Poll: Are $200 Blu-ray players cheap enough for you?
By Darren Murph 
posted Sep 27th 2008 12:00PM
posted Sep 27th 2008 12:00PM
[Image courtesy of Electronic House]
posted Sep 27th 2008 12:00PM
The amount of electronics thrown away rather than recycled in 2007.
The EPA reports that 82% of electronics disposal in 2007 ended up in the garbage (mostly landfills) rather than a recycling center. (source: EPA, July 2008)
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
If I had known the Sony BDP-S350 would be selling for $253 on Amazon, I might've gone that route, but I was able to score a refurbished 60GB PS3 on eBay for $355 with free shipping, so it's all good.
It needs to be fixed first. I really don't see a lot of point in investing in the format with:
- "Good enough" online downloads around the corner
- Decent HD on my DVR and movie channels for new releases (yes, I know it's not BD quality, but it's good enough.)
- No compatibility with the rest of my players such as my laptop's DVD drive
Now, if it can be modified to be compelling just as DVD was over VHS. But you have to do more than just reduce the price of players.
Of course, many people on Engadget HD will buy a BD player anyway, because it's the only HD format. And that's fine and all, but I'm just not seeing it as fulfilling the value proposition for me.
"- No compatibility with the rest of my players such as my laptop's DVD drive"
Then it wouldn't be a new format, would it?
If incompatibility kept people from buying stuff, we'd all still be using record players.
HD DVD had combo disks.
Like I said, it can be modified to be compelling like DVD was over VHS (in which case, backwards compatibility wouldn't be so important), but as it stands now: nope. I'm going to hold off and see how downloads work out.
HD-DVD had combo Disc????
thats your rebuttal to that???
REALLY????
Come on guy........
HD-DVD had Combo Disc and NO ONE BOUGHT THEM........why??? because it wasnt worth it.........
Thats why Warner Bros. never released thos "Total HD" disc with Blu-ray on one side and HD-DVD on the other.......it wasnt worth it......
HD Downloads are STILL a ways off from being a MASS selling point to anyone with less than a 100MBs connection........why?? because it takes TOO long to download movies......not to mention companies like Comcast putting caps on bandwidth.......
then to the "Good Enough" HD rentals from your cable provider........if you like the occasional bad connection that occurs with some cable providers go ahead.....Time Warner sucks in my area, not to mention I'll be damn id I pay $4-5 to PER movie when I get 4 movies out at a time thru Netflix for $25 or a month........
Point blank Blu-ray isnt FOR everybody........hell if it wasnt for my PS3 I wouldnt have a BD player because a stand alone BD player just isnt worth it to me right now. hell for that matter I would prolly not have my 46" Sharp if I aint have my PS3 either........but thats neither hear nor there........point blank Blu-ray is a Big enough change from DVD to justify it being purchased WHEN 2.0 players are @ $200 or less........you get WAAAAAAAAAAY more features on a BD than a Digital Download or a Rented movie thru cable.
oh and back to the not working with your DVD laptop drive.........ya know the cost of BD drives are coming down.....and although I dont see it being STANDARD on ALL Laptops any time soon........5+ years ago DVD drives were considered a LUXURY on Laptops.......did you say the same thing about DVDs not playing on your CD drive???
Hey chief, how long did you hold out on getting a DVD-Rom drive to replace your CD-Rom on your laptop? Hmmm? Go out and buy a blu-ray drive for your laptop or PC and then you have your compatibility.
It's pretty lame to claim blu ray is too much of an investment when a viable alternative still doesn't exist. And no, VOD is not a viable alternative. Neither is it "good enough" if you actually want to own your movies rather than rent them or have them subject to the whims and mercies of some cable provider. Once industry adopts a common digital format (with DRM or without) that allows people to buy to own from a variety of stores and play from a variety of devices with reasonable fair use THEN you might have a point. But not now.
As for the DVD laptop comment. that is just lame really. Why not moan that your laptop doesn't have enough to space to hold more than a handful of 5Gb downloads while you're at it? Besides BD drives are fairly affordable and becoming more common in desktops and laptops. I'll add that since you claim AACS and BD+ to be useless it should be fairly trivial to rip unprotected movies for your travels if you so desire.
@DrXym........was there a VIA Alternative to Laser Disc, VHS, or DVD?????
VHS yea there was.........BETAMAX........and it lost out........much like HD-DVD did.........
Multiple formats or ALTERNATIVES do nothing but confuse consumers........
The Aggie CEO: I stopped reading your rant after you claimed nobody bought combo disks. Sorry, but I never cease to be amazed by the hate-on Blutards have for HD DVD.
JimC: Laptop drive options tend to be unchanged from when you buy the laptop. I seriously doubt a Blu-ray drive is coming soon that'll be compatible with mine, and even if one does, I see little point in buying it. You have a chicken and egg situation here. There's no point in my buying Blu-ray discs without Blu-ray players, and there's no point in my buying Blu-ray players and drives if I'm not going to buy Blu-ray discs.
DrXym - yawn. There were no HD options at all three years ago. I saw nobody keel over and die. And there are HD download options right now, I just don't particularly like the available selection.
As I said, I'm going to wait for a viable option. Blu-ray is a lot of money for a lot of nothing. There's nothing compelling about the format, certainly nothing worth spending a fortune upgrading my entire infrastructure for. I just don't see myself ever wanting it, and I'm certainly not going to spend thousands right now just to get a technology that I see as being superceded by options I actually want in the near future.
Meanwhile, HD downloads are becoming more and more viable. And I can watch new releases in glorious HD and even store them semi-permanently by subscribing to HD movie channels and using an HD DVR.
What I hope is that they'll fix Blu-ray. It's not impossible, it just takes guts to accept the format isn't perfect. And it also means ignoring idiots who think Blu-ray is perfect. What it probably takes is for Blu-ray's cheerleaders to start acknowledging that no, it isn't perfect, and it can be improved. But with people like you, and Engadget HD's bizarre head-in-the-sand we'll-lie-cheat-and-libel-to-promote-BD approach, I don't think they're going to, and I see even less chance of the technology ever becoming something I want than ever.
Keep making Blu-ray suck Blutards. Everyone loses that way.
ROFLMA@ @ "Blutards"
thats hiallarious........
HD Downloads dont have NEARLY as many features as BD does........I mean SURE there may be SOME 7.1 downloadable content but as for having MULTIPLE Languages and subtitles........are they there??? can you look @ Behind the Scenes content??? I mean that may be things that dont matter to you. but I'm the guy that always bought the Multiple disc Limited edition version of a DVD when it was released.....I love extra content......so yea I spent $25+ sometime ON DVDs, THATS why its no biggie for me on BD movies.....even tho I havent paid more than $24 on any of the 45+ BD Movies that I have.....
and as for you not wanting to spend THOUSAND to upgrade your infrastructure.........I spent $400 for my PS3(Best BD Player out for the money last fall) and got a BD 6x Writer drive for around $280.....I didnt spend THOUSANDS........point blank if you are not open to something because you didnt give it a chance you will never see the good in it. I am Open to HD Downloads IF I can burn them for backup purposes(have a hard Copy), if they include more in the file such as extra content and subtiles, etc. and I can get a Broadband connection like people in Switzerland. until them I'm content with what I have
@squiggleslash
"- No compatibility with the rest of my players such as my laptop's DVD drive"
That's not "broken" though. If that's so important to you, you either should upgrade the drive in your laptop, add an external blu-ray drive, or buy a new laptop with blu-ray. I know, these don't sound like good alternatives. And unless you're buying a blu-ray disc burner, IMO, it makes no sense to get blu-ray on a PC/Laptop... I personally don't see much utility in watching blu-ray movies on a PC.
This wasn't a feature that excluded HD DVD though. HD DVD discs didn't work in your laptop's DVD drive. Sure the combo discs did but out of 23 HD DVDs I own, only 4 are combos; 2 titles I own happen to be in both combo/non combo form (300).
Combo discs had limited availability and as it was implemented, it was a net negative for the format. Flipper discs that had far more reliability & playback issues and cost more made it a disadvantage.
What total BS. Digital downloads "good enough" and "around the corner". Digital dowloads that are good enough (i.e. BD quality) is NOT around the corner.
This is bviously yet another disgruntled HD-DVD fan that can not get over the fact that his format lost so now he has to join the quire of BS'ers.
Sigh !!!
The point Squiggleslash is that Blu Ray is here now, it's affordable, the target audience of HD owners is there and there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to hold out for the sake of a $200 player. People who have splashed out for an HD TV *wouldn't* hold out for a $200 player. Your arguments about downloads are basically diluted Nfinity rants and don't make any sense, especially to anyone who likes to own their content.
If you absolutely must have digital movies, rip the disks or content yourself with rentals and the bandwidth whims of your ISP. You yourself claim AACS and BD+ aren't worth anything so what is the issue you have with people buying into the format I wonder? If you don't like physical then back up your disks as .iso files and play them off the HDD, or transcode them down to a smaller size.
I don't need them to get cheaper.
They need to get better. Fast.
Examples: load time as fast as DVD, no interminable copy protect delays, previews only off the menu (never forced or default). Most folks don't want to wait 5 minutes for the movie to start.
@kcmurphy88 :You DO Realize that SOME DVDs had PREVIEWS as SOON as you start the DVD right???
ESPECIALLY DISNEY DVDs.........
not ALL BD Movies have previews at the begging like that and not ALL take a few seconds to load......
There are some excellent players and some bad players. That's what happens when over a dozen companies implement a standard and sell products at various pricepoints. The moral is to research before buying.
I know I am the minority, but with FIOS (I have a 15mb/15mb) downloading HD content for Rent on my HD tv is plenty fast. I just don't want to organize things manually anymore.
I want my movies like how I have my music. I like a song, I can browse the artists (actors/director/writer for movie) stuff, then just purchase it right then and there. No waiting, no going through a bookshelf of Blue-Ray DVDs I payed $30 to search for what I want.
If I could buy HD movies from my AppleTV (yes, I know, DRM...I don't care. Dude, look at your VHS collection, it is useless....If worst case scenario is that the movies I buy now might not work in 10 years, I can deal with that) I would never even think twice about buying Blue-Ray. The only reason for me to consider it now is that I like things QUICK...And AppleTV only has HD for rent, not by, so when a new movie comes (Like Iron Man), I don't mind plopping the money down to buy it (rather then just rent)...
My VCR still works and I still buy an occasional VHS movie off of eBay. Also, VCR's are still being made so you can't really call the VHS format obsolete directly or indirectly.
@Greg thats like saying a '78 Pinto isnt obsolete because you can get new parts for it.........
nope once it goes down to around $100 ill get one i have no reason to pick one up right now
Right there with you.. though if i saw 1 for $120 I would get it... and I think 2 or 3 movies would justify about $150
The Blu-ray discs cost $25-35! If you can't afford a $500 Blu-ray play you're probably not going to be able to have much of a collection anyway. The counter point could be Netflix, but I still think that if you can't afford a $200 Blu-ray player you shouldn't be spending money on Netflix.
Well, brand new first week Blu-rays are a bit expensive, but much like their DVD counterparts they can be bought used for a pretty big markdown.
Amazon has most Blu-rays used for 11-15 dollars(that's WITH shipping) and some are as low as 5 dollars+ shipping (I saw Night at the Museum for 5.21 + 2.98 shipping) which I don't see as highway robbery prices, especially when you know the Blu-rays have a hard coating that means the disc is probably still in great condition.
As time goes on and more players are sold the outlets to get used blu-rays on the cheap ( I know a guy that picks them up at Pawnshops for about 5-8 bucks each already) will grow and the prices are slowly coming down.
I think it's strange I hear people bitch about how they won't pay a higher price like they are some savy buyer, but seem only willing to go to a big Brand B&M store and pay effectively top dollar for whatever they want.
If you really want something cheaper use your brain a bit, you might find you can get what you want cheaper with the same quality than just being a lazy consumer sheep.
If I didn't already own a ps3, a $200 profile 2.0 player would drag me into the format. If I were familiar with the format to realize that profile 2.0 offers suck and there's no end in sight to the amount of crap that studios will offer us as "online features" I'd find a 1.1 player acceptable for roughly the same price.
Given that I own a ps3 but haven't found an acceptable solution to the remote control situation (own a harmony remote, dont have ir2bt yet) I might plunk down for a blu-ray player after all but I'd want a 2.0 player that did advanced audio codecs and those still command a premium.
Um, Well the normal DVD player has to die first. Blue Ray player price isn't the only factor. The movies are still at a premium.
It's not the player cost holding me back, it's the media prices. DVD looks good, Blu-Ray looks great, but not $10-$20 per title better...
I think it's better just to get them used off of Amazon.
I get mine off Amazon and eBay and havent payed more than $24 for one yet........and I have bought like 45 BD Movies......
if I had to pay the LST price for them however I wouldnt have any but the 5 free I got with my PS3........
A standalone Blu-Ray player is only worth it to me if it costs less than a used PS3 and they are going for around $325 now on craigslist. Plus, I'm holding out for Black Friday to see what might come up. If prices are around $200 now, I am fully expecting $150 Blu-ray players on sale at the end of Thanksgiving.
Almost tempted by a $200 profile 2.0 player, but its the cost of the discs that put me off.
There is no real reason why they should cost more than a DVD. The slight improvment in picture quality won't suddenly make a movie any better. I would be surprised if you asked people to score a movie out of 10 that there would be any significant difference between DVD & Blue Ray (Based on the movie alone).
I don't, personally, have a HDTV, yet. So I have a fairly compelling reason not to go Blu-ray. I do have access to a HDTV, but I don't use it enough to put any money into it. And if there were enough content that I actually watch on Blu-ray, I might buy. However, I watch a lot of older and obscure titles, plus a lot of animated films. Most of which isn't available on Blu-ray, and what is doesn't require the added benefits of Blu-ray. I don't need to have "The Simpsons Movie" on Blu-ray because I am certain I won't see or hear any difference. The only movies that I would probably notice the difference in the format is what is called "horror" today. But I would end up missing much of the movie then because I get pretty close to losing my sustenance with DVD quality. I don't need more detail when people eat brains or have their bodies ripped apart.
I wouldn't recommend a BD player if you only have an SD set, but there are still a noticeable differences in quality in some disks. The bitrate is higher meaning less blocking, the audio is better and many titles benefit from a better transfer than they did in DVD. Most of the time you probably wouldn't notice though.
$300 was enough to tempt me for a dual format LG. It's a great little unit (especially after this years firmware updates) and it allows me to cash in on all those incredibly cheap HD DVD movies too. The high def catalogue is thin enough without restricting yourself to one format alone.
The really big reason I bought in was the exclusive high quality music videos (I'm fortunate enough to have the right kind of receiver and 7.1 speaker set-up to make the most of them).
Unfortunately the release schedule for audio titles is patchy at best (where's the O2 Led Zeppelin, where's the Dave Gilmour, Live in Gdansk, where's the huge amount of David Bowie material and so on and on).
Thankfully the Foo Fighters appear in a week or so.
It seems that this is what you get gearing a format primarily to adolescent males and their game consoles.
The trouble with that is that once the handful of special effect loaded movies have been and gone the sales tumble and who is going to take the risk of releasing (much) to the rest of us?
(and what the hell is it with that target adolescent male audience anyways, don't they like women to be more than token unreal 2d caricatures in films?
Boys/young mens movies -according to the studios anyways. Suspicious? A bit 'gay'?
Think about it.)
Please let's not forget that the Blu-ray discs are still being sold for over $20 when u can get the standard DVD version for just a fraction of that. Keep making more affordable players and lower the price in the discs and then they'll have a shot, In my opinion that's when Blu-ray as a DVD replacement may take off in this situation.
I'll buy @ $150
People who look to this $200 price as some magic price when sales are going to finally take off aren't understanding what happened back in the days of the VCR to DVD transition. $200 was the threshold mass-market acceptance price for DVD because that is what a good VCR cost back then. Folks were used to buying their video viewing machine for around $200 and as soon as the new-fangled machine (DVD) came within that price range, there was no reason to resist going for it.
Today however is a new day and a new threshold price exists. Folks are now used to buying their video machines (DVD) for less than $100. Bluray players must satisfy the same pricing conditions to supplant DVD, as DVD had to satisfy to supplant the VCR. In other words, people must be able to buy Bluray players for about the same amount of money that they expect to spend on a good DVD player.
So until BLuray players can be had for close to $100 it won't get any serious traction in the mass market.
Cheap enough YES, worth buying NO!!! I'm still waiting for Stand-Alone Blu-Ray Recorders to come out before I buy Blu-Ray. I Still don't understand why Japan, and possibly other countries have Blu-Ray Recorders, while the USA doesn't. I do however suspect who Is responsible for us not having these (Cough) FEEEEVO, (Cough)Hollywood, (Cough) TV Networks Maybe, Etc....
It's the software price that holds me back. When BR disk has less than 20% premium over DVD. I'll jump in.
BluRay disks are still too expensive compared to regular DVD's. The movie prices have to come down, not just player prices.
Blu-ray disc prices are still too high, but that's why we have Netflix. I've got an HTPC with a Blu-ray drive, and that'll be fine until I can get a cheap enough Profile 2.0 player (if I ever do).
Here's another part of the (Blu-ray) problem.
Contrary to the opinions & expectations of some 1080p HD TVs continue to be the minority sets sold (which must mean they are firmly stuck in the minority of all HD TVs sold to date).
"According to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) in Arlington, Va., shipments of true 1080p hi-def TVs through July 2008 were 5.1 million units, accounting for $6.6 billion in sales. In comparison, the shipments of flat panel televisions of lower resolutions, such as 480p, 720p and 1080i, amounted to 8.4 million units or $4.6 billion dollars".
http://blogs.computerworld.com/lower_res_tv_sales_outpace_1080p_hurting_blu_ray
Blu-Ray still looks superior to standard definition DVD on "720p" televisions:
- 720p is 1280x720 pixels - nearly twice the horizontal resolution of anamorphic DVD's 704x480 pixels. Anamorphic DVD's pixels that are wider than they are tall, and much is gained by high definition's square pixels.
- Many Blu-Ray discs have significantly reduced compression artifacts compared to the DVD version of the movie.
I have both a "720p" and a "1080p" television, and there is no doubt that the step from upscaled DVD to Blu-Ray on the 720p television is much greater than the step from the 720p to the 1080p television.
Evan
"the horizontal resolution of anamorphic DVD's 704x480 pixels"
The fact is that 1080i/720p HD TV is a lot closer to regular SD TV and it closes up the gap between Blu-ray @ 1080p & upscaled DVD.
The issue is never that there is no difference, the issue is whether the difference (at the price demanded) is 'worth' it.
I'd suggest that to a mass-market largely still buying 1080i/720p panels the difference is so much closer rendering the high price still demanded even less attractive.
It might also be worth not being so exclusively US-centric, Europe's superior PAL SD TV is 704 x 576 pixels which makes the difference even less pronounced.
Not to beat a very dead and buried horse, but if HD DVD had won this wouldn't be an issue.
Wish people would stop with this.......
HD-DVD lost, IMO, because Toshiba was the ONLY manufacturer.........I wanted a choice..........I mean SURE you had the DUAL Format HD-DVD Drives from LG and Samsung, but they were TOO HIGH.........I believe if THOSE had came down in price faster HD-DVD would have MAYBE lasted a few more months.......
@kcmurphy88
Which is why HD DVD should have won.. if movie studio's had forced the more exspensive format on us we would only be concerned with how fas HD DVD can get to $49.
I bought a PS3 a year ago, it was $499 for the 60gb model, which I wanted because it can play all PS2 games as well. Two of my friends now have the 40gb model, one has the new Sony 350 (firmware for 2.0 already released days ago) model, another is going to buy the Panny 35 (streeting at 299...2.0 player) and another got the Samsung 1500 (2.0 ready with firmware) for $199 on a sale at Amazon just last week. Best Buy this week dropped their Insignia player to $229 and it will surely be $199 for the holidays. And, Amazon last week had the Sony 300 and the Samsung 1400 players for around $169 (those I think were profile 1.0 but still play blu-rays at 1080p).
About half of my friends are buying discs, the other half are renting them from Blockbuster and Netflix and are quite happy doing that until software becomes cheaper, or some releases go on sale. All of my friends own a few discs and are just buying their favorites while a few have already 50+ collections. Warner announced it will take many of their catalog titles sometime in October and reduce the prices to $19.95 suggested retail, which means $14.99 on sale or even $9.99 on special sales. Players earlier in the year were $499 now we are seeing $299 price points down to $199. So we are now almost at the same price point as Toshiba was for their entry-level player the A3 which did NOT even play 1080p, their entry level 1080p model was $299 (except for final firesales) and blu-ray is passing that now!
I would say that a $200 or more decrease in price in the same year is pretty darn good, and some of these are profile 2.0, though I don't see why everyone is so excited about 2.0, so far it's way over-estimated as to the interest it actually has. Most people in the mainstream want to watch the movie in high def and perhaps hear the lossless sound and see some of the extras on the disc.
I think it's great the the Samsung BD-P1500 has gone down to $299.99. I didn't realize the price had dropped until I saw it in this weeks Best Buy ad. That's pretty awesome! I am hoping that Amazon's price will drop even lower soon. It's been down as low at $226 this past week. I will jump on board as soon as I can hit up a 199.99 price on a name-brand BDP.
i'm still waiting for the ps3 to come down to $200