Blu-ray could be the next UMD, says MS

[MikeB]

theRepublic said:

KylieDog said:
Can't be bothered reading thread, so this may have been brought up...


Digital will never be the future. Too many people require a physical purchase, something they can look at, something they can touch, something they can wrap up and put under the christmas tree, and so on.

There will always be a physical format.

People said the same thing about music, but that has gone heavily in the direction of digital distribution.

I never did.

MP3s are IMO with regard to music like what fast food is compared to restaurants and food in general. MP3s and other audio formats are very small and of decent enough quality, ideal for very small devices (CDs are huge, multiple times bigger than a MP3 playback device including a normal cellphone) to take with you and easy to download. Of course Blu-Ray disc as well as DVD is receiving a lot of competition from illegal downloads just like the music industry.

Movies are different as they need a display, the smaller the portable display the less enjoyment the bulk of people get out of it. Blu-Ray disc is primarily targeted at the home theatre with HDTVs, sure it's nice to have Blu-Ray support on a laptop, being able to take with you your home content but from a video and audio quality perspective most laptops provide too small screens and often relatively sucky audio (simple earphones don't require 7.1 lossless audio and there are too many distraction while on the road anyhow) to fully enjoy the benefits. No risk of disc scratching may be a better argument than added audio-visual quality in this regard.