DOOMED _____ Uncertain prospects for Blu-ray format The Consumer Electronics Show starts Wednesday under the dark cloud of a recession and a sharp downturn in consumer spending. Nearly 2 million square feet of convention hall will be stocked with the latest mobile phones, portable music players, digital cameras and expensive flat-screen televisions. But many eyes will be on Blu-ray, which for the first time has the floor largely to itself as the heir apparent to the DVD. Over the last decade, DVD players and discs have generated tens of billions of dollars for Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry, so the pressure for a blockbuster sequel is high. This year will be crucial for the new format. Heavy holiday discounting and the natural decline in electronics prices over time have pushed prices for some Blu-ray players under $200, a drop of well more than half in the last few years and into the realm of affordability for many. At the same time, Blu-ray's backers, including Sony and the Walt Disney Co., face a growing chorus of skeptics which says the window for a high-definition disc format may be closing fast. One reason is that discs of all kinds may become obsolete as a new wave of digital media services starts to flow into the living room. On Monday, for example, the Korean television maker LG Electronics plans to announce a new line of high-definition televisions that connect directly to the Internet with no set-top box required. The televisions will be able to play movies and television shows from online video-on-demand services, including Netflix. "The Blu-ray format is in jeopardy simply because the advent of downloadable HD movies is so close," said Roger L. Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. a research and consulting company. "Streaming video from the Internet and other means of direct digital delivery are going to put optical formats out of business entirely over the next few years." Blu-ray's supporters have another view. They say the technology had a breakout year, crowned by the holiday success of "The Dark Knight," which sold 600,000 Blu-ray copies in one day. They also say that Blu-ray players are selling faster than DVD players did at a comparable time in their emergence. link
No matter how,I love Bluray,that's truly high definition.Sad that it encounter the economic recession this year.
With streaming media and the huge jump in storage capacity doesn't that make blu-ray expendable anyway ?
i for one, supports Blu-Ray over over the air streaming HD stuff. There is just something by owning the content rather than streaming it through the internet. I got the Netflix feature on the 360, now maybe its cause I have it wirelessly and my DSL is only 1.5MBps, but its not as good having it on DVD/Blu-Ray.
I don't know but the streaming stuff is great but isn't comparable to the quality of the BD just yet. Also if i were to flip to streaming I'd have to pay more for a faster connection. Is the 6mb download speed good enough to sustain HD stream from netflix? I didn't think it was but maybe I'm wrong. I already pay 21 a month for blockbuster to rent all the blu-ray I can rent. I don't even rent DVDs anymore unless it's a title that won't be available on blu-ray anytime soon. the only movie I've bought is dark knight. I guess the only way I'm supporting blu-ray is indirectly through blockbuster by only renting BD's from them.
one gripe i have over blu-ray which i never had with Hd-dvd or dvd. is that it seems that the blu-rays are easily scratched or too sensitive. so i rented WALL E and i notice some very small scratches, that made me miss 2 chapters. i rented Forbidden Kingdom and the movie started crapping out. I looked at it, and notice a finger print, I wiped it and it seemed to do the job. I have a bunch scratched dvds and they seem to work like a charm.
Dave2k, most streaming is 480p, but i know that it does have HD streaming for certain titles. you get a HDTV yet?
I like the idea of physically owning things still. I don't know how down I am with downloading movies online to my tv. Plus, that is a lot of data we are talking about, especially with special features and what not. Right now there are poorer countries with much faster internet speeds than we have here in the US. Add that to the fact that all of the service providers are looking to impose bandwith limits and I think discs will be around quite a while longer.
With ISPs beginning to move in the direction of charging for excess bandwidth usage, I find it hard to believe that someday all these movies will just be viewed by streaming rather than owning them. I don't know how much bandwidth on HD streamed movie would use, but for people that might watch a movie every couple of days, I gotta imagine it can add up quickly.
i am dont believe blu-ray will die out there will always be a market for physical discs first of all you would need a large storage device to store a 1080p HD movie which can run anywhere from 20-40gb per movie if not more depending on length, type of audio and extra features. So even if you get a 1TB drive you can store maybe like 30-40 (at best) movies on it. Not to mention the download time can be hours, let alone streaming. We dont have 100mbit connections being pumped into our living rooms. The HD content on xbox and ps3 networks are 720p and i believe use DD 5.1 instead of the hd audio codecs and of course contain no extras whatsoever. If they try to compress the quality of the video and audio into a smaller file to help transfer times there will be a lot of people who will complain that the quality is not true HD. Even know when I watch content on HBO, Starz etc it look great but not as good as my blu-ray/hd-dvd discs of the same movie.
I don't there are many people at all who take advantage of the HD codecs. I still have a DD5.1, DTS receiver. I'm perfectly happy. 7.1 is really nice, but the demo I heard was using some sumiko speakers and amps/receivers strong enough to power Optimus Prime.
No. Moores law is coming to an end. Netflix is nowhere near offering true Blu-ray. They don't even have full DVD quality streaming. Dish and Direct offer a very limited amount of 1080p steaming, but it still isn't the same quality of an actual blu-ray disc. To stream TRUE blu-ray quality, (very roughly) you would need a 20Mb connection. You could compress the crap out of it and maybe get by with 5Mb connection, but what good would that do? The reason why blu-ray will struggle for awhile is because people are simply not digging the difference. Its getting too difficult for the average joe to understand. With a VCR, you plugged it in and whatever came out is the quality you got. Now if you buy a system, there is a whole range of issues that might not get you the best quality.
yeah I have a 6.1 receiver that does DTS, DD but hope to upgrade to a HD-audio receiver in the future when the prices come down. The difference between DTS and the hd audio codec is just great though. I help set up a HT system for a family friend who had the $$$$ to blow and we got a HD audio/video receiver and it just sounds amazing and I popped in Ratatouille to watch not a action movie like Dark Knight or Transformers.
The US is still ways to go from ultra fast broadband. Unless Obama has a plan to deliver that to everyone, we'll have to wait until cheap wireless broadband reaches the market. But if no one is digging the difference in BluRay resolutions, then would they still demand true blu-ray quality streams?
For the videophile blu-ray will remain popular, but for the average consumer up converted dvds and streaming/ dl'ing may be more than enough.
