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Posted by Rexunrex on 01/01/07 02:39
I predict that HDDVD/Bluray will suffer in a prolonged coma, probably
for the next 5 years. It may never wake up at all and may even prove to
have been stillborn all along.
There are 7 excellent reasons:
1. DVD is, exactly like VHS, "good enough", cheap, and ubiquitous. Even
playing on my computer, the video and audio are crisp.
2. The HDDVD & Bluray hardware including monitor, video card, and drive
are hyperexpensive and beyond the means of most people. The minority of
newly-rich people and obsessive gamers cannot support this technology.
The only hope for HDDVD was the Microsoft $200 USB drive, but without a
good ripper program to let the consumer avoid buying a new monitor &
video card, even that is useless.
3. The Bluray-HDDVD war has only just begun. Expect 2 to 5 years for it
to be resolved.
4. Actual movie theaters are far better pictures than HDDVD or Bluray.
Even the low-end digital cinema projectors have a 2048-pixel wide
image. Compare a $4 matinee ticket to the insane cost of HDDVD & Bluray
hardware -- even the game systems are expensive. If I'm going to spend
a crapload of money, I'd rather it be toward LASIK treatment or a very
good pair of glasses, than on computer hardware or a game console.
5. DVD's rippability is perceived by a certain percentage of consumers
as a precondition for purchasing. Lack of it makes HDDVD/Bluray a
non-starter. No one wants to do business with Scrooge companies that
invent nasty DRM like AACS, let alone cave in to terrorist
organizations like the RIAA and MPAA and cower at their feet.
6. Since the US Treasury just announced that the USA is in fact
bankrupt, and the dollar is ready to crash anyway, it is only a matter
of time before this suppressed news reaches the already-frugal buying
public in the USA. When it does, and they lift their heads out of the
sand, people are not going to rush to buy luxuries. It will be 5 or 10
years before the economy recovers, if it ever does. Source:
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/martenson/2006/1217.html
7. Better technology is always coming. You may have noticed the stories
on Digg/Reddit about the man who has a patent on a 100GB CDROM, or
about the holographic DVD. By the time the HDDVD/Bluray conflict is
resolved, people may no longer need them! Example source:
http://www.dvd-recordable.org/Article1415-mode=thread-order0-threshold0.phtml
Thus, high-def discs are really a non-starter today and may never get
off the ground, absent some innovation such as a good, reliable ripping
program, or perhaps a cheap HDDVD burner.
The consumer is king and he holds the cards, not the fools who invented
the latest DRM. If industry doesn't bend over backyards and lick itself
for the entertainment of the king, their rush for profits may have been
a true Fool's Errand.
Rex
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