HD Optical Media War - Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD

[Dorza]

And while the squabbling over Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD goes on, a new technology emerges that makes them both obsolete...

Holographic optical storage - with 300GB devices expected next year and 800GB and 1.6TB devices to follow soon...all-plastic discs, no metal to oxidise...50 years archival capacity...

http://www.inphase-technologies.com/

When your talking £60 for one disk and £6000 for drive (thats a straight $ - £ conversion), I think it's a safe bet it won't catch on with consumers for years and years and err years to come. - Still it is very impressive stuff plus its a very intriguing technology.

[greenalien]

£60 for one disk and £6000 for drive

OK, but this is very new technology - give it a year or two and I wouldn't be surprised if this became much more affordable. The capacity and longevity of the medium are going to make this very attractive to corporate IT users looking to ditch tape backup.

[Dorza]

OK, but this is very new technology - give it a year or two and I wouldn't be surprised if this became much more affordable. The capacity and longevity of the medium are going to make this very attractive to corporate IT users looking to ditch tape backup.

This technology has been around for years or rather it has been in development for years and in 2 years time this still wouldn't have caught on. I was reading something on it last year (admittedly things could have changed since) that suggested this wouldn't catch on in the commercial sector until at least 2012, so you can imagine how long it will be before the average jo has this in their system. New technologies such as this take a while to get moving, not least because of the expense in upgrading.

[UltraMagnus]

personally i think both technologies are dead, distribution on physical media is dieing anyway....

[shaithis]

It will be many years before the majority of the world can download 15-40GB of data per movie.

Physical media for films is here for the foreseeable future.

[Bluecube]

Seeing as quite a bit of S. Korea and Japan are already on 100Mbit broadband connections I don't think it's quite that far off.

[kalniel]

Seeing as quite a bit of S. Korea and Japan are already on 100Mbit broadband connections I don't think it's quite that far off.

What's the speed in Mexico or rural China like?

[redlight]

What's the speed in Mexico or rural China like?

Never mind them what about rural UK

[Bluecube]

What about Mexico, rural China or even rural UK? There's no money to be made from there!

[TooNice]

Well, broadband in the US is also a far cry from those found in Japan/South Korea - and the market there is larger than both Japan and South Korea combined. And forget rural, how many major cities in the UK can you even get 24Mbit? I highly suspect that the average speed is under 8Mbit even when you only consider major cities. Now this point is moot of course if people do not care, or can not justify 15GB for a movie for HD.

But even if HD fails, I do not see movies being sold a la iTune being as a particularly big threat for a good while. Even with the popularity of MP3 players, smaller download size, CDs are still being sold aplenty. And I'd say that CDs are more likely going to 'die' first as a distribution medium than DVDs.

At least not before the majority of the labels/artists adopt the (rather experimental) approach of Radiohead's latest release. And I reckon that we will not see widespread adoption any time soon.

[UltraMagnus]

It will be many years before the majority of the world can download 15-40GB of data per movie.

Physical media for films is here for the foreseeable future.

ever heard of streaming?

and, dont forget BT's so called "21st Century network" they are rolling out. even if they should have rolled out FTTH about 10 years ago!

[Funkstar]

ever heard of streaming?

Just because it is streamed, doesn't cut down on the amount of data needed, just means you don't need to wait for it to complete before watching. For HD content, you are still talking about 15GB+ per full length film.

[Rack]

Yeah, but I don't think people care enough about HD yet. On TV's, yes, but content? It's too confusing. A lot of people still think they need a LCD/Plasma to receive digital broadcasts, let alone fully understand 720p vs 1080p.

Streaming will start off SD, but the convieniance of it will win over most people. Why drive to a store (don't walk!) when you can just click on the screen. Virgin are rolling out 50MB too btw. By the time HiDef content is taking off properly (I'd give it another 5 years), we'll probably be good enough data rates for HD streaming @ 720p.

Only reason Blu-ray has any advantage is the PS3. I know 5 people with a PS3 and 1 with a blu-ray. Now you can get a PS3 for £300 I'm tempted to get one. But I want a 1080p screen first.

[dangel]

720p compressed ~4.5gb..

[Barrichello]

more evidence of the "death" of Blu-ray

[BlackDwarf]

more evidence of the "death" of Blu-ray

As has been said before... The only reason for that is that Sony is forcing BluRay drives into PS3's..... If MS put a HD-DVD drive in the 360 as standard, then that figure would probably swing the other way.... I'm sure you've seen how much of a market lead the 360 has on the PS3 (don't count the DS and the Wii, they blow both out the water)