TeknologikL

Blu-ray is celebrating its 2^nd birthday this week, but it is not all candy canes and popsicles at the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). Sales of the format haven't picked up to where it should be at this point, and standalone Blu-ray player sales are actually down so far in 2008. Are people waiting for the final revision to the Blu-ray spec or are prices still too high?

Sony officially launched the format 2 years ago by releasing the first 8 movies on May 23^rd 2006. At the time, the only device capable of reading the discs was the Samsung BD-P1000, which took almost 30 seconds from the time you closed the tray until the menu on the disc would come up.

When Blu-ray first launched, it had full 1080p picture and HD audio – as well as most of the features found on regular DVDs. The Blu-ray specification also promised loads of advanced special features, but to make sure Blu-ray launched on time the BDA divided the hardware requirements into three different "profiles."

Blu-ray Profiles Explained
By splitting the hardware requirements into stages, manufacturers could get their players to market sooner and would give some time for the price of some of the components to come down. Even with a gimped feature set, first generation Blu-ray players cost upwards of $1000.

Originally the plan was to allow the incomplete 1.0 players to be sold for a year until May 31^st, 2007. However, a month before the May deadline, hardware manufacturers were unable to get profile 1.1 players to market and the 1.1 deadline was pushed back 5 months. Finally on November 1^st, 2007, Blu-ray Profile 1.1 became mandatory for all new models being brought to market. Blu-ray Profile 1.1 adds a requirement for secondary video and audio decoders. This allows for advanced Picture-in-Picture features. Profile 1.1 also requires 256MB internal storage for the player.

Now, 2 years later and after having won the format war, you would think Blu-ray would be going full steam ahead. The truth is that consumers are still confused about the different Blu-ray standards, and think the price of players and media is too high. It's hard to justify paying $25 or more for a movie when a DVD sells for half that price, especially with upconverting players that close the quality gap.

Blu-ray 2.0 Where Are You?
Right now, the PLAYSTATION 3 is still the only Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player available. By mid-summer that will change as a few BD-Live enabled players will be hitting the market, but you won't see them priced below $400. Because of this, estimates from ABI Research put the PS3 at about 85% of all Blu-ray players sold in 2008. This does not leave a lot of room for other CE manufacturers to compete with Sony, who take a loss on each PS3 sold.

Just because a new technology performs better doesn't mean it will win in the marketplace. Super Audio CDs and DVD Audio discs failed to catch on with consumers who were happy with regular CD quality. Instead, people were more interested in convenience than quality, as we saw with the rise of the MP3. In virtually all cases, MP3s are lower quality than a CD but it didn't stop consumers from embracing the format and tossing those shiny discs to the side.

Blu-ray is still the heir for the optical media throne, but there is still has a long road ahead for the format – who will be competing with many new technologies that will be trying to make all discs obsolete.

Do you have a Blu-ray player yet or are you still clinging on to DVD? What's holding you back? Price? Features?

Profile 1.0 - Grace Period Profile
Sony BDP-S300
Sony BDP-S500
Sony BDP-S1
Sony BDP-S2000ES
Sharp BD-HP20
Pioneer Elite BDP-95FD
Pioneer BDP-HD1
Samsung BDP1000
Samsung BDP1200
Samsung BD-P1400
Panasonic DMP-BD10

Profile 1.1 - Final Standard Profile or "Bonus View"
Panasonic BMP-BD30
Denon DVD2500BT
Denon DVD3800BD
Pioneer Elite BDP-05FD
Samsung BD-UP5000
Marantz BD8002
LG BH200
Sylvania NB500SL9
Sony BDP-S350 (not released yet)
Insignia NS-BRDVD
Samsung BD-P1500 (a future update should make this player 2.0)

Profile 2.0 - BD-Live
Playstation 3
Panasonic BMP-BD50 (not released yet)
Sony BDP-S550 (not released yet)

Resources:
Evidence Mounts That Blu-ray Will Struggle
Blu-ray: The Future Has Been Delayed
Master List of Blu-ray Players