Is Sony intentionally trying to kill Blu-Ray?

BlahBlahYouToo · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
Oh, and if Blu-ray is doing so good why did sony have, what is it, 95% drop in profits last year?

because the economy is in the shitter.
sony isn't the only one that posted lower profits and loss. plenty others did as well.

SagaLore · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: techs
I was in Best Buy today looking around and noticed that Blu-Ray home players were still way overpriced. Ignoring the cheap off brand the cheapest was a Samsung for 250. The rest were 300 dollars or more.
I can get a Sony blu-ray drive at NewEgg for 79 bucks.
Maybe the economics escape me, but if decent blu-ray players were 149.00 they would be flying out the door, I believe.
It's almost as if Sony intends for home blu-ray players to be a niche market for the videophile instead of the mass market replacement for dvd's.

A blu-ray drive for your computer != a blu-ray player. Your drive does not include hdmi ports, digital sound connections, a remote control, and a dedicated OS to play the discs.

vi edit · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski

Oh, and if Blu-ray is doing so good why did sony have, what is it, 95% drop in profits last year?

GE is one of the biggest players in the medical diagnostic equipment, a huge seller of household appliances, owns a movie studio, a TV station, and whole slew of other things but their stock is the gutter right now. Is that because high efficiency light bulbs haven't sold like they wanted to?

That's a bit unfair. Sony is a HUGE company with a very broad product portfolio. They still sold 36 million BR disks last year, which is 3x the number the year before. Even still, that's about a single digit percent of their revenue problems.

zinfamous · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: mugs
So you aren't disagreeing with me? Are you just talking for the sake of hearing yourself talk? Your rambling posts are painful to read, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what you're trying to accomplish here.

no, but it appears you're actually agreeing with me.

spacejamz · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
Oh, and if Blu-ray is doing so good why did sony have, what is it, 95% drop in profits last year?

are you seriously asking this question? do you not keep up with current events or something???

randay · Mar 9, 2009

yes, because sony controls best buys prices.

91TTZ · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: JackBurton

Originally posted by: jjzelinski
You guys are entirely missing the point of the conversation just to flex your elitism. The point of the conversation is about the success or lackthereof of Bluray and the possibility of it being due to cost, whereas you're actually chastising the consumers for being poor or some knee-jerky shit.

Click to expand...

I'm not missing the point at all. Wal-Mart Joe thinks if a Blu-ray player is not $50, Blu-ray won't succeed. On the contrary, with prices as they are now, Blu-ray is doing great. Obviously prices WILL come down, but like I said, they don't HAVE to in order for Blu-ray to succeed. Wal-Mart Joe will just have to make do with a DVD or VHS player. Sorry.

Actually your views seem a bit unrealistic. I bought a HD-DVD player for under $200 a couple of years ago and it works very well. While the format ended up losing out, it at least showed that companies are able to produce affordable HD players. The price of Blu-Ray is being kept artificially high.

91TTZ · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: TallBill
It's hard for me to imagine a better picture then an upscaled dvd, so no interest. And fuck buying movies anymore, Netflix. I wish I didn't own any dvd's.

They have MUCH better pictures than an upscaled DVD.

0roo0roo · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: TallBill
It's hard for me to imagine a better picture then an upscaled dvd, so no interest. And fuck buying movies anymore, Netflix. I wish I didn't own any dvd's.

Click to expand...

They have MUCH better pictures than an upscaled DVD.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=811102
no kidding, no need to imagine. .3 megapixels vs 2megapixels.... its like saying you can't tell the difference between a webcam and a dslr.

Fritzo · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: KnightBreed
Many of the early DVD's looked like crap. Barely better than the VHS version they replaced. And it took a little while for dual layered discs to become the norm, contributing to the lackluster quality. People conveniently forget how long it took DVD to take off, despite it's supposed quantum leap over VHS. People also conveniently forget how expensive DVD players and movies were until the early 2000's. Adoption was slow because people were reluctant to give up video recording.

Upconverted DVD's look almost as good as a Blu-ray movie? I die a little inside every time I read that crap.

DVD's ALWAYS looked better than VHS. Most VHS's were hooked up through a coax that was routed through god knows what before it got to the TV, and sometimes the picture was so bad you couldn't read print on things like newspapers shows. I think you forgot how bad VHS was.

I was reminded of it when I played some Disney tapes for a couple of kids we had over in a old TV in our basement. It looked like something playing on Youtube on low-res.

shortylickens · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
its like saying you can't tell the difference between a webcam and a dslr.

Guess what?

Most people really cant. The advantage of a DSLR over a webcam is image QUALITY, not resolution. An old DSLR with a 2.1 megapixel sensor will take much better quality pics than a cell phone camera with a 10 megapixel sensor. The cell phone image will just be a really huge crappy photo.

I put some test images on pics.bbzzdd.com once that I made myself. One of a 640x480 image, another of that same image scaled up to 1024x768 without anti-aliasing, a third of the scaled image WITH anti-aliasing, and a fourth pic of the original 1600x1200 image.
Most folks really cant tell the difference unless its on a huge screen and they are sitting close. Even then its minor. As for the above-posted pics, even on a large TV it isnt always that noticeable. Especially considering we generally use moving images in our films and not still images.

I suspect the interlaced vs. the progressive image would be noticeably different, especially at 640x480. If I ever figure out how to interlace images in Corel Photo Paint I will do it.

Let me find those pics and upload them again. Give me a few minutes and I'll have the links posted.

EDIT:
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/s...ckens/saterday-640.jpg
This is only relevant on computer displays since they almost always show pixels on a one-for-one basis.
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/s...aterday-1600_NO_AA.jpg
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/s...s/saterday-1600_AA.jpg
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/s...rday-1600_Original.jpg

On a tv with resolution LOWER than 1200 lines the difference is even less noticeable, especially considering the images are moving at 30 or 60 frames per second. You have to get really close and that defeats the purpose of having a large TV, which is the only place you would notice it anyway.

LikeLinus · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: zinfamous

Originally posted by: LikeLinus

Originally posted by: Inferno0032
Right now, I think this is the psychology and economics Sony is going to play a bit.

Person sees Blu-Ray play for $300+
They realize they could have a PS3 for $400, which has a hard drive, and is basically an entire computer.

Psychology is that PS3= good deal, which then hopefully sells some games and accessories.

That's my take on it at this point.

Click to expand...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123050978162738293.html

One of the PlayStation 3's key non-gaming selling points - the inexpensive Blu-ray player - has been rendered moot, as the market sees stand-alone players that run for $200. Between that fact and the downturn in the economy, Sony's strategy for the PS3 seems to be backfiring. It isn't that it wasn't a sound strategy - it's just that the economy suddenly became hostile to high prices.

Not all blu-ray players are $300. You're using one example and taking it as fact.

http://www.kokeytechnology.com...ntendo-wii-sales-2009/

PS3 sales are still 1/3 lower than Xbox 360. It's good in theory to believe that people are buying the PS3 for blu-ray, but it's simply overblown. Most mom and pops consider the PS3 to be a gaming console. Only the geek crowd would use the PS3 as a blu-ray player only. I know my mom would never buy a ps3 for a blu-ray player. She'd buy the real thing.

Click to expand...

Today, maybe. But to doubt that the real strategy for PS3 was the big-bad HD DVD killer is ridiculous.

The PS3 has already achieved its initial purpose. The format won, and there is no other choice for the current High-end of video and sound quality. Making the argument now, a year after the fact that the PS3 is now priced to make it a good buy over stand-alones (and justification for why some short-minded analyst erroneously believes the format is over-priced) is just silly.

Uh, I don't think you're following the conversation at all. He was saying that people are not buying blu-ray players because they are buying a PS3. I showed him data that indicates that the PS3 sales are really not very signifigant at this point and there are other players in the market for cheaper.

No one said anything about the format war, the initial strategy or anything of that nature. LOL. Put down the bong.

I think any intelligent person would see that having sales that are 1/3 LOWER than the NON-HD optical drive Xbox 360 indicates that sales are POOR for the Playstation 3. How is it that all these people are buying it for a blu-ray player, and a gaming machine, but can't even outsell the 2 year older xbox 360. Only idiot Sony fanboys would buy into that. I have a PS3, but I damn well know that joe public general consumer would never buy a PS3 as a dedicated blu-ray player.

0roo0roo · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: shortylickens

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
its like saying you can't tell the difference between a webcam and a dslr.

Click to expand...

Guess what?

Most people really cant.

I put some test images on pics.bbzzdd.com once that I made myself. One of a 640x480 image, another of that same image scaled up to 1024x768 without anti-aliasing, a third of the scaled image WITH anti-aliasing, and a fourth pic of the original 1600x1200 image.
Most folks really cant tell the difference unless its on a huge screen and they are sitting close. Even then its minor. As for the above-posted pics, even on a large TV it isnt always that noticeable. Especially considering we generally use moving images in our films and not still images.

I suspect the interlaced vs. the progressive image would be noticeably different, especially at 640x480. If I ever figure out how to interlace images in Corel Photo Paint I will do it.

Let me find those pics and upload them again. Give me a few minutes and I'll have the links posted.

thats only 2x resolution. we're talking 6x here.

there is no enchance button in real life http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmw...php/Main/EnhanceButton

spidey07 · Mar 9, 2009

Not to mention the color. If you can't tell the difference between a scaled dvd and blu-ray something is very wrong.

91TTZ · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: shortylickens

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
its like saying you can't tell the difference between a webcam and a dslr.

Click to expand...

Guess what?

Most people really cant. The advantage of a DSLR over a webcam is image QUALITY, not resolution.

And in 0roo0roo's example he demonstrated that fact. Both of the images technically had the same resolution (since they were being upconverted to the TV's resolution) but the DVD contains noticeably less detail. The information simply isn't there, so the TV can't display it.

If I took a 320x240 picture and scaled it up to 1024x768, then compared it to a picture at a native 1024x768, they'd both have the same resolution. However one picture will have much more detail than the other.

A Blu-Ray or HD-DVD contains more information about every picture it displays than a regular DVD. Most of that information will not be on the regular DVD, so no matter how you try to upconvert it it's going to be of a noticeably lower quality.

91TTZ · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: Fritzo

DVD's ALWAYS looked better than VHS. Most VHS's were hooked up through a coax that was routed through god knows what before it got to the TV, and sometimes the picture was so bad you couldn't read print on things like newspapers shows. I think you forgot how bad VHS was.

I was reminded of it when I played some Disney tapes for a couple of kids we had over in a old TV in our basement. It looked like something playing on Youtube on low-res.

Yeah, regular VHS was pretty bad. I actually have a digital VHS player that records and plays in 1080i. The resolution is fantastic. I recorded the SuperBowl a couple years ago and you cannot tell that it's recorded, it looks just like the HD broadcast.

shortylickens · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
um no you haven't tested correctly. on a 1080p tv that people are buying these days 37-42+ an image with 6 times the resolution is just that...an image with 6 times the resolution. even on a computer monitor you can see the difference in the link. you don't have to upload your images. its already been done

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=811102
you can resize and filter the heck out of a 720x480 image all you want, but at 1920x1080 its going to look fuzzy no matter what. you can't polish a turd.

I agree, you cant, thats why I am amazed people think there is a real difference in the mediums. Thats not where the difference is.
The difference is in how they copied it over from the original film or five-hundred-thousand dollar digital camera. The blu-ray medium is not ultra fantastic, its how they put the movie on it.

I took that cute little pic you posted (its at 1652x850 by the way, which is really strange) shrunk it down tiny and then upscaled again with AA. The left side looked considerably better, which means that screenie had nothing to do with resolution and was a superior quality image to begin with, at the source, long before it arrived on a physical medium like DVD or blu-ray.
That screen was specifically set up to promote Blu-ray and had an inferior image transfer to the DVD side.
If they had bothered to put in the same effort of digital transfer to the DVD they would have had an excellent quality image on the right. Which was also my point on the DSLR versus webcam issue. You are only guaranteed a higher resolution with blu-ray, not higher image quality. If they choose to deliberately perform a poor transfer to DVD just to make it look inferior to blu-ray there isnt really a whole lot the customer can do about it, just like the customer has no assurance his blu-ray version of a movie will be of a higher image quality from the manufacturer or the studio.
Have you ever noticed the blu-ray camp clings to King Kong like its their new messiah? Thats one of the classic examples where they deliberately gimped the DVD version just so they could show the difference.
That has way more to do with marketing than technology. I agree you cant polish turds, which is why I am amazed so many people are fighting over them.
King Kong is a crappy movie who's only redeeming feature is the availability of an overpriced format just you can get a warm fuzzy over its supposedly superior quality.

Sorry for the rant. My overall point (which should have been made in less words): Blu-ray only guarantees image resolution, NOT quality. And since your video will always fill up your television regardless of its resolution, it really only comes down to image quality, which is not guaranteed. Customers can, and will, continue to get screwed over by lazy or cheap studios, and there is nothing Sony can do about that, nor do they want to.

91TTZ · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: shortylickens

I agree, you cant, thats why I am amazed people think there is a real difference in the mediums. Thats not where the difference is.
The difference is in how they copied it over from the original film or five-hundred-thousand dollar digital camera. The blu-ray medium is not ultra fantastic, its how they put the movie on it.

I took that cute little pic you posted (its at 1652x850 by the way, which is really strange) shrunk it down tiny and then upscaled again with AA. The left side looked considerably better, which means that screenie had nothing to do with resolution and was a superior quality image to begin with, at the source, long before it arrived on a physical medium like DVD or blu-ray.
That screen was specifically set up to promote Blu-ray and had an inferior image transfer to the DVD side.
If they had bothered to put in the same effort of digital transfer to the DVD they would have had an excellent quality image on the right. Which was also my point on the DSLR versus webcam issue. You are only guaranteed a higher resolution with blu-ray, not higher image quality. If they choose to deliberately perform a poor transfer to DVD just to make it look inferior to blu-ray there isnt really a whole lot the customer can do about it, just like the customer has no assurance his blu-ray version of a movie will be of a higher image quality from the manufacturer or the studio.
Have you ever noticed the blu-ray camp clings to King Kong like its their new messiah? Thats one of the classic examples where they deliberately gimped the DVD version just so they could show the difference.
That has way more to do with marketing than technology. I agree you cant polish turds, which is why I am amazed so many people are fighting over them.
King Kong is a crappy movie who's only redeeming feature is the availability of an overpriced format just you can get a warm fuzzy over its supposedly superior quality.

Sorry for the rant. My overall point (which should have been made in less words): Blu-ray only guarantees image resolution, NOT quality. And since your video will always fill up your television regardless of its resolution, it really only comes down to image quality, which is not guaranteed. Customers can, and will, continue to get screwed over by lazy or cheap studios, and there is nothing Sony can do about that, nor do they want to.

You seem to be a bit uninformed about this. With the DVD, they simply cannot cram enough information on to the disc to make it look like the Blu-Ray disc. It can't be done.

You're trying to make it sound like if the studios put more effort into the transfer of the DVD that it would somehow have resolution like the Blu-Ray. However, that's impossible. The DVD standard only allows for a certain amount of resolution, and you can't cram any more onto the disc. Even with a completely perfect transfer you're only going to have about 720x480 resolution. This pales in comparison to the 1920x1080 resolution that you can fit on a Blu-Ray disc. Even with a sub-optimal transfer it's going to greatly exceed that of the DVD.

0roo0roo · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: shortylickens

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
um no you haven't tested correctly. on a 1080p tv that people are buying these days 37-42+ an image with 6 times the resolution is just that...an image with 6 times the resolution. even on a computer monitor you can see the difference in the link. you don't have to upload your images. its already been done
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=811102
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb...p?t=1118762&highlight=
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb...p?t=1092791&highlight=
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1010547
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb...p?t=1067722&highlight=
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb...p?t=1100644&highlight=
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb...p?t=1073677&highlight=
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb...p?t=1073677&highlight=
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb...p?t=1070952&highlight=
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb...p?t=1085043&highlight=
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb...p?t=1077682&highlight=

you can resize and filter the heck out of a 720x480 image all you want, but at 1920x1080 its going to look fuzzy no matter what. you can't polish a turd.

Click to expand...

I agree, you cant, thats why I am amazed people think there is a real difference in the mediums. Thats not where the difference is.
The difference is in how they copied it over from the original film or five-hundred-thousand dollar digital camera. The blu-ray medium is not ultra fantastic, its how they put the movie on it.

I took that cute little pic you posted (its at 1652x850 by the way, which is really strange) shrunk it down tiny and then upscaled again with AA. The left side looked considerably better, which means that screenie had nothing to do with resolution and was a superior quality image to begin with, at the source, long before it arrived on a physical medium like DVD or blu-ray.
That screen was specifically set up to promote Blu-ray and had an inferior image transfer to the DVD side.
If they had bothered to put in the same effort of digital transfer to the DVD they would have had an excellent quality image on the right. Which was also my point on the DSLR versus webcam issue. You are only guaranteed a higher resolution with blu-ray, not higher image quality. If they choose to deliberately perform a poor transfer to DVD just to make it look inferior to blu-ray there isnt really a whole lot the customer can do about it, just like the customer has no assurance his blu-ray version of a movie will be of a higher image quality from the manufacturer or the studio.
Have you ever noticed the blu-ray camp clings to King Kong like its their new messiah? Thats one of the classic examples where they deliberately gimped the DVD version just so they could show the difference.
That has way more to do with marketing than technology. I agree you cant polish turds, which is why I am amazed so many people are fighting over them.
King Kong is a crappy movie who's only redeeming feature is the availability of an overpriced format just you can get a warm fuzzy over its supposedly superior quality.

Sorry for the rant. My overall point (which should have been made in less words): Blu-ray only guarantees image resolution, NOT quality. And since your video will always fill up your television regardless of its resolution, it really only comes down to image quality, which is not guaranteed. Customers can, and will, continue to get screwed over by lazy or cheap studios, and there is nothing Sony can do about that, nor do they want to.

argh....

you still don't get it. its not just resolution, even the color resolution is superior on bluray by default. and no, those comparisons are not being done with dodgy dvds, in fact he tends to release comparisons with different dvd releases as well to show difference in remastered versions, those dvds he's comparing against bluray in those shots are not substandard transfers. in fact since the standard of dvd mastering peaked quite a while ago people would see any substandard quality quite quickly.

you are really trying to bend over backwards on this one. saying that bluray only garrantees resolution not quality is a statement without meaning. you can say that about dvd. never mind you were wrong about color being the same for both formats as well. the base level of quality is higher on bluray, and its potential to capture what was on the film source is simply not debatable. the only thing you seem to have is to claim that theres a massive conspiracy to put out dodgy dvds. it makes little sense, people would notice degraded dvds coming into the market as they are scrutinized by folks on avs forum as they do anything else. even a max quality transfer on dvd is inferior to a bluray of the same effort, so it makes no difference at all.

as for your rant on king kong, look at the other links, i have no idea what you are talking about. no one cares particularly about king kong, in fact its not that impressive an example. its just happens to be the first post from that old thread.

ultimatebob · Mar 9, 2009

We need one of the cheaper Chinese electronics manufacturers like APEX to build the first $129 BluRay player in time for Black Friday this year. Once they do it, dozens of others will! We'll be seeing those $49 BluRay players at Walmart in no time, although they'll probably have a new $599 2K media player by then

n yusef · Mar 9, 2009

Guys, stop arguing over picture quality. PQ really isn't that big of a deal to many people, especially compared to convenience and price. For many movies, the difference in quality from DVD to BD isn't noticeable. Comedy isn't funnier in HD. Tragedy isn't any more sad. I know that I don't notice PQ when I'm really into what I'm watching. If I had to sit though Planet Earth, perhaps I would care more about PQ. Sports on TV is noticeably better though.

I get the feeling that some of you are more into the technology than the movies, similar to how some people are more into cameras than photography. That's OK. It's just not how everyone is.

imported_Flimflam · Mar 9, 2009

I think the price on the discs themselves are too high. 30 bucks!? especially on old movies that were'nt even filmed in high def.

91TTZ · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: n yusef
Guys, stop arguing over picture quality. PQ really isn't that big of a deal to many people, especially compared to convenience and price. For many movies, the difference in quality from DVD to BD isn't noticeable. Comedy isn't funnier in HD. Tragedy isn't any more sad. I know that I don't notice PQ when I'm really into what I'm watching. If I had to sit though Planet Earth, perhaps I would care more about PQ. Sports on TV is noticeably better though.

I get the feeling that some of you are more into the technology than the movies, similar to how some people are more into cameras than photography. That's OK. It's just not how everyone is.

Are you honestly telling us not to argue about picture quality in a thread about high definition video? Are you nuts? That's what this thread is about- the price of high definition Blu-Ray players.

I'm sure the OP knows that he can get a $20 DVD player somewhere but that's not what this thread is about.

91TTZ · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: Flimflam
I think the price on the discs themselves are too high. 30 bucks!? especially on old movies that were'nt even filmed in high def.

Old movies were filmed on film, which has a very high resolution. In fact movies as old as The Wizard of Oz, which was filmed in 1939, probably have more information on the spool of film than a Blu-Ray disc can hold.

mugs · Mar 9, 2009

Originally posted by: Flimflam
I think the price on the discs themselves are too high. 30 bucks!? especially on old movies that were'nt even filmed in high def.

:laugh:

Is Sony intentionally trying to kill Blu-Ray?

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