I have educated myself about Blue Ray vs HD DVD and here are my findings. HD DVD also uses a blue laser like blue ray. So the difference is in the technology. The Blue Ray can hold more than HD DVD ( 26GB vs 15GB per layer compared to 4.7GB for DVD ). Of course it would seem that the higher capacity would always win out but this is not always the case. If the current content available is not enough to fill the new blue ray disks then 15GB may be good enough and given they are cheaper, people may adopt this just out of confusion.
So I would say that it depends on the marketing and content. If the Blue Ray group ( not to be confused with Blue Man group) is able to convince people that you will have a richer experience and they have content to back it up, then this may become the standard. One problem that I see is how many people now currently have a TV which will play such a high definition quality. I would guess only about 25% if that. So the market may not be as big as regular DVD's.
I remember thinking that when SVHS came out that it would eliminate regular VHS but it never really caught on. I think there has to be a big enough leap in quality to make it justifiable for the extra expense. I am sure you can fit a full length HD movie on a HD DVD so the incentive to go Blue Ray not be too strong.
6 comments:
I do know that I would prefer to have a high definition DVD with 10 Gb more. Imagine how much information we could store! But I am looking at it from the multiple use perspective - I want to use the DVDs for both movies and for data storage, which mainstream consumers probably don't do.
So from the average consumer perspective, Blue Ray will have to put some awesome features to distinguish it from the HD-DVD people.
I say, more storage = better media!
I would agree that it would be a slam dunk for Blue Ray if the cost difference is not too significant.
Personally, I am losing interest in the bigger, faster, more storage race. I think we are reaching the point of dimminishing returns. There will always be some people who want the biggest and best. But for me, the much higher cost trumps that.
We all decide where we want to spend the extra cash. For MacMinni, he has Satellite radio, me Broadband internet, Le high end cell phone features (and hi fidelity).
I get more of a charge out of being able to buy a 27in TV for $250 than a 40in Plasma for $2000.
You know, cost will come down no matter which format wins out. I would pay a little extra for media that holds more, but that's because I like to make movies, and when it comes down to saving important files for the future, the files are so big that regular DVD storage is getting too small!
So imagine storing High Def stuff, and you could probably say that storage requirements will increase. But again, only for those people who use media that eats up gobs of space.
Stitch,
Great info! I could have sworn that I read somewhere that the HD-DVD camp stayed with red laser, but found superior compression technology for cramming HD on the disks. Either way, I have to agree with Lo that the more storage availability, the better - it opens up the disks to have additional items on it, if desired.
I do feel that yeah, the race for more and more needs to slow down, in favor of quality of content, rather than quantity. Nevertheless, I think we needed this big jump in space for this next generation of media.
Also, the buying public is going to be a little slow, I believe, in going HD for home movies. I say this because DVD sales are now as important (more so) than rentals. What that means is that more and more people have libraries of video that they're not going to want to replace too quickly. Just a thought.
-Le
I have noticed that NetFlix already offers Blue Ray disks to rent. I thought these disks cost something like $40 a piece?
Very pretty site! Keep working. thnx!
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