Have you got a Sony Blu-ray player yet, if not why?

Already have a PS3, have no need of a stand-alone player.

Morne

I am buying one (PS3 package with MG4) in Jun.

Why? Sony BD player is crippled – no PiP, no net connections. And expensive, for what it does

Besides, BD is dead – downloads coming in a big way by the end of 2008.

Mike C. seems to think that over the course of 2008 the entire worlds broadband infrastructure will be upgraded to cope with a thousand-fold increase in downloads, as well as the file sizes attributed with HD downloads. Mike C. doesn’t do much research on this subject apparently.

Btw, if BD was dead, it wouldn’t have topped the 2 million units sold (movies, not games), in the UK already….faster than DVD did, in fact.

Anyway, I would urge folks to do a bit of research before drawing their own conclusions, especially given the amount of incorrect information that floats around online (IE. BD is dead, and digital downloads will overtake in this year…lol)

Morne

Btw, Mike C. I’m not just shooting you down without any prior knowledge or anything. I’ve been downloading movies and music for many years now…so far back that we’re talking a day or two just to get 1 song. So, I’m a bit familiar with the process. Your typical HD Download in ONLY 720p, will take about 3 days to download via a WELL seeded torrent. Digital downloads will only start to impact the DVD/BD industry when they can undercut the 5 minutes it takes to run to the video store and rent 5 movies. And that is still at LEAST 3 years off, if not more.

Morne

Morne:

from Lions Gate Studios President’s presentation to investors last month:

“With Apple’s recent announcement of their entry into the VOD business and their introduction of a new version of the Apple TV, along with a number of other similar VOD enabled set-top boxes on the market, from Sony, XBox, TiVo, Vudu and ARCOS, broadband delivery of VOD is getting close to bridging the gap to the consumer’s living room, which is the Holy Grail in driving the broadband digital delivery business.

This is the final element that we have always needed to make digital delivery an important and financially meaningful market. It is why, as we indicated on the last call, we see our digital revenues growing from less than one percent of all home entertainment revenue in fiscal ’07 to between 10% and 15% or more by 2010.

http://investors.lionsgate.com/Presentation.asp

Downloads to be 10% to 15% (from < 1% now) of all home entertainment revenue by 2010. And Lions Gate was pro blu-ray since 2005!!

In order to grow downloads that quickly something big must happen this year…

Not to mention that downloads don’t come with uncompressed audio. So you get crap sound, crap picture and no special features. And if you aren’t getting it legally you might not get the subtitles. I would rather own a movie so I could watch it when ever I feel like, in stead of having to rent it over and over again since the downloads get deleted after a month.

One more thing. Movies have been available from cable companies on set top boxes for the last 10 years at least and yet it has not put an end to dvd. Too many people like collecting movies.

Hi Mike C,

Remember the “Paperless Office” prediction?
That did not happen, and will not happen very soon.

Whether it is a school event, family event, sports event, show event, or whatever, if it is considered to be very important to keep, then it will be kept in HARD COPIES!

Download? Sure. But hard copes (DVD/BD) are here to stay regardless of future download technologies.

Mike C. – It is only natural that with time demand for certain types of downloads will increase. That’s just supply and demand. The point is, if the common consumer adopted HD overnight, and started downloading in whatever manner they could find, most of the servers in the US would grind to a screeching halt, and/or go down completely. The US just does not have the required bandwidth to support that many users. Not even remotely close. Even in Europe/Asia, where broadband services are far far faster, it would still be a dramatic load for their networks to handle.

As a previous poster stated, most of those HD services (especially apple TV) are not true HD. So there’s that as well. Additionally, there’s a huge difference between the sizes involved in a 720p file, and a 1080p file. Does that matter to everyone? No, but I bet if you asked the question, 90% would respond with wanting the higher def format.

As for set-top boxes. There’s plenty out there, you’re right, but again, how many offer true AND flexible 1080p downloads? IE. Can you take that file and play it on someone elses player? The answer is either very few, or none.

And lastly, there is still something to be said for having a ownership of something you can hold. And having the freedom to play it wherever you want, however you want. Blu Ray may have it’s flaws, but it has the best chance of holding the masses at bay UNTIL the time when digital downloads are available to the mainstream public, as well as the world over being able to handle that traffic. And it always has a use as an archiving tool as well, with the 1 and 2 layer discs already on the market, and the 4(100g) and 8 (200g)layer discs in R/D (or finished for all we know).

I’ve got 3 backups of my mp3/movie library. DVD, PC and my portable HDD. Can never have enough redundancy

Morne

I have the PLAYSTATION 3 and my VAIO PC plus a dedicated Blu-ray player and no Blu-ray movie yet LoL. Dital download will only be good if people had a 100 Terabyte Hard Drives other than that it won’t be a hit. Sony is the world leader in electronics, video games TV, Movies.

Totally disagree with you (Ivan-PSP)when it come to Digital Download. It will only a matter of time before a Digital Download Media Player would come out. The Digital Download is the future whether you like it or not. DVD has been around for 11 years, it may take Blu Ray 5 years before it take over DVD. Remember technology is always changing, have you of heard of HVD (Holographic Versatile Disc)it has 160 times the capacity of single-layer Blu-ray Discs. Sony Blu-Ray HD format win may be short lived.In the future they would be up against the Nex-Gen HD Digital Download and HVD. There are some new games coming out onto the market wont be able to fit on a Dual Blu Ray disc.If I was Sony I would ditched Blu-Ray and concentrate on Digital Download, that what Microsoft are doing.
I know you are a die hard Sony PSP fan.

blu ray players are coming down in price all the time. they will at least replace the dvd for the time being. after my frustration of hunting around the internet for a cheaper blu ray player, i decided to create a price comparison site. it only includes 4 retailers at the moment. but will include more soon: http://www.blueraysearch.com/blue-ray-player.htm