Blu Ray has won - or has it?

Question

A Blu Ray disc carries 50GB of data. Compact flash memory cards are available up to 64GB and needs no moving parts. Is this the future of HD video?

Answer 1

I almost didn't post an answer here but then my newsfeed popped up and I read an article that was too timely. AGB90 might be more correct than I thought. Blockbuster will start experimenting with in-store digital downloads.

http://www.internetretailer.com/article....

Still, VOD, Vudu, Netflix and Blockbuster downloads, Amazon Unbox is the way of the future.

Blu-Ray did win though and is now growing at a tremendous pace. As a dealer I am having a hard time getting Blu-Ray players for my customers because the of a shortage of ALL stand-alone players. PS3 has actually been in better supply but now that the war is over all the people who were sitting on the fence have been purchasing (and they are not purchasing PS3. PS3 buyers weren't sitting on the fence they were buying already)

Compact Flash is fine but it won't be a especially selected over other non volatile memory for movies.

Way to not answer the question Adze. As for why buy Blu-Ray, I don't know.... maybe so you can watch a great variety of High Definition movies since HD DVD won't be available for long and upscaled DVD don't look nearly as good as BD movies. Oh yeah and you can get one starting around $299.

Answer 2

Given Moore's "Law" flash drive memory can be expected to be at a price/capacity point within about 2-3 years to become a viable mechanism for downloading HD movies for transfer.

There are other technical issues than capacity to be addressed, such as interface speed -- which for a 30-50 GB file would need to be faster than presently possible -- and business models (including infrastructure, pricing, appropriate controls on copying, provision for replacement if accidently deleted or lost, etc)

But that said, one can envision central download locations (even grocery or convenience stores) with several thousand videos available, where a consumer would bring a flash drive and download an HD movie with a rent or buy option. If done right everyone would have the option of carrying a flash drive on their car keys and being able to -- on the spur of the moment -- decide to "pick up" the latest film to take home and transfer to the home media centre storage unit. Such a system could easily be in place within 5 years.

At the same time other distribution mechanisms, such as satellite downloads, streaming VOD services and internet delivery are also possible (particularly for less than 1080p resolution), and some (e.g. XStreamHD) will probably be active earlier than a flash drive based system.

I think Blu-ray and DVD will coexist for quite a few years to come since any of these download / flash drive transfer models are counter to many people's preference for "physical ownership". That said, I believe the predominance of optical media is going to be lost ... with Blu-ray (or maybe some minor variation on it) being the last optical disc format.

Good question.

Answer 3

I like all the ideas of what's being said here.  I agree and disagree with a lot of it.

Bottom line.  Blu-Ray did win.  What it won was the next generation optical media to replace DVD.  The battle was against HD-DVD.  Optical media is heavily adopted by all major movie studios, and optical media is the foremost preference of consumers over anything else.  And I think it will always have the majority of marketshare because of movie studios and consumers in general.

I don't believe anything will come to replace Blu Ray as an optical format.  I figure, what's the point really?  You've got some distributors in Japan claiming to have Ultra High Def ready for the market in 10 to 15 years or 1080p times 4.  But think about it, why?  Why put more clarity in a household 52" ideal size TV where it is hard for most people to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p resolution.  Blu Ray conveniently fits with the current generation and any notion of needing to upgrade to Ultra High Def and Ultra media is absurd.  

Now, all the talk of HD downloads, yes it has a future, and will gain marketshare, but will never be capable of taking over the movie business.  Producing cheap media will always trump having to incorporate more and more storage and bandwidth for movies.  And the talk of Flash cards.  You know people won't go for that.  People will wind up losing movies left and right.  People in their right mind won't veer too far away from having real libraries as opposed to virtual or microscopic ones.  And the worst disease if downloads ever takes off is p****y.  I think downloads opens many more gates of p****y than optical media ever will.  Downloads just sound a little too quirky to become dominant.  We're talking tons more storage, tons more bandwidth, revamping the entire cable network to account for this, and the many threats to the movie industry in p****y and sharing.

Answer 4

Blu-Ray hasn't won anything yet, it killed off HD DVD but nobody wants HD movies yet, tbh excluding the sales of the PS3 Blu-ray would be dead

Answer 5

Blu Ray,far far to expensive.I picked a HDmi DVD player/recorder up for £49.99.00,from Argos and it plays any DVD,even enhances older DVD`s.So whats the use of buying

a Blu Ray player costing five hundred quid when i can get

a better player for less than fifty pounds.

Answer 6

Compact Flash cards are still fairly volatile at the moment so, for the time being, Blu Ray will dominate.

Answer 7

Cost of a DVD against cost of a flash card, to a publisher.

Capacity necessary to hold a publication. 50G would be more than enough.

Answer 8

Probably.... eventually. Not now though. By the time Compact Flash is a serious option I predict that Blu Ray will have had it's day and have been replaced with something else.

There is more to consider. What is the tranfer rate of a Compact Flash Card? And how expensive are they? Only the most expensive CF cards come close to the performance specs of the cheapest crummiest blue ray setup.

Answer 9

True, Blu -ray has won. And flash card memory capacity is becoming huge. But one thing that really matters: price. You can get a Blu-Ray movie for about £20 (less on-line). What price would be a movie on a 64Gb flash stick? £70+? Movies on disc will win here, and technology would have to be developed quickly (and cheaply) and in the public eye for flash cards to ever dominate the way we watch films in the future. The initial cost of the new hardware required could be massive, and would not be not backward compatible (unlike Blu-Ray) with existing DVD's of which there are millions. Blu-Ray for at least the next ten years, folks!

Answer 10

Blu_ray won, but the future is in DOWNLOADS!  

Apple TV HD Downloads Rule!