Is it possible BluRay will NOT win?

[Sim88]

Originally Posted by boffo

But I still use it as an upconverting DVD player.

but it doesn't play Vinyl

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Darth Daver

Great post Icemage, you've even started to convince me that Blu-ray will be a dominant format. Although the problem I see is that there are quite a lot of new formats jsut around the corner. Blu-ray will have to get 50%adoption really quick otherwise people might just skip the format and go from DVD to <insert next format>

Well, I think the big factor is how much everyone wants something new to continue the DVD gravy train (the studios especially - it's estimated that over 40% of Hollywood's revenues from the 6 major motion picture studios come from home video sales now).

None of the other contenders to the throne, from VMD to holographic disc, are ready for prime time. VMD is even more technologically hampered than HD DVD was, with virtually no studio support, and holographic disc is still wildly expensive with little chance of it ever seeing a cost drop low enough.

The closest contender would be Internet downloads, but even those have a problem; for the people involved, the downloads have to be kept 100% secure or their source of revenue vanishes, which means that horrible Digital Rights Management (DRM) security that everyone hates will show up in spades, making it virtually impossible for you to download something to your iPod version 7 and keep it there. Internet downloads also face the issue of lack of infrastructure; there's a ton of places even in the USA where you can't even get DSL, let alone affordable satellite, cable or fiber optic, and to do an HD download in the same quality as a Blu-ray basically requires a fiber optic line. Lastly, there's a lot of places in the world (the UK for instance?) where ISPs limit your download capacity per month and charge you extra if you exceed it - the first test case appeared here in the USA last month, when Time Warner decided to try out bandwidth-capping their cable internet customers.

All of this doesn't mean that Blu-ray will necessarily be a success; it's just got a lot more going for it than most people realize, because there's a void to be filled out there, and now that HD DVD is dead and buried, it's the only player left in the game who can step up to the plate today.

The thing that Blu-ray has to do now is get it's profile 2.0 players out on the market and really push the advantages of the format over DVD. At the moment I don't see the masses adopting the format very soon.

Agreed. I don't think the format is ready for everyone to jump in, though 2.0 is a little excessive. Do you really need internet activity while watching a movie? 1.1 Bonus View for picture-in-picture I think is a good thing. 2.0 is excessive and it's a good thing that it was left optional in the spec.

Blu-ray has some time though; HDTVs, while they are indeed selling like crazy, are still a minority (a large, large minority, but a minority) of the households in the USA, and more so in every other country except technophilic Japan. By the time HDTV adoption crosses the 50% mark, I think the spec will have been shaken down and stabilized, so it should be just in time.

I hope Blockbuster dies, it's a horrible business.

I'm not much fond of them myself, but for a lot of people, movie rentals are the way to go. Not everyone wants to invest in discs that they have to store in a personal library (and by the same token, not everyone wants to rent - a lot of people collect DVDs just to collect, and I'm sure the same will be true of Blu-ray).

A brand new tape was better than vinyl but tapes wore out way too quick. Vinyl could produce better sound depending on the record player.

Anyone who says tapes sounded better than vinyl have never listened to a record on a good hi-fidelity turntable. Tape won over vinyl for recordability and convenience, not because of better quality.

[Descendency]

Originally Posted by chedabob

Vinyl -> Tape: Better quality, smaller, longer recordings, could master your own copies
Tape -> CD: Smaller, even better quality, even longer recordings, more durable

VHS -> Dvd: Vastly improved picture quality, size, special features, subtitles, surround sound, more durable

DVD -> Bluray: Higher resolution.

Noticing a trend here?

Laserdisc - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LD had a number of advantages over VHS. It featured a far sharper picture with a horizontal resolution of 425 TVL lines for NTSC[citation needed] and 440 TVL lines for PAL discs, while VHS only featured 240 TVL lines. It could handle analog and digital audio where VHS was analog only, and the NTSC discs could store multiple audio tracks. This allowed for extras like director's commentary tracks and other features to be added on to a film, creating "Special Edition" releases that would not have been possible with VHS. Disc access was random and chapter based, like the DVD format, meaning that one could jump to any point on a given disc very quickly. By comparison, VHS would require tedious rewinding and fast-forwarding to get to specific points. Laserdiscs were cheaper than videocassettes to manufacture, because they lack the moving parts and plastic outer shell that are necessary for VHS tapes to work. A VHS cassette has at least 14 parts including the actual tape while laserdisc has one part with five or six layers.

I just think it lost out because it was fugly.

[chedabob]

Originally Posted by Descendency

I just think it lost out because it was fugly.

Not so much that it's ugly, but the fact that the disc is like a foot wide. And IIRC, quite often films had to span multiple discs.

[rounds1]

My thought is that neither Blu-ray nor HD DVD were that great of a jump from what we have already - and in this ever-changing world, we're always looking for the next "great" thing. So with that said, I'm wondering if someone will soon release a product that's "OMG" awesome - but if that doesn't happen, Blu-ray will soon enough become the de facto media. Not until prices drop considerably, though.

Overall, I'm fairly disappointed with how shortsighted both products were. It was too conservative a next step considering the direction the majority of technology has gone or is going.

[InsightGoalie]

Originally Posted by rounds1

My thought is that neither Blu-ray nor HD DVD were that great of a jump from what we have already - and in this ever-changing world, we're always looking for the next "great" thing. So with that said, I'm wondering if someone will soon release a product that's "OMG" awesome - but if that doesn't happen, Blu-ray will soon enough become the de facto media. Not until prices drop considerably, though.

Overall, I'm fairly disappointed with how shortsighted both products were. It was too conservative a next step considering the direction the majority of technology has gone or is going.

How could it possibly been a bigger step? You can't do more then 1080p. The hardware out there, HDTV's, don't to more then 1080p. In fact a lot of them only do 720p. How could you expect a better format when it's just not possible?

Actually there are supposed to be 2160p TVs out there. I am not sure if they are avalible to the genearal consumer as of right now. But it won't be too long.. 1080p was so '06

[PirateThom]

Originally Posted by PhoenixKfz

Actually there are supposed to be 2160p TVs out there. I am not sure if they are avalible to the genearal consumer as of right now. But it won't be too long.. 1080p was so '06

Considering the current price of 1080p TVs... 2160p will be out of the reach of the majority... but it will cause 1080p prices to drop, keeping 1080p alive.

[InsightGoalie]

Originally Posted by PirateThom

Considering the current price of 1080p TVs... 2160p will be out of the reach of the majority... but it will cause 1080p prices to drop, keeping 1080p alive.

Imagine the size of video files if 2160p becomes standard... Digital distribution am cry at that point!

[PirateThom]

Originally Posted by InsightGoalie

Imagine the size of video files if 2160p becomes standard... Digital distribution am cry at that point!

Do any digitial distribution services do 1080p even? I thought Marketplace and iTunes was 720?

Another flaw in the plan of digital downloads - technologic advances.