MUWAHAHAHAHA!

During the format war between HDDVD and Blu-Ray, I was the one on the side of the HDDVD. It had all the perks as far as I was concerned. Cheaper discs, the fact that the same facotiries that make DVDs can make HDDVD (Blu Ray, not so much) etc. etc. I've written a couple of blogs on it in the past that I might try to dig up today and post (I won't consider it Nablopomo material since it's archived) for your situational awareness.

When Blue Ray won I was shocked. They basically won because ONE movie house moved over to Blu Ray for whatever reason and almost every other movie house that had an HDDVD contract also had a stipulation in said contract that said something along the line of "if X movie house moves to Blue Ray we reserve the rights to follow." This was probably because of the format wars of the past like Beta Vs. VHS, VHS Vs, Laser Disc, etc. when companies see a decline in sales because consumers aren't entirely idiots and they refuse to throw as much money as they normally would into a format that might be extinct in a matter of weeks. So once X moved, so did everyone else leaving HDDVD, and the tons of folks who bought the players because they're cheaper and the discs because they were cheaper and who thought it would win because it was cheaper completely out to dry.

Thanks, movie houses.

But now, Blu Ray sales are going down. Sales of players are going down as well as movies.

The reason? They say it's because DVDs are widely considered "good enough" that you can justify keeping the format around.

It's like this: VHS to DVD was a huge change in quality. If you watch a movie twenty times on a video, the color gets washed, sound gets fuzzy, the tape basically disintegrates. But if you watch a DVD 20 times, assuming you take care of the disc and don't play Frisbee with it when it isn't being played, it will look the same as the first time you played it.

Also, there's the cost. Blu Ray players are still wicked expensive, as are the discs. What would normally be a five dollar disc at Wal-Mart is now 30-40.00 thanks to Blu Ray. It could be some awful, horrible movie from the 80s that you just want to own because it's so bad, a fun purchase that you can no longer justify the purchase of because at 40.00, I had better get more than just some crappy movie. I had better get two GOOD movies.

Also, there's the fact that times are tough right now, there's no doubt about that. Times are tough and many people are getting by with their non HD TV that isn't huge ad mounted on the wall. They don't have amazing sound systems and they aren't willing to spend a ton on this stuff. Yet, at least.

Ah, and then there's the collectors. Like me. I have over 300 movies that I've collected (this is not counting TV shows) and I was always of the mind that if DVD went away, so would my collecting ability. When you can build a good collection with the average price per disc being something like 10.00, it's not bad. It's encouraging. You can get a ton of good movies for not that much money and your collection will grow very quickly. At 30.00 or hell even 20.00 it gets a lot harder and besides, I already own that movie on DVD! I refuse to buy any of those movies again. If DVD goes away, my Netflix account will get a much stronger workout.

Anyway, Blu Ray is on the decline and my smile is ascending. Funny how that works out.