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Here's why Blu-ray will be Dead by 2012

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304w ago - Planning to buy a Blu-ray player? Hold on. It's already battling public indifference, technical problems, laughable features and downloadable movies. Is it any wonder Blu-ray is doomed to fail? Here are five reasons why it's heading for the grave...

1. HD movie downloads

OK so the picture quality's not quite there yet, but Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and others have already seen the future of movie viewing at home - and it doesn't come on shiny 12cm discs.

Instead services like iTunes, Xbox Live and Vudu already offer HD movies over the internet, enabling you to see the movies you want without having to hack down to the video store in the pouring rain.

With fibre-to-home broadband slowly being rolled out in the UK, who knows what the next few years will bring.

2. BD-Live

Have you seen the demos? BD-Live is a joke. It's a second-rate attempt to offer interactive features that HD DVD did first and much, much better.

It won't work on old Blu-ray players (they don't have the persistent storage) and may not work on new ones: it's not mandatory for Blu-ray player makers to include it in the hardware they sell.

Result? Large doses of confusion and frustration for anyone (un)lucky enough to buy a Blu-ray disc with BD-Live features on it.

3. Samsung thinks Blu-ray is finished

You know, the world's number one consumer electronics maker, Blu-ray stalwart.

Andy Griffiths, director of consumer electronics at Samsung UK, told Pocket Lint that Blu-ray would be dead in five years, and that it certainly wouldn't last 10.

He believes the format will be replaced by either a new kind of physical media - most likely flash memory cards if Toshiba's IFA 2008 keynote is anything to go by - or downloads. Go figure.

4. Sony thinks Blu-ray is finished

Blu-ray is not only finished in terms of spec, but it's also finished as a format. Optical disc technology has gone as far as it can go.

Or so says Take Miyama, Sony product manager for home video marketing in Europe believes. He told Electric Pig that "in the future, if [our emphasis] we have a physical media format, it will change physically. It won't look like an optical disc."

Talk of a 500GB Blu-ray prototype will only prolong the agony.

Sony has already hinted at its future direction with the launch of Bravia TVs in the US that can directly receive movies streamed over the internet. Blu-ray player not required.

5. DVD is good enough

Despite the fact that Blu-ray movies are expected to hit to 12 million sales in Europe this year, they still account for just two per cent of video sales in countries like the UK.

Even by 2012 DVD will still have the edge - and that's according to the Blu-ray Disc Association's own over-enthusiastic predictions [PDF link].

The plain fact is few of us are ever likely to swap extensive DVD collection for their Blu-ray equivalents, especially when prices for Blu-ray movies and players are still so high.

Given that many cheap DVD players now have some kind of upscaling capability, DVD will prove 'good enough' in terms of picture quality for many years to come.


Comments 15 Comments - Go to Forum Thread »


picc0lo's Avatar
#10 - picc0lo - 303w ago
I don't believe Blue-Ray will be dead anytime soon. In fact the Blue-Ray industry is just at it's beginning. We've seen it happen with the DVD and look how popular it is. The only way I see Blue-Ray dying off is they invent a totally new type of medium, which I haven't heard off yet.

Warrorar's Avatar
#9 - Warrorar - 303w ago
i like it to read those threads Blue Ray is a child of the DVD. and like the 20years before. every child of the CD is the future.

Microsoft lost millions of dollars 10years ago. when the whole world started to use CD's, and microsoft said "no zip is the future".

then blue ray gets released some years later and microsoft trys his own way with HD DVD. and now? febuary the news was released that hd dvd is cancled. the project is dead. microsoft lost again a fight.

and this will happens all the time again. nobody can win against the cd and his childs (dvd/blueray). and the future is also leaded by this line of technology.

for so long its clear that internet download movies gets more popular. but where to put this datas? blueray will be the save medium of the future. a double layer dvd with 8gb is allready to small to hold some films. because they have so much informations and datas that only a blue ray can hold the informations.

blue ray will never day. and i think in 10 years they will release a new children with will also win the fight against what ever microsoft and the rest will release.

Treacles's Avatar
#8 - Treacles - 303w ago
Didnt HD and DVD take ages to become well known and pretty cheap? Just because something starts with no sales and pretty expensive, doesnt mean in the future it wont be the best way to watch movies... When we have things like 2000 P/I (Obviously just rough guess) you think DVD or HD would be able to handle that without 2 discs?

ricdee's Avatar
#7 - ricdee - 303w ago
I've been watching high definition movies ever since ps3 launch and i cant go back now. whenever i watch dvds now they look awful and thats even when their upscaled. Blu-ray WILL catch on in a big way someday, prices will drop and blu-ray discs will be the norm.

Saying downloads is the way to go is a bit stupid in that you have to have the internet and a HD ready device and given that the ps3 is probably the most affordable Blu-ray player at the moment most people will buy that and demand for blu-ray movies will go up and they wont need a download service.

jon5555's Avatar
#6 - jon5555 - 303w ago
Is he serious? I don't think he's ever watched a Blu Ray movie on a Full HD setup. Upscaling quality is poor on cheap DVD players. Not to mention supposed HD downloads are a joke, most looking more like a VHS copy.

If its a action packed blockbuster I simply must watch it on blu ray. DVD picture quality sadly just doesn't cut it for me anymore.

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