@ Resident_Hazard

I don't know when you bought your first VHS player, it was released before I was even born.

FROM Wikipedia

The Video Home System,[1][nb 1] better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard developed by Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC) and launched in Europe/Asia in September 1976 (U.S. launch was June 1977), with The Young Teacher being the first movie to be released and A History of Violence, released on home video in 2006, being the last in the North American market.[2]

By the 1990s, VHS became a standard format for consumer recording and viewing, after competing in a fierce format war with Sony Corporation's Betamax and, to a much lesser extent, Philips' Video 2000, MCA's Laserdisc and RCA's Capacitance Electronic Disc.

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I remember getting VHS I was 6 years old in 1979. I was amazed at how it could record TV. We recorded Doctor Who that very night.

My Dad had held off until he was certain that Sony's Betmax was not going to win that particular format war.

Viper1 said: The Next X console doesn't have to have Blu Ray considering there are already several competing mediums that surpass Blu Ray's capacity. For movie playback, it can retain DVD playback and do just fine. Blu Ray, though doing OK, will never replace DVD completely as its ubiquity is something Blu Ray simply will never match. Sure Blu Ray beat the HD DVD format (thanks almost entirely to the PS3, but don't crown it a winner just yet. Especially with a global recession bearing down on it.

 

I hope the next Xbox DOES have Blu-Ray due to high capacity (up to 400GB), and ability to play 1080p BR movies, plus it would help Xbox "3"'s sales.

Zombl337 said: Viper1 said: The Next X console doesn't have to have Blu Ray considering there are already several competing mediums that surpass Blu Ray's capacity. For movie playback, it can retain DVD playback and do just fine. Blu Ray, though doing OK, will never replace DVD completely as its ubiquity is something Blu Ray simply will never match. Sure Blu Ray beat the HD DVD format (thanks almost entirely to the PS3, but don't crown it a winner just yet. Especially with a global recession bearing down on it.   I hope the next Xbox DOES have Blu-Ray due to high capacity (up to 400GB), and ability to play 1080p BR movies, plus it would help Xbox "3"'s sales.

 

The Next Xbox will probably use an enhanced HD DVD solution.

Think about it.

The DVD factories can be reworked at nominal cost.

Cheap to produce

Lack of mainstream penetration means media cant be pirated

30 GB capacity

Licensing fees also nominal as Toshiba will probably love to recoup any money from their doomed format.

 

 

Seraphic_Sixaxis said: Viper1 said: The Next X console doesn't have to have Blu Ray considering there are already several competing mediums that surpass Blu Ray's capacity. For movie playback, it can retain DVD playback and do just fine. Blu Ray, though doing OK, will never replace DVD completely as its ubiquity is something Blu Ray simply will never match. Sure Blu Ray beat the HD DVD format (thanks almost entirely to the PS3, but don't crown it a winner just yet. Especially with a global recession bearing down on it.    Theres a new blu-ray model coming out later with 400GB Overall space, so.... huhhh?

You do realize that there are formats in development that are hitting 3.9 TB's, don't you?

 

Like I said in the post you quoted, "...there are already several competing mediums that surpass Blu Ray's capacity."

 

There a lot of hinderences to Blu-Ray that Fanbois do not seem to get.

Licensing fees for independent movies are astromnomical compared to DVD. This is a big one since any library needs filler.

The difference is not really noticeable to many people if you don't play it side by side. You may not agree with this you may think that you can tell the difference and perhaps you can if you work with video at different rezs all day long. However if you upscale a DVD and people come over they generally don't notice until you pop a blu ray in and then not everyone. You know 96Khz sounds better than 44khz and yet people think MP3s sound better than CD's.

Apple not supporting blu-ray in FCP Pro. Again this helps kill the format many media people insist on working in a Mac enviroment(they do not need to but that is what is taught in schools today). Without full apple support once again the smaller films get hurt.

Digital Downloads are getting more prominent and faster and gaining steam. People who say Digital distrubition is a dream and says DVD adopaation didn't happen overnight and BR will win out because its adapatation is like BR is kidding themselves. Netflix watch now features are becoming more popular as well. On Demand on Cable and Statelite is growing at a faster rate and cables on demand does not require internet.

BR movies are expensive at a consumer levels compared to other formats. 35 versus 20 bucks for a new releases. You can get bargain prices if you now where to shop or you could just use netflix but once again the library is mostly bigger budget films rigth now.

This is not to say BR is dead. It is a successful platform that has the potential to grow and it shoudl see growth over the next two years but whether it can sustain the storm of cheaper hi rez options coming with less investment in HW and cheaper wuthoring techniques that will mean larger numbers of available titles is questionable.

If I want to author Blu-Ray right now I have use Encore(and limit the flexibility of how I author it) or Sonic Scenarist 3.5(and shell out 25,000 dollars). There may be others but nothing yet that i would use...no offense to Pegasys.

Comparing the amount of shelf space dedicated to Blu-Ray disc at our local Media Markt store to last year (not counting PS3 games of course), it's now 10 times bigger than that of Blu-Ray and HD DVD shelf space combined last year.

Retail adoption is happening fast, as SDTVs only last so long I think eventually a vast majority of people in developed countries will own HDTVs in the coming years. Those who have seen a good Blu-Ray movie on a good HDTV are usually amazed by the difference in visual quality.

MikeB said: Comparing the amount of shelf space dedicated to Blu-Ray disc at our local Media Markt store to last year (not counting PS3 games of course), it's now 10 times bigger than that of Blu-Ray and HD DVD shelf space combined last year. Retail adoption is happening fast, as SDTVs only last so long I think eventually a vast majority of people in developed countries will own HDTVs in the coming years. Those who have seen a good Blu-Ray movie on a good HDTV are usually amazed by the difference in visual quality.

 

 Some people have had there SDTVs for 10 years. They can last a long time and some people just do not want to give them up since SD programming does look better on them the new TVs. Despite interlacing(the bane of NTSC,PAL) 

 

HDTVs(LCD,PLasma...not CRT) while they have more vibrant color do not have he same color reporduction that CRTs do. It always cracks me up when people talk about superior images and hi def and yet put with muted midtones flattened shadows and increased blowouts. Not too mention artifacting on LCDs. While the NTSC standard was not neccessarily the best and it was time to move to something like ATSC/QAM the image quality of these TVs are not what I would call high def. Greyscales are your friend.

 

No offense to you people out there that got CRT HiDefs because you get a better picture on those too bad they are hard to find. Many people buy HDTVs because they are large and flat and they reproduce digital color better than a NTSC CRT from yore with a converter box.

So even with increased adaptation rate it does not mean people rushing out to get blu ray. It has to be engrained in the consumers head that Blu Ray is neccessary and while htis is happening it still takes a while as I said other simplier to author for formats are coming down the pipe during this transition.

 

@ redspear

I think many people will prefer to own their favourite blockbuster game or movie on disc, I think streaming/downloading can co-exist with disc formats (like PlayTV actually uses the PS3).

With regard to competing, streaming will get faster and cheaper, but will every potential consumer be online with a good enough connection and interested in this? I think not.

If pricing is a major concern, it should compete with DVD first as reaching that level of streaming quality is more easily achieved and a cheap mass market solution at this point. Full quality 7.1 lossless audio with 1080p Blu-Ray visual quality is much harder to achieve, HDTV TV broadcastings aren't even on par (1080i with lossy 5.1 audio).

@ redspear

Many of the SDTVs in use are really old, they will fail eventually. For those great quality SDTVs which will last long, many consumers will still upgrade due to form factor as well as improved picture quality.

Like many people who buy a brand new high specced PC people usually want to take good advantage of the provided feature set and Blu-Ray disc is an excellent format to get the most out of your brand new HDTV as well as new audio system.