Blockbuster: DVD to Blu-ray shift slower than VHS to DVD
Consumer adoption still slow
Film rental firm Blockbuster has said that consumers will be slow at swapping their DVD libraries over to Blu-ray.
According to a report by Home Media magazine, Thomas Casey, CFO of Blockbuster said at a recent investor conference in New York that he doesn’t think Blu-ray’s replacement of DVD is “going to be nearly like DVD replacing VHS”.
Although he didn’t give any timeframe for consumer adoption of the HD format, he hinted that the wholesale and retail prices of Blu-ray films could be one of the problems slowing consumer uptake.
He also claimed that Blu-ray still has a market penetration of less than 5 per cent, but couldn’t escape the obvious by stating that sales of Blu-ray “will get better”.
The Blu-ray Disc Association recently predicted that Christmas 2008 will be a truly festive season for the HD format. Market watcher Futuresource has also predicted that 12m Blu-ray Discs will have been purchased in Europe this year and that sales will be at 250m units a year by 2012.
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COMMENTS
PC World Display
I can sum up my feelings towards the extra cost of "HD" equipment by simply telling you about a recent visit to PC World:
They had a "HD" display to "show the benefits of HD", i was there with my dad for about 5 minutes trying to figure out which one had the HD video on it, then when we thought we'd figured it out I noticed a sign did say it on it, and we were wrong... (the "SD" picture did look better, because the colour was set up better - other than that we couldn't see a difference)
@sooty - Film Restoration
As to how a DVD is presented on either DVD or BD is down to the studio and how much effort and money they want to spend on it.
They have several options. Do a telecine transfer of an exisiting film print if its in reasonable condition. They can send it for cleaning maybe. Cheapest option if there isnt an old laserdisc print done already.
Dig out the negative if its available, clean it, run a new print from it, maybe color correct it and put that out.
Dig out the negative and all the other film elements, scan each frame at 4K resolution, digitally clean/repair the scanned frames (but not too much or it will look like video), color time and correct exposure using notes/info from the time etc. 4K resolution is very very detailed and will hold up as a archive medium for some time to come. Most major 'restorations' have been done using this process.
There are other methods and means of doing it but the rough gist is there.
Blue Ray?
Blue Ray? Why? There are 6 DVD players in my house, including my X-Box, PS2, and two computers. Only one TV in the house out of 5 has HD anyway. I don't need Blue Ray. As long as there are regular DVD's, I see no need or reason to get anything Blue Ray until prices on players and movies in that format, drop.
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