Failure of Blu-Ray and what this means for the PS3

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Read this first (don't worry it's short):

http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/null/108657

Personally I felt this since Blu-Ray and the PS3 first arrived. The question is, if Blu Ray does indeed fail in the next year or two, what does this mean for the PS3? Sony's invested much more into the PS3 being a player of Blu Ray movies than it has being a game console. And since PS3 games are released ON Blu Ray discs would they have to find a whole new format? Or possibly create a whole new game console?

Makes you wonder what the bloody point of it all was. Your thoughts?

It took DVD something like 5 years to truly displace VHS. Many people will go with inexpensive... Once Blu-ray's price goes down, you will see more of them being bought...

I don't agree with the statements that upscaled dvds look almost as good, or that hi-def is 'a little' better looking. There is a VERY big different in the content that I've viewed. For me it's like the difference between going outside with or without my glasses on, and I'm only using 720p. That said, thanks to the xbox live video marketplace and usenet groups, I've basically bypassed the hi-def disc format altogether.

There are a couple things slowing the adoption of Blu-Ray from DVD:

1.) Price. People expect everything to be dirt cheap nowadays, and reguardless of how good the technology is, they won't buy it if the price is too steep. This goes for the players, drives and the media.

2.) Not enough people own HDTV's yet. This might change after February when they switch over to DTV though.

3.) Evolutionary technology. It's still a spinning disc, with a little (relatively speaking) better picture and sound quality compared to upscaled DVD. The majority of people can't tell a difference, or don't care about picture quality, and don't see a need to spend more money on an "upgrade".

4.) The whole HDTV and hi-def media thing is too complicated and there are too many choices to make for the average user. People want something that is simple, convenient, and easy to use. Gone are the days where the only choices people had to make was which size of TV they wanted.

I think the future is in solid state hardware (flash drives, or holographic media for instance), internet downloads, and wireless technology. It seems like a lot of modern technology is merging together (cell phones, mp3 players, consumer electronics, computers, internet), so we might see a palm sized all in one media device in the future that has the ability to wirelessly stream video to our TV's.

I dunno - it kind of reminds me of an article Stephen King wrote in Playboy back in the '70s, claiming that FM radio was a dead medium because all the rock stations were on the AM bands...

PlayStation 3.1 Anybody?

I can see the quality of DVD Videos. I think it's pretty low. The best way to improce quality would be to take compression out of the equation.

Blu-Ray may not be as successful as the change from vhs to svs, but it won't totally fail either. I know not everyone one has highdef tvs, but enough people do, and more will in the future, and there needs to be content that matches the resolution of these screens, and besides hardrives, Blu-Ray is the cheapest storage media for this high def content (besides the fact that .mkv files fit on dvds caugh caugh).


Blu-ray will not completely replace dvds like dvds did to vhs, but it is an alternative, and a better experience on a good screen.
They would not keep making highdef tvs if there was not a form of media to support it. They don't make highdef tvs to watch dvds. Why watch upscaled dvds on a highdef tv? Why not just watch regular dvds on 480p lcds or plasmas? If the tv industry knew blu-ray failed, they would start making 480p tvs.

And upscaling does not work as well as you would think. Inorder to 100% perfectly scale one pixel, the new resolution must be 4x as high in order not to distort the pixel. One pixel can become four pixels two make one new pixel to duplicate the original, but it cannot become three or two and quarter, otherwise information is lost, or blended to another pixel. 1080p is 2.25x the amount of pixels than dvds, that does not work so well for scaling. HDTVs are digital, dvds would defeat the purpose because loosing or blending pixels is the same as having a signal wire like a cable tv wire, the source changes when it is finally viewed.

I don't think the PS3 will ever be a very successful console, however I don't think Blu-Ray is anywhere near dead. When the next-gen consoles come out, and they have Blu-Ray as well, it will become much more mainstream. Personally I love Blu-ray as I have poor eyesight, and I need all the detail I can get. I get blown away if I put on contacts or glasses and watch a Blu-ray movie. You can see every hair, every pore, every stitch in the clothing!

I don't see how blu-rays are dead at all.

I live in Dallas which is a pretty high tech city and the Blu-rays sell as fast as the normal DVDs here.

Let's see. If you go to Best Buy or Circuit City you pretty much are SOL if you don't want an LCD, DLP or Plasma HDTV. This means in a few years time, the vast majority will own HDTV-capable sets. Blu-Ray players are already approaching the $100 mark. Some of the new Blu-Ray players are even able to download movies from Netflix's "Watch Instantly" library. Based on this, I don't see Blu-Ray dying anytime soon.

Another thing to remember is that DVD's didn't really catch on in the mainstream until they were out for 4 or 5 years. And then when Sony's patent on Blu-Ray expires in about 4 or 5 years, the players should be real cheap then.

sony could admit a "loss" and open the blu ray technology to licensing to other systems...maybe a 360 upgrade? the format is entirely viable in the gaming industry. maybe sega could get back into the game...or maybe a new company could use the technology and create a new console in the fray.