Is Blu-ray doomed to failure?
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- dbloc
Long read, but interesting.
Is Blu-ray doomed to failure?Many of us held off on investing in a high definition DVD player and those
expensive hi def movies as we awaited the outcome of the format war. As HD
DVD and Blu-ray battled it out, we sat on the sidelines - reluctant to
invest hundreds of dollars in a player and even more in movies that might
soon be obsolete.Some folks who just had to satisfy their craving for hi def content, and who
had plenty of money to spare, hedged their bets and bought pricey dual
format players - but they went for $700 and up, so they didn't exactly fly
off the shelves. Then the Sony PlayStation 3 came along and made the
decision. The PS3 did fly off the shelves, and they came with Blu-ray
technology, which meant that in addition to playing the video games for
which they were primarily designed, they also double as high definition
movie players. So even though the sales for dedicated Blu-ray DVD players
vs. HD DVD players was pretty close, when you added in all those
PlayStations, Blu-ray had a much bigger share of the market.And since there were far more devices out there in people's home that played
Blu-ray than those that played HD DVD, it made sense for studios to choose
the former format when releasing their movies. In January of this year,
Warner Brothers (which previously had published movies in both formats)
dropped HD DVD and went with Blu-ray exclusively - and according to some
reports, got $500 million from the BDA (the Blue-ray Disc Association) for
doing so.
http://www.wxpnews.com/91JA4S/08…A payment like that could certainly seal a deal, and Warner's decision
sealed the fate of HD DVD. A year ago, you could find both types of players
in the electronics stores, and the HD DVD models were generally a little
less costly than their Blu-ray counterparts. Stores also stocked both types
of movies. Today, Blu-ray is the only type of high definition player or
movie you're likely see at Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry's, etc. If you're a
fanatical fan of HD DVD, you can still find the players and movies on
Amazon, and you'll find plenty of people trying to unload them on eBay at
prices in the low $100s. Microsoft bet on the wrong horse and their HD DVD
players for the Xbox show starting bids under $20.We should note, however, that Toshiba has continued to support those HD DVD
players it sold. Just last week, they released a firmware update for their
players:
http://www.wxpnews.com/91JA4S/08…Meanwhile, home theater enthusiasts are now buying Blu-ray - but not in
droves. The "official" end of the format war didn't cause a big surge in
sales. In fact, last spring - months after Blu-ray was declared the winner -
sales figures showed that sales actually decreased the first month and
increased only slightly the next.
http://www.wxpnews.com/91JA4S/08…Sales have gone up some since then, with the release of several big
Hollywood movies on Blu-ray, but it's still not catching on as quickly as
Sony and other vendors might have hoped. Some have attributed that to DRM
(Digital Rights Management), which can cause problems for legitimate users
while not offering much real protection against piracy; it had been cracked
even before Blu-ray won the format war:
http://www.wxpnews.com/91JA4S/08…But DRM isn't the only problem. The initial cost of players is slowing
coming down; you can find Samsung and Sharp models for under $300, although
the higher end Pioneer and Denon models still cost from $500 to well over
$1000. But you have to have something to watch on those players, and the
price difference between Blu-ray and regular DVD is what's daunting for
many, especially during a period of economic uncertainty. A collection of
five hundred DVD movies at the standard list price of $20 each represents a
huge investment already: $10,000. At the $30 price of the typical new
release in the Blu-ray format, that cost would rise to a staggering $15,000.
(Of course, in both cases you can lower the cost considerably just by
waiting a few months after release, when prices go way down.True videophiles are willing to shell out the extra bucks for a higher
quality picture, but what with upconverting DVD players that can provide a
pretty good picture from regular DVDs, many people to whom I've talked say
they just can't see the extra cost as worth it, even with exciting
development such as Pioneer's announcement that they've found the way to
make a 500 GB Blu-ray disc:
http://www.wxpnews.com/91JA4S/08…These 20 layer discs are predicted to be available by 2012 - but will that
be too late? Some in the industry are saying that the format will be dead in
five to ten years. Earlier this month, Andy Griffiths, who is director of
consumer electronics at Samsung - one of the companies that makes Blu-ray
players - made a big splash in the news when he offered the opinion that
Blu-ray only has five years left:
http://www.wxpnews.com/91JA4S/08…Of course, all this talk doesn't do Blu-ray sales any good. Customers who
were hesitant to buy because they didn't know who would win the format war
aren't eager to embrace the winner if that victory is going to be fleeting.
The premature announcements of Blu-ray's impending doom may just bring about
its death even faster. Or maybe not.If Blu-ray dies, does this mean we're all going to stick with standard
definition movies forever? Probably not. But some people think the real
winner of the HD war may turn out not to be a physical format at all. A Sony
spokesman was recently quoted as saying "In the future, if we have a
physical media format, it will change physically. It won't look like an
optical disc." In addition to indicating that Sony (the original proponent
of Blu-ray) agrees with Samsung that the format isn't going to survive, it
also gives a hint of the direction in the industry expects delivery of high
def content to go. If we have a physical media format. Apparently that's a
big "if."Steve Jobs said it way back in January: Internet downloads are the future of
HD. Of course, Apple has a vested interest in that philosophy, given that
they're selling Apple TV boxes and renting movies through the Apple Store.
Still, many industry pundits agree with him.I'm not so sure. High definition content requires a lot of bandwidth and a
lot of disk space. Sure, those of us with FiOS can handle it, and hard
drives are cheap, but I still hear from many, many readers who are stuck
with dial-up connections and there's no way they're going to be waiting
around for days to download one movie.Even for those with high speed connections, there may be problems. A large
percentage of folks in the U.S. get Internet service from their cable
companies. And the latest trend among those cable companies is bandwidth
caps, in some cases as low as 5 GB per month. A typical HD movie is around 4
GB. Even with Time Warner's "high end" package (40 GB for $55/month), you
can exceed your allocation pretty quickly if you want to watch two or three
movies every weekend. And don't expect cable companies to do anything to
make it easier or cheaper for you to download movies on the 'Net, since that
directly competes with their own pay-per-view services. They're tickled pink
(as my grandma would have said) at the prospect of billing you for every
gigabyte you use:
http://www.wxpnews.com/91JA4S/08…Another problem with downloading content is the copy protection. If you're
only allowed to play the movie on the device to which you downloaded it,
that's not going to work. I can take the DVD or Blu-ray disc I purchased and
play it on a different player and TV in another room of my house or even
take it to a friend's house and play it there. And what happens if your hard
disk crashes. Will you have to pay for your movies all over again?Then there's the "collector" factor. Internet downloads will work okay for
the people who rent movies. They see watching a movie as a onetime
experience. But the true videophiles - the ones who buy all those DVDs now -
want to own something physical, to add to their collections. I'm not sure a
bunch of files on a hard drive will be nearly as satisfying.So despite all the buzz, I think the news of Blu-ray's demise have been
exaggerated. Right now, it's a bit expensive for my taste, but if prices for
the movies come down to around $20, I think more people will start buying.
And if we do, and build up substantial collections, and then the industry
goes and pulls the plug on the format in a few years, I think there are
going to be a lot of angry consumers out here.Blu-ray may or may not be on the way out, but if it is, I think it will be
replaced in part by a new physical format (flash cards? Maybe. Holographic
storage rods, anyone?), not just by Internet downloads. Tell us what you
think. Have you invested in Blu-ray now that its war with HD DVD is over? If
not, why not? Would you buy Blu-ray equipment if the price of the discs came
down (equivalent to the price of regular DVDs)? Do you think Internet
downloads will become the delivery method of choice for HD content, or do
low speed connections and bandwidth caps make that unlikely? Let us know
your opinions at
- cosmicEntity0
I don'tknow, why?
- ********0
boz?
- hahaha, that's exactly what i thought when I saw the thread title.********
- hahaha, that's exactly what i thought when I saw the thread title.
- ********0
is watching TV and movies in HD really that important to people? I mean, i like a nice picture as much as the next guy but this seems like much adieu about nothing.
humans have been watching TV and Movies in regular old definition for years. seems like just a way to be better than the next guy to long for all these HD devices.. as long as i can watch tv or movies i'm all set.
- +1Meeklo
- That's like saying my eyes were fucked up when I was born..why should I wear glasses.dbloc
- no, its more like saying there are more important things in life going on right nowMeeklo
- exactly meeklo********
- i actually don't like hd. it looks a bit... weird.paraselene
- they said that about "new" color TVs when they first came outscarabin_net
- why does the more important things in life always come up...No shit! There are more important things than the internet too...so why are you here?dbloc
- too so why are you here?dbloc
- don't get so upset cause you're materialistic.********
- their tunes will change once they join the rest of the world and get a real tv
i hated macs till i bought onescarabin_net - truedbloc
- my tv is HD, and probably bigger than yours, and I had the HD player for Xbox since it came out sarab :)Meeklo
- I dont have blueray thoughMeeklo
- Yea, you're talking like a crazy person. Have you ever seen anything in HD? It's the greatest.********
- I call everything else "Poor Vision."********
- Especially with sports. Jesus F Dot Christ.********
- poor vision
ha hascarabin_net - hahahaha @ poor visionMeeklo
- cosmicEntity0
Will X-Factor be even better?
- Meeklo0
please describe that paragraph in 10 words or less
- paraselene0
erm... i thought it had already failed?
- Meeklo0
I have to say, some movies get damaged when viewed in HD.
specially the ones with CGI/ Live action mixed.Its great on documentaries (planet earth looks amazing)
Sports events loog great too, most TV programming.- I think it looks awesome...tube tv's look blurry after watching HDdbloc
- i bought an hd tv JUST FOR planet earth :)scarabin_net
- the high speed camera shots are insanity, I watched it on regular tv this weekend at my gf (aired on TV) and it was murderMeeklo
- try watching Back to the future on an HD tv (even if its dvd) not good..Meeklo
- ********0
what was the question again?
- ********0
If i want to see something nice and big, I'd probably go to one of them cinema things
- ********0
what's your favorite color...?
- ********0
you can download HD movies fro free at HDBIts..whoops.
- scarabin_net0
blu-ray ftw
- SteveJobs0
it'll come around - look how long it took the dvd format to become mainstream. of course, there was more incentive in moving away from a magnetic tape-based medium.
having said that, even though i own a ps3, i still buy dvd's sometimes because of price, selection or because i simply don't care how it looks on my tv.
- Meeklo0
I think eventually movies on hard mediums will die.
we will all be playing it directly from hard drives, and then the medium will not matter, it will be a software update and maybe more space on drives.If anyone rented HD movies on itunes or xbox live, knows what I'm talking about
- can't wait to see the price point for this. i'm not paying $20-30 for a download!SteveJobs
- scarabin_net0
the important question to ask is "what's the alternative"?
the ONLY negative about blu-ray i've ever seen anyone come up with is that it costs a few bucks more than DVD. well, DUH.
- dbloc0
- There was a good site with LOTR on it and the differences between the two as well...********
- LOTR = Lord Of The Rings.
I've never seen them myself.******** - is there porn sample?brandelec
- brandelec : good questionfernandolins
- There was a good site with LOTR on it and the differences between the two as well...
- ********0
Blu-ray and HD DVD are the equivalent to this.
there have been talks of new formats in the industry since these two were developed.
It is all planned obsolescence.
- I like the compact size of the discs.....you need a backpack to take them anywhere :)designbot
- ********0
Per my note above and to the rite:
http://www.cornbread.org/FOTRCom…
- boobs0
Blu-ray makes me drool.
But so does radio.