What bothers me the most about all of this is that in this day and age we're still finding communal efforts of this nature being divided by geography. Just goes to show that the function hasn't followed the form.
You may call it bragging rights, I call it a lack of vision.
Well, then put your daddy pants and volunteer on a campaign for someone you actually support and then remember to actually vote in things like primaries and elections!
Considering how much damage the city of Pittsburgh has done to the residents of Allegheny county without being my elected officials? If you live in the area you know exactly where I mean, anytime that Pittsburgh faces a crisis the burden is laid on the shoulders of those who have no chance to vote in their elections.
There were some minor rumblings of dissolving the city of Pittsburgh and practically making it a dependent of Allegheny county. At least in that scenario my vote could count for something that happens within the iron tower of corruption.
How dare those sickly peasants get the medicine they need at an affordable price!
I think you mistake the meaning of counterfeiting in this case. While there are a number of patent offending medications out there, there is also a much larger market of drugs made to look like a regular pharmaceutical but in all reality is nothing but a sugar pill. Even within the US there is a market for these drugs that find their way (on a rare occasion) into the mainstream pharmaceutical supply. It's a very dangerous business for the patient and damning for the honest drug store and dispensing pharmacist that gets "caught" for peddling fake medications unwittingly. If there is any reason for the FDA and DEA to exist this is it.
Let me warn all of you right now, if you do not live in Pennsylvania and you have any thought that it's a state that you would like to try to lead a productive life in, especially the south-western corner, please abandon those thoughts. Pennsylvania is a black hole of taxation and asshattery. Our governor isn't worthy to hold the position of a used cars salesman and the city of Pittsburgh is a financial and logistical burden for anyone who lives anywhere close to it.
Not to even get into the fact that Dan Onorato and Luke Ravenstahl are both self-serving bitches.
If it were just the quality issue, laserdisk would have beaten VHS a long time before DVD's were around.
Being an old LD enthusiast, you're plainly wrong. The problems with LaserDisc were issues with flipping the disc, an expensive player, expensive media and media that didn't record. The only real pluses for LD were quality and not having to rewind. I guess you could add chapter access if you really think that it's that big of a deal.
But we're already starting to see a phenomenon in BluRay that never hit LaserDisc until the format was already dying on the vine: The prices are dropping like bricks. Even faster than what I recall DVD falling. You can currently get the "cheap" BluRay player from Best Buy for under 250 (not bad for a player that would have been over 600 USD less than 2 years ago) and we're starting to see the price of pre-recorded media start to drop as well. Someone in another thread pointed out the upcoming Sleep Beauty release, from Amazon the DVD price will be only 4 dollars cheaper than the BluRay version and the listed retail is only a gap of 5 dollars. I think we're going to see more of this in the future.
One doesn't really need to be able to read the writing on the One Ring while Frodo's wearing the damn thing to enjoy LOTR
I think you underestimate the power of The One Ring and the power of shinny objects on the mass public.
The public isn't into the technical nit-picking that we get into here and once they have their HD TV in hand they'll want more. They're like the Ubers around here who are willing to pay premium prices to squeeze a whole 2 more frame per second out of Call of Duty 4. Not to mention that I've been seeing more bundles of BlueRay players with HD TVs. This is going to have a strong effect on the impulse buying public.
If anything the bad economy is hurting BluRay over any technical or logical reasons. If manufacturers are willing to bite the bullet the allure of BluRay will outshine the practical side of DVD. And why not? For what it is BluRay works. We could debate BluRay vs. HD DVD all day but it's not going to bring it back.
The real question is whether blu-ray will entrench itself prior to downloadable HD movies becoming popular.
I think the much more potent question in this is will BluRay have enough time to become entrenched before a significant majority of the home movie watching public has the bandwidth to take real advantage of downloadable content.
I'm having this debate elsewhere in these postings and my possition about downloadable content is that people need a delivery system. I currently live in an area that has had DSL for nearly a decade but there is no sign of FIOS... They can make the hardware and content as cheap as dirt and it's still not going to help me any. Infrastructure is a bitch like that. The consumer has no real control over this element and it's going to be a long time coming until a majority of Americans can take advantage over and digital distribution menthod of this nature.
You're not seriously suggesting Blu-ray is to DVD as DVD was to VHS are you?
As far as quality with the right set up? Absolutely. I don't even see where there is a question and I can also relate this same issue to laser disc if you really want to get into the home theater format wars of the early 90s. I lived through them as a participant. I still own LaserDisc today if only for nostalgia sake.
It's not even replacing a similar set-up. People didn't have portable VHS decks, VHS decks in their cars, and VHS decks in their computers.
Not in PCs no but I know people who had decks in their cars and portable decks did exist. I know up until just a few years ago that VHS decks were still being offered in conversion vans. I knew a few people who had them too.
Now, you claim it's ok, because people are willing to replace their entire DVD collections. That's entirely irrelevant.
True, only because BluRay allows it to be. I'm not going to nit pick this but I hope you see where I'm going...
You can, if you want, spend around $1,200 on replacing three DVD players (the living room one, the one in your bedroom, and the one in the kid's room), but that still leaves you without something for, say, the car entertainment system.
How many people do you think have car systems that they're that concerned about and how many of them use them just to keep the kids quiet. That's like saying people wouldn't buy CDs because their car still has a tape deck.
Furthermore, Best Buy is currently offering BluRay players for as low as 230 USD. And that's not even on sale! Be you that they have something as low as 150 on the shelves by Christmas. Granted, it will be a sale unit but it will still be there. Stop trying to make this out to be a more expensive technology that it really is. These are Best Buy prices for the love of Pete! You're nearly doubling the prices on the technology. Not to mention that bundling units with TVs is becoming popular as it was with DVD in it's early stages. I've recently seen them bundled for FREE with some TVs.
Right. Because families really want their home theater systems to be tied up with kids movies, and/or they're happy to install HDTVs and Blu-ray players in kids rooms. Honestly, tell me: what is the intended market for a Disney movie on Blu-ray?
You honestly don't think baby boomers aren't watching classic Disney? Come on. I think it's you who are more out of touch with the times. It's called Pixar, look into it. Seriously, I know it comes off as rude but your average 8 year old no longer wants Bambi and the parents know this. Or do you think they're putting out collectors boxes for kids with the attention span of a fruit fly?
If Sleeping Beauty didn't have a DVD bundled with it, the Blu-ray version would bomb. People wouldn't buy it. It has everything to do with practicality - realistically, the movie would be unsellable without the DVD because it wouldn't work where the intended user wants it to work.
Again, if the movie was really made for kids it wouldn't be a collectors pack. Why do you think most Disney and Pixar is straight to video anyway? This is a collectors item target, not a 4.99 Lion King VI straight-to-video release.
Even your own logic proves it. If it weren't the case than they wouldn't be bothering with a BluRay set. Disney knows their target audience much better than you do.
As I pointed out above, my own viewing habits have changed as a result of HD DVRs and decent movie channels.
Are you in any way saying that cable TV and 20 hours on a DVR are a replacement for a home movie collection today? Come on.
More and more people are getting broadband, and ISPs are running out of ways to sell it, while various companies experiment with movie download services.
Oh, are you talking about Comcast's throattling and bandwidth caps? Or are we talking about not being able to get FiOS 15 miles from one of
Various. Given it has no compelling advantages over DVD, the major ones are:
While I have not run into 2&3 in my own use of the format (which is extremely limited) I can't help but think that 1&4 are moot points.
As for 1: DVD wasn't backward compatible. Plenty of people went out and replaced entire collections for the new format just as they had done with CD-A. BluRay has the advantage of supporting existing DVD collections. I know this was a major concern for some when DVD came out ("What will I do with my tapes? Why should I buy another players?"). Look at it today? I still grant people that BluRay will not catch on as fast but alternatives are distant for most users.
As for 4: I bought my DVD player when it was still fairly new on the market, somewhere around 6 months in. DVDs were just as expensive as LD (I've been told that's the primary reason LD died, ha!) and my first DVD player cost me about 350 USD... that's after the 60% off I got when the store I went to was going bankrupt. So where's the expensive question here? Early adoption of just about any technology is going to cost. Come back in a year when BluRay players will be maybe 25-50 more expensive than comparable DVD players. The same goes for the media too! If the average DVD player has a lifespan of 5 years I bet you we will see an adoption rate of BluRay players around the 20% mark before the holiday season of 2009. Maybe as much as 30% within the first quarter of 2010.
If Disney has to ship a DVD with every Blu-ray disc, you know the format's not practical.
It has nothing to do with practicality, it has to do with throwing in a 10 cent disc so that parents who want a collectible won't feel bad about Junior or their Little Pumpkin scratching the hell out of it. Did you bother to note the price as well (since we were on the topic)? Amazon is selling it for 4 USD more than the DVD version. Even the full retail is only slated for 5 dollars more. What was that about expensive? We can already see how much that's starting to change in just a few months. DVD didn't change that quickly, I can tell you that for a fact.
In practical terms, Blu-ray is less convenient than DVD. For that lack of convenience, you're expected to pay more, for a format whose lifetime looks set to be three to five years at most.
Yeah, and DVD was less convenient than VHS at the time for the same exact reasons but still prevailed. And I seriously question the 5 year time span you put out. I'd really like to see that justified.
They'll see what something is from a technical point of view, but not the applications for it.
Absolutely. That's why it's hard to take articles and postings about up-and-coming tech seriously around here. There are so many people on Slashdot who can't appreciate that we collectively represent about 0.005% of the entire consumer market. They can't see people, like my parents, who buy technology but to whom the concepts of how it works and how to make the best of it are alien. Any market that is a department in your local Best Buy is dictated by baby boomers and NASCAR fans, not geeks. Geeks may hold sway over enterprise level technology but their say in what is and isn't desirable in matters of home entertainment and home computing doesn't mean jack. Too many around here don't see that.
The major issue is that the world is going online, and in the meantime other serious contenders are coming out. My wife and I pretty much never buy new releases any more. We wait for them to be shown on Cinemax, recording them with our HD DVR and transferring them to our archive drive. I was disappointed by the killing of HD DVD, which at least had the capability to be a part of the online world, but poor marketing ("Look & Feel of Perfect"? The idiots promoted the one area where it was equal to Blu-ray) and a poor selection of hardware that never showed what it was capable of made it vulnerable. But it's dead, so we're going to have a bunch of non-stan
Nobody understood Bluetooth. Everyone understands Blu-ray
I would consider this a little slanted. I understood Bluetooth at the time even tho I hadn't owned a Bluetooth device (or at least used Bluetooth in any way) until just this past March. I think the people writing these articles understood it just as well as I did or that there was some pretty irresponsible journalism (not that that seems to matter around here). I still think it was the slow early adoption of Bluetooth technology that kept it from coming out in the force that left many to question it's overall value. I think BluRay is the same today. I think Sony was over estimating it's format but as an owner of LaserDisc and an early adopter of DVD I don't think there is too much to be concerned about yet. I've seen these market trends for adoption and I think that BluRay will have a moderate role over the next couple of years and there will be a heavy adoption just prior to whatever technology takes BluRays place. I think part of this will come down to the consumer life cycle for DVD players and the continuing adoption of HD in the home.
it's a high definition version of DVD with a number of critical flaws.
I would be interested in knowing what you feel the "critical" flaws are. It's certainly not fantastic but I find the word "critical" to also be a bit alarmist. From the consumer aspect the technology seems to deliver what most users would expect from the next generation of digital media for the consumer.
Bluetooth was seen by Slashdotters and many in the tech industry as a rival to Wifi
If there is any real truth to this it would make me lose a lot of respect for the community in general. I want to say that most of the posters didn't have the vision to see the practical side of the technology but to say it was a rival to WiFi? But I could be wrong. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that I seen an entire group of users around here not understanding a fairly simple concept. And over the years it seems that we have more and more of their ilk to go around. Frankly, Slashdot has become a stronghold for trolls, flamers and, worst, wanna-be fanbois. I really wonder what the posting numbers around here would look like if we could remove some of the less-than-insightful posts. At one time these posts were an annoyance, now they're a mainstay and there are enough mod points out there to even see these relatively mediocre posts raise to a level of respect in the rankings.
We even know enough about the market to know why it's going to die in its own terms.
I really don't know about that. I remember the same kind of ramblings going around when it was SCSI vs IDE and we see who won there. Was it kind of a foolish debate? Sure but many, including myself, gave into it. Unless there is a great physical media replacement within the next 2-3 years I can't help but see BluRay as making headway in the market. Online digital distribution simple isn't up to the task and if the local deployment of FIOS is any indicator it's going to be well over a decade until that comes into it's own in the United States. BluRay may not be the best technology but the consumer will eat it up as HD TV adoption grows.
I recall when every 5th article on Slashdot was another "Bluetooth is dying, Bluetooth is dead" article. So it was limited and slow to adapt but it's still far from dead.
I remember back in the day of great game companies like SSI that if your media became corrupt or unusable you could send them back the old disk and they would replace it at a pretty reasonable fee. I think it was 5 bucks to save your 50 dollar game. I don't think anyone around still does this today.
For my part, I stick with Steam. Unlimited downloads. Hell, even if they charged me a buck to cover bandwidth and storage I wouldn't feel bad for a 50 dollar game. I've never had an issue with Steam and as long as they keep up their track record I'm going to keep with it. I've even passed up on several games because I couldn't get a Steam copy.
The one thing I will say about this is that the fleshed out version is better because it does give insight into what he feels that network neutrality is. This may very well be many voters first introduction to the concept and much like many other debated issues (abortion rights, gun rights, etc etc) there are many version of what supporters support. In instance, there are many gun rights advocates who do not support assault weapon bans, there are many who do not. So just by simply coming out and saying that I'm a supporter of gun rights leaves a lot to be desired.
It was a wise man who said that the devil is in the details. This is no different.
Your logic behind this statement? You're the one who said too many. If it were all wouldn't it still be too many?
My cell phone, however, does NOT need a blue LED flashing a bright spotlight on my bedroom ceiling every 6 seconds to tell me bluetooth is turned on.
There are multiple ways to approach this: turn off the alert (if possible),don't buy the product if that's such a big deal to you, turn the device in such a fashion that it doesn't illuminate your whole room.
I have a phone that does this anytime I get an e-mail. I get about 15 e-mails in the same hours that I sleep. I have taken to just turning the phone over and I can't see the flash any longer.
Too many things nowadays have bright flashing blue LEDs for no other apparent reason other than "look! we have bright blue LEDs now!"
Uh, maybe they use them since they are so visible? Maybe the idea of a clock face or any other LED panel is to make it visible without having to walk right up to it to read it?
Just FYI: As a rust belt resident who lives one mile from one of the largest and most profitable steel mills left in the entire state of Pennsylvania (if not the country)... We pretty much nailed the lid on the coffin of the American steel industry about 25 years ago and there isn't a steel man in the area who doesn't realize the steel tariff is a bad joke, if not an insult to their industry.
There are lot more places to buy diesel than E85, but that doesn't stop them from selling flex-fuel vehicles.
The thing is that if I can't find a diesel pump and I need fuel I'm fucked. If I can't fine an E85 pump I shrug it off and buy the regular stuff. That's how this alternative fuel has made such fast inroads. Granted, the future of alternative fuels probably isn't going to offer such a sweet solution but it helps give a bit of insight into the problems that lay ahead.
Honestly, I would go further than saying that we should look to third parties. At best that would lead to another large corrupt party, and at worst, it would just take the place of the Democrats or the Republicans, leaving the US with the same two party system. What we need is abolish political parties entirely and get independents elected. Candidates who can think for themselves (and voice their opinions freely) and actually care about the people they represent.
This isn't too bad of an idea either. Someone recently had said that parties should focus on one goal and should be dissolved after their goal is achieved. I can go along with that way of thinking too.
I can't say for sur either way to be honest with you but I do like the idea that Paul is letting all people know to check out third party choices and not just backing up one candidate. Both major parties need some wind let out of their sails and there is a ton of choices.
On the same note, I can also understand why Barr would take it as a snub. Barr is my choice this upcoming election but it would be great if a large percentage of Americans went into the booth being informed of more than just Obama and McCain as far as choices even if they stick with either one. I'm not saying a third party is everyone choice, the large parties do offer something but the presidential offerings of late have been... let's just say unsatisfactory. It's been a long time since we've had a major party candidate that I've felt enthusiastic about. I know I'm not alone on this and by offering up votes to a third party it's a way to show our disappointment in the current system.
So why do we keep limiting ourselves to a choice between two people, neither of whom is going to agree with anything we want? OK, so there's Ron Paul, but... that didn't work now did it? And honestly, did you actually agree with every single thing Ron Paul advocated?
Even if it were Paul (who I supported in his bid, although I couldn't vote for him since I'm not a Rep) there would still only be two choices. I think those who supported Paul should keep an eye on their local elections and seek more leadership like his out. There are people who want to do it. Put your support behind them.
In any case Paul supporters should also look into Bob Barr.
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What bothers me the most about all of this is that in this day and age we're still finding communal efforts of this nature being divided by geography. Just goes to show that the function hasn't followed the form.
You may call it bragging rights, I call it a lack of vision.
Well, then put your daddy pants and volunteer on a campaign for someone you actually support and then remember to actually vote in things like primaries and elections!
Considering how much damage the city of Pittsburgh has done to the residents of Allegheny county without being my elected officials? If you live in the area you know exactly where I mean, anytime that Pittsburgh faces a crisis the burden is laid on the shoulders of those who have no chance to vote in their elections.
There were some minor rumblings of dissolving the city of Pittsburgh and practically making it a dependent of Allegheny county. At least in that scenario my vote could count for something that happens within the iron tower of corruption.
How dare those sickly peasants get the medicine they need at an affordable price!
I think you mistake the meaning of counterfeiting in this case. While there are a number of patent offending medications out there, there is also a much larger market of drugs made to look like a regular pharmaceutical but in all reality is nothing but a sugar pill. Even within the US there is a market for these drugs that find their way (on a rare occasion) into the mainstream pharmaceutical supply. It's a very dangerous business for the patient and damning for the honest drug store and dispensing pharmacist that gets "caught" for peddling fake medications unwittingly. If there is any reason for the FDA and DEA to exist this is it.
Let me warn all of you right now, if you do not live in Pennsylvania and you have any thought that it's a state that you would like to try to lead a productive life in, especially the south-western corner, please abandon those thoughts. Pennsylvania is a black hole of taxation and asshattery. Our governor isn't worthy to hold the position of a used cars salesman and the city of Pittsburgh is a financial and logistical burden for anyone who lives anywhere close to it.
Not to even get into the fact that Dan Onorato and Luke Ravenstahl are both self-serving bitches.
If it were just the quality issue, laserdisk would have beaten VHS a long time before DVD's were around.
Being an old LD enthusiast, you're plainly wrong. The problems with LaserDisc were issues with flipping the disc, an expensive player, expensive media and media that didn't record. The only real pluses for LD were quality and not having to rewind. I guess you could add chapter access if you really think that it's that big of a deal.
But we're already starting to see a phenomenon in BluRay that never hit LaserDisc until the format was already dying on the vine: The prices are dropping like bricks. Even faster than what I recall DVD falling. You can currently get the "cheap" BluRay player from Best Buy for under 250 (not bad for a player that would have been over 600 USD less than 2 years ago) and we're starting to see the price of pre-recorded media start to drop as well. Someone in another thread pointed out the upcoming Sleep Beauty release, from Amazon the DVD price will be only 4 dollars cheaper than the BluRay version and the listed retail is only a gap of 5 dollars. I think we're going to see more of this in the future.
One doesn't really need to be able to read the writing on the One Ring while Frodo's wearing the damn thing to enjoy LOTR
I think you underestimate the power of The One Ring and the power of shinny objects on the mass public.
The public isn't into the technical nit-picking that we get into here and once they have their HD TV in hand they'll want more. They're like the Ubers around here who are willing to pay premium prices to squeeze a whole 2 more frame per second out of Call of Duty 4. Not to mention that I've been seeing more bundles of BlueRay players with HD TVs. This is going to have a strong effect on the impulse buying public.
If anything the bad economy is hurting BluRay over any technical or logical reasons. If manufacturers are willing to bite the bullet the allure of BluRay will outshine the practical side of DVD. And why not? For what it is BluRay works. We could debate BluRay vs. HD DVD all day but it's not going to bring it back.
The real question is whether blu-ray will entrench itself prior to downloadable HD movies becoming popular.
I think the much more potent question in this is will BluRay have enough time to become entrenched before a significant majority of the home movie watching public has the bandwidth to take real advantage of downloadable content.
I'm having this debate elsewhere in these postings and my possition about downloadable content is that people need a delivery system. I currently live in an area that has had DSL for nearly a decade but there is no sign of FIOS... They can make the hardware and content as cheap as dirt and it's still not going to help me any. Infrastructure is a bitch like that. The consumer has no real control over this element and it's going to be a long time coming until a majority of Americans can take advantage over and digital distribution menthod of this nature.
You're not seriously suggesting Blu-ray is to DVD as DVD was to VHS are you?
As far as quality with the right set up? Absolutely. I don't even see where there is a question and I can also relate this same issue to laser disc if you really want to get into the home theater format wars of the early 90s. I lived through them as a participant. I still own LaserDisc today if only for nostalgia sake.
It's not even replacing a similar set-up. People didn't have portable VHS decks, VHS decks in their cars, and VHS decks in their computers.
Not in PCs no but I know people who had decks in their cars and portable decks did exist. I know up until just a few years ago that VHS decks were still being offered in conversion vans. I knew a few people who had them too.
Now, you claim it's ok, because people are willing to replace their entire DVD collections. That's entirely irrelevant.
True, only because BluRay allows it to be. I'm not going to nit pick this but I hope you see where I'm going...
You can, if you want, spend around $1,200 on replacing three DVD players (the living room one, the one in your bedroom, and the one in the kid's room), but that still leaves you without something for, say, the car entertainment system.
How many people do you think have car systems that they're that concerned about and how many of them use them just to keep the kids quiet. That's like saying people wouldn't buy CDs because their car still has a tape deck.
Furthermore, Best Buy is currently offering BluRay players for as low as 230 USD. And that's not even on sale! Be you that they have something as low as 150 on the shelves by Christmas. Granted, it will be a sale unit but it will still be there. Stop trying to make this out to be a more expensive technology that it really is. These are Best Buy prices for the love of Pete! You're nearly doubling the prices on the technology. Not to mention that bundling units with TVs is becoming popular as it was with DVD in it's early stages. I've recently seen them bundled for FREE with some TVs.
Right. Because families really want their home theater systems to be tied up with kids movies, and/or they're happy to install HDTVs and Blu-ray players in kids rooms. Honestly, tell me: what is the intended market for a Disney movie on Blu-ray?
You honestly don't think baby boomers aren't watching classic Disney? Come on. I think it's you who are more out of touch with the times. It's called Pixar, look into it. Seriously, I know it comes off as rude but your average 8 year old no longer wants Bambi and the parents know this. Or do you think they're putting out collectors boxes for kids with the attention span of a fruit fly?
If Sleeping Beauty didn't have a DVD bundled with it, the Blu-ray version would bomb. People wouldn't buy it. It has everything to do with practicality - realistically, the movie would be unsellable without the DVD because it wouldn't work where the intended user wants it to work.
Again, if the movie was really made for kids it wouldn't be a collectors pack. Why do you think most Disney and Pixar is straight to video anyway? This is a collectors item target, not a 4.99 Lion King VI straight-to-video release.
Even your own logic proves it. If it weren't the case than they wouldn't be bothering with a BluRay set. Disney knows their target audience much better than you do.
As I pointed out above, my own viewing habits have changed as a result of HD DVRs and decent movie channels.
Are you in any way saying that cable TV and 20 hours on a DVR are a replacement for a home movie collection today? Come on.
More and more people are getting broadband, and ISPs are running out of ways to sell it, while various companies experiment with movie download services.
Oh, are you talking about Comcast's throattling and bandwidth caps? Or are we talking about not being able to get FiOS 15 miles from one of
Various. Given it has no compelling advantages over DVD, the major ones are:
While I have not run into 2&3 in my own use of the format (which is extremely limited) I can't help but think that 1&4 are moot points.
As for 1: DVD wasn't backward compatible. Plenty of people went out and replaced entire collections for the new format just as they had done with CD-A. BluRay has the advantage of supporting existing DVD collections. I know this was a major concern for some when DVD came out ("What will I do with my tapes? Why should I buy another players?"). Look at it today? I still grant people that BluRay will not catch on as fast but alternatives are distant for most users.
As for 4: I bought my DVD player when it was still fairly new on the market, somewhere around 6 months in. DVDs were just as expensive as LD (I've been told that's the primary reason LD died, ha!) and my first DVD player cost me about 350 USD... that's after the 60% off I got when the store I went to was going bankrupt. So where's the expensive question here? Early adoption of just about any technology is going to cost. Come back in a year when BluRay players will be maybe 25-50 more expensive than comparable DVD players. The same goes for the media too! If the average DVD player has a lifespan of 5 years I bet you we will see an adoption rate of BluRay players around the 20% mark before the holiday season of 2009. Maybe as much as 30% within the first quarter of 2010.
If Disney has to ship a DVD with every Blu-ray disc, you know the format's not practical.
It has nothing to do with practicality, it has to do with throwing in a 10 cent disc so that parents who want a collectible won't feel bad about Junior or their Little Pumpkin scratching the hell out of it. Did you bother to note the price as well (since we were on the topic)? Amazon is selling it for 4 USD more than the DVD version. Even the full retail is only slated for 5 dollars more. What was that about expensive? We can already see how much that's starting to change in just a few months. DVD didn't change that quickly, I can tell you that for a fact.
In practical terms, Blu-ray is less convenient than DVD. For that lack of convenience, you're expected to pay more, for a format whose lifetime looks set to be three to five years at most.
Yeah, and DVD was less convenient than VHS at the time for the same exact reasons but still prevailed. And I seriously question the 5 year time span you put out. I'd really like to see that justified.
They'll see what something is from a technical point of view, but not the applications for it.
Absolutely. That's why it's hard to take articles and postings about up-and-coming tech seriously around here. There are so many people on Slashdot who can't appreciate that we collectively represent about 0.005% of the entire consumer market. They can't see people, like my parents, who buy technology but to whom the concepts of how it works and how to make the best of it are alien. Any market that is a department in your local Best Buy is dictated by baby boomers and NASCAR fans, not geeks. Geeks may hold sway over enterprise level technology but their say in what is and isn't desirable in matters of home entertainment and home computing doesn't mean jack. Too many around here don't see that.
The major issue is that the world is going online, and in the meantime other serious contenders are coming out. My wife and I pretty much never buy new releases any more. We wait for them to be shown on Cinemax, recording them with our HD DVR and transferring them to our archive drive. I was disappointed by the killing of HD DVD, which at least had the capability to be a part of the online world, but poor marketing ("Look & Feel of Perfect"? The idiots promoted the one area where it was equal to Blu-ray) and a poor selection of hardware that never showed what it was capable of made it vulnerable. But it's dead, so we're going to have a bunch of non-stan
Nobody understood Bluetooth. Everyone understands Blu-ray
I would consider this a little slanted. I understood Bluetooth at the time even tho I hadn't owned a Bluetooth device (or at least used Bluetooth in any way) until just this past March. I think the people writing these articles understood it just as well as I did or that there was some pretty irresponsible journalism (not that that seems to matter around here). I still think it was the slow early adoption of Bluetooth technology that kept it from coming out in the force that left many to question it's overall value. I think BluRay is the same today. I think Sony was over estimating it's format but as an owner of LaserDisc and an early adopter of DVD I don't think there is too much to be concerned about yet. I've seen these market trends for adoption and I think that BluRay will have a moderate role over the next couple of years and there will be a heavy adoption just prior to whatever technology takes BluRays place. I think part of this will come down to the consumer life cycle for DVD players and the continuing adoption of HD in the home.
it's a high definition version of DVD with a number of critical flaws.
I would be interested in knowing what you feel the "critical" flaws are. It's certainly not fantastic but I find the word "critical" to also be a bit alarmist. From the consumer aspect the technology seems to deliver what most users would expect from the next generation of digital media for the consumer.
Bluetooth was seen by Slashdotters and many in the tech industry as a rival to Wifi
If there is any real truth to this it would make me lose a lot of respect for the community in general. I want to say that most of the posters didn't have the vision to see the practical side of the technology but to say it was a rival to WiFi? But I could be wrong. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that I seen an entire group of users around here not understanding a fairly simple concept. And over the years it seems that we have more and more of their ilk to go around. Frankly, Slashdot has become a stronghold for trolls, flamers and, worst, wanna-be fanbois. I really wonder what the posting numbers around here would look like if we could remove some of the less-than-insightful posts. At one time these posts were an annoyance, now they're a mainstay and there are enough mod points out there to even see these relatively mediocre posts raise to a level of respect in the rankings.
We even know enough about the market to know why it's going to die in its own terms.
I really don't know about that. I remember the same kind of ramblings going around when it was SCSI vs IDE and we see who won there. Was it kind of a foolish debate? Sure but many, including myself, gave into it. Unless there is a great physical media replacement within the next 2-3 years I can't help but see BluRay as making headway in the market. Online digital distribution simple isn't up to the task and if the local deployment of FIOS is any indicator it's going to be well over a decade until that comes into it's own in the United States. BluRay may not be the best technology but the consumer will eat it up as HD TV adoption grows.
I recall when every 5th article on Slashdot was another "Bluetooth is dying, Bluetooth is dead" article. So it was limited and slow to adapt but it's still far from dead.
I remember back in the day of great game companies like SSI that if your media became corrupt or unusable you could send them back the old disk and they would replace it at a pretty reasonable fee. I think it was 5 bucks to save your 50 dollar game. I don't think anyone around still does this today.
For my part, I stick with Steam. Unlimited downloads. Hell, even if they charged me a buck to cover bandwidth and storage I wouldn't feel bad for a 50 dollar game. I've never had an issue with Steam and as long as they keep up their track record I'm going to keep with it. I've even passed up on several games because I couldn't get a Steam copy.
A trillion yen is about 9.5 billion USD or roughly 6.5 billion Euros. That sounds like a bargin to me.
The one thing I will say about this is that the fleshed out version is better because it does give insight into what he feels that network neutrality is. This may very well be many voters first introduction to the concept and much like many other debated issues (abortion rights, gun rights, etc etc) there are many version of what supporters support. In instance, there are many gun rights advocates who do not support assault weapon bans, there are many who do not. So just by simply coming out and saying that I'm a supporter of gun rights leaves a lot to be desired.
It was a wise man who said that the devil is in the details. This is no different.
Note the difference between "too many" and "all".
Your logic behind this statement? You're the one who said too many. If it were all wouldn't it still be too many?
My cell phone, however, does NOT need a blue LED flashing a bright spotlight on my bedroom ceiling every 6 seconds to tell me bluetooth is turned on.
There are multiple ways to approach this: turn off the alert (if possible),don't buy the product if that's such a big deal to you, turn the device in such a fashion that it doesn't illuminate your whole room.
I have a phone that does this anytime I get an e-mail. I get about 15 e-mails in the same hours that I sleep. I have taken to just turning the phone over and I can't see the flash any longer.
Too many things nowadays have bright flashing blue LEDs for no other apparent reason other than "look! we have bright blue LEDs now!"
Uh, maybe they use them since they are so visible? Maybe the idea of a clock face or any other LED panel is to make it visible without having to walk right up to it to read it?
Just FYI: As a rust belt resident who lives one mile from one of the largest and most profitable steel mills left in the entire state of Pennsylvania (if not the country)... We pretty much nailed the lid on the coffin of the American steel industry about 25 years ago and there isn't a steel man in the area who doesn't realize the steel tariff is a bad joke, if not an insult to their industry.
It's still a better waste of time than watching TV.
How do people think that they're going to pass this along and not get caught by some method?
Hell, after the Coca Cola incident I would be fearful of having my new employer even know I have such information, let alone use it in some manner.
There are lot more places to buy diesel than E85, but that doesn't stop them from selling flex-fuel vehicles.
The thing is that if I can't find a diesel pump and I need fuel I'm fucked. If I can't fine an E85 pump I shrug it off and buy the regular stuff. That's how this alternative fuel has made such fast inroads. Granted, the future of alternative fuels probably isn't going to offer such a sweet solution but it helps give a bit of insight into the problems that lay ahead.
Honestly, I would go further than saying that we should look to third parties. At best that would lead to another large corrupt party, and at worst, it would just take the place of the Democrats or the Republicans, leaving the US with the same two party system. What we need is abolish political parties entirely and get independents elected. Candidates who can think for themselves (and voice their opinions freely) and actually care about the people they represent.
This isn't too bad of an idea either. Someone recently had said that parties should focus on one goal and should be dissolved after their goal is achieved. I can go along with that way of thinking too.
Well, as long as people only vote for a candidate because he's in one of the two big parties there will never be reform.
I can't say for sur either way to be honest with you but I do like the idea that Paul is letting all people know to check out third party choices and not just backing up one candidate. Both major parties need some wind let out of their sails and there is a ton of choices.
On the same note, I can also understand why Barr would take it as a snub. Barr is my choice this upcoming election but it would be great if a large percentage of Americans went into the booth being informed of more than just Obama and McCain as far as choices even if they stick with either one. I'm not saying a third party is everyone choice, the large parties do offer something but the presidential offerings of late have been... let's just say unsatisfactory. It's been a long time since we've had a major party candidate that I've felt enthusiastic about. I know I'm not alone on this and by offering up votes to a third party it's a way to show our disappointment in the current system.
So why do we keep limiting ourselves to a choice between two people, neither of whom is going to agree with anything we want? OK, so there's Ron Paul, but... that didn't work now did it? And honestly, did you actually agree with every single thing Ron Paul advocated?
Even if it were Paul (who I supported in his bid, although I couldn't vote for him since I'm not a Rep) there would still only be two choices. I think those who supported Paul should keep an eye on their local elections and seek more leadership like his out. There are people who want to do it. Put your support behind them.
In any case Paul supporters should also look into Bob Barr.
Hopefully, Americans will quit being sheep and do the right thing in the booth.
As much as I'll be voting for him and share the same ideals as you... I just don't think that Bob Barr has a real chance this election.
It's not a question of the act but rather the motivation. I agree with Hunter's motive. I don't know jack about DFW.