Blu-ray vs. every other consumer technology (2010)

Bluray is short lived. I received a BR player for xmas but I can't tell you the last time I actually visited a movie rental place, including those rental stands at the g store.

Every aspect of downloading and streaming movies is so much easier and convenient than the in-store purchase that even companies like Blockbuster and Netflix are embracing downloads. Plus, it satisfies my movie craving right then and there without having to leave the living room

Additionally, future movie codecs will get better, rural areas will soon enter the 21st century, and internet connections continue to increase in speed.

Well, I finally got HDTV (an STB and a 1080p LCD) so I will probably be getting a Blu-ray player within the next few months. I have a very small movie collection, so I am interested in converting some of my favorites to BR format. I'm enjoying the quality of broadcast HDTV. I'm also loving hooking up my MacBook Pro to the monitor and watching my downloaded films, slide shows and even browsing the web with my Magic Mouse and BT keyboard from across the room.

Also, there seem to be cheap BR players finally coming out. I saw one recently at our local megachain for $150. I fully expect prices to go down to $100 for cheap Chinese-made players this year.

That leaves the cost of media. Man. When there are a gazillion DVDs out there with decent quality for $10, I can't percieve spending $30-$40 a pop on a film. And I think that's the main problem. For most, DVD quality is "good enough" when you factor in the huge difference in price.

Once media prices drop, expect BR to take off exponentially.

double penetration

Yes, I've watched an HD movie downloaded through BT and a few SD films I've converted for iPod playback. I didn't have a problem with the quality of an SD rip of the latest episode of Dollhouse, which is generally a dark show. I haven't watched anything streamed. But my monitor is small, so SD generally looks fine, especially if it's from a digital source.

I also rip DVDs and watch them through my MacBook. The reason I do this is that I don't have an upscaling DVD player. Although I have an upscaling box, the image quality is lacking when compared to digital SD.

I could just hook up the MacBook and play directly in my Superdrive, but I watch films from different regions. My MacBook is set to Region 1, so if it's not Region 1, I need to plug in an external reader to either play it or rip it for later play. All DVD players in Hong Kong are region-free, so it's aggravating to have to do this. If I get a BR player, it would solve this problem, as it's sure to be region-free for DVD playback.

What's the state of region coding of BluRay discs? This should be a concern, I guess.

Way to get the ball rolling addabox! :-) I'm loving my Blu-ray on my PS3 Slim (maybe a bit too much given my intermittent appearances on the board lately), but I fully expect Blu-ray to be dominant going forward as it was during the holiday season.

Sure, downloads will get there, but I think a lot later that some may think. Maybe 2012 or even 2013? Either way, Blu-ray is here to stay. But perhaps if Apple can bring their engineering prowess and improve upon the AppleTV which has been "okay" in terms of functionality and features, then maybe downloads will take off a bit more. Personally, I'd love to see a Blu-ray burner go into an AppleTV, along with DVR functionality. Probably not going to happen, but just a thought.

I wonder too, what they (Apple) might be able to do in the IPTV realm? Hmmm. Maybe nothing since they don't own the infrastructure...but just a thought. It would be cool, as right now I have AT&T Uverse that runs a Windows CE variant OS for its box...would be sweet to have a Mac OS and GUI controlling this with some sort integration into the iTunes store and be able to off load DVR recordings onto a Blu-ray disc with a built in Blu-ray burner. Just typing out loud here guys so don't slam me!

Heck at this point, I'd just love to see Blu-ray be put into iMacs, Mac Pros, MacBooks, and MacBook Pros!

I suggested Blu-Ray vs. iTunes, but Adda just had to give in to "Not Invented Here" syndrome.

Anyway, BR players are down to $120., and I still don't feel like I'm missing anything without one.
Between those cheaper DVDs and my cable company's streaming options, I don't even have time to watch the stuff I have access to now.

If I was a videophile I can see where I'd spend the money, but I'd prefer to use the year reducing debt.
Of course, that's not to say I don't have my eye on other luxuries this week.

Optical discs, no matter what flavor, are on their way out. They are as dead as dead.
Streaming, downloading and hard drives are coming back in a big way.
Optical discs will meet the same demise as floppy disks.
Also, I'll keep my DVDs. There's no reason to upgrad to Blu-Ray in my opinion when upsampling DVD players are available.

My take for 2010:

I used to be really into DVD collecting but that urge is now gone. It is probably because tons of stuff can be streamed and anything can be had from netflix within 2 or 3 days. And by streaming, i mean it's all available from my couch via a normal remote control.

Most of the urge for investing in a video library was that it provided a wide variety of options on-hand at all times. While it is still superior for movies you absolutely have to watch on a regular basis, the equation has definitely changed. That's the key difference between video and audio collecting. Music is listened to repeatedly so purchasing has more of an incentive.

Even the relatively meager netflix streaming library (combined with various other options), provides a selection that is a suitable replacement for the personal library of old. The only video that I've purchased in a few years are some DVDs of freestyle biking that I like to throw in whenever bikers gather at my place for food and drink. Other than that? It's all DVR, netflix, or streaming for me now.

To me this seems like what will be the inevitable scenario for everyone in the near future. With "near" being open to debate. People in the immediate future will still buy a few videos that they watch on a regular basis, but otherwise physical discs sales may face an ever declining market share. Granted this could mean blu-ray still growing for a few more years while the market as a whole declines.

Since Adda opened the thread's floodgates to "every other consumer technology" this year, I think I'll weigh in with a screed on the crazy wait for mass access to real Internet Television.

I know, I know. There's Hulu, Cable IPTV, YouTube and such. But the truth is that media goliaths are jealously guarding the gates to open Internet TV for the masses.

I want to kill my cable and choose from unlimited TV options, the way I choose web pages.

Miro deliver a nice interface (with content guide) and open broadcasting platform. But for some reason Miro remains focused on the computer and won't invest in a 'last mile' solution to my TV. The Boxee box is supposedly coming, though I have no info for Canada. Even Hulu is a no-fly zone north of the border.

The thing that baffles me is that we play video in our browsers and browser software is free. I know there have been many experiments like Yahoo's Connected TV. It's not hard to put an ethernet port on the back of a TV and embed a browser for viewing internet video.

Why is it that in 2010 all TVs don't ship with ethernet and a built-in, open TV browser?
Why are manufacturers more interested in the 3D fad rather than freeing us from Cable's grip?

Is this like the supposed "killing" of the Electric Car? Or the rip up of the train lines in California?
Is Big Cable somehow preventing open access to Internet TV?

I look at Blu-ray as being the last major optical disc format for media. It's going to be around for more than a few years though, for two major reasons IMO:

1) Streaming just isn't practical for everyone, everywhere yet. Not in any sort of quality comparable to DVDs. This is the same reason why physical copies of games will be around for some time yet, despite the popularity of digital download services like Steam.

2) Blu-ray has the best image quality out there. Streaming video and even download services like iTunes can't match it there. At best even iTunes HD is comparable to DVD.

Good point, about the networks and stations. Though one would think that there would be any number of magazines and other media outlets who would see the value of disrupting that system with their own internet TV channels.

Blu-Ray could even be a complement to IPTV. There's no reason something like the Boxee box platform couldn't be combined with a BR player for a truly all-in-one box.

It seems so obvious. I don't understand why no-one is doing it.

Isn't everyone "doing it" already? Just about everyone makes a network media player and a good percentage of new TVs and blu-ray players are capable of some form of streaming.

The problem is that copyright holders are dragging their feet due to how disruptive it will be to their current business model.

I'd suspect it is obvious to them as well. But these are billion dollar corporations that would prefer to remain as such. If streaming becomes popular and open standards gain traction, then the need for media behemoths will start to decline. The world wide web is comprised of lots of independent websites and same will probably be true of IP based video distribution... eventually.

Over 1 billion DVDs sold in 2009, Blu-Ray was around 100 million.

If it was as simple as getting a new player and discs, more people would probably go for it but to see the benefit, the HDTV purchase is still in there for a lot of people.

People are generally aware that they can easily rip their DVD too for their portable devices.

I'm personally behind the movement for streaming video and happy with DVD quality. I would however support an alternative non-optical format. Optical drives are too slow, noisy and not flexible enough.

I look forward to burning my iMovie and Final Cut projects using Netflix. Point last made 2009.

DVD is a standard definition format with a tiny capacity by todays standards. Blu-ray is an HD format and has a considerably larger capacity.

If you have an HDTV, are at all interested in video editing, or burn the occassional disc to free up space on your hard drive, you should be barking at the moon for something to replace the DVD player in your Mac and under your TV.

Downloaded my first 'HD' movie the other day. The quality is inferior to a disc, and the cost was £4.50. I could've bought the Blu-ray for £8 and kept it for longer than 48 hours.

By the way, Blu-ray is miles ahead of DVD compared to the same time in its lifespan.

There's a number of $10 BR titles out there...I think I was at Target or something and saw a few. I bought a $104 Sony BR player at Costco this week just because I couldn't justify even $10 on a DVD anymore. I bought the latest Harry Potter with BR, DVD and Digital Copy for $19 somewhere.

The older Potter movies were cheaper but didn't have Digital Copy...something I look for today.

Some movies (like Up) are more expensive than their DVD counterparts but tend to have the same extras as the uber collector's director's cut anniversary special gold superbit mega quntiple dip edition.

BR is now cheap.

Well it's a moot point given that folks do that today to YouTube or Vimeo. High quality HD isn't a requirement for everything. Just good enough not to look bad on a large TV.


Or i could stream that video from my PC to the TV or something. I archive my video via two 1 TB usb hard drive and swap them at my parents house when I visit for offsite archives. Because I archive to them every month or so, I'm pretty sure the media is somewhat okay.

That's 40 BR discs worth of content.

I think BR is successful and here to stay given the current pricing. It's also useful as archival media for some folks but still too small for anyone with a lot of content or too lazy to burn 40 archival discs even over time.

Do you really expect people to be satisfied with posting their films, shot and edited in 1080p....Onto You Tube!!? Someone should have told James Cameron so he could have filmed Avatar on an iPhone. People with shiny HDTV's are hardly likely to be fobbed off by 'good enough' video.

Streaming's fine and so are film downloads, but the fact remains that the vast majority of films are bought on disc and this still provides the highest quality viewing experience, plus the fact that the discs aren't much more than a 48 hour rental.

As for back-up, I too have several TB's of data backed up on hard-drives, but if I want to move a few files to or from work, or share them with friends, then I'm hardly going to send a hard-drive through the post. Much rather burn and send a disc that costs next to nothing.

Apple are always the last to update their disc formats. Now you have the absurd situation of iMacs that celebrate their HD credentials and editing tools suffixed with 'HD', but absolutely no way to burn or view HD discs. Absurd. Discs are here to stay for a good while yet, and blu-ray and its higher capacity cousins will be around for years.

Funny you should bring up Avatar and video resolution...

The new IMAX theaters are using 2048x1080 projectors!

Granted, resolution isn't too meaningful unless considered alongside bitrate. But it does seem to demonstrate that the masses aren't clamoring for better picture quality. Or at least that the IMAX corp and theater chains don't think picture quality is key to growing their business or profitability.

Edit: As pro-streaming as I am, I went to the extra trouble to seek out a 15/70 equipped IMAX for Avatar. Otherwise I might as well just watch it at home on a 1080p24 projector.

Yes, because everyone with a camcorder or uses iMovie (or Final Cut) is a James Cameron.

People with HDTVs are still watching low bitrate SD cable. Anything DVD quality is "good enough" given how far folks sit from their HDTVs. Certainly "good enough" for the average birthday or wedding video for anyone except maybe the couple that got married.


If you're going to move a few files to or from work you use a small HDD or a USB key. If you're going to share them with friends then YouTube or something similar is more optimal than sending anything through the post.

Of course, if you're James Cameron, I guess all your work deserves BR quality.


Perhaps iDVD 10 will fix this (but I kinda doubt it). For now the workaround is Toast to external BR drive for the < 1% of folks that do this without a Mac Pro (in which case, use a 3rd party internal BR burner).

The workaround is not exactly onerous.

The Wii gets a streaming partner. Finally. Now if the thing had just shipped with a DVD player...

All the game consoles now have streaming services. I think we all see where this is going.

Agreed.


Again as far as HDTV, editing and quality, I want something non-optical. So Blu-Ray for that reason is something I'm not interested in. Also I have movies on DVD, and I don't want to upgrade those. For the difference in quality on an HDTV, I'll take upsampling DVD player instead of a Blu-Ray player.

Even James had to start somewhere! And iMovie, despite Apples remedial take-up of Blu-ray support, is still the best entry level editor for budding film makers, practically all of whom now shoot on HD video. It's not just limited for wedding videos and birthday parties! Although even someone in the business of wedding videos is going to want to provide an HD disc of the event to their customers if required. I doubt posting it on You Tube would be acceptable!


If the file sizes are in the tens of gigs then either of those solutions is just a pain in the bum. As for You Tube, it's good for a laugh but for distributing 1080p video footage it's a non-starter.

And posting small hard-drives to people A blank blu-ray costs about a dollar!

I would agree that physical distribution of personally authored 1080p video is desirable. But it seems that the case is being a bit over stated. As of yet, that desire is incredibly limited. And by the time the cost comes down and the equipment is ubiquitous, HD streaming will be quite common as well.

The number of people who want to author physical media (with tens of gigs of video) for distribution to friends, just isn't that high. Joe six-pack is more about posting horribly mastered clips to youtube or vimeo.

Certainly the wedding scenario is a bit different. For your own wedding, of the wedding of an immediate family member, a disc is probably still preferable. For professional film-makers, as always, different equipment will be used. For them, the trade-offs are different and streaming won't be sufficient for quite a few things... yet.

Finally, it seems backward to assert that blu-ray is the cheaper option. Again, the case seems over stated. Blu-ray media only costs $1 per disk? For sake of argument I'll pretend that that's the price people are actually paying. Isn't you-tube still cheaper? Not that youtube currently offers the same viewing experience. Just that it's what people are gravitating to. (Edit: and a thumb drive is way cheaper than a blu-ray writer. That takes care of personal usage fairly well because nearly nobody is distributing HD personal projects to multiple people.).

Nobody here is telling film makers to throw away their physical media or that using blu-ray is bad (Edit: in that context). At least I don't think anyone is. Instead, I think the point being made is that streaming has inherent advantages that will eventually make it more popular.

Yeah I agree streaming still has its problems. Its getting better but it still has room for improvement. As far as content selection. Netflix would be happy to stream their entire library. The limiting factor are the studios.

I agree when CE created BR they were looking to replace DVD. In the interim technology advanced, its really BR vs everything that isn't physical. A battle that BR will not win.


Because consumer electronics companies and studios are in no rush to kill physical media or cable. Once companies find a profitable business model they are in no rush to shake things up. Often to their detriment they fight to keep things just the way they are.


Unbelievable. Maybe Apple isn't really that good, its just that Apples competitors are so bad it makes them look good.




It comes down to money. IMAX wants to expand its franchise. But you have to build an entirely new movie theater to accommodate the screen. Its much cheaper to renovate older movie theaters with slightly larger screens, HD projectors, and slap the IMAX name on it. I agree though I will never go to an IMAX Lite theater. I will only go to a true IMAX theater with 70mm projection.



Apple is not last to update disk formats. The original iMac had a DVD player in 1999. The Mac G4 had DVD burners in 2000 when the burner cost $1000.

BR hasn't had the same transformative impact on the industry that DVD had ten years ago. Optical discs are not the only option for content distribution.

They could distribute movies on 1080P video on ROM SD cards. They could set up the DRM to allow the authorized user to download a digital copy of the movie from the ROM card. But they don't want to do this because it would disrupt the current business model.


Nah, Apple is clearly done with burning to physical discs. I think the only reason they don't kill iDVD is because people would complain.

Streaming has no legs in most places outside of the US. What is this Netflix and Hulu you speak of? There are also a lot of non-techie people that still don't grasp the concept of streaming, but they understand how to shove a disk into a slot. I think physical media has a lot of life left, although I would switch in a heartbeat if a suitable alternative was available to me.

I was in HMV the other day and it was packed and I thought to myself, "this doesn't seem like a store in peril" yet all they sell is physical media. For the record, the blu ray section was more than twice as big as it was the previous time I'd been in and I've noticed some prices coming down. HDTV's were being blown out over Christmas so I'm sure a lot more people have them now. If I had to guess, I would expect blu ray adoption to be accelerating towards a tipping point vs DVD. Of course I am in a market where streaming isn't viable, but a lot of other people fit that demographic.

And practically all of them looking for eyeballs which wont be found using through distribution of physical media.


Sure to the couple. They will want a BR disc probably and a DVD one. For everyone else they probably prefer to also have a web ready digital copy they can post somewhere.


To take home? Please. I take home 10s of gigs every day and the HDD fits in my shirt pocket.

As for distributing 1080p video footage:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10427282-2.html

Oohh...a whole $60 a year.

And gee, where did I see that original LaForet Canon EOS 5D Mk II Reverie movie? Oh yeah...teh web. He didn't mail me physical media. In fact there's an channel of 5D MkII shorts on vimeo and a bunch (6000) not on that channel.

http://www.vimeo.com/7151244

http://www.vimeo.com/channels/eos5d

http://www.vimeo.com/tag:5dmarkii

http://www.vimeo.com/2125645

Oh look...he did Nocture too...I wonder where I saw that? DVD? BR? No...Vimeo.

http://www.vimeo.com/7152063

1080p at 6400 ASA. Pretty damn impressive for the 1D. Did I need to see it on 1080p to be impressed? No. His hawaii video of O'Brien on the Banzai Pipeline is pretty damn impressive too (he used the 5D Mk II, Red One and HVX200).

http://www.vimeo.com/7151433

Hey, upload some of your stuff on to Vimeo and lets see how well you stack eh? If you can kick Laforet's ass then maybe I'll believe that your buddies need the full BR experience to be impressed by your work.


I never suggested that. I said youtube or vimeo. Yah, you go keep laughing at Vimeo and YouTube as a distribution model...

Who are you again? Never seen any of your stuff ya know.

Burning a disc is the easiest no-brainer way to distribute or save data to be portable. Discs, even blu-rays, outsell downloads by millions upon millions. Optical discs are here for years to come, if you have some other solution that suits you that's great. Personally I'll be jumping for joy the day the next-to-useless DVD burner in my Mac gets replaced with something capable of handling todays media.

False. The easiest way to distribute is to simply hit a button and post it once for thousands of folks to see as opposed to burning media for them. Services like YouTube and Vimeo make distribution for indies a snap.

The easiest way to make data portable is to copy it to a portable HDD. One small enough to fit in a shirt pocket, has far faster copy time and is 20 times larger than BR discs.


BR Sales were $230M in Q1 2009. Digital downloads were $487M. Yes, DVD outsells both at $2.9B.

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-b...-quarter-2009/

Looking at the Digital Entertainment Group site for 1H 2009 BR sales were $407M vs $968M for digital distribution.

http://www.degonline.org/

While BR grew a lot this christmas season I would expect that digital has also grown. Haven't found any later figures but since you're so certain that BR outstrips digital by millions and millions why don't you provide a link that says so?

Wrong again I guess.


Who said otherwise?


So no video on Vimeo eh? Can't even acknowledge that you were wrong and there are some excellent video there from projects that were shot on 1080p can we? Did you even look at any? Nah, why let data get in the way of opinion?

For storage, one Western Digital My Passport 500GB drive is a lot more convenient to deal with than 20 BR discs.

For distributing optical media, you have to burn a disc for everyone who gets a copy. Its a lot more efficient and cheaper to upload content once, and virtually an unlimited number of people are able to download it.

I'm happy to distribute video on You Tube or wherever, this does not preclude the use of optical media.

Thankfully we have both. Or at least we do if we get a third party blu-ray burner.


If you're producing work for other people then they like to have a hard copy of what they've paid for. Hey thanks for the money, your final project's on You Tube.

As for buying movies like I said it cost me £4.50 for a two day rental of an HD movie which I could have bought on blu-ray for £8 in an uncompressed form. Rental's are convenient but I'd still rather have the disc if the picture quality's better and the price is right.

Does that 'digital distribution' figure include music downloads? If so it's hardly a like for like comparison. Blu-ray has a 15 percent market share of the movie disc market and this figure increases significantly up to 50% for the latest releases. I'm presuming you're in North America, as I don't know anyone that has ever downloaded or streamed a movie to their TV, except me. Over here in the UK everyone seems to use LoveFilm for rentals.

This seems exactly backwards.

The advantage of discs are that they offer high quality video, the largest library for purchase, and playback hardware is common in the living room (for DVD at least).

But portability and ease of distribution are clearly superior via streaming/download/VOD/etc.