Although prices for some Blu-ray players dropped below $100 this holiday season, customers are hesitating to jump into the next-generation video format. Even people who already own Blu-ray players are still buying movies on DVDs.
One big reason: Blu-ray discs won’t play on standard DVD players found in cars, computers and bedrooms.
Now Hollywood — which is banking on the pricier Blu-ray discs to help lift sagging home video sales — is stepping up its efforts to win customers. Studios are packaging Blu-ray discs with regular versions on DVDs, and throwing in so-called “digital copies,” which can play on computers and iPods.
Over the past month or so, “Up,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and many other hit movies were released in such combo packs. Universal is releasing its “Bourne” movies on “flipper” discs with Blu-ray on one side and DVD on the other.
Such combos generally cost about $20 — sometimes 50 percent to 70 percent less than what it would cost to buy a Blu-ray disc and DVD separately.
Movie studios have been pushing Blu-ray for its crystal-clear sound and images, which can be enjoyed even without the best flat-panel TVs. Yet DVDs remain more convenient because players and computer drives that read DVD discs are ubiquitous. Two-thirds of the 92 million U.S. households that have a DVD player have more than one.
There are now Blu-ray players in nearly 12 million U.S. homes. But you still need to think hard about where you’d want to play a Blu-ray disc before you buy one.
“Blu-ray is landlocked. It’s home-locked,” said Michael Vitelli, a vice president at Best Buy Co.
At a recent industry conference, Vitelli remarked that it shouldn’t matter where consumers plan to watch a movie they buy, just as it shouldn’t matter where Starbucks customers are going to drink their lattes. But these…