Sony bigwig balks at "five year" Blu-ray demise prediction

Of late, there has been quite a bit of press circulating which suggests that Blu-ray isn't faring too well. At that head of those sentiments was a Samsung UK director named Andy Griffiths, who casually predicted that BD only had about five good years of life remaining. Unsurprisingly, senior VP of corporate communications at Sony Rick Clancy has hit back with an epic tale of why the format is actually not nearing its end. In fact, he suggests that Blu-ray will eventually live harmoniously with digital downloads, and he forecast that BD has "perhaps a decade" of growth to come. He also snuck in a few plugs for his PS3 and BRAVIA HDTVs, but more on the point, he essentially stated that not enough of the world had broadband (yet) for downloadable content to pose a real threat. Right, because the vast majority of the globe definitely has a few C-notes to lay on a BD player. We're only kidding (kind of).

[Via SonyInsider]

[BJ is Gooder @ Sep 25th 2008 7:21PM]

There's no way that blu-ray has more than five years left. I think we all know how inexpensive space is (with terabyte drives below $300) - imagine how quickly we'll be downloading HD movies with Fios and how cheap they'll be to store in five years~! CD's are dead, DVD's and blu-ray are next.

The end is near...

[jere @ Sep 25th 2008 7:25PM]

If the companies making blu-ray players can't get one out for less than $400, I'm tempted to agree with you. So they won the format war and yet all the price drops that should be happening aren't.

[kevin @ Sep 25th 2008 7:29PM]

Right, except when Blu hits near-DVD prices - and it will, eventually - there's still going to be a large consumer base that would rather have a separate TV and optical player in their living room than trying to rig up an HTPC to handle all of the entertainment in the house. Plus, recording to BD will surely be a popular archiving method once the prices come down. Yes, hard drives are cheap, but people will still want a separate copy that they can easily store somewhere else for safekeeping, travel with, etc.

[gabe @ Sep 25th 2008 7:41PM]

physical media is dead - BR is just a waste of $$$

[Temple @ Sep 25th 2008 7:47PM]

The problem with digital-downloads isn't just space or speed. DRM is more draconian then even Blu-rays are. At least with optical-disks I know I can play the disc in any player for as long as I have it (I still watch DVDs I bought a decade ago). I can take my movie to a friends place, I can buy a new player, I store it on my shelf, it'll be there a decade later for me to revisit. I wouldn't want a digital download of a Criterion Collection.

I can't do this with digital downloads, the DRM is too strict I can't even reasonably back it up, I can't take to a friend's house to watch, I don't know if it'll still be there 10 years later on whatever machine I'm using at the time. Atop that these downloads can't be played in competition machines (I can't watch an iTunes movie in my PS3, Xbox, and vis vera) Unfortunately, these issues aren't addressed by any of the distributes (Sony, Apple, Microsoft, etc.). Beyond that digital distribution has less features and cost almost as much as DVDs.

If Apple, Sony, MS, etc want digital-distribution to take off they need to address these issues first before the technical hurdles.

[Josh @ Sep 25th 2008 8:49PM]

What are the odds of solid state media becoming more prominent?

Think about it. Prices are dropping like stones for flash based memory. It is basically non-degradable, can't be scratched and is very cheap to mass produce. The technology has been staring us in the face when you think about it. Nintendo had the right idea from the beginning - why go for CD's when a game PAK is much more durable?

The modules would be dead easy to produce too. The flash memory would simply need to be all read only, thus basically eliminating the fear of erase/write cycles. And face it, 100,000 cycles is the average flash drive - how many times can you feasibly watch a movie - it's almost physically impossible not to mention you'd die of boredom. We already know how small flash memory can be, so that's not an issue either. It has higher read rates than most optical drives, certainly more than enough for a lot higher than HD quality streaming.

The device to play them back? Well, i think a Compact Flash card would be the best option to produce onto. They have some of the fastest read rates, they're small - but not small enough to worry about, and they're some of the cheapest. You'd just have to put it into a standard set top box with a card reader and hey presto, there's your movie. Of course you could also develop a proprietary design so as to make things less easy to copy and so on.

Either way, i think flash based storage will beat optical. At the end of the day the price of flash is going to drop below the price of optical memory. People who cry out for physical objects (aye!) rather than virtual data that can be corrupted and lost get their wish fulfilled too. We just have to wait for the price to come down significantly - you can already watch a decent length DVD on a chip the size of your thumbnail. In a few years, no doubt 32GB and 64GB will be under £20/$40 which makes the prospect of HD video in your pocket much easier.

I'd actually be surprised if one of the game developers didn't start to use flash for their next consoles. Nintendo perhaps? They've had the most experience and it's worked stupendously well in the past.

[wrabbit @ Sep 25th 2008 8:56PM]

Temple brought up some good points, and I'd like to ad to that...

Not everybody can afford a broad-band connection. In fact, most of Russia, China (not exactly small counties), India, just to name a few, still pay by the minute for 56k-modem speeds, and that's if they have internet at all. Until broad-band is cheaper and more spread-out, there will be a solid market for physical media, and I've no doubt that BR discs and players will get to DVD prices within the next few years.
Even once broad band is there, it will take a while for people to feel comfortable enough with digital-only copies of movies. I, for one, plan to keep buying the movies I really like for years to come. Sure I'll download those that I'm gonna watch only once, but the ones I want to add to my "collection", I'm definitely buying.

[Shan @ Sep 25th 2008 9:14PM]

@Josh

I agree with you. Now that some music albums are appearing as flash drives - this is probably the way to go. As you said, soon movies etc will fit on these drives and prices will be reasonable.

I'm not sure about Compact Flash as a carrier since some companies don't produce it or for legal/macho reasons wont carry rival formats. The way I see it is by utilising something we already have - USB. If you could pick up a USB stick with a HD movie in the store, come home, plug it into your USB-HD (yeah i know!) player below your TV and watch. Basically this will be a simple box that just plays this movie straight away off the USB stick and onto the TV. The format or quality etc will be whatever is big at the moment.

Then people can also download HD movies which they purchase online, transfer them onto these sticks and plug them into their USB-HD players and watch. This method of course will have a few issues:

1. HD movies of a decent quality (10GB+) will take time to download for most people.
2. It seems files are getting bigger and bigger and bandwidth throttling by ISPs is getting more and more - this is going to be a big power struggle. What good is grabbing an HD movie online going to be when your ISP only lets you have 3GB of downloading a month?
3. Given the online stores that will sell these HD movies - as you pointed out, the big players will have to conform to a system so that it will play on the standalone player. Of course this is unlikely since they can never get along so it seems that the USB system might just be the obvious and most likely one.

[Static @ Sep 26th 2008 1:56PM]

"If the companies making blu-ray players can't get one out for less than $400, I'm tempted to agree with you. So they won the format war and yet all the price drops that should be happening aren't."

Hmm? you mean like the Insignia BDP thats $229 or the sharp aquos that is $299. I mean you can walk into best buy and see these on the shelf.

What is really happening is doom and gloom. At first all the internet forums were abuzz during the HD war about how HD DVD was going to winn because of name recognition and the fact that they sold more "stand alone players". In the face of that logic Blu ray outsold HD DVD for pretty much over a year worldwide and studios obviously went with the tangible results.... their movie sales. I was one of the few people who called it when Warner decided to taunt their special harry potter features for HD DVD and the movie still sold more on BR. It was a test. We know who the winner is and the sour grapes talk turned to Upscale only chants. As soon as that talk died down the relatively small group that was talking about the silly notion of Digital Downloads as our future got louder.

As if the DRM is going to be better. As if most people have hi speed internet. As if most internet providers do not have caps. As if the majority of the average joe's out there (you know the ones to stupid to realize that HD-DVD was supposed to be the successor to DVD because of its name) have the technical know how to feel conferable to the downloads. As if the majority of consumers would really feel more comfortable about owning movies on a hard drive instead of another form of media.

I barely trust these companies with their disc based media and here your telling me that the future involves a medium which allows them greater control to act like a bunch of idiots.


You seriously have to be kidding.

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Sep 25th 2008 9:18PM]

I'm not sold on digital downloads, and I hoped BR would win the format war.

I should be Sony's dream customer, I'm young, single, disposable income. But I just stopped caring about BR. I've got a 1080p TV and I'm sure I'd notice a quality increase over upscaled DVDs. I don't consider $400 to be too much as a dollar figure, in fact I always said $400 is my price point to get into HD discs. But I won't be buying the movies, I'll be getting them off my existing netflix acct. Thing is, I just don't care ENOUGH to spend $400 on something that might not be that significant. Honestly, that money would buy me a lot more in sound than it would buy me in video quality, and we all know $400 doesn't buy a lot in sound :)

Sorry Sony. Try $200, faster boot times, cheaper movies, then we'll talk. I'm totally sold on HD. I'm just not sold on your offerings. If techies like us won't drop the cash on your gear, why would Joe Walmart customer?

[Stevo @ Sep 25th 2008 9:22PM]

Am I the only one who doesn't read comments that are longer than the articles?

[Josh @ Sep 25th 2008 9:23PM]

@Shan

One issue i have is that downloads are still involved. I think if flash comes into the fray, i'd like to think it would end up as a direct replacement of optical media. Ideally downloads would be a separate industry i think.

The problem with downloading to a drive and then plugging the drive in - already exists by the way (Apple TV, Sky, Virgin, etc) - is that you're still limited by DRM. There is going to be a LOT of content control if you're allowed to download from the internet onto a portable flash drive.

By all means i think it's likely to happen on the side, but i think that technology already exists and is doing quite well for itself. You can already download the films you want from services like Virgin O.D. however, these services are limited to one watch or 24 hours watching. They're more like rentals. What i want to see is permanent storage, something that i think only read-only media will be able to handle effectively.

[Muhammad-Oli @ Sep 25th 2008 9:33PM]

CDs are dead? Well that will explain why the biggest CD and DVD store in my country recently stated that their sales this year have been higher than ever before...

And I love having CDs. That why I can have my music and a physical form so there's way less chance of losing it. I also get the awesome album artwork and booklet. I also have a huge choice of what to do with my music. I can easily lend it to a friend without worrying about DRM, I can convert it to mp3 as small or as large as I want. I can even convert it to lossless audio if I wanted to. Ad I can flick it in my car stereo and listen to it there.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not still hauling a big ass CD Walkman or anything like that around. I have a 4GB Sony MP3 Walkman and plan to upgrade shortly because it doesn't hold even near enough. But I love CDs and as long as they're around I will buy them and I honestly don't see them dying anytime soon. The sales in my country say so, and so do my like-minded friends.

[Carl Vitullo @ Sep 25th 2008 10:07PM]

It wouldn't hurt if BR movies didn't cost 40 or 50 dollars. That's ridiculous. It seems to me like most movies are going to make most of their money from the box office, and if it doesn't break even there it doesn't matter how expensive the disc is, you're NOT going to make it. If it were $20, like every other (still expensive) DVD, I think it would be faring a lot better.

[bokuwaomar @ Sep 25th 2008 10:24PM]

Blue Ray will fail not because of digital downloads, but because no one outside the tech sites really cares about it. Frankly, the HD optical disk formats had no business being created in the first place. For one, there really wasn't any good reason to stick with optical disk, in fact, there are good reasons to ditch them. Secondly, most people do not have HDTVs, and that's unlikely to change soon. Adding insult to injury, some of the people with HDTVs are satisfied with upscaled DVDs, or at least can't justify the extra expense of Blue Ray players and movies. Sony is just wasting it's money promoting a format that no one, not even the PS3 gamers needs.

@Josh, I wholeheartedly agree with you on that one, and frankly, the sooner optical disks are killed off, the better. There are already standards for flash memory and computer industry just needs to pick the same one and install readers in all new computers; everyone else will join the party soon after when it's obvious that there's money to be made. Optical disks and their protective casings take up a lot of space and optical drives add weight and thickness to laptops and anything they are added to. Flash already holds more data in less space than optical disks, will increase in capacity over time, and will be dirt cheap in a year. Additionally, you don't need to make a new format and manufacture new players to increase capacity for even higher resolution (so high that real life looks blurry) movies. Just use a denser chip in the same package and it will just work (assuming no one pulls a tray-loading iMac and put an 8TB firmware limit because it will be good enough for everyone; I love Apple, but Steve, that was just stupid).

[kevin @ Sep 25th 2008 10:32PM]

@ Josh: "In a few years, no doubt 32GB and 64GB will be under £20/$40 which makes the prospect of HD video in your pocket much easier."

Right now, DVDs cost pennies to produce. Except, they don't sell movies for what it costs to physically produce the media. If a card cost $40 to manufacture, you can bet selling a movie on it would cost a hell of a lot more than that. And even if it didn't, I can't see $40 movies becoming mainstream...

[John @ Sep 25th 2008 11:20PM]

Hey, you can get a full 1080p movie as an MKV that fits on a dual layer DVD. All the "special features" stuff might not be able to cram in alongside it, but still, storage space isn't so much the issue.

[loosely_coupled @ Sep 25th 2008 11:41PM]

HHAHAHAH! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Do you have any idea what percentage of people (especially in the united states) will have access to Verizon Fios or any other fiber-to-the-home connection? It's incredibly unlikely we'll see even a 10% penetration of fiber connections in the United states by 2015. Now perhaps if Obama wins the election, the economy doesn't collapse, budget priorities are drastically changed, telecommunications regulations are heavily reformed, and the public agrees to a major broadband investment strategy, then yes.

But even leaving out the problems inherent with every Joe Average downloading 15-20GB HD movies, I can't see most people adopting digital downloads for movie *purchases*. Rentals is one thing, but purchasing to own is another thing entirely. The movie studios are already using incredibly draconian DRM on services like Amazon Unbox, Xbox Live marketplace, iTunes, Playstation 3 movie downloads, etc. People are not going to give up all their media ownership rights just for the convenience of not going to walmart or whatever. Just take a look at some of the video download policies (aka PS3 video store.)

- You can download the film once (or twice) If you lose the file after that, you are screwed and have to re-buy the film.
- Want to move the file to a new drive? Sorry
- Want to backup the file in case of drive failure? Nope
- Want to watch the movie at your friends house? Sorry, can move the file
- Want to watch in your bedroom? nope
- Want to watch on your iPod? nope
- Want to sell your used movie? Sorry, "licenses" are non-transferrable.
- etc

With the way these clowns in hollywood treat customers, I just can't see most people going along with this crap, even acknowledging the apathy and obliviousness of your average American.

[animeGhost @ Sep 26th 2008 10:28AM]

what some of you are neglecting to take into account is the consumer base... most consumers are not ready for digital download it is still far to complicated for probably 80% of the consumer base... i work in retail consumer electronics, the fact is ppl like me and you are ready for digital dl but most consumers are not, its just not possible and not because of technological restrictions but because of a lack of learning curve in most of the consumer base... there are still a lot of ppl out there who still think hd-dvd is still kickin around. I dont kno about the rest of the world but here in the u.s. consumer ignorance is the reason why digital distro will never overtake a traditional medium.

[Eric @ Sep 26th 2008 10:49AM]

The only flaw in your reasoning is the fact that cable companies are positioning themselves to be the gatekeepers of bandwidh to protect their VOD business.

And the fact that Comcast is limiting the amount that can be downloaded per month before having their bandwidth throttled down to a miniscule amount for the rest of the month.

It's doubtful bandwidth is going to be freed up to download massive HD movies on a large scale without paying the tube owners a toll.

[Josh @ Sep 26th 2008 12:08PM]

@Kevin

Sure. I agree with you there, but this is long term. DVD has been going for years and it's mass produced on enormous scale. It is however limited to 8/9 gigs roughly. However, a DVD costs a penny to produce - how much exactly does a new release cost? A good deal more than that. $20 to 30 easily.

Blu Ray is limited to around 50 say? But how much do those discs cost to produce - let alone buy. A LOT more than a penny.

Flash memory will eventually supersede optical/magnetic media in terms of size:cost ratio. 3 years ago, i paid about 50 quid ($100) for a 512mb stick. Last week i paid 10 quid ($20) for a 4GB drive that's even smaller.

Yes it's more expensive, but it's more versatile and if produced on the sheer scale of optical media, the price will of course fall.

[b @ Sep 25th 2008 7:22PM]

Start releasing all your movies in DTS-MA and with both a director's cut and theatrical cut with good video transfer and I'll bet you'll see BR sales soar!

[DiGiC @ Sep 25th 2008 7:25PM]

I dont see how they can say that its got that long left, I mean its not like DVD's were an overnight success although the passage of time seems like weve had them forever.

Give it 18 months and a wide spread low cost Blu ray players, burners and blank disks, they'll FLY off the shelves once they hit the sweet spot

[iSIKH @ Sep 25th 2008 7:26PM]

They are way too expensive and I would prefer to download.

[Quito @ Sep 25th 2008 7:27PM]

While people in rich, developed countries can think of a near future with all digital downloads, a great many more people around the globe are still listening to cd's and cassettes. Until a majority of people have access to fast, reliable and cheap broadband connections, physical media like Blu-Ray are more likely to become the mainstream support for movies. Remember that while dvd players were outrageously expensive at first, there are now players that will cost no more than the price of one dvd movie.

[BJ is Gooder @ Sep 25th 2008 7:46PM]

How fast has the technology gone from 28.8 to 56k, to DSL, cable, and now Fios? Maybe, 15 years tops? What do you think speeds will be like in developed countries in 5 years?

Internet speeds and cheap HDDs will kill Blu-ray almost as fast as laser disk. When you can see the next format (D/Ls) on the horizon, the current format is done for. And considering Blu-ray isn't even the 'current format', it'll be gone soon.

Owning a physical copy of something is definitely the toughest hurdle to get over. While people will always like to have a physical copy of something they own that they can touch, I don't think that's stopped much of the world from going from CD's to mp3's.

[z0phi3l @ Sep 25th 2008 8:27PM]

You do realize that the US ranks just about last in Broadband availability and uptake? If anything the US is one of the main reasons Digital Downloads are not up to par what with the IAAs suing their customers and crpa like that while the rest of Europe and Asia already have the bandwidth to have full 1080 downloads to the hone

[Troy Powers @ Sep 25th 2008 9:23PM]

z0phi3l, where did you get that idea from? I lived in Germany up until 2008, and was just there in June to visit. Broadband connections are much less prevalent and much more expensive there.

And right here in the good ol' U. S. of A. on my Time Warner Cable connection it still takes a day or so to download a crappy version of a movie, let alone what would be the equivalent of a blu-ray disk. Then there's getting it from my 'puter to my tv.

And even IF in 5 years I have the lightning fast internet and an easy networking solution so I can just turn on my tv and watch that downloaded movie...in that 5 years I've already gotten used to blu-ray. Why change unless the downloaded movie has significantly higher quality or is much more convenient?

Quality and convenience. That's what it comes down to. People are reluctant to change, and they surely don't change just for the heck of it. I can't see the picture quality of a downloaded movie beating blu-ray significantly. And I can't imagine it would be much more convenient than popping in a disk. I mean sure, downloading a movie is more convenient than going to a store and buying it. Even slightly more convenient than grabbing the netflix envelope from the mailbox. But, if I download Finding Nemo...cool, let's somehow network it to the living room computer. Great, my daughter loved it and wants to watch it again, but I want to watch the basketball game. Let's somehow stream it from the computer up to her bedroom. And when she wants to take it with her to her friend's sleepover? That downloaded movie isn't so convenient.

And, sure, solid state media is growing in leaps and bounds. But, why switch to a 50 gig flash disk from a 50 gig blu-ray disk. To the average consumer it isn't going to make a difference. Hell, to ME it doesn't make a difference. And it surely won't after I've got a nice collection of blu-rays five years down the line.

I guess time will tell though.

[konshuss @ Sep 25th 2008 7:27PM]

are we supposed to listen to a prediction by andy of mayberry?

[dtomilson @ Sep 25th 2008 7:29PM]

I just spent $292 CAD for going over my cap with my ISP. I have a 10MBIT connection to my house meaning I can download at 1.2MBPS at peak. That said, what is the size of an average blu-ray movie? 20GB ? My cap with my ISP is 60GB. That means I can download 3x blu-ray movies and do nothing else without incurring penalties.

I for one think the ISPs must remove the cap if we are to download HD movies, browse the internet, play multiplayer games online with our ps3, xbox360, wii and other network devices. Even downloading an app that is in excess of 10MB for the iphone requires a WIFI connection which means even more downloads on your internet connection. Going over yoru quota is far too easy and I for one cannot afford anymore penalties.

Give us unlimited bandwidth before you take away removable media.

Thank you.

[simon @ Sep 25th 2008 11:56PM]

"I for one think the ISPs must remove the cap if we are to download HD movies..."

Is is just my thinking or are the ISP's more likely to say if you want a higher cap and faster D/L you must be prepared to pay more.

[Mark @ Sep 25th 2008 7:30PM]

They can actually increase sales in Blu-Ray, all they need to do is bring the price of the players down to the price point that most people can afford/justify (under $300, WITHOUT it being on sale).

Also, lower the price of Blu-Ray movies to the price of standard-def DVD's. $10 bucks more for a Blu-Ray? forget that!

Keeping the prices high is equal to shooting themselves in the foot.

[thehumanyawn @ Sep 25th 2008 8:28PM]

Most people cannot afford a $300 player in the first place, and the economy has made things that much worse for Blu-ray. I don't know what rich gated community you're typing from, but the average family on Main St doesn't have that kind of money, nor did it before our economic crisis.

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 25th 2008 7:31PM]

OMFG! That was disgusting what you just said! What the shit does that have to do with this?

[konshuss @ Sep 25th 2008 7:31PM]

1. they're not comparable technologies

2. apple nor the iphone are mentioned anywhere in this article

3. you're an idiot.

[Sora @ Sep 25th 2008 7:32PM]

What the hell does Blu-Ray have to with Apple? Wait, what the hell does this post have to do with cell phones?!

[Hellaphunt @ Sep 25th 2008 7:33PM]

Blu-Ray just had that awe factor. Its novelty will be washed away by its impracticality.

[Azayzel @ Sep 25th 2008 7:35PM]

Blueray is not dead and won't be dying any time soon. The argument that digital downloads are going to replace it as the new medium is simply FUD. Why? Simply because people aren't going to want a *virtual* copy of a movie. I don't want the simple bits sitting on a HDD that's going to expire in a couple years, let alone terabytes of movies I paid for sitting on a HDD that WILL fail. Secondly, to get the equivalent of a BD you'd have to download well over the typical 8.5GB standard DL-DVD. Broadband or not, unless you're running on a gigabit connection it's going to take a long time to download a single movie. So why pay a high price for something that's going to take a long time to download, sit on an unstable medium, and you can't carry over to a friend's house to watch?

The only sticking point I have with BD's is that they are too expensive to just go out and buy a few at any given time. Drop the price back to ~$15 and I'm in. I've never paid more than $10 for DVD's so why would I want to pay double to triple for a BD? Secondly, put the digital version of the movie on the BD as well, some movies are already doing this and that will save people from having to d/l or convert it themselves. BD is not dead.

[Jeff @ Sep 25th 2008 8:54PM]

"The argument that digital downloads are going to replace it as the new medium is simply FUD"

I guess you have never heard of something called iTunes? It sells more music then Walmart.

The DVR (aka TIVO) revolutionized the way we watch tv... why CONVENIENCE.

My 4 terabyte media server has many movies & TV shows. Most are HD quality. I can play it on any TV or computer in my house (3 1080P tv's, one is 1080P with 120hz), by pressing a button. You pretty much cannot give me hard media anymore. Yes I have a PS3 & 360. I've watched 3 blu-ray movies on my PS3.. yawn.

Betting on hard media is like betting on the abacus.

[Troy Powers @ Sep 25th 2008 9:38PM]

That's great, Jeff, but your home setup is far from the average Joe's. And for digital downloads to take over, it's going to have to be Average Joe accessible.

That means:
1) Internet connection speeds VASTLY increased (and, again, we're not talking here and there. we're talking across the board).
2) DRM fixed and reliable.
3) ISPs not capping downloads.
4) More reliable (SSD?) hard drives becoming the norm.
5) Completely networked homes (so you can watch that downloaded movie on any tv in the house) becoming the norm.

That's a lot of ducks to get in a row in 5 years. Then you've still got the hurdle of people just plain being resistant to change and technophobic.

[joeroddis @ Sep 25th 2008 7:37PM]

I wouldn't switch to digital downloads if i had the choice.
There is nothing wrong with having the option, i have downloaded a few films on the 360 before, it's ok for the convenience.
I don't think that physical media will ever be fully replaced, too many people like having a hard copy, myself included.

[Neebs @ Sep 25th 2008 7:41PM]

9/10
I didn't rage, but you got the other guys.

[Chris @ Sep 25th 2008 7:54PM]

Here's the one reason Blu ray will be around for much longer, quality. A blu ray movie has a bit rate of 40mbps while cable has 1/2 that at 20mbps and an itunes HD movie only has a bitrate of 4mbps which is terrible. (even though its 720p 1080p at double the bitrate would still suck) Plus space, a blu ray movie can take up more than 25gbs which if you have an internet provider caps at 250gbs that means you'll be limited to 10 movies per month not to mention that a 25gb movie would take an extremely long time to download.

[Mr.Ironic @ Sep 26th 2008 12:20AM]

It just seems the more steps we take forward the more we remain still, doesn't it?

Everything got faster, but everything got bigger. So everything remained the same.

I don't have a HDTV, I haven't even watched a Bluray movie. I've played games on HD size screens, which was cool, but I think they might be a little over sized for movies. Living rooms are only so big you know. But still maybe one day. I remember a few years ago HD was a bit of a joke the tv picture looks EVEN WORSE because of the signal vs screen size. Still, I download crappy movies I watch once and go to the cinema for movies I think will be good, often getting ripped off in the process, sometimes even for a lesser experience. What a joke. I'm not laughing.

As for the whole digital v physical argument. I kinda hate cds now, it's odd, I download everything. Except games which I would only ever get in the box - I still do - but it's actually becoming inconvenient. I think we should differentiate between downloaded media and say digital distribution of games anywhere as a service. It's becoming slightly more tempting. I don't want to hall around cds/dvd what ever to play on another computer.

Someone mentioned solid state drives, now I think for games consoles this will be the way forward. I know Nintendo said they sort a 'storage solution' for Wii, they said it wasn't an HDD. Which means Hard DISK drive. Solid state is not a disk.

So I'm calling it now that Nintendo will bring out some kind of solid state drive for the Wii (or the next Wii for sure). Either as a slot in or built in later on.

[Phil @ Sep 25th 2008 7:59PM]

I hate the autocomplete function, it just made me look like a dick, anyway, I think it will take five years for bluray to really get accepted, seeing as most dvd players have a rough lifespan of about that, people are going to replace their dvd players with a bluray player, providing the price is right.

[Shushyou! @ Sep 26th 2008 9:11AM]

Doesn't that suck when your Mom asks you to do a search for "apple pie" recipes, and "Asian anal ass hats" comes up automatically? M$ autocomplete FAIL.

[Cray @ Sep 25th 2008 8:04PM]

Its not like any of us expected a Sony executive to agree with the 'five year' prognosis. They have a vested interest in the technology's success. If Rick Clancy agreed with ANY notion that Blu-Ray would die off, it would undermine any marketing ground they've established. A sure way to get himself fired.

Honestly its hard to predict what the American economy is going to be like in five years. Not to mention how far along the digital download market grows. As soon as there's an affordable and reliable network for MID (Mobile Internet Devices) the quicker it will kill Blu-Ray. Right now Blu-Ray looks slightly more affordable than wireless digital download.

You're probably wondering what does a MID have to do with Blu-Ray? Well if a person can store a reasonable amount of hi-def movies on a MID, then there'd be no real point in owning a Blu-Ray DVD player, let alone buying Blu-Ray movies when you can (via wireless Internet) download them to your MID and dock it to any hi-def TV to watch the movies from your digital library. This technology is coming, and its pretty much here, but it's not quite affordable or universally compatible as DVD players are.

[Neeko @ Sep 25th 2008 8:04PM]

DLing movies wont kill bluRay...Streaming of HD quality movies is the next big thing. No waiting for completeed files. If i could stream HD quality movies like a netflix servicee i wod b happy. and not the crappy quality we receive now. im talking true HD.

[Greg Mcp @ Sep 25th 2008 8:21PM]

We live in weird fricken times when 5 years in the future is so distant and unimaginable that we can't predict what format we'll be watching movies on.

Probably still DVDs, actually.

[TavisJohn @ Sep 25th 2008 8:34PM]

Sony has already spent millions to billions paying off studios to get them to leave HD-DVD. They finally "Won" the next gen format war. They will pour millions more into it until it becomes "the" HD video format for movies and such.
They are soo tired of loosing that they are willing to spend many fortunes to win this one, and keep it! They lost Beta vs VHS. They lost UMD as a portable movie format. They are on the loosing end of the portable gaming market. (Most people purchase a PSP and after the new wears off, stop playing with it, or hack it. The DS just gets played)

I suspect that Sony will continue to back BluRay until it is about to kill the whole company. And even then they may still back it till they finally die!

So BluRay is here to stay. And if any other HD format comes to light, Sony will just write more checks to studios till they kill that format off too!