So BD will be dead within 5 years?

[nads]

Samsung has said that it sees the Blu-ray format only lasting a further
5 years before it is replaced by another format or technology.

"I think it [Blu-ray] has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn't give
it 10", Andy Griffiths, director of consumer electronics at Samsung UK
told Pocket-lint in an interview.

And a "better" disc storage system coming next year.

Thus, it would seem that RDM has developed a
high-definition system that exceeds the capabilities of Blu-ray, being
able to offer storage capacities of up to 100 GB on a single disc,
compared to 50 GB for the BD. Moreover, RDM's increase in storage
capacity allows for a single disc to hold approximately four hours of
video content at 1920p resolution.

Is it worth buying into BD or just stick with DVD for the new stuff?

 

[Andrew Everard]

An interesting view from Samsung, but we already have companies talking about multilayer BD software able to hold up to 500GB, and of course TV technology will move on - we've reported demonstrations of Super Hi-Vision here here in the past.

Of course any format has a finite lifespan as technology moves on, but I would suggest the threat to any physical format comes not from even better physical formats, but from higher-definition downloads at some point in the future.

Personally, I'm yet to make the move to Blu-ray, but that's more to do with satisfaction with what DVD can do in my current set-up and the availability of discs from anywhere in the world I can play on my current hardware.

 

[professorhat]

Well, on your second point, they're close to developing 8 layers on a Blu-Ray disc, making the total capacity 200Gb. As for the first point, I'm sure some people said the same about CD and DVD...

 

[Andrew Everard]

professorhat:Well, on your second point, they're close to developing 8 layers on a Blu-Ray disc, making the total capacity 200Gb. As for the first point, I'm sure some people said the same about CD and DVD...

Indeed, and LPs.

My 500GB comment came from this announcement by Pioneer, about a 25-layer disc.

 

[Big Chris]

If Blu-Ray takes off sales-wise. It'll live on.

I honestly don't know what they'd do with all that extra storage, unless sooper-dooper HD comes along with 20.1 audio. Which I doubt. It's hard enough getting Joe Public to invest in 5.1 (HCIAB aside)

And there's only so much film 'Special Features' I can handle.

 

[manicm]

Once again I agree with Andrew here. I have seen Blu-ray done properly and, hand on heart, my eyes popped out. Such clarity, colour and detail and lack of noise. It is surely stunning but on the other hand many have cracking DVD players, are very happy with the picture and will surely ask 'Do I really want to upgrade?'. And I bet many are still content with their systems.

I personally look forward to the day when I go to a store, download a hd movie on my USB stick, and stuff it through a new-fangled video dac player connected to my LCD.

 

[Andrew Everard]

Big Chris:I honestly don't know what they'd do with all that extra storage, unless sooper-dooper HD comes along with 20.1 audio. Which I doubt. It's hard enough getting Joe Public to invest in 5.1 (HCIAB aside)

And there's only so much film 'Special Features' I can handle.

I think the extra storage is more likely to be used for enhanced picture quality in future TV formats, such as the 1920p mentioned by the OP or Super Hi-Vison, which offers a resolution of 7,680 ž 4,320 - and thus, of course, demands more storage capacity.

And of course more capacity means less need for compression...

 

[Anonymous]

I believe it is more than possible to add further layers to BD to increase to 75 and 100 GB, the point is, do they need to at this time. Full on demand is not there yet for BD so why roll out increased storage capacity until it fully takes hold. Additionally adding layers to BD will be more cost effective for the Mastering and Replication houses because they already have the equipment to make BD discs and presumably only some expenditure for upgrades will be required. Probably more cost effective than adopting yet another new technology.

On the issue of life span if it will only last 5 years then we are already 2-3 fifths into that because Sony USA has been producing BD discs for a couple of years now. Yes there is a life span but look at Vinyl, look at CD and look at DVD it is the consumer that dictates lifespan. The disc manufacturers will go on producing until there is no demand to satisfy.

 

[Andrew Everard]

manicm:I personally look forward to the day when I go to a store, download a hd movie on my USB stick, and stuff it through a new-fangled video dac player connected to my LCD.

Or indeed don't even have to go to a store, thanks to internet with enough capacity to allow one to stream a movie on demand in high definition, or at least download it in a short enough time to make it 'nearly on demand'.

 

[Andrew Everard]

DG1:I believe it is more than possible to add further layers to BD to increase to 75 and 100 GB, the point is, do they need to at this time. Full on demand is not there yet for BD so why roll out increased storage capacity until it fully takes hold.

Don't forget that in other markets, notably Japan, consumer Blu-ray recorders are used to store high-def TV broadcasts, at which point capacity may become more of an issue for users wishing to build a library.

 

[professorhat]

I honestly can't see downloads for HD content being mainstream for a very long time. It's going to take a massive investment in the existing infrastructure country wide - I know this is being done gradually, but in the next 5 years? No way in my opinion.
I also think the extra capacity for Blu-Ray is going to be far more crucial in the home computer market than the home cinema market.
EDIT - good point, I'd forgotten about Blu-Ray recorders - obviously the more storage here the better.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes agreed Andrew and I am sure capacity will become an issue, but what consumers need to be careful of now is writing BD off just because it is 50GB, when that is not it's full potential. The Inventors and creators of all these formats carefully roll out their technology to meet consumer demand and to maintain their position in the market. BD has more than just 50GB legs if required.

May be there will be a new technology that accelerates fast enough to make anything beyond 50GB BD redundant, but look how long it has taken to get the whole world on line with BD anyway let alone anything else new.

Enjoy BD for what is can offer now and worry about what is next when you have some more spare cash in your pocket. And if I am not mistaken you DVD players cannot enjoy the HD codecs so although you happy with your pictures are you really enjoying the full portential that BD can offer over DVD??

 

[Andy Grange]

Andrew Everard:Or indeed don't even have to go to a store, thanks to internet with enough capacity to allow one to stream a movie on demand in high definition, or at least download it in a short enough time to make it 'nearly on demand'.

Yeah, I imagine this to be the next big thing. It's already been rolled out to a certain extent with the video marketplace on the 360. I imagine that should you be using this facility in the UD or Japan, it would be much more fluid due to the much higher broadband speeds you can get over there.

Once that issue is resolved in most of the key territories, I can't see any reason why buying online and downloading wouldn't be the next big thing. It certainly worked with I-Tunes for the music medium.

 

[PJPro]

Andy Grange:Andrew Everard:Or indeed don't even have to go to a store, thanks to internet with enough capacity to allow one to stream a movie on demand in high definition, or at least download it in a short enough time to make it 'nearly on demand'.

Yeah, I imagine this to be the next big thing. It's already been rolled out to a certain extent with the video marketplace on the 360. I imagine that should you be using this facility in the UD or Japan, it would be much more fluid due to the much higher broadband speeds you can get over there.

Once that issue is resolved in most of the key territories, I can't see any reason why buying online and downloading wouldn't be the next big thing. It certainly worked with I-Tunes for the music medium.
Except that the ISPs are already bleating about the impact the iPlayer is having on their available bandwidth. I only expect this to get worse. Methinks that there's gonna have to be considerable investment in the internet infrastructure before downloading HD movies becomes a viable option.

Of course, there's also the issue of insurance. Insurance companies are happy to cover the loss of tangible items, like disks, but less happy to cover downloads.

I suspect that the way forward ultimately will be pay per view (or indeed listen). Not sure of the mechanism that will be used....could be a monthly subscription providing access to a catalogue of items. This will allow the studios to more closely control their product and eliminate piracy.

Suspect that this would meet with considerable resistance so the studios will need a hook to sell it to the masses. Could this be higher definition for video? Super high bitrates for audio? Don't know. We'll have to see but I don't believe that my toddler will have a collection of disks when she is an adult.

 

[Fisty1967]

I think the same issue exists with all technology purchases. No sooner have you bought the latest and greatest piece of kit than the manufacturers are working on bringing out an even better version exploiting even newer technology.
IT (particularly desktop pc) products are even worse than audio/visual for this. A 3 year old PC that is getting slow often cant be upgraded be adding a faster video card, processor or memory because the interface standards or socket types have changed - so often a complete replacement is cheaper than an upgrade with legacy parts.
Sure - from a cost per viewing standpoint, buying an AV system and running it into the ground without further investment will give you your lowerst cost per view over the lifetime of the product. I'm sure there are a few people out there with black and white tellys whose investment in av products amounts have amounted to about 5d (old money) over the last 25+ years ;-)
At the other end of the scale, I'm sure there a few technophiles out there who always have to have the latest and greatest product on their shelves at home aswell - as significant cost.
Somewhere in between is where most of ut sit I think.
Having jumped on the dvd bandwagon 10 years ago with an original Wharfdale from Tesco (£350), I've recently acquired a BR (Sammy DP-P1500 for £180). If I get 5-6 years out of this player - my personal view is that I will be pleased with that. However, I recognise that some people will not want to invest this sort of money with the potential limitied lifespan of this product.
Having been a big fan of cryus products - a big inlfuncing factor for me personally is upgradability. Cyrus have always offered an upgrade path from their older products to their current products - should you succumb to upgradeitis. It sort of helps protect the investment made in their products.
I was very pleased that BR players support the playing of DVD disks (most even upscale)- as I personally mave a large collection of DVD's and didnt want to lose the value of that investment. Whatever supersedes BR - as long as the players support playing DVD and BR disks as well - I will probably jump on that gravy train aswell.
In another 5 years - who knows that delights will out there !

 

[Anonymous]

I've been wrestling with the lifespan of the current BD profile for a while now myself. What is clear from this year is that Joe Public has, and increasingly in these harder times, opted for what is cheapest and has the most choice. With DVD's most will not want to replace what already works perfectly well for them and certainly not to replace disks they already own. There has been scant promotion of BD in the UK and no BD exclusive releases to tempt the buying public. On my daily commute I'm always in hope that the Metro will have this week's BD releases advertised but no they are always DVD versions.

This whole legacy issue of DVD's is not helped by a lot of BD releases being poor and not, in my eyes, taking advantage of the higher capacity. Very few releases I've seen have that magic combination of great HD visuals, lossless sound and a great set of value added extras over the DVD version. It's usually maybe one or two ticks but not all three.

The big jump from VHS and Laserdisc made DVD worthwhile for me 10 years ago. I'm struggling to find BD releases that make that big jump now from DVD to BD.

 

[Andy Grange]

PJPro:Except that the ISPs are already bleating about the impact the iPlayer is having on their available bandwidth. I only expect this to get worse. Methinks that there's gonna have to be considerable investment in the internet infrastructure before downloading HD movies becomes a viable option.

Of course, there's also the issue of insurance. Insurance companies are happy to cover the loss of tangible items, like disks, but less happy to cover downloads.

I suspect that the way forward ultimately will be pay per view (or indeed listen). Not sure of the mechanism that will be used....could be a monthly subscription providing access to a catalogue of items. This will allow the studios to more closely control their product and eliminate piracy.

Suspect that this would meet with considerable resistance so the studios will need a hook to sell it to the masses. Could this be higher definition for video? Super high bitrates for audio? Don't know. We'll have to see but I don't believe that my toddler will have a collection of disks when she is an adult.

I think you've missed my point slightly. What I meant was that when the infrastucture is available for large file downloading (as is starting to become the case in the US and Japan) then downloading HD movies will become more of a realistic option.

 

[Anonymous]

There doesn't seem to be that many DVD players being made nowadays so when your player finally packs up the only alternative may well be to buying a Blu Ray Player if only to continue upscaling your DVD collection

I also agree with Gatwick Flyer that whereas the leap from VHS to DVD was huge, the divide between a good DVD and Blu Ray transfer is on the whole relatively marginal

 

[Anonymous]

Tallyho:

There doesn't seem to be that many DVD players being made nowadays so when your player finally packs up the only alternative may well be to buying a Blu Ray Player if only to continue upscaling your DVD collection

I also agree with a poster above that whereas the leap from VHS to DVD was huge, the divide between a good DVD and Blu Ray transfer is relatively marginal

There's still a huge market for DVD players though with HCIAB and PVR's if not standalone players. The industry has to make a bold move and reduce BD prices while scaling back DVD releases. The trick will be not to be stung by consumer apathy and ignorance of technology. THE BD Forum in the UK have long been calling for side-by-sde demonstrations in stores to educate buyers but I've yet to see any wholesale push by retailers, even in this time of the year when sales are highest.

 

[The_Lhc]

Gatwick Flyer:

This whole legacy issue of DVD's is not helped by a lot of BD releases being poor and not, in my eyes, taking advantage of the higher capacity. Very few releases I've seen have that magic combination of great HD visuals, lossless sound and a great set of value added extras over the DVD version. It's usually maybe one or two ticks but not all three.

The big jump from VHS and Laserdisc made DVD worthwhile for me 10 years ago. I'm struggling to find BD releases that make that big jump now from DVD to BD.

that's funny, because I can remember loads of people on newsgroups (remember them?) and indeed, in magazines, complaining that a number of early DVD releases didn't fully take advantage of the format and didn't have remastered video, or weren't anamorphic transfers etc etc. it'll be no different with BD, give it 18 months and these concerns will be largely forgotten, as they have been with DVD.

 

[The_Lhc]

professorhat:I honestly can't see downloads for HD content being mainstream for a very long time. It's going to take a massive investment in the existing infrastructure country wide - I know this is being done gradually, but in the next 5 years? No way in my opinion.

That's a UK-centric opinion though, go to Japan or Korea and you can pretty much do this NOW. Fiber to the home? No problem...

I think South Korea is investing something like $21Bn to bring gigabit to the home, no chance of that happening here (any time soon, as you say, gradually...) but the tech companies won't be worrying about us here in the UK.

 

[PJPro]

They are putting in place a mega backbone down here in Bournemouth as an experiment. But won't provide any improvements for me unfortunately :-(.

 

[Anonymous]

I don't pretent to be an expert in this matter, but i think the speed technology chages at nowadays 5 years is a pretty good run for a product. Look at HD disc i think they lasted for about 3 years before blu ray started to dominate the market. I don't know about anyone else but i get so confused sometimes on what to buy, there seems to be so many different magazines, websites and TV shows giving out advice on what the supposildy best product on the market is. Personally i don't think that there can be any one singular product on the narket that can be called the best at anyone time, as new makes and models seem to be released every day. Sorrry went of on a bit of a tangent then.

Links all edited for house rules violations - Mods

 

[The_Lhc]

monkey spanked:I don't pretent to be an expert in this matter, but i think the speed technology chages at nowadays 5 years is a pretty good run for a product. Look at HD disc i think they lasted for about 3 years before blu ray started to dominate the market.

that's a different kettle of fish though, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are effectively the same thing, in terms of the level of technology, they both came to market at the same time. HD-DVD didn't disappear because it became obsolete like VHS has (effectively) or like DVD will do relatively soon, HD-DVD disappeared because it had a direct competitor, not because it was old technology, it just lost the format war. Blu-ray wasn't a replacement for HD-DVD, in the way that DVD was a replacement for VHS.

If HD-DVD had beaten blu-ray it would have been around for a good while, like blu-ray will.

 

[professorhat]

the_lhc:
professorhat:I honestly can't see downloads for HD content being mainstream for a very long time. It's going to take a massive investment in the existing infrastructure country wide - I know this is being done gradually, but in the next 5 years? No way in my opinion.

That's a UK-centric opinion though, go to Japan or Korea and you can pretty much do this NOW. Fiber to the home? No problem...

I think South Korea is investing something like $21Bn to bring gigabit to the home, no chance of that happening here (any time soon, as you say, gradually...) but the tech companies won't be worrying about us here in the UK.

True, but then I'm not particularly bothered in how they buy movies in Japan or South Korea...