Will Warner Brothers go exclusive?

[Titan]

^^^
I doubt that there will be another format in 2 years for mass mainstream consumers.  There maybe much higher storage capacity format in 2 years, but those are usually for industries and businesses that need them since they could be quite expensive.

it should be longer than 2 years when there is another format available that is aiming to replace Blu Ray in the future.  I say in maybe 3 to 5 years from now is when we will start to hear formats that are announce in prototype that might compete with each other to be the next format that will replace Blu Ray.  And that format won\'t be available to consumer yet until another 1 to 3 years afterward for fine tuning, giving it the finishing touches, and in mass production.

After this format war where it seems like Blu Ray will be winning, I think next generation will probably have one standard format where all companies agree to join like how the dvd was, because launching multiple formats from different companies can confuse consumers, and consumers not supporting them and a lot of money will be lose for the failing format from R&D, advertisements, selling it cheaper than production cost to lure buyers, etc...HD-DVD is a good example of this.

I wouldn\'t be too sure about that. VHS was released in 76 and was the industry standard a few years later after Beta was defeated. Then DVD was released in around, what, 95? Didn\'t become standard until a couple years later? I remember having a DVD player in 99 and my general rule of thumb is that stuff isn\'t in the mainstream until before my parents buy something (they\'re a bit slow ) That was 20 years of glory VHS had. And now DVD has had almost 10 years in which it was the standard and I feel it still won\'t be fully replaced for a couple years, when people start to see the need to buy it. Most people still have SDTVs and an HD format would be pretty much pointless. I know my 13\'\' Sylvania won\'t make blu-ray\'s look much better than DVDs. Anyone have the figures of how many have HDTVs?

[clips]

i think it\'s going to be a while till blu ray in mainstream. not enough people have hdtv\'s, and out of those tv\'s only a percentage have bluray/hddvd

think dvd\'s are going to be around a lot longer than vhs\'s were. so i think "next generation" (not sure what/when that is) will still be both dvd and blu ray.

I agree here,...dvd\'s still play well enough for the mainstream folk not to jump on the blu-ray wagon right away,...dvd\'s are waaaay better than their vhs counterparts where the quality slowly deteriorates over time,...from what i understand dvds will never lose their clarity or visual quality....yes blu-ray is superior to dvd\'s, but right now dvd\'s still get the job done...

I wouldn\'t be too sure about that. VHS was released in 76 and was the industry standard a few years later after Beta was defeated. Then DVD was released in around, what, 95? Didn\'t become standard until a couple years later? I remember having a DVD player in 99 and my general rule of thumb is that stuff isn\'t in the mainstream until before my parents buy something (they\'re a bit slow ) That was 20 years of glory VHS had. And now DVD has had almost 10 years in which it was the standard and I feel it still won\'t be fully replaced for a couple years, when people start to see the need to buy it. Most people still have SDTVs and an HD format would be pretty much pointless. I know my 13\'\' Sylvania won\'t make blu-ray\'s look much better than DVDs. Anyone have the figures of how many have HDTVs?

How many own HDTV\'s isn\'t even really the problem. The problem is convincing people they need HD DVD or Blu Ray. Right now, there are simply way to many variables to get a really good picture when it comes down to it. You need room lighting, proper viewing distance, a good TV, great calibration and the list goes on and on. The average person just isn\'t going to see enough difference on the average setup, to warrant investing the money into HD formats.  The only one HD discs of any sort become mainstream is when the players reach DVD player prices and WAL-MART starts primarly pushing one format and slowly cuts down on stocking DVDs.

And Clips brings up another point, one I\'ve said time and time again. The whole video upgrade isn\'t what sold DVD, trust me, if you look at a lot of launch DVD\'s they were not much better than a VHS. It was the no rewind, no losing clarity over time, extra features and other things that sold DVD to the mass public.

[GmanJoe]

To give my perspective where I live:

My parents know a ton of people and I hear the men talk about their HDTVs. Then there\'s my friends....I\'m the only one that hasn\'t fully switched over. I was waiting for better tech coz I\'m that type of person when it comes to anything over $1500. I wanted the HD 120hz TV and it\'s finally out and the prices should be reasonable.

Oh...and just so you know....many of the videographer\'s clients (I sometimes post at videographers\' forum) are asking for wide screen (some are asking for HD as well), more so the 4:3 standard these days. I can see the change first hand coz even my relatives and acquaintances are asking for their videos to be widescreen from me.

I\'m waiting for Apple\'s big announcement this 15th. Rumors about BR-writers as an option for the new powerbooks and desktops.

[GmanJoe]

I believe they still have it. I\'m a member of Netflix, but never tried the whole downloadable service.

Physical discs or nothing.

It is a matter of time. SDTVs are already a thing of the past. Vendors mostly sell HD displays.

Most of the consumers that buy TVs now are HD ready. Many of them wanting to get the most out of their TVs will eventually jump into the HD disk formats. It is an easy way and marketing does its job to promote that behavior.

Who needs HD-DVD and Blu-ray... HD-VMD is where it\'s at!

http://displaydaily.com/2007/09/17/red-laser-hd-capacity-discs-brings-new-life-to-dvds/

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/betaville/news/1701145/

confirmed

[Paul2]

Who needs HD-DVD and Blu-ray... HD-VMD is where it\'s at!

http://displaydaily.com/2007/09/17/red-laser-hd-capacity-discs-brings-new-life-to-dvds/

VMD is lame.  its just basically a dvd which have red laser and unlike dvd where it only can read 2 layers max, this technology can read up to more than 2, as high as 10 layers or something like that.  Eh, that article is kind of misleading and wrong saying the Blu Ray runs at 36 mbps while VMD can run up to 40 mbps.

Because HD-DVD runs at 36 mpbs max while Blu Ray reach up to 54 mbps.

VMD is for the poor countries like China that doesn\'t want to pay licensing fees to Blu Ray group, so they made their own DVD player that can read more layers...

New Line also announced they\'d follow suit and go exclusive to Blu Ray.

[GmanJoe]

LOTR in blu ray.

Now for Universal.....TEAR THESE WALLS DOWN!-- blu reagan

Whoa, this would certainly spell the end for HD-DVD:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/07/paramount-following-warner-out-the-hd-dvd-door/

I wouldn\'t say you need connections up to 100Mbps - that is a little bit stretch, since blu ray specs run at 54 mbps max, where the spec they put for video is 40 mbps max and 14 mbps audio max.

the 14 mbps audio is probably for room for "uncompressed" surround sound.


If Microsoft offer only 7 mbps for HD, then that is nearly 6 times less than the max of 40 mbps that blu ray can offer for HD Video.

100Mb so you wont have to let it buffer for ½ hour before you start watching.

[Paul2]

I see.  So, its from streaming, not downloading content?

[Viper_Fujax]

MS might jump on board with blu ray when it\'s all over

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6184469.html?action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;0