Is Blu-ray Already Dead?
It has been less than a week since Toshiba put the final nail in HD DVD’s coffin and people are already predicting the death of Blu-ray. For real? Sure it’s highly unlikely that Blu-ray will ever see the popularity enjoyed by DVD, but physical HD media will have its time to shine before downloadable content renders it obsolete. The technology will grow, hardware prices will drop and Blu-ray will likely see a good amount of global success. The major studios are on board, and gaming console support will also play a role in Blu-ray’s growth and success. To think that mass-adoption of movie downloads and affordable global availability of the bandwidth to support them is going to happen quickly is obtuse. Slooooow down there killer. People will be connecting dedicated physical media players to TVs for a long time to come. And what about Blu-ray as storage? You can already pick up a 5x Blu-ray burner for less than $200 and with a disc capacity of 25 GB single layer / 50 GB dual layer, you can expect its eventual mass-adoption by PC manufacturers as prices drop. It’s easy to say that any piece of technology present these days will become obsolete. That, of course, is the nature of technology and progress. The popularity of physical high definition media however, is an inevitable step in terms of the evolution of multimedia content delivery. What do you think; should Blu-ray just pack its bags and quit or stay the course?
Buy a Blu-ray burner for under $200? On what planet? Maybe if someone steals them off a Best Buy delivery truck and sells them on ebay…
People don’t buy thinsg because of engineering concerns.
People buy things because they like how they make them feel.
I liek buying Blu-Ray as a gift – I can wrap it, and then it’s fun for teh other peron to open. This woudl not be true of putting something on a flash drive.
To all you saying that studios “antiquated business model will die” I would say that if that happens, an art form will die. Watching cats hit screens doors on You-Tube, or asinine “stories” badly written and acted by amateurs does not replace Shindler’s List. I t doesn’t even replace Knocked Up. It takes years to become an axcellent writer/director/actor, and those who reach the top must be well paid or the whole business model erodes.
Making quality movies costs a lot of money, even if teh actors were making minimu wage (heck, even if everyone were making minimum wage.)
Blu-Ray is not going anywhere. Its just common sense. First of all, what would be the point of buying an HDTV! Sure you can watch High Def television on it, but anyone who isnt blind can see that standard DVD’s look horrible on them, The only option to watch movies in HD Quality is ordering or watching a movie on DISH or OnDemand, Or buying the movie on HDDVD or Blu-Ray, And seeing that HDDVD is dead, Blu-Ray is the only option available for watching and owning a High Defenition Movie. There will always be the hardcore oldschool VHS people who refuse to go digital even now in an age of Blu-Ray, that is said for those who refuse to download and still buy CD’s, CD’s arent going anywhere, even with sites like Itunes and Amazon, Napster, etc.., people want to simply own a physical object when buying a CD, Owning the artwork, album cover, seeing the Disc Art, all of this will keep people buying CD’s and therefore there will always be a market for it. Same goes for Blu-Ray, There are some who will refuse to purchase a Blu-Ray and till death stick to DVD, not a problem! Blu-Ray is downgradeable in which people can still watch thier old DVD’s on any blu-ray player. Blu-Ray is the only option for owning movies in High Defenition. As for those who would want to download, that means storage space, and lots of it! And like others have said, blu-ray is about quality, and once the mandatory standard def signal is switched to HD in February, many will see the difference and more will prefer to buy a HDTV rather than go through the hassle of buying a converter to keep with your old one! And why compete? HDDVD is already dead and many have already invested in Blu-Ray, Even if a new competition comes out to compete with Blu-Ray what would be the point? Blu-Ray displays flawlessly up to 1080p!!! that is the optimum resolution for ANY HDTV! And if you have bought a Blu-Ray player and have even only bought a couple DVD’s so far, why make a lateral move! Bottom line, take away Blu-Ray and you take away owning movies on an HD level, if thats the case, whats the point in the entire industry going on mandatory High Defenition in February?