“With the fall of HD DVD, Blu-ray has assumed the throne as the next format of choice, but its reign will be short-lived,” Erica Ogg blogs for CNET.
“Blu-ray won’t enjoy the same decade-long dominance DVD did after it succeeded VHS. But that’s not because there will be other challenger physical disc formats. Rather, instead of buying discs from Amazon, Best Buy or Wal-Mart, people will begin getting their entertainment in the form of digital downloads in larger volumes,” Ogg reports.
“To the chagrin of disc patent holders, discs are not the only way to consumer high-definition media now… Apple recently upgraded Apple TV to include rentals–standard definition and HD–and a way to bypass the need for a PC to watch films on a living room TV,” Ogg reports.
“The biggest roadblock is of course bandwidth, which causes the process to be long and painful and ultimately not worth it for many. But that will change. Consider, for example, this scenario,” Ogg reports. “Using Fios from Verizon, it’s possible to currently download several episodes of a TV show at approximately 5 megabits per second, or 625 kilobytes per second.”
“Assuming a one-hour high-definition TV show (with commercials) is around 5GB, that requires 1,388,888 kilobytes per second or 1.38 megabytes per second to watch,” Ogg reports. “So Fios is about halfway there about at best, and Comcast’s 100 megabit per second connection, which it promised at CES would be a reality by 2009, could pull it off.”
More in the full article here.
Tom Strong said.”Women should not write about technology.”
You are a misogynist asshole. Fsck off and go away.
10 – 20 years from now?
Blue-ray just won’t be big enough to hold my holodeck programs.
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“The biggest roadblock is of course bandwidth. . .But that will change”
Yes, but MDN will still load just a slow.
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People like to collect things: coins, stamps, CDs, videos, ex-girlfriends, cars, you name it. Downloads won’t kill that any time soon.
Besides, Blu-ray just plain looks better!
People are replacing their old analogue TVs with HDTV. The price and SIZE of Full-HDTV has dropped quite a bit, just in the past year!
The model that replaced the 40″ HDTV I bought last year, is almost $1000 cheaper, with better specs!
You can get a 32″ Full-HD set for about $900. More and more 23″- 27″ computer monitors are Full-HD and come with HDMI ports in addition to standard DVI/VGA ports… for around $400 and up (if you look around). AND they’re double-duty.
Once people start seeing what these new monitors can do, they’ll want better source material.
Watch something like a football or hockey game in HD, then watch the same thing in standard def. After a while you will seek out HD content. Pretty soon you’ll demand it.
Upsampled DVDs can look pretty good (like anything from Criterion Collection), depending on who did the mastering. A Blu-ray player that also upsamples DVDs, will start to look pretty attractive.
I have $329 in Christmas Best Buy gift certificates that I am desperate to spend on an AppleTV, but Best Buy does not have any AppleTV units and are not scheduled to get anymore until March or April! What is going on with that?! Come on Apple get with it!!!!
I am so suprised that so many of the pundits miss the need for a simple, easy to use, removable storage media that can be used to archive critical data off site. Sure, online backup exists, but there are many of us who want something we can stick in a safety deposit box. Hard drives are getting cheaper, but they are not reliable enough in my opinion. Oh, how I wish Apple would include a Blu Ray recorder so I could back up more than 4.4Gb of data at a time!!!!!
@ Tom Strong
Why don’t you move to Afghanistan where they hate women as much as you do. Better yet, change your name to Tom Weak or just plain Lame!
Is Tom Strong on to something?
“Mr. Wizard, I don’t understand.”
“Well, that’s because you’re a girl, and this is science.”
“Oh, right.”
Some people are just humor-challenged, surprising from Ampar, as he usually does funny posts. Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?
Good to see Erica kept part of her name when she remarried. I wonder what happened to Vorbis? Last I heard he was living in cars and bumming change on the streets. Nice move Erica!! Welcome to AAC!! I hear he’s better in bed anyway…prolly why you made the switch!
IT’s THE RESOLUTION, STUPID.
IT’s THE COLOR BIT DEPTH, STUPID
IT’s THE AUDIO BIT RATE and BIT DEPTH, STUPID
In the lemming-esque rush for digital video downloads
these three criteria are getting lost.
This download cart is way, WAY before the bandwidth horse
and way way WAY before the customer demand horse.
AUDIO downloads have already effectively ruined the
concept of HIGH FIDELITY in recorded music . . .
. . . . so let’s not be in such a rush for movie downloads
until the bandwidth for these Big Three easily available . . . .
. . . . or the concept of High Definition Video will go the way
of High Fidelity Audio.
My opinion: Downloads is the innovation,the next one is how to storage it.
Consider the current auction for that 700mhz(?) spectrum
If Google (and Apple/together?) wins
And gets that puppy runnin’ full speed
We can Change the World™
BC
P.S.
Storage is nothing
Let the ‘cloud’ hold it
Or, if want, burn your own disc
Or fill up hard drives/flash
For the ‘stuff’ really worth having
BC
BC Kelly: “Consider the current auction for that 700mhz(?) spectrum
If Google (and Apple/together?) wins
And gets that puppy runnin’ full speed
We can Change the World™”
==============================
That’s exactly what I have been hoping for. When Comcrap, Verizon, AT&T;, Time Warner et. al. see how well iTunes/AppleTV downloads are working for us, they are going to F*ck us over. No doubt about that.
Well, hopefully Google/Apple can serve up the bandwidth on the old 700 MHz spectrum right into our homes, and we can tell the cables and telcos to f*ck off first!
I even have a nice antenna on my roof to welcome Apple/Google as my new ISP overlords!
It’s crazy how much DVDs or BRs are considered only in termes of selling movies!
Damn, i ONLY use those for backups… and that a BR keeps more datas than a DVD is my best motivation to embrace this technology.
They use a 5GB show as an example — a very bad example that they admit is pretty much outside the current envelope of deployed technology.
Blu-ray delivers 50GB 1080 video instantly.
Apple TV delivers 720 video after a slow download.
The performance/technology gap between the two is still too big.
When AT&T;provides the masses 10 Mbps or better, then this fairy tale might come true. Otherwise, I agree, women, which are notoriously bad at math, shouldn’t write articles on technology.
The answer is VERY simple. Apple should offer a package deal. Allow the customer to download a low resolution version of the video for instant gratification, and ship them a Blu-Ray with full 1080p resolution and all 50 GB of extras. Very simple solution that fulfills all requirements.
Captain Celluloid…. Right On, Bro!
Respect and appreciation for Audio and Video Quality are being lost in the quest for instant access. The mentality of ‘I can get every song ever recorded by any and every artist whenever I want’ is threatening to kill quality Hi-Fi and video.
But, then, most people don’t know what real, unamplified music, played in a real concert hall sounds like. What a shame! I’m not talking about what the music is, but how it’s presented.
Go to your typical concert and you’re listening to a PA system, NOT the musicians. yes, you can see them and hear what they’re playing, but it’s not a direct listening environment. The sound is filtered and stripped away and made really loud.
AM radio quality samples are good enough for the tin-eared herd, I suppose
Although people can still give gift cards for a birthday or Christmas, some still like the idea of wrapping and giving a tangible gift, like a DVD, or later this year, a Blu-Ray disc movie. I don’t think digital downloads will really take off until Apple TV sales go through the roof and broadband speeds increase.
George, the movie content itself is closer to 20GB.
Captain_Celluloid, SACD and DVD Audio showed the market for high-fidelity sound is limited.
EVEN if I had unlimited bandwidth and could watch the video instantly it’s ridiculous to think I’d want it as a digital download that has time limits on how soon I have to watch it and how many other places I can take it. What about the car, the kids room, loaning it to my brother or parents if I like it?
Downloads may replace going to the movies IF it was available to download at the same time as it was released, but it wouldn’t replace buying a movie I like.
Downloads just are NOT the same quality as a BD transfer, just watch them on your 46″ or bigger 1080P flat panel or a 100″+ projection setup and it is obvious. Way TOO much compression.
I belive that the disk formats WILL die. I’ve rented “300” in HD and was able to start watching it almost imdiately after it started to download. I have a 46 inch TV and the quality was very good. I’ll admit that the disk would have been better. Streaming HD is definately the way to go for rentals… at least.
@Hm
Stop America bashing when you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about! Just go to the global bandwidth test site; http://www.speedtest.net/
It shows you the average speeds for regions & countries around the world. The US is typically near the top from tests by actual users! Most of Europe is on DSL….. and the EU has made a big deal about falling BEHIND the US in terms of fiber to the home deployment.
BTW, the writers of this article show that they are complete morons on this topic… I have Verizon FiOS and get almost 20 Mbps on the downlink (I pay for the 20 Mbps speed, but the SLOWEST speed on FiOS is 15 Mbps and the HIGHEST is 50 Mbps, so it’s obvious that these reporters haven’t done their job… surprise, surprise… b/c of their great research abilities and commitment to accuracy, they went on to report on McCain for the New York TImes… LOL!)
Data will be kept on hard drives or flash drives kept in external usb enclosures. Physical media is dead.
It doesn’t make sense to backup data on dvds or bluray discs. Regular dvds (not pressed) tend to go bad with time whether they’re scratched or not. Even with improved technology I seriously question how long blurays discs will last. If you only use a hard drive for backing up data and viewing data it should last a lifetime. Keeping that drive in an external usb/firewire enclosure makes it very portable too (especially if you get a 2.5inch laptop drive).
Also, there’s an issue with cost. You can get a 500 gb hard drive for just over a hundred dollars. Flash is becoming insanely cheep too compared to what it was a few years ago.
Another problem with backing up data to bluray discs is that you have to erase the disc and burn all the data again when you want to back up something new. All you have to do on a removable drive is copy/paste/cute and delete.
The moment flash drives become mainstream, physical media will die with the exception of usb keys and SD cards.
Captain_Celluloid said
“IT’s THE RESOLUTION, STUPID.”
“IT’s THE COLOR BIT DEPTH, STUPID”
“IT’s THE AUDIO BIT RATE and BIT DEPTH, STUPID”
Go to any torrent site and search for 1080p. An average 2 hour bluray-rip is 8gb-10gb and is the same quality as a bluray movie on a disc. High quality rips are high quality.
Best case scenario is that those blu-ray rips actually look better than bluray discs, due to deinterlacing.
I have yet to see a blu-ray rip (and I’ve seen dozens thanks to binaries) that looks bad. x264 is delicious
A bluray rip should have a slightly higher resolution. There is no other difference.