[jplopez]

People seem to be missing the point on both sides of this issue.



There is too much support industry wide for Blu-Ray that any other
alternative format succeeding is a near impossibility. To all those who hate
Sony or were for HD-DVD, sorry but Blu-Ray will probably have the dominant
force in the movie market for the next ten to fifth teen years. And everybody
has seemed to forgotten how long it took to go from VHS to DVD. It is going to
take a year or more for the infrastructure asserting Blu-Ray universally to be
molded and fine-tuned. More importantly you must realize that the movie
industry hates the downloading of movies legal or not. It creates a higher risk
of pirating when a Movie is streamed online or downloaded on a hard drive.
There is simply too big a force apposing piracy right now to make downloading
movies on a wide basis in any form to be allowed or universally accepted by any
industry. The exception may have happened with Netflix and possibly in the near
future may happen with Blockbuster Online but that is probably as far as it is
going to go for a long time. The industry loves the idea of effective DRM in
movies and that is what Blu-Ray offers, at least in the short term.



On the other side however, we already have a reliable and effective means of
viewing movies in decent definition, the regular DVD. Until Blu-Ray is well
established there is absolutely no reason to assume that new movies won't be
produced in standard DVD's. For many people the quality of standard DVD
has been perfectly fine for years and the only reason to make the jump to
Blu-Ray is when movies are no longer produced on DVD's. Even when that happens,
the new equipment will allow up converting your DVD's no matter what brand of
Blu-Ray Player you buy. This feature will have to be used as a marketing tool
to attract more business. So buying standard DVD's is the best solution for the
rest of the year, because you will be able use them for years to come.



HD-DVD player owners, the format is dead. As time goes on you will simply
run out of options. In the short term I can see some sort of accommodation with dual format players and possibly an add on to Blu-Ray Players. But when
standard DVD's go away, so will any support for anything HD-DVD. Why buy dual
disks with DVD when you can buy cheaper only Standard DVD right now. The only
alternative later on is piracy. Converting those HD-DVD discs onto a Blu-Ray
disc may be a viable option but its pirating and would take time to do, not to
mention the extra costs.



The focus of Satellite and Cable providers is and will be on HD viewing.
Once Blu-Ray is entrenched HDTV sales will go up drastically and cause more
demand for HD service packages. There will be no viable On Demand or Movie Downloads on
a wide scale when they are pumping more Bandwidth for regular viewing. Even if
there is On Demand on a wider scale, Your DVR already can already record movies
being watch or scheduled. On Demand Movies will not be more of a factor than it
is now.



In the end the main reason Blu-Ray has no competition is bandwidth. The
ISP's are going to drastically cut down on heavy bandwidth users in the next
couple of years. They have been making huge profits for years on the same
networks and still believe those profits don't justify updating of those
networks. The U.S. has
fallen to 15th in bandwidth (although we are still 1 ahead of Japan). Our
country invented then popularized the internet, which makes this so screwed up and may
need government intervention in the end to resolve this issue. Until then don't
expect to watch too many movies online in any given month. Even the Netflix
users will see that effect and be pissed when it happens or their service
charges go up. However Verizon is consistently adding new areas to thier ISP Network and they may make all the other ISP's eventually update their networks. The one light at the end of the long tunnel.



First, the ISP's have to update their networks. Second, I believe wireless
standard speeds will also have to be updated. Third, the piracy war will have
to be resolved. And Fourth, newer more efficient codec’s will have to be
introduced to make HD viable online. Those who think you are streaming HD
online now are delusional. Online movies may replace Blu-Ray when its life cycle
starts dying. That day is long off and has no real consideration in today’s
world.

[free2speak]

I already have Comcast HD On Demand. I already download HD movies to my Xbox 360. Netflix also streams movies to my computer, and they are adding service for Xbox 360 soon. I hardly need more content for my home theater.

I will consider BD many years in the future if it can replace DVD as the standard and the price is under $200. DVD over 80,000 movies versus BD over 400 makes it clear which is the "dominant" standard. BD is hardly a dominant standard with less than 1% of the market. When my non-tech friends and family all move to BD then so will I, but don't hold your breath since most people don't even watch widescreen movies or have HDTV.

[mpheadley]

I would venture to say that most people who care or own a hd dvd player or blu ray player care about having the best movie viewing quality.

I would bet that all the services you mentioned further compress the data, making the quality, at best, slightly more noticably inferior to watching on disc.

Again, like stated before in this discussion, when people want to own a movie, they are going to buy it on disc. When they want to rent it, or watch it once, they are more likely to download it, even though most will still rent from the store.

[coastie65]

I personally prefer just buying the disk, so I don't see any big deal with the download thing. I'm not one to watch movies on my PC, and I have yet to take the plunge on buying an HDTV. I'm not sure how long it would take to download a 30 Gb package with my connection as I have a fiber connection at 15 mbps down and 2 mbps up. coastie65

[rtfire1]

lets not forget that the dvd player just got the vcr put on the self with being able to recored. A lot of people are not going to go to bd till it can recored there tv shows. I have a very hi tech friend who till this x-mass when he got his dvr used vhs and he has a 3 month old dvd recorder/player.

[coastie65]

Hi rtfire, I believe there is a Blu-Ray recordable on the market. I know there is for the PC. They are rather pricey,and so are the blank Blu-Ray DVD disks. coastie65

[rtfire1]

coastie65, I know they do make one and it would be cheaper to buy a pc with a drive that rights but here is the kicker the blu-ray disk are not rw they are a one time right disk

[PeteAmend]

The good news is that those 80,000 DVDs will work just fine in any Blu-ray player. Last year I started buying DVDs on Blu-ray if available for the HD quality as well as fitting all the extras on a single disk (several movies have come on either a single Blu-ray or mulitple DVDs). That gives me 80,400 DVDs to choose from. Eventually, like VHS, Blu-ray will become the standard video format (until something else takes its place).

Blu-ray disks can currently hold 50 GB of video/music/photos/games/etc. which is important for true HD (1040p and beyond). I would hate to think about downloading 50 GB of a movie onto my 20 GB Xbox 360 harddrive or 40 GB PS3 hard drive (Check the math for my problem). I suspect the current "HD" movie downloads are 740 or so, not 1040p.

Downloading/Streaming will work for movie rentals but I do not have the kind of space to save 16 GB movies (especially on my 20 GB Xbox 360 hard drive with about 2.5 GB left to spare).

Do these people want us to constantly go out and buy new external hard drives just to hold 16+ GB of a movie?

Many original DVD movies were around $75 so most had to rent them. Now I can get many Blu-ray movies for $15. The more people with Blu-ray players (over 11 million so far), the better chance of getting $10/15/20 Blu-ray disks. Our first family VCR (1973) was $1,200 plus tax. You can pick up a Sony PS3 for $400 with a built-in Blu-ray 2.0 player (I hear it also plays games, has downloadable content like movies/games, and even an on line community).

As more people move to HD TV, the Blu-ray player will become a more standard part of our lives -- eventually replacing our current DVD. Eventually a new video disk will replace the Blu-ray but that may be 20 years in the future. I do not foresee the video download killing off movie theaters or DVD movies any time in the near future (Wait, did the coming of the VHS tape or DVD disk kill off all the theaters in the world as some predicted????)

[dragsonred]

The question posted by the auther, isn't will blu-ray go under today, the question is, will it last. Having watched the battle go on and Sony doing everything it could to win, even lie to people about how good it's product is (let's see who's all crying in 8 months, when version 2.0 comes out with all the features that HD had, and blu-ray does not. Tell me how you feel with being told you have to buy a new player, to get any of the extra features blu-ray will offer, and having to pay Sony's 800 or more to get it, after already spending the min it cost when the battle ended of 400, go to be mad). I think you'll find that people will get mad and want something else to replace the Blu-ray player that they already spend a lot of money to get, and be told to get another one, if they want to see the extras and such. With Hi-speed getting faster all the time (Comcast is going to be testing a new product this year that has speeds of 130 meg, to complete with verizon's 35 meg and up speeds). It is true that there will always be video rental places around, and yes there are alot of people that wont be able to afford hi-speed internet that will allow them to download HD movies, but most of those same people will most likely keep buying dvd's as it's more in thier price range then Blu-ray. If you look at the stores, they are still carrying DVD's, cause it's a profitable business and I don't see that changing anytime soon. So, with all this in mind, will Sony, I mean Blu-ray really take off, will to a degree, but I think you'll find that other media or downloads will replace that. If you look at the fact that Amazon is stepping up it's storage, to keep track of digital media for it's customers and other companies doing the same. With services like Hulu and others offering people to watch tv and movies online, I think Blu-ray will have it's place for abit, bit I doubt anything long term. (Look at some of thier partners, Disney just released 101 dalmatians in standard def only, tells you how little these companies are investing in reformatting thier movies to make them HD).

[rgreen4]

Dragonred's point is very valid - DVD did not kick VHS to the sidelines until the players and the PC devices got under $100. CD's did not kick cassette tape to the side until about the same price point. DVD's will be around as long as the Blu-Ray players are vastly more expensive.

The audio difference between cassette tape and CD's and between VHS and DVD's was so significant that people replaced fully functional devices when the new ones got within their price range. The difference between BlueRay and DVD's is there, but not as significant. Much of the clarity is not in the playing device, but in the recording and display devices. High Def content when transmitted over digital satellite at DVD quality and displayed on a high def TV is stunning, even without getting up to the full 1080 resolution. Playing a DVD of a movie recoreded with high def cameras and then played on a standard DVD to a HD TV gives a fantastic picture.

Yes, Blu-Ray may have a better picture, but the stunning incremental impact is not as great as when going from analog VHS on an analog TV to digital DVD played on an HD TV. The next time you are in the mass merchandising stores check out how many DVD players are there versus how many Blu-Ray players. Same thing on computer optical drives, check out how many DVD recorders are available vs Blu-Ray recorders.

Now that Sony has the High Def DVD market to itself, if it succoms to the temptation to milk the market, then they will have a tough time kicking DVD to the side. Only if they take the opportunity to drastically cut the prices will that happen. Simple marketing. Until the price get at or below what the mass market is willing to pay, will it take off. This was true of cassettes, CD's, DVD's, computers, "pocket" calculaters, etc. For each step down in price the available willing customer base is much broader. It's called layering the market, and is a basic marketing tenet.

The classic example is the TI DataMath pocket calculator that was in relative high demand in 1974, but it cost $179 (1974 dollars) for a relatively small (4" x 6" x 2") 4 function calculator powered by a 9 volt battery. As they ramped up production and dropped the price the sales volume increased. The last one I saw at retail was in 1976 in a college bookstore for $12 (regular price not discounted). The PC then followed the same patch, along with the other items. Blu-Ray will be subject to the same pressures.

[drachir]

HD downloads are a pipe dream. Perhaps it will be viable for consumers around the year 2100, when ultra-broadband would be the norm. I am not going to wait for hours with the current broadband limitations, and hard drives that could crash, leading to the loss of your entire video collection. It will also be MANY years before the average household would be able to wirelessly broadcast downloaded movies from the PC to the living room. Blue Ray discs however, come in really cool packaging with extra features, and they look good on a bookshelf, making them much more living-room friendly. Within my lifetime (I'm 46), BD will be my movie media of choice. It's like the idea of downloadable books that you read on digital devices with batteries that go dead on the plane, just when things get interesting. I'd rather take along my paperback any day.

[rgreen4]

Sometime low-tech just works better. Just think also about how many paperbacks you can buy for the price of one of those gadgets. I also like to read while soaking in a hot tub, and that wouldn't be too advisable with one of the electronic books.