@JoOngle:
And since you do something, everyone must as well!

Like everyone else is saying,
if ISPs are going to keep REDUCING bandwidth, I highly doubt people are going to INCREASE their number of downloaded things. Especially not feature length movies with little compression.

Ethan Halko!

We can all do the calculation in our heads. When do we think it will be practical to download 50GB? In 5 years? Perhaps. But more likley 8-10.

Noobs-R-Us

At this point only Blu-ray discs are showing high def video at its full potential. The cable companies continue to use as much compression as they can get away with. Since the cable stations ''HD'' label does not include a limit on video compression most cable ''HD'' programs are visibly lacking in quality. Even with increased cable bandwidth we will probably just get more content rather than higher quality video. Don't think the physical media discs will be gone for a long time.

nocar

All this talk of streaming, downloading, restoring, etc. assumes a connection to the net. If I want to watch a movie somewhere in the boonies, I need a disc. And i want to record HD content on something a bit more permanent than magnetic media.

If my $1000 only buys me 8-10 years of use from a player, I can live with that.

dc-united

Makes sense. DVD is around 8 years old and Blu ray has been around for about 2 so 2 + 5 is 7.

daftrok

Whatever comes out better have some frickin' backward compatibility for cryin' out load.

aboriginal

Of course....the bandwith is different in different parts of the world...I guess we Danes are a bit spoiled with our limitless gigaspeeds....

JoOngle

I wasn't going to bother with a Blu-ray player for my new 1080p TV since it was just as effective to download a file and play it. However, with Comcast announcing their caps I think I'll be hanging on to hard copy media for a few more years. I don't want to waste my quota on a crappy movie I might like when I can use it for pron I know I'll like.

Dillenger69

Not gonna happen for at least ten years. I've got an HDTV, a PS3 and lots of Blu-Ray movies, download DLC, and spend lots of time online with the fastest internet connection I can get at my house in the center of the city I live in, my 128kpbs wireless modem. If anything, the bandwidth caps prove that this pipe dream is further off than before.

TVGenius

Scary fact:

They might be right on the money about the abandonment of Discs...

I´m looking at my own life as an example. I used to buy lots of dvds, vhs, all that...back in time...

I even used to purchase music cd´s.

Do I do that anymore? Last CD I purchased was about 8-9 years ago. I´ve been purchasing online ever since.

Movies? I´ve bought lots of DVDs over the years, but as they also become availiable online I´m just "renting" the movies there.

Games? I buy all my games via Steam or the Playstation Store. Again - Fully online!

It´s ultra practical, Whenever I format my harddrive - purchase a new computer....I´ve always got my files with me because they´ll restore either from the STORES as "already purchased items" or "Steam / playstation" installs....already!

Works like a dream, ultra practical....

...bye bye dead discs....fun while it lasted, but you´re buried faster than 5 years.-.

JoOngle

you're all forgetting that comcast isnt capping its own video streaming services... there is still hd on demand, and as shitty as that can sometimes be, it'll be better, cheaper, and more complete in 5 years

Shub-Niggurath

he is full of shit and I love samsung products but with internet caps on the radar and the US's craptastic internet speeds I can guarantee bluray will live at least 8 more years.

lilaliendog

When my broadcast HDTV and VOD isn't so compressed that it looks like a cubist painting I'll give this a second thought. I won't start in on Netflix online movies, my 10 year old Nokia phone had better resolution... Whatever!

oliveboy

@noone1569: You're late, cuz 92BuickLeSabre beat you to it.

Kaiser-Machead on the Edge

I am currently downloading Pineapple Express at 8.9 kbps... I'll be damned if I am going to pay someone for the privilege of doing that.

When I can download a full HD movie in under 10 minutes, we can talk.

Hiphopopotamus

OK the Grover face on the BD-bush disc will always amuse me.

We needn't look any further than a TV commercial advertising TV's to see how much people care about HD. Oooh, aaah...look at the fancy new HDTV with its crystal clear image......but wait, I'm watching this ad on my stupid SD CRT box.

Now we have new trickery with the deliberately fuzzy image with the clear spot in the middle asking "Do you see in HD?". People still buy DVD's over the rest, and they look great upscaled on big HD sets.

Kaiser-Machead on the Edge

With broadband caps definitely coming, the horrible state of the North American internet, the insane fees for even renting a downloadable HD movie (not to mention buying one and having it work on god knows which devices you own), SSD storage still being damned expensive, and a good portion of downloadable HD content still looking like crap, Blu-Ray isn't going anywhere.

I'm pretty sure that all the money the studios backed Blu-Ray with will have something to say about Samsung talking out of their asses too.

DashTheHand

Whoa . . Wait a Second . . .NO ONE NOTICED THIS DUDE's name is

Andy Griffiths

HAHA!

noone1569

@smartboydan needs to stop watching the Watchmen trailer: Exactly. As long as there are data caps, digi dl will never be the end all be all of media. There will always be that "ownership factor" of buying a tangible object to sit on a shelf also.

Mr.SithNinja

Bandwidth will also KO mainstream TV networks too.
For example, last week I was able to watch live Northern Ireland Snooker Championships streamed to my desktop at work. Even the bloody CBC in Canada doesn't broadcast the bloody Canadian Championships in our own bloody country!
It can't come soon enough AFAIC.

ANoel

Blu-Ray's a gap filler.

TVs integrated with SD card readers and internet access.

It's my story and I'm sticking to it.

DustyButt

As much as I would like Blu ray to fail, it looks like it may actually pick up. I'm more interested in companies pursuing holographic 3D storage instead of this disc nonsense. We need to migrate away from discs, they're starting to become the modern floppy.

1.21Gigawatts

Really, we're gonna take Matlock's word on this?

92BuickLeSabre

I may not give it ten, but I wouldn't give it only five years. Especially since ISPs are moving more toward capping bandwidth than beefing up their infrastructure.

smartboydan needs to stop watching the Watchmen trailer

god, that picture of George W. Bush irritates me.

I don't know about the end of blu-ray, though... there's a powerful impetus for people to have a physical library to "show off." Plus, there's the issue of extras...

Parapraxis

This would hold true if true unlimited broadband internet become ubiquitous within five years. However, with the Comcastic announcement that in October bandwidth consumption will be limited for Comcast and other carriers looking at metered pricing, it doesn't look like that will happen. Perhaps Verizon could save the known universe offering true competition to the stodgy cable monopolies, but with the great haste they have made laying fiber where they have licenses, I wouldn't count on FiOS to save the day.

ianmac47

This would only be true if you believed that people do not want to own their own content. Sure hard drives and media cards are getting cheaper, but STORAGE is still an issue. With caps and slow speed Internet, storing content online will still not be a better option for a disk, even in the next 5 years. We were supposed to have flying cars by 2001 also!

digiprod

It will take some great event to convince me to stop buying physical media. I say this because I don't enjoy the idea of buying music at a lower quality than is available directly from a CD. Further, I've been burned a few too many times by purchasing music online and then then the seller goes out of business or like Microsoft changes their DRM system. I have a feeling that physical media will continue to be sold however it may become a niche market.

Jamo

@DustyButt: I meant "increasing capacity"... sorry.

DustyButt

As long as service providers such as Comcast continue to cap and limit internet connections, movies over broadband will not happen.

MichelleDatsun

several things will take Blu-Ray down..

Personally, I think companies will start selling movies on Thumb drives. they are almost cheaper to make and they are far easier to secure.

Loremaster101

@Kaiser-Machead on the Edge: I've been saying that for a looooong time now. Blu-Ray's big problem is not with the great image, but it's how it brings the image. Moving parts and the ability to become a blue coaster if you don't burn it properly is last decades thinking. It's the equivalent of a zip disk compared to a floppy disk.

The standard war really took the fun out of it for the masses. With SD capacity & speeds approaching that of Blu-Ray combined with huge price drops... Blu-Ray is already looking at the door in my book. SD cards are ubiquitous. They're already in camcorders and cameras. They have a read and write and REWRITE standard. They can be can operate via USB on ANY COMPUTER with an adapter that costs under $5. The current SD transfer speed is the same as Blu-Ray (unless I'm misinterpreting the data) and their current capacity is almost the same. With the current pace at which they've been increasing they should pass Blu-Ray by next summer.

Combine an SD card reader and a 1TB hardrive in the TV. Give the TV the ability to update it's codecs over the internet. Sell movies on SD cards (That can be financially viable VERY soon). Camcorders and cameras already use SD cards so you can watch home movies easity. You could also stream video files to your eithernet/internet connected TV and you could watch ANY video you have available... and like that, Bluray is DEAD all with current tech that's readily available.

DustyButt

Yup, DVDs are dead too... is this guy on planet Earth or some other alternate universe? Hmm.. checking.. Amazon.com.. website.. yup, DVDs are still selling. In fact, out of the top 25 best selling movies and TV shows, 3 are blu-ray and 22 are DVD format.

berribrand

He's probably right because he's not saying how long it will be before BD is *gone* but how long it will be before everyone who currently owns a BD player will have moved on to something else.

Old technologies rarely die. They have a half-life over which they decay slowly. DVD isn't that old, and while lots of people here have moved on to HD, there are still people out there (my mother) thinking about buying their first DVD player for their 25 year old Sony TV.

So when listening to these predictions, don't try to imagine a world without BD since that day will be much longer in coming, but if you own a BD player now, think about what it would take for you to move to something newer. I suspect that even five years sounds like a lot longer then.

Z.

Zoot

It's quite possible samsung is talking about how it'll affect bluray in korea, japan and unlimited broadband areas of asia and europe.

I can't help but feel like we (the US) are being relegated to 3rd world status in terms of entertainment access due to our horrible broadband providers, mono/oligopolies and RI/MPAA controlled government.

So yeah, samsung may be accurate in their prediction - we'll be stuck with our bluray discs and players while the rest of the civilized world are enjoying streaming HD movies and TV.

tarrantm

I doubt it will die completely. There will always be a need for some local storage and transfer ability, even with everyone having super-broadband (which will take a LONG time).

One-use optical media has an enormous price advantage over stuff like Flash. No, it might not be as big in ten years, but for backing up, archiving, some local transfers and alike. Although I do think flash will take over for stuff that is not bulk storage or distribution.

drbuzz0

@digiprod: Current internet bandwidth in the US is the bottleneck. But it's a hindrance to ALL HD content.

I just think consumers are ready to move on the SD not Blu-Ray. Many TV's already have SD slots. All computers have USB ports (giving them the ability to read SD's for DIRT CHEAP!).

DustyButt

I download everything for free, therefore, I only deal with digital jibba jabba.

jimbut

@digiprod: What I said is the same as it now. If studios sold their offerings on SD cards it's the same as a Blu-Rays disk however the user wouldn't have to buy a $300 player. They could buy a $10 card reader or use the one already built into their set. SD cards provide the physical copy with the added bonus of being easily accessed and put into use.

DustyButt

I will still want a hard copy!

reddingofish

Wasn't Samsung starting to sample Write-Once Flash RAM a few months ago?

There's your answer...

SD / Micro-SD - HD movies... before it all comes down thru the web.

aec007

It is funny how people talk about having to have a physical copy. I agree that if the physical copy is higher quality it will continue to have an important market but over time I see that being less and less of an issue.

As far as simply wanting a physical copy … Consider that the first step in the dinosaurification process. Once upon a time when the earth was warmer and giant dinos roamed around I expected to see a physical manifestation of my bills, via the (snail) mail. Ok granted, it's not exactly the same thing but I have grown accustomed to doing all of that the easier way (the no physical medium variety).

Eventually I expect all forms of entertainment to follow the same sort of process and the only people that staunchly say "I don't trust no fancy shmancy interwebs to hold my stuff" will be the same as my granny who doesn't trust the internet to pay her bills…

Welcome to dinosaurification … I imagine once you're completely petrified it starts to get comfortable, so good luck with that!!

rDub

@DustyButt,

You know what the sad part is? If we ever did get SD card movies as the standard, it'd somehow be terribly gimped by loads of digital protection. :'(

Kaiser-Machead on the Edge

aslong as i can pay blu rays predecessor in the next video game console im good...

urbanturban666

I assume I owe some people some proper explanation why DVD and Blu-Ray will die so soon (or at least why I think so) I actually left out an important part of why.

Harddisk Recorders.

I usually record my stuff from TV, I haven´t got time to watch all the shows, and the convenience of "zapping" trough boring stuff is LOOOOVELY!

Sure - I have a collection of Blu-Ray discs, also DVDs...how often do they get used? Well - I admit I play my Back-to-The-Future Trilogy discs to death....but thats me and my personal demention...that has nothing to do with the actual usage of any of these mediums - as they´re more close to zero.

What Do I do? I record from tv. I have a HDTV Tuner as well, soon I also have a HDTV recording-Tuner (already ordered)....so since I´ve been using mostly my DVD/HD combo for HD recording....and not so much DVD viewing...I assume thats the way the general public will go too.

Wasn´t wrong about the C64
Wasn´t wrong about the Nintendo
And sure as hell wasn´t wrong about PDAS
turning into cellphones and cameras either.

This isn´t about ME being smart...this is about evolution - the inevitable. What´s practical is what the PEOPLE want.

JoOngle

Samsung is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. There is absolutely NO WAY that disc formats will be dead in 5 years. Not even 10 years.

Reason? There is no replacement. People want a method by which they can playback something from their library whenever they want. The best analogy is the evolution of music from CD to iPod (MP3 player etc). That is what will _eventually_ happen to the video format, but not anytime soon. Not until the DRM restrictions and diversity of codecs problem is eliminated or simplified so that Joe-six-pack can do it.

Video libraries on harddisk will not happen until it is as easy as the iPod. With the DRM, that isn't happening anytime soon.

PigVenus

So here is the deal. First everyone was all about Download media killing Blu-ray....that tune changed very quickly didn't it? To think downloading 25GB-50GB of data 10x over on a regular basis was laughable at best. I am not even sure where you people were getting these ideas.
Now everyone is all SD/Solid State drives are going to kill Blu-ray but you are forgetting the exact same things you forgot the first time.
1: a 25-50GB flash drives are not easy to come by if at all.
2: It would cost a shitload more than BR for a drive that large. 32GB SD card costs you $110+
3: You have to make sure the speeds of the cards are fast enough
4: The market is controlled by the content providers, they have all chosen Blu-Ray at this point..you think they will so quickly go to Flash in 5 years?

I just don't see the logic. You think things change so quickly. Blu-ray has AT LEAST 10 more years of life even if it is slowly declining towards the end.

efenili

@Techguy1138: All of the solutions proposed cable VOD, internet downloads, writable SD cards are too complicated when compared to disk based media.

To use a BD disk. Take the disk from the packing then insert it into the player, press play. This is dead simple. You are never question if you actually have the movie.

By your logic then CDs are superior to downloading from iTunes or Amazon. The problem is you have to go out and buy the CDs or order then and wait for delivery 3-5 days later. That is the advantage of online delivery and why it will most likely displace physical media. It obviously not mature enough yet, hence the 5 years part of the comment.
I have to agree though that SD cards are a non-starter.

wjousts

@berribrand: Guess you missed the "in five years" part. Unless you're posting from five years in the future.

wjousts

This means an HD-DVD comeback, right?

cardboardbelt

Samsung is wrong. Plain and simple disk based movie media is superior from a end user stand point.

All of the solutions proposed cable VOD, internet downloads, writable SD cards are too complicated when compared to disk based media.

To use a BD disk. Take the disk from the packing then insert it into the player, press play. This is dead simple. You are never question if you actually have the movie.

With any streaming based medium you need to know that your network connection is working properly. If a movie starts to break up it may be that your player is broken, the server is broken, or your isp is throttling back your service. Great strides have been made in simplifying the internet but it still require a bit of knowledge to trouble shoot.

That only works if you have sufficient bandwidth to begin with. If not you will need to upgrade your internet service. Then of course you need a player. Since there is no standard yet for online video formats each player will handle only certain kinds of video files. Even more difficult than file formats is getting people to agree on a DRM scheme for the movie files. So you need the CE makers and the studios to all agree on how to encode and protect movie files. I doubt all of these industry players will come together as a harmonious unit so soon after BD.

The only competition in simplicity would be pre-written SD cards. They are pretty much the same as disks but in a much smaller form factor. I doubt that anyone wants to go through a new format war less than a decade after HD-DVD & BD did.

Hollywood and the TV studios want to provide a single point of content that can reach the greatest number of customers. Since disk based media provides the most consistent platform for content that is what they want to stick to.

We may all be gadget geeks and love ripping our dvds to our personal media servers, but regular people to not want to have to diagnose network issues to watch a movie.

BD may never replace DVD but there is no compelling technology ready to replace BD. Given that any technology takes years to be adopted the guy is just plain wrong.

Techguy1138

Unless the ISP are willing to remove the data caps, and Netflix and Blockbuster start streaming everything and moved away from hard media to digital distribution and keep the price of the service reasonable, there is no way that Blu-Ray will die in 5 years.
I just don't see Netflix offering unlimited, HD, new released movies streamed to your house for about $20.00 a month.

As far as renting HD movies from like the PS3 store, Xbox live marketplace or ITunes. Well they're like $6.00 a movie, ouchhhhh.

Also for the guys saying that the solution is a thumb drive or an SD card, do you know how expensive it will be to create a 50G SD card or thumb drive? This is the dumbest thing ever.

hjuliao

@Jamo & JoOngle: True, I still buy CDs as they sound better than the compressed formats. But if albums could be bought online in a lossless compression format, I'd switch immediately and pay for download. Now I have to rip every CD to Flac first and put it on my domestic server. Thats how I enjoy all my media (audio from 16b@44.1 to 24b@96 and video in SD and HD), using mediastreamplayers.

j05hu4

@joOngle - the issue with all that online storage? Access. Steam w/o internet is useless. Google had a major issue with disruption of service. Even a story about a guy who paid for Google services only to be told he couldn't access his stuff. Physical back-ups are still a safer bet. And besides, I can't go into my closet and look at all my downloaded movies/games etc. And what if my computer is down?

Turael

@wjousts: MP3 is a highly compressed format that has a TINY footprint. Most people don't realize how much audio is lost in their digital downloads.

People will definitely notice their video being super compressed and therefore you are talking about some downloading a file anywhere from 20k to 50k larger. Even if internet gets faster in 5 years, you think it will be even 5,000 times faster? I am not waiting more than 10 minutes for every movie I want.

efenili

what we need are government pay offs for ISPs...just like in asia. Give them tax breaks to give us sick connections

QAdam

This sounds like a bitter grapes, next he is going to say DVD is dead. As I sure as hell know alot of people who still buy them. The public are not going to adopt a new format in 5 years time. So what they bring out a new format, until we all have 100 inch tv's we don't need more resolution. And that bs everyone is going on about digital download and streaming. People still want physical media people distrust, downloads and as MP3's prove people don't want to pay when they can download free. PLUS there is the case of nazi copy protection and if your online store disappears and suddenly you can't use your movies.

ichi1

tulanejosh-

4gb HD movie===what is that? 10 minutes? try 50 gb....and that is still at BR compression scheme.

QAdam

And you know... on this blog, all us commentors... we are far and away ahead of the curve. DVD is good enough for most people. They are rejecting BR for this reason, what makes anyone think that changing a video distribution that has 30 years of familiarity (from beta to vhs to laser disc to dvd to br) is going to be an easier sell. Heck, most US americans can't figure out they need to plug in their computer to make it work. And all they are doing with that is playing WoW and looking at porn, and you see how angry that makes them.... Imagine how mad they are going to be when they cant watch American Idol or whatever other pos program people watch because they internet is clogged....

tulanejosh

Not if ISPs have anything to say about it. Unless they figure out some crazy compression scheme in the next couple of years that takes a 4Gb HD movie down to 4Mb, a full diet of internet only video just isnt practical. Unless we just watch less, and, yeah, that's not going to happen.

And you know... I dont think i want internet only. I like having options. Sometimes I watch my antiquated satellite tv network, sometimes Netflix blu rays, sometimes stuff from Hulu, sometimes stuff on the Xbox 360, sometimes on demand stuff. And I'm pretty happy that way, I dont need some studio or electronics maker telling me how to consume video content - i am capable of figuring that out for myself. How about letting the marketplace decide for once? Geez Samsung.

tulanejosh

What a great thing to say after it's only been around for 2-3 years. People hate moving formats with movies. We've had two really successful ones so far, VHS and DVD. Betamax didn't end well, and neither did Laserdisc. So I call bullshit on Samsung's assumptions, especially because of the bandwidth cap that has already been implemented in Canada and is being put elsewhere.

kylo4

Dustrybutt... still have to deal with the problem of downloading the content. Just not feasible... right now or even in 5 years.

tulanejosh

This is just another case of companies telling the public what they want. Maybe we will get to a digital download utopia at some point, but not until we get better faster connections here that cover the entire country. And not until we get another huge wave of investment in our internet infrastructure that allows ISPs to back off their demands for caps. And even then, i dont expect them to back off - most isps are cable cos these days anyway. Dont expect them to roll over while we use them as nothing more than a pipe at the expense of their core business.

tulanejosh

@efenili: Gotta disagree. The speeds on the cards already match BR. At the beginning of this summer 16GB SD cards didn't exist. They already sell 32GB cards, and 16GB cards sell for under 40$. At that rate their capacity will exceed BR by the end of the year (3 months!).

Just think of the price of 1GB cards from last year that were $30. Now, they're given away with any tech toy you buy now.

The makers of Blu-Ray hardware and movies may not want them, but mark my words the consumers will be ripping Blu-ray films and storing them on SD and harddrives, it's inevitable. Ask the music industry. Just watch. If your buddy has a movie already ripped you could pop an SD card into his computer's USB port using a $5 reader and copy it. Walk over to your TV pop it into the reader and start watching.

The industry frowns on SD because they want you to shell out $300 for a player. What SHOULD scare them is that USB ports and SD crard readers are in more homes than Blu-Ray can hope to be in 10 years from now. More than 2/3s of all new HDTVs have SD readers built in, and EVERY computer for the past 7 years has a USB port. So it's a matter of playback SOFTWARE to utilize SD & harddrive stored audio & video. The hardware is either already in place worldwide or can be had for under $10 dollars.

@Techguy1138: SD cards are even easier to use than Blu-Ray and you don't even have to buy a player. If Joe Six-Pack, who has ALREADY knows how to use iTunes, and how to access photos on his digital camera, then guess what? He already knows how to use an SD card and access media.

The stage has ALREADY been set for BRs replacement.

DustyButt

typo Qadam, but the point still holds. in fact, makes it even more true. My isp is testing caps at 40Gb.... a 50Gb movie is a non-starter for me. Much easier for me to use BR or something else.

tulanejosh

@QAdam:

Yeah but I have a 61" 1080p tv, and I honestly can't tell the difference between a 3GB 720p H.264 Matroska movie and the 1080p BD version.

I can see a huge improvement going from DVD to 720p though.

So other than for e-peen bragging rights or unless I win the lottery and put in a 105" tv screen, I don't think I'll ever really need to watch a 50GB compressed movie.

tarrantm

is'nt the world gonna end in 2012?? if so, it will only last 4 years more

xbxoxy1

@tarrantm: I guess if your eyesights so fucked you can't tell the difference i suggest you should see an optician , hell I can see the difference on a freaking 26 inch.

ichi1

@tulanejosh: Downloading content? Xbox 360 and Apple TV does that now. Want to buy the movie instantly? Go to Best Buy and bring an SD card.

ripfire

What does Floyd the Barber think bout this, thats what I wanna know, and does Aunt Bea have a pie cooling on the sill?

VideoVampire

@DustyButt:

Its not a bottleneck issue. Comcast and Time Warner have already said they are putting caps on what you download. And if you go over, they charge you overages. If you repeatedly go over, they terminate your account. This isn't about waiting 30 minutes to download a movie. And that's simply reality - Giz has posted on this topic frequently.

And if its impractical to download a 4 or even 50 gb movie, how do you propose to get content on SD cards? Perhaps netflix and blockbuster will rent them to you - maybe i can see that. But if it involves downloading and transfering it to the card either at home, or the ludacris assertion of going to best buy to do it - the current environment just isnt right for that. And i dont see that changing in 5 years.

tulanejosh

@ripfire:

Im well aware you can use those services - I own both. And you miss the point. You cant download the content if you ISP is going to charge you a per Gb overage fee. Well you could, but most people won't. As for going to Best Buy with an SD card, there's a reason I no longer go to Blockbuster - I dont want to get up off my butt and drive down their to fight crowds. There's a reason I use Netflix.

The end of the era of all you can eat internet is nigh, so neither of those options is really pracical considerng the changing ISP environment and simple changes in consumption patterns.

tulanejosh

@tulanejosh: The downloading bottleneck might be moot regarding the fate of BR.

Remember how CD's were eliminated?

Broadband internet access was in it's infancy but that didn't stop users from trading music person to person in the real world or via long downloads over the internet. I clearly remember waiting 20-30 minutes to download ONE song and copying CDs FULL of music with people in my barracks (I was in the military in the mid 90's). Broadband access was the missing piece for mass appeal, but by the time it came along rigor mortis had already set in for CDs. Broadband caused an EXPLOSION of file sharing on the truly massive scale. It was out of control for years before the music industry could cut it's losses and accept the new format THAT THE USERS DECIDED ON. The industry NEVER would have settled on mp3's but they had to!

I just think that BR is going to have a short-ass life. We're ONE COMPRESSION STANDARD AND ONE APP creation away from the real HD media standard. SD cards will facilitate the change by being widely available, big enough storage-wise, easy to use, cost effective, and easily REWRITEABLE (that's a big one). Blu-Ray players and discs won't be needed except in the beginning to allow people to copy them for distribution. I'm not saying "go break the law", it's just a fact of life!

All Samsung is saying is that Blu-Ray discs will just go the way of CDs as this portion of tech/media theater plays out, and people will have this decided in 5 years.

DustyButt

I think disc based media is going to die, but it's going to take much more than 5 years. My mother just started using DVDs within the last year. She still has multiple VCRs and watches VHS (and uses them to record TV) still as well. I don't think disc media will be totally "dead" for a minimum of 15 years. You're still going to have people who hang on to it for whatever reason.

falandil

@tulanejosh: Let's get in the wayback machine to around 1998-1999. People were using rewritable 16x CD drives to copy music from friends. NOBODY had broadband. We had to fight packs of wild bears with sticks. We used 56k dialup (with data caps) to get music via Napster, Kazaa, USENET, etc. If you had money you might have had DSL, but in 1998 it was WAY expensive, and for most of the U.S. it didn't exist. Even so, CD sales were already in the toilet and the music industry couldn't stop music sharing... it was running WILD.

Do you remember PAINFULLY SLOW 56K dial-up?
Do you remember ISP (AOL, Prodigy, etc.) data caps?
Do you remember music CDs that would have bit-errors, encryption, and were hard to copy?

Me too, but that STILL didn't stop people from NOT buying CDs. This was in 1999 with HORRIBLE internet access!

In 2001 when the iPod was released, and broadband access was still a rarity for most of the country (yes, I know other countries had it in place). But MP3 players were already on the market, and people were downloading music like no tomorrow and CD music was already replaced.

As far as how to get a movie on an SD card?

Just like in olden times, my good man! Your buddy rips the movie (from his Tivo, BR, DVD or whatever) to his computer in whatever format he likes. You drop by to say "What's up!" and pop in your SD card chill out while it copies, and when it's done you go home. Your 5 other friends find out that you have a movie or show and they drop by to get a copy. Rinse, lather, repeat. That's the way CDs died, and that's how Blu-Ray will die. And when internet speeds catchup... *BANG* media shift. Just like MP3s.

DustyButt

@DustyButt: Please tell me how many TV's out there can natively decode 1080p movie files at BR quality (36 Mbps or higher)? I don't know of any. You seem to be forgetting about all the other electronics in those BR boxes that make playback possible, that TV's don't have. Its not just...slap in a card reader, grab an SD card, and the rest magically happens. The extra electronics could be added to TV's to make that happen, but I don't know of any such TV that exists today.

Jackhole

@Jackhole: People still argure to this day over the lack of sound quality in MP3's but that didn't stop CD audio from disappearing!

Some televisions already access media from their SD slots. It's a matter of having compression software that produces an image that's "Good enough".

Listen to what you're saying... Those arguements could have been applied to CDs back in the day!

All I'm saying is that we're probably one codec and app away from replacing BR that's all.

DustyButt

digital nerds get ready to call me a luddite. but i would never pay money for a digital copy of any kind of media. maybe its because i grew up in the napster age. ones and zero's were always free. if i'm going to buy a movie i want a physical copy. i'll make my own digital copies. blu-ray might not last for long but there will always be a market for physical copies of digital media.

elegantelliot

yeah nice! digital download for fake hd

mpar

@wjousts: To a certain extent cd's are superior to itunes.

The main issues is that people listen to songs and not albums. So Itunes made it easier to listen to individual songs.

People watch movies and even tv shows whole. So that advantage is negated some. Also the time and bandwidth it takes to down load a song is an order of magnitude different from that of a movie.

One thing I have noticed is that my bandwidth is actually less now than it was 8 years ago. SO compression may save the day but I'm not holding my breath for a 1920x1080 movie that is only 100 mb

Techguy1138

Consumer apathy is Blu-ray's biggest problem. People just don't care about the technology. That is, unless you're a big fan of DRM, then Blu-Ray looks darn good!

vastrightwing

i mean simpson*

bbnick

im sorry but jessica simposons titties on a 1080p blu-ray movie looks darn good to me.......

bbnick

yes internet access .. that's right .. we'll be downloading 25Gig blu-ray quality movies with our brand new bandwidth caps of 40GB .. that's like what 1 movie and 3/4 ? Heh .. where do I sign up ?

StarControl

@Techguy1138: The main issues is that people listen to songs and not albums. So Itunes made it easier to listen to individual songs.

People watch movies and even tv shows whole. So that advantage is negated some.

That's a fair point. But I still think the biggest advantage of DVD over VHS was convenience, you didn't need to rewind them, they don't get jammed, and you can skip to the bit you want instantly. Blu-Ray doesn't offer any big advantages over DVD in convenience. It looks like a DVD and has the same experience in terms of usability (Note: I'm not talking about picture quality here). The next big step in convenience will come with VOD and downloads. Just like it did for CDs. And I don't think the VOD even needs to be HD to start killing off disks. Most people still have SD TVs and are quite happy with the quality. Just like most people are quite happy with compressed MP3s versus real CD quality audio. Why? Because most people listen to music on crappy stereos that are just "good enough".

wjousts

When they finish their tech to allow air to act as a storage media,... then I will support the digi download crap. Of course, I've heard flatulance can corrupt the data!

I have a 500Gb drive full of every CD or LP i have ever owned. I would hate to see how many bytes my tangible format movie collection would occupy.

UncleArgyll

@ichi1:

On a 26" TV or monitor? There's a difference. A native 1080p TV will upconvert a 720 signal to display at it's native resolution. With a 720 signal, there isn't really that much upcoverting for the TV to handle to get to 1080, so it's very difficult to see any difference between a 720 or 1080 signal going to a 1080p TV. A DVD (or 480) signal definitely has issues being upconverted to much a higher format.

However, if you were using a 26" monitor, you'd be seeing 720p as a 720p signal on it and a 1080p signal as 1080p on it, which is why you could be able to actually see a difference since the 720 signal isn't being upconverted.

So don't you feel silly about going on about my eyesight and making yourself look like you didn't know all that.

tarrantm

1.21Gigawatts I agree with you, I am sick of this disc nonsense when it comes to media storage and hard drives. Holographic Cards and Solid State drives are the way to go. They along with improved flash storage cards will end up being the current storage choice for a loooooong time. Think about it, this is where "we" have wanted to be for 30 years, what's next? Nothing really. When you download an HD movie how nice would it be to have it stored on a solid-state media entertainment system...mmmm nice. I dont think we will have a new format after Holographic Versatile Cards and Solid State drives for over 20-30 years, the technology will simply be improved and not changed. Even though I have a Blu-ray player (and I love it) I am sick of optical discs and spinning drives of any kind.

When it comes to HD TV's I dont think I would ever want a TV bigger then 70". 60" and 50" TV's are my favorite so I will not worry about this Ultra High Definition....unless you are a projector fanboy. I think Plasma and LCD will improve so immensely (and prices drop steadily) by the time OLED rolls around it will have a hard time competing. Laser TV's and SED TV's have no chance...just stop now. SED touts incredible black color quality while Plasmas and LCD's are surprising us....2009 and 2010 models are also slim as hell!

In the end HVC, Flash memory, Solid State Drives, Plasma, LCD, and OLED TV's will be around for a while as we reach a plateau in this evolutionary phase.

Daimyo Nintendo

Storage is not an issue, for less than 200 bucks I can put a terabyte worth of storage in my box. That is 20 entire (50gb) blu ray discs, at 30 a pop that is 600 dollars worth storage. Tag on a 20 dollar hd enclosure and you have something that is both more durable and easier to transport that 20 discs, not to mention write times :(

The optical disc is a relic it has been for years. It's not good for data, it's not good for media. It's only perk used to be that it was cheap and now it's not even that.

And the whole I want to own it, well if you owned it you could do what you wanted with it, try to make a backup of your blu ray movies (onto the more reliable medium) and you'll find in most cases you don't own it, your simple allowed to view it at your convenience. Consumerism is an ugly thing probably going to fuck us all.

yupimalex

this is rather a bold claim, considering that enough people in the US still have analogue broadcast antennas and that we (US) have to spend millions educating these backwoods morons that it's time to buy a new tv.

etimy