Blu-ray looks to replace DVDs within three years

Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
The Blu-ray disc association said Thursday that it's aiming to replace the traditional DVD storage format within the next three years.



"Within three years it will just be Blu-ray," said Frank Simonis, the Blu-ray Disc Association's European chairman, speaking at the CeBIT technology trade show.



Blu-ray, which offers five times more storage capacity than DVDs for storing high definition films and other content, will first have to reign supreme over the rival HD-DVD format, which is similarly fighting to emerge as the successor to DVD.



According to Reuters, Blu-ray has recently established a commanding lead over HD-DVD in the number of available players on the market, thanks largely to sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 video games console which come with a built-in Blu-ray player. The format has also garnered the exclusive support of five out of eight major Hollywood studios while just one studio, Universal, has thrown its weight behind HD-DVD.



Blu-ray backers such as 20th Century Fox also claim that weekly sales of its discs are outpacing HD-DVD titles by more than three times. "If you look at the top 25 selling DVDs last year, 23 were released on Blu-ray," Fox's Steve Feldstein told the New York Post. "Just two were exclusive to HD DVD."



HD-DVD supporters, however, have yet to concede. They are encouraging consumers to not only focus on the big blockbuster title releases from Hollywood, but also those from regional film houses in Europe and Asia which plan to deliver their titles on HD-DVD because it is cheaper and simpler.



Still, some experts are ready to call the bout and recommend that consumers buy Blu-ray players. Alison Casey, who analyzes consumer trends for London-based Understanding & Solutions, told the Post that she expects retailers to pull the plug on HD-DVD sometime next year.



For its part, Apple sits on the Blu-ray Disc Association Board but has thus far deferred on committing exclusively to either format when it comes to hardware support in its Mac line of personal computers. The Cupertino-based company seems content in allowing the battle to run its course and is rumored to offer support both formats through its software in the interim.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 87
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,438member
    How would this be possible?



    Is the government giving out free HDTV in 3 years? When you walk through Target or Walmart you see DVD bins with GOOD movies for $7. How is the consumer going to take looking at the HD version for $27 as a good value?



    You can rip your DVDs. Great for the Disney flick that your kids want to play incessantly. To date none of these HD formats allow for safely backing up your disc to a HDD.



    Considering I can still easily buy VHS leads me to believe that there's a snoballs chance in Hell that any HD format can supplant DVD in a measly 36 months.



    Sony hasn't had any success beyond the Playstation 2 yet they think they can beat DVD in 3yrs? Fuggedeboutit.
  • Reply 2 of 87
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    How would this be possible?



    Is the government giving out free HDTV in 3 years? When you walk through Target or Walmart you see DVD bins with GOOD movies for $7. How is the consumer going to take looking at the HD version for $27 as a good value?



    You can rip your DVDs. Great for the Disney flick that your kids want to play incessantly. To date none of these HD formats allow for safely backing up your disc to a HDD.



    Considering I can still easily buy VHS leads me to believe that there's a snoballs chance in Hell that any HD format can supplant DVD in a measly 36 months.



    Sony hasn't had any success beyond the Playstation 2 yet they think they can beat DVD in 3yrs? Fuggedeboutit.



    It is the same thing as the players why pay $800 for a blue-ray player when a ps3 is only 599 or 699 and you can run Linux on it. Also there are DVD player for under $50.
  • Reply 3 of 87
    sdw2001sdw2001 Posts: 18,027member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    How would this be possible?



    Is the government giving out free HDTV in 3 years? When you walk through Target or Walmart you see DVD bins with GOOD movies for $7. How is the consumer going to take looking at the HD version for $27 as a good value?



    You can rip your DVDs. Great for the Disney flick that your kids want to play incessantly. To date none of these HD formats allow for safely backing up your disc to a HDD.



    Considering I can still easily buy VHS leads me to believe that there's a snoballs chance in Hell that any HD format can supplant DVD in a measly 36 months.



    Sony hasn't had any success beyond the Playstation 2 yet they think they can beat DVD in 3yrs? Fuggedeboutit.





    Surrender. You are defeated.
  • Reply 4 of 87
    This is old news and Apple is barely mentioned.



    About the PS3: Once more people start loading Linux-like OS onto their PS3's i'll follow their lead. Although it's not a legal marketing move, but think about it... something that plays, blu-ray, video games, 1080P content, and with Linux tacked on, you basically have a computer OS with even more media codecs. So you get all that for $599? heck ya sign me up



    Another thing I found funny was that... remember back in the day, when you could buy a DVD-ROM or a DVD Burner... the same cannot be said for blu-ray, you HAVE to buy a Blu-ray Burner for a computer system, they dont make a blu-ray rom drive... I hope that changes. I wouldn't mind watching BD discs on my mac = )
  • Reply 5 of 87
    <sarcasm>Yes, we all remember how quickly the 1.4 MB floppy was cast aside once superior storage formats were brought into the marketplace.</sarcasm>



    I'm sure Blu-Ray will replace standard def DVD just as quickly.
  • Reply 6 of 87
    drowdrow Posts: 126member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hmurchison View Post


    You can rip your DVDs. Great for the Disney flick that your kids want to play incessantly. To date none of these HD formats allow for safely backing up your disc to a HDD.



    strictly, DVD doesn't 'allow' for safely backing up your disc either. the DVD consortium never intended any such thing to be possible, that's why its all encrypted.



    i don't really expect the encryption scheme of blu-ray or HD-DVD to last a whole lot longer.
  • Reply 7 of 87
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,438member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by eizzumdm View Post


    <sarcasm>Yes, we all remember how quickly the 1.4 MB floppy was cast aside once superior storage formats were brought into the marketplace.</sarcasm>



    I'm sure Blu-Ray will replace standard def DVD just as quickly.







    Yes of course. Because consumer move on to new technologies so fast. The hubris of this Press Release does not escape me. You're floppy analogy is on point. It took what 7 or years after the iMac 1st gen for companies like HP and Dell to say "hey we don't need floppies anymore"



    This is like saying in 2000 "Zip drives will replace the floppy in 3 years"
  • Reply 8 of 87
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    He's being optimistic, but he's wrong.
  • Reply 9 of 87
    axc51axc51 Posts: 99member
    As big of a fan I am of Blu-Ray... there is no way this will happen in 3 years
  • Reply 10 of 87
    jamezogjamezog Posts: 163member
    This likely will create a self-fulfilling prophecy, since it'll increase the momentum that the Blu-Ray format already has - HD DVD is in trouble, methinks.



    3 years to replace DVD? Maybe to be on par with DVD, but not to eliminate it from store shelves. Old formats die hard, especially ones with an installed base as vast as DVD.
  • Reply 11 of 87
    benroethigbenroethig Posts: 2,782member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by axc51 View Post


    As big of a fan I am of Blu-Ray... there is no way this will happen in 3 years



    Depends on how quickly they and HDTV sets go down in price.
  • Reply 12 of 87
    axc51axc51 Posts: 99member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by BenRoethig View Post


    Depends on how quickly they and HDTV sets go down in price.



    I agree... keep in mind it's been many years already and we still can't find brand-new movies on dvd for less than $15 on sale. With blu-ray pushing $30 a pop, even those of us who can afford a 1080p tv with a PS3, it's hard to conjure up the cash for a decent blu-ray movie when the dvd equivalent is half the price.
  • Reply 13 of 87
    feynmanfeynman Posts: 1,087member
    Unless the price for HD TVs and Blu-Ray players goes down you won't have me switching anytime soon!
  • Reply 14 of 87
    hattighattig Posts: 860member
    Ridiculous.



    In three years time BluRay players might well be $100. Going up against $30 DVD players.



    But people will have a large investment in DVD - players, recorders, libraries. In addition DVDs are cheap.



    The fact is that DVD was vastly superior to VHS, with many many improvements that were obvious to the user, and it still took 6 or 7 years to start beating VHS.



    Blu-ray only offers HD over DVD. That's nice, but for many people DVD will be good enough. Image quality is good, doesn't degrade, there's no need to rewind, and so on. I can see owners of 40"+ displays getting into BluRay within 3 years, but that's not even 50% of the market.



    BluRay will replace DVD, no doubt about it. But I don't think it'll outsell DVD until 2012 at the earliest. Complete replacement by 2015 - 2018 probably. Sony may be trying to bring forward adoption by bundling it with the PS3, but that's not going to shift the entire market to BluRay within 3 years.
  • Reply 15 of 87
    filburtfilburt Posts: 398member
    Personally, I think both Blu-Ray and HD DVD are screwed.



    I think it's sad that Blu-Ray Disc Association is using PS3 as the savior for Blu-Ray. Since November, PS3 remains a distant 3rd to other gaming consoles (Nintendo Wii and Microsoft Xbox 360). That is a bit like an independent film studio hiring Sinbad to promote its film.
  • Reply 16 of 87
    personally i want Blu'ray to win however for anyone to report this press release and consider themselves any sort of news service with integrity is laughable...



    this press release is there to serve one purpose and one purpose only.... it is Blu-ray asserting themselves as the winner in the format war so people who don't know any better will take it at face value without doing any further research and jump on the BR bandwagon..... the BR Association is hoping news outlets will pick this up as legitimate news and report on it as if it is gospel



    nobody should be reporting on ridiculous self-aggrandizing PR reports like these honestly.... this is no better than perpetuating spam.....



    first thinksecret went down the tube after being sued and never offers good rumors any more and AI is putting out more and more trash articles...... if i wanted spam i would have a hotmail account.
  • Reply 17 of 87
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,953member
    I agree that it's overly optimistic. The VHS->DVD transition was a record breaking transition where it took only six years for DVD to pass VHS sales, in terms of media unit sales.



    If the BRD groups think they'll beat that by three years, they are kidding themselves. Heck, iPod sales are doing phenomenally well, but even after five years, the iTunes store still only comprises 5% of the music sales, with pretty much all of the rest still being sold on CD. At that rate, even including some rapid acceleration, paid music downloads might not surpass CD sales ten years from now.
  • Reply 18 of 87
    I'm with most of you who say that 3 years is ridiculous and impossible. Also, as someone noted, Blu-Ray doesn't offer distinct advantages over DVD. In fact, most people won't even notice the difference... perhaps even some with HD TVs. Blu-Ray only appeals to those who are videophiles and/or have huge TVs.



    It's all a marketing hype to resell media to uninformed consumers.



    I, on the other hand, think all optical media is barbaric. We should move to high-capacity ROM chips. Give it a USB2 or IEEE 1394b (Firewire 800) interface and it'll be plenty fast. Tada. Media players become small hub-sized boxes, and you can carry media around on your keychains. Done.



    -Clive
  • Reply 19 of 87
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Clive At Five View Post


    I, on the other hand, think all optical media is barbaric. We should move to high-capacity ROM chips. Give it a USB2 or 1394 (Firewire) interface and it'll be plenty fast. Tada. Media players become small hub-sized boxes, and you can carry media around on your keychains. Done.



    -Clive



    Just to add, I'm verrrrrrrrry surprised the music industry hasn't taken this direction. I made the prediction that they would in 2003. Since then, only BNL have offered their record on a flash device.



    -Clive
  • Reply 20 of 87
    What kind of volume of sales are we talking about anyway? If HD-DVD only has 2 of the top 25 movies and Blue-Ray has 23, and Blue-Ray is only outselling them 3 to 1, that speaks fairly poorly for their ability to capitalize on their media lead, I would think.



    (and yes, I realize that HD-DVD has 2 exclusives out of the 25 according to the press release, which leads one to believe that they in fact have more of the 25, shared in release with Blue-Ray, but since the "press release" isn't explicit, neither am I).
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