Blu-Rays and updates...

[Lyme]

This is why GeekSquad sells a service for them to come and update the os on your ps3..

[Redeemed]

Originally Posted by Lyme

This is why GeekSquad sells a service for them to come and update the os on your ps3..

True. But doesn't make this right.

Working for BestBuy, in the GeekSquad, I can tell you we get a lot of people pissed off cause the brand new BD they just bought wont play in their player, and they don't understand the "error' message it's displaying.

When we explain the whole situation of updating, some customers calm down and opt to have the internet connected to the player... but most get even more frustrated and opt to return the whole system.

They want convenience, and this is anything but convenient. It's one more thing they have to do, have to learn how to do, or one more thing they have to spend money on when they're budgets are already tight.

Sony *is* shooting themselves in the foot with this. Seriously. If they keep this up, I can see online distribution of HD content overtaking Blu-Ray with relative ease in the not so distant future.

That, or some other, more convenient and seamless media taking Blu-Rays place.

Honestly, if it weren't for their lack of selection I'd prefer iTunes over Blu-Ray.

Still strongly considering getting most my movies from iTunes, and HD-DVD when I can find 'em in that format.

[nekrosoft13]

Originally Posted by Redeemed

They want convenience, and this is anything but convenient. It's one more thing they have to do, have to learn how to do, or one more thing they have to spend money on when they're budgets are already tight.

Sony *is* shooting themselves in the foot with this. Seriously. If they keep this up, I can see online distribution of HD content overtaking Blu-Ray with relative ease in the not so distant future.


Honestly, if it weren't for their lack of selection I'd prefer iTunes over Blu-Ray.

Still strongly considering getting most my movies from iTunes, and HD-DVD when I can find 'em in that format.

ok,

1) "It's one more thing they have to do, have to learn how to do" aka laziness that could be applied to anything. bought a new camera, don't know how to use, RTFM, bought a new car, can't get the satnav o work, RTFM, Oven keeps burning your food, RTFM.

2) Sony IS NOT SHOOTING themself in the foot. SONY does not Equal BD.

The current 19 board members (as of June 2009) are:[4]

Apple Inc.
Dell Inc.
Hewlett-Packard
Hitachi, Ltd.
Intel Corporation
LG Electronics
Mitsubishi Electric
Panasonic Corporation
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems
TDK Corporation
Technicolor SA
20th Century Fox
Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group
Warner Bros. Entertainment

AND

The contributors as of June 2009 are:[4]

Acer Inc.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Almedio Inc.
Alticast
ArcSoft
AudioDev AB
BluFocus Inc.
Broadcom Corporation
Canon Inc.
CESI Technology Co. Ltd.
China Hualu Group Co., Ltd.
CMC Magnetics Corporation
Corel Corporation
Cryptography Research Inc.
CyberLink
DCA Inc.
Deluxe Digital Studios, Inc.
Dolby Laboratories Inc.
Dreamer Co., Ltd.
DTS, Inc.
Eclipse Data Technologies
Fraunhofer IIS
Fujifilm
Fujitsu Ltd.
Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
Gibson Guitar Corporation
Industrial Technology Research Institute
Lionsgate Entertainment
LITE-ON IT Corporation
Macrovision Corp.
Marvell International Ltd.
MediaTek Inc
Meridian Audio, Ltd.
Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co.Ltd.
Monster Cable Products
Moser Baer India Limited
NEC Electronics Corporation
Nero AG
nVidia Corporation
Osmosys SA
Paramount Pictures Corporation
Pulstec Industrial Co., Ltd.
RealD
Ritek
Sensio Technologies Inc.
ShibaSoku Co. Ltd.
Sigma Designs
Singulus Technologies
Sonic Solutions
ST Microelectronics
Sunext
Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd.,
Testronic Laboratories, Inc.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC)
Visionare Corporation
Warner Music Group
Zoran Corporation

3) iTunes, Netflix, Hulu etc... streaming media is not even close to the picture quality and video quality of blu-ray.

4) and when it comes to HD-DVD, what are you going to do couple years from now when your fancy HD-DVD player breaks, down. You will not find a replacement, no one will fix it.

5) and back to iTunes, iTunes movies are full of DRM, there is a way to remove it, but that is even more complicated then simple 1-5 minute firmware update process.

[Redeemed]

Originally Posted by nekrosoft13

ok,

1) "It's one more thing they have to do, have to learn how to do" aka laziness that could be applied to anything. bought a new camera, don't know how to use, RTFM, bought a new car, can't get the satnav o work, RTFM, Oven keeps burning your food, RTFM.

2) Sony IS NOT SHOOTING themself in the foot. SONY does not Equal BD.

The current 19 board members (as of June 2009) are:[4]

Apple Inc.
Dell Inc.
Hewlett-Packard
Hitachi, Ltd.
Intel Corporation
LG Electronics
Mitsubishi Electric
Panasonic Corporation
Pioneer Corporation
Royal Philips Electronics
Samsung Electronics
Sharp Corporation
Sony Corporation
Sun Microsystems
TDK Corporation
Technicolor SA
20th Century Fox
Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group
Warner Bros. Entertainment

AND

The contributors as of June 2009 are:[4]

Acer Inc.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
Almedio Inc.
Alticast
ArcSoft
AudioDev AB
BluFocus Inc.
Broadcom Corporation
Canon Inc.
CESI Technology Co. Ltd.
China Hualu Group Co., Ltd.
CMC Magnetics Corporation
Corel Corporation
Cryptography Research Inc.
CyberLink
DCA Inc.
Deluxe Digital Studios, Inc.
Dolby Laboratories Inc.
Dreamer Co., Ltd.
DTS, Inc.
Eclipse Data Technologies
Fraunhofer IIS
Fujifilm
Fujitsu Ltd.
Funai Electric Co., Ltd.
Gibson Guitar Corporation
Industrial Technology Research Institute
Lionsgate Entertainment
LITE-ON IT Corporation
Macrovision Corp.
Marvell International Ltd.
MediaTek Inc
Meridian Audio, Ltd.
Mitsubishi Kagaku Media Co.Ltd.
Monster Cable Products
Moser Baer India Limited
NEC Electronics Corporation
Nero AG
nVidia Corporation
Osmosys SA
Paramount Pictures Corporation
Pulstec Industrial Co., Ltd.
RealD
Ritek
Sensio Technologies Inc.
ShibaSoku Co. Ltd.
Sigma Designs
Singulus Technologies
Sonic Solutions
ST Microelectronics
Sunext
Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd.,
Testronic Laboratories, Inc.
Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC)
Visionare Corporation
Warner Music Group
Zoran Corporation

3) iTunes, Netflix, Hulu etc... streaming media is not even close to the picture quality and video quality of blu-ray.

4) and when it comes to HD-DVD, what are you going to do couple years from now when your fancy HD-DVD player breaks, down. You will not find a replacement, no one will fix it.

5) and back to iTunes, iTunes movies are full of DRM, there is a way to remove it, but that is even more complicated then simple 1-5 minute firmware update process.

Spend just one month working retail, then you'll understand what I'm saying.

I see it first hand. Yes, people ARE that lazy. They just got off work, are tired, probably a bit flustered and stressed out from their day at the job... they just want to put the disc and and munch on some food.

If it's not that easy, and the fix isn't "simple" from their point of view, then they often return it. I have seen this happen first hand, many times. And when we tell them we can send somebody to their house to set it all up for however many hundreds (depending on how many devices they have)... they flip out usually.

So maybe it isn't Sony... who ever is in charge of the decision making for BD as a standard- THEY are shooting themselves in the foot. If it's the board, committee, BOA, KOA, the michelin man- whoever the hell in in charge of these decisions- they ARE shooting themsevles in the foot.

And the average consumer *will* gladly sacrifice image quality if it offers enough of a greater convenience.

You need to put yourself in the shoes of the average consumer that is not technically literate. Untill you can do this, what I'm saying wont make a lick of sense to you.

[nekrosoft13]

Originally Posted by Redeemed

Spend just one month working retail, then you'll understand what I'm saying.

I see it first hand. Yes, people ARE that lazy. They just got off work, are tired, probably a bit flustered and stressed out from their day at the job... they just want to put the disc and and munch on some food. And the average consumer *will* gladly sacrifice image quality if it offers enough of a greater convenience.

You need to put yourself in the shoes of the average consumer that is not technically literate. Untill you can do this, what I'm saying wont make a lick of sense to you.

I did work many months in retail, much more then I would liked and I did put myself in "consumer shoes" many times. Always explained everything in details, didn't worry about my sale numbers.

And I don't really care for this excuse "just got off work, are tired, probably a bit flustered and stressed out from their day at the job"

I go to work, get frustrated at work, and often can be tired after work, thats no excuse for not reading instructions. When a consumer is to dumb to open the manual and read it, he is one of the parties at fault.

Same excuse could be used for almost everything, OMFG i burned the roast, Can't put the bookcase together, satnav doesn't work. RTFM, Everything can't be idiot proof. If everything was Idiot proof, cars would be wrapped with bubble wrap and forks would be made of plastic.

Ask the consumers at work, and they often will admit that they did not even touch the manual.

And second group of people at "fault" are giant stores and their employees like the blue shirts at Best Buy and their main goal is sales. It should be their job to educate the potential buyer about the product that he/she is about to buy and tell them that Blu-ray players need to be updated to play new releases from time to time.
If blue shirts would have done a proper job explaining the product that they are selling, the customer would not be suprised when he/she would find out about update.

And as far as customer service go, blu-ray player updates takes less then 2 minutes, to save a potential customer this service should be either free or very cheap.

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Best_Buy

Six-Month Rating: 3.24 / 10
Lifetime Rating: 1.98 / 10


And last thing I wanted to add, since you did bring up HD-DVD and iTunes.

Both those services/tech also had/have updates. Each Toshiba HD-DVD player had 5-10 updates in the short lifespan.

iTunes also gets updated often, and not to even mention all the iTunes DRM troubles.

[Redeemed]

Originally Posted by nekrosoft13

I did work many months in retail, much more then I would liked and I did put myself in "consumer shoes" many times. Always explained everything in details, didn't worry about my sale numbers.

And I don't really care for this excuse "just got off work, are tired, probably a bit flustered and stressed out from their day at the job"

I go to work, get frustrated at work, and often can be tired after work, thats no excuse for not reading instructions. When a consumer is to dumb to open the manual and read it, he is one of the parties at fault.

Same excuse could be used for almost everything, OMFG i burned the roast, Can't put the bookcase together, satnav doesn't work. RTFM, Everything can't be idiot proof. If everything was Idiot proof, cars would be wrapped with bubble wrap and forks would be made of plastic.

Ask the consumers at work, and they often will admit that they did not even touch the manual.

And second group of people at "fault" are giant stores and their employees like the blue shirts at Best Buy and their main goal is sales. It should be their job to educate the potential buyer about the product that he/she is about to buy and tell them that Blu-ray players need to be updated to play new releases from time to time.

And as far as customer service go, blu-ray player updates takes less then 2 minutes, to save a potential customer this service should be either free or very cheap.

http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Best_Buy

Six-Month Rating: 3.24 / 10
Lifetime Rating: 1.98 / 10

So where do we draw the line?

"My computer BSOD when I put that new RAM in!" -Did you RTFM?

"That new video card, when I installed it everything is now really big" -likely drive update, did you RTFM?

"I cannot install Windows on this computer I just put a new Hard Drive in" - did you google the fix?

Seriously nekro, you're expecting far too much from the average joe. Let's take a roofer for example- works a 10, maybe even a 12 hour day... does this for 5 days a week. Do you think he has the give a damn to rtfm, and when the manual sounds like greek to him, google the jargon he needs to learn?

I think the reason you spent "too much time in retail"- according to your words- is you couldn't handle how ignorant most people are regarding technology. I agree, it'd be nice if people used a little brain power and common sense instead of flipping out the first time they're unit displays a message they did not expect it to.

however, that's not reality- whether you like it or not.

And as for the update being a free service... that's great- except when you're dealing with hundreds of clients a day it really isn't practical. Free I can understand. But what's that client supposed to do, disconnect their player and bring it to the story every time it needs an update?

Or, I know- we're supposed to send somebody to the house... for free? You any idea how much the in-home service guys cost the company? Insuring them, their vehicles, the tools, maintenance for the vehicles, gas, hourly pay for them... I mean really- free? Yeah, that will *never* happen.

The solution is to stop with these rediculous updates.

Instead of defending these updates so adamantly, why don't you tell me how these updates benefit the end use. What makes them so necessary and worth while?

[nekrosoft13]

Originally Posted by Redeemed

And as for the update being a free service... that's great- except when you're dealing with hundreds of clients a day it really isn't practical. Free I can understand. But what's that client supposed to do, disconnect their player and bring it to the story every time it needs an update?

Or, I know- we're supposed to send somebody to the house... for free? You any idea how much the in-home service guys cost the company? Insuring them, their vehicles, the tools, maintenance for the vehicles, gas, hourly pay for them... I mean really- free? Yeah, that will *never* happen.
Instead of defending these updates so adamantly, why don't you tell me how these updates benefit the end use. What makes them so necessary and worth while?

1) updates will not stop, no matter how much you complain
2) solution? very simple, corporate keep firmware database for all players being sold by them, available over the network to all the stores. white shirt burns the update to a CD, gives short insructions to the customer. Most players I seen will read the firmware update right from the inserted disc, and thats it. its updated. CDs in large quantity cost cents. But I don't expect good service from best buy.
3) and as far as updates are concerned not only do they update DRM, but also improove perormance, adds new features: 3d support, wifi adapter support, mosquite filters. adds support for playing files from thumb drive. Fixes support for online streaming media etc...

and as far as the others exampales, what can i say, thats technology, it will never be 100% streamlined and bug free. People need to get used to it.

Originally Posted by ViN86

It doesn't. I never said it did.

Older BD players don't have that. That's what I said. Fine, people who buy new players are all set. There are still lots of people out there without WiFi, that have no idea why their player won't play their new BD.

Actually you said

Originally Posted by ViN86

Good thing about PS3 is it has WiFi so it's nice and easy to update. But for standalone BD players, I can see how it'd be a PITA.

And like I said, standalone players have wifi too so how is it more of a pain in the ass just because it's not a PS3? You still have to set up both to connect to the wifi network at home. Connecting a cable into the back is actually even easier if you have your router set up as an DHCP server which most are out of the box. The hardest part is routing the cable.

Originally Posted by bacon12

Yes and it requires no user input or a wifi or wired internet connection. Its seamless.

You can't ask tech illiterate people to do manual firmware updates to watch a freaking movie. Its stupid beyond anything I have ever heard, and what is worse the new keys get decrypted as soon as they are released, the disks get ripped and uploaded to trackers the moment they are released.

What is the point?

If you hook it up like you are supposed to do like the manual says the updates should be pretty much automatic. If a person doesn't want to set up the wifi or ethernet connection then too bad. The instructions are there on how to do it. I can see if they gave you no instructions at all then there would be room to bitch but this isn't the case.
Do you think most people are smart enough to set up the wifi connection? If so then they are smart enough to know how to hook a cable to the back. If they aren't smart enough to set up wifi should they stop putting that on the players or should people suck it up and read the manual and learn how to do it?

[bacon12]

Tell that to the average user and their head will explode, or they will run away with their fingers in their ears.

[nekrosoft13]

Originally Posted by bacon12

Tell that to the average user and their head will explode, or they will run away with their fingers in their ears.

average user should know how to read.

Originally Posted by nekrosoft13

average user should know how to read.

Agreed.

You can't make everything idiot proof. If you did we wouldn't be typing on computers right now because they wouldn't exist.