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Samsung Gives Blu-Ray 5 More Years

Exec believes the format will die by 2013.

by Scott Lowe

September 4, 2008 - With distribution services springing up and expanding their coverage at a growing pace, digital distribution is commonly believed to be the next step in home entertainment. As more and more digital services make strides toward incorporating readily available high-definition content, the question becomes how long will Blu-Ray last before being replaced by digital distribution services? Until recently, the subject has been actively debated but rarely commented on by an individual vested in the Blu-Ray format. In an interview with Pocket-Lint, Samsung UK's director of consumer electronics, Andy Griffiths stated that he believes that the format will be in its final throes by 2013.

"I think Blu-ray has 5 years left--I certainly wouldn't give it 10," Griffiths stated in light of recent digital distribution developments. Despite his belief that Blu-Ray will be kicking the proverbial bucket prematurely, Giffiths also believes that 2008 will be an incredible year for the format.

"It's going to be huge", Griffiths assured. "We are heavily back-ordered at the moment." Although the statement comes off as a backhanded compliment, the number of price drops and new Blu-Ray players hitting shelves this year are unprecedented. It would seem that 2008 will certainly be Blu-Ray's biggest year, but will it be the peak before the format's decline?

Comment below with your thoughts on the matter.

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I think digital Distrubution is all fine and good, but more people (myself included) prefer to have something tangible to show off. Part of owning DVD's/Blu-ray/Games is being able to say you have them without saying so. If you have the displaying on the shelf you don't have to say a word your company can just look at them from a distance and make comments as the see fit.

If it's on a harddrive then you have to load up the player go through a series of menus and point out all the cool things you have on it. This leads to you telling them how cool your stuff is instead of them telling you how cool it is. People like their ego stroked by others more than they do themselves.

I think we're a long, long way off from Digital Distrubution becoming mainstream.

I saw this....and thought about posting it...but I just know that this will end in fanboy fire.

My take: Either Samsung doesn't think Blu-Ray will succeed in defeating DVD....or they know what's coming next.

I don't think Blu-ray will win either...so for me that is the logical answer to that statement.

But...if he is referring to an "as-of-yet-undisclosed" format...I highly encourage rioting in the streets...and I would hope the PS3 fans would lead the revolution.

lol... well to be honest untill then IMO the format will be to big to just die out. Bealive it or not the majority of this world is not yet ready to go fully DL and I dont think that it will become ready for it untill 2013 either. Huge markets like India/China/East Europe/Afrika will only start to buy into BRD players in 2010 and I dont think they will invest in a 3 year plan...

Nah, retailers want Blu-Ray to succeed because the profit margins are so much higher. Its pretty common for them to force consumers to buy the next big thing (HDTV's for instance) by slowly phasing out the old technology. Plenty of people who said they would never buy DVD's over VHS are eating their words as we speak.

Player prices might be sub $200 by the end of the year, and the more time that passes the more consumer awareness of the product will rise. In-store advertising is a big boon as well.

There has to be some kind of Ipodesque revolution for the legal movie download market to take off. And even Apple failed to do that, so I don't know who can pull it off. They are selling downloads of movies on their store for a loss for crying out loud just to get the market moving.

As is said above, people arent ready for downloading movies.

A lot of people dont have the internet, a lot of internet connections are insufficient to download movies at any great speed and a lot of people wont even know downloading movies is possible.

Blu-ray will run its course....i think it can go beyond 2013

E ven if it doesn't beat DVD it shouldn't die out.  It'll be like Laerdisc.  Laserdisc didn't die out until DVD showed up.

There will always be plenty of people, like me, who prefer having a physical copy of something rather than a digital download only. I'll take a dvd or blu-ray over download any day. Even if I can download the movie faster than it takes to go to the store.

Sure, I can burn stuff onto physical media such as CDs and DVDs, but there's something about owning the actual, official disc that seems so much better to me.

I don't buy music online very often, I get CDs. And if I do say, buy an album online, I want them to mail me the CD too. Like I did with Galactic Civilizations.

I think in 2013 Blu Ray will be Around, normal DVD will still be dominating, and the Downloading services will start to kick in, and that will be the status qvo.

 those markets are still into VCR's and you think their going Blue-Ray?