Engadget - Ten HD Predictions

[atmuscarella]

Engadget posted Ten predictions for the HD realm in 2009 (http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/01/01/ten-predictions-for-the-hd-realm-in-2009/). I found several of them interesting:

1) Blu-ray player prices will reach $79 before the year's end.If they will be able to build and sell Blu-ray players for $79 seems like TiVo should get one into a HD DVR.

4) HTPCs will become all but forgotten as media streamers and BD decks gain functionality. & 10) Blu-ray players will be able to effectively replace HD streamers / HTPCs by having access to networked media, Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly and the entire world of internet-based content. So does that make a TiVo HD with built in Blu-ray the ultimate home media device?

Thanks,

[fallingwater]

Not quite. But TiVo HD with built in Blu-ray recorder is another thing!

[berkshires]

1) Blu-ray player prices will reach $79 before the year's end.

So does that make a TiVo HD with built in Blu-ray the ultimate home media device?


This Netflix thing is a big game changer for online entertainment. TiVo having it puts TiVo back into a leadership position technologically. There is a natural integration between DVR and Netflix, etc. BD integration would further be a natural.

It is quite compelling.

(that said a TiVo with a BD player will cost $279 more than a TiVo without. ;) )

[westside_guy]

I think Blu-Ray's lifetime is going to be too short - electronic media is the future, and it's a near-term future at that. Sure you can take a Blu-Ray player and add the ability to download streaming media to it, but other boxes (e.g. Tivo) already can handle that - so why buy the Blu-Ray player at all unless you're planning to own a significant collection of Blu-Ray discs (which so far looks to be only a small percentage of people)?

Right now I'm planning to just sit Blu-Ray out. This is obviously just my opinion; but I'm expecting the large-scale transition to electronic media is already imminent. For those few movies/shows I am interested in seeing more than once, HD media will be purchased electronically, downloaded, and stored on my hard disk for streaming to my television (or maybe it'll be a media center box hooked directly to my TV). For the rest, renting and streaming them over the internet is going to really take off and become mainstream over the next few years.

[jmcmillan757]

I agree with Westside. Blu-Ray's life is short. And the studios aren't helping their uptake by charging premium prices for their disks.

[HerronScott]

OK, I'll be one of the few dissenters that does not think that Blu-Ray's life will be short. <grin> I'm certainly a big fan of electronic delivery for renting but until they're able to supply it with surround sound it's not a replacement for Blu-Ray or even DVD's for movies where surround sound can make a significant impact to the viewing experience (and yes we still go to the theater to see movies too as even a large HDTV with surround sound doesn't replace that experience either). For me at least, the same movies that I would have purchased on DVD will now be purchased on Blu-Ray.

Roadblocks to electronic delivery are going to be download caps (we're one of the lucky ones where Comcast is currently at 250GB per month), lack of surround sound and closed caption and some method of backup for ones that you want to own versus rent (the electronic vendor allowing you to redownload the media again would be the preferred method but what if they go out of business or decide to change their policy).

Scott

[lofar]

Streaming media has a long ways to go before it will replace technology like Blu-Ray. High definition sound and high definition video require enormous amounts of bandwidth to stream. As it is today with netflix streaming what is allegedly 1080i the bandwidth required is in excess of 10mbps and the quality still isn't what you would get on a Blu-Ray running uncompressed at 1080p. Not everyone has, or will have in the near future the capability to stream 10mbps. And for those who do have acess to those higher speeds the prices are in the 60+ a month range compared to slower speeds available at around 20 a month that is almost $500 worth of blu-ray disks you could buy every year just in the difference in the cost of the extra bandwidth.

So as it stands today the number of customers available to purchase or subscribe to HD streaming content is not every large, where as anyone anywhere can purchase a blu-ray player and the disks for it. Further, the cost to build out a fiber infrastructure capable of supporting the entirety of just the united states in every major populated area would run into the trillions of dollars and hence simply isn't going to happen over night nor will it happen over the next 10 years. We MIGHT see full adoption and viability of streaming HD content in the next 20 years. Until then, blu-ray still has many years of life and even then there is little replacement for a physical product. 10 years ago people thought that the internet was going to replace the printed book, and that places like Borders would be forced out of business, it hasn't happened nor will it happen anytime soon.

The other thing that will kill digital distribution of movies as a sole method of distribution is the BS DRM that they have created to try to "protect" the content. As it sits today DRM has effectively stripped away more than half the rights an individual used to have to copyrighted content that they purchased. It's a nightmare for people who own more than one device, computer, or whatever, you consider yourself extremely fortunate if you are able to watch the content you purchased on any other device than the one you purchased and downloaded it on something that you wouldn't think twice about doing with a DVD or Blu-ray you just walk it from one room to another and you don't have to worry about someone standing over your shoulder double checking that you haven't made twelve copies of it on the way to the bedroom. The current implementation of all of this will frustrate and piss of a typical end-user and basically guarantees the failure of digital content distribution.

[mr.unnatural]

I'd have to agree with lofar on this one. Downloadable content from NetFlix or other sources has its limitations. The DRMed content cannot usually be kept for an extended period and the infrastructure to support streaming of HD content is still a long way off. Lots of people still like having a hard copy of their favorite movies or TV shows, which is why Blu-Ray will be around for many years. Standard DVDs aren't going to disappear anytime soon just because Blu-Ray came along. I know people that are still using VCRs to record shows, even though the cost of DVD players is almost negligible these days.

New technology keeps getting introduced all the time but people aren't going to jump on the bandwagon as quickly as you might think, especially in today's economy. I've seen players advertised for less than the cost of two commercial DVDs. HDTV is going to have to saturate the market more thoroughly before you'll see prices of BD players plummet to sub $100 levels, although I expect it will happen more quickly than it did with DVD. The dust is still settling from the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray format war so it's going to take some time before a large percentage of the public embraces the new format. Perhaps once everything switches to digital in February you'll see HDTV sales increase. There will then be a ripple effect with regards to BD sales once more people see how much better HDTV is than what they're currently watching.

[ZeoTiVo]

it will be like it always has been but new. ;)

people wondered why CDs were being looked at as the next big thing. At that time it was all shovelware on them though. Music CD players were expensive and of course not very portable. What they did not see though, was that the CD problem was a hardware problem, not a CD problem. I recall the days of PCs being rated for multimedia playback abilities - which related around the CD.

Nowadays a DVD player/recorder is as standard in a PC as the floppy drive used to be and you would be hard pressed to find any software published on a floppy disk.

Blu-Ray will also take over as the standard as hardware for Blu-ray comes up to speed and is cheaper to produce. there will be a significant amount of people that will want a 'hardcopy' of their media and we will start to see informal ratings of internet connections fopr media delivery. Drivers and other updates no longer come on floppy as the majority of PCs can download drivers from the internet very easily now. Some software is sold online but few would want to have a large app like "MS office" bought as a download.
People will have categories of movies
a large portion that could be streamed at lower quality
and then a significant portion you want the full quality impact on.

the two big drivers of how the categories break out over time
screen size and its cost
internet pipe and its cost

[ZeoTiVo]

as for HTPC's becoming obsolete...
HTPC has always been a niche product line. They have a rich fan base and being a PC by default makes them incredibly versatile nad tweakable. Of course this has been there same downfall since they came out- few consumers want versatile nad tweakable. Most consumers want reliable and easy to use, they perceive this to be available in appliance like devices and I think that perception is correct for the most part.

However, here is the rub - it is at bottom level the DRM that has limited HTPC. if you could legally sell a PC that can automatically rip DVDs to a hard drive and then serve them up to any other networked device that would take off and could be done for 300$. It would be a no brainer for many. I do this now on my office PC and serve up lots of content to my TiVo DVRs.

So HTPCs will not go away at all, but we will see an uptick in media server type devices. IF PC makers realize this now and adjust their HTPC strategy to letcable card/DVR functional PCs be premium niche products and focus on a low end simple Media Server PC with no DVR out of the box then they could compete against Blu-ray players and the like.

Blu-ray players have gianed an edge over HTPC simply because streaming media and storing media for playback is hitting the mainstream finally in the form of simple appliances. Indeed HTPC makers would do well to sell their low end boxes as Blu-ray players that can do more and are easy to upgrade the storage on.

[txporter]

It seems to be with flash memory becoming so ubiquitous and affordable, that memory sticks would be the way of the future rather than Blu-ray or some other media like that. There are so many advantages to using something like that. Basically everything has USB now, the memory sizes can be easily changed for whatever size is needed for a given movie, show, etc., and (I think) the shelf life of something stored on flash memory is greater than other media forms to date. I am not sure why the next thing after DVD was Blu ray. I suppose it is a fairly straight forward progression (red to blue) and possibly because the flash memory size and availability wasn't there when the technology was developed. At any rate, I don't see why we need some other form of disc. I agree that more and more folks are going toward digital storage and distribution. I think some sort of flash based distribution method is where things will end up.

Jason

[netringer]

Not quite. But TiVo HD with built in Blu-ray recorder is another thing!

Sure. That will work great on saving the 2 recordings out 200 that don't have the no copy flag set.

[ZeoTiVo]

I am not sure why the next thing after DVD was Blu ray. I suppose it is a fairly straight forward progression (red to blue) and possibly because the flash memory size and availability wasn't there when the technology was developed.

do you really think it costs someone like Warner or Disney more than a buck a disc to have Blu-ray title mass produced?
DVDs are likely down around 30 cents a disc for large content owners with high volume orders.
What do you think it would cost them to have a Movie mass produced on a flash drive large enough?

[wmcbrine]

... and possibly because the flash memory size and availability wasn't there when the technology was developed.It isn't there now. A flash drive can do a good job taking the place of a CD, or nowadays even a DVD, for temporary storage, moving files between computers, etc. It is totally useless for distribution, due to the cost, and fairly pointless for long-term storage of more than very small amounts of data, for the same reason. And mass-market flash drives don't even approach Blu-Ray capacity yet.

[smak]

I don't think Blu Ray is going anywhere anytime soon for Hi Def content.

First, it's much more hi def than any streaming or HD content you can buy.

And second, people still like to buy movies. Does anybody even sell HD movies in digital format? None of the leaders do.

Dark Knight has sold at least 2 million Blu Ray discs, mainly because the prices were pretty much $25 and under at most stores. If they start lowering prices on everything to that price level, I think they will sell.

Players are way down in price. Pretty soon, why would anybody buy a DVD player, when Blu Ray players are going to hardly be that much more money.

I don't see the jump to Blu Ray being that much different than the jump from VHS to DVD was.

Eventually, the player prices weren't that big a difference, the media prices wasn't that much a difference, and when people got new players, they got DVD players and that was that.

Same thing should happen with Blu Ray.

I have a lot of media on external drives, and i'm buying a 3rd external drive to be a backup for my 1st and 2nd drive. That's a lot of work and money. How long do discs last compared to hard drives? I've already had one 500gb external go brick city.

-smak-

[kb7oeb]

To me all of the download services are over priced and offer low quality product along with inconvenient limited time viewing DRM. I'd rather wait for a bluray disc to come in the mail and have the best quality possible,its cheaper overall and I don't have to finish it within 24 hours of it arriving in my mailbox. I rarely want to watch a movie a second time and only own one bluray disc but I use my player probably once or twice a week.

I tried out the Netflix streaming service and while the HD titles looked ok considering it was a realtime stream it, it wasn't much better than ordinary DVD. I don't expect the quality to improve much with the cable companies wanting to enforce download caps. I had a free month from a netflix settlement and I'm going back to stick with my Blockbuster account, they don't charge for bluray and throw in a monthly video game rental.

You know the SD stuff on netflix looked fine , if anything downloads are more directly competing with DVD.

[LoREvanescence]

OK, I'll be one of the few dissenters that does not think that Blu-Ray's life will be short. <grin> I'm certainly a big fan of electronic delivery for renting but until they're able to supply it with surround sound it's not a replacement for Blu-Ray or even DVD's for movies where surround sound can make a significant impact to the viewing experience (and yes we still go to the theater to see movies too as even a large HDTV with surround sound doesn't replace that experience either). For me at least, the same movies that I would have purchased on DVD will now be purchased on Blu-Ray.

Roadblocks to electronic delivery are going to be download caps (we're one of the lucky ones where Comcast is currently at 250GB per month), lack of surround sound and closed caption and some method of backup for ones that you want to own versus rent (the electronic vendor allowing you to redownload the media again would be the preferred method but what if they go out of business or decide to change their policy).

Scott

I have to agree. I like electronic delivery for things I want to see quick. Usually short clips and stuff. But for any more, I by far enjoy the quality of blu-ray. Never any buffering, never any blocks and just amazing quality over streaming. You really can tell the difference and that Is why I feel electronic delivery is not the future at this point in time, it's just a convenience. Many people thought cd's would be long gone by now, but they are still here. And electronic delivery of them does not take up a whole lot of bandwidth and they sound great.

You are also right about the download caps. More and more internet providers are adding caps as well and I have had to deal with them a whole lot over the time I have had my tivo and now more then every. My current internet provider hughes net (The only broadband available where I live right now) has a bandwidth cap of 200MB per day rending electronic delivery over anything more then a couple of youtube videos impossible. But when I had my tivo connected to the LAN at my University before I graduated I had great bandwidth and always used amazon unbox. But more then once while doing that my internet access was turned off by administrators while downloading a 1 hour episode of shows like prison break for abusing the internet policies at school. They turned me of obsessive bandwidth uses and I could only get it back by going to the help desk, apologizing, getting reprimanded. It sucked.

The backbone to the internet is getting maxed out, and until they upgrade it we are running about of bandwidth. The more and more bandwidth media starts using, the more caps we will see and the lower they will go. In addition companies will start charging more for higher bandwidth packages.

[fallingwater]

Sure. (A Blu-ray recorder) will work great on saving the 2 recordings out 200 that don't have the no copy flag set.

Largely true I suppose. Are computer based Blu-ray burners exempt in a similiar fashion as computer based DVD burners currently are? Does Blu-ray use a similiar or different type of copy protection as commercial DVDs? A HDTiVo/DVD recorder which records DVDs from hi-def sources would be aequate if hi-def media recording is prohibited.

I've been using HDTiVo w/o CableCARDs, and recently Sony's HDD hi-def DVR (which manually maps unscrambled QAM), and send the hi-def DVR's 480i output to an outboard DVD recorder for (at times simultaneously) making DVD recordings of most cable programming without many problems. If Blu-ray players cost $30 I still wouldn't buy one unless the price of Blu-ray discs dropped significantly.

There's way more content than time to watch TV and good movies are still worth seeing in a theater. Don't want TV to be like a movie theater; 'home theater' is far beyond the point of diminishing returns for me. (Yes, of course YMMV!)

[David Platt]

Sure. That will work great on saving the 2 recordings out 200 that don't have the no copy flag set.

That depends largely on your cable provider. I've never seen a single no copy flag, even on premium channels like HBO and Showtime.