Ron Schenone

Blu-Ray – Is It Ready To Take Off?

Posted by on Nov 19, 2008 | 7 Comments

There is a lot riding on Blu-ray technology especially with the holiday season approaching. The more I read about Blu-ray and its success or failure, it is entirely up to us consumers how well the new players sell this month and next month at Christmas time. What usually is not mentioned is the cost of not only a Blu-ray player, but also other costs associated with watching Blu-ray movies.

According to the San Jose Mercury news, they cite the fact that Blu-ray players will be under $200 this holiday. But this is not the TOTAL cost of buying a Blu-Ray player. Beside the player, you also need a HDTV that supports 1080p. Most of the HDTV sets being offered for sale that are priced under $1,000, support 720p only. In addition, to get the most out of Blu-ray, a home theater system adds to the audio enhancement and user experience.

So even if one wants to go with Blu-ray, you may be spending over $1,000 this holiday season to take full advantage of the Blu-ray experience.

So will consumers flock to Blu-ray this holiday season? What do you think? Are you in the market for a Blu-ray system?

Comments welcome.

Source.

  • Robert Brewster

    I don’t intend to buy any HD equipment anytime soon and that was before the economy became shaky. I have the money I just don’t have the need for another TV right now. From what I’ve seen with my own eyes (and read) the benefits of Blu-Ray are marginal with HDTV’s smaller than 50” especially if they only offer 720p resolution. My neighbor returned his Blu-Ray player because he couldn’t see enough difference from his upconvert DVD player to justify the added expense. The sale of HDTV’s has been lackluster considering that the digital change is only a few months away less than 30% of US households have HDTV and most of these are low res models. Retailers are predicting the worst retail season in 40+ years the credit crunch has stalled high dollar purchases in a big way. With HDTV market saturation so low I don’t see BD riding to the top anytime soon.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2XDBRJLXIEBKOK34RO2LOXUQCE DownS

    “For HP this meant creating its own operating system, known as webOS, which to date has not received rave reviews.”

    WebOS was designed by Palm and didn’t have anything to do with HP until they bought Palm.

    With this being said, anyone using a Palm WebOS enabled device knows that there is no problem in “jailbraking” the unit. This was openly encourage by Palm (at your own risk, by using open sourcing). This increases the amount of apps available not just approved by Palm.

    Then there is the issue of buying a tablet verses a notebook for relatively the same amount of money… there is so much that a tablet can’t offer compared to a notebook…..

  • http://www.facebook.com/mabyn.shingleton Mabyn Shingleton

    I sure would like to be using a tablet but I can’t justify a purchase with an unknown future. Reminds me of 20 years ago deciding between beta and vhs.

  • Diljit Babbra

    WebOS hasn’t yet blown people away. It’ll be at least a good year before there are enough apps for the hp tab. Apple has a commanding lead with the seductive ipad2 and their unlimited apps. Frankly even a price of 349 won’t be enough to entice users because for most, its worth paying the additional 50 to get an ipad2.
    I suspect HP will need to drop the price even further, perhaps to 299 ! for the xmas rush AND get developers onboard fast. If ipad3 appears in the new year, and its price is kept at 399, the fate of most tableteers could be driven into marginal devices.

  • Brian Dane

    Not a Droid = Not Interested. sorry HP also HP being a company known for faulty screens there is no way in hell I am ever going to get a tablet from them lol

  • Brian Dane

    Not a Droid = Not Interested. sorry HP also HP being a company known for faulty screens there is no way in hell I am ever going to get a tablet from them lol

  • Anonymous

    I like this hp touchpad, it is fast smooth and a beautiful display and great sound with audio beats and I like to watch the movies on it. I wish there were lots of applications, document viewing and editing tools also it needs a digital zoom camera with software to take pictures and edit them.