DVD players are finally losing market share

In a not particularly scientific test I used google.co.uk to search for "beige sata dvd burner" using the shopping link. It resulted into pages of results all the drives were either Sony or Sony Optiarc.
The reason Blu-Ray is succeeding as the manufacturers appear to have stopped making DVD drives.

"in the US Blu-ray units are now selling below cost on average"

Doesnt that constitute "illegal dumping"?

And even if it doesnt, isnt it kind of unsustainable for the manufacturers?

Way to go blu-ray, if you can only shift drives by selling them at a loss. What a startling "success" for this fledgeling format.

Does anyone still buy beige computer parts?

If you run the exact same Google search using "black" instead of "beige" you get a plethora of manufacturers and models.

I don't believe blu-ray will ever over take dvd. I don't have any use for a cd that can't recored media or data. I could of bought a blu-ray for $78.00 at Christmas time if I wanted one. Why pay more. I use netflix I don.t movies anymore. Most of them are unwatchable and if I do want one why pay more for blu-ray for a slightly better picture(which is very debatable in mine mind)
The only use I would have is if they held more of my storage for less money.
Blu-ray is barking up the wrong tree and will die a slow death.

.....could that be due to the fact that like CD players at one point, most households have three or more DVD playing devices already?

Last count I had 8.

I'm hoping streaming/download rental wins out over BD as I realised that 95% of my DVD collection had only been watched once and was just a big shelf jammer.

I dont mind collecting music CDs but having physical copies of movies just doesnt really appeal anymore. I really cant be bothered to buy them all again on another potentially defunct physical media.

I bought em on widescreen VHS at a premium, I bought them early on DVD at a premium (not that long ago either) so I'm not going to bite again.

I saw all the deals for Bluray players last xmas, but the PS3 is still the best, and hampered only by its silly shape and lack of Infrared remote sensor. It's got internal storage and can be readily upgraded for the latest and greatest BD doodads. It also has an excellent network streaming capability (which is what I use it for mostly, actually).

These standalone Bluray players with networking tend to fail on the one main buying point: they don't stream locally-stored content (such as directory shares or UPnP/DLNA). If they had that, they'd be worth $150-200 at least, maybe tack on another $30 for 802.11n capability.

I don't have a CD player in my living room, just a DVD player because you can play CDs on a DVD player. It's hooked up to the surround sound, so I just leave the TV off and enjoy the music.

Similarly, Blue Ray players will play DVDs, so it's a given that people will spend 'a little more' to get a player that plays both. Especially since you have to make an effort to not buy a HD TV bigger than 20 inches these days.

So, DVDs will stay around for a good long while even if the players fade away.

I don't think that the DVD is loosing market share, nor do I think it will anytime soon.

They claim that DVD is loosing market share to Blu-Ray because people are buying more blue-ray players than DVD players. I think that's because practically everyone that wants a DVD player has one. At some point, the only DVD players that get bought are to replace ones that aren't working any more.

You really have no clue what you are talking about. Blu-ray offers a significant video and audio upgrade especially in those movies that are very dark. DVD, like lossy audio codecs, crush the data and caush all kinds of nasty effects. This causes your black detail and shadow detail to become lost. Try watching a cable version of Aliens vs Predator or Aliens to see what I mean by loss of detail.
People like you are the problem. You speak without knowledge or experience. Simply because you can not afford a proper display and blu-ray media do not assert your sour grapes as facts. You are incorrect.

I have watched them side by side and some movies are better, that doesn't mean I am willing to spend a small fortune for one.And by the way GROW UP cry baby.
I'm the problem? get a life

I have to say I was pretty disappointed with my Blu ray player and understand why HDMI DVD will stick around for quite some time.

The quality difference for most movies is just not that great. In many movies the film grain obscures any gains you would get. With Pixar cartoons, I barely see the difference between the two formats, and with movies over 5 years old, the special effects were not good enough - so when you see them in Blu-ray, if you can see extra definition, you will notice things like chopped off arms are really wax! Dang it is an arm candle sitting there in the snow.

In my daughter's High School Musical 3, I can already clearly see the pores on Charpee's face. Do I really need to see what is inside them on Blu-Ray.

Seriously - if you haven't done so yet, get the wide screen TV, but if you are short a few bucks get the $40 DVD player rather then the $150 Blu-Ray.

Another issue is boot up time. With a DVD player - it turns on and starts reading the disk, movies start pretty instantly. With a blu-ray it takes 30 seconds - 1 minute to boot, then will read the disk - then when you start the movie, you have to wait another minute before it starts. And the dang thing has a cooling fan! How much energy does the thing draw if it needs a cooling fan?

More than 3.5 years. It took this long to start to make a dent in DVD dominance. Even after all this time, players are still relatively expensive, and it won't make difference to people using standard TVs.
It'll still be a slow adoption, as most people will buy it only to replace broken DVD players. At least those willing to spend more to be "futureproof". Enthusiasts already has it.
The new BD3D standard will also slowdown BD adoption, as informed people won't buy a BD player that will become obsolete shortly.

is crap, and Sony will try to squeeze more money out of its customers when it comes out with a slightly higher capacity disc - that the older player will not be able to play.

It would make sense for Blu-Ray player sales to pass DVD player sales. After this many years of selling DVD players to the populations of every country on earth, just about every house in an area which has electricity and televisions has at least one, if not 3+, DVD players which are working fine. The market is saturated several times over. My own home has more than 4 I can think of off the top of my head. Of course I am not about to go buy another one. I have plenty already.

I am not, however, even considering getting a Blu-Ray player. DVDs work just fine for me, I already have over a decade and a half's worth of DVDs in my collection, and frankly the list of movies available on Blu-Ray that were actually filmed with an HD camera are miniscule at best.

There is not a single Blu-Ray feature, title, or device which justifies the monstrous price difference between a £15 DVD player and a £150 Blu-Ray player. I will continue to enjoy DVDs. The overpriced Blu-Ray and it's accoutrements can sit on a store shelf and rot. I don't need it, don't want it, and won't buy it.

Get your bluRay drives. Every few months we'll change the Spec's and make your machine obselete. See if you can play current BlueRay discs on any blu-ray 1.0 spec machine.

Or, maybe, we'll force your player only work once it's online, so in essence, your machine will have to constantly be online, secretly sending your preferences like what you wantch, for how long, etc to a central database so we can profile you and sell your details as a potential customer to other companies. Oh, lets not forget the ridiculous amount of DRM that I can get you to pay for. Read the fine print. Bullshit it's for cool interactive features.

Data/ pixelation other issues depend on the speed and power of the processor in the unit itself. SO expect the $500 Blu Ray player to perform better then that $150 ones.

Blu-Ray is fighting a slow death for survival. Online content will seal it's fate.

Quote "People like you are the problem. You speak without knowledge or experience. Simply because you can not afford a proper display and blu-ray media do not assert your sour grapes as facts. "

The vast majority of people in this world buy a cheap to average display because it is all they can afford. Your comments are elitist at best and very much out of touch with the general population. If Blu-Ray is to succeed in mass sales it is those masses it has to convince, not those few who are lucky enough to be able to afford a relatively high end display and home cinema setup.

For most people the upscaled DVD's look great on their display and will do them nicely instead of having to spend a fortune replacing everything they own (AGAIN!).

Though Allen put it down with a wrong tone, he is correct in some ways.

Blue Ray does offer superior picture quality as well as sound quality.

Also, now many average house holds are buying HD televisions, though cheap ones do a crap job up-converting SD to their native resolution - but there are cheap HD teles these days.

@Allen: You will see the difference in dark areas with a good Blu Ray player and a good Tele. But you need a good Tele - like Kuro for example. And you need a 48bit BD player, like Pio BDP-320, LX-52, Sony S760 and so on. They are expensive.

What I did was to get a PS3 slim (the price has dropped by 100 euro). It is a BD player (36 bit - thats what my Kuro says), it is a gaming machine (i dont play games though).

But what it also does is a streaming. So your upnp/DLNA NAS (or PC) can stream all your video to it. A streaming client like Netgear 9150, will cost you 250 Euro or so. See how many things you can combine with a PS3?

I wont sell my DVD player though. my cheap Pio DV400 does more vibrant colours than the PS3 on standard DVDs.

Let the 3D era begin, BD is still new (albeit almost 3 years now). Let the players and the BD discs go down a bit more in price, and let the producers start taking advantage of the more space. You will see.

....but to many it really isnt worth the effort/cost to spend several hundred quid upgrading to a new drive and maybe even a new TV. Not to mention the cost of replacing their fave 30 DVDs with the equivalent BDs.

Once folks got use to a stable clear picture free from the foibles of VHS tape that was it. DVD does the job for most.

Yes I can see the benefit from SD to HD but is it something I have to have right now? Not really. I can wait till it just factors in through natural wastage. It's not a must have. A lot of folks are trying to pay the mortgage right now.

The other factor is folks are maybe more savvy than the HD fanatics give them credit. Afterall a good proportion of Hollywoods current output does not benefit one iota in being presented in HD/BD at extra cost.

Will I enjoy Dodgeball, the lastest Jennifer Anniston romcom or any dreary remake so much more if it's in HD.

Probably not. I'll rent the DVD from the library for a quid instead.

Physical media for movies is dying a slow and agonising death.

Some comments infer that Video on demand is the way to go and that the Blu ray will die (slow death etc. etc.).

Well, that may be true in the long run, but BD (and DVD much more so) has some big advantages.

With VoD and on another level, IPTV and similar technologies, the provider knows exactly what you watch and when you watch it. They know when the kids are home, what age they are, unless it's you watching Sesame Street... Whereas with DVD/BD you can have better privacy - the same as with air/sat TV - as even BD works offline (now).

Another way to look at BD (or generally any similar local physical media) is "local cache". Quite a lot of people don't have broadband connection fast enough to handle VoD.

"SO expect the $500 Blu Ray player to perform better then that $150 ones."

Maybe not.

http://tinyurl.com/yhsvq87

And the price of the readers is not going to change that.
When I turn on my DVD player, it is there and available in less than 5 seconds. From cold start to playing the film takes around 10 - 15 seconds.
If you want to watch a film on a BR player, you'd better turn it on five minutes before watching. It feels like they put a diesel engine in there to make it work, takes forever to get started.
And then the Java takes over, and takes ages more to get to actually playing the bloody disk. Who is responsible for using Java to read a stupid video disk ? Talk about the hydraulic press to crack a nut.
I have a Philips widescreen TV at home with a beautiful image quality. I also have a 400+ DVD library of films I like.
It'll be a cold day in Hell before I throw all that out for a slow, bloated, phoning-home BR player and its 10 genuine HD movies.
BR can die for all I care.

Even blank BDs cost more than HD space.

Even the fastest BDs are slower than the cheapest HDs.

Wow at all the poor responses. Its not elitist to say people poopoo bluray when they cant afford it. Thats the facts ladies and gents. The fact is DVD is night and day different on a quality tv/projector. So people that say the difference is marginal are either A. blind or B. cant afford proper equipment. That really is all there is.

Proper PQ and AQ is a testable science. There is little room for opinion and those that argue against me are flat wrong. You can say its expensive, thats about it. A ps3 plays 100% of blu-ray media and it does so quickly. So all the misinformation about bd being slow or unreliable/format changing is wrong. Sony has already gone on record as stating the ps3 will be bd3d compatible.

Oh yeah and streaming HD offers about 1/2 the quality of blu-ray. Call it HD lite because it certainly isnt blu-ray quality.

"Sony has already gone on record as stating the ps3 will be bd3d compatible"

Good for Sony and good for the PS3. A PS3's firmware can easily be updated over the net to add new features.

I think the other guy was referring to the rest of the Blu-Ray players in homes that cannot be so easily updated. I personally know someone who bought one of the $500 units when they first came out and it won't play new releases.

I believe this is fallout from Blu-Ray and HD-DVD fighting. They were focusing so hard on getting their standard out there first, they never had a chance to get it right.

As an owner of both HD-DVD (hd-A1 and HD-A3) and blu-ray he really should have known better. First gen buyers of DVD went through the same issues of quickly obsolete hardware. Remember single layer only DVD players for 1k? Atleast the tech was cheaper this time. Also currently any new player is firmware updatable via the internet.

Also why not just talk about the ps3? It is still the best blu-ray player on the market and will always play 100% of the media. Not to mention it includes streaming netflix and a video game machine.

Also BD3D is a gimmick. Who is going to spend two hours at home with glasses on their face? Especially when most people still dont have big displays. Its like a niche of a niche market.

PS3 has to be the most unreliable gaming system ever. Does anyone have any figures, maybe someone works in a repairshop and can confirm this.

If Sony cannot make a PS3's blueray player reliable then I wouldn't buy a bluray player.

Sony are going to dogs in terms of reliablity.

Put that in your "12 month warranty" Sony.

Downloadable should be exploited better. We need a recordable gadget that plugs/wireless into broadband, auto-logs on to "moviestore" type shop and we can buy our movies.

Watch them immediately, save them, burn them to DVD etc. Like SKY box office, but without the min £20/month SKY charges plus SKY's £3.99 for each movie.

"frankly the list of movies available on Blu-Ray that were actually filmed with an HD camera are miniscule at best." Hahaha..... You know that ALL conventional film is "HD"? Virtually every film made in the last 110 years is in much higher definition than DVD or Blu-Ray, think 4K and you're nearly there.

"There is not a single Blu-Ray feature, title, or device which justifies the monstrous price difference between a £15 DVD player and a £150 Blu-Ray player. I will continue to enjoy DVDs. The overpriced Blu-Ray and it's accoutrements can sit on a store shelf and rot. I don't need it, don't want it, and won't buy it."

30%, 40%, even 50% of purchases of new releases disagree with you, and those are just going higher and higher. I'm sure there's people still watching VHS tapes, enjoy joining them in obscurity!

By the fact you seem to want to defend HD as the second coming and that anyone who doesnt see it that way as a heretic. I guess you have invested very heaviliy in these gadgets and are nervous that it could all be heading for landfill in a few short years?

That or you dont really have much else going on in your life right now other than watching Batman on BD again tonight for the 435th time?

We all have different priorities in life. For many of us HD just isnt one of them. Sorry but we just wont be going out of our way to buy into it.

It's not being cheap, it's not retarded. It's just not important.

That made my day Jason. To be honest, I personally don't care that it's touted as the next biggest thing. I actually considered going HD-DVD. But, It's all about money. Every company is looking to get every penny that you have. Prices aren't going to go down until Sony makes as much money as possible to make up for all their failed ventures, now that they finally have what they percieve to be a "winner."

Now, I just download what I need. If i want to save it, there are terabit HD's for the price of a couple Blu-Ray discs.

Life is short and sweet. not for the people of Sony, not for Allen.

I stand by my comments regarding DVD player market saturation. Let's let the numbers speak for themselves with regard to DVD vs Blu-Ray media sales.

From Home Media Research
Sales Revenue Week ending 27 Jan 2010:
DVD: $141 million 88% of market
Blu-Ray: $18.94 million 12% of market
Total: $159.94 million. Sales up 11.56% from same week last year.

Ouch! Looks like Blu-Ray has a huge gap to overcome to even get close to a quarter of DVD's sales figures. They would have to double the sales they are already making across the board!

Regarding filming in HD for the past 110 years, that is a yes and no situation:

Simplest terms:
"The high resolution photographic film used for cinema projection is exposed at the rate of 24 frames per second. (bare minimum slowest 1080p (50i) = 25 fps)

Since the image on film is formed by exposing it through a lens and this lens also has its own resolution limits, the final resolution on the photographed negative is always less than each component's individual resolution.

In the process of making prints for exhibition, this negative is copied onto other film (negative → interpositive → internegative → print) causing the resolution to be reduced with each emulsion copying step and when the image passes through a lens (for example, on a projector). In many cases, the (resulting) resolution can be reduced down to 1/6th of the original negative's resolution (or worse)"

Hence, unless it is actually shot on a digital HD camera, a film is not itself actually digital HD quality. Great quality, yes, better than DVD save for the artifacts that invariably end up on the film itself, but not true digital HD. They may resize the film's image to fit on an HD screen, but that is not the same. As an example, you can take an old 8mm SD film and transfer it to HD, but that does not make it an HD recorded movie.

These days many of today's films are being filmed in digital HD with modern equipment, but the vast majority of movies available are merely transferred old stock, remastered (read: digitally retouched to remove video and sound artifacts) and re-transferred to HD media. Take the 70's movie Piranha, being released on Blu-Ray this month: this was not an HD filmed movie, but it is a good example of a run of the mill old movie re-transferred and re-released on the Blu-Ray media.

New releases, many being movies that are filmed in digital HD, and which a Blu-Ray player can actually play to it's advantage, are climbing in their sales versus DVD sales. It's no longer a surprise to see new releases come into the market share charts at 30+%, whereas 6 months ago, it was common for this to be under 20%. But they are very few compared to the whole.

Two notable releases that take advantage of HD have quite high sales percentages. District 9 at 59.06% and Star Trek at 45.39% of sales, which means that consumers are clearly choosing Blu-ray over DVD for the few select titles that really benefit from being on Blu-ray (and doing the reverse for the other titles that don't need HD video and audio).

Consumers are smart, it seems.

District 9 was 49.06% not 59.06.

I see the article and all your comments focused on the Blu-Ray tech.
Whats with the biased discussion here? I've got an HD DVD player and it is the shizzle. Long live HD DVD!

The last HD DVD ever to be released was Freedom: 6 from Bandai Visual in June 2008.