Blame the recession if you wish, but sales of DVDs are down - and Blu-ray isn't necessarily making up the shortfall.
Last November Screen Digest published its annual guide to the worldwide home video market and it made for slightly depressing reading. Rentals and sales of home video fell by 2.8 per cent in 2008 and Blu-ray didn't make up the shortfall, accounting for just 2 per cent of global video shipments.
It wasn't that optimistic about its prospects in 2009, either, prompting Screen Digest's head of video, Helen Davis Jayalath to comment:
"Clearly the start of a global recession was not the ideal time to launch an upgrade to what many consumers consider to be a perfectly serviceable home entertainment system [DVD] and that spending on the Blu-ray format has been slower than the industry had hoped."
Prospects for 2010 look better, but worldwide sales of standalone players were expected to hit just 18.9 million by the end of 2009, with another 27 million being allotted to the PS3.
Compare that to the 540 million households that were expected to have a least one DVD player by the end of 2009, and it's clear that Blu-ray has a mountain to climb.
Blu-ray benefits
One problem, aside from the recession, is that your average person doesn't yet get the benefits of Blu-ray. Simon Morris, chief marketing officer at Lovefilm told TechRadar that while 25 per cent of his company's customers are 'touching' Blu-ray they're among the most avid consumers of movies full stop.
Morris likens them to footie fans who have a season ticket, Sky subscription, watch ITV highlights and Match Of The Day. In other words, they go the cinema, watch TV, stream content online and - yes - buy and rent movies on DVD and Blu-ray - the same kind of enthusiasts who thought Laserdisc was a good thing. Mass market it was not.
Morris argues that most people understand that high definition is better, but don't necessarily make the connection between that and hooking an HD-ready TV to a high definition source such as Blu-ray.
Richard Cooper, senior analyst for video at Screen Digest argues that there's a similar disconnect for PlayStation 3. He told TechRadar that many of them aren't plugged into high def TVs in the living room, and are being used instead as standalone games machines hooked up to portable TVs - although he expects that to change once awareness of the PS3's capabilities as an entertainment hub becomes more widespread.
Even home cinema experts agree that the real benefits of high definition only become apparent once your display gets over 37-inches in size. Roger Batchelor, product marketing consultant for Denon told TechRadar "For anyone with a projector, Blu-ray is a must-have."
Your comments (10) Click to add a new comment
scottgilbert
February 19th 2010
10. bobafett34, i agree the pic is good, but its not a killer app. What would encourage you to spend again on a device that you already have similar to and pay more for? for me its not the pic.
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bobafett34
February 19th 2010
9. Blu-ray's killer app? Picture quality. It already has it.
If you want media streaming, or Amazon on-demand, or whatever else, you're probably looking for a different product.
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fekker
February 18th 2010
8. The killer app would have to be streaming movies, playing Divx and dropping stupid region coding. The HDDVD format didn't think it was necessary, the Bluray consortium are just greedy in my opinion so no wonder take up is slow.
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scottgilbert
February 17th 2010
7. having a standardisation would benefit the people. Who would want a br player that might not work next month?
To encourage people to buy, maybe they should do bundles (1 br + 10 br disc of your choice, not 10 br disc same as your dvds, cos you want new ones!!!!)
also offer a guarantee, that this br will not go out of date.
Play all formats including divx including subtitles for the deaf as some dvds/divx do not do this.
USB 3 for connection.
500gb hard drive.
£199 is a fair price.
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mrstillwater
February 17th 2010
6. Try taking a look at somewhere like play.com - lots of blu-rays available for under £10. Even quite big releases like Dark Knight are on there for £12.99, not particularly different from a lot of new DVDs.
Rimscar was right, the roll out of Blu-ray has been a complete ****-up. The format war was a disaster, and several years later a lot of bigs films are still not available or taking a very long time to come to market.
Personally I love Blu-ray, but it's been painful watching the studios trying to promote HD, and now they're confusing things further with 3D - talking about trying to run before you can walk.
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labrowp
February 17th 2010
5. Agree with both matt2002 and rimscar. Price is a real factor - DVDs cost less than film rental. Blue-ray benefits I think are understood, but the whole process of buying a system is too complex - I found it a chore and a minefield and I'm technically minded. What would your granny do?!
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tech89
February 17th 2010
4. Blu-ray is dead until the price of blu-ray films come down at least to normal DVD prices (£5-10).
I think you'll see a surge of Blu-ray players and discs in 3 years time. By then prices of Blu-ray should have normalized and enough of peoples dvd players should have broken.
What needs to happen is: some interactive content needs to be made for Blu-ray, movie rentals from netflix, amazon video on demand, video on demand from all freeview channels - with ability to download to built in hard drive (one day blu-ray players will have hard drives in them).
What might attract consumers: If services such as: Hulu, SeeSaw, Iplayer were packaged together and made easily available through blu-ray player with freeview built in.
There has to be an edge that will attract people to buy blu-ray. HD arguments will not win over people. The film is still the same regardless of whether it is HD or SD.
Movie rental services through blu-ray players could help. Like TiVO in the USA.
Maybe combine a blu-ray player and a form of TiVo.
Blu-ray is not a massive innovation that will amaze the masses. It is a small change in the picture quality (that most people will notice). To get attention, Blu-ray needs more Innovation.
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dalbro
February 17th 2010
3. There is a flip side though. I went with blu ray as the rental price, both online and store based have traditionally been the same for DVD and Blu Ray. Essentially you get hi-def for the same price as low-def. So why wouldn't you?
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rimscar
February 17th 2010
2. tbh i think it's price AND confusion.
go into most shops and because of the way the tech is setup there isn't a compelling wow factor. People hear the hidef "beauty" but very rarely see it!
Couple that with 720 hd ready or 1080p full hd, bricked set top boxes, new hdmi versions and any other confusing acronyms and most people can't keep up.
And what about the dearth of bluray content? Hardly a smorgasboard is it....?
This is a complete **** up by the industry and they know it.
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matt2002
February 17th 2010
1. I totally disagree - the killer app is price.
Basic business - pile it high and sell it cheap.
I have a HD television and I wont buy a Bluray at this time - the films are too expensive at £15-£20 each.
You can go into a supermarket and buy DVD for £2-£5!
I wont invest in a film that I am likley to watch once, at £20, I would rather see it in the cinema.
As for HD - I recnetly subscribed to Sky HD and their movie channels.
I can watch film after film in HD - for £8 a month, why spend £20 on one film!
The price needs to come down for the mass market - basic business, thats all it is.
Bluray manufacturers - take note, drop your price if you want to sell more.
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