Blu-ray DVDs: Doomed in 2009
According to yesterday’s New York Times, 2009 is a bellweather year for Blu-ray High Definition DVD’s. According to this blog, however, Blu-ray DVD’s are doomed. A bold statement, and just the kind of hasty proclamation you can expect from me in 2009. (Second example: One day I will live within 3 blocks of a zoo.)
Now, when I say “doomed”, I don’t mean Blu-ray DVDs will be gone by 2010. I’m just predicting that by the time next January rolls around, it will be completely clear to everyone that Blu-ray DVDs are not going to achieve anything close to the success of their standard-definition brethren. In short, Blu-ray DVD’s are not a successor to normal DVDs, and 2010 is going to be the year of the movie download.
In The New York Times article, Blu-ray supporters are optimistic that the falling price of Blu-ray players (i.e. sub-$200) will finally prompt their widespread adoption. Unfortunately, said supporters don’t seem to understand that 2009 is also the year of a giant global recession, and back when we weren’t in the giant recession (like last holiday season), Blu-ray player’s still sold for $400 dollars. Even worse, up until one year ago, Blu-ray was still in the midst of an absurdly drawn out format war with HD DVDs (RIP), which further encouraged sharp-eyed buyers to hold off.
According to Nielsen, about 25% percent of households have a high-definition TV (I got me a big one!), but last November the Wall Street Journal reported that less than 2% of households have a standalone Blu-ray player. Since Playstation 3 also plays Blu-ray DVDs, the percentage of households with Blu-ray buyability is actually closer to 7%, but many of those don’t necessarily HDTVs. Finally, even though it looks like holiday Blu-ray sales were stronger than expected, the number of households with blu-ray players doesn’t appear to have increased by more than 1%.
Now consider the competition: Currently (and while you’re reading this even) you can go to itunes or amazon, download an HD movie, and proceed to watch that movie, in high-definition, on your already high-definition computer screen. You can also connect your computer to your (HD)TV for $25-$50. If you don’t much care for dealing with computers (and really who does), Netflix is more than happy to stream HD directly to your TV, as is vudu, or even the good folks at apple.
All this brings me to my real point: Blu-ray deserves to fail. Besides that irritating format war mentioned up above, Blu-ray is set on pushing antiquated technology. DVDs scratch, and they take up a lot of space, and are slow to start up, and in the case of Blu-ray, you can’t even play them on most computers (to quote Steve Jobs, “Blu-ray is just a bag of hurt”). Remarkably, all of these problems would fade away except for the absolute worst, most absurd, totally and completely shortsighted thing about DVDs: it’s ILLEGAL to copy your own DVDs onto your computer. This isn’t to say it can’t be done, you can easily find software that rips DVDs, but because it’s illegal, this extremely desirable feature can’t be built into easy-to-use, super-popular programs like iTunes or Windows Media Player.
Shortly after MP3’s appeared in the mid-90’s, computer hard drives smashed the 10 GB barrier. All of a sudden it became viable for people to keep music collections on their computers. For years, a digitally-inclined individual could continue to buy CDs, copy the songs to their computer, and not worry about investing in a dead format. CD sales, of course, continued to plummet, but at least their decline was graceful. Now that HDs are breaking the 1TB = 1000GB barrier, it would be completely reasonable to rip your newly purchased (Blu-ray) DVDs to a $100 hard drive, and then transfer those movies to your laptop/ipod/tv-media-thingy as needed. Regrettably, the DVD-gods will have none of it, so by 2011, they’ll be finished.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Nice post and all valid points on why Blue Rays discs may not take off. While the hard disk capacity has increased considerably over the years, the IO bandwidth has more or less stayed constant. So, even today it’s more convenient to watch a movie from a disc than from the Network or from the HD.
Yes, DVD’s can be scratched and they have DRM issues, but it’s far more easier to watch from a DVD than to stream it over a network or read from a HD. While I prefer to stream things, I would like to have a DVD at my finer tips too.
While they may not take off this year or next, they might eventually take off.
January 6th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
I agree that, hard drives what they are today, it really makes no sense to purchase either standard or Blu-ray DVDs, if only because you’re not supposed to rip them and they will become unplayable–whether because of scratches or corrosion or whatever–at some point. And the fact that purchasing a Blu-ray player or drive adds another $200 to the price of what it otherwise costs to play movies in hi-def if you simply download the hi-def movies onto a hard drive makes it even more pointless to take the Blu-ray DVD route.
However… might the DVD Gods survive (if not thrive?) if enough people are uneducated about their options, or too technophobic or busy to embrace the alternative to Blu-ray? You might be surprised about how little people know about computers, especially people who are older than 30. My mom barely knows how to turn a computer on, let alone does she know how to download movies. She can do email and surf the web and that’s about it. And she’s not dumb, but merely representative of millions of Americans who didn’t touch a computer until they were well into adulthood. These sorts of people are usually much more comfortable popping a disc into a player than tinkering with a computer.
Furthermore, how many people understand the importance of backing up data? Way too few, I would guess. For these people, the vulnerability of DVDs is not much of an issue because they’re not really thinking about it in the first place.
Another thing that occurs to me is that some people like to build collections of PHYSICAL things, like books or coins or stamps. Some people (and at one point I was dumb enough to be one) like to have a library of DVDs that they can put on display in their bedroom or something. This act is an expression of who they are (by means of what they like) that naturally self-centered people love to share with anyone who will afford them the chance. Downloading a bunch of movies and songs onto a hard drive and then placing it on a bookshelf cannot serve the function of self-expression.
My point is, while I think you’re right that Blu-ray should die (or perhaps shouldn’t have even been born in the first place), there’s a decent chance it will live a healthy life. It’s fate hinges on whether or not people know enough to take the better route. It’s not clear that enough people do.
January 6th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Some much appreciated skepticism, it makes my proclamation look bolder. I agree that streaming isn’t all there yet, but it’s getting pretty solid (go ahead, download and watch something). Plus with Apple, Netflix, and others, all working on it, it’s going to keep improving. DVDs have pretty much peaked.
In terms of delay, DVDs don’t materialize out of thin air, so a little bit of waiting the first time you stream a movie is fine. As hard drives get bigger and bigger, you’ll only ever need to wait once.
Finally, I realize that computers aren’t for everyone. The best thing blu-ray has going for it is that it works just like a DVD. Still, a person who is intimidated by say, a TIVO (which, incidentally, can stream movies if you’re a Netflix subscriber), probably isn’t clamoring for a new blu-ray player either. In the meantime, millions of Netflix users, and tens of millions of iTunes users, will get more and more comfortable downloading their movies, even those without HDTVs.
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August 26th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
BWell, lue ray is wuite a good technology, but what will it do new to us if the DVDs are already doing the same thing that Bluray does?
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August 5th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
In my opinion, Blu Ray made the mistake of thinking that there were too many people who were ’slaves of commercials’ out there. Granted, it provides a slightly better picture than DVD. But it’s NOT JUST QUALITY THAT MAKES THE DIFFERENCE.
A crucial question is: “Does it solve any problems?”
VHS was good for its time. But we had some problems with it. The biggest was that VHS wore out over time through normal use. We often had to eventually replace the film (even if only with a new VHS from time to time).
Now when DVD came out, it not only increased the quality of the film, but it solved a lot of problems. The film would not wear out through normal use. We no longer had to FF and RR. We could play the DVD on computers. And to top it off, it was easy to put a whole season of a television in a small package. (And in some cases, the whole saga of a series of films.) It’s also worth noting that since we had to replace our heavily used VHS tapes anyway, there was already a demand for the DVDs.
Blu Ray offered a slightly better picture. But it didn’t solve any problems. In fact, it CREATED PROBLEMS. (1) You had to buy a whole new system. (2) You had to buy a new tv. (3) You had to be willing to pay twice as much for the films. (4) You lost the luxury of playing it on computers or even bringing it to a friend’s house seeing that B;u Ray was not popular.
And by the confession of many Blu Ray owners, the slightly better picture was not worth all the expenses. Add to that, there is often an annoying registration process of Blu Ray films. To say nothing of the fact that even people who have Blu Ray claim it doesn’t make sense to buy pre-2002 films on Blu Ray since they weren’t shot in HD.
Are people going to go out and replace all their DVDs? Not likely.
And now streaming is becoming big. The quality may not be as good as a DVD or Blu Ray Disc. But if it provides a convenience to the consumer, that may very well be the deciding factor.
Oh sure. Some people prefer a physical media. But standard DVDs are good enough. And we have the option of buying a simple DVD upgrader. For less than the cost of a Blu Ray player or even 3 Blu Ray discs, we can have a better picture and avoid all this conversion nonsense.
If you expect the consumer to upgrade, you have to offer him something that the previous format didn’t. And a slightly better picture doesn’t cut it. It’s also worth noting that consumers are starting to resent being expected to upgrade and buy their media over again every single time a new format comes out.
Standard DVDs are still by far outselling Blu Ray. And streaming is becoming the new trend. And we of course can buy a $70. upgrader if we choose. Off hand, I’d say Blu Ray is doomed.