# Why hasn't blu-ray caught on more?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [October 28, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922 "2015-10-28T00:45:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/21 "2015-10-28T02:57:18Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> I have some blu-ray discs. I haven’t noticed any difference between them and my DVDs. So why should I pay more?
Yes if you have it connected to a CRT TV from the 80’s you may not notice a difference.
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### Author:  [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/22 "2015-10-28T03:40:21Z")
The image quality for DVD is “good enough” as far as I’m concerned. I don’t need HD quality video to get what I want out of a movie. What I would want out of a DVD successor is an end to bullshit like regional locks on players, and as long as the industry has no intention of offering that, I see no reason to upgrade.
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### Author:  [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/23 "2015-10-28T03:42:20Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> It does seem weird to me how many of the same people who talk about how you have to be blind not to tell the difference between HD and SD are also the ones that say that going from DVD to Blu-ray was just an incremental upgrade–or that they can’t tell the difference.
>
> Yes, I know streaming is now big (to my chagrin, as it has no commentary), but the stuff about Blu-ray has been said for a long time.
Indeed. Blu-ray is far superior in picture quality to DVDs. I can’t understand those who say different (I don’t watch DVDs, only Blu-rays these days).
Even streaming, though, doesn’t have the picture quality as a Blu-ray disc.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/24 "2015-10-28T03:47:31Z")
> [@levdrakon](#):
>
> Remember when the movie industry was charging $100 or more for a single vhs copy of a movie?
To be fair, that was when they were trying to sell them to rental stores. Once they started to sell movies on VHS to consumers, the price dropped to about twenty bucks or so.
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### Author:  [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/25 "2015-10-28T03:50:31Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#):
>
> Blu-ray is far superior in picture quality to DVDs.
The good ones are. Assuming you have the screen for it.
> [@ISiddiqui](#):
>
> Even streaming, though, doesn’t have the picture quality as a Blu-ray disc.
“Even” streaming? Plenty of streaming sources are terrible.
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### Author:  [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/26 "2015-10-28T04:32:48Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> To be fair, that was when they were trying to sell them to rental stores. Once they started to sell movies on VHS to consumers, the price dropped to about twenty bucks or so.
No. They were gouging you and I for as much as they could get.
Fuck 'em.
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### Author:  [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/27 "2015-10-28T04:34:11Z")
Blu-ray had the bad luck to come out just as streaming was getting more popular. Most people just want to watch **a** movie, not necessarily **a specific** movie. Sure, not every movie is on streaming, but as long as you’re flexible you can usually find something entertaining. It’s not worth it to me to go out to rent a disc when I could instead just pick a movie from a handful of streaming sites from my Roku while sitting on my couch. And even if I did go out and rent a disc, the increase in quality between blu-ray and DVD isn’t big enough for me to want to spend the higher price for the blu-ray.
And I don’t usually like watching a movie more than once, so I’m not interested in buying the disc anyway.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/28 "2015-10-28T04:50:06Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Yes if you have it connected to a CRT TV from the 80’s you may not notice a difference.
Thank you for your snark. :rolleyes:
I bought a new HD tv and the Blu-ray player was a bit of a bonus from the store. I’ve never noticed a difference between it and DVD on the screen.
I have noticed, though, that the menus on Blu-rays take more time just to get to the screen that says “Play”, so there is an additional irritation factor with blu-ray.
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### Author:  [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/29 "2015-10-28T04:54:41Z")
Well, first there was a format war. HD-DVD vs BluRay. While some people went out and bought a stand-alone unit, a lot of people got into one or the other by buying either an XBox 360 (HD-DVD) or PS3 (BluRay). For that matter, for years the best BluRay player you could buy (in terms of compatibility) was the PS3. That assumes that they actually bought any movies on either format instead of continuing to buy DVD, which both consoles supported. By the time I finally had enough money and interest in buying a PS3, the war was over and BluRay had won. However, by that time I had also pretty much stopped buying physical media, preferring to wait a couple days for Netflix or using the console to stream (which, if you had a PS3, required a work-around in the old days.) I can still count on one hand the number of BluRays I actually own versus DVDs, but I haven’t really watched most of those in years either. At this point I just can’t get myself to spend money on most movies or TV shows when I can rent or stream easily.
Also, while a good BluRay is objectively better in terms of picture and audio quality, you have to have the equipment to actually get the most out of it. I literally couldn’t use my older surround system with BluRay because it didn’t support the new audio codecs and the BluRays didn’t come with a version with the older codecs like DTS. Most of the benefits that DVD had over VHS–reliability, non-sequential access, multiple audio and video tracks, small format, anamorphic widescreen–were not matched by new benefits in BluRay, other than audio/video quality. That’s a hard sell when you have people (or even more annoyingly, cable channels) that stretch a 4:3 signal to 16:9 and think that it’s acceptable or would prefer to buy pan-and-scan only DVDs because it filled all of their old 4:3 TV screen.
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### Author:  [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/30 "2015-10-28T05:12:51Z")
> [@levdrakon](#):
>
> Remember when the movie industry was charging $100 or more for a single vhs copy of a movie?
>
> Hahahaha!
Yep. In 1985, we got our first VCR and my wife bought a USED copy of _Gandhi_ for something like $85.00.
Only watched it once, too. :smack:
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### Author:  [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/31 "2015-10-28T05:27:14Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> I have noticed, though, that the menus on Blu-rays take more time just to get to the screen that says “Play”, so there is an additional irritation factor with blu-ray.
/ his, and, pause… I pause mine too long (over 5 minutes) and I have to restart the movie…
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### Author:  [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/32 "2015-10-28T05:30:40Z")
Lots of folks also download bluray quality film and tv for free.
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### Author:  [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/33 "2015-10-28T06:03:26Z")
> [@Quimby](#):
>
> Honestly it looks to me in stores I visit (which admittedly is not often as I buy online more) like DVD is almost dead and Blu Ray is taking its rapidly shrinking space on shelves. The reason is it shrinking is people no longer care about owning physical copies. Streaming and downloads satisfy them just fine. This change is happening rapidly. I worked with a person who was in her 20s and when I mentioned a DVD, she looked at me like I was taking about a phonograph cylinder.
Walmart still has great big bins of DVDs, a great many of which are under $10.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/34 "2015-10-28T06:07:42Z")
For me, because Blu-Ray is not going to help the quality of the TV series we mostly watch from streaming when available or DVD from Netflix. If someone gave me a player I’d go out and buy a copy of 2001, but that’s about it. I’m not going to buy a blu-ray Duck Soup to replace my DVD copy.
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### Author:  [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/35 "2015-10-28T06:45:55Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> For me, because Blu-Ray is not going to help the quality of the TV series we mostly watch from streaming when available or DVD from Netflix. If someone gave me a player I’d go out and buy a copy of 2001, but that’s about it. I’m not going to buy a blu-ray Duck Soup to replace my DVD copy.
my choice would be Bladerunner
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### Author:  [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/36 "2015-10-28T07:14:56Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#):
>
> I found it amusing that for a while all the DVD’s we rented had hard-charging ads for Blu-ray aggressively purporting to show how much better the picture was than on DVD – only they were showing this on a DVD so how could it possibly show that? On the one or two Blu-rays I watched I didn’t notice a difference. It seemed to me like they were trying to sell the emperor’s new clothes, much ado about nothing
Same as ads for HD TV channels/services that play out on standard definition broadcast.
A few of them are honest, and zoom in to show you the comparative increase in definition of a small bit of screen HD vs Standard.
The rest just use cheap tricks like increasing the contrast, applying high dynamic range effects, or mucking about with depth of field, to generate a vague impression of how you’re supposed to feel about watching in HD.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/37 "2015-10-28T09:35:21Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#):
>
> On the one or two Blu-rays I watched I didn’t notice a difference. It seemed to me like they were trying to sell the emperor’s new clothes, much ado about nothing
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> I have some blu-ray discs. I haven’t noticed any difference between them and my DVDs. So why should I pay more?
I honestly just don’t understand this perception. A DVD will, at best, deliver 480p (“at best” because some older DVD players didn’t even output progressive scan, and some DVDs were hard-letterboxed and not anamorphic). Whereas Blu-ray from most sources will be 1080p. Even if you have a TV that is only 720p capable, like some older plasma systems, the difference should be very obvious.
If you can’t tell the difference between 480p and true HD then – no snark intended – something isn’t right. I wonder if you just happened to be looking at bad source material (some Blu-rays really are badly mastered) or maybe the player isn’t outputting at the correct resolution or you’re not using HDMI. Perhaps some players default to 480p if not set otherwise. It’s impossible to watch something like the exquisitely photographed opening scenes of _Life of Pi_ in 1080p and think, meh, that’s no better than a DVD! OTOH I could probably find some movies that hardly look any better on Blu-ray than on DVD, but that’s not the medium’s fault. Blame the cinematographer or the incompetent who did the film to digital transfer.
There was another discussion somewhere about the virtues of TVs with 4K resolution, for heaven’s sake! I still think that for typically sized home TVs you’re at a point of diminishing returns beyond 1080p. But DVDs aren’t even HD – they’re basically a very good, clean form of 1950s broadcast technology!
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### Author:  [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/38 "2015-10-28T12:35:56Z")
Blu ray offers few advantages over up converted dvds. Plus I think the industry overestimated how much people care about resolution. I grew up on 8 bit Nintendo games and watching over the air antenna broadcasts on a 480 resolution TV. I don’t care much about picture quality beyond a set point. Gaming too has this problem, some Nintendo or snes games are more fun and enjoyable than the high resolution 8th generation console games out now. Resolution is just a small aspect of entertainment.
Plus with streaming, the appeal of physical media is dropping. Streaming has caught in because it offers more options and convenience over physical media. Dvd caught on because it offers more convenience over vhs. Blu ray doesn’t offer enough to justify itself.
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### Author:  [@Sterling\_Archer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sterling_Archer)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/39 "2015-10-28T13:31:27Z")
Blu-ray is still the overwhelming preference for those who care about home theater quality. I think a large portion of the population has:
1. poor eyesight
2. sits too far away from TV
3. TV is too small
To these people, there is very little difference between DVD and Blu-ray quality. Many of them can’t even tell HD channels from the standard ones, and that is a much bigger increase.
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### Author:  [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)
#### Post date: [October 28, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-hasnt-blu-ray-caught-on-more/735922/40 "2015-10-28T13:43:32Z")
> [@gaffa](#):
>
> Because the standard price for a BluRay was much more than the standard price for a DVD. In a word: greed.
>
> Myself, I cannot grasp people who say they are happy with streaming. Every single time I’ve thought to myself “I want to watch X”, I searched Amazon and Netflix **and it’s not there**. Seriously, I have never been able to find any particular title. And the whole idea of “renting” a title for streaming for double to triple what I used to rent DVDs is even worse. “Buying” a title is even worse, as you “own” it only until they shut down that service.
yeah, this. there’s so much stuff that’s not on any of the streaming services, not to mention stuff that _was_ there and disappeared.
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