I find it unlikely that manufacturers of televisions and electronics will rest on their laurels and, having leveraged nearly everyone in the U.S. to buy a new digital TV, announce they are satisfied with market penetration and would henceforth only do repairs. The bigger-and-better TVs are already on the drawing board, I’m sure: built-in TiVO, even better resolution, maybe two-way videophones built in, whatever.
When the dinosaurs (i.e., current LCD and plasma HDTV) die out, so will the movie format. After all, people like Sony and MGM and Paramount sold us millions of movies on VHS, and sold the same movies to us again on DVD. Now they want us to buy the same thing in a new format (Blu-Ray). They’ll keep coming back to that teat for more, as long as we have milk to give. Blu-Ray isn’t the end, no way.
So what do you think is going to happen? I’m leaning toward the notion that the cycle will continue for one more iteration before we finally break out of it.
How will we break out? More efficient video compression, I think.
Nah, BluRay will just be coming into its own by 2015, and should have more longevity than the DVD format, which was limited by its being designed for mid-twentieth century technology.
While there will always be at least some percentage of the market that has to have the latest and greatest and cost be damned, it’s gonna be quite some time before I’ve grown tired of Blu-Ray and/or the current level of HDTV technology, probably not until long after 2015 has come and gone. Seriously, I’m quite content.
I agree that digital downloads will finally push the market out of its present cycle, I don’t see Blu-Ray movie quality downloads being widely accessible for some time, given limitations of bandwidth. Even at crappy resolution, the Obama inauguration completely overwhelmed our existing throughput. That’s why I say digital compression.
As I understand it, the holy grail of digital compression (at present) is teaching the computer to recognize the geometry on screen: this is a wall, with this pattern of wallpaper; here is a brass lamp of brightness 73; here is a sofa with upholstery chintz.jpg (or whatever). Then a sufficiently advanced computer can simply animate the movie in real time, or even edit certain elements (“what if John Wayne were Indiana Jones?”).
This is probably a long way off, but I’m told people are working on solving this equation even now.
I think that Blu Ray has a limited life span, probably shorter than the standard DVD market life.
As pretty as the Blu Ray picture is it still relies on moving parts to get to your viewing medium. There are solid state technologies just itching to take its place. Those little flash drives that killed the floppy disk seem to double in storage space every 6 months or so and drop in price just as quickly.
So I think that movies on flash drive will be the next phase of physical ownership if they can be proven to be a successful alternative to downloads. My guess - a competing ROM alternative will hit the market in 2011 and eat away at Blu Ray sales until Blu Ray leaves the shelves in 2013.
Considering the articles I’ve seen about the dismal sales for blue ray players and playstation 3s (blue ray has a wopping 4% market share and playstation 3 is dead last in console sales), I think it’s a coin’s toss away from going the way of the laserdisc player.
Improvements to current models never seem to last long. It’s the giant leap forward that lasts. So yeah, either flash drive or the download model seems like the logical next standard. Blu-Ray is just a slightly better DVD that the requires much more than just a Blu-Ray player to actually gain an improvement in quality.
I work at a post-production company that creates Blu-ray products.
Blu-ray’s longevity, IMO, will be dependent on how the industry handles current and new formats. If DVD format is discontinued, new formats are put aside, and everything goes only to Blu-ray, then Blu-ray will be around for years to come. It will become what DVD is today. If, however, we continue spitting out both DVD and Blu-ray, or develop another competing format and start dividing our goods across DVD and HD and Blu-ray and whatever else like we were 1-2 years ago, then probably not. No one will buy players for a format they perceive won’t last.
The whole flap over the conversion to digital broadcasting shows how slowly people are to adopt even the most basic and accessible technologies. Though I don’t dispute they’re relevant, I think it’s a mistake to think our technological capabilities is really what will control the future of a product like Blu-ray. Consumers don’t adopt it nearly quickly nor universally enough for it to be a big factor.
In my opinion, the digital broadcasting thing is based largely in demand the manufacturers invented themselves. They’re trying to make people want to buy HDTV, which doesn’t really work.
Blu-Ray seems to be a similar phenomenon, to me: it’s not as big a step forward from DVD as DVD was from VHS, or CD was from cassette.
DVDs and CDs: instantly go to the track you want, better quality, no rewinding, special features, more capacity than a VHS tape. Blu-Ray … has better picture quality, and waaaayyy more capacity than you’d need for a single movie at DVD quality.
It’s one reason I don’t see Blu-Ray sticking around. There just doesn’t seem to be much demand. The people who finally got rid of their VHS players won’t be switching soon, and people like me who bought a library of movies on VHS and re-bought on DVD aren’t going to want to invest thousands more in a library of Blu-Ray.
But in order to be succesful as a new medium, you’re going to have to get a better experience out of it than the previous one. What improvements to the experience are offered with flash drives? Noticeably better picture quality? Easier to use? Solid state tech might eventually be cheaper, but decent Blu-Ray players are already under $200. What were DVD players at this point of their release?
I doubt there is going to be another physical medium after Blu-Ray. Why bother? Streaming content is the only direction movie distribution can go in the future. Streaming actually provides some improvements to the user experience (no need to store titles you own any more, can rent/buy movies without having to go to the store)
Like better TVs, which are getter cheaper all the time as well?
Some people don’t really care about seeing a movie in its best possible form, but many do, and if you already have a nice TV (which movie buffs or video gamers may very well have) then a Blu-Ray player is a pretty logical step. Blu-Rays are not “slight” improvements, given a proper setup, which is not going to be rare among those who’d care.
Compared to the upgrade from VHS to DVD, yes, the advantages of Blu-Ray are slight. Blu-Ray’s sole area of improvement (as I understand it) is image fidelity; that may not be enough by itself to prompt buyers to upgrade.
This whole thread worries me. I have a rather extensive DVD collection, and I often wonder if I’m wasting my money - is the format going to be obsolete in the near future?
Given the current Blu-Ray penetration, no, DVD will be around for at least a few more years. But yes, eventually DVD, like every electronic component you’ll ever buy in your lifetime, will be obsolete.
But Blu-Ray is backwards compatible with DVD - and with a good upscaling player there’s no pressing need to replace your library, except maybe for those movies that you really want to look much better. You can keep your investment and have better quality in new additions to your library.
I wouldn’t say that it’s just better video and sound quality, either - the format allows for much better implementation of special features than than are possible with DVD.
Pretend you didn’t hear it. And just in case, wait till regular dvd’s are discontinued and buy a few extra players. I have over 600 dvd’s and I’m not going through the same bullshit as with cassette tapes.
I mean what the fuck? Dvd’s look awesome to me. Damn technological advancements. It’s not like vhs tapes that actually wear out.
Just think, in twenty years you’ll be sitting on a goldmine. :)I’ve paid 40 dollars for an original cd of discontinued music.
I don’t own a DVD player, and I don’t ever see me buying a blue ray one. I have a computer, so the sooner we get rid of those clunky hard-to-write on optical thingies, the better. By 2015 we’ll probably have terabyte thumb drives being given away for promos.
