough to fix it. People just dont care like we do!

[Gary Cook]

There are some relevant stats that might point in a direction, Australia of course, that's where I live;
dwellings with digital FTA (Free to Air) TV 93%
dwellings with subscription TV 30% (stagnant at best)
dwellings with internet connection 83%
blu ray home entertainment rental & purchase transactions 16% (new releases 26%)
Somewhat due to the stupid retail prices charged for blurays here, which will hopefully stop soon when geo blocking is made illegal.

Based on the above, streaming looks the most likely with such a high % of internet connections (compared to blu ray sales). But, there is always a but, going back to my original post it's not going to happen without basic, one button, one box, one format simplicity and overcoming the dual problems of bandwidth and file size.

Cheers
Gary

[Deleted]

Dust770 - your posts would be MUCH easier to read if you would break them up into reasonable size paragraphs...

-RW-

[dust770]

Aug 8, 2013 21:07:25 GMT -5 @rlw said:

Dust770 - your posts would be MUCH easier to read if you would break them up into reasonable size paragraphs...

-RW-

How bout now any better? That's probably the longest post I've put on here

[jevans64]

We must not leave out caps on bandwidth usage that most folks who stream content have to contend with. That is one of the reasons the quality isn't up to par with BDs. Some folks have a 20 GB monthly limit on data unless they fork over $100 or more for high-speed/high-bandwidth access. You bet your behind that the cost for internet access will go through the roof if the option to have physical media went away. Of course, physical media will only be around as long as the content providers can make a buck off of it. They HATE the idea of the consumers of their content being able to watch content multiple times for only a one-time fee -- the cost of the disc.

As far as BD penetration vs. DVD penetration. DVD was a substantial improvement over VHS in both video and audio quality AND a DVD player could just be hooked up to a regular analog TV set already present. A receiver and additional speakers were optional. The entry cost for most folks to jump to DVD was often just the player and discs. To get the full benefit of Blu Ray a new HDTV ( which were VERY expensive back in the early 2000's ) along with a lossless audio. I think a lot of folks looked at the cost of the BD player along with a new TV, receiver, and speakers against the marginal improvement in PQ/AQ and deemed the price of admission too steep to justify. Even today, there are plenty of folks happy with the quality of DVD -- even if they have an HDTV. I know plenty of folks that aren't interested in anything beyond DVD quality and streaming appeals to them because the quality is comparable to DVD and it is a bonus to stream HDX.

I've spent too much on my setup/gear to bother with ever going to a cinema again. These days I just wait for the disc and read peer reviews to decide whether to purchase the BD or not. I use streaming mainly for series since, for me, that has replaced the $130-a-month cost for TV.