Blu-ray Prognosis: Samsung gives Five Years to Live, BDA says Life Eternal

DavidW

DavidW

Audioholics Contributing Writer
As long as we're pointing out spelling, that would be Griffiths.

:) Just trying to interject some light humor. Please, back to the discussion...
Touche.

I just threw in the spelling comment because I was entertained by the confluence of statements about the Pocket-Lint article not being understandable to second graders, that the commenter also found the article incomprehensible, and then an obvious spelling error in a direct criticism with the correct spelling available at the top of every page on the site.
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
...the article clearly shows Mr. Griffiths speaking about Blu-ray...
Yes, I do believe he is, but it is entirely unclear what context he is referring to Blu-ray in from that article, and many sites have taken it to mean the LIFE of Blu-ray, when the real meaning of the statement is not at all clearly defined.

"I think it [Blu-ray] has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn't give it 10"

Neither Mr. Griifiths nor Samsung have refuted what was printed by Pocket-Lint about the content of the original interview concerning Blu-ray's lifespan. So, unless they do, that is the only truth we have.
Yet, the truth is spun to add words which were never said, and this site is not the only one which has done so. The only 'truth' you have is that Andy wouldn't give "it ten years (of what?) left" - life? profitability? growth? excitement?

With the tie into the growth and excitement he has about OLED, and the strong statements made about the current state of Blu-ray, I would feel compelled to follow up on what the words meant before I decided for him.

And as you can well imagine if Griffiths was speaking out of turn about company views, a large corporation like Samsung would very likely disown his statements publicly.
Likely, yes, I personally keep waiting for some clarification.

The article was not particularly well written, but it is readable. If second grade reading comprehension skills are insufficient, I might suggest taking the next educational step and attend third grade.
At third grade you would likely understand fully that it makes no sense, but it's far better to go through college so you can interpret what was read in your own way, then re-write it to match your views as you choose instead of actually reading what was written, or doing any journalistic work (or effort) to try to find out what was actually meant by such potentially controversial words.

What is interesting is that many of the articles I previously listed seem to have been aware of the logical discontinuity as well and clearly understood that Griffiths was not citing OLED as a direct replacement for Blu-ray.
Nobody with technological savvy thinks a new flat panel display technology will replace an optical disc format designed to play movies back on it. But, from a VP point of view, where PROFITS matter most, the cash from OLED could be considered to be significantly greater than that of Blu-ray, and the real excitement of the company (Samsung) could shift from BD to OLED in the next five years or so. Having absolutely zero impact on the status, or growth, or current market conditions (in five years) of BD.

Perhaps try reading beyond the first hit from Google.
I actually would prefer not to read another misquote of the original article and what was actually said, and would prefer to hear more of what was truly said. So many websites, so few journalists.

If one spends some time taking economics courses...
Very true! And a company stretching current production capacities to their limits, with minimal competition, likely will gain the most ROI when they price their products accordingly, but low enough to generate high market sales levels at that time. I get it, I get it. But, the levels of BD at this time are in line, if not ahead of pace, for BDA predictions of growth. Samsung sure isn't complaining at this time.

This gets into the market elasticity of demand curves which are not really linear or even just slightly curved as shown in elementary texts, but if there is a disproportionate increase in demand when crossing below a certain price threshold, more total revenue can be made by increased unit sales that produces greater profits than keeping prices higher with a correspondingly higher profit margin.
Only if you have the capability and capacity to do so, which has not been the case to date with Blu-ray manufacturers. It also rails against proven growth patterns for CE, which is the pattern which is being followed by the BDA.

Samsung will still make money when prices drop and demand increases, they seem to have managed well enough on low price DVD players, just like everyone else.
Make money, yes - but how much compared to how much they are making now, or over the next five years? When they have a ton of competition, from a lot more low priced players, which may be considered 'better'? How much will Samsung really be making for their efforts?

There are many others besides Audioholics who feel that Blu-ray may have been a stop gap measure.
Most of them supported HD DVD and didn't feel that HD DVD was a stop gap, but as soon as HD DVD died, they certainly jumped on the DD bandwagon... except most didn't - most actually turned towards Blu-ray.

Even Sony is starting to push downloadable content through their best selling Blu-ray player, the PS3.
I'm not arguing downloads - I praise downloads, but the fact that the national infrastructure to support downloads is limited, at best, is incredibly fractured across manufacturers, and leaves a ton of CEs out in the cold right now is a simple reality. The basic infrastructure, without ISPs capping monthly downloads, is still about a decade away. And that ignores HD quality being delivered properly.

If that does not bring some irony to this whole conversation, nothing will.
Why? DD are great? CEs would be foolish not to step into the product arena with DD, but they would be foolish to not realize the serious limitations of the infrastructure which can deliver those downloads as well. Especially when so many cry foul of DRM.

It is a logical fallacy to assume that large corporations know what they are doing...
True, but those visionaries were also gone when DVD came about a decade ago, and it isn't a guarantee, but it is a proven method for product development. The arguement that they may not know what they are doing, while the numbers indicate they do know what they are doing is more than a little contradictory. If they didn't know, the numbers would be way off. Since the numbers aren't way off, then it should build confidence that they (the BDA) is on track with expectations of growth.

As for Audioholics' views about the viability of Blu-ray in the long term, I will let the other writers and articles speak for themselves.
They have, and they do, which simply suprises me considering so many do seem to like physical media, and enjoy HD audio and HD video, yet so strongly knock the one format which delivers both.

Instead, I prefer the Home Theater Magazine approach which doesn't openly talk up Blu-ray, but has simply moved on... They regularly review Blu-ray players, openly discuss flaws, openly compare/contrast Blu-ray to Blu-ray players, and compare speeds/quality to DVD players. They dropped DVD reviews completely in favor of BD, and have moved some audio reviews from CD releases to BD releases.

If a site cares about quality A/V, then why not actually act like it?

Personally, I collect physical media and prefer it myself....
Yes, and for that they need a complete infrastructure which doesn't exist. People will also need to maintain computers, hard drives, and there will need to be data protection systems in place.

Forgive me, but my old PC quite litterally had a hard drive failure TODAY! This morning! I had just bought a brand new one and had moved all my data over about one month ago, so it didn't affect me... But, how many people do properly back data up? How many have a drive to store movies? My Apple TV has enough room for about one (!!!) Blu-ray Disc. How exactly are they getting around these issues other than the rental strategy for digital downloads?

How long that will take has yet to be determined, but your opinion on the matter is no more or less valid than that of anyone else; what will happen will happen.
Yes, this is true, but it isn't an arguement which makes the points I brought up null and void either.

And when it does, if the MPAA shows as much foresight as the RIAA...
They already have, and you better believe they will continue to. The road to DD is not likely going to be in the next five years because the systems which allow it will be so heavily innundated with DRM and completely proprietary.

That is my opinion, you are welcome to yours, but without prescience, who ever happens to have guessed right about the future outcome, it doesn't make their guess right, just lucky.
You know, there's a difference between having an opinion based upon personal feelings and having one which is supported historically by factual evidence. If I have confidence I'm right it means little, but I do think I'm right because the numbers support it, the growth of HDTV supports it, the lack of infrastructure for DD supports it, the sales level goals being met supports it... At some point, BD may represent 50% of optical disc sales, and people will still think that BD should have done better.

I just want to be able to get The Dark Knight and Iron Man this year, and hopefully some really good movies in upcoming years as well.

I think that is a wish I will likely see come true. :D
 
DavidW

DavidW

Audioholics Contributing Writer
Yes, I do believe he is, but it is entirely unclear what context he is referring to Blu-ray in from that article, and many sites have taken it to mean the LIFE of Blu-ray, when the real meaning of the statement is not at all clearly defined.

"I think it [Blu-ray] has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn't give it 10"

Yet, the truth is spun to add words which were never said, and this site is not the only one which has done so. The only 'truth' you have is that Andy wouldn't give "it ten years (of what?) left" - life? profitability? growth? excitement?
The issue I am getting at is that neither Griffiths nor Samsung have spoken out against Pocket-Lint's presentation of his statements. If he was that flagrantly misquoted by Pocket-Lint or had words put into his mouth to stir up controversy, one would think either he or Samsung would quickly call them out.

They have not. And unless they do, the only rational interpretation is that they are satisfied with what was published.

I'm not arguing downloads - I praise downloads, but the fact that the national infrastructure to support downloads is limited, at best, is incredibly fractured across manufacturers, and leaves a ton of CEs out in the cold right now is a simple reality. The basic infrastructure, without ISPs capping monthly downloads, is still about a decade away. And that ignores HD quality being delivered properly.
The infrastructure is the internet which is ubiquitous. The download support is fractured by the studios and the CEs battling to one up each other. Unfortunately, mixed standards and interoperability problems has not stopped the music download market.

True, but those visionaries were also gone when DVD came about a decade ago, and it isn't a guarantee, but it is a proven method for product development. The arguement that they may not know what they are doing, while the numbers indicate they do know what they are doing is more than a little contradictory. If they didn't know, the numbers would be way off. Since the numbers aren't way off, then it should build confidence that they (the BDA) is on track with expectations of growth.
Precisely my point. Following the same old formula certainly does not guarantee product success without accounting for current market factors and differences from the old situation. Blindly following the methods of past success certainly shows a lack of understanding.

Video tapes sucked. They had poor picture quality that degraded with each use, they were fragile and easily destroyed by a moody tape player, and all that rewinding was annoying.

Blu-ray quite simply does not provide the additional advantages over its predecessor that DVD did. Sure the quality is better, but now it is beyond most 720p/1080i HDTVs that are actually in peoples houses: moot point.

Throw in the ever accelerating rate of technological change which generates surprises that can not always be anticipated, and I don't see Blu-ray making it longer than DVD did before Blu-ray/HD-DVD came along and lets not forget that video cassettes reigned far longer than DVD did before DVD came along and usurped them.

Blu-ray is doing fine for now, but several other possibilities exist.

DD is one that may come faster than the brute force infrastructure capacity upgrades that keep coming up in this discussion. There are a substantial number of groups working to improve current infrastructure bandwidth and there are groups working at more efficient encoding schemes to decrease bandwidth requirements. All it takes is for one of these groups to come up with a relatively minor upgrade that boosts existing capacity and the bandwidth issue could suddenly be moot.

Flash drive technology is rapidly gaining enough capacity to put it in range of a viable alternative to Blu-ray. Blu-rays old nemesis Toshiba claims to be looking to introduce flash drives that push into the 250 GB range, as I recall, in 2009. When that gets cheap don't be surprised if someone tries to sell movies on them.

The other possibility is three dimension optical disc technology. There are several groups I am aware of working very hard to make holographic storage feasible. Several of these groups are prototyping discs that make the 50 GB capacity of Blu-ray look like a joke with some that have hit 500 GB in the lab and aim for 1-5 TB within a few years.

Will any of this come soon and displace BD?

Maybe; the one thing that is certain is that the technological change will come faster than it has in the past. There is simply too much else going on to think that BD will make it longer than the 10 or so years that DVD reigned unopposed.

They have, and they do, which simply suprises me considering so many do seem to like physical media, and enjoy HD audio and HD video, yet so strongly knock the one format which delivers both.
If a site cares about quality A/V, then why not actually act like it?
No one on this site is knocking Blu-ray for quality, we all prefer it as the best current option for HD quality.

What you seen to take as knocks against Blu-ray has nothing to do with quality. What gets said about Blu-ray all has to do with longevity relative to other formats, technological advances, and apparent market preferences.

Have you seen very many Blu-ray adds now that HD-DVD is gone?

Why aren't these BDA guys still trying to get the word out to masses about the virtues of Blu-ray when, repeatedly, market research reports say that most consumers are perfectly happy with DVD.

Without any labeling on a disc, could you tell a Blu-ray from a DVD; I doubt the average consumer could.

DVD when it was new certainly was easily identified from a VHS tape. This leaves most consumers asking whats new, it looks like the same old disc. And other than subtle technical differences that don't affect the end user, in most ways, it is the same old disc.

I am not expecting downloads to beat Blu-ray quality, much as the MP3 took audio quality backwards, I fully expect that companies scrambling to supply content when it does take off will be jamming more down the pipes than fits to the detriment of quality.

I don't necessarily prefer DD to win, but when the time comes, I do expect downloads to win despite my personal preferences.

And based on what I got from reading Griffiths in Pocket-Lint, I think he sees it that way too.

I just want to be able to get The Dark Knight and Iron Man this year, and hopefully some really good movies in upcoming years as well.

I think that is a wish I will likely see come true. :D
As do we.

Once again, good day to you.
 
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dobyblue

dobyblue

Senior Audioholic
Mr. Griffiths did not mean Blu-ray and Samsung doesn't need to clear up a little pocket-lint article based on a spontaneous 5 minute question period.

Digital Downloads for high definition are 20 years away from any form of mass market adoption and Blu-ray in 10-years will have a similar market share as DVD had in late 2006.

Mark this post for posterity if you choose.
 
BMXTRIX

BMXTRIX

Audioholic Warlord
The issue I am getting at is that neither Griffiths nor Samsung have spoken out against Pocket-Lint's presentation of his statements....

They have not. And unless they do, the only rational interpretation is that they are satisfied with what was published.
I have no idea, but what has been rewritten by this site, and others, is not what was published. This site chose to follow that course, and I am hopeful that a better explanation of the comment will be made.

The infrastructure is the internet which is ubiquitous.
No, it is broadband and the storage capacity/device for playback, which is limited. Just because everyone has access to the Internet, does not mean that they can download movies or want to own virtual media.

The download support is fractured by the studios and the CEs battling to one up each other. Unfortunately, mixed standards and interoperability problems has not stopped the music download market.
Making comparisons between music downloads and video downloads is similar to this site making comparisons between DVD-A/SACD and HD optical discs. They are completely different, and incomparible. Digital video content is not just being setup to be DRMed to death, it is also being setup to be locked into a signle playback device (PS3/X360/Roku/etc.) without any means to retrieve movies from other locations, or on other boxes.

The music download comparison is weak, because music can often be shared, and the MP3 format has led as the standard which most consumers turn to in very limited numbers. That's important to remember - that despite 10+ years of MP3 existing, and players being out there - heck, the iPod is coming up on 7 years! - and digital music still only represents a small part of the sales of music.

Following the same old formula certainly does not guarantee product success without accounting for current market factors and differences from the old situation. Blindly following the methods of past success certainly shows a lack of understanding.
The point is that in the last 100 years this has been a proven way of the market accepting product rollout. There hasn't been a different way of introducing this type of product to the consumer that has been proven effective, and you surely aren't presenting a way here.

CRT followed this, VHS did, plasma, HDTV, mp3 players, heck, LCD didn't really kick in until about 5-7 years ago...

You are incorrect that the 'old formula' doesn't account for current market factors. It is the current market factors that actually make Blu-ray the go to product.

Blu-ray quite simply does not provide the additional advantages over its predecessor that DVD did.
But people didn't buy HDTVs for DVD, they bought it for HD. The consumer is slowly, but steadily, being sold that the only way to get HD movies, is through Blu-ray. This is the 'same old formula' at work again, and is incredibly effective - and proven - methodology for building brand awareness throughout the nation and the world.

Moreso - when players hit $100, which they will, perhaps in less than 2 years, then why would any consumer buy a DVD player? Especially when most consumers rent videos?

Throw in the ever accelerating rate of technological change...
Yes, I absolutely agree with this! But, just because something new is introduced does not mean that it will immediately supplant the old product. DVD took years to outsell DVD, and Blu-ray will take years to outsell DVD. Likewise, DD will chomp into that more and more, which likely will prevent Blu-ray from owning as much market share as DVD.

On the other hand, that is a long way from making Blu-ray a failure, and certainly has not been claimed by anyone within the BDA as being the speciific goal of the format. The goal would most likely be to make money and be considered a successful product.

To that end, I think Blu-ray is right on track.

Blu-ray is doing fine for now, but several other possibilities exist.
DD exist - that's it, and without a unified solution, or an actual infrastructure, it has a ways to go before starting to become feasible. You have mentioned no other and the CEs haven't gotten behind any other - yet.

But, I'm not a fortune teller, I'm simply looking at the rollout of a major CE product taking 3-5 years to even get off the ground, and another 5-10 years to become prevalent. This leaves nothing else available to step up anytime soon.

DD is one that may come faster... All it takes is for one of these groups to come up with a relatively minor upgrade that boosts existing capacity and the bandwidth issue could suddenly be moot.
That's a huge if, and still leaves the entire hardware infrastructure and marketing necessary to build.

Flash drive technology is rapidly gaining enough capacity to put it in range of a viable alternative to Blu-ray...
As an ownership model? Yes, that would suprise me. As a rental model, there's some serious potential there. DRM, DRM, DRM!

The other possibility is three dimension optical disc technology.
...
Will any of this come soon and displace BD?
In 5 years? Not likely. In 10 years? I do think that 10 years is about the magic number, but CEs may think that the cycle for profitability at 10 years is to long due to the low price levels which are reached far to quickly these days.

We'll see if HVD or anything else comes along, but another physical format after Blu-ray would definitely suprise me, yet doesn't seem entirely out of the question. HVD @ 2TB+ a disc sounds awfully good to me.

Maybe; the one thing that is certain is that the technological change will come faster than it has in the past. There is simply too much else going on to think that BD will make it longer than the 10 or so years that DVD reigned unopposed.
You know, I do agree with that, but I think 5 years is way to short. I also think that 7-8 years is a point at which a competitor may emerge, but that competitor will still have to fight the same battle which Blu-ray is in right now.

Which means that the actual life and profitability of Blu-ray may be 10-15 years.

What you seen to take as knocks against Blu-ray has nothing to do with quality. What gets said about Blu-ray all has to do with longevity relative to other formats, technological advances, and apparent market preferences.
Yet, much of what is said ignores that the BDA is running ahead of their predictions. So, while the real headaches of Blu-ray are there with profiles and a wishing for cheaper/better players ASAP, are touched on. The real plus of Blu-ray with so many movies coming to market, so many new releases, the actual quality... I'm not sure that I've actually read much about that on this website, which by itself, is a knock from a site called Audioholics.

Have you seen very many Blu-ray adds now that HD-DVD is gone?
I didn't see many before, but I do think that with HD DVD out of the picture, and many BD manufacturers maxed out for production, that advertising has diminished greatly. But, I think we will see more, and I have seen some ads pick up a bit lately for movies which are featured first as being released on Blu-ray Disc in HD.

Why aren't these BDA guys still trying to get the word out to masses about the virtues of Blu-ray when, repeatedly, market research reports say that most consumers are perfectly happy with DVD.
I would say because they are outpacing thier predicted growth, which means they don't have the production available to handle additional sales at this time.

If you have 200 seats available, don't sell 300 tickets.

Without any labeling on a disc, could you tell a Blu-ray from a DVD; I doubt the average consumer could.
Well, yeah, I probably could, but I've actually closely looked at them. ;) But, the jump in quality I can notice in about half a second on my 768p display.

DVD when it was new certainly was easily identified from a VHS tape. This leaves most consumers asking whats new, it looks like the same old disc. And other than subtle technical differences that don't affect the end user, in most ways, it is the same old disc.
No, consumers don't ask. Monster looks like Monoprice - why is it better and more expensive? Bose looks like... well, it looks like cheap crud, yet it has been MARKETED to be 'the best'. Blu-ray is HD, DVD is not, so the consumer, as happy as they are, have been marketed HD as the best, and will spend a premium to get it in the form of Blu-ray... or they possibly will in a few years when BD hits a price they are willing to pay.

I don't necessarily prefer DD to win, but when the time comes, I do expect downloads to win despite my personal preferences.
It hasn't happenned with music, and there is nothing historically to support this.

And based on what I got from reading Griffiths in Pocket-Lint, I think he sees it that way too.
That's what you got, but not what was written, so instead of pursuing truth, a blind guess was made.

As do we.
As I have said, it seems a very poor choice for a site called Audioholics to take such a negative spin on such a high quality format which offers so much.

Once again, good day to you.
Likewise.
 
dobyblue

dobyblue

Senior Audioholic
The music comparison is also weak because you can fit about 146,000 tunes on a 500GB hard drive providing you don't care about quality.

How many 1080p movies with 5.1 sound can you put on there? 10-20?

That's a ratio (20) of 7,300:1 which is about the same ratio I'd guess to of people who would consider downloading an HD movie to those who'd download an .mp3
 
poutanen

poutanen

Full Audioholic
That's a ratio (20) of 7,300:1 which is about the same ratio I'd guess to of people who would consider downloading an HD movie to those who'd download an .mp3
I download about half the music I listen to, the other half I buy a CD (when I think the artist has made something worth owning), or vinyl (currently the format with the longest lifespan on the materials it's made from).

I never download movies... my room-mate did for a long time, and we were hitting 3-400 GB per month of bandwidth. No biggie, right? That's when Rogers decided to cap everyone at 50 gb and put a $2/GB charge on everyones bill for additional bandwidth.

50 GB will give you 2 Blu-Ray quality movies, or up to 10 DVD quality movies, with no other browsing/downloads, etc for the month. Are you nuts!?! And $2/gb means a blu-ray would cost ~$50 to download after you've exceeded your limit. No thanks, I'll keep watching the sales, getting the previously viewed, etc. for my BluRay collection. :cool:
 
J

jamesnicholes

Audiophyte
Blu-ray

nice information.......................
thanx
 
P

Press Record

Enthusiast
I download about half the music I listen to, the other half I buy a CD (when I think the artist has made something worth owning), or vinyl (currently the format with the longest lifespan on the materials it's made from).

I never download movies... my room-mate did for a long time, and we were hitting 3-400 GB per month of bandwidth. No biggie, right? That's when Rogers decided to cap everyone at 50 gb and put a $2/GB charge on everyones bill for additional bandwidth.

50 GB will give you 2 Blu-Ray quality movies, or up to 10 DVD quality movies, with no other browsing/downloads, etc for the month. Are you nuts!?! And $2/gb means a blu-ray would cost ~$50 to download after you've exceeded your limit. No thanks, I'll keep watching the sales, getting the previously viewed, etc. for my BluRay collection. :cool:
Looks have about at least 5-10 years until obsolescence then eh? Unless they can figure out a way to make the internet go faster for the majority of Americans. I think Hard Drive prices will keep going down though.
 

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