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Is Bluray doomed?

For digital downloads to work, someone will have to release the video equivalent of the iPod. AppleTV is almost there, but it isn't quite the revolutionary product that Apple wants it to be.
But as Mark said, MP3's and digital audio downloads are now the norm. Remember when the iPod and iTunes music store were first released? Did you think that you would pay $9.99 to digitally download an album when you could go to the store and get a physical CD for a few bucks more? I didn't. But now I hardly ever buy CD's. Unless it's an all time favorite band of mine, all my purchases are made online and downloaded. And even when a CD is purchased, it's immediately loaded into iTunes and then thrown into a box with the rest of my CD's. Once videos can be as easily ripped into a digital archive by the mass market, then you'll see a shift towards digital downloads and away from Blu-Ray/DVD.
 
VideoFreek said:
Or, it could be that Blu-ray is to DVD what Laserdisc was to VHS. That is, Blu-ray could become a sort of specialty item for videophiles and people with high-end HT setups, while the mass market moves directly to downloads for the majority of its movie-watching.
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It could happen this way, but in order for it to happen this way, broadband needs to achieve far greater penetration than it has now. Don't forget, broadband internet is still completely unavailable in many parts of the country, and it is still quite expensive even where it can be had. This is the main barrier to the adoption of direct downloads, at least as the primary alternative to hard media. It's also in large part up to the entertainment and hardware industries. If the price of Blu-ray players drops to the price of SD players over the next year or so, and the cost of the discs comes in close to SD-DVD, then this format will can have some legs. Otherwise, yes, I suppose it could become the new Laserdisc.
 
IJ Reilly said:
It could happen this way, but in order for it to happen this way, broadband needs to achieve far greater penetration than it has now. ...
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I'm not so sure. The problem with overall statistics is that they include large segments of the population that are irrelevant to this discussion--the fixed-income elderly, the "working poor," etc. What we'd really need to know is what percentage of homes with a HDTV (or that are likely to acquire a HDTV in the next few years) have (or will have) broadband internet access, for it is this segment of the population that forms the relevant battlefield. I suspect broadband penetration in this segment is quite high, but unfortunately I have no data to back this up. I just find it hard to believe that a household with a HDTV would still be accessing the internet via dial-up, unless they live in an area where broadband is unavailable. On the other hand, there are a lot of people like my parents--in their mid-70s and still accessing the internet via dial-up, but also still watching their DVDs and VHS tapes (!) on a 29" standard TV. In their case, at least, I don't see this situation changing much over their remaining lifetime.

Another consideration is that (legally) downloadable movies could just be the "killer app" to drive broadband! For many people, broadband is overkill for what they actually do on the internet--namely e-mail and light web-surfing. This is the main reason that people like my parents see no justification for paying $40/ month or more for broadband; dial-up is considerably cheaper and does what they need it to do. All of this could change if "the masses" get turned on to the convenience of online movies and begin downloading dozens of gigabytes each month, and it could also force the ISPs to stop getting away with murder and actually deliver the performance they claim to deliver! Wouldn't that be grand? :D
 
But digital copies costing less than $5 a pop, it's an easy decision for many.
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:confused:

Am I on the wrong iTunes Store? The US store has SD movies for $9.99....

I buy DVD's used from $4 - $8 each....

I buy used/on sale HD DVD's and Blu-rays for $10 - $18....

I prefer a disc I can hold rather than a file which I can only play on my computer/AppleTV...
 
harcosparky said:
In order to believe Blu-ray is NOT doomed would mean you have to believe that Blu-ray is the final disk solution ..... well it might be .... blu-ray could well be the last disk we use.
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It most definitely is not, just look at HVD and protein-based storage. :cool:

harcosparky said:
Blu-ray is after all just another 'stepping stone' in the pathway of technology.
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Absolutely!
 
just my 2 cents:


Do I think hard media will eventually be take over by downloaded media? Yes.....do i think soon? Definately not, maybe in 10 years.


For one, the technology isn't there to make it effecient (download speeds, etc). Sure some people have it, but 95% of the population doesn't. That's not even touching on storage costs (yes, storage is getting cheaper, but still...most would need several 1TB drives to keep EVERYTHING digital...and that's costly)


We are also a very tangible society, we like having things we can touch. Look what's happened to music, downloads have taken off, but A LOT of people still buy CD's, because they like to have it. I know i've bought a few CD's, brought them home and immediately put it on the computer only to never use the disc again.....but I have the disc!


I know people like my parents, older brothers etc will never go the download route.....I have enough trouble trying to get my wife to not put in the disc of a movie we already have on our ATV. Most people are also computer illiterate....my dad just dropped $1500 on a digital camera and gear...but all he knows how to do is load it to the computer.....and he's better then a lot of people I know.
 
I definitely think that physical media will still be around for many years to come and as the way the masses see movies. I also think that downloads will be the future and Apple is just one of many in this new segment that is actually starting to gain solid ground now. All of the tech savvy people will be the ones to lead the download revolution until everyday folks will grasp it.

I think there will always be a want for physical media. If I had the option to buy a downloadable copy or have the same media on physical for the same price, I would choose physical. Most everyday people are starting to grasp the concept of Netflix, so I think Blu Ray is going to be just fine.
 
I have had a PS3 for over a year, have purchased maybe 35-40 movies in that time, but the only two BR disks I've bought [Apocalypso and Casino Royale] were on sale for $18 or less.

Laserdisk was technologically superior to VHS, but it did not go mainstream because it was too expensive and most people were happy enough with VHS quality for the comparable price.
With DVD, the quality was [again] clearly superior to VHS, but the key factor in the unqualified successful marketing of DVD was that both the players and media dropped in price quickly enough for Wal-Mart to carry them.

BR may have beaten out HD-DVD, but if it wants to be the/a mainstream player until HD digital downloads become the dominant solution, they need to drop player prices under $200 and get the media below $20, with budget players and a broader budget media library to follow.
 
gkarris said:
I buy used/on sale HD DVD's and Blu-rays for $10 - $18....

I prefer a disc I can hold rather than a file which I can only play on my computer/AppleTV...
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So very true, also since Blu-ray has that anti-scratch coating—the vast majority of used Blu-ray discs should be in mint condition.
 
Yes, bandwidth is key. It's not just how many people have broadband access but how many people are using up the bandwidth. If digital downloads (of movies) become mainstream, that would cause quite a few massive bottlenecks in the internet. It's not just how fast your pipeline is, but how wide it is. If you have 1000 people downloading 5MB music files, that's one thing. But now think about 1000 people trying to download 5000MB HD movie files...or 10,000 or 100,000 people trying to do that. We would need a major upgrade to our technology infrastructure, in the United States, to be able to handle that large of an amount of data being moved around. If history is anything to go by, investment in infrastructure upgrades goes very slow in this country. Would people want to wait a day or more to download an HD movie or would they rather spend 10 minutes and pick up a physical copy? Until we get "instant gratification" from downloads, they are not going to supplant DVD or Blu-ray.

Personally, I also still prefer physical media. Like other people have said, I enjoy the fact that it's tangible, something that you can look at and hold in your hand. My legal purchases are almost always physical copies...be it movies or cd's. iTunes is great for getting a specific song that you know and want. However, it's still a pain to just browse for new music. Nothing on the internet has yet been able to compare to going to a store and flipping through cd's or movies. It's just not as fun or easy to do on the internet. That said, when I get a cd, I immediately rip it and file away the cd onto my shelf. But I still play the cd's in my car (no connector to play mp3's). If I rip a movie to play on my Touch, I delete the file afterwards....I don't have the space to store movies, much less HD movies. Storage requirements is another of the limitations of purely digital media.

I don't doubt that digital downloads will one day replace physical media. But as I've said before, in other threads, it will be a long time before we have the infrastructure to allow for purely digital media to replace physical media, not to mention low enough prices (of broadband, storage and the media, itself), quality of Blu-ray and the features of dvd's and Blu-ray discs.
 
Lots of great arguments.

One thing about broadband penetration...as of July 2007 53% of all households had hi speed internet with about 3 million new subscribers every quarter.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3626328

That's a very large audience already.
And with that plain vanilla broadband it takes about 90-100 minutes to download a HD rental from ITMS, ready to view with in a minute or two.
 
VideoFreek said:
I'm not so sure. The problem with overall statistics is that they include large segments of the population that are irrelevant to this discussion--the fixed-income elderly, the "working poor," etc.
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You're forgetting about all the people who don't have broadband because it's simply not available where they live -- no cable, too far from the SO to get DSL. As for cost, virtually everybody can afford a DVD player. These days, they're about the same price as one month of broadband! DVDs cost $10-20 each, or you can rent them for around $4.00. This is the economics broadband downloads are competing with, and the reason why I think hard media and downloads are going to be coexisting for a long time to come.
 
It's an opinion

This is somebody's opinion. A blog entry. It should be labeled as commentary. This is NOT a news piece.
That's the problem with blogs, and the Internet in general. it has blurred the line between real journalism and opinions.
This is MY opinion of it anyway.
 
High speed Broadband

Where I live you can have a fibre optic 1000m line installed in your home.

100M is the common "standard" broadband line....

It's cheap as well..

The bottleneck is actually the download speeds from the servers such as itUnes....

I agree though - it is nice to have the box and the extras on the discs,
 
I don't think BR is doomed, but it sure isn't going to be the next DVD.

DVD set a new stage in terms of size and quality. It worked on every TV out at the time, it was pretty cheap and one standard.

Blu-Ray suffers from a long fight with HD DVD which will just teach people to think twice. Blu-Ray also needs everyone to upgrade their TVs. Blu-Ray is also in direct competition with digital content. Why would I want physical media when I can download, time shift, location shift my content to where I want it.

Hopefully, they will allow DVD burning soon, so I can download that new cartoon for the kids and throw it in the $100 portable player for the car.

I won't be going fully HD until next year, but I will think long and hard about Blu-Ray before doing it. There are at least 300 reasons in my cabinet why I wouldn't get into owning video content again when rental offers all the flexibility and 1/5 the cost.

BZ
 
BwanaZulia said:
I don't think BR is doomed, but it sure isn't going to be the next DVD.

DVD set a new stage in terms of size and quality. It worked on every TV out at the time, it was pretty cheap and one standard.
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So you're too young to remember DivX? Pay to watch a DVD!? Circuit City's (may they rot in hell) horrific scheme?
 
why oooohhhh why do the bluray players have to be the size of some lcd tvs!!! havent they learned!!!? why only now are we seeing dvd players actually in a compact size, yet blu-ray, instead of starting there, took a step back in design!!! :confused: :(

as for physical mediums, i could care less about holding a physical disc... nothing like having instant access to every content you own within seconds and less space to boot....

except for when it comes to having a physical back-up....

i dunno, just seems as though the studios are doing everything they can to hinder digital DLs that it wouldn't surprise me if they have threatned the ISP's to not give us the bandwidth lol

i will say though that it seems DL/mp3 have changed the music and CD markets.. so anything is possible
 
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