Failed Technology

[Anonymous]

dim_span:welshboy:tvspecv:

well the investments going into 3-d will surely not let it fail?

In the end joe public will decide. They will be whipped aong by the marketing boys but they will make up their own minds.

Look at windows Vista - big marketing hype for a cheap product and most people stuck to XP or even reverted to XP after trying it.

3D TV - Is it the wrong moment I wonder? A lot of UK households have probably just bought a TV in the last 1-2 years because of the (botched for so many reasons) digital switchover. Many of them will have perhaps also bought a 2D blu-ray player in the hope that Blu Rau might get to be a reasonable price sometime soon. Can't see too many people forking out for a load of new kit so quickly. Most expect their telly to last what 5-6 years? Some will see the changing of standards quite so fast as cynical marketing and will therefore resist. some will point out that broadcast content is getting worse by the day so will not be interested in seeing their hard earned wasted. Older folks will remember 3D from the first time around and will conclude (due to the glasses) that it was pants then so it'll still be pants now.

Personally until somebody figures out affordable and workable holographic projection then I think 2D will rule.

3D tv reminds me of whem mobile phones were first launched .... many complained saying they would never get one as it was too expensive, caused brain cancer etc etc

was not long after that, prices dropped and people even started buying their 7 year old children mobile phones

was the same with microwave ovens .... many people said they would never buy one

so, I don't think it will fail .... technology will get better and prices will drop as soon as they sell loads

It was actually the other way around economically. Plus the model was quite different. I had a gereration 1 mobile phone (in a case). I also had a generation 2 mobile phone (slightly bigger than a brick). People pointed and laughed at them. It was only when the phones became a sensible size and that the coverage get beyond about 70% that people started to buy. Even then the phone companies were subsidising the phones in the early days of gen 3. It will be the same for 3D - if there is no content nobody will buy. The model is more complicated than for phones. Early mobile phones were driven by business needs. It was all B2B sales. No such driver for 3D. Mobile phone model was simple and driven by a few mobile phone service providers. With 3D you need a diverse group to make the content and market it. Once people see it then they might buy in. If the Blu-Ray model is used again by business then adoption will be slow. If it's too slow then the next technology will steam right over the top. These things are not driven by early adopters they are driven by the mass market who effectively watch the early adopters to see if they like the technology. Mass market adopters also tend to buy on price as a general rule. Probably the main reason why DVD is still strong and Blu-Ray is not. If you go into Tesco on a Friday night you can buy a DVD+ bottle of wine+ snacks for the cost of a Blu-Ray. If it looks good to you on your telly and passes a plesant evening then that's it - job done. Most people will not keep re-watching some awesome bit of CGI again and again. It's only us geeks who do that! Tesco or any supermarket is an excellent place to understand the success of any pre-recorded media based technology. Look at the shelf space that the store gives it. The formula is simple - the more it sells the more space it gets. In my Tesco Nintendo DS has more space than Blu-Ray.

 

[chudleighpaul]

Driving along yesterday I saw a BSB Squarial!!! This together with D-Mac was surely one of the biggest and most expensive tech failures ever.

Does anyone know what happened to the 2 satellites? They were of very limited use as they were only capable of D-Mac transmissions.

 

[manicm]

Too many posts here to respond to individually so my 2 cents:

[*]If you take what I consider most important i.e. picture quality then by all accounts I don't think HD-DVD was in any way inferior to Blu-ray (and I speak without prejudice - I have my requisite Sony 360 player). Market forces were just overwhelmed by Sony that's ultimately it, and not because its format was necessarily better.
[*]SACD hasn't flipped the boat yet as some here correctly stated. And you can still get Dark Side Of The Moon in surround sound glory. And some prime Bob Dylan too.
[*]That MiniDisc failed is not the point - Sony failed to market and push their excellent ATRAC format - in the end many argued it was sonically superior format to MP3. Sony ought to be kicking themselves hard, if they haven't done so yet. Oh, and the portables were wondrous things too.
[*]Sonically DVD-A might have been a superior format to SACD but its implementation was a dog's breakfast - it deserved to die.
[*]Whether Blu-ray 3D will die is a moot point - it won't - because makers will shove it down our throats regardless - I'll bet in a year at least 80-90% of players will be 3D ready. And maybe in 2 years TVs as well. So we will pay for a technology whether we use it or not, whether we like it or not.

 

[FunkyMonkey]

manicm:

Too many posts here to respond to individually so my 2 cents:

[*]If you take what I consider most important i.e. picture quality then by all accounts I don't think HD-DVD was in any way inferior to Blu-ray (and I speak without prejudice - I have my requisite Sony 360 player). Market forces were just overwhelmed by Sony that's ultimately it, and not because its format was necessarily better.
[*]SACD hasn't flipped the boat yet as some here correctly stated. And you can still get Dark Side Of The Moon in surround sound glory. And some prime Bob Dylan too.
[*]That MiniDisc failed is not the point - Sony failed to market and push their excellent ATRAC format - in the end many argued it was sonically superior format to MP3. Sony ought to be kicking themselves hard, if they haven't done so yet. Oh, and the portables were wondrous things too.
[*]Sonically DVD-A might have been a superior format to SACD but its implementation was a dog's breakfast - it deserved to die.
[*]Whether Blu-ray 3D will die is a moot point - it won't - because makers will shove it down our throats regardless - I'll bet in a year at least 80-90% of players will be 3D ready. And maybe in 2 years TVs as well. So we will pay for a technology whether we use it or not, whether we like it or not.

1. Nothing to choose soudn and pciture quality wise between HD-DVD and Blu Ray. HD-DVD was easier to produce in fact. Blu Ray may have been physically better - more robust and higher capacity.

2. The latest Sony Blu Ray range have RE-INTRODUCED SACD playback, and even allow you to stream the core DSD track to compatible players. FANTASTIC. I buy SACD whenever I can. Alas, I am not a classical or jazz fan so I have limited choice, but still.

4. SACD doesn't need a video, so it is a better music source. Soem woudl argue that DSD is superior to PCM.

5. I really don't understand the problem people have with 3D. It's liek saying, I'd be happy to lose an eye so I can only see 2D. 3D with glasses may not take off, but 3D media certainly will. And I KNOW FOR FACT, that most people who dis 3D haven't even seen it, and most that have have done so using animated films in cinemas, where teh technology is the technically poorer of the main two available (polarised as opposed to active glasses).

 

[Andrew Everard]

manicm:SACD hasn't flipped the boat yet as some here correctly stated. And you can still get Dark Side Of The Moon in surround sound glory. And some prime Bob Dylan too.

...Although arguably the unofficial DVD copy of DSOTM with the original quad mix on it is more persuasive than the later SACD multichannel reworking...