The future of the disc, in quality, and in industry acceptance, is Blu Ray. And if you have wanted to stall buying that ‘expensive Blu Ray player’, flipper discs that let you watch the movie on DVD, and ‘flip over’ when you’re ready, are here too.

If you think Blu Ray players are expensive, just think back to the times when the first DVD players were out. And if you can’t really remember well, I’ve got stats to jog ze ole memory cells a lil. And the results are quite..let’s say ‘perception-warping’, hmm?

Experts at the Envisioneering Group, who have been tracking the graph of Blu Ray player prices on Wall Street Journal have taken that graph, compared it with the graph that DVD player prices followed over the same number of years since introduction. Have a look for yourself.

The graphs track the movement of Blu Ray player and DVD player prices from the time they were introduced, till the Black Friday of the third year from that date. At least to an untrained eye, they match nearly perfectly. Blu Ray players have been falling in price just the way DVD players were. Hard to believe?

Now watch the numbers that went into that graph.

Back in 1997, when DVD players were launched, they were actually more expensive, dollar-for-dollar than Blu Ray players. While over their first 3 years, DVD players went from $840 to $248, Blu Ray players went from $800 to $221. And we’re not even accounting for the inflation over the decade from 1997-2006.

If you can get a $40 DVD player today, its because 12 years have passed, and 3 of those years have been spent in the shadow of its successor, Blu Ray. The older, lower-quality technology is bound to be cheaper.

The stats  point to one thing – that Blu Ray players have been historically cheaper than the DVD players.

Even with streaming movie services, Blu Ray is poised strongly for the future. Laptops are adopting it, Macs wish they had it, the disc’s getting bigger and monstrous, and its bringing 3D to your living room and your PS3.

And if these graphs are any indication, it’s going to get better. 😉 here’s to a Happy High-Definition New Year!