[thatguy]

Looking in Woolworths (admittedly the more expensive of the retailers) i found the spiderman trilogy for £43, and the other blu ray discs at an average £23!

i dont remember DVDs being that high when they first came out.

Superbad may be an alrght film but its not worth 23 quid of anyones money. And even at an online price of £18 it still seems too much

And that would be the same for quite a lot of blu ray discs. Goodfellas on DVD is 4 quid from tescos, blue ray its £23.

People seem to be buying blu ray discs just for the sake of buying them. So that they have a Blu Ray collection, or just to see what its like on Blu Ray.

Im pretty sure if Blu Ray had the full library the DVD format has, we wouldnt be seeing such great titles as Black Hawk Down in the top 10.

What do you guys think? Have we been spoilt by the extraordinarily low prices of DVDs and at what point will we get tired of shelling out so much?

And are people buying for the sake of buying or have people really been eagerly waiting for a high defintion version of Ghost Rider?

[chrissyman]

Yes i agree m8 people must have money to burn, yes Blu ray looks good and so did Hddvd but no way is it worth those sort of price's , they really need to be roughly the same price for Joe public to take it seriously .

[Helicon]

Originally, DVD's were £20/25, and i remember being excited when WHS did their buy one get one free offer! The Spiderman Trilogy is a trilogy, so will be a little more.....

I agree with Superbad - it's not likely to be one i'll buy on Blu-ray unless it's dirt cheap.

But comparing current DVD prices against current Blu-Ray prices is a little pointless. Many would argue that Goodfellas is worth spending £23 on for a full HD experience, even if you can get it on DVD for £4 - which in comparison would be like comparing DVD to VHS.

I am only going to buy Blu-Rays of films i can watch a couple of times, or films i really like. I'll happily pay £20/25 for Donnie Darko and Hot Fuzz - after all, i've bought Donnie Darko 3 times already for various versions, and they're all SD. At the current in store prices, i don't think many people are buying for the sake of it, even at the online prices.

Yes, we've been spoilt by cheap DVD releases, although new releases are still £15+ in stores, so i'd happily pay a few more quid for the Blu-Ray. Discs will come down in price, hell, they already have! You can buy 3 for 2, which is worth it, and you can buy some for less than a tenner. Things are looking up, but give it a little time.

Anybody waiting for any version of Ghost Rider needs a labotomy........

[Junglist]

I was in HMV on friday and couldnt believe the price of the BD in store. Thats what i call a rip off. But worst of all i actually saw people buying them!!!

I have set myself a maximum limit of £15...not cos i'm a tight git but because i dont believe the BD are worth more than that. Currently i have <20 BD in my collection compared to 500+dvds. I dont mind double dipping if i get a bargain but to be honest theres not really much out there on BD these days that i would class as a must have.

Now that the HD war is over i can see my collection growing immensly soon but again i will stick to my limit and wait for prices to come down before i buy.

[Helicon]

I agree, stores are holding the format back at the moment. I don't mind paying £20 for stuff like Hot Fuzz, The Thing, The Descent, Fight Club.....stuff i know i'll get my money's worth from, but as i said, other stuff would need to be cheap, about £10/12 really.

[thatguy]

my first dvd was Speed and i only bought that because i was determined to buy a dvd and Speed was the best of a bad bunch

And in the first few months a lot of my dvd releases were bought because of this philosophy.

I think people are following that train of thought with Blu Ray.

Theyre determined to buy a blu ray disc for their shiny new tv and player and its just a case of choosing the best of a bad bunch

it wasnt until dvd players and discs came down to not just affordable levels but "bargain" levels that it was commonly accepted by the great unwashed

if blu ray is to also be accepted and not seen as just another "laserdisc" then the discs need to be at least the same price as DVDs

i dont think these companies realise how complacent and happy the average person is with DVD. A lot of people dont see the need to upgrade to blu ray especially so soon after they just bought into DVD

A new dvd at tescos or online is about 12 quid,

convincing them to not only upgrade but upgrade to a format whereby they would have to pay twice as much for the discs is going to be a heck of a job

even im not convinced. Ill be renting all my blu ray discs until one comes along that i want to purchase

[Lezman]

I was at Bluewater on Friday and I saw quite a few people buying blurays on the 3 for 2 offer in HMV. Do they not look online?!

I also saw the SD DVD of T2 for £25 in HMV- but that's beside the point

[thatguy]

i cant remember the last time i bought a new full price disc from woolworths, hmv or wh smiths

theyre just too expensive compared to online. Why anyone buys from them is a mystery.


i occasionally pop in to see the bargains but even now DVD offers seem to be a permenant fixture

they come out at about 12 quid and then after 6 months are reduced to about 6 quid

[Pecker]

The store prices are generally poor, but the online prices are often fairly reasonable. Many catalogue titles are available for between £10 & £15 online, so we're not getting a bad deal.

The supermarkets can stick things out at rock bottom prices, but only if they buy huge quantities. That's why your local Sainsbury will probably have the top 20 DVDs + some old titles the studios are trying to shift for a fiver.

So I don't think we'll see a lot of cheap titles in the supermarkets until Blu-ray Disc is a lot bigger, which I don't think will be for a while. HMV won't feel pressure to reduce prices until the supermarkets force them.

Steve W

[amd mad]

Asda has a few bargains now and then most bd's are £20 but i saw 300 for £11 yesterday

[elicash73]

Blu-ray discs cost more than DVD? No sh*t. How can people expect it to be any other way?

Christmas. Blu-ray will be pushed big-time.

Meanwhile, everyone buys discs online for little more than the DVD in a lot of cases. Especially new releases which work out about the same price.

[Pincho Paxton]

You have to be patient with these prices. If Goodfellas is so much better than the DVD version, it is just a matter of time before the price drops, you may as well watch the DVD version if you are a fan of the film, and replace it when the price is right.

The price drops for Blu Ray should follow a similar graph as DVD price drops.

I have a sort of synopsis, which might be what is happening........
The burning facilities for movies might be quite limited at the moment, and so £12 Blu Ray movies could actually sell out of stock, which is a pointless exercise for a profit making business plan. You never want to sell a product out of stock when you have not the facilities to burn more of that product. So the prices hold the stock in place whilst other movies are being burned/pressed.

[DeadKenny]

Can't see that big a demand for them though. Vast majority of the UK has no idea what Blu-Ray is, or really understand HD. The majority still have SD CRTs in fact together with a humble DVD player (I wouldn't judge what people have by what's on sale in Currys either).

DVD has taken quite a long time anyway to get to the bargain prices that they are now, and that's considering DVD has achieved a saturation point that Blu-Ray just maybe never will (or not for a very long time). DVD had a clear advantage to the consumer. Replace big ugly tapes that took up space and got chewed up. Second to that a decent improvement in picture quality. HD formats however are the same kind of disc and a picture improvement that for the majority is only really relevant if you have a 40" or bigger HD telly. Yeah, I know you can tell the difference with smaller TVs, but for mass adoption it really needs to be gob smacking, and to be frank for most DVD is just fine.

It also needs to be an ultra cheap investment. I mean, £20 for a player in ASDA, and £200 for a Bush or Alba branded bargain HD telly in Argos or wherever

Can't see that happening any time soon with Blu-Ray.

More so now the cheaper competition has gone (ducks )

[amd mad]

currys have 3for2 on at the mo not new films but the ones they have are only £12.97 free delivery

[Wedlock]

People need to be more realistic about this.
I still am amazed that many people are comparing today's dvd prices to the blu-ray prices and think it is the right way to compare it.

Blu-ray is only 2 years old now and if you compare dvd to the same time-frame you find that blu-ray has already matured more than dvd, thanks in some way to the formatwar.
Now that the war is over studio's and electronics companies will focus their efforts to the public with education on blu-ray and by the time the holidays are here prices will be down just to make it more interesting for the public.

I still remember the day's when dvd was only a small corner in the stores and people looked at it with a face like : what the hell is this then ??
Prices for Titanic on dvd at that time where around 50 euro's then compared to around 20-30 euro's per blu-ray disc today.

So you see there is not so much difference, give it time to get settled in the market some more and then prices will fall for software and hardware.

[HummerUK]

Now their competition has been reduced by the demise of HD-DVD, prices may remain high or go up.

Lack of competition is never good for price plus retailers will charge as much as they can to maximise profit without hitting demand.

You can still get a few titles for about £11.00 on-line but for a while I suspect prices will remain about the same or slightly higher - players in the USA have gone up in price.

With the remaining movie studios switching over a problem of insufficient disc mastering plants also may be an issue, again this could force up the price.

Quality control also could suffer as the same plants will have to try and maximise output and blow the quality control.

HummerUK

[Helicon]

Factor in that these mail order software companies are now making much less money with SD DVD than they were a couple of years ago, they need to get their profit up. They can't do this by selling Blu-Ray full price, but they can do it by starting to shift Blu-Ray in more volume, and they can only do this by lowering their prices a little. The idiots who're walking into stores and paying £25/30 need to stop to get the message across that it's just not going to happen at the current price levels. If these people started ordering at cheaper prices online, the trend would be indentified, continue, and expand.

As for Blu-Ray not being very popular, how many homes have a PS3? How many of those homes have an HD panel of some sort? There's a huge potential for Blu-Ray, it just needs to find it's price point.

[thatguy]

i initially thought that losing hd-dvd (and the subsequent loss of competition) would mean that the prices of blu ray would remain high or even get higher

but i think any reductions in prices will be as a result of increased competition between stores as opposed to between formats

a 3 for 2 offer still doesnt cut the mustard with me.

Youre still having to shell out 50 quid for 3 discs, and at the moment blu ray hasnt the library of discs for me to choose 3 discs that i really want

its certainly strange for so many to invest in a new format that hasnt the software to back it up

[Helicon]

Originally Posted by thatguy

a 3 for 2 offer still doesnt cut the mustard with me.

Youre still having to shell out 50 quid for 3 discs, and at the moment blu ray hasnt the library of discs for me to choose 3 discs that i really want

£50 for 3?! I paid £28 for 3......where have you been shopping?!!

its certainly strange for so many to invest in a new format that hasnt the software to back it up

You mean like a PS3?!

[Jase Winter]

Originally Posted by thatguy

i dont remember DVDs being that high when they first came out.

I do, paid £20 for my first ever DVD back in the day.

[DeadKenny]

Originally Posted by Jase Winter

I do, paid £20 for my first ever DVD back in the day.

Similarly, in fact I also remember prices went up at one point to where many new titles in HMV were over £20.

Originally Posted by Wedlock

Now that the war is over studio's and electronics companies will focus their efforts to the public with education on blu-ray and by the time the holidays are here prices will be down just to make it more interesting for the public.

I'm not convinced many companies are really focused on Blu-Ray, other than Sony, and they're only interested in the PS3. For it to be interesting we really need £100 players by Christmas. I can't see that happening. There's no incentive to sell them at that price, especially as general marketing has been Blu-Ray = PS3. The PS3 at £100 is unlikely, especially as the PS2 still sells for that! (and outsells the PS3).

What would stir things up is if Nintendo released a Wii with a Blu-Ray player, but I'd rather they didn't and actually concentrate on the gaming side as they have done all along.

I still remember the day's when dvd was only a small corner in the stores and people looked at it with a face like : what the hell is this then ??

That's definitely how it is for HD formats at present, at least in the UK. Whilst those of us in the know have heard of Blu-Ray (and formerly HD DVD), public awareness is pretty much nil for the general public. Most don't understand HD anyway. Most of those who know HD involves an HDTV, don't realise they also need HD material to play on their shiny new LCD.

The name Blu-Ray is barely mentioned in mass advertising generally. The only places where Joe Public will notice it really is online sites.

One thing's for sure, the High Street will not bring Blu-Ray down in price or into the home.

So you see there is not so much difference, give it time to get settled in the market some more and then prices will fall for software and hardware.

Time will tell of course, but I think it will take a lot longer than with DVD. Certainly I have no belief that Blu-Ray will ever be as successful as DVD as there really isn't the incentive. Your average pensioner may have bought a DVD player by now to go with their little telly tucked in the corner of the room, but they're not going to buy an HD telly and HD player no matter how much people jump up and down and say how amazingly better it is.

Yes, these arguments were made about DVD over VHS also, and I championed DVD at the time, but this time standard def DVD really is perfectly fine for most people.

The only thing that will force HD into the home is if all SD broadcasting is turned off. As we're only just moving to digital broadcasting in SD, which is a big deal for many people, HD is a long way off.

So without a mass market like DVD had, Blu-Ray has less chance of becoming as cheap as DVD. Cheaper, perhaps. But forget prices anywhere near what DVDs sell for now, especially considering what slice of the price goes to the likes of Sony, and how much extra BD production costs. These are themselves factors which put off cheaper production houses who with DVD have had low costs over the years.

[thatguy]

100 quid blu ray players are possible by christmas

the samsung 1400 is 200 now and weve still got 9 months left to go

just because i dread to think what my d3500 will be priced in 9 months time.

i reckon the companies will do a similar deal with what theyre doing with the v3000. You buy a hd tv and get a blu ray player for an extra 50 quid

[Greg]

Just seen a large advert in today's paper from Woolworths. Loads of top blu-ray discs. But the prices, between £22.99 and £30. Do they think people are actually going to pay those prices?

Its all about x264.

[Pecker]

I know we keep going back to early SD DVD prices, but what did we compare those to?

Just before SD DVD arrived we had LaserDiscs at £15-£20 and sell through VHS at £11-£15. So £20 was a little expensive, but we were prepared to pay for the better quality.

Most new titles are now available from Amazon for c.£17, and back catalogue titles are sometimes this much, but often £13.

I don't think that's too bad - especially given over a decade of inflation.

Maybe those £5 SD DVDs in the sales have spoilt us.

Steve W

[Helicon]

Originally Posted by thatguy

100 quid blu ray players are possible by christmas

It depends what profile Blu-Ray you want. There may be some old 1.0's being sold very cheap, and that's your best bet of a £100 player. 1.1's i doubt will be less than 200, maybe 250. The new 2.0's, which Pana are bringing out at about £600 (meaning about 450 in stores), might be about £350 by Xmas. So if you want full online interactivity, i doubt very much you'll be buying £100 players - not until Xmas 2009 anyway.

[DeadKenny]

And although many scoff at profile 1.1 and 2.0 (those who've never had it with HD DVD ), it's less really about that than just ensuring what you're buying is the latest generation player. I wouldn't be interested in a first gen player for £100. It's like buying 2nd hand goods.

[blaster9999]

Originally Posted by Helicon

It depends what profile Blu-Ray you want. There may be some old 1.0's being sold very cheap, and that's your best bet of a £100 player. 1.1's i doubt will be less than 200, maybe 250. The new 2.0's, which Pana are bringing out at about £600 (meaning about 450 in stores), might be about £350 by Xmas. So if you want full online interactivity, i doubt very much you'll be buying £100 players - not until Xmas 2009 anyway.

The next ps3 update (due by the end of the month)
is supposed to bring it up to BD+, looks like a sub 300 pound 2.0 player is here!

[Helicon]

I was going to mention that - i'll use the PS3 for BD Live, and just get a good 1.1 player i think......

[DeadKenny]

Originally Posted by blaster9999

The next ps3 update (due by the end of the month)
is supposed to bring it up to BD+, looks like a sub 300 pound 2.0 player is here!

Can't see the PS3 being £100 though by Christmas. It's taken years for the PS2 to even get to that price, and as I say the PS2 still sells more anyway.

It's also confusing for consumers. People think (rightly or wrongly), "games console. Why do I need that?".

Not to mention that in the UK it's a cut down PS3 anyway, and are they even shipping it with a proper remote control yet?

Though personally the problem I have with the PS3 is lack of DTS-HD MA and bitstreaming TrueHD. Though to avoid me having to upgrade my amp I'd rather have a player with analogue HD outputs like the Tosh EP-35. Not that these things would be a problem to most, but it's a reason why I want decent profile 2.0 standalones to come out at a sensible price.