How long do you think it will take Blu-ray to take full mass market adaptation?

Question

How long do you think it will take Blu-ray to take full mass market adaptation?

Answer 1

By this spring time it should be pretty universal by the looks of things...it has dominated the hd-media format so far and the tv's will get way cheaper in febuary so ya...prob spring '08.

Answer 2

BluRay isn't "taking" anything. Studios are moving to consolidate the HD market before it collapses.  Warner will continue HD-DVD commitments through May 2008, and if Paramount and Universal move soon, they will probably do something similar.

Answer 3

It will never be as popular as DVD was because the next big thing ( internet Movie downloading service) is already here. It isn't perfected yet but give it a little time. Don't think so? Look at what is happening to the CD market. It is already on the ropes because of music downloading. As broadband connectivity gets more widespread and internet movie downoad machines like the Vudu and others become perfected ( They just released their first machine a couple of months ago and have already announced an improved model with 1TB storage) internet movie services will eventually be the tech. of choice. But now that Blu-Ray has won the battle of HD disc formats it will have probably 3-5 years of growth and maybe 2-4 more of decline. I am not an industry insider but I follow things pretty closely and past performance is the best indicator of future performance. I am fairly confident in my predictions. Trust me, I don't work for BB.

Edit: Apparently Paramount is switching sides to BD so this may happen even sooner.

Answer 4

soon...just a few days ago warner bros made a deal to put all of their movies on blu-ray ....and most of the high defenition movies are from them...so probably a few months

Answer 5

I would say they will start by mid summer. After the WB choice to join blu ray and talks of paramount jumping ship after their contract is up sometime around may or june they will certainly have the guns to crush hd dvd. IT will be years till every one has a player though just like with dvd vs vhs.

Answer 6

It depends how you define mass market adoption, but if you mean replace DVD ... 5 years minimum, but probably never.

Look at some of the issues:

- Most consumers can't benefit from Blu-ray. It is estimated that even a year from now only 38% of US homes will have an HDTV (the minimum requirement for Blu-ray).

- More than half of these HDTVs will be 720p models under 37" in size (no significant benefit from Blu-ray relative to DVD)

- A high proportion of the minority of consumers even aware or Blu-ray (including an estimated 15% of those who could see some benefit) feel DVD is "good enough" (the result of numerous factors: high price of upgrading equipment, high prices for disks, relatively small improvement in picture, inability to benefit from audio improvements, will need DVD anyway for car, cottage, kids room, etc.)

- The complexity and cost of HD home theatre, combined with low perceived benefit / cost, causes many consumers to simply throw up their hands and "tune out".

- Still relatively minor, but increasing consumer backlash over DRM, region coding, and other "overhead", along with rejection of the old HE industry model, (Consider the MP3 / CD world)

- convenience is a higher priority for consumers than quality (witness how popular MP3 is relative to CD) so physical disks are slowly losing favour and demand for alternatives, such as VOD/download services is increasing (although there are significant issues delivering these, demand is there so solutions will come).

- Relatively small numbers of movies available in HD. There are over 80,000 DVD titles and only about 800 HD (both formats) ... and the number of DVD tiltes is increasing faster than HD.

- The inadequacy of the Blu-ray format makes it an interim step to a broader colour space (e.g. xvYCC) and greater colour depth (10 or 12 bit) format probably at an even higher resolution (e.g. 1440p).

Sure, some of these issues can/will be addressed but the real issue is unlike DVD vs VHS, Blu-ray vs DVD does not provide nearly the improvement in quality or convenience. In fact I can argue pretty convincingly that Blu-ray is LESS convenient and only incrementally better quality.

As to arguments that consumers can be educated and will then want it. Maybe, but just like expensive cars and luxury boats most might want one, but few buy because they have higher priorities.

Sorry .... but I just don't see Blu-ray replacing DVD as long as consumers have a choice. It's a niche product for those able to benefit and willing to pay for it.

Now ... if studios were willing to sell for the same price as DVDs ... maybe, but even then only a minority of consumers will be prospective customers for a long time to come.

Answer 7

WHO CARES I AM SO SICK OF THIS! The average consumer does not even own a 1080p tv so the war is pointless imho. My tv is 720p HD and I run the HTS8100 and well the picture is beautiful and well it's 1080i which imo looks amazing.

Answer 8

There is no easy answer. With various studios and distributors aligning with both Blue Ray and HD-DVD, it'll be a while before one or the other becomes the clear winner.  I've even read some opinions that say technology will replace BOTH formats before one outpaces the other.  Regardless, it will be a while before I begin replacing my movie collection with either Blue Ray or HD.