"Blu-Ray has five years left" - Samsung [Archive]

Steve White

09-03-2008, 06:12 PM

Excuse me? This is an article where Blu-Ray is replaced by OLED displays? I get it... better to put development $$ into OLED research, but still - it's a lame segue.

While I'd like to think Blu-Ray will be replaced by a 1080p 4:4:4 format or higher, it's not likely to happen. Instead internet streaming will gradually take over the market with hyper-compressed 1080p that's worse than satellite, cable or over-the-air ATSC. Blu-Ray will hold the title for quality and reliability over all of these, but people will turn to the internet simply for the instant gratification and convenience.

Eventually internet streaming might exceed what blu-ray has to offer in terms of quality, but that represents an enormous increase in internet bandwidth only available through massive infrastructure improvements.

Raphael Varandas

09-03-2008, 07:04 PM

Hey guys sorry about it, but...
Are you using external burners for bluray output on macs??
Whats the secret?

Matt Gottshalk

09-03-2008, 07:47 PM

Hey guys sorry about it, but...
Are you using external burners for bluray output on macs??
Whats the secret?

Adobe Encore.

Raphael Varandas

09-03-2008, 08:00 PM

Thank You Matt...but what about the burner device??

Roberto Lequeux

09-03-2008, 08:06 PM

It will be solid state memory, but I doubt that anyone will push Blue Ray for a while... it takes too much work and money to get people to want to switch. ut the next thing will be solid state for sure.

Maybe little thumb drives with tiny batteries that work intermittently to extend the life when not used for a very long time.

And the internet will be there though it all... but there are two different things here... one is the www and the other is portable media. So both.

Manfred Lopez

09-03-2008, 10:14 PM

http://auctioninvestor.com/shop/images/harddrive_open.jpg

Yes!... because I would LOOOVE to keep my entire movie collection in a delicate, guaranteed-to-break-down, rust-prone, non-tactile object. ...And because I just HATE how physical discs with professionally designed packaging just look too similar to books on my shelves and therefore give off a whiff of culture to my home decor. I say lets keep our homes looking like uncultured geek dungeons by having everything on hard drives. :sorcerer:

Tom Lowe

09-03-2008, 10:40 PM

So you guys think $12 plastic discs you can pick up at the convenience store are going to be replaced by:
1. Heavy, delicate and expensive spinning hard drives?
2. Even more expensive flash drives?
3. Downloadable content when most ISPs are enforcing bandwidth caps rather than keeping up with their infrastructure demands?

I disagree.

In 2000, a 20GB harddrive cost $300. Right now, that will buy me 1.5 terabytes. The trends favor massive HDD storage capacity at your average, tech-savvy home, with most devices eventually linked - ie, desktop in the bedroom linked to the TV in the living room, etc.

Broadband speeds follow an almost exactly inverse trendline, with faster and faster speeds. Once fiber-to-the-home takes hold, bandwidth ain't gonna be an issue.

Technology trends favor faster and faster broadband, and ever-cheaper HDD or solid-state storage.

Tom Lowe

09-03-2008, 10:45 PM

Yes!... because I would LOOOVE to keep my entire movie collection in a delicate, guaranteed-to-break-down, rust-prone, non-tactile object. ...And because I just HATE how physical discs with professionally designed packaging just look too similar to books on my shelves and therefore give off a whiff of culture to my home decor. I say lets keep our homes looking like uncultured geek dungeons by having everything on hard drives. :sorcerer:

So you like little plastic boxes with neat pictures? This makes you feel all warm and fuzzy? :)

Last week I went camping, and I brought along my "Movies" 500GB external drive. It has something like 440GBs of mostly 720p and 1080p movies. I was able to plug it into my laptop at night, in my tent, and choose any HD movie I wanted -- then play it right off the external drive on my laptop at 1080p. Somehow, I wasn't missing the plastic boxes. :wink:

Manfred Lopez

09-03-2008, 10:55 PM

So you like little plastic boxes with neat pictures? This makes you feel all warm and fuzzy? :)

Last week I went camping, and I brought along my "Movies" 500GB external drive. It has something like 440GBs of mostly 720p and 1080p movies. I was able to plug it into my laptop at night, in my tent, and choose any HD movie I wanted -- then play it right off the external drive on my laptop at 1080p. Somehow, I wasn't missing the plastic boxes. :wink:

And here I thought the whole idea of going camping was to get away from civilization and electricity and modern comforts. :innocent:

In any case, I still fail to see how having a nice shelf of movies with cases precludes one from also having the iTunes version on one's laptop. In fact I think that the tendency in the future is for movie releases to also include a digital copy for when people want to go camping. I think a few blu-ray releases already did this.

By the way, when you were camping, what movie did you end up seeing?

Mark B.

09-04-2008, 01:49 AM

Holographic discs are expected to be the replacement technology for Blu-Ray.

JanneJansson

09-04-2008, 02:34 AM

Agree with Tom, HD rules and bluray are obsolete already. HD-DVD folks where smart to drop it before they lost even more money.

Claus Mueller

09-04-2008, 03:05 AM

Agree as well, blu-ray is too late. It will take too long to convince the average customers, the masses. Buy a macbook touch/pro in 2011 and you will get right in your hands at least 500 Mb ssd storage, wireless HDMI to connect to your flat tv, integrated 4g/LTE with at least 20Mbit/s internet access and a nice oled display. So you can download your HD Videos via mobile internet very fast and easy. I think, it's all about convenience, the iPhone is a good example how it works.

Radoslav Karapetkov

09-04-2008, 03:46 AM

p2p + ads = legal bliss.

Radoslav Karapetkov

09-04-2008, 04:12 AM

And here I thought the whole idea of going camping was to get away from civilization and electricity and modern comforts. :innocent:

Well, in the case of Tom, all he has to do is switch the laptop off and, voila - no more civilization. :w00t:

It's an interesting contrast: Mother Nature and modern technology.

I was climbing a mountain peak last weekend and I was passing through a protected territory in the mountains:

Ancient deep forests, exotic plants and animals, all shades of red, green and blue and an unbelievable quietness.

Suddenly, a jet fighter passed through the sky and reminded me that I live in the 21-st century...

The jet looked kinda stupid compared to the epic mountains. Some silly arrogant mamal sitting in a "smart" metallic pegassus, who thinks that he is the one that runs the show...

But in places like this, one gets to remember who actually runs the show...

Too bad I didn't have decent equipment to record the scene, but.. as the Italians say:

La vita se vive o se scribe.

One can't really *record* such a thing, it has to be experienced...

Silly tiny mamals we all are...

Manfred Lopez

09-04-2008, 04:36 AM

They said the same thing about books... How first computers and then the Internet would kill them off because it is all about convenience or whatever. But exactly the opposite happened: More books are being published now than ever.

I think what some of you are forgetting is that movies have at least two distinct phases in their distribution cycle: INITIAL DISTRIBUTION and SELL-THROUGH.

The first is the phase where people first see a film. This is definitely changing. But the second is when someone likes a film enough to want to 'own' it. This is where dvd's and blu-rays come in. These discs therefore represent no direct challenge or competition to Internet streaming or whatever other new technology is used for initial distribution. I just can’t see someone ‘investing’ lets say $300 on a “virtual” box set of 25 movies from John Ford (like the Ford at Fox box set). For that kind of money the damn thing better have a glossy book, an awesome case, photographs, essays, mementos, drapery and a velvet rope and red carpet welcoming me to John Ford’s works. You are telling me an iPod is going to change this? I don’t think so.

And before anyone points to the music industry as an 'example', please remember that the average person thinks of movies differently than music. With movies there is the view that it is more of an investment (time-wise) to sit through a film than listening to music. So being able to 'own' your own physical copy of a film that you like with all the extras and special features still holds a very strong appeal. With music it just isn’t so (especially after the Music industry failed to understand this and at one point priced CD’s MORE than movies and only gave a crappy disc with an insert booklet in return… wait! At one point they actually used to separate the two in those long plastic containers to make it seem like more and you had to assemble it yourself).

So anyway, I just have a really hard time believing that suddenly an entire phase of a movie's existence is just going to disappear. Sell-through is here to stay. And the best way still is a physical disc. Just look at how excited people are about the imminent release of Blu-Rays from the Criterion Collection. These are films we all have already seen and, in many cases, even already own. But just the fact that Criterion is putting out collector editions of excellent films with excellent transfers and really cool extra features (They invented it!) is enough to make people spend money again on the same films. Long live physical reality where I can actually 'hold' a movie in my hands!!!

***

M Most

09-04-2008, 08:17 AM

Jeff Kilgroe

09-04-2008, 09:10 AM

Lot of Blu-Ray naysaying going on here...

As far as consumer video goes, Blu-Ray is it and probably all there will be for the next 10+ years unless someone comes along with something that can vastly improve the image quality *AND* drastically cut the price.

The average consumer is comfortable with Blu-Ray and I don't understand why people think it's a dead or dying format.

Key points in favor of Blu-Ray right now:

* Full backing from every major Hollywood studio.
* Player prices falling faster than DVD player prices at this stage in their introduction.
* Players under $300 for this holiday shopping season, Sony S300 overstocks on clearance soon for ~$250.
* Picture quality outpaces most consumer displays and many peoples' eyesight. Vastly superior image and sound compared to any online, on-demand, or electronic delivery currently available.
* Tangible media to buy, no DRM restricted downloads locking you into single platforms (iTunes).
* Profile 2.0 has opened up the "managed copy" and "digital copy" features to allow disc owners to load their movies at full quality onto media servers.

I fully expect Blu-Ray to be the last of the disc-based media formats. The future (to me at least) is solid state in the form of single-write PROMs and WORM FLASH for content distribution.

Convenience of obtaining the media is a good argument. However, there is a large portion of the retail market out there who prefers quality over convenience. Why should I spend $20 on an "HD" movie through iTunes? It's barely better than DVD quality, in some ways inferior. The audio is inferior to DDEX 5.1 or DTS, I can only play it on my AppleTV, iPod and computers. I feel the same way about audio... I can usually pick up a CD cheaper than an album on iTunes, much better quality, no DRM. But I'm an audiophile, I'm a videophile. I don't tend to buy any movie unless it's going to look great on my 72" 1080P DLP (AppleTV HD looks like ass). I don't tend to buy music unless it's going to sound great on my sound system. iTunes downloads are intended for the crowd who prefers to listen to their music through shitty earbuds and table-top iPod docking stereo systems. Unfortunately, that's 88.5% of the market.

Tom Lowe

09-04-2008, 09:11 AM

And here I thought the whole idea of going camping was to get away from civilization and electricity and modern comforts. :innocent:

In any case, I still fail to see how having a nice shelf of movies with cases precludes one from also having the iTunes version on one's laptop. In fact I think that the tendency in the future is for movie releases to also include a digital copy for when people want to go camping. I think a few blu-ray releases already did this.

By the way, when you were camping, what movie did you end up seeing?

Hehe.... When you go camping 5 days a year, you want to get away from it all. When you camp 75 days a year, you sometimes miss your movie collection. :wink: That night I watched Batman Begins @ 1080.

I am not saying that Bluray sucks or is lame. I think Bluray will be successful. I'm just saying that after Bluray, the model will move toward network distribution and HDD or solid-state storage. I mean, look - when I was a punk working at the pizza shop at 15, half my paltry check every week went to buying shiny new CDs. I had racks of them that I worshiped and treasured and played all the time. Now I have all my music on my desktop, with not a jewel case in sight. There is a model for this type of change.

Mitch Gross

09-04-2008, 09:36 AM

Tom Lowe

09-04-2008, 09:42 AM

Once 1080p HD saturates the US market, and Bluray players fall in price, they WILL see enough reason to go with Bluray.

Chris Parker

09-04-2008, 11:21 AM

yep....solid state one day. there will be no 'discs'. also, i think that your house will have a central server that houses all your media, and portable devices will simply be able to access it from anywhere....

Radoslav Karapetkov

09-04-2008, 11:37 AM

I think it will be mostly about codecs in the future, not physical media.

A 720p movie can perfectly fit in a DVD5 with a very good quality. A 1080p movie can fit on a DVD9 in the same way.

If this RedRay codec is real, it seriously kicks H.264's butt. And I thought H.264 was hot.

For the moment, it [RedRay] sounds like a scam. :bleh:

P.S. I also thought that the HVX was hot but then this billionaire dude went nuts.

Manfred Lopez

09-04-2008, 11:49 AM

Hehe.... When you go camping 5 days a year, you want to get away from it all. When you camp 75 days a year, you sometimes miss your movie collection. :wink: That night I watched Batman Begins @ 1080.

I am not saying that Bluray sucks or is lame. I think Bluray will be successful. I'm just saying that after Bluray, the model will move toward network distribution and HDD or solid-state storage. I mean, look - when I was a punk working at the pizza shop at 15, half my paltry check every week went to buying shiny new CDs. I had racks of them that I worshiped and treasured and played all the time. Now I have all my music on my desktop, with not a jewel case in sight. There is a model for this type of change.

I hear ya on the music thing. I also bought a sh*t load of CD's up until a few years ago (I still have about 2,000 of them). And I also ripped them to a hard drive array (I now have about 1.5 Tb dedicated to just music). But I still think that when it comes to movies it is different. Yes, sure, I'll probably also rip them to a home media server when the size/price ratio of storage space makes it possible... but I still would want those movies as reference / backup.

By the way, I also do a ton of watching on my laptop since I travel a lot. But instead of carrying around a hard drive I just carry a Case Logic CD flip book that holds the 200 most recent movies that I bought but still haven't seen. I call this homework :shifty: (By the way, I would need a 2 Tb drive to hold them all... but I am too cheap to buy one just for that).

P.S. cool choice on the movie. Batman Begins is one of my favorites from that genre.

Manfred Lopez

09-04-2008, 12:10 PM

Unfortunately Blu-Ray has not been meeting industry expectations. Consumers can't see enough of a difference from SD DVDs.

Hi Mitch

I am a great fan of your posts. So I almost feel bad... but I have to ask you this: Are you basing your comments about Blu-ray on your opinion and gut feeling? Or are you following the DVD / Blu-ray industry by reading Home Media Magazine or some other authoritative publication? The reason I call you on this is because I was under the impression that Blu-ray was doing just fine, with libraries now even carrying it. In fact sales have been impressive considering the down-turn of consumer spending. It is my impression that this holliday season will be especially strong for the format considering all the titles that have been announced. And also, if you really believe that consumers can't tell the difference between Blu-ray and regular DVD (which they can!), then why bother with Red? Why not just use a DVX?

Mitch Gross

09-04-2008, 01:08 PM

My comments are based in part on articles in The New York Times Business Section. I hope that Blu-Ray does better but according to these and other published reports they have not penetrated the market as fast as expected. And I can certainly tell the difference in the image but one reason cited in articles (apparently based on industry surveys) is that consumers could not see enough of a difference to warrant the additional purchase.

Jeff Kilgroe

09-04-2008, 01:14 PM

Unfortunately Blu-Ray has not been meeting industry expectations. Consumers can't see enough of a difference from SD DVDs.

Hmmm... As far as I can tell, the only industry players who are saying this are Toshiba and a few of their disgruntled partners. As of this month, Blu-Ray has been available for two years. Exactly which expectations are not being met? I will agree that Blu-Ray has fallen short of some of its original goals due to being launched later than intended and because of the format war with HD-DVD that made many consumers take pause. I think the generally higher price of Blu-Ray movies is also a show-stopper right now with higher prices on most consumer goods in general.

But with that in consideration, Blu-Ray is still outpacing DVD at its 2-year mark. By comparison, there are more titles available, more discs being sold, a current model player supporting all the latest audio codecs and best video output options available (HDMI 1.3a, 1080p24/60) is about $350 whereas a DVD player at the two year mark with full audio codec support and progressive scanning ability would have set most people back over $1000. ...That was 10 years ago too.

The current installed base of Blu-Ray players in north america is over 2X the projected installed base of DVD players at DVD's 2nd year mark. Much of that owing to the $399 PlayStation3 and that DVD players took longer to fall in price than Blu-Ray has. DVD did not take off and become the mainstream format until the beginning of its 4th year, when budget players fell below the $150 price point. I believe the same will happen with Blu-Ray and we're still about a year away from those prices.

IMO, the only real down-side to Blu-Ray is that BD titles typically carry a $7.50 premium over the standard DVD version of the same. The one thing that Blu-Ray is suffering from is the entrenched DVD format. Most consumers are not rushing out to replace any DVD titles with Blu-Ray, then again, no one ran out to replace any VHS tapes at first either.

As for consumers who can't see the difference, we saw this with DVD and then with HDTV. Lots of factors contribute to this. IMO a good 720p LCD or plasma set combined with a good upscaling DVD player is going to give visuals that are comparable to that same display paired with a mediocre Blu-Ray player. Especially when viewed at a distance. But with a current model 1080p DLP display and nice Blu-Ray player like the Panny DMP-BD50K or the Sony BDP-S360 [aka BDP-BX1], there is no comparison. Most consumers don't own a good 1080p display for their Blu-Ray players yet and most have only been subjected to poorly assembled store displays up to this point. Of course they don't see the difference. ...Same routine all over again.

I believe Blu-Ray will be around for a while as there is not a cheaper/better technology to replace it. I also believe that the next generation whenever it arrives will be a solid state technology.

With that statement, I agree 100%.

Jeff Kilgroe

09-04-2008, 01:20 PM

I also wanted to add that for myself and many other home theatre enthusiasts, one of the big selling points of Blu-Ray is the audio abilities. Those with good surround-sound setups will greatly appreciate the enhancements of Dolby TrueHD and DTS HD modes over DD5.1 and DDEX.

Steve Sanacore

09-04-2008, 01:58 PM

Unfortunately Blu-Ray has not been meeting industry expectations. Consumers can't see enough of a difference from SD DVDs.

I believe Blu-Ray will be around for a while as there is not a cheaper/better technology to replace it. I also believe that the next generation whenever it arrives will be a solid state technology.

When the price of Blu-Ray disks is as low as DVD's then it will be mainstream. At this point the prices are way too high for most people to justify purchasing them.

I am going for it as a back up medium for video data. Just wondering which burner to buy? The new LG 6X burner looks like the best buy right now but would love to hear from others. There was an excellent article I read the other day on how dangerous archiving on hard drives could be. From what I read the data can decay over a period of one to two years even if the mechanics of the drives still work. Not good. And data tape backup for me right now seems too expensive.

Mitch Gross

09-04-2008, 02:03 PM

Jeff, you can check The New York Times. I like Blu-Ray and I'm all for higher quality delivery systems. But with some players as inexpensive as $150, the penetration of players or titles has not been as great as expected. Also, DVD sales are down for the first time ever as that market has now matured. The DVD market had been growing by double-digit percentages every year for the last decade, but this year there was a drop (I think it was 5 or 7 percent).

Again, this is from the NYT and other reputable sources. It's not something I'm inclined to debate with you. I don't believe everything I read, but I do believe certain things from certain sources.

Noah Kadner

09-04-2008, 02:18 PM

Not exactly the most unbiased of source considering Blu-Ray benefits Sony most directly. I thought Samsung was one of those brands you buy when you can't get Sony, Panasonic, JVC, etc.

Noah

Tom Lowe

09-04-2008, 03:58 PM

I agree with those who are saying that the prices of Bluray discs are simply too high. Why are they priced higher than DVDs? It's silly, greedy, and foolish, IMO.

Also, the players are far, far more expensive than DVD players. Once BD players start selling for $99, they will flood households across the U.S.

Häakon

09-04-2008, 09:17 PM

Thank You Matt...but what about the burner device??

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=14115

Mike Harrington

09-04-2008, 11:23 PM

it's starting.....

PNY and Sony To Release Movies On USB Flash Drives

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Ghostbusters-PNY-Sony,6316.html

Tom Lowe

09-05-2008, 12:18 AM

it's starting.....

PNY and Sony To Release Movies On USB Flash Drives

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Ghostbusters-PNY-Sony,6316.html

Honestly, what is the point of putting DRM on those drives??

Pirates will simply hack the thing once, and put it on Bit Torrents. It's the person who actually pays for the drive that gets hassled.... totally crazy way of treating paying customers, IMO.

Manfred Lopez

09-05-2008, 02:08 AM

Lets just remember one thing: Blu-ray has as of yet NOT had a single christmas shopping season by itself where it isn't competing against another format (HD-DVD). Also the final specifications hasn't been available until very recently. Even despite of this it has done well enough. Sure, it isn't selling like Sony thought it would, but that's like asking a mother if her kid is special. Just watch this holiday shopping season. Oh, and Mitch, if you are referring to THIS (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/blu-ray-the-future-has-been-delayed/?scp=3&sq=blu-ray&st=cse) article from the New York Times, I wouldn't read too much into it (that's the only recent article I could find from the NYT that is doomsy about Blu-ray's future). They have been known to be not too up to the minute and/or thorough on technology. For example, here is another article from that same week from enadget HD that completely contradicts the NYT:

Shocker: Blu-ray sales way up year-over-year (http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/04/22/shocker-blu-ray-sales-way-up-year-over-year/)

So go figure.

Raphael Varandas

09-05-2008, 05:40 AM

Thanks Haakon...i knew it...someone would help me
Very helpfull .
Thank You again!!!
I will try it as you sad...exactly as you sad.

Regards

Mike Harrington

09-05-2008, 07:49 AM

there is a red laser disc out there....that has the same capacaties as blue ray
it's multiple layers(like 15 or so)
origionally I thought this is what red-ray was going to use
http://www.nmeinc.com/

the beauty of it is the components are all standard red laser components....
inexpensive to make and the market is full of them
right now with blu ray only 3 or 4 companies in the world manufacture the blue lasers and as of 2007 Nichia Corp of Japan was the sole supplier. This was the reason for the delay of PS3

the red disc technology would solve all the supply and demand problems

laguun

09-05-2008, 10:54 AM

Blu-ray will probably be pretty standard on any 2010 computer.

With ~75$ price difference in 2010, would any reader of this forum prefer to buy a DVD-NTSC player instead of a blu-ray player?

We deliver red overnight dailies on blu-ray. If customers dont have a player, they usually rent a Sony PS3 for ~5 bucks a day at the next videostore.

When DPs or Directors want a copy of their work, we offer them HDCAM, HDCAM SR, Digital Betacam, DVD or blu-ray. Blu-ray seems to become the preferred choice.

Brent J. Craig

09-05-2008, 05:59 PM

Blu-ray will probably be pretty standard on any 2010 computer.

I find it really surprising that it is not standard already. They say that the blue lasers cost many times more than the red lasers in normal DVD drives, but the laser in a DVD drive costs less than $1 when you add up the total manufacturing cost of a drive. Even if the magical blue lasers cost ten times as much, they would be a 10 dollar component. Big deal. Add 9 bucks to the price of the drive and call it a day.

I think blu-ray will gain acceptance once they get rid of the "new and exotic" fees that are built into the prices of the drives. Remember when CD players cost over a thousand bucks?

They had better hurry. They only have 4.97 years left before blu-ray is obsolete.

Jerrod Cordell

09-06-2008, 12:46 PM

Well honestly, DVD's haven't been around that long either. They're just barely around their 10th year.

Alex.Mitchell

09-08-2008, 10:21 PM

I find it really surprising that it is not standard already. They say that the blue lasers cost many times more than the red lasers in normal DVD drives, but the laser in a DVD drive costs less than $1 when you add up the total manufacturing cost of a drive. Even if the magical blue lasers cost ten times as much, they would be a 10 dollar component. Big deal. Add 9 bucks to the price of the drive and call it a day.

It's a little more complicated than that. What about building the infrastructure that creates the lasers? Not only that, I'm sure that there aren't many places that manufacture the diodes to begin with, which creates scarcity. Add to that the R&D of the format in general, the cost of all the back room deals made to ensure that format's victory, the cost of advertising the format itself, plus the need to generate revenue in general and it's no surprise that the format is as expensive as it is. Mind you, the PS2 wasn't much less expensive than the low end PS3 is now, and look at how the prices of DVD players took a nosedive between 2000 and 2005. I'm sure that it'll all get worked out in due course.

xdozex

09-11-2008, 10:35 AM

Blu-ray will hit big when the players drop to the sub $200 range, and your average movie can be bought from one of the retail super-stores for $14 - $19.

Its going to be a while before Blu-ray gets pushed out...but when it happens its not going to be holographic discs, and probably not hard drives either. I read earlier in the post that someone was complaining about delicate HD's with moving parts, but solid state drives have no moving parts, and are a lot faster...Yes, they could work for movie storage and playback, but its going to be a WHILE before you see a terabyte drive in Best Buy for $250 bucks. And with the huge price for space, paired with the growing trend in higher video resolutions, that medium doesn't seem practical either.

I think if BR gets pushed out, it wont be for at least 5 - 10 years, and when it happens its gonna go to internet based videos. The whole concept is still technically not completely possible because of bandwidth restrictions but "in the cloud" could be the future. Every movie/album/show you watch is stored on some server somewhere and you just stream it down. You record footage, and upload your own stuff up there like family videos, and send it to friends/family...and stream it down...its the future!

Even Solberg

09-11-2008, 02:50 PM

I truly believe video will move to the network and to harddisks / SSDs. Look at what has happened to music. Is there any reason to think the same won't happen to video? Yes, it requires a bit more resources from the playback device, but that's nothing in the long run. I imagine there is a reason why iTunes now lets you buy HD material.

Tom Lowe

09-13-2008, 09:29 AM

Blu-ray will hit big when the players drop to the sub $200 range, and your average movie can be bought from one of the retail super-stores for $14 - $19.

This is why pricing Blurays so high right now is utterly stupid, IMO.

One808, I think you are very correct.

Manfred Lopez

09-13-2008, 01:29 PM

Well, it looks like Blu-Ray sales now account for 12% of all movie sales (in disc form anyway).

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/13/nielsen-videoscan-high-def-market-share-for-week-ending-septembe/

Even Solberg

09-15-2008, 11:54 AM

One808, I think you are very correct.

Thank you. Of course, working for a major vendor of networking equipment means I also have a vested interest in seeing video move onto the network. ;-)

Lawrence Bansbach

09-18-2008, 06:43 AM

Blu-ray has only five years? Ridiculous. In five years, there will be umpteen gazillion CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs in existence -- do you think people will be satisfied to let them rot and not be able to play them, especially since DRM is increasingly preventing archival on other media? No, the Blu-ray -- or an even higher-def but backward-compatible -- player will be the device to play them on. And, as with current DVD players, low-end models will cost less than $100.

Jason Ing

09-19-2008, 05:52 PM

No! I'm not satisfied to let my upteem gazillion collection rot! :ranting2:

Laser Disc! Laser Disc! Laser Disc! :whistling:

(for the record, never owned one)

PatrickW

09-19-2008, 05:57 PM

Digital distribution seems to be the future. iTunes and Steam are leading the way.

tillHavis

09-21-2008, 10:21 AM

What about Flash ? Ok it not there yet. But five years is a long time, look at how long Red took to produce a 4K camera, technology improvements are moving fast.
Why not a flash card smaller than an old audio tape.
Costs will fall technology will improve. Personally I cant wait to see the end of the DVD. Pure digital, no burning and authoring or moving parts.
My 2 cents

Shawn Booth

09-21-2008, 01:45 PM

Blu-ray will hit big when the players drop to the sub $200 range, and your average movie can be bought from one of the retail super-stores for $14 - $19.

That would be today. Best Buy has two players for less than $250 and a bunch of flicks for $19.99.

Tico Llaurador

09-21-2008, 02:08 PM

The Godfather series, remastered, will be available on BluRay soon!

Looking forward to that...

:)

Chris Newman

09-23-2008, 05:39 PM

This seems like an obvious question that may have already been answered, but does anyone have any good speculation about why RED chose to use DVD media rather than BluRay for Redray? BluRay disks and burners are cheap, so why not reduce the compression artifacts? I doubt that 2 hours of 4k in 9GB is perfect.

Brent J. Craig

09-23-2008, 05:52 PM

...why RED chose to use DVD media rather than BluRay for Redray?

Gee. My Redray hasn't arrived just yet. What do you know that we don't?!?

Luis Caffesse

09-23-2008, 06:03 PM

Well, it looks like Blu-Ray sales now account for 12% of all movie sales (in disc form anyway).

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/09/13/nielsen-videoscan-high-def-market-share-for-week-ending-septembe/

Notice that those articles always talk about BluRay in regards to 'overall disc sales." Meaning - it is 12% of 100% of the disc sales.

What they don't bother mentioning is that the number of overall movie disc sales are dropping. They dropped $600 million between 2006 and 2007, and are estimated to drop another $500 million by the end of 2008.

Blu Ray is definitely on its way out before it even gets settled in.
The future is in transferable digital content - not tangible media.

Regardless - people will follow content, not media.

Joseph Ward

09-24-2008, 03:26 PM

You are right! I would like at least some hard media for backup purposes for security reasons.:cold:

Chris Newman

09-26-2008, 11:26 AM

Gee. My Redray hasn't arrived just yet. What do you know that we don't?!?
I found more talk about it here:
http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=15604

Even Solberg

10-16-2008, 12:38 PM

An interesting article on the Blu-Ray vs iTunes debate: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-10067855-17.html

Joseph Ward

10-18-2008, 10:58 AM

Lee Jay

11-01-2008, 12:37 PM

Interesting debate. I'll contribute my experience.

Opticals are nearly dead - three of my four computers don't even have optical drives in them. If I really need one (to load an OS), I use a USB external drive.

I didn't start buying DVDs until it was possible to copy and transcode them. Since that technology became available, I've bought quite a few. All of them are copied, transcoded, and backed up. I haven't touched the originals since.

I was going to buy HD but didn't because of the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray war. So I didn't get HD anything, including a TV or projector. Now that the war is over, I waited until it was possible to copy and transcode Blu-Ray. Now that we're at that point, I'm hesitating to buy a drive because I know my only use for it is to copy and transcode movies. Seems like a really, really inefficient means of information delivery - master, DRM, print, sell, read, hack the DRM, possibly transcode, store, play. I'd like to cut out all that garbage between master and store that provides no value added (except the sell part - I'll happily pay for what I own).

In addition, having all those DVDs transcoded has made me realize that the visual quality of motion pictures isn't all that important to me. I'd rather watch an SD movie in the corner of my computer monitor with good sound than an IMAX with bad sound. Of course, an IMAX with good sound is better yet. I have yet to find a movie theater with good sound *or* good visual quality.

The bottom line is that the industry committed suicide with me. By having a format war and infecting their material with DRM, they spent *years* not getting any money out of me. I'm not quite sure what it would take to get me to make the investment to go beyond DVD quality at this point, much less get me back to theaters.

A. Bastaki

11-02-2008, 11:56 PM

guys... ive been buying blu ray movies for 8(low) - 14 - 19 - 22(max) us dollars Brand new.. from amazon.. wtf are you talking about? I buy them and i throw the discs like i throw my dvds around.. they are freggin cheap. i just bought a bulk of 28 flicks for 500 bucks w/shipping?? wtf are you guys talking about? :s and i watch them on my $400 ps3 that i bought TWO years ago. I got a 2 in 1 deal play video games and blurays.
And now the ps3's have gone piss cheap. esp if you buy them in bulk from china. i got my cousins 20 ps3's.. put an order for 289 bucks ea.- not to mention i buy an extra hand gear too for that same price - straight from sony's factory in china. they treated me like a reseller or a retailer..

I honestly am gonna keep at it until the next big thing comes. by the time the new thing comes.. the new movies are gonna hit it.. till then.. im enjoying all the current movies and awesome games on my nice 42" sony bravia.

Peter Mosiman

11-03-2008, 12:11 AM

I disagree.

In 2000, a 20GB harddrive cost $300. Right now, that will buy me 1.5 terabytes.
.

where can you get 1.5 terabytes for 300 bucks?

Roberto Lequeux

11-03-2008, 03:11 AM

get two of these

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148298

you can even run them in a RAID0 and you'll have a bit of cash to spare

Lee Jay

11-03-2008, 03:13 PM

I just got a 1TB external USB on sale for $129.

Alberto Caprioglio

11-19-2008, 02:05 PM

In 2000, a 20GB harddrive cost $300. Right now, that will buy me 1.5 terabytes. The trends favor massive HDD storage capacity at your average, tech-savvy home, with most devices eventually linked - ie, desktop in the bedroom linked to the TV in the living room, etc.

You call someone having the brain in the bedroom and the screen in the living room "savvy"?
If you are economy savvy, I doubt you would keep many ultra powerful electric devices switched on for one simple task as watching a movie... one thing that you can do easily with just an even more savvy normal player, connected to a screen and.... surprise: both, + you in the same room, plus friends... on the sofa. Isn't it just better?

I'm just saying that after Bluray, the model will move toward network distribution and HDD or solid-state storage.

Sure we may see an increase of that, but I still wan to keep a collection on discs, being them made of plastic, stone, silver or gold. And probably on the shelf, so I can grab them without neither searching in an archive, being it in hard disks.
Who said a colorful disc collection has to be the original cases and discs? I might have payed for original download and still consider my personal copies on the shelf "my" collection. They can be the archive, and whatever I keep on hard disk can be the daily bread.; or the other way round. There is usually place for both things in a thing called home. People keep what they like most, and in a good and nice place.
Economy is not all the story.

when I was a punk working at the pizza shop at 15, half my paltry check every week went to buying shiny new CDs

If you pay per download music, and then make them your personal MP3 copies on blank DVDs, you have thousands of phisical albums safe for years to come on your shelf, with a global expense that is much smaller then buying them in the CD format as you used to do. It's perfectly legal and savvy.
The fact that tomorrow, one single trembling hdd may also keep them all inside, makes just another copy, suitable for when you go camping 75 days a year with your laptop. (But in this case, wouldn't you also have a bigger setup in this second home of yours?)

Last week I went camping, and I brought along my "Movies" 500GB external drive. It has something like 440GBs of mostly 720p and 1080p movies.

It's fine. But home is different. I don't watch movies on a laptop if I have a bigger screen, even if I'm alone.

Alberto Caprioglio

11-19-2008, 02:18 PM

Everyone wants to have some sort of phisical backup.

The more durable, reliable, fast, and possibly not eating up too much space like those unnecessarily huge, 90% empty, original DVD jewelcases used to be...., well, the better.
That is quite satisfied. And from HD and beyond, with new codecs, it's all potentially good.

Let's think separately about codec and physical format. You can have payed for, original works on your preferred phisical format, and personal copies for different situations and pockets.

Playback is not much of a problem as it used to be. Not at all.

ArchieCruz

11-21-2008, 07:27 AM

RE:"the model will move toward network distribution"
Not to sound crass but I agree with Tetsuo. Bravo! .I'm still waiting for 'Thin Client' computers that were promised to be all the rage in 1999. Never happened. Nor did 200 channels of Cable TV chocked full of goodies and promising to be the 'Internet Killer'. Right. I don't trust networks for anything but e-mail.
Forward thinking visionaries often get ahead of themselves with spin and in the long run, things tend to stay the same- close to the user, burned in a Blu-Ray or other archivally sound medium.HDD's can crash and burn. Similarly, 'smart homes' were meant to have been the norm by now. They aren't. Smart appliances yes. but they're rarely networked. Networking is the bane of fungibility. I like independence and networks are the epitome of oligarchy :ninja:

You call someone having the brain in the bedroom and the screen in the living room "savvy"?
If you are economy savvy, I doubt you would keep many ultra powerful electric devices switched on for one simple task as watching a movie... one thing that you can do easily with just an even more savvy normal player, connected to a screen and.... surprise: both, + you in the same room, plus friends... on the sofa. Isn't it just better?

Sure we may see an increase of that, but I still wan to keep a collection on discs, being them made of plastic, stone, silver or gold. And probably on the shelf, so I can grab them without neither searching in an archive, being it in hard disks.
Who said a colorful disc collection has to be the original cases and discs? I might have payed for original download and still consider my personal copies on the shelf "my" collection. They can be the archive, and whatever I keep on hard disk can be the daily bread.; or the other way round. There is usually place for both things in a thing called home. People keep what they like most, and in a good and nice place.
Economy is not all the story.

If you pay per download music, and then make them your personal MP3 copies on blank DVDs, you have thousands of phisical albums safe for years to come on your shelf, with a global expense that is much smaller then buying them in the CD format as you used to do. It's perfectly legal and savvy.
The fact that tomorrow, one single trembling hdd may also keep them all inside, makes just another copy, suitable for when you go camping 75 days a year with your laptop. (But in this case, wouldn't you also have a bigger setup in this second home of yours?)

It's fine. But home is different. I don't watch movies on a laptop if I have a bigger screen, even if I'm alone.

Kaku Ito

11-22-2008, 01:16 AM

JFYI, I saw Asaka showing thier Bluray archiving system that they are working with Panasonic, that each container holds 50 or 100 bluray discs for archiving purposes.
Since writing to Bluray would be quite slow, they have created special low energy consuming RAID server system as buffer for the writing process, so you can quickly copy your contents to be archived to their RAID server and the RAID server would keep working to do the Bluray writing.

The whole thing might be expensive, but I'm talking to few rental companies to adopt this, so clients don't have to own the hole thing but rent the archiving system when they need it.

I was also told by Panasonic person that 100GB bluray is on its way.

Alsone

11-22-2008, 03:59 AM

If you pay per download music, and then make them your personal MP3 copies on blank DVDs, you have thousands of phisical albums safe for years to come on your shelf,

Err no. All home writable discs use chemicals in their layers that react to the laser light to record the data. The trouble is that unlike professionally produced discs which having the data surface pressed from aluminium, the chemicals degrade and breakdown and the discs develop errors as a result and eventually stop playing. Its not unusual to have disc problems only 2 or 3 years after recording.

As for those who say internet downloads will take over, its rubbish for 2 reasons:

1. Home recorded discs simply aren't as attractive or have the archival quality of factory pressed discs.

2. Band width and speed aside, 3 obvious issues, the internet also suffers from line drops, errors in transmission, interruptions in service. Are we really going to surrender our viewing to the foibles of internet service faults? If I had to watch tv on my internet connection it would drive me nuts and how about a 3 hour download of a BR title only to find that part of the download is corrupted when you want to watch it back leaving you nothing to watch that evening? Internet is flawed an whilst great as a resource center it sucks as a streaming medium.

oldphart

11-22-2008, 09:14 AM

...

2. Band width and speed aside, 3 obvious issues, the internet also suffers from line drops, errors in transmission, interruptions in service. Are we really going to surrender our viewing to the foibles of internet service faults? If I had to watch tv on my internet connection it would drive me nuts and how about a 3 hour download of a BR title only to find that part of the download is corrupted when you want to watch it back leaving you nothing to watch that evening? Internet is flawed an whilst great as a resource center it sucks as a streaming medium.

I depend on the Internet for all my TV viewing. It is just a question of technology, and I had to get a better provider to get better service. Compared to broadcast towers, cables buried in the ground are at least as reliable. I had more transmitter failures when I watched over-the-air TV than I have ever had with my network connections. Satellites will also develop occational problems.

And corruption of part of a download just does not happen unless you use obsolete protocols. I am downloading ISO-images of DVDs all the time (the software for my servers is distributed that way), and have never had a bad image.

And even if there should be a problem, it does not take many minutes to transfer a gigabyte today. We are not living in the nineties any more, and connections are not getting any slower or more expensive. You get 10Mbit/s today for what you paid for 28.8k ten years ago.

While switches faster than 1Gbit/s are still expensive, that situation is not going to last much longer.

Especially if you want to distribute large volumes to many consumers, BitTorrent or some derivative will ensure that each chunk of data is received correctly or your client will ask to have it retransmitted. It also has the benefit that you save on server load and bandwidth costs, since all your customers will share in the job of distribution.

For distribution of free programming, the Miro player will use similiar technology. It works quite well, and is easy enough to use for even the technically challenged.

Jeff Kilgroe

11-22-2008, 10:02 AM

The whole thing might be expensive, but I'm talking to few rental companies to adopt this, so clients don't have to own the hole thing but rent the archiving system when they need it.

I'm sure people will adopt if the price becomes reasonable. Many may be interested in such a system vs. tape archival simply because tape is viewed as obsolete, even though it really isn't. My biggest concern with such archival solutions is that the chemicals used on BD media are essentially the same chemicals that have been used for DVD and CD media for years. And we are now seeing that the longevity is nowhere near as good as the manufacturers had stated. So just like any other data storage method, these "archives" will still eventually need to be serviced and migrated to other forms of storage in the future. We also have to consider that the just as tape is fading away, so will the optical disc. In 30 years, the photochemical dyes in those discs will be struggling to hold data, perhaps even at a failing point. And the only hardware around to read BD media will be expensive specialty or legacy equipment.

I was also told by Panasonic person that 100GB bluray is on its way.

Yeah, I'm thinking we'll see quad-layer per side BD media and the drives to read/write it sometime in the first half of '09. There were several manufacturers talking about such a thing at E3 and Siggraph. It's one of those things that has been "working in the lab" for a year or two now.

Joyfool

11-22-2008, 11:13 AM

Unfortunately Blu-Ray has not been meeting industry expectations. Consumers can't see enough of a difference from SD DVDs.

I believe Blu-Ray will be around for a while as there is not a cheaper/better technology to replace it. I also believe that the next generation whenever it arrives will be a solid state technology.

Agreed. A buddy of mine has a $40k collection of SD-DVD. He was addicted to buying the weekly releases at Costco over a period of 15 years. I kid you not, when I say he still has releases (from 5 years ago that are still shrink wrapped - a consequence of having 2 kids and no time to watch movies). Now that Blueray has come out he's feeling a little resentment that the market expects him to reup on his "investment". He's thrown in the towel. He aint buying squat. He went from 2-4 dvd's a week to zero. I think the biggest hindrance to blueray is the success of SD-DVD. If something as successful as SD can be replaced what's to say that blueray wont meet the same fate - if so, why should consumers collect them? This kind of media is ultimately fated to the rental market and gamers.

Alberto Caprioglio

11-22-2008, 11:30 AM

Err no. All home writable discs use chemicals in their layers that react to the laser light to record the data. The trouble is that unlike professionally produced discs which having the data surface pressed from aluminium, the chemicals degrade and breakdown and the discs develop errors as a result and eventually stop playing. Its not unusual to have disc problems only 2 or 3 years after recording.

I must admit that you are very right. Build quality is very low in about any goods made today. "Economy" wants this.
(Apart from my Red cameras and a little more)
Plastic, like anything made of plastic, in my opinion, is a real waste.
BUT, as I said, sincee a collection of personal copies is a copy of the originals that you also have in your home in whatever form, it's not the end of the world when you lose a copy. You just make a new one from the original.
Of course, this is not something to be happy about. To constantly replace everything - paying more times, possibly forever, for one very same thing, is one of the fundaments of this irrational economy that we are not much allowed to escape for the lack of sustained alternatives.
At least, while talking about formats, comfort and relative convenience, I'm sure one won't die in desperation for shortage of multimedia files.
A bigger problem is the format and the media on which to keep one's personal and work files. THOSE are much more important.

Today you produce your digital contents. Say a masterwork. Say whatever. Say it remains on digital format.
If blank discs are going to turn into piss in a few years, how are we supposed to keep such files for the posterity??????????????????????????????
Hard disk????? yeah, why not.

Alberto Caprioglio

11-22-2008, 11:53 AM

2. Band width and speed aside, 3 obvious issues, the internet also suffers from line drops, errors in transmission, interruptions in service.

I experienced it one day in 8 years.

Are we really going to surrender our viewing to the foibles of internet service faults? If I had to watch tv on my internet connection it would drive me nuts

You may be right, well really I don't know about this, but I was talking about downloads: Pay per downloads, to be precise. This doesn't suffer from connection problems, unless the connection is really off for a long time. Separate download and playback. Not streaming. just plain downloading. You do it when you have time and you can. Use it later.

and how about a 3 hour download of a BR title only to find that part of the download is corrupted when you want to watch it back leaving you nothing to watch that evening?

It's very unlikely that if you buy a film online from the proper source it will be corrupeted.

About speed: If you like to use internet half seriously, you would have a fast connection a method. If you want to watch a specific movie one evening, get it at least some hours before.
And no, 3 hours for 1 hour movie is unlikely. If it's the case, you know it, and get it in advance.
Hey, If you buy the disc in a shop, you would do it hours in advance anyway, don't you?

Internet is flawed an whilst great as a resource center it sucks as a streaming medium.

One thing is download and one thing is streaming.
I can't see why streaming can't be done excellently, though. If the line or the source are that bad, having a bigger buffer may cut the problem, I believe. It's a matter of software as much as hardware.

Alberto Caprioglio

11-22-2008, 12:06 PM

and how about a 3 hour download of a BR title only to find that part of the download is corrupted when you want to watch it back leaving you nothing to watch that evening?

The world faced oceans of quality drops in videcassette for decades, and still people were happy to be able to record and see and by and rent videocassette.

So, if the thing generally works (I mean: streaming), and only rarely you experience a corrupted file from a legal source, well, you won't cry. You can change that infamous evening into something else or change movie. You got a collection ot them, afterall!
I think we all have bigger worries. Communication technologies are high enough to let you download a movie. Millions of people already do such things, it must be viable.

Ian Laurie

11-22-2008, 03:20 PM

As a fan of bluray, this may seem a bit biased. But i think you all would have to agree( i mean you bought red cams right?) that the quality is FAR better than downloads. But another thing to consider, BD-RE and BD-R discs are not the organic dye type suggested earlier in this post, The organic dye is being developed for BD-R HTL. This is just companys being resistant to changing equipment. using the non organic dye discs is why i use them for data storage, particularly of old red footage. Also in developement are discs capable of holding 3.5 hours of 4k cinema footage. Good thing if you ask me. And as for the guy who bought all those standard def movies... they still work. I have only bought a few repeats of movies I REALLY liked. there will always be new movies so why worry about buying them all. Besides the broadcast market is not going to support another jump in tv design anytime soon. 480 TVs lasted what, nearly 80 years... Once 1080p settles in it will be long time before the industry will be allowed to jump forward another leap, leaving bluray as a capable means to get the most out of your tv for many years. DVD came to late to last like vhs did do to the jump to HDTV and to early to be prepared for the shift. HDTV is just settling in and I would expect bluray to do the same. Oh and as for the quality difference in picture, believe it or not, I set up my dvd player on my friends parents TV back before most people even knew what dvd was. an hour into the movie he said to me, " I don't see a difference in quality" I immediately picked up a remote and switched back to his satellite signal at which point he pulled his tv cabinet apart to find out why his satellite was so bad all of a sudden. I would suggest that most people would have the same reaction on an HDTV if they went from watching a bluray to watching a dvd. I know i do.

Kaku Ito

11-23-2008, 03:39 AM

I'm sure people will adopt if the price becomes reasonable. Many may be interested in such a system vs. tape archival simply because tape is viewed as obsolete, even though it really isn't. My biggest concern with such archival solutions is that the chemicals used on BD media are essentially the same chemicals that have been used for DVD and CD media for years. And we are now seeing that the longevity is nowhere near as good as the manufacturers had stated. So just like any other data storage method, these "archives" will still eventually need to be serviced and migrated to other forms of storage in the future. We also have to consider that the just as tape is fading away, so will the optical disc. In 30 years, the photochemical dyes in those discs will be struggling to hold data, perhaps even at a failing point. And the only hardware around to read BD media will be expensive specialty or legacy equipment.

Yeah, I'm thinking we'll see quad-layer per side BD media and the drives to read/write it sometime in the first half of '09. There were several manufacturers talking about such a thing at E3 and Siggraph. It's one of those things that has been "working in the lab" for a year or two now.

I wasn't thinking too much of the long term, but I missed that debate point in this thread. I guess 1TB SATA drives are the temporal archive place at this point? So we can move over to the right device when that is available.

Jeff Kilgroe

11-23-2008, 08:36 AM

I guess 1TB SATA drives are the temporal archive place at this point? So we can move over to the right device when that is available.

Personally, I would never do this. HDD's are simply not designed to sit on a shelf and store data.

For now, the "right device" is probably LTO tape. it's really the best way to go for now, until something truly better comes along. Comparing costs, tape is about the same price as hard drives. But it's actually designed to sit on shelves. LTO tape is pretty much the standard all over the world for any form of serious backup and long-term data storage. Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of misconceptions about tape circulating in the production industry lately. For some reason, people still fear an IT-centric workflow and while people have trusted tape to store archived video footage for decades, they are suddenly leery of it for archiving data. Weird.

Matthew Scott

11-23-2008, 04:47 PM

Unfortunately Blu-Ray has not been meeting industry expectations. Consumers can't see enough of a difference from SD DVDs.

Wait till bigger (70") TV's become affordable, then people will see.....

Radoslav Karapetkov

11-23-2008, 04:52 PM

The difference is significant, IMHO.

But a good setup is neede to see that...

Or good eyes. :biggrin:

Oh and BTW, in the future, content will be free for personal use and ad-supported.

It is inevitable. :devil:

Mark Ian Parkinson

11-23-2008, 05:51 PM

This is an interesting read.

I wonder what will replace Blu-Ray?!? Perhaps another color of 'Ray'? :-)

"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. "

The article is here. (http://www.pocket-lint.co.uk/news/news.phtml/17399/18423/samsung-blu-ray-5-years-left.phtml)

I think Blu-Ray will last for another 5 years. There are new disc technologies such as HVD or Holographic Versatile Disc that can store up to 3.9TB of information. The storage capacity is two times the capacity of most of the largest hard drives today. Eventually Disc formats I believe will become history in about 20 years from now.

Alberto Caprioglio

11-24-2008, 04:10 AM

There are new disc technologies such as HVD or Holographic Versatile Disc that can store up to 3.9TB of information. The storage capacity is two times the capacity of most of the largest hard drives today. Eventually Disc formats I believe will become history in about 20 years from now.

I would love so. We could finally have the perfect archival tool.
But every time it's the same story.
Every time we are lead to believe that the next one is THE one.

Digital Upstart

11-28-2008, 10:17 AM

"you guys are missing the bigger picture

banana storage, mark my words, they are gonna use bananas to hold terabytes of data
Posted by banana, Banana Republic"

Actual quote from a guy commenting on the original story. Stock up on bananas, guys. You heard it there first.

Alberto Caprioglio

11-28-2008, 01:51 PM

yes...

Nik Manning

11-29-2008, 07:29 PM

It is all about ease of use. If apple decided to make the apple tv available for purchase in every best buy for $99 and offered 1080p streaming to your tv then it would be the new format. It is not about better, faster, etc. It is just ease of use. The smart people make products for people who are not as smart as them. The masses are easy to please. Blu-Ray will determine how long they last. If Blu-Ray players are $199 or less and movies are $19.99 and less the will last the 5 years. I agree that hardrive storage is the new hot stuff. It happened with music, photos, and it will happen with movies.

Stephen Pruitt

11-30-2008, 09:16 PM

I don't think Blu-Ray will ever catch on. I just got an AppleTV set up, and I'm shocked at how good it looks. That. . . and all of it's brethern. . . are the future. And that's great by me, because that is exactly how almost all of us making indie features will end up making our money.

Stephen

Matt Newcomb

12-03-2008, 10:06 AM

Blu-Ray is just an intermediate format. It will not be a VHS, or a DVD, it's just something to get us by until we figure things out.

Paul Doherty

12-11-2008, 07:32 AM

So you like little plastic boxes with neat pictures? This makes you feel all warm and fuzzy? :)

Last week I went camping, and I brought along my "Movies" 500GB external drive. It has something like 440GBs of mostly 720p and 1080p movies. I was able to plug it into my laptop at night, in my tent, and choose any HD movie I wanted -- then play it right off the external drive on my laptop at 1080p. Somehow, I wasn't missing the plastic boxes. :wink:

This has to be the most ridiculous and self-contradictory comment I have encountered in a long, long time!

LMAO!!!!

The very essence of camping is the absence of high-technology.
"Roughing it" is perhaps the fundamental and defining quality which allows the individual to legitimately define the experience as "camping".
Watching 1080p movies on a 500gig geek-o-matic "Movies" drive in one's tent at night is the last activity which ought to be associated with "camping".
Try going for a nocturnal walk - life abounds at night, you might see some :cold:
Maybe stargazing is more to your liking - for that activity you could justify a bit of tech, such as a telescope or camera. You might even be able to justify the laptop, for daily camera downloads.
But the 500gig geek-o-rama HDD has GOT TO GO!!!!!!
:innocent:

DRappazzo

12-11-2008, 09:40 AM

"The very essence of camping is the absence of high-technology.
"Roughing it" is perhaps the fundamental and defining quality which allows the individual to legitimately define the experience as "camping".
Watching 1080p movies on a 500gig geek-o-matic "Movies" drive in one's tent at night is the last activity which ought to be associated with "camping"." -PD

I could not agree more, the idea of camping to me is getting away from any kind of screen and enjoying the natural world without the distractions of all the modern conviences. I do understand why some people would want to watch movies in a tent, but if you want to watch a movie why not just stay home.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I do find it hard to believe that Blu-Ray will ever catch on as well as SD-DVD did, most people I talk too, just average movies watchers outside of hte business, dont even understand the difference between the two enough to want to pay for the upgrade. I imagine that by the time the prices on players and disks come down enough to enitce more of the consumers another format will come along and offer even better quality.

Nova Invicta

12-12-2008, 06:38 AM

Just recently had my forth PC with a failed hard drive that contains i-tunes collection, photos and video. Yes this is backed-up but many consumers dont have this stuff backed up so loose everything. I tried Apple i-TV frankly its rubbish & now resides in the loft, the BBC have the i-player fine for catching up on missed shows but painful to download and viewing not as good even on 1080P TV as original broadcast.
Whats my point? sometimes were dummies that want to believe everything thats new is better well its not always so. I like the fact that Blue-ray gives me a physical disc with a sleeve with information, its better picture & sound quality offset the physical storage in my home. I buy selected tracks from i-tunes but if I want the complete album I buy the CD. We can shop for anything online but shopping malls are testament that consumers want more than a quick fix a tactile feel doesnt come from a mouse click, and quite frankly if Im going on a camping trip the last thing I want is a computer & a hard drive to watch movies on a 17" screen what a waste of the outdoor experiance and the picture quality hopefully the movie has is totally lost just because we can do something doesnt mean we have made progress.

ArchieCruz

12-12-2008, 06:57 PM

So perhaps a momentary inhalation of fresh air is in order so as to put things in perspective:blush:

- Removable standardized dimension discs (CD/DVD/BD et alia) have a place in computing communities. Since the dimensions of the discs have basically not varied in 20 years, many, many aspects of the manufacture and use of these discs has remained. This means retooling to accomodate the newer, better, higher density format or 'book' has been minimized. This is a GOOD thing.
- BD is the next level up in terms of data density of storage
- As customer demands for greater data density increase, so has pressure on industry to deliver that density.
- As customer demands for higher resolution of information (yea- movies, multimedia, music etc) increases, then it follows that industry has to deliver.
- In sync with the rollout of HD-TV & HD content production , a client delivery medium that fulfills a number of requirements had to be selected. BD won that lottery.
In summary, 5 years is a decent amount of time in La La Land- translating into roughly 10 sheeples years. Sheeples are the mass market- not you or I.
Personally (see my prior post), I'm thrilled to back-up my DVD backups of data (project files) onto a denser medium that STILL FITS into every compartment that my 20 years old CD-ROMs fit into.
I hand out CD's & DVD's like candy cause their so cheap.
It will feel great to send out my corporate collateral rich media/multimedia on a BD in the next year!
5 years from now we'll send them something the size of an SM or CF card with that much density. Maybe taped to a box of chocolates :sorcerer:

Uli Plank

12-13-2008, 12:46 AM

It's already happening, even if it's not chocolate yet. There's a music publisher we have been working for on a backstage video for a famous German rock singer. They are handing out USB sticks with the web version of our film as a Christmas gift to DVD buyers now.
No BluRay version in sight, even if we thought we are smart by producing a master in HD…

Tim Wildenhain

12-14-2008, 12:22 AM

where can you get 1.5 terabytes for 300 bucks?

http://www.pricewatch.com/hard_removable_drives/usb_1.5tb.htm

That one's $161

http://www.pricewatch.com/hard_removable_drives/sata_1tb_32mb.htm

These start out at $84.99 and have 32mb cache.

Tim Wildenhain

12-14-2008, 12:44 AM

Ok, To add to the conversation, the "Blu-Ray is dead" argument is far far far too early in it's infancy to make any claim one way or the other. Technology, especially one that changes an existing standard, always moves very slowly. I remember hearing about this thing called the Digital Versatile Disk back in '96. Was going to be great, allowing for up to 18 gigs of data to be stored! 2 years later, it was the Digital Video Disk. It took about 5 years for me to have a hard time finding VHS tapes in the stores. We're really only what 2 or 3 years into the Blu-Ray thing and it had a long drawn out format war to boot which hampered any market adaptation. So, all things considered, Blu-Ray is doing quite well.

Also, some things to note; The superior product does not always mean the standard format. Beta and VHS are a perfect example of this. Beta was released in the 70's, and in the 80's VHS came out and quashed Beta, even though Beta was a superior format. Laser Disc came out in the early 80's too; but never caught on, again Laser Disc was the superior format. It takes time for things to become standard.

Let's try and get HD tv standard in households (which it is not btw) once that happens, I think Blu-Ray will pick up, it'll be here to stay for quite a while. It'll also pick up once the media get's cheaper. I've heard some people say that it's already cheap - maybe for older movies. Dark Knight as an example was $14.99 for DVD, $29.99 for Blu-Ray - that's double the cost for essentially the same media! Online ordering may be different, but online ordering hasn't replaced the retail market.

It's doubtful that solid state or HD type media will be the replacement for optical media. MPAA and DRM will probably prevent that going forward, regardless of how much sense it would make. DVD disks can be played an unlimited amount of times. SSD's are limited and *WILL* die eventually.

Alberto Caprioglio

12-14-2008, 06:30 PM

Are we talking about storage for professional/personal archival/collection on a shelf or about storage medium/drive for daily use (=high speed access/reading/writing, ergonomics...)?

It's not just as simple as saying "hello, look what I have found: it's good to have 500 movies on hard disk (or clay or whatever)"

The main problem is this damned fact (what a news, isn't it?) that not much has changed with time, and it seems that in 2010 like in 1990 when the mortal, ordinary people were prohibited from knowing what on earth a magneto optical disk was - as if one's data were not serious enough to be safe, as if individuals could not be musicians, writers, photographers, videographers, filmakers or anithing, therefore couldn't own valuable data enough to be worth keeping safe... Has anything changed in the approach, apart from the phisiological increase storage capacity and speed?
Do people have a real choice between cheap plastic medium lasting few years and then fissolve... and reliable, long term archival medium?

I thing it's still the same.
While in some other fields not too far away, there have been opposite examples, examples of professional approach borrowed by non professional use - professional mediums such as open reel recorders commonly found in good home hi-fi setups till some decades ago - the data storage seems it necessarily must be a pain for individuals, professional or not.
Why, for any serious, let alone professional, use, are the hundred of millions individuals must share the same tools made for the least serious and most casual use?

How is it possible that a musician, a film maker, a graphic studio, a designer, a... oooh eat your disk somebody who is/needs/feels like/wants to be serious about a simple (but in his/her case important) activity as saving data, has to use exactly the same unreliable solutions as any 12 years old hopeless lazy child with no interests in life and who couldn't care less normally does when such monkey only has to dumps somewhere a bunch of hopeless songs taken from another failed drinking cousin's old cassettes?
There is something wrong in different needs being treated all the same, and all at the lowest possible term.

Our needs can't be the same as those of a next door grandmother, babies and boring small criminals. I see choice that are only apparent and not real, like square feet of different colors TDK VERBATIM SONY... DVDs, oh yes, the fantastical freedom given by the differentiation +-R/RW, you know when the shop can put them, when only to find DVD-RAM is obviously an heresy that no student/shop has ever heard of... DVD or hard disk?? is that a choice? have any of the mediums available have anything in common with realiable?
no, all in the same bag, the your fruit seller's cousin and the ambulant barber with one leg all save their data on the same joke.
Yes, I know this sounds quite exacly like the kind of message we seem to be designated to recieve by advertising, but... it is a joke! there ARE differences amd not like in benetton advertising where it is all pretending now the eskimo in the north pole and the masai in the savannah forcely wear to show the same sweater but is accepted because it's a photograph. I can't force important data into the same dump designed for storing children's school pig grunt samples, be it the usual 500 giga hard disk or the USB pendrive with. Those doesn't make a choice, these are not proper technologies for serioulsy saving any kind of data, they are made for buying and throwing away in one year and use in that time like a pair of shoes. Hey, shoes may last longer, bacause some shoes are well made, and you CAN choose shoes, unlike recording media.
In fact, I prefer to archive RED data on shoes than on disk.

Bill Goehring

12-14-2008, 07:38 PM

Tim Wildenhain

12-15-2008, 03:28 PM

Are we talking about storage for professional/personal archival/collection on a shelf or about storage medium/drive for daily use (=high speed access/reading/writing, ergonomics...)?......

I've not a clue what you're trying to say. Giving you the benefit of the doubt I think something is lost in translation.

The only thing i was able to get from this is somehow data storage seems to be the same no matter where you look. Well this is both true and untrue at the same time. When it comes to optical media; a proven untrustworthy as a serious archival medium; I can believe you're right. But otherwise, tape backups and harddrives; really there isn't any other way. It's the same at the bottom of the heap and the top of the heap; the only difference is quality control which you pay for. Which is why you're probably not buying $60 drives for your archival means, but rather spending the $120 for a different brand with the same speed. What more of a difference are you expecting?

A pro artists pencil is not any more expensive than a cheap No.2 pencil in use by students and amatures alike. Some things just dont change based on wether you're using it professionally or casually.

brainburst

12-16-2008, 06:15 PM

You know there really isn't any technical reason that there isn't a cost effective high capacity archival storage. It's all about patents and the not so free market. The reality is that the free market is not at all efficient at creating open and ubiquitous standards which would lower costs for end users. Patents lock up a technology and drive up costs. The free market left to its own devices loves incompatibility and vendor lockin. That's why I laugh when I hear people quip "close enough for government work". Give me a break. If private enterprise were responsible for our highway system we'd have to change vehicles every time we crossed state lines and use a different fuel. Does anyone recall networking before the Government standardized on tcp/ip?. Remember Banyan Vines? IPX?

Instead of creating a standard that could be implemented easily, manufacturers work to differentiate at the expense of refining existing technology.

My prediction is that someone will create very high capacity Read Only Flash with middling write speeds but fast read speeds. It will be cheap because the expense is always driven by write speeds. For an archival medium this is not quite as important.