Optical is Dead: I’m Talking to You Blu-ray.

J.C. — Fri, 07 May 2010 17:13:48 +0000

I’ve been quietly responding to questions from friends,Â for about 3 years time now, that Blu-Ray was dead on arrival. The victim of at least a 2 year delay to market resulting from a Beta vs. VHS like industry dispute. This historic lesson having been apparently unlearned by the major manufacturers, it was compounded by increased broadband infrastructure and delivery of video content via stream or file either at no charge = Hulu.com…Or at no additional charge; examples include your Netflix subscription via laptop, other device like your Wii, PS3, Xbox, Roku or dare I say your Comcast/DirecTV/Dish set top box using on-demand or time-shifting DVRs.

Blu-ray is good looking (1080p), sounding (THX or Dobly 7.1 surround) and is sometimes chalk-full of extras, sometimes including Internet downloads et al. The format was supposed to be the next long-tail revenue opportunity for the optical consortium, with names like Philips, Sony, Toshiba and Hitachi making up the membership.

Personally I’m watching Netflix on my Wii…And I’m very happy with it…while the image quality isn’t Blu-Ray…it’s surprisingly good and I can watch a whole lot of content…anytime I like, and if I don’t want to sit on the couch…I or my wife can fire up the laptops anywhere. I’m currently racing to catch up on “Lost”…God help me.

Debroah McAdams, over at Television Broadcast is suggesting Google TV will drive Blu-Ray because the manufacturers they partner with will include it:

Neither current cable set-tops nor specialized peripherals like Roku support full access to the Web. An Android-enabled, Intel-powered, Blu-ray playing, HD-recording, CableCard-slotted, sleek-looking set-top box is another matter all together.

- I disagree…see this SAI Chart of the Day from March 4, 2010:

I don’t know anyone buying Blu-ray discs, I don’t see a huge selection at Wal-Mart – they’re still trying to sell the original stockpile of SD-DVDs, and it doesn’t look like that is going too well btw…

Again, I point to the success of digital…yes there will be hounds for strong picture quality…but most folks are still stunned when they see 720p, never mind 1080p…some degree of better than NTSC is enough for 95% of the visual consumer market…and that “enough” is already being delivered…Optical is fragile and is incremental cost…Digital is any time I damn well please…We’ll see about the Android set top box…I’m waiting to the Apple hobbyists to come out of the garage. – J.C.

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Optical is Dead: I’m Talking to You Blu-ray.