THX Chief Scientist: ...it's too late for Blu-ray Options

[PS3Scene]

THX Chief Scientist: ...it's too late for Blu-ray Posted by XanTium | 26-3-2008 0:10 EST

From dvdtown.com: [QUOTE] Laurie Fincham, Chief Scientist at THX, talks to Home Cinema Choice Magazine about Blu-ray's chances to become a dominant format of the future. After HD DVDs demise the UK Magazine asked him for a comment. "Personally, I think it's too late for Blu-ray. I think consumers will only become interested in replacing DVD when HD movies becomes available on flash memory. Do we really need another spinning format?" he told the magazine. "In the future I want to be able to carry four to five movies around with me in a wallet, or walk into a store and have someone copy me a movie to a USB device. Stores will like that idea, because it's all about having zero inventory. I don't want to take up shelf space with dozens of HD movies." [/QUOTE] Full Story: dvdtown.com

[irnchriz]

Jees, this guy is talking about an EDS system like we had back in the eighties for Amiga and Atari ST games. No one is going to cough up high street prices for any movie that doesn't have its own disc/box/artwork/extras etc etc


I am surprised that they are selling any Blu-Ray movies either at the current prices, especially when you still get uncut versions on DVD and not Blu-Ray (e.g. Die hard 4.0)

[Chancer]

Movie prices on BR need to drop big time if it is to offer a suitable "New Format" to run alongside DVD.
I doubt people with DVd players will abandon them for Blu-Ray. A lot of people have only just ditched VHS for DVD.

[twistedsymphony]

I agree and I disagree.

I think that Blu-Ray could very easily get cornered into nothing more than a niche market similar to SACD or Laser Disc, while download services and other distribution methods become the "next" generation format for movies.

I've said it hundreds of times before... new formats are ALWAYS driven by conveniences NOT quality. If you take quality out of the picture what incentive do people have to go with Blu-Ray over DVD? There really isn't any incentive, actually there's much more incentive to stay with DVD at that point.

Now compare DVD to digital disto by way of downloads or memory sticks in the stores, again quality aside, there are quite a number of incentives to go digital distro for most consumers.

Similarly, compare CD to SACD, and compare CD to digital disto like iTunes, and other music stores... Convenience is king...


I disagree because I think it's NOT too late for Blu-Ray. I think the quality differences is staggering enough, and digital distro is young enough that Blu-Ray could sweep the market but to do that they need fully featured players for less than $250 and media priced at $15-$20

Judging by the speed of evolution for the digital distro services I think they have about a year and a half to do that until their cooked beyond return. since digital distro is more a software and infrastructure based platform it's a whole lot more nimble than a physical format like Blu-Ray...

It's clear that the Blu-Ray backers breathed a sigh of relief when HD-DVD threw in the towel, prices have actually gone UP considerably for both players and media...

People seem to forget that one of the biggest selling points of HD-DVD was that the manufacturing processes were much much cheaper than Blu-Ray meaning that prices would go lower faster, and that meant faster adoption once the "war" was over...

Not everything is about who has the best specs... in-fact, it's rarely about that when the mass market is involved.

[mercury187]

Movie prices on BR need to drop big time if it is to offer a suitable "New Format" to run alongside DVD.
I doubt people with DVd players will abandon them for Blu-Ray. A lot of people have only just ditched VHS for DVD.

No doubt, I didnt get a spiderman 3 bundle so I got it used for 18$. 30$ for a blu ray is just too much money, they need to get them down to the 19.99 level.

[HotKnife420]

And they lauged at me when I proposed a similar movie distribution for stores. I'll show them... I'll show them all.... this article!

Seriously, BD's still early, but I think it'll be an official format. Digital distro will come in when it's easier for the average person to get what they're looking for without asking me 20 questions each time they click on something.

[fiya]

My question is when is sony gonna do something like this for the ps3, as in downloadable movies?

Just make it a subscription service and im there...also make it region free, since so much blu ray discs are region free or so i heard

This post has been edited by fiya: Mar 30 2008, 05:13 PM

[FCTE]

My question is when is sony gonna do something like this for the ps3, as in downloadable movies?

Just make it a subscription service and im there...also make it region free, since so much blu ray discs are region free or so i heard

They are suppose to launch a video service around the time that Home is launched, but HD VoD will never be Blu-ray quality, at least not anytime soon. Even if it was possible at this time Sony is not going to offer Blu-ray quality downloads so they lose Blu-ray disc sales, it just doesn't make business sense.