Walmart pushing blu-ray

Mr hosehead,

I agree, The majority of the "average consumer" market has still not been sold on Blue Ray. Hardware and software prices are still way to high, especially in our current dismal economy. I would say that Mr/Mrs consumer putting down $278 for a dvd player is not realistic, when they can basically get a S DVD player for $40. For many of us this is a hobby so price point is not as reflective as it is to the average joe. Nothing personal, you could ask 500 people and none of them would have bought 2 blu ray players since their debut, let alone SIX!!! Thats a downpayment on a car for many. Again, we here kind of have a different mind set when it comes to these things. Just my opinion...I currently use an Oppo 980. I currently have around 800 dvds, so upconversion my best bang for the buck. For me I just don't see the point of switching until the format wins with the average consumer. With the countrys present situation I think Blu Ray will probably take an even bigger hit unless players drop drastically in price. Believe me I am sold on the difference in picture quality of BR, it is trully amazing.

WalMart up the street has 2 BR players for about 230$+tax. Low end stuff, but serviceable.

Personally, I won't jump in until this settles out more. While I was the first kid on the block to own a CD player...I still have my original Philips/Magnevox FD1000, BR is simply too much and not stable.
The Cheap players are.....cheap....and you still are into it for 400$ for a new / top player.
The solution may be to wait for OPPO. My 981 is perfect.
At that point, I go with NetFlix so I won't own many BR disks.
THAN to top it off, I'll need a BR drive for my confuser and the appropriate software.

With the countrys present situation I think Blu Ray will probably take an even bigger hit unless players drop drastically in price. Believe me I am sold on the difference in picture quality of BR, it is trully amazing.
Zigonht

Not only the price of admission but also for the price of software.I for one will only buy blu-ray,but only when the disc pricing is to my advantage.
Drop the price to DVD levels and the rest will be history...

Wow, what a lot of pre qualifying. The price of admission is under $200 for incredible picture and sound. Add another $800 and you might be able to see a marginal difference between players but who cares it's just HT. If there's a cost hike it would be in outfitting to 7.1. Depending on your existing system, two more speakers and a modern coded HDMI receiver/pre with room correction and of course the two hundred dollar player.

I have a small HT area and the addition of the side speakers and room correction make this little space sound huge.

What I don't understand is how the cost of the BD disk drives the purchase of the player. I own a few films but I almost never watch them again and again. Why would anybody buy and collect this stuff?

Vicdamone,

For me its part of the hobby. I still have over 600 casettes. Do I listen to them all the time, no, but yeah every once in a while I hit the old collection. Cd's the same. So why not DVD's. Get together with the family on a cold Friday night, popcorn and sit back.