Blu-Ray - about to die....... - in 12-15 months -

[Blue Audio Visual]

How long did it take for colour to take over in most countries once it was introduced? Only a few years.

We didn't have a colour TV at home until about 1977, a good 10 years after it was launched in the UK. When I first started dealing in second hand goods in the late 80s it was still fairly easy to sell B&W sets to people, and you could still buy them new. I would say it took 20 years or so for colour to take over more-or-less completely in the UK.

[beaunizo]

well more than half the country here has internet today and you can bet the other half arent the hottest disk buyers/users - they were in the internet bag - everybody will have access to digital tv by the end of 2008.

by end of 2007 95% of the households in this country got access to fibre optics/broadband.

possibly your countries slug after but its gonna go fast.... any which way and Blu_Ray is gonna die,

Don't see your country listed here: http://ftthcouncil.org/?t=282
Or anywhere else in ordered lists with penetration levels.
With the terrain of Norway in mind it is unlikely that houses outside the urban areas are going to get ADSL with a speed (if at all) which could be regarded as broadband.

Considering the response of this website-server it is not on extreme broadband either.

[S8 Booster]

its a government guarantee to fulfil and the 95% was the target reached in 2007. no fuzz there. figures behind - could supply linx but they are in Norwegian....

shoot.....

[MovieStuff]

How long did it take for colour to take over in most countries once it was introduced? Only a few years.

We didn't have a colour TV at home until about 1977, a good 10 years after it was launched in the UK. When I first started dealing in second hand goods in the late 80s it was still fairly easy to sell B&W sets to people, and you could still buy them new. I would say it took 20 years or so for colour to take over more-or-less completely in the UK.

It took a few years here, as well, in the USA. However, the main difference is that, in the early days of color television, there was no easily navigable infrastructure for production and distribution of color original material on video. Color cameras were pesky and prone to trouble, not to mention huge. Telecine of color film was possible but usually sucked. Most stations didn't even have vector scopes! My late father worked as a video engineer for 50+ years for KPRC in Houston, a major NBC affiliate. He said that, lacking real color calibration equipment, they had no idea what kind of color they were putting out over the air in color TV's early years, nor how many people were really using color sets at that time.

So early color television is a good analogy but for a different reason: With all that color video had working against it, color still took off and became the norm. The technology and infrastructure for HD is already well in place and getting cheaper exponentially every few months. When someone can buy a Canon HV20 HD camera for $750 plus change that puts out an image that is comparable to a $5000 Sony 3CCD HVRZ1U from only a few years ago, that says a lot about how fast and furious HD is becoming the norm, even for the casual user. HD will become the norm, not because the public demands it but, rather, because they simply will have no other choice in the matter. Every article I've read says that studios are going to drop SD DVDs rapidly and will only produce HD releases in the near future. Now that HD DVD is dead, we'll see the wind really pick up.

My two cents....

Roger

[Nigel]

I think it is foolish to compare books and printed media with audio and purely visual media.

The facts are that ten years ago people were saying downloaded music wasn't practical. That people did'nt have computers, bandwidth, storage, ability to get the material from computer to stereo system...

That people wanted higher quality than mp3.

That people wanted a physical product.

Well now that just isn't the way things are shaking out. CD sales have continued to drop. Downloads continue to grow. Vinyl is still around but it like Super8 is a niche market. The masses will continue to leave CDs.

Think about tomorrow. We will be looking at the world of television and movies in five years the way we listen to music.

If you choose to stay with what works for you fine.

But you can't out run the radio. As they say.

Good Luck

[MovieStuff]

I think it is foolish to compare books and printed media with audio and purely visual media.

You may think it's foolish but it is a valid comparison, none the less. Print is the most common form of communication. It is used by more people the world over than everyone listening to CDs or MP3's combined. There is no reason why everyone that has a computer can't just read their newspaper or their favorite book by downloading. But they don't (well, some do, I guess). Again, this isn't about technological possibilites but about how people purchase and keep something they've bought. Now, if people start downloading their movies, I feel it won't be because they want to but, rather, because they simply won't be given a choice. Just as many theaters are going digital for the ability to download movies and reduce distribution costs, the same may happen with home video. But, then again, pay-per-view has been around almost since the concept of cable television yet it has not really changed the purchasing or rental habits of people that want to see the latest movie on their television. They still rent or buy physical media as a preference.

Roger

[RichardB]

That people wanted higher quality than mp3.

That's not the same as high definition video though is it?

Hardly anyone can tell the difference between a good mp3 and pcm unless they train themselves to hear it, yet most people notice the difference with hd pretty much instantly.

Vision is a much more prized asset amongst people than sound, and while people expose themselves willingly to loud noises all the time, happily letting their hearing deteriorate (clubs, gigs, industrial work etc), if people's eyesight goes they will get glasses or contact lenses. It matters much more to people.

Everyone is trying to argue their point by comparing HD or Blu Ray to a technological development in the past, and yet it is not the same as any of these things. Music is not video, and HD is not the same as colour vs black and white.

Regardless of whatever happens in the future, I'm sure we can all agree that at least we'll all be happy when NTSC dies a slow and painful death.

[Blue Audio Visual]

The facts are that ten years ago people were saying downloaded music wasn't practical. That people did'nt have computers, bandwidth, storage, ability to get the material from computer to stereo system...

That people wanted higher quality than mp3.

That people wanted a physical product.

Well now that just isn't the way things are shaking out. CD sales have continued to drop. Downloads continue to grow. Vinyl is still around but it like Super8 is a niche market. The masses will continue to leave CDs.

Your argument doesn't take into account the fact that MP3 encoding techniques have improved vastly over the last 10 years or so. As well as the other factors of convenience, economy, and availability of players and appropriate associated technology, this improvement in both subjective and objective quality must have played some significant part in the uptake of MP3s.

In any case we are all trying to look into a crystal ball to predict future trends: once the infrastructure and technology is available (who knows when this will be?) there will be no need for lossy compression for digital delivery of either audio or video. Only once the quality of downloaded/streamed and physical media are on a level playing field will we be able to know whether the social and cultural pressure for 'greener'/more economical distribution without a physical manufacturing process will trump the more primal desire to own a physical object.

I suspect that then, as now, there will still be those who want a physical object, though they may end up having to pay a very significant premium for doing so.

[Andreas Wideroe]

No. Here's why:

1. Most people don't have a PC hooked up to their TV to watch downloads, nor do they have an Apple TV or other streaming box.

Nor do they have a Blu-Ray player...

/Andreas

[Blue Audio Visual]

Hardly anyone can tell the difference between a good mp3 and pcm unless they train themselves to hear it, yet most people notice the difference with hd pretty much instantly.

Vision is a much more prized asset amongst people than sound, and while people expose themselves willingly to loud noises all the time, happily letting their hearing deteriorate (clubs, gigs, industrial work etc), if people's eyesight goes they will get glasses or contact lenses. It matters much more to people.

Those are pretty sweeping statements Richard, not sure that I agree...

Your first paragraph: Your qualification of "hardly anyone" is pretty extreme. You are posting in a film-related forum. If you were to post this in a Pro-Audio or HiFi forum I'm pretty sure you would be flamed mercilessly. At which point I must concede that I come from a background in music production, and that I deal in used musical instruments and HiFi, so my opinion is biased towards the opposite end of the spectrum from you. I find MP3s to be intolerably unlistenable to on my (pretty damn good quality) HiFi in my living room, but they sound ok/tolerable on my desktop computer played through a Yamaha sub/sat system that I bought new for under £40. The HiFi reveals too many artifacts and errors to make the listening pleasurable.

Your second paragraph: I think that when push comes to shove, what most humans value is the ability to be able to communicate readily and easily with other people. If you suddenly went deaf you will still be able to watch TV & movies with subtitles, but you will have considerable difficulty communicating freely and easily with your loved ones - or indeed with anyone. If you were to go blind you would still be able to chat easily and may well feel less lonely. Humans are primarily social animals IMO and it is company and companionship that we crave the most. Speech is our primary mode of communication, and it is what we would miss the most.

My personal experience is that there are a not insignificant minority of Super 8 shooters out there who don't seem to value their eyesight that much anyway. I've transferred quite a number of rolls where people are shooting straight into the sun - e.g. with the sun actually in frame, often in full daylight. I mentioned this recently to a customer whose rolls had several instance of doing this and she simply said to me that she likes the look of the flare. Lets hope that she will be able to appreciate her oeuvre in years to come, as it seems to me to be a pretty dangerous thing to do. From the way the shots were framed and panned I'm certain she was looking through the viewfinder at the time.

BTW if I go to a gig or a club I move away from the speakers if I feel it is too loud. If I use power tools (particularly when cutting metal) I use ear-defenders.

[RichardB]

Your first paragraph: Your qualification of "hardly anyone" is pretty extreme. You are posting in a film-related forum. If you were to post this in a Pro-Audio or HiFi forum I'm pretty sure you would be flamed mercilessly.

Yeah but the amount of the population that are into pro-audio or hi forums as a percentage is almost negligible, hence why I say hardly anyone. I'm a musician and do quite a lot of music production on an amateur level, so I do notice myself the inferior quality of mp3s, but I've never encountered anybody that wasn't an audiophile telling me they can't listen to mp3's because of the poor quality.

[Nigel]

Roger,

Of course more people use books than CDs. But to compare the media directly is still foolish since they are so different.

Blue Audio,

Yep encoding technology has improved. Exactly my point. Technology will always improve just as it will with video.

Look you can think that people will want this or that. In the end. People really are lazy and simply want what they want when they want it.

Good Luck

[MovieStuff]

Roger,

Of course more people use books than CDs. But to compare the media directly is still foolish since they are so different.

But they aren't, Nigel. The 1's and 0's that make up a video file are no different than the 1's and 0's that make up the text you are reading right now. When information is reduced to digital that can be downloaded, the only thing different is how the user decides to interface with that information. People have been able to download their newspaper or any book online for well over a decade. Book publication and consumption is higher now than it has ever been in history, despite easy access to downloads of the very same material.

People really are lazy and simply want what they want when they want it.

Exactly. And these very same people bypass downloading their newspapers and, instead, spend 50-75 cents to buy one at the local news stand every morning. On the way home from work, these very same people rent or buy a DVD at the local Blockbuster instead of pressing a button on their TV remote to get a pay-per-view of the very same movie.

You can't maintain that your characterization of them as historically lazy supports your argument while ignoring an equally valid characterization that people historically want to physically own something that they spend money on. If a paradigm change in the distribution method forces the issue, you may very well be right that people will end up downloading their movies in the future. But there is nothing evident that suggests it will be because of choice. Yes, I-tunes is very successful but that's because they only charge 99 cents. So people learned to navigate the I-tunes system because of the economy it presented. If people can rent or purchase an HD video on demand for 99 cents, then that might alter the landscape a bit but somehow I don't see that happening because of the massive difference in what it costs to produce a movie as opposed to an album.

Roger

[Angus]

How long did it take for colour to take over in most countries once it was introduced? Only a few years.

We didn't have a colour TV at home until about 1977, a good 10 years after it was launched in the UK. When I first started dealing in second hand goods in the late 80s it was still fairly easy to sell B&W sets to people, and you could still buy them new. I would say it took 20 years or so for colour to take over more-or-less completely in the UK.

Well I meant that by 1970 programming was all made in colour, and it had only properly been introduced in 1967.

[Angus]

No. Here's why:

1. Most people don't have a PC hooked up to their TV to watch downloads, nor do they have an Apple TV or other streaming box.

Nor do they have a Blu-Ray player...

/Andreas

No but they probably have a DVD player...swapping those two units is, for most people, much easier than contemplating buying a splitter and hooking their computer into their TV.

I am not sure *why* people find it hard to connect their computer to their TV...but most people seem to. A friend asked me a few months ago if I'd purchased some expensive streaming wifi system to get my PC signal to my monitor and to my TV...."no, I spent £3 on a cable" was my answer...