In a move to expedite HD DVD’s downfall, Blu-ray manufacturers and retailers aggressively cut prices earlier this year, to the point where it was possible to buy a standalone BD player for less than $300. [...] Within just the last two weeks, the average prices for LG’s BH200 player and Sharp’s BD-HP20U have climbed significantly.  Every standlone Blu-ray-specific player in the chart above is now more expensive than it was at the beginning of the year.

*acts shocked and surprised*

Well, I did expect prices to go up again as they had artificially lowered prices.  I wonder if the prices being even higher than before is just a temporary thing to try to recoup their losses from selling so low, or if this is just the price they would have sold for all along if they hadn’t had to keep it down within a reasonable range of their competition’s?  Either way, I expect that prices will end up gradually dropping over time, as they did for DVD players, CD players, and the like.  Eventually they’ll probably match the current price range of regular DVD players.

Accipiter - 15 March 2008 10:55 AM

Eventually they’ll probably match the current price range of regular DVD players.

Which is when I will buy one

There’s no sense buying one until you own an HD TV, and for me that won’t be for quite a few years, if ever.

We have a PS3 so that is our bluray player.  But we dont have a hdtv yet so it will be a while before we get into the bluray thing.  the reason we have a PS3 is my spoiled rotton hubby.  we dont do holidays or birthdays so i thought i’d get him something big.  that and a PSP.

actually, we just got a HDTV, with one PVR on the way too.

Charybdis - 17 March 2008 06:37 AM

There’s no sense buying one until you own an HD TV, and for me that won’t be for quite a few years, if ever.

Same for us.  We still have an old TV from the late 80s.  Although...my dad has been interested in looking for an HDTV to replace his current TV, which is maybe 7 years old.  That’s pretty young compared to our TV.  Anywho...maybe he’ll be kind & hand it down & we’ll finally have something bigger than a 20 inch screen.  I think his current TV is ...52 inches?

Technoligy is advancing too quick now-a-days.
I got a PS3 but doesn’t mean I am going to go and convert my entire movie collection to Blue Ray.
I still got a TON of casset tapes I still watch on VCR.
Already converted half my collection to DVD and then they come out with this Blue Ray crap.

Why even bother with Blue Ray. 5 years later everything will be on memory sticks. And another 5 years later, who knows.

I freecycled all my VHS tapes a couple years ago.  I couldn’t part with Hardware though, just couldn’t.

I think I"ll send it to Chary.

Some of the stuff I got on VHS probally won’t ever even get made into DVD, HD-DVD, or BLUE RAY.

VHS was a pain, with it eatting up the tapes and all and the fact the film can bad with 10 years of non use, but I think DvD will never die.... It won’t be the next ‘BETA System’ or ‘8-Track Player’. People still use Records, that has gotta say something.

MadCarlotta - 17 March 2008 10:56 AM

I freecycled all my VHS tapes a couple years ago.  I couldn’t part with Hardware though, just couldn’t.

I think I"ll send it to Chary.

Actually my VCR died a couple of years ago and I couldn’t find a replacement to save my life.  All I could find in the stores were combo devices, and I wasn’t buying another DVD player. 

But since I haven’t even turned on *my* television this year I think it would just be wasted on me.

Yeah, I still have VHS tapes along with my DVDs, and I have music tapes along with my CDs.  I do prefer the disks to the tapes, as they don’t involve any moving parts within themselves so are a lot more convenient and less likely to come apart.  So If possible I’ll end up converting all my tapes to disks.  But I don’t see any real need to change from disks to anything else unless the new thing is simply a spectacular new advance.  Disks are pretty much ideal to me, aside from having to be careful not to scratch them or get fingerprints all over them.

If I were to switch over from DVDs, I would want it to be for something that was more resistant to physical damage and/or something with a hugely expanded amount of storage space. . .maybe something that I could store all of my DVDs or CDs on one disk, so that I can free up space in my living room (I know that they have MP3 players and things like that which can store hundreds or thousands of CDs on their files, but those files are stored magnetically or electronically and can get messed up and lost a lot more easily than can the data on a CD; if I had one of those MP3 players, I’d still want to keep my CDs around as a back-up).  Otherwise, why bother “upgrading”?

Buying all the Blu-Ray stuff might make sense if I was just starting off and buying my first television and assorted gadgets, but I’m not really one for upgrading simply for the sake of having the newest thing.