Disc is always good for safe keeping.
Downloadable movie is good, but I don't have FiOS, and even Comcast cable take too long to download. Unless the general bandwidth of common household get to the level of FiOS, I don't think BlueRay will die soon.
Yes, money is tight, so more people will buy DVDs because they don't have HD TV and BlueRay player. But, if you have BlueRay and HD TV, I bet you are going to buy BlueRay disc.

as long as ISPs are going with the trend of data caps, there is still a future for a physical product.

I already stream Netflix(their selection is getting better) with some movies in HD.

Now I'm really confused by PS3's ads. They are advertising that you can download HD movies to the console. I would think they would want to continue to push Bluray.

I give Bluray 3-5 years before downloading movies will over take them or some other media will destroy them.

this is just another article to get post from both side.

blue ray disc are cheap now. I got to frys and now see bunch of 15-20$ discs..and only super hit movies are over 20-30$ range....prices just keep dropping. As for players..it's getting cheaper too.
And if you have a PC...80$ can get you a blue ray dvd-rom that you can hook up to your TV.
On demand? that's why people buy dvd or buy digital movie...because they don't want to "rent" ad they want to "own" the movie so they can watch as many times as they want and whenever they want..
not like those you have to see the movie in a day
after you download.
Cable has on-demand all this year, I don't see it killing dvd sales.
Digital download of the whole HD movie? unless you have a few hours to spend and you have only one movie you want to watch..or else it could take days to download a few movies...by the time you finish..you don't feel like watching it anymore.
Plus with comcast etc all putting on download caps, that's not a encouraging sign for download HD movies.
As for those "all you can watch" subscription? only old movies or unpopluar junk are in their library.
Which big movie studio don't want to make money off dvd or hd dvd or like itune sale? They won't give you new movies on "all you can download/view" like netflix.
Download is a nice add-on but I don't see it replacing dvd. It's different from mp3...which a album takes only a few minutes to download. Movie take hours. And with all the protection they added on the digital format movie, I doubt you want to get one since it will only work in one machine like your apple tv or samsung tv...and nothing else.
You can't bring to your friend's house and you can't put in in your dvd player or computer or your dvd player on your car...it's just not portable.

If you pay for a download, you had better make sure you have enough cash to buy a large Hard Drive and another to mirror it, still you would also want a way to protect your data, hard drives can be erased, Optical disc are more permanent. I say Blu-ray is here to stay, Toshiba lost, too bad get over it!

We should all move to Fios if we can, Comcast and Time Warner cap bandwidth, so Downloading will never be an option.

Blu-ray has a little more growth to come, largely from PS3 sales and a burp of sales as the recent cheaper players have a small effect - although the numbers of stand-alone players sold is hardly massive, just as the recent disc sales have seen a few spikes with a handful of titles but overall numbers remain tiny compared to DVD.
The fact is that the days of anyone seriously suggesting Blu-ray is going to become' the next DVD' are long over.

Blu-ray is headed to be another (high margin) small minority niche for providing high definition content probably with around the 5 years left in it that the Samsung guy talked about a while back.
Which is fine if you have bought into it accepting that (I have myself).

The CE corps & movie studios only have themselves (and their greed) to blame.
They could have reached agreement with the DVD Forum for one high definition format on disc years ago.
But no, the BDA guys chose to go it alone, sparking off the wholly wasteful & counter-productive 'format war'.

Even this year, where Blu-ray had the market completely to themselves, has been completely wasted as they kept prices high
(movie discs and hardware - and no, selling limited numbers of dead old obsolete models at a discount did not mean Blu-ray had suddenly become attractive to the mass-market).

Now everything is in the deep freeze for at least a year as we await (no, it has not really hit yet, what you have seen so far is just the warm-up) the worst recession since the 1930s to wreak havoc.

Of course the PS3 gang and the relative handful of a/v-philes will keep things going to some degree, although even that becomes counter-productive as an endless stream of superficial rather childish and shallow movies aimed at the adolescent 'PS3 demographic' try to exploit the majority of the existing Blu-ray player ownership 'base'.

The PS3 itself has in any event hardly set the gaming world alight.
For all the PS3 hype last summer it is resolutely bolted in 3rd and last place this time around in the game console wars.
There's irony, Sony blew off it's huge game console lead only to lose heavily betting on a video format the mass-market didn't want.

The fundamental problem has always been that the BDA members all seemed to think high definition ought to become a big new revenue stream in it's own right, they are currently re-evaluating that suicidal stance I guess. :)
It ought to have been aimed primarily as 'added value' which was largely intended to sustain (and maybe slightly boost) DVD's sales numbers as a new built-in feature to fight off the PVR/DVR, VOD from the growing number of HD TV services.

(Mind you, even as it stands DVD's annual sales numbers - as reported here and elsewhere recently - are only down 4%.)

Then there is the inevitable downloading and steaming future which we all know is coming.

It's merely a matter of when and not if.
That's a 'when' which has, again rather ironically, been accelerated by the coming recession as Govs across the world begin large-scale capital spending projects to offset the worst of that recession - projects in the national long-term interest - like a modern fibre internet infrastructure - are top of the list.

Greed and pride certainly do go before a fall - and Sony as a company is right now in deep trouble.
The R&D on Blu-ray (which they seem to now be saying that they accept they will never recover) has cost them several $ billions annually for years and at a time when the profits were in very short supply.
The PS3 has yet to stop bleeding them money too and again has, alone, cost them several $ billions, for years.

This recession comes as the last thing they needed on top of all that.
They really do have some very tough times ahead.
Unfortunately for them Blu-ray is never going to be the cash-cow they had banked everything on.

Downloadable movies available today are not 1080p and do not have HD audio. Discs will be necessary for full quality. If you don't care about quality, downloads are fine.

I disagree with you, yo. Those that want to "own" a movie can do so and take advantage of streaming at the same time. You mentioned AppleTV so let's use it as an example. An AppleTV owner can purchase a movie and it will be ready to watch within 30 seconds or so because enough of the movie has been downloaded to watch the entire movie without interuption while the rest of the movie is being downloaded. An HD movie may take a little more time to start but not more than it would take to run to the store, purchase a blu-ray disc, come home and start watching. Subscription services such as Netflix and cable provider on demand services will take over for those who simply want to "rent" but not purchase. Additionally, consumers drive the market so if internet providers see that consumers are moving towards digital distribution methods to get their home entertainment the caps you mention will be raised to allow those consumers to take advantage of streaming and downloads. The internet providers that don't make this change will lose customers to other providers. As for not being able to bring a movie over to a friend's house, this may well be a problem for some, however, with the popularity of video iPods (all current models except for the shuffle which has no screen support video), all of which are quite pocketable, bringing movies with you is simple. Throw in a set of inexpensive av cables from amazon for the iPod and watching a movie on a big screen at a friend's is easy. I had high hopes for Blu-ray a couple of years ago but it seems like technology has moved on and that optical disks will be less important in years to come.

Until blue-ray comes down to the prices of DVD movies and players, I will stick with DVD. I can not rationalize the higher price for higher quality images when my eyes are getting older and might not notice the difference.

Download for pay an HD movie rather than have it on DVD/BD? No way. It would be like switching from mobile phones to landline phones.

I'm sick and tired everytime there is a new format out we have a problem.
When Blu ray came out what they should of did was eliminated the regular DVD format like they did with the tapes. Blu ray plays both no need to have 2 sets of formats or 2 sets of players. If you just have Blu ray prices will come down. Plus I think stores over price Blu ray disc to begin with. You go on Amazon and its much cheaper.
There is alot more to just having video on demand. I rather have a hard copy so I can see it anytime I want. Not take up space on my computer.

And it took 3 hours (11 GB total) at 10 Mbs. If ATT, VZ, and Comcast get their acts together and start getting 25 Mb connections to the masses you could stream that 11 GB no problem. BD still uses MPEG-2 if i'm not mistaken so there is room for improvement on the size as well.

BD won't be as big or last as long as DVD. I think that part of it is set in stone, as far as disks going away I think we need 5 to 8 years before that happens on a grand scale.

Blu-ray player and disc sales are up from just about any month you choose from just about any year. Misinformation is fun!

BTW, did you lift this from the New York Times directly, or just rewrite their article in your own words?

-Pie

"If you pay for a download, you had better make sure you have enough cash to buy a large Hard Drive and another to mirror it, still you would also want a way to protect your data, hard drives can be erased, Optical disc are more permanent. I say Blu-ray is here to stay, Toshiba lost, too bad get over it!"

Ok so people should still buy CDs then? In 5 years Hard drive's will be 5 TB I don't think losing your movies will be a big deal. Some music sites will let you download the same song 3 times before you have to pay for it again, no reason why this can't and won't be done for movies as well.

Discs will die in the future just like CDs did get over it.

Honestly - why buy into it? Even today, the Blu-Ray tv top players only PLAY videos, and can't even record onto standard DVD disks or blank Blu-Ray disks. The movies cost nearly twice as much as a regular DVD. You can buy a regular DVD player/recorder that "upconverts" your old DVDs to near-Blu-Ray quality for around $149.00!

The makers missed the ball. Had they come out with affordable Blu-Ray machines that could record LAST YEAR, and only charged a small amount more for Blu-Ray disks, people would be buying into it much more. But they were too slow, too late, and too greedy.

I'm sticking to my old trusty DVD player/recorder. Thanks anyway.

I know how to trade or sell my used Blu-Ray disc. How do I trade or sell my used download? :-)

Speaking not as a technophile or AV-dweeb, we true movie lovers will never be completely satisfied with downloadable content until they provide ALL of the content that is currently available on DVD/BD. Commentaries, featurettes, documentaries, etc. are the main reason I'll be sticking to BD (which has it all over DVD when it's done right (see the "Iron Man," "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Hellboy" BDs, for instance)).

VHS still blows my mind away!!

Blue Ray had nothing on HD-DVD except the price point was higher and it had a cooler name. It was sad to see a cheap alternative ( HD-DVD ) get squashed by technophiles and marketing.

Blue ray will die long before DVD's because I do not need an High Def alternative to my DVD players. An up converter almost makes up the difference already ( not entirly but who cares ) Plus a title I can get on blue ray ( even the cheap ones ) for 15 - 20 dollars I can get on DVD for 5 to 10.

Storing on Harddrive is not there yet another 2 to 3 years and we will have it. Streaming may over take the download and store method before that point. I like sort of what is happening with Video Games and the Steam Server. I buy a liscence and then can watch the show when I want without having to have anything physically there. If I lose the disc no fear all I do is get back on the server and say here I am.

We will see where things go from here but Blue Ray was stupid. A DVD Manufacturer could have upgraded thier old DVD lines to HD DVD for a $100,000 and not had to pass the cost onto the consumer. Blue Ray required a completely new system running over a million dollars per line. Dumb Dumb Dumb.

Video games for the PS3 are on blue ray disc and they hold of ton of info. I would think this is still the best way to deliver video games.

a BD disk has about 40GB of data, say about 29GB for the movie and the English HD soundtrack. When the internet can offer to stream that amount of data without a lag or interruption or annoying ads, then i'll consider dumping the BD disk and player. until then BD rules.

HD audio is great but only a small segment of the market will ever lash out the large amounts of cash necessary to even hear it.

You need a high-end receiver and high-end speakers to even hear the range of frequencies properly presented.
Most don't have that and never will.

Far too many now are just fooling themselves & are either deliberately or unwittingly pretending that they hear it - mostly because a little light comes on on their cheapo receiver and the sound get a bit louder.

It's the same deal with image quality.
1080p only makes a big deal of difference at large screen sizes.
Most HD TVs sold are 32" - 42" & 720p sets.
There is a difference but not that much of a difference between Blu-ray at that size & DVD upscaled.

The fact is that high definition is great and all but for most it's just not worth the big premium Blu-ray demands.

and don't forget, thanks to bittorrent...yes I spoke of the "evil" word...technology that watching a movie/show immediately while it's downloading, that downloadable contents have became more practical.

as for dvds and blu-ray. dvd was revolutionary when it replaced vhs. there is nothing revolutionary between blu-ray and dvd...it's more like an upgrade.

The answer to both books and discs is definitely YES! Not everyone wants to pay $60 a month to get internet fast enough to stream in good quality. Number 2, no one wants to suck their bandwidth and speeds from their PC's while other family members want to watch a movie.

I do however, believe discs are getting archaic. I think the future is miniature hard-drives that you can pop into a box and browse through your movies. I agree that bluray really is going down as the betamax of the 21st century because the fact is its too damn expensive and not all that much better than a good ole $5 DVD.

Biggest issue in NZ is the restrictive caps, I'd be able to get one HD movie a month, not really worth it, plus then I'd have to deal with the slow download speeds we have.

As has already been stated the available content isn't completely HD, I'll stick with Blu-Ray for the full sound experience alone.

Also to anyone who thinks up scaling is almost as good you might want to get an eye check up.

Finally prices here aren’t that bad for new Blu-Ray disc eg I could pickup Hellboy II for $34.95 ($45 normally), compared to $30 for the DVD.

Most people don't understand blu-ray was a brand new format and a newly developed technology, where HD-DVD was not. Blu-possibly has or now maybe had far more to offer in the long run than HD-DVD ever would. The reason for the higher prices in the beginning is because it was a brand new technology that cost a lot to develop, this just wasn't about greed and it's ignorant to think that is what has hurt blu-ray.

Keep in mind it also was not just the high prices of the players or discs, full hd 1080p tv's have just finally come down and are still expensive so this has had a lot to do with people migrating to blu-ray, again that is not about greed. The format has had a rocky start and the technology wasn't quite there when they brought it out, in theory at the time it was a great idea. Downloads at this time still take too long and the resolution isn't that great, so blu-ray will be around for awhile. In the long run yes downloads will be the future. I forsee the day when the tv manufactures will get smart and start putting a 1, 2 or possibly 5tb drive right in the tv with wifi built in and ethernet port, so you can either stream or download directly to the tv with no extra set-top box. This will all come it's a matter of when, when the average Joe can afford a nice 50" full hd monitor and either a 50gb per sec cable or internet service.

As to the whining about the high prices please, if you're old enough you can remember when the totally crappy vhs players were $600 to $800 and movies $40 to $50 and that's early 1980's dollars, with inflation for today even a $500 blu-ray player is cheap.

We obviously don't need Blu-ray! I really don't think that there were a whole lot of people last year saying "You know...I'd really like to buy yet another device to play my movies on. Oh, and if you could make it cost twice as much, that would be great!" VHS to DVD to HD DVD to Blu-Ray?! COME ON PEOPLE! Just because THEY decide to sell you more crap doesn't mean you have to buy it. Digital distribution means zero waste! And don't give me this garbage about data caps! It always surprises me how complacent consumers are. Maybe if we weren't spending so much time re-inventing new versions of things we don't need (Thanks Blackberry, but Apple already gave us an iPhone), we could put some time and effort into important things like getting rid of those data caps and improving worldwide bandwidth capabilities. Or we could just keep shopping....

With technology changing as fast as it does, who's to say that movies in the next 5 years will even come on a disc? Forget downloads and optical disc drives with lots of moving parts. With all the advances in solid state drives and flash memory, why wouldn't a movie come on some sort of memory chip? Discs can be scratched and downloads can be deleted. Memory chips could be lost, but the device to play back a memory chip wouldn't need many (if any) moving parts, so it could be cheaper, smaller, quieter, and more reliable.

Personally, I use a DVD player and I have a netflix subscription so I stream video too. I would LOVE a BD player, but I've got two small kids and a wife who would veto a purchase like that in a heartbeat. Unless I can get sex and the city on BD for her... do you guys think that might work? :)

Rob - "hard drives can be erased, Optical disc are more permanent. I say Blu-ray is here to stay, Toshiba lost, too bad get over it!"

This is not a Toshiba or Sony issue... It's what's best for the consumers. That wasn't blu ray.

And news flash optical media isn't permanent. It scratches, breaks and wears down. Which your buddies then want all consumers to repurchase the movie again.

And yes blu ray sales have risen as losers line up to comedies, drama and old rehashed films in blu ray format when it is financially stupid to do so.

It is not the future, because the quality falls short. It's more like the laser disc which supposedly had a clear path and momentum before having its legs cut off.

If Blu ray sales is so great, why is Sony tanking?

Action Jackson - "BD still uses MPEG-2 if i'm not mistaken so there is room for improvement on the size as well"

It uses MPEG2, MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1. VC-1 is the better compression and was chosen by dvd forum.

Many people confuse the number of bits moving with quality of the picture/audio. This is far from the truth. A tighter compression like VC-1 takes more processing to compress but the decompression goes much smoother. As an example 48 kbps WMA10 sounds better than 192kbps mp3 (that's a 4 times grater rate). So which is really the more impressive?

MOVIELover - "Speaking not as a technophile or AV-dweeb, we true movie lovers will"

MOVIELover - "see the "Iron Man," "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Hellboy" BDs, for instance"

If you was a true technophile or AV-dweeb you wouldn't be pointing to blu ray with such an awe.

You'd know that 1080P falls way short of what true film buffs want. And that is the film exactly as it was recorded (currently that's digital tape)

This means 1080P is nothing more than a stop gap until media is available to hold the equivalent of digital tape.

So what did we have DVD 480P, Upconverted DVD's roughly 720P or higher depending company and technique, HD DVD 1080P loaded with features ability to provide cheap combo disks and cheap equipment, and then there is blu ray 1080P and much more expensive and a crappy roll out (basically launching old features selectively in new blu ray profiles as "look what the newest player can do" crap).

Sounds to me the best solution for the consumer didn't happen. And consumers should show some back bone and demand more. Then Pioneer would finally release their 1 TB monster disk, or some other real viable option like hologram. Even a flash type of system looks to give better future potential than current blu ray.

Billions upon billions of Blu-Ray discs will be sold...not for movies but for computer data storage. The format will survive.

I'm tired of all these articles about Blu-Ray "uncertainty" and Blu-Ray becoming "outdated" due to internet streaming and digital downloads. Digital downloads will NOT replace physical media -- I don't care how they package it. I would never buy a digital download unless it was free of copy protection AND offered the same video/audio quality of Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray movies can sometimes be as large as 20GB. Why would I want a 4GB compressed piece of garbage. Blu-Ray uses a compression too, but not that severe. Maybe for movie retals, but not for purchases. As long as people continue to buy movies, there will be a need for physical media. Also, there's still a large portion of the populations that doesn't even have high-speed internet.

I do not understand the rush to do in hard copies of entertainment and computer software media. I have had several friends lose all or some of their downloaded material myself include due to technique glitches. Home coping to disk is not always possible, and when it is the longevity of DVDR and CDR material is random. I personally will only buy computer and entertainment material on disk. This way I can restore and enjoy over and over again. Bruce L

Call me old fashioned but I'd much rather own something tangible than to own a downloaded movie with a stupid license attached to it. DRM is freakin ridiculous and is sometimes seen as a way to keep you from owning anything.

3 user downloads etc are becoming the norm but what happens if you buy a new computer? Do you still have access to the download?

At least with a tangible blu-ray/dvd/cd you OWN it...

The dvd/blue ray will be around for a while to come.
currently down loading is slow, & hard drive have size limits & don't travel well. If you have a kid your hard drive will be full of only one movie "spunge bob square pants" or some other item for months as he watches it 100 times. Car systems are difficult to plug in. Cloud computing & centeralized home automation is the future, there day is in the future, blue ray is today. just like dvd was the 90's and the vhs befor that.

Good points.

If you don't have an HDTV don't bother with blu-ray. There's no point unless you want to futureproof your dvd collection until you get that HD TV. Here is why I think blu-ray is here to stay.

1)It's always good to have a hard copy. Hard drives fail and you might lose passwords to re-download even if it possible.
2) You need high speed internet access.
3) Huge carbon footprint by leaving your computer on to download movies.
4)You really think you can get all the content you would on a 25GB Blue ray in a download. Where's all the extras?
5)Did anyone factor in how much in would cost for a media center computer and it to be hooked up to your TV.

With broadband services trying to cap usage, I don't think streaming will take over anytime soon and I don't think my provider (Comcast) is big hearted enough to raise my cap just to help Netflix etc. in their efforts to promote HD streaming. More likely they will just raise my rates if I want to stream HD movies. Maybe Obama will spend some of that stimulous package on beefing up the internet infrastructure so that bandwidth isn't a limitation anymore.

I'm one of those unfortunate people who can see the difference between HD and upscaled SD. So I'm painfully going to keep buying BD ;(

OTOH, I have friends who have no problem watching camcorder versions of movies on their 60" plasma. But if they represent the mass, who am I to argue.

Jason you have your head way up in there eh? You are a mental mess...

"Most people don't understand blu-ray was a brand new format and a newly developed technology, where HD-DVD was not."

Both are very similar using the same purple blue ray laser. The main difference was the disc structure blu ray opted to write closer to the surface requiring different disc structure and different positioning of the laser. Everything else is comparable... nothing technological earth shattering. So I would suggest you LEARN what you are talking about before posting non-sense.

Both was equally new... That is if you consider over 5 years ago new... pffft...

Jason - "Blu-possibly has or now maybe had far more to offer in the long run than HD-DVD ever would."

Umm ::: NEWS FLASH :::

Anything lower than digital tape quality, which is the exact replica of how it was originally recorded falls short.

Maybe that went over your head, basically any format that is not lossless is stop gap and hold a very short future. This is the reason 1600P TV's here now and going higher is right around the corner.

It is for this reason why the DVD consortium(forum) chose HD DVD. EXPERTS gathered, discussed, weighed and measured ALL ASPECTS of this very short era and it was selected because it offered more from the start period. And also had potential to expand if needed by simply altering the disc revolution.

So do I believe the vast many experts or Jason? hmmm hard decision... NOT !!!

Jason - "The reason for the higher prices in the beginning is because it was a brand new technology that cost a lot to develop, this just wasn't about greed and it's ignorant to think that is what has hurt blu-ray"

Tell us what things that make up blu ray declined in order for the price to drop from $1100 sucker realm to $400 range? post some facts please...

Ummm please post facts... because the licensing prices were through the roof which is why most movies have been produced in VC-1 and MPEG-2 than AVC. Only sony picture and its closest partner have created AVC format exclusively.

HD DVD played the same MPEG2 and VC-1 format. And as explained earlier bit rate means jack. A dvd player has the potential of surpassing 54 bit rate.

If it wasn't about greed then please explain in full detail why movie studios were on board with HD DVD. And couldn't find it in their heart to offer combo disks with no extra charge.

LOL... That's right the consortium envisioned the consumer able to purchase DVD/HD DVD movies and have an immediate collection that was future proofed. So that a family could have a collection ready for 1080P viewing whenever they were ready and no new purchase was needed.

Now what do I see? blu ray losers buying blu ray versions of movies they loved and owned all over again. Blu ray version of close encounters. Blu ray versions of comedies.

Right Jason... You got to be right no greed in that message.

Nor is it when Sony pays bribe money to have studios switch. No signs of greed there either...

Come on guy... Dig deeper...

And I'm not talking about Sony's Az...

"With the recent advent of high-speed, on-demand movies available in 1080p via Internet downloads, can a new, expensive physical disc even remain viable?"

An expensive one cant.

But if its cheap i have a feeling people will go with whats more convenient. Waiting for a download isn't and you can't fast forward or rewind in a stream.

There is also that satisfaction that people feel about owning a physical object. I don't think somebody builds an insanely big dvd collection because they watch all of them on a regular basis.

yeah! We are all waiting for those protein-coated discs Enlighten told us about over a year ago.

I'd normally weigh into DaveBG first, but his flip-flopping from one floundering Toshiba venture to another (HD DVD to XDE/SRT to flicks on chips) shows where his motives lie. Far be it from me to try and stop a guy making a living in these testing times!

Let's have a look at "Enlighten" though, just an innocent HD-DVD necrophilliac, or a DaveBG sockpuppet? We may never know. Or indeed care.

"basically any format that is not lossless is stop gap and hold a very short future." Sure. The masses are on the edge of their seat waiting for a lossless movie distribution format. Which currently isn't even in the proposal stage. To play on the 4k TVs. That they can't buy. Insightful little devil, ain't ya?

Hey, maybe home cine projectors will come back in on the wave of all this demand for lossless video?

"This is the reason 1600P TV's here now and going higher is right around the corner." Huh? The guy said Blu Ray was possibly more future proof than HD DVD, and that's your reply? WTF has that got to do with anything? Humouring you for a moment though, how many years do you reckon before 1600p or 4k sets are commonplace? "::: NEWS FLASH :::" By the time they are, you'll probably have grown out of that affected superior tone. Yep, It'll take THAT long!

"It is for this reason why the DVD consortium(forum) chose HD DVD. EXPERTS gathered, discussed, weighed and measured ALL ASPECTS of this very short era and it was selected because it offered more from the start period." Until they saw Blu Ray. And suddenly those same EXPERTS switched, till suddenly Blu Ray had 60% of exclusive studio support and 98% of consumer electronic manufacturers. The rest, as they say, is history. Much as you'd like to try and re-write it.

"And also had potential to expand if needed by simply altering the disc revolution." Huh? Engleesh please senor? You mean by spinning it faster? Que?

"Tell us what things that make up blu ray declined in order for the price to drop from $1100 sucker realm to $400 range? post some facts please." Get your own facts. Look up "economies of scale", "returns to scale", "value engineering". Come back when you've schooled yourself. Oh, and if you want to dispute the concepts, bring back some facts of your own as to why whatever whinge you're having about Blu Ray player pricing is any different to $2000 VHS players or $1500 DVD decks.

"And as explained earlier bit rate means jack. A dvd player has the potential of surpassing 54 bit rate." Again, huh? Do even you understand what you're saying. Bit rate doesn't mean "jack", unless you want to dispute that the best possible encode, using the same codec, at 30mb/s will be better than the best possible encode at 10mb/s? What DOES matter is bitrate WITH capacity. Increase the average bitrate without increasing capacity and you gain quality and lose runtime. Increase capacity without increasing average bitrate and you gain runtime but quality remains the same. And that's why HD DVD still sucked, even with those imaginary 51GB disks.

A great way to illustrate this point (and how little you understand) is to point out the glaring flaw in your suggestion that DVD can "handle" 54mb/sec. Ignoring the reality that the DVD movie specification sets a maximum transfer rate of 10mb/s, which makes higher bitrates irrelevant, were DVD movies to be produced using 54mb/s bitrates, the amount of runtime would decrease by as much as 80%. Without an accompanying increase in capacity, movies encoded using 54mb/s peak would be either very short or have long periods of exceedingly poor audio/visual quality.

"blu ray losers buying blu ray versions of movies they loved and owned all over again." And HD DVD losers buying..... well, nothing. LOL.

"Nor is it when Sony pays bribe money to have studios switch. No signs of greed there either..." Yep, you're 100% right. I mean, the studios would be plumb CRAZY to switch to the format that outsold HD DVD movies 2:1 for an entire year, matched HD DVD in standalone sales, had 8 million PS3s in the wild, and would be the only choice that would be rapidly adopted by ALL studios, unless there was a big payout in it for them. I mean, when HD DVD's figures looked so attractive and all. And the fact that no big payouts show up on Sony or the studios books, even though the amount Sony is supposed to have paid (what do HD DVD fanbois have it at now? A GAZILLION DOLLARS? LMAO) would be much harder to hide than those "marketing incentives" we know HD DVD paid out last year. Well, SEC filings are EASY to fake eh? And there's stilleto heel prints on the moon landing 'photos! I've seen em!

I hope I've been able to go some way to helping correct the obvious disparity between your handle and your actual state of mind. I've certainly done all I can to "Enlighten" you, but whether your hater/fanboy mindstate will let you absorb it is up to you, and you alone.

Seems strange how when multi format games are released that they're pretty much similar in quality and content seeing how the Xbox 360 doesnt have a high capacity media drive ... so apart from specific PS3 only games what games developer is going to make 2 versions of the same game just to make use of the storage capabilities of a Blu-Ray disc over other formats?

I used to be all about playstation but for me they've lost their way. I'm a firm believer that Microsoft have done them over good and proper. Microsoft have had the 360 out there and selling for a hell of a lot longer than the PS3, no doubt they have the next console in development as well. What have Sony got to go on ... they sure aren't gonna be raking the money in from console sales to pay off the billions it took to develop the PS3 that they can then plough into the next console. Sony are now playing catchup because they bit off more than they can chew. They're beginning to pay the price for allowing the Xbox to get such a head start on the next gen console market im afraid.

single layer BD (which is what the use for movies and games) is only 25 GB of which most disks are only 2/3's full. If you don't believe me buy a BD player for your PC and see for your self. Most movies avg. about ~13GB with sound, the rest is other languages and extras.

If you remember correctly I named over four technologies sitting their in waiting.

Including pioneers 1 TB disk, hologram, mempile
www.tgdaily.com/content/view/35482/135

But you might not remember it, jackAZ.

It's a fact that other technologies are sitting there waiting for use. Maybe bribe money is being paid to hold them back.

If your remove your head from sony long enough you can learn about other tech.

Lets be clear about one thing... I'm not sore that HD DVD lost. I couldn't care less. I'm stating a fact that what happened wasn't in the CONSUMERS best interest. Period!!!

I think what is lost in all of this, is you forgot you are one of us... Your fight should be for the best for consumers as a whole.

*** READING AND COMPREHENDING IS KEY ***

I don't own any 1080P.

The simple fact as previously stated ONLY SPECIAL EFFECTS and Visual stunners are worth getting in high def.

480P comedie's, love storie's, drama's and western's are just fine for viewing.

Jack Az #2 - "Sure. The masses are on the edge of their seat waiting for a lossless movie distribution format."

Again reading and comprehending is key... I clearly stated "If you was a true technophile or AV-dweeb you wouldn't be pointing to blu ray with such an awe."

Where did I say the masses wanted lossless?

You don't realize that DOWN -GRADED video is beating 1080P ownership by far. Yes, the many are electing to own bootleg copies of films rather than pay for DVD's in many cases. So why would 1080P matter to them?

I see you follow that "Never let facts get in the way of a good posting..." philosophy, confirming much...

Jack Az #2 -"Huh? The guy said Blu Ray was possibly more future proof than HD DVD, and that's your reply? WTF has that got to do with anything?"

Blu ray as it stands today doesn't hold the capacity for that high of a video demand.

Furthermore the 'guy' said "Blu-possibly has or now maybe had far more to offer in the long run than HD-DVD ever would."

HD DVD was approved for a triple layered disk blah blah blah

Basically each company con continue to add layers to create more space per disc.

They were using similar technology so how is one more secure than the other for the future?

That being said they both didn't offer the gains needed to hold the storage of digital tape.

Jack Az #2 - "Humouring you for a moment though, how many years do you reckon before 1600p or 4k sets are commonplace? "

Oh this is a very easy one... Glad you asked...

The future lies in monitors rather than TV's. TV's lagged well behind monitor and not that we have entered a high def era for all games, video, pictures etc. The move is to have components capable of multipurpose use. This is the reason more tv's are chasing refresh rates and displaying max resolution capabilities.

Media centers/players/computers offer much more in features and use than DVR's

So before we discuss displays, lets talk about just one of the current technologies that been sold over the past year.

The integrated Silicon Optix Realta® HQV® video processor is just one of the cuurent techs. This baby has been doing 1080P upconversions to 1600P for over a year. Yes nimb rod... people have been upconverting to 1600P since last year.

Now go get sales figures on the large screened monitors from Dell, Apple, Samsung and most importantly gateway.

The Gateway XHD3000 has 1600P upconverting built into the monitor. It has HDMI, VGA, DVI, Composite (2), S-Video, Component, USB 2.0 (6).

Hey??? Still there? do you follow???

So basically you can input your computer, cable, media player, your digital converter box yada yada directly this monitor.

So to answer your question... People are there ready and waiting for the content to come along. And as I stated before it's a niche market, because this stuff doesn't matter to the masses.

Since you seem a bit 'Thick', this may have went very high over your head...

I'd suggest getting a family or close friend to regurgitate it to you. Or hell maybe I'll 'dummy it down' a bit and reprint the "For Dummies" version later.

[Could you tone down the negativity directed at the other poster a bit? -Rick]

I suggest you re-read your own posts, rather than expecting me to explain them to you.

You could start by trying to reconcile comments like "basically any format that is not lossless is stop gap and hold a very short future" with "Yes, the many are electing to own bootleg copies of films rather than pay for DVD's in many cases. So why would 1080P matter to them?"

Once you've picked the stupidity out of those two, you could go on and examine which resolution of HDTV is the fastest growing sector of the market by a big margin (hint: it rhymes with pen-baity-tree).

Once you've got all that out of the way, perhaps you'd fancy addressing my other points. To recap, I pointed out the stupidity of your comments on lossless video, illustrated that your "54mb/s DVD" statement is hogwash, asked you if you really believed a 30mb/s encode was the same as a 10mb/s encode as it appears, raised the ugly subject that despite your HD DVD flag waving, support for the format was virtually non existant, and lastly challenged you to present any evidence of your Sony payoff conspiracy theory by pointing out precisely why the idea of the studios siding with HD DVD would have been completely illogical.

Alternatively, just keep squirming with self-defeating observations about "facts" that'd be less hypocritical were you not doing your damnest to dodge them, with a healthy dose of contradictory smoke-screen thrown in for good measure.

This will further prove my point...

Jack Az #2 - "Until they saw Blu Ray. And suddenly those same EXPERTS switched, till suddenly Blu Ray had 60% of exclusive studio support and 98% of consumer electronic manufacturers. The rest, as they say, is history. Much as you'd like to try and re-write it."

The DVD consortium examined both technologies...

I even stated "if you consider over 5 years new".

::: NEWS FLASH :::

This competition to for the next format began around 2003. And both were on the table.

They didn't see HD DVD and the BAM !!! blu ray popped on the scene and took them by surprised.

Try reading...

www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36105/135/

There are many other sources... It is for this reason your post are empty, meaningless words. How can you make a point or teach others when you wont take the time to educate yourself?

Take some personal pride... so wonder you post nameless...

[If you're here to help, then help. There are polite ways to bring people around. You don't have to attack them personally to guide them toward enlightenment, Enlighten.

Also, FWIW, I believe that any lossy compression algorithm is a stop-gap measure. Whereas we do not have the capacity today to maintain lossless formats, the time will most likely come. And formats are constantly changing as newer algorithms are created (typically requiring more compute power).

Look at MP4's theoretical expansive abilities, to include software-generated patterns based on things like CGI algorithms which mimic the real video through computer generated manipulation. These could theoretically produce nearly lossless images at a fraction of the bandwidth used today to store sampling and digital maps.

There is no limit to what the future holds when it comes to lossless storage. Even today hard drives are available which can store over an hour of 1080p 60fps uncompressed video (which requires 250 MB/s of storage, something unthinkable 5 years ago). Imagine what we'll have in 5 more years. -Rick]

"single layer BD (which is what the use for movies and games) is only 25 GB of which most disks are only 2/3's full. If you don't believe me buy a BD player for your PC and see for your self. Most movies avg. about ~13GB with sound, the rest is other languages and extras."

Or if you must talk garbage, at least try and pick something that's at least easier to disprove....

http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=3338 - table showing bitrate, movie file size and disk size

Jack Az #2 - "unless you want to dispute that the best possible encode, using the same codec,"

I wasn't comparing the same codecs. I said VC-1 is a tighter compression than AVC. AVC need more bits flying around to produce the same quality.

I even added an audio comparison between WMA 10 and MP3. But I guess you still don't get it.

Jack Az #2 - "What DOES matter is bitrate WITH capacity. Increase the average bitrate without increasing capacity and you gain quality and lose runtime. Increase capacity without increasing average bitrate and you gain runtime but quality remains the same."

You don't have a clue what you are talking about. The capacity is not needed if the compression is of equal quality.

For example 48 kbps WMA10 sounds better and in turn is a smaller than 192kbps mp3.

So to play the same quality of music between the two formats the number of WMA 10 songs on a cd mini would have to be on a full cd for the MP3 equivalent.

You can't seem to grasp that... Instead of focusing on that the fact that you don't need a full CD to hold what you NEED. You are locked into size of a full CD and total data that CAN be stored.

Again I can't help you anymore without adding a "For Dummies" section.

Jack Az #2 - "And that's why HD DVD still sucked, even with those imaginary 51GB disks."

Oh man...

If you are correct then why are most films in MPEG-2 and VC-1?

Why didn't blu ray say AVC only?

Hey jack az... The Harry Potter series is in the exact same VC-1 format as it was show on HD DVD.

Please put it in and tell me how terrible it looks on blu ray. In fact write the studios and boy-cot all movies released on inferior MPEG2 and VC-1.

And both sides did it with Sony paying more

"Warner's hand was forced and it went with Blu-ray, receiving a reported $500 million for doing so"

www.post-gazette.com/pg/08012/848675-96.stm

www.techradar.com/news/home-cinema/high-definition/hd-dvd-camp-in-150m-paramount-bribe-165403

www.g4tv.com/CES2008/blog/post/682149/WB_Got_Payout_From_BluRay.html

www.techradar.com/news/home-cinema/high-definition/hd-dvd-camp-in-150m-paramount-bribe-165403

www.variety.com/article/VR1117984986.html?categoryid=13&cs=1

So you say Sony wouldn't dare be involve with any type of bribery... They have been caught before

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2002402073_sony26.html

DVDs use MPEG2, BLURAY uses MPEG4.

So what was wrong with putting MPEG4 on DVDs? You get 4x the resolution at the same quality, and same space. That would have been more than enough for HDTV.

So now, we really didn't *need* another format, we just need DVD players that support MPEG4. Most of them already have done for years, now.

But it's all about the money, isn't it?

1080p full colours and 7.1 etc.. or 720p and half colour and 2.1? Or 576p and 1/5th colour and 5.1?

Sorry but blu-Ray wins every single time and will continue to do so because everyone on this site is forgetting that 90% of the customers will not like to change from physical format to digital format. This isn't a mobile or landline arguement, these people only care to watch it in their homes and they know how things should work on a physical format.

Downloads will not be out of a cliche arena until at the earliest 2015. Even if the USA, EU, China and Japan all suddenly installed 100MB optical across their nation.... the whole internet would crash. There is no infrastructure in place designed for DL movies, and it costs to much to get it in place before 2015. Simple fact that destroys this debate really when DL fans realise a billion people will be using their prefered method.

Blu-ray=waaay too little, waaaay too late, waaaay too expensive.

No good to backup my $100 1-Terabyte hard drives ... it would take over $200 in blank discs plus >$150 for the recorder. So too litlle. I need at LEAST 100GB recordeable discs (and not 25gb like blu-ray BD-R) costing $2 (instead of $5-$20 per disc for blu-ray).

It would've been fine a couple of years ago when I had 250gb drives. No good for upcoming 3-D programs and new technologies, such as 4K (quad-hd) tv's and setop boxes. So too late.

And players are still >$200 and recorders are but an expensive light in the future. Even computer drive recorders are expensive, slow, and finicky.

Blu-ray is today the way it should've been about 3 years ago. Today we should have $150 home RECORDER/PLAYERS and $50 computer burners. Movies should be under $20 and blank discs under $2.

So it's a pass technology for me. I prefer hard-drives and digital home networks and HD divx players. I will wait for blu-ray's substitute or new blu-ray versions that can do 1080p 3D resolution and costs $150 for a home recorder.

I'm in no hurry. I can watch HD on satellite just fine, and have no trouble with the occasional movie worth of the 1080p treatment either.

Simple facts: not everyone has high speed internet that likes to watch movies in high definition. Same thing with music, not everyone downloads through itunes. Some people actually buy hard copy cd's.

DVD is still the best image that my TV can display, why would I invest in HD? It means a new TV, new movies, etc. And it means my DVDs now look like crap, which means I'd need to buy my movies again? Forget it. I've already bought Blade Runner on VHS, then on DVD... the line must be drawn HERE! /Picard

First they have to use cameras and telecines that are lossless. Not many are. Usually they cap at 25-50 MB/s. Even for HD broadcast. But everyone still raves about HD quality, so what is the point of full 250 MB/s video? Also you would need to move into the 4:4:4 color space. Even HD is mostly 4:1:1 or 4:2:0, some is going to 4:2:2, but 4:4:4 eats up a lot of bandwidth.

Then there is my main argument about any of this specification comparison. Can you REALLY tell the difference? You brain has limits. Sure you can say that you can tell, but some double blind testing is needed. This has been going on in the HiFi market for some time. One of my favorite studies is where they hooked up an A-B switch and told the audiophiles that one side was standard speaker cable and the other was super-duper cable. Everyone heard a difference, some on A, some on B. Then they were told that the A-B switch wasn't hooked up and the speaker cable was standard. Yet, the audiophiles still spend $1,000s on cables (yes $1,000s look up Pear Cables).

If we aren't careful this kind of rip-off will become prevalent in video as well. Can you really tell the difference with a 19" TV? Yet, they sell 19" 1080p HDTVs! Many people thought they were watching 1080i when the TVs could only display 760p. They didn't realize that a TV has only one resolution and down-converted a 1080i input to 760 and then deinterlaced. They swore 1080i was better than 760p. But the quality just depended on their sets video processor. Now we have people on 32" TVs saying there is a big difference between 760p and 1080p. Is there really? If you have a 60" I could see it, but you must be way too close to your TV if you see a difference on a 32" set.

I posted more answers here
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/40883/97/

Because my posts are beig unfairly censored here

Very nicely put about Bluray and HD DVD. I'm sad that the inexpensive HD DVD got bullied out of the market.

My brother just bought a $325 Sony Bluray(2.0 profile) player and got Dark Knight($35) on bluray. So we're sitting there ready for some high def experience, and my first experience with bluray. He pops the disc in and it takes 28 minutes before the movie starts. 28 MINUTES! I have a HD DVD add on for the 360 and any HD DVD movie I threw in it, it played right away. I don't want to wait when I put a movie in. Just play the movie.

Bluray isn't ready for market consumption let alone a public beta yet.

$8.99 plan, you get a vast selection of movies, television programming that you can stream instantly to your computer, set-top-box, or Xbox 360 in Standard and High-Def.

I got it and I'm on DSL elite, best deal I've ever made.

DVD and Blu-Ray, the standard and high def formats for discs have become irrelevant to me.

Wooga! Wooga wooga! WOOGA!