Blu-ray being adopted faster then DVD

Ron-P

At least, according to this.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Singulus received orders for 21 Blu-ray dual-layer machines in the first quarter and said on Monday the figure showed the new technology was being adopted faster than its predecessor, DVD, 11 years ago.

"This means that the orders for Blu-ray in the first year of the dual layer technology already by far exceeded the volume at the start of the DVD eleven years ago with 17 machines," Chief Financial Officer Stefan Baustert said.

The German optical disc equipment maker added in a statement that it had received additional orders for Blu-ray dual-layer machines this quarter and said a key U.S. customer had accepted one of the machines for the first time.

The adoption of Blu-ray was for years held up by a format war with rival technology HD-DVD, but a decision by Hollywood studio Warner Bros. early this year to support Blu-ray exclusively effectively decided the issue.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL0963707920080609

fatchowmein

Could this simply be a matter of everybody already owning a DVD player for every room in the house?

ben62670

Well that would be great for people like me who refuse to pay top dollar for new technology.
Ben

Sami

fatchowmein wrote: »

Could this simply be a matter of everybody already owning a DVD player for every room in the house?

They are comparing at the start time of each product, status of DVD today should be irrelevant info.

ben62670

When DVD came out everyone had 3 VCR's.

mantis

It's still good Info. Blu ray is selling. We sell really only Blu Ray players now. It's rare I install a regular dvd player. I do however miss seeing all the reference dvd players. We sell mostly the Sony 300.

Dan

Ethancf

Once we get full onboard lossless decoding (DTS-HDMA/Dolby TrueHD) for us 5/7.1 analog folks, I'll get onboard the BD wagon. I have my eye on that Sony S550...we'll see what happens.

Early B.

Bring back HD-DVD, I say.

Ethancf

Early B. wrote: »

Bring back HD-DVD, I say.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Ron-P

Early B. wrote: »

Bring back HD-DVD, I say.

Why?

It was in no way better then Blu-ray. In fact HD-DVD was worse off because the majority of their titles only had DD+ tracks. Almost every Blu title has some sort of lossless track.

Libertyc

But....
Don't you need a HDTV with HDMI inputs to view the picture quality?
Wait until almost everyone owns a HDTV and then look at the stats.

But by that time there will be a better format.

Ron-P

No, you don't. You can use a component connection. The only thing you cannot get lossless audio, only HDMI for that.

But by that time there will be a better format.

I highly doubt that. The consumer base does not adopt change rapidly. It'll take a quite awhile before Blu becomes like DVD is now. I don't think any manufacturer would be stupid enough to try and introduce a new format within the next 10 years unless they want to go the way of HD-DVD.

Early B.

Ron-P wrote: »

I highly doubt that. The consumer base does not adopt change rapidly. It'll take a quite awhile before Blu becomes like DVD is now. I don't think any manufacturer would be stupid enough to try and introduce a new format within the next 10 years unless they want to go the way of HD-DVD.

In 10 years, the whole concept of the DVD will be obsolete. A "new format" will be streaming the movie from the Internet or watching it directly off the web. Consumers would likely adopt this approach rapidly as soon as it becomes cheaper than renting DVDs.

AndyGwis

Cheaper and equal (or nearly equal) quality.

If the movie "buffers" every few minutes like every other "streaming video," I'll stick with the discs.

AsSiMiLaTeD

You can't really compare when DVD first came out with Blu Ray coming out now. We're a much more HD media driven society than we were 10 years ago.

Oh, and one advantage that HD DVD still has over Blu Ray is the combo discs. I know everyone thinks they're retarded, but I can't tell you how often we watch movies in one of the other living areas where only a 'regular' dvd player is used. With Blu Ray that means I gotta buy two copies of the movie, not with the HD DVD combo discs...

dorokusai

Early B. wrote: »

In 10 years, the whole concept of the DVD will be obsolete. A "new format" will be streaming the movie from the Internet or watching it directly off the web. Consumers would likely adopt this approach rapidly as soon as it becomes cheaper than renting DVDs.

Absolutely. Wireless audio and internet based media will become the standard....sooner than you think.

JohnLocke88

My theory is the transition between DVD and Blu will more seamless than VHS to DVD. It's going from one optical disk to another, rather than from tape to digital. The price is obviously a hard pill to swallow, but the first DVD players weren't cheap either.

@the combat format discussion: I agree. Some movies I have on blu-ray only, it's annoying to not be able to play them on my computer (unless I get a $200 blu-ray drive). I actually wanted the PS3 outside the blu-ray features, so the blu ray support was just an added bonus.

mantis

Polkmaniac wrote: »

You can't really compare when DVD first came out with Blu Ray coming out now. We're a much more HD media driven society than we were 10 years ago.

Oh, and one advantage that HD DVD still has over Blu Ray is the combo discs. I know everyone thinks they're retarded, but I can't tell you how often we watch movies in one of the other living areas where only a 'regular' dvd player is used. With Blu Ray that means I gotta buy two copies of the movie, not with the HD DVD combo discs...

I think you can compare it. It's a change in home movie replay. Back then big screen tv's and building a killer movie collection was in full effect. Dolby digital was a driving force for audio movie people.

Hd dvd was ok at best for me. I used the Xbox 360 drive and Blu ray killed it dead. Transformers is a killer movie and using the Xbox to watch it I felt it lacked Dynamics. Comparing it to Spiderman 3 on Blu ray well there was no comparsion. I liked transformers better but Spiderman sounded better on Blu ray. I bet it was the xbox as it was wierd with locking itself in DD or DTS. But the dual format was cool. I have DVD in the bedroom with a 45 Sharp Lcd on the wall and the wife and I like to watch "HER" kind of movies in there. It's nice to lay in bed and watch. With HD DVD I could watch it in both places. Cool. With Blu Ray, I have to Disconnect my PS3 and connect it in the masterbed. Not hard as I ran a HDMI to the tv and I just plug and go. I even have a extention cord on the shelf where I connect the Ps3 with a 3 foot powercord so I don't have to unwire anything from my main system. It takes 2 minutes to disconnect and reconnect. Most of the time is spent walking from the familyroom to the master bedroom.

I plan on adding a Ps3 to my masterbed. I still find it to be the best current Blu ray player out there. Not to mention everything else it can do.

Dan

cheddar

dorokusai wrote: »

Absolutely. Wireless audio and internet based media will become the standard....sooner than you think.

And, of course, outrageous pricing will also hit sooner than you think...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25190402/

The top 5 percent of AT&T's DSL customers use 46 percent of the total bandwidth, Coe said. Overall bandwidth use on the network is surging, doubling every year and a half.

...Most cable companies have official or secret caps on the amount of data they allow subscribers to download every month. Time Warner Cable started a trial earlier this month in Beaumont, Texas, under which it will charge subscribers who go over their monthly bandwidth cap $1 per gigabyte.

Cable companies are at the forefront of usage-based pricing because neighbors share capacity on the local cable lines, and bandwidth hogs can slow down traffic for others.

...those who download movies or TV, particularly in high definition, can hit the caps imposed by cable companies.

Download caps could put a crimp in the plans of services like Apple Inc.'s iTunes that use the Internet to deliver video.

It will take a while for them to come up with a cheap, high speed distribution method that's wired into everyone's house. Until they get it worked out, video over internet will bring nothing but frustrating congestion or expensive tiered pricing to cable and even dsl customers. Disk based distribution still has some room to breathe ...

dkg999

What do you suppose is the next "major" technology/format enhancement to get you to upgrade your AVR/HTR? First it was HDMI, then it was decoding for the new HD audio codec, next will be ..............?

My guess is that HDMI is going to be relatively short-lived

Sami

Physical medium isn't going away anytime soon, there are too many obstacles on downloaded content to replace it completely. Even to replace it as main form of distribution, it will take a very long long time.

danger boy

to use the upconverting benefits of ANY dvd player.. it needs to be hooked up to HDMI, component cables do not upconvert the video signal.

I think high def has been taking off faster than stand DVD's from 10+ years ago is that after 10 yrs the DVD players dropped down in $ to where everyone could own one.. if you have $25 in your pocket you can own a DVD player. That isn't the case for Blu Ray currently.. but prices will drop in the next year and continue to drop till they reach the mass market at around $89 for the cheap made in Korea all plastic throw away ones.

HD DVD should have had a longer shelf life. Seriously.. it was just as good as Blu Ray. Sony had a huge jump in the BD market with the PS3 able to play them. Gamers were/are still standing by the PS3 as the best BD players ever made. I looked at one.. and it seriously lacked output connections that would work for me.. even though I'm not on the cutting edge of technology.. but neither are a lot of people.

Sami

danger boy wrote: »

to use the upconverting benefits of ANY dvd player.. it needs to be hooked up to HDMI, component cables do not upconvert the video signal.

Not completely true.

polktiger

dorokusai wrote: »

Absolutely. Wireless audio and internet based media will become the standard....sooner than you think.

possibly, but I doubt it. Maybe in major metro areas. Locally, they have had to basically blackmail AT&T through the FCC to approve their deal with BellSouth to get more agressive rolling out DSL service. Many urban neighborhoods near me are still "too far away" for DSL to work, and we don't have the fancy version of cellular internet. Our cable is still a local monopoly so cable based internet is still $40+ a month and the speeds suck. We still lose cable service anytime we get a good thunderstorm (at least 3 or 4 times a month May - October). For all the bandwidth complaining that the cable company around here makes (Comcast) as to why we still only have 8 HD channels, I don't see how we can get to internet based content anytime in the next 10 to 15 years around here.

Heck, I even dropped sirius radio after the free year with car purchase becuase we have so many trees around here you lose the signal constantly.

danger boy

this data is a bit outdated but it still holds true...

Because upconverting DVD players are all recent products, just about any model will have either a DVI or the newer HDMI output. Both connections facilitate a pure, digital-video signal from the player to the receiver (if equipped with DVI/HDMI input/output) or HDTV. HDMI gives you a digital video and digital multi-channel audio connection through a single cable. Unless you have a costly receiver with HDMI switching, you’re going to be running the video signal directly to the TV and the audio to the receiver. In this case, either a DVI or HDMI output on the DVD player will suffice. If your HDTV has only an HDMI input—and most of the latest models do—a DVI-to-HDMI converter cable is available.

Keeping the video signal in the digital domain during its trip from the DVD player to the HDTV will produce the highest-quality images. If you forgo DVI or HDMI in favor of even a good quality analog connection via component cables, the video signal goes through conversions from digital (DVD) to analog (component) and back to digital again (HDTV). Such conversions can produce signal noise and image degradation.

Ethancf

danger boy wrote: »

to use the upconverting benefits of ANY dvd player.. it needs to be hooked up to HDMI, component cables do not upconvert the video signal.

To expand...I ran into this with my "component only" Mits 65" In order for me to enjoy the crazy beautiful upconverting capabilities of my Toshiba HD-XA2, I have to do the following:

Buy DVD+R Dual Layer media (Sony preferably)
Burn a copy of my DVD using DVDFab 5.0 (Free)
Select DVD-9 to avoid compression (This gives an exact copy and strips out HDCP garbage which prevents the component users from upconverting past 480p.)
Plug in the newly copied disc, and enjoy the sexy magic of your dvd's upconverted 1080x via component!

danger boy

Ethancf wrote: »

To expand...I ran into this with my "component only" Mits 65" In order for me to enjoy the crazy beautiful upconverting capabilities of my Toshiba HD-XA2, I have to do the following:

Buy DVD+R Dual Layer media (Sony preferably)
Burn a copy of my DVD using DVDFab 5.0 (Free)
Select DVD-9 to avoid compression (This gives an exact copy and strips out HDCP garbage which prevents the component users from upconverting past 480p.)
Plug in the newly copied disc, and enjoy the sexy magic of your dvd's upconverted 1080x via component!

Wow! really wow..

But i get it. if I watch a standard dvd in my HD DVD player it plays at 480p, but if I burn a copy of the movie it plays it at 1080i
it's weird i know. and the burned copy looks better than the original one.

Ethancf

danger boy wrote: »

Wow! really wow..

But i get it. if I watch a standard dvd in my HD DVD player it plays at 480p, but if I burn a copy of the movie it plays it at 1080i
it's weird i know. and the burned copy looks better than the original one.

Indeed...but you gotta use the DVD+R Dual Layer media to get the benefit. If you buy the standard DVD+/-R media, they are only 4.7 gig or so in size and that's why people have to compress the original DVD (which is roughly less than 9 gig). The more expensive DVD+R DL media is pricey, but worth it for a guy like me. I guess it all depends on your setup, budget, and level of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Sami

You can always burn it into two separate discs. Most region free discs that I have purchased do not have copy protection so they will upconvert with component without making a copy.