While the "HD streaming rulez!one11!1!" bandwagon was quickly filling up after Netflix announced that it would be bringing such a service
to the Xbox 360, the numbers just
don't substantiate the claims that physical discs are doomed anytime soon. Sure, for the budding technophile, streaming is just the next great thing, but for the average joe / jane, the tried and true disc still holds a great deal of importance. A recent study by market research firm SmithGeiger found that out of over 2,000 surveyed, "HDTV owners familiar with Blu-ray favor the format over downloading and streaming by a margin of nearly 10-to-1, with about 70% of respondents citing the fact that there's a physical disc to keep as a key factor in their decision to buy Blu-ray." It also found that 96% of BD users were "familiar with downloading and streaming services, but that two-thirds believe watching a movie on Blu-ray is a better overall entertainment experience." Sure, BD has its flaws, but not having to re-rent an HD film after a remarkably short 24-hour window sure is nice, huh?
[Image courtesy of
TechFresh]
posted Nov 14th 2008 12:43PM
That makes sense to me. Number one examples of getting the shaft on downloads is anything you buy on your cell phone, from Verizon's get it now specifically. Say your phone breaks and you get it replaced through insurance, VZ will only credit you for things you bought in the last 3 months so that you can re-download them. If you had a physical disk and could install the game again, you wouldn't have this problem.
The key to making the streaming business and digital downloads work is to gain the trust of the consumers, which I have to say has to be at an all-time low right now with companies screwing and nickle and diming customers to death.
It may not apply to every disk that i own, but the fact that i dont have to re-buy a movie that i want to watch over again is KEY. For example i own v for vendetta on HD-DVD (yea yea yea) and i watch that at LEAST once a year (see: 5th of november) its nice to not have to rebuy that every year. Not to mention streaming isnt 100 percent efficient. But with a disk, i have 100 percent of the high quality 1080p in the player, the whole time.
The other key here is quality. I haven't seen Vudu's HDX downloads, but everything else in the legitimate download/streaming realm doesn't come close to Blu-Ray's quality. If you care enough to choose high-def over SD, chances are you care about picture quality enough to value Blu-Ray's bandwidth and PQ over downloading/streaming, and for the movies they care about, would only choose the latter if there were no alternative.
I agree Mike. I have not seen a download that looked and sounded as good as Blu-ray. Not yet anyway.
Another piece of "research" to point out the patently obvious...
This also doe snot include the fact that when you rent or buy a DVD (or BDVD) there are extras on the disk, such as the bits they cut out ot get more showings in the movie theatre. These, so called, extras are not included when you download a movie.
Also, If I want to give a disk as a gift, I want to give a real, tangible item, not just an email or a gift card
Yet youtube with its low quality videos is popular and boasts millions of downloads. This surver obviously targeted blu ray owners who would be more inclined to be against downloads. Try polling the general public and the true picture will be revealed.
Yeah, but would watch a 2 hour movie on Youtube?
Bad analogy. If movied could be streamed for free vs. paid for on Blu-ray, you'd have an argument. The fact that you have to pay for worse quality than you get on disc makes streaming unattractive. Also, what about the fun of bringing a disc over to a friend's house? Can't do that with downloads either.
MP3 then explain why NetFlix is pushing further and further into the Streaming relm, again their are more people streaming movies from NetFlix than renting or buying Blu-ray, and I suspect that if they offered a Streaming only account they would probably get far more bites than Blu-ray does, and the streaming isn't even as good of quality as Blu-ray. Also, SmithGeiger is a head hunter survey group, surveying for Higher, so if someone from or has interest in Blu-ray were to higher them they would focus on those people that person or group wants surveyed, where as if NetFlix hired them they would probably get a different outcome, something along the lines of people prefer rental over buying.
> Sure, BD has its flaws, but not having to re-rent an HD film after a remarkably short 24-hour window sure is nice, huh?
Given TFA starts out talking about Netflix's new service for the X-Box 360, I can't help but wonder what the hell you're talking about?
And there seems to be a certain amount of bias to the survey: you checked they're familiar with Blu-ray, but not downloads and, more importantly, the available options. And you did so before many of those options have even been widely deployed.
This is a useless survey that tells us nothing at all. Once HD downloads of "all you eat" libraries like Netflix's are rolled out and have been on the scene for long enough that people are familiar with them, we'll have a useful environment in which to make such surveys.
What a useless study. The title should read "90% of BluRay Player Owners Prefer BluRay Over Streaming."
How about these guys release a study where they ask people who haven't already bought into BluRay? That's the only number that is important, considering the EXTREMELY low adoption rate of BRD.
I realize my name is pretty common, but I've never seen anyone else post under just "Brian" before. Obviously I need to change to something more unique, as I don't want to get confused with this gibberish.
The release after the link plainly states that 2,100 HDTV owners were surveyed. Not 2,100 Blu-ray owners. The survey actually states that 28% of the HDTV owners already had a Blu-ray player. So clearly they did not just survey people who "already bought in to Blu-ray". And still, by an overwhelming majority, all of the people surveyed preferred Blu-ray. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand. People like to be able to hold on to their stuff. They don't want a file that can magically disappear. How long have digital music files been in the mainstream now? 10 years? Funny, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and many other retailers still have huge rack space dedicated to CD's. For god's sake, FYE is still in business selling CD's at a huge markup! If digital downloading and streaming has yet to kill the disc based music market, why the heck should we believe that it's going to kill video anytime soon?
I've always thought this was true. Yeah they surveyed people familiar with HDTV and Bluray. However, if they surveyed 10,000 random people who they first demonstrated the differences between downloads and Bluray the answer would still be the same.
The cable companies can't be trusted. And the industry would love to resell us the same LO def compressed movies over and over.
Recently, Comcast started offering high download speeds for more money. They claimed "50 Mb/s speed is enough to download a 6 GB HD movie in about 16 minutes, a standard-def movie (2 GB) in about 5 minutes and a standard-def TV show (300 MB) “in a matter of seconds.”
Now this less than a third of the data rate of Bluray and DVD respectively. Their HD movie is barely DVD quality. So they lie and people believe this crap because the don't know any better.
So yes the surveyed people who know the difference.
DUH!!!!!
Ah.. a useless study just in times for the holiday.
You expect a few of these to pop up, since they need every bit of help this season and these things are so obviously paid for that it's no wonder consumers keep losing confidence in them and Blu-Ray in general. You can't drive adoption with PR.
Since when? I thought that was Bose' entire business model...that and legal intimidation.
This is no surprise. The problem with digital downloads (and this problem IS surmountable) is that you are buying a no-frills, inferior, DRM'd, proprietary movie file which costs the same as a DVD and not much less than a Blu Ray. I think digital downloads are fine for rental, but ownership? Forget it. I think the download industry could do themselves a huge favour by universally adopting a single delivery platform such that consumers can purchase their movies from any online store, manage them any way they saw fit and play them on any device. While Apple, Amazon, Sony, Microsoft and others duke it out with their proprietary solutions & store / device lock-in the whole thing will wallow around in a quagmire. The same thing happened with ebooks and it's easy to see happening again. Until the industry adopts a common platform the concept of a digital download will always be a very distant second to physical disks.
Some of you people don't live in the real world with your average joe/jill people, do you? Your general public probably doesn't really understand streaming and is more concerned about paying their bills or whatever, not everyone is like us that read about tech and drool over the latest tech/services. Like the article said only your technophile types are jumping towards downloads but most people won't. Ya, us that read this site might have the fancy 20mbps internet connection that eats through video, but your average joe generally has a 768kbps connection or maybe 1.5mbps which isn't going to allow them to download movies WHEN they want to watch it, which is generally at that time that they are looking for it. And Bluray sales aren't that high because lots of people are either not buying, cuz the economy, or sticking with dvd cuz they don't see that much of a difference, cuz they don't really look for it. Also, there are technophiles that won't jump towards downloads cuz they really care about quality like audio/videophiles who like the perfect picture in 24fps and truehd 7.1 sound through their hundred thousand to half mil or more dollar system that downloads can't deliver., And Youtube really isn't even related here, thats generally for short random entertainment not full movies and the few movies that are on there are being watched cuz they are FREE, just like a modern friendly neighborhood bootlegger except even cheaper.
jk01,
I think you are the one who kind of doesn't live in the real world. 2 things in this world matter to mainstream consumer, one is price and the other convenience. This has been proven over and over and over and over again. History has shown us that superior products if they lack these 2 things fail. I'm not going into listing things but older members here probably know what I'm talking about.
With this being said, I want to make clear that HD DVD failed due to unrealistic market conditions and arm pulling not by consumer choice. I know some Blu-Ray diehards will disagree but it is what it is, you can't run away from that.
Back to your comment about downloads. Every time discussion rises about downloads, automatically everything is pointed to streaming. Proponents talking against downloads use this mostly because it's the valid excuse considering "current" broadband infrastructure not because they are trying to be realistic. Downloads as the name says work just fine without streaming. You can download 100gb on a 56k but it will take you 10 years. I'm making a hyperbole here but you can see my point.
I think you are fooling yourself thinking that Blu-Ray technology is simple or convenient. Beside the problem of pricing, Blu-ray, since it was created out of spec really is more of a hassle to a regular mainstream consumer due to profiles, different players with numerous revisions, updating firmwares, 720p vs 1080p lingo, hi-def or not etc that they are turned off normally and the fact that indeed to many people on their 32", 40" TVs Blu-Ray titles don't look much better then upscaled DVDs is not helping either.
I smile at arrogance of technophiles and the fact that they would like forcefully for someone to say something is better just because they perceive it. This is very subjective to many people and to say that something is superb in your eyes might not be superb to someone else's eyes. With Sony and BDA marketing in general I've never heard more hype and hoopla about audio in my life. This is relevant only to a super niche audience if you want to live in real world. Majority of people listens to their movies on either $300 all-in-one systems or through TV speakers. The quality of audio in general is so irrelevant that proof stares you in the face with the fact that compressed MP3s, de-facto standard today for all music, are highly hi-def and nobody really cares, but even if it was the difference in quality between Dolby Digital 5.1 or Dolby Digital Plus vs True HD or DTS-MA is so little that only a few people with great systems can actually appreciate it. It is nowhere a difference between a DVD and 1080p HD video for example.
Now, with all this being said, digital downloads are so much more convenient for everyone it's not even comparable. Instead of dealing with players, profiles, discs and similar a user only has 1 box, plugs the cable in and the simple 2 minutes procedure sets it up for you to take advantage of online catalog. How this is more complex to anyone is beyond me.
Consider this, you are using digital downloads much more today even on PS3 then you use your Blu-Ray. You don't believe me? Think about it next time you download anything from PSN. That's all digital downloads.
I have found that most (not all) digital downloads opponents never really even tried Vudu box or really gave a serious run of anything online. It's that same arrogance as mentioned above that is present.
I buy everything from Blu-Ray to digital downloads and the drop in quality, with every day, between Blu-Ray and downloads is shrinking so fast that it's not even worth discussing. Very soon they will match the quality of Blu-Ray across the board. Vudu HDX is just the start and I know many HT professionals that are really impressed with the quality as well. To say this for HT professional and if they are growing to be more and more impressed, I can safely say, and logically, that mainstream consumer won't give a rats ass even more.
It is easy to close your eyes to thing you don't want to see, but the fact remains that broadband speeds, faster download times, downloads quality will grow more and more and the plethora of download services and companies in the news every week just confirm that.
I already said it in my previous post, the facts stare at you, even today, the number of digital downloads capable devices that are actually being used far outweigh the Blu-Ray offering and by a huge margin. All you have to do is combine Xbox360s, PS3s, Vudus, Rokus and other units like players with download capabilities and similar devices like Sony Bravia TVs and you will quickly see that compared to Blu-Ray, digital downloads growth is outpacing Blu-Ray several times.
It's really just a matter of time before people just completely bypass Blu-Ray and go with something cheaper and more convenient that's in their eyes the same quality as Blu-Ray.
That's real world for you my friend.
@anyone that says BD is DOOMED!!!
It's been a while since a posted, I still read the comments quite regularly, however commenting has become pointless because there has been very litlle actual data released over the past six months. Aside from the % charts from HMM, which have been showing BD growing over the last year. Here is a quote from the digital bits(flame away about bill the shill all you want).
"Also today, the Digital Entertainment Group held an interesting press event this morning in Hollywood to talk about the latest HDTV and Blu-ray Disc market research. On hand were senior home video execs from all the major Hollywood studios. Among the interesting revelations (and we'll be talking about them a lot more on Monday) were these:
We're now a little over 2 years into the growth of the Blu-ray format. At the same point in the early life of DVD, there were 1.2 million DVD players in U.S. homes. Fox's Mike Dunn claimed that there are more than 2.5 million stand-alone Blu-ray players in the U.S. today, with another 8 million PS3s. Price points for both Blu-ray hardware and software are at about the same level as they were at this point for DVD.
BD hardware sales were reportedly up 25% in October from the previous year.
Blu-ray software sales are actually AHEAD of the DVD software sales curve, and have been accelerating even in the last two months as the economic slowdown has become more obvious.
The DEG says that a year ago, Blu-ray made up about 10% of total sales of new blockbuster titles. Today, that total is 14%, and the industry expects that to increase to between 18-20% in the next year (likely starting with Warner's The Dark Knight). Much of this is being driven by the adoption of HDTVs in the U.S. (which are now installed in 50% of U.S. households).
The DEG's research indicates that some 28% of HDTV households in the U.S. currently view Blu-ray movies. No actual hard numbers were given, but according to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are roughly 111 million households in the U.S. (as of 2007), so some 55 million of those current have HDTVs. At a 28%, that comes out to about 15 million U.S. households watching Blu-rays, either on stand-alone players or PS3s. That's our own rough calculation based on the estimated percentages the DEG provided.
We suspect the actual number is somewhere between 10 and 15 million, which would more closely match up with the estimated number of BD players and PS3s mentioned above - something north of 10.5 million. Regardless, that's still an impressive figure when you consider that the laserdisc market - at its height - amounted to a total of 2 million LD players here in the States. In a little over two years, Blu-ray has ALREADY far surpassed laserdisc and is currently running ahead of the DVD adoption curve. So much for those claims that Blu-ray will remain a niche market."
Everything but the last part, which is info given by Bill himself, is info from DEG ( Digital Entertainment Group). Which just held a press conference today. This pretty much tells the story, so say the economy will kill BD, say that it's the next LD, say that streaming will take over physical media all you want. Because hey, it's the internet and know one knows who you are. So why not make an a$$ out of yourself at any chance you get, right??
Good grief, is reading comprehension at an all-time low, even for EngadgetHD staff? Stop, go back and RTFA again.
There is no mention of 2000 HDTV owners. There is no mention of 2100 HDTV owners as someone up above claims. The article says, "1,600 HDTV owners in the U.S., U.K. and Japan." The sample was people who owned HDTVs, not people who owned both HDTVs and BD players. Have we really come to the point that supposedly intelligent people can no longer read a short 7-paragraph article and retain none of the actual details from it?
Now that we've got that out of the way, on to the actual discussion. What's wrong with a healthy mix of streaming and physical BDs? When there's a movie that we know for sure that we want, we buy the disc. When it's a movie that we're not inclined to buy, but would like to see once, we rent it on the AppleTV. When it's amovie that we're on the fence about, we rent it on AppleTV, then I put up a wishlist entry on half.com for a price I'm willing to pay. Invariably, within 3-6 months, someone puts up a new or "like new" copy of the movie in question at the price I'm looking for. Just yesterday, I scored a BD copy of Cars for $12 in like-new condition. It was viewed once.
When 100 Gbps downlink speeds are *commonplace* for the average Internet connection, and we've got players that have terabytes of storage, maybe. To me, the biggest difference between DVD and BD is the sound. PQ is certainly better, and definitely noticeable, despite my lousy eyesight. It's the sound that's the thing. Lossless audio formats are definitely perceptible, when compared with DVD-friendly compressed formats. Don't believe me? Pop in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, and switch back and forth between the PCM and the DD 5.1 tracks. You don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to hear the difference either. We've got a $400 Onkyo receiver that supports Dolby TruHD and DTS-MA HD and a 5.1 Polk speaker setup that I paid about $600 for back around 2000. There is a perceptible difference.
Downloads are much more compressed than stuff from physical media, in almost every instance. When the average Internet link speed increases greatly, streaming has a chance to take over. I don't see it happening for at least 5-10 years.
The streaming model won't gain the popularity it needs until it works just like it does when renting discs from Netflix: all you can watch for one flat fee per month, and you can watch the same movie over and over for as long as you want until it's time to download or stream another.
Also, the streaming model won't work without extras like subtitles, special features, and so forth, which currently don't work as it is now.
Until all those things are in the mix, streaming or On-Demand will have little appeal comparatively speaking to Blu-ray or DVD.
...and just to add...
I say these things because this is the rental model and features we're used to. People won't give all that up just for some overpriced On-Demand structure.
People will stream, of course, as they do now with the movies they can get On-Demand, but it will never enjoy the popularity of physical media until all those things I mentioned are rectified.
Another thing I forgot to mention, is that On-Demand libraries are going to have to expand enormously in their selection, including all the latest rentals. Few choices, along with very old and obscure titles are not going to cut it.
I have to agree with Jason above... For a variety of reasons, I don't see streaming/downloading being ready for prime time and really taking off for at least five years. It could be done faster, but the people involved in making it happen work slower than molasses.
Being in Australia, the broadband connection to most homes simply wont suffice for streaming or downloading an HD movie. Even as our speeds improve the telco's & ISP providers here have dismal limits that would see people potentially blow their monthly quota with only one or two movies.
Apart from that, there are many movies which I would prefer to own. Either to watch again, at my leisure or loan to family/friends.