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Blu-ray Gone In Five Years, Samsung Claims
schliz writes "Samsung expects Sony's Blu-ray technology to be superseded within five years, despite winning the high-definition format war in February." Maybe that means five years from now will be the perfect time to stock up on cheap Blu-ray disks and equipment.
Does that mean the PS3 isn't future proof?
The article starts out saying Blu-Ray will be superseded within 5 years and then goes on to talk about OLED technology with absolutely no mention of what might supersede blu-ray?
That's what I get for actually RTFA though; a few paragraphs loosely related with no actual technical information.
"Stupid article, OLED is a display technology, blu-ray is a storage technology. They are not rivals, but co-exist. Meaningless rubbish article on Pocket-lint, obviously not examined here by anyone with any AV knowledge."
"Does he think that OLED is going to replace BD as a storage medium?I fail to see how that is even possible considering one is a TV and another is a disc format and video player. Idiot shouldn't be allowed to speak anymore, doesn't know what h is talking about"
"...why would Blu-ray be incompatible with OLED? how is a new type of screen gonna change anything? might look better, brighter.. but....how does that effect anything?"
"OLED is going to take over from LCD as a display technology, and that will spell then end of BlueRay data storage? wtf?"
And, finally, this gem:
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
Maybe he's right, and BluRay will be gone in 5 years, but he's clearly smoking something.
The article says that BluRay is going to be huge for a while, but in the long term Samsung is backing OLED displays.
WTF?
Blu-ray has remained very expensive; if Sony can't get more market penetration - and fast - there won't be any resistance to the introduction of newer technology. Winning the war against HD-DVD will have been a Pyrrhic victory.
The guy basically says that the Blu-Ray format will be huge, this year. He then goes on to say how it will rapidly become obsolete.
Great way to, er, halt sales in their tracks.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Ok, everybody just stop buying now; wait for five years to see the new technology and then pay a premium to be the first.
This is pretty ridiculous, isn't it? I mean sure, a new technology will come along... a new technology came along and superceded video tapes, too, but they still exist!
Stating that the technology will just be "gone" is ridiculous.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
And we all know, because we're moving up the spectrum, the frequency is decreasing. Therefore, products will come out quicker!
Jeeze!
...downgrade to standard definition retinas and just stick with DVD.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Between being "superseded" and "universally adopted".
Technically, Blu-ray has already superseded DVD in many, many aspects. But Blu-ray now still has very little adoption. What really matters is not whether Blu-ray will be (technologically) superseded, but the cost-benefit of the technology. If Blu-ray gets adopted by the general consumer due to falling prices, it'll be around awhile so long as the next generation is more expensive especially relative to its perceived benefits, much like current situation with DVD as it is. Blu-ray being technologically superseded in 5-10 years is hardly surprising by itself.
I'm still sticking with my formula:
Blu-Ray is to DVD as LaserDisc was to VHS
A cool toy for those movie buffs.
Blu-Ray to be superseded in five year; Samsung is backing OLED!
I fucking dare you to make those two thoughts form a coherent sentence.
I don't claim to be a huge film or TV buff, there's a few movies and TV series I enjoy, I own a mid-range widescreen TV but could give two hoots about the occasional bit of blockiness on the screen or surround sound. If people do want top quality movie and TV entertainment, then good luck to them.
But as a music fan, it's always struck me as really strange how, in the video world, everything is moving to High Definition and Blu-Ray yet in the music world, many people seem to want lower quality compressed music downloads rather than shiny CD disks.
I've spent as much on a reasonably good hifi as a lot of other people spend on video equipment and I *really really* don't get what is the big deal with compressed music - sure, I use MP3s of my collection on a portable player for travelling and the gym but I don't see how someone who buys compressed music can be classified as a music fan when a "movie buff" is never going to be taken seriously unless he/she has got a huge TV, cable, surround sound, etc.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
What will a new format bring us? More storage space? Higher Resolution video?
While I can see a use for more storage space for data files, I don't see a new disk format dethroning BD for video. Your screen and more importantly your eyes only have so fine a resolution. Beyond a certain threshold, more resolution doesn't do you any good. I dare say BD is there now given our current viewing technologies.
At some point there's not enough perceived benefit to justify changing out the media. Look at CDs as an example. There's no reason why you couldn't cram more music data on the disk for higher fidelity recordings, but at the same time there's no reason to cram any more data onto CDs. Most people can't perceive the difference between a recording made at 44.1 KHz and a 96KHz sampling rate. Even fewer have the equipment to reproduce it.
I won't tell you about my 8-track player then, I guess... The Partridge Family collection came with it.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I've often wondered why Slashdot editors don't RTFA themselves, particularly, why they don't go back to the original source article when it's readily available on-line. The text (not the headline) of the article makes it clear that first of all, Griffiths isn't saying Blu-Ray ONLY has five years left. He's saying it has AT LEAST five good years left, but less than ten, in his opinion. Secondly, the business about OLEDs makes it clear that the thrust of the timeframe discussion is with respect to a profit stream. That is, there are five good years of profits left in Blu-Ray, but in the future, Samsung sees OLEDs as a long-term source of profits. Which is reasonable. After all, CD players are still around, and Sammy still makes 'em, but they're not a major revenue source at this point. From that perspective, of hardware profits, they're basically dead, although from a software perspective, CDs are still the #1 media delivery mechanism.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
We do need more data storage capacity for HTDV, because even with Blu-Ray, there's too much compression. That's the cause of the usual annoying artifact that moving objects are blurred at the edges and stabilize a few frames after they stop moving.
Displays are currently ahead of transmission and storage. Right now, LCD displays are capable of 1080p at frame rates into the 70Hz range, and some game consoles can output imagery approaching that range. But the data rates from most video media can't get up there yet.
"Digital cinema", as seen in theaters, currently comes in 1080x2048 (compared to the 1080x1920 of HTDV), which digital cinema people call "2K", and 2160x4096, or "4K". But their frame rates are low, 24 FPS normally, 48FPS at best. The number to shoot for is slightly above 70; Showscan established in tests years ago that humans can't tell the difference between 70FPS and higher rates, and there really is a noticeable improvement in audience reaction between even 48 FPS and 70 FPS. So we should probably be going for 72FPS.
The future of storage and transmission may be FrameFree compression. This is a combination of motion detection and morphing for image interpolation. When it works well, the frame rate is effectively limited only by the display and decompression technology. It also allows generating slow motion video from regular video, and is used for that in sports applications.
So there's the market target: 4K, 72FPS display, framefree compression, a 150 inch screen, a Super Bowl stream with enough bandwidth, and a case of beer.
I doubt that content companies will enthusiastically move to a physical media that is not fragile. People have to buy replacement CDs, DVDs and now Blu-ray discs all the time because the physical media is so prone to damage.
There are plenty of alternatives that are sturdier, but the content companies will lose money if people only have to buy one copy.
I want my next computer to have no disk drives and no fans, because my last computer like that is still working 25+ years later. Most of my machines did not last 1/5th as long. Nice little machine my Atari-400.