Why HD-DVD and Blu-ray Are DOA

mikesd81 writes "Slate has up an article on why both new DVD formats are effectively dead on arrival. Article author Sean Cooper cites internet movie and cable on demand services, the price of new hardware, and the inexpensive cost of newer hard drives as the reasons behind his argument. The article goes on to say buying movies online isn't there yet. Titles in standard-def are few, in hi-def fewer still. With five times the visual information of a standard-def flick, an HD download of The Matrix, were it even available, could take all day over the average broadband connection. But consumers are demanding change, and change will happen fast." From the article: "On iTunes an album costs about 10 bucks--as much as $8 less than some CD retailers charge, partially because of the reduced cost of getting music to buyers online. Look for the same savings when it comes to downloading movies. And then there's the fact that hard-disk storage capacities are pushing ever upward while size and price drop. In a few years, you'll buy every episode of The West Wing on a drive the size of a deck of cards rather than on 45 DVDs in a box the size of your microwave oven." Phil Harrison is already saying the PlayStation 4 won't use discs.

Comments

His prediction is 5 years too early

[Salvance]

I don't see his logic. Americans might demand faster connections and more storage space, but they're not going to get it before the Blu Ray and HD DVD player become mainstream. It's a matter of timing - there's no way the cable and phone companies are going to upgrade everyone from 1.5Mbps (an average connection speed now) to 100Mbps (the minimum required to download a 10-15GB Hi Def movie in under an hour) before the HD players become popular.

No matter how much people might ask for it, there's no way it could possibly happen fast enough. If he was arguing that this next generation of video players will be the last to use physical media, he would have a decent argument, but it will easily take at least 5 years to upgrade our telecommunications infrastructure to the point needed to quickly deliver HD content.

Re:His prediction is 5 years too early

[falcon5768]

YEs but you also have the fact that people are also not willing to upgrade their TVs, DVD collections, and anything else they need to either.

People tried to upgrade CDs (remember audio DVDs and Minidisk) The market said screw you and jumped to MP3 around 10 years later. I suspect the same will happen

Re:His prediction is 5 years too early

[Splab]

Yeah, the only way to succeed is to make something that seems better than DVD's - the reason I dropped my VHS collection for DVD's was the storage space. The reason people drop CD's for mp3's isn't quality, but ease of use. Blu-ray and HD-DVD has afaik nothing that gives the user any advantage - either in terms of usage or storage. They are doomed...

Re:His prediction is 5 years too early

[Skye16]

Slowest around here is 320kbps. Midrange is 3.0mbps/320kbps. Max is 5.0mbps/768kbps. Max is about 70$ a month. Midrange: 40$. Slowest: 30$.

Maybe in urban or suburban areas you're right, but most of the country (area) isn't urban or suburban. Population wise, you'd probably have a majority in those areas, but my guess is you'd still have a sizeable percent who aren't in those areas and don't have those options. DSL is pretty much the same around here, with lowest being 768kbps and highest being 5.0mbps max, but they don't reach that for anywhere except maybe the house directly next door to the switching station. Wi-Max isn't available, and as the area is beset by mountains and valleys, I'm not sure how well it would work to put in any towers. Not having any cell phone service depending on which hill you're on or dell you're in doesn't help.

I wouldn't find it to be much of a stretch that 1.5mbps is the average. Not everyone thinks they need the super fast speeds. Some just check email or sit on IM. I know so many families with the 320kbps/320kbps connection and it truly boggles my mind. But not everyone is willing to spend 70$ on internet on top of the rest of the TV costs and phone costs.

So, that turned out to be exceedingly tangential. My bad.

Re:His prediction is 5 years too early

[pudro]

That would be awesome, but it doesn't change the fact that most people (outside of /.) will still prefer discs to whatever horribly DRMed form of downloadable content that the movie industry decides to use. As long as they can take that BD into the next room or to a friends, thats what they will want to do. If they can't do that, then they would rather just have DVDs. Most people don't want their computer right by their TV, or to have to run cables between rooms from one to the other. And by the way, decent (though maybe not "average") connections of 3-4 Mb/s are good enough for most "rental" scenarios. You just have to decide what to watch the day before and download it overnight. The only problem is with same day decisions to download a movie.

Re:His prediction is 5 years too early

[kefler]

I disagree. I thought the same thing when I saw MP3's for the first time in 1995, using a player on my Pentium 90. I assumed that the whole record industry would shift to that overnight, but of course we all know how that went.. Even 4-5 years after Mp3 was generally available we had Napster come out and make MP3's accessible to all. The industry killed that and it took nearly ANOTHER 5 years for digital music distribution to gain traction.. Overnight? no way.. This prediction is totally wrong about on demand movies, precisely because the industry WON'T change overnight.

Re:His prediction is 5 years too early

[bizard]

Right now I have a 6Mbit connection. I have purchased a few movies from the iTunes store and begun watching them about 1 minute after pressing the buy button. The files are betweeen 1 and 1.5 GB. So yes, rental scenarious are good enough right now _and_ you don't have to decide what to watch the night before, you can watch as it downloads.

That being said, I believe that it has been taking roughly 45-50 minutes to download the entire movie. I could essentially handle double the file size and still watch immediately but 10 times the file size would mean waiting.

I don't see anybody "demanding" faster connections

[CyberLord Seven]

The phone and cable companies have been dragging their feet with regard to internet service which makes sense. They don't want phat pipes before they are allowed to charge both sides of the pipe. See their arguments against net neutrality for more.

Is there any consumer backlash?

No. Think back to when Coca-Cola changed the formula for Coke. People took to the streets and it hit ALL of the major news media in the US.

People don't care. I think they don't care because what they have is fast enough. It's the same with DVD and Hi-Def. I already have movies in DVD format. I have seen one of my favorites, 2001: A Space Odyssey, in Hi-Def this summer and compared it, on the same television, to my DVD copy. Net result, I LOVED the Hi-Def image but I'm not going to buy the movie again in Hi-Def for the simple reason that there is no compelling reason to buy it in a lesser format.

What I mean by lesser format is DRM.

Re:Micro-microwave ovens?

[Lumpy]

How about the fact that I can deliver you the same full set of DVD's on a laptop hard drive SMALLER than a deck of cards right now and have room left over for a few other feature movies

Mpeg4/Xvid/Divx can do it now. You cant buy it legitimate because those formats don't have 600 pounds of DRM encryption on them but the technology is here right now and better than what he "envisions" maybe he should get out and actually look at what people are doing right now.

Cripes I have well over 300 movies in DVD quality and 10 full TV series on my Media portal box right now (Yes series the size of Babylon5 and the Simpsons) and still have room for way more.

His tommorow was here yesterday... it's the idiots at the movie companies and record companies that are keeping out of the hands of joe sixpack.

3-5 years before either format catches on

[Nutsquasher]

Both Blue Ray and HD-DVD have a lot going against them. Both formats are brand new to the consumer market. In quick summary, most people are going to wait 3-5 years before adopting either of these formats, if they take off. Buying one today means either you've got a lot of money to burn (paypal@dave-gallagher.net please), or you're easily influenced by marketing.

Let's look at the history of DVD's:

• DVD's were first starting to be sold in early 1997.
• By 1999, DVD players were around $300 each. DVD sales were tiny compared to VHS.
• DVD's and players increased on popularity by 2001, aided by the PlayStation 2 having a DVD-player built into it (at the time, a PS2 wasn't much more money than a sole DVD player). The format was being adopted rapidly by this point.
• By 2002-2003, DVD's finally had surpassed VHS sales, 5-6 years after they first came out.
• Now, in late 2006, it's tough to find a home that doesn't own a DVD player. Also:
  • You can buy DVD movies everywhere.
  • You can rent DVD movies everywhere (Netflix, BlockBuster, etc)
  • There are tens of thousands of titles available for DVD, including a vast array of Movies (previously available on VHS), and TV shows (many never available before on VHS).
  • DVD players can be bought for $50 or less. Almost all computers have one built in.
  • DVD movies can be had for $2 - $20. Some series and combo's cost more, obviously.

Other notable mentions during this time period:

• VHS degraded over time. DVD's don't (when stored right).
• VHS has a much worse picture quality than DVD did.
• Nearly everyone already owned a TV which would benefit from upgrading from VHS to DVD.
• DVD's sounded much better. Some people bought high-end stereo systems, but most still use the speakers in their TV.

This took from 1997 to 2006 to accomplish. It's almost a ten-year old format. To say either Blue Ray or HD-DVD will take off in a short period of time (1-2 years) is blasphemy. It'll take at least 3, but probably around 5 years, before either format becomes mainstream. IF either format survives, that is.

Things going against Blue Ray & HD-DVD:

• Extremely limited selection of titles. Think hundreds of them (if not only a hundred), vs. tens of thousands for DVD.
• No rental outlets carry them yet.
• Movie Players cost much more money than DVD players. $500+ if you buy a PS3, or Xbox 360 Core w/HD-DVD add-on.
• These movies are priced more. The cheapest I've seen are around $25 each.
• Most people don't own a TV that will benefit from the higher resolution of these types of media.
  • ...unlike upgrading from VHS to DVD, where everyone experienced an increase in picture quality.
• High-end audio equipment is needed for many to take advantage of the new features to these discs. Again, most people don't have this.
• Everyone just through out their VHS tapes and replaced them with DVD's. They may buy new movies on HD-DVD/Blue Ray, but good luck convincing them to re-buy Terminator 2 for the 3rd time.

By the time it takes for Blue Ray/HD-DVD to catch on (3-5 years), if they catch on, there will be:

• Xbox 1080
• PlayStation 4
• On-Demand HD Movies, over the net, delivered to your TiVo, Xbox 360, Apple iTV, whatever.
• On-Demand HD Movies, through your TV provider.

Neither format is proven (asides from looking and sounding good, with the right equipment), and the VAST majority of consumers won't see a benefit from either of them today. What has to happen for consumers to benefit is:

• 1920x1080 P HDTV's have to come down in price, to the $200 Wal-Mart special range.
• The players have to be had for $100 or less.
• There needs to

Re:I call bullshit

[noewun]

but if you have a decent stereo system, the difference is obvious

Not really: see above in that most people don't care enough about the difference in quality to worry about it. Joe and Jane Average consumer are just fine with MP3s and AACs, as can be seen from the success of downloading, both legal and illegal, and from the success so far of the iTMS videos and movies I think that most people won't care enough about the quality to worry about, either.

There seems to be a threshold of quality in audio and video above which the vast majority of people are satisfied. I think the only people who worry after that are the equipment-obsessed.