Blu-ray Prices Falling as Studios Get Wise

Disc prices aside, I wish the players' prices would settle down. Prices for the best 'popularly-priced' models from Panasonic, Sony and (to a lesser degree) Samsung have been up and down (on the Internet) recently. Panasonic's recent financial troubles may be the reason for their top player almost doubling in price over the last few weeks. Closing plants worldwide has an effect on their pricing. Maybe supply and demand is the final arbiter after all. Toshiba's example with HD DVD won't work for most other manufacturers in the Blu-ray marketplace with the WORLD economy being what it is right now. The US TV digital transition is also impacting spending choices for those not afraid to spend money on consumer electronics.

Movies on BD are expensive, and again, consumers will be choosing wisely as we spend. Many writers to the popular A/V magazines are making the case for DVD played on up-converting DVD players being 'just as good' as BD. No way! Having gone from Beta to S-VHS to DVD to D-VHS to HD DVD to Blu-ray, there's no denying that each step was a step up. In each case, the software was more expensive until (if) the format really took off.

The current state of the WORLD economy may derail BD on both the hardware and software fronts. Hollywood is no less greedy than all the other components of our recent economic noose. At least the prices of in-the-vault titles should be low. Surely 'Gone With The Wind' or even "Star Wars' have made tons of maoney for Hollywood. Why shouldn't those (and many others) be inexpensive on Blu-ray.

LB of DC 7:10PM February 12, 2009