London (England) – A Samsung representative has made a bold prediction that Blu-ray only has five years left.  I’m sure that comes as a shock to most of you since the format only recently won its battle against HD-DVD and is now locked in another format battle against DVD.  In an interview with Pocket-lint, Andy Griffiths, Samsung UK Director of consumer electronics, said, “I think it [Blu-ray] has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn’t give it 10.”

In the same interview, Griffiths also slammed other electronics companies for substandard disc players and criticized the need for multiple boxes when Samsung can do everything with one unit.  “Maybe they need better engineers,” said Griffiths.

Back in January at the Consumer Electronics Show, Blu-ray dealt a mortal blow to the rival HD-DVD format when the HD-DVD coalition cancelled all their keynotes and press conferences.  Since then, HD-DVD discs and players have been sold at cut rate prices as stores try to clear out stock – case in point are all the Electronics Fry’s stores on the west coast that selling their discs for just $10 each.

Since HD-DVD’s fall, sales of Blu-ray discs have appreciated immensely in recent months as a report by the Redhill Group shows.  An August 2008 report shows that Blu-ray sales are up 300% from 2007 levels and another report showed high-def discs (which included HD-DVD) overtaking VHS tape sales back in the first half of 2007.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s Asia Pacific vice president Tim Meade recently predicted Blu-ray sales would pass DVD in 2011.  Looking at another report by the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA), it seems puzzling why Griffiths would even claim that Blu-ray only has five years left.  A few months ago the EMA released a report stating that Blu-ray sales would exceed standard-definition DVD sales by 2012 – just one year before the inevitable “doom” claimed by Griffiths.

But some people believe DVDs may never be supplanted by Blu-ray disc.  How is this possible?  Well most people in the world (think third world here) don’t own the beautiful high-definition television sets that would show Blu-ray in the best possible light.  So for these folks the improvement between a Blu-ray and DVD disc are negligible at best.  Furthermore, DVD players have a huge installed base and the discs and players are far cheaper – in some cases more than 50% cheaper than Blu-ray.

Maybe Griffiths is predicting the doom of Blu-ray because he has the inside scoop on an upcoming format that will “blow us away”.  But really now, how much better can the picture and sound get?  Is 1080p and uncompressed 5-channel sound not good enough for you?

Who needs discs anymore

Sep 03, 2008 15:06     

With the way things are going, I can see us abandoning the purchase of tangible discs in favor for something that downloads straight to the computer, the TV, the game console, iPod, etc. Who needs to worry about storing a lot of content on a disc when we can just buy a terabyte of hard drive space for our collection?
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5 yr.

Sep 03, 2008 15:30     

Samsung should just fire this guy's for opening his big mouth and making future sales of their own BD machine drop. how does he comes up with 5 yrs? reason? logic? nothing...just a dumb guess. price of DB disc is going down so is players. next yrs is all digital boardcast in USA and a lot of people will use this excuse to get their wife for approval for getting a new TV. cheap people will always be cheap and stick with their video tapes...what else he has out there that is replacing BD? download content? it's full of DMR and restriction that I can only run on one player this and that. download take hours and I hate having the machine turn on 24/7 just to download movies (legally) and waste electricity. And your download machine bettter be next to a direct RJ45 outlet next to your cable modem box...or else the data will take forever for your wireless network to transfer over, provided that you have at least a pre-N wireless router....if you have a b or g...forget it.

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PRICE

Sep 03, 2008 15:33     

Price is what is keeping Blu-ray from going mainstream(and that Sony backs it). The cost of making the media, the blue laser, paying off the movie studio's, etc. gets handed down to the consumer. Most people don't even notice the difference unless they have a HD-TV >32"(which is not the majority of the population). Direct downloads will be leading the way and DVD's(upconverted). Cheap and inexpensive solutions.

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download not feature.

Sep 03, 2008 15:40     

first download content are not HD... HD content will take a lot of time and space. and like comcast, they only allow 250G a month max... so how many HD movie can you download? a DVD regular is like 4-8 G... a blue ray disc assume it's 20-30G.... 10-15 movies and comcast will cut your connection!!! and how long is to get a 30Gig file man? and from your computer to your machine by local wireless router? All people that say download is future are stupid cause internet company won't give your bandwidth for free and content provider can't afford everone to take 10 hours to download a movie in full blown bandwidth....do you know how big of a pipe apple will need if there is a million people downloading a 1080P HD movie from them at the same time since it take hours? Just a iphone activation already killed them!! a terribyte harddrive can only hold like 50 HD 00gig movies? I bet your video tape collection is more than that! what about backup? you don't spend $15 to download a HD movie and then have to wipe it out because you are out of space right? $120 for a harddive to hold 50 HD movies that stuck on your harddrive forever because you have no where else to back it up and you already paid for it? no disc? don't tell me you will upload to web to backup since upload is slow even for cable modem...DSL is worse.

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Samsung PR Gold

Sep 03, 2008 16:10     

Q. How can a technology and electronics based company influence the consumer spotlight to shine on themselves? A. Make bold negative accusations about industry leading technology. Be sure to say something quotable for a great headline so you can plug your latest products throughout the news story. Free advertising and persuading the general public by posing as a great leading edge mind through pseudo-intellectual remakes.

The Truth report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -2

It does get better

Sep 03, 2008 16:13     

In response to the writer, it DOES get better than 1080p, FAR better. 1600p is already a standard, though not well supported yet, and the 4k and 8k standards are already available (though extremely nichey right now). I wonder how well Blu-Ray will scale to 1600p, I hope Sony has already figured out that migration path, or else another format war will happen in a couple of years.
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@Andy

Sep 03, 2008 16:14     

"first download content are not HD" Wrong. There is download content that is HD. Xbox Live Market Place has alot of HD content to download. "a blue ray disc assume it's 20-30G.... 10-15 movies and comcast will cut your connection!!! and how long is to get a 30Gig file man? and from your computer to your machine by local wireless router?" What are you watching? HD of War and Peace(even though it's a book)? The largest HD movie I've seen was 46" screen. "you don't spend $15 to download a HD movie" Yeah because a $30-$40 movie with Bluray is alot better. Espially when you get it home and find out they changed the profile...again. So then you try to update your player and brick the damn thing. Only to get another $400(low end) POS and find out you're out of luck. Damn I hate buttray.

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Flash drives

Sep 03, 2008 16:19     

once a 30gig flash drive becomes economical...we will sell movies on a mass-produced flash memory based stick moving parts is soo old fashioned
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RE: PRICE

Sep 03, 2008 16:19     

I agree, Blu-ray won't drop in price for quite a while. The blue lasers they rely on are extremely expensive to produce, not to mention yields are bad. Remember the PS3 shortages when they released, it was all because they couldn't get enough blue lasers. Last time I saw a BOM (bill of materials) price for a PS3, the laser alone was costing $80, that makes it the second most expensive component in the unit (the Cell processor being #1). So I think $300 is going to be the floor for a while on Blu-ray players, between the laser, the royalties to Sony, and recouping losses from the HD format war, will all keep prices up.

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Flash

Sep 03, 2008 16:19     

I alread use USB sticks to transfer my content, because it's much easier to handle. And flash sticks will have more than 50 GB soon at a decent price. I believe this is the future...
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Oh dear...

Sep 03, 2008 16:48     

The only thing going to replace Blu-ray at some point will obviously be internet-downloaded content. However, I don't believe this will not happen in five years, at least not in the United States. First of all, it's difficult to see the broadband situation improving over such a short time scale to be able to support the MAJORITY of Americans downloading giant 1080P movie files over the internet. There are many users on DSL, satellite, and fixed wireless, where the connections are just too slow to support that, and the rest are on ~5 megabit cable broadband where the companies are now starting to move towards monthly transfer caps. The rollout of DOCSIS 3.0 may help with aggregate bandwidth, but I'm certainly not optimistic that the American cable companies are going to do anything spectacular, considering they have a government support broadband monopoly. And actually, I see the situation getting WORSE. As more people start to use mobile broadband on their cellphones and laptop 3G cards, many are actually GIVING UP their fixed connection at home, and simply using their laptop broadband cards or connecting via smartphone pairing. And there is no way in hell that the cellular companies are going to let customers routinely download 20GB movie files over their 3G data networks. Some other points to consider: - The large number of Americans living in rural areas who certainly won't see rollout of fiber-to-the-home broadband anytime this or next decade. - The cultural preference for owning physical copies of purchased content, especially with the growing aversion to anything with DRM or other controls. - The lower quality of reduced-bitrate movie downloads versus full-quality 50GB Blu-ray copies. - etc

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Videophiles still want discs

Sep 03, 2008 17:04     

I don't like the idea of downloads. I myself want something tangible like a disc. And I'll pay more for it. I enjoy having a library, reading liner notes etc. The movie industry probably wants downloads because they can track it better and use more DRM to lock the stuff down to specific computers and devices. And make you buy it over and over. Yeah, technology does move quickly these days. However, I think 1080P is good enough for consumer use. How much better does it need to be? Every company is trying to get a piece of the pie. Thus they are all trying to supplant Sony.

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blue ray...

Sep 03, 2008 18:21     

I own a Samsung 40 inch HDTV LCD. I also have a playstation 3. I don't own a single blu ray disc, and yet I watch almost exclusively HD programming and movies via Comcast. Thirty dollars for a movie I might watch twice is RIDICULOUS. It's not even that I cant afford it, I can. Its the general principle... I will own HD movies once they decide on a download model that is not riddled with DRM. Until then, on demand programming suits me just fine.

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Sales people will tell you anything...

Sep 03, 2008 18:36     

See comment title... nough said.
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also @ andy

Sep 03, 2008 19:42     

Hologram DVD (I think its called red-ray at the moment specifically being developed for the 'big red one' camera, will be the next physical format and will be ready in about 3-5 years. However, with the speed of the internet for a growing number of households I think that streaming content will be the way to go. Also, I think it will be less and less of people buying content, and more and more of a membership (netflix, blockbuster) or pay-per-view way of going about things. And who the heck has limited GB/mo anymore? Every time it is tried people switch companies or go DSL for a while and then the ISPs get the hint and get rid of the cap. Lets also remember that this is 5 years from now. In 5 years we will have affordable broadband for our cell phones in most areas (even my parents may be able to get something other than dial up by then!). Sure, not everyone will have fast enough connections to stream content, but HD will be changing to higher resolutions as time goes on and the media will have to keep up. This is why so many of us are buying chap projectors (bigger size for less cost in the 720p range) or oversized monitors (1080p 27" for under $500). These are cheaper/easier replaceable components so that we dont have to change our whole theatre when standards change again, and they will. Content is becoming mroe and more personal, and more and more subscription based. The industry is changing.

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The author is so wrong that it's not even funny

Sep 03, 2008 20:14     

"Well most people in the world (think third world here) don’t own the beautiful high-definition television sets" Many people in the developed world don't have a HDTV and many others don't even know what resolution is so they have no reason at all to buy Blu-Ray. The third world doesn't even matter way too many don't have any kind of TV. As for the so called second world very few have a HDTV set and most don't even have a DVD player since original DVD's cost way too much for anyone sane to buy them(this is also true for the third world) So don't "think third world" think the vast majority of people outside the developed nations. Another fact that is beeing ignored in this article is that Blu-ray prices will come down, to a point where they are cheap enough for the price difference not to matter for potential buyers. As for how much better the picture can get maybe this article can help http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33161/118/1/3/

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Solid State storage is the (rapidly approaching) future

Sep 04, 2008 05:35     

As the price of flash memory continues to fall, it will supercede optical and magnetic storage within a few years. HDD, Blu-ray or HD-DVD, it doesn't matter any more. Moving parts = soon to be obsolete. (It's already happened for music - think CD-player vs IPod - so video won't be far behind)
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re: Videophiles still want discs

Sep 04, 2008 07:50     

I'm absolutely with you there. It's too easy to have an accident and wipe out a downloaded file. And to Scott: Sure, if you only ever watch a movie once or twice then it's not worth buying. I have a fairly large (>300) DVD collection, and frequently watch stuff over again. Currently on my third run through of Babylon 5 (about 165 hours all told), not counting when I saw it on network TV. It also pays to be patient. I rarely buy a film when it first comes out. If you wait a few months you can usually pick it up from the bargain bin, so most of my collection has come at 1/3 list price or less.

John Williams report abuse vote down vote up Votes: -2

write-proteced ssd's

Sep 04, 2008 07:51     

I think that flash drives and solid state drives will replace discs. If they could come up with a write protected solid state drive, one could have a movie on it that one can not alter or copy(?). It could be played on special machines. It is sort of retro. I had a TI-99/4A that used cartridges instead of discs (because they were not really around then - in the 70's). I guess some things come full circle. :)

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I Prefer discs too

Sep 04, 2008 10:02     

re: Andy, exactly my thoughts, downloads are not the future. who has the time to wait for the downloads to complete. for those who think downloads are best have you tried fast forwarding or rewinding to go to your favorite scene while streaming is in progress? its a joke.
Random Neurons report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

solid state flash? please!!! give me a break.

Sep 04, 2008 11:20     

come on guys? since when did creating a plastic disc and stamp some material on it be more expensive then a solid state flash? Even when both are selling for suppose $30 for a blue ray disc and $30 for 30G I assume? The cost of making the disc is 1-2 dollar or less... leaving the rest of profit for sony, the movie studio and the retailer and distributer... While for flash drive...I don't see how cost of making flash chip can be so low to the same price range...letting the rest of the people to make same profit...It's almost like back in the days when nintindo make games in cartilage...it always cost more than CD....so game makers make less money when selling the same price... yes...xbox has download HD content... how long does it take for 1 full length 2 hr 1080P movie to download? I don't mean the short ads.. Still yet... you are downloading to a xbox...how big is a xbox harddrive? the SATA notebook harddrive is max out at 300G...assume you swap out the 30-40G original..... And what about backup? you bought the movies... assume you bought 1 a week...and in a year you got 50 movies.... 10G each...assume it's DVD size.... you are still over the 300 G hardrive limit... so you delete them? you copy them to another computer? still it's prone to harddrive failure in 3 yrs.....how do you backup ? since you pay for it and you won't just want to delete the movie and let your investment go down the drain... the only sensible solution is to watch movie by streaming from netflix or whatever...so there is no need for storage... but they are not giving HD content streaming.... And comcast definatelly don't want you to use that bandwidth that is above their 3G per user average....or else they cannot server that many user when all the millions of netflix users start streaming movies online... the problem is the cable and phone company are being cheap on upgrading their network...

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Engineer.

Sep 04, 2008 13:14     

As an engineer in the field of cable communications. I can tell you that streaming is indead the way to go right now cable modems use about the same frequency bandwith of one analog channel. Meaning on there end comcast uses one channel to give all customers there 10mbits. So if comcast were to begin to offer those movie downloads to a local storage unit then they would have no problems freeing up another channel on there plan for the bandwith. Now there backbone to the internet is a different thing so they would have to offer it via on-demand, if cable companies were to come to some sort of agreement to offer digital dvd iso's to a burner supplied by the company they could so clean up. And it wouldnt have to be in reg dig they could do what ever format they prefered and if they wanted to they could sell the darn solid state storage themselves. People just dont think outside the box. IMO

Tony report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +1

Boycott Blu-Ray

Sep 04, 2008 13:42     

The consumers chose HD-DVD. Boycott Blu-Ray. (If you have a PS3, that's fine, just don't buy any BRD movie discs.)
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boygott?why?

Sep 04, 2008 17:05     

why do I want to make my ps3 less useful by boygotting blue ray? just because HD dvd died? if I want SD movie, I can rent from netflix..it will be there the next day or 2...if I want it now... well... download takes time. I think no one other than cable company can do it since they owns the lines and want to monopolize the on-demand business....because for cable modem...you use one or 2 channel out of a hundred.... they can use any of the non-used channels to send you on-demand... however, I do hate fast forward on the streaming movie cause it sucks....especiall the movie sucks. However, depends on your viewing habbit, on-demand could be for you if you are those watch once and never again and like to pay cable company a lot of money. For those that link ownership...DVD or blueray is better since download takes a lot of time and you can loss all your investment when your harddrive/windows crashed or you are out of space and you didn't backup... I mean 1T drives are cheap but I have so many IT people I work with that still have small little harddrives on their home computers.... only gamers constantly upgrade...(like me...spend too much on computers).

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third world.?

Sep 04, 2008 17:09     

blue ray market is for US and europe and japan .... not for third world... they don't even make $30 a month in some africa country....or enough to eat...of course they don't need blue ray stupid. And China has their own HD disc format.. for their own privated movies.... they don't need to pay sony when their disc cause $2 dollar to make and sell for $5 on the street. So yea, third world don't need blue ray ...

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Price will hold blue ray back

Sep 05, 2008 00:04     

price difference between DVD and Blue ray is the major factor in market share or advent of Blue Ray discs.....here in India a locally manufactured 4.7GB DVD is 15 cents...the cost of a DVD writers is 24USD....now the cost of blue ray disc here is 30USD and the burner for that is 20 times that price...i can't see BR discs being a success anywhere else other than maybe the US,EU and Japan
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@EEngineer

Sep 05, 2008 02:30     

" I wonder how well Blu-Ray will scale to 1600p, I hope Sony has already figured out that migration path, or else another format war will happen in a couple of years." Well you need to remember its not Blu-Ray doing the scaling, that would be the job of the video processors, since Blu-Ray is only a storage medium! The Blu-Ray we know at the moment is 25GB per layer, it was announced recently there was a breakthrough for a 20-layer version of the format (500GB per disc) - which would be able to store 1600p movies, despite there being no commercial displays for this resolution yet (apart from a few monitors). A tangible format will be around for a long time but not as we currently know it to be. Even when Super HD displays arrive, the "copper" internet infrastructure around the globe is out current limiting factor to real streaming (talking 3-4Gbps) - even with LLU. Until this is Fibre-Optic or satellite based for the masses, we're stuck with a tangible format. :(

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@SteveB: You misunderstood

Sep 05, 2008 14:38     

EEngineer did not mean "scale" in the sense of resolution scaling, but rather Blu-Ray's technological flexibility to store and play back higher resolution/bitrate/color gamut content, as was implied with the "migration path" phrase.
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Relax and float downstream...

Sep 05, 2008 21:08     

Mass media outlets don't care about quality. Music has gone backwards since 1984. iTunes songs are much lower resolution than CDs. Video is no different. They'll call it "digital quality or HD quality and everyone will be satisfied, even when it is compressed within an inch of it's soul. I personally don't worry, ALL video is poor imitation of reality. You can build an awesome audiophile audio system and scare friends, and yourself with how well you can recreate reality (tubes, vinyl still outshine most digital, solid state, IMO) but video is still flat and a piss poor imitation of reality. I don't watch my Blue-ray or any video source and say, wow I'm almost there (although the soundtrack can scare people, neighbors and pets!). Don't get hung up on techie details, it's all in the final image/soundfield and how your brain processes it. Sit back and enjoy, tomorrow will come with downloads and memory chips, but whether it is TRULY better is what matters. Film, digital, dvd, blue-ray, records, cds, hdcd, who cares - can it move you? If so you're already there.

Den report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

It's got 5 years left because after that they'll tr...

Sep 15, 2008 01:10     

It's got 5 years left because after that they'll try to foist something else off on us. Surely that should be obvious by now.
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