Oh noes teh sky is falling!

[Petra_Kalbrain]

F.U.D. is the name of this game.

Get use to it folks. Now is the time that everyone will start chirping about "the next format" of entertainment viewing. And, they will all be chirping the same song... one of those really annoying, 3 word repetition, brainless pieces of music that has no intellectual merits to it whatsoever.

PEACE IN SOLID FORMAT SIDARITY MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS!

[madmojo]

I noticed that even everyone commenting on the moviefone article were poo-pooing his hypothesis.

[Mr. Al]

I have bought thousands of DVDs and Blu-rays over the past 12 years. Buying physical discs will NEVER change with me.

There is a reason I am building a huge Blu collection. It's the LAST format I will ever own. When digital does make its permanent home, my Blu collection will be complete and I won't give a rats ass about digital anything.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist

The Internet is full with these so called 'experts' who love to write sensationalistic articles and make predictions that do not take into consideration hard and cold facts. A great number of them, for instance, write for PCWorld and have predicting the end of physical media since the boom days of DVD. Not surprisingly, a great number of them were also hardcore HDDVD supporters (a quick search reveals a list of very telling writings).

As far as this 'expert' is concerned, let's ignore DVD/Blu-ray for a moment and consider this:

"The number of consumers buying music CDs increased 2% to 78 million in 2011".

And...

"Indeed, there are nearly twice as many consumers of music CDs than there are of music download services such as Apple iTunes, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2013, said Russ Crupnick, SVP of industry analysis at NPD."

Source:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/mus...npd-says-26599

Neither Blu-ray nor DVD, the physical market, are going anywhere any time soon. In fact, more than likely not even during my lifetime.

Pro-B

exactly, the problem is that there is no accountability. And the more sensationalistic the headline and article the more clicks/views it will get and no one will care later on how far off he was. Unfortunately Journalism is dead.

[Blu-dock Saint]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

exactly, the problem is that there is no accountability. And the more sensationalistic the headline and article the more clicks/views it will get and no one will care later on how far off he was. Unfortunately Journalism is dead.

Good news is after reading the comments on the article at least 90% of the people know that the author is full of BS.

[EPOCH]

:: Question ::
Will blu-ray last as other media has? (DVD, VHS, 10-15 years+)

:: Information ::
My worry is with new tv's displaying at higher resolutions such as above 1080p will blu-ray last? They are currently making tv's called Ultra HD which have really high resolutions. I know blu-rays capablity is 1080p right now. Maybe blu-ray can adapt with a firmware update on your player ect. I know it's all speculation. What do you guys think?

[danman227460]

Yes and no. All studios are gunning to kill off all physical media and move to a digital based delivery system. The only flaw with that is that the current technological infrastructure is unable to support anything like that. The bandwidth, low internet speeds and low penetration rate of internet is the downfall. Not everyone in the USA has internet or if they do, they don't have the speeds. You will never to able to replicate a full blu-ray movie with a digital copy. If you do, one movie will eat up a lot of bandwidth.

For me, blu-ray represents the current pinnacle of home media. Anything beyond this will not make a difference to the general public. Sure we have 4K or 8K scans but realistically can you tell the difference on a 50" TV? You can only show so much to the human eye at a certain size and blu-ray is in that sweet spot. Anything bigger and you need a bigger screen to see the difference. Not everyone has that.

So I don't think blu-ray will be killed off by the next big advancement as anything will be considered a small market product. Digital downloads will make a run at it and could be the eventual successor.

[nolfoc]

jeez another thread on whether or not bd will survive.

[ScarredLungs]

Originally Posted by nolfoc

jeez another thread on whether or not bd will survive.

This is a new question! Be nice! Lets pay close attention to see what is revealed!

[bobbydrugar]

considering it is already past the halfway point towards your 10-15 year cycle I'd say its doing ok. Will it die? Most assuridly. at least at some point it will just like other format listed like VHS. Now a better question would have been how long will blu-ray rule as the dominate alpha of its species? (but then you would only have received responses pointing to the countless threads about the impending doom of blu-ray from a couple years back)



Thanks,
T

[Tok]

One thing all you pundits are forgetting is that those other dead and dying formats were designed for standard definition displays. Most of these so called BD killing streaming services are still struggling to deliver quality at SD and have limited HD-in-name-only options. Remember the conversion to HD displays is still occurring and considering that BD is doing pretty damn good.

[Blu-ray Fanatic]

Well OP, nothing in this world lasts forever, so there's your answer. Blu-ray is the biggest advancement in home entertainment and consumers are comfortable with it. It'll stick around for another 10 years or so. Just my opinion.

[Tony208]

There's a lot of new tech being developed every day, that doesn't make it mass market viable though. One of the few good things to come out of the crappy slow internet in the states is how it has stopped digital delivery. With all the crap the industry pulls, eventually digital downloads will be technically be renting rather than owning.

[Tok]

The only dead HD formats are HD DVD because Toshiba repeated Sony's Betamax mistake of stupidly going against the tide and JVC's D-VHS D-Theater outdated tape technology.

Once Sony announced the PS3 would support the new BD format back in 2004/2005 and Warner then announced supply for both formats around the same time, Toshiba should have yelled 'Uncle' at that point. All they had at that point was Universal and that was really there only sole advantage for much of the war, besides a few Warner exclusives and Paramount's short-lived exclusitivity window that amounted to very few titles.

The other dead HD format was D-Theater for D-VHS. It has a footnote in history of being the first true format to offer films in a native HD format. The downside though was when the format entered the market in 2002, consumers viewed tape as an outdated technology due to the popularity of the fast growing DVD, which some thought was HD. The biggest problem for D-Theater was that the penetration of HDTVs into consumers' homes was very small. By 2004 there was a wealth of information about the upcoming HD disc formats. The format quietly faded away due to little interest to begin with.

DVD is still here and BD is starting to compensate for lost DVD sales. Part of the problem was that I don't think studios anticipated consumers scaling back on DVD during the transition period. I know I practically dropped buying DVD cold in late 2005 due to the upcoming HD formats. But studios also over estimated how much they could charge for HD content. I was buying BD exclusively by 2007, but selectively and looking for the best sale prices to maximize my haul. In 2007 I was looking at $20/title as a good deal. Fast forward to today, my threshold for a good deal is substantially lower especially on catalog content. And for 3D content I might go $5 above the 2D counterpart, but I won't go for those ridiculous MSRPs of $35+. $25 is my max for most single must have 3D titles.

The studios might dream of getting rid of physical formats, but most collectors shun the overpriced streaming rental services. I don't think the studios want to cut off off the revenue stream from the collector market.

[@Matt]

I don't think Blu-Ray will die, but I do wonder what's coming next. Will there be another format afterwards or will Blu-Ray become the set standard for all future releases as far as physical media is concerned?

[Tok]

Blu-ray has higher specs than HD broadcast standards. Other than 4K which will require the viewer to have large projection setups to appreciate the difference, I just can't see why we need another format so soon.

I would hope that BD is just viewed as delivery package and not as a format. Look at how long the CD has been around. Until we change our broadcast standards again I just don't see the need for replacing the format.

[vargo]

Bluray will of course die eventually because there is billions of dollars to be made from re-selling the same movies to people again and again.

[Anthony P]

Originally Posted by EPOCH

:: Question ::
Will blu-ray last as other media has? (DVD, VHS, 10-15 years+)

:: Information ::
My worry is with new tv's displaying at higher resolutions such as above 1080p will blu-ray last? They are currently making tv's called Ultra HD which have really high resolutions. I know blu-rays capability is 1080p right now. Maybe blu-ray can adapt with a firmware update on your player ect. I know it's all speculation. What do you guys think?

well the first HDTVs came out before DVD and DVD was SD. No one cares for a new media for a handful of TVs, like HDTVs I don't think we will get 4k+ video until 4k TVs make an interesting part of the market.

Second BD specs where built with the capability to evolve. The first BD players did not have lossless (DTS-MA, DTHD) audio, no BD live or BD bonus view, even though they where in the specs and BD 3D was not in the initial specs, there could eventually be a new profile of BD that can handle 4K+

Thirdly BD came out in 2006 now we are 2012, it is almost 6 years old already, so there is no doubt in my mind that it will be around for 10+ years. Let me explain by making a comparison DVD came out in 1996/1997 (Japan Q4 1996, US Q1 1997), The BDF got formed in 2002 (this means the basics of the format were chosen and there was a name for the new tech), BD launched in 2006 (because it takes many years to make a real format that is easily manufacturable) and DVD is still around. So my simple question, can you show me something comparable to the BDF for the new format that will replace BD? If not than it is many years away and so obviously BD will be around for the next

[ZoetMB]

Originally Posted by danman227460

Yes and no. All studios are gunning to kill off all physical media and move to a digital based delivery system. The only flaw with that is that the current technological infrastructure is unable to support anything like that. The bandwidth, low internet speeds and low penetration rate of internet is the downfall. Not everyone in the USA has internet or if they do, they don't have the speeds. You will never to able to replicate a full blu-ray movie with a digital copy. If you do, one movie will eat up a lot of bandwidth.

For me, blu-ray represents the current pinnacle of home media. Anything beyond this will not make a difference to the general public. Sure we have 4K or 8K scans but realistically can you tell the difference on a 50" TV? You can only show so much to the human eye at a certain size and blu-ray is in that sweet spot. Anything bigger and you need a bigger screen to see the difference. Not everyone has that.

So I don't think blu-ray will be killed off by the next big advancement as anything will be considered a small market product. Digital downloads will make a run at it and could be the eventual successor.

Where is your evidence that the studios are planning to kill off physical media? There is none. The studios don't think that hard about it. The studios will sell what sells. If BD continues to sell, they'll issue titles. If it doesn't, they won't. It's as simple as that.

Remember also that for the most part, the studios don't sell streaming directly. They have to go through distributors. Prices tend to be lower. So even though they eliminate some manufacturing costs in the virtual world, they also have to give away more of the revenue.

One flaw with the virtual model that you haven't mentioned is that since we don't have enough bandwidth (which you did mention), the phone companies and other ISPs are capping bandwidth or charging lots extra for it. That's going to put a big dent in the virtual model, at least in the U.S.

The fact is that both virtual and physical models (as well as the theatrical models, broadcast models, basic cable models, pay cable models, VOD and others) will ALL continue to exist as long as they're profitable. What studios (and many other content businesses as well) are trying to do is find every available exploitation opportunity.

BD is in a growth mode. In the U.S., it was almost a $2 billion business in 2011. So far in 2012, it's almost 21% ahead of last year and it has a 23.8% share of the physical media market. If it continues at that pace, it will come in at about $2.2 billion. In this still poor economy, nothing that is growing is going to be going away.

[Tok]

Originally Posted by vargo

Bluray will of course die eventually because there is billions of dollars to be made from re-selling the same movies to people again and again.

All formats die eventually, but that has usually been because the evolution of storage technology offered significant improvements over the one it was replacing. Again BD was designed with HD video and audio as its primary intent. Again BD is spec'd better than broadcast HD. HD streaming services can't make that claim. 4K might be the evolution step in marketing, but again there is no native commercial native content for consumers on the horizon. 4K is going to be served with up converted 1080p content for the foreseeable future. Again the size of a display has to start to get well over 100 inches to appreciate the quality for native content. Up converted content has the same drawback as DVD up converted to HD. You can't magically create detail from something that is not in the data to begin with.

Toshiba knew when they created DVD that the future was HD and that DVD was going to be an interim format. Just because BD came out nine years after DVD doesn't mean that BD needs a successor within a similar timeframe.

BD is a HD format for a HD world. It doesn't need replacing anytime soon. Those that continue to claim it is dying are either sore losers from the format war or those that think streaming is the end all solution. Just remember CDs are still made and that format is approaching its 30th birthday. IOW the iTunes model has not killed the CD after a number of years with the new distribution model.