Blu-ray wins next-generation format war

[Sandwich of Cheese]

iTunes Plus tracks are AAC encoded at 256kbps

[Jedi]

Most people are happy to buy the movie on DVD.

Most people TODAY... over time this will change.

Compression formats will probably be redundant in the near future anyway, since the rate of development of data storage systems will make compression a thing of the past, so the quality of the future will depend on sampling rate from the original film, not compression of the sample.

Seriously doubt that... even with falling prices of disk space and ever increasing capacities, the point you are missing is that compression reduces space (thereby allowing more content) at very little cost (ie. loss of quality).

Most people already have their movie collection on DVD.

True, but this will change. I haven't bought a single DVD title since buying Blu-ray.

The advancement in usabilty of blue ray over DVD is nil, so there's no reason to purchase there. (There was an enormous advance in usability of DVD over tape)

The differentiator is quality, not usability. You can say the same about HD TVs versus SD TVs, yet people still buy HD TVs.

Business will not support technologies which fail in the marketplace, even if they are demonstrably better than the previous technology.

When it comes to movies, which businesses are you talking about? Movie production houses? They are supporting Blu-ray.

Blue Ray disks cannot be produced more cheaply than DVDs. DVDs were easy to produce more cheaply than VHS video tapes.

Duh... new technology, costs to produce will always be more expensive when compared to established technology. Look how cheap you can buy DVD burners for compared to a Blu-ray one... should this be a surprise?

DVD format was able to force people to re-buy their collection on DVD, and provided no backward compatability. Blue Ray cannot do that. In effect Blue Ray can only sell new movies.

Maybe for some... But you obviously haven't seen Blade Runner on Blu-ray.

I simply cannot see any decent marketing executive looking at the above and thinking, "We have a winner here!" From a marketing point of view, it's a turkey.

Turkey because it's new and hasn't been able to replace DVD overnight? Bah!

Let me guess, you don't own a Blu-ray player, have ever watched a single Blu-ray movie or have an HD TV.

[Fat Bob]

Most people are happy to buy the movie on DVD.

Most people TODAY... over time this will change.

And the change will be due to the increased sales of HD-TVs. I notice the graininess of DVDs on my 42" screen. I'll have to check one out on my XBox360 and upconvert or whatever.

I don't think you can buy a CRT TV anymore! Very few if any in Courts etc. Will look again next time I go!

[baloo]

2 Blades Good
5 Blades Bad

[Burbage]

Most people are happy to buy the movie on DVD.

Most people TODAY... over time this will change.

Yes, they'll buy on the next advance that doesn't give them backward compatability. They won't buy Blue Ray disks. So the only possible market for blue ray is new movies.

Compression formats will probably be redundant in the near future anyway, since the rate of development of data storage systems will make compression a thing of the past, so the quality of the future will depend on sampling rate from the original film, not compression of the sample.

Seriously doubt that... even with falling prices of disk space and ever increasing capacities, the point you are missing is that compression reduces space (thereby allowing more content) at very little cost (ie. loss of quality).

I thought your argument was quality. Best quality will come from least compression. Compression will always be there for those who don't mind a lower quality: e.e. DVD users.

Most people already have their movie collection on DVD.

True, but this will change. I haven't bought a single DVD title since buying Blu-ray.

That's true, but have you bought blue ray versions of DVDs that you own DVDs of?

The advancement in usabilty of blue ray over DVD is nil, so there's no reason to purchase there. (There was an enormous advance in usability of DVD over tape)

The differentiator is quality, not usability. You can say the same about HD TVs versus SD TVs, yet people still buy HD TVs.

Not many of them so far. It's not exactly the same. HD TVs will still be needed to watch movies in high density whether the format is downloadable/DVD/ or blue ray. A new method of watching movies which doesn't require a screen is unlikely to take over (as we can see with projectors, though people buy them too)

Business will not support technologies which fail in the marketplace, even if they are demonstrably better than the previous technology.

When it comes to movies, which businesses are you talking about? Movie production houses? They are supporting Blu-ray.

It doesn't cost the movies houses anything. They make money from copies sold, not technology choice. A DVD makes the same cash for them. In five years time when everyone is downloading movies, no one will make blue ray disks.

Blue Ray disks cannot be produced more cheaply than DVDs. DVDs were easy to produce more cheaply than VHS video tapes.

Duh... new technology, costs to produce will always be more expensive when compared to established technology. Look how cheap you can buy DVD burners for compared to a Blu-ray one... should this be a surprise?

Wrong. DVD players were more expensive than VHS players, but you only had to buy one. DVDs were a fraction of the cost of tapes. It was a critical factor in the success of DVD.

DVD format was able to force people to re-buy their collection on DVD, and provided no backward compatability. Blue Ray cannot do that. In effect Blue Ray can only sell new movies.

Maybe for some... But you obviously haven't seen Blade Runner on Blu-ray.

Maybe one or two special movies, but then, most people won't have a blue ray player. Blade runner is as good on DVD as it was in the cinema. Sure the picture isn't as great, but the movie is still just as good.

I simply cannot see any decent marketing executive looking at the above and thinking, "We have a winner here!" From a marketing point of view, it's a turkey.

Turkey because it's new and hasn't been able to replace DVD overnight? Bah!

Let me guess, you don't own a Blu-ray player, have ever watched a single Blu-ray movie or have an HD TV.

I'm not arguing that Blue Ray is better quality. It is of course better quality. So is avi. I'm saying that quality isn't enough to make the format succeed. Particularly when storage and data transfer technology are advancing so fast. After all, blue ray is merely a storage medium with a proprietary compression algorithm. If MP3 has taught us anything it is that the market does not like proprietary formats.

However, this is a mere prediction. Nobody says you have to agree with me. Feel free to invest all your money in Blue ray.

[Burbage]

2 Blades Good
5 Blades Bad

Not really. Gillete can control the market by not selling 2 blade razors. Blue Ray cannot stop the production of new DVDs. I'd certainly invest in Gillette. Those boys are marketing geniuses.

[Bender]

It's been over a year since the death of HD-DVD and since this was last discussed here. I just read an article about "why DVD is better than Blu Ray", and although I agree with much of what it says, I couldn't agree that people would be stupid to buy Blu Ray either.

I'd be interested to know how many people here have switched to Blu-Ray. I haven't, and probably won't do so anytime soon, and so far very few people I know have upgraded.

We recently impulse bought a couple of Philips sound bars, which retail for $899, along with the stands for them and a TV, retail $399, for $320 per set. That's about 75% off!


They play DVDs and work great. The reviews aren't too bad either.

Of course, we then had to buy a couple of Sony TVs (Down from $1599 to $850) to go with them. Very happy with our purchases! They should be fine for the bedroom and spare room.

[Tas]

hey ho, where did you buy the Sony Brava at those prices? I've been wanting one of those and I could crack for that price.

(I've been a big Sony fan generally - I've still got Baloo's old Sony with Singapore plug going strong (if perhaps a wee slow to start up), and all my other sony stuff has lasted decades - presuming the quality is still there for Sony I guess, cause it's literally years between purchases....)

[Bender]

where did you buy the Sony Brava at those prices?

I think you'd have to be lucky to get the same deal now, but I've found that when shopping there are some general principles worth following...

• Research. Know your product. Go as far as downloading and reading instruction manuals.
• The salesperson's job is to to sell, not to educate you. Try to avoid asking which <insert item name> is best for you.
• Junk mail and the internet are your friends.
• Find a good salesperson and build a relationship with them. Visit the store even when you're not on a buying mission. Let them know you'll be a repeat customer. Send your friends to them.
• Respect the salesperson (they're human too).
• Don't make the salesperson work hard to make a sale, and don't waste their time when there are other customers waiting.
• Don't waste your time with idiots, or those who can't bargain.
• Be clear with the salesperson from the start. Let them know that you know exactly what you want, and that the basis for a buying decision is price and nothing else.
• Give them one chance at the sale. Don't play the "when you've found a better price, come back and see me" game.
• Be an opportunist. Keep an eye on the market, and be prepared to buy immediately when the right price comes along.
• Bargain hard, but be pleasant. Have fun. Be prepared to walk away too. And be realistic.

There's probably more. Other people may have different aproaches, and that's fine for them. This works for me.

[Burbage]

Whatever is coming after Blu Ray, and I bet Apple have something under development, and they won't be the only ones, is probably no more than two years away. I say Apple because the iTunes store is already selling movie downloads, it's merely a matter of getting the device on the market to take bigger files.

[slinky]

Apple has the Mac mini oreddi - it takes big files.

[Jedi]

I don't think it's a question of "switching to Blu-ray". I have Blu-ray capabilities from my PS3, so for those movies that are truly worthy of the level of quality that Blu-ray provides, I will buy the Blu-ray version (I currently have 12 Blu-rays in my collection:)). You don't need Blu-ray for every movie. Movies not shot in HD are always going to be a compromise, although Blade Runner Final Cut was an unbelievable exception, as they did an incredible scan and digital touch from film. Most of the older movies they've released on Blu-ray are a con and I wouldn't buy one without first checking what HD conversion was done.

The biggest issue I have with Blu-ray is that the price of movies hasn't fallen. If sony doesn't do something about this Blu-ray will ultimately fail. The current prices are too high.

[Jedi]

Apple has the Mac mini oreddi - it takes big files.

"big" being a relative term

[Burbage]

What size is a Blu Ray file?

The Mac Mini may well be the way to go, particularly when we can rip DVDs onto it and store them a la how we use CDs with iTunes. For $1400 (AUD) you can get a 320 GB Mac Mini, hook that up to a 700 (AUD) 1 terabyte Time Capsule (or a cheaper make network drive drive) and you have the potential to store a lot of movies, and you'd just add hard disks as you go. It doesn't need to be portable. Get the whole lot integrated into a movie version of iTunes and nobody will ever touch their DVDs again, once they have them in the machine.

Question is whether a Blu Ray disk is a viable way to distribute this, or whether Mac or someone else comes up with another format that's easier to package for download.

[baloo]

A BR rip is about 8Gb, maybe more.

[Fat Bob]

Have thought about doing that several times, though am trialing it with a pc first. Ripping a DVD is not trivial, it took over 6 hours last night to get a DVD from disk to 700MB XVid file. Not something I'm going to do with my whole collection, would need to improve processors etc way beyond what you can get in a Mac mini or laptop computer.

You need to be able to cut that down to less than 30 mins to make it useful.

However, having a mac mini as a download tool and a good download agent...well, then you're getting to your often spoke about downloading option. That's really the way to go!

[baloo]

Ripping a DVD is not trivial, it took over 6 hours last night to get a DVD from disk to 700MB XVid file.

Takes me about 20mins

[Fat Bob]

I may have to play around with settings.....

[slinky]

Mr. S just got a Mac Mini & it has a DVD player in it, so you can play discs you have with it too. He also read somewhere that you can get someone to modify it and put a blu-ray player in it for you - but, I'll bet it won't be long before Apple starts making them with that option.

Couple things with the Mac Mini -- if your TV is 'old' (like ours) you'll have to get a analog converter to run the Mac Mini, but once you do that it's not bad (takes some tweeking though). Also, it doesn't play downloaded movies in 5.1 surround at this time but apparently Apple is aware of this and there should be a software fix available to address that issue.

There's also Apple TV (No idea which one is better....)

[baloo]

I may have to play around with settings.....

Aim for about a 1.4Gb file if you want decent quality and AC3 sound.

[baloo]

I have a friend who has owned a Mac mini for about a year. He's now ditching it and going for something less proprietry.

[Jedi]

Mac mini is a toy, don't confuse it for a media center.

Baloo as I'm sure you're aware, a BR Rip isn't even close to the quality of the original. Blu-ray discs can store up to 50gb! Try downloading a 50gb movie.

[Kooky]

What are those Apple TV things meant for? Neo brought home a colleague's the other day to try and recover some data for him; are they just a hard disk with a fancy marketing name?

[SunshineAfterRain]

My Dell laptop is equipped with a blu-ray combo drive but has yet to try playing a movie with it.

[Jedi]

What are those Apple TV things meant for? Neo brought home a colleague's the other day to try and recover some data for him; are they just a hard disk with a fancy marketing name?

They are little toys that you can connect to your TV and playback all the crap you bought from iTunes.