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.
filburt, you're taking a much too narrow view when you look at the PS3 strictly from a gamer's perspective. It's also a media player, in fact the most popular media player for the Blu-ray format. And as a game machine, I think Sony is taking the long view and that once more must have games title come out, then sales will increase in that segment of the market. Plus the PS3 Blu-ray format is designed to have a long life something that the Wii won't have due to its lack of HD.
I think you missed hmurchinson's point, Greg. The point is, Blue-Ray's market lead is quite pathetic in light of all the advantages they carry.
Codger: I'm not sure what that long life buys them when Sony decides 3 years from now it's time for the next generation of consoles. Hell, I doubt HD movie sales will have caught much traction by the time the new PS is due to be out.
I think Blu-Ray players will be ahead of DVD in revenue within a year or two. (For comparison, HD TVs have been ahead of standard definition in revenue for about 4 years.) In quantity of stand-alone players sold, I think Blu-Ray has a shot at beating DVD in 3-5 years, mostly because everyone's got a DVD player already. In quantity of discs sold, if they can offer Blu-Ray media that's compatible with standard DVD players for the same price as DVDs, Blu-Ray will easily surpass pure-DVD sales in a few years. Otherwise, not gonna happen.
I, on the other hand, think all optical media is barbaric.
Yeah, it's tantamount to clubbing seals for food.
Quote:
We should move to high-capacity ROM chips. Give it a USB2 or IEEE 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.live
That's still not anywhere near cost-effective. I think a DVD-9 costs about $0.50 a piece to manufacture, at about $0.05/gig, I don't know of any type of ROM chip that costs less than 100x that. Even assuming that DVD-9 costs stay the same and solid state storage drops on average of 66% a year, that's still five or so years away.
Depends on how quickly they and HDTV sets go down in price.
Hasn't it been 'the year of HDTV' for like 5 years now? Blah.
HDTV never really breaks through because the prices will have to be nearly on par with standard def TVs for Joe Pickup Truck to switch. That isn't going to happen for a couple of years yet, despite the steady decline in HDTV prices... there's still too much of a gap.
When you start seeing good name-brand HDTVs (not EDTVs) for $299 that are larger than a postage stamp, THEN it'll be the year of HDTV. I'm guessing 2010.
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.
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.
But there is talk of hybrid DVD/BluRay discs. It could easily be possible that all the $7-$20 discs we see on Wal-mart shelves/bins 3 years from now are hybrid discs that have both formats. Shelf space costs money, as does producing outdated, low resolution discs that may never sell. Prices will drop as quickly as mass production ramps up.
Quote:
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.
There will be a significant shift in HDTV ownership over the next 3 years. That DVD is good enough on an HDTV is laughable (grainy DVDs already don't look that great compared to current OTA HD programming). I've already stopped buying DVDs in anticipation of BluRay prices dropping. Plus BluRay offers 5-10x the storage space of a DVD, better interactivity, Internet capabilities, etc.
Technology transitions have also been growing increasingly more rapid: records/tapes to CDs seemed to take an eternity compared to VHS-DVD. The time it took to get to DVD writers seemed almost instantaneous after DVD compared to how long it took till CD writers appeared after the CD format appeared. Now, of course the BluRay folks are giving an overly rosy picture of things, but this technology will be far, far cheaper even in the next 1-2 years than it is today.
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.
Expanding on the 'good enough' point- there are cheap DVD players available (as low as $50-80) that upsample the resolution and deliver nice-looking output even on HDTVs. May not pass the videophile scratch-and-sniff test, but Joe Sixpack is probably happy enough with 'em.
"These [DVD] players can make meticulously mastered DVD's like the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy look HD-like, said Bob O'Donnell, an analyst at IDC, a market research company. They can also make a film that was hastily dumped to DVD surprisingly watchable... "
Yeah, it's tantamount to clubbing seals for food. .
Oh come on. You know what I mean.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffDM
That's still not anywhere near cost-effective. I think a DVD-9 costs about $0.50 a piece to manufacture, at about $0.05/gig, I don't know of any type of ROM chip that costs less than 100x that. Even assuming that DVD-9 costs stay the same and solid state storage drops on average of 66% a year, that's still five or so years away.
That doesn't excuse the music industry. How much does 64MB of ROM cost? It ought to be less than a buck. You can fit most CDs with reasonably little compression onto 64MB. Sure it's a little more expensive than CDs but it's totally worth it.
Expanding on the 'good enough' point- there are cheap DVD players available (as low as $50-80) that upsample the resolution and deliver nice-looking output even on HDTVs. May not pass the videophile scratch-and-sniff test, but Joe Sixpack is probably happy enough with 'em.
"These players can make meticulously mastered DVD's like the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy look HD-like, said Bob O'Donnell, an analyst at IDC, a market research company. They can also make a film that was hastily dumped to DVD surprisingly watchable... "
(note that prices for such DVD players have come way down since said article was published).
Yeah, my gf just bought this for me for my bday... and it improves image quality significantly over my older Sony DVD player. But it's still no way near Blu-ray quality, imo.
The only problem is Blu-ray isn't just competing with DVD.
There's still HD DVD
There's IPTV
There's HD Broadcasting
Consumers have more choices than ever. For some BDA lackey to say he plans to usurp the juggernaut that is DVD is laughable. Blu-ray has its work cut out just to fend off the other technologies.
Even overlooking the obviously unrealistic idea of supplanting DVD in 3 years, I think the BluRay folks better start addressing quality and price before they go on making such statements.
Although I have not been able to compare the same titles, my own informal comparisons of BluRay vs HD-DVD have lead me to believe that for the time being, the HD-DVD implementation is superiour as far as video quality is concerned. Sure, I like BluRay's increased capacity etc...but realistically, for me the format is about video and every BluRay disc I have seen has been excellent, BUT, HD-DVD has always looked even better to me.
I don't think I am alone in this either as a lot of the AV mags seem to be saying the same thing (although in fairness much of this was due to Samsung's rather poor initial BluRay player).
But of course - there is no reason video quality should determine the winner (cough - Beta - cough).
Yeah, my gf just bought this for me for my bday... and it improves image quality significantly over my older Sony DVD player. But it's still no way near Blu-ray quality, imo.
You need a pretty large HDTV set to truly tell the difference. And that's still nowhere near the majority of the market yet. \
Blu-ray may replace DVDs, but it's gonna take a helluva lot longer than 3 years, for a lot of reasons. The Blu-Ray Association is smoking powerful super-crack that they should share with me.
You need a pretty large HDTV set to truly tell the difference. And that's still nowhere near the majority of the market yet. \
It really depends on the setting and the person. To me, HD looks a lot better than DVD on my 15" MBP.
It won't make a movie better, but it will make the experience more vivid. But right now, the cost of everything doesn't quite justify the difference. Player costs will go down a lot, but I don't think it will be able to make a sizeable dent in the DVD market as most TVs still in use can't show all the detail on a DVD and a lot of people I know seem to be content with the equipment they have, won't upgrade until stuff dies.
I think it will take much longer than 3 years but it will definitely be Blu-ray. It's a better name than HD-DVD, much quicker to say (two syllable but sounds like one). HD-DVD takes too long to pronounce having to say two D's in a row.
I think Steve Jobs shouldn't be waiting around to see what format emerges, he's not that type of guy. He should take the initiative and put Blu-ray recorders in the new Macs and get it over with. Once Apple goes in to the water, the masses will begin to wet their feet.8)
Comments
1. A 4 studio advantage in content
2. A larger marketing budget
3. A 5:1 ratio in player sales.
4. A dearth of HD DVD releases in Q1 2007
Yet this dolt thinks that they can supplant DVD which has none of the aformentioed weaknesses?
Blu-ray is handily beating HD DVD with
1. A 4 studio advantage in content
2. A larger marketing budget
3. A 5:1 ratio in player sales.
4. A dearth of HD DVD releases in Q1 2007
I fixed your typo for you
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.
filburt, you're taking a much too narrow view when you look at the PS3 strictly from a gamer's perspective. It's also a media player, in fact the most popular media player for the Blu-ray format. And as a game machine, I think Sony is taking the long view and that once more must have games title come out, then sales will increase in that segment of the market. Plus the PS3 Blu-ray format is designed to have a long life something that the Wii won't have due to its lack of HD.
Codger: I'm not sure what that long life buys them when Sony decides 3 years from now it's time for the next generation of consoles. Hell, I doubt HD movie sales will have caught much traction by the time the new PS is due to be out.
I, on the other hand, think all optical media is barbaric.
Yeah, it's tantamount to clubbing seals for food.
We should move to high-capacity ROM chips. Give it a USB2 or IEEE 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.live
That's still not anywhere near cost-effective. I think a DVD-9 costs about $0.50 a piece to manufacture, at about $0.05/gig, I don't know of any type of ROM chip that costs less than 100x that. Even assuming that DVD-9 costs stay the same and solid state storage drops on average of 66% a year, that's still five or so years away.
Depends on how quickly they and HDTV sets go down in price.
Hasn't it been 'the year of HDTV' for like 5 years now? Blah.
HDTV never really breaks through because the prices will have to be nearly on par with standard def TVs for Joe Pickup Truck to switch. That isn't going to happen for a couple of years yet, despite the steady decline in HDTV prices... there's still too much of a gap.
When you start seeing good name-brand HDTVs (not EDTVs) for $299 that are larger than a postage stamp, THEN it'll be the year of HDTV. I'm guessing 2010.
.
Yeah, it's tantamount to clubbing seals for food.
Have you tasted baby harp seal? Delicious.
I am so just kidding.
.
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.
.
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.
But there is talk of hybrid DVD/BluRay discs. It could easily be possible that all the $7-$20 discs we see on Wal-mart shelves/bins 3 years from now are hybrid discs that have both formats. Shelf space costs money, as does producing outdated, low resolution discs that may never sell. Prices will drop as quickly as mass production ramps up.
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.
There will be a significant shift in HDTV ownership over the next 3 years. That DVD is good enough on an HDTV is laughable (grainy DVDs already don't look that great compared to current OTA HD programming). I've already stopped buying DVDs in anticipation of BluRay prices dropping. Plus BluRay offers 5-10x the storage space of a DVD, better interactivity, Internet capabilities, etc.
Technology transitions have also been growing increasingly more rapid: records/tapes to CDs seemed to take an eternity compared to VHS-DVD. The time it took to get to DVD writers seemed almost instantaneous after DVD compared to how long it took till CD writers appeared after the CD format appeared. Now, of course the BluRay folks are giving an overly rosy picture of things, but this technology will be far, far cheaper even in the next 1-2 years than it is today.
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.
Expanding on the 'good enough' point- there are cheap DVD players available (as low as $50-80) that upsample the resolution and deliver nice-looking output even on HDTVs. May not pass the videophile scratch-and-sniff test, but Joe Sixpack is probably happy enough with 'em.
"These [DVD] players can make meticulously mastered DVD's like the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy look HD-like, said Bob O'Donnell, an analyst at IDC, a market research company. They can also make a film that was hastily dumped to DVD surprisingly watchable... "
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/te...0dd2c3&ei=5070
(prices for such players have come way down since said article was published).
Yeah, it's tantamount to clubbing seals for food.
Oh come on. You know what I mean.
That's still not anywhere near cost-effective. I think a DVD-9 costs about $0.50 a piece to manufacture, at about $0.05/gig, I don't know of any type of ROM chip that costs less than 100x that. Even assuming that DVD-9 costs stay the same and solid state storage drops on average of 66% a year, that's still five or so years away.
That doesn't excuse the music industry. How much does 64MB of ROM cost? It ought to be less than a buck. You can fit most CDs with reasonably little compression onto 64MB. Sure it's a little more expensive than CDs but it's totally worth it.
-Clive
Expanding on the 'good enough' point- there are cheap DVD players available (as low as $50-80) that upsample the resolution and deliver nice-looking output even on HDTVs. May not pass the videophile scratch-and-sniff test, but Joe Sixpack is probably happy enough with 'em.
"These players can make meticulously mastered DVD's like the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy look HD-like, said Bob O'Donnell, an analyst at IDC, a market research company. They can also make a film that was hastily dumped to DVD surprisingly watchable... "
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/te...0dd2c3&ei=5070
(note that prices for such DVD players have come way down since said article was published).
Yeah, my gf just bought this for me for my bday... and it improves image quality significantly over my older Sony DVD player. But it's still no way near Blu-ray quality, imo.
There's still HD DVD
There's IPTV
There's HD Broadcasting
Consumers have more choices than ever. For some BDA lackey to say he plans to usurp the juggernaut that is DVD is laughable. Blu-ray has its work cut out just to fend off the other technologies.
Although I have not been able to compare the same titles, my own informal comparisons of BluRay vs HD-DVD have lead me to believe that for the time being, the HD-DVD implementation is superiour as far as video quality is concerned. Sure, I like BluRay's increased capacity etc...but realistically, for me the format is about video and every BluRay disc I have seen has been excellent, BUT, HD-DVD has always looked even better to me.
I don't think I am alone in this either as a lot of the AV mags seem to be saying the same thing (although in fairness much of this was due to Samsung's rather poor initial BluRay player).
But of course - there is no reason video quality should determine the winner (cough - Beta - cough).
Yeah, my gf just bought this for me for my bday... and it improves image quality significantly over my older Sony DVD player. But it's still no way near Blu-ray quality, imo.
You need a pretty large HDTV set to truly tell the difference. And that's still nowhere near the majority of the market yet.
Blu-ray may replace DVDs, but it's gonna take a helluva lot longer than 3 years, for a lot of reasons. The Blu-Ray Association is smoking powerful super-crack that they should share with me.
.
Oh come on. You know what I mean.
Yes, I do, but I think I should point that the hyperbole was lame, possibly as lame as this press release.
You need a pretty large HDTV set to truly tell the difference. And that's still nowhere near the majority of the market yet.
It really depends on the setting and the person. To me, HD looks a lot better than DVD on my 15" MBP.
It won't make a movie better, but it will make the experience more vivid. But right now, the cost of everything doesn't quite justify the difference. Player costs will go down a lot, but I don't think it will be able to make a sizeable dent in the DVD market as most TVs still in use can't show all the detail on a DVD and a lot of people I know seem to be content with the equipment they have, won't upgrade until stuff dies.
I think Steve Jobs shouldn't be waiting around to see what format emerges, he's not that type of guy. He should take the initiative and put Blu-ray recorders in the new Macs and get it over with. Once Apple goes in to the water, the masses will begin to wet their feet.8)