Originally Posted by redbill (Post 8913931)

DVD is still going strong after 34 years, Blu-ray doesnt stand a chance...

Originally Posted by Qui Gon Jim (Post 8916059)

The guy from Samsung was clearly talking about what product will replace the lost revenue from when he anticipates BD to fall off. He's discussing the long term of his company, not the BD format in particular.

Originally Posted by mzupeman2 (Post 8916073)

BD has nowhere to go but up. I don't care what that article says. More and more people will want the HD content.

Originally Posted by Qui Gon Jim (Post 8916059)

The guy from Samsung was clearly talking about what product will replace the lost revenue from when he anticipates BD to fall off. He's discussing the long term of his company, not the BD format in particular.

Originally Posted by GizmoDVD (Post 8916783)

And there are multiple other devices that can bring HD into peoples homes (VOD boxes, VuDu, AppleTV, Xbox 360, PS3 Network, Blu-ray, etc.). Blu-ray is NOT the only HD source available regardless if the quality is better than the previous mentioned items.

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist (Post 8916863)

Blu-ray is the only physical format to offer 1080p quality on a mass level. Everything else you mention are downloading options. At best comparable to Blu-ray not equivalent.

Pro-B

Originally Posted by chanster (Post 8914252)

I saw a Blu Ray player actually being used in a home theater for the first time this weekend. My wife and I went to a great bed and breakfast in North Fork of Long Island and this guy had build his whole basement into a vintage movie theater. It was awesome..he had a full bar, a concession stand, tiled ceilings and seating. I would say he had 100 inch screen

He said he had 1200 DVDS and some Blu Rays. Guess what his Blu Ray player was? ASamsung 1400. He said he watches movies every weekend night. The next morning he tells me over breakfast that his player wouldn't play Scorpion King 2 and other movie..I told him the Samsungs were notoriously bad and unable to play a lot of movies, and I told him to upgrade his firmware.

Thats just plain sad that I had to tell this guy, who spent a fortune in making his home theater that his Blu Ray player was most likely a POS. Sad.

Originally Posted by chanster (Post 8914252)

As far as Blu ray adoption goes, I have been tempted to buy a standalone player, but I just can't get shake the feeling the hardware isn't ready yet and the prices are just too high.

Originally Posted by GizmoDVD (Post 8916783)

I (and I imagine nearly everyone else here) would be fine with Blu-ray remaining niche (i.e. 20-40% compared to DVD sales)

Originally Posted by GizmoDVD (Post 8916848)

You're use to Blu-ray/HD DVD quality, of course the 720p downloads won't look (nor sound) as nice. No biggie for most. And 250GB only? That's probably more space for 98% of people using the internet. Even HD downloads are only 3-5GB...that would mean the user would need to download 50 movies a month to go "over". Restrictions may suck, but it will wind up affecting very few people.

Ive dabbled in HD downloads through AppleTV and 360...and yeah, its no where near as nice as Blu-ray. But they have many movies not on disc yet...so...

Originally Posted by nateman (Post 8917057)

That must have been a pretty awkward thing to tell him. Those kinds of conversations are always hard. You feel like a prick for telling him that and he feels stupid for buying a player that can't play curtain BDs.


I went from a PS3 (40GB model) to a standalone Insignia Blu-ray Disc Player (NS-BRDVD) that is 1.1 compliant and can't have a firmware upgrade because of no Ethernet connection option. Although the discs load slower and it has fewer features than the PS3; It has always played every BD I've put in the player thus far. I only had a problem with Bee Movie pausing for a second a couple of times throughout the movie.

I'm not that interested in BD-Live, but if I wanted to check out some of the features I would just use my PS3. Players will get better.

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist (Post 8916857)

Your comment makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. BD wasn't mentioned by him at all and that is where your argument that there was an announced expectation pertaining to BR's viability fails.

Pro-B

Originally Posted by PocketLint Article

"I think it [Blu-ray] has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn't give it 10", Andy Griffiths, director of consumer electronics at Samsung UK told Pocket-lint in an interview.

Originally Posted by PocketLint Article

Hoping to capitalise before it's too late, Griffiths believes that 2008 is the format's year.

"It's going to be huge", he told Pocket-lint. "We are heavily back-ordered at the moment."

Citing online rental sites like LoveFilm's adoption of Blu-ray titles, the move to offer cheaper players and a now clear path to adoption following the Blu-ray HD DVD battle, Griffith says the format will be a winner, although not for long.

Originally Posted by bunkaroo (Post 8917063)

The download I got actually looked worse than the DVD I had - no shit. It was Hannibal. It looked so bad I had to delete it and just wound up watching my DVD. The download was almost 9GB too. For one movie.

Originally Posted by applesandrice (Post 8917106)

Pro-B, if Griffiths is not talking about Blu-ray here, what do you imagine him to be talking about? LCD vs OLED? If the reporter was asking a question about Blu-ray, and Griffiths was speaking about LCD vs. OLED . . .

. . . what, then, would that have to do with the paragraph I've bolded wherein he reportedly cites a bunch of Blu-ray facts and figures?

Yes, the article is written rather poorly, so I can understand some of your confusion. But unless the writer is just plain making things up, I don't see how anyone can arrive at your [apparent] conclusion.

It's pretty clear -- to me and a few others here, at least -- that he (Griffiths) seemed to have been commenting on a number of different technologies including both Blu-ray and OLED; the author of the article seems merely to be condensing what Griffiths had to say about each.

Originally Posted by bunkaroo (Post 8917252)

We should also note that this is just Samsung's view of Blu-Ray assuming the article is accurate. They've already proven themselves to be quite inadequate at producing a decent Blu-Ray deck, so I'm not sure how much stock should be put in their assessments of anything related to the format.

If Panasonic, a major studio or Sony themselves said something to the affect of "5 years left", it would be a much bigger deal IMO.

I'm pretty happy with BD where it is right now, with the exception of DNR issues and WB's audio shenanigans. I'm already spending a ton of money every month on BD releases. If this is where it stays, as long as studios and CE's continue support I'm happy.

Originally Posted by applesandrice (Post 8917106)

Pro-B, if Griffiths is not talking about Blu-ray here, what do you imagine him to be talking about? LCD vs OLED? If the reporter was asking a question about Blu-ray, and Griffiths was speaking about LCD vs. OLED . . .

Originally Posted by applesandrice (Post 8917106)

. . . what, then, would that have to do with the paragraph I've bolded wherein he reportedly cites a bunch of Blu-ray facts and figures?

Originally Posted by GizmoDVD (Post 8917130)

Even if it is ture, that still means Blu-ray would have a 7 year life span which is pretty damn good.

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist (Post 8917426)

Samsung and SONY have been the only two hardware manufacturers to openly point out that OLED will be the technology that would phase out LCD. They are also the two major hardware manufacturers to have heavily invested in the technology, and planning to have it on the market in a very near future (aside from SONY and their offer at the moment). Yes, I believe that the comments addressing the specific time frame pertain to OLED vs. LCD.




I already addressed the paragraph you bolded on another forum but I would not mind clarifying again: if the words were spoken by Mr. Griffiths they would have been quoted as are the rest of the statements in the article - in "...". They are not. Which points only to what I earlier noted, that this is the editor's interpretation of Mr.Griffith's words. As are the rest of the clarifications in the article. Furthermore, Stuart Miles did not conduct an exclusive interview with Mr. Griffiths as it appears that the provided quotes are from a much larger text addressing a multitude of topics. Hence, the reason why both of the article posted in this thread offer their own interpretation of what was announced. Suffice to say, neither of them quote portions of Mr. Griffiths words where the term Blu-ray is present. All of the additions are added by the editors.

If this isn't clear it certainly should be as neither of the articles provide exclusive as a disclaimer. They both rely on secondary transcripts.

Ciao,
Pro-B

Originally Posted by RoboDad (Post 8917515)

But that still raises the question, what would (or more importantly, what could) a new format offer that Blu-ray cannot already provide?

If you want to debate whether physical media will be completely replaced by downloads/VOD, that is one thing -- and I am on the side that believes it will never happen. But, if you believe that another physical medium will be developed that will replace Blu-ray, the question I have to ask is, why?

DVD replacing VHS made perfect sense, since what it offered, both in terms of convenience and features, far surpassed what VHS could do. Likewise, Blu-ray "replacing" DVD makes sense, since DVD cannot offer HD content in a viable way (yes, HD content can be written to a DVD, but the capacity constraints make it unreasonable to expect many feature-length films to fit on a single disc). So, what would be the leap that would make me, as a consumer, desirous to buy into another format to replace my Blu-ray player?

Originally Posted by applesandrice (Post 8917539)

I think that's a pretty tough stretch.

The first quote had to be a direct answer to a previous question -- whether it was a question asked by the author of the article or not.

Originally Posted by pro-bassoonist (Post 8917609)

And since you have no idea what the question(s) was you assume that the editor's clarification is credible? It had to be a direct answer? This is a stretch. The quoted paragraphs containing the said gentleman's exact words aren't, where Blu-ray isn't mentioned once, is not.

You built your entire argument on an assumption, I take what the exact words the gentleman produced to be sufficient to dismiss the speculations this thread has produced.

Pro-B