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 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.
