Blu-ray managed to successfully see off the challenge of HD DVD to become the standard storage format of choice in the field of high definition movies earlier this year. But it could be that Blu-ray is a dead man walking, and the end of the format is already possibly in sight.

This dire prediction on the future of the Blu-ray format, currently finding favour amongst early adopters, and being used for movies and PS3 games, comes from Andy Griffiths, director of consumer electronics at Samsung UK.

In a wide-ranging interview, in which the main thrust of the conversation seemed to be about the emergence of OLED screen televisions as he next major mainstream innovation in televisions, Griffiths gave a very succinct but highly controversial take on the state of Blu-ray. He told Pocket-lint:

I think it [Blu-ray] has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn’t give it 10. It’s going to be huge, we are heavily back-ordered at the moment.

Yes, that statement is contradictory, I was thinking exactly the same thing, but what I think Griffiths was trying to explain was that while Blu-ray may be the darling of the HD world right now, with 2008 being the format’s year, that won’t last long.

I happen to agree with Griffiths assessment of Blu-ray as a format. I think there is a current buzz about people wanting to try out an HD movie, but despite Blu-ray offering an incredibly vivid picture, it’s just not enough to get the vast majority of people to switch from SD DVD.

Most people went out and bought all their favourite movies on DVD again when the format took over completely from VHS, but I think it’s too soon to expect people to do the same again with Blu-ray. The price of our average Blu-ray movie release isn’t helping either.

The problem Blu-ray has is that by the time the mainstream consumer decides the price and timing is right to upgrade, digital downloads could be a real viable alternative to optical discs. Broadband speeds are forever increasing, and larger hard drives are becoming the standard on all new computers, so the future is definitely catching up with Blu-ray, and fast.

Whether Blu-ray is still with us in ten years depends on whether the format manages to gain a mainstream foothold before Internet-based delivery methods make it completely null and void.

Related:

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Samsung and Armani team up for mobile phone and LCD TVs

Samsung player to support both Blu-ray and HD-DVD for those who can’t decide

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Entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 7:54 pm under DVD, High Definition Formats, Opinion, Technology.  Print This Post

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