I am hearing more and more promotion of Blu-ray, Blu-ray players, and HDTVs. What I don’t hear is any warning or notice that it will soon be obsolete! DVD stayed around for quite some time, but with the advances of products and services like Netflix and Apple TV, HD and Blu-ray quality programming can already be streamed straight into your home TV without an expensive player or the physical media.
The technology between the TV and the computer is continually growing and looking the same. People begin to wonder why they have two setups to stream TV shows, watch movies, play games online and off, listen to music, and connect to a network. My question is what did Blu-ray win when they beat HD-DVD? Honestly, the answer is a little bit of the spotlight and maybe some respect, but that is about it.
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Article comments
1 - Matt Paprocki
So, despite the misleading title, you're saying downloadable HD media is already a winner? Uh, no.
Video quality has yet to reach the level of Blu-ray. Downloaded HD is not the same, neither is cable or VOD. It's heavily compressed. You don't get extras or any significant bonus features.
Physical media has a long way to go. If you want to pay for something you never truly own, can't resell if you don't like it, can't loan to a friend, and want to have your media in the hands of the company, you go right ahead.
2 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
I have to agree with Matt about the current technology,even though, I don't agree about "ownership" or the notion that a disc is better or will always be more portable than a harddrive. [In fact, that will all change when solid state can store more & is cheap enough to replace plastic] Unfortunately, our bandwidth is still 90% less than the Japanese and Internet 2.0 is quite a ways off,so, because Blu-Ray isn't compressed and offers DVD-A quality audio, HD Media isn't in a winning position.
3 - Ken Edwards
Yea, I am gonna have to jump in with Paprocki here with a 'huh?"
Blu-ray and DVD will co-exist for some time now. BD, DVD, and HD-DVD were too many options and the one with the least support by the industry lost.
Take a look at how long VHS lasted into the life cycle of DVD. I expect BD to act similar. Because, just like with the VHS/DVD transition, there will be people who want the features that BD has (like DVD before it) and those who think that DVD is just fine for them (like VHS before that).
And Matt could not be more right about the ownership of digital High(er) Def content. DRM can be a bitch.
4 - El Bicho
I don't even understand how the piece starts off talking about the analog-to-digital conversion. What does that have to do with high definition media?
5 - Brian aka Guppusmaximus
Well,El, I think he was just trying to educate the non-techies about the digital language "Binary" and how that differs from the world of waves & frequencies.
Granted, I agree with him that right now analog is still a superior source, the reason why we are moving in a digital direction (like I've said before) is largely,in part, due to "generational loss" & interferences which digital is not prone to. Which means, the level of quality after the recording or transmission process takes place. Plus, there is quite a bit of debate over how much of that wave we really do process. That's why Mp3,AAC,WMA,etc has reached such popularity. Believe me, there are a ton of other factors to the analog vs. digital platform that I don't have the time or attention deficit to type about,but, when digital does finally equal the same as analog(which is all about storage space & bandwidth)then the possibilities will be huge!
6 - Steven Randal
Interesting to see all these developments. Good quality information that can be verified is important since there seems to be a lot of nonsense being posted about new media. This article is interesting though, I'm curious how the HD v.s. blue-ray battle will end.