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?
I will never buy a blue Ray system unless I buy a PS3… Even thou HD DVD isn’t supported anymore, it was still the better of the two.
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Bluray has a great opportunity right now with HD DVD getting out of the race. If they can clear up some of their compatability issues I see it as viable for the next 5 years or so. It won’t be around forever though. I see downloadable content becoming more prevalent, and I see no reason why movies and things won’t be sold on flash media as time goes on. People are going to want something tangible for a long time so I don’t see it going anywhere.
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Blu-ray was premature, the DVD was good enough.
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I agree with tyler 100%
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I don’t think Blu-Ray will die anytime soon, think about it, at least half of USA still uses Dial-up Internet and for people in canada they don’t have super fast internet connections like Verizon FiOS … so to download Blu-Ray HD content over the internet to play on your TV to make it worth while why u spend $5K on your 1080p TV, the file will be very large and i somehow don’t see internet providers being 2 happy with you downloading gigabytes and gigabytes of data just yet maybe in near future where u wont have to spend an arm and a leg to have internet connection
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Blu-ray vs DVD vs download. I don’t think anyone of these technologies will prevail over another, they all have their places and they will co-exist for some time to come. So I won’t hold my breath and wait. I will get a Blu-ray player as soon as more titles become available (George Lucas to come out with yet another Star Wars box set!).
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I really doubt blu ray days even in five years.
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I think eventually high def content will be distributed via non optical methods of storage considering the evolving storage technology such as flash memory and huge capacity physical hard drives. Couple that with increasing bandwidth speeds and the ease of just downloading or streaming a movie from your own home, plus the fact that our society has become particularly lazy (for lack of a better word, but let’s face it, we are an (majority) obese society because we prefer convenient methods of getting things done). I guess blu-ray will survive its run but whatever format tries to come out after that has no chance…
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Uh…why is the world sticking with media that actually MOVES?
And is really REALLY BIG?
I can fit the entire “Titanic” movie PLUS extras on a dinky DINKY flash drive right NOW.
Don’t want no stinkin’ motors!
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I’m so tired of everyone saying that downloaded content will be the end of distroubtion of HD content via physical media.
The big killer for HD downloads is the fact that more lossy compression will be used on HD downloads. I don’t want to watch something in HD that looks worse than it did if it were coming down off of DirecTV/Dish Network. Even Comcast uses some kind of compression on HD pictures that really doesn’t look the greatest.
Any HD-DVD or Blu-Ray I play looks 100x better than ANY content that comes down over the wire.
The only problem with my argument is that the majority of the public just doesn’t recognize the difference. Streamed / Downloaded HD content looks better than SD so I guess it’s “Good Enough” for the general populous.
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I am a former HD-DVD supporter. I am not naive enough to bemoan its passing despite fairly strong consumer support. Fact is, studios don’t REALLY care what we want and are more concerned with capturing maximum revenues from aging business models before they croak. It’s just reality.
That said, Blu-Ray (and HD-DVD) have incredible image and sound quality. Downloads are still years off from catching on due to bandwidth contraints. I know it’s coming, but it won’t be within the reach of most consumers for a while.
If the Sony consortium were to lower prices on hardware and media to reasonable levels (and possibly create dual-bay Upscaling DVD/Blu-Ray players so people could still use their old DVD libraries), the format will catch fire and become instantly adopted by the marketplace. The picture quality is just that good.
But if Sony and others persist in keeping prices artificially high, the market will continue to give it them its collective “cold shoulder.”
Your move, Sony.
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Hello there. I’m just curious, where exactly can you buy a Blu Ray burner (5x) for less than $200? I will buy it today if you let me know where are those babies.
Blu Ray dead? no way jose. As the article pointed, it’s gonna take years for technology to replace optical media, the rocket science is there, but the usability of it it’s not quite ready for the prime time (yet).
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A Cnet commenter recently punctured the conventional tech wisdom that Blu-ray is already dead, namely:
1) Bandwidth issues prevent the tech from going mainstream for years;
2) Perhaps more important, people like to collect physical things, and that includes movies, discs and cover art; and
3) HD internet downloads have more in common with pay-per-view and VOD than disc purchasing.
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I highly doubt the downloadable HD Movie market will completely replace physical media in only a number of years.
And please let’s not argue the merits of a dead format, HD DVD is gone, and Blu ray will be everything it needs to be in time. Let the format get to where it needs to be, with cheap players and a bigger catalog, and we will see.
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Geeze guys, just keep repeating the nonsense flying out of the mouths of pundits why don’tcha?
Blu-ray adoption is going faster than DVD adoption did vs VHS. It was years before DVD became popular. It’s been two years at best for Blu-ray. You watch, now that HD-DVD is dead, and people realize that their ISPs are not going to allow them to download HD movies the size of Blu-ray discs any time soon, and there’s a long period of time when HD movies via Blu-ray are going to thrive.
Of course, it’s easier just to repeat what others have said, but then how is that serving the readers? Do some research and think about the state of bandwidth in the US right now. It’s pitiful! Cable companies don’t want Apple or Microsoft or VuDu or anyone else competing with their VOD. Mark my words, they will put the kybosh on competition, just like they have competition in cable services, Internet providers. There is little competition in the US, and it’s going to remain that way until the FCC decides that real competition is good.
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The answer to this question is really simple and I can answer everybody’s problems easily. I don’t know why people make this so difficult.
1) When was the last time anyone here bought a CD for music
2) When was the last time you moved data from one computer to another using anything other than flash media
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The answer to this question is really quite simple and I don’t know why everybody is so narrow minded on this subject. I can sum everything up quite easily in 2 points (rhetorical questions).
1) When was the last time you bought music on a CD?
2) When was the last time you transferred data using anything other than a flash drive or external hard drive?
That just leaves only one other form of content left still being used on optical media.
The walls are closing in around you optical media, and movies….are the last ones standing.
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@ CB17 you’re wrong. Did you do your homework, downloaded content vs bought tangible content. Movies, cd’s and what have you are more common by millions more than downloads. For the reason artist’s still go tripple platinum, um 3 million and sum, records sold, go to billboard top charts and see actual albulms sold vs downloads. True limewire and other such sites gets the job done, but what everyone has thus said, Comcast the nation’s largest cable and internet provider isn’t going to allow mass downloads, Verizon caps at 5gb now at $60.00 a month, what do you expext for a 40gb and above download???
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Actually I just bought a music CD about a month ago. Nobody should be forced into this download business just because its the trend. Why did I buy a music CD? Because I wanted to. Besides, that is a completely different topic. I don’t know of any music CDs that have 25 GBs worth of data on them.
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I couldn’t agree more. Why not just switch to 64gb encrypted thumb drives and a device the plays them directly on my TV? or built into the TV? Seems like a lot of money to spend on “PLAYERS” when a much simpler method exists and can expand more rapidly.
Thumb drive or other solid state memory device;
low cost
ubiquitous
physical size
cost of media plus unlimited growth
Blu-Ray;
Cost to manufacture
Hardware costs
built in obsolescence
media cost plus limited growth
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I don’t think Blu-Ray is dead, at least not for another 3-7 years, but it will be killed by microSD cards with available 320gb of space and cell phones that have micro-projectors so you can watch it anywhere. But if anything Blu-Ray is just developing and is still maybe a one-year-old.
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Obviously this is coming from someone who has not had the opportunity to see the HD quality coming down from iTunes over the Apple TV. If you had, you wouldn’t be saying that it looks worse than cable/satellite HD quality. In fact, in side by side comparison testing, it bested everything BUT Blu-Ray and the associated commentary (from iLounge.com) said that for people who have anything less than a 1080p display (ie - 1080i or 720p), you most likely won’t be able to tell the difference. I myself own an appleTV and am still surprised every time I download an HD rental from them at just HOW GOOD these downloads look.
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BTW - my comment was directed @ Don, not the person writing the original post. Reply didn’t work correctly.
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No, downloads won’t kill Blu-ray dead for a while due to bandwidth constraints, but there is a big obstacle to mass Blu-ray adoption. The masses are unlikely to move to Blu-ray until it’s as cheap as DVD. That is, sub-$100 players and sub-$20 media. Until that happens, most will stick with DVD as Good Enough. Sure, Blu-ray is better, and sure, people who spend $1000 on a TV should probably be willing to spend $300 on hi-def video, but they’re not. Unfortunately for Sony, by the time prices get low enough to drive mass adoption, downloads will be viable. Given that the only movement in Sony’s own prices has been up, not down, they seem happy to make bigger profits on less units than smaller profits on a lot more units.
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Enjoy being the only guy who has one.
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