Comments on: Blu-Ray: Losing the Popularity Contest

By: Blu-ray ownz

Blu-ray ownz — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:58:10 +0000

Teh future is Blu!

By: Lancer Kind

Lancer Kind — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:15:47 +0000

This blog posting feels as blustery as a corporate press release. Let’s keep it real.

By: Media Master

Media Master — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 22:52:23 +0000

Well it would apear that blue ray is now out selling HD-DVD 2 to 1 and has majority of the studios under its belt. With at Hitachi 200 gig blue ray disc on its way it would appear that blu-ray isnt going anywhere for quite some time. Its cheap affordable and contains a 1080p picture quality and 7.1 channels of surround sound how could you go wrong.

By: Shinto

Shinto — Thu, 17 May 2007 09:22:06 +0000

Yeah why stick to Old Technology. Blu-Ray is ALREADY old technology. HD-DVD is ALREADY old technology. The time for Terabyte Formats are already here. we already have Holographic media formats that have exponentially more space than blu-ray drives. so yeah Blu-ray is just going to be another Lazer-disc a stop-gap measure for the next generation of superior formats.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 03:26:41 +0000

Wow. Porn huh? The only thing sillier than this argument, if I may ad hominem, is the Apple causes progress argument.
Blu-ray will definitely succeed, even if it is relagated to the comptuer storage role. I have one in my Dell lappy as I type this. But note, optical storage has is specific uses, Enterprise server standards (beta like!) still use tape mediums that hold half a terrabyte of information per cartridge-and its about the size of your fascist ipod too. Had one of these tape’s on my desks awhile back too.
So . . .whether or not Sony wins the market of video library waits to be see. I’m pretty sure, like some guy above me, that downloading video and transferring to optical (or tape!) discs for storage should take off. Logically, a blu-ray disk is a better choice because it holds more data.

The list of co-patents to blu-ray is something I want to look into. I wonder if these are merely investors of sorts . . .

By: Whatcha Talkin 'bout Willis?

Whatcha Talkin 'bout Willis? — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 22:28:11 +0000

I hope they both succeed. Eventually companies like Apex will make players that play both formats. PS3 w/ a few games and about 20 BR movies.

As for the porn industry, there are already releases in both formats. As for you Sony haters, beta-max was a hit in the commercial market. Yes it failed in residential. Mini-disc did average in the US but is huge in other countries.

By: A Moore

A Moore — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 18:08:51 +0000

I hate to say it but, the battle between beta max and VHS came down to Porn. Content is always a player in format battles. Many small video stores back in the day (befor Block buster) had adult sections and all of the porn videos where on VHS. Why? For 2 reasons VHS had a longer running time and it was cheaper. The porn market was defiantly responsible for making VHS the format of choice.

Lets take a look at the power of porn!!!

Just take a look at the internet; Porn, Porn, Porn and more Porn!!!

Once more I hate to say it! Porn is responsible for most of the advancement in multimedia over the net.

Why did MiniDV take off so fast? Porn Producers started using it to make movies. It was cheap and it worked good. Then Consumer market started using it.

The Porn industry is always the first to adopt new technologies and porn is a world wide multi-trillion dollar industry.

I’m curious to see which format the porn industry adopts first: Blu-ray or HD-DVD. What ever format the Porn industry adopts first will be the winning format!!!

NO I’M NOT A PORN FANTIC!!!!! BUT I JUST WANTED TO ISSUE ALL YOU YOUNG-INS A HISTORY LESSON ABOUT FORMATS AND PORN!!!!!

By: Wayde

Wayde — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 13:56:26 +0000

I want Blu-ray to die an ignominious death in the valley of so much consumer electronics garbage.

One Standard - HD DVD!

By: kame san

kame san — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:33:15 +0000

Yea, when i saw the blu-ray discs at CES 2006 i was like wow that is awesome… for storage. But i didnt even fathom using it for high-definition movies. When the price of the drives and their media goes down i am definately getting a drive for my computer, they are like little hard drives.

By: drdrew

drdrew — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 21:21:05 +0000

I don’t normally respond to nonsensical ramblings of twelve year olds, but I couldn’t help posting this:

“To be in FREEMODE we ask that you be our friend and hang out with us, we normally do not let people join FREEMODE that are stupid. We do not want to seem like a group of bad people, we are all nice and we cannot have people doing stupid things to ruin our image.”

so, ffs, just how is it that you’re involved? “…well your an idiot.” doesn’t seem very good for your image and makes you look stupid because it’s “you’re an idiot”. at least learn to insult someone correctly.

i’ll give you another shot though… post some persuasive information that supports…whatever argument it is that you support to enlighten us, oh wise one. unless you’re too busy watching G4…

By: Andyk

Andyk — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 17:16:15 +0000

For personal computers bluray is going to trounce everything else for the near future because it has the major computer manufacturers behind it. As for video content, I give it a year max before Apple and other online stores are offering HD content for download - why bother mucking around with removable discs when you can have all of your movies just a couple of clicks away?

By: George Moschovitis

George Moschovitis — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 13:19:11 +0000

I cannot agree with this post. I see big companies like Sony and Samsung push BR devices. The PS3 is coming (and I think it will be a great success). Most Movie studios support BR.

Anyway I expect most movies to be delivered in digital form (over your internet connection) in the near future. Even so, BR will be more usable (for example as a backup tool) thanks to the greater capacity.

By: anon

anon — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 10:20:42 +0000

ecammit - you’ve been drinking way too much apple koolaid.

By: theBike45

theBike45 — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 04:44:22 +0000

I’m tired of hearing how supposedly superior formats were thoughtlessly
discarded by the public. Betamax was marginally superior in ways that were of
no benefit whatsoever to the consumer. Its problems were that 1) you had to pay a premium for a player that would accept the tapes; 2) the tapes weren’t long enough to hold most movies at an appropriate speed. Sony didn’t realize that rental movies were going to be such a large factor.
It’s hard to believe that Sony , of all companies, should be so incredibly arrogant as to believe that the public will follow their lead after the BetaMax
debacle. No company can possiby be this stupid and in denial. After all of their recent catastrophes with laptop batteries, poor sales, etc. , another catastrophic format war defeat isn’t what Sony needs. They seem to be failing at every single thing they try to do these days. Sony is nothing but a shell of what it once was. I don’t think the company can long avoid Chap 11.
Public surveys recently have shown surprisingly hostile feelings against
Sony in general and BluRay in particular. This is unheard of with respect to Sony. It just shows that even the strongest company can be laid low by managerial incompetence. And it doesn’t take all that long to occur.

By: Ben Dalton

Ben Dalton — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 04:29:36 +0000

Anders:

Thanks for the correction! I hadn’t realized that.

Way to go CrunchGear… this is the best discussion of this topic I’ve seen in a long time…

By: Dougless

Dougless — Sun, 10 Dec 2006 00:07:36 +0000

So I dont get it, whats the problem, Blu-Ray uses a 405 nm blue-violet laser to make its mark and so does HD-DVD, but Blu-Ray clearly had more storage capacity, so why cling to old technology?

By: R. Jackson

R. Jackson — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 23:16:24 +0000

HD-DVD makes more sense because it allows current DVD production lines to be converted to HD-DVD production instead of companies having to completely retool for a new format. BUT, at the end of the day it’s going to be about content and I think Blu-Ray having more studios onboard will turn the tide for them. Especially since they have 20th Century Fox, whose business is largely effects-heavy blockbusters that will translate extremely well to high definition. They’ll start rolling out box sets of the Alien and Star Wars movies by next summer and HD-DVD won’t have a reply. I think that’s what will end up winning the format war this time, even though HD-DVD makes more sense in a lot of ways and has had a nearly year-long lead on the marketplace.

By: Grady Miller

Grady Miller — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 23:05:49 +0000

I think the most likely scenario right now, given the low overall number of HD capable households and the fact that DVD is still a more than viable candidate when it comes to an enhanced movie experience, is that HD-DVD and Blue-Ray will both fail and some new 3rd option will reveal itself in 3-4 years when there is a wider adoption of HD television and A/V equipment. I own the 360 HD-DVD, but I have no illusions that I’m an early adopter who jumped on right boat. I think given the low number of titles and sales in the HD-DVD and BR markets right now for players and movies, neither one is winning anything, while good ol’ DVD is cleaning up, and to be honest, should be. It’s 90% of what the home theater experience should be, and it’s not worth $500-$1000 for most people to move that extra 10%, even if they DO have the HD equipped home theater to make it worthwhile.

By: ecammit

ecammit — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 22:27:37 +0000

I look at it this way…

Apple has a big part in this. If you all remember when USB came out it was not readily adopted due to other interface formats that were still available (PS/2, serial, parallel). This was until Apple switched their entire desktop line over to USB only peripherals and jump-started the USB trend. Likewise, the same sort of thing happened with wireless internet. Apple pioneered the Airport on 802.11b and solidified that as the standard (over 802.11a). They later adopted 802.11g and again things followed suit. This same trend can be seen with both Firewire and Bluetooth as well (but to a lesser extent). Now Apple is including Blu-ray drives in their desktops.

I’m not saying Apple doesn’t have it’s own share of banking on losing technologies, just that lately Apple has tipped the scales in one direction or the other despite their small user base. With the popularity of the iPod right now and with Apple in being cast in a favorable light, I wonder what that will do to bolster the popularity of Blu-ray.

Also, looking upon the list of companies involved in the creation of Blu-ray, you will notice that both Dell and HP are on the list. If you take Apple, Dell, HP, and Sony and add them together, you get a HUGE chunk of the personal computer market. That has to count for something.

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 22:19:24 +0000

SONY needs to solve its internal battle between its “content” side, which wants to DRM everything it sells, with its hardware side which depends on consumers buying a brand for ease of use and and playability with any content. SONY needs to realize that freeing up the restrictions on its content will allow it to sell more hardware—–lots more hardware.