This is why the future belongs to Blu-ray

[Saigon]

i thought this was a good read...but you are going to have judge the article for your self...

http://www.tech.co.uk/rungsberry/general/blogs/2008/01/30/this-is-why-the-future-belongs-to-blu-ray









The blu-ray vs HD DVD war is over. Is it now Blu-ray vs digital downloads?



James Rivington

30 Jan 2008 17:34 GMT
The high definition format war appears to be over. Blu-ray has won, HD DVD is finished. Toshiba can deny it as much as it wants, but the cold hard facts (http://www.techradar.com/news/video/hd-dvd/woolworths-goes-blu-ray-wont-stock-hd-dvd--211711) don't lie.

And so now that the war between HD DVD and Blu-ray seems to be drawing to a close, a debate which had remained dormant for some months has again reared its controversial head. Some people say that Blu-ray's victory is meaningless. They say that digital downloads are the future. And that optical disc formats are old hat.

This I don't buy. At least, not yet I don't.

The two most recent examples I can give of people voicing these opinions are two stories we covered right here on TechRadar. Apple CEO, Steve Jobs (http://www.techradar.com/news/video/blu-ray/blu-ray-win-is-meaningless-says-apple-ceo-201168), and then Seagate CEO, Bill Watkins (http://www.techradar.com/news/computing-components/storage/seagate-ceo-says-blu-ray-win-meaningless-211719), both separately came out recently and basically suggested that: 'downloads are the future, and Blu-ray will die on its ass'.

So, are they right? Or is it all a load of dingo's kidneys? Well, I'd say that you only need to look at the motivations that exist for certain individuals to be saying such things.

Blu-ray: the last optical disc format


Steve Jobs and his iTunes empire would benefit hugely from people snubbing Blu-ray in favour of downloading movies. Even a foetus wouldn't need to be told why.

And likewise, what about Seagate's Bill Watkins? It doesn't take a genius to work out that a manufacturer of storage devices would stand to benefit enormously from a massive upturn in digital movie downloads. After all, where are all these movies going to be kept? On Seagate hard drives perhaps?

We can discount their opinions, then. Because they're biased. And as such, they are themselves meaningless.

So what do I seriously think will happen? I believe that digital downloads are definitely the way forward. Blu-ray Disc Association chairman, Frank Simonis, told us himself that Blu-ray will be the last optical format before downloads take over.

But I can't see the mass-transition to downloads happening for quite some time yet. Sure, all those tech savvy Xbox, PlayStation and iTunes users out there can say they like downloading stuff. But at the moment there are several impracticalities which make mass-market video downloading totally impossible - at least for the time being.

Blu-ray vs digital downloads


Firstly, for Blu-ray to be ousted by downloads, you've got to convince the billions of technophobes out there who couldn't even programme their old VCRs that an even more complex system is worth trying.

The day my mother downloads and watches a Hollywood movie from the web will be the day I deep fry and eat my Seagate FreeAgent portable hard drive.
People like simplicity. People like to buy a disc and put it in a player. They wouldn't like having to try and remember which hard disc, or which device they downloaded Gremlins to last year. They'd prefer to just go and find it on their shelf.

Sure it might also be hard to convince people to invest in the Blu-ray format. But Blu-ray is simply a continuation of an idea which has existed ever since music on vinyl hit the mainstream in the 1930s. We've had various forms of tapes and discs since then, Blu-ray being the latest and most advanced.
But downloads are a new thing entirely. Convincing people to try it will take many years. And in the meantime, with people snapping up LCD and plasma tellies like chocolate bars, they're going to want some HD content to watch on them.

Blu-ray offers an easy solution for normal people today. Downloads, don't.

[unsmart thing]

I believe that everything will eventually be digital download but it will be quite a while before that happens. The average consumer prefers to have tangible, material objects that they buy from a store. Also, the NA internet infrastructure needs to be overhauled before everybody starts downloading movies. Especially if those movies are running at 1080p.

[MjW]

Simple and well said.

Downloads is the future, but this future is not as close to the present as some people want it to be.

Nice post.

[#Rob]

Downloads is not really the future for me, there are always people that will need a blue ray disc because : - they might not buy online or download from parents
- People with downloadlimit (like me in belgium) will not like this to download a 12GB game = downloadlimit up = smallband = and that's is sloW !

So no for it and keep the Blue Ray Disc's.

[Lozt_again]

Once again. Downloading HD films is like trying to catch anvils.

[Carl]

I agree.

Believe it or not there are still people out there with no internet. And even those who have internet, have completel crap speeds for the most part. Here in the UK for example, we have crap speeds. No normal person would want to wait that long to buy a movie. Most would rather stick in a disc.

They guy makes good points about finding the movie aswell...Overall it's a good article, and i agree.

[Bostonmess]

They're on about using the sewers to deliver 100 mb internet pretty soon in the Uk.

You know when say: "This connection is sh**!"

http://news.google.co.uk/news?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-GB%3Aofficial&hl=en&tab=wn&ned=uk&q=sewers+broadband&btnG=Search+News

[Hybrid007]

Yea i believe that too. People havent even moved into the HD era yet. Some people still use those rabbit ears. It is just different for some people moving to hard drives and things that dont make much sense at all. People like owning disks. I know i do.

[mertle]

I bet people could go out get in a car now or even use snail public transport service to there nearest store which sells films. Come back make a cup of tea and settle down with there feet up and have at least watched the movie for 10 mins for the fastest connections. All before a downloaded film is completed at current speeds even at double current speeds it would be a massive bind.

Thats the biggest issue download its got no one will even want to wait 10 mins even if we get lightening speeds. Alright going to the shops if speeds become lightening would be possibly slower but then you get to people wont want to wait. But the real big stumblings become storage and rip off costs for DRM 24 hour ownage.

The article spot on and I think Digital download will never out physical storage in the next 30 years.

[MEMEROOT]

the farce over this issue is that those that care about movies already can immediately watch movies in HD via pay on demand cable, if they dont mind waiting a couple of hours then download is available (onlt 19.99 a month - price 1 blue ray) and can be free if you dont mind bittorrent

so those are the tech savy? true (though not necessaraly that tech savy)

well for the average man on the treet they dont care about the extra 100 lines of resolution, certainly not if they have the choice between 5 quid against 15 or 20. it just doesn;t matter.

HD does not offer a step improvement over dvd unlike say over NTSC which the american market seems to have been stuck with.

BR and HD-DVD will die because they are the same as scad or DVD audio to the average joe.

[swordfish64]

Yeah, and flying cars are also the future. Why go for that lame 2009 M series BMW, instead of waiting on the flying car to be realized.
Bottom Line, Blu Ray is the future, the future is available NOW. I suspect we'll see the infrastructure and widespread acceptance of digital downloads shortly after we're all driving our flying cars. Simple fact, the reason that the majority of people who experience Blu-ray picture and audio quality won't go back to DVD is because they want the best. Digital downloads won't be any better than a upscaled dvd with standard definition audio quality- all compressed. It's a lot easier to pop in the blu-ray disc version of 28 weeks later, and then pop in the BD version of Casino Royale right after then it is to wait on a lesser quality movie to download and then erase itself the next day.

[Bostonmess]

I suppose the thing with the download is you can watch it as it downloads (streaming). For sure you're gonna need a lot faster connection and I'm not sure how far away these are, they're claiming a few years but how widespread is that going to be?

It'll be a bit similar to pay per view movies I suppose. Nothing on Tv, you wanna watch a film, press the button and away you go. I would expect it to be cheap like renting from Blockbusters and self delete after you've watched it once or twice.

Of course when you want to actually own the movie it'll be different. You'll want it on Blu-Ray.

[kuku]

Cars is an essential transportation device. it took over the horse, the bicyle, and many others.

Cars also needs roads to be invented first. And people that knew how to drive them. A department of motor vehicles needed to arise, safety standards, repair shops etc...

What did people do with cars before things were there to support them? The sat like a statue or a toy to sit down and grin at how much money you have.

Anyone who thinks downloads can do what BD can in any reasonable time-span also sold all their stock, and cleaned out their bank accounts to buy gold in 1999.

We haven't even got to the point of of deciding which format to send these HD downloaded movies in. What do you want to watch it as? 20+ different video and audio formats...

I like my HD downloads, but it's nowhere near for masses yet. The article speaks the unbreakable truth. There is no groundwork for video-downloads.

[leukoplast]

When we all have fiber optic running from the street, digital downloads will be more plausible. But its going to be a while before that happens.

[mrnagy88]

Once again. Downloading HD films is like trying to catch anvils.

Hmm you should play the game Pain if you like catching anvils =-D

[GameSpawn]

Digital downloads were going to be a thing of the future with iTunes. Did it ever happen? No, iTunes flopped worse than a dieing fish as far as digital downloads outside of the music market, and even that is just an OK success, not the second comming.

Capacity and bandwidth are what kills the concept of digital downloads right now. A downloaded HD movie is huge and will fill up hard drives fast, ironically people will need large disc formats to archive these things on more reliable media than hard drives (if you didn't know data is more suseptible to corruption on hard drives than discs due to magnetic shifts that can occur on hard drives that aren't consistantly used). Also, because these downloads are huge means a HUGE amount of bandwidth will be required to transfer these things over the internet for millions of users.

Another couple of cons to digital downloads right now follow:
Most content is only at around 720p/1080i while the HDTV market is making the unanoumous move to 1080p.
Audio quality is abysmal with digital downloads, and better audio formats would cause the file size to sky rocket.
Speaking of audio, you will be very limited on the number of languages that you get, in most cases just one! As a person who watches and collects anime, it is nice having dual languages.
NO ADDITIONAL CONTENT! This is an advantage discs will always have that digital downloads will have one hell of a hard time emulating, especially in ease of access and use.

[javelinpr]

its hard for isps to provide fast/cheap speeds to download dvds let alone hd content much more know when theres is talks about the 2kp resolution. there are 4kp tvs out there(pioneer?, samsung?) how are you gonna download a movie thats 100gb of size in one of todays hard drives??

until resolutions and size of movies and such are maximized we wont see digital downloads unless broadband technologies finds a way to provide lightning fast conections and hdd venture into the high TB's of size.

edit: projectors are at the 4k resolution right now. check this(by SONY :p ):
http://www.dcinematoday.com/dc/products.aspx?techID=21

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000741097

[dackingdog]

Anyone excited about downloading all your games onto your harddrives too?

No thank you, i rather join church of scientology. I'll be one of the last persons
to adopt download services. This means i'll most likely be a senior citizen.

So on top of paying for my internet services, add an additional service fee for
films+ a high probability of an increase in paying more money for those higher
speeds & more out of pocket cost for a larger hard drive.

Sweeet, why stop there, here's my social security # 555-69-123* too. Please
companies, i urge you to identify theft me. While these companies are waiting, i'll
throw a kitten into a microwave....yum, crispy kitty jerky. We will all laugh around the
kitchen table how lame hard storage medium is.

Ha Ha, flying cars. How lame, when you can just download a film in the comfort of your
home. I'm too tired to teleport either, i think download a film is the way to go.

[Raonak]

EDIT::: ^^ LOL!

Na, digital dwnloads wont come until internet speeds are a lot faster. i mean, how long would it take to download 25 gbs of video!?

bluray will live on. then digital downloads might be in.

Though i could imagine. going to the video shop. seeing movie cases everywhere. -Open one up, and you see a small next generation Memory card.
The movie would be loaded into it. you can copy as much times as you want and stuff.
or just watch it straight from the memory card. you can buy a small memory card player so you can watch on TV or soemthing. (it will obiously be read only card. so no using it for other stuff..)

The perks of Digital downloading and optical media
-Back it up as much times as you want (might get restricted due to priacy)
-can watch stright from HDD. (copy'd to HDD)

-no need for downloading.
-can let friends borrow.
-can go to video shop. pick the one you want, and buy
-can rent video Mem cards. (probally no copying. - or trial copying. all copies get deleted automatically when return date for video.

[stealeruk]

I'm never going to be happy purchasing something I can't physically hold.

[higrob24]

Well its a good read. Apart from the the blu-ray vs Digital download section.

People wont want to use downloads because they will forget what harddrive its on.??

THats all he could come up with!!

I think its easier to find a movie on my pc then it is to find one of my many dvds.

Where is that movie oh yeah on my PC under G for gremlins which my media software happens to list alphabeticaly. Now that was hard?


Instead the drawback are.

How about time consuming to download.
Most the infrastucture here in the UK at least isnt good enough for broadband of the kind needed. Sure you can get good speed but you get download limit caps, time restrictions.

I live 10 miles away from a DVD rental store and its still quicker, easier and less hassle to drive there than it is to download a film. Plus i can get a chinese on the way.

[Saigon]

Well its a good read. Apart from the the blu-ray vs Digital download section.

People wont want to use downloads because they will forget what harddrive its on.??

THats all he could come up with!!

I think its easier to find a movie on my pc then it is to find one of my many dvds.

Where is that movie oh yeah on my PC under G for gremlins which my media software happens to list alphabeticaly. Now that was hard?


Instead the drawback are.

How about time consuming to download.
Most the infrastucture here in the UK at least isnt good enough for broadband of the kind needed. Sure you can get good speed but you get download limit caps, time restrictions.

I live 10 miles away from a DVD rental store and its still quicker, easier and less hassle to drive there than it is to download a film. Plus i can get a chinese on the way.

also another problem is how will you be able to take the movie to a friend house...

[GameSpawn]

I just thought of another pissy thing overnight about digital downloads...DRM! Digital Rights Management will **** people over. iTunes has just barely been able to manage. Microsoft is going over kill with what they have implemented in Vista (lookup Netflix Vista and DRM).

[Paper Shredder]

I believe that everything will eventually be digital download but it will be quite a while before that happens. The average consumer prefers to have tangible, material objects that they buy from a store. Also, the NA internet infrastructure needs to be overhauled before everybody starts downloading movies. Especially if those movies are running at 1080p.Agreed. I am hoping for the day when I can DOWNLOAD games to my drive :)

Lazy but helpful for a busy, working man like myself

[IWAO]

Who needs Digital download!! Because Blu-ray is for the win,and we'll be enjoying the discs Sony will be making,and using,so meh I want discs more:)

[Silverthorn]

I believe that everything will eventually be digital download but it will be quite a while before that happens. The average consumer prefers to have tangible, material objects that they buy from a store. Also, the NA internet infrastructure needs to be overhauled before everybody starts downloading movies. Especially if those movies are running at 1080p.

The two delivery channels will co-exist. The same way that dvd rental and sales exists. Most people, me included, want to own the media in the best resolution possible. Just streaming or downloading would annoy me. I will always have finite hard drive space and I prefer a nicely packaged disc that I can insert as needed. Try downloading a 1080p 50gig Blueray like Kingdom of Heaven in the same video/audio fidelity. Not anytime soon, You'll have to live with compromised quality.

[babyface]

Amen! Nothing to add to that - the man is on the spot with his analysis.

Thinking of my parents trying to download movies from some internet store already makes my head spinning around...