Was Blu-ray worth Sony’s effort?
By Ken Mitchell
With the HD media wars pretty much over and the smoke settling on the battlefields, consumers can finally be comfortable buying Blu-ray players. But how long will that last? How long will consumers be scurrying to the retail stores to pick up Blu-ray titles on release day? Is it going to be worth it for Sony in the long run?
One can only speculate, but with emerging technologies, and studios beginning to loosen their grip on content, who is to say that consumers will continue to purchase physical media for more than a handful of years?
Netflix has recently begun its “Watch Now” campaign allowing subscribers to instantly stream content to their browsers, or even to Windows Media Center. Now this content isn’t HD, but the project is still very young. Aside from opposition by the studios, the only obstacle in the way of streaming HD is bandwidth.
The average household is expected to require a 60 Mbit/s pipe by the year 2012. Specifications laid out for the next generation of wireless data (4G), require a low latency 100 Mbit/s transfer rate. These rates will be more than enough to transfer HD content, but the infrastructure obviously has a ways to go yet.
Next, consumers will have to turn loose of the idea that “you can’t own what you can’t hold”. I hear people say often that they had rather have the uncompressed DVD on the disc than to have a compressed version on a server somewhere. This argument is void, since all DVDs are already compressed. Blu-rays are compressed using either MPEG-2, VC-1, or AVC codecs, the first requiring higher a bit-rate for quality similar to the last two. Consumers aren’t likely to see “non-compressed” video anywhere.
My personal expectations are that within the next 5 years, consumers will purchase “rights of use” to content such as songs or movies. That content will be available on whatever terminal “phone, TV, computer” is used. I personally don’t use physical media, but I’m a far cry from streaming HD content. So if technology falls in to place and the studios can get comfortable with the idea, is it possible that Sony’s efforts will be for nothing but a few years of Blu-ray exclusivity? Could Blu-ray be the next Advantix?
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Stumble It!
February 18th, 2008
Ya, the HD war may be moot. How many people are going to drag their feet and skip over it? And even if the internet delivery doesn’t catch on a competing and likely better format just may pop up in another few years.
February 18th, 2008
Good god, this arguement is perpetuated by folks like Steve Jobs because he has a financial stake in this type of future technology.
First of all, if someone shelled out the bucks for a 1080p HDTV, they’re going to want to see 1080p format that isn’t heavily compressed and sent over the internet.
Some people like a physical copy of the movie.
Our internet infrastructure isn’t built to make “internet delivery” a viable option for quite some time. And in other countries, it may even be less so.
I’m getting tired of hearing this arguement because in every one of these articles the author doesn’t address these issues.
February 18th, 2008
1 – High speed internet is not available worldwide and unlikely to be available worldwide within 10 years to support HD-lite downloads. Even DVD quality takes a while to download NOW.
2 – Your second last paragraph confuses the issue of owning a good copy on disc and video compression. The latter is irrefutable consequence of massive data. The former is important for movie collectors and for regular users who would want to carry the disc (and portable BD player/BD laptop) around the world or around the block.
3 – Sony, Warner and Fox will test the market of portable video devices with new DVDs/BDs that have a portable version of the movie on DVDs. Instead of renting/buying a 480p copy online, consumers can copy the portable version from the movies they bought on DVDs/BDs.
February 18th, 2008
Try that argument 20-30 years from now.
The ‘tiny’ 1%-of-all-DVD-sales HD disc market doubled DD in its first year and is expected to rape it 10 times over this year.
Then factor in that 84% of music sales are CDs even now, that people like physical media, and we need a completely new generation where EVERYONE has ultra high speed internet (including Europe), where EVERYONE has access to all the exorbitant requirements and where EVERYONE is fine with bare bones movies.
Until then, enjoy sub-HD, slow as f*** downloads, Andy Everyman. See ya in 2040.
February 18th, 2008
I use apple tv to rent my videos. It works like a charm. I could’nt care less about physical media. Whenever given the chance, I’m gonna buy it as a filedownload.
February 18th, 2008
All these are good arguments (except for Bill, who apparently only read the first paragraph), and I think it goes to show that no one knows for sure what’s coming next.
February 18th, 2008
My opinion is you’re an idiot.
February 18th, 2008
The idea of digital distribution intrigues me, but at the same time, i am not going to pay roughly the same price of a DVD for a digital download. Not only can i never resell it, but i also cannot trade it should i loose interest.
If the link below still works, i wrote up a possible solution that would be extremely easy to implement for digital downloads…
http://syngamer.com/life/digital-media-downloads-possible-solution/
February 18th, 2008
Phisical media….
That’s the real freedom that all of us need.
Digital delivery..microsoft..and other big company always talk about this like a wonderfull fantastic near the corner future.
I’m not sure about this…just couse tecnology it’s need it to emprove the life quality in a society…and it’s not need it to create a stand alone human (person) that can delivery emotion or himself in some usefull way.
For me it’ doesn’t matter if a internet line it’s capable or not…for sure i know that all of this movement it’s just to make money for sure all around the planet…selling the image that all of that guys going to buy that it’s very trendy and modern.Please…walk…go ut….and give a copy of your f******g wonderfull hd content to a friend or just go somewhere watching one on a portable system.
i agree with all just posted a serious discussion about hd (bill Jenkins) era.
Sorry for my english…i hope that i explained what i mean ^^
Thx
February 18th, 2008
Yeah who would ever want a digital copy over a physical medium especially when it is slightly compressed. I mean just think how much a failure the ipod was. NOBODY is going to go for that especially the average consumer who doesnt realize he is watching SDTV on his 1080P.
>end sarcasm.
Believe it or not there are people who don’t sit a foot in front of their TV comparing the same movie on regular DVD, the super-bit version, and then HD-DVD and BluRay. Digital media has many advantages over physical media in terms of portability, accessability, organization, etc. There will always be the ultra high def format that will be ahead of the current digital medium but that will become more the domain of the super user as the average consumer will just go for the convenience.
February 18th, 2008
“>end sarcasm”
I LOLd right there!
February 19th, 2008
I believe that bluray will be short lived. I think it’s time the world ditched the whole “disc” format. seriously, phonograph>laser disc>CD>DVD>HD-DVD>Bluray… its like 100 years old. And I believe we will pretty soon, so what will take the place of the disc? Flash cards, really, they get bigger and cheaper all the time, eventually, when they get big and cheap enough, someone will say “what if we put a movie on one”
To prevent piracy, it would have to be a special card, one anyone cant just rip to a PC, or go to a store and pick up a stack of blanks.
On the same box, they can include a standard multicard reader (SD, XD, CF, MS) for recording TV, playing home movies, etc. just not recording movies. Cards can be used over and over again, while DISC-RW’s can only be used a few times. We still need a good portable video recorder for DTV like VHS was for regular TV.
The greatest thing for the people is the fact that any resolution video can be recorded to it, even the resolution shown in theaters, making a “home theater” truly possible. And the fact that cards can come in bigger sizes, means that space wont be limited to 40 or 50GB.
This is a possible future, but who knows, right? maybe something better will pop up.
February 20th, 2008
It’s true that consumers have it ingrained in them that they don’t own what they can’t hold, but I don’t believe that it’s because they don’t trust the ones and zeroes to stay where they are.
Consumers have flocked to some digital delivery services, iTunes comes to mind. Reason there is that even though there’s DRM, they trust Apple not to turn it against them (whether they drop the ball on that remains to be seen).
Then take a look at Microsoft’s PlaysForSure, but oops! they don’t play on Microsoft’s own Zune; burn on anyone who bought those tracks.
And what about Major League Baseball — people who paid to own digital videos of classic games got a surprise when the video tried to dial home to the MLB servers to validate the license… and failed because that DRM method was no longer supported?
Consumers have good reason to want to wrap their hands around media — get it with DRM or in a proprietary format, and you’re at the whim of a corporate entity. With HD-DVD, even though it’s dead, your player didn’t quit playing them right after the announcement.
March 12th, 2008
ok last word!!!
Do you prefer a book on your hands….or you prefer read it on a pc after downloaded..or print with your printer?
That’s just an example to talk about buying movie or something else on internet.
The cost to product this movie it’s too low for them….and they sell at the same price of the other..