ATTN: No More BluRay VS. HD-DVD debates...BluRay it is.

If it's true, it's good news. From the consumer's standpoint, Blu-ray has always been the better product.

I just hope this won't happen...
whats next charge internet by the byte?

I don't see the connection.

> I just hope this won't happen...

Um, BR is clearly the better option in more than one way. It is thinking like
i that
that leads to pointless format wars.

We need to stop wasting time fighting about arb things, decide on 1 and go with it, BR is the superior and logical choice.

It's just I think theres enough security, it's just another 20 dollar boost on every product and don't worry in 5 yearsor so :p the'll crack it. And then we'll have red-ray.

>it's just another 20 dollar boost on every product

I don't believe current Blu-ray prices will increase. If anything, they're likely to go down as more and more people adopt.

I also think the PS3 has a lot to do with it.

Baz

It is by far the most widely owned Blu-ray player.

Conner, please send me the Bob CD's you promised. Tom

Who cares which format wins, physical discs are dinosaurs and will cease to exist altogether in 5 or 10 years.
VOD and download are the direction that the Adult Industry is going and where porn goes, the rest of the world follows.
When hard drives cost pennies a gigabyte, why have plastic discs laying around all over the place.

I like plastic!

>When hard drives cost pennies a gigabyte, why have plastic discs laying around all over the place.

Because you can take that plastic disk into the car for kids to watch on long trips. Because you can take that plastic disk over to your best friend's house and watch with 12 other people. Because that plastic disk also comes with a cool cover and artwork. Because that plastic disk normally has a much better picture and sound. Because that plastic disk includes extra features. Because more people still have a TV and DVD player than a computer. Because only a small percentage of those with computers have them hooked up to a TV. Because not everyone has a broadband connection for easy download.

I think plastic disks will be around for a while. If anything, they'll be replaced by sold state before they're replaced by hard drives.

I think, just like the beta versus vhs battle, the porn industry is going to decide which format "wins" and it will have little to do with which is a better format and which has better security, etc.

Right now, I'd say Blu-Ray is "winning" because I can go into Blockbuster and rent Blu-Ray discs, but I can't rent any HD-DVD discs.

Although, I did by my HD-DVD player first, because it was only $250 at CostCo. My Blu-Ray player was $470. I had to buy a blu-ray player and burner, to justify the CS3 upgrade ;)

Having been around and actually working at a video rental store during the VHS/Beta wars, I don't believe it had anything to do with porn.

Yes, beta offered the better picture. But most folks couldn't really tell. The key difference was that Beta had only 90 minutes of recording time. So a lot of movies came on two tapes, which you had to switch out during playback. VHS came in 2 hour mode, so most movies could fit on one tape. (Longer films, like Reds with Warren Beatty, still did come on two tapes.) This had a LOT to do with which format our customers chose when they bought equipment. (Back then our store both sold machines and rented the tapes.)

Further, VHS had more titles available. At the time, we had 80 VHS titles, and only about 30 Beta titles. (This is way back at the beginning.)

I think the current war will be decided in the same way - number of movies. If the OP's report is true, and Hollywood starts supporting primarily Blu-ray, it'll win based solely on the available titles.

"Having been around and actually working at a video rental store during the VHS/Beta wars, I don't believe it had anything to do with porn."

I worked at a rental store too and over half of our rentals were VHS porn.

Although I do agree with you about beta versus vhs as far as technology and consumers. Beta had better quality that the average consumer couldn't see and it wasn't as "convenient".

I doubt it costs as much to publish in both blu-ray and hd-dvd formats as it did to publish in both beta and vhs too. I'm seeing titles being published in both formats.

I think less than 10% of ours were.

Has a Sony invented format ever won? Beta, PSP discs, atrac2, minidic, etc...? History doesnt look good. Also add to it that no HD DVD burners are even on the market yet whereas BD are. I think when HD DVD hits, Adobe will throw support them as well.

sony is blue ray , isn't it?

It is. And to answer Patrick's question, the CD was developed by Sony along with Phillips. So I'd say yes, a Sony format has been successful in the past.

I believe that the day will come when a small block (iPod sized?) of some interesting material will hang from our belts, or be part of our belts, or whatever. That little block will hold our movies, television shows, email, calendars, music, alarm clock, phone, audio IM, and whatever else comes up. It will have many many terabytes of memory and be cheap enough that we will have duplicates stored in a facility somewhere under a mountain and any time we make any changes, it will update the duplicate in the background. If we lose or damage our little block, Fedex will have a copy of our duplicate to our location anywhere in the world by the next day. And I doubt that it will take more than a decade.

Really? I doubt it'll be done in a century.

VHS won because by the time Beta came out, people were already used to the word "VHS" and the word had already became a general household name.

Blu Ray will win because the word "blue ray" is something people can remember. When they refer to HD on disk they use the word "Blue Ray" the way they use the word "Aspirin" to refer to head ache medicine or "Hoover" to refer to vacuum cleaners. The word "HD DVD" or "DVD HD" or anything with letters in it which nobody can remember is bound to fall into the generic forgotten long list of things which are out there and which nobody can remeber ever existed. So Blu Ray will be what customers will be asking for and talking about.

PS: During the Cannes 2007 film festival at one booth they were promoting yet another HD DVD format which was cheaper to manufacture than all competitors and with more storage capacity than Blu-Ray. Its name, which I can't remember, was another variant of letters and the "HD" thrown in. I was very impressed by the demo and yet I can't remember even the name of the product. The only thing I can recall is "Blue Ray". So to me there is no doubt Blu-Ray will definitely win out.

PSS: If I may mention another example: "XDCAM HD" is another example of bad marketing. I am a professional and even I keep forgetting the letters "X.D" and the word "XDCAM HD". If they had just named it "Squirrel HD" or "BLUE VELVET" or anything easy to remember, maybe people would pay more attention to it as well.

So may this serve as a lesson: Once a word sticks, the product sticks. Letters and technical jargon usually never sticks.

You're an optimist Steven!

I just hope A format wins quickly. If its Blue Ray- Fine with me. Just lets get on with it. It will take a year to shake out compatibility bugs; prefer to do that with only one format.

Curt

Curt,

Ah, but Apple is able to move the industry faster (not to mention Microsoft if it wants to play), and if the memory changes that are currently being worked on actually come to fruition, then I think that the iPhone with a single exabyte of memory would change everything.

(No, I didn't forget Petabyte, I just skipped over it on purpose!)

Imagine, you could wirelessly transmit your movies to the nearest HDTV (or whatever comes next), or play a smaller version on your iPhone. Wireless technology is already speeding up, but even if you occasionally had to plug the phone into the network, that would be OK if the network was fast enough (think Verizon's FiOS).

Why do we make phone calls when audio Instant Messages would work better in some cases. Get their attention and if an actual conversation is required, so be it.

A virtual keyboard would be nice, but if we all live with those darned earbuds in anyway, software that allows us to talk to our phone instead of typing is already an old technology. People would have to learn to be quieter instead of yelling into their phone. Otherwise other people could have an easy transcript on their own iPhone.

Have you seen the size of children's backpacks lately? We are raising a generation who will constantly need chiropractic care. How about a light weight screen that the kids could use to broadcast the reading material from their iPhone. Of course, the teachers will need a jamming device for tests, I suppose. It would not jam so much as shut down access to the storage and allow only the teacher to transmit and receive from the screen.

Ten years may be a little too soon, but certainly in another twenty. In ten years we may have to settle for a few terabytes.

I actually see the MSFT touch tables being used in the classroom sooner rather than later. Digital tests and writing and no need for students to lag books around. The only problem I see is print publishers fighting against it.

Even podcasts are being used now in the classroom to supplement information. Technology is indeed a beautiful thing.

>Have you seen the size of children's backpacks lately? We are raising a generation who will constantly need chiropractic care.

After more than a century of being on the medical fringe, the American Chiropractic Association saw their opportunity with 9/11. They started lobbying school boards across the country under various guises and fronts to eliminate school lockers, thus forcing kids to carry all their sundry back and forth to school each day. It's along term plan, but it's beginning to pay off.

Don't let these phony quacks win! Petition your community to reinstate all school lockers!

Technology wont effect the size of backpacks anytime soon. As you noted, during the internet/ipod/laptop boom of the 21st century, backpacks have gotten bigger rather than smaller.

Why? The same reason my mother prints all her email and wouldnt be caught dead reading an ebook. Technology is not the only challenge.

Look how long HD is taking to "catch on" 10 years?. HD is ina tiny percentage of homes, and of those most are only watching football and the animal planet in HD. Its much more than a technical issue. Social issues, political issues, corporation greed, a inertia will drag our the progress you describe. Is it progress; BTW?

Oh; Go Blue-Ray!

Curt

I think the fact that we have to "look up" Slingbox makes Curt's point.

I've heard of Slingbox... but the idea has no draw for me

When I am out, it is for a reason... I am DOING something other than thinking about trying to connect to video I have stored at home

Oh well... I also don't carry a "blackberry" device, and my cellphone, when it is on, does not have a camera

I'm leaving for Sturgis on Friday, and thinking about video of any kind is going to be LOW on my priority list... well... I will have a digital STILL camera along, but that's only 'cause it's small and will fit in my saddlebag with the rest of my gear

How did you paste the picture in here?

>just because you don't know the name of something doesn't mean it isn't popular

It kind of does. Popular means being "well liked by many". You can't be well liked by many without also being well known by many.

>my point was we've had that technology available to the public for years, you just have to take advantage of it.

I think that was also sort of Curt's point. Just because the technology is there is only part of it. People also have to take advantage of it, and that's not likely to happen in Steven's timeline.

>have you ever heard of AppleTV?

Yes, and from reports, it is failing miserably.

>my cellphone, when it is on, does not have a camera

Dude, you're my hero.