Thor, Star Wars Releases Lift Disappointing Blu-ray Sales

1St

Keep dropping those prices on blue-ray movies and i will keep snatching them up. Just saw a deal at fry's for some mediocre movies but you can't beat two for 12 bucks =D. Anything around 10-13 buck range is around where i go crazy for movies and end up spending $80 when all i wanted to do was buy 2 i walk out with like 6-8 hahaha. Compulsiveness.

$80 is a bit much for star wars in my opinion. We tried a Star Wars marathon a year ago, and it was such a painful experience that we only got through the the first of the originals. 1-3 just have such terrible actors, and 4-6 are just dated beyond help. And now with the BD release you can see too much detail, and it makes the originals look very bad. Great story though, I just cannot wait for them to be redone with a better director/cast some time in the future far far away...

Anywho, back on topic; As many remember during the BD/HDDVD war we had Morgan Freeman touting his streaming web service, as well as Netflix with it's beginnings of a streaming service, and the question in the back of our minds was "will BD/HDDVD be the last physical media release?" And it is looking more and more that way.
Also, the jump from VHS to DVD was nothing short of ground breaking, and became cheap very quickly, as well as there being a fairly strong economy with a bright outlook at the time. Also theaters were seedy gross places infested with pimple ridden teenagers. Besides, there were no other options available.
Theaters are still infested with teenagers, but they (the teens and the facilities) tend to be much cleaner, and the overall theater experience is much improved as they compete with the home theater experience. Plus you have DVD which still looks OK on a 720p screen, especially when you have a good up-scaler. Plus there are various streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Youtube, and the almighty torrent. BD simply has a ton of competition, and the rumors of the high end moving to 2K and 4K in the next few years doesn't help either.

IMO, the reason why the general public dont buy Blu-ray (aside from online streaming and pirating) is that most of them dont really care about image quality and just wants to watch the movie, not to mention a lot of Blu ray releases I've seen are just DVDs ported on a shiny new disc......

A lot of them just dont wanna buy a new blu-ray player, much like how many people still have VCRs even now and dont even wouldnt have gotten a DVD player if all those new movies were still available in VCR format

I didn't buy Star Wars because of the idiotic tinkering that George Lucas did with it. If he had included the originals in with the Blu Ray then I would have bought it. As it stands, the movies he is trying to sell are NOT the movies I grew up with. I have spent thousands over the years on Star Wars comics, action figures (NOT DOLLS!) and other paraphernalia. All because I love Star Wars.

Players and discs need to be cheaper.

Exactly what omac1a said.

I have SW on VHS, LaserDisc (Ep 4-5-6) and DVD (1-6) and was eagerly looking forward to the 9 disc BD edition.

I pre-ordered it on Amazon, until I read about the "Nooooooooooo" Vader crying like a baby addition (among several other stupid changes) and promptly cancelled my pre-order.

One of the reasons BD hasnt taken off so well could also be the "region encoding" issue.

Region free DVD players are a dime a dozen where I live.

Region Free BD players are very rare and prohibitively expensive (3 times the price of locked players). Region locking BD releases means I cant buy BD's from the cheapest source like I can with DVDs and instead have to buy expensive discs due to region issues.

I own so many movies that is hard to keep track.
But I can say that most are DVD's, the image of them on my Plasma TV are just as good as when I play the few BD movies that I have.

There isn't enough difference to justify the HUGE price difference between this 2 formats.

Like someone mentioned, some BD's are just DVD transfers with NO image improvement whatsoever which should be a shame for movie studios.

Why buy movies? Unlike music, after I watch a movie (several times at most) I don't want to watch it again. If I do years later I can rent it. I have better things to use my money on, like food and shelter.

Blu-ray movies are overpriced....i don't understand why?...the movies is shot in hd, how hard is it to give it to the customers in Blu-ray for that same price as the regular dvd?.....greed

A couple of points here: 1. Blu Ray is still over priced 5 years later 2. Consumers are like cattle, they see $10 a month for streaming service and they are like oohhhh thats not bad........ until they are purchasing 10 different streaming services, cable each month, internet each month, a cell phone each month, and then all of a sudden they wonder where all their money is going and why they are so poor.... Long Term, just buy that stupid blu ray disk and not pay out each month for nothing.

Buying movies is pointless anyways, especially now that you can just rent from RedBox for $1. The only time I buy a movie is when it's REALLY good, and sadly, those are few these days.

Another reason not to build a big collection of movies is because within 10-20 years they will have changed the format again and you basically wasted all of it. If your going to invest in something make sure it can be passed onto to loved ones (kids). Easy to say but there are things that can last generations.

How much is that device you're typing on and how quickly did it become irrelevant? I can almost promise that there is nothing in your house that kids will want in 10 or 20 years except maybe musical instruments. I have recently finally gotten a blu-ray player and am loving it. I got the Star Wars collection and overall love them too, though I have to admit the ewoks having pupils is terrifying, but overall (imo) the transition to blu-ray is successful and almost makes me feel like im watching them for the first time again (the originals, anyway). Though I admit that after a while the newness of the blu-ray to me will wear off like it did with dvds, but also like dvds, I will become accustomed to it and when I go back to an older format, it might hurt my eyes, lol.

So I have purchased those deals where you get the dvd and digital copy with the blu-ray, and (at least with movies made for HD) I can definitely see the quality improvement. Its not necessarily with the resolution though. What my eye finds appealing is the refresh rates of newer TVs, (120Hz or 240Hz) that really makes blu-ray shine and look good, and from what I can tell with these blu-ray\dvd combo deals, that is what isnt maintained in DVDs

Yeah, I refuse to buy the Bluray version thanks to that doddering old fool's ceaseless tinkering. Next time he remasters it for Holodisc format, I hear he's going to digitally replace C-3PO with Jar Jar Binks Jr.

"Mesa speaks TONSA langeeges!"

[/citation]

So get rid of your TV and wait 20 years for the super HD Holographic one. It's obviously a waste of money if you get one now.

I refuse to invest in BD until the 1) remove that shitty region locking crap and 2) start supporting Linux and other alternative OSes. It's a shame too case I have a laptop with a BD drive on it and have yet to put it to use.

So get rid of your TV and wait 20 years for the super HD Holographic one. It's obviously a waste of money if you get one now.[/citation]
You missed the point. I am talking about spending thousands to make your own local movie store and it sits there and slowly becomes trash.

[citation][nom]col_krismiss[/nom]How much is that device you're typing on and how quickly did it become irrelevant? I can almost promise that there is nothing in your house that kids will want in 10 or 20 years except maybe musical instruments.
Musical instruments, quality furniture, high quality kitchen knives, guns, high quality cookware. are a few.

[citation][nom]col_krismiss[/nom]How much is that device you're typing on and how quickly did it become irrelevant? I can almost promise that there is nothing in your house that kids will want in 10 or 20 years except maybe musical instruments.
Oh yeah and then there are good quality oil paintings and then my customized Victory Hammer 8 Ball that they will fight over.

region codes, drm, high prices, ridiculous licensing/copyrights, editing content years after initial release... give me a break.

for me to consider a bluray format a few things must be bet.

the movie must be recent - this way they are made for bluray from the get go.
if its old, it must be a re do, as in they re mastered or what ever the term is, not just upscale, it must be a true hd
if its old it must not be touched up AT ALL. its the main reason i am very hesatent to buy the thing on bluray, they blured it to de grain it. grain is lesser, but so is a noticeable drop in picture quality compared to the hd dvd version.
if its old, it must not be cut - some old shows had a music licensing problem, and had to redo sinifiant portions, but a vhs copy didnt have that problem. or they cut out major parts and never relase it uncut outside of vhs or so...

there are plenty of reasons not to jump onto bluray and dvd and stick to vhs, but most people will never notice it.





i can see editing content, like getting rid of the burn mark, getting rid of that hair and such, but i cant see the point in editing out grain when it also kills image sharpness.

George Lucas will never see another penny from me, ever!

We here in Denmark have always been struggling with prices around $37 for release titles. Fortunately many titles from amazon.co.uk also have nordic releases and always has a release price of $24. Wait a few weeks and titles can be purchased for only $16. Not hard to turn your attention to international sellers such as amazon who also ship for free. We like! I believe Denmark has fake price management in terms of disc media. When ALL movie releases can be streamed for a flat rate price, I'll stop buying optical media. Hopefully within the next 5-8 years.

I'm not surprised. When DVD came out it offered more than just a sharper image, it offered menus full of extras and nearly instant access to any section of the movie...with no need to rewind ever again. Compared to VHS, it was a major improvement in terms of convenience and getting extra content. For all of it's hype, Blu Ray just turned out to be more of the same, with a slightly sharper image. When people can buy a pretty good DVD for $10 less than the very good Blu Ray or download a movie in less time than it takes to drive to the store, it's hard to see Blu Ray taking the lion's share of the market. It didn't help that many of the older titles seemed to be transferred to Blu Ray from the same SD masters used for DVDs.

I produce videos for a living and I sometimes get obsessive about image quality, but even I have a hard time detecting a dramatic improvement in many of my Blu Ray titles on my 50 inch plasma. And, I'll stick with my theatrical release of Star Wars IV on DVD without the bounty hunter that misses a static target 3 ft. away.

Three reasons I don't buy blue ray Price, Price, Price.

Bittorrent and a 2TB hard drive.

Well it seems like I am flying in the face of public opinion but I have had a reasonable run with Blu Ray. I have picked up disks on special so the small difference in price between DVD and Blu Ray has not been a problem. I have to strongly disagree with those who have put forward the view that VHS is in anyway viable. There is no comparison when it comes to features and picture quality.

There was a time when DVD was premium technology that was barely affordable. Over time it has dropped in pricing as most technologies do. Blu Ray will do the same. There are other things to consider also. For instance I find the 25 GB Blu Ray Data Disks very handy for backups. The price of Dual Layer DVD disks has always been rather high and are not cost effective when compared to 25 GB Blu Ray Disks.

Why pay top dollar for 8.5 GB Media when you get 25 GB Media. I can get 10 Dual Layer DVD's for $24 dollars US. That makes 85 GB. I can get 25 Blu Rays Disks at 25 GB each for $69 US. That comes to 625 GB of Data.

That is just retarded, I'm sorry. Your going to say that the more GB's you get, the more fair it is? It all comes down to the fact that the technology is 5 years old. We shouldnt be paying a premium on it anymore, it should be in the 10 to 20 dollar zone all the time, if not less. It doesnt cost that much more to produce over DVD. Problem is they wont listen till the market is hurt.

No one wants physical media much anymore. This is coming from a person who had/has/will have over 600 DVD's in his collection. I want the freedom to watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it, find a way to charge me for that and we will call it day. But so far only few services have come up with anything close to that and not on a global scale at this point either. Sure in the US, maybe you can get netflix streaming or similar service, but that isnt thinking global.

Actually I fail to see how it is retarded to point out that Blu Ray has another use outside of what you personally consider important. Some of us actually have back up requirements that may be well served by Blu Ray technology. No one is forcing you to buy Blu Ray. You are perfectly free to back up to Floppy Disk if it pleases you to do so.

Bluray disks offer the best in video quality you can get today. The other great thing about it is once you buy the disk you own it. Once you have the physical disk you do not need to worry about going over your bandwidth cap with your internet service provider. Granted you can make a dent in it if you use the new BD live features and also the new movie trailer that gets downloaded every time you watch the disk.

Now that blueray players are getting better,faster and cheaper the medium will continue to grow. The industry has to do a better job in informing the general public to let them know that their blueray player will also play standard definition dvds and in many cases upscale the dvds to 1080p resolution. There is still a place for the physical disk medium. Collectors and Video files that want the ultimate in picture quality will still opt for blueray disks.