Could the death of blu-ray be upon us?

[twilightCrossing]

There's been a cold war going on.
For any of us who remember this happening before; I fear that the Blu-ray vs HD is looking eerily like the Betamax vs VHS war in the 70's and 80's.
Any thoughts on the issue?
Edit: And if sonys format fails again, what will happen to the Playstation 3?

 

[viciousmaniac]

Despite several Hollywood guys dropping exclusivity or even total support, PS3 would have to fail pretty spectacularly for Blu-Ray to be in any danger. And I mean Howard Dean Scream spectacular.


But it is a good thing that Blu-Ray isn't exactly mopping up the competition. It's causing the already absurd retail prices for DVD movies and games to now become way too big at every stage (development, retail, etc.), and there's not much gain for that aside from Sony's execs buying ivory back scratchers off of the Blu-Ray loot.

 

[Sylocat]

To me, as well as to the average person, there's just not enough visible difference between Blu-ray, HD and other types of DVDs to make any comparison meaningful.

If Blu-ray dies prematurely, it'll pretty much take the PS3 with it, unless the developers get off their asses and make some real games for it. Right now there aren't enough games for the PS3 to make purchasing it worthwhile (not that I'm promoting system exclusivity, I hate it and want to strangle every independent game developer who does it), partially because all the hype about its superb graphics puts incredible pressure on the game developers to pour obscene amounts of money into making each game (Yahtzee mentioned that in the Console Rundown) and game developers aren't willing to put that much money into a game for a system that people aren't buying, so it's a self-defeating cycle.

 

[wellington]

No. Sadly. Just too expensive, the players, the movies, and the price of Blu-ray recorders and blank discs is really off-putting. However it has the most studio support so it isn't going anywhere.

 

[Jthom252]

I haven't heard anything about either format losing or gaining alot of ground lately, but then again I don't pay much attention to this to begin with.

Personally, I'd rather that one of the formats die out though, especially with Film Companies making decisions like being exclusive to one format. It's bad enough having to own multiple consoles just for the exclusive titles that come out between them, and I certainly don't care enough about films to be buying both a Blu-Ray and HD-DVD player.

As far as Sony goes, I would hope they wouldn't fall out, and would assume they wouldn't either. Given that they have so many products (Televisions, Laptops, Consoles, etc) I doubt that even something as significant as Blu-Ray dying out could hurt them that badly. As for the PS3, well, the PSP survived even though UMD was pretty much dead in the water, plus I doubt they'd kill off (Or let it be killed off for that matter) their big-name game console anyways.

 

[Girlysprite]

For myself Id give the HD disks a bigger chance. Why? Backwards compatible. From what I heard, HD players can also play normal dvd's, and a blueray can not. People have just rebuilt their movie collection in Dvd, and now they have rebuild it once again in a new format, while the difference is still not really noticeable? I think they won't do that.

I also heard people saying that 'whatever side produces the porn will win'. I think that is not true either. It may have helped in the videotapes war back then, but now internet is the main porn source, which takes it out of the equation.

It might even very well be that both format won't really take off now. People are generally happy with DVD quality in movies.
And games, I would guess that the limit is not only capacity on the disk, but more capacity in rendering and processor power. Even if they can include material of a huge size, how will it be displayed?

 

[LordLocke]

With Blu-Ray currently dominating the hi-def movie sales at a number something close to 2-to-1 (Even with HD-DVD spanking them on the dedicated player front now), I don't think Blu-Ray is in any danger of going anywhere, barring BOTH formats failing in spectacular fashion. Which is less and less likely as the PS3 is picking up the pace sales-wise (Finally) and HD-DVD players are dropping below the $200 mark.

Even if Blu-Ray fails as a movie platform, the PS3 isn't going anywhere- at least, not until people continue to ignore it when the A-List stuff not named Ratchet finally starts dropping- and Sony's in no danger of going out of business, with some of it's divisions making money hand over fist. It's not quite Microsoft case of "If the X-Box fails... so what? Viva Windows!", since Sony has put a LOT of investment in it's game division since the PSX's success, but we'll still have Sony for a good decent while yet. They survived Beta, Minidisk, and UMD, after all. What's one more flop of a format?

 

[shadow skill]

At this point if any format was going to die it's hd-dvd. Also while its not a requirement many blu-ray drives support dvd playback. Processing/gpu power in general isn't even an issue at this point we can quite easily have visual content well above 1080p there are however not many displays that can pull it off. Furthermore tose that can and are in the consumer price range are not really big enough for home theatre. Games need one of two things because space is already an issue:A hard drive or a bigger portable medium. No one really wants to deal with multiple discs even when we are talking about hard drive installs, and we sure as hell don't want to have to get up to switch disks every time we go to a new area in a game despite what some noobs think you can't do a sandbox game with 3 or 4 discs you would waste space either duplicating content, or annoying people with "insert disc" directives.

Oh and the internet is for porn. [ http://youtube.com/watch?v=xLavzoyexjU] no one really cares about HD for porn.

 

[Lightbulb]

I think its fairly obvious really:

Does DVD look that shit on my current crappy TV? No
Does HD actually ADD anything to the experience? No
Is it more expensive? YES!!!
Do i need a new TV? Yes

What the hell the the POINT of an HD format? Mybe just maybe if a player came out that played both formats and they were priced the same as a DVD i might bother but at the moment i can't see the point.

 

[ShadowsSpawn]

the PS3 would die. i am no fan boy but i cant be stuffed paying a extra $10 for movies and games for quality i dont rely notice on my 42 inch HD LCD. HD dvd is fine for me and cheeper. i think if the blue ray movie market dies the ps3 will go down with the same ship because:

1) the software that made it such a expencive console died... and you will still be forking out the extra cash and possibly extra(to make up for the cash lost to the DVD market)for the over priced games.

2)at the moment there are not many great games that are exclusive for the PS3. if the blue ray market dies ps3 would lose a large chunk of its market appeal.

for a while i was considering buying a ps3, and when i had the money i discoverd that thay were no longer selling a large hard drive version. i can see in the long term it was a good thing as for the sameprice i was able to buy both a wii and x box 360 and am now enjoying the best of both worlds

 

[woodchunkz]

I really hope they don't fail. Blu-Ray disks have no regional lock out.

 

[raankh]

I think all the current optical formats are going away sooner or later. Too slow and to many large-scale moving parts. Dirt-cheap solid state devices will likely remove the need for current media in the near-mid term future. No moving parts, faster than hard-drive read and so on; when the production costs drop to acceptable price per gigabyte for the end user, I think that's the end of the spinning disc.

Besides, everyone thinks online is the future, so probably hard-copies of digital content will become more of a rarity. As such, the HD-DVD and BluRay looks set to have the shortest timespan of optical discs. Even if they last 20 years from now the CD and DVD won't go away until they all do. Ok, maybe the CD, cause CD's sux0rz but not the DVD.

That's not even considering future technologies like MRAM or the likes.

Infocubes! Now that would be cool.

 

[shadow skill]

the PS3 would die. i am no fan boy but i cant be stuffed paying a extra $10 for movies and games for quality i dont rely notice on my 42 inch HD LCD. HD dvd is fine for me and cheeper. i think if the blue ray movie market dies the ps3 will go down with the same ship because:

1) the software that made it such a expencive console died... and you will still be forking out the extra cash and possibly extra(to make up for the cash lost to the DVD market)for the over priced games.

2)at the moment there are not many great games that are exclusive for the PS3. if the blue ray market dies ps3 would lose a large chunk of its market appeal.

for a while i was considering buying a ps3, and when i had the money i discoverd that thay were no longer selling a large hard drive version. i can see in the long term it was a good thing as for the sameprice i was able to buy both a wii and x box 360 and am now enjoying the best of both worlds

You know that you can put any laptop sata hard drive in any ps3 model? It really is not complicated.

Lightbulb if you happen to have an lcd tv (or even a pc monitor.) standard definition signals will look like complete ass, I can barely stand watching tv that looks perfectly fine on an analog tv on my lcd. So really hd formats of any kind become important as the display technology changes. It's like seeing a game run in 60fps and then right next to it in 30fps. The 30fps version will look like ass when juxtaposed. As far as the price of movies for either format they seem to be well matched and they are not that much more expensive than the regular dvds. It really depends on where you shop in the final analysis.

Woodchunkz region free only applies to Playstation 3 games not nessecarily movies.

I think all the current optical formats are going away sooner or later. Too slow and to many large-scale moving parts. Dirt-cheap solid state devices will likely remove the need for current media in the near-mid term future. No moving parts, faster than hard-drive read and so on; when the production costs drop to acceptable price per gigabyte for the end user, I think that's the end of the spinning disc.

Besides, everyone thinks online is the future, so probably hard-copies of digital content will become more of a rarity. As such, the HD-DVD and BluRay looks set to have the shortest timespan of optical discs. Even if they last 20 years from now the CD and DVD won't go away until they all do. Ok, maybe the CD, cause CD's sux0rz but not the DVD.

That's not even considering future technologies like MRAM or the likes.

Infocubes! Now that would be cool.

The people who think online is the future are the same people who believe that the web browser will supplant desktop software entirely. They are idiots, I don't know where these suits get this idea that within the next ten years or so bandwidth will increase in such a way that it will far outpace the growth of the content itself. It will never happen they need to stop dreaming of their vendor lock-in utopia. The use of NAND drives is far more likely in the near term but for the next ten or fifteen years optical media will rule the day.

 

[richasr]

It's hard to believe people are even 'admitting' the quality difference between DVD and HD/Blu-Ry is something to rave about, it's not as if DVD movies are sketchy and look like crap. DVD quality movies look great to me, it's more about the TV you watch them on I believe, and the sound system you have to go with that, I've not noticed any significant difference between the two either.

A friend of mine has several hundred DVD Movies, a collection which I think he will refuse to replace in HD just because of the slightly better quality.

As for the PS3, it's not easy to say. Blu-Ray isn't a standard format as of yet, so the transition to Blu-Ray gaming might not go too well depending on the outcome of this format 'war'.
I don't see it going anywhere though, Sony is a huge company and will more likely plow money from other sectors into gaming to keep it alive.

 

[shadow skill]

Who the hell cares about people's existing collection? Do people throw out hard drives when they get a bigger one that happens to be faster etc? The quality difference will depend on the manufacturer and can vary between movies. Personally it isn't even about quality so much as it is about saving space on the dvd rack or in your case. Think about it: I would love to see the multi disc set disappear because what would have taken two or three discs with a dvd can now be done with one Blu-ray or even HD-DVD without the manufacturer having to make a choice between one aspect or another in order to squeeze the film on there.

 

[Melaisis]

'Death' implies it was alive to begin with.

 

[soladrin]

Who the hell cares about people's existing collection? Do people throw out hard drives when they get a bigger one that happens to be faster etc? The quality difference will depend on the manufacturer and can vary between movies. Personally it isn't even about quality so much as it is about saving space on the dvd rack or in your case. Think about it: I would love to see the multi disc set disappear because what would have taken two or three discs with a dvd can now be done with one Blu-ray or even HD-DVD without the manufacturer having to make a choice between one aspect or another in order to squeeze the film on there.

does it cost you extra discs to get your stuff from a smaller hard drive to a newer bigger one? no.

i do agree the extra space on blu-ray is nice, but seriously, i cant be bothered to pay that much for it i doubt anyone can. and by the time blue-ray isn't this expensive anymore, dvd's will be so darn cheap you still wont buy them.